40. "Foiled, Pt. 1B"
Those meddling Merry Men were standing at the door of 201 Rethink Avenue, awaiting a response and gameplanning for how they would react to whoever may or may not open the door.
"You sure you can bullshit a good Jehovah's Witness?" Little John asked his friend, preparing for an eventuality where the boy's parents opened the door.
But Robin was not quite so concerned about that. "What I'm thinking is why would the boy bother to let us in? Think about it: he already distrusts us, and he knows we're career thieves."
"I'm still voting for the policy of truth. I'm just gonna tell this kid, 'Hey, kid, we're worried about you, can we come inside and talk it over so the neighbors don't have to overhear?'"
"Which well may work, but I'd like to have a backup plan," Robin said, staring straight ahead at the door.
"Do we know if this kid's got any siblings who might be home? Or live-in grandparents or cousins or whatever?"
"I find that doubtful. To be quite honest, a lad as… socially odd as him seems like the type who must have grown up in a lonely home with few people to talk to."
But Little John, with his background, didn't totally care to demonize the kid for his poor social skills. "I-I mean… the kid's a weirdo, yeah, but… hell, I grew up with a brother whose head would fuckin' explode if he went two days without hitting up a party, didn't help me very much."
Robin could pick up on something being off about his friend's reply, but couldn't put his finger on it. "But you were never quite as bad as Eddward here is, now were you?"
"Motherfucker, you kiddin' me? I was worse! This kid's got at least two more friends than I did at his age!"
Now Robin realized he may have struck a nerve and decided to shut his mouth. "Right. Duly noted."
But Johnny wasn't done. "Honestly, Rob… this kid reminds me a lot of you."
"Really? How so?"
"Like, fuck, you're both the kind of people who would speak formally and address a group of guys as 'gentlemen' and shit, but… you seem to have the self-awareness to not drop gigantic fucking words in, while this kid's the type who'd use words like, uh, like, fuckin', 'accoutrements' or something like that. I dunno man, but that same je ne sais quoi ya got about ya that I'm jealous of is a lot of the same thing separating someone like you from someone like him."
And Robin found that insight intriguing, but he could tell this conversation was quickly heading the way of a Johnny pity-party, so he changed its course: "Well… I may have gotten good marks in school, but I just studied enough to pass the exams and forgot most of it shortly after. I'll hand it to this lad, he seems like he's got an astounding intellect. I'd never say that about myself… Though I'll certainly concede that he's quite the overly-obedient goody-two-shoes my biological father wanted me to be… maybe the manners just overlap and that's where you see the connection..."
Little John nodded silently, and that kind of worried Robin, if for no other reason than it not being advantageous to them for the bear to be in a grumpy mood when the door finally was answered.
"I've got to say, though…" Robin continued, "...funny that you criticize the boy for using big French words when you dropped 'je ne sais quoi' in there."
"Was meanst du?"
"Quesadilla."
"Mamma mia!"
That little exchange did manage to get the two of them smiling at one another, but there was still the matter of whether anybody was ever going to answer this door.
"So…" Johnny wondered aloud, "...should we ring the bell again, or-?"
But there was no need, as they heard the sounds of footsteps approaching the door.
"Uh… Rob, you got that backup plan?" asked Little John quickly.
"Of course!" Robin beamed. "We improvise!"
Jesus Christ, Robin, can't you just say you don't!? There's nobody here to impress but me, you don't have to act like such a fuckin' hotshot all the time-! Oh, the kid's here.
Double-D's heart skipped a beat when he opened the door to see the fox and the bear. The obvious question was what they were doing there, but the fact that the fox was smiling wide and the bear looked vaguely annoyed only made it more tonally confusing.
"Um- h-hello, gentlemen," Edd squeaked.
"And a pleasant afternoon to you, Eddward!" said Robin, taking note of the fact that the boy did indeed use the word 'gentlemen'. "Apologies for showing up out of the blue, but Johnny and I were hoping we could have a chance to speak with you, er… independently of your friends."
"Yeah! Um…" Little John really didn't have anything to say, he just wanted to say something too lest this wolf boy also start to think that Robin was on a higher echelon of authority than himself. He realized he was probably still looking pissed from Robin's haughty remark, so he made a point to lighten up. "Just… like, hey, sorry if we got annoyed at you the other day, but… w-we're not angry at you or nothin', just, uh… hopin' to talk about something you might not wanna talk about when your friends are around."
The two men kept smiling at the anxious wolf boy, fully expecting him to give them one reason or another why they needed to leave, but they were waiting for him to say so before they would preemptively give him rebuttals.
Little did they know, Double-D was the kind of guy who, when two dangerous men show up at his door, would immediately surrender for lack of knowing how to deter them. In his head, if he turned them away now, they'd either not take no for an answer, or - if it wasn't him they were after - they'd just come back later and break the door in.
"Uh- s-sure, um… c-come in, come in, um- W-will you, uh, w-with all the due respect, Mr. Little, um, will you be able to fit through the, uh, th-the door?"
That was not even remotely what Little John was concerned about. "Y-yeah. Kid, don't worry about it, I've squeezed through smaller doors than this. But, uh… your… parents… or anybody else home?"
And while with a clear mind Edd might have realized that this was an entirely valid question from their point of view, his mind wasn't clear, and all he could do was wonder why they wanted him to be alone so badly. "Uh… y-yes, yes, it's- it's just me home… right now, um… M-Mother and Father often work weekends to maintain their advanced positions in their lines of work, as it were. Um-"
"Just to clarify, Eddward," interrupted Robin, "we just… we're simply trying to keep a low profile, you know? We're merely asking whether your parents are home because we're not quite ready to meet them."
"Yeah," added Johnny, "we just wanted to know if we should expect, like, anybody we don't know to walk in on us and wonder who the heck we are. So… you alright, bud? You… honestly seem more nervous than usual."
Crap, they were right. And they could prey upon that weakness if they really wanted to. Now, they had given a pretty decent reason to be apprehensive about his parents being home, and while that all may have been a clever ruse, he would fare better in these men's presence if he could regain his composure.
Therefore he stared at the space between the two men and took some deep breaths through his mouth, much to Robin and John's confusion.
"Uh… again, dude, you sure you're alright?" Johnny repeated.
"Oh, yes, yes, um…" Double-D mumbled. "Just… th-that conversation got off to a rocky start, I heard myself tripping over my words, that only flustered me further, and… you know, negative feedback loops. Social anxiety is often a self-fulfilling prophecy." He took a step to the side. "Uh… pl-please, come in, gentlemen."
The strangers entered the home and looked around a rather strange living room. It looked more like a large study than a place for entertaining guests but still had distinct den-like qualities. There was a filing cabinet on one wall and a fireplace on the next, with an armchair tucked into the corner in between. They didn't even see a TV, which kind of alarmed them - either this kid's family didn't have a TV and this kid was even more of an oddball than they thought, or this kid's family had an entirely separate TV room and this kid was even more upper-middle-class than they thought. Either way, maybe it was a good thing that this wolf didn't want to tag along if his lifestyle just wasn't suited to the cause.
But eventually the duo took a seat on a couch which was way on the far side of the room, while Edd retrieved a chair from the kitchen to sit with them - with Johnny taking up space for two people, there genuinely wasn't a place for more than three people to sit together in close proximity. It was the sofa for three, the armchair in the corner some thirty feet away, and that was it.
"Guess we didn't need to improvise," Little John sneered under his breath while Double-D was away.
"Ah, we're not out of the woods yet, Johnny," was all Robin had to say as he looked around the very unlively living space.
The wolf boy returned to the room with a kitchen chair and took a seat himself. He didn't seem any more at-ease so much as he seemed to be trying harder to contain how nervous he was. While he was in the kitchen, he had seriously debated dialing 9-1-1 and immediately hanging up when he got through to an operator, hoping they'd trace the call and come anyway, but in his mind, he just thought that they would somehow discover that he had been friendly to these two and use that to indict him alongside them. He'd had the police let him off the hook once before when many would say they shouldn't have; surely he wouldn't be getting lucky a second time.
"So… how can I help you gentlemen?" asked Double-D. "Oh! I-I-I'm sorry, that- that sounded curt of me! Apologies, sirs, I meant no insolence! Ge-genuinely, is there something I can help you with? What brings you here today? To what do I owe the pleasure?"
The wolf's clear discomfort was making Johnny and Robin uncomfortable by proxy, and they were both privately considering aborting the mission and getting out of there ASAP. But if they didn't do this now, they may never. They kept pushing through for the sake of clearing their conscience.
"Well… funny you should say that, Eddward," Robin began. "It's actually more of a case of… can we help you."
"Yeah, uh…" Little John started, then glanced at Robin, who returned with the slightest of nods. "Let's- let's, uh, for the sake of not wasting your time, let's just get right down to it. You scared the bejesus out of us when you mentioned out of the blue, like, what would we do if we happened upon evidence of…"
"...Child abuse," Robin finished.
The Merry Men had inadvertently cured Edd's nervousness by replacing it by confusion: was this seriously where they were going with this?
"Um… h-how, um- Excuse me, let me rephrase that. May I ask… how you found that comment frightening?" the boy asked.
"Well, we didn't realize until later, but that really did sound like a red flag," said Robin.
"Yeah, like, it didn't click in my head until later," said Johnny, "but when it did, I just thought, 'Shit, that clearly sounded like a cry for help-'"
"Why does everybody think I've been abused!?"
Thus began a moment of silence as Robin and John stared dumbfounded at Double-D, as if they had just heard confirmation of their worries. And Edd knew it.
"I'm sorry," said Robin, "did you just say everybody thinks that? Because as much as your tone and body language make you seem like you're annoyed by this like it's some black-comedy running gag… surely you understand how that makes us even more worried if we're far from the first ones to draw this conclusion."
"And come to think of it," added Johnny, "it sounded pretty creepy when you called your mom and dad 'Mother and Father'. Like, that sounds like something an abused kid in some, like, fundamentalist household would say. A-are your parents Jesus freaks? Is that why you don't even have a TV!?"
"What!?" Double-D shrieked. "N-no, no! I- my family is actually quite irreligious. I mean… w-we still celebrate holidays such as Christmas and Easter as cultural institutions, but we're a family of science- wait! I-I-I'm sorry, I hope I didn't- I-I hope I didn't offend either one of you if you should happen to be particularly religious yourselves-"
Robin put his hand up calmly. "Lad. It's alright. Neither one of us has much of a spiritual side. Much to the chagrin of our friend who's now a priest."
"Yeah, if God exists, he fucked us over and he's not invited to our funerals," Johnny threw in. "But for real, the 'Mother and Father' thing, the lack of TV, the fact that you're clearly a genius in such a way that… fuckin'... man, no one your age has a right to be that smart… it all seems like the kind of house where, I dunno, parents lock you in with no entertainment and force you to study algebra all day."
"Oh, nonono!" Edd pleaded. "M-my parents encourage my studies, surely, b-but… we still do have a television set, for example! It's in the den in the back of the house. Don't, uh… isn't it typical to have the television in a rumpus room rather than the living room where guests are entertained without a television?"
Little John winced while Robin shook his head very slightly and very slowly.
"Perhaps it is, but not in our heads," said Robin. "Among the people we know, they typically don't have homes large enough for the living room and the telly room to be separate rooms."
"...Oh," was all Double-D could say.
"By the way, what's your last name, kid?" Little John said suddenly.
To this, Double-D had a look on his face like Johnny had just asked him whether he wanted to die today.
"Johnny!" Robin scolded. "We don't need to be that direct!"
"Aw, you know you're curious too!" Little responded.
Well, Double-D had let these men in under the assumption that they were master criminals who would get into his house one way or another, so by that same logic, they would probably find access to his personal details eventually if they really wanted them.
"Um… Lupo. M-my surname is Lupo."
"'Lupo'. What is that, Italian?" asked the bear.
"Um… y-yes! I-it's quite simply the Italian word for 'wolf', consequently it's one of the most common surnames on the Italian peninsula!"
Little John kept looking around the room. "I gotta say, we've been inside some Italian households; this place don't look very Italian."
Edd was puzzled. Why was this man asking these questions? Did he think Double-D's family had mob connections or something?
Robin let out a light chuckle. "And what exactly does an Italian household look like, Johnny?"
"Y'know… Italian shit all over the walls," said Johnny. "Lotsa pride in their homeland. Photos of Tuscany here, Nonna's doilies over there, maybe a framed certificate saying someone's a member of some Sicilian-American society-"
"Oh! Uh… actually," Double-D interrupted, "m-my ancestors are not from Sicily, nor even the south of the Boot! My people hail from the north of the peninsula, which, according to my understanding of contemporary Italian society, is often stereotyped to be much more straightlaced and no-nonsense societally-speaking than its carefree and extroverted southern counterpart! P-perhaps that explains why my family does live a rather formal and quiet life than what you may expect of someone with our surname!" He chuckled nervously. They weren't asking about his mother's Wolf Anglo-Saxon Protestant side of the family, so he wasn't going to mention them - and that was before he even realized why omitting them would be a good idea.
Little John just kept nodding along but seemed content with the wolf boy's answers for the time being. Amid the silence, Robin spoke up:
"So while this surely cannot be a comfortable conversation for you, I assure you it's no easier for us. And now that you've suggested that multiple people have already had the thought that you're being…"
"Abused," provided Johnny.
