𝗥𝗢𝗠𝗘, reddie

037. marsala

EDDIE sat across from his mother in her living room, smelling strongly of floral perfume and Bengay cream. Reruns of Family Feud played on the television, a small old thing with a permanent neon green glitch on the left side of the screen.

"Mama?" He says softly, holding a black mug of tea in his hands, nearly white with the amount of french vanilla cream she'd poured in, steaming hot.

She'd settled in her old recliner which creaked each time she sat, a faded brown. "What is it, Eddie?" She asked, turning down the television.

It was always relatively loud since, with age, her hearing got worse. She was only halfway through her forties and already needed to blast the TV to hear it properly.

She'd never been the best medically, growing up in a home with a low immune system and a plethora of issues which couldn't easily be solved with her family's low income.

Since she'd had Eddie, she wanted to give him a better life than she'd had in her youth, which meant she got a bit overbearing with diets and weekly cleaning. Still, he appreciated her effort in keeping him away from the trauma she'd experienced.

He took a slow sip of the tea as he looked over at her tentatively before he placed it gently on the coaster that she'd set out for him to use. "You remember how I'm — how I like boys?" He asked her nervously.

She looked over at him curiously, sipping her own beverage of ice water out of a bright red plastic straw. Instead of a verbal response she simply nodded her head and smiled around the straw.

Eddie tapped his fingers against his leg nervously, bouncing a bit.

He knew what he wanted to say — he wanted to tell her that he had a boyfriend, and his name was Richie, and that they'd been close for a while now. He wanted to tell her that Richie lived in Jacksonville, Florida. He had no idea how to tell her.

He also had no idea what her response might be. Meeting someone on the internet, to someone born in the seventies, might not be an amazing idea.

Meeting someone in real life that you met on the internet seemed like a terrifyingly dangerous idea. Dating someone you met on the internet? Unspeakable, maybe.

And Sonia Kaspbrak wasn't exactly predictable. She reacted ways that he'd never expected her to in countless ways.

He was lucky that she took his sexuality so well, even though she was pretty well educated on psychology; it wouldn't be very typical for such an educated person to be so reluctant to accept his sexuality.

"I have a boyfriend," He sighed out, speaking in a whisper, eyes shut for a moment before he'd opened one to peek over at her nervously. She seemed unaffected by the news for a moment.

Placing her glass on the stand next to her chair, her lips turned into a gentle grin. "Good, Eddie! Just make sure you always wear protection and he gets checked for sexually—"

"Mom!" Eddie squeaked out, face turning rosy at her words, and then a brighter red at the idea of that with Richie.

Not that he was opposed or anything, it was natural — but god god god he didn't want to think about this when his mom was looking at him.

"I just want you to be safe, Eddie-bear. You'll have to bring him over for dinner sometime!" The amount of excitement conveyed on her features was enough to make Eddie's heart ache.

He bit his lip, feeling nervous at the idea of the confession. He thought his lips might bleed, but they were pretty strong from all the times that he bit them around Richie.