#I’m not reddie to see Richie cry over Eddie’s dead body

[nouserideax]

Me putting on anything from the It Chapter 2 soundtrack (especially “Stan’s letter”) to make myself cry:

#richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #it chap 2 #it chapter two #reddie #the losers club #it 2019 #it chapter 2 #reddie is real #it movie #it stephen king #it 2017 #bill denbrough #stanley uris #mike hanlon #ben hanscom #beverly marsh #i’m not reddie to see richie cry over eddie’s dead body #I love Stan #I dont want stan or Eddie to die #FUUUUUUCK #i'm so 😭😭😭😭 #me: 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

[ur-not-reddie]

I Want To Be Like You

chapter two

chapter one

pairing: reddie

word count: 1.1k

warnings: none.. yet ;)

i’m so so soooo sorry this took 84 years to post. but here it finally is :)

@heterophobicrichietozier <3

-

Over the course of the next week, Richie has sat by Eddie every single day in class. He continues to blab his mouth, Eddie often letting out soft giggles. His joy of being around Richie has morphed into something stronger, he just can’t seem to name what it is. When class ends, the two always head back to Richie’s dorm after. They usually order something to eat, hop onto Richie’s bed as Richie plays his favorite scary movie trilogies for Eddie. They sit close together, shoulders touching as there is barely enough room just for the two of them. 

Eddie still hasn’t spoken a word to the other. He lets out soft hums in confusion, liking, disagreement, amusement, disgust - anything. Richie has learned the difference between Eddie’s tones of hums and how long or short he makes the vibrations in the back of his throat. 

Once the movie ends, Richie shuts off his laptop and pushes it to the other end of the bed. He then grabs at Eddie’s sides suddenly and starts tickling him. The smaller male gasps and lets out echoing laughter as he squirms around. 

“What do you want to do now?” Richie asks, stopping his movements. Eddie catches his breath as he thinks for a moment, humming as his brain ticks. 

“We could go get ice cream,” Eddie says sheepishly, feeling surprised at his own words and voice, not expecting to open his mouth and have words fall out like that.

“Yeah, that sounds like a good- wait what the fuck?” Richie cuts himself off, sitting up quickly, thinking that maybe he might be hallucinating. “Did you just talk?” Richie asks, staring into Eddie’s eyes intently, a bit confused. 

“Yeah…” Eddie’s cheeks flush bright red. Richie smiles widely, turning his body so that he’s fully facing Eddie.

“Say something again!” Richie claps excitedly. Eddie lets out more shy giggles before speaking again. 

“What do you want me to say?” Eddie’s cheeks burn brighter, not remembering when the last time he actually spoke was. 

“I don’t know?” Richie asks in an exhilarated type of tone. “Anything!” the smaller male giggles at Richie’s words, humming in thought, thinking carefully before opening his mouth again. 

“I like your blue hair,” Eddie compliments, his cheeks flushing a deep fire engine red. 

“You do?” Richie asks, furrowing his brows but a wide grin is still plastered on his lips. 

“Yeah,” Eddie smiles back, his tone soft and airy. “And your tattoos…” Eddie adds, his eyes shifting downcast as he’s feeling shy about the compliments that just pour out of his mouth, feeling slightly embarrassed. 

“So,” Richie continues on, gaining Eddie’s attention back. “Where are you from?” 

“A stupid, small town in Maine.” Eddie sighs, rolling his eyes as all the shitty memories start to wash over his brain. Richie can sense this and decides to intervene.

“Well I’m from New York,” Richie says proudly, puffing out his chest. Eddie snaps out of his daze, tilting his head up, looking at Richie with wonder. 

“Really?” Eddie asks with excitement, his smile reflecting Richie’s. 

“Yup!” Richie nods, popping the ‘P’. “Specifically Brooklyn.” 

“Did you like it there?” Eddie asks sheepishly, sighing gently as he tries not to panic over how much he’s talked so far. 

“Loved it, actually.” Richie leans back on his hands. 

“So what made you move to Minnesota?” Eddie asks, tilting his head slightly. 

“Why’d you?” Richie throws the question back, raising an eyebrow and smirking. 

“Do you want an honest answer?” 

“Only if you’re comfortable,” Richie shrugs. 

Eddie falls silent for a few moments before he pours his heart out to Richie unintentionally. He explains his toxic situation with his mother, being brainwashed by a religion he doesn’t believe in, his constant medications which turned out to be placebos, and his laundry list of “illnesses” and so on. At one point Eddie chokes up as he explains about not having any friends growing up or in school due to how sheltered he was. Eddie keeps ranting and rambling on, words not filtering through his brain and escaping past his lips again. The conversation then somehow turns to relationships, explaining how he doesn’t know anything, only seeing shit in movies before spilling the truth about his first kiss. 

“And even my first kiss sucked because it was with a girl! And-” Eddie cuts himself off, hand slapping over his mouth as he stares at Richie with wide eyes. 

“Are you okay?” Richie furrows his brows together, letting out an airy chuckle. 

“I’ve-” Eddie closes his eyes, letting out a heavy sigh. “I’ve never talked about that before…” 

“Your first kiss?” Richie asks. Eddie nods, letting out another deep breath. 

“It was horrible... nothing like I expected and it wasn’t what I wanted either.” Eddie can’t bear to look Richie in the eyes, feeling beyond embarrassed and ashamed. 

“Because it was with a girl?” Richie repeats Eddie’s words. 

“Yeah,” Eddie sulks, nodding his head. 

“So you like boys,” Richie states rather than ask. Eddie hums, nodding his head again. 

“Yeah, that’s exactly it.” Eddie then finds the little courage he has and meets Richie’s gaze, Eddie’s vision starting to blur with tears. 

“Aw, Eds, don’t cry.” Richie says, trying to comfort Eddie with his words as he doesn’t know how Eddie reacts to gentle, physical, light, innocent touches. 

Eddie starts to cry harder at this point, throwing himself into Richie’s arms and burying his face in his neck as he sobs uncontrollably. Richie is surprised at Eddie’s sudden action, but he wraps his arms gently around Eddie’s waist and holds him like that. Eddie keeps on, starting to choke on his own hiccups as his body quivers. 

“Eds,” Richie says softly, making Eddie look at him as Richie wipes away his tears. “It’s okay,” Richie flashes a comforting grin as he cups Eddie’s face. “It’s alright, I promise. I like boys too!” Eddie sniffs, looking Richie dead in his eyes. 

“You do?” 

“Mmhm,” Richie’s smile never leaves his lips. “I thought you knew that?”

“How the fuck was I supposed to know that?” Eddie pulls back, not realizing he’s fully sitting in Richie’s lap. 

“Eds,” Richie snorts with laughter. “You can’t be serious?” 

“I am!”  Eddie shouts, his brows knitting together.  Richie shakes his head, snickering as he grabs his laptop, pulling it closer and pointing at a sticker. It takes Eddie a couple seconds before it sinks in that it’s the bisexual flag. “Oh…” Eddie’s cheeks flush yet again, feeling embarrassed once more. Richie cups Eddie’s face and tilts upward a bit. 

“With a huge preference for guys, by the way.” Richie’s smirk grows as he winks terribly. Eddie can’t help but shift his eyes down to Richie’s lips, wondering what it would be like to kiss him… what Richie’s piercings would feel like against his own lips. Eddie wishes he’s brave enough to lean in, to close the little gap between him and Richie, but he can’t seem to move. “Eddie?” 

“Huh?” Eddie sits up straight, looking back at Richie directly. 

“Do you want to?” Richie asks in a low, serious tone. Eddie nods frantically, knowing exactly what Richie’s asking. “Are you sure?” 

“Just shut up and fucking kiss me,” Eddie blurts out. Richie wastes no time and crashes their lips together, one hand pressed against Eddie’s cheek and the other on his hip. And the two stay like that… for what seems like forever.

#reddie #reddie fic #reddie fanfiction #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #the losers club #losers club #losers club fanfiction #losers club fanfic #richie x eddie #it 2019 #i want to be like you

[fandomsalive]

Guide Me Home

Guide Me Home | Reddie | Teen and Up | 21,365 words

Summary: “I am here to offer you a choice,” Maturin explains patiently, finally seeming to answer Eddie’s questions. “You can move on from this world,” he says, and a plain wooden door appears, suddenly, out of nowhere, to the left of Eddie. It’s not close to him. It’s close enough that Eddie can see clearly what it is, but far enough that Eddie know’s he’d have to make the conscious decision to walk all the way to it. “Or I can take you back,” Maturin says, and another door appears to the right of Eddie, just as far as the first, but in a bright, gleaming gold this time.

For a second, Eddie doesn’t breathe. The choice seems so simple, so obvious. Of course he wants to go back! He’s only forty years old, he has a whole life ahead of him! He’s only just got the Losers back, and they killed that fucking clown! There’s nothing left to hold him back! He has a life in New York to get back to, a wife and —

A wife and…

A wife and nothing else but lies lies lies.

**

This has been such a journey to write! I don't remember how long I've been working on it, but it's been at least a few months because I just wanted to get it right. My first rough draft was only 11,500 words, and it quite literally doubled in size and I can't believe it! Here it is, finally, and I am so excited to share it! I hope that you guys enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Thanks as always to my best friend and beta @imnotinclinedtomaturity.

Ao3 Link

**

After the world goes dark, Eddie doesn’t expect to open his eyes ever again — it’s therefore a surprise to him when he does.

As his eyes flutter open, he notices immediately that the heavy feeling pressing on his chest, the one that had been making it difficult for him to breathe, is gone. The realization is enough to cause him to inhale deeply, if for no other reason than he can. The feeling of his lungs inflating without any discomfort or pain is a relief, and Eddie lets the breath back out again slowly.

He realizes as he does so that he allowed his eyes to drift shut again, and he opens them slowly.

The world around him is white, nothing but white in every direction. He’s laying down on something, and as Eddie looks down, he realizes it’s a bed — well, a cot, more specifically. The kind you find in a hospital. For a moment, Eddie actually believes that he is in a hospital, but then he looks up again and realizes that he can’t be, because there’s nothing else here.

His brow furrows in confusion as he sits up slowly, wincing reflexively as he does, only — there is no pain. He looks down cautiously and moves his hands to his abdomen where, what felt like moments ago, there had been a huge gaping hole ripped straight through him.

There’s nothing there, now. He’s completely whole, as if the fight with It never happened.

A sense of foreboding starts to clog Eddie’s throat, and he stares wide-eyed at the sheer whiteness around him as he pushes himself free from the bed. At his sides, his fingers curl into fists, and he turns in quick, anxious circles as he searches for something, anything, in the vast nothingness that surrounds him.

Eddie can feel his heart starting to cramp with terror, a stutter caught in his chest, and aches for the inhaler he’d thrown into the fire what must have been at least an hour ago.

What the fuck is happening? he wonders anxiously. Where am I? Where the fuck is this place?

Wherever he is, it strikes fear into Eddie’s heart, and he wants nothing more than to get out. He’d never known what true silence was until now, and he can feel his skin prickling uncomfortably. The more he checks out his surroundings, moving swift on shaky legs, the more it becomes clear that there is nothing else here, and the sheer force of the vast emptiness nearly knocks Eddie flat on his ass with terror.

It’s just as the panic is truly beginning to set in that Eddie hears a voice.

“You’ve been asleep a long time,” it says, echoing all around him. Startled, Eddie jumps in place, and immediately raises his hands defensively.

“Who’s there?” he demands, glaring into the vast nothingness. He cranes his neck to look above him, the only place he hasn’t looked, but finds nothing.

Oh god, oh fuck, oh shit, he thinks, twisting his body around again to check behind him, and then again to make sure nothing has appeared in the short moment he wasn’t looking.

As tends to happen when Eddie doesn’t know what to do, he gets angry. “Hey!” he shouts, when the person still hasn’t answered him. “Answer me you fucking asshole!” he adds rashly, shuffling backwards, towards the hospital bed.

His hands are shaking.

“Eddie Kaspbrak,” the voice replies, a calm, deep tenor. Eddie’s back locks up with rigid terror.

“How do you know my name?” he shouts defensively, eyes still darting around the bright nothingness he’s found himself in, even though he knows that it’s useless.

There’s nothing here.

“Who the fuck are you? Where are my friends?” he asks, voice quavering in the quiet, but there is no immediate response. Eddie is left, again, to his own thoughts and fears, and he scrambles at the back of his mind for some kind of memory that’ll tell him what the hell is going on. The last thing he remembers is Richie telling him he’ll be right back for him, and then —

Well… dying.

Oh god, he moans inside his own head, and lets out a whimper into the quiet air. What happened to Richie? What happened to Bill? And Ben, and Bev, and Mike… Are they dead? Is he dead? What the hell is going on? he asks himself.

“I know all of you,” the voice says, calm, and Eddie jumps, pulled abruptly out of his panicked spiral of thoughts, only to be launched into a brand new one.

Pennywise, he thinks, and trips backwards, until his back hits the hospital bed. True fear grips him hard, as he imagines what’s going to happen to him now. Pennywise has him trapped somewhere, maybe inside of his own goddamn mind, like he had Beverly twenty-seven years ago. Did he get caught in the deadlights? No, that was Richie, not him, and he’d thrown the spear straight into Pennywise’s throat, hadn’t he?

Fuck! Pennywise should have died, then! Eddie killed him, he killed that motherfucking clown, and now he’s back and he’s going to torture Eddie and —

Running on sheer adrenaline, Eddie shouts “I’ll fucking kill you, asshole, I swear to god! Don’t come near me or I swear I’m going to—” Eddie’s voice cracks as he fails to come up with a proper threat. He can feel his throat closing up as he waits for some kind of response, but it doesn’t come.

Eddie’s mind scrambles for answers, for any indication of what the hell might be going on. He doesn’t really remember what happened, his memories a tangled blur. He’d told Richie to go, hadn’t he? Before he… before he died, maybe. He told Richie to go, but why? Where had the others been, while Eddie was laying there bleeding to death on the cistern floor? Fuck, where had they been?

And then Eddie remembers — he remembers telling the others how to kill Pennywise. Make him small, he’d said, and all the others had run off into the main cavern to do just that. Eddie remembers hearing them shout insults at him, remembers telling Richie that the others needed him, that he needed to go, now.

They’d killed Pennywise. Surely they’d killed him?

“You’re dead!” Eddie screams when he finally manages to get his breath back again. “We fucking killed you!” he adds, desperate now. He can feel his legs give out on him at the same time as his ass hits the side of the bed, misses the landing, and hits the ground hard. Tears fill his eyes, half from pain, half from fear, and he glares up into the blank sky and screams, “We killed you!” around a sob stuck in his throat.

Oh god, he thinks, Oh god, we came back here and for what? he wonders, allowing the tears to overwhelm him. He shoves his face into his hands and just lets himself cry, shoulders shaking as he thinks of his friends. If he’s here, in whatever the fuck this place is, all alone, what happened to the rest of them? Are they somewhere here too, or maybe in their own nightmare of Pennywise’s devising? Eddie thinks of Richie, of one of the last things he’d said to him (“I fucked your mom.”) and wishes more than anything that he could change it.

Suddenly, just as Eddie’s tears are reaching a crescendo, a sense of calm settles down on his shoulders and floods through his veins. Eddie shudders at the touch, hiccuping over another broken sob, and raises his head to stare up into the sky.

“What—” he tries, voice cracking. “What are you doing to me?” he tries again, this time managing to shape the words with his tongue. The calmness settles deeper inside of him, and then an all-consuming knowing settles into his soul.

“He is dead,” the voice promises, obviously referring to Pennywise. The tone is soothing this time, grandfatherly, deep, and even before the voice speaks, Eddie knows what it's going to say.

Pennywise is dead. He’s really dead. He can’t hurt Eddie anymore.

The knowledge sits there in Eddie’s mind for a long moment, seeping into him. He feels his limbs relax as he lets it in, and closes his eyes. His lips are still parted on half-spoken words, but after a moment, they drift shut too.

Pennywise is dead. He’s dead.

Eddie shudders at the thought, and finally opens his eyes. He stares dumbly at nothing. “Okay,” he mutters to himself, “Okay.” He just needs to sit with that for a minute. He knows somehow that it’s true, and sure this could all be some crazy, made-up mind game that Pennywise is playing on him, but it doesn’t feel like it is. Pennywise had always felt like madness, but this voice? It feels like benevolence.

Inhaling deeply, Eddie lets out a slow breath before managing to compose himself.

“Who are you?” Eddie asks again, quieter this time. His voice is shaking, and his ass hurts from falling so hard, but the fear feels farther away, now, just out of reach, like the voice is blocking him from feeling anything but calm.

“Maturin,” answers the voice finally.

Eddie nods his head. Maturin. Okay. Sure. Maturin. Whatever that means.

Before Eddie can ask another question, however, an image floats through his mind of a large turtle swimming through the stars in the sky, galaxies and nebula rushing by. On its back sits world, after world, after world — and then it's gone.

Eddie blinks, shocked. He doesn’t know how Maturin did that, put that image in his head, and while it’s a more thorough answer than Eddie could have asked for, it’s still vaguely horrifying to have something shoved into his mind like that. He shakes it off as best he can, and considers it.

“Uhm, so are you like… a god?” he asks disbelievingly. Eddie’s never really believed in god, but if he’s being honest with himself, after what he’d seen down there in the cistern, after what he’d seen when he was thirteen, it wouldn’t much surprise him.

“I am a guardian,” Maturin explains simply but dismissively, to the point where Eddie feels like he shouldn’t pry further. It sounds almost like Maturin wouldn’t tell him even if he asked, like a disgruntled adult who doesn’t feel the information is relevant.

Without missing a beat, Maturin repeats, “It is dead,” and another wave of knowing overwhelms Eddie.

It is dead. Pennywise is dead.

Right. Eddie understands. Pennywise is dead, but… “What happened to the others?” he asks. Some of the forced calm that had been holding his emotions hostage seems to drain out of him, a little at a time, and Eddie finds himself able to worry again.

It’s a question Eddie needs an answer to, and yet an answer that Eddie dreads.

“They are safe,” Maturin assures him.

Eddie’s shoulders sag in relief, and he nods mindlessly at the news, his head spinning. Fuck, they’re safe. Thank god they’re safe. Eddie doesn’t know what he would have done if anything had happened to them. Not after everything they’d done.

And Richie. Eddie doesn’t know what he would have done if something had happened to Richie, especially not after Eddie had done everything he could to save Richie from the deadlights.

But what about Eddie? Is he dead? Where is he? Why is he here?

“And…” Eddie hesitates, after a moment. “And me?” he asks a little breathlessly, nervous for the answer.

He expects a sense of sadness to imbue him the same way Maturin had made him feel calm, like Maturin’s feelings had been covering Eddie’s, but it doesn’t happen. Instead, Maturin simply repeats, “You have been asleep for a long time.”

Eddie immediately feels frustrated by the answer, and he glares up at the nothing above him furiously.

“You already said that!” he snaps, annoyed again. His anxiety over his own death is bad enough without Maturin acting all fucking mysterious about it. He just wants a straight fucking answer, is that too much to ask? “What the fuck does that even mean? And where am I? What am I doing here?” he demands, questions quickfire in the still air. His chest heaves with the ache of asking them, and he has to force his mouth shut before he can ask anything else, afraid, already, to know the answer to these.

“Eddie Kaspbrak,” Maturin replies, voice gentle but stern, “I try to help where I can,” he explains ambiguously. Eddie feels his hands curl into fists at his sides again, ready to angrily snap what the fuck does that mean, but Maturin doesn’t give him the chance, instead continuing, “You are between life and death. Your life hangs in the balance…”

Through the white nothingness comes an image, pressed to the center of Eddie’s eye. He can see himself, clothed in a blue hospital gown, face paler than the sheets and so fucking bloodless Eddie is shocked to witness his chest move with each breath. He can hear the beep of machines, and a soft, blurred sound in the background, as if someone is speaking. It’s a voice that Eddie thinks he recognizes, and then it’s gone.

Eddie blinks the image out of his eye, and stares, shocked.

“I am here to offer you a choice,” Maturin explains patiently, finally seeming to answer Eddie’s questions. “You can move on from this world,” he says, and a plain wooden door appears, suddenly, out of nowhere, to the left of Eddie. It’s not close to him. It’s close enough that Eddie can see clearly what it is, but far enough that Eddie know’s he’d have to make the conscious decision to walk all the way to it. “Or I can take you back,” Maturin says, and another door appears to the right of Eddie, just as far as the first, but in a bright, gleaming gold this time.

For a second, Eddie doesn’t breathe. The choice seems so simple, so obvious. Of course he wants to go back! He’s only forty years old, he has a whole life ahead of him! He’s only just got the Losers back, and they killed that fucking clown! There’s nothing left to hold him back! He has a life in New York to get back to, a wife and —

A wife and…

A wife and nothing else but lies lies lies. Slowly, the same thoughts that had been going through Eddie’s mind since before they’d descended into Its lair drift back through his mind. He hadn’t wanted to die, but… he’d been so sure that he would. He’d wanted nothing more than to go home, but to what? The same thing he’d left twenty-two years ago, when he’d stepped foot out of his mother’s house for what he thought would be the last time, and walked right back into two months later?

Everything that he’d learned with the Loser’s that summer — the manipulation, the placebos, the realization that he was brave — had disappeared within two months of leaving Derry, and Eddie had found himself right back on his mother’s doorstep.