"Correct. Surely you understand that we won't feel comfortable leaving until we find out why that is and can see proof that you're not being harmed."
"Yeah, so, like… who else thinks your parents are doing… that to you?" asked Little John. "Is it the school? The other kids? And where are they getting the information from to form this hypothesis?"
And in that question, Edd saw an out: "Well, actually, for the sake of clarity… it's my parents who believe I've been abused by someone else."
"Oh!" exclaimed Robin. "So we see."
"Who's this someone else?" asked John. "You need us to clean their clock for ya?"
As with all the other information, Double-D felt helpless to withhold this detail from them, so he figured he might as well let it out:
"Oh, the person in question is my uncle-"
Oh, shit. Oh, shit. He'd just said something he shouldn't have, hadn't he? They didn't know who his uncle was yet, did they? And while the sheer fact of alluding to an uncle wouldn't have automatically meant that his uncle was him, these two kept referring to Edd's affinity for authority as a key trait of his character. Surely they would make the connection, and surely they wouldn't take kindly to him being kin to their enemy. Oh, the irony: his love of rules and order would wind up being the piece of the puzzle these men needed to draw the line between him and a man who Double-D didn't actually think was very good at upholding rules nor order - or at least, someone he'd been raised to believe wasn't very good at it.
Sure enough, Robin asked, "Your uncle?"
Edd swallowed a lump in his throat. "Uh… y-yes, a-an uncle of mine. F-for what it's worth, though, I have no memories of him abusing me in any way! So you two need not worry yourselves with my-"
"Does this uncle-? Uh…" Little John began to ask before stopping to rethink his words.
Oh, dear. Here it came. Here it finally came. Double-D was prepared for death at any moment.
Johnny found the words to finish his question: "...He live on the West Side? And does he got a son named Mario? ...Your cousin, then, I guess?"
...Wait, what?
"I… beg your pardon?"
"Man, we… we kinda got roughed up by some teenagers on the West Side a' town yesterday - not our usual turf - and one of 'em was a wolf named Mario and one of his friends just straight up called him the G-word, so… jus-just curious if he was one a' yours." Little John seemed to be embarrassed to be asking this. "Where was it, Rob? Like… 28th and North Dakota?"
"28th and South Dakota," the fox answered, then turned back to the wolf. "Not that we'd hold it against you if you were that lad's cousin. You're not responsible for his actions, you're your own person. As Johnny said, strictly curiosity."
...Okay then. "...N-no, uh… I have no cousins who live in the city, or-or even in this metropolitan area, for that matter," Edd squeaked. "I-I hesitate to say that I have no cousins in this state because, uh, w-we don't keep much in touch with our extended family, so… th-the large chunk of my family who resides in the Philadelphia region may have relocated across the border into the Wilmington area without our knowledge." And what they didn't know about the redneck side of his family from the Eastern Shore of Virginia wouldn't hurt them.
The Merry Men were nodding slowly, each wondering to themselves why this kid couldn't just say 'no' and be done with it.
"Very well, then…" Robin murmured as the brainstormed how to proceed. "So… if I heard that all right… you said they think it was your uncle… and yet you and your parents don't really keep in touch with your extended family. Does that include this uncle? Is this suspicion the reason why you don't stay close with your family?"
"Um… it-it's a contributing factor, to be sure," said Double-D, "but even in general, a-as you two seem to be understanding, my parents aren't the most, uh, family-focused couple in the world- n-not-not-not to say that, um, that they're anti-family and ergo abusive, but, uh, well… they're off at work on a Saturday to advance their careers, now aren't they!?" He finished off with a nervous smile.
The two men just looked confused.
"Um… I-I apologize if I seem particularly, um, high-strung today, but, uh… su-surely you can agree that this subject matter could make one, uh-"
"'Uncomfortable'?" Robin offered.
Double-D nodded. "Yes! Precisely! Thank you for understanding!"
The boys nodded back.
"We understand, lad," said Robin. "Don't worry."
"Now… did I hear you say that you don't remember him doing anything to you?" asked Little John. "'Cuz, y'know, that doesn't erase the possibility that they caught him doing something to you when you were too young to remember-"
"-And I'm fairly certain severe trauma can block out memories like that," Robin finished.
And Edd was prepared for this. "And… both of those things are true! But suffice it to say, gentlemen… he was still in my life up until the point whereupon I started my formal education. Well past the point that I would begin forming memories. Not only do I have no memories of him doing harm to me in any way, I have not even any memories of feeling afraid of him! In fact, I remember- I-I remember…"
That was when the young man started remembering more than he had anticipated.
"...I- I actually remember enjoying his presence. I… I remember looking forward to seeing him come over. And… I… far from fearing him, I… I actually felt safe in his presence. Because… that uncle in question was… well, as a consequence of having few others in his life… he adored me. And… I theorize that a combination of what my parents perceived as an unhealthy obsession with his nephew - which was never anything inappropriate but a mere familial bond that I had with no other members of my extended family beyond my parents and which he certainly didn't have either - I-I theorize that this bond with which my parents were uncomfortable, combined with the way that this man was not as… shall we say… intellectually driven or… or conventionally successful as my parents were… I theorize that these two things led my parents to ban him from interacting with me, at which point they indoctrinated me into believing he was an evil man… and I certainly do remember being led to hate him retroactively, after hearing my parents allude to him being an evil man but never saying what evil deeds he had committed, but when I think… when I really think about my interactions with them… they were nothing but positive experiences…"
Double-D realized that somewhere along the line, he had begun to address his paws. He looked up to see Robin and Johnny staring at him with embarrassed looks like they were sorry that they had accidentally opened a completely different wound than the one they were expecting to open when they came here. And Edd would put them out of their misery soon enough, but first he wanted to say one last thing. Maybe he shouldn't have been saying this, maybe this was giving them all the clues they needed to deduce who his uncle was, but he had to say this to somebody, and these two were the only ones there.
"And please let the record show…" he began, "...that my parents merely believe he may have done something to me, but their claims are absolutely nothing more than prejudiced conjecture. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that he assaulted me in any capacity." (And as far as he knew - and as far as this narrator can tell after all my research - that statement was and still is true.) "So… perhaps he did! Perhaps he did do something reprehensible to me, and my brain - the mammalian mind working in ever so mysterious ways - perhaps it so thoroughly erased it from my memory that I didn't even retain any feeling that I should fear him! But I implore you: do not feel like you need to seek this man out and punish him, because if I am the alleged victim, I can say to you with certainty: I will not press charges. I don't believe he did anything wrong." He could feel his voice breaking even more severely, so he hurried to wrap it up: "Let the record show that I have no memories of him hurting me… I only have memories of him loving me."
Double-D simply took some deep breaths through his nose and blinked away the itchiness in his eyes, staring at the Merry Men staring back at him, themselves blinking in silence as they processed what they had heard. For what it was worth, hearing that this mysterious uncle was capable of being loving is what finally convinced Robin that Edd's uncle couldn't be that guy, whereas Johnny had already been convinced that the slovenly son of a bitch had been crossed off the list of potential uncles for this uptight young wolf.
"Well… erm… wow…" Robin sputtered as he struggled for words. "That… that certainly sounds like a messy situation. I'm sorry to hear you have to be caught in the middle of all this."
"Yeah, that…" Little John was not feeling any more eloquent than his friend. "...That sucks. That sounds seriously bogus that your parents would do that to you."
Oh, no. Double-D just realized he had told them too much. Not just copious amounts of clues as to the identity of his uncle, but also ammunition against his parents and their philosophy on law and order which he had already tried and failed to debate these men on. Darn it, now he would have to mentally regroup and be prepared for the next time he could convert them. But for now, it was about time they skedaddled.
"I… I must ask… is- is that the only reason you two came here today? To ensure I wasn't being abused?"
The Merry Men gave each other the glance again and looked the wolf in the eyes.
"It was certainly the main reason, yes," Robin confessed. "But… if you have the time, of course, we were also hoping to… to pick your brain a bit more regarding why you're so hesitant to see things our way with regards to how we do what we do."
Welp, guess there wasn't gonna be time to prepare for a next time. He was getting thrown into the fire this very instant. "Um… o-okay-"
"Actually," said Little John as he held up a finger. "You mind if we walk and talk? Because after what you told us about your parents, now ya got us worried they might be harming you in other ways. Like… if they're the kind of people to lie to you about your uncle, they could totally be the kind to… I dunno… well, for example, raise you in a house without a TV, which can and will tangibly fuck you over when you're the only kid who isn't watching whatever everyone else is watching. Indirect negligent abuse. You mind if we take a look around to see if your parents are raising you in a… in an environment that, uh… to see if your family lives so weird that it's gonna fuck you over as an adult?"
"Oh, c'mon, Johnny, we can't just go inviting ourselves on a tour of his house!" said Robin, half-teasing. Note, however, that Robin did not interrupt his friend; he too wondered if this kid was being raised to be irreparably odd and he too would have liked a grand tour of the Lupo residence.
"Aw, c'mon, Rob, it ain't no different than inviting ourselves into his freaking house!" Johnny shot back before turning back to Double-D. "Hey, you asked us if we saw evidence of abuse if we'd do something about it? Well, here we are: looking to investigate further to see if our inklings are right. The fact of the matter is we don't wanna waste your time any more than we wanna waste our own, but I'm not gonna feel comfortable leaving until I see what conditions you live in and he's not gonna feel comfy leaving until he psychoanalyzes you. So can we walk and talk?"
Double-D just sat there thinking to himself, Oh yes, I almost forgot, they're here to rob me silly. Well, denying these men did not seem like a viable strategy, nor did calling the authorities who would likely berate him for being stupid enough to invite them inside in the first place (and even if he told them who was in his house, then they might send his uncle, and an encounter between those two parties surely would not end well). Therefore he felt obligated to oblige them.
"Um… alright, then… shall we… shall we start with the kitchen, then?" Double-D asked as he stood from his seat, legs shaking ever so slightly.
"Yes, let's," said Robin as he and Little John stood from the couch.
"So… if I may ask… what specifically were you curious about?" Edd asked as he led them into the next room.
"Well, to be straightforward with you, Eddward," Robin began, "it honestly just confuses us. We've shown you in person what we do and how we do it, we've explained our philosophy to you inside and out, we've asked you point-blank whether you're merely afraid and assured you that there was nothing wrong with that, but you insist you aren't… That's why we were hoping to get you alone, because my lord, lad, is there something you're afraid to tell us when your friends are around?"
Edd stopped walking. "I… I'm afraid I misunderstand what-"
"Okay, timeout," Johnny interrupted. "The fuck's with all these sticky notes?"
Double-D and Robin looked around the room. Robin had had his full attention on the wolf boy and hadn't even noticed; Double-D, meanwhile, didn't see what the big deal was.
"Ah, yes," said Edd, more confidently because this was not at all the first time he'd had to answer this question. "My parents and I typically communicate through sticky notes due to their working long hours! These sticky notes tell me what chores they ask of me to perform, and considering their long working hours that leave them little free time, I'm more than happy to perform them!"
The wolf kept a beaming smile as he looked down at the fox, then up at the bear, both of whom had completely blank expressions on their faces.
And that caused Double-D's to soon go blank as well. "That… that sounds like abusive behavior, doesn't it?"
"Only if we understand it correctly," said Robin. "And as we understand it, you see your parents so rarely that your main method of communicating with them is Post-It notes - by the looks of it, easily dozens of them, possibly over a hundred - almost all of which aren't telling you that they love you or that they hope you have a wonderful day at school, but rather instructing you to fulfill essentially all the household duties that need to be done, up to and including…" Robin yanked the first sticky note he saw off the fridge and read it: "...'Dear Eddward, please remember to…'" Robin winced. "...'wash the phone'?" He looked up. "I'm sorry, what?"
"Oh, yes, it may seem like a strange request at first, but then one does remember that household telephones are frequently-handled things, and when one is receiving a call, one rarely has the time to wash their hands before answering! Consequently, telephones warrant being wiped down regularly with an alcohol cloth, lest they become grubby little things from everyone putting their paws on them!"
"Kinda like how it'd get grubby if I put my paw on it right now and called Child Protective Services?" asked Little John, reaching his arm across himself and holding it about a foot away from the phone hanging on the wall.
"Oh! No! Please!" Double-D put his own paws out and shook them in a desperate dissuading motion. "I-I insist, I don't feel victimized by this arrangement! Quite honestly, I feel it's rather a statement of trust that they would… uh, well, entrust me to perform all these tasks on a daily basis! Surely you would agree most kids my age wouldn't handle such responsibility so well!"
But the duo clearly weren't buying it, maintaining twisted looks of disgust, confusion, skepticism, and pity on their faces.
"Where do your parents work that keeps them from you seven days a week, lad?" asked Robin.
"Oh, they're actually chemists for the DuPont Company! While their job description would suggest that they would spend most of their time at the smaller Nottingham laboratory downtown to devise formulas to be implemented at larger plants, their work often takes them two hours away to the headquarters up north in Wilmington, where they are today!" Again, Edd knew he was oversharing, but again, he didn't think he had much of a choice in the matter.
