#i just love breakdown eddie era leave me alone

[eddiediaaz]

i should not be left to my own devices they come with prices and vices i end up in crisis

[sibylsleaves]

wait people think 5a had divorce era vibes?? to me that is the pinnacle of their love. its like buck is deeply concerned about eddie's health and also tells eddie to break up with his gf and eddie immediately does. and then buck percieves himself as a bomb in the middle of his home so he literally tries to break up with eddie to diffuse the bomb and eddie is like wtf are you talking about. its us forever baby. and then buck tries to beat up an armed convict to protect their son and then he has to leave eddie alone with said armed convict and then he thinks eddie literally got shot/died again. and then they save a bunch of children together. and then eddie percieves himself as a danger to their son so he breaks up with buck to help chris and then buck does everything in his power to make sure eddie knows he's still waiting for him to come back when eddie thinks he and chris are safe again (but then we're getting into 5b lol)

tbh i kind of learned about 5a divorce era second-hand because i joined the fandom in between 5a and 5b so all i really knew was that everyone thought the vibes between buck and eddie in 5a were "off" but that it was intentional??? i actually do not know what the prevailing thoughts were around their relationship in 5a.

but i am on your side anon. i think 5a is a great buddie era. i think it was honestly just people being frustrated that buck and taylor were being so drawn out, which i can understand because if i had been watching 5a live i probably would have felt a little frustrated too. more or less i think people just didn't really like it as a half-season. but watching it all back-to-back, i really enjoyed it.

this did not carry over into 5b for obvious reasons. i DO remember when we all found out buck was in the room during eddie's breakdown in fear-o-phobia...there was literally a teaser or a still or something that came out and all we could see was a sliver of like, buck's ear but we KNEW. buck is LITERALLY in the room. (i feel like that was my first time seeing the entire fandom collectively lose their shit about something and it was very fun lol)

[hoediaz]

tbh with buddie rn i could see the whole realization like wow I'm in love with my bestfriend happening after they are roommates, like it's been there all this time but it isnt until literally living in the same house, after all the work both have done in their relationship that suddenly the idea hits home, like wow I've been in love w them all this time... I think it's a good path for them and I'm being super normal about them starting this by fixing the wall together, literally building their new life together!!!

i absolutely agree! i actually think, and i'm not saying this is absolutely possible or what i THINK is gonna happen, but i think if i were in the writers room i would end s5 with buddie roommates and then i would start s6 with buck moved out already and then i would block all of twitter for bitching at me for that decision but stay with me here: it would be like quarantine happening off screen except that in this case it would be kinda clear from the get go that something went down during their roommates era that shifted things -- nothing huge like a hook up, and the shift isn't bad it's just a little awkward when they're alone together or when buck is at eddie's and they're reminded of That Time. i'd also lean into eddie pining and because this is my show and i'm the captain now eddie's trying to date other people (men) and it's not working and buck's :/ about it but he doesn't know why.

6x10 they finally talk about it and it's not that anything happened, it's just that they liked it too much -- they liked living together and raising chris together and everything that came with it, so buck had to leave (bc he didn't quite understand why he liked it so much but he knows he needed to learn to be alone and also maybe bc he's hiding a downward spiral) and maybe eddie asked him to stay (bc he did know why he liked it so much). the conversation ends with eddie confessing and also there's a mistletoe kiss in there for drew, but s6 would be a bit of a s5 redux in which 6a is bobby's breakdown era (like 5a was athena/maddie's more or less) and 6b is buck's (like 5b was eddie's). so 6b is eddie helping buck through his breakdown like buck helped eddie, there's the sentiment of like "yeah i'm in love with you but you don't need to be in love with me/take your time/i just want to be there for you/etc" s6 finale is buck essentially saying he's ready to try boom buddie canon everyone cheers

[charlienick]

hi and i love u. "i swallow your heart and it crawls right out of my mouth" for the prompts....

Richie has decided that his dream-self can get fucked. And not in the fun way.

When he’s 24, at least once per night, Richie has what he would describe as an erotic nightmare. He never actually has sex in these dreams, nor does he die or even get seriously maimed. But they’re still definitely erotic, and they’re definitely nightmares. 

The first went something like this:

He is tied to a chair. He can’t get up. The rope is chafing his skin. He struggles against the darkness, but he does not move. He can’t. Squinting out into the inky black, he wonders if he’s wearing his glasses. It’s only once he has that thought that he sees a spotlight lighting up his childhood kitchen. His refrigerator has magnets from Acadia National Park, a photo of him and Bill flipping off the camera and laughing, a copy of his sonogram. The sight of it makes him ache in a way he can’t describe, nor does he have time to, because stepping out of the hallway and into the light is his childhood best friend, Eddie Kaspbrak.

