Keeping Demons
Word Count: 1,508
Pairing: OT3 (Kevin/Eddy/Edd), this chapter has more Kevin/Eddy but later chapters will have their fair share of Kevin/Edd and Edd/Eddy.
Warnings: Please note this fic will deal with heavy subjects. This chapter deals with alcoholism, so if this triggers you please proceed with caution.
No man is without his demons.
Edd, Eddy, and Kevin were no exception to this rule.
The goal in life for most people, as the saying goes, is to find someone whose demons play well with yours. This was normally true for the three men. While they had their rough patches and disagreements they still managed to work things out without too many bruised feelings or bitter remorse's. They kept their vices in check, each one all the more conscious of his own downfalls in order to make the unusual arrangement work as smoothly as possible. Losing either of his lovers would be a deafening blow for each man and something to be avoided at all costs.
And it was.
For a while.
The worst of Eddy's demons was the first to rear its ugly head.
It started in Middle School. Eddy was the first of the Ed's to become curious about alcohol. It began with sneaking a sip here and there from his dad's bottle of Jack hidden deep within one of the kitchen cabinets, the idea spawned by catching his older brother doing the same and fueled by his desire to be just like the older man. It then escalated to stealing said bottle for what he claimed were 'special occasions' such as New Year's or the start of summer, during both of which he tried to convince his friends to join in the festivities. Ed and Edd humoured their friend. Ed would drink a glass for Eddy's two and Edd would only sip slowly at the liquid that burned his tongue and made his eyes water. Edd and Ed thought nothing of this. At first. Chalked it up to Eddy trying to be 'cool' like the other cul-de-sac kids who were surely doing the same thing under their own roofs. But as middle school ran its course and High School began it seemed like Eddy was finding more and more 'special occasions' to use as an excuse to drink.
Only now, at the ripe age of 14, instead of having to worry about the growing water-to-jack ratio of the contents of his father's liquor cabinet Eddy had found an older kid with a fake ID who would buy whatever Eddy's heart desired… for a price. Begrudgingly, the normally tight-pocketed boy would pay the fee as his desire for the smooth liquid slipping down his throat overrode his desire for a full wallet.
It was upon this discovery that Edd and Ed became alarmed.
"Ed! We must do something. This much alcohol intake cannot be good for Eddy's liver let alone his grades and I am starting to become quite concerned," the lanky teen began, pacing back and forth in Ed's room and worrying his bottom lip with his fingers. He had felt Eddy becoming more distant the past few months but had only thought of it as stress from their upcoming finals. It was their junior year, after all, and they all had to start worrying about colleges and applications so these finals mattered. Well, to Edd at least. But nonetheless the boy was more than taken aback when Nazz had come to him, worry in her voice as she asked about Eddy's transactions with a senior boy (whom she happened to be dating at the time) and wondering if Edd knew anything about the nature of it. So Edd, being Edd, had begun to search for a conclusion to these questions.
He didn't like the answers he found.
Then he began to put the pieces together.
The late-night texts that seemed a little off, even for Eddy.
The boy bowing out early from their weekly movie nights and then sleeping far later than was normal the next morning.
The slipping of what were already abysmal grades, threatening to hold the boy back a grade and breaking up the trio.
"What are we gonna do, Double D?" Ed responded, his voice filled with just as much worry and his unibrow furrowed. The boy in the black sock hat paused, turning to look at his friend and sighing.
"I suppose… we must talk with him."
So, they did.
Eddy didn't take it well.
"What d'ya mean you think I drink too much? Ya don't even know how much I drink!" he had yelled, his face red and fists clenched.
"Eddy, we are merely concerned as we've noticed some odd behavior-"
"We just want you to be okay, Eddy!"
It took Ed physically restraining the shortest Ed to keep him from walking out altogether, forcing him to sit as his two friends expressed their worries until the boy gave in and admitted, finally, that he might have a small problem. With teary eyes and a fierce headache from the yelling Eddy resolved to change. For his friends. To stop.
And he did.
For a little bit.
The boys' movie nights resumed as normal. Eddy's grades improved with the help and constant badgering of Edd. And Eddy seemed happy as he graduated alongside his friends and was accepted at the local university's business school.
Then he got better at hiding it.
College was rough. Looking back, Eddy still had no idea how he managed to not flunk out his freshman year but chalked it up to being smart, and even smarter about his drinking. Parties turned into hazed memories and hangovers made sun and noise the enemy every weekend morning.
Kevin was the first to notice it.
Kevin's community college was only a few blocks away from Eddy's university. So, as it ended up, a lot of the big parties were a mix of students from both schools, meaning Eddy and Kevin inevitably ran in to each other. At first it was a bit awkward. They had somewhat resolved their differences after the incident with Eddy's brother but the two men were still too similar with too quick of tempers to ever get closer than acquaintances in high school, especially with their still-different social standings and entirely different groups they ran with.
A few years and a different social dynamic changed just enough between the two to cause them to become somewhat friends. It started with a few conversations here and there when they ran into each other at parties to hitting pool halls or clubs together after ditching a couple lame parties.
Eventually it became one too many parties that he lost track of the man for hours, only to have him turn up passed out in a spare bedroom or a bathtub that had the red head wondering. Then it was one too many late nights out at the bar getting drunk before going home, even after the two began a close-friends-with-benefits arrangement, that had the jock concerned.
But it wasn't until one night, almost a year into Edd, Eddy, and Kevin's relationship, did the full force of Eddy's demon come to light.
Eddy's drinking slowed again when the trio's relationship began. Somehow the advancement of his relationship with Kevin and his beginnings of a romantic relationship with his childhood best friend filled a void in Eddy no one else had been able to before. No longer did he feel the need to use alcohol to mask and suppress the deep seeded insecurities that had plagued his childhood and adult years. Kevin and Edd didn't care that he stopped growing several inches away from the average height of most men, nor did they care that he had a little bit of fat everywhere that Kevin had bulk and built muscle and everywhere that Edd had taught skin and thin hips. Eddy felt accepted even when the lights were on and his clothes were off.
But Eddy's insecurities ran deep.
Too deep for the love of two men to fill completely.
It started small.
He began to wonder how Kevin and Edd found him attractive.
If they did at all.
Then he would catch small things that made his gut twist, sight fueled by a jealousy that could not be avoided when you had two lovers that also loved each other.
Small kisses Edd placed on Kevin's cheek, a hand slipped over the slighter man's shoulders, mornings spent with idle chit chat over a breakfast table as Eddy slept.
All these things that before seemed so normal, so innocent, now made Eddy question every action and the very love that had kept his demon sedated all this time. The growing insecurities in Eddy's mind made him look over the same small kisses that were bestowed upon him, the hands that slipped around his waist and pulled him close after idle chit chat over the breakfast table, the nights spent watching documentaries as Kevin worked late or the weekends filled with pizza and video games when Edd was away on business trips.
The more his jealousy burned within him, so did the amber liquid he poured down his throat.
One night, one bottle, one shot too many and Eddy was shit faced drunk in the living room when Kevin came home.
Eddy's demon only served to agitate Kevin's.