Chapter Text
Eddie Kaspbrak hated his roommates.
They were unkempt, loud, and apparently incapable of shutting up. Eddie frequently ignored whatever they said to him anyway. All he wanted was a few hours of rest before their class in the morning but he couldn't even get that.
He could – mildly – bear Bill Denbrough, who left his space of their dorm up to some standard of clean and was usually extremely polite during the unfrequent conversations they had together. He was currently drunk out of his mind, singing incoherent lyrics to a song he definitely didn't know. He was doing karaoke. All three of Eddie's roommates were, yelling and dancing and Eddie just knew he was going to be the one to clean their mess of discarded snacks, wrappers, and cans of beer that he didn't even want to ask how got into the room. They weren't even of age yet. It was way past their curfew and if one of the dorm supervisors walked in right now, they’d all be dead. Eddie was surprised they weren't yet.
Knowing Beverly Marsh, who liked to hang out in the boys' dorm some nights, she probably had snuck them in using her undeniable beauty to draw attention away from the beer and onto herself. Eddie thought Beverly could enchant any guy she desired to without a struggle with those looks of hers, but her habit of fuming the room with smoke and then littering her cigarettes across the floor would surely tarnish people's perception of her, or at least his own. She nearly smacked Bill in the face with her maracas, laughing hard enough that her short, ginger hair kept falling into her eyes.
Eddie's other roommate chucked what seemed to be his third beer can onto the floor of their lounge. Every light in the dorm was on, Eddie squinted as the can solemnly rolled to a stop near his feet. He stood by his doorframe watching the sight unfold before him, accepting that sleep wouldn't be possible tonight as he had done many times before.
Bill slurred, "C-Come on, Rich, let's s-sing th-this one together."
"Oh no, I couldn't possibly interrupt your marvellous singing." A pale, curly-haired boy replied.
Wearing only a t-shirt and a pair of old, red shorts would’ve been normal in what people considered to be a "safe space" but not whilst he lived with Richie Tozier, who never made the place seem safe. Eddie was only capable of punching his shoulder and yelling whenever he was teased before Richie's smirk made him fume and walk away. Being teased was just about the only type of interaction he'd ever had with the guy. God forbid he wanted to feel comfortable.
Eddie sometimes thought Richie existed solely to annoy him. He was tall and lanky, wore glasses that were more than half the size of his face, and carried himself with the kind of confidence Richie Tozier should not legally be allowed to have. The worst part was that he had earned most of it.
Before Eddie could lift his head back to the scene, a voice called out;
"Hey, Eddie, come join us!" Beverly giggled as she held her phone up, "Bill's gonna be sooo mad when he sees this video..."
Richie snapped out of whatever daze he was in moments ago and turned to Beverly, his voice sounding rough from drinking, "Bill's not capable of being mad during hangovers." Then, "Nice shorts, Eds."
Eddie sighed and stumbled toward them, praying their half-drunk selves would listen.
"Shut up, that's gross. Anyways, can you guys just go to bed, please? It's so late, someone's gonna walk in any second and kick us all out of here. We all have class tomorrow and it's so bright in here oh my gosh there's so much rubbish everywhere I swear to god I'm gonna—"
"Eds, just- Ow!" Richie earned a harsh flick to his forehead from Eddie as he slung his arm around him with some unusual sense of familiarity towards Eddie, although they barely spoke, "Just join us, we'd all be able to see if you had a secret, hidden talent for singing."
Loud footsteps passed outside the dorm. The room went into silence for a moment before a deep sigh broke it.
"Sh-Shut up, Richie. Eddie's r-right." Bill, who had earlier stopped his... lovely singing, hissed in a low voice, "Sorry, we'll s-stop."
Eddie didn’t believe in God, but he thought Bill came pretty close right then. He nearly collapsed from relief.
"Thank you, Bill." He smiled back at him and shrugged Richie's arm off of him, finally retreating back to his room for his deserved sleep. "Goodnight."
"N-Night."
"Bye guys, goodnight!"
"My head hurts so fucking ba—"
"Shut up, Richie."
Eddie Kaspbrak did not hate his roommates so much.
The darkness of the bedroom amplified the scent of Eddie's extensively used air freshener. Even after getting his roommates to finally stop their racket, he could still hear something outside his room and it kept him lying frozen, making sure he wouldn't miss a single noise. Eddie glanced around his room as he listened to the sounds. His desk was littered with papers and homework, and his chair had his uniform for the next day draped upon it. There was even a can that had managed to roll into his room.
Cupboards closing and opening, rattling, and footsteps were all that Eddie could make of what he heard before he decided to get up because what was anybody else going to do?
"Fuck..." Eddie blinked in confusion. It was Richie, standing infront of the kitchen counter and staring down at the cold, stone tiles. He was holding his head in one hand and grasping a box of pills in the other.
"I told you to go to sleep ages ago. What the hell are you doing?" Eddie grumbled, half-blinded by the fluorescent lights of the dorm again.
"My head hurts like shit, dude." He spoke up, lifting his head from the floor to look at Eddie. "And there's no Tylenol to be found in here."