Eddie is wearing a cream-colored sweater that he wore a lot in his late-teens and the bright red shorts he was so fond of in middle school. It’s a jarring combination, because Richie never saw him wear those two articles of clothing at the same time, let alone in the same era. He’s picking at a thread spinning loose from the sweater, looking down at it. He bites his bottom lip, and Richie starts to feel nervous, uncomfortable, because whenever he finds himself wishing Eddie were a woman so that it would feel normal for him to want to take his lip between his own, he looks away. Makes a joke. Averts attention from the ache in his heart, in his head, in his jeans.

He can’t do that now. He tries, but he doesn’t succeed. There’s something invisible keeping his head pointed forward. Eddie snaps his eyes up, smirks with the lip still caught in his teeth, and says… something. Richie can’t hear him from so far away, his hearing fuzzy the way his vision always is. The smirk isn’t cruel, isn’t mean or even teasing. Eddie looks proud of himself. He shucks off his sweater in one fluid movement and drops it to the linoleum beneath him. His skin shines golden, and Richie can hardly breathe. He feels like he’s being asphyxiated, and he bucks his hips, turned on and terrified.

And then he wakes up.

Dreams like this have happened almost nightly for months now. Once, it’s Eddie giving him a lap dance while he’s tied to the couch in their apartment. Another time, Bev catches Eddie stripping for him in his bedroom, and her laughter echoes all the way into the waking world. Regardless of the content of his dreams, Richie always remembers them in painstaking detail, and it’s really causing a rift between he and Eddie.

This sucks major donkey dick for three reasons: the first is that Richie is, like, deeply uncomfortable in his own home at all times. He can’t look at Eddie with his feet propped up on the ottoman without remembering how his legs looked wrapped around Richie’s waist, can’t hear his voice without remembering how he sounded moaning Richie’s name. The second reason, of course, is that Eddie is his best friend, and it’s shitty that Richie can’t find comfort in that the way he used to.

The third reason is that Eddie is starting to fucking notice.

He cornered Richie in the kitchen while he was making himself breakfast two mornings ago, and demanded he tell him what he did wrong because he couldn’t stand another weird, uncomfortable second of this weird standstill he and Richie had found themselves in. “What weird, uncomfortable standstill?” Richie had basically responded with, chuckling manically like that wouldn’t be a total tip-off that things were in fact weird and uncomfortable.

He has stopped walking around in his boxers, terrified that he’s going to get a hard-on when Eddie, like, waters the fucking spider plant and his shirt rides up and Richie short-circuits and has a total meltdown.

So he figures he’s attracted to his best friend. So what, he says to himself alone in his bedroom after jacking off the moment he woke up for the fifth day in a row. So I’m attracted to Eddie. Eddie is a pretty boy. This means nothing. I’m still straight.

He considers bringing this up to Stan, because next to Eddie, Stan is his best friend, but Stan would definitely laugh at him and say something like you’re an idiot. Go kiss your roommate and leave me be, which, okay, true, but not necessary. He knows, Brain-Stan! He’s aware the situation is reaching its boiling point! But he can’t exactly fucking tell Eddie, hey, I wanna suck your dick, but no homo, O best friend of mine! Eddie wouldn’t understand that the situation is precariously balanced between Richie’s suppression and the knowledge that Eddie has definitely sucked dick before.

Because Eddie was able to come out after he and the Losers moved from Maine to San Francisco, he has caught some dick regularly for the past six years. He’s pretty, as Richie’s head, heart, and apparently now dick all agree upon, and the four or so men he has in rotation all seem to think so, too. When Eddie would bring home a suitor prior to Richie’s epic sexual breakdown, he would just scamper over to Bev and Ben’s, or go bother Stan, Mike, and Bill at theirs. Now however, because on top of being attracted to his best friend, he’s also a goddamn masochist, and he’s staying holed up in his room listening to Eddie get fucked (or fuck? He isn’t certain on the makeup of his screwings, though not for lack of trying), one hand stripping his dick, feeling like a total and complete asshole. 

Richie knows that one’s sexuality is not always privy to one’s knowledge of whether or not the person would be interested in bedding him or not, and his wild imagination is not totally hinged upon reality. Bev and Ben would definitely not tie him up and have their way with him, but that’s still a familiar fantasy in his spank bank; he knows it will never happen, but it’s called a fantasy for a reason. However, jacking off to the sound of actual-Eddie’s moans and sighs is definitely crossing a line, and he knows it.

So since that one fated, sordid evening, he has decided that he isn’t going to jack off at all until either the dreams stop or he’s able to talk this out with Eddie in a normal way without totally having a mental breakdown.

This was a stupid decision, he decides ten days in, because it seems like the dreams aren’t going to stop and he’s going to have to face this for real or his subconscious might actually eat him alive. He’s not going to give into his libido because his heart is stronger than that. His weak willpower will not be his downfall.

