𝐉𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐀 𝐒𝐜𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡 - 𝐑𝐞𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞

In Sickness And In Health

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Eddie couldn't believe it.

He was sick—sick!—because of his allergies, meaning his mother was locking him in his room and feeding him pill soup until he felt like his drugged-up self again, but that's not even the worst part! The worst part was that he had homework.

But there was always a good side to things.

Eddie smiled from his place on his bed as Richie invited himself in via the window. He had his backpack on, which could mean almost anything, but it guaranteed he was spending the night, and Eddie's smile only grew.

"Hey," Richie greeted, dropping his bag beside the bed and all but launching himself on top of Eddie's work.

Eddie rolled his eyes. "Ever the attention whore, aren't you, Rich?"

The gangly boy shrugged nonchalantly and tucked his hands behind his head. "Attention whore, best best friend in the world; it's all relative!"

Eddie hummed doubtfully. He rolled the boy off his homework, but before he did he made sure to plant a kiss at the corner of Richie's mouth, so you can't call him a bad... friend.

"What's relative is whether or not Mrs. Wilson is fit to be a teacher, because what the fuck even is this English assignment?" Eddie groaned, glaring at his paper as if it would write itself. "Eight fucking pages—eight! Why eight? Why not ten, or, better yet, five! Those are normal numbers, eight is more random than my mom taking me to the doctor. Eight pages on why sexual hygiene is important."

"Want me to help?" Richie offered. "I know a lot about sexual hygiene, since your mom is-"

"Rich," Eddie interrupted.

Richie closed his mouth, hesitated, and started over. "So you don't want to write a paper on health?"

Eddie huffed with a roll of his eyes. "Richie, I'm sick, and she's giving me a random-amount-of-pages essay on sexual hygiene."

It must've clicked then, because Richie's lips formed an 'O' and he giggled a bit before full-on cackling to the point that Eddie had to shush him. "She- she thinks y-yy- she thinks you're fuckin', Eds! Oh man- that's- that's wild," he snickered. "She thinks she needs to teach you how not to be silly and how to wrap your willy! Oh gosh, oh wow, Eddie Kaspbrak-"

"Yes, Richard, I'm glad you get the picture," Eddie spat, but he was smiling. "God, I really don't want to write this."

"Well, if you need motivation, just think about how spiteful you can be! You can wail all your medical knowledge at her, give her whiplash or some shit."

Eddie's fingers moved up to rest on the bandage across his throat as he hummed in agreement. When his mother had first seen the bandages, she whisked him off to the hospital to get him a "proper" checkup. Everything came out fine, but she still got all the tests she could and more done on him. He was stuck in there for five days.

She'd given him one more pill (whatever she could get her hands on) and lectured him for four hours straight about not getting into fights because he was delicate.

She made him change the bandages every twelve hours (7 P.M. and 7 A.M.) with her supervision.

Needless to say, when he got sick a week after getting out of the hospital, she was rabid. She marched him to the doctor and demanded to know why—if he was on his medication (and he most certainly was, all eight pills for breakfast and dinner) and he'd just come from the hospital—why on Earth was he sick?