Disclaimer: I do not own or profit from the Eds~
I'd like to begin this re-entry to the world of Stranger with a confession.
I forgot my password. So I've had these mostly completed chapters for a while now.
The good news is I come bearing multiple chapters and a guide for continuity.

I did go back and try to fix some minor typos in the previous chapters, continuity errors and the like. I realized, after rereading everything I'd written, that what I thought and what I wrote didn't always match up.
Minor things, like Ed's height and page breaks.
Thank you.

Rated: M; for concepts and actions.

Safe Place:

Ed ran his grease-stained fingers over the marred dashboard with uncanny care. In the passenger seat Eddy was trying to perfect his signature hair swoop in the dingy visor-mirror, and mumbling something Ed assumed was probably small talk.
"...song is about more than just a cheating whore." Scoff. "I mean, he gets her back in the end, you know man? That Delilah bitch had it coming." Eddy laughed at that and flipped the visor back up toward the ceiling.
"Hey, why don't you get this thing reupholstered or something? Didn't DD help you with that gaudy paint job? I bet he'd loan you some dough to get the whole interior redone if you asked sweetly." Scoff. "He's putty, man. Easy to please. Eager to please. It's a real pleasing relationship." Eddy laughed again, making eye contact with Ed as he flipped his dirty blonde swoop out of his eyes.
Ed had never been one for self-awareness or big words. But if he had he would have wondered how dense Eddy had to be to miss the blatant and unnatural look of indignation on the usually serene and dull-witted teen's face at Eddy's last comment. Ed actually had half a mind to scold the pudgier teen who was taking up more than his fair share of space on the front seat.

But what actually came out was,
"DD is-...half a mind."
Eddy laughed again, wide-eyed and impressed by the conspicuously underhanded comment from his usually sweetly dumb friend, and slapped Ed's shoulder, "You can say that again, dude."
Ed grunted with the impact, wondering silently if there was some other force at work in the universe that watched out for people who couldn't defend themselves. Not in the same way that his baby sister Sarah couldn't defend herself from the bigger, meaner girls in gym class. More like when someone is nice to your face and then talks about you behind your back. How do you defend yourself when you don't even realize you need defending? Maybe that was what friends were for.
Ed watched Eddy adjust the collar of his hand me down button up and wonder what kind of friend Eddy was to DD.
"Ed...you know how we were talking earlier about how close friends can be sometimes?"
"Uh, yeah Eddy." Maybe DD doesn't mind being talked about like that. Ed knew how slow Ed was. How easily distracted he could get. Maybe DD knew he was easily manipulated.
"I was just thinking Ed, you're such a great friend to me. Driving me around all night in this fancy car. Letting me flirt with all the chicks you reign in. Stud." Another shoulder slap, another grunt, another laugh.
"Buying me beer and shit because, let's face it: I may be blessed with an eternally youthful face but it doesn't hold a candle to the magic you work with that mature-lookin' kisser." Eddy actually kissed the air, letting the hand he'd innocently left on Ed's shoulder slide up to cradle the aforementioned kisser.
"Ed…" Eddy ran his thumb over the stubble running up Ed's jawline over his chin. Tracing the older boy's lips with his thumb and his eyes. Eddy was right next to Ed now, running his free hand through his messy blond locks as if completely forgetting the effort he'd put in to meticulously styling his hair
Suddenly Ed felt...afraid. He laid one wide hand on Eddy's wrist, effectively removing it from his face with no more than the dead weight of it. "No...DD."
"Aw, Ed..." Eddy's face lit up with a grin, he was so close Ed could smell the stale tobacco on his breath. "DD says it's ok."
Ed's brows creased in the center with the deepest confusion he'd ever felt, only causing Eddy's grin to widen.
Eddy really was a good friend, then. Surely he didn't keep anything from DD if he'd gotten permission for...this.
'This' was Eddy, surprisingly deft despite his sedentary lifestyle, stretched across the front seat with Ed's jeans already unfastened and lowered expertly to reveal what Eddy sought most.
One hand teasingly slid beneath the elastic of Ed's boxers, the other toying with the sweat stained hair on the back of Ed's head.

