#i like to think this is karma from my ink and dream short comic

[sushixstar]

it's not chicken

[d0gdaze]

1.

The body swap au a surprising amount of people asked for, actually. 

Read on AO3 / Summary

Pairings: Eddie Kaspbrak / Richie Tozier

Warnings: swearing, sexual references

Chapter 1/?

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Word Count: 3279

Eddie’s playlist

If given the choice to remove something from existence, most sensible people's suggestions would be akin to war, famine, homelessness, cancer, or something else along that line. Some people would be more specific, maybe choosing to rid the world of a particular person, or food, or trend in clothing. Some would say they would get rid of bagpipes, or tomatoes, or the entire concept of wearing socks and sandals. Others wouldn't be able to give you an answer, making the argument that we need the bad to balance out the good, or some other pretentious and insightful bullshit.

Richie Tozier knew exactly what he would get rid of, if given that choice. It would, without a doubt, be the song Walking on Sunshine by Katrina and the Waves.

This was the thought that crossed Richie's mind as the annoyingly energetic opening drumbeats graced his ears at six that morning, as they did every morning without fail. It was promptly accompanied by the familiar sound of a window sliding open, which only aimed to amplify the sound. He gritted his teeth and mumbled something unintelligible, but undoubtedly profane, and pulled the pillow out from under him, wrapping it around the back of his head and over his ears in an attempt to drown out the music. It proved to be futile, though. Because then, right on cue, the singing started. Well, calling it singing might be a bit of a stretch. He would have described it as more of a pained-sounding screech, much akin to a dying cat, or maybe a kazoo thrown into a paper shredder,

I use to think maybe you loved me, now baby I'm sure.

Of course his next door neighbour had to have the worst voice imaginable, paired with the worst music taste imaginable (that is, one of a preteen girl). He honestly thought he would much rather be beaten over the head with a baseball bat every morning, because even that would be less painful than this.

The chorus started, and the 'singing' escalated from a slightly reserved cry to a full on caterwaul, his neighbour's voice cracking a little, rather comically, on the 'woah's. He let out a defeated huff, which slowly drew out into a groan. He removed the pillow, throwing it off the bed in lazy frustration, and turned his head to face the window. From where he was he could just see Eddie Kaspbrak, his personal alarm clock, sitting at the foot of his own bed, bent over himself to tie his shoes. He was still belting out the lyrics as he did so.

Eddie, at least on the outside, seemed like a good kid. 'A wrinkly old grandma's wet dream', Richie had once said to his friend Beverly the day after he moved in next door, and though the analogy was responded to with disgust, she later discovered that he really did have a point. The boy was constantly pristine, always wearing variously coloured, yet always dull-looking polo shirts, tucked into jeans that were always unreasonably well-fitted. And cardigans. Oh god, the cardigans were the worst. They looked like they came directly out of Mr. Rogers' personal collection, though everyone knew the kid didn't own a single item of second-hand clothing. Which was, in Richie's opinion, worse, because it meant that he didn't dress like that due to financial strife, and that he spent good money on new clothes that made him look like a tiny senior citizen by choice. His haircut hadn't changed since the start of highschool, the same suburban-white-father-of-three-esque side-parted quiff that never had a single hair out of place. When he wasn't dressed like this, however, he was in his P.E. uniform. That is, a grey t-shirt with their high school mascot printed on the front, and shorts. Bright red, flashy, and ever so short. Absolutely shorter than necessary, and shorter than anyone else on the track team seemed to have them. And once again, the Kaspbrak's didn't have an issue with money. He hadn't grown out of them and couldn't afford to buy a new pair, hell, he had barely grown two inches since freshman year. They were short, because that weirdo liked them that way, for whatever reason. And Richie didn't care enough to ask. All he knew was that they when he was wearing them, it was distracting as fuck. Every time he did his stretches on Saturday morning, after strategically placing himself in his room so Richie could see him from where he sat on the bed, reading over his play scripts, it was like he was actively trying to show himself off.

And Richie hated it. He hated him.

