𝒃𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒏 • 𝒓𝒆𝒅𝒅𝒊𝒆

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏

"Happy birthday, Eddie!"

Eddie smiled at everyone around the table, incredibly grateful for all of his wonderful friends. He doesn't know where he would be without them. Certainly not in college, studying to be a psychologist . One of the best students in his major. Saludatorian of his class, set back by only his best friend of them all, Richie Tozier, who graduated as Valedictorian.

Now, Richie is standing next to him, raising his glass in the air and grinning at Eddie softly. "To Eds," he says, turning to look at everyone else in their group. Just as Eddie is about to interrupt with a casual "don't call me Eds," Richie is already speaking again. "To our newest addition to 21 club! Wow, Eddie Spaghetti," he's smiling at Eddie again, looking directly into his eyes. "I can't believe you can drink with us now! Since you were such a buzz kill about it. I mean, Ben here isn't even legal yet and he drinks on a daily basis. Aint that right, Haystack?"

"No," comes Ben's small, but firm voice.

"Well, that's just too bad, my good fella!" Richie is doing another one of his Voices, and Eddie makes direct eye contact with Stan, who looks just about ready to kill Richie. "A lovely chap like you 'ought to be out and about drinkin' on the daily! The daily, Haystack!"

"Beep beep, Richie," says Beverly, rolling her eyes and taking a sip of her drink. "Just finish off the toast already, I want to get this party rolling!"

Richie sighs, looking wounded, but he listens to Bev. He always does. "Fine, fine. To my dearest Eddie Spaghetti, the love of my life," he wipes a fake tear. "To Eddie!"

"To Eddie!" they all repeat, meeting each other's glasses in the middle of the circle.

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The next time Eddie looks at his watch, he sees it's already 10:07 PM, and he almost has an asthma attack. As he rushes off of the dancefloor of the bar, he feels someone following him and he turns around. It's Richie. Eddie turns back around and keeps walking.

"Where ya off to, Eds?" Richie asks in a casual enough voice, but if Eddie had been looking at him closely he would have seen the worry in his eyes. "You're leaving pretty early."

Eddie is slipping on his jacket in a hurried fashion, planning on talking to Richie once he's ready to go, but Richie grabs his wrist and forces Eddie to look at him. "I've got to get home," Eddie explains, yanking his arm out of Richie's grasp and finishing putting on his jacket. He looks at his watch again. 10:09. "Shit!"

"Eddie, calm down." The worry is in Richie's voice now. "Seriously, what's going on? Why do you have to be home already?"

"I -" Eddie is beyong stressed at this point, and he begins to search for his aspirator. By the time he finds it in his jacket pocket, his breathing is coming out in whistling breaths, and Richie is standing above him, his hands on Eddie's shoulders. He takes a puff from his aspirator and looks up at Richie, who's eyes are wide behing his big coke bottle glasses. Wide and brown and worried, those eyes are so worried. "I'm sorry, Rich, but I've got to be home, I -" he begins to stumble away from Richie's grip. Richie grabs onto his waist instead, leaning down closer to Eddie so that Eddie has to look into his eyes.

"Guh-guys?" Eddie's eyes get wide and the sound of Bill's voice, and he tries to get out of Richie's grip but his hands only tighten. No, no, no. Bill cannot be in on this conversation! He'll just stutter out his questions, and then get worried and his stutter will only get worse. Eddie doesn't have the time for that right now. "What's guh-going on?"