He never really left it again. Myra was everything his mother had been, and he’d gone right ahead and married her anyway. His life was a constant refrain of fear and illness and you’re too weak, Eddie bear, you need me, let me take care of you. When he’d packed his bag to come out here to Derry, he’d filled almost an entire suitcase with medications that Eddie didn’t even need, and it had only taken a few hours for Eddie to remember that he wasn’t sick, that he’d never been sick, and yet back in the cistern, he’d still used his inhaler as if it weren’t filled with camphor water and… and… what did Eddie really have to go back to?

He was stuck in a dead-end, boring job that he’d held for fifteen years, even though he hated it. He was a senior risk analyst with no hope of going anywhere else, making more money than he needed for a man who never spent a dime on himself outside of doctor's visits he didn’t need and medication that did nothing for him. His marriage had been dead in the water from the moment he’d said I do — probably even before that, if he’s being honest — and he and Myra both knew it.

He didn’t really have anything to go back to. He didn’t have a life, not really. He’d been living a goddamn nightmare for twenty-two years, and he couldn’t even begin to fathom how to make a change big enough to make a difference.

He did have the Loser’s now, though. Surely they would be there to help him? But they also had lives of their own to get back, and Eddie couldn’t imagine any of them could have also fucked their lives up so bad that they wouldn’t want to go back to them. Maybe Bev, because she had always been in the same boat as Eddie in some way, with a parent who hurt them in different but fundamentally similar ways. But Bev would have Ben, and would Eddie have anybody, really? Would any of them really want to put up with all of the bullshit that had eroded Eddie away into a nervous wreck? He’d always been a hypochondriac, he knew that, but this was somehow different.

Would they even stay friends, after all of this? It had been twenty-two years for some of them, twenty-seven for even more of them. They didn’t know each other anymore. They might have acted like best friends back in the Jade of the Orient, but that was akin to a high school fucking reunion. You might stay in touch for a few weeks, maybe a few months, after seeing each other again, but eventually, it all faded away...

What if they forgot each other again? The very idea of it makes Eddie’s soul ache, and he gasps back a sob stuck in his throat. He squeezes his eyes shut in pain just remembering them. Remembering that summer, and the summers that came after as they each slowly started to drift away until there was no one but him, and Richie, and Mike… and then they were all gone. For twenty-two years, Eddie had forgotten the people who had meant the most to him, and the idea of getting them back, only to lose them again, is more than Eddie can take.

It takes a long moment, but eventually Eddie opens his eyes to stare up into the nothingness and blurts out, “I saved their lives, didn’t I?” He asks it like a question, but it’s not really a question at all. He says, “I saved Richie from the deadlights, and I told the others how to kill Pennywise, and I…” Eddie trails off, chest aching with the bone-deep knowledge that he has done so much more with his life in the past forty-eight hours than he has in twenty-two years.

Maturin says, “Yes.”

Eddie nods. He doesn’t have a reply for that. All he can think is, isn’t that enough?

Before he knows it, hot tears are streaming down his cheeks again, and Eddie reaches up in astonishment to wipe them away. He hadn’t even realized he’d begin to cry. His chest hurts so bad. Slowly, Eddie wraps his arms tight around himself and squeezes hard.

“Fuck,” he gasps and shakes his head. He can feel himself shaking, but it isn’t from the cold. Something like a burning pain rips through his heart when he thinks about dying, but more than anything he just wants to know — “Will they be okay?” he asks through shaking lips.

Maturin makes a deep noise that Eddie can’t begin to articulate, and then he says “Let me show you.”

For the third time, images ripple forward against Eddie’s eyes, until it’s all that he can see. He gasps, and he’s back in the blackness that was Its lair, a stark contrast to the white place he’d been in before. It’s too dark for him to see anything here. There are strong, warm arms wrapped around him, a desperate grip against his skin, and hot, warm tears soaking into his neck. He can hear screaming around him and the roar of a collapsing building.

“Come on Richie, we have to go!” someone is saying, but all Eddie can really hear is the desperate, wet gasping pressed into the column of his neck. “Let’s go man, let’s go!” another someone is saying — Ben, or Bill maybe…

“No,” Eddie hears Richie whimper against his ear, and, with a shock, Eddie realizes who it is that’s holding him. “No, no, no!” Richie screams, and there’s a grappling sensation, like Eddie’s body is being shoved around. Richie doesn’t let go of him, and then Eddie hears “We can still help him guys, we can still help him!” screamed in a desperate plea so heart-wrenching that Eddie can’t bear to hear it.

He gasps out a choked sob of his own, but it goes unnoticed in the flurry.

Someone pries Richie’s arms from him.

“No, please, let go of me!” Richie screams, scrabbling for Eddie, his fingertips grasping at the edges of Eddie’s jacket, and then slipping on through. “Please, no, we can still help him, we can help him!” Richie begs, and Eddie feels another sob wrench free of him. The sound turns into a gasp, and despite the fact that it’s a memory Maturin is showing him, the reaction seems to have happened in real time because Richie screams “He’s breathing! Guy’s he’s breathing, please, help me!”

There’s another desperate scramble, another scream, this time of pain, and then Richie’s holding him in his arms again. Eddie knows it’s Richie because of the shudder in his breathing, the tears dripping down onto Eddie’s face now, the way Richie’s hands are cupping his cheeks, searing in their warmth.

“Stay with me Eds,” he begs, gasping the words around broken sobs, “We’re going to get you out of here…”

“Richie, come on!” Someone yells — Mike?

“We have to get out of here!”

Eddie can hear it, the sounds of the cave falling apart around them. His heart drops to the pit of his stomach, and for a moment he wonders did we make it out alive until he remembers that Maturin had promised him yes, that Maturin had shown Eddie himself in a hospital bed.

“He’s alive, guys, help me!” Richie screams again, and finally, finally, more arms grab at his body. Eddie can feel it as someone grabs his legs, as Richie releases his face, and scrambles around to grip him under the arms, and lift him up. Eddie feels himself be cradled against Richie’s chest even as he grunts, even as he runs, and feels warm.

“Why did you show me that,” Eddie gasps as the images leave his mind. He can feel the tears dripping freely down his face now, and his heart hurts. He doesn’t understand. “I asked if they’d be okay, why did you show me that!?” he demands, letting out a harsh sob. His hands are trembling as he reaches up to dash the tears away, and he swallows thickly, glaring into the white nothing. “Why!?” he shouts, when he still hasn’t received an answer.

“To show you what you missed,” Maturin answers. Eddie expects him to sound remorseful, but he doesn’t.

“Well, I didn’t want to see them when it happened!” Eddie screams, clawing at his face in frustration. “I — I — I knew they’d — They’d be upset and they’d — They’d mourn me but —”

“Did you?” Maturin accuses, piercing Eddie straight through the heart in a place of deep, deep self-hatred that told Eddie that they might cry, but that they hadn’t known him long enough as an adult to really mourn him.

At that moment, he hates Maturin for understanding him so well.

“Show me something else,” he demands, shaking his head roughly, glaring into the nothingness. “Show me — you said I’ve been asleep for a long time. Show me how they are now. Show me how they’re doing now,” he begs, his breathing harsh and heavy as he attempts to pull himself together and stop crying.

He just wants to know that they’ll be okay. He just wants to know if he can move on without leaving something important behind.

Maturin says, “As you wish.”

Eddie feels his eye open to the images again, and shudders at the sensation. He feels rubbed raw, as an image solidifies around him. He’s in the hospital room again — he can tell from the mint walls and the beeping of a heart monitor. He isn’t looking down on his own face this time, but at the ceiling. As Eddie settles into the moment he realizes that this time, he can move his own gaze, as if he’s inhabiting his living body and borrowing it to take a peek into the real world. He’s certain that he’s not actually moving even as he turns his head and gazes at the man sitting beside him.

It’s Richie.

Maturin hadn’t told him how long he’d been sleeping — all he’d (rather unhelpfully) said was “a long time”. Eddie isn’t sure how long “a long time” is, but from the sound of it, it had been at least more than a few days. So why is Richie still at his bedside?

Richie… does not look good. He looks like he hasn’t shaved in a few days, a dark scruff dotted around his jawline, and his eyes have dark bags underneath them. He’s dressed in a clean t-shirt with a zip-up hoodie tight around his biceps and Eddie realizes — that’s one of his hoodies. One of the blue ones he’d packed into his bag before he’d come to Derry.

It doesn’t fit Richie very well, and Eddie can’t imagine how he’d gotten it other than Richie going through his luggage to find it. He’s not sure he can bear to consider why.

It looks good on him, despite the small size.

The heavy sensation of crying is still crowding against Eddie’s chest, and the sight of Richie in Eddie’s jacket makes it strangle him tighter. He has to swallow thickly to kick it back down, and even then only because he worries what’ll happen if he cries just then.

He can’t be certain, but when he’d sobbed during that memory of Eddie’s near-death, it had felt like Richie had heard it. He doesn’t want Richie to hear him cry again.

Instead, Eddie takes in the deep lines on Richie’s face, the obvious signs of pain and fatigue, and wishes that he could wipe them away.

“What are you still doing here?” a voice Eddie had almost forgotten about over these last couple of days says, cutting through the thick silence of the hospital room. Eddie only realizes that Richie is staring at Eddie’s face when Richie doesn’t look away to answer her.

“The same thing I do every day, Pinkie,” Richie says in a hollow tone. “Taking over the world.”

Myra doesn’t laugh, but Eddie wouldn’t have expected her to. She scoffs instead, clearly unimpressed with Richie’s sense of humor — not that Richie seems all that jazzed about it right now, either. Eddie doesn’t remember a time he’d heard Richie sound like this.

Eddie hears the sound of a chair being dragged closer to his bed, and turns his head to finally take in Myra. She looks as put together as she always does as she slips into a chair on the opposite side of Eddie from Richie. She’s done her hair and makeup, and in contrast to Richie, doesn’t look as if she’s lost a day of sleep.

“Well I don’t know why you keep coming back here,” Myra sneers, tossing her blonde hair over her shoulder, and reaching out to take Eddie’s hand in hers. It dwarfs Eddie’s, and Eddie can feel the soft clamminess of it. He tries not to recoil in disgust, but now with his memories returned to him, with the knowledge that Eddie never loved Myra and she was just a replacement for his mom when she died, he can’t stand the thought of Myra touching him.

He knows it’s unfair. She’s his wife, and he’s lying in a hospital bed in what appears to be a coma. She’s allowed to be worried.

The problem is, Eddie can’t help thinking that she doesn’t look worried at all.

“There’s been no change in the last few weeks,” Myra mutters in a volume that is much too loud to really be a mutter, but sounds just as begrudging. “All the rest of your little friends are long gone, so why are you still here?” Myra asks shrewdly, and something about her tone reminds Eddie so distinctly of his mother that he doesn’t know how he never noticed it before now.

Richie doesn’t answer her.

Myra makes a “harumph” noise. “Don’t know why I even let you in here,” Myra snarls to herself, squeezing her fingers tightly around Eddie’s.

“You couldn’t make me leave if you tried,” Richie snaps, and his tone is so hostile that Eddie’s head snaps to look at him. There’s a look of deep resentment in his gaze, a flash of anger that burns hot there.

Even before Myra responds, Eddie knows it was the wrong thing to say.

“I’m his wife!” she challenges him harshly. “And I could have you kicked out of here in a heartbeat,” she hisses, glaring at Richie. Eddie can see the way that Richie clenches his jaw in reaction to this, how his teeth grind together for a moment, before he inhales deeply, and lets his shoulders sag in defeat.

“I know,” he mumbles back, avoiding Myra’s gaze now. “Thank you for letting me stay,” he adds, and at best it's begrudging, but it seems to pacify Myra. Her grip loosens on Eddie’s hand.

“You’re welcome,” she replies pompously, and they both shut up.

In the silence, Eddie finds himself wondering why Myra is letting Richie stay. If he’d had a moment to think about what would have happened after Myra showed up, it would have been the Losers being banned from Eddie’s hospital room. At best, he’s shocked at Myra’s kindness, and at worst, he’s wondering what it is she’s angling for here.

It only takes a moment for Eddie to make the connection. It had been the same, with his mom. Once Eddie had gotten old enough to realize that he didn’t have to do every single thing she said, she’d started using Eddie’s friends as bargaining chips. She’d allow him to stay at their houses for longer and longer periods of time, knowing that if she did, Eddie would turn around and take his medicine just the way she’d asked, or stay home watching movies with her on her birthday, or allowing her to coddle him when he got sick.

Myra had always been much the same way, giving Eddie what she thought he might want because she knew if she did, then Eddie would owe her.

She was allowing Richie to stay because she thought it might get her something from Eddie when he woke up.

Eddie clenches his teeth at the very thought. He hates that he’s allowed both his mother and Myra to use him like that. He hates that he ever thought it was okay. How much of a tyrant has Myra been to Richie, to the rest of his friends, just for the satisfaction of knowing that she’s doing Eddie a favor by letting them stay here?

Eddie wonders if Myra ever blamed them for Eddie’s… accident. The thought of it makes him ache for his friends. He knows his wife well, can only just imagine the venom she’s spit at them, and he wonders how Richie can still be around to take it.

Eddie blinks away a new set of tears, and suddenly the vision fades from his mind. His brow furrows immediately, and he blinks a few more times in confusion before he finally asks. “Wait, that’s it? What about the others?” He can’t help the frustration in his tone as he waits for a response.

“You asked to see them as they are now,” Maturin responds gravely. Eddie feels himself inflating with frustration, ready to scream, but Maturin continues, “I can only show you what your body has been there to witness.” His voice is calm, not unkind, but very serious.

Eddie deflates almost immediately.

“Right,” he mutters dully, and crosses his legs on the floor. He swipes a hand through his hair roughly, shoving it back against the top of his head for no other reason than to avoid yanking on it the way he’s so sorely tempted to do.

Of course, it’s not as simple as — as — whatever the fuck Eddie had been imagining. Maturin has done nothing so far to suggest that he can show Eddie just anything. Eddie himself has been in all three visions, so it makes sense that the only things Eddie can see are things he was there for or whatever. It’s just that… Eddie had really been hoping to see more than that.

He just wants to know if his friends are going to be okay without him. Would it be so bad, if he died? The idea of going back is terrifying to Eddie. He doesn’t know if there's anything worth going back for — that was the whole reason he’d asked — and so far all Maturin has shown him is Richie falling to pieces over Eddie’s nearly dead body and Myra treating Richie like shit, neither of which has done anything other than make Eddie feel sad.

He wants to know how long it’s been.

A long time, Maturin had said, and Myra had commented that there’s been no change in Eddie for weeks. Richie’s still there, though, sitting at his bedside, refusing to leave, and it just doesn’t make sense. Why is Richie still there? When did everybody else leave? Had they forgotten Eddie already, now that they were gone? Was that why Richie hadn’t left his bedside?

There are so many questions that Eddie wants the answers to so bad, but more than anything else, he just wants to see his friends.

He rubs his hands over his face and begs Maturin, “Please just… let me see them. All of them, or as many of them as you can get into one room. Before they left.”

Maturin doesn’t answer this time, but he does drag Eddie along into another memory.

“The doctors say he’s recovering well,” Bev announces as she walks into Eddie’s hospital room. Eddie’s already looking in her direction, so he doesn’t have to turn to see her.

She looks much the same as the last time he’d seen her except cleaner, more put together. She’s still in kids’ clothes, faded blue jeans that hit her mid-calf, and a long-sleeved white shirt. The only thing she’s missing is the key around her neck that she’d worn the summer of ‘89 and the thought makes Eddie smile.

She looks healthy, too. There’s a glow in her cheeks that hadn’t been there at the restaurant, and her eyes are bright. Eddie almost wants to say she looks happy, except she isn’t smiling as her eyes land on Eddie’s body. In fact, she frowns the moment she looks at Eddie, and the crease in her brow becomes obvious. There are worry lines all along her face that hadn’t been there before, and Eddie wonders, how long had I been asleep when this happened?

Unaware of who else is in the room just then, Eddieisn’t sure what kind of response to expect, but when Richie asks, “Then why hasn’t he woken up yet?” in a shockingly loud, harsh tone, Eddie immediately flinches. He turns to his right to find that Richie is sitting at his bedside again, only this time he looks a hell of a lot worse.

The dark circles under his eyes are even more prominent than in the last memory, set into this sallow skin. His face looks gaunt, like he hasn’t been eating very much, and the messy, greasy look to his hair suggests he hasn’t showered in a few days either. His beard is even more grown in than when he’d been with Myra, making it rather prominent on his face, and it isn’t exactly a good look for him, either. The bottom is a lot more grey than the rest, betraying Richie’s age.

Looking at him, Eddie can see the grief pure on his face, and it makes his heart ache. God, is this what he’s doing to his friends? To Richie? Making them suffer, because he hasn’t decided whether or not he’s going to wake up?

Unable to face that thought just now, Eddie forces himself to look away. He almost regrets it, when he takes in the look of deep sympathy playing out on Bev’s face. There’s a gentle understanding to her gaze as she steps forward, moving into the space on the other side of Eddie’s bed.

“His body has been put through a lot, Richie,” she explains sadly, taking Eddie’s hand gently in hers. Unlike Myra’s touch, it doesn’t make Eddie want to recoil. In fact, it’s soothing, her skin soft and warm against the cold of his own.

Growling in frustration, Richie snaps back, “don’t you think I know that?”

Bev flinches back, eyes a little wide and wary. Richie glares at her for a long moment, his chest heaving with anger, and then, suddenly, it’s like he deflates. His face absolutely crumples and Eddie wants to cry. He’s never seen Richie look like that, ever.

“Sorry,” Richie mutters, sniffling. It doesn’t occur to Eddie that Richie is holding his hand until he lets go, and he misses the warmth immediately. Richie shoves his face into his hands roughly, miserably, and his shoulders start to shake.

“Oh, Richie,” Bev whispers, biting her lip and staring at him sadly. She doesn’t reach out to touch him, to comfort him, something that confuses Eddie. He wants to beg her to go to him, but she doesn’t. She looks tempted, almost desperate to do just that, but she doesn’t, and Eddie doesn’t understand why.

If he were awake, he’d already have Richie in his arms, hugging him tight and allowing him to cry into Eddie’s shoulder instead. Eddie’s done it before when they were kids, on nights when Richie couldn’t sleep because of the nightmares and cried softly in Eddie’s bed, unwilling to tell Eddie what was actually wrong.

Eddie still doesn’t know what used to make Richie cry like that, but it hadn’t been near as bad as the look on Richie’s face just a moment ago, before he’d hid it in his hands.

He aches to hold Richie, to make all of his sadness go away.

“It’s going to be okay,” Bev finally says after a long moment of allowing Richie to cry. She bites her lip, tears welling in her own eyes, and squeezes Eddie’s hand. “It’s going to be okay, Richie, I promise.”

“How do you know that?” Richie asks hoarsely, voice thick with tears. When he looks up at Bev, his face is shiny and wet, eyes and nose a deep, painful-looking red. It offsets the darkness under his eyes, makes them look even more hollow.

Bev offers him a watery smile. “Because he’s still alive, Rich. Against all the odds,” she explains soothingly, the tears thick in her throat as well. Eddie watches as she swallows heavily past them, and keeps talking. “He’s been in and out of surgery for weeks, and the doctors say he’s getting stronger. He’ll wake up, Richie, I promise.”

Her eyes are gentle as she nods at Richie, her voice as encouraging as possible for someone holding back tears. Richie stares back at her brokenly, before nodding as well.

Richie goes back to crying softly into his hands, and Bev closes her eyes to visibly compose herself. After a moment, she takes the seat to the right of Eddie, and stares up into his face instead.

“Hey baby,” she murmurs softly to him, petting her fingers over the back of Eddie’s hand. Eddie wants to close his eyes at how gentle and tender it feels. When was the last time someone touched him like that? Not Myra, certainly — she could play gentle with him, but it didn’t feel tender, and more often than not she was likely to grip onto Eddie firmly and direct him to where she wanted him to be.

Bev touching him like this is everything that Eddie hadn’t known he’d been missing, and he finds himself crying again.

“We’re all waiting here for you when you’re ready to wake up, okay?” Bev offers sweetly after another moment. “And we’re not going to forget each other again, I promise,” she adds with a little laugh. “We’ve already checked. Ben had to head out a few days ago, and I was just talking to him this morning. He still knows who we all are,” she explains, sounding a little happier now. “He misses you,” she continues thoughtfully, as if she can feel that Eddie needs to hear it. “He’s sad that he couldn’t stay — work, you know — but I told him that you would understand,” she reassures him and pats the top of his hand.

Eddie wishes that he could tell her that he does understand. He does. He’d known his friends had lives outside of Derry now, lives that they would need to get back to, and just hearing that Ben hadn’t wanted to leave is more than enough.

And he remembers! He still remembers them! Maybe the magic died with Pennywise. Maybe Eddie doesn’t really have to be so scared.

Having said her piece to Eddie, Bev turns back to Richie again. He’s still sitting quietly on Eddie’s other side, sniffling now, but not crying. When Eddie looks at him, he can’t help feeling like Richie looks a little dead-eyed.

“Rich,” Bev says, drawing Eddie’s attention to her. “We’re all here for you, you know,” she tells him confidently, nodding her head fiercely when Richie doesn’t immediately respond. “We’re not going to leave you, either.”

Eddie doesn’t fully understand what she means by that, but Richie seems to. His lips twitch in a smidge of a smile, and he nods in return. “Yeah. I know,” he agrees.

Seeming appeased by this, Bev releases Eddie’s hand and gets up. “Well, I better step out and let Bill come say goodbye. He’s leaving this afternoon,” Bev explains as she turns around to leave. “I’ll be by tomorrow, give Mike a chance to visit with Eddie before Myra comes in,” she explains quietly.

