Edd relaxed beside Eddy, running his fingers through his friend's hair. Eddy rested on his shoulder with his eyes closed. Eddy looked completely vulnerable in that moment. Most of the times in his time that he had seen Eddy, Eddy either looked devious, determined, or enraged. There was very few moments where Eddy would show any weakness, even to Ed and Edd, his friends. He had found Eddy's demeanor in that moment adorable.
That moment was short-lived. There was a knock on the side of the van. Panic immediately set in. Whoever was at the side of the van give them no indication of who they were. It could've been the police or worse; it could have been Matthew. Both the boys scrambled for their clothing and quickly dressed. There was another knock on the side of the van.
"Wait here, Double D. I'll see who is at the door." Eddy replied, crawling into the front passenger's seat.
"Eddy, stop! It could be your brother. We both are sitting ducks to whatever brutal act Matthew wants to inflict on us!" Edd pleaded, shuddering with dread. He pleaded with the teen in the front seat who was gazing out of the window. "Could you at least let me answer the door?"
"Calm your tits, Double D. It's just Sasha at the door." Eddy replied.
"Sasha?" Edd parroted. Even though they were next door to Sasha's bar, the bar owner was the last person Edd expected at the door. Edd slowly got up and leaned over the seat peering out the same window that Eddy was. There he saw a familiar puff of spiky orange hair in the rearview mirror. "I wonder if Sasha is here over the van being parked on private property."
"The heck should I know? Go answer the door!" Eddy said, straightening out the wrinkles in his shirt.
Edd pulled back the car door handle and was greeted to the sight of Sasha's midsection. "Greetings Sasha, I did not expect to see you here."
Sasha leaned forward to talk to the boys, "What's going on? This van's been parked here for about a half an hour. Did your van break down or something?"
"We ran out of gas." Eddy answered.
"I've got a gas can in the shed behind the bar that has some gas in it. There's not much, just enough to probably get you an eighth of a tank. It should be enough to get you kids home. It's way past your curfew and you kids should not be out at this time. There are quite a few creepy weirdoes around when the sun sets." Sasha gently scolded.
"Yes, mom," Eddy replied sarcastically. His eyebrow twitched at the notion that he was being patronized like a wandering child.
"Anyway, follow me. The keys are in my apartment. It's been a slow night, so I closed the bar early. The only ones that are there are me and Kevin. Hiroshi went to his parents' house for the night." Sasha then added, "Kevin also brought over a nice blonde girl that he has been recently going with, but she left a while ago. I believe her name is Nazz."
Eddy snickered and Edd quickly elbowed his friend. Edd smiled warmly, "that sounds quite lovely. I'm happy for them."
"You and I both, Kevin was hung up on her for years." Sasha related. Sasha strolled down the parking lot with Edd and Eddy following closely behind him. Edd and Eddy had begun to worry. The bruise on Eddy's face and the hickeys along Edd's neck were visible. If Sasha had noticed them, he gave them no indication that he did.
They soon got their answer when Sasha stumbled on one of the parking lot bumpers. Sasha loudly cursed, gently rubbing his skinned jean. Sasha slowly got up, blindly brushing off his jeans to the best of his ability. "Sasha! Are you alright?" Edd asked.
"Yeah, I just didn't see the bumper is all," Sasha replied sheepishly.
"How did you not see the bumper!? It was right in front of you! You were looking straight at it!" Eddy asked.
"Sorry, boys. I can't see a thing at the moment. Everything is all blurry. Even you two look like two blurry blobs." Sasha apologized, "I ran out of my prescription contacts yesterday and today I have trouble seeing."
"How did you know it was us inside of the van if you have serious vision problems?" Edd asked.
Sasha continued his pace, "I heard your voices outside of the van. Are you two kids safe to go home, Pipsqueak?"
Edd and Eddy looked to each other to silently decide whether or not to tell Sasha. "We're fine, Sasha. Whatever gave you that idea?" Eddy answered, nervously. Edd pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.
