Greetings all! I had this sudden burst of inspiration and wrote this entire thing in just a couple hours. That being said, it's past 1 in the morning and I did not edit this. Please excuse any mistakes.

Edd chuckled to himself as he hung up the phone on Kevin. He knew the rebellious jock must have left the house. If Ed and Eddy had come to the door, Kevin wouldn't have answered. It was especially obvious since Kevin referred to himself as being "found". He felt that it was only fair, in that case, to make Kevin pay for his actions. Edd told him to stay inside, Kevin wanted to break the rules, now it was time to face the music.

He couldn't help but grin at the flustered stuttering of his neighbor after teasing him. Kevin was the epitome of a dominant male. Being flirted with and teased by the normally submissive Edd was more than enough to throw him off his game and resign him to the fact that he would have to spend the evening with Ed and Eddy. Edd probably could have found a way to get him out of video game and movie night. He just didn't want to.

As he made his way back into the shop, he noticed that everyone was giving him a side-eye and smirking. Edd sighed and resumed his spot under the car he had been changing the oil on.

Teasing begets teasing Eddward. Karma at its finest.

While Edd was dodging questions about the mysterious "Double D" that called, Kevin was dodging all conversation that Eddy was trying to engage him in. He had taken Edd's advice and had been simply nodding in agreement to everything the short Ed was saying, but now they had moved on to topics that didn't involve agreeing. Now they were talking about future plans, family problems, and worst of all: dating. Kevin only knew about one of Edd's exes, and he didn't even know the guy's name.

"C'mon Double D! You've had every single day of the summer to go out and find some hot girl or guy to schmooze. Whataya been doin' all this time?" Eddy threw some popcorn at Kevin's head as if to reinforce his point.

"I have my project to work on," Kevin mumbled.

"Your project can't be your whole life! I mean, I know you want to get into some hotshot school and whatnot, but there's more to life than that. Get out and live every once in a while."

"I'm perfectly content as I am at the moment," Kevin sighed and rolled his eyes. Talking like Edd was getting a little easier. He just had to adjust the order of his words a little and say something slightly pompous. Ed and Eddy seemed fooled.

Eddy's response was to throw more popcorn across the room. "You have dated anyone since that Kevin guy you met at school." Kevin tensed immediately at the mention of his name. "I mean, I know things didn't end exactly...good between you two, but you can't hold yourself a bachelor pity party for forever."

Kevin relaxed slightly, realizing that this ex simply shared his name. It is a fairly common name. "I am not throwing myself a pity party, Eddy." He sighed again, then rolled his eyes to himself, "Also, it's ended well, not ended good."

Stupid Double Dweeb and his grammar habits. I can't believe I noticed that.

"Yeah, yeah and it's all well and good until you end up alone for the rest of your life."

"I'm only 22! I still have quite a while to find someone to be with."

"And you have only dated one guy!"

"Yes, and that ended so spectacularly." Kevin gave himself a pat on the back. For not knowing much about Edd's personal life, he was really holding his own in this stupid conversation.

"Look, I know the guy cheated on you, but not all relationships are going to end that way," Eddy said softly. "You shouldn't give up on it just cause of one bad boyfriend."

Kevin visibly tensed. Edd was cheated on?! But why? Edd's such a sweet guy, how could anyone cheat on him?

"I'm sorry Double D. I know you told me not to bring that up again…" Eddy shrunk into his chair and stared at Kevin. He was tense from head to toe with a look of shock and panic on his face.

Kevin struggled to come up with some kind of Edd-like answer. Would the guy be okay with Eddy bringing up a topic he had apparently been told not to bring up, or should he get angry? Did he get angry at friends, or was his anger reserved just for Kevin?

OK. OK. Pros and cons…

Pro: get more information about Edd so you don't fuck up with brain switch thing.

Con: get caught invading his privacy by getting his friends to talk about his past without his permission.

Pro: know more about this ex that is supposed to be fixing us.

Con: Edd kicks my ass while he is still in my body and stronger than me.

Shit. Have to say something…

"It's...alright, Eddy." Kevin kept his head down and twiddled his thumbs. A nervous habit of Edd's that he had noticed.

Ed popped up suddenly from being shoulder deep in the cabinet where all the movies were, "Don't worry Double D! Kevin is just the chicken of your life while you are looking for a penguin." He dove back into the cabinet and continued to fumble around in the dark space.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean, Lumpy?"

Ed yelled through the cabinet, "Chickens crow for every morning, but penguins only sing for one!"

Eddy quirked a brow at Kevin and waited for an explanation. Kevin suddenly wished he had paid more attention to the tour guide when they went to the zoo as kids. Why the hell was Ed comparing Edd's love life to birds? And why penguins for that matter?

Oh right!

"Penguins mate for life and they find that mate by singing to them," Kevin smiled. Now he couldn't wait to get back to Edd's house and tell the genius about how smart he was!

Eddy just rolled his eyes, "Whatever... Do-uhh-do you want to take about it?"

Yes!

"Perhaps... I've honestly tried to put it from my mind. What do you already know?" Kevin gulped and prayed that this didn't end badly.

"Not a whole lot really. Just that after you guys got back together after your first breakup everything had been going fine. Back to normal. Then he called you one night when he was supposed to be at some engineering thing and said he had slept with someone."