She’s quiet as she leaves. For a moment, Eddie wonders why Bev had to step out for Bill to come in, and then it occurs to him that he might still be in the ICU. They mentioned he’d been in and out of surgeries, and if he’s in the ICU, he’s probably limited to two visitors at a time.

Bev had stepped out so that Richie wouldn’t have to.

Eddie’s chest tightens. He watches Richie closely then, realizing a little belatedly that Richie had mentioned being on tour at dinner the other night. Something melts inside of Eddie as he realizes that Richie clearly hasn’t left his side in weeks. He’s dropped everything for Eddie. For Eddie. Eddie doesn’t know whether to laugh or to cry, so he does both.

It hurts, seeing this whole thing tear his friends up. A part of him is shocked that any of them are still here, and yet deep down inside of him, he isn’t surprised at all. Of course they’re still here for him. Did he really expect them to just up and leave? Did he really think that after twenty plus years of being without each other, they’d be willing to let each other go again?

Eddie knows that he isn’t willing to. Eddie knows that if it were any of his friends in this situation, he would do the same thing. Hell, he’d risked his own life to save Richie’s because Eddie doesn’t know what he would have done if Richie had died.

If Richie had been the one to get hurt down in the cistern, Eddie probably would have reacted just as passionately. And he knows that if it were Richie in this bed, Eddie wouldn’t leave his side either.

“Hey,” Bill says, drawing Eddie out of his thoughts, and sitting down in the seat Bev had vacated some time ago. Eager to see his friend, Eddie turns to look at him, and feels relief fill his veins. There’s just something so comforting about seeing the other Losers alive and well.

Bill looks healthy, and like Bev before him, there’s a lightness to him that hadn’t been there at the Jade of the Orient. It looks like a weight has been lifted off of his shoulders, a weight Bill had forgotten he was shouldering. He looks good, dressed up for travel and well put together.

“Hey,” Richie replies hoarsely. He clears his throat awkwardly, and tries to hide the fact that he’s been crying.

Bill doesn’t buy it. “How are you doing?” he asks gently in a voice similar to Bev’s, like he’s treading lightly. His gaze is sympathetic.

Richie shrugs, rather than answer, and turns to look out the window. Bill stares at the side of Richie’s face for a long time, before sighing audibly and turning his attention on to Eddie instead.

“Hey buddy,” Bill greets him, smiling. “I heard you’re healing pretty well,” he adds, eyes flickering to where Eddie is sure the bandage is wrapped around his body underneath the hospital gown. Bill’s lips twitch, like it’s hard, even now, to imagine Eddie’s injuries. He looks away quickly, back to Eddie’s face, which seems to be a much safer area to look at.

“We really miss you, you know,” Bill tries to say jokingly, in an obvious attempt to relieve some of the tension filling up the room. He glances over at Richie, and then back to Eddie when Richie doesn’t so much as twitch in response. “Especially Trashmouth over there,” Bill stage whispers, like it’s a secret, and obviously trying to drag something out of Richie, though what, Eddie doesn’t know. “I’ve never known him to be so quiet,” Bill teases, winking at Eddie’s prone body.

For the first time, Eddie realizes that Bill’s stutter is gone, and he marvels at that. Ben hadn’t forgotten them after leaving Derry, and Bill’s stutter is gone. Maybe the magic really is dead.

Bill’s humor is quick to disappear when Richie doesn’t immediately jump in to tease him back, or otherwise defend himself. It seems to bring Bill back to himself, because he sighs and says, “But you know, I really can’t stay much longer. I wish I could, I really do, but… I have to get home,” he explains regretfully, and he truly does look like the last thing he wants to do is leave.

Eddie aches with the knowledge, his heart swelling with a mix of happiness and sadness. His friends love him, there could be no clearer truth in the world, and he was hurting them.

Eddie doesn’t want to hurt them. He realizes then, with sudden clarity, that he wants to go back.

Seeming to pull himself back together, Bill smiles at Eddie and says, “So it would be really nice if you could maybe wake up now,” he teases, but there's a sadness to his voice this time that hadn’t quite been there before, like he knows that Eddie isn’t going to wake up for him, but he wants it so so bad.

There’s a beat where no one says anything. The beep of Eddie’s heart monitor is the only sound in the room.

Bill sighs.

“Tried that already,” Richie finally interrupts, turning to offer Bill a half-smile. Bill’s eyes are a little wet when he meets Richie’s gaze, but he huffs a quiet laugh regardless. “Asshole intends to keep us waiting,” Richie adds with a soft huff of his own, and glares playfully at Eddie. “I told him if he wakes up I’ll…” But Richie doesn’t continue. Instead, he turns to stare back outside the window, his lips trembling slightly.

Richie tangles his fingers together in his lap, and holds on tight.

Eddie feels his brow furrow. Richie’ll what?

Bill doesn’t say anything for a long time. He just stares at the side of Richie’s face cautiously, thoughtfully, like he’s trying to decide if he should say something or not. Finally, Bill leans in closer to Richie and asks, “Are you going to tell him?”

Richie doesn’t move. He doesn’t so much as twitch. He looks frozen in place, like the smallest move could break him. Bill bites his lip, but presses on, “You should tell him.”

Eddie blinks in confusion, and the memory dissolves.

Tell him what? What should Richie tell him?

“Have you decided?” asks Maturin, breaking through Eddie’s thoughts before he can even truly begin to consider what Bill had been talking about. Eddie’s eyes snap upwards, in the space where he’s decided Maturin must be, regardless of whether or not Eddie can see him, and nods his head slowly.

“Yeah… I mean,” Eddie mumbles, shaking his head to clear away the haze of confusion. He frowns, thinking about Richie and the way that he’d looked, sitting at Eddie’s bedside for so long. Sure, Bev and Bill had looked sad when they’d come to visit Eddie, but they hadn’t looked like Richie. Richie had looked absolutely destroyed. He’d been the only one there, too, in that first vision, and hadn’t Myra said that the rest of his friends were gone?

Eddie doesn’t understand.

He looks up again, and asks, “Why is Richie still there?”

There’s silence, for a long time, and then Maturin says, “He’s waiting for you.”

There’s no warning this time. Eddie doesn’t even get the chance to blink before he realizes that he’s back in the hospital room — only this time it’s dark. The lights are on, but the window is open and it’s clear that it’s nighttime.

For a moment, Eddie doesn’t understand what’s going on. He thinks, briefly, that he must have woken up without an answer to his question, and it makes him irrationally angry. He starts to rail against Maturin in his mind, thinking what the fuck does that even mean!? before he hears a quiet sob.

Eddie turns his head. Richie’s face is pressed against Eddie’s palm, and Eddie can feel tears dripping down Richie’s cheeks. He’s crying quietly, hiccuping over sobs the same way he had been down in the cistern, only softer this time, a little less frantic. He’s bent in half over Eddie’s bedside, so much so that Eddie can’t really see his face, but he can feel the heat of him from where Richie has pressed Eddie’s hand to his cheek.

“Wake up, Eddie,” Richie whispers, begging. His voice is hoarse, like he’s been crying for a very long time. “Please, just wake up,” he says again, “I’ll do anything just to hear your voice again.”

Eddie feels his heart launch into his throat, and suddenly he’s crying too. It hurts so fucking bad to see Richie falling apart like this.

Eddie wishes he could talk to Richie, that he could hold Richie back. But despite looking through his own eyes, Eddie knows that he can’t actually move his body. He knows, in fact, from Richie’s perspective, Eddie’s eyes aren’t even open. And he knows, above that, that this is just a memory.

Eddie couldn’t comfort Richie in this moment no matter how much he wants to, because it’s already happened.

“I just got you back,” Richie gasps after another moment, his voice sounding almost loud in the quiet room. Eddie’s lips tremble with anguish, because Richie looks so alone. “I’m not leaving you until you wake up,” Richie adds roughly, squeezing tight to Eddie’s hand.

Eddie closes his eyes, because looking at Richie like this hurts too much.

“Fuck,” Richie mumbles after a long moment of silence, and turns his head against Eddie’s palm. Eddie feels the soft, warm pressure of lips against his skin, and realizes that Richie is kissing the center of his palm.

It sends a jolt of shock through Eddie’s body, and he feels warm all over. His breath catches, surprised at the unexpected touch. Something like excitement sparks deep inside of him, and Eddie scrambles to understand.

“I never even got a chance to hold you,” Richie whispers against his palm, turning his head again so that Eddie is cupping his cheek. Eddie holds his breath, straining his ears to catch every last word of what Richie has to say. “You can’t die, Eddie,” Richie whimpers, shoulders shaking with his sobs. “Not yet. Fuck, Eddie, please… I never got to tell you…”

Tell me what!? Eddie wants to scream, but he knows that Richie can’t hear him. A thought claws at the back of Eddie’s mind, a memory, something that he’d felt back when he’d first seen Richie in the Jade of the Orient. Something that he’s felt for a very long time, but that he’d buried long before he’d even left Derry.

He hears something of that in Richie’s voice, and begs him tell me, Richie, just tell me.

Richie doesn’t. He just continues to cry.

“Please wake up, Eddie,” Richie whispers, “Wake up and I swear to god, I’ll tell you. But you have to wake up first. Please.”

Richie doesn’t raise his head, but he does turn his face and kiss the center of Eddie’s palm again. His lips are so warm and chapped against Eddie’s skin. It doesn’t feel like anything Eddie has ever felt before in his entire life — not when his mom used to kiss him on the forehead, not when Myra used to kiss him before bed. It’s not quick and perfunctory, it’s long and leisurely and so fucking fierce that Eddie burns with it.

It’s something that Eddie has wanted for a long time, and as he stares at Richie he sees something in his eyes that tells him that maybe Richie has wanted it just as long.

Eddie’s heart bursts, and he remembers.

When Eddie was sixteen, the summer just before his senior year, his mom decided that they were going to move to New York to live with Eddie’s aunt. Her health had been declining for years, and Eddie’s mom had volunteered to come and care for her.

Eddie hadn’t had a choice. He was too young to live on his own, let alone fight his mother to stay behind in Derry, and he wasn’t naive enough to think that he could get away with running away, so he’d been forced to accept his fate.

He, Richie, and Mike were the last of the Losers left in Derry at the time, and even before he left, Eddie knew that everything was about to change. They’d watched Bev, Bill, Ben, and then Stan leave, and while all four of them had promised to call, to come back and visit, they never did. It was like something happened to you when you left Derry, because none of them could really believe that their friends would have just forgotten them like that.

The first time, sure. Maybe Bev just didn’t want to think about what had happened in Derry anymore, maybe she didn’t feel as close to the rest of the Losers as they had to her. But then Bill had gone, Big Bill who Eddie had been friends with since first grade, and it just didn’t make sense.

So, by now, they knew. They knew that the moment one of them left Derry, they’d never hear from each other again. The realization that this was Eddie’s last chance to tell Richie how he felt had been a difficult pill to swallow, but in the end, he’d decided he had nothing left to lose.

This time, when Eddie remembers, it's not an image pressed to his eye by Maturin, it’s just a memory.

Eddie’s lying in the middle of his bare mattress, sheets stripped away and shoved into a bag at Eddie’s feet. He can hear the movers downstairs, dragging furniture out into the front lawn. He knows it’s going to take them a while to pack everything downstairs into the moving van, so he has time to laze about and wait for Richie to come say goodbye to him.

He’d reading a comic book Richie had given him for his birthday last year — X-Men #4, The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants!

(Eddie had kept that comic for sixteen years, until his wife found it buried in a box full of Eddie’s old college things and threw it out. He hadn’t remembered what it was, then.)

He remembers now, and though the comic hadn’t really been anything special, it had been one of the few items not already packed up before the move. He and Richie had always read comics together, from their days in the hammock all the way through high school. It felt like home, holding that comic, flipping through the pages and scanning over the art, and Eddie was comforted by it.

He’s anxious. He hasn’t decided yet what he’s going to say to Richie when he arrives, but he’s promised himself that he won’t let Richie say goodbye without telling him how he feels. He keeps tapping his foot against the edge of his bed, his eyes darting from his comic to the door and back, over and over again. He’s not looking at his door when Richie comes in.

“Hey loser,” Richie announces himself, pushing Eddie’s door open without knocking. Eddie jumps at the sudden arrival, and frowns at his best friend, but doesn’t comment on the nickname.

“Hey,” he greets back instead, his voice a little subdued, and watches as Richie approaches the bed and flops down on it next to Eddie, uninvited, laying down too. Eddie rolls his eyes but knocks shoulders with Richie companionably anyway. He feels warm all the way down his arm where they touch, and only pulls away reluctantly.

“What’cha reading?” Richie asks, plucking the comic book from Eddie’s hands. Instinctively, Eddie snatches the comic back quickly and shoves it to the other side of his bed, next to his open backpack. Richie stares at him in shock, and Eddie grimaces.

“Woah, Eds, calm down,” Richie teases him, though he looks concerned. “You hiding a playboy or something?” he asks with a nervous grin.

Eddie huffs angrily and glares at the ceiling. “No fucknut, don’t be disgusting,” he spits at him, thinking I just don’t want anything to happen to the comic if we screw around with it. He doesn’t say the words aloud, though, because he knows he sounds ridiculous. It’s just that… Richie had given that to him, and Eddie doesn’t want anything bad to happen to it, not when… when soon it’ll be all Eddie has left of Richie.

“Right,” Richie replies dubiously, arching a brow at Eddie. Eddie groans, and shoves his face into his hands.

“Stop being an asshole, Richie,” Eddie hisses defensively. “I’m leaving today, remember?” he snaps at him, more harshly than he’d intended. He winces at his own words, but avoids Richie’s gaze, staring up at the ceiling instead.

“I know that, Eds,” Richie replies softly, his voice quiet and a little sad, and all it does is remind Eddie of why Richie is here right now. He’s been trying so hard not to think about it, not really. For the past week, he’s acted like nothing has changed, but now he has to face the fact that he’s leaving in the next few hours and… it’s just, this is all so fucking unfair.

He doesn’t want to go to New York. He doesn’t want to leave Derry. Or, well, fuck, he doesn’t want to leave Derry like this. He and Richie had promised each other months ago that they’d leave Derry together, that they’d apply to the same schools and leave at the same time and force themselves to remember each other if it was the last thing they ever did, and Eddie wanted that so bad, but then his mom had to go and screw it all up.

The anxiety and pain bubble up and over until Eddie’s blinking back tears, avoiding Richie’s gaze. He’s been pushing it all down for so long that it’s almost not a surprise that he’s falling apart right now, even if he doesn’t want to be.

He shouldn’t have waited until the last minute to talk to Richie, because now Eddie can’t even think of confessing to Richie when all he wants is to stay here.

Holding back his tears, Eddie reaches down between his and Richie’s body and scrabbles for Richie’s fingers. He takes Richie’s hand into his the moment their palms touch and hangs on tight. Richie jumps at the contact, but it’s only a moment before Richie locks their fingers together like they used to do as kids.

Eddie’s heart squeezes tight, and he bites his bottom lip.

Fuck, fuck, he’s going to lose this. In just a few short hours, he’s going to lose this forever, and he doesn’t know how to come to terms with it.

“Eddie?” Richie murmurs when Eddie doesn’t say anything else. He squeezes Eddie’s hand comfortingly in his, and waits him out. Richie is so rarely patient, but even for how much of a loudmouth he is, Richie has always known when to simmer down and take care of his friends.

And Eddie’s going to lose all of it.

“We can still try, right?” Eddie finally bursts out, his voice thick with tears. “We can still try to like… see each other again?” Eddie begs Richie, finally opening his eyes and turning his head on the bed to stare at Richie. Richie mimics his movements until they’re both staring at each other. Eddie has tears in his eyes that he’s trying to blink back, and Richie looks so, so fucking lost that Eddie wants to throw up.

“Of course, Eds,” Richie murmurs back, offering him an unconvincing smile. “You’ve got that list of schools we agreed upon, right? We’ll just pick one and…” But even as Richie suggests it, Eddie knows that it won’t work. There’s no guarantee that they’ll both get in, and even if they do, there’s no way to be certain that Eddie will remember which school they’d agreed upon.

Eddie suddenly lets out a broken sob, and rolls over to shove his face into his mattress. His arm hurts from the way he’s laying on it, but he refuses to release Richie’s hand.

“Eddie,” Richie whines, rolling into Eddie’s side and pulling him into a one-armed hug. “Hey, Eddie, don’t cry,” Richie begs him, shoving his face against Eddie’s cheek so that his cold nose is pressed against Eddie’s skin. Eddie can feel his breathing hot on his face, and wishes more than anything that he had the courage to turn and kiss him.

He doesn’t. He can’t. He’s crying too hard, and he can’t think of confessing to Richie right now when all Eddie wants to do is crawl into his arms and never let go.

He doesn’t want to go. He so desperately doesn’t want to go.

“Shh,” Richie whispers into his ear, rubbing his arm up and down Eddie’s side and squeezing the fingers of his other hand. “Hey, shh, it’s going to be alright,” Richie promises him.

“No, it’s not!” Eddie wails into his mattress, sniffling hard. Richie holds him tighter.

“Hey, you don’t know that,” Richie soothes him, “We don’t know what happens when you leave Derry, Eds, it’s all just —”

“You forget everything!” Eddie interrupts him, hiccuping over another sob. “You forget all of your friends and you promise to call and then you never do and — and — and —”

Eddie isn’t capable of completing that thought, merely continuing to cry into his stripped bare mattress. He’s getting tears and snot all over it and it’s gross, okay, it’s so fucking gross, but Eddie can’t bring himself to care.

“But we don’t know that for sure, Eds,” Richie reasons with him, voice so quiet and soft against Eddie’s ear. Eddie shakes in his arms but doesn’t answer. “What if… what if it’s not like that?” Richie suggests. Eddie goes to interrupt him, but Richie cuts him off and says, “No, listen. What if once you're on the other side, you just can’t communicate with those in Derry?” he asks, voice filled with hope.

Eddie wants to scream that doesn’t make it any better, but he doesn’t. He hangs onto Richie’s words, and begs the universe to let them be true.

“What if, once I get out of Derry too, I remember you and I come and find you, hmm?” Richie suggests, petting Eddie’s side. “What if we pick somewhere to meet in a year, and promise we’ll both show up? You can write it on one of your planners, and I’ll write it down in my old yearbook, and we’ll see each other again,” Richie promises him, jostling Eddie in his arms a little, and asking, “hmm? Hmm?”

Still crying, Eddie nods his head and says, “Okay,” even as he knows that it’s possible they’ll never see each other again. He wants nothing more than to hope Richie is right, that somehow this will all work out in the end. Maybe he’ll cross the Derry border and he’ll still remember Bill, and Ben, and Bev, and Stan, and maybe he’ll hunt down their numbers and they’ll remember him too, and they’ll all sit and wait for Richie to graduate so that he can come join them at last.

Maybe they haven’t forgotten, Eddie thinks, hopes… Maybe Richie’s right, and they just can’t reach us here in Derry.

Eddie sobs harder, the fear bone-deep that it isn’t true.

Richie continues to hold him, rocking Eddie gently in his arms as he continues to cry. He murmurs, “it’s going to be okay,” over and over again, like a mantra they’re both holding on to. Eddie imagines turning to Richie and pressing his face into his chest, imagines digging his fingers into Richie’s shirt and never letting go.

He imagines kissing him, and Richie kissing him back, and Eddie still having to get up and go downstairs and leave for New York.

He can’t do it. He can’t put himself or Richie through that. He can’t imagine how much it would hurt to find out Richie likes him too, only to lose him almost immediately afterwards. What kind of a goodbye present would that be for Richie, anyway, to leave him behind with all of his memories of Eddie still intact, knowing that Eddie has forgotten him? Or if Eddie hasn’t forgotten, knowing that he won’t be able to see him again for over a year?

Eddie can’t do it.

He cries himself hoarse, and then cries for a little bit longer, and then finally sits up and wiggles out of Richie’s arms. He rubs his face raw against the palms of his hands, and then rubs his hands against his jeans, scrubbing the tears away.

“Sorry,” Eddie mumbles regretfully, avoiding Richie’s gaze.

“It’s okay,” Richie murmurs back, and knocks his shoulder into Eddie’s.

They sit in another long silence, in which Richie drops his head onto Eddie’s shoulder, and Eddie sits there and lets him. They don’t speak again until Eddie’s mom calls him downstairs, and then Richie grabs a pen and a piece of paper from off of Eddie’s desk, and sits down to write.

“Times Square, August 18th, 1993. One year from now,” Richie declares heartily, and nudges it into Eddie’s hands. Eddie takes it carefully, tears blurring at his eyes again. “I promise to meet you there.”

Richie’s grin is so young and boyish, filled with a fragile hope that Eddie is sure is reflected on his own face. Eddie forces a grin, and says, “I promise.”

When Eddie opens his eyes again, he’s back in that empty, white space, aching for what he’d lost. He doesn’t regret not telling Richie he loved him back then, especially not knowing what he does now. It wouldn’t have changed anything — Eddie still would have gone to New York, and by the time he was halfway there, he would have already forgotten Richie. He still would have gone twenty-two years without his best friends, and he still would have married Myra.

The only difference might have been that Eddie would have had one, last, shining moment with Richie before he walked out of his life for so long, but even then, Eddie doesn’t regret not doing it. If Richie means what Eddie thinks he means, if he wants to tell Eddie what Eddie thinks he wants to tell him, then Eddie is glad he didn’t leave Richie behind to suffer without him.