So he decides to talk to Ben, because he’s the least likely to make fun of him about this, and because he might be able to knock some sense into him.

“Wait, you and Eddie aren’t making love already?” Ben’s face screws up in confusion. “Oh.”

“What do you mean, oh? We haven’t ever knocked boots because I’m straight as an arrow.”

“Sorry to inform you, Rich, but having… ‘erotic nightmares’ about your male best friend isn’t exactly heterosexual behavior.” Richie goes to cut in, but Ben holds a hand up. “And what would be so wrong with liking boys? Or liking Eddie?” Richie snaps his mouth shut. “Eddie is the best. You love Eddie as a friend, right?”

“Totally, yeah, I mean, yeah!” Richie rambles, nodding violently.

Ben smiles patiently, “So what would be so bad about loving him all the way?”

“I… I didn’t know… I mean, I’ve had sex with girls. It just doesn’t light a fire under my dick the same way this seems to. He’s so pretty, and I don’t quite know how to go back to seeing him the way I used to now that I see him so clearly. It’s like I’ve been looking at him without my glasses on my whole life, and now everything is so much less fuzzy. Like I understand it better now.” His eyes widen as the silence stretches on, Ben smiling softly the whole time. “I mean, uh, you know, he could hop on my dick and I wouldn’t say no. Then I’d have fucked the whole Kaspbrak clan.”

Ben’s nose wrinkles in distaste, so he doesn’t respond to that. Instead, he says, “Tell him, Richie. I promise it won’t go badly.”

“But what if he doesn’t want to fuck me back?”

“You really think all this is is sex, Richie?” Ben asks quietly. He offers him another smile, an encouraging one this time, “And I already promised—it won’t go badly.”

So Richie decides, fuck it. He’ll tell Eddie tomorrow.

But then he wakes up in a cold sweat from tonight’s newest erotic nightmare, this time leaning more heavily on the nightmarish aspect than the erotic, and he decides tomorrow can’t wait. Tonight. He’s doing this right now, because he can’t stand another moment not being close to Eddie.

He puts on his glasses, pads out of his room and knocks softly on Eddie’s door. “Eds? You up?” Silence. He knocks a bit harder. “Eddie?” He hears Eddie sniff harshly from inside his room, and something knocks loudly. “Eds? You okay?”

“Mmph,” comes Eddie’s muffled reply. “Come in, you dick.”

Richie smiles and does as he’s told. He can see Eddie relatively clearly through the slats in the blinds open to the moon high above them. He’s rubbing the side of his head, his hair a total mess, his shirt rumpled, his frown intense, and Richie realizes, fuck, I love this angry little goblin. Jesus Christ, I love him.

“Hitting your head on the headboard is way less fun when you’re by yourself,” he grumbles. He wraps an arm around his knees and tilts his head. “What’s up at… 3:50 AM?”

“I…” Richie breathes out unsteadily. He decides to go with the truth: “I had a nightmare.”

“Oh. Shit,” Eddie frowns, pulling back the blankets. “You wanna cuddle?”

Richie nods dramatically and pitches himself into Eddie’s bed, immediately wrapping himself around Eddie. Eddie snorts, laughs quietly, and turns in Richie’s hold, slotting their thighs together so they’re facing one another. “Dick. You know I don’t like to be the little spoon, ‘specially with you and your newborn-deer limbs.”

“Can’t you make an exception just this once, Spaghetti?” Richie smiles, but he’s really only teasing; he’s just fine with this.

“So long as you tell me what the dream was about.” Richie tenses in Eddie’s hold, thinking, shit, I really should’ve assumed he’d ask. “I mean, if you want. But until you tell me, I demand to be the big spoon.”

Richie sighs, turning in Eddie’s hold only because it’ll be easier to say it if he isn’t looking right at him. “So I’ve been having these… we’ll call them erotic nightmares.”

“That sounds like a term you thought of weeks ago and are very proud to finally get the chance to utter.”

“Die.” Eddie snorts. “Actually, don’t-don’t do that,” Richie whispers, “please don’t die.”

“I won’t,” Eddie says, sounding like he’s about to laugh but trying not to. “Was that what the dream was about tonight? Is that why you’ve been acting so weird lately?”

“Sort of, yeah. You were, uh, you were on top of me, and you… I didn’t even see it coming. Your heart, it was… I don’t even think it could ever happen in real life.”

Eddie slips a hand beneath Richie’s shirt, cupping his hip bone and rhythmically running his thumb in the hollow between it and his stomach. “It didn’t happen, Rich. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

Richie breathes out, less shaky this time, and nods. “Okay.”

A long pause, and then, “You said these nightmares, they’re erotic.” Richie’s blood runs cold. Fuck, he didn’t want this to be how he said it. “Is that why I was on top of you?”