"Listen, kid, we're just saying," said Little John, "between… lying to you about your uncle being a bad man just because they didn't like him… and never being around but making you do all the chores anyway - whi-which, that's not even me saying that's abusive, that's just me saying a lot a' other people would find that to be abusive, like depriving you of attention and affection and shit - it's not a stretch that they'd also be the kind who gave you some unhealthy Stockholm-Syndrome-type love affair with the concept of authority. And - Robin, correct me if I'm wrong - I think Rob's getting at… you seem like you don't like us because no adult in your life ever cared enough to teach you that right and wrong don't always line up with legal and illegal. And hearing what we've heard today and seeing what we've seen today, it seems to us more than it did twenty minutes ago that your parents did a number on you. Rob, any disagreements with all that?"
"No, no, you got it quite right, Johnny," said Robin. "You see, Eddward… lad… we've come to the conclusion that it's one of two things. Either you're afraid of putting yourself in danger - which we weren't going to have you boys do, but still, that's completely valid, and we could understand if you didn't want to seem cowardly in front of your friends - or you're afraid of the sheer concept of breaking the rules, even to do what was right. And if it's the second one…" Robin put a paw on the wolf boy's shoulder. "...then that's something that needs fixing. But we're here to help!"
Robin kept smiling that winning smile at Double-D, but it didn't seem to be working. If anything, Double-D looked uncomfortable. It was almost like this boy was such a radical introvert that he was allergic to the genial traits in Robin which others found charming.
"Shall we… see the den area?" asked Double-D.
"Ah! Good point! Let us keep moving!"
They went back through the kitchen to the den, which wasn't the largest den the Men had ever seen, but still an entirely separate room called a 'den'. There were shelves and shelves of books along with a three-seat sofa and, yes, a television set.
"Alright, alright, seems like your parents aren't withholding pop culture from you after all," Johnny conceded. "Speaking of pop culture, though, all this talk of TV reminds me of the other day when I asked you if your parents had banned you from watching the cartoon Adam Bell as a kid."
Oh, no.
"I know you said no to something else," the bear continued, "but… shit, honestly, I could still buy that they really did blacklist that movie. And any other version of Adam Bell."
Oh, God. Oh, man. Oh, dear. Oh, lord.
Johnny and Robin could clearly see Edd suddenly get nervous all over again.
"...Bloody hell, they really did forbid you from watching a damned Sidney movie, didn't they!?" said Robin, trying not to smirk too hard in amusement. "They actually barred you from seeing a film specifically meant to teach children about evolved justice and grey morality!"
"That is actually pathetic," remarked Little John. "Like- on them. You didn't do nothin' wrong kid. You're not responsible for your parents being complete wimps."
It was very much one of those situations where Double-D totally agreed that his parents had been wrong to be such prudes… but they were his parents and he didn't care to hear these strangers mock them. Of course, now that they'd made clear that they thought that the Lupos were rich (Edd would never say they were, but everything's relative), these two likely were going to harbor contempt for his parents no matter what. Oh, the multi-layered irony of it all: these two men who stole from the rich to give to the poor had found themselves in the home of a family that was likely on the upper echelons of middle-class but certainly not wealthy but this white-collar family seemed wealthy to these two compared to most of their blue-collar friends, and this assumption only seemed more substantiated by them correctly deducing that his parents had prohibited him from watching the pro-working-class children's movie which would totally be an aristocratic thing to do, and yet it all made too much sense because again, maybe the middle class wasn't supposed to have a horse in this race because the jury was still out on whether the original legend had started with the gentry or of it had germinated with the commoners and merely been preserved by those with access to a printing press, but one way or another the story dated back to a time when comfy middle-class lifestyles did not exist so this story was only ever meant to concern the poor and the rich, the latter of whom continued to propagate it against their own best interests for some reason, probably to profit off of it- wait, wait, stop. There was an idea for a talking point.
"Um… actually-"
"Kid, if you gave us a quarter for every time you started a sentence with 'uh' or 'um', we'd probably have enough to run to a thrift shop and pick you up a secondhand copy of the movie on tape," said Little John. "Or if you're too old for the cartoon and prefer the big-boy version with the Australian dude, we can look for that instead. And we'd probably still enough cash left over to also get you an oversized t-shirt that says 'I Fuck On The First Date' or something hilariously trashy like that."
"Oh, that- that won't be necessary, gentlemen!" Double-D insisted. "But… on the topic of… inspirational and virtuous folk legends… there may be something there for us to discuss. Shall we head upstairs?"
"Doesn't there have to be another room on this floor?" asked Robin. "It feels like we've only walked in an L shape."
"Oh, there's only the downstairs lavatory and the garage-"
"What about a basement?" asked Johnny.
"...Y-yes, we… we have a basement-"
"Can we see the basement?" the bear continued. "Make sure it's not some dungeon they keep you in when you don't finish your chores?"
"Um… okay, then…" Edd mumbled as he led them out.
"Ah, that's another quarter for the jar, Eddward!" Robin teased. "Now… what's this you wanted to say about… folk tales?"
"Well…" the wolf began as he opened the door to the basement, "you see… while I understand that such stories may be inspirational… I do honestly have some hang-ups about the concept of emulating a fictional legendary character."
"Ah, so now the truth comes out," Robin murmured with a vindicated smirk.
"A-and this goes beyond the morality of the character, I should say! I… I find myself thinking that taking after a fictional character is inherently an unwise decision."
"Well, we're not completely copying the old boy, but… continue," Robin insisted.
"So..."
"Jesus, kid, can I just say…" Little John said as he got to the bottom of the stairs and put his hands on his lumbar, leaning back and stretching and groaning before standing at full stature for the first time since he had entered the Lupo house. "...I was expecting a basement with the ceilings even lower than the main house, but shit, my back and my neck are thanking you for these randomly twelve-foot ceilings!"
"Oh, um… yo-you're quite welcome, Mr. Little."
"I'll say, this seems like a fairly typical basement," Robin mused as he began walking around. "...The signs are a bit odd, though."
Indeed, like a common area in an apartment building, there were signs all over the place giving commands at once to nobody and everybody.
"'Clean Lint Trap Daily', 'Table For Folding And Sorting Only'..." Robin read aloud from placards near the washer and dryer. "I'll admit, it all seems a bit… oh, what's the word? ...anal-retentive."
"'Walk, Don't Run'?" read Johnny. "Kid, you sure your parents trust you? I mean, who else would be reading these signs?"
"A-a-and I understand how it can seem that way, gentlemen," said Double-D, "b-but I assure you, I-I genuinely believe this is simply a classic case of parental paranoia for my safety!"
"Telling you to clean the lint trap every day of your life doesn't seem like something said out of concern for your safety," said Robin, his smile long gone.
"Oh, but they're merely worried about the fire hazard-!"
"And telling you that you can't use a table except for two specific things doesn't seem like they're afraid you'll hurt yourself if you use it to play with frickin' Legos or something," Little John jeered as he waltzed over to a large white cabinet that was taller than he was, next to the 'Walk, Don't Run' sign. "I don't usually go around opening people's drawers, but I gotta make sure this thing ain't full a' chains and whips to hit you with or something."
"Uh, I-I would much rather you didn't-!"
"Holy fuckin' cow," Little John muttered under his breath as he took in the large breadth of strange gadgets and contraptions in the cabinet.
Robin walked over and found himself similarly astounded by the strange technology that lay before him. "Blimey O'Reilly, what is all this?"
Well, no hiding this. "So, uh… th-that's what I've dubbed 'The Cabinet of Failed Inventions'. That's where-"
"'Inventions'?" asked Johnny. "You actually make shit?"
"We'll be honest, mate," said Robin, "we had you pegged as more of a bookworm than a tinkerer."
"Oh, but can I not be both?" asked Edd, allowing himself to smile as he felt a bit flattered by their surprise. "But as the name may imply, these are inventions which unfortunately did not pan out quite as planned, but which I have nevertheless preserved so as to learn from my past mistakes."
"Hot damn, kid!" Little John marveled.
"And your parents are okay with you making such things?" asked Robin.
"Oh, but they encourage it!" Double-D beamed; finally, these two had found something that could make his parents look not completely authoritarian. "After all, what would be the point of cultivating an intellect if not to implement it?"
"Very well put, Eddward, very well put," said Robin. "A point back to your parents… What exactly are these inventions? Like… this one. What's this old thing?" he asked, pointing to a cylindrical thing on wheels with a funnel on top and a nozzle in the front.
"Oh, that's a newspaper launcher! I once accepted a paper route two summers ago in an effort to save up to buy an electronic microscope, and this came from an attempt to deliver the newspapers more efficiently… unfortunately, it did so with a bit too much firepower…"
"This I'm guessing is one a' those baking soda volcanoes," said Little John.
"S-sort of! But due to a design flaw, it sucks like a vacuum rather than expels. Hence its inclusion here-"
"What on earth are these?" Robin asked, gesturing to a mismatched pair of boots that seemed to be strapped to accordion-like mechanisms.
"Ah, yes! The walking braces, or as Eddy called them, the Elevation Boots! Those were also from two years ago, when, um… please don't tell him I said this, but at that time, believe it or not, Eddy was even smaller, and he was feeling particularly insecure about being a not-quite-twelve-year-old fox who was shorter in stature than a rabbit boy on our block quite a few years our junior. What could be described as the logical extreme of lifts or platform shoes worked quite well until some, uh, antagonists in our neighborhood realized that they could simply kick the structures out from under him."
"Shit, a younger version of me really coulda used that," Little John muttered under his breath.
"And now that I don't live in a village of foxes anymore, I could probably use these from time to time!" Robin remarked.
"Aw, you already wear clothes made for a preteen wolf! You don't need to be any bigger!" Johnny said as he patted his little buddy on the back of his shoulders. "And what are these, Dubs? Night-vision goggles?"
"Similar!" said Edd. "Heat-seeking goggles!"
"And what went wrong with these?" asked Robin.
"Oh, they actually function rather well, but, uh… I-I may have seen some things with them that I would rather not… have… um…" Double-D trailed off as he saw Johnny grab the goggles off the shelf and put them over his eyes, and Edd didn't know whether he should object or not.
"Hmm…" Johnny hummed as he toyed with them to switch them on. "...Holy shit, these actually work!"
"Really?" asked Robin.
"Rob, wave to me!"
Robin did.
"Man, you look like a fuckin' shadow demon!" said Little John, a big goofy smile on his face. He took them off and handed them to his friend. "Rob, you gotta try these!"
"If you don't mind, Eddward," Robin said as he nevertheless took the goggles and started to put them on without waiting for an answer.
"Uh…" was all Edd could say.
"Oo-de-lally! You built these from scratch, lad!?" Robin asked as he looked back and forth between the wolf and the bear through the goggles.
"Oh, yes, b-but I can't profess that I'm some sort of MacGyver, I still had to consult books and websites to learn how to construct such things!"
"Yeah, but how is that any different than how anybody learns how to do anything?" Little John asked, still looking very amused by this kid's ingenuity.
"Yeah, even I had to take classes for years and years to learn to shoot a bow and arrow the way I do!" said Robin as he took the goggles off.
But despite their looks of awe and amazement, there was an underlying sadness in both of the Merry Men as they took in the boy's gadgets. It all just seemed like a big tease. Because it would have been absolutely amazing to have a gifted inventor in their corner, but this kid clearly did not have even one modicum of interest in joining their cause - at least not yet.
"Like, seriously, kid, fuck, if these are your failures, I'd hate to see your successes!" Johnny quipped. "Watch this dude just have WMDs just sitting under his bed."
"So it's settled," said Robin. "Your parents aren't completely restrictive if they let you construct things like this that other parents would be afraid of. But it still might not be enough if it comes at the cost of stunting your social development, so if it's alright with you, Master Eddward, we'd like to see upstairs."
"Well, uh… I suppose it wouldn't be the grand tour without it, would it be?" Edd conceded as he led them back up the stairs.
"Hey, take your time!" said Little John, making his way very slowly toward the stairs as he stretched his back and neck again. "Let me take in this headroom for a little bit longer. So… ya said something about not wanting to take after fictional characters, kid? Hey, is it because you think of Adam Bell as a kid's movie and you're embarrassed to use a cartoon character as a role model? Because hey, you're at that age where you'd be insecure about how mature people think you are, I get it-"
"No, no, it's… it's not that," said Double-D from halfway up the stairs. "It's… it's…"
"Is it because you simply think it's foolish to copy fictional characters who live in scripted worlds where they can do things and succeed more often than we can here in reality?" asked Robin. "Because we've heard that one plenty of times, and sometimes, admittedly, we think that ourselves-"
"No, no, uh… okay, that's a little bit of it." Edd walked out the basement steps and up the next staircase. "It's more… well, I wonder whether the fact that… I wonder whether the same things about these so-called 'folk heroes' that have made them so long-lived in our culture are signs that they are not so virtuous after all."
The Merry Men didn't comprehend a word of that.
"I'm going to have to beg your pardon, my good man," said Robin.
Trying to be more blunt: "Would you agree that our society is run mostly by people with nefarious intentions?"
"Erm… more or less."
"More often than not," added Johnny. "I'm usually skeptical of people who even want to be in control."
