Sweetspot - Reddie

1

The barrens scintillated with a golden and glittering haze, effusing peace and freedom. 

Seedy patches of yellowed grass had transformed into luscious meadows pinpricked with tiny white flowers fit with a fairy-tale dirt track meandering through the green. In the fringe of the heavenly scene a sparkling river tinkled and glinted in the warm sunlight and darling little birds dawdled between prosperous trees, contributing  innocent twittering to the ambience.

"Jeez Eds! Even I thought you could ride faster than that!"

The obnoxious jesting of two teenage boys snapped the tranquillity as they rumbled speedily along the dirt track towards the blossoming sunrise, sending clouds of amber dust in their pathway. 

They felt like they were soaring. 

"How about you shut the fuck up Trash-mouth before I beat you fair and square!"  Eddie hurled back, a brief chuckle erupting in  in his squeakish voice, his arse flying off his seat as boosted himself off his pedals behind the winner of their race. 

Liberty was their prize. 

The sheer speed  of their hurtling whipped Eddie's chestnut fringe onto his forehead as he urged his legs to peddle faster and faster, a mischievous grin stretching his boyish face as his determined sight filled with the more rakish boy zooming ahead of him. A mocking snort was heard from Richie over the grinding of their wheels against dirt. 

"Asshole," Eddie muttered fondly, panting through a small smile, powering forwards with twice as much gusto as before until his bike burst from the ground and he was cycling through the azure summer skies. Eddie shrieked in delight, joy erupting inside him as he dodged clumps of cloud. 

"I'm gonna win Rich! I'm gonna fucking win!" Eddie screamed from the skies, lifting his arms above his head to relish in his victory... before his bicycle began to jut dangerously lower, and Eddie's stomach started to drop in fear. 

Eddie unleashed a screech of terror and clung to the bicycle metal frame as it tore from the clouds towards the surface of the Earth below. Eddie landed with a clamouring jolt that cut the screams from his throat and shocked him into silence. Richie was a speck of  triumph in the distance, the sunrise setting him alight in a fiery blaze.

When his gaze returned to the pathway, he had hardly time to think before he noticed a fat haggardly rock destined to ram against his wheel. He gasped breathily in panic before his bike was hammering against the rock and Eddie was, again, flying over his handlebars. 

Everything was plunged into slow motion. Eddie flapped his limbs mid-air as if he was trying to obtain flight, and a club of birds fluttered past his face, throwing him confused glances.

Why cant you fly too? they were probably thinking. 

The prettiest chick with vibrant red feathers winked at him knowingly. Eddie floated past, his mouth hanging open in surprise before slowly tilting his gape downwards where Richie had grinded to a halt and was goggling up at him in horror, his large brown eyes magnified comically behind his glasses. 

"Eddie!" he yelled, his words drawn out due to the strange obscurity the world had been plunged into.

Then, normality grinded on, and Eddie was hurdling into the meadow, squawking in shock. He landed with a thump, caving the ground around him into a crater, his bicycle collapsing from the air beside him with a ring of a bell and a clatter of metal. Everything spinning in a haze of blue, green and something golden and glittering, Eddie lay among the tiny white flowers and the chattering crickets, blinking up at the sunrise. 

Squinting as the sun glinted in his eyes, he sat up on his elbows, his vision a kaleidoscope of bright colours.  

"Jesus Eds, that looked like it hurt!"

Richie's face nestled itself into Eddie's wondrous vision, a steady familiar face amongst the twirling and rainbows. 

Richie brow was knotted with worry and his wrinkled forehead was glistening with sweat as he collapsed to his grazed knees beside Eddie in the grass; his spidery white hand reaching forward to swipe at a bleeding cut on Eddie's cheek. 

"That's a mean gash dude," Richie said, gaping at his crimson thumb dripping with Eddie's blood. 

Eddie marvelled, starry-eyed, his cheeks burning as if he had been set slight, and his gawping mouth grew into an ecstatic beam. 

"It was all worth it Rich," he said, breathlessly. When Richie met his eye, a beacon of resplendent light burst between their gazes and feathered wings erupted from their backs in a thrash of fiery heat. Eddie could feel his head grow lighter and lighter and subconsciously regarded his own childlike laughter breach his throat; Eddie could hear Richie's too, an unchained, throaty guffaw.

Before they knew it, the skies were their limit and they truly were soaring.

"Eds, we've-"