But that means that Eddie can’t leave him now.

He wants to go home. He wants a second chance. He wants to see his friends again, and have the life that had been stolen from him twenty-two years ago. He wants to see Richie and find out what it is that Richie wants to tell him, and even if it isn’t what he's hoping, he wants a chance to tell Richie that he loves him.

Richie stayed at his bedside for weeks, endured Myra and what Eddie can only assume was her hatred for a group of friends she’d never met. His friends had carried him out of the cistern and stayed with him in the hospital for as long as they could, and Eddie… well Eddie survived.

He wants to keep on surviving.

“I’ve made my decision,” he tells Maturin.

That same, grandfatherly air is in his voice when Maturin replies, “I am glad when I can help.”

Eddie asks, “How long has it been?”

“Fifty-eight days, Eddie Kaspbrak,” Maturin explains, and says, “Your family is waiting for you.”

Eddie smiles, because he knows that it’s true. He turns and faces the golden door, and without looking backwards, he moves towards it. It takes him fifteen steps exactly to reach it, and when he takes the doorknob in hand and opens it, the world goes black.

**

Eddie opens his eyes slowly. There’s a dull throbbing sensation in his head and in his torso and in his back that hadn’t been there when Maturin had shown him the Losers, and Richie, and Myra. It’s a new, annoying sensation that reminds Eddie he’s recovering. He can hear the heart monitor beeping behind him, the sound a little less steady now that Eddie is stirring, and there's light streaming in through the open window.

He’s groggy, unlike when he was in that strange, white, nothingness, and it takes Eddie a moment to realize that it’s because there are drugs in his system. It takes another minute for him to become aware enough to actually look around, and when he does, he’s disappointed to find that Richie isn’t in the exact same spot he’s been in every other time that Eddie has seen him.

Myra’s there, though, and she’s reading a book, her back turned towards Eddie. She hasn’t noticed that he’s awake yet, which Eddie has to admit is a relief. He needs another moment before he can even think of handling the incoming freak out he’s sure is coming

Eddie takes his first real, deep breath in a long while, and groans when it causes a searing pain to rip through his body.

Myra jumps, and turns to him.

“Eddie!” she shouts in shock, immediately dropping her book to the ground and reaching out with clammy hands to take Eddie’s in hers. Eddie recoils automatically, thrown off by her soft touch, and missing Richie’s calloused hands. He struggles against her, but her grip only seems to grow tighter, so Eddie gives up before he hurts himself.

“Eddie bear, how are you feeling? Are you alright? Are you in any pain, discomfort? Should I ask the nurses for more painkillers?” she asks him, leaving no room for an answer. A concern that Eddie hadn’t seen previously suddenly seems to reside in the soft, puffy grimace of her face.

Eddie hates it, recognizing for the first time in his life just how false it really is. He can see his mother in that look, the faux concern that had controlled Eddie’s life for so long…

Without waiting for any answer from Eddie, Myra immediately launches into a rant. “Oh, Eddie I told you not to come here! I told you that you couldn’t look out for yourself! I told you, didn’t I?” she demands of him, brow folding into a worried line, her lips trembling. “And now you’re here, in the hospital, and the doctors aren’t even sure if you’ll ever walk again! They said there could be brain damage, Eddie! Bain damage!” she presses, squeezing his hand between hers, and practically dry sobbing around the words.

Eddie doesn’t miss the fact that there aren’t any real tears, and he squirms under her touch. This all reminds him too much of his mother, and he doesn’t know how he’s never seen it before. Crocodile tears, they were called. Myra had been using them on Eddie their entire marriage, but this time he isn’t buying it.

“Where’s Richie?” Eddie croaks, finally finding his voice.

Myra immediately stops wailing, and stares at Eddie with wide eyes, as if she’s never seen him before in her life. Her mouth opens and closes like a fish, astonished. Then her face hardens, and she straightens up in her chair. The worry and concern are gone.

Eddie hadn’t answered any of her questions. Eddie hadn’t told her it was going to be okay, the way he used to when Myra made a fuss about something. Eddie wasn’t playing the docile husband Myra was so used to, and it was clear she didn’t know how to handle it.

“You mean that awful comedian?” Myra spits after a long moment, scoffing at Eddie. She finally releases his hand and tosses her hair over her shoulder, glaring hard at nothing. Eddie watches her bend to pick up her fallen book and place it on the table next to Eddie’s bed, all without looking directly at him. “He’s gone home, and it’s about time, too,” Myra says, her nose in the air. “He and the rest of your little friends are who put you in this position in the first place, and look what they’ve done! They’ve left you here all alone to fend for yourself! This is why you need me, Eddie bear. I’m the only one who can take care of you,” Myra continues in a haughty tone, talking too fast for Eddie to keep up with. His brain is still slow and sluggish from the drugs, but eventually Myra’s words seem to register with him, and Eddie goes still.

Richie went home? No… he couldn’t have. That doesn’t sound right. Eddie had just seen him, hadn’t he? When Maturin first showed him what was going on in real-time. Surely it hasn’t been that long since the first vision?

Besides, why would Richie have left? It’s been almost two months, and if Richie hadn’t gone home already, why would he go now?

Because it’s been nearly two months, and you still hadn’t woken up, some part of Eddie tells himself, and he goes cold inside. Fuck, had he been too late? Had Richie really given up on him and left, after all this time? Before he could tell Eddie — whatever it was he was going to tell Eddie?

A slow trickle of panic seems to make its way into Eddie’s brain despite the drugs, and he turns his head away from Myra to check the other side of his bed again. There’s no sign of Richie there, not that Eddie even knows what to look for, but… had Richie really gone?

Eddie’s heart plummets, and he frowns hard at Richie’s empty chair. He knows, logically, that it’s not Richie’s fault if he finally went home. There were no signs that Eddie was going to wake up any time soon, and it doesn’t reflect badly on Richie if he needed to get back to his own life now. Eddie also knows that this isn’t his only chance to ever see Richie again, he knows all he’d have to do is call him and Richie would come running right back but… Eddie wants Richie to be here now. He doesn’t want Myra, and he sure as fuck doesn’t want to go home with her.

Before he can really think about it, Eddie croaks, “You’re lying.” He’s surprised at himself for all of a moment, and then the thought rings true. It would not surprise Eddie at all if she was lying.

Myra stops dead again. Her eyes are wide as she stares at Eddie, clearly shocked at his words, and then they narrow.

“What did you say, dear?” she asks, sickeningly sweet, daring him to repeat himself.

Eddie grits his teeth and manages, “Where’s Richie?”

Myra glares at him. “I told you, he’s gone home, where he belongs,” Myra dismisses him easily, but she’s avoiding Eddie’s eyes. She’s looking somewhere around Eddie’s chin, and her chest is heaving like she’s holding back from screaming at him. Eddie’s eyes narrow, and he shifts on the bed, looking for the call button on the side of his bed. The moment he finds it, he jams his fingers against it over and over again.

He needs someone else in here to tell him what’s going on and where Richie is. Surely someone knows where Richie is, and maybe one of the nurses can go and get Richie for him. Anything would be better than being stuck here with Myra all alone, with her lies and deceit and crocodile tears.

Suddenly, Eddie wants nothing more than to be free of her right fucking now.

“Eddie?” Myra asks him, half-hysterical, “Eddie, what are you doing? Who are you calling?” she demands, grappling for Eddie’s hand and finally forcing it away from the call button. Eddie struggles against her for just a moment, until his chest starts to hurt too badly and he’s forced to stop, gasping roughly through the pain. Myra opens her mouth as if she’s going to say something else, but then someone knocks lightly on his room door and strides right on in.

It’s a dark-skinned nurse in green scrubs, her hair a little wild around her face, and the minute Eddie sees her he just knows that she hates Myra near as much as Eddie does. She looks like she’s barely hiding her annoyance at whatever racket Myra is making now, and she’s side-eyeing Myra in a way Eddie recognizes all too well.

Her eyes go almost instinctively to Eddie, however, and the moment she realizes that Eddie’s awake, she gasps “Oh!” entirely cutting off whatever she’d been about to say to Myra, and hurries over to Eddie’s side instead. “You’re awake,” she says, smiling down at him as she bustles over in front of Myra and starts taking his vitals. Her index and middle finger press against his pulse point, and she stares at his chest as she counts his respiration rate.

Eddie smiles wanly at her and nods. He means to ask her where’s Richie? but before he can, she launches into a series of questions of her own: do you remember your name, do you know where you are, are you feeling any pain?

Myra keeps trying to interrupt her, making a huge fuss about the poor lady “harassing” her husband, and demanding that she move out of the way so that Myra can hold Eddie’s hand, but the nurse merely speaks over her, clearly quite adept at dealing with Myra after nearly two months.

Eddie dutifully answers her questions, hoping the faster they get through this, the faster he can ask about Richie: my name's Eddie Kaspbrak, I’m in the hospital, I’m not in too much pain.

The first two answers are true. The third one, perhaps, is a bit of a lie. But Eddie doesn’t want the nurse to pump more drugs into his system, to make his head any cloudier than it is.

The nurse grabs Eddie’s chart from the end of his bed and begins noting things down as she talks to him. She reassures him that everything is going to be okay and that the doctor will be with him after he’s recovered a little more to discuss what’s happened. She asks Eddie to just stay calm and let her know if the pain gets any worse, and then reminds him that he’s doing very well considering his condition. She admits that he’s been in a coma for a couple of weeks, and pats his hand reassuringly as she says, “But you’re healing very well, Mr. Kaspbrak. The doctor will be glad to hear that you’re awake.”

Eddie endures all of this, and when the nurse finally seems to be done talking, he asks her a little impatiently, “Richie, where’s Richie?”

The nurse looks at him oddly for a moment, equal parts concerned with Eddie’s lack of concern with his welfare, and understanding of Eddie’s desire to locate his friend but eventually she smiles. “Your friend went down to the cafeteria about twenty minutes ago. He said that if you woke up, I should tell you ‘I’ll be back before you know it,’” she explains cheerily, a pleased smile on her face.

Eddie feels his chest fill up with warmth, and he finally relaxes, closing his eyes.

After checking over the monitors keeping track of his vitals, the nurse pats at his foot and takes her leave. Myra had shut up around the time the nurse was telling Eddie about his prognosis, and she’s still silent now. The silence feels heavy in the still room, both of them aware that Myra has just been caught in a lie.

Eddie knows, even before he opens his mouth, what’s coming next.

“Myra,” he starts, doing his level best to keep his voice steady.

“Oh Eddie bear, I’m so sorry!” Myra immediately wails, bursting into more fake tears. She shoves her face into her hands, and blubbers there. “I just — I just — he’s such a horrid man. He’s been horrible to me, Eddie bear!” she cries, her shoulders shaking, hiccuping around the words, and Eddie hates her. He hates her with every fiber of his being, because he knows that she’s lying, and he knows that she isn’t really crying, and he just wants her to leave so fucking bad.

“Myra,” he says again, interrupting her. Myra wails harder, as if she can drown out the sound of Eddie’s voice if she’s just loud enough. “Myra, listen to me,” he urges, his voice raspy and hoarse from the weeks of disuse. He can feel himself growing angrier and angrier with her until finally, he shouts as loud as he can “Goddamn it Myra! Shut up!”

Immediately Myra goes silent. She draws her face away from her hands and stares at Eddie in such stunned disbelief that he remembers the same moment he’d stood up to his mom a million years ago. She’d looked just as shocked as Myra does now.

Her eyes are red, and there are actual tears on her face, but Eddie isn’t falling for it this time. He can see right through it now, and he’s sick of it. He’s sick of being told that he’s weak, and that he can’t take care of himself, and that there’s something wrong with him, because there isn’t.

There isn’t.

He and his friends killed a supernatural space clown recently. Eddie is far from weak.

“Myra, go home,” Eddie says, and rolls his head away from her so that he doesn’t have to look at her anymore.

Myra makes a squawking noise. “What? Eddie bear, what are you saying?” she asks, her voice high pitched and strained.

“I want you to go home, Myra,” Eddie repeats, clearing his throat in an attempt to get rid of some of the raspiness there. It doesn’t help. “I don’t want you here,” he insists, glaring at the ceiling.

From his peripheral, Eddie sees Myra shaking her head. There’s a little disbelieving smile on her face as she reaches out to take Eddie’s hand again. Eddie snatches it away from her.

“Eddie, what are you talking about? You’re sick, and I need to take care of you, now,” she explains patiently, as if Eddie really does have brain damage. “I can’t leave you. I’m your wife.”

The very concept burns deep in the pit of Eddie’s stomach, and he spits “I want a divorce,” at her with as much vitriol as he can manage.

Myra gasps. “Eddie!” she shouts, appalled. “You don’t know what you’re talking about! You hit your head when that house collapsed, and now you’ve lost your mind!” she contends, beginning to cry again, big heaving sounds in the small hospital room. “I cuh-cuh-can’t leave you like this!” she wails, begging, “Please don’t make me go, Eddie bear!”

Myra throws herself at Eddie, as dramatic as possible even now, and clings to his arm. Disturbed, Eddie fights against her, straining his body and crying out in pain with each jerky movement. “Myra, get off me!” Eddie yells at her, “You’re hurting me!” he objects, gasping when he pulls too hard to the right and feels his body scream in protest at him.

Immediately, Myra releases him, looking miffed.

“Eddie bear, you’re hurting me,” she whines, and takes his hand roughly in hers again. Eddie doesn’t manage to dodge the touch this time, but he does reach over the side of his bed and slam his fingers into the call button again, still wrestling against his wife.

Myra gasps. “Eddie!” she cries, “What in the world are you doing? Why are you acting like this?” she whines, finally releasing Eddie as the same nurse from before turns the corner into Eddie’s room.

Before Eddie can so much as open his mouth, Myra demands, “Nurse —” and then cuts herself off without completing the title, as if she’d never gotten around to remembering the nurse’s name. She seems to shake it off quickly enough, as flippant as she’s always been with people whose jobs she thinks are beneath her notice. “My husband has clearly lost his mind,” she alleges angrily. “I think he needs to be put back to sleep until he calms down. He’s speaking absolute gibberish, and I implore you not to listen to a thing he says!” she demands very seriously, crossing her arms over her chest with her left hand facing outward, her wedding ring glistening under the fluorescent lights — some kind of poignant gesture meant to intimidate.

The nurse stares at her for a long moment, her mouth turned down into a deep frown. Something about her expression suggests that Myra has been making impossible demands of her for weeks, and she looks just about fed up with it. She turns her gaze onto Eddie and asks him, “What’s going on here, Mr. Kaspbrak? Are you alright?” she asks seriously.

“No, I am not alright,” Eddie explains hoarsely, clearing his throat ineffectually again. He can feel his head spinning now with the impossible flurry of activity he’s been putting his poor body through in the last few minutes. “My wife refuses to leave. I don’t want her here,” Eddie says clearly, staring the nurse down and begging her to listen to him.

The nurse considers him carefully for a long moment, before turning to Myra. “Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” she starts, only for Myra to start screaming over her.

“You can’t make me go, I am his wife!” she screeches. “I am his primary caregiver, and you have to listen to me!” Myra insists, standing and stomping her foot against the ground.

The nurse glares at her, arms crossed over her chest. “Ma’am, you are disturbing my patient,” she starts, only for Myra to scream, “He’s my husband, and he is in a very fragile state of mind right now!”

The nurse argues back, “Your husband seems to be in complete control of his faculties, and until the doctor has assessed him fully and decided whether or not he needs someone else to make his decisions for him, it is my job to comply with any reasonable requests he may have!”

Myra stomps her foot again, and goes red in the face.

“He’s just woken up from a coma!” she bellows, “He needs me!”

“He needs medical treatment, ma’am,” the nurse shoots back, and points to the door. “And you are impeding his healing. I’m going to have to ask you to leave. Do not make me call hospital security,” she declares darkly, and stares Myra down.

Myra’s lip wobbles. Her hands clench into fists at her side, over and over and over again, until she finally slumps, defeated. Her eyes are a storm of anger when she turns to grab her things, her movements hostile. She doesn’t touch Eddie again, but her gaze says we’ll talk about this later.

Eddie doesn’t care, as long as she’s out of his room. His hands are shaking, and it takes him a long moment to realize that his heart rate has spiked as well. His breathing is a little uneven, something that seems to concern his nurse, because the moment that Myra has left the room, she’s at his side and coaxing him through a few breathing exercises.

Eddie’s just stood up to his wife for the first time in eight years, and through the foggy haze of pain, he feels nothing but relief.

The nurse fiddles with Eddie’s IV for a moment, and then pats at his hand soothingly. “We won’t let her back into your room until you give the say so, okay Mr. Kaspbrak? It’s going to be okay,” she says with a soft smile.

Eddie stares at her a little foggily. His limbs are beginning to feel lighter, his heart rate returning to normal, and some of the pain begins to seep out of him.

The nurse must have given him more pain medication.

Unable to process words at the moment, Eddie just nods his head gratefully at her.

She leaves after another moment of fussing, and Eddie feels his eyes start to slip closed. He doesn’t know how long he’s actually been awake, or how long he’d fought with Myra, but he does know that he feels suddenly exhausted. He doesn’t want to go to sleep, not before he sees Richie, but he’s not so sure he has much of a choice anymore...

There’s a knock on his door. Eddie snuffles at the sound, and opens bleary eyes, realizing after a moment that he had, indeed, drifted off. He shakes his head in an attempt to clear it of the fog there, and blinks at his doorway a few times, willing it to come into focus.

When it finally does, Eddie feels his heart jump in his chest.

Richie.

He smiles automatically, soft and bleary-eyed, as he takes in Richie’s face.

He looks the same as he had earlier, when Eddie had asked to see how the Losers were right now — scruffy, tired, and all bundled up in Eddie’s jacket. He looks warm and soft, and Eddie wishes he could hug him.

Richie, on the other hand, looks a little bit like he’s in shock, his lips twitching uncertainty, and his eyes wet with tears. He isn’t crying yet, but it seems like he might start any second. Eddie wishes he could stop making Richie cry.

“Rich,” he whispers, his voice somehow even more hoarse than when he’d first woken up.

“Hey, Eds,” Richie replies, his voice cracking a little. His lips are trembling even as he breaks out into a smile, and his eyes crinkle at the corners. Richie lets out a soft huff of a laugh, and then sniffles quietly. “Heard you were asking for me,” he says, his voice teasing, eyes twinkling.

“Yeah, asshole,” Eddie croaks with a fond laugh, and tilts his head in Richie’s direction so it’s easier to see him. “I missed looking at your stupid face,” he teases back, grinning softly.

Richie laughs too, his grin growing bigger as he steps into the room. He’s staring a little dopily at Eddie as he says, “Missed seeing yours too.” His lips wobble a little, and he swallows thickly, staring a little stupidly at Eddie. Then he breaks out in another laugh and says, “Glad to see you're awake.”

His eyes are blazing with something Eddie’s fuzzy brain struggles to pick out, but it makes him feel warm all over and reminds him of why he wanted to see Richie in the first place. He opens his mouth to bring it up, but Richie starts talking before he can.

“Where’s the missus?” he asks, dragging his gaze away from Eddie and frowning at the other side of the bed. His voice is more stilted than before as he makes his way to what Eddie now considers Richie’s side of the bed.

Right. Myra. Eddie sighs, and feels his shoulders relax a little with the knowledge that she’s not here. “Myra’s gone. I sent her home,” he explains, his voice coming out sort of raw and a little bit dazed, because there’s a part of him that still can’t believe what he’s done. Richie seems just as surprised, because the moment the words leave Eddie’s mouth, Richie is reeling back from him in shock.

“You what?” he asks, a disbelieving laugh bubbling up in his throat. “Eddie, you just woke up and you’ve already kicked your wife out?” he jokes, though his tone is more unsure than anything else, like he can’t quite believe what he’s hearing. He still manages to laugh, clearly unable to help himself as he stares at Eddie.

Eddie nods his head, not quite able to muster up any laughter of his own. “I also asked for a divorce,” he adds, sounding almost astounded at himself. He’d done that, hadn’t he? He’d really done that. Eddie goes to smile at Richie, ultimately proud of himself for standing up to his wife, but Richie isn’t smiling back. In fact, he’s stopped laughing entirely, and he’s looking at Eddie with a half concerned, half assessing glance. Eddie doesn’t know what to do with that, so he frowns. “Is that really such a surprise?” he asks warily.

Slowly, Richie nods his head. “Yeah, it kinda is Eds,” Richie admits, his voice a low murmur. His face is doing something weird that Eddie can’t figure out, but he doesn’t look like he’s going to cry anymore. Instead he looks… something. It’s difficult to tell with his mind so addled with the drugs, but he forgets to be confused about it when Richie settles down in his usual chair and reaches for Eddie’s hand automatically, holding it gently.

Oh, Eddie thinks to himself, and smiles. He grips Richie’s hand back and squeezes tightly, feeling reassured that Richie is here.

Surprised, Richie startles a little and looks down at their hands. When he meets Eddie’s gaze again, all of the tension seems to have drained out of Richie’s face, and his cheeks seem slightly flushed, like he’s been caught out. Eddie can’t stop looking at him and the way his entire demeanor seems to have softened. He’s staring at Eddie with this look in his eyes that feels so fucking familiar, and his lips are twisted up like he’s trying not to smile but he’s smiling anyway, and —

Eddie knows that look. He’s seen it a thousand times since they were kids.

For the first time, he understands what it means.

Eddie thinks he’s always understood, on some level, but after watching Richie sit as his beside for two months, after hearing him cry over Eddie’s broken body, there’s really no room to ignore it anymore.