"So…" Edd stopped at the top of the stairs as the other two met him there. "...Why would those people allow such tales of commoners succeeding if there was nothing in it for them?"
Robin and John's faces got very intrigued very fast.
"Alright. I think I get what you're thinking…" said Little John. "...I don't know how you drew that conclusion, but at least I get what your conclusion is."
"Would you care to elaborate?" asked Robin.
"Well…"
"Jesus, is this the hallway from The Shining?" asked Little John.
They looked around. There were some similarities to that infamous corridor: horrifically outdated orange-and-yellow wallpaper with flat white wooden doors all up and down, and no windows anywhere.
Little John continued: "Seriously, kid, how many rooms does your house have?"
"I, um, uh-"
Johnny saw another sign on a door near one end of the hallway. "'Aux-il-ary Bedroom'!? You have so many bedrooms that you have- 'aux-il-ary' means 'extra', right? Like the button on the remote control for when you wanna use the VCR? Jesus, who uses words like that!?"
"A-actually, Mr. Little, it's pronounced auxiliary, and you can think of it much the same as a guest bedroom!"
"Oh, Eddward, I'm so hurt by you!" said Robin, smirking and feigning offense. "You had an extra bedroom this whole time and didn't welcome us in as we were sleeping out in the cold?"
Double-D, naturally, completely missed the irony and took this at face value. "Um, I-I'm sorry, Mr. Hood, but I don't think my parents would be quite comfortable with letting a pair of strangers-"
Robin and Johnny both started giggling.
"Kid, chill, he was just messing with ya," said Little John.
"Yeah, Edd," said Robin, "I don't think that either of us would be comfortable ourselves crashing in the homes of a couple of strange kids."
"And even then, we kinda get the feeling that your parents and us wouldn't exactly gel."
Edd didn't know what to say to that, so instead, he tried to get the train back on the rails. "May we continue with our discussion of why I'm inclined to distrust the virtues of folk heroes?"
"Good point lad," said Robin, "let's not keep getting sidetracked."
"Naw, fuck that!" Johnny jeered playfully. "Getting sidetracked is half the fun of talking! Besides, we're not just talkin', we're walkin'! We got a lotta doors to open up here!" He went to the first door he saw and grabbed the knob. "What's this room?"
"Wait, wait, no!" the wolf howled. "That-that's my parents' bedroom! Strictly off-limits!"
"Oh, well now I gotta see the bedroom of a married couple who uses words like aux-il-ary!" he said as he turned the knob. But he didn't get a chance to open it before he realized the wolf boy was suddenly hugging his arm.
"Please don't!" Edd begged. "I-it's not that I don't trust you-" (he didn't) "-but e-even the slightest item out of place will surely not go unnoticed!"
"Very well, then!" said Robin cheerfully. "Then we simply won't touch anything!" The fox put his little paw on the bear's big paw on the knob and turned it, then scooted past the two of them and welcomed himself in.
Double-D just stared in disbelief at his guest's brazenness before his other guest gently moved him aside to make his own way in.
"Pardon me, bud," Little John said as he turned sideways, sucked in his gut, and ducked under the doorway.
"You see, Eddward?" asked Robin as he walked around the room, observing. "I'm keeping my hands in my pockets just to make sure I don't touch anything!" And he did indeed keep his paws buried and watched his step carefully as he took in the sleeping quarters of the eccentric lupine couple. "Fire extinguisher on the wall, first-aid kits and the end of each bed… well, your parents certainly seem well-prepared."
Double-D pondered whether he should inform them as to why his parents were so cautious about fire, but he decided that was something they didn't need to know. If they wanted to think his parents were just paranoiacs, he would let them.
"I'm surprised you didn't point out how creepy it was that they have separate beds in the first place," Johnny quipped.
Robin did a double-take. "My lord, I hadn't even registered that! And now… blimey, that really is queer. I'm not one to judge, of course, Lord knows me mum and me stepdad weren't the most eager for a romantic sleeping arrangement, either, but… not gonna lie, this alarms me."
"You sure your parents aren't some Jesus freaks, kid? Because this '50s bed arrangement is some serious puritan shit." But Little John didn't wait for an answer. "And Christ, what's their obsession with… pears?"
Sure enough, there were several still-life portraits of the green fruit around the room, as Robin soon noticed.
"It's even on the bloody nightcap!" Robin observed as he pointed to the head covering hung on a bedpost. "I don't mean to embarrass you, Edd my lad, I just hope we haven't accidentally stumbled upon some sort of kink of theirs!"
"Just imagine we meet his parents one day and they're both staring at me and stammering because they're obsessed with my body shape," Johnny joked. "They say 'pear-shaped' and 'bear-shaped' are the same thing? Welp, here I am!"
"And all you need is a shirt that's just a lighter shade of green!" added Robin.
"Yeah, that's ri-! Wait!" Little John chuckled. "Hey Rob, ya wanna trade shirts!?"
Robin chuckled back. "Y'know, that's what they really ought to call us! 'The Pine and The Pear who make a great pair'!"
Johnny playfully shoved Robin on the shoulder. "Man, you wait till after I say we swap shirts to come up with that!? Brother, you just wanna still be first in line!"
"But I have to be in front, Johnny! They'll never see me standing behind all this!" Robin said as he patted the bear's belly.
"Okay, sweetheart! But if you wanna be in front a' me so bad, then don't be surprised if one a' these days I step on this big ol' thing!" said Little John as he pretended to stomp on the fox's long tail.
"Little do you know, that's my kink!"
It was so freaking stupid, they couldn't help but laugh like madmen. And laugh they did until their host decided he was bored of their witty non-plot-advancing banter.
"Are either of you two familiar with the legend of Joe Magarac?"
The duo stopped laughing and immediately turned their attention to the annoyed-looking wolf boy, both looking slightly embarrassed for having wasted his time.
"Uh… Joe who?" asked Little John.
"Joe Magarac," Double-D repeated. "A folk hero from the American Rust Belt who, according to legend, worked in one of Pittsburgh's many steel mills."
Robin glanced at Little John for cultural help, but Johnny shook his head in confused dejection.
"Erm… no, I… I don't believe either of us are familiar with your man Joe, Eddward," said Robin. "But being from the Steel City of England myself, the idea of a steelworker folk hero certainly has my attention! Please, go on. Enlighten us."
"So… I wasn't familiar with the Joe Magarac character either until I was inspired to start doing research into folk heroes - from the English-speaking world or otherwise. According to legend, Mr. Magarac was a donkey of Croatian extraction - either an immigrant or a first-generation American, details vary - who, in typical legendary fashion, was quite literally made of steel in some capacity, some even saying he was birthed by stepping out of a blast furnace or a mountain of ore. And in many ways, he was very much your typical overpowered and uncommonly-noble hero: stopping a large piece of machinery from falling on his coworkers, winning the hand of a fair lady in a weight-lifting contest but letting her marry a man she truly loved instead, forging molten metal with his bare hands and generally being able to do the work of dozens of men all by himself."
"So basically this guy was Paul Bunyan, but he worked at a steel mill instead of a timber yard?" asked Little John.
"Um… y-yes, basically. A-and he was a seven-foot Croatian-American donkey rather than a seventy-foot Québécois-American brown bear. But- a-actually, that's an excellent transition, Mr. Little, thank you. Because unlike Paul Bunyan… Joe Magarac is now believed to have been an entirely fabricated character, created for wholly nefarious purposes."
The Merry Men didn't say anything, but Edd still paused for a moment to take in the looks on their faces. They certainly were curious where he was going with this.
"Which begins to make sense when you consider… other details about the so-called legend. Chiefly how he was so productive not just as a product of his strength, but also due to his insistence on working twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three-hundred-and-sixty-five days a year. When he denied the offer to marry the beautiful woman mentioned earlier? It was not merely a noble act to give her the autonomy of choice, but also a refusal to let marriage distract him from his work. And some versions of the story even go out of their way to stipulate that Mr. Magarac was so very noble and devoted to his work that he would always refuse the offer of a pay raise."
"Oh, fuck that!" Johnny scoffed. "That ain't fuckin' noble!"
"But my point exactly, Mr. Little," Double-D continued. "Because now imagine being a Pittsburgh-area native raised with the idea that a local hero's heroics included such things as refusing a pay raise. And one starts to realize that perhaps this character has been propagated specifically by the wealthy ruling class to discourage the poor working class from demanding better conditions. And wouldn't you know it, surveys done of actual Pittsburgh steelworkers in the early-middle Twentieth century shortly after the character's exploits were first chronicled in a newspaper article revealed that precisely zero of those steelworkers had ever even heard of the character. Joe Magarac had never been a hero to steelworkers; he had always been the steel barons' idea of what a perfect steelworker should be from his very beginning."
Edd paused again to reevaluate the looks on their faces. They understood.
Double-D looked Robin square in the eye. "Mr. Hood, I understand this entire operation was your brainchild? Can you deny that it would surely be jarring if someone was doing work much the same as yours in Western Pennsylvania, having been inspired by Joe Magarac's legendary work ethic if not his specific actions, seeking to protect the working poor who that character represented and championed… just to find out that said character exists specifically to brainwash said working poor into complacency?" But this was merely a rhetorical question, and Edd turned and led them back to the hallway before receiving an answer. "Gentlemen, are we about ready to leave my parents' bedroom?"
Not that Robin didn't have a very real answer to that rhetorical question. "And I absolutely agree that that would be a devastating thing to realize, but it seems a bit of a stretch to connect this Joe fellow to old Adam."
"But is it?" Double-D asked when they were back in the common area. "Because going back to Paul Bunyan - again, thank you, Mr. Little, for the perfect segue - even Paul Bunyan has been criticized as so-called 'fakelore'. While stories of this character did indeed originate among lumberjacks, they were a far cry from what we know, with Paul often engaging in clearly immoral actions such as scamming his men and, most notably, not being a giant far beyond biological possibility. The version of that character we're familiar with is a sanitized version who bears little resemblance to the iteration seen in the traditional oral tradition - and I don't know how far left you two are on the political spectrum, but I've seen rather left-leaning scholarly criticism saying Paul Bunyan is a perfect example of a folk hero being heavily modified and commodified for the sake of profit."
"Hmph," Robin huffed. "Suffice it to say, lad, I'm in a spot on the slider where I definitely think that's a scummy thing to do, but not the most infuriating thing in the world."
"God knows if Alan were here, he'd be having a field day with that, bitching and moaning about 'late-stage capitalism' or whatever the hell he called it," Johnny quipped. "I gotta ask though, kid, how do you know about all this?"
"As I alluded to earlier, Mr. Little," said Double-D, "I've previously harbored some curiosity about folk heroes, inspiring me to conduct my own research. And this leads us to our dear friend… Adam Bell." Double-D said as he turned his gaze toward the equivalent of Adam Bell standing right in front of him. "The thing I find the most curious about the story of the man who stole from the rich to give to the poor is that the legends were first recorded by the rich. And yes, as I even told myself, this is not too strange as they had access to printing technology while commoners did not, but one must ask… for them to spread a story in which they were the bad guys, what was in it for them? Did they merely wish to profit off it as American publishers later did with Bunyan? Did they do it to instill a jingoistic sense of patriotism in the poor, making them so fervently proud to be English that they wouldn't question their country's problems, up to and including wealth inequality? Or - as I worry - did they create a character who was too over-the-top in his vigilantism, arguably even immorally so, in the hopes that it would inspire similarly reckless behavior amongst the poor which the rich knew would surely do more harm to the poor themselves before it ever reached the rich and their impregnable security, at which point it would surely backfire, essentially outing any rabble-rousers who should be so daring as to challenge the status quo and giving the powers-that-be a perfect opportunity to find and capture them?"
Now, Little John wasn't offended that Double-D had delivered about ninety-five percent of that paragraph while locking eyes with Robin; the whole copying-Adam-Bell thing had always been Robin's thing and Johnny could respect that. But oddly, Robin kind of wished that Edd had addressed Little John a little more during that speech so as to ease the burden of having to come up with a rebuttal all by himself. Not to say he conclusively agreed with Double-D's point, as he surely felt something was off about it, but as he stood there looking up slightly at the teenage wolf, wearing a half-smirk so he seemed confident as he pondered what to say next, he was doing a very good job of hiding the fact that he was totally stumped.
But stupid Double-D didn't realize that he had almost game-set-matched Robin and proceeded to keep running his long-winded mouth in such a way to move him further away from his goal.
"Now, I will concede that despite the way that the survival of their stories throughout history suggests that the ruling class is benefitting from them in some way," Edd continued, "one may glean positive ideals and inspirations from them. Even Joe Magarac, a character who has been all but conclusively proven to have been an artificial creation, apparently once did star in a children's book in the mid-Twentieth century wherein Magarac - an immigrant made of literal steel, mind you - had volunteered to be melted down into steel to remodel the United States Capitol building so as to bless its structural integrity with his strength, only to will himself back to life after overhearing two senators exchange anti-immigrant rhetoric, opposing this bigotry by bringing the Capitol building to life, like… some sort of Transformer, if I recall correctly-"
"Damn, son, this sounds like a pretty gnarly kids' book!" Little John remarked.
