BRUISED ➝ reddie | ✓

1

Richie Tozier brought the cigarette between his lips, letting the toxic smoke fill his decaying lungs and pulse throughout his insides and swirls around in each crevice of his body. He then takes away the cancer stick, after a moment blowing out the toxic waste into the thin November air.

Beverly Marsh raised an eyebrow at him, sitting across from the much taller boy on the brick wall with her own cigarette between her fingers. She watched as the smoke faded into nothing, sighing lightly as she proceeded to watch her best friend smoke away.

"You seem to be going heavy on the cigarettes today," She paused, "I mean, isn't that your fifth one in the past half hour?"

Richie shrugged, "I like smoking."

Beverly eyed his cigarette with her green embers, frowning. "If you carry smoking on like that daily, you'll die."

"Well I obviously don't smoke this much to look badass- as much as I am, Bev." Richie grumbled, pushing his glasses up on his face.

"You're worrying me a lot lately, how are your parents-"

"I don't wanna talk about them, alright? I'm fine and I'm always fine. Look, I'm just moody as fuck today and I need a few more cig's. I'll lighten up soon, just getting used to my man period."

Beverly laughed a little at that, running her free hand through her short ginger curls before taking a puff of her cigarette, flicking away the excess ash onto the bricks under her.

"A man period, huh? Must sucks, I wouldn't know what it's like."

"Yeah, it fuckin' sucks. I piss blood and shit like that, have to shove a few tampons up-"

"Beep beep, Richie." Beverly grins.

That simple sentence took Richie back a few years for a moment, as he remembered his old friends that he had grown apart from due to his bad habits. He sighed, thinking of Ben, Stan, Mike, Ben and... Eddie. He quickly shook away the thoughts and nodded at Bev.

"Bottoms up, princess." Richie lifted his cigarette up with his pinky finger high and clanked it against Beverly's, before taking a quick puff again.

Beverly smirked at Richie, before stumping her cigarette out. "That's me done for today."

Richie frowned and watched as the ash disintegrated. "You coulda' gave that to me, wasting a perfectly good cig."

"I think you've had one too many for today, Tozier." Beverly winked, trying to lighten the mood with a subtle hint of sarcasm to coat her seriousness and concern.

"Gosh, Bev. Shut up- you're not my Mom." Richie snapped, trying not to seem too harsh but his words had a bite to them.

Beverly furrowed her eyebrows before huffing, not saying anything more for a few minutes before finally piping up again. "I'm just being your friend and caring, since no one else seems to- someone has to."

Richie flinched at her bluntness, but knew that she was telling the truth. Richie's habits had slowly made him unravel away from others and not become a priority on others lists.

Even his own parents didn't give a shit about him.

Hell, his parents were the ones who funded the cigarettes for him. Every day he'd ask either his Mom or Dad for cigarette money and without any hesitation, they'd hand over 10 dollars.

"Well shit, where would I be without you?" Richie chuckled dryly, running his fingers through his dark brown locks that reached his jawline.

Beverly smiled, "You'd be lonely and homeless, probably."