Eddie takes a deep breath to settle himself, and squeezes Richie’s hand again.

“Richie,” Eddie murmurs, peering up at him ardently.

“Yeah, Eds?” Richie hums, still looking at him like Eddie is his whole world. Eddie shivers and doesn’t hesitate.

“You told me if I wake up,” he rasps, watching as Richie’s eyes slowly widen in shock, “You’d tell me something,” he continues, and squeezes Richie’s fingers hard.

“You —” Richie starts, shaking his head in disbelief. “I —” he tries again, and stops. “Eds?” he asks finally, voice having gone a little breathless. Eddie can’t tell if Richie is terrified, or just confused, but he definitely looks stunned.

“What did you want to tell me, Rich?” Eddie urges, heart beating harder with every second that passes. Richie seems to notice it too, because he glances behind him to the heart monitor and then back at Eddie with wide eyes.

He’s trying to figure out how Eddie knows what he said, Eddie’s certain of it, but there’s no way Richie will be able to put it together, not without Eddie explaining it to him.

He will. He’ll tell Richie all about it later, but for right now, he just wants to hear Richie say it.

“Richie?” Eddie asks, prompting him gently.

“Fuck, Eds,” Richie whispers, shaking his head. When he meets Eddie’s gaze again, he looks nervous. He starts to rub his thumb along the back of Eddie’s hand, before clearing his throat. “I, uhm,” he starts, tripping over the words already. He huffs out a laugh, and shakes his head. “Of all the dumb things I said to you while you were —” Richie stutters to a stop, avoids the words in a coma entirely, and continues, “that’s the thing you heard?” His grin is shaky as he stares at Eddie.

Eddie grins a little stupidly, and nods his head.

“Well I did promise,” Richie mutters to himself, and stares down at Eddie’s hand. His fingers squeeze reflexively around Eddie’s and then relax again, but Richie doesn’t say anything else. He just stares at Eddie’s hand in his until Eddie can’t take it anymore.

“I love you,” Eddie blurts out around the lump in his throat, and stares up at Richie breathlessly.

Richie’s gaze snaps back up to his, his eyes wide and a little disbelieving. “God, Eds,” he gasps, sounding absolutely stunned, and suddenly his eyes are wet again. “I love you, too,” he manages in a strained voice, and brings the back of Eddie’s hand up to his mouth to press a kiss there. His lips are trembling as he drags Eddie’s hand up even further to hide his face, and he sniffles quietly, exhaling shakily, like he really can’t believe this is happening right now.

Eddie can’t believe it either, and he lets out a giddy little laugh as he says, “That’s good,” a little fuzzily. “Because I’m not sure what I would have done if you hadn’t said it back,” he teases quietly, laughing again. Richie laughs too, the sound a little sniffly as he starts to cry for real, the feeling of warm tears starting to drip against Eddie’s hand.

Normally, he’d be grossed out about it, but this is Richie he’s talking about, and he’d put up with anything just for Richie not to let go of him again.

“Yeah, it’s not like you can run away right now,” Richie attempts to tease back, but his voice is hoarse and he has to clear his throat three times to get the words out around what seems to be a lump in his throat.

If he could, Eddie would shuffle closer to Richie, but whatever medication they’re pumping through him, Eddie can hardly feel his own body anymore.

“Eds?” Richie asks abruptly, finally lowering Eddie’s hand from his face. He places both their hands down gently on the bed, still holding on tight, and leans in close like there’s something he wants to say. Eddie smiles dopily up at him, waiting, and Richie laughs. “Oh my god, look at you,” he mutters to himself, and reaches up to cup Eddie’s face tenderly in the palm of his hand. Eddie nuzzles against it a little.

“Nevermind,” Richie finally says, shaking his head indulgently at Eddie, “You should sleep,” he suggests sweetly, rubbing the pad of his thumb against Eddie’s cheek. “I’ll be here when you wake up,” Richie adds in a reassuring tone.

“Promise?” Eddie croaks out, trying not to whine.

“I promise, Eds,” Richie whispers lovingly, “I’m not going anywhere.”

Eddie nods his head approvingly, still staring up a little dreamily at Richie. He knows Richie is right, he probably should sleep, but he doesn’t want to stop looking at Richie yet. He never wants to stop looking at Richie, has never wanted to stop looking at Richie — not from the moment Eddie met him. And now he doesn’t have to.

Which reminds him.

“Rich?” Eddie asks, blinking in an attempt to focus. His brain feels all foggy, and it’s beginning to grow really difficult to concentrate.

“Hmm?” Richie replies when Eddie doesn’t immediately continue, reminding Eddie that he’s trying to tell Richie something.

“L.A.,” Eddie breathes, shaking his head to clear some of the fog, “Need an apartment in L.A.,” he elaborates as best he can, trying to articulate the I’m never leaving you again that he’s too tired to verbalize.

Richie is silent for a long time, and then he says, “You’re coming to L.A.?”

Eddie smiles, and lets out a huff of a breath. “Yeah, asshole,” he mumbles, trying and failing to concentrate long enough to have this conversation. He blinks his eyes at Richie in an attempt to look at him, and watches as Richie’s face splits open into a grin. His eyes are fond as he cards back some of Eddie’s hair from his face.

“Yeah?” Richie teases him, eyes glittering, “What for?”

Eddie wants to roll his eyes so badly, but he doesn’t know if he manages it. “For you, fucknuts,” he says, aiming for patronizing and landing more on affectionate. Richie laughs at him, but it’s fond.

“So you wanna go apartment hunting, then?” Richie asks him in a tone that Eddie would normally consider teasing, except he can’t figure out what he’s being teased about. Frowning, Eddie nods his head. “I know a place,” Richie assures him with a laugh, “But there’s just one catch,” he explains.

Even more confused now, Eddie asks, “What?”

“It’s actually a house, and I’m already living in it,” Richie replies proudly.

Eddie blinks a couple of times in confusion, trying to piece together what Richie’s getting at, and then snorts inelegantly. “Shut the fuck up, Richie,” Eddie gripes at him, but he’s grinning as he lets his eyes slip closed, finally feeling like he can sleep peacefully now that everything important is settled.

Richie is still laughing at him when Eddie feels the medication starting to pull him under. He’s just giving in to it when Richie boops his nose and asks him, “You good with that, Eds?” in a tone so full of confidence that Eddie wants to smack him.

Instead, Eddie fights to open his eyes and fixes Richie with a look that he hopes is at least a little bit alluring. “‘Course, Rich,” he mumbles sleepily, the words almost a slur as he offers Richie a smile. “It’s got you,” he breathes affectionately, and laughs when Richie immediately turns bright red.

Instead he says, “‘Course, Rich,” as sweetly as he can manage, peering up at Richie enticingly. “It’s got you,” he murmurs coyly, and laughs when Richie immediately turns bright red.

**

6 months later

It takes a month after Eddie moves into Richie’s house in L.A. for the Losers to make arrangements for them all to come out and visit them on a Friday and stay for the weekend. Eddie knows they would have come sooner, but between Eddie getting settled in, Mike’s tour of the United States, and Bev’s divorce and subsequent re-settling of her company, it’s been a bit difficult planning a time that works for all six of them.

Unfortunately for Eddie, the Losers are set to arrive within an hour of his last physical therapy appointment for the week, and while Eddie had wanted to reschedule it, Richie had been quick to put his foot down. He’d made the point that Eddie’s physical therapy appointments were more important than looking nice for their friends, and while Eddie knew Richie was right, that didn’t mean he had to be happy about it.

He’s been in physical therapy for nearly six months now, something the doctors had started about a week after Eddie had woken up. As it turns out, Myra hadn’t been lying when she’d told Eddie the doctors weren’t sure he’d ever walk again, but he’s been making some pretty significant progress. In fact, he’s able to rely on his cane rather than his wheelchair for longer and longer periods of time now, and while the doctors say he’ll probably need some level of support from his cane for the rest of his life, Eddie is at the very least excited to have a sense of independence again.

Eddie knows it’s his hard work that’s gotten him this far, but he’s thankful for Richie’s voice of reason on days when Eddie can’t work up the energy to fight against his own limitations, and he’s glad to have Richie around to remind him just how important his physical therapy is, even if it does suck.

So now, he's in their bedroom attempting to quickly get changed out of his physical therapy clothes and into a nice pair of jeans and a collared shirt that Richie had laid out for him.

“Bill just texted me!” Richie shouts down the hall, his voice muffled through the walls but steadily moving closer as he continues, “He just caught a cab. He said he’ll be here in about twenty minutes!”

“Sounds good!” Eddie huffs back, finally managing to kick himself out of his sweatpants. His legs are still sort of shaking from the last hour of his workout routine, because his therapist has really started pushing him thanks to all the progress Eddie has made. Unfortunately, it also means that Eddie tends to come home extremely exhausted.

He’s just managed to grab his jeans when Richie turns the corner into their room with a huge smile on his face. He doesn’t offer to help Eddie get dressed, which Eddie is grateful for — sometimes he just wants to do things on his own, even though he knows Richie would jump at the chance to help him if Eddie so much as asked.

“What’s up?” Eddie asks, arching a brow at him. “Aren’t you supposed to be cleaning the living room?” Eddie grunts at him as he shoves his trembling legs into his jeans and begins to pull them up.

“All done,” Richie says with a shrug, nodding his head back towards the front living room. “I’ve vacuumed, taken out the trash, and cleaned up all the shit that should have been in the office,” he explains proudly.

“Thanks, Rich,” Eddie grunts, exhaling sharply as his legs spasm painfully and he’s forced to relax his body onto the bed. He’s got the jeans up to his thighs now, bunched just under his ass, and he’s temporarily given up. He knows he’s going to have to use his aching abs to lift his ass off the bed to get the jeans the rest of the way on, and he just isn’t ready to put in that energy right now. “What about the guest room?” he asks, turning his full attention onto Richie.

Richie nods his head immediately. “It’s all set for Ben and Bev. Brand new sheets and everything,” he reassures Eddie, leaning in the door frame with his arms crossed over his chest, a challenging look on his face. Eddie narrows his eyes at him.

“And the air mattress?” he asks.

“Sitting in the office ready to be blown up before bedtime. And,” he exclaims brightly, waggling his eyebrows, “I’ve even set out pillows and blankets for both the air mattress and the pull-out. Sexy, right?” Richie teases.

Eddie laughs and rolls his eyes fondly, but it really is kind of sexy that Richie had thought ahead about all of this before Eddie could even ask him to do it. It’s just that they don’t have a lot of room to host their friends and they’re working with what they have. Richie’s place isn’t the largest of their friends’ houses by a long shot, and definitely isn’t the first place any of them would have picked to have a group sleepover, but Eddie’s still recovering and not really up for traveling, so all of their friends have graciously agreed to come to L.A. for the weekend.

“What about the others?” he asks, glancing over his shoulder at the clock on their bedside table. “When are they expecting to arrive?”

Richie hums and pulls out his phone to check his messages. His hair hangs cutely in his face, and if he were closer, Eddie would push it back with his fingers and comb through it. “Mike said he just got off the 90 freeway, so he’ll probably arrive about the same time as Bill, and Bev said she and Ben will be here in five minutes about… three minutes ago!” Richie replies cheerfully, grinning like a cheshire cat when he meets Eddie’s gaze.

“What the fuck, Richie?” Eddie chastises him, suddenly finding the burst of adrenaline needed to yank his pants up over his ass. He manages to balance himself on the balls of his feet in an attempt not to strain his abs too much, and gets his jeans all the way on, all while Richie laughs at him. “Why didn’t you warn me!?” Eddie yells at him breathlessly, sitting back down on the bed, red in the face. He thinks he can feel a cramp forming in his right calf, and decides that tonight is definitely a wheelchair kind of a night.

“Relax, Spagheads,” Richie shushes him, still chuckling lightly. His eyes are shining brightly as he pushes off the doorway to meet Eddie on the bed. He settles in close until he’s standing between Eddie’s legs, and wraps his arms around Eddie’s shoulders. Eddie cranes his neck back to stare at him. “You know they wouldn’t care if you’d stayed in your sweatpants and workout shirt, right?” Richie asks him softly, head tilted in a way that Eddie refuses to think of as cute.

Grumbling, Eddie shrugs his shoulders and says, “Yeah, but the last time any of them saw me, I was still in the hospital wearing that stupid plastic gown.”

The rest of the Losers had been quick to come back and visit Eddie after he’d woken up, and they’d kept up the visits the entire five months he’d been stuck in Derry, though he wasn’t great company and they couldn’t stay long. It had still been nice.

“I’m sure they’re going to miss that sexy sight,” Richie quips back, winking playfully at Eddie and reminding him rather abruptly about the way Richie used to stare at his ass through the stupid open back of the gown.

“Shut up, Richie,” Eddie complains, reaching out to swat ineffectually at his chest. Richie might have enjoyed the view, but Eddie’s pretty certain nobody else had.

Richie laughs, and before Eddie can land a strike, Richie catches Eddie’s wrist and leans in to kiss him.

It’s a quick kiss, more of a peck than anything else, and it leaves Eddie dissatisfied. He immediately pouts at Richie and tugs on his wrist in an attempt to pull Richie back in.

“So needy,” Richie teases, though he goes willingly. Eddie growls at him but chooses not to reply, instead drawing Richie in to press their lips back together again. He nips playfully at Richie’s bottom lip and sighs, tilting his head just so to deepen the kiss.

Eddie hasn’t let Richie get away with a peck like that since the first few weeks of their relationship when Richie seemed too terrified to do anymore, and now Eddie takes every chance he can get to deepen their kisses.

Richie pretends to hate it, but the secretive smile he walks away with every time isn’t nearly as secretive as he thinks it is.

“Come on, grumpy pants,” Richie says as he pulls away, the soft suction of their lips parting making Eddie shiver. “I think I just heard Ben and Bev pull up.”

Eddie frowns, but lets go of Richie. “I’ll never understand how you can hear shit all the way outside from here,” Eddie mutters and pushes himself to his feet.

“It’s because I’m blind, Eds,” Richie replies cheerfully, offering Eddie his hand wordlessly. Eddie takes it, but only because his legs are still shaking. “The rest of my senses have to work double time to make up for it.”

“You’re not blind, Rich, what the fuck,” Eddie mutters back, taking three shaky steps over to where he’d left his wheelchair next to the bed. He collapses into it gratefully and releases Richie’s hand. “And that’s not how it works,” he adds matter-of-factly.

“I might as well be,” Richie shoots back just as the doorbell rings. He drops one last kiss onto Eddie’s lips as Eddie gets himself settled in his wheelchair, and then turns to answer the door. Eddie watches him go with a small smile on his face, so fucking thankful that he gets to have this.

After everything he’s been through, he feels like he deserves at least this much.

It seems to take no time at all for the rest of their friends to arrive once Richie has let Ben and Bev in, and then they’re all squeezing in around Richie’s dining table. Richie ordered take-out — not Chinese — and filled up everyone’s glasses with the fancy wine from his wine cabinet. Eddie isn’t partaking because he’s still on a couple of medications and despite Richie reassuring him one glass of wine isn’t going to hurt him, Eddie isn’t willing to risk it.

Conversation starts out light that night, the focus more on how Eddie is settling in than his actual recovery, and Bev takes it upon herself to tease Richie mercilessly.

“Married life really suits you, Trashmouth,” she jokes, nudging him in the shoulder with her own, and subsequently knocking Richie’s body into Eddie’s. Eddie turns to glare at her balefully for it, but his lips are twitching uncontrollably at her tone of voice. “I didn’t know you could be so domestic. You’re quite the little housewife,” she teases him, gesturing broadly around the kitchen, and then nudging her chin out towards the living room. “I honestly assumed you must live in a pigsty, but Eddie has done a great job whipping you into shape.”

Richie gasps mock-offendedly, and says, “Why I never!” in a southern drawl, pitching his voice up high. “I don’t know what you are trying to insinuate,” he says primly, “But I assure you that I am a proper lady, and I don’t need no man to tell me how to behave!”

Eddie dissolves into giggles at the voice, leaning into Richie’s side and soaking in his warmth as the rest of them start to laugh too. Bill sounds as if he’s dying he’s laughing so hard, and Bev is giggling into Ben’s shoulder, her eyes wet with tears. Richie throws his arm over Eddie’s shoulders, and drags him in even closer, pressing a soft kiss to the top of his head.

Eddie tries to roll his eyes at the casual affection, aware that Mike is staring straight at him, but he can’t muster up any real annoyance and recognizes that the expression falls flat. With the way that Mike smiles at him, Eddie knows that he isn’t fooling anyone.

“Oh my god, you two are so cute,” Bev coos once she’s gotten herself back under control, and she props her chin in her hand to stare happily at them. Eddie immediately turns bright red and frowns at her.

“Not cute,” he mutters at the same time as Richie says, “Cute, cute, cute!” and pinches Eddie’s cheeks. Eddie turns and knocks Richie’s hand away from his face, and then shoves his wrist down onto the table. Richie is laughing even as he moans “ow, ow, ow, ow, Eddie!” but Eddie doesn’t let him go.

“You know I hate it when you do that!” Eddie whines, carefully avoiding looking at their friends. He can already imagine the looks on their faces, and Eddie is embarrassed, dammit! It’s bad enough when Richie calls him cute when they’re by themselves and Eddie can’t hide the way it makes him feel — it’s even worse to have their friends witness the way it makes Eddie absolutely melt for Richie.

“I’m surprised you haven’t killed him yet,” Ben jokes, staring meaningfully at the way Eddie is still holding down Richie’s hand.

“Believe me, it’s a close call at least three times a day,” Eddie replies dryly, finally releasing him. Richie draws his hand up to his chest to cradle it gently, making exaggerated wounded eyes at Eddie that Eddie ignores.

“Eddie,” Richie whines, pouting at him, “You’re so mean to me,” he complains, knocking their shoulders together again. Rolling his eyes, Eddie leans in and smacks a quick kiss against Richie’s cheek until Richie wilts into him, smiling like an idiot.

Bev coos again, and Bill makes a retching sound. Eddie does his best to ignore them and grabs his water to sip at it, hiding his blush against the glass.

“Stan would hate you guys so much,” Mike laughs, shaking his head at the two of them, his voice only a little bit forced. He swallows thickly as he meets everyone else’s gazes, and says, “He’d say you’re disgusting, but we all know he’d really mean ‘I love you,’” Mike adds affectionately.

It takes a beat, but the rest of them laugh quietly as well, if a little solemnly, and glance at the empty table setting Richie had put out. He’d said they couldn’t have a proper Losers club meeting without Stan, and despite the way it had made Eddie feel at the time to see Richie preparing a seat that wouldn’t be filled, he’s grateful for it now. Eddie reaches over and squeezes Richie’s thigh, resting his hand there gently.

“I miss him,” Ben whispers softly, offering everyone a small smile.

“We all do,” Bill agrees quietly. They all quiet down for a moment, just soaking in the moment, thinking of Stan, before Bill finally clears his throat. Slowly, he raises his glass of wine into the air and says, “To Stan!”

“To Stan!” the rest of them say in unison, lifting their glasses in his honor.

After a long swallow, they each place their glasses back down onto the table, and smile at each other. Richie reaches down to squeeze Eddie’s thigh, and Eddie smiles up at him.

“So,” Ben starts, the first to interrupt the silence, “How are you doing, Eddie? Are you settling in okay?” he asks, waving his fork around in the air at them. The others nod their head in unison, repeating Ben’s question in one form or another:

“Richie better be treating you well,” says Bill.

“Are you sleeping alright?” asks Bev.

“How’s California treating you?” asks Mike.

Eddie smiles up at his friends and nods his head. “I’m good,” he replies, “I’m really good. California is… exactly what I needed,” he hedges, and, avoiding Richie’s eye, adds, “So is Richie.”

Eddie can feel it when Richie turns to look at him, and he doesn’t have to see Richie’s face to know what it’s doing — Richie has this way of looking at Eddie like he’s still in awe that he gets to have this, and Eddie doesn’t know what do with himself everytime he sees it. It’s an overwhelming feeling for both of them.

“Aww baby,” Richie murmurs, leaning in close to press a kiss to his cheek. He’s smiling, and it makes him smile too. “I knew you loved me,” Richie continues, and it’s obvious he’s attempting to sound teasing for their friends, but the words come out too sincere for anyone to fall for it.

Eddie’s heart flutters, and he feels his insides go all gooey, but the moment he catches sight of the looks on his friends faces — amused but affectionate — he squirms under the attention.

“Get off me,” Eddie grumbles, shoving at Richie’s chest lightly, his cheeks on fire. Richie doesn’t fight him, just laughs affectionately and pulls away without saying another word.

“I’m so happy for both of you,” Bev says warmly, her eyes shining. “You deserve to be happy,” she continues sincerely, reaching across the table to grasp Eddie’s hand in hers.

“Thanks, Bev,” Eddie manages to croak out in response, a lump in his throat, because while he knows what Bev is saying is true, it’s still difficult for him to internalize sometimes.

It’s Richie who eventually changes the subject, turning to the others and asking them what’s going on with them.

“Well, I’ve got a new contract in Dubai,” Ben tells them, shrugging modestly when the others cheer. “I’ve gotta head out there for a couple of weeks next Friday, so I won’t be around much, but…” he trails off, looks at Beverly softly, and reaches out to grasp tightly to her hand, like he doesn't want to leave her.

“But he’ll have cell reception, so don’t be afraid to harass him,” Beverly teases, gripping Ben back just as tightly.

