Reddie Oneshots

Richie's Guitar Pt. 2

continuing the last part
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Sat in the shower, Eddie still didn't feel clean. The water beat down on his hunched spine as he hugged his knees. After a while, Sonia Kaspbrak rapped her fat knuckles on the bathroom door, hollering at Eddie to check that he hadn't slipped and cracked his head open on the porcelain. Eddie almost felt like he had; like his brain was oozing out of his skull in red and blue.

The whole weekend, he'd made his excuses to the other Losers, claiming that he was snowed under with school work, and had let his mother pamper him with her unnecessary affections. He couldn't see him. He couldn't see any of them, not if Richie might be there too. And Richie had a funny habit of just turning up uninvited.

As Eddie towel dried his hair, he heard the doorbell ring downstairs.

'Hey, Mrs K. Eddie home?'

Eddie's heart froze. 'No, no, no,' he muttered, hoping that just maybe his mother would be in one of her moods where she didn't want Eddie to have company.

'He's upstairs,' Sonia said truthfully. 'But it is a Sunday night, Richie. You have school tomorrow.'

Richie promised, 'That's why I'm here. I need Eddie's help with a math problem. Something's just not adding up.'

'Oh, you fucking dick,' Eddie mumbled to himself, draping the towel around his neck.

'Well, alright, but don't be too late, okay?' Sonia insisted.

'We won't,' Richie agreed and bounded noisily up the stairs.

'Shit!' Eddie cursed, rummaging quickly for his pyjama bottoms under his pillow and stumbling to stick his feet through them. As Richie burst through the door, he doubled over, only just having pulled the waistband up in time. 'Fucking Christ! You should knock!'

Richie flushed, trying to keep his eyes trained on Eddie's furious face, with its ruffled, damp hair and pink cheeks and crinkled nose, and not the bare skin of his arms and chest and shoulders. 'Whoops,' he said, closing the door behind him. 'That could have been really awkward.'

'You think?' Eddie said sarcastically, going to his drawer to find a spare t-shirt to wear.

Slightly disappointed to watch Eddie put more clothes on, Richie swanned over to the bed and sat himself down as though it were his own. 'Can we talk?'

Eddie folded his arms. 'Math problem?'

'Come on, I thought that was pretty good,' Richie laughed, trying to lighten the mood.

Sighing, Eddie admitted, 'Rich, I'm not ready to talk about it just yet, okay?'

His nose twitched. 'I think we need to, though. Unfortunately, you're the only one I can talk to about this. Unless you've told anyone, that is.'

'I haven't,' Eddie said. He hadn't seen anyone, let alone told anyone. 'So, you haven't told anyone?'

'No,' Richie said, laying down on his side, propped up on his elbow. 'Wouldn't without your permission.'

'You don't have it.'

Richie frowned. 'Duly noted. Then I guess we're stuck with each other.'

Eddie's toes curled, pawing at the carpet. 'Fuck.'

Cocking an eyebrow, Richie asked, 'Are you going to sit down?'

Squeezing himself into the gap at the head of the bed, Eddie tried to look as nonchalant as Richie did, but he failed. He was confused at Richie's laxness, since the last time they had seen each other, Richie had been so fragile, so quiet and so scared, and now he seemed back to his usual upbeat, boisterous persona. It was quite a shift.