“Sort of,” Richie whispers. “Yeah.”

“Like… Like this?” Eddie dislodges his thigh out from between Richie’s and hooks it over his hips, forcing him to lay flat on the bed. Eddie hovers over him, eyes dark and electric in the moonlight. He looks ethereal, holy, and nothing like he did in the dream. “What happens next? When I’m above you like this?”

“It’s different every time,” Richie says all in one breath. Eddie’s boxer shorts are hanging and brushing against the tops of Richie’s thighs. He feels a light breeze away from spontaneously combusting. “Sometimes you dance for me.”

Eddie wrinkles his nose, laughing quietly, “I can’t dance.”

“I know that, but my dreams don’t.” Eddie smile drops in an instant.

“What else?”

“Sometimes you hold me down⁠—”

Richie cuts himself off with a gasp when Eddie nudges Richie’s hands out from where they’re balled in Eddie’s sheets and presses them down to the bed beside his head. “Like this?” Richie chokes, nodding. He can’t say anything. He can hardly breathe. “What’s next, Richie?”

“You-you grind on me ‘til you—oh, holy shit.” Eddie swivels his hips in a tight circle against Richie’s dick, both of them already hard.

“Yeah? You been dreamin’ of me like this, Rich? How long?”

“What?”

“How long,” he grinds down low, and Richie moans, “have you,” he does it again, and Richie gasps, keening loudly, “been dreaming of me? Because I’ve been dreaming of you for years, Rich.”

“Motherfucking tap-dancing Jesus, you have?” Richie demands.

“Of course I have. Sometimes, when I bring a boy home, I pretend he’s you.”

“Oh my God.”

“Sometimes I accidentally say your name.”

Richie bucks his hips, feeling wild, caged. “Eddie, please, I need—”

“What do you want, Rich? I’ll give you whatever you want.”

“Kiss me.” And he does. It’s everything and nothing like Richie dreamed it would be. It’s hot, searing, Eddie’s mouth a brand against his own, but the way Eddie is licking into his mouth feels nothing like he dreamed it would. It feels like he just wants to take care of Richie; he really wants to give Richie everything he asks for, and Richie feels drunk with the power-rush that brings. Beautiful, perfect, wonderful Eddie Kaspbrak wants to give him what he asks.

“Eddie,” he pants, and Eddie immediately pulls away, eyes liquid as they rake over Richie’s chest, still covered in his shirt. The light weight of it is suddenly stifling. “Please take off my shirt.”

“Of course, baby,” Eddie murmurs, unlocking their fingers and helping Richie sit up so he can do as he’s asked. “That better, angel?”

“Oh my God,” Richie whines, nodding. “This is so hot.”

Eddie smiles, “I agree. You’re definitely as beautiful as I dreamed you’d be.”

“You dreamed about me, too?” Richie sighs, suddenly feeling overwhelmed with the thought of Eddie stripping his dick to the girls Richie’s brought home.

“Of course, Richie,” Eddie responds, hushed as he maps out Richie’s torso with the palms of his hands. One of his thumbs catches on Richie’s nipple, and he hisses, then gasps when he does it again. “Sometimes it’s sex dreams, like yours, but sometimes I dream you take me out to eat, or to the movies. Once, I dreamed you asked me to marry you and I woke up crying.”

“Eddie,” Richie says, all broken into pieces, jagged edges that sound serrated. “I would. You know I would, right?”

Eddie smiles softly, leaning over Richie and lacing their fingers back together, but the weight of Eddie on top of him doesn’t feel so suppressive anymore. It’s a comfort. It’s everything he could never admit to wanting. “I do now.”

He captures Richie’s mouth again, kisses that fall over him like stars, like meteorites, planets exploding behind his eyelids and pop rocks fizzing in his blood. He’s a shaking mess by the time Eddie pulls back again, kissing his neck and then sucking a mark into his collarbone, to his pulse point. He feels ready to burst, nearing absolute explosion.

“I want to fuck you, Richie,” Eddie says against his skin, and Richie moans to the ceiling, eyes rolling back in his head. “I want to fuck you, but I need to know this isn’t a one time thing. I won’t be my best friend’s sexual experiment, and I won’t be your fuck buddy. I can’t.”

“Eddie, I… look at me, please look at me,” Richie begs, unlacing their fingers and cupping Eddie’s cheeks. He looks terrified, ready to work himself into a panic attack, so Richie says, “I want to fuck you too, but more than that, I want to fuck your heart.”

Eddie snorts and goes boneless, his forehead knocking into Richie’s chin. “I hate you so much. I can’t believe you just said you want to fuck my heart, that’s so gross, what does that even mean?”