Mike tells them about his tour of the United States, and how he’s been interviewing the locals everywhere he goes. He admits that he’s heard all kinds of amazing stories, and explains that he’s been thinking about starting a podcast.

“I just think that more people deserve to hear these stories,” Mike pitches hopefully, peering around at their friends like he wants their approval. “There’s so much culture out there that we’re missing out on, and I feel like if we just shared more of this stuff, there might not be so much violence in the world,” he continues passionately.

“I think you could really make a difference, man,” Richie says solemnly, and he shares a look with Mike like he understands exactly what it is that Mike is trying to do.

Mike meets his eyes, and nods at him, a silent conversation moving between them that Eddie isn’t privy to.

“And I’m about to launch my new summer line,” Bev announces excitedly, deftly avoiding the topic of the current legal minefield she’d been navigating for months surrounding both her divorce and her company. “All the designs are based on that summer,” she explains simply, obviously referring to the summer of ‘89 when all of this had started, “Because, despite everything, that was the best summer of my life.”

Eddie feels warm all the way down to his toes, because it was the best summer of his life too.

“Each look was inspired by one of you,” Bev admits brightly, and her eyes are sparkling as she looks at all of them, “and I fully plan on sending each of you your own special outfit.”

Eddie doesn’t even get the chance to consider what his might be before Bev meets Richie’s eye and winks at him. Eddie immediately lights up bright red, and turns a murderous glare onto Richie.

“I’ve got this really cute pair of little red shorts that I think will look amazing on you, Eds,” Bev teases all too knowingly.

“Richie,” Eddie hisses, but Richie isn’t looking at him. He’s an entirely darker shade of red than Eddie is — even brighter than those damn shorts were — and he doesn’t seem capable of meeting anyone’s gazes.

Eddie knows what Richie thought about those shorts — he’d admitted to Eddie that they’d kind of been Richie’s sexual awakening, and Eddie can’t even begin to imagine why he might have shared that information with Beverley, but he kind of wants to kill him for it.

It seems like all the rest of their friends seem to know as well, because as Eddie goes to kick Richie under the chair, the rest of their friends burst into amused laughter. Eddie doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry, and before he can launch into an argument with Richie over it, Richie cuts him off to pointedly, and very loudly, ask Bill, “So I heard you were offered another movie deal?”

Eddie slumps back in his seat, defeated. He’ll let Richie get away with it, for now at least. He makes no promises to himself about not bringing it up again when they go to bed.

“Oh, yeah!” Bill exclaims, as if he’d forgotten all about it. He composes himself quickly, red in the face from all of his laughing, and says, “That reminds me. The casting director asked me to let him know if I had any names in mind for any of the characters, and, well, if you’d be interested Rich…” Bill offers, trailing off and staring at Richie in question.

Completely distracted from his previous anger, Eddie looks at Richie with wide eyes, waiting for his answer, but Richie seems appropriately stunned. He stares at Bill blankly for a long moment, before bursting into a bright grin. “What, you want this ol’ mug to star in one of your movies, Bill?” Richie teases loudly, putting on a show. “You must really be desperate if you’re asking me,” he jokes, avoiding the question entirely with a self-deprecating joke. It’s obvious enough to all of them that Richie is deflecting, and the slight hysteria to Richie’s voice is answer enough for Bill, who merely grins at him.

“You can come down to the office with me on Monday, we can talk about it then,” he replies easily, turning away from Richie and changing the subject to the actual script for The Glowing and how he’s already thinking about a new ending for the movie.

Eddie reaches over to squeeze Richie’s fingers between his, but doesn’t say a word. He’s just thankful to Bill for the offer, because in the last few months, Richie’s been doing a lot of voice acting gigs, and has admitted to wanting to try his hand at acting. Eddie doesn’t know if Bill knows that, but even if he didn’t, the offer means a lot to both of them.

The conversation continues jovially, with Richie mocking Bill for his terrible endings, and Ben piping in with suggestions for the set. Eddie sits back quietly and watches, sipping at his glass of water. He takes a moment, when the others are distracted, to check in with himself the way his new therapist has been pushing him to do over the past few weeks.

He feels good, content to have all of his friends here surrounding him. It’s something he’d nearly given up in that weird, liminal space he’d inhabited while he was in a coma, and he’s so fucking glad that he chose to live, because he’s never been happier.

#reddie #reddie fanfic #Richie Tozier/Eddie Kaspbrak #it fanfiction

[thoughtfullyyoungduck]

family baking time

summary: can you do a reddie x daughter where she has a dream about eddie dying and then they comfort her? like basically how we would want them to comfort us about how our souls were crushed from watching CH2 lmao

The sheets stick to Luna’s body as she desperately tries to escape them, kicking her legs out, the same way a toddler experiencing a tantrum does, dislodging the sheets in the process. The remnants of the nightmare cling to the back of her mind, like clouds obstructing the view of her normal brain, clouding her judgment.

She escapes the muffed room and trades it for the living room, can’t stand to be alone any longer without any conformation that her dad is in fact not dead, but alive and kicking. The hallway is brightened by the distorted images on the television, the volume so low it’s nothing more but a murmuring setting taken advantages off by Richie to focus on his writing process.

Luna can hear the ticking sound his keyboard makes, furious and fast paced, the way he goes when a new idea pops in his head and he has to write it down in that very moment. Under normal circumstances, Luna would find something else to do or wait to interrupt him, finding it difficult and off putting for disrupting his lively hood. Not that Richie minds her intercepting his new materiel, in fact, some material only came to be after Luna gave her input, but she does mind. But the nightmare douses her in an unhealthy amount of adrenaline, and she has to get shake it off, to prove to herself and her traitorous mind, that her dad and pops are fine, and she’s just making things up.

‘Pops’, she whimpers, blocking his sight of the tv, not that he was looking in the first place. Richie peeks up at her, and freezes mid-tap, shoving the laptop off his lap and floundering over to his daughter. He fosters her with his arms, rocking them back and forth. Luna bawls harder, digging the heels of her palms in her eye sockets to will herself to stop.

‘Kiddo, what’s going on?’ Richie asks her panickily, mentally checking over any possible sort of information. She didn’t go to bed upset, and as far as he knew, he’s pretty confident his daughter tells him everything, she didn’t argue or fight with her friend either.

‘Talk to me Lu.’

Luna weeps in hurdle of sobs, shaking her head when it’s obvious she can’t explain with the way she’s acting at the moment. Richie, frightened of the whole ordeal, understands that he cannot do any of this by himself.

‘Eds’, Richie yells at Eddie, sleeping soundly and heedless to the drama unfolding, the name sounds shaky and breathy at first, not nearly loud enough to stir Eddie from his rem stages of sleep, and then Richie bites back his bile and calls out louder. ‘Eddie.’

‘Richie’, Eddie answers, instantly alert even with the bouts of sleep, something he does because he’s not fully sated with the idea that Pennywise will never come back. He scrams in the living room, weaponizing a vase, but leaves it behind when he sees the reason Richie howled at him was because of their daughter.

‘Luna what’s going sweetheart?’

Eddie’s fight or flight is instantly shifted in gear, hands fluttering all over Luna’s body to detect any visible injuries. When he can’t find any, he grabs her a tissue and hands it over to her, so Luna can dab her tears away.

‘Settle down, it’s okay.’ Eddie calms, shooing both Richie and Luna over to sit on the overweening soft carpet. The carpet was Richie’s pick, who specifically searched for something so Luna as a child could amuse herself without having to do it on the unrelenting hard floor. Now a days, it’s mostly used during her sleepovers, or while watching a movie.

 There’s goosebumps all over Luna’s body, and they have nothing to do with the chill that comes sweeping in alongside a cool spring night.

‘Did you have a nightmare, Luns?’ Richie inquires gently, all too familiar with those himself. He recognizes the signs of one in Luna, but unfortunately clueless on how to fix it. Richie’s coping mechanisms are not ones he wants to pass on his daughter.

‘Yeah’, she sobs out, sagging backwards on the carpet so she’s laying flat down, staring up at the ceiling. After a beat of hesitations her dads mirror her position.

‘Oh fuck’, Richie complains mere seconds after upholding the stance, rolling his shoulders to work out the cricks developing in his upper back. ‘I’m too old for this shit.’

‘Since when are you suddenly too old? Yesterday you swore to us you could run a marathon in your sleep.’

Luna giggles, her dad and pops bickering like everything is normal and no one is hurt eases her mind off the edge of a breakdown.

‘I’m glad to understand that my suffering is funny to you young lady’, Richie utters, smiling himself.

‘It’s not’, Luna confesses, because even though Richie was joking, the mere visions of her dad being impaled is vividly being replayed and repeated in front of her very eyes. She blinks against the onslaught of tears and picks at the soft cotton under her to refrain from whipping her eyes again. They’re already burning, and the more she rubs, the more she’ll have trouble with it later.

‘Luna’, Eddie says miserably, taking her hand and holding it between his own, ‘We’re here.’

‘I had a nightmare. And you died dad’, Luna cries, flipping over so she cry in her dad’s t-shirt. ‘I’m sorry. Pops and me came home and the house was so empty because you were never coming back. I looked for you everywhere and expected you to be behind me at every turn but you never were.’

‘Listen to me’, Eddie explains firmly, sitting up and planting his hand on his hips to make himself as fierce as he could, ‘I am never, ever leaving you or your pops alone. Ever’, he says the last word slowly, drawing it out to allow it to sink in Luna’s head. ‘I will always come back to the two of you. Always.’

‘You big ol’ sap,’ Richie waves off, but his voice is slightly trembling despite his best efforts.

The family of three compile in a bear hug, staying there until Richie’s muscles begin protesting and he has no choice but to move positions, leaving the dog pile with a kiss to Eddie’s lips and one on Luna’s temple.

‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ Her pops asks, shimmying his shoulders, coking his head towards the kitchen.

‘Pops I’m never thinking what you’re thinking. Your mind is a weird place.’

‘Well first off all fuck you, second of all you’re right, and third I’m talking about  midnight baking,’ he swings his arms in the air and bows through his knees, like a child on Christmas.

‘I think it’s a good idea,’ Eddie agrees, struggling to get himself off the carpet and on both feet again.

‘The two of you are really getting old,’ Luna mocks, ‘But yes, midnight baking sounds amazing.’

The apple strudels are slightly burned, and Eddie mutters under his breath that he’s going to have to extend his visit to the gym the whole time, but Luna loves the family space, and is immensely grateful that her dad is still breathing to spend it with them.

#reddie x daughter #reddie fluff #eddie kaspbrack #eddie kaspbrak imagine #eddie as a parent #eddie as a dad #richie tozier imagine #richie tozier #richie tozier x daughter #richie as a parent #richie as a dad #My writing

[thestarsaroundyourscars]

25 and 26 for reddie!! Only if you want to💗

Hollyyy!!💗 This is such an old prompt, I’m sorry! Have some ‘fuck- canon’ fluff (again).

“Come cuddle.”

“I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Read on AO3

Eddie woke up in the middle of the night to an empty bed. 

While half asleep, he’d thrown his arm over the right side of the mattress, expecting to find a warm, lanky body that he could cuddle up against but instead, he got an armful of nothing. Eddie frowned and with his eyes still closed, trying to hold on to sleep for as long as he could, he felt around the bed for Richie but he wasn’t there. The man was all long legs and arms and the Town House bed wasn’t exactly big⎯ if he was there, Eddie’s hand would’ve found him already.

His first thought was that It was back. It was back and he’d taken Richie, taking advantage of the fact that they let their guard down after thinking they had killed him, for real this time. The thought made Eddie’s breathing speed up but he forced himself to take three deep breaths and calm down before he could drive himself into a panic attack.

“Rich?” He muttered, blinking his eyes open. The room was dark but the moonlight filtered in through the window, which was weird because Eddie remembered closing the curtains before crawling under the covers. With Richie. Which begged the question⎯

Where did the asshole go?

The answer to that question came soon enough when Eddie rolled over and saw that, not only were the curtains drawn back, but the window was also open and Richie was sitting on the window sill, smoking?

“What the fuck are you doing Richie? It’s the middle of the night.” Eddie said, pushing himself up into a sitting position. Richie jumped, almost dropping his cigarette in surprise. “And are you seriously smoking? These places have smoke detectors you know that, right?”

“Not this shithole Eds. Come on. They don’t even have hot water.” Richie scoffed, blowing out smoke. “Did I wake you?”

“No.” Eddie said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Well yeah. I woke up when I realized you weren’t in bed.”

“Aww Eds you missed me?” Richie teased but his voice was slightly off. “One night and you already can’t sleep without me?”

Eddie rolled his eyes, grabbing a pillow and throwing it at Richie, missing pathetically. “Shut up. Why are you awake?”

Richie tensed up then, looking out the window and taking a long drag of his cigarette before talking through his teeth, “Couldn’t sleep.”

“Bullshit.” Eddie said. “You were asleep. I know, because your snoring kept me up for like an hour.”

Richie scoffed, bringing the cigarette to his mouth. “Now that’s some fucking bullshit. Eds, I don’t snore.” 

“Yes, you do. You have since we were kids.” Eddie said in his no bullshit tone. “But that’s not the point.“ He said, recognizing Richie’s attempt to change the subject. "Why are you smoking in the middle of the night?”

Richie didn’t meet Eddie’s eyes, staring out the window instead. 

"Rich?” He asked, voice softer and more gentle. “Talk to me.”

Richie heaved out a sigh. He put out the cigarette and leaned back against the window, facing Eddie. “I had a nightmare.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Pennywise?” Richie made a noncommittal sound that Eddie took as a yes. “Pennywise is dead, Rich. We killed him. For real this time.”

“I know he is. The nightmare wasn’t about him, not really.“ 

Eddie pressed his lips into a tight line, hit by realization. He didn’t need to ask to know what Richie’s nightmare had really been about.

(After escaping Neibolt, the losers had all gone to the quarry to clean up, even if Eddie insisted it was useless because, “You can’t clean yourself in dirty water.” He joined them anyway and everyone had been celebrating, laughing and splashing around, when Eddie noticed Richie was sitting on a rock by himself with a troubled look. Eddie had swam over to him, throwing water at his face and said, “Didn’t you hear Rich? We killed the fucking clown.”

When Richie had looked up, his eyes were shining with unshed tears and Eddie’s laughter had died in his throat. 

"I saw you die Eds.” Richie had said, ducking his head to stare at his hands. They were clean, but he looked at them  as if they were stained with something and Eddie reached over and held them. “When I was in the deadlights. I saw Pennywise kill you right in front of me.”

Eddie had shaken his head, giving his hands a squeeze. “That wasn’t real. I’m right here.”

“I thought I lost you.” He insisted, eyebrows pulled together. “I thought you died and that I never got the chance to⎯ to tell you, to⎯”

“To what?" 

Richie had surged forward then, catching Eddie’s lips in a kiss. Over the sound of his own heart threatening to beat out of his chest, Eddie heard their friends whistling and catcalling. He let go of Richie’s hands to flip them off, before weaving his fingers in Richie’s hair and pulling him closer so he could kiss him back. 

Later, they had ditched the losers to go to Richie’s room together⎯ amidst more whistling and catcalling. And after Richie took a shower and Eddie took three, they had stumbled into bed together for the first time. Both of them forgetting what Richie saw in the deadlights, until now.)

"It’s not real.” Eddie said, echoing his own words from the day before. “That was just Pennywise fucking with you, Richie.”

“I know that Eds, but everytime I close my eyes, I see it. I see Pennywise stabbing you, I see you bleeding all over me. I see you dying and I see myself leaving you in that fucking place.” He said, running a hand down his face.

Eddie’s face twisted with concern, feeling sad for Richie. He wanted to offer comfort, to reassure him, but words didn’t seem to be doing it. He untangled himself from the mess of blankets and dragged himself out of bed. The cold air hit Eddie’s bare legs and he shivered⎯ boxers and Richie’s shirt had been enough to keep him warm when the window was closed and he had Richie wrapped around him like a koala, but now they made him wish he didn’t the bed.

He quickly covered the distance between the bed and the window, wrapping his arms around Richie’s waist. Unlike Eddie, Richie was warm, even if he was wearing only a pair of boxers and had been standing next to the open window for a while. Eddie burrowed his face in his chest, still not quite believing he was allowed to do that now.

“Are you trying to distract me?” Richie clicked his tongue, sounding more like himself. Eddie counted that as a win. “Because it’s working.” He felt Richie’s arms wrap around him.

Eddie let out a snort. “I’m trying to convince you that I’m here and that I’m alive and that I'm⎯”

“Ready for round two?" 

Eddie pinched his side, eliciting an embarrassing squeal from Richie. "I’m serious Rich.” He looked up, locking eyes with him. “I’m here and if you need me to keep reminding you that, I fucking will because I’m not going anywhere, you’re stuck with me now." 

"That was aggressively romantic.” Richie said, smiling down at him, it was slightly shaky but happy. 

Eddie returned the smile before leaning up and pressing a kiss against Richie’s lips, feeling his stomach flutter the moment their lips touched. Richie made a pleased sound before licking into Eddie’s mouth, warmth spreading through him when Richie’s tongue started moving against his. 

They had been kissing for a while when a yawn escaped Eddie and he froze, Richie’s face breaking into a teasing grin. 

"Don’t say anything, shut up.” Eddie said, feeling his face go hot. “This is your fault.”

Richie scoffed. “Am I really that boring, Eds?" 

Eddie rolled his eyes. "Of course not. I’m just tired since you woke me up.”

“Right sorry.” Richie said, running his thumb softly over Eddie’s cheek. “You should go back to sleep. I’ll be there in a few minutes." 

"What? You’re gonna go rub one off in the bathroom?” Eddie joked, making Richie laugh. 

“You caught me, Eds.” He flashed him a lewd grin. “That kiss got me all hot and bothered." 

Eddie snorted, grabbing Richie’s hand. "Come on.” He started dragging him towards the bed, but Richie planted himself on the floor. Eddie cocked his head at him, giving him a questioning look.

“I don’t think I can go back to sleep just yet.” Richie said, avoiding Eddie’s eyes.

Everytime I close my eyes, I see it. 

Oh, right. 

“Are you worried about having another nightmare?” Eddie asked, taking Richie’s grimace as an answer. “I won’t let that happen.”

“What? You’re gonna fight the nightmares away with your tiny fists?”

“No.” Eddie said, rolling his eyes. “I’m gonna hold you so hard that you won’t be able to forget I’m alive.” He said, watching Richie’s expression melt at his words. “Now close the window and come cuddle with me. It’s the middle of the fucking night and I’m tired.”

“Okay.” Richie said, pressing a kiss to Eddie’s forehead and letting go of him just to shut the window. “As long as I get to be the little spoon.”

“Duh." 

They climbed into bed together, Eddie’s chest pressed flush against Richie’s back. Eddie wrapped his arms around him and Richie sighed happily when he pressed a kiss to the top of his spine.

Eddie forced himself to stay awake until he was certain that Richie was asleep⎯ his loud snoring making it perfectly clear. Only then, did he allow himself to close his eyes, dozing off immediately. 

Neither of them woke up again, not until the sunlight filled the room the next morning.

Tag list: @daddyphantomtbh​​ @yes-dillman-yes @richietoaster ​ @beepbeeprichiellc ​ @its-stranger-than-you-think ​ @lemonaayyee ​ @losers-gotta-stick-together ​ @tinyarmedtrex ​ @richiefuckfacetozier ​ @sam-i-am2468 ​ @richardtoz ​ @s-s-georgie ​ @reddie-for-anything ​ @eddiefuckinkaspbrak ​ @constantreaderfool ​ @stanleuyris ​ @jesuschristsupruvestar ​ @mirandonsky ​ @proton-disaster-blaster ​ @alargedepresso ​ @purplepoisonedgem ​ @pan-ini ​ @reddie-to-cry​ @reddieforlove ​ @trashmouthnick ​ @multi-fandom-wby ​ @wheezyeds ​ @nancynwheeler ​ @reddieslashgeneralhorror​​ @madi-personal ​ @reddie-tozibrak​​ @lover-mouth ​ @atownofeggs ​ @that-weird-girls-blog ​ @appojoos ​ @castielwinovak ​ @a-gay-treee​ @twoidiotsinl0ve ​ @typewrxter ​ @fcngirltrxsh​ @spirited-marvel ​ (if you want to be added, let me know!)

#reddie #post it chapter two #eddie comforting richie #eddie lives #of course #fluff #monse writes #constantreaderfool

[losvcr]

all i want (reddie)

Summary: Eddie is dying. He knows he’s dying. He can’t die without telling Richie the truth. If it’s the very last thing he does, Eddie will make sure that Richie knows how he feels about him.

Pairing: Reddie

Word Count: 3.2k

Warnings: a homophobic slur, cussing, near death

A/N: y’all are probably gonna see a shit ton of these fics around bc we’re dramatic hoes who need to see our boy live and get the ending that he deserves. this is not beta’d, but the spirit hit me and i had to write it. hope y’all enjoy!

AO3 link: here

“I fucked your mom..”

Eddie let out a choked laugh before rather quickly easing off of it, not enjoying the extra dose of pain his body received from moving even a little bit. At least the severe pain he’d been feeling was starting to numb.

Fuck. That’s not what I meant to say.

There was so much he wanted to say.

Eddie had pondered death before. Who didn’t? He had faced it several times, in fact. But it was real, now. Eddie knew that he was dying. He was running out of time.

There was still so much he had to say.

Eddie could hear them talking. He watched them make a run for it so that they could continue the fight. But not Richie. Richie stayed right next to him. Richie.

Richie.

