❝︎ 𝙈𝙪𝙩𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝘼𝙣𝙙 𝙋𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙙 . ❞︎ ━︎━︎ 𝐈𝐓 𝐎𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐓𝐒

『︎ 𝑵𝒐 𝑶𝒏𝒆 𝑺𝒆𝒆𝒔 𝒀𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝑻𝒆𝒆𝒕𝒉 𝑨𝒕 𝒀𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝑭𝒖𝒏𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒍 』︎

ship; reddie

by bimmyshrug on ao3

⚠️ WARNING ⚠️
BIGGG TW FOR SELF HARM!! DO NOT TAKE THIS LIGHTLY EITHER, THIS FIC REVOLVES MAINLY AROUND SELF HARM AND GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF IT, ALSO HOMOPHOBIA AND SLIGHT FOOD RESTRICTION AS A PUNISHMENT. PLEASE READ AT YOUR OWN RISK AND HEED MY WARNING!! THANK YOU.

~

Eddie doesn't remember how old he was the first time he thought about hurting himself on purpose.

He just knows it started like a mental itch. Like a distant urge in the back of his mind sometimes while his mom lectured him about being dirty- being sick.

"You're sick, Eddie. You're getting over your sickness." He knows what that means, because she told him. She's been telling him since he was little.

He doesn't do it, though. Not for a long time.

He didn't mean to leave the picture in his pillowcase. Well, he did, but he didn't expect his ma to look there, because why would she? Eddie knows how to use the washing machine and the dryer. He does his own laundry, he changes his own bedding and washes it. So why would she look there?

The picture itself is innocuous enough. Innocent enough. Eddie saw it at Keene's pharmacy some time ago, when he was waiting for his prescription to be filled. Mr. Keene had disappeared behind his partition, and Eddie decided to look through the rack of magazines, as he usually did.

He flipped through a few magazines absentmindedly, until he saw the picture. He recognized the man in it immediately, because Richie had made him sneak in with him to see The Breakfast Club when it was showing at the Aladdin. Richie had loved it, but something about it made Eddie feel uneasy. He had especially hated John Bender. From the moment his face came onto the screen, Eddie felt an excited hatred fill his chest.

He disliked the movie, but he hated that character so much that it pissed him off to think about him. So he isn't sure why, standing there in Keene's, he felt so compelled to take that picture; one of Judd Nelson dressed in character for a photoshoot. But he was. He was so compelled, in fact, that he triple checked to make sure Mr. Keene was still behind the partition before carefully ripping the picture out of the magazine and stuffing it into his back pocket. And then Mr. Keene called his name, and he grabbed the paper bag out of his hands and left the store.

He forgot about the picture. He honestly had, until he got home that night and changed into his pajamas. He felt it when he took his pants off and pulled it out, regarding it with a sort of disgust. He did not throw it away. Instead, he put it in his pencil case that he keeps in his desk drawer, and didn't look at it again for a week, until he needed a pen from that case.

And then he saw it again, and thought, huh. And he took it out of the case and looked at it for a while, and then he put it back. And then he changed his mind, because he figured his desk drawer is the first place someone would look if they were spying in his room, so he stuffed it into his pillowcase instead to avoid having to explain why he had a picture of Judd Nelson tucked in his desk drawer.

And then he started. Just. Looking at it sometimes. Sometimes before bed, he'd pull it from his pillowcase and just look. He'd look for a good long while, before stuffing it back into its place and turning off his bedside lamp. And that was it.