Hi everyone!
This chapter gave me SO much trouble. I rewrote the second half several times and spent quite a while today wailing and pacing back and fourth while my cats stared at me. I guess my advice when you get writer's block is to try rewriting the scene you're stuck on. Every attempt you don't like is one idea you've been able to eliminate, and you can look at the options you've come up with to see which direction you like the best. "Just don't give up" is the lesson here. :)
I'd also like to apologize for taking a while to add a new installment after a semi-cliffhanger. My grandma's been ill, and she passed away two weeks ago. I stayed at her house for a few nights with my aunts and my mom while she was passing. Combined with the funeral last week, I've had a lot of schoolwork to catch up on. She's the person who inspired me through her art and writing, so I'm eternally in her debt for encouraging me to pursue my passions.
To theMidgey, MissFioLee22, Noob4Lyfe, Mello Maddnes, Air Is For Important People, FortressOfFandoms, Gabble, WRITE MORE, and nakia - holy wieners, you guys have interesting names. More importantly, thank you so much for your reviews! Every time I wake up and see that you've written one, my day is immediately awesome.
Again, you guys are the best.
Enjoy!
Chapter 4
It was the most terrifying Thursday of Eddward's life.
The tidy scholar fluctuated between giddy heart attacks and self-loathing heart attacks, breaking the lead of two perfectly-sharpened number 2 pencils in a single class and catching himself imagining smoldering green eyes as opposed to earning his participation points. Every time he heard a deep laugh in the halls, he would jump violently. When possible, he hid behind Ed, who swept him off his feet at three separate instances, telling him to be proud of his metamorphosis no matter what his peers thought. He prayed sincerely that Ed's words happened to be coincidental instead of eerily perceptive.
His nerves were so frayed that, on Friday, he wore the same dress sweater as the day before. He didn't notice until he was back at home, scrutinizing his every flaw in the mirror.
Double Dee spent the weekend at Eddy's house, watching two of Ed's favorite mind-numbing movies and two of Eddy's crass comedies. His selections were documentaries - one on black holes and the other on deep sea life - and Ed snored softly as Eddy squinted and frowned at the screen until he got a headache. Double Dee hugged him for trying. His short friend's response was to flail him off and exclaim, "What are ya?!" The genius simply smiled.
On Sunday they immersed themselves in videogames that allowed all three of them to work together in different roles. Ed managed to get them killed nearly half a dozen times, by aiming at Eddy's character, sending up flares and alerting enemies to their location, and, at one point, spontaneously combusting. (Eddy ranted for half an hour as he looked through the instruction booklet, saying that that wasn't even physically possible. Ed only smiled cryptically and took a bow.)
It was just before lunch on Monday when it happened.
Ed was already halfway through his container of macaroni and cheese (he was somehow eating the plastic as well, despite Double Dee's chiding,) while Eddy struggled to body-check his locker door into staying shut.
"'Sup, losers?"
Ice shot up Eddward's spine. He froze in place as his companions turned to face the looming redhead.
"What the hell do you want?" Eddy was too preoccupied with his locker to come up with a better insult.
"Need some help there? You could have your own TLC show, y'know. Little Eddy, Big World."
"Shut up, you overgrown ape. We got better things to do than listen to your yammering."
"Didn't know he knew words that big." A hand rested on Eddward's shoulder and all the ice in his veins turned to fire. "Did you teach him that, Double Dee?"
"Eddy was familiar with the concept of yammering long before I met him," Double Dee whispered.
Kevin howled with laughter, letting go of Edd's shoulder. Eddy stared in shock for a moment before yelling at the genius for turning on him, but the adrenaline screaming through his body didn't allow for any outside input to be received. Eddy was shaking a fist, glaring past Double Dee, and he knew the jock was backing up from where his livid friend was looking.
"See ya later, dorks," Kevin called after them, his tone strangely jovial. Double Dee found the courage to turn around to see him stalking off, holding up one hand in a wave. The blush from his scalp to his shoulder blades was making his long-sleeved shirt horribly uncomfortable.
"…still can't believe you picked on me in front of him," Eddy was muttering as Double Dee came back to earth.
"Double Dee is as wrecked as a sack of potatoes," Ed observed quietly.
On Tuesday, he saw the athlete talking to a group of his teammates and realized that the word "IMBECILE" was still stuck to his cap.