"Alright," Sasha shrugged, continuing down the parking lot.
Edd and Eddy had to guide Sasha to the door once they reached the bar. Sasha groped around for the door knob and opened the door. Sasha slipped inside while Edd and Eddy waited for him outside near the parking lot. They eavesdropped on the conversation Sasha had with Kevin. From the sound of it, Sasha was even stumbling around when he was inside of the house. To say that Sasha had extremely poor eyesight was an understatement.
"Dude, you can always wear your old glasses from high school until your new contacts come in," Kevin stated.
"And risk looking like a dork again, yeah right!" Sasha snorted, "You've got Hiroshi's futon tonight since he went to visit his parents."
"Hiroshi doesn't sleep on that futon and we both know it." Kevin retorted, "I'm not a kid anymore, dude. I know Hiroshi and you share the same bed."
"Hiroshi and I are just friends and business partners," Sasha said.
Kevin chuckled, "friends with benefits? Come on, you can admit to me that you've been screwing the guy."
"I am not discussing my sex life with my cousin, it's just weird!" Sasha huffed, "Besides, Hiroshi still has a two year student visa. When it expires, I might see him again."
"Dude," Kevin replied, shocked.
"Besides, dating, even if it is forced pseudo-dating, leads to a lot of trouble. Forced pseudo-dating is how I ended up with the scar on my back." Sasha admitted.
"Wait, that psycho is one that sliced you up and left you to be found by Aunt Barbie and Uncle Tom? I'll kick his ass right now. I still owe him for running over Rolf's goat and attempting to run over Nazz!" Despite not being able to see Kevin getting psyched up from the news, Edd could hear Kevin hitting his own hand with his fist. This was not good.
"You will do no such thing!" Sasha shouted.
"But! C'mon cuz! " Kevin begged, "That motherfucker would deserve it!"
"No buts, Kevin!" Sasha yelled, "By the sound of it, Matthew is already becoming reckless and I don't want you in the crossfire. Well, he is becoming more reckless than usual. Knowing him, he won't be satisfied until he drags everyone down with him. Look, this month is the anniversary of something bad that happened fourteen years ago and I don't want to see you hurt, understand?"
"Ugh, fine!" Kevin groaned.
"Good. I'll be able to get a bit of sleep tonight." Sasha replied, "Have you seen the keys to the shed out back? I need it along with one of my business cards. A couple of people ran out of gas and they need to get home before the cops catch them out this late."
"I'll go get them for you." Kevin replied.
"Thanks." Sasha said. He waited a minute or two for his cousin to get back with the items. He blindly reached for the items until Kevin put them straight in his hand, "Thanks again. I'll be back in a minute or two. Go put in movie or something."
"Will do," Kevin replied, sorting through Sasha's video tapes.
Sasha headed outside reaching in front of him blindly trying to give them the card. "Here is my card in case you two need anything at all. Are you sure you'll be safe enough to drive home, Pipsqueak?"
"Yeah, what's the worst that could happen?" Eddy asked nervously.
"Eddy, you should have told Sasha the truth," Edd complained as Eddy was driving down the road.
"Why? I've got a good game plan all up here," Eddy boasted, pointing to his head with his free hand and quickly put his hand back on the wheel. "Besides, Sasha's temporarily blind. He wouldn't have been much help to us anyway, ya know? He couldn't even walk to the damn shed and get out the gas can without our help."
"That's true, but we're heading back into the belly of the beast, metaphorically speaking. I sure hope you formulated an adequate plan on how we enter back into our home without getting a free trip to the intensive care unit at the hospital! If what Sasha said is true, Matthew is a ticking time bomb ready to explode at any given moment!"
"Relax, Sockhead! We're going to do more than just go home; we're going to confront the bastard!" Eddy declared.
"Are you mad?" Edd shrieked, "Normally I would agree with standing up for one self. However, your brother is not going to listen to reason. There's no rationality to his current actions. At least, it would not be how I would define rational. If your brother is going off the deep end as Sasha suggested, we're walking into a death trap."
