LIVE FAST | REDDIE

- 17 | LIVE FAST

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"How long have you been here, now?" Richie's voice filtered in through the door to his room. He was out in the kitchen getting coffee, which wasn't unusual anymore, especially not the morning after a party when Eddie would crash in Richie's bed when they got back at two in the morning. Eddie grunted an unintelligible reply, pressing a hand to his throbbing head.

"I'm gonna need a bit more than that if you want your coffee done right, Eddie Baby. I might drop the sugar packet in the wrong cup if you aren't careful..." The teasing tone to Richie's voice was almost too much for Eddie to comprehend as he rolled over, inhaling deeply and drowning in the scent of Richie. Alcohol, cigarettes, and candy. It was the only thing that had stayed the same since Eddie had moved.

"Three months!" Eddie groaned loudly, head pounding with every word, aching with every movement. "God, I'm so hungover. Hurry up with the fucking coffee, and don't you dare put anything in it but your utmost love and affection or you'll have an angry boy in your bedroom. Don't forget, I know where you keep your stash."

"I'm wounded, Eds! You wouldn't," Richie gasped dramatically as he walked into the room with two steaming cups. He handed one to Eddie, and the brunette glanced down, checking that it was indeed as black as it could possibly be. He preferred it to be strong on mornings like these, despite the horribly bitter taste. His tongue had become immune to the searing heat after many mornings of pain and suffering. His head hurt more, canceling out the burning sensation.

Three months, and nearly every week there was at least one day that Eddie woke up feeling the same way. Key words, at least. His grades had slipped dangerously close to failures, due to his inconsistency with homework assignments, which really meant that he hardly ever did them and if he did he almost always cheated. Bill had opted to keep quiet about his spiral downwards after seeing Ben go in the same direction; Bev had the boy wrapped around her finger. Anyone could see they both enjoyed it.

Eddie had taken particular interest in one Ethan Chase, prissy, pretty, and best friend to Henry Bowers himself. However, it was more of the looks that he liked about the boy. He was too uptight for Eddie's taste. That wasn't to say that if he were to ask Eddie out the boy would say no, but Eddie certainly wouldn't be the one asking, that was for sure.

Richie had very deliberately stated the fact that he disliked Ethan on multiple occasions, which Eddie found rather amusing, and it just encouraged his teasing of his friend. He could see it in Richie's eyes how much he hated when he caught Eddie staring at Ethan from across the room, especially at lunch when the curly-haired wonder couldn't do anything about it. Eddie made sure to comment at least once or twice a day on how handsome Ethan was just to hear Richie try to do him one better, which was always entertaining.

Then there was the less clear memories, memories of flashing lights and loud music and crowded lots. Confusing and fucked-up nights, grappling around half-dressed, weak light sliding in from the bathroom and everything haloed and unstable under the ferocious buzz of the drugs and the alcohol: hands on each other, rough and fast, kicked-over bottles of whiskey spilling over the carpet of Richie's bedroom— fun and not that big of a deal when they were actually happening, more than worth it for the sharp gasp when Eddie's eyes rolled back and he forgot about everything, forgot about his father, forgot about his mother, about Bangor, and his friends that he had left behind; but when they woke the next morning stomach-down and groaning on opposite sides of the bed it receded into an incoherence of backlit flickers, choppy and poorly lit like some experimental film, the unfamiliar twist of Richie's features fading from memory already and none of it with any more bearing on their actual lives than a dream.