But Robin had been given the ammunition he needed. "Well, just like you said, Edd! Perhaps these stories of heroes we love really were dreamt up for nefarious purposes… but as long as we're getting positive things out of those stories, who cares? Old Adam's inspired me to do good things, and now I'm doing them! Hell, if anything, we're taking the character back from those who just want to profit off the idea of him!" Oh, yeah, Rob needed that W.
Now it was silly Double-D's turn to be speechless. Silly Double-D.
"Hey, uh…" Little John cut in, "you wanna show us your room before we jet?"
You know what? That was a grand idea. Double-D could buy himself some more time to form a counter-argument by distracting them. Ah, he didn't want to just relinquish the sanctity of his bedroom, but in the name of fighting for the good name of law and order, it was a sacrifice he was willing to make.
He disarmed the self-made security system (the existence of which Robin and John both wanted to comment on, but at this rate they would be there all day) and handed the duo some plastic bags to wrap their feet in to prevent the tracking of dirt. His guests obliged, and Edd opened his door and let them in.
Sure enough, it was not a typical room, but not in a way that would suggest Mr. and Mrs. Lupo were withholding a normal childhood from their pup. Rather, this was the bedroom of a kid who seemed to be choosing not to be normal, and whose parents were happy to oblige. There were beakers and bunsen burners, facsimiles of bones and minor surgical equipment, an ant farm, a terrarium, a butterfly collection, textbooks and encyclopedias galore, posters on the walls displaying the structure of a cell and the inner workings of a lupine body, and Little John found himself with even less headspace than he expected as a replica of the solar system hung from the ceiling.
With all that, one might think this was the bedroom of a future Hannibal Lector, what with all the medical equipment and emphasis on biology, but there was something even more worrying about the room: every single thing in sight was labeled. Everything from the bedposts to the walls to the carpet had a label, the kind made with one of those handheld label printer thingies where you turn the letter wheel to spell out words and then it prints out as an adhesive and man I don't know what the fuck they're called.
"So, uh… how long'd it take ya to count all these ants?" asked Little John, who out of geometrical necessity found himself standing next to the bookshelf holding the antfarm with the precise quantity of ants - four thousand, eight hundred thirty-seven - proudly labeled on its glass.
"Oh, no time at all!" said Double-D. "I merely calculated the average quantity of ants in a few given cubic inches - my samples being spots along the glass which I could see - and mathematically extrapolated what the likely quantity would be. Um… between you and me, Mr. Little, there is likely a margin of error in that number and I may never even know myself how accurate that number is."
"I see you have a passion for… labelling things," commented Robin. "May I ask why?"
"Oh, no particular reason!" Edd insisted, grinning nervously. "Just… a preference of mine!"
Little John tried to give Robin a knowing glance, but Rob was too busy looking around to reciprocate. Therefore Johnny went ahead and turned to Double-D to ask what was really on his mind.
"So, uh… no-not tryna be mean, serious question, kid. Um… do you have OCD?"
"What!?"
"OCD. Like, not just 'oh, yeah, I'm a neat freak, I must be OCD,' but like… clinically?"
The wolf forced a chuckle. "Oh, I… no. No, thankfully. Though the question has been posed to several psychological and psychiatric professionals, who all conclude that I mustn't be clinically obsessive-compulsive, otherwise I would have gone ahead and likewise labeled the entire house by now!" Another nervous chuckle.
Separately, Johnny and Robin both nodded, begrudgingly accepting that that was a good answer. Of course, Robin had other things on his mind.
"So, Edd," said the fox, still wandering around the room and not facing the wolf, "have you any more questions about the morality of Adam Bell being better than it is worse? Have we convinced you, or are we at yet another stalemate?"
Double-D gulped as he prepared to throw himself back into the fire. "N-not to be a chronic contrarian, Mr. Hood, but I think you misunderstood my final point. I have no doubts that these 'fakelore' characters can in their own ways provide lessons of virtue, but perhaps the morality of Adam Bell is not one of those. My point, gentlemen, is that the reckless and extrajudicial sense of justice the character of Adam preaches may indeed be a trick to lead the poor to engage in activities that will harm the people they're supposed to help more than they will-"
"Oh, speak of the devil!" Robin said as he picked up the replica human skull off the table. "We mention the animated Adam Bell and here's the poor lad's head, hiding in plain sight! You know, one of the first real long-term downers I had as a lad was realizing that all the characters in stories set long ago were certainly all deceased now."
"Uh, M-Mr. Hood!" Edd piped up with a raised finger. "I must ask you not to grab my things like that. Uh- my apologies for being so blunt."
Robin could agree that perhaps his touchiness was a tad out of line, even if this kid was being a real stick-in-the-mud. "Ah, you're right, you're right. My apologies, that was rude of me," he said as he put the skull back, but even the slight vibrations from the replica being placed on the desk were enough to jiggle Edd's computer mouse back to life, and because Double-D wanted to leave his computer unlocked in the event that his parents wanted to inspect his browsing history, it was not password-protected when it awoke from Sleep mode. And this was roughly the point where things really went off the rails.
Robin couldn't help but be drawn to the screen as it illuminated before him. "...Oh, what's this?"
That's when Double-D remembered: he had been in such a rush to see who was at the door that he had neglected to minimize his web browser.
"Uh, that's, that's-!" the wolf stammered. But it was too late. He had been outed.
"Fanfiction? Hm, I've heard of this! What story are you fanfiction-ing about?"
"Oh, no, no, I'm not-!"
"Oh, you really are into folk heroes, aren't you, lad?" Robin said when he saw that this work was spoofing not one but two different copyrighted properties. "You're making your own entire story about Adam Bell, are you? I'm starting to get the feeling that you've some sort of forbidden-fruit fascination with the old geezer!"
And after hearing every word of that last sentence correctly theorize what was going on, some may consider it an act of true bravery that Double-D found the strength to keep talking and not just clam up and become catatonic. "B-but you misunderstand! I didn't write that, I-I merely stumbled upon it-!"
"Ah, that makes sense. I was wondering how you'd have a working knowledge of such an old cartoon as Dogtanian to blend it with."
"B-but as I said, Mr. Hood, I have no familiarity with either of these properties!" True on one count, bullshit on the other. "I merely stumbled upon it because the strangeness of the concept seemed-!"
"Lad, lad, mellow out," Robin insisted, holding his hands up. "There's no shame in liking cartoons! I know it doesn't seem like it at your age, but you are still a kid! And heaven knows my brother loved his cartoon shows and movies until his dying day, he even got the phrase oo-de-lally from a cartoon your generation would surely be more familiar with than ours - some show about a lad with a secret laboratory, if I recall. And wouldn't you know it, this story right here… you just so happened to find something that combines my favorite cartoon movie as a lad with my favorite cartoon show as a lad! Lord, now I'm getting a nostalgia trip..."
"Uh…"
"Johnny, you remember that old cartoon?"
"What was it called?" Little John had been withholding comment because this seemed like an odd turn for the conversation.
"Dogtanian. And the Three Muskehounds. Dumas' Three Musketeers, but they were dogs. Animated in Japan, I think?"
"Never heard of it in my life."
"Oh, well it surely must have been on TV over here, all the characters had American accents! Ah, but maybe you were too old for it. It came on when I was eleven and I was already worried I was too old for children's programs. So you would have been, what, seventeen? But I'd like to imagine it would hold up if I watched it again as an adult. I know I loved it as a lad, and little Will loved it, too. We didn't have much time to bond as kids, but when we did, that cartoon was one of the things we bonded over."
But his half-brother hadn't been the only person Robin had bonded with over that cartoon in his youth. It was funny how the sapient mind worked: now that Robin had discovered this skinny wolf boy had a connection to the same cartoon Robin had enjoyed with the portly lynx lad in his youth, what had previously seemed to Robin like a moderate resemblance now had Robin feeling that Edd was much, much more like Much than he had previously realized. Not to say there was any new evidence that further tied the two together - actually, wait, fuck it, there was. Both of these boys had had exposure to stories of heroes and both of them had willfully decided not to be inspired by them. Oh, the cowardice, the shameful cowardice. But Robin reminded himself that he was here to help Double-D not turn out much like Much, so he couldn't let himself take out his rage over Much's infuriating weakness on this poor boy who needed a push toward greatness.
"So, er… I'm curious, Eddward, what's the story about?" Robin asked. "Because… the stories of Adam Bell and the Three Musketeers took place centuries apart, did they not? And I can see it specifically says these are the human Sidney versions of Adam and his mates with the canine versions of D'Artagnan and his."
Well, no escaping this one now, so Edd figured he just had to roll with it. "Well, um… I've only had time to skim it, you see - surely you recall my large load of chores for the day, upon which I usually don't procrastinate but I just found this odd story so-"
"Hey Sock-Head?" said Johnny. "Just so you know, you're rambling again."
"Oh, uh… th-thank you, Mr. Little. For catching me. Um… so apparently the story involves the, uh, the men of Inglewood Forest coming down with the plague and only being able to survive when Eve contacts a sort of, um, let's call them a witch doctor to put them in what modern audiences would understand to be an induced coma to regulate their breathing and sort of… trick their body into thinking they were well. Not even remotely medically sound, but I will not discourage the exercising of creative freedom. Suffice it to say, though, that this cure came at the price of suspending them in animation - no pun intended - for several centuries before they awaken and flee England and the frightening new world it's become, ultimately finding themselves in Paris."
But Robin looked a bit uneasy. "And do they address whatever became of Eve?"
All three of them understood that this was a particularly personal question, as Robin surely must have had his own Eve on his mind if he felt the need to ask this, but they all just rolled with it.
"Oh, um… it-it's made quite clear that as the trio skipped forward in time, Eve unfortunately was left behind and passed on along the way. Indeed, the most fascinating aspect of the story is Adam spending extended periods of time outside his comfort zone for the first time in a long time, and among many other sources of inner turmoil is his worry that he abandoned the love of his life, perhaps for neither him nor her to never find love or happiness again."
"Damn, kid," Little John sighed from the corner of the room, "that's a bummer."
But he and Edd were both waiting on Robin's response, though Robin wasn't saying anything. He was staring off into space, his face scrunched in thought, having heard Edd say that Eve died alone in the story and the word "abandoned" but not much else.
"Yes… that is a bummer," Robin finally said. And this was when the mood of the conversation really went to hell: "After all, what's a hero without a love interest?"
Before Double-D and Johnny had enough information to be angry, they were just confused. "What?" they both asked in unison, similarly incredulous.
"Well, why do you lads think every hero's story has a love angle?" He didn't seem too depressed any more, and he was speaking rather matter-of-factly. "Think about it: how brave can a hero be if they're too afraid to ask out a pretty girl? Hell, I'd argue the bravest thing Adam Bell had to do in the Sidney movie was to overcome his fear of asking out Eve after he discovers she's a spy for the rich and starts worrying the connection they'd had wasn't real! It simply isn't heroic not to have a love interest."
Edd's and Little John's faces started scrunching themselves, though for entirely opposite reasons. For Johnny, this was a sentiment he'd never heard from Robin before, and for Double-D, something about this was starting to sound all too familiar.
"I'm… not certain that's a rule for heroism," said the wolf, making his skepticism clear.
"Oh, it's an unwritten rule, but trust that it's a rule all the same!" Now Robin seemed a tad too chipper for what he was preaching. "Same thing with friends! A true hero has to have friends. That's why I never cared for Batman. Erm- heh, not just because he's filthy rich, although that certainly doesn't help his cause - but because he's such a loner! How heroic can he be if he has no desires for companionship? It's the interpersonal connections that prove a hero's mammality! Can you disagree, Eddward?"
Oh, yes. Double-D had heard this all before. This wasn't even the first time he'd heard it from a red fox with a silver tongue and a little too much self-esteem than Edd was comfortable with - and he certainly wasn't thinking of that lost-in-society twerp Eddy.
"Yes… yes, I can disagree with that."
"Oh, horsecock! I- wait." Robin started chuckling when he realized what he'd said. "Oh, blimey, I just mixed up 'horsefeathers' and 'poppycock', didn't I!?" And he kept on laughing to himself, either not knowing or not caring that the other two were not only not laughing with him but starting to look irritated.
Robin regained his composure and put a hand on Edd's shoulder, looking the wolf in the eye with a smile that seemed blind to the fact that the boy's eyes were narrowing. "Look, lad. Let's put it this way. Use Prince John as an example. Do you know one of the telltale signs that he's not a good guy deep down? Because the man has no real friends. A-and you know what? The same could be said about that damned sheriff! They both probably think their assistants are their friends, but from what we've gathered, that squirrel and that weasel both despise their superiors. And none of this is to say that having friends makes someone a good person, God knows that the villains of this world like to get together - but somebody with no friends must have something seriously wrong with them if even the wicked don't want to rub shoulders with them. Sometimes in life one person won't want to be your friend, and that just happens, but if nobody wants to be your friend… mate, it's something you're doing wrong! Life lesson, Edd: never trust a man with no friends-"
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
Robin's head jerked around to find Little John had negotiated his way around the ceiling solar system and now was standing much closer behind him and to the left, glaring straight down at him.
And to be succinct, Robin was offended that Johnny was offended. "What's with you?"