"Of course there’s Tylenol. We always have Tylenol— I mean, I live here, how could we not have Tylenol?" He nudged Richie out of the way to look himself. "Do those glasses do you any favours or do you only wear them to look even stupider?" Eddie muttered under his breath as he continued searching through the countless boxes and bottles of medicine. Benadryl, Claritin, Zyrtec, but not any Tylenol.
"Oh Eds, you love my glasses—"
"Shut up, Richie. Just shut up. You're making this harder for me– seriously, where is it? I swear to god if Bill took them specifically for his own hangover I'm throwing him out the window."
"He could barely walk, so I'm sure he couldn't have taken any. Bev had to escort him to his room." Richie explained, arm now resting on the counter whilst watching Eddie relentlessly try to look for painkillers.
They stayed in a somewhat comfortable silence for a few minutes. Richie continued watching as if it was his personal television show and Eddie hated how aware of it he became. He could nearly feel the warmth radiating from Richie's bodh with how close they were standing. It was almost like exhaustion lowered his sense of personal space.
"Why are you looking at me like that?” Eddie asked the taller boy abruptly, turning his head from the cabinets to look up at him. From their close proximity, Eddie could nearly see every freckle that laid upon Richie's face. He could also make out the creeping blush on his face and forced himself to believe that it was probably just the heat. Or the beer.
He unfroze from his prior position. "Like what?”
"Like I’m a zoo exhibition."
"You're more like an art exhibit."
"Why– No. Don't even say it, I don't want to know."
Eddie lifted his hands in surrender. "This," He gestured to the piles of medicine in – and out – of the cupboard before turning his back to Richie, "is your problem. As I said, I have things to do. Important things. I need rest to do those. Good. Bye."
"But, Eds—"
He, again, spun around. "If you call me 'Eds' one more time–"
Before he could finish his sentence, Eddie was met with a certain... look from Richie. It was almost pitiful. His right hand still held his head, his hair was all over the place and covered his eyes that drooped with eye bags dark enough to worry Eddie a little. Even his clothes, which consisted of a white shirt with some stupid design on it, plaid pyjama pants that were a size too large, and mis-matched socks, fed into him looking like an abandoned puppy.
"Jesus, you're a mess." Eddie sighed, stating what he hoped to be the obvious. "Go drink some water whilst I go ask the nurse for medicine."
Richie grinned through his pain and saluted. "Sir yes sir."
The walk to the nurse’s office was the quietest Eddie had felt all night. He could hear the humming of vending machines and could feel the cold tile floors underneath his slippers as he tried to make up something to say if a supervisor came and asked what he was doing awake and out of his room. The lights flickered every now and then, causing the hallway to feel almost eerie whilst Eddie was alone in it. He felt almost sorry for the nurse having to work so late as he entered her office; she looked pale and sickly, ironically enough.
Eddie gently knocked on the doorframe before stepping further into the dimly lit room.
"Um… hello. Sorry to bother you. My, uh, roommate has a really bad headache. I was wondering if you had any Tylenol?" His voice had become softer than usual.
The nurse looked up slowly from a stack of papers, her eyes heavy-lidded, "Yes, of course, Eddie. Give me a moment." She rose from her desk and a few papers flew swiftly to the floor from her sudden movement.
"Rough night? It's late, past your curfew.” the nurse asked.
"Yes." He paused, "No– not like that." His cheeks turned pink from the sudden realisation of what she could have been indicating towards.
Smiling as she shuffled to a cabinet and retrieved a small bottle, shaking two tablets into a small paper cup, the nurse nodded, "Here you go. Make sure you get to sleep soon."
"Thanks… you too." Eddie said, offering a polite smile before heading back toward the dorms.
"Richie," Eddie grumbled, giving his shoulder a little shake. "Take these. Then go to bed."
Richie blinked blearily, now lying down on their couch. He muttered something along the lines of a 'thank you', and swallowed the tablets before nestling back into the cushions. As Eddie watched, he almost felt the need to lay a blanket over him. It was chilly in their room, the tiles were freezing beneath Eddie’s feet and he was sure that Richie could feel it too by now despite how warm he was earlier. Gathering up a few stray wrappers from the floor, he paused, glancing at Richie’s slack expression. Eddie stood there for a second too long before leaving and felt some sort of reluctant softness creep in before quickly shutting it out.
He switched off the lights, leaving only the soft glow from the entrance hallway, and swiftly slipped back into his own room. The dorm actually felt quiet for once. This time, when his head hit the pillow, sleep didn’t feel so far away.
The dorm looked significantly less horrifying in the morning light. Eddie stepped out of his room expecting chaos, but suddenly stopped at the sight of Bill cleaning up the mess from last night in silence.
“Why are you awake so early?" Eddie asked curiously, "I'd expected you to be asleep the longest."
"I thought I'd do s-something productive to d-distract myself from m-my ha-hangover." Bill replied without looking up at him, still wearing yesterday’s clothes and his brunette hair tousled from sleep. He looked half-awake at best.
