Swallow The Moon | By : GhostHelwig Category: +1 through F > Ed, Edd, and Eddy Views: 9514 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0 |
Disclaimer: I do not own Ed Edd and Eddy, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story. |
Disclaimer – I do not own or profit from Ed, Edd N Eddy or “Broken”. The song belongs to Seether (&, I would assume, Amy Lee, for the version with her in it was kind of mixed with the regular version here) and the Eds belong to the Cartoon Network. Rated R for slash, foul language, violence, et all.
Special thanks, as ever, to darthelwig, for inspiring this story.
This chapter is dedicated to Ny Mosy on fanfiction.net (I swear I will not quit until this story is finished), and anyone else who has ever left me a review for this story. Every time I read someone’s opinions on my baby, I end up writing even more. You have only yourselves to thank for anything you like about this story-
Though feel free to blame me for anything you hate. (‘lol’)
There are two episodes referenced in this chapter are: “Little Ed Blue”, the one where Ed is in a foul mood, and “Who Let The Ed In?”, the one where Ed has an imaginary friend.
Anyway, enjoy. Peace, all.
Feel (Your Pain)
by Ghost Helwig
He was hidden in the branches of the tree, staring in Double D’s window. Every couple of minutes, the image of the dried blood on Double D’s shorts would rear up in his head and he’d have to grab the rough bark of the trunk to keep steady, to stop himself from falling.
Eddy only wished he’d been able to do that for Double D.
“I wanted you to know...”
Double D was just sitting quietly in the middle of his bed; if Eddy kept his body turned just right, he could peer through the branches at his best friend’s pale, drawn face. And that he did, needing the connection, needing to see, trying in vain to find an excuse not to believe.
Without warning, Double D buried his head in his hands and began to laugh, sobbing laughter that cracked up out of his body, lightning and thunder combined in the laughter of one innocently disturbed boy. Eddy swallowed, hard. In the few days he’d been watching Double D like this, that happened quite a bit.
“...that I love the way you laugh.”
He wanted to help, to so ease that obvious pain, to soothe that great distress, to mend Double D’s bleeding heart. But when he’d really realized what he was seeing that night, when he’d seen, really seen, he’d run. And how he didn’t know what to say, how to feel-
How to run back.
The despair he saw in every gesture Double D made, and even those he didn’t make – how could he take that away? He was not the kind of person who was capable of healing.
But he wanted to be. He wanted.
“I wanna hold you high...”
Double D’s slender fingers were tense, digging into his face, his long dark hair. Eddy wanted nothing more than to take those beautiful hands in his, to caress the soft palms, to kiss each abused finger, to worship until the end of time.
“...and steal your pain away.”
He had a picture in his room, taken when Double D was sixteen, of Double D sitting in that same position – legs drawn up, head resting on his knees. Only the picture had been taken outside, and rather than clenching his face his hands had been holding a single wildflower Eddy had, in a moment of pure whimsy, given to him. That picture had pained him when they broke up, pained him so much that he took it down.
“I keep your photograph...”
It pained him more now, when he could see it in his head, and see that softly smiling young boy in it replaced by this sobbing, broken thing before him.
“I know it serves me well.”
But it was good, to remember, to be reminded. It gave him a focus, something to hold onto, to guide him as he tried to find a way to dig them both out of this hell they’d fallen into. Thinking of the vast difference between the boy he’d known and the young man he saw now hurt him, but it also drove him on.
He owed it to that innocent boy to find out just what was wrong with that young man, and heal it-
If he could.
“I wanna hold you high...”
Because maybe... maybe if he were the one to heal Double D, maybe it would be his atonement for the pain he himself had caused Double D...
And maybe then...
Maybe then Double D would take him back.
”And steal your pain.”
Eddy was a selfish person at heart, he knew that, he’d always known that, and he was not above wanting this to help get Double D to come back to him...
And even if that didn’t work, even if Double D still didn’t want him, at least then Double D would be... okay. He’d be... himself... again.
That would be worth anything Eddy could give.
“Because I’m broken...”
And if Double D healed, perhaps he could as well.
“When I’m lonesome...”
