Hidden Truths

By: Yuki Mizuno

Summary: During a dramatic encounter with Eddy's older brother, Double D begins to question a lot of things about himself, trying to determine what was wrong and how they could fix it. They finally concluded what the problem was, but then began to feel extremely nervous about the answer… Would her two friends support them with what they were thinking and feeling? What about everyone else she knew? There was only one way to find out…

Note: The first few chapters take place during the Big Picture Show. There are quite a few differences between this story and how the movie handled the ending. The kids of the Cul-De-Sac decided to travel in one big group to hunt down the three Eds and the Kankers are nowhere to be seen.

It was a somewhat quiet, peaceful night here in the little town of Sunflower Shoal as we soon came upon the site of a busy amusement park called Mondo-A-Go-Go. It was on a tall cliff beside the amusement park that we could see a construction-like setting. And it was here that we could see three boys, all of them sleeping on the ground around the area. These three teen boys were the Eds, who were all on the run from their fellow neighbors.

Anyway, we then could see one of the three boys; the middle of the three nicknamed Double D, starting to toss and turn in his sleep. A nightmare was plaguing his mind…

"No… P-Please stop…" Double D muttered as he tossed and turned even more, "W-Why do you—?!"

Double D suddenly jolted up from his sleep, screaming a bit as he did; sweat dripping down from his forehead that was mostly covered up by his beanie, "Oh… I-It was just a dream," he muttered as he regained his regular breathing pattern, placing his right hand on his chest as he did.

Soon Double D looked at his surroundings once more; noticing that the jar of fireflies was still there, the fireflies fluttered around inside the jar. Double D made a sigh as he got up to walk over to the jar of lit fireflies, sitting down in front of it as he did, 'Why did I have that horrible nightmare…?' Double D thought to himself, 'Is it because it is sort of similar to what's happening now…?'

"… Hey, Sockhead," stated a voice behind him, making Double D jump a little in fright. He turned around to see both Ed and Eddy standing behind him, with Ed rubbing his eyes a little in tiredness.

"Your screaming woke us up, you know," Eddy started to say, his eyes narrowed a little with irritation at him, "We'd thought the kids had caught up with us."

"S-Sorry…" Double D apologized, looking away from them a little as he did, "I just… had a bad dream, that's all."

"A bad dream…?" Ed questioned a little, "Like with aliens or zombies?"

"Not exactly, Ed…" Double D started to say as he looked back to the other two Eds, "It was about something that happened to me when I was six…"

"… Really?" Eddy replied with an arched eyebrow; now he was curious. Double D never really talked much about his past to them before, "What was it?"

Double D looked at Eddy with a bit of a surprised look on his face, "I-I'm not sure you would want to listen—"

"Of course I'll listen!" Eddy stated back as he sat down beside Double D to his left, "Now, spit it out already!"

"Ooo, story time!" cheered Ed a little as he sat down beside Double D's right.

"… Heh, very well then," Double D stated with a small smile as he looked towards the jar of fireflies in front of them, "Before I moved to Peach Creek, I was living here, in Sunflower Shoal. When I was in elementary school here, almost all the kids picked on me during P.E. class; especially during the days we had to play dodgeball. I was an easy target for them, being that I wasn't very strong or very big back then… Well, not that I got any stronger, but you can see my point."

Double D gripped onto his shirt for what he was going to explain next, "So one day, I decided that I try to turn the tables towards me to make me win at least one game of dodgeball. I built a type of 'dodgeball cannon' from paper Mache and barbed wires and brought it to the gym class. But when I tried to use it…" Double D paused for a moment before he reached up to his hat, proceeding to take it off his head, "It malfunctioned on me, and blew me back towards a wall behind me."

It was then that we could see what was under Double D's beanie; a long scar that was just above his right eyebrow, it horizontally went all the way towards his forehead, where his blond hair's bangs began on his head.

"Unfortunately, a piece of the wall that I crashed into hit me on my head and left me with this scar. The doctors told me that it would never properly heal or go away…" Double D continued to explain, "At the time, I did not care about how my scar looked until I went back to school. Everyone continued to mock me; even more so because of what happened. I also remember the kids laughing at me that day when I was hurt, hearing them all before I passed out…"

Double D brushed some of his hair aside that was near his scar before putting his beanie back on, "After what happened, both Mother and Father decided to move to Peach Creek, to get away from Sunflower Shoal and start anew," he stated as he looked toward both Ed and Eddy, "And then I met you two soon afterward."

Both Ed and Eddy were silent after they heard the story; they never thought that Double D had such a rough past…

"Aww! Poor Double D!" Ed soon started to cry as he took Double D into one of his famous Ed-Hugs, "Will a hug make you feel better?!"

"Y-Yes Ed, but it's all in the past now," Double D muffled a little as he squirmed a little from the hug from Ed, "Now please release me before you asphyxiate me."

"… Oh," muttered Ed a little as he soon let Double D out of his hug, "Sorry!"

"It's quite alright," Double D replied to him as he then turned a little to Eddy, "Well Eddy, are you satisfied?" he asked, "You've always wanted to know the reason why I have my scar, right?"

"Huh?" Eddy muttered before making an angry face, "Uh… of course I'm satisfied; you don't need to keep that kind of stuff to yourself for a long time, you know? You need to talk about it!"

Double D looked at Eddy with a bit of surprise at his response, but only made a small smile back to him, "The only reason I never told you was because I was unsure if you would ever try to blackmail me."

"H-Hey! I wouldn't do that to you!" Eddy retorted.

"Don't worry, I know this now," Double D chuckled, "Honestly, it sounded like you speak from experience with needing to talk about past secrets," Double D started to say, "Is there something that you never told us about, Eddy?"

"W-What?!" Eddy questioned back with shock as he widened his eyes, "No way! I ain't hiding any kind of secret! Honest!" he responded defensively, shaking his head a little.

Double D made a small sigh; he could read Eddy like an open book sometimes, 'Now I wonder what he's hiding…' he thought before replying, "Very well, you don't have to tell us yet, but just know that we'll be here to lend you an ear. Take your time."

"Uh… sure thing," Eddy replied with a small grumble.

Soon the two Eds could hear a loud snore coming to their right; Ed had fallen asleep from where he was sitting, now lying back down on the ground, "Looks like Lumpy got tired again," Eddy stated.

"I don't blame him for being tired," Double D stated, "It's been a long day for all of us."

It was then that Double D soon lifted his left arm to see the time on the wristwatch he had on, "Oh dear, it's one o'clock at night; we better get back to sleep so we can start an early search for your brother's place."

"Oh right," Eddy replied to him, nodding his head in agreement.

The two soon lay back down on the ground from where they were sitting, with Double D going back to sleep as soon as he did. But Eddy soon thought about something before going back to sleep, 'Maybe I should've told them about my brother…' he made a small sigh as he closed his eyes, 'Hopefully he's changed his way since I last saw him… At least, I hope so,' a sad face formed on his face for a short moment, 'I don't want anyone to know how awful he really is, but I can't help it this time. I gotta protect Double D and Ed from him…'

Eddy's face began to soften as he finally began to doze off, "I gotta protect them, no matter what."

Author's Note (July 4th, 2024): Wait, huh?!

Don't worry, I know what you're thinking right now.

"Yuki, didn't you already write this first chapter as a one-off a million years ago? Why are you posting it again under a different name?"

Well, my answer is this, "I wanted to extend this one-off without posting another chapter on said story, so I'm typing it up as its own thing!"

That's basically it. I wanted to work on this idea last month, but I didn't have time or concentration to commit to it, despite it being June then.