Disclaimer: I do not own Ed, Edd, 'n' Eddy.

Bones and Promises

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1

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"We have to go back, Edd. You were totally wrong about this shirt. I look like a douchebag."

"Unfortunately, Eddy, no article of clothing you own will alter that image. It is a innate characteristic of yours."

"Hey!"

The exclamation is punctuated with a swift, rough punch in the shoulder. Edd flinches, jerking the car back onto the road. Streams of rain are hastily flipped away by his wipers. "Do not physically assault the driver, please."

"The driver is an asshole," Eddy mumbles back, grumping at his reflection in the panel mirror. Mashing a hand along the gel-slicked dark hair on his head, the boy sighs. "I should have spiked it up. D'you think Nazz will be there?"

Edd would roll his eyes if he wasn't so strict about never removing them from the road, especially now with the rain beginning to fall so hard against the windshield, it's starting to sound like hail. "Ed, would you give Eddy's waning self esteem a little boost, please?"

"It's just the roller rink, Eddy." Ed, having to all but bend completely over to fit his massive height inside Edd's cramped Buick, leans onto the console between the driver and passenger seat. "Besides, I think you look great."

"That's wonderful coming from you, Ed. But you aren't the person I'm trying to impress." Eddy glares between his two friends. "You blockheads realize this is our last chance, right? This is our last summer before everyone leaves for college. After this, I might never get the chance to bone Nazz and I'm not letting the two of you ruin that for me."

"I am flattered you think so highly of us," Edd says from the corner of his mouth. Another punch to the shoulder nearly sends him over the center line, and definitely promises the beginning of a bruise. "Will you stop that! I am maneuvering a vehicle at night on dangerous wet roads and - "

"You guys are my best friends," Eddy says, ignoring the outburst as easily as if Edd hadn't said anything at all. To his credit, he is probably more than used to Edd exploding with his concerns. "You always have been. Always will be. No question. But if I go into the army a virgin and it's because of you guys, I'll make sure they never find your bodies."

Ed howls with laughter in the backseat. Edd, smiling, shakes his head. Somewhere between junior high and high school, Eddy's passion had switched from jawbreakers to girls and his pursuits to obtain them were about as successful. Other than a hilariously brief fling with Lee Kanker sophomore year, Eddy - and the other Eds, for that matter - have yet to actually develop any kind of dating history. It isn't surprising to Edd as to why; although their days trying to scam the other kids in the cul-de-sac had been left behind, their collective maturity is still hovering at that level more often than not. Girls just aren't into childish boys.

That's fine with Edd, really, because he's not much into girls.

Not that he's into boys, either. At least, he doesn't think so. It doesn't bother Edd one way or the other, since he's never really had any desire to be in a relationship period. His parents' marriage is dry, more professional than anything, considering the business they started together. Every other example he has to go on is the ones he saw at school, which are so ridiculously dramatic and stressful just observing from a distance that he's sworn to stay as far away as he can, honestly.

He has much more important things to think about anyway, now that graduation has come and gone. Like his application to Hane, for example, the leading university in furthering scientific education. There isn't any room or time for Edd to be thinking about girls or boys because, like Eddy said, this is their last childhood summer. He wants to enjoy it.

It still catches him by surprise sometimes, like now, when he thinks about the fact that the three of them are actually adults. High school graduates, each heading in three different directions - Edd is going to college, Ed is immediately joining the work force, and Eddy swore into the military last month. They're on the cusp of permanent change and it's scary. It's saddening. Glancing sidelong at his friends, now engaged in animated conversation, he can still see them as they were ten years ago, shorter but just as strange, playing street hockey and charging their neighbors a quarter to get their new clothes washed in a dirty pond.

Eddy's still pretty short compared to other guys in their grade, but he's buffed out significantly since deciding to join the army. Ed, on the other hand, just kept growing and growing through high school. Edd had used his friend's freakishly fast growth as a project junior year for anatomy, actually. Edd himself hasn't changed much, either; taller, heavier, but still the bookworm perfectionist he always had been. Physical changes aside, however, they are much the same as they had been since they had first met. Stupid, carefree, weird and reckless boys with a general disregard of the safe and normal.

This is it. This is the last summer they have before they will be thrust into the real world. No more roller rink visits, no more lounging in Eddy's garage playing Black Ops well into the morning, no more attempts at patenting their own brand of energy drink. Three months from now, they would all be separated.

Senior year was all about preparing him for the moment he would leave this old life behind and start a new one, but he doesn't feel ready. He's not sure he ever will be.

Edd blinks hard, flicking his eyes away, and is about to say something to distract himself from the sudden surge of sentimentalism when he sees something lying in the middle of the road.

He brakes unnecessarily hard. Eddy slams into the dashboard, swearing loudly. Edd would have chastised him for not wearing his seatbelt but he is distracted by the twisted mass of metal smearing the street. Squinting, Edd throws the car into park.

"Jesus Christ, Double D! What in the hell -"

"Look." Edd points. Ed and Eddy follow the direction of his finger. "What is that?"

Eddy leans toward the windshield. It's dark, but the yellow flood of the car's headlights encircles the wreckage. "I don't know. Garbage that fell of someone's truck, looks like."

