❦♰❀ reddie smut ☿✿☆

83. don't you mind that I've got this fever?

by: honeyvenom

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Eddie finds it hard letting go.

Richie knew that all too well. Had known it since they were children. Even before he was friends with Eddie, when he just knew him as the delicate little Derry hypochondriac always complaining of germs and lecturing other children about his low bone density. He was anaemic too, with a lack of healthy red blood cells, and he was quick to tell people that he had two grandparents who had passed away from tuberculosis. Acting like this was genetic, that the delicacy which had marred his family's history had been passed down through the generations to Eddie.

That is, until Richie and the others coaxed Eddie out of his shell. Eddie was always precious, but Richie remembers how much he had flourished as part of the Losers Club. How he had run with them like a tiny spitfire through Derry's streets. How he had shrieked and hurled himself into the rock fight between the Losers and Bowers' gang. How, despite his broken arm, he'd gone with them into the house on Neibolt, his mouth drawn up in a tight, determined pout. Afterwards, as they fell into the lake to wash off the blood and grime, Richie watched as Eddie stripped out of his t-shirt and jeans, and for the first time in his life felt speechless. Utterly speechless at this beautiful boy who was braver than anyone he'd ever met.

When they meet again all those years later, it's to find Eddie had closed up as tight as a clam. Had unlearned everything the Losers once taught him about letting go. But even then their eyes meet across the table in the Jade Orient, Eddie telling Richie to go fuck himself, and Richie just knew that same spark was buried there deep down. It was just a case of finding it again and bringing it to the surface.

Richie had the opposite problem to Eddie. With him there had been no boundaries. No stop signs. He'd spent the last 20 years snorting everything. Injecting everything. Fucking anyone he wanted. All he'd known was excess for years, signposted by the string of hollow flings and endless stints in rehab. He was on the verge of a complete career meltdown, trying to scratch back any credibility he could. The call from Mike had come when he was at the start of finally getting clean - truly getting clean this time - and the rush of new memories combined with the nauseous twist of withdrawal had him puking his guts out over a railing while his manager Todd stood behind him shouting, "What the fuck, Tozier?"

Three shaky days later of going cold turkey and almost seeing the love of his life impaled in front of him as they fought the clown nemesis from their childhood, Richie had burst into Eddie's room at the Town House without even knocking. "I need you to know something," he said as Eddie looked at him, eyes wide and dark like a frightened deer's. "I need you to know that I think you're beautiful and amazing, and that I'm in love with you. And if you'd left now and I'd never told you that, I would have regretted it for the rest of my life."

And maybe it's a good thing that Richie didn't have any boundaries because the next thing Eddie was barrelling into his arms, babbling that he loved Richie too, that he'd loved him since they were boys, that he didn't want his life to be a lie anymore. And then they were kissing, Richie's hands on Eddie's cheeks, both of them crying into the kiss. The first kiss they'd ever shared.

But there were rules, Eddie said, as they sat on his bed, hands clasped as they shared a McDonalds coffee Richie brought him. Eddie would leave his wife for Richie, but there were to be no drugs, and no cheating. If Eddie even caught a whiff that Richie was using again or he'd been with anyone else, he was gone. Not understanding even then, that every single person Richie had wanted over the last 20 years had resembled Eddie in some way. Whether it was the dark hair, or dimples, or small stature. Richie was almost ashamed of how much Eddie had informed his sexuality.