“It means exactly what it sounds like,” Richie says, proud that he managed to distract Eddie from the burgeoning panic. “I want to fuck your heart.”

“No, I want to fuck your heart,” Eddie shoots back, frowning intensely. Richie’s responding smile is blinding.

“We’re heart-switches.”

“This is the worst day of my life.”

“Sure, Eds.”

“Don’t call me Eds in bed! I’m outlawing all nicknames when we’re hard, it’s uncouth!”

“What about…” Richie runs the tip of his nose over the thin skin of Eddie’s neck, “baby?”

“Oh,” Eddie sighs, elbows buckling where he’s holding himself over top of Richie, “baby’s good.”

“Yeah?” Richie smiles, hooking his hands up under Eddie’s shirt and bunching it under his arms. “What about angel, my love, is that one okay?”

“This isn’t fair,” Eddie whines, falling down to his elbows and crushing Richie as he laughs, “you can’t use my weak heart against me.”

“Weak?” Richie smiles against Eddie’s skin, feeling more at home than he ever has in his life. “Nah. I think you’re the strongest person I know.”

“Richie…” Eddie smiles, embarrassed, and leans up to kiss him again, which is fine with Richie, because he’s embarrassed, too. Thank god for erotic nightmares, Richie thinks as he cups Eddie’s hip and licks into his mouth, finally free, finally alive.

[d0gdaze]

9.

Also on AO3

Chapters: 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6 . 7 . 8 . 9 . (ongoing)

Reddie / Stenbrough

Word Count: 3603

Summary: Eddie Kaspbrak is set up on a date with a friend of a friend, and this Tozier guy is a hot mess. || Stan has feelings. Bill is confused. Long and angsty and may or may not contain a roadtrip. AU - no IT. Characters are 17/18. Set in early nineties. More film based but contains elements from the miniseries and the book.

Content Warnings: strong language | underage drinking / drug use | smoking | mildly sexual implications (no smut) | internalised homophobia | era-typical homophobia | implied child abuse / neglect

Eddie Kaspbrak had made it one entire week without having a breakdown, and he was pretty damn proud of himself.

If he was honest he thought it would have been maybe three days tops before he came to his senses and made Richie take him back home, but it had been a week. Seven whole days of driving in that god awful hunk of metal, showering at truck stops, and eating gas station junk food. Richie had a duffel bag of clothes stuffed behind the back seat that they cycled through, all of Richie's clothes were a couple sizes too big on Eddie and very unlike his usual attire, all graphic t-shirts and denim jeans, but he found himself liking how he looked in them. (The underwear situation was... interesting, to say the least). Or maybe it was just how Richie looked at him when he put them on, he couldn't tell. Eddie would always fall asleep with the seat reclined to the static chords of the radio and Richie's voice and he would wake up to a bright sunrise and a hot cup of coffee (with milk and sugar, this time). He never saw Richie sleep, but he didn't think to ever question him about it. He didn't think to question him about a lot of things, like why he was living off a slowly depleting wad of cash in a plastic bag hidden in the glovebox, or if he actually knew where the hell they were at any point in time. He didn't think to ask about anything, because it had been the best week of his life.

Never in the seventeen years and ten months he had been alive had he felt so, well, alive. And maybe that was due to the adrenaline he got from doing something this rebellious, maybe it was the fact that his mother wasn't lecturing him about everything for once in his goddamn life, maybe his brain was going into overdrive from the nearly all-sugar diet he had been forced to switch to, and maybe it was simply the fresh country air in his lungs when the windows were rolled down, but god, he felt amazing. And Richie, wow, Richie.

Spending an entire week with someone you haven't known for very long, completely alone together, essentially trapped in a confined space, can really only go one of two ways. You will either start to despise them with every inch of your being, and the sound of their voice will irritate you to no end, and after it's over you won't be able to tolerate them ever again. Or, if it goes the other way, you'll start to fall in love with them.

And for Eddie, it was most definitely, unrelentingly, embarrassingly, the latter.

He kept catching himself staring, all starry-eyed and dreamy, at his dark-haired driver, butterflies fluttering around in his stomach, taking in the boys features both sharp and subtle, entranced by the imperfections in his skin and the cracks in his lips and the curls in his hair (he felt strange when he concentrated on his hair too long, as if it was linked to a hazy drunken memory that he couldn't quite remember no matter how hard he tried), and everything he saw he became infatuated with. Richie's free hand would often end up resting on Eddie's thigh or intertwined with his own over the centre console, and he would melt under the contact every time. And they talked about everything, both understanding there wasn't many boundaries at this point, as far as conversation went. Eddie learnt that Richie had been in an amateur rock band in high school where he played guitar and sang, fittingly called Trashmouth, that he always got at least a minor role in the school plays, and that got mostly straight A's, though his ADHD and incessant need to run his mouth gave his teachers a run for their money, and that his parents were the absolute worst and didn't much care for him at all, so he up and ran away in the middle of the night leaving nothing more than a note on the fridge. In return, Eddie told Richie about his mother and her tendency to be extremely overbearing, though to be fair it had died down significantly in the last couple of years due to her discovery of the wonders sleeping pills can do, and how he used to play baseball with Bill, and his mild obsession- er, crush on Christian Slater, and how a girl in a pharmacy had once told him that his asthma medication was not exactly real.

