Sweetspot - Reddie

2

Eddie Kaspbrak was thrust rudely awake by an attack of monotonous beeping rupturing the gentle morning quiet of his bedroom. He jolted, twisted in a cocoon of bed sheets, reality sinking it's intolerable weight onto his shoulders.  He buried his face into his pillow, internally wailing in despair. 

Eddie's bedroom somehow still maintained its mundane greyish-ness despite the hopeful fingers of sunlight filtering through his curtains and as he attempted to remain ignorant to the outside world, the muted bashing of cutlery and pans from the kitchen reminded him of the difference between fantasy and real life. 

Adding to his wave of debilitating stagnation, his alarm clock was still fucking beeping. 

Nonsensically mumbling something along the lines of a death threat towards the wretched piece of technology, Eddie wrenched his hand from the softness of his sheets and slammed it against his bedside table, to no avail feeling around for the alarm clock and consequently shoving his hand against it so it tumbled onto the floor. 

Eddie groaned and hauled his body from his bed, eyes still glued shut with sleep, and reached for the casualty clock and switched it off with successful results. 

Finally. 

He managed to detach his lids from each other just effectively enough to read on its blaring face: 8:00 AM.

"Shit."

Letting his grip on his clock loosen and tumble onto his sheets, Eddie passively scrubbed the lethargy from his eyes before slumping forwards to stare sluggishly into space. Cheerful, right? 

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

"Fuck!" Eddie snapped harshly at himself, sinking his face into his hands in an attempt to burrow out of his own body and conceal himself and his blazing cheeks from the outside world. He tunneled into the bowl of his palms for minutes, fearfully swearing to himself continuously until a overwrought sob breached his gullet. 

How long had it been since the first revolting dream had occurred last summer? A year? It felt longer. It felt like decades. Decades of torture, degradation and humiliation. Decades of awakening nauseated with the dreams syrupy sweet details fresh-faced on the surface of his mind. 

You might've thought Eddie would have adapted to the daily mental onslaught. He hadn't. Somehow the creeping discomfort of his dreams that used to cling to him had swelled into a fully-fledged monster of chagrin. 

Eddie replayed harmonious scenes of his consonant fantasies on the little projector inside his head, abusing himself on its queerness but furtively acknowledging the fierce throbbing of his heart beneath his night-shirt.

...a beacon of resplendent light burst between their gazes and feathered wings erupted from their backs in a thrash of fiery heat...an unchained, throaty guffaw...

Sometimes, when Eddie recalled his treacherous dreams too intensely, he'd almost mistake his abhorrence for them for yearning.

"Eddie-Bear?"

A shrill sing-song warble alongside a dictatorial rapping on his bedroom door jolted Eddie from the early grave of his own palms and his display of self-opprobrium. He blinked wearily towards his closed door.

"I'm up mom."

"Good boy, Eddie. I've got pancakes on the table for you sweetie."

Eddie groaned lowly, a self-deprecating, weary sound, and flopped backwards  onto his swathe of thin bed sheets that his mother kept especially for summer rashes. Somehow, Eddie unearthed enough of his usual zealous spirit to conjure a sour lour as he glared immaturely up at the ceiling.