"Just take it, Double D, you only live once."
Naz was laughing as she holds out a dark yellow pill, almost black. She's facing Edd, sitting together on the floor. Kevin was sitting on the couch, half-slumped. He was playing a video game, but now he's just staring at the wall, seeming to be in deep thought. Marie was half squealing emptily, grabbing for something on the walls that wasn't there. The apartment was small and dirty, overflowing with ashtrays, empty beer cans, and filthy clothes littering the floor. The smell was almost overwhelming for Edd, but he found himself strangely drawn in by something in Naz's pretty, empty eyes in her pretty, empty head. Something perfect and defiled, like a hooker's smile. It was something so completely different and easy. So different from him.
With his long black hair and black beanie, it was easy for people to make the assumptions, when he hit high school. They had always assumed, after that point, and it never changed. He had loosened up quite a lot in those years, and it didn't bother him, whatever assumptions they made about him, true or not. But even through all the ones that were right, that he was so shy to admit, this one had always been one he had smiled knowingly and walked away from, because he had known they were wrong. His body was completely substance free.
Naz put the pill in his hand, laughing again at something she had mumbled to herself, and then crawls haphazardly over to Kevin, stumbling drunkenly onto his lap, kissing him sloppily. He finally seems to half snap out of his reverie, facing her with a half aggressive, half intoxicated smile, and pulls her more on top of him, kissing her even harder. Marie seemed to be coming down, as she suddenly slid unceremoniously to the ground, losing her smile, looking troubled and confused as she looked at the ground, mumbling nonsense desperately. The room was dead and lifeless. Edd stared at the pill.
He was distinctly aware of everything it meant to him, and everything it meant about the life he didn't lead, but he pretended not to know. He wanted to look at it like a baby looks at an oven, as just something within hands reach. He vaguely wondered what it was, specifically. Wondered what it could do to him. As he felt his heart racing, and unfamiliar adrenaline shoot through his veins, it seemed like everything going on in this sad, strange environment fell away, and his hand shook unsteadily as he drew it hesitantly toward his mouth-
" Aw, I KNEW I'd find him here! C'mon Sockhead, what're you doing with these junkies?"
"Eddy!" Cried Naz happily, pulling her face away from Kevin's. "Woo, look who joined the par-ty!"
A six-five, massive teenager burst into the room, sunlight filling into the dark, curtained apartment. Eddy's massive hands gripped the door angrily, staring at Edd, who had jumped backwards at the sudden intrusion, dropping the pill. Those same hands came forward toward Edd's shoulders. He barely reached forward in time to grab the pill out of sheer impulse before he was dragged unceremoniously out the door and to Eddy's car, a tiny, beaten up "girl-car" as Eddy usually complains, that leaves the huge teen often bent ridiculously over his steering wheel. He had certainly taken over his father and brother's genes when he hit puberty.
"What the hell were you doing in there, Double D? Trying to get gonorrhea?" Eddy accused as he struggled to start his car.
Stung by the crude implications against the people that were at some point his childhood friends, the smaller teen replied tersely, " I needed somewhere to stay for the night. Naz invited me to stay with them, and I was much obliged. Of course, until SOMEbody dragged me out, leaving me unable to even thank them for their hospitality!"
"Oh please, like you really wanted to stay in that druggy orgy. What's with YOU? You're acting weird, Double D, and not like you usually do. Since when are you social? And since when are you long haired hippy guy sitting in a trashy apartment watching people dope up and fuck each other?"
"O-Orgy?"
Edd blushed at his statements; He knew Naz and Kevin were dating, and he had shyly looked the other way when they kissed, but he had no idea what the apparent truth of the matter was, at least as far as Eddy was concerned.
Eddy looked over impatiently, but when he saw the obvious mortification on his friend's face, he sighed a little, and relented.
"Well, just as long as I know you really aren't going over there for anything sick, it doesn't really matter to me," he grumbled, looking down angrily at his hands. He relaxed his grip of the wheel, turned off the engine, and slumped back into his seat darkly. "You're too smart for that crap."
They sat in silence for a moment, Eddy in complicated thought, Edd a little confused... But also a little ashamed of what he had in his pocket. Eddy didn't believe in any of that stuff, as much as his friends might think the contrary, he was as clean as Double D. Well, maybe not in his thoughts, and more experienced with girls, but his body was also free from 'substances.'
After a few minutes of this, Eddy's voice came to Double D, calmer, as he restarted the engine.
"You can stay at my place."
Edd's face lit up with relief that his friend was still there for him, but as he started to speak, Eddy's voice rang out again;
"But if you try to make me rub your feet again I'll break your face," casually, half-turned around checking the parking lot as he backed up. Edd just smiled.
Chapter one. I am nearly done with all the writing of this story, so don't worry about it stopping and never finishing. Reviews are always appreciated.