The light in the sky was fading, drifting to black. Eddy could still see into Double D’s room easily, by the simple fact that Double D no longer turned off his lights. Night or day, his bedroom light was on, and once night blanketed the rest of the house he no longer ventured into it until the sunlight was streaming through the windows again. His fastidiousness was strong enough to keep him from keeping all the lights in his house on, but it was not enough to completely overcome his fear.
Eddy knew this, because he’d been watching for all that time.
And the light kept falling, fading, falling...
Soon the only light was the one shining around Double D-
But that, to Eddy, was only fitting.
“And I don’t feel light...”
He stared desolately in Double D’s window, squinting, desperate to see Double D more, to watch him for a little longer, to lose himself in the cherished feel of actually... feeling.
“...when you’re gone away.”
As he stared, a deep, undamaged part of him kept trying to draw his attention to one very simple fact: Double D’s body was in there, moving and laughing and crying and breathing, but Double D was not.
But he ignored it.
“You’re gone away...”
Double D was settling in for the night, curling up around himself as he lay in bed. Eddy watched him as he laughed-cried himself to sleep, wishing, wanting...
“You don’t feel me...”
He stared as Double D tossed and turned in bed, feeling trapped in the endless circle of his guilt, feeling that the thin glass that separated them was a chasm he could never hope to cross.
“...here...”
“I’m right here for you, Edd,” he whispered into the unfeeling night air.
“I’m right here.”
“...anymore.”
When he finally climbed down the tree, his body was stiff, aching in so many ways – and yet strangely numb. He leaned against the gritty, rough bark, his head pounding with pain, with a sorrowing hurt. How could he fix this? How?
And would Double D even let him try?
“The worst is over now...”
He had his eyes squeezed tightly shut, his hands balled into fists so tight they trembled, when he heard a soft voice speak up from behind him.
“You’re going to do somethin’ about it, arentcha’ Eddy?”
“...and we can breathe again...”
Without opening his eyes he muttered, “about what, Jonny?”
A shifting, a rustling of clothing, and what sounded like a quickly drawn breath were the only responses Eddy heard, for a long time. It was so quiet for so long that he thought Jonny might have left, and was contemplating opening his tired eyes to check when Jonny finally spoke again.
“I wanna hold you high...”
“...about the night Double D screamed.”
“You steal my pain away.”
Eddy’s eyes snapped open. He spun around to face Jonny, whose dark eyes glittered strangely through the shadows of the night as he clutched Plank to his chest for protection – those exactly whose protection, Jonny’s or Plank’s, was impossible to tell.
There was a sudden tightness in Eddy’s own chest, and he was absolutely certain it was responsible for the abrupt blurring of his vision. It had to be.
“There’s so much left to learn...”
It felt almost like anger, that strange, throbbing tightness. It felt like it – but he knew it wasn’t.
But he wanted it to be. He very much wanted.
“...and no one left to fight...”
And even if it wasn’t, that very fact made him angry, everything about his life made him angry, and the sudden flow of hot, raging fury through his veins was a twisted form of relief.
“...I wanna hold you high...”
With as much forced calm as he could muster, he growled, “what’re you talkin’ about?”
From the look on Jonny’s face, Eddy could tell he hadn’t expected such a reply. But he rallied easily, a quality Eddy recognized from their childhood – another warped bit of comfort, that.
“...and steal your pain.”
“Plank heard it,” Jonny said solemnly, his death-grip on his wooden best friend easing only slightly. “The other night, when he was taking a walk in the alley behind Double D’s house, he heard... he heard Double D scream.”
Remembering that eerie wail he’d heard in the junkyard, Eddy’s throat went dry.
“’Cause I’m broken...”
He almost couldn’t get the words out; even licking his lips didn’t help, didn’t soothe the desert inside him. Nothing could turn that dry, parched heat inside him into a verdant garden; nothing that his lips could give, at any rate.
Double D’s lips, though...
And it was perhaps thought of his absent lover that enabled him to squeeze those so-important words out of his barren mouth.
“D’you... d’you know why? D’you know why he... screamed?”
“...when I’m open...”
A quick – almost too quick – shake of his head was Jonny’s only reply.