Unconvinced, Edd releases his seat belt and pops open the door. Rain and - yep, that's definitely hail - pelt against his hat. Standing with one leg out, he continues to stare, trying to make sense of the damage. "I think it is - was, a moped. A motorcycle, perhaps."

"What?"

"A motorcycle. It looks like -" Edd gasps, his eyes following the sharp diagonal line the bike had taken when coming in the opposite direction. Lying on top of the ditch is the mangled remains of a tire. He can see it all in his head like a video replay, with all of the obvious factors playing a part - the wet roads, the likely breaching of the speed limit, the limited field of vision because of the rain. "Someone crashed!"

He hears the doors open behind him, but Edd is already sprinting toward the ditch. The wet grass nearly sends Edd slipping into it himself, but with a frantic wheeling of his arms he manages to catch himself. At first he sees nothing but mud gathered at the valley of the ditch, a splintered log, but then - there, something red. A shoe.

"Oh, gods." Edd slides farther into the ditch, grabbing the shoe in one hand. "Hello! Is someone out there? Are you hurt?"

Eddy slams into Edd's back as he joins him in the ditch. "Dude, stop freaking out."

"Someone is injured out here, Eddy!"

The shorter boy walks around him. Looking to the shoe still gripped in Edd's hands, he shrugs, scanning the ground with disinterest. "Maybe they're already gone," he says, following the ditch. "Maybe it wasn't as bad as it looks -" Eddy jumps back abruptly, arms shooting in the air. "Holy shit -!"

"Hey!" Ed points from where he stands, drenched in shadows from the car's headlights. "I think you just stepped on a guy!"

Pushing Eddy out of the way, Edd squints down. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust, but a vague human-like shape is eventually visible against the mud. The person is wearing all black, a helmet, face down. One shoe is missing, the other darkened with mud and rain.

"Oh, oh, Ed, call an ambulance!"

Ignoring the sticky, unsanitary ground as much as he can, Edd kneels beside the fallen person. Eddy mimics him on the other side, immediately reaching for the arm.

"Careful! He could have a broken neck or something, we don't want to move him too much -"

"They keep asking me what information I want, Double D!"

"That's 411, you idiot," Eddy screams, wiping rain from his eyes. "It's 911." Turning back to Edd, he puts his hands back on the person's arm. "We gotta flip him over, Edd. Help me."

"Oh my, okay, just, be very, very gentle."

"Roll him toward me." Eddy grabs the opposite arm, urging Edd to put his on the person's shoulder. "On three, 'kay?"

Edd, hands shaking, nods. "Okay."

"One. Two. Thre-"

An inhuman noise comes from the helmet as soon as Eddy picks him up. Edd loses his grip altogether, jumping back in fright. "You're hurting him!"

Eddy doesn't stop. Stepping backward, he manages to get the stranger on his back. Apparently conscious now, an arm raises weakly to grab at his chest. His groaning is muffled.

"Sir? Sir?" Edd finds the man's hand and pulls it away from his chest. "I believe your shoulder may be broken. An ambulance is coming, sir."

The man is breathing heavily, erratically, his groans never ceasing.

"Hey, dude, I'm gonna take off your helmet, okay?" Eddy places both hands on either side of the man's head. "Help you breathe a little."

It's unclear whether the grunt is affirmative or not, but Eddy pulls the helmet off anyway. Rain has blurred Edd's vision and he has to blink it away, squinting against the dark. "Sir? Can you say anything?"

The man turns his head away from the rain. Without thinking, Eddy braces over him, blocking most of the pour with his body.

And then he sees it. Sees him.

"Oh, oh gods." Coming closer, he touches the young man's face with one hand. Red hair. Green eyes. Even with the dark and the rain and the fact that he hasn't really spoken to this boy since high school began, Edd would know that face anywhere.

He did, after all, grow up right across the street.

"Eddy," he says, twisting to find his drenched friend's eyes. "It's ... it's Kevin."

"What?" Eddy leans closer. "Kevin?"

The boy grunts in response.

"Holy shit." Eddy shoves Edd out of the way. "Holy shit, it is Kevin. Dude, okay, help is coming. Are you okay?"

Kevin turns his head and looks at both of them, but it doesn't seem like he's actually seeing them. He croaks something, face twisting in pain.

"What was that?" Edd leans closer, turning so his ear is next to Kevin's mouth. "Please, repeat."

"My knee," he whispers, groaning again.

Edd shifts his attention to Kevin's legs. With the black pants it's hard to distinguish where his knee even is. "It hurts?"

"It kills." Kevin hisses, trying once more to reach for his shoulder. It's only then that Edd realizes he's still holding his hand. Gently pulling it away, he leans over Kevin again, blocking the rain.

"Just lie still. It's going to be all right, Kevin."

Kevin's eyes close. He whimpers, soft and hurt.

Edd squeezes his hand. To his surprise, his neighbor, his childhood bully, squeezes back.

"Ed!" Eddy scrambles back up the ditch. "Where's that ambulance?!"

A/N: Fear not, readers, I have not perished!

I lost my writing muse for a while there, but I owe its return entirely to the Kevedd ship. Shit's like fucking cocaine.