A small smile came onto Eddie’s face as he gripped Richie’s jacket tightly, not even remotely thinking about ever letting go of it. “..h-hey, Rich...?”

“Shh.. save your energy, Eddie. I’m getting you out of here as soon as I can. But until then, shut the hell up.” Richie whispered as he held onto Eddie tightly, and Eddie watched as Richie’s eyes flickered back and forth between him and the horror that their friends were trying to overcome.

Eddie loved that about Richie. That trashmouth idiot might always talk a lot of shit, but he cared. He cared about them. Richie cared about him.

For so long, Eddie had tried to deny it. Even when he left and his memories became repressed, Eddie had always known that something had been missing. He’d known that his marriage with Myra was safe, but it wasn’t what he wanted.

Coming back home and seeing that goofy grin and huge bifocals made him remember.

Now he was at death’s door and Eddie knew it was now or never. If he didn’t say it now, he would never get the chance to. He had already lost that opportunity once.

“R-Richie...”

“No.” Eddie stared over the side of Richie’s face in confusion, shakily reaching one of his hands up to cup Richie’s cheek that was wet. Richie was crying. “You’re not leaving me, alright? Whatever you have to say, just don’t. You can tell me once we get out of here.”

There was something in Richie’s tone. It took Eddie a second, but he was quick to pick up on it. It was desperation. Richie was scared. Richie didn’t want to face what was happening.

Eddie could feel his vision fading in and out, just wanting to close his eyes. But they were almost there. Eddie could feel it.

He also had something to say before that. He had to say it.

“Richie--” He could see Richie gearing up to interrupt him again, a fire in his eyes, but Eddie rushed to get it out before that could happen. “I love you..”

He watched as Richie froze momentarily, any berating dying in his throat. Eddie didn’t care what happened after this. He just needed Richie to know the truth before he left the world. If he died, if they all died, he just wanted Richie to know how he really felt about him. His best friend. The boy who made terrible mom jokes and baited Eddie like no other. The boy who never shut up but made him laugh all the time. The boy who didn’t want to share the hammock when his ten minutes was up.

Now they were adults, but Eddie didn’t feel any differently. Richie was the same person he had loved all that time ago.

“H-hey, what’d I tell you? No more bombshells until I get you out of here. Give a guy a ch-chance to stop shitting his pants before--” Richie choked up, unable to finish, but all Eddie could do was smile fondly at him―the same person he’d fell in love with.

Eddie’s eyes fluttered closed, his thumb softly stroking over the flesh of Richie’s cheek and feeling hot tears continuously flowing. “Please open your eyes, Eds. We--we’re almost there. You have to wait for me to say it back.”

"Don’t... call me Eds...” He barely got out through a chuckled whisper. Eddie couldn’t hold on any longer. He felt drained and he just wanted to sleep. So he did.

---

Lights. That was the first thing. Lights.

Then there was noise. It sounded muffled, but it was there. The muffling noises slowly began to turn into ringing, and then the ringing shifted into voices.

After that? That was when sensation started to return. There was a tingling sensation in both his arms and legs and Eddie felt like it was impossible to move. Along with that, it felt like his whole entire chest was burning and he wanted that to stop. Except, it was as if he were in a fog; A half-sleep, half-awake state.

But then there was a gasp that made his muscles twitch with a jolt of fear. That had been much louder than the voices he heard in the background. It wasn’t until he heard a familiar voice practically screaming for a doctor that Eddie realized something.

He wasn’t dead.

Blearily, Eddie began to blink his eyes open slowly and drowsily, everything a blur to his vision. He wasn’t all the way there yet. All he knew was that he wasn’t dead and that Richie was there.

That was enough comfort for Eddie to give in to the wave of exhaustion that kept trying to pull him back under.

---

This second time around was a lot more unpleasant.

Where before he had been slowly trying to adjust to becoming conscious once again, this time had no compulsion or the sympathy to make his awakening less harsh.

Eddie could feel something in his mouth and throat that was making it difficult to breathe and immediately, he reached his left arm up to try and pull out the offending device, eyes still closed and the action more subconscious than anything else.

But a hand grabbed onto his and stopped him, easily lowering his hand back down to the bed. “Hey, relax. Open your eyes, Eds.”

That voice.

It was like that was all he needed and after blinking a few times, Eddie was finally seeing.

There Richie was, sitting right on the bed next to him and looking like he hadn’t seen a shower in weeks.

Eddie tried to grumble something, but the tube prevented him from speaking and again, he attempted to reach up to dislodge it, but Richie was still holding onto his hand and keeping him from doing so.

“Someone is coming right now.” He heard a female’s voice and turned his head slowly to see Beverly standing at the door, her arms crossed over her chest and a look of relief on her face.

Now that he was starting to come to even more, he could see that the others were there too, every pair of eyes trained on him. It didn’t take Eddie long to figure out they were at the hospital, but now he had to recall how he got there in the first place.

It.

Eddie could feel a small dread building up in his stomach, and it was like that reaction was enough to remind him of the fact that he was injured, feeling a pang in his lower shoulder that started to throb the faster his heart began to beat.

“Eddie, breathe.” His eyes flickered right back over to Richie again, watching tears stream down Richie’s face. “It’s okay. You’re okay. We did it.”

We did it.

Before he could even try to process it, they weren’t alone anymore.

Hours later, after the assisting tube removal, multiple test, and pain-killer induced sleeping, Eddie was finally coming to. This time, he was alert.

He looked around the dark hospital room and his friends were no longer there, but there was one person there in the chair besides his bed, body draped over and face pushed into Eddie’s bed.

A fond smile came onto Eddie’s lips and his hand moved to rest against the top of Richie’s head, gently running fingers through his hair. There was so many questions Eddie had, but he didn’t think he could voice any of them. He was just so relieved. He was relieved that he wasn’t dead; Relieved that he saw the others were okay; Relieved that Richie was here.

It was foggy, but Eddie remembered. He remembered entering Neibolt. He remembered going to the well. He remembered entering its lair deep in the ground. He remembered the horror and he remembered saving Richie, only to feel the worst pain he had ever felt in his lower right shoulder―it felt like he had completely lost that part of his torso.

Eddie’s gaze hesitantly drifted over to his right side and he saw a huge white bandage running down his arm, a sling holding it up. The discomfort he felt throbbing there, pain muted by the opioids, let him know that he hadn’t lost that side like he had been so sure he had.

Swallowing hard, he turned to look back at Richie and felt a shock run through his system when his eyes met with a pair of gorgeous blue ones.

“You’re awake.” They both said at the same time.

Richie snorted and started to sit up, and Eddie placed his now-free hand into the bedding, pushing so that he could sit up as well. He winced at the wave of pain the sudden movement created, hissing low.

“Hey, take it easy.” Richie said, his tone laced with concern as he stood and helped Eddie to sit up against propped-up pillows. Eddie threw Richie a fleeting, but thankful smile as he settled again. “You’re acting like you didn’t get skewered by a demonic spider clown.”

Eddie glared at Richie playfully, but his expression immediately softened when he looked over Richie again. Richie looked like he hadn’t slept in days and despite the joking, he could tell that his best friend was still shaken up.

“It’s okay, Rich.. we did it, right..?” Eddie’s voice was a little rough and quiet from disuse, but he knew that Richie could hear him.

Richie let out a soft sigh as he sat on the edge of Eddie’s bed, and Eddie couldn’t help the warmth that shot up his spine when Richie was grabbing onto his hand. “Yeah, we.. it’s dead. For good, I think.”

Thank fuck.

Silence soon settled between them and Eddie suddenly remembered his confession just before he caved into unconsciousness, causing a bright red blush to take over his face and for the hand Richie was still holding onto to feel like it was on fire.

He should probably say something.

“Rich--”

Eddie stopped short when he heard a quiet sniffle, and his gaze lifted from their hands to look at Richie who was crying again. He could feel his heart break a little at the sight, confused as to why Richie was crying if it was finally over.

He didn’t have to wait long for an answer.

“Don’t do that to me again.” It was whispered, but Eddie could hear a pin drop in the silence of the room. It was like the air was vacuumed so that he and Richie could talk without any interruption or overhearing. “You... you didn’t wait for me to say that I love you too.”

Eddie could feel his face becoming hot again, the heat rushing through his body and making him shudder involuntarily as tears began to develop in his eyes. Richie loved him too. “Richie...”

“No, Eddie. They thought you died, that you would die if you weren’t already dead, but I didn’t care. We carried you because I knew.. I didn’t know, but I just didn’t fucking care. I needed you to be okay and for fucks sake, if you weren’t, I wasn’t gonna leave you down there. Eddie, just let me―I have always been in love with you, okay? Ever since we were stupid fucking teenagers. I wanted to tell you back then. I did. But.. I was so fucking scared. I couldn’t lose you. I would rather have you in my life than not at all. We all know how they treated fags, right? I should have known you would never be like that.”

There was an intensity in Richie’s voice that had Eddie in awe, unable to blink or speak. Richie had loved him this entire time? “Even... even when I forgot, there was always something missing. Not just our childhoods or friendships or family, but you, Eddie. I might not have been able to name it, but fuck, it’s always been you, Eddie.”

Richie’s voice grew weak, probably from trying not to sob, and Eddie knew he needed a moment. Gently, he broke his hand from Richie’s grasp and moved it to cup Richie’s cheek instead, giving him a watery smile as tears silently streamed down Eddie’s face as well.

“You know, Richie.. I would watch your comedy specials sometimes. I.. of course, I couldn’t remember you. But I would always laugh. I would sit there thinking ‘god, this idiot reminds me of someone who I grew up with’. I was always on the cusp. Always so fucking wistful whenever I watched those specials.

“S-so... y’know.. you weren’t the only one missing something. It took me coming back here to realize that I married someone who was exactly like my mom.” Eddie made a face of distaste, gently slapping at Richie’s shoulder when he laughed at the revelation. “Fuck off, alright? It’s fucked up, I know. But Myra was safety, Rich. I.. I didn’t have to think about the way I felt about other men when I had her constantly reminding me that I had to be good.

“I thought I was gonna die down there, Richie. I knew that if I died, if we all died, that I needed you to know the truth of how I felt about you. You made me feel like it was okay to be myself. You.. you just make me feel okay, Richie―”

Eddie cut off short when he suddenly felt a warm pair of lips pressing to his and he was already melting, eyes wide and body shaking from it.

It was too quick. The kiss was only for a moment and Eddie couldn’t stop the soft whine he let out when Richie pulled away before he could kiss him back.

His hand shot up, fingers brushing over his lips as he stared at Richie shyly with a bright red blush on his face. It definitely made him feel better to see Richie’s ears flushed just as brightly, looking as if he would freak out at any second.

Eddie couldn’t let that happen, could he?

Thankfully, Richie hadn’t gone too far and Eddie was able to lean in and close the space between their lips again, kissing Richie with a tenderness he hadn’t realized he was capable of. Once he felt Richie relax and kiss him back, his hand moved to the back of Richie’s neck, allowing their connection to continue for a little while longer.

When they pulled away this time, they both were a little breathless and Eddie couldn’t help the smile that found his face when he saw Richie grinning at him.

“I’m not letting you go this time. I swear it.” Richie promised. Eddie’s eyelashes fluttered when he felt Richie cup his cheeks and he sighed quietly when Richie pressed a small peck to his lips.

“Good. I don’t want you to. Now, tell me where the others went and how you were able to stay.” Eddie demanded as he relaxed back into the pillows, and Richie grinned sheepishly at Eddie after dropping his hands.

“I might have lied and told them that I was your husband.”

“Richie, what?! What the hell were you thinking? You know that they can figure out if that shit isn’t true, right?”

“Oh, relax, spaghetti. I had to find a way fucking somehow, didn’t I? S’not like it won’t be true in the future.”

Eddie could feel his heart squeeze hard in his chest and he knew that he was fucked in the best way possible. He would have to deal with Richie ‘the trashmouth’ Tozier for the rest of his life, now.

He was okay with that.

---

“Richie, I thought we were meeting with the others one last time.”

Eddie huffed out as he followed Richie across the bridge, wishing he could take his itchy cast off. He had broken in his arm in several places and apparently had been lucky that his arm wasn’t gone, or better yet, that he wasn’t dead. Eddie knew that he had almost died a few times, but he liked to believe that he had held out for his friends. For Richie.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.. Look, I just have one thing to show you, and then we’ll go. Calm that cute ass of yours down.” Richie winked, and Eddie rolled his eyes playfully at his boyfriend.

“You’re the worst.” He mumbled out as they finally seemed to walk up to what Richie wanted him to see. “What’s this? Oh god, Richie, did you really just take me to this damn―“

Eddie stopped short when he saw what Richie had crouched down in front of, and he was soon walking in closer and bending down to see if he hadn’t been imagining it.

‘R +’

Was that...?

Eddie could feel tears springing into his eyes when Richie held out a pocket knife to him, his gaze warm and excited. “I.. I started it a long time ago. I.. was hoping you would finish it.”

The breath was knocked out of Eddie and he let out a choked laugh before he carefully grabbed the knife and started to kneel, helped down by Richie.

‘R + E’

The E was faded, but it was there. He had never doubted that Richie meant it when he said he had feelings for Eddie back then, but Eddie didn’t know he had done this. So many times, he walked past this bridge without thinking twice about it, and this secret had been etched there for years for only the two of them.

Eddie glanced over at Richie with nothing but love and fondness in his teary eyes, and then he got to work with his left hand. It was a little shaky because it wasn’t his dominant hand (and also because he was trying not to cry - god, Richie was such a sap), but the job got done and Eddie could feel his chest tightening. It was completed.

He thanked Richie quietly once he was helped back onto his feet, and once the pocketknife was put away, Eddie was quick to grab Richie’s hand. “Okay, loverboy. We’re etched into this bridge forever. How about we go say goodbye before we go home?”

There was no way he was going anywhere that Richie wasn’t. California had just as many people who needed limo services and it was about time that he expanded his business anyway.

When instead of a verbal answer, he got a kiss, Eddie’s eyes fluttered closed and he pressed into it, feeling a happiness he couldn’t describe.

“Yeah, guess we can go say goodbye to those fucking losers.” Richie smiled, starting to lead Eddie back the way they’d come.

Everything would be okay. They were all okay. It was over. They had defeated It, and now, they all had each other again.

#more to come #hope y'all like it! #*mine #reddie #reddie fanfiction #reddie fanfic #my reddie fanfiction #fanfic #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #bill denbrough #stan uris #ben hanscom #mike hanlon #beverly marsh #the losers club #pennywise #it chapter two #it chapter two spoilers #it #it spoilers #it 2019 #it movie #fluff #angst #near death #fix it au #one shot

[softest-cinnamon-roll]

Did Eddie kill his mum!? If he did, good for him. Also I need a part 2 to the snow prompt I beg of u 🥺

you asked and I delivered. This is part two to this, and set from Eddie’s point of view. 

trigger warning: mentions of conversion therapy

* * * * *

Eddie was quiet on the ride to the station, his eyes glancing out the window at the houses and trees covered in snow. Tears built up in his eyes, but he refused to break down, there was no way he was breaking down in front of the officers. He closed his eyes, but all he could see was a repeat of the events that had taken place that night, all leading up to the look of horror on Richie’s face as he was dragged away.

He wondered how long he’d get in prison for what happened. Ten years? Twenty? LIfe? His mother was dead now, all because of him, all because he couldn’t do as he was told. Eddie’s eyes moved from the window to his arms, which were slowly beginning to bruise, the scratches turning a harsh red colour.

The car suddenly came to a stop, and the officers stepped out, opening the door to pull Eddie out by his cuffed hands. They lead him into the station and through a set of double doors into a pale grey room with a single table and two chairs. It didn’t take a genius to know that this was an interrogation room, and that he was about to be questioned on what happened in the house, less than an hour ago.

“Take a seat, Mr Kasbrak. Someone will be with you shortly.” One of the officers stated as he sat Eddie down in the chair, like he wasn’t capable of doing it himself. Maybe he wasn’t. A thousand thoughts were swirling around in his head, and before the officer could leave the room, Eddie turned around to catch his attention.

“L-Lawyer…” Eddie croaked out, his eyes widening at the sound of his own voice. It hadn’t sounded like that earlier when he had spoken to Richie, but then again the adrenaline was starting to wear off and the pain was beginning to settle in. Carefully, Eddie lifted his hand to his throat, tears springing into his eyes at the pain. “I- I want a- a lawyer.”

The officer just nodded, leaving the room and slamming the door closed. The ringing echoed in Eddie’s ears and he moved his hands from his throat to cover them up, resting his head on the table in front of him. As he closed his eyes, he let his mind take him back to the beginning of the night, to before everything fell to shit.

“Oh come on Eds, are you sure you don’t want to come to the arcade with Bill and me? It’ll be fun! I’ll even let you win a few games.” Eddie rolled his eyes as Richie practically begged him down the line to hang out with them. Of course, Eddie wouldn’t usually pass up on a chance to get out of the house and spend time with his boyfriend, but his mother had been…acting stranger that day and he didn’t think sneaking out of his window would work that night.

“I can’t,” Eddie sighed eventually. “I have…stuff I need to do.” The lie was pathetic, and Eddie knew Richie would know he was making excuses, he just hoped for once that Richie would let it go. He’d see him the next day anyway, as they had all planned to hang out at the clubhouse. “I’ll see you tomorrow though. I promise.”

He could hear the hesitation in Richie’s sigh, but he eventually caved and they said their goodbyes. A few moments later, his mother called him from downstairs. The tone of her voice was harsh, and Eddie felt a sick feeling rise in his stomach, yet he followed her orders and went down the stairs.

The rest of the evening passed by tensely, with Eddie sitting on the couch and his mother sitting on her armchair, staring aimlessly at the screen. Once her show was done, she flicked off the TV and turned so she was facing Eddie, only making his anxiety grow. “Eddie-bear. When were you going to tell me about you and that dirty boy? When were you going to confess that you are defying god and doing ungodly things with that boy?”

Eddie froze up and he looked at his mother with a shocked expression. There was no way she could have known, he was being so careful! Even after she had installed the camera in the hallway, which Eddie knew was to make sure he wasn’t sneaking out at night, he was still careful. “Ma-”

“You are not to see him again, and first thing tomorrow I am taking you to a confessional and we’re going to get you cured.” His mother spoke with no emotion in her voice and Eddie’s heart dropped, tears springing into his eyes. “Don’t start crying, Edward. You did this to yourself.” Within a few seconds, his mother was off the chair and looming over him, wrapping her chubby hand around his wrist, squeezing tight. “No son of mine is going to be the local faggot.”

“Ma- ma you’re hurting me,” Eddie whimpered, tugging his hand to try and get out of her grip, but it only tightened, nails digging into his skin. “Ma, let me go!”

She stared down at him, nothing but hatred in her eyes and for the first time in years, Eddie felt genuine fear around her. ”You are a dirty boy Eddie, and you need to be punished. You need to see that it’s wrong.” She hissed, moving her other hand to attempt to restrain Eddie further. Before she could, Eddie jerked his hand away, removing her grip and he scrambled over the sofa and up the stairs,

He could hear his mother screaming, her feet thundering on the floorboards as she followed him and then banging on his door once he’d slammed and locked it. His heart was racing, tears streaming down his cheeks as  he looked down at his arm, scratched and bleeding. Fuck, his mother had gone insane and he needed to get out of there before she did something terrible.

Quickly, Eddie shoved as many necessary items into an overnight bag and pulled it over his shoulder. He’d go to Richie’s, he was always welcome there, and now that he was eighteen his mother couldn’t say it was kidnapping as he made his own choice. He pulled up his window and was just about to jump when the door opened and a hand was digging into his scalp, pulling him back from the window and towards the door.

“You really do not want to know what I’m capable of Edward,” his mother hissed as she dragged him from his room into the hallway and onto his feet. “Why did you have to go and be such a bad boy? Why couldn’t you have stayed as my precious Eddie-Bear and married a church girl just like I wanted? Why did you have to be dirty Eddie?”

Eddie shook his head, trying to get out of her grip, but she was strong in her anger. “I-I’m not your little boy anymore! I haven’t been for a while! I’m in love with Richie and there is nothing you can do to stop that! No conversion therapy is going to change the fact that I’m gay and you need to accept it!”

At his words, her eyes darkened just a little and Eddie thought that he had finally gotten through to her, that she would finally just accept it and let him go. What he didn’t expect was for her to move her hands to his throat and start to squeeze. “I didn’t want to have to do this Eddie. You were my little boy and I loved you, but I can’t have a fag for a son, I can’t have a dirty, sick boy living under my roof. I am sorry, but this is for your own good, this will cleanse your soul and maybe you’ll be allowed to enter heaven or you will go to hell and repent for your sins.”

It all happened so fast, Eddie’s vision was blacking out the harder that his mother squeezed at his throat, and he knew if he didn’t act then he would be dead in seconds. Hoping to distract her long enough just so he could escape and run for help, Eddie raised his leg and slammed his foot down on his mother’s. She gasped in pain, removing her hands from his throat and backing up towards the stairs. Their eyes met for a moment, a long halted moment before she lost her balance at the top of the staircase, body tumbling backwards as Eddie tried to lunge forward and catch her.

He was too late, her fingers skimming past his own as she fell down, body thumping against the steps and even cracking a few before her head slammed against the large pillar at the bottom of the stairs with a hard, resounding crack. Silence filled the room, barr Eddie’s intense breathing as he stared down at his motionless mother on the floor of their entrance hall. From where he was standing, he could see the blood pouring onto the laminate floor from her head.

Slowly, Eddie moved his trembling body backwards until it hit the wall, allowing the tears of horror to flow.