Eddie sighed and picked up various items that had been discarded around the room, "You don't have to, y'know. I have time before my class to clean and resting would work better than a distraction."
Bill hummed, pondering the proposal before quickly answering, "'S fine, Eddie. C-Consider it an apology for disrupting your n-night."
The two continued to clean in comfortable silence. Bill picked up cans one by one, stacking them awkwardly whilst Eddie separated the recycling and trash. After a few moments, a faint knocking was at the door and both boys turned their heads to the noise.
"Morning Bill, morning Eddie!" Beverly chirped as she casually entered the room, "Do you guys have any Tylenol?"
Eddie flinched at the name. It almost sounded like an alarm, giving him flashbacks from last night.
"You okay, Eds?" Bill asked, noticing his sudden change in demeanour.
"No– Yeah. 'M fine. We don't have Tylenol, sorry Bev."
Beverly nodded in dismay, then groaned when she spotted Richie still sprawled on the couch, snoring softly with an arm dangling off the side and two blankets draped over him, "I was going to lay there!" Then, "He looks dead.”
"He should be with how much disruption he caused." Eddie muttered flatly.
Bill stifled a laugh before beckoning Beverly to come over, "B-Beverly, come h-help us."
She stumbled over next to him and began to clean with them before noticing the line of beer cans which had been retrieved from various places around their room.
"We should keep these." Bev gestured to the other two.
Eddie squinted in confusion before replying and Bill did the same, "...Why?"
"They're decorative."
"Decorative?"
"Of course."
"Bill, throw them out."
"Don't!"
Eddie exhaled through his nose and continued his search for objects that could have been carelessly discarded or littered from last night. He found Beverly's maracas and almost found himself holding a laugh from the memory of her nearly hitting Bill's face with them. Then, another crumpled can. Another dreadful reminder of Richie, who he could hear snoring through their clean-up and definitely needed to shower urgently. Eddie glanced at the boy for what seemed to be the hundredth time that morning.
"Unbelievable,” he muttered under his breath, tossing another wrapper into the garbage bag. Richie always managed to be useless at the exact right time and somehow still looked even worse after resting.
The quiet was only interrupted by the sound of cans clinking together and the shuffling of feet across the linoleum floor. The dorm, stripped of all its chaos, almost felt at peace for a moment.
A groan soon escaped from the couch as Richie stirred under the cocoon of blankets, his dark, brown hair sticking up in absurd directions. He cracked one eye open and muttered, "Are you guys having a party without me?"
Eddie rolled his eyes. "The only party happening here is called ‘cleaning up your mess.’"
Richie yawned, stretching like a cat before sinking back into the couch. "Sounds lame. Wake me up when there’s cake."
"We don't have cake, Richie," Beverly chimed as she tossed a chip packet into the bin, "Just headaches and hangovers."
Bill chuckled softly, shaking his head. "We're the only ones to blame. I expect we'll get a talk about being noisy after lights-out soon..."
The two continued discussing the aftermath of their horrible decisions while Eddie walked over to their – very occupied – couch. "Get up, you idiot. You've had enough rest and you stole most of mine, so you don't deserve any more." He explained, lightly nudging Richie with his knee.
"I love those tiny little shorts, Eddie. You're doing me a favour hitting me like that." Richie smiled from under the blankets.
"Fuck you, seriously."
"Is that an invitatio— Ow!" Richie yelped as he took a punch to his torso and toppled off of the couch.
"Absolutely not."
Eddie crossed his arms and glared down at Richie, who lay sprawled on the floor now with the blanket tangled around his legs.
"You're insufferable," Eddie muttered, stepping over him as he resumed arranging the last of the rubbish bags by the door.
"And yet," Richie said, voice muffled as he buried his face into his arms on the floor, "you keep me around. It must be true love." He slapped a hand to his heart.
"It's because I don't have a choice." Eddie called.
Bill set the final beer can into the recycling bin, still looking drowsy, "R-Richie. Take a shower. Y-You smell like... death."
He grumbled as he sat up and noticed Beverly's presence. "Bev, my sweetheart. Wilt thou come to share a bath with me?" He grinned.
"I'm honoured, but I'm still mourning my cans." She replied.
"What cans?"
"Don't." Bill winced, "I had to pry the last few away from her. She thinks they were decorative."
"They were!"
"Not."
The rest of the morning progressed quietly. The silence was broken only by the occasional groan from Richie, who remained lying on the floor the whole morning, or the clinking of cans as the tidy-up continued. Bill eventually excused himself to take a shower, leaving the remaining two to finish the last of the cleaning before they promptly got ready to leave for class.
Eddie finally slipped his backpack over his shoulder and glanced towards the couch one last time before he left. Richie was now sitting upright, hair damp from a belated shower and Beverly had already left.
"Have fun in PE, Eds. Don’t fall asleep mid-game, yeah?"
"I wouldn’t need to if someone hadn’t kept me up all night," He snapped back, stuffing a notebook into his bag and heading for the door, "Aren't you going to come? We have first period soon."
"I think I'm fine, actually."