-x-
The genius spent no less than seven hours attempting to prepare a lesson plan. Every neatly-printed list of genres, authors, and themes became a page of words that were all crossed out. The small section at the back of the poetry book on how to structure one's reading schedule seemed to be geared toward group learning as opposed to single-person tutoring scenarios. And for the first time ever, attempting to skim the Shakespearean plays he so loved only numbed his mind and caused anxiety to buzz dully in his stomach. He didn't know what Kevin would want to read about.
He didn't know anything about Kevin at all.
The sky was low and heavy on Wednesday, mirroring the petite teen's daunting whirlwind of emotions. He became miserably aware of how obvious his panic was when Nazz tapped him on the shoulder in biology, giving him an oddly humorless look. "You okay, Double Dee? You're looking pretty pale."
"I assure you, I'm fine, Nazz." He managed a grin, but her concern only seemed to soften a little.
"Okay, if you're sure, dude." The blonde then patted his shoulder softly before returning her attention to doodling along the margins of her textbook.
He couldn't even muster the strength to smooth out the fabric of his shirt.
Upon arriving at home, Edd scrubbed his face and hands until his skin burned and found a large sweatshirt that he hoped he'd be able to simply crawl inside of until the day had passed. When his hypothesis was proven that this, indeed, was impossible, he found himself stepping onto the porch, sitting down on a folded towel saved for scrubbing floors with. He folded his hands in his lap and stared out at the cul-de-sac, shaking violently.
Eons later and almost instantly, the wiry redhead's shadow fell over him. Double Dee swallowed thickly and looked up.
"Hey," said Kevin softly.
"H-hello," Double Dee croaked. The redhead's hands were shoved in his pockets and his shoulders were drawn tight. Double Dee could smell the denim of his jeans. Putting his hands on his knees to keep them from shaking, he stood. Immediately his fingers were trying to crawl up into his oversized sleeves. "Shall we?"
The weight of the boy's presence behind him was a crushing pressure as he climbed the stairs, and when he opened the door and his socks met the carpet of his room, his pulse thumped painfully in his throat. Kevin took the seat beside his, throwing an arm over the back of the chair and remaining silent. Eddward made a concerted effort not to notice how his shirt bunched around his biceps and rode up to reveal the slightest glimpse of toned stomach.
He felt like he was going to be ill.
"Would you be averse to continuing our poetry lesson?" The book audibly shuddered against the table for a brief moment as he opened it.
"Whatever you want."
"I- ah, v-very well, then. I marked some works by Emily Dickinson I think you will find interesting."
"Yeah," Kevin rasped. "Okay."
"Because her poems were published after her death, they were thrown completely … um…" Gulping, the dark-haired boy allowed himself to glance at the jock draped over his desk chair. "…the poems were taken out of chronological order and weren't organized from first to last until recently. I tried to mark them to match the approximate order they're now accepted in - oh dear…"
"You look like you're gonna pass out. Do you need a drink or something?"
Rising gracefully out of his seat, the redhead loomed over the genius pensively. "Um, a glass of ice water, please." The older boy closed the door carefully behind him as he slipped out and Double Dee turned his attention to the poster on the wall next to his window of Albert Einstein. What would you do in a situation like this? he pleaded silently.
Albert gazed stoically over his head as if far too ashamed by his lack of social skills to even acknowledge him.
Within moments, Kevin slipped back in beside him and held out a glass. Five ice cubes clanked together in it. "Here, man." Then, when Edd hesitated, "Take it."
The smaller male cupped the sweating glass in both hands, tipping his head back and taking childlike sips. The redhead's stare was unwavering as he drank. When Double Dee moved to set it down, Kevin took the cup and set it on a blank notecard. Instead of withdrawing, he stayed where he was. Double Dee watched breathlessly as long fingers crept near his clasped hands.
"Look. Just pick a poem and we'll look at it, okay? Here." He turned the book to look at it, then turned it back toward the shivering genius. "We'll start with this one. Can you read it for me?"
"I…" Double Dee looked up at him, his pulse thudding visibly in his throat. "All right."
"Go ahead," said Kevin breathlessly. He was close enough for Eddward to smell his cologne.
Blue eyes lingered on green for a moment before flicking down to the pages.
"I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading-treading-till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through-
And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum-
Kept beating-beating-till I thought
My Mind was going numb-
And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space-began to toll,
As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here-
And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down-
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing-then-"
"It's pretty," Kevin murmured after a minute. Edd looked at the hand resting before him and wondered fleetingly if Kevin chewed his fingernails. "What's the story behind it?"
"Dickinson was the subject of much controversy when this was first released since it suggested that consciousness simply fizzles out after death. At the time, Christianity was considered to be the correct belief."
"So she was an atheist?"
