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Swallow The Moon	By : GhostHelwig Category: +1 through F > Ed, Edd, and Eddy Views: 9539 -:- 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.

Chapter List
- 5
- 6
- 7
Disclaimer – I don’t own Ed, Edd N Eddy or “You Were Meant For Me.” The Cartoon Network owns the Eds, Jewel owns the song.
Special thanks, as ever, to darthelwig, for the inspiration.
Rated R for no particular reason in this chapter. Well, there is some swearing. Very slashy, too, but I’m sure you already knew that.
If you’re interested, the memory Eddy references took place in the episode called “Your Ed Here,” the one where Kevin discovers Eddy’s middle name.
After You’re Gone
“I hear the clock; it’s six a.m.”
Stupid alarm. Eddy leaned up to slap the off button, but instead he knocked the clock to the floor, its wire yanking out of the wall. The resulting crash was rather satisfying, almost making up for the fact that it had woken him up too early after he’d gotten too little sleep.
Almost.
“I feel so far from where I’ve been.”
A week had passed since that night in Double D’s room. It had been the longest, hardest seven days of Eddy’s life.
“I got my eggs, I got my pancakes too.”
He knew he had to get up soon, but he couldn’t bear to make himself move. He had so many things to do-
And not one of them really mattered.
“I got my maple syrup...”
Everything in his life was coming together. At the end of the summer he’d start college. Today he’d be visiting the campus, learning the layout, maybe checking out the dorms.
“Everything but you.”
He and Double D had been going to get a room together. Somehow, though they’d never discussed it (or really anything since that night), he knew that wouldn’t be happening now.
“I break the yolks...”
It was his own fault. He’d broken everything. But wasn’t that what he was best at? Breaking everything he touched?
It was pure luck, a miracle even, that he hadn’t broken Double D.
“I make a smiley face.”
And he had to pretend, today, that everything was still alright, because against his oft-repeated wishes his mother was accompanying him on his trip. She seemed to feel it was her duty. He resented her for it-
But then he thought of Double D’s parents.
Did they even realize that their brilliant son had sold himself way too short and enrolled in a community college instead of any of the Ivy League schools that had accepted him (and all of them had)? Did they realize he was leaving, that he was old enough for college?
Did they care?
“I kinda like it in my brand new place.”
But why was he thinking about Double D right now? It was time for him to focus on his own life, to salvage what he could from the wreck he’d become.
“Wipe the spots off of the mirror.”
He was in his bathroom staring miserably at his own reflection when it hit him. Double D had stayed in town for him. He’d given up the best education he could have had (and Eddy knew how much education meant to him) – and it wasn’t even the first time, either. Whenever teachers or principals had wanted to advance him early he’d refused, citing his already shaky physical confidence as an excuse; but Eddy knew the real reason. It was him.
And Ed, yes. But Double D had chosen this dinky college that surely couldn’t challenge his intellect or teach him anything just so he could be with him.
And Eddy hadn’t even tried to stop him.
“Don’t leave my keys in the door.”
He walked out of his room, clean, dressed, and numb. Sacrifices. Double D was capable of a great many. He was not.
“I never put wet towels on the floor anymore ‘cause...”
He’d tried to give, to change, to compromise at least a little. He was certainly cleaner, now, and neater than he’d ever been. But it wasn’t enough. And it never had been.
“Dreams last so long...”
How had he ever thought they could work? He really wasn’t any good for Double D. He knew that now.
“Even after you’re gone.”
But he still wished that things were different. He wanted Double D in his arms at night, a silky-smooth, sweet-smelling, sweet-tasting bundle of passion and joy and heat. He wanted Double D around during the day, chastising him and reasoning with him and softening it all with one look from those beautiful eyes of his. He wanted Double D in his life again.
“I know that you love me...”
And Double D was missing him, too. He knew it; he could tell. One look in those pearly dark eyes and he could tell everything.
“And soon you will see...”
Double D couldn’t stay away forever. He just couldn’t. He’d break. Sweet, forgiving Double D could not stay mad forever.
“You were meant for me.”
But then, finally, it hit him-
Was Double D’s ceaseless, heartfelt, limitless forgiveness that asked for nothing in return truly a good thing?
“And I was meant for you.”
He was in the front seat of the car, now, having convinced his mother to let him drive. Ostensibly he drove so he could learn the route – what his mother didn’t know was that he’d driven there many times before with Ed and Double D. Ed would be in the back, rambling about how chickens should rule the world and playing little games with himself and chattering away happily. Double D would be sitting in the passenger seat, talking or not as his mood dictated, but always smiling at him with that little smile that made Eddy feel like the world was coming undone around him but he would be fine.
And Eddy would find himself thinking that if the car crashed at least they’d all die together.
