.: Friday I'm In Love :|: Reddie :.

One More Summer

"What am I gonna do, Richie?" Eddie asked miserably for what felt like the hundredth time. He was getting more anxious about his decision to leave by the day. He was afraid Sonia would call the police since he wasn't eighteen, or something ridiculous like that, but the part that was bothering him the most was the fact that he actually felt like something was missing.

She had seriously gotten into his head about his pills when he was younger, and although he had started to doubt them, now being off them completely was making him feel weird. Sometimes he would get really shaky in the middle of the school day and all of the work that he handed in from that point on would be nearly illegible. Sometimes he'd have sudden asthma attacks, thus ending the streak during which he hadn't used it since leaving. Now he used it every day at least once.

He knew he just had to break out of the cycle and see that he was fine without the placebos, as Greta Keene had once called them way back in elementary school.

Part of Eddie that was a mere whisper in the back of his head was telling him that he should have grabbed his medication on the way out. He wanted to go back and get it. His shaking hands made it difficult to work. He had spilled three coffees in the past week and bumped in to a few people as well. But that little whisper was the side of him that still believed in all of it.

Sometimes it got louder. Eddie would be doing his homework, or taking a shower, or sometimes trying to go to sleep and suddenly his thoughts would start shouting at him. That was usually when the asthma attacks happened. He was running out of the inhaler's medicine, too.

What if this never went away, he asked himself. What if she was right all along, and I really could get sick if I'm not a good boy about my pills?

He didn't ask Richie. He knew it would upset him. Hell, Eddie was upset, and he knew Richie was catching on, because he had noticed his inhaler use, and he had been there for one of the incidents at Dunkin Donuts. Eddie wasn't sure how long he was willing to let it go on before he finally just went back for his medication. It had already been nearly a week, and his teachers were starting to pick up on his change in handwriting as well.

"You're gonna stay here," Richie replied from outside the bathroom. Sometimes he sat outside the door like a creep waiting to pounce on Eddie and drag him into the living room to cuddle and watch a movie once his hair was dry and soft. The brunette sighed, letting the water hit his face for a few long minutes. His hands were shaking again. Usually a shower helped him stop it, but they wouldn't settle down. If he didn't get ahold of it then Richie would notice when Eddie reached for the popcorn.

He groaned softly, shoving his shaking fist in his mouth so Richie wouldn't hear him and mistake it for something immature. He washed his hair as best he could with his unsteady hands and turned the water off, drying himself and pulling on one of Richie's sweatshirts and his own red shorts. He dried his hair as well as he could, but it took longer, and the loud noise made his ears hurt.

That was another thing. It wasn't just the physical attributes. Sometimes it was, but he was mostly just exhausted all the time. Not sleepy, but tired. He has recently discovered that there was a big difference. Sometimes he didn't feel good, but he never actually got sick. He just felt like he was. He was constantly checking his temperature to make sure, and one time he thought he had a fever, but he had forgotten that he had just taken a sip of coffee.

Once his hair was dry he opened the door and trudged past Richie, dragging his towel along and dropping it in the laundry bin. Then a pair of warm arms wrapped around him and he was spun around. Richie lifted him up, and he flashed back briefly to when he had been taken out of the sewers. Richie had held him just like this. Eddie closed his eyes and tightened his legs around Richie's waist wordlessly, resting his head on the boy's shoulder as he was carried to the living room. A chill overcame him and didn't go away, not even when Richie bundled him up in a blanket with reassurances that the popcorn would be served shortly.