"Have you even showered today?" Ed sheepishly shook his head no, watching Eddy's fingers draw a pattern beneath his boxers. Leaning in, Eddy slowly caught Ed's earlobe between his teeth, a low laugh tickling the inside of Ed's ear as Eddy simultaneously plunged his hand deeper into Ed's boxers.
Ed stopped breathing. Watching Eddy work while not actually being able to see the act through his boxers intensified his feelings exponentially. The torment heightened his senses and despite his earlier discomfort Ed found himself slipping deeper into Eddy's hold.
Slowly he let his head fall back, leaning in to Eddy's questing mouth. As his ear was tongued and his boxers explored Ed's eyes fell instinctively to his dash. Spying the year old scratches in the vinyl shocked Ed out of his stupor.
"Not here…" Ed clumsily lifted Eddy's hand out of his pants and sat forward to finger the keys in the ignition. Lost in thought quicker than one would give him credit for thinking at all. The memories the ruined vinyl conjured created warring feelings that nearly made Ed crazy with the intensity and conflict in his head.
"Hey…" Eddy gently turned Ed's face toward him, a mask of concern and kindness in place over his features. "I get it. There's barely enough room for you up front without… How about the back?" Eddy's gentle fingers roughly rubbed across Ed's cheek and in to his disheveled red hair, pulling him forward for a sloppy kiss.
Ed, perpetually juvenile and lost to his own hormones and fresh feelings of isolation, knew that he needed something. Maybe that something was what Eddy was offering in the back seat of Ed's '69, in the dark parking lot of the abandoned barbershop at the edge of town. Maybe this was what would fill the emptiness Ed felt when he saw Eddy and DD together.
Maybe, somehow, being close to Eddy, would bring Ed close to DD again.
And so he agreed. One hand holding his pants up, for propriety, as DD would say, Ed stepped out of the front seat of his Chevy and smoothly lowered himself in to the backseat where Eddy waited, having already abandoned his button-up in the front seat and situated himself advantageously in the center of the back seat.
Seeing this, Ed made to strip off his own shirt but Eddy stopped him with a hand and a sharp bite to the soft skin of Ed's ear lobe. Yelping, Ed couldn't help but grab Eddy's hips immediately to pull him away, unwittingly positioning him directly between his spread thighs on the floor board.
Oblivious, Eddy only smiled at the bigger boy, tugging his jeans and boxers to mid-thigh so as to gain better access to Ed's shamefully obvious hardon. Mortified, Ed grabbed Eddy's head in both hands and stifled a gasp as again, his intent was misread.
Clutching Eddy's meticulously groomed hair in both sweaty hands, Ed could do nothing but watch. And think. Perhaps his poor grasp on reality and inability to think critically boosted his capacity to fantasize, because staring at the dirty blonde hair in his fists he was unable to remain in the moment. DD's long dark hair and exponentially slimmer frame overtook the reality between legs and without trying he found himself comparing his two friends.

DD's propriety and gentleness overwhelmed and comforted Ed in the same way that Eddy's vulgarity and egoism left Ed wanting more and less at the same time. DD's innate ability to understand Ed, despite all his baffling qualities endeared Ed to him. Eddy's guile and deceptiveness caused Ed to despise him and worry for DD. It did not occur to Ed to ask himself why DD had chosen this brash, insecure man over him. It did occur to him to wonder if DD could be happy with the life he was living. And, not for the first time, wonder how DD could not know what kind of person Eddy was.
"How much do you weigh, baby?" He talked too much, too.
"Um...the doctor said 240 last time I.."
"Damn, you must be exhausted carrying all this weight around."
"N-" Also, he was crude.
But even a sorry excuse for company was better than none at all. And eventually, Ed welcomed the release and tried to forget what really weighed on him.