He grabbed his glasses off of his bedside table and dragged himself out of bed, feet hitting the floor and pulling him into a slouched stance, and shuffled his way over to the window. He lifted the pane open with a small groan.

There was a small stretch of roof in front of both of their windows, about three feet each, the gap between the two properties only about the length of Richie's arm. Small enough to cross over with barely any effort, if either wanted to do so. Before Eddie had moved in, he thought it would have been perfect if someone came and lived there, someone nice, someone that he liked, and they could sit out on the roof and talk all night. They could have climbed into one another's rooms when their parents were asleep, or leave little notes on the glass, or even, maybe, if he was really lucky, fall in love with them. It would have been perfect, and rather shakespearian, he guessed. His own little Romeo and Juliet story. But then the universe decided to throw it's middle fingers up and say “fuck you, you're getting this hobbit instead,” and the only time he had ever crossed over to the other rooftop was at the start of junior year, to draw a massive, rather detailed piece of male genitalia on Eddie's window. In permanent ink, too, and Eddie had spent a good twenty minutes crouched out there in his pyjamas with a bottle of ajax and a sponge, desperately trying to scrub it off, cursing out Richie as he did so, fretting out loud about his mother seeing it. He deserved it though. He must have, even though Richie couldn't remember exactly what event had brought it on.

He leaned out slightly, fingers tapping a beat into the wood. Eddie looked up, obviously catching him out of the corner of his eye, and grinned. For a moment it even looked almost genuine. Almost. He knew better.

“'Morning Dick!” he chirped, making his way across the room, leaning against the window frame with his arms crossed over his chest. Richie pressed his lips together into a forced smile.

“Has anyone ever told you that you're a really good singer? I mean, obviously the answer is no, because you're shit, but I was wondering if maybe someone once lied to you about it and that's why you're still in denial about how terrible you are.” He tilted his head to the side. “Sorry to rip the bandaid off like that but trust me, it's better that you know.” He nodded his head, feigning sympathy. Eddie let out a short, sharp laugh.

“Oh I'm sorry Rich, was I cutting in on your beauty sleep? Is that why your face is all-” he paused, holding his hand up towards him, gesturing vaguely, “-like that?”

“Nice comeback,” Richie replied, before returning to a deadpan expression, “can you turn the music down now?” Eddie stuck his bottom lip out in an exaggerated pout, shaking his head.

“Maybe if you weren't up until two in the morning reciting your weird poetry you wouldn't be so tired, ever think of that?” he asked, a mocking lilt to his voice. Before Richie could say anything in return, he reached above him and slid the window down, leaving just a small gap at the bottom as to not muffle the noise, and promptly flipped him off through the glass. The song faded to a close, only to be replaced by something equally as upbeat and obnoxious.

Richie thought that if he could remove something else from existence, it would be Karma Chameleon by Culture Club.

“Fucking twat,” Richie muttered under his breath, just as Eddie's curtains were pulled shut. He sighed in defeat, shutting his own window and rolling his shoulders forward a few times, trying to ease some of the tension in his back. His lumpy old mattress was starting to become a prominent problem, there wasn't many days that he woke up without a crick in his neck. “Stupid mattress. Stupid shitty pop songs. Stupid fucking pink sweater bullshit.”

He collapsed onto the bed face-down, the bed creaking and complaining under him as he did, ignoring the painful way his glasses pressed into his face.

“'Weird poetry', like you can fucking talk, weirdo. At least I don't fucking iron my jeans.” He barked out a laugh at his own remark, then quickly realised he was talking and to someone who could not hear him, and sighed again. He rolled over onto his back, looking up at the cluster of glow in the dark stickers on the ceiling that he had put there when he was eight, only to never take them down, even as he was nearing the end of highschool. Most of them were peeling away at the corners. He had an urge to fix them, but knew he wouldn't, choosing instead to fixate on them with a weird sense of frustration.