"So what are we supposed to do? Continue to let him molest you and let him beat the shit out of me? I'm sorry Double D, but it's time for us both to grow up and confront him." Eddy yelled back.
"Eddy, is there any truth to his words? Did Matthew really get this bad during the month of June?" Edd asked softly.
"I honestly have no idea, Double D. All I remember is that my brother got the cops called on him several times after school ended for the summer and that he got sent somewhere for several weeks. It became a yearly thing since I can remember. Mom and Dad told me that he got sent to summer camp and I believed them. Now, I'm not so sure that he actually did go to summer camp like they claimed." Eddy admitted grimly.
Chances were that Matthew either ended up in a correctional faculty or even a psych ward. One was as likely as the other. Psychological symptoms were a tricky thing. They could be easily overlooked as sudden reactions or just strange behavior. While Matthew was an all-around unpleasant person who fucked whoever he wanted and drank like a fish, there were a couple of things that happened that could've been psychological symptoms.
Obviously, perversion, violence, and alcoholism were traits that happened year-round for the guy, so Edd checked off anything involving the three. However, the recklessness of Matthew's behavior was apparently one of the tall-tell signs that Matthew was losing his grip on his sanity if Sasha was right. Matthew was usually more calculating and less reckless. The incident that happened earlier in the night was extremely reckless, even by Matthew's standards and was ambiguously motivated. Jealously over Eddy could've been a part of that, but it could've been a psychological sign of something more troubling as well.
As Sasha said, Matthew's reckless driving could've been a sign or could've been a result of alcoholism as Edd originally thought. What could not be explained by anything else were nights in which Matthew had nightmares within the last couple of days. The incident with Matthew strangling him the morning after Edd lost his virginity before he realized who it was could've been one as well. There were so many questions and not enough answers.
Eddy and Edd were greeted to the sight of the door being wide open and Matthew's vehicle being nowhere in sight. "Where the fuck did he go?" Eddy asked.
Edd only shrugged as a response while Eddy parked in the driveway. Edd quickly got out of the car to inspect the house for any signs of Matthew or any signs that the house got robbed. So far, everything seemed in place. The only thing that was missing was the house phone. Edd inspected the area and seen that the telephone wire had been cut. Edd quickly informed the news to Eddy who had just stepped inside of the house.
"So where the hell is the damn phone?" Eddy asked, glancing around.
"Call it intuition, but we should check the garbage," Edd replied.
Eddy quickly entered the kitchen and lifted up the garbage lid. "There's nothing in there. Just garbage!"
"Hmm, you're going to need to dig into the garbage then." Edd replied handing Eddy a pair of gloves, "put these on. There are a lot of bacteria-containing microbes in garbage cans."
"You're kidding right?" Eddy grimaced. When he seen Edd's scowl, he relented and put on the gloves. "Alright! Alright! You owe me Sockhead!"
Edd nodded, "If I'm wrong about this, I'll owe you a favor."
"-And you better pay up too," Eddy retorted sticking his hand into the garbage, looking through the pile of garbage in the garbage can. When Edd started to give up hope that they would ever find anything, Eddy pulled out the telephone from the trashcan. Edd estimated that the telephone was sitting under over a week's worth of garbage. It was in the garbage can for over a week and they didn't even notice it! Edd quickly got a Ziploc bag and opened it up for Eddy. Eddy slid the phone inside the bag and Edd quickly zipped up the bag and set it on one of the kitchen chairs.
"Hey, you little brats! Y'all need to learn how to keep your damn door shut. Where the fuck is Mattie's stupid ass?" A familiar voice came from the doorway. When Edd turned around, he seen a tattooed hand with a wedding band grasped the kitchen door.
A/N: After this story is completed, what would you guys prefer to see: a sequel which takes place four years after this story or a prequel centered on Matthew as the main character and his descent into the person he is.