“I called my momma...”
Mom, he wanted to say, I fell in love with my best friend. You know, Eddward? The one you always wanted me to be like? Well, I’m in love with him. But I hit him, too. I betray him in public, just like when we were kids and I told everyone his middle name. Only now we’re older and he expects better. Hell, he deserves better. But I can’t be better. So he left me, Mom. He left me and I’m going crazy without him.
Could he say that, any of that? He looked over at her, watched her staring blindly at the road ahead of them. He’d always thought her to be a very pretty woman, but right now she resembled nothing so much as a wall.
“She was out for a walk.”
“Mom,” he began haltingly. It was a while before she glanced over at him, but even then she looked right through him; just as she always had.
“Yes, dear?” she asked. “Did you say something?”
“Nothing, Mom.” Eddy’s hands clenched on the wheel, whitening his knuckles as he gritted his teeth, blinking his eyes against the tears that threatened. “It was nothing.”
“Consoled a cup of coffee...”
He tried again at lunch, his hands wrapped unnecessarily tight around the vanilla milkshake in front of him. His mouth was dry as sandpaper but he knew better than to take a sip. Though the condensation on the glass felt heavenly on his hot fingers and shakes were always a favorite, he knew that he couldn’t drink anything. The lump in his throat was too big to swallow around.
And ever since Double D had left him everything tasted like acid.
“But it didn’t wanna talk.”
A good diet, that, he supposed. Lose Double D, lose all will to eat. Or drink. Or speak.
“Mom,” he finally managed. She looked up from her half-eaten hamburger, and his stomach turned. To escape the nausea he met her closed-off gaze-
And froze.
“So I picked up the paper...”
A light had gone on in his head at the look in those eyes he knew so well. It was not a pretty light, no, it wasn’t pretty at all.
Because he knew that she knew.
“It was more bad news.”
His mother knew. She knew about him and Double D. And yet she’d never said a word. No condemnation. No questions. No worries.
No comfort. No encouragement. No anything to let him know she knew and still cared.
No hope.
“More hearts being broken...”
“Why, mother?” he asked, falling into the formal speech he’d picked up from Double D. His mother pursued her lips (recognizing the speech? he wondered. Recognizing and disapproving? Betcha’ wish now that you hadn’t encouraged me to spend so much time with goody-two-shoes Eddward. Betcha’ won’t compare me to him now), but for a long time she said nothing. Nothing at all.
“Or people being used.”
Finally she resumed eating. Eddy waited, he tried to, but soon he’d had enough. He opened his mouth, but she chose then to speak, to condemn them both with one single, harsh sentence, four words that destroyed a lifetime.
“Don’t tell your father.”
“Put on my coat in the pouring rain.”
His world crumbled around him, but he wasn’t even surprised – it was a stack of cards he’d known had to fall. His glue, his foundation, was gone, lost when he lost his temper.
He tried to smile, to press his lips into service. If he smiled it meant his walls were back up, he was protected. And he needed to be protected, protected from the disgust and disappointment in his mother’s eyes.
From the look on her face it had worked. He was smiling.
“I saw a movie; it just wasn’t the same...”
He was pretending, he was an actor. He was a liar. He knew that, he’d always known that.
He glared at his mother’s back as they crossed the campus. She’d made him into a liar. It was one thing to be nervous about telling his folks, it was quite another to be informed by one that he must lie to the other.
Oh, who was he kidding? He was already a liar. He’d lied to their friends, lied and made Double D alone out to be the different one, lied and lost his lover for it.
“’Cause it was happy...”
But he smiled when people passed him, he smiled at his mother, he smiled like he was alive.
“Oh, I was sad...”
His face was beginning to hurt. His lips rebelled at the lie, tried to fall; his eyes rebelled at the lie, tried to cry; his very skin rebelled at the lie, tried to tremble. He didn’t allow any of it.
“And it made me miss you oh so bad...”
He wanted Double D. God, it was so simple but so true. He wanted Double D. His best friend, his lover, his love. The one person in the world who could see through all of his lies and love him anyway.
It turned out that even his parents couldn’t do that.
“’Cause dreams last so long...”
But why was he wasting his time thinking about that again? It didn’t get him anywhere. He had to let it go.
He had to let Double D go.
“Even after you’re gone.”
But he could remember everything about him so well. The way his eyes would go big and moist if something kind was said to him (which was rare, too rare)... His hipbones, nature’s perfect handholds, which fit his own hands so perfectly it was as if his palms and Double D’s hips had once been connected... The rich beauty of the long hair he always inexplicably hid...
Eddy could almost feel him, his sweet, supple warmth and his gentle, soothing, silk-skinned beauty. And the memory of his feel was almost enough to hide the cold emanating from his mother.
