golden > reddie oneshots

you trip me up

by:
ssstrychnine
on
ao3

♥ reddie
♥  7,166 words

♡
✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　     *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

When Eddie Kaspbrak is six, his mother tells him that he's delicate. She says it like it's something a little bit unfortunate, a little bit tragic, a little bit unavoidable, and he doesn't actually know what it means, except that it's the reason he starts school eight months after everyone else his age. He thinks it has something to do with his inhaler, the chill taste of it, the way he uses it when he feels uncomfortable or nervous, which is always. Or maybe it has something to do with his dad, who he doesn't remember, who he isn't sure ever existed at all except he must have, because Eddie exists. Mostly. He's pretty sure. He's real enough to be delicate.

He's not really allowed outside on the weekends, except when his mother is in the garden, trying to spy on Mrs Brooks' prize winning roses, even though she doesn't ever garden herself, just keeps the lawns trimmed close. He follows her then, keeps hold of her sleeve while she makes small talk over the yapping barks made by Mrs Brooks' dog, the scariest animal Eddie has ever encountered.

"Would you like some roses?" Mrs Brooks is asking, too small to see over the fence properly, just a straw hat and a pair of fluffy eyebrows, like a caterpillar. Eddie has to shade his eyes with his hand just to see her. "They've come up beautifully."

"Oh, I don't care much for roses," sniffs his mother. "I have some lovely yellow tulips, far prettier, much more delicate."

The word sticks to Eddie's tongue and he mouths it to the ground. Delicate. His tongue hits the back of his teeth, the roof of his mouth. Both he and the tulips are delicate. He fidgets, kicks at the grass and tugs on his mother's sleeve, and she gives him a look like when he asks her if he can go and play and she's definitely already decided he needs to spend the afternoon in his bedroom. He chews on his lip. He lets go of her sleeve and heads back to the house because it's always better to do something before she asks it of him.

In the dining room, the flowers sit at the center of the table. Yellow tulips, Eddie supposes, just like his mother said, except they're made of plastic instead of whatever a real flower is made of. It's because of his allergies, Eddie knows that real ones might make him sneeze and set off his asthma, so she has a cupboard full of plastic ones that she sprays with scented water so they might smell a little bit like a garden does. Eddie sits at the table, rests his chin on his hands, stares at the flowers in their crystal vase. It has no water in it. There are some green leaves missing, little hollow nubs of plastic where they've fallen out, showing the black wire inside. He stares at them and he wonders what they have in common, to both be called delicate, and then he remembers that his mother had called a tiny plate with golden edges delicate too once, and he thinks that must be it. He's a plastic boy, or he's made of whatever a pretty plate is made of, not the real breathing stuff that makes up the kids at school. A fake kid, full of black wire or yellow plastic or porcelain. He remembers skinning his knee, the blood that came out in bright spots under the graze, and he thinks he must be a pretty good fake, and then he finds he can't really breathe. His eyes burn and his head is messy static and there's so much pressure on his chest he can only breathe in sharp gasps. He fumbles with the inhaler in his pocket, blasts the medicine down his throat, inhales so deeply he almost topples off the chair, takes another puff, settles and stills and calms. The flowers haven't moved. They're bright and perfect against the sun and it makes him angrier than he's ever been before, angry like his bones might break with it. He leans forward, over the table, drags the vase back toward him, and then he throws it onto the floor. It shatters beautifully, catching the light like sun on water, but it doesn't make him feel much better. It just makes him feel kind of sick.