It took around twenty minutes for him to actually get up. He only knew it took that long because five songs played during that time, averaging three and a half minutes each, he guessed. And Eddie sang every single lyric, so badly that at points Richie thought he must be consciously trying to sound worse than normal. It ended up being a rendition of Don't Go Breaking My Heart, in which Eddie sang both the male and female parts, even putting the effort in to sing them in alternating pitches, that drove Richie to the edge. He threw on a pair of jeans and the first shirt he picked up that didn't look too filthy, and trudged his way down the hall to the bathroom. He didn't have time for a shower, so he brushed his teeth and sprayed on an arguably excessive amount of aftershave before heading downstairs.

It wasn't necessarily a surprise to see the note on the fridge, but it still made him feel- something. Disappointment, perhaps, though he wasn't sure why it would be. It wasn't like it was a rare occasion for him to wake up to an empty household. He walked closer. Words scribbled on a piece of yellow lined paper torn from a legal pad, obviously done in a rush, held up by an old souvenir magnet from Niagara Falls. That trip had been before Richie was born, back when he figured his parents still led relatively interesting lives. Or maybe they didn't. Maybe it was a gift, and his parent's lives were never extraordinary in the slightest, not even enough to go to Ontario. He had never thought to ask.

Will be back tomorrow night. Leftovers in the fridge. -Mom x

He read the words aloud to himself, his voice sounding all too loud now that he was aware there was no one else to hear it. He told himself he didn't care, because truthfully, he wasn't sure if he did.

His parents weren't bad, per say. They did care about him, obviously, they must have. When they were home it was nice, they ate dinner together in front of the television, he helped his mother with the dishes, his father gave him pocket money for mowing the lawn. Hell, they even actually talked sometimes, mostly about the sports his father watched. Richie loved those talks, even though he really didn't have any interest in the subject matter. No, they were fine parents, he thought, perfectly fine. The problem was that they were rather... absent. Increasingly so since he hit high school. Nowadays it seemed that they were gone more than they weren't, either gone on some sort of business trip, or working late shifts, or his mother was at her book club, or his father was at the sports bar downtown. There was always something, and they barely ever specified what it was. Sometimes a week would pass and he wouldn't see them at all.

He swallowed the hurt that had started forming in the back of his throat, god knows he didn't need to acknowledge it, and opened the fridge. Empty. Like, absolutely empty.

“Good one, ma.”

He let the door swing shut and close with a soft thud, and took one last look at the note, as if it had somehow changed in the last ten seconds, or maybe to make sure he had read it right. Ten words are a lot to handle, after all, he easily could have misread it. But, unsurprisingly, he had read it right the first time, his parents still weren't home, and he would nothing to eat but cup noodles for the next two days. He didn't get the chance to mull over it for much longer, because right then a car horn sounded from outside, announcing his friend's arrival.

He bounded down the driveway to Mike's vega, where Beverly was leaning against the side of the hood, the front seat shifted forward already for him to climb into the back seat. He never understood how they had conned him into sitting in the back every day, seeing as he was tallest out of all three of them and the car was so small he would have been uncomfortable even in the front, but they had, and he did, and every day his back hated him for it. Don't complain, he reminded himself as he contorted himself into the seat, at least it's better than the bus. He sat in the middle of the bench, legs awkwardly spread apart, but it was the only way he could fit semi-comfortably.

“Any interesting developments today?” Mike questioned as Beverly readjusted the seat for herself.

“Eh, same old. Little fucker called me ugly, I told him 'at least I don't iron my jeans'.”

“Noice,” Bev exclaimed, swinging the door shut. The engine revved to life again and Mike pulled out onto the road. “Yeah, would have been pretty good. Except I didn't actually say it while he could hear me, so it's fucking wasted,” he huffed, slumping back into the seat, not that there was much room to do so.

“Nah, just save it for next time,” she replied, shooting him a toothy smile over her shoulder which he returned.

“Sadie's for breakfast?” Mike asked, and Beverly made a noise of excitement, sitting up in her seat.. “Hell yeah, we have time?”