"'Don't trust a man with no friends'? Oh, like I fuckin' was for the first thirty years of my life!?"
"I concur, Mr. Little!" said Double-D. "Mr. Hood, may I inform you that I myself have had frequent troubles making friends throughout my whole life? That beyond Ed and Eddy, I don't know who I could truly consider a friend? That before I started attending public school here in Peach Creek, I attended a private institution in the next town over wherein not only was I friendless, not only was I constantly bullied and harassed for being friendless, but I was told time and time again by those who tormented me that their torment of me was justified specifically because the fact that I had no friends must have been conclusive evidence that I was an unlikable personality and that all could pick up on that? Do you really think I'm going to take it in stride when you tell me those ruffians were right!?"
No more of this. All the anger that Double-D still harbored toward Mike Redden and his entourage at the Academy was now focused on this other red fox. But something odd was happening: being put in a place where he felt as he had when he was being belittled at his old school sent him through a type of body shock, and he physically felt as he often had at that godforsaken school. Which is to say that despite his fury, he felt like he was about to piss his pants.
And speaking of feeling belittled, Robin was silently cursing that these two champions of cowardice were getting the satisfaction of physically as well as literally looking down upon him. And with his head in that space, he could just imagine a third figure materializing out of the ether to glare down his snout at him: an adult lynx, somewhere in the neighborhood of six feet tall but desperately out of shape, speaking with a Sheffield accent as he perpetuated the myth that the meek would indeed inherit the earth. Oh, no, mate. Robin had worked too damned hard to be told by the likes of these losers that he wasn't a good person who was right and virtuous about everything.
"Well, Eddward," Robin began as calmly as he could, "I'm dreadfully sorry you had to suffer at the hands of such cretins. Truly I am. But tough as it is to say, they may have been right in their criticism."
"I beg your pardon!?" the wolf shrieked.
"Broken clocks and all that, lad. The fact of the matter is that to be a good person in this world, you need to do good things, and rarely are good things a one-man act. You can do something nice by yourself, but nice isn't as good as good, to bring about good requires vision, planning, and collaboration. No man rules alone, Eddward. Perhaps you weren't evil, lad, but if everybody found you off-putting… sorry to say, you might as well have been evil. It's a lie we tell ourselves that the opinions of others don't matter; we're social creatures and all we are is what others perceive us to be."
"So do you perceive me to be a functionally-evil loser because everyone hated me before I met you?" asked Little John.
"I dunno, Johnny. Do I not remember that you had let the mean little lads in your boyhood turn you into a bitter and jaded husk of a man? You know, an arsehole? But I helped you become a good person, did I not? Don't ever say I didn't do my part to help you improve yourself, Johnny, and I won't ever say you shouldn't be proud of being better than you were!" He turned to Edd. "And you, Mr. Double-D! You should likewise be proud that you've come out of your shell and found Ed and Eddy! I don't know what you did, but you surely did something to change!" Now he addressed the both of them in tandem: "C'mon, lads! Most people are proud to say they're better than they used to be! You've grown as people and now you're better than old Prince John, but yes, you were objectively worse people when you were so friendless that it kept you from functioning as normal people would, and now you're not. I think it's completely mad that the two of you are treating this as some sort of controversial opinion and I will not be apologizing for it."
Little John just grunted. "Well, thanks for letting us know how you really feel, my savior. Thanks for reminding me that I couldn't have stopped being a lonely loser without you."
"Yes, thank you!" echoed Edd. "And for the record, Mr. Hood? I don't think anything about me fundamentally changed between leaving that hellish institution and integrating into a public school! Even when I was a student at the Redden Academy, I still hung around the two other misfits in this neighborhood before I joined them at Peach Creek Elementary. I couldn't make any friends at my first school, I haven't made any more at my second - I don't think I've changed! Does that mean I'm still evil in your eyes!?" As the rage boiled inside of him, the urine kept churning in his bladder - actually, no, wait, that had nothing to do with his anger nor his flashbacks of fear. Double-D just really needed to pee. Apparently sitting at his desk without moving for six straight hours was catching up with him.
Robin shook his head and shrugged, telling himself that there was no arguing with fools. "Well, if you two insist on saying you haven't truly become better people, then so be it, I can't force you. But the fact of the matter is that I wouldn't be able to do what I do without my ability to meet the people I seek to help and have them understand within a minute's time that I am a good man and that they should trust me."
"Correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Hood, but I believe that unnatural levels of charisma and a lack of inhibition from breaking the rules of society are both symptoms of textbook sociopathy! Not to mention several other disorders trademarked by a complete lack of social anxiety and absurdly magnetic personalities, including Narcissistic, Histrionic, and Borderline Personality Disorders."
Robin let out a nasal chuckle; that wasn't the first time he'd heard that one from critics who were probably just jealous. "Eddward, the fact of the matter is that someone like Adam Bell or myself who goes out into the world and does good will always be better than someone who has a good heart but stays inside and lives in fear of the world and does nothing. Only the fearless can be great. I know what I'm doing, Edd. Now either follow my lead or get out of my way."
"Oh, really?" Double-D taunted, leaning over Robin. "You come into my home seeking a debate, and when I've conclusively shut your argument down, you resort to childish 'my way or the highway' tactics?"
"Quite the opposite, Eddward, I think you're still a young lad who's too proud and foolish to admit you've been beat. You may genuinely not even realize you've been beat! But I've wasted enough hours of my life trying to reason with you, and I think I'm about done trying." Robin shook his head in pity, though his eyes still looked furious. "I'm disappointed in you, Edd. I thought you had potential. I really did. I even saw a little bit of myself in you - and I saw a lot of an old friend who I fell away from in you, an old friend who I regret not being able to save from… from this cult of cowardice! And complacency! And following the rules! And I was hoping I could make up for losing my grasp on him by saving you, but I… I guess I was wrong. And perhaps that's my fault, because your willingness to let your only two friends leave you behind to wallow in your bedroom all alone is looking like a great big red flag in retrospect. Neutrality always favors the oppressor, Eddward. Stand for justice or die. Remember that."
"And you remind me exactly like the bullies who told me in no uncertain terms that the fact that I didn't fit in was sufficient evidence to declare that I was unfit to be treated decently, let alone loved!"
"Hey, now! I offered to let you be my follower and learn from the best how to be loved! I could have taught you just like I taught Johnny! But here you've chosen to go your own way. Best of luck being a compelling hero in your own story when you don't even have the confidence to get your own friends, let alone your own love interest!"
"Newsflash, asshole!" Little John interjected. "You never taught me how to find a love interest either! So are you a shitty teacher or am I just too fucking retarded to be taught!?" He was having visions of choke-slamming this fox though the floorboards and into the next level down; if he wasn't a guest in this house, he just might have.
Robin simply didn't care to answer the bear's question, for he had one of his own. "Johnny… why are you being like this? Why are you defending this lad?"
"I dunno, motherfucker! Why are you pissing us off!? Hey, let's use your logic! Restrict the sample size to this fuckin' room. Everyone else in this room except for you is pissed off at you! By your own fuckin' rules, that means it's your fault that no one here likes you right now!"
Robin shrugged again, feeling like he was surrounded by Much Millers and the only thing he could do now was leave with his dignity. "So? What?" he asked his host. "Shall we see ourselves out?"
"Aw, naw, buddy," said Little John. "I'm not gonna give you the fuckin' masturbatory feeling of having me follow your lead!"
"Fine, then," Robin said as he gestured to the door. "Would you prefer to walk out first?"
And Johnny just put on a devilish grin. "Why are you assuming I want to go with you?"
"A-actually?" Double-D stammered.
The duo turned their attention to the wolf boy, who suddenly seemed very nervous all over again.
"That-that's a good idea," he sputtered. "St- you stay here! Both of you! I-I need to use the lavatory, I'm sorry-"
"Okay, fine, fuck it, we'll leave! Together!" Little John grumbled.
"No, no! St-stay right here! I don't want you two walking around my house where I can't see you! I-I'll be right back!" And he took off toward the door, just to stop and turn back to the Merry Men before he left: "And Mr. Little? I'm sorry. I apologize for misjudging you when we first met… not to say you're the only one I misjudged that day, but your case warrants an apology, because today you've proven yourself to be more intelligent and far more empathetic than somebody who just happened to speak in such a matter that he sounded well-educated!" And he left.
Robin kept shaking his head as he watched him go. "That lad's going to have a startling realization one day that he's not even taking control of his own life. I pity him, really." He looked around the boy's room. "Johnny, can you imagine having a son and he turns out like him? I dunno, all the talk about Adam and Eve had me thinking about when I finally have my own family one day."
"Are you seriously changing the fucking subject like we aren't still pissed at each other!?" the bear growled.
"What? You're still cross about all that?"
"Of course I am! You just talked shit people just like me. You think I'm gonna be cool with that!? Do you actually believe a word of you said or were you just trying to piss us off because you still have a hangover!?"
"Do you seriously not agree? For fuck's sakes, Johnny, may I remind you that you yourself sang a lauded song about how Prince John was a cowardly loser with no friends!?"
"May I remind you about what I said on the fucking ride over here in Geoff's car that I didn't write the fuckin' lyrics!? And that I never liked them!?" he interrogated with a pointed finger. "Stupid fucking Alan wrote the words, and I read them and thought, 'shit, in another life, these could all be talking about me,' what with all the being too afraid to go outside and play and shit like that, but you know what? I sucked it up. I sucked it up and put on a happy face and sang the words and people liked it and people liking it made me happy for real and in that moment as I was having the time of my life and finally getting the acceptance and attention I'd always wanted, I almost forgot that I was singing words that I thought made for the lowest of low blows! But I guess I shoulda been a crab-ass and done more to protest if singing it made you think I was cosigning on it!"
"And in what world would we hear you sing a song like that with a huge grin on your face and imagine you aren't cosigning on the lyrics? Of course I could have reasonably assumed that you looked down on the mayor for being an antisocial little crybaby!" Robin exclaimed with his hands in the air. "Christ, I never knew you were an adult thumb-sucker too!"
"I wasn't, but there's this thing called empathy, jackass! You might think I'm stupid for feeling bad for him about this, but P.J. ain't Hitler, and I can tell you from personal experience that his trouble making friends is one fucked-up thing about him that isn't his fault! Hell, maybe he wouldn't be such an asshole to everybody if somebody cared enough to teach him how to make friends!"
"Well if you feel so strongly about that, you can go ahead and teach him, but the fact of the matter is that he took his frustrations with his personal life out on millions of innocent people and they were negatively affected for reasons that were not their fault! Er-bloody-fucking-go, his friendlessness and his terrible personality are inextricably tied! I rest my case." Robin folded his arms and turned away from the bear he had thought was his friend. "Seriously, Johnny, well-adjusted people are supposed to be proud of their improvement… and part of that is admitting that they used to be worse. You were worse as a person when you couldn't make friends. Get over it. You're making an arse of yourself. I don't know why you're so ready to die on this bloody hill."
"...You really don't get it, do you?" Like a parent to their child, Little John had gone from sounding angry to simply sounding disappointed.
"What's there to get?" asked Robin, turning his head to face Johnny but not turning his body.
"We can't all be as socially gifted as you are, Rob." He was done yelling; he was speaking calmly if frustratedly now. "You don't seem to realize how lucky you are."
"Oh, is this the same speech I got yesterday from the zebra about how privileged I am!?"
"I mean… she was more right than wrong," Johnny said in a way like he was starting to pity Robin's ignorance. "The fact of the matter is I've seen the looks on peoples faces when you talk to them. They don't look at me that way when I talk to them. They don't look at most people that way when they talk to them."
"What, are you joining the club of people who think I'm a textbook sociopath!?"
"No, but you're acting kind of like a textbook narcissist right about now." It was almost spooky how plainly Johnny said that. "Most people don't find it as easy to charm people as it is for you. For a lot of us, it takes us years of hard work to figure out how to win even one person over. I don't think you understand that."
"Goddammit, Johnny, I told you time and time again not to beat yourself up over being behind me in that regard! They drilled social etiquette into my head in those damned classes my bastard biological father made me take! Stop being so frustratingly hard on yourself, man, it's not like I was born with some natural advantage-"
"Did they all turn out like you?"
Robin finally turned around. "What?"
"All the other kids in those classes. Did they all turn out like you? Socially perfect?"
"...Well of course not! Plenty of the other lads couldn't be bothered to pay attention, and Will told you himself that he would always just say sod it and skip class-"
"So some of them didn't get it but you still did."
Robin gave Little John a disgusted look before eventually shrugging again. "Yeah. What can I say? I was a quick learner. But I still didn't turn out 'socially perfect' as you say-"
"You could even say you had a knack for it."
"...Johnny, where are you going with this?" They both knew the answer to that question.
"Tell me: have you ever even once had social anxiety?" They both knew the answer to that question.
Robin tried one last time to get out of this insipid argument: "I've told you time and time again that I hardly had any real friends as a lad-"
"You've told me maybe half a dozen times in seven years. And even then you still had more than zero friends as a kid, which is more than I had for the first thirty years of my life. And even then the other kids still treated you decently and let you play with them instead of them going out of their way to destroy your self-esteem like they did with me-"
"Hey! I'll have you know that when we all became teenagers, all the other boys and girls went out of their way to tell me how much of a tall lanky freak I was-!"