“She was the pharmacist's daughter, and she said that it was all fake. A gazebo, I think she said.”

“Wait, what did she say?”

“I know, right! All fake. I didn't know whether to believe her or not because she was kind of a bitch, but-”

“Gazebo.”

“...That's what I said, yes.”

“Do you by any chance mean placebo, babe?”

“I- what?”

“Placebo, like fake medication that tricks your brain into thinking it's real. A gazebo's like a tent- podium kinda thing... Eds?”

“I've been lied to.”

And when they weren't talking, Richie was singing, and Eddie appreciated this very much. A particular song would come on and Richie would stop dead in the middle of a sentence to turn up the volume and belt out the lyrics. Sometimes Eddie would sing along, if he happened to know it, but most of the time he would just put his feet up on the dashboard and close his eyes, listening contently. His voice suited him well, a little raspy and rough but still smooth and steady, it sounded like heaven to Eddie. But then again, everything about Richie Tozier seemed like heaven to Eddie.

Richie Tozier had made it one week without having a breakdown, but he felt he wasn't going to last much longer.

It took everything in him to keep it together. The last thing he wanted to do was crack in front of Eddie, because geez, Eddie was something special, and he didn't want to mess this up.

He was so anxious that he had barely slept at all, only pulling over way past midnight when his eyelids felt like they were about to collapse, and then it would only be an hour or so before he woke up and started driving again, always before sunrise, always while Eddie was still asleep. He didn't want Eddie to know how little he was sleeping, worried it would cause him to panic and feel unsafe that he was being driven by someone so sleep-deprived, so he put an extra shot of espresso in his coffee and powered through. And when he felt like he was too on edge he sang to calm himself down, or he got Eddie talking and he listened to stories and anecdotes that he would recite about his friends during the years he had been gone. This helped to distract him temporarily from his intrusive thoughts but it didn't stop them, they were still there, mocking and so loud that sometime's he wanted to scream.

But he couldn't break down. Not while he wasn't alone.

Beverly's voice was a regular visitor amongst those thoughts, repeating her last words to him over and over again like a broken record, don't do anything stupid, no fucking excuses, don't fuck this up, i'll never forgive you for it.

The words, the pressure they put him under that left him feeling nauseous and dizzy, it was driving him crazy. Because he knew he was about to do something fucking stupid.

Eddie woke up in the early hours of the morning, the eight morning since he had left home, and instantly knew something was up.

They first thing he noticed were the streetlights, as he blinked his eyes open and allowed his vision to adjust. There hadn't been streetlights on the highway. He turned his head slightly, only seeing the rooftops from his half-laying position. He sat up slowly, stretching his arms out in front of him. Now he could see the houses under the roofs, most of them looking pretty run down and old fashioned, a paint chipping off wooden tilings and torn-up chain link fences kind of deal.

He adjusted his seat forward as he looked out the window, nose crinkled in confusion.

“Rich, why are we off the highway?” he yawned, finally looking over at the boy, who he noticed looked especially rough today though he didn't mention it.

“Well good morning to you too, babe,” Richie jeered, “and we're just making a short pit stop, then we'll get back to it.”

“Pit stop?” Eddie repeated, raising an eyebrow.

“Mhm. Just up here, actually.”

The truck slowed to a stop in front of a particularly run down house. Eddie could see beer bottles scattered across the lawn that was more weeds than grass and a torn up fly-screen door. Richie pulled on the handbrake and switched off the ignition.

“Richie, where are we?” Eddie asked cautiously, pretty sure he already knew the answer. Richie took a sharp intake of air and undid his seatbelt, avoiding Eddie's question as he reached for the door handle. Eddie grabbed his shirt sleeve.

“Rich, don't ignore me.” His voice was low and stern, and Richie slumped back against the seat, turning to face him.

“We're at my- we're at my parents house. I'm just- I gotta go get a few things,” Richie tried to make it sound casual but his his voice was unsteady and he could feel his hands start to shake. “Important things. Ten minutes, in and out. That's all.”

Eddie didn't release his grip from Richie's shoulder. Richie swallowed hard.