Fucking asshole.

"That is really the whole story..." Kevin paused, then took a deep breath, "He wants to get back together. I needed some...assistance with my project and messaged him. He seemed-uhh-remorseful and asked for forgiveness."

"You didn't give it to him, right?!" Eddy glared at him. His fists were clenched into the fabric of the armchair.

"No. No…I didn't." Kevin kept his head down. He knew he was running out of information to give Eddy. He needed the guy to take over the conversation again.

"Did he say anything else?"

Shit! Well, he did…

"He seemed...jealous of the friendship that I have established with Kevin this summer." Kevin cringed slightly, hiding it as best he could.

"Shovel-chin?"

Kevin suppressed his anger as best he could. His chin was perfectly normal! "Aren't we a little old for childish nicknames, Eddy?"

Whoa. Déjà vu.

"You know he still calls us names!"

"That's beside the point."

"Fine! So your old Kevin is mad about your new Kevin-"

"He is not my Kevin!" Kevin blushed heavily.

"Hey, he's not my first choice, but I know you liked him back in high school." Kevin didn't think it was possible to blush any harder. "Also, I have it on good authority that he plays for both teams like you do."

How the hell does he know that?!

"W-what?" He managed to stutter out, but kept his fists clenched at his sides.

"Yeah, friend-o-mine takes his car to that shop he works at. Guess the guys there were given him a hard time about some dude he had been dating and my friend overheard. Thought I'd like to know," Eddy grinned.

"I-I see…"

"So are you and Shovel-chin more than friends?"

"I doubt he would see me that way." Kevin sighed. Edd was any guy's, or girl's, dream really. He was smart and witty and had a surprisingly adventurous side to him. He knew how to cook, was a genius with computers, had probably ready every book known to man. The guy learned how to be a mechanic overnight with nothing but Kevin's advice and a few how-to manuals on the internet! There wasn't anything Edd couldn't do.

What could Kevin do? He was a decent mechanic and he knew how to play ball. Other than that he had really been skating by on just his looks and charisma. He had decent grades in school, but he wasn't anywhere near where the genius was. His mom always told him he was going to be something great one day, but what great thing could he be? A mechanic? Professional ball player? Neither one really seemed like his first pick at for a future. He was majoring in business because he just simply didn't know what he wanted to do once he graduated and it seemed like a good catch-all degree.

Oh God, what if they really were stuck as each other for the rest of their lives? He wouldn't have anything. He wasn't smart. He couldn't cook or work computers. He didn't have a plan. All he had were his looks and muscles. Edd had those now. He had everything!

Suddenly Kevin felt sick to his stomach. He always knew that this situation was bad. He knew that there was a risk that Edd wouldn't be able to fix them and they would have to pretend to be each other forever. Every time it came up, Kevin just brushed it to the back of his mind as something to think about later.

Apparently later decided to show up.

"I-I need to go." Kevin jumped to his feet and darted for the door. He could hear Eddy yelling after him, but he ignored it. He needed to escape. He needed to get away from Edd's life and back to something that was his own. His house popped up on the edge of his vision and he felt his heart wrench again.

What if he could never go home? Never see his friends. Never play ball. Never see his parents again. Never get to yell at the TV with his dad. Never trudge along behind his mom as they went into just one more store, yet secretly enjoy spending the time together. Never eat dinner as a family again. Never sleep in his room.

Oh God…

He felt tears running down his face. He rushed into Edd's house and was immediately confronted by the silence and loneliness that would be his new life. How could the guy live like this? No one was ever around, just him and a giant, empty house. Being here wasn't any better than being at Eddy's.

Kevin found himself wandering to the garage. The computer system was still there. The horrible, stupid thing that had ruined his life. Whatever rational part that was left in his brain through his despair told him not to destroy the machine. It was the last, tiny hope that he had of ever getting back to himself. Plus it would be a waste of the amazing work that Edd had done.

He hated how much he still loved the virtual world that Edd had created. He hated that he felt such a rush of adrenaline being able to fight the Eddy goblins. He hated the proud look Edd had on his face when he solved that riddle. He hated the sense of accomplishment he had for beating the Kanker hydra. It wasn't fair to love something that he hated. So. Damn. Much.

The screen lit up with the launch sequence as he flopped down into the chair. That stupid virtual world was still there calling to him. Just hit the button and go back to adventure and ease in a world that didn't really exist. None of his problems would follow him there.

So why not escape for a while?

Poor Kevin...

As you can tell by how quickly I was getting this chapter to you guys, I had a way easier time writing as Kevin now that I have fumbled my way through it for a month. Hopefully I did a decent job portraying him. This chapter has more dialog between characters than I have ever written in my entire life. I felt like I was going crazy with all the quotation marks that I had to kept missing. I need a hot key for that shit.

So this chapter actually has what I had wanted to be two chapters. When I was writing all the dialog between Kevin and Eddy I saw the perfect segue into the issue of Kevin feeling super insecure about his life and future. Edd really does have a pretty sweet deal in life. He worked really hard to make it happen, and had his fair share of personal struggles (more on that later *hint hint*), but Kevin is really only seeing the good sides of our favorite dork's life.

Hopefully the next chapter comes to me as easily as this one did.

Thanks for reading!

Cthepolkadots