"Well, not necessarily. She may have suffered from depression after her mother died. While she entertained visitors, she never left her house. Some of her poems are about suffering a psychotic break, though whether or not she herself is the speaker is up for interpretation. Her body of works depicts her as both enraptured with the beauty of nature and discouraged with the human race."
"So kinda like you?" The redhead's crooked grin was heartbreakingly attractive.
"I'll take that as a compliment." Double Dee's voice was thin, but he allowed himself a peek at the athlete and felt a smile spreading across his face when he realized that "IMBECILE" was still stuck firmly to the strap of Kevin's hat.
"So tell me what it means already, dork."
"Rudeness will get you nowhere, sir. I would prefer your ideas before I'll be willing to share my own."
When only silence greeted him, he looked up to find the older boy smirking at him. Heat rose to his face immediately and he sputtered, head whipping back down to the book in front of him. Kevin laughed.
-x-
"Hey, dork."
"Yes?"
The genius was standing up, smoothing out the wrinkles in his baggy shirt. It was almost eight, and his parents were to be home at nine-thirty, or so the sticky note on the refrigerator said. Kevin gazed at him with those dark green eyes, not making a move to get up yet. "Are you busy Friday?"
"Um, not particularly."
"Nothing planned with the weirdoes?"
"No." He shook his head a little. "Not yet."
"Can I come over, then?"
The room seemed to shift beneath his feet. Eddward gripped the back of his chair, clearing his throat. "T-to study?"
"I got finals next week. We have 'em earlier than you lowly sophomores."
"Yes, of course!" Edd stuttered. "Goodness, how could I forget?"
"You don't mind?"
He squeezed the wood of the chair until his knuckles were white.
"Not at all."
The redhead rose above him and pushed his hat down over his thick hair. Double Dee uttered a silent good Lord and cursed his ability to name every muscle that rippled beneath his short-sleeved shirt. Kevin opened his mouth to say something, but hesitated, and the frantic urgency to fill the air with words caused Eddward to make a high-pitched squeak. "Um - uh-"
Kevin blinked at him, looking genuinely nervous, and the ability to form sentences died inside him.
"I, uh," the redhead cleared his throat, rubbing the side of his neck. "I better - yeah."
"Yes!" Eddward chirped.
Kevin lingered a moment longer before turning toward the door. Double Dee followed him, scrubbing his clammy hands on his jeans. The older boy's feet reached the door and he hesitated, his eyes on the light spilling through the crack from the hallway.
After a second, Double Dee made a sound of embarrassment and shuffled past him to open the door, frightened that Kevin was waiting for him to do so and that he had just made himself look like an utterly incompetent host. The redhead tensed suddenly, half-turning to face the petite genius, and the uncertainty in his eyes was unlike anything Double Dee had seen before.
His hand had just reached the doorknob when he was shoved against the wall, making the jar on the shelf by his head and the planets suspended from the ceiling rattle.
Kevin's pupils were immense and the silence was suffocating.
"K-Kevin, I - I don't think thisismaybeI nononoMMPH-"
Kevin's hands and mouth silenced his protests immediately.
Before he knew what was happening, Eddward was fisting his hands in the cotton of the jock's shirt and greedily accepting the tongue that was pushing between his lips. Strong hands slid down his sides and gripped at his waist and he moaned helplessly against perfect teeth. Double Dee whined in protest when the redhead tore his lips away, only to cry out when Kevin bit his neck, sucking hard at the mark he left. "Don't - ahhh - h-how will I hide-"
"Use makeup, dork," breathed the athlete before once again pressing his lips and tongue to the shuddering boy's skin, this time claiming the sensitive spot behind the genius's ear.
"Oh dear, Kevin, p-please-" The hands gripping his waist slid lower, and the petite boy arched off of the wall when the redhead's lips roamed across his collarbone. His eyes fluttered open, unseeing, and he gasped fruitlessly for air. The smell of the athlete's skin and the heat of his mouth were completely, utterly incapacitating. He squeezed the smaller male's hips, and Double Dee cried out desperately before biting his bottom lip to shut himself up. Kevin chuckled against his skin, a deep, predatory sound. It vibrated all the way down Eddward's stomach.
Suddenly, the powerful hands left his sides and the redhead stepped back. Double Dee blinked, dazed, and darkness clouded his vision at the terrifying look in the bigger male's eyes.
"Be seeing you," he murmured. He stepped out of the room and shut the door behind him.
"Oh dear," Double Dee murmured breathlessly, and slid down the wall in a dead faint.