“I don't know if you should,” Eddie's eyes darted between Richie and the house, “It doesn't feel safe. What if your parents-”

“C'mon Eds,” Richie took Eddie's hand off his shoulder to hold in his own, “they're probably passed out, they might not even be home. Anyways, I'm used to sneaking around in there,” he laughed at the last part but he could see Eddie wince. He moved his free hand to Eddie's cheek and rubbed a circle with his thumb. “Just stay here. I'll be quick, okay?”

He opened the door and jumped out before Eddie could stop him and started down the driveway of the house.

“Fuck,” Eddie muttered, fumbling to get his seatbelt unclipped. He clambered out onto the pavement just as Richie stepped into the threshold.

The inside of the house was arguably in worse shape than the outside. The faded floral wallpaper was peeling in several places and chipped in many others. Every surface was disorganised and dusty, more empty bottles making up most of the clutter. The carpet was matted and covered in various sizes and colours of stains.

The television was on in the living room, emitting a dull, slightly static drone, and setting flickering shadows on the walls. Richie stepped towards the archway ever so slowly, his breathing so heavy he had to clasp a hand over his mouth. He poked his head around the wall, to see a figure sat up in the recliner, their head rolled back against the top of the chair, letting out a choked snore. He exhaled in relief and started to walk down the hallway when he felt a tap on his shoulder and nearly jumped out of his skin. “Richie, this is dumb, let's go,” Eddie hissed under his breath, and Richie spun around, hands clutched to his chest. “Jesus fucking Christ, Eds, you gave me a heart attack,” he closed his eyes and tried to even out his breathing for a moment. “I told you to stay in the truck.”

Eddie's eyes flicked over to the armchair and his breath hitched in his throat. Richie watched the colour fade from his face and grabbed his shoulders.

“We shouldn't be doing this Rich,” he squeaked, instinctively grasping for his inhaler- which was still in the truck, “we really shouldn't be doing this.”

“He's asleep, he's asleep, he's not gonna wake up,” Richie's voice was hushed and pleading, moving one hand to Eddie's chin and forcing him to look at him, “Eddie, go back to the truck. Please.”

Eddie shook his head, feeling Richie's hand tremble against his skin. Richie exhaled sharply out of his nose and lead Eddie down the hallway.

The room was different to the rest of the house, in the sense that it actually felt inhabited. The walls were covered in band posters and movie posters of all sorts. The bed was pushed against the far wall, covers askew on the mattress. The wooden headboard had been carved into, presumably with a pocket knife, different names and initials and whatnot. There wasn't really much in the way of material possessions, spare an obviously well-loved acoustic guitar sat on a stand in a corner and a few photo frames and aerosol deodorant cans on the dresser. It was small and comfortable and it smelled like Richie, and Eddie found himself calming down.

Richie knelt down next to the bed and pulled out a small suitcase, sliding it towards Eddie and gesturing towards the dresser.

“Just chuck as much as you can fit in there,” he said, and Eddie did as he was told, unzipping the suitcase and pulling open the top drawer, fighting an urge to fold the clothes as he threw them in. Richie laid down on his stomach and tried reaching for something under the bed, stretching one arm out with a muffled groan. He retracted his arm in a huff when he couldn't reach whatever he was looking for and proceeded to manoeuvre the top half of his body under the bed frame. Eddie had nearly cleared the top drawer and had an arrangement of clothing in and around the suitcase (Richie obviously did not care for sorting his clothes and everything was just thrown in together), when his eyes caught something much more vibrant than what Eddie had expected. He held the shirt up in front of him by the collar, stifling a laugh. It was bright orange and patterned with yellow silhouetted palm trees. He spun around, holding the shirt against his chest. Richie emerged from under the bed with an 'aha!', clutching a shoebox. His hair was all dishevelled and the smile fell from his face when he saw Eddie.

“That's not mine,” he sputtered as Eddie bit back a smile.

“Sure it's not,” he teased, “should I pack it anyway? Are you planning on attending a luau in the near future?”

“Shut up,” Richie stood up from the floor and ripped the shirt from his hands, rubbing the fabric between his fingers for a moment before dropping it onto the pile of clothes that had accumulated on the floor. Eddie stepped over and picked up the shoebox that Richie had pulled out.

“I'll save you the shock, it's all weed.”

Eddie nearly snapped his neck when his head shot up, and Richie smirked as his face went white.

“Drugs,” he choked out, leaving his mouth hanging open.

“No babe, weeds from the garden. Yes it's drugs,” he walked over and took the box off Eddie, who snapped his mouth shut and pressed his lips into a line, “and cigarettes. And cash. Important shit.”

Eddie went back to the suitcase, shoving everything in and zipping it shut, but not without a struggle, and Richie grabbed his guitar by the neck and they both headed to leave. They quietly snuck back towards the front door, tiptoeing past the living room where the television was still humming away. They threw everything in the back seat and climbed into the front. Richie smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand.