But his eyes... Something in them spoke to Eddy, told him that the truth Jonny uttered with his lips was wrapped tightly around a vibrant, vibrating lie.
“...and I don’t feel like...”
And suddenly the anger wasn’t just flowing through his veins; it was flying. Jonny knew why Double D was suffering, he knew, and yet he did nothing...
Before either boy knew what was happening, Eddy’s strong hands were wrapped none-too-gently around Jonny’s slender throat.
“...I am strong enough.”
“You knew,” he growled as Jonny simply stood and stared with wide eyes, too shocked to do anything in his own defense. “You knew, and you did nothing. You worthless sack of-“
“Plank was scared, Eddy!” Jonny suddenly cried. “He couldn’t do anything!”
“’Cause I’m broken...”
Though it had gone on for as long as Eddy had known him, suddenly Jonny’s thoughtless, ceaseless dependence on that uncomplicated wedge of harmless wood unnerved and further angered him. Was everyone he knew completely screwed-up? How had he never noticed?
“...when I’m lonesome...”
“It wasn’t Plank, was it, Jonny-boy?” he spat bitterly. “It couldn’t have been Plank, because Plank isn’t real!”
Instead of responding, the boy whose neck he still held firmly just pulled his only real friend protectively closer.
“...and I don’t feel right...”
Eddy knew he should back off. He knew that. But once started, the flame of his temper had never been easy to cool.
And beneath all the anger and the violence, he could see the stain of blood, the lowered eyes of a beautiful and cowed innocent, the spill of dark hair across pale skin that would never again be his. And it just...
Broke him.
“...when you’re gone away...”
Thoughtlessly he shook Jonny, watching without really seeing as Jonny struggled and flailed, a fish doing its dance of death as it dangled hopelessly from the utterly ruthless fisherman’s hook.
“Why didn’t you save him?” Eddy screamed, screaming at himself as he screamed at Jonny, lost to all reason, all rational thought-
All hope.
“He was your fuckin’ friend, he was nice to you when the rest of us turned our backs, he defended you, you little prick!”
“...’cause I’m broken...”
Perhaps it was the shouted insults that finally did it, or maybe it was the shock of having been handled in a deliberately violent manner by someone who was, however distantly, still a friend, but all too soon Jonny was yelling right back at him, his voice as strained as Eddy’s was strident, as lost as Eddy’s was furiously determined.
“There was nothing Plank could do! He likes Double D, but he knows things, and he knew he couldn’t help! He wanted to, but he would’ve been killed!”
“...when I’m open...”
“By who?” Eddy growled. When Jonny’s lips snapped shut, it was all Eddy could do to not wrench them back open with his bare hands and pull as hard as he could on Jonny’s tongue until he told Eddy what he wanted – no, needed – to know.
Instead, as his mind roved over possible ways to break Jonny’s sudden telling silence, he remembered a different day, long ago, when Ed (oh, better not to think about Ed too much, that hurt, better to not) had been in his worst mood ever, until Jonny came by... And his eyes, quite literally, landed on the perfect solution.
“...and I don’t feel like...”
He released Jonny’s throat just so he could tear Plank from his arms, ignoring the younger boy’s forlorn, furious cry. Glaring and scowling and clutching Plank against him in a sick parody of how Jonny had held Plank earlier, he muttered darkly, his voice glazed with the kind of utter, hopeless loathing he usually reserved for Kevin and Sarah.
Some part of him mourned that he used this voice with Jonny now, but the rest of him was too busy feverishly raging to care.
“Plank isn’t real, Jonny. He’s no more here than Ed’s fuckin’ friend Jib. He’s a piece of wood, and wood can’t hear! You heard! You’re the one who knows what’s going on! You! Not this stupid bit of lumber!”
“...I am strong enough...”
Rather than answer, tears welled up in Jonny’s eyes – and that simple, open vulnerability drew Eddy’s voice down into a semblance of furious calm.
“I can’t help Double D if I don’t know what happened to him,” he bit out, the pain in his chest throbbing like a second heartbeat when he thought of how Double D had looked when last he saw him. “He won’t tell me. He won’t... he won’t talk to me.” If his voice broke then, if it shattered and fell to pieces on the ground, Jonny was too kind to mention it – or to draw attention to the fact that Eddy had to gulp back tears three times before he could continue.