“There's always time for Sadie's, miss Marsh,” Richie remarked, leaning forward over the centre console.

Sadie's was a small, relatively popular fast food joint in town. An unsuspecting visitor would undoubtedly be discouraged when entering; the establishment was cramped and borderline claustrophobic, the purple and white clad employees were always abrupt and rude, the floors were sticky and the tables hardly ever clean, and the food was downright awful and way too overpriced. But everyone knew you didn't go there for the service, or the food, or the atmosphere, or any of that crap. No, you went to Sadie's for the shakes. Those vanilla shakes were what kept the damn place in business, and for good reason. They were heaven, a perfect balance of flavour and consistency. Anyone who ever had one would tell you that it was the best thing they had tasted in their entire lives. No one could figure out how to recreate it, either, and not through lack of trying. No matter what people did, how closely they watched through the narrow window into the kitchen as they were being prepared, how many different variations and measurements and methods they tried, nothing was ever as good. It was almost magical. Richie and his friends probably went through over twenty a week between the four of them -the three in the car, plus Stan, though he often unfortunately missed out on their impromptu snack runs due to him refusing to ride in Mike's car.

They arrived just under ten minutes later. The restaurant was situated between two other buildings, looking almost like it was shoved in there at the last minute, and there wasn't actually anywhere to park. Bev quickly hopped out and gave a two fingered salute before marching inside, and Mike began to drive around the block, as he would do multiple times as they waited for Beverly to retrieve their order. The two of them sat, the radio filling the gaps in the comfortable silence between them.

“And coming up next,” the voice on the station hummed as the song faded out, “to brighten your drive to work on the glorious Monday morning; a hit from Katrina and the Waves-”

“-Oh god.”

Mike laughed as Richie lurched forward, his fingertips just barely brushing the radio dial before Mike grabbed his wrist with one hand and keeping the other on the wheel. The drumbeats faded in. Richie felt like he might cry. “Fucking hell, Hanlon, please don't make me listen to it,” he pleaded, sounding so genuinely desperate that it only caused the other to smile wider. “Aw why? Don't you like this song?”

“You know damn well I do no- watch the road, man!”

Mike swore under his breath and swerved back into his own lane, not letting up his grip on Richie's wrist despite his squirming.

“Driver picks the music, Rich,” he jeered, shoving Richie backwards. He fell back with an exaggerated groan, letting his head roll back against the edge of the seat. The lyrics started, and Mike started to sing along, or at least tried to. It quickly became clear that he didn't know any of the words.

“You suck,” Richie hissed, though it lacked any real heat.

“I know,” he returned, flashing a smile in the rearview mirror. It was so innocent looking and contagious that Richie had to bite back one of his own. Damn it Mike, Richie thought, why'd you have to be so pretty, huh? Cut me some slack here.

They went around the block twice before they spotted Beverly standing on the curb. In that time Richie did his best to block out the song, and the one after that, though the second one didn't make him want to rip his hair out nearly as much. He could only thank god that Mike wasn't one to blast his music at a ridiculous level.

Bev swung down into her seat, carefully balancing the cardboard cup tray on the centre console before shutting the door and doing up her seatbelt.

“Alright, pay up. 'Dollar seventy five,” she held her hand palm up over her shoulder, directed towards Richie. He dug around in his pocket and came up with a crumpled bill and a quarter, and placed it in her hand. “I owe you fifty cents,” he said, reaching forward to snatch one of the drinks. He had to stop himself from straight-up moaning as he took a first sip. “Holy fuck.”

“Mhm,” Bev hummed in agreement, lips wrapped around her own straw.

“Oh my god, Bev,” Mike said abruptly, “you'll never guess what came on the radio.”

Tag list (bolded won’t tag):  @fanficisgoodforthesoul @i-is-gazebo @dandeliontozier @panicatbakerst @howellhxlic @musicalsaftermusicals @bernaynay @bust-a-move-bev @reddie-to-go @richietoaster @omgboiledcabbages @reddietofall @flowersiren @lousytrashmouth @get-fcking-reddie