Sweetspot - Reddie

9 - a week later

Richie paced the length of his bedroom. His heart raced, as if it was still beating in rhythm with Eddie's and his hands shook uncontrollably with beads of sweat on his skin.

I've ruined everything.

This pulled through his mind, tearing him down, deeper and deeper till he couldn't tell if it was love or his mistakes he was drowning in- but it felt almost no difference. After the kiss-

God, the kiss.

Richie's mind returned to the time of that beautiful moment. He wished he was still pressed up against his lips. He wished him and Eddie could get through anything, he hoped, because maybe this time...Richie had made an irredeemable mistake.

After the kiss, a week ago now, he felt loved; with a warmth to his skin and a beat to his heart. The feeling...that damn feeling....was stronger than ever. He had sworn something had happened, a connection, a connection that felt so unstoppable and good and right. He had sworn Eddie had felt it too, it was almost definitely a two-roled connection sort of thing that only seemed to happen in those corny romances that Bevvie forced the Losers to watch every other Saturday. And when Richie pulled away, just for a moment, just a tiny moment, he could read the words written on the pages of Eddie's skin.

'I love you.'

But instead a rather breathless ' Fuck off Richie' were the words that escaped his mouth.

Richie knew he was just fantasising, the connection didn't happen and he had just ruined him and Eddies friendship instead.

Eddie cycled through the meadow faster than you could say "Richie the Trashmouth", with hate on his beautiful face and tears in his brown eyes.

'Eddie!' Richie called, chasing after him through the grass and flowers, with his Converse laces untied, 'Eddie, i'm sorry!'

Eddie cycled faster. Richie could feel his breath losing but he carried on running through the meadow after him.

'Eddie, please!'

'Please what, Trashmouth? Leave me alone!' he called behind him, his voice thick with tears. Richie's heart broke a little but he daren't slow.

'No! Please, just wait!'

Eddie's breaks squeaked through the meadow, causing a few birds to leave their branches. He dropped his bicycle to the grass with a ring of a bell and a clatter of metal. Richie stopped in his tracks. Eddie's beautiful face was wet with tears and ever so hateful when he opened his mouth to yell-

"I'm not fucking in love with you, Richie."

The words escaped Richies lips in a sad, sad whisper. He had found himself sunken down against the back of his bedstead, facing the open window in which the sun set against the summer evening sky. He ached in his heart and soul and body, with tears falling down his cheeks for the god knows what time since Eddie had broken his heart a week ago.

Eddie's words... they would be the death of him. Richie gripped his black curls in handfuls and unleashed a cry.

"I'm not fucking in love with, you!"

The words were unleashed like dogs after the rotten flesh of a dead animal.

Those hateful, hateful words that had come from his mouth. Richie's heart slowed to an almost stop, and his face melted into guilt. A tear slipped down his cheek into the palm of his hand. Richie's head turned down slowly to stare sadly at the tear.

"Richie? Richie are you okay, honey? Richie open this door up right now!"

Crap, mom.

Richie's head swivelled to his door that was littered with post-stamps and old drawings. As quick as he could, Richie pulled himself to his feet and wiped his tears with the bottom of his shirt, snatched a tissue from his bedside table and blew his nose, chucking it into the mental trash can under his desk before grabbing a mug from his bedside table and swigging a gulp of old night-before water.

Smile.

"What mom? What could you possibly need right at this very moment in time?" he finally called back.

"Richie, honey, I think the whole street heard you."

"Oh...oh that was nothing. "

"Is this about your father, Richie?"

Little Richie knelt upon his bedroom's window-seat in blue striped pyjamas, his cheeks pink with cold as he held his head out in the night air with a confused look upon his face. His father stood under a yellow street lamp beside the Tozier's brown Ford Fiesta, holding two leather suitcases under each strong arm.

"Daddy?" little Richie called out into the night as his father piled both suitcases into the boot of the old car. His father looked up, but didn't see his son at his bedroom window through the dark. Richie became panicked.

"Daddy!" he called out louder this time, but a strong gust of wind hid his words and blew his dark curls in front of his eyes. When the night had calmed and little Richie could see once more, the yellow street lamp was flickering and the Tozier's brown Ford Fiesta was driving away from him and his home, his father's face dark behind the wheel.

Richie leaned his head against the door and shut his eyes, his heart aching.

"Why the fuck would it be about him? He hasn't been around since I was five." He spoke quietly but knew his mother could hear through the door.

"Richie! You scare me when you use language like that."

Richie opened his eyes, his face red and his teeth and knuckles clenched in sudden anger.

"Big fucking deal, mom. 'Oh no! I scare my mom when I cuss!' Guess how I felt when you scared dad away all those years ago? Sad! Sad! Sad! Sad!"

With each shout of a word, his fist slammed into the wood of the door, cursing his mothers mistakes and the empty hole of his fathers in his heart.

Richie Tozier had never both hated and loved the world so greatly that warm summer of '91.

His pain overtook his fury, his blood dying the brown wood and his pale skin red. As his shouts turned to whispers, Richie fell to his ass, his back against the door with tears running down his hot cheeks.

"God forbid you ever loved me or him." Richie whispered.

Eddie, cycling away from him through a meadow of flowers.

"God forbid anyone loves me."

A silence split between mother and son, sharper than the broken coke bottle glass. Richie's heart hammered as he heard his mother stifle a choking sob. He wanted to say so much more to his sobbing mother, perhaps curse her a little more, but no words escaped his mouth.

He was tired. So, so tired of hating.

"I'm calling my friends round, mom." was all Richie Tozier could muster.