Nyctophilia 🌪 Reddie

iv

Needless to say, Richie and Eddie both woke up in better moods. Well, Eddie did. Richie was a little more annoyed because he was not a morning person and Eddie made him wake up because the group always met to workout.

They got dressed and passed jokes between each other, Richie throwing a handful of lotion at Eddie when he complained his hands were dry, and Eddie getting him back by smearing toothpaste on his arm.

They were both very late for workouts.

While they were late, the other teenagers realized that Eddie was in a better mood than he had been in since he had been kidnapped by the Bowers gang nearly three and a half months before. They couldn't be mad that they were late since their friend seemed to be recovering.

"Where's Bill and Stan?" Eddie asked, looking around. "Are they already done?"

"Bill's got a fever," Ben said with a shrug. "Stan took him to get checked out."

"Is he okay?" Eddie asked again, worried about the well-being of his friend.

"He'll be okay," Mike said, before making direct eye contact with Eddie. "He's in no condition to go to his therapy session tonight, so you get to go instead."

Eddie really wanted to die right then and there. Jade was relentless and seemed to be sure that he would open up before they hit the three month mark of living in the base.

He was about to protest, but he saw the worried expression on Richie's face and sighed, grabbing his boyfriend's hand. "What time?"

Everyone was shocked that he didn't fight back. Eddie always had something bad to say about therapy, but now he decided to ask what time and let that be the end of the conversation?

"Same time as usual," Bev said, narrowing her eyes to see if Eddie was thinking about running or doing something else stupid. He seemed to pass Bev's mental test and she turned away, walking to the wall so she could start her stretches.

They all stretched together, lifted weights, and sometimes would wrestle. The wrestling lost its appeal, since none of them were fighting for anything. In the Hive, it was always a ranking, and to the teenagers, the winner of the day got to choose the movie they'd watch later that night.

Eddie was assisting Richie in his weight lifting. He hadn't been allowed to do heavy weight lifting since his arm was still recovering from when El broke it, but he could spot and use smaller weights.

Richie figured Eddie's inability to do weights had a lot to do with his pissy attitude. He didn't like being the one on the sidelines, watching as his friends got stronger. He wanted to be in the thick of it, winning his own mental competition.

"How much longer until they clear you?" Bev asked Eddie from where she was sitting atop a pull up bar, watching as Mike assisted Ben in his lifting.

"To do this shit? Probably not until we reach three months of being here. They want me to do the full twelve month recovery," Eddie said, clearly unimpressed with the doctors at the base.

"Cmon, Eds. You're... not missing... out on much," Richie gasped, pushing the bar back into its holder and sitting up. Eddie tossed him a towel to wipe the sweat off his face, and Richie accepted with a grin, before throwing the sweaty towel back at Eddie who dodged it and shot him a glare.

"That's disgusting, Richie," Eddie snarled, kicking the towel away from where he was standing.

"I don't know Eds. Your mom seems to like it when I sweat, so-"

"I'm gonna stop you there," Eddie said with an eye roll. "Come on, we need to shower then waste away the rest of our day here."

There wasn't much to do in the base. The teens didn't have a room to watch movies and hang out like they did at the Hive. It was very one note; the only thing they could do was workout, go to therapy, and hang out in their rooms. They could put requests in for things they needed, but most of the teenagers asked for clothes and certain types of food they wanted.

None of them wanted to ask for too much.

Eddie waited for Richie while he showered, despite Richie's complaints that they could save water if they showered together.

Everyone assumed that Eddie and Richie had been more intimate with each other, but they hadn't gotten past making out. Most of it had to do with Eddie's bitterness toward the base, the other half of it being that neither of them wanted to mess it up.

When Richie finished showering, he moved out into the main room where their bed and closest sat, so Eddie could take his time showering.

Richie closed his eyes and laid on the bed with only his towel wrapped around his waist. He tried to picture the teenagers in the Hive, when they were all happy and together. Such memories weren't really possible anymore.

A knock at the door pulled Richie out of his head. He opened his eyes and pulled on a pair of sweats, before walking over to the door and opening it. He was not expecting a government official in all black to be standing on the other side.

"Can I help you, sir?" Richie asked, wishing he had thrown on a shirt before he opened the door.

"I understand this is unnatural, but we need to meet with you and all of your fellow Hive members, Mr. Tozier," the man said in a deep voice. "Please meet at room five in the west wing in twenty minutes."

That's all he said before walking away.

Richie closed the door, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. For two months, no one had contacted them or asked them to meet, and suddenly they were being asked to meet with no explanation. That's not the only thing that bothered Richie.

"He called us Hive members," Richie hissed to himself. He knew it was just a label, but he also knew how much it bothered Eddie, so Richie had grown to hate it as well.

"Rich? You okay?"

Richie turned around to see Eddie wrapped in a towel, his hair all over the place from attempting to towel dry it. Richie thought he looked beautiful, even if that wasn't what he was supposed to be thinking. He couldn't help being blown away by his boyfriend.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Richie said, before explaining what had happened. "He called us Hive members, Eds! Like, we tried to stop that shit from happening!"

Eddie hummed in agreement. "I know. They can't seem to see past where we came from," he said, pulling on his shirt and a pair of jeans.

Eddie hated wearing jeans and preferred shorts, but they were meeting with government officials, and Eddie wanted to convince them to let him and his friends leave.

"It's so annoying!" Richie exclaimed, still laying on the bed in nothing but sweats.

Eddie threw a shirt at him. "It's one person, Rich. It pisses me off too, but we need to focus on convincing them to let us leave. I'm tired of being stuck here," he said, sitting at the end of the bed.

Richie rolled his eyes. "Yesterday you would've been ranting along side me."

"Yesterday you questioned if I loved you. Besides, one of us has to be the voice of reason," Eddie said with a small smile, offering Richie his hand.

Richie took it and allowed Eddie to lead him to the west wing where the other losers were already standing outside, waiting to be let in.