“I know that you love me.”
She got out at home and entered the house without looking back at him even once. For a minute Eddy just stared after her.
He thought again of Double D’s parents. Perhaps they weren’t the only parents in the cul-de-sac who didn’t give a damn about their son.
“And soon you will see...”
At least he knew, now, where he stood. He could leave this place with a clean conscience.
Well, almost clean.
“You were meant for me.”
It figured, though, that his parents were different but still somehow the same as Double D’s. Not similar, but not a flip side, either – just like him and Double D.
“And I was meant for you.”
Soulmates. He knew that’s what they were. But even if it would save his life he doubted he could say it aloud.
To save his relationship with Double D, however...
“I go about my business.”
He went straight to his room, idly began looking through his record collection. He put something on, sat down on his bed, and had listened to the whole thing when he realized he hadn’t heard a word.
“I’m doin’ fine.”
The following silence was almost welcoming, almost comforting, and Eddy hated silence. But the only voice he wanted to hear was Double D’s, and that just wasn’t going to happen.
“Besides what would I say if I had you on the line?”
There was nothing he could tell Double D, anyway, nothing he could do that would make this any better. It was over.
“Same old story...”
He turned over onto his stomach, hugging a pillow to his chest, to his face. He could almost smell Double D’s special, oh-so-familiar scent. It comforted him, turned him on, and made him ache.
“Not much to say...”
All of which annoyed him. This was over, right? So why wouldn’t it end?
“Hearts are broken every day.”
He got up to shower quickly, mechanically. Why wouldn’t this day – and his life – just end already?
“I brush my teeth...”
He stared into the mirror above his sink, and without really noticing he used his towel to wipe down the reflective surface that held him so captivated. Double D still hated things that were messy-
Which made Eddy wonder if maybe now Double D hated their former relationship. Nothing in either of their lives had been messier than that.
“I put the cap back on.”
He studied the mirror. Clean. Good.
He noticed, then, what he was doing, but though it irritated him he had to smile, his first sincere smile all day. If they were still together, Double D would’ve been so innocently pleased with him.
“I know you hate it when I leave the light on.”
So many strange neuroses, had his precious Double D. Always wanting to be clean, to be polite, to be perfect. As if being perfect would fill a void in him, or give him something he lacked.
“I pick a book up...”
Being perfect hadn’t gained him his parents’ attention or affection – just their tacit approval.
“And then I turn the sheets down...”
Being perfect hadn’t earned him the respect or the simple friendship of the other kids in the cul-de-sac; all he ever received for his troubles was their obvious, biting scorn – and sometimes even bruises.
“And then I take a deep breath...”
And being perfect certainly hadn’t spared him any pain; even his own lover would not spare him that. Perfection hadn’t saved him.
“And a good look around.”
As Eddy crawled back into bed, he found himself wondering what life was like for Double D. He’d often wondered how Double D coped without him, if Double D coped without him, but never once before had he wondered so selflessly. This had nothing to do with him. This was about Double D.
“Put on my pjs and hop into bed.”
Was Double D alone now, in that big, empty house? Was he lonely? Did he tremble at night like he used to, before Eddy took to holding him close while they slept? Did he cling and cling, and wake up to find he was clinging to a pillow?
Was he suffering? Eddy didn’t really want to know but his brain wouldn’t stop asking. Was Double D suffering?
“I’m half-alive but I feel mostly dead.”
Eddy was, but for the first time in his life his pain was not something he felt the need to pass on. It could die with him, and welcome.
“I try and tell myself it’ll all be all right.”
But he really had to stop thinking about this. Double D’s pain was not something he could control or heal. It was his fault but it wouldn’t be his to fix. Double D would just have to move on-
“I just shouldn’t think anymore tonight, ‘cause...”
Double D, moving on? Finding someone else? Inconceivable. Impossible.
Impending.
“Dreams last so long...”
But who? Kevin? Eddy sneered up at the darkness. It better not be Kevin. That was all he knew, all he could feel for a minute. It had better not be Kevin.
“Even after you’re gone.”
But someone... Double D deserved to find someone. He did not deserve to have to spend his life alone.
“I know that you love me...”
Eddy knew that after what he’d done to Double D he did deserve to be alone. But he knew that that was something he just couldn’t do.
“And soon you will see...”
It all came down to sacrifices. Double D could make them. Eddy could not.
“You were meant for me...”
So if Eddy couldn’t have Double D...
“And I was meant for you.”
He’d just have to have someone else.
“Yeah.”
Nausea gripped him again. It was all he could do to not retch where he lay. He didn’t want anyone else.
“You were meant for me.”
But Double D didn’t want him.
“And I was meant for you.”
It burned.
- 5
- 6
- 7
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Swallow The Moon