Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

you sat on the cliff where you last saw him, the guy you stupidly fell in love with.
it hurt, every small detail reminded you of him, the guy you fell for- the person who used to be the opposite of what he now is. a sadistic maniac.
you weren’t sure whether you were lovesick or whether you absolutely despised him, potentially a mix of both. though, you didn’t care to think, there was no point.

sometimes, you would think back to the adventures you both went on with the other three, and wonder how it all changed. from utmost fun, to desolate misery: and why tord did what he did.
although, that was something which you’d never be able to figure out- even if it was one of the things you desired most.

after the entire robot incident, everything went downhill. no more fun adventures like you all used to have, and barely any decent conversations. most of these said conversations were simple greetings from each other.
plus, tom’s alcohol problem seemed to get worse, yet that wasn’t even because of what tord did. he knew that the situation could have been prevented if edd and matt had just listened to what he had told them about tord being untrustworthy, non of that would have happened. you were to blindsided by love to even care nor listen to what tom said in the first place. additionally, he had been really distant. although everyone else had been, he was being especially distant.
it felt like the life was sucked out of nearly everything, even matt wasn’t admiring himself as much as he constantly used to waste his time on doing- and edd had lost most of his motivation to animate, only doing small amounts each day or so.
it broke your heart seeing the people you cared about most in such awful states.
you just wished that you could fix this all, or somehow turn back time and reason this all with tord.
but of course, that’s not possible. that’s what you tell yourself, at least.

——

it was sunset, and you decided to stay to watch the night sky reveal itself.
the sky was gorgeous, it was a pale yellow mixed with a mercury red; the sun golden as it was set to take its leave for the night.
you really treasured these moments which you got on your own- yet, surprisingly, edd hadn’t came to find you. you weren’t complaining though, usually, he would have set out to find you from wherever you were and to tell you to head home. it was basically his excuse for a “mini-adventure”. it saddened you seeing him doing small things like these to not only care for you, but to get out for once, considering no one wanted to do anything together anymore.
the adventures you used to endure may as well have been a fever dream, considering how they felt so unreal due to the drastic difference between them and the current hellhole of a reality you were living in. but, sadly, you would have to somehow realise that this was reality, and not some nightmare that you would soon awake from.

pushing those thoughts away, you stared at the sky and noticed how the moon had taken the suns place. the crescent glimmering behind the clouds as the sun’s light beamed from it.
the shape seemed oddly familiar to you- wording it like that was stupid, as it’s the moon. what you mean is that it reminds you of something, moreso a certain someone.
unexpectedly, you heard a familiar voice yelling behind you.

“___! there you are!” it was edd, you turned away to face where you heard his voice coming from, and there he was running up to you.
“oh, hey edd!” he smiled, in relief that you were okay. you shot a lazy smile back at him before standing up and glancing one last time at the moon.
“let’s go back to the house, for one it’s dark and two it’s cold.” he spoke as the two of you began to walk back to where you lived. it wasn’t exactly a long walk from where you were just and back to the house, yet it was a fair distance.
it was a peaceful walk back, you had one of those deep conversations with edd about certain topics that you’d have with no other. it was nice, edd and yourself had gotten significantly closer since the entire situation which happened a few months before. the two of you would usually have these meaningful conversations whilst alone, it felt relieving in a sense. you both got to talk about each other's feelings.
it was like a counselling session, but done by two unqualified dorks who still watched zombie movies at the age of eighteen.
“hey edd, do you ever wonder what tord is doing now?”
edd noticeably gulped at your question,
“i don’t really want to know.”
“probably in some drama school, practicing for when he comes back to apologise and tries to fool us again.”
the only response you got from your previous statement was a small chuckle, and for that, the rest of the walk was silence.

——

it had been a few hours since yourself and edd had returned home, yet there was still one question which was stuck in the back of your head.

where was tord?

its not as if he would be dead or anything like that, no, tord was cunning, of course he’d have some other plan up his sleeve. although, what he had pulled off last time was bad enough, you also wondered- did he have anything bigger, what were his plans; would he come back?
then again, him coming back was extremely unlikely. no one would forgive him for what he did the last time they all had seen him.
another thing you didn’t understand was, why did he do all of that? all you could think about was all of the good memories the two of you had together, even that one awkward time when he kissed you and edd just had to walk in- now thinking about it, where did that all go? did he use you?
so many questions sat within your mind, which you wanted an answer to, but couldn’t seem to grasp one.

you spent the rest of the night thinking and theorising about all of this, and all it did was drag you down into an even worse mood.
no, you never put together the loose ends, plus, there was no real point in doing so anyways. tord wasn’t coming back, end of.
eventually, you had given up with that and laid on your bed, averting your gaze to different parts of your room- specifically the pictures of you and the other three.
the fourth scribbled out.
in all honesty, you did miss him and you couldn’t help but feel guilt. you can remember him giving you a look of remorse and pure terror from the robot, you standing near the almost destroyed house, as tom aimed his harpoon gun at the head of it.
it hurt to think about, even just remembering him hurt, and you needed to get over him.
but how? he practically has ruined everything for you and your friends, yet you still felt bad for him.
a criminal, wanted for many things. you felt bad for a criminal.
a near murderer.

Chapter Text

IM REWRITING THIS CHAPTER TO FIT IN WITH THE STORYLINE I HAVE PLANNED OUT