"Is that it? Did they hold you down and beat you? Did they throw pencils and rocks and soccer balls and traffic cones at you? Did they threaten to follow you home, break into your house, shoot your dad in the head with their own daddy's shotgun and then rape your mother? Because they did all those things to me! A-and did they do to you what they did to me and apparently to that kid, too-?" Little John pointed toward the open door. "...Did they tell you to your face that the fact that nobody wanted you was proof that you were worthless?"
Robin didn't care to hear that. "Was the cruelty I suffered any less real just because it wasn't as extreme as yours?"
Johnny took a deep breath. "Well, some would say no, it isn't as real, but nevermind, I'm not gonna make that argument now… I've got a better question." And just as he had transitioned from being angry to disappointed, he was now moving on to looking downright hurt. "...Why is this the first I'm hearing about this? Why didn't you tell me that you had to deal with kids being dicks to you, too? Even if it was just pansy-ass name-calling… why did you withhold information that would have helped us relate to each other more as people?"
Robin was growing bored of this pity party. "Because I grew up and became a mature adult and got over the troubles of my upbringing. I don't think about it on a daily basis… Seriously, Johnny, why do you want me so badly to feel bad about not having it as hard as you?"
Little John felt exhausted, so he allowed himself to sit on the wolf boy's bed, which sagged under his weight but seemed in no danger of breaking. "You said they started getting mean when you became teenagers? So the only time that people were consistently mean to you was at a time of life when, just like Geoff told us, science now knows kids are biologically predestined to become temporary psychopaths? So take that out of the equation. You do have a natural gift for making people like you. Maybe it don't work all the time, but it works a hell of a lot more often than not and a lot more often than it works for most people. And I'm not trying to tell you that you should feel guilty about that, and God knows I'm trying not to be bitter about that, but here's what I'm getting at: you've proven that you don't actually know what it's like to be the rest of us. We're just not as lucky as you are. Maybe mine's an extreme example, but most people have a lived experience a lot closer to mine than yours. Fuck what that zebra said about you not being able to relate to poor people - I'm getting the gist that you can't relate to most people, because most people've experienced enough rejection in life to know that if you think that a person being completely lonely must mean one hundred percent of the time that they're lonely specifically because they give everyone a reason to hate them because making connections otherwise is just so fucking easy… most people would agree you're insane."
And Robin thought this conversation was insane, so he turned his back again and let Johnny be a crybaby all alone.
"And you know what's fucked up?" Johnny continued. "I made a conscious point to start taking cues from you… from you, and from what I remember of my brother, who was also one of those guys who didn't even understand the concept of social anxiety. Not exactly like you, he was more of a party animal than a ChArIsMaTiC LeAdEr…" - he delivered those two words with his tongue sticking out - "...but just like you, he never had trouble making friends, 'nless his excessive refusal to stress out over things got on people's nerves when he was a little too on. So I tried to tell myself, 'if I can't beat these guys, I'll join 'em,' and I musta done a good job of it, because I had people convinced the person I really am is this mix of you and my brother. And you know what's fucked up about that? It's that being completely fake's worked way better and given me far better results than thirty years of being 'myself' ever did. So much for people valuing authenticity."
Robin turned around for just long enough to deliver this line: "In other words, you were worse at being a person and then you learned to get better. Just as I've said a dozen times now."
"And you know what else is fucked up? People still prefer you to me. They can tell that I'm a damn good copy, but you're the real thing. And I have to live my life knowing my best isn't good enough compared to others who're just born with it."
"We all have limits to our talents, Johnny," Robin said to a bookshelf. "There's always going to be someone who's better than us at something no matter how hard we try. The rest of the adult world has come to terms with this and has found a way to be content with the talents we do have instead of being a sad-sack about not being great at everything. You're welcome to join us whenever you're ready. But in the meantime, remember that fighting for your right to be weak is not a showing of strength."
"But what talents do I have?" Little John asked it like it was a challenge to Robin rather than a plea to help him find something that he didn't think existed.
"My God, Johnny, you're a bloody adult. If you haven't figured out how to control your emotions and build your self-esteem by now, it's not my responsibility to teach you."
"I'm not asking you." Johnny realized it looked desperate to keep looking at someone who wouldn't look at him, so he turned to stare out the window. "I'm asking you to understand. I'm a blank slate, Rob. I freely fuckin' admit that. I wouldn't have been anything if I didn't try to copy you and my brother. The person I really am is completely uninteresting and unremarkable and having self-esteem in being that person would be a waste of time when I could try to be someone else - someone better than who I really am. Who I really am is someone who nobody would want to be friends with - except maybe a compulsive friend-maker who wants to be friends with everybody just because, like we're a friend collection you're building up and keeping under your bed. The person I really am is someone who… isn't even unworthy of love, just someone no one in their right mind would ever choose to love, and even though I'm good at pretending to be someone else now, the true version of myself is always gonna be a part of me. And if you think that makes me evil, well…" He turned back to Robin. "...then I don't really know what to think of you anymore."
Robin was growing impatient. He turned back to Johnny and threw his hands in the air. "I don't know what to say to you. You're interpreting everything I'm saying in the worst possible light. You know what? Fine. Maybe I do have natural charisma and leadership skills, and you don't. I still don't claim it's completely natural, but if you and everyone else disagree, then maybe you see something in me I don't see in myself."
The God's truth was that Robin really did believe it was probably a mix of nature and nurture; he was still the son of the (outwardly) slick and suave Scarlett, after all. But he didn't want to believe that it was entirely inherent in him. Partially this was because he didn't want his hypothesis to be wrong that his damned biological father had specifically wanted him to be someone who was all charm and no substance and that he wasn't just born like that, but also because it ran counter to his mission in life: if he had set out to inspire others to follow him in greatness, it would be a major wrench in the gears if it turned out that the elite social skills he had found so critical to his success really were something most people were hopeless to replicate. He needed to believe that this was a selfless endeavor because he didn't want to have to consider that he might have a narcissistic streak.
And in this frustration, Robin set out to keep vexing Little John: "But one way or another, I have those traits, and what we're doing requires a leader, so I'm filling my role because nobody else can fill it, and someone with as much emotional bloody baggage as you clearly isn't cut out for it!"
He turned away again, and - it sounds so stupid, but it's true - hearing himself say the word 'much' as a regular word in a sentence reminded Robin of you-know-who. And Robin stood there in that room remembering how he had once promised himself if he ever found someone as loyal as he had hoped Much would be, he would make a point to never treat that person as subordinate and to never make them feel inferior. But screw it, if a grown-ass bear six years his senior wanted to behave this childishly, Robin would make an exception.
"I'm sorry you're too insecure to accept that you can't have what others have," was the last thing Robin said for a while.
"But of course I'm insecure, Rob." Johnny was still keeping his voice low and calm. "I'm still that scared little boy who couldn't imagine in a million years that anybody would ever like a single goddamn thing about me. I'm somebody else, too, now, but that past version of myself doesn't just go away. I'm gonna carry it with me forever and it's always going to inform my decisions. It's alllllways gonna be inside me, Robin. I might be the kind of guy now who isn't afraid to sing karaoke, but when there's a bunch of us making merry and singing 'Come Sail Away' together, you're always gonna hear me mumbling the line about 'childhood friends and the dreams we had,' because my truth is that I never had such a thing and it's always just gonna hurt too much to say those words earnestly." He looked up slightly to see the model of the solar system in front of his face, and suddenly wished he was in the middle of deep space so he would never again be teased by the impossible idea of him having an interpersonal connection that wouldn't eventually fall apart. "And you know just how much of a born talker you are, Robin? ...You tricked me into thinking you saw something interesting in me that made you want to keep me around. But you and me don't have a single thing in common. You only wanted me to be your friend because I was around and nobody else was. I understand that now. You tricked me into thinking you wanted me to be your friend because of me."
Robin made no effort to either confirm or deny this; the greatest scholars in history could debate for centuries whether that was a wise decision on his part.
The central air conditioning finished its cycle and as the vent disengaged, nothing but the sounds of breathing were there to fill the dead air. Both silently wondered when that damned kid was coming back from the bathroom. Maybe he was too afraid to interrupt their arguing. Or maybe he was downstairs calling the police. Just as well; both of them would rather have been alone in a jail cell than with each other right about then.
Little John, doing what he thought was the mature thing, broke the silence: "You even gonna look at me?"
No response.
"...What, is it a British thing that you think the mature thing to do is to ignore people you're pissed at?"
No answer.
"Because over here, that just looks cowardly."
Robin wanted to tell Johnny off for daring to call him a coward after all that, but he didn't want this conversation to go on a second longer. So he just gave Johnny a nasty side-eye and went back to staring at a bookshelf.
"...Holy shit, you're embarrassed, aren't you?"
What the hell? Robin thought Little John was embarrassing himself by making such a stupid assertation if anything, so he remained silent.
"...You're embarrassed because I conclusively proved that you're not normal. And the thing that makes you not normal is something me and a lot of people would kill to have, but you're just realizing right now that you don't even know what it's like to be normal."
Just ignore him and he'll eventually get tired of talking, Robin told himself.
"My god, this is like if you had a sneaking suspicion that you had a porn-star package but you weren't totally sure, so you go walking down the street naked and you can tell by the way everybody's looking at you, yeah, you're hung like a horse. And you know they all know it, too. But even though you know it's a good thing you got going for ya, and in twenty-four hours' time you'll be feeling proud of it again, as you're walking down the street and everyone can see whatcha got goin' on… you're embarrassed that everybody knows about it now. Because even though a bunch a' people are gonna admire that thing about you that makes you special… there's gonna be a lot a' people who hate you for having something they can never have. And that, by the transitive fucking property, makes you realize that you're really never gonna know what it's like to be a normal person who wasn't born as lucky as you were. And come tomorrow, you're gonna be happy all over again that you're not a miserable wretch like the rest of us, whether that's never having to feel anxious or awkward in conversation or if that's having the genitals of Adonis. But for right now, you realize you're missing out on a key life experience that the rest of us have to go through. You're a freak in a way that people like - but you're still a freak. And you know that now."
A freak… you know, if Johnny had picked any other analogy in the world, Robin might have been crushed to be reminded of all those times that he had fretted as a child that he was turning into a monster, just like his biological father. But Johnny hadn't used any other analogy, he had used… well, uh… y'know, after leaving Loxley, Robin was no longer far and away one of the biggest blokes around anymore, but compared to his own people, and even compared to some moderately larger species… ahem… like, seriously, Robin couldn't tell whether that choice of simile was intentional on Johnny's part. Aw, if Johnny wanted to be a blubbering baby, Robin might as well give him something else to feel inferior about.
He was wearing one of his famous foxy smirks as he turned away from the open door to face the bear. "Funny you should draw that comparison, Johnny, because speaking of my own issues with being victimized, those mixed feelings about being a freak in the best possible way already occurred to me years ago in Year 10 when some lads half my size thought they could have a laugh by sneaking up on me and pulling me trousers down. Imagine their surprise!"
"...Okay, now you're just fucking with me!" Aaand Johnny was angry again, just like that.
"I'm just saying, Johnny, I know you've seen mine several times, including earlier today at Geoff's place! And you know I've seen yours! And I've secretly admired you for not being insecure about your own situation compared to mine, but as for me, well, I might have nothing on rhinos and elephants, but compared to my own people…" He chuckled. "...well, I can vouch for you to the gay-fearing yokels back in Tennessee that you definitely don't have an offhand knowledge of what an average fox rod looks like!"
"You are fucking with me!"
"Oops! Nevermind! Evidently you are insecure about how my fox widgie is bigger soft than your bear widgie is hard!" Robin couldn't stop chuckling. "I guess that seeing it again earlier must have inspired that comparison, eh? You're just scraping for things to feel inferior to me about! You silly little masochist."
"Yeah, no shit, ever since the first time I saw it all those years ago I realized 'oh, shit, I don't know how but this little shit's got another leg up on me,' but I got over it fast because A, I thought you were the kind of guy who wouldn't gloat about it, and B, I'd look like a fuckin' weirdo if I cared that much! You're such a fucking outlier that nobody in their right mind would feel bad not measuring up to a freak of nature like you!"
"Really? You just went on and on about how you felt inferior that I was endowed with social graces; makes sense that you'd be jealous that I was well-endowed with something else!"
"I'm not jealous! I'm flabbergasted that out of the fucking blue you tell me that you're a lot closer to porn-star territory than I thought and now you're bragging about it!"
"Johnny, silly old bear, I didn't say I was close to that territory, I said for my people I safely set the curve for that territory! And it was all inspired by you and that bizarre metaphor you came up with! Seriously, why are you acting so surprised by this? You've seen the bloody thing multiple times! Do you not understand the concept of proportionality? Or am I just so gobsmackingly tall that you've forgotten my people are only supposed to make it up to your belly button and everything else is supposed to be sized accordingly? Surely you didn't think it was standard for a fox to have a winkie even close to as big as that of a great big bear like you, let alone bigger-"
"I don't think about any of those things on a daily basis, motherf-!"
"Wait! You've only seen the slippery old snake when he's all slithery, haven't you? Oh, you've not seen anything until you've seen the flag at full-mast!"
