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“It’s eight at night on the West Coast, and we’re gonna play some smooth, smooth jazz,” Eddie hears as he drifts back to consciousness from a dream that either involved drowning in marshmallows or drowning in the dirty water under Neibolt house. He sputters for a moment, blinking the sleep from his eyes. No, yeah, it was definitely the first one. Not enough screaming for it to be the second.
It’s nice that just a few months after everything with Pennywise, Eddie’s having dumb nightmares about marshmallows. Probably prompted by the fact that Richie bought like five bags of marshmallows three days ago and they’re all somehow already empty and, much to Eddie’s shame, Richie definitely was not the one who ate most of them.
Eddie makes a face at the ceiling, only just processing what he woke up to. “Wait, what?” He definitely wasn’t listening to the radio when he went to sleep.
He’s pretty sure he was trying to work when he went to sleep, actually, considering that he's on the couch.
“Yeah, baby,” the smoky-voiced DJ says, “we’re gonna play it all night long, Priscilla, isn’t that right? Until your least-favorite human gets with it and wakes up.”
Eddie snorts. “You’re Priscilla’s least favorite human,” he says, sitting up. He glances around for Priscilla, and sees a flash of white fur rush past him.
Okay, maybe he is her least-favorite. He’s starting to suspect that she understood him when he very loudly protested her introduction into their household. In his defense, it was only a few weeks after he’d actually moved into Richie’s place in L.A., and just days after they'd made it official, and Eddie's never liked cats, let alone Persians who shed like it's their job. So yeah, there was an argument that Richie wasn't respecting their shared space, and unflattering words about the cat's face may have been said. And yet Priscilla still lives in their home, possibly nursing a grudge, so apparently Eddie’s worse at saying no to Richie than he likes to think.
“There you are, lazybones!” Richie says, delighted. “Catch!”
A bottle of shampoo arcs through the air, and Eddie swears as it nearly hits him in the face, just barely managing to bat it out of the air. “What the fuck, man?” he complains as he finally looks over at Richie and sees that he’s set bags on the kitchen counter. “You did the shopping without me?”
“Uh, I thought you’d appreciate it, you ingrate,” Richie says, and Eddie’s eyes are going to roll into another dimension someday, he’s sure of it. “I needed chocolate, and you said you needed shampoo, so I got some shampoo. You’re welcome.”
Eddie sighs. “Richie, you don’t know my brand.”
He realizes that he used the wrong words immediately, and braces himself for the inevitable joke.
Richie grins and swans over to him, sitting next to him heavily and slinging an arm over his shoulders. “I do know your brand, Eds,” he says. “Your brand is bitterness sprinkled with a dash of you-know-you-love-me.”
Eddie turns his head to look at him and raises his eyebrows, and Richie shrugs. “I’m kinda beat,” he admits. “Comedy’s not as rejuvenating as it seems when you’re just talking boring shit with your manager. Not at the top of my game here.”
“At least you don’t have to be at the top of your game with me,” Eddie mutters, and Richie grins.
“Aw!” he coos, nuzzling his nose against Eddie’s, and Eddie makes a displeased face and tries to push him away.
“Let go of me, you piece of stale pasta,” he mutters with no heat in his voice.
“You’re the one who moved in with me and didn’t move out,” Richie sing-songs right into Eddie’s ear.
“And I regret it,” Eddie sing-songs back.
“Awwww,” Richie says, drawing it out for way too long as he flops onto Eddie’s lap, staring up at him.
“You’d think you’re the cat, not Priscilla,” Eddie says, looking down at Richie fondly and taking the time to run his fingers through Richie’s hair.
“Yeah, well, I’ve gotta make up for the fact that Priscilla fucking hates sitting on our laps.”
“Pretty sure Priscilla fucking hates everyone.”
Richie grins. “Kinda like you!”
Eddie scoffs. “Please. I don’t hate Bill or Bev or Ben or Mike.”
Richie guffaws. “Oh, come on, I’m the only one you sleep with, you can’t fool me.”
Eddie lets out a playfully put-upon sigh. “Okay, I don’t hate you either.”
His gaze drifts over to the other side of the couch, where the bottle of shampoo that Richie threw at him lies, and he picks it up, wrinkling his nose at the violent pink color. He squints to read the brand, and lets out a bark of laughter that he can’t contain. “Brand Hers? This doesn’t exist, no way this exists. Where the fuck did you find this?”
Richie cackles. “It was too funny to resist, Eds! Brand Hers! What does it mean? Is it like her brand? Is the brand called Hers? It’s a mystery.”
Eddie can’t help but grin.
Later that day, he regales Bev with the story of the stupid shampoo. “It actually smells pretty good,” he admits. “And it’s just like him, right? He remembered I needed shampoo, and then he bought this ridiculous stuff just because he thought the name was funny.” Eddie shakes his head. “I love him so much.” He pauses. “Don’t tell him I told you that.”
Bev laughs. “Sorry, Eds, I think he already knows.”