“He would never leave you in the lurch like this,” Eddy said finally, bitterness evident in his tone. “He would never let you down.”
“’Cause I’m broken...”
They stared at each other for the longest time, dark eyes bruised and panicking, light eyes demanding and still intensely furious. With no effort at all, Jonny took Plank back from Eddy’s suddenly strengthless fingers, brushing imagined dirt from his best friend’s crayon face.
As he watched, and finally understood, Eddy could actually feel his heart get broken.
“...when I’m lonesome...”
Jonny turned away, but Eddy, panicked himself now, grabbed his arm and wrenched him back around. Pulling Jonny close, he hissed practically right into his face, shaking his trapped arm for emphasis.
“You saw something, didn’t you? That’s why you’re so afraid.” His eyes narrowed dangerously, flashing in the gloom with the heat of those perilously close to the edge-
And of the insane.
“...and I don’t feel right...”
“Tell me!” he snarled, and even though not even the darkness could hide the genuine fear in Jonny’s eyes he could not stop, could not let up.
“Tell me what you know!”
“...when you’re gone away.”
“Let me go!” Jonny cried, attempting to yank his arm from Eddy’s grasp. Inside Eddy screamed at himself, raged and blamed, but all he could do was hold tight, hang on-
It seemed that was all he could do lately.
“...’cause I’m broken...”
He hung on.
“...when I’m lonesome...”
And finally, finally, Jonny whispered the words Eddy needed so badly, so desperately, to hear.
“...and I don’t feel right...”
“I did see something,” he admitted, obviously frantic, but still aware enough of his surroundings to keep his damaged voice low as he imparted his secret.
“...when you’re gone...”
“Before Plank and I... before I heard Double D scream, I was walking by his house. And I... I saw someone go in.”
His eyes pleaded with Eddy to let him go, to let him stop, but this close to the truth Eddy could not be deterred. He glared, glowered until Jonny finally went on.
“...away...”
“...I left after that,” Jonny said. “And when I was passing by again about half an hour later, that’s when I heard it. The scream.”
Eddy was sorely tempted to shake him again, beyond furious for not receiving his answer-
When he realized with a start that he’d been concentrating so hard that he just hadn’t heard it.
“You’ve gone away...”
Suddenly nerveless and numb he let Jonny go, hearing from a removed distance the pounding of Jonny’s sandals on the sidewalk as he raced away, apparently not wanting to give Eddy another chance to trap him.
He needn’t have worried. Eddy was in no state to do anything to anyone.
“You don’t feel...”
A name kept running through his head, over and over and over again, a sick, twisted mantra that he didn’t want to hear. For no reason he could identify he felt sick to his stomach, the honest loathing in his body making a mockery of him. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.
“...me...”
But it had to be. And that meant...
That meant so much.
“...here...”
He dug his ragged nails into his palms as tears leaked from the corners of his eyes. This... This...
...was a fuckin’ nightmare.
“...anymore...”
“God, Kevin,” he whispered to the emotionless night, “how could you?”
While AFF and its agents attempt to remove all illegal works from the site as quickly and thoroughly as possible, there is always the possibility that some submissions may be overlooked or dismissed in error. The AFF system includes a rigorous and complex abuse control system in order to prevent improper use of the AFF service, and we hope that its deployment indicates a good-faith effort to eliminate any illegal material on the site in a fair and unbiased manner. This abuse control system is run in accordance with the strict guidelines specified above.
All works displayed here, whether pictorial or literary, are the property of their owners and not Adult-FanFiction.org. Opinions stated in profiles of users may not reflect the opinions or views of Adult-FanFiction.org or any of its owners, agents, or related entities.
Website Domain ©2002-2017 by Apollo. PHP scripting, CSS style sheets, Database layout & Original artwork ©2005-2017 C. Kennington. Restructured Database & Forum skins ©2007-2017 J. Salva. Images, coding, and any other potentially liftable content may not be used without express written permission from their respective creator(s). Thank you for visiting!
Powered by Fiction Portal 2.0
Modifications © Manta2g, DemonGoddess
Site Owner - Apollo