“Shit, forgot something,” he mumbled, and hopped back out before Eddie could protest, “i'll be two seconds.” He disappeared back into the house, and Eddie sat nervously, fingertips fidgeting in his lap.

Richie crept back to his room and across to his dresser. There were three photo frames, two were of him, Bev, Bill, and Stan back when they were kids, and one of just him and Bev. He smiled to himself, fingers tracing over their faces, before he picked them up in a stack.

“You got a lot of nerve in you, boy.”

Richie felt his throat closed up instantly as he turned around. His father stood in the doorway, half-leaning against the wall, eyes glazed over and drunkenly heavy, his stare burning into Richie's skin. He was wearing jeans and a shirt that may have once been white but definitely wasn't anymore, and he was all skin and bones under his clothes. His face was hollow and sunken and creased, planted with a permanent sneer displaying crooked yellowing teeth, and his hair was dark and thin, what was still there, that is.

“Hiya Pops,” Richie forced a sickly grin, his voice course and uneven, “thought I'd drop back in to see ya.”

Wentworth Tozier took an unsteady step forward, raising one accusatory bony finger towards his son. Richie automatically shifted into a fighting stance, his hands hovering in front of him, prepared to make a move if he had to, and he could smell the rotten beer coming from the man's mouth even from across the room.

“I told you, if you leave, then you don't come back,” he slurred, his voice low and gravelly, and Richie thought he would prefer if he was shouting. Shouting was always just shouting. It was when his voice was lowered that led to-

“And now you come back, and you steal from me,” Richie felt himself shrinking with every word, despite being taller than his father, he felt like he was about to be crushed, “and you think I won't notice.”

He took another unbalanced step forward and Richie's eyes went to the doorway, mentally planning out his route so he could make a run for it. The stench intensified as the source drew closer, and he felt that he might start gagging.

“You know I'd love to stay, dad, but I should probably get going now,” he tried to joke but his mouth was uncomfortably dry and it came out as a ragged whisper.

“Don't be a fucking smartass, Rich,” he raised a calloused hand above his head and Richie flinched, lifting his arms up to cover his face, still clutching the photo frames so hard that they were making indents in his palms. Wentworth grinned and snickered. “Fucking coward. Always have been.”

Richie took the opportunity to escape, using all the strength he could to shove past, and bolted to the front door. He practically leapt off the porch, struggling to keep his footing, and stumbled hurriedly to the truck, not looking back until he had his hand on the driver side door handle. He expected his father to appear in the threshold, fuming and shooting daggers with his eyes.

But he didn't.

The house remained completely void of movement, and he stood, nearly panting, the lenses of his glasses fogging up due to tears he wasn't aware he was crying.

Eddie watched from the passenger seat, not knowing what to do, not knowing what to say, or if he should say anything at all. He chose to stay quiet.

Richie stared into the house, waiting, just waiting for something. He stood there, trembling but otherwise frozen, for what felt like hours.

Richie Tozier had made it one week without having a breakdown.

“FUCK YOU,” he shouted, his voice cracked and dry and strained and terrified, “FUCK. YOU.”

He collapsed on the pavement, his legs simply too weak to hold him up any longer. He dropped the frames on the ground and flung his glasses off his face, sobbing and wailing into his hands, pulling his hair as he did, hard enough to shoot pain all over his scalp. Eddie got out and rushed over to the sidewalk, and Richie grabbed onto his shirt as soon as he knelt down close enough, pulling him forward and burying his face in Eddie's chest. Eddie wrapped his arms tight around his shoulders, stroking Richie's hair, feeling the sobs wracking through his body, keeping his eyes glued on the doorway.

“I'm so fucking sorry,” Richie whimpered through a shuddered breath, “I shouldn't have brought you here, I shouldn't have- FUCK-I-

“Shh, you're okay, babe, it's okay,” tears were brimming in his own eyes and he felt utterly useless.

“I'm a fuckup,” Eddie can feel Richie's tears soaking through his shirt and onto his skin, “I'm so stupid, fuck. I'm so fucking sorry.”

Eddie didn't say anything, just pressed his face into the top of Richie's head and pulled him tighter.

Richie eventually released his death grip on Eddie's shirt collar, and picked himself up. Eddie went to get his glasses, which had landed about three feet away, and the photo frames, while Richie achingly dragged himself up into the drivers seat.

“Do you want me to drive for a while?” Eddie asked before he could close the door.

“You can drive?” Richie wiped his nose with his sleeve, eyes still red and puffy, “You've just been using me as a taxi service all this time, huh? Not cool babe,” he jokes, and flashes a crooked smile. “Do you want me to or not?” Eddie laughs, and Richie nods before hopping out and moving to the passenger side.

Eddie had to readjust the seat and mirrors and it took a few tries before the engine started but soon they were on the road again.