"Jesus, Robin, do you kiss your fucking mother with that mouth!?"
"I kissed you with this mouth three hours ago, and now I regret it because you're being a petulant little child and this conversation is just the same as the one we had naked by the creek in the woods! Except ironically, then we weren't talking about our knobs!"
"You're talking about them! I talked about a hypothetical Ron Jeremy one!"
"And from my point of view, I thought you were talking about my real one since I've been told that I have the fox equivalent of a Ron Jeremy one."
"Who told you this? Marian!?"
"Johnny, don't worry about this. I'm an outlier, remember? Yours isn't embarrassingly small or anything, just… mine's off the charts! You'd think I stole this thing from a wolf, and a gifted one at that! But yours is perfectly decent-"
"I don't need you to tell me that! I know that! But none of this matters because I'm not even fucking using mine because I still don't have a clue how to just waltz up to someone and pop the question because I sure as shit haven't seen you do that, what with your undying devotion to a woman you've hardly seen in seven fucking years!"
"I've led by example to teach you everything you need to know about self-confidence and social skills. If you can't figure out the rest by yourself, that is not my failure as an educator, that is your failure as a pupil."
"Alright, Mr. Teacher-Person, here's a question for ya! Why're you going out of your goddamn way to make me feel bad about things that aren't my fault!? You always wanted to be a hero; do you think this is how a hero would behave!?"
"You went out of your way to shame me for having what you think is an inborn talent - which insults both the work I've put in to hone this skill and gives you an excuse to give up on trying to get to my level - and the talent in question is something that was integral to me becoming the hero I'm known as today! So yes, I do think it's heroic to get you to finally shut up about all this and stop demonizing the things that make me effective!"
"I'm not demonizing you for being somebody who can make friends with damn-near anybody, I'm telling you that you don't know what it's like to actually have trouble with that like most people do at least once in their lives, and that you should shut your goddamn mouth and know your place instead of telling us that it's some moral character flaw on our part for not just getting over it! Hell, next your skinny little ass is gonna tell me to lose a couple hundred pounds because staying rail-thin is so fucking easy for you!"
Alright, then. Time for the gloves to come off. Robin was gonna tell Johnny how he really felt.
"Johnny… let me tell you something. In the eyes of a lot of people, I am generic. There are plenty of people who would get along with me just fine in conversation, but never choose to be my mate - platonically nor romantically - because they get the feeling that I'm so good at talking with others about their lives because there's nothing to say about myself. All charisma with no personality. And then there are people who think I'm too cool for them to hang out with me because they think they'll bore me, and the fussy people who don't care for how laid-back I am, and introverts who just tire of me quickly - all people I'd have pleasant conversation with, but they wouldn't want to be my friend. Then you have all the people I'd never choose to hang out with because they suck, and so on and so forth… it is not that easy for me to make friends at will, all the time, forever! The other lads growing up might have been nice and let me play with them, but none of them ever chose me to be their best friend! I-I'm starting to get the feeling that those damned etiquette classes had specifically aimed to make us the most conventionally charming little lads while painting over any of the quirks that would have made us… people! And people might think of me as this cool guy who's fun and easygoing and who can talk anybody up, and for a lot of people that might make me a perfect man to have around, but for people who want more than that? Nope! What do I have to offer them!? You tell me, Johnny! What qualities do I have about me that make me more than society's vague idea of a cool guy!?"
And Little John didn't miss a beat: "Alright, so let's recap: you still are society's idea of a cool guy. You are what me and a lot of other people wish we could be. You're underestimating how often it happens that when we split up, people see me and that gets them talking about us and that gets them talking about you and they think I can't hear them, and I overhear them loud and clear gushing about how you're cool and composed and brave and bold and generous and gentlemanly and charming and chivalrous and handsome and hot, and how any woman in town would love to have you if not for your well-documented long-distance relationship. And it ain't just women who say these things; guys all over town are jealous of you, dude. And we'd love to put in the hard work to get ourselves to your level, but even if that is possible, we probably won't ever stand a chance against someone like you who might as well have been born cool as a fuckin' cucumber. So some people think you're boring. Or a little too careless. Or a little too on. So what? Very few people think your life is completely perfect, and what you've described is a small price to pay to have that fuckin' je ne sais quoi that still works on ninety percent of the population. So I don't know where these sudden worries are coming from - and for all I know, maybe they're my fault because I'm just such a Debbie fuckin' Downer that it's starting to rub off on you - but you really need my help to find your hidden depths? Well… for one, you're the kind of guy who'd rather keep arguing than admit you were wrong."
Robin didn't need to hear that. Bearing his soul had completely failed to win over the bear who had always complained the fox didn't bear it enough; in fact, the bear had barely entertained the thought that the fox's barenaked soul was even real, and honestly, the fox felt embarrassed. So maybe the fox was right the first time not to bear his soul to the bear… or maybe he needed to bear a little more.
"Goddammit, Johnny, have you ever thought of it this way? If I was so flawlessly magnetic, how have we not had any fresh blood join us in seven years? If I can make friends so bloody effortlessly one hundred percent of the time, then why am I always hanging out with YOU!?"
Robin and Little John had their eyes locked on each other's, and when the bear's eyes narrowed, the fox's pupils shrunk. Robin's eyes slowly crept up and up and up as Johnny slowly stood to his full stature all the way to the ceiling, a low growl emanating from deep within the bear's throat.
"...Th-that's not what I meant!" Robin couldn't help but wonder if he jinxed it when he said that this was turning into their naked argument by the creek.
Little John didn't say a word. He just walked closer to the fox, slowly, menacingly as he glared down at him, pushing the model of the solar system out of the way.
"Johnny, that's not what I meant!" Robin pleaded as he backed up, feeling in his pocket for his switchblade, then remembering he had transferred it to his other pocket since he was operating without the dexterity of his right paw now. He extracted the weapon and engaged the steel.
"YOU BROUGHT A KNIFE INTO MY HOUSE!?"
Robin dropped the knife in question as he jumped at the voice, and Little John's trance was similarly broken.
"Uh… he-hey, kiddo, um… h-how long you been standing there?" Johnny was the first to find the courage to ask the wolf boy in the doorway.
"Um… s-since about… the part where you were talking about Mr. Hood being embarrassed about, uh… realizing his social talents may have made him out of touch."
In other words, he had been present for them referring to having had an argument in the nude, referring to having kissed each other that very morning, and talking about each other's penises for three or four uninterrupted minutes. And he was feeling nauseated - not because he now thought these two were more than just friends (although you'd better believe he totally did think that was the case now), nor because he was a sheltered little prude who was afraid of sex stuff of any stripe and all this talk about reproductive organs in any unscientific way went far outside his comfort zone (although you'd better believe that was a part of it). Recall, Dear Reader, how earlier that same day, Double-D had begun to feel physically inadequate for the first time in his life upon discovering that innumerable non-skinnies had confessed a sexual attraction to the cartoon human version of Adam Bell, something that only augmented an impossibly compelling personality that Double-D could never compete with. So imagine how he felt hearing that many apparently saw Robin, a man trying his hardest to be the real world's answer to Adam, in precisely the same way that those people saw Adam. Edd had never stopped to think about whether Robin would be considered attractive, nor had he even stopped to consider that perhaps Robin's social graces really were something inborn in him rather than learned, but now that he heard Johnny say others thought Robin to be some sort of sex symbol on top of his magnetic charm (and Robin doing everything to corroborate this)… it made sense. Yeah, fuck it, Robin would probably be considered conventionally attractive on top of being considered charismatic and heroic by greater society - and that was no good for Double-D's sanity. It got him wondering all over again whether there really were perfect people out there whom he was hopeless to ever outdo - and wondering if he may have been staring right at one.
"I, uh… I was afraid to interrupt what seemed like a seminal moment between you two, uh…" (Double-D trailed off when he realized that 'seminal' was probably the worst word he could have picked; curse his vast vocabulary.) "But- I saw the, uh, that and felt like I needed to intervene."
The duo were both silently grateful that he had.
"I, er, I apologize for, erm, for drawing a weapon in your home, my good lad," said Robin as he put his knife away. "B-but, er, rest assured, I carry that everywhere, I didn't specifically take it along to bring into your home. It's necessary in our line of work! Self-defense and all."
"Um… that's quite alright, Mr. Hood." It wasn't sitting alright with him, but Double-D didn't think he had much of a choice in the matter. This man had brought a weapon into his house; nothing that could be done about that now.
"And, uh… about the things we were saying," said Little John, "...that all might have sounded weird out of context, but we-!"
Diiing-dooong!
Now all three of them flinched. The Merry Men turned back to their host.
"Hey man, just be honest with us," said Johnny. "Did you call the police?"
"What!?"
"Lad, genuinely, we won't be cross with you if you just be honest with us," Robin insisted. "After our argument, did you call the police on us?"
"No, no! I- really, I didn't!" said Edd. "I wouldn't want them knowing I willfully let two criminals into my house!"
Robin and Johnny both weren't quite pleased that Double-D still saw them as mere criminals, but considering their knowledge of this kid's paranoia about rules and punishment, they completely bought his answer - and time would tell soon enough that he hadn't been lying. They both were hoping to take just a couple seconds to formulate what they wanted to say next before speaking, but it seemed like somebody else wanted to have a word:
Diiing-dooong! KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK!
The three exchanged looks of various levels of confusion and nervousness.
"P-please stay here!" said the wolf as he grabbed his doorknob. "I-I genuinely don't know who this is, but I'll do my best to send them away quickly! I'll be right back!" He slammed the door and could be heard running through the hallway and down the stairs.
Robin and John just sort of blinked at the door for a few seconds, not knowing what to do.
"Hopefully it's just some ornery neighbors," said Robin.
"Or some really aggressive JWs," quipped Johnny.
They stood there in silence for another few moments before Little John remembered that this was a corner lot with two "front" doors on adjacent sides of the house, and that there was a fifty-fifty chance that he could see who it was just by glancing out the window.
"Johnny, don't! They might see you!"
"Yeah, and they might not see me, too. Weren't you supposed to be laid-back?"
The bear was very careful to try to angle himself as he looked out the window, to maximize his chances of seeing without being seen. And although the immense figure standing at the door was looking in the other direction, perhaps something in his periphery caught his eye, and just as it always seems to happen, he turned his head suddenly to look toward the boy's window.
"Shit!" Johnny cursed as he jumped away from the window. "Robin, get over here!"
"What? Who is it?"
"You're not gonna believe me if I just tell you."
Robin went over to the window, but as he drew near, Johnny, now sitting on the floor, signalled him to stop and grabbed a metal tray off Edd's experimenting desk.
"Stay down and try to use this as a mirror!"
Robin silently agreed that was a good idea. He found the right angle and could see a towering and rotund figure dressed in a pale tan, his attention now focused on talking to someone at the open door, though neither of the Merry Men could hear a word. The reflection wasn't the clearest, but he was pretty sure he saw all he needed to see.
"That's who I think it is, isn't it?" Robin asked as he put the tray down. From this point forward, they kept their voices down.
Little John nodded. "So did that kid lie to us or what?"
But Robin had another hypothesis. "...Or were we right the first first time? The first time we wondered if the lad was related to-"
"Oh, bullshit! Just because the kid's a gray wolf too doesn't mean they're related! This kid's too smart to be related to that dipshit! This kid's too average-sized to be related to that gigantic dipshit! And he straight-up said his uncle is banned from this house!"
"Would someone with his level of authority care for such rules? Certainly seemed like Edd wasn't expecting him… or anybody for that matter, like he just showed up at the door out of the blue."
"Well- for fuck's sakes, we know the kid's Italian! Not a Wolf Anglo-Saxon Protestant!"
"We know his father's side is. We don't know about his mum's."
"Robin. C'mon, now. We both know it's rare enough for Italians to marry non-Italians, there's no way they'd marry into a family of Virginia hillbillies. And that guy's twenty more redneck than I am, so there's no way he doesn't come from a family that wouldn't be cool with, like, if he had a sister or something that married an 'Eye-talian'. Advanced rednecks like that still don't trust the Catholics."
Robin kept pondering the clues. "Well… if neither of his parents cared for traditionalism… but the rest of their families did… didn't the lad say that his parents didn't keep close to his extended family? And that they particularly didn't trust his uncle because he was a bum?"
Little John's eyes shot open when Robin said that. Immediately afterwards, they heard footsteps below them. The new guest was now inside the house, and they could hear two different voices emanating through the walls. One of them was of course Double-D, but while they couldn't make out a word the other was saying, the vibrations through the walls made it clear that it was a vocal timbre they were all too familiar with.
"Actually…" Johnny wondered aloud. "Maybe there's… one tradition his parents played along with?"
"And what would that be?"
Little John paused to think one last time before he spoke, just to make sure he was right.
"The kid told us his name was spelled funny because it's a family tradition, right?" he asked, then pointed out the window to make clear that he was going to ask a question about the newcomer. "Remind me… remind me what old boy's full first name is? As opposed to the nickname he put on all the posters?"
Now it was Robin's turn to have his eyes pop open in epiphany. They had found their conclusive proof that their theory was correct.
"Eddward," said Robin solemnly. "Spelt with a double D."