What the hell had he done?

* * * * *

@3tothe1 @anellope @annxmatron @appojoos @are-you-reddie-for-it @beepbeeprichiellc @bi-bi-richie @billdenbrough @bitchbrak @callmechee @dadbodrichie @derrylosers @disneyfan567 @eds-trashmouth @eduardoandale @feldmancorey @girasol-eddie @gloire-celeste @halfway-happy353 @hawkinsbabe @inthebreadbinwrites @itfandomprompts @its-stranger-than-you-think @jem-carstairs-is-perfection @kat-ships-everything @lifesucksheres20bucks @loserslibrary @losers-gotta-stick-together @madidraw @mars-14 @marsisaplanetyall @moonlightrichie @nancynwheeler @no-she-wasnt-reddie @oldguybones @photoboothreddie @pink-psychic @purplepoisonedgem @queen-sock @ransonelovebot @rebecca-the-queen @reddie-for-anything @reddie-to-cryy @reddieforlove @reddiesetandgo @richietoaster  @roobarrtrashmouth @rreddies @s-onora @s-s-georgie @sashadrowned @sedanleystanley @sloppybitchreddie @sparklingrainbowdragon @spirited-marvel @stebbins @stellarbisexual @studpuffin @takeourpure @that-weird-girls-blog @thegoshdiddlydangdoor @thejadeazalea @thorn-harvester-ven @tinyarmedtrex @tozier-boy @tozierking @toziesque @trashmouthtozierr @twoidiotsinl0ve @violetreddie @virgo-luthie @wilding-throught-thehallways @xandertheundead  

#reddie #eddie kaspbrak #snow part 2 #tw death #tw sonia kasprak #tw homophobic slurs #writing tag

[reddie-fangirl24]

Shower (A Reddie Fanfiction)

NOTE: This piece is for @itfandomprompts Today’s theme is break-up/first fight. Enjoy!

Leaning against the wall of the shower, Richie took a deep breath, letting the warm water soak his wet hair and drip off his body. Lost in thought, he didn’t realize that the water was scarring hot. Now that his flesh got the message, Ruchie turned down the temperature. It didn’t make him feel any better.

One month. Richie couldn’t even walk into his own kitchen without hearing Eddie’s voice, calling him out that he was a pig, leaving crumbs everywhere. Snapping harsh words that they never meant which lead to a horrible decision, Richie wanted Eddie back.

Maybe it was time to make the move and text him. Oh, what difference did it make? Eddie wasn’t texting him.

Washing himself off with the bar of soap, of course, it had to slip out of his hands. Right when the shower sprayed him in the face, rendering him blind, which he already was without his glasses. Richie heard the soap thud somewhere in the tub. Grumbling to himself, he couldn’t believe how much of an idiot he was! “Shit!” Richie yelled out making the mistake to rub suds into his eyes with his hands.

Blinded by the stinging soap, Richie shifted around trying to find the soap. Better yet, the shower handles. He could just kick himself for how stupid he felt right now. How difficult was it trying to get suds out of one’s eyes?

Everything happened so fast. Slipping on the bar of soap right under his foot, Richie scrambled to grab hold of something. Anything! Grasping the shower curtain, the flimsy material wasn’t strong enough, ripping apart. 

Dazed, Richie felt prickles of water hitting his face. Slowly opening his eyes, Richie found himself on the bathroom floor, the shower curtain was torn off. He couldn’t see anything. Now, he should have gone to that eye examination appointment. Moving his fingers, his eyes, Richie groaned. A little river was oozing in front of him. Red. 

Richie was just barely conscious, knowing that he was going to pass out from the pain. He pushed himself up with his arms. His phone. Where was his phone? Moving his legs, his ankle hurt. He had to do something, What?

Just then, Richie heard a noise. It was his cell phone ringing, but in Richie’s disoriented state of mind, it sounded more like static on a TV. He was in and out at every moment. Richie barely moved an inch trying to heave himself up, with no success. It was no use not doing anything. Blood covered the floor, obviously dripping from his nose. 

The phone. He needed to get his phone. 

His mind must have been playing tricks on him. After some unknown period of time on the bathroom floor, someone was calling out his name. Able to make some coherent sound, right before Richie passed out, Eddie was crying, telling him that he was there, with his cell phone pressed to his ear. 

Sometime later, Richie woke up, lying in a comfortable bed, tucked under a warm blanket. His vision was distorted. Without his glasses he was blind. Just from all the random beeps and voices, he knew that he must have been in the hospital. He knew those places all too well. 

“Hey, Rich,” a familiar voice greeted him. Gently, his glasses were placed around his face. Finally, able to see, Eddie was the greatest sight for sore eyes. Literally.

“Eds!” Moving his arm was painful.

Eddie relaxed a hand on his shoulder to refrain Richie from moving. “Hey, you have a lot of recovering to do! You took a bad fall. You twisted your ankle, the doctors think you cracked a rib, and you broke your nose.”

“The soap won,” Richie mumbled tiredly. That was obviously for some comedy effect. 

Scooting his chair closer, accidentally made a loud noise, Eddie couldn’t hide the tears any longer. Dark circles covered the bottom of his eyes. Richie knew what he was thinking about. This was the first time they saw each other in a month! A month since the argument.

“How did you find me?” Richie asked him. He just needed to look at Eddie. Looking at his beautiful face always made him feel better.

“I called you,” Eddie told him, his voice close to tears. “I know you always answer your phone, even when you’re on stage! So, I rushed over, and there you were on the floor with blood everywhere! I-I thought you were dead!”

Richie grasped his arm, trying to calm him down. At least that was something he could hold onto. Knowing that Eddie always worked himself up to the point that he spirals into a panic attack, he tried to calm him down in whatever way he could. Oh, what was this month apart like for Eddie? Now, he wished they didn’t let this go on so long. 

“Eds, I’m sorry we had that fight...”

Eddie shook his head, crying in thick heavy sobs. “No, it was my fault! I overreacted! I love everything about you! You can drop crumbs on the floor whenever you want!” He giggled at how absurd the argument was. So did Richie. They both burst into hysterics, toppling on each other. Richie had to stop himself. His insides hurt.

“Am I crying or laughing right now?” Richie caught his breath, still trying to joke. That was a good sign at least.

Eddie kissed his head, cuddling him tightly as the tears rolled off his cheeks. Hospitals were never their favorite place.

“So, we’re okay?” Eddie asked quietly, staring into his eyes.

“Hey, you saved my life!” Despite the pain, Richie managed to wrap an arm around Eddie to bring him closer, even though their faces were already smooshed together. Nothing more needed to be said. Having witnessed a life without one another, Eddie and Richie would never consider a break-up ever again. 

Did you like this story? Donate to my ko-fi page. More stories are to come. Send requests, please.

#Reddie #itfandomprompts #Reddie Fanfiction #It Chapter 2 #It Movie #shower #injury #angst #Reddie comfort #break-up #Eddie Kaspbrak #Richie Tozier

[winkyjinki]

"I almost lost you." and "Hey, I’m with you, okay? Always." for adult reddie :00000 I feel these could also be combined into one ficlet

[I almost lost you.] & [Hey, I’m with you, okay? Always.] - Reddie

Eddie is surrounded by white when he wakes up. White walls, white ceiling, white light, white sheets; that’s all he sees when he forces his eyes to open. And he feels pained and sore all over, trying to scoot himself up on the mattress he’s on and groaning in pain as he does so. He catches a glimpse of the dotted gown he’s wearing and concludes that he’s in the hospital.

Looking around his room, he exhales sharply, almost in disbelief. He distinctly remembers losing consciousness under the Neibolt house. He should be dead.

As his scanning reaches the other side of his room, he notices the large, broad idiot seated close to the window. Arms crossed, he snores lightly with his head against the wall and his mouth open in an unattractive manner. Eddie wouldn’t be surprised if he was drooling before.

But. Richie stayed for him. Eddie thought he had dates in Reno.

“Rich?” Eddie calls out barely loud enough, raising his voice when he sees Richie’s face twitch but no other additional movement. “Richie.”

“Hm?” Richie hums, stirring awake. “Huh—Oh.” He scrambles out of his chair to his feet upon locking eyes with Eddie.

“Am I—Are we still in Derry?” Eddie asks, knowing it’s a dumb question seeing as how this hospital hasn’t changed at all even though the last time he was here was when he broke his arm at thirteen. Also clown-induced.

Richie makes haste of kneeling at Eddie’s bedside. “Tell me I’m not dreaming right now.”

“Uh, you’re not dreaming—oof—“

As quickly as Richie had scrambled to his feet previously, he does it again to wrap his arms around Eddie’s torso, hugging him as tight as he can without hurting him.

“Jesus Christ, you scared the shit out of me, Eddie. Fuck.” Before he gets to finish speaking, Richie begins to sob, his entire body shaking as he gasps for air between his involuntary shallow breaths. Eddie doesn’t know what to do. He’s never seen Richie cry. At least, he doesn’t remember if he’s seen Richie cry. All he can really do is let him bury his face into the fabric of his hospital gown at his stomach. “I almost lost you.”

“Whoa, hey, it’s okay, Richie,” Eddie says, patting Richie on his back in an attempt to try and soothe him. They stay that way for a couple of moments, Eddie focusing on the sound of Richie’s breathing and sobs calming to a lower volume. “Hey, I’m with you, okay?” He feels Richie nod his head against his stomach. “Always.”

For a second, Eddie thinks that maybe this means something, but he dismisses it. He’ll worry about emotions when he’s out of the hospital.

“Yeah. Yeah,” Richie sniffles, using the sleeve of his jacket to wipe his nose. Gross, Eddie thinks. When Richie pulls himself off of Eddie, he asks, “How are you feelin’, Eds?”

“Shitty.” Eddie answers immediately, eliciting a laugh from Richie. It makes Eddie smile a bit. “I honestly think I’m gonna need more painkillers.”

#here you go angelaaa !! #I hope u like it aaa ;; #asks #my writing #reddie #idk if it's what you had in mind but I still hope you enjoy!!

[nouserideax]

It Chapter 2 soundtrack

Why have I not seen “Nothing Lasts Forever” getting the attention it deserves?

I’m here in tears and I feel so alone

https://youtu.be/W5C-fZzCC2o

#richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #it chap 2 #it chapter two #reddie #the losers club #it 2019 #it chapter 2 #reddie is real #it movie #it stephen king #it 2017 #ben hanscom #mike hanlon #beverly marsh #stanley uris #bill denbrough #it isn’t fair #Eddie should have lived #i’m not reddie to see richie cry over eddie’s dead body #my poor baby Richie is gonna lose Eddie #me: 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 #😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 #😭😭😭 #im 😭😭😭😭😭 #i just 😭😭😭😭 #my heart 😭😭😭😭

[kaspbrak-tozier-reddie]

"Have you ever been to a birthday party for children/And one of the children won't stop screaming/...There's other people, you selfish asshole!" From Bo Burnham's song, for that quote thing? Also this is for Reddie. Thanks :)

Song: Art is Dead by Bo Burnham

Warnings: slight mentions of homophobia, other than that, just pure fluff.

Send quote/prompt and I’ll write a fic

——————————————————————

With Richie being a hotshot comedian now, his manager had decided it was now time to do a meet and greet. Richie not only now performs his own standup comedy shows but is on Saturday Night Live, does movies and tv shows. 

Having a rocky 2.5 years in the comedy industry, Richie’s new beginning seems promising, even Eddie is thrilled. After all, Eddie is the one that forced Richie to fire his writer and old manager due to homophobic jokes, not being able to come out thus shoving him back into the closest; and had jokes that were far too dry and tasteless that even Richie didn’t laugh. They made Stan’s jokes seem laughable now! So with the help of his boyfriend of 2 years, he and Eddie found a new manager.

“Excited for your debut M&G?” Scotty, Richie’s new manager, asks.

“Oh, heck yes!” Richie exclaims as he sets up his table. “Give me a sec.” Richie spots his boyfriend carrying a large bag that he immediately recognises as Eddie’s first aid bag. “Eds, we don’t need that babe.”

“Uh, yes, yes we do. I can’t get sick and neither can you!” Eddie replies placing the bag behind Richie’s chair. “Do you know how many germs are spread around here?”

“I -” Richie starts.

Richie can feel granddad’s wedding ring shift in his pocket, causing Richie to remember why he even has it in the first place. He carries it with him day in day out, ever since the couple’s 1st anniversary. Knowing that any day could be when he chooses to marry the man he’s been in love with since he was 10. 

“It’s a rhetorical question. Okay, long lines in a confide space, you will. Get. Sick.”

Eddie isn’t wrong, it takes only a couple people with a cold or flu to then infect hundreds more. Keeping a load up of hand-sanitizer on hand is important, he places it where it’s hidden but within Richie’s reach. The entire bag contains multiple bottles of water and fruits; as well as all those important tissues and general first aid kit that has been overly stocked with more bandages, band-aids, gauzes and alcohol wipes than it needs. 

But Richie isn’t nervous for the one on one meet and greet, it’s the actual panel where he’s speaking and Eddie refused to come up on the stage with him. He doesn’t know what he’s meant to do, sure he’s done interviews but it was one person, not hundreds. 

“Richie? You ready?” Scotty asks.

“Yeah.”

“Good, ‘cause it’s showtime.” Eddie stands off to the side and gives him the thumbs up and Richie looks everywhere but the stampede of fans coming in. All the other celebrities at the function are relaxed and getting ready but Richie is ready to puke instead of greeting the fans.

Maybe this was all a mistake, Richie thinks to himself. But he loves his fans, if it wasn’t for Eddie he would be on the list of most hated people around the world. Besides, Derry should be on that said list of places to not visit on account on its outdated teachings. 

His negative thoughts come to a halt as his first fan arrives at his station. It’s awkward, he has no idea what to say or do but nonetheless, he’s still sweet, awkward and charming. 

*

After 15 fans come to his table, he’s finally gotten the hang of it and that would also be 15 uses of the hand sanitizer thanks to his boyfriend’s need for hygiene and germaphobia. 

What Richie didn’t expect was his fans to be of a variety of ages, he’s seen kids as young as 12 come by with their parents in tow. Parents dragging their kids with them, the rare elderly citizens come by and not to mention a few whole families; we’re talking kids, parents and grandparents. Richie is blown away.

He sees a break and quickly looks to Eddie, who sits quietly behind the table out of sight. “Holy shit! This is insane!” Richie whispers, his mouth covered by his hands to not be seen as someone who talks to himself.

Eddie looks up from his book, “That’s great. Also, I was thinking that I come on stage with you.”

“That’s great,” Richie looks back briefly. “Oop, more customers.”

Richie can hear Eddie’s giggle and then it stops and a page flips. He accidentally bumps the ring in his pocket, causing him to jolt. Could this be it?

****

A couple of hours later, Richie finally sets up for the panel, the most important event of the day, according to his manager. “Are you sure Eds, I don’t want to seem like I’m forcing you,” Richie says as he gets hooked up to the sound system.

“I want to, the number of fans asking about me… I couldn’t. Also, don’t call me Eds,” Eddie responds and Richie signals for another mic and third chair is brought out to the stage.

There’s another panic attack bubbling in Richie’s throat and blood, he feels like he’s being smothered, he can feel his pulse around his body and hear his heartbeat ringing in his ears. He instinctively turns to look out at the crowd from behind the curtain and sure enough, there are, at least, 200 people. Every ticket for the panel was sold out, he remembers his manager said. Richie and Eddie are signalled out to the stage and manages to get to the chair without an issue and finally looks to the crowd. 

You can do this, he thinks to himself, I’ve got Eddie with me.

“So Richie, in your Netflix Special, you had stated that you are now writing your own material. Why the change?” The host asks; Richie had never really publically stated why the change but he guesses it’s time everyone knew.

“My old manager thought my jokes were too crass and wouldn’t appeal to anyone. He also claimed that self-deprecating or my gay sex jokes wouldn’t appeal. So he kept me in the closest and gave me jokes that I would never have approved.” Richie doesn’t hold back unleashing all his anger out. “I, of course, sued him and won.”

Cheers of approval echoes through and Richie’s tenseness starts to die down, relaxing into the crowd.

“Right, let’s go into the fan questions.”

Richie looks to Eddie and smiles coyly at him, Eddie returns the favour and gently squeezes Richie’s thigh for support. The two looks back at the crowd and straight up the middle are about 15 people ready to ask questions. “Why did it take you so long to leave that manager?” A fan asks.

“I couldn’t break the contract,” Richie explains. “When we were 2 years fresh out of college I had signed with this man and Eddie had gone into risk analysis. I did one gig and immediately wanted to drop him.”

Richie is about to continue when Eddie cuts him off, bringing the mic to his mouth.

“He knew that I delt with contracts and risks so he asked me to look at it. To put it simply, if he left and signed with someone else, he would’ve been in grave debt where it would’ve been damaging and become a whole legal issue.” 

*

Richie smiles at his boyfriend thinking back to the day that he took the godforsaken contract to the young risk analyst. As Eddie looked over the whole contract, he notices the whole fine print, something he knew that Richie would obviously skim over like every other person. Stan would obviously have 6 fits if he caught Richie doing that but alas Eddie isn’t Stan.

The manager had several writers on hand and Eddie looked every single one of them up and sure enough, each writer had a bad review. This man was going to stop Richie’s career before it even began but after 2 years Richie could opt out without any legal penalties. 

Eddie had explained everything to Richie but that still meant that Richie would have to do whatever they said to not face court. Richie, of course, was heartbroken but that was the way that it had to go. But in the comfort of Eddie’s apartment, he kissed him and Eddie kissed him back until he had pushed Richie away.

“Richie, you’re seeing someone. I can’t -” Eddie had said.

“I don’t care, I like you. Eds, I’m gay and I’m seeing someone against my will,” Richie tries to reason.

“That - that doesn’t matter.”

I broke his heart but he knew that Eddie was right. Natalie was lovely, no matter the circumstance he couldn’t hurt her.

****

“Eddie with Richie being a comedian, have you met any other comedians?” A fan asks Richie’s boyfriend.

“I have actually. Bo Burnham and John Mulaney,” Eddie replies. “In fact, Bo Burnham has a very relatable song called Art is Dead. It’s the epitome of Richie.”

“Oh, how so?” Richie presses. 

Sure he’s met Bo Burnham but he hasn’t really listened to his stand up shows, all he knows is that he makes funny songs. Eddie is often raving about a few of Bo’s songs but that’s about it, Eddie’s never gotten him to actually listen to them.

“Okay, so young Richie was an asshat and that’s just putting it lightly. Anyway, there’s this line, ‘Have you ever been to a birthday party for children, and one of the children won’t stop screaming?’” The crowd laughs, “I can guarantee you that Richie often did this, for all 6 of us and if we were lucky, also his own party, making it all 7.“ 

Richie just starts to laugh knowing full well that it was him as a child, he mouths ‘true’ to the audience, causing more and more laughter before Eddie’s voice starts to echo back through the speakers.

“Richie always craved the attention, as mentioned in the song, but one line that I use often is, ‘There’s other people, you selfish asshole!’“ Richie tries to contain his laughter but he burst and tears start to stream down his face as he laughs the hardest he has in years, from a joke that wasn’t his own. 

Nobody can break him but somehow his boyfriend explaining how Bo Burnham’s song is relatable just makes him burst into tears from laughter. Even Stan’s dry and sarcastic wit wasn’t enough to make him cry, in laughter, when they were kids or even now as adults. It’s physically impossible.

“I hope a lot of you got that on camera, me crying; nobody has been able to do that ever!” Richie exclaims as he wipes away the tears from under his eyes. Now it’s Eddie’s turn to laugh vigorously. 

But at that moment, Richie knows, he knows that the man right beside him, laughing in absolute joy, is the man he wants to spend the rest of his life with. Normally he’d forget about his granddad’s ring during the day until he got home and has taken his pants off. But now as the thought continues to creep into his brain, the ring feels like it’s burning a hole in his pocket, wanting to escape.

*

“How long have you two been friends for before you got together?” Another fan asks 

“About 3 decades of friendship and 2 years as boyfriends,” Eddie confirms.

“It would’ve been 4 maybe 5 years of being boyfriends if I didn’t have that shitty manager.” In Richie’s peripheral vision, he can see Eddie’s shocked face. “Don’t act surprised, I flirted with you through all of middle school to college.” Eddie laughs as does the crowd.

Richie knows it’s too soon but maybe this is the way it is meant to happen, how he is meant to ask Eddie to marry him. He’d be bloody stupid to not do it when he has known that Eddie is the only one for him ever since Bowers’ cousin in the arcade back when he was 14. 

The ring in his pocket becomes Richie’s main focus, not the fans; if he takes it out… 

“Rich? You good?” Eddie asks.

“Huh? Oh uh, yeah. Yeah, I’m fine,” Richie stammers. “Next question.”

“You said that you suffer from anxiety, how do you manage it when you’re on stage?” A young girl asks, she’s probably no more than 16, she fidgets with her fingernails as she speaks and it becomes that she’s nervous.

“Don’t be nervous hun, it’s okay, I am too,” Richie states and the crowd ‘awe’s’ causing Richie to chuckle. “I know if I’m having an anxiety attack and it’s become part of my everyday life so I find it’s best to act as if it’s not there. It’s partially because I’m too lazy to get therapy.”

That’s the truth, any time he gets an anxiety attack he knows he’s not dying especially since Eddie has explained it to him. It’s annoying but therapy is just too bothersome, he has to try to fit it in with his busy schedule and then he’ll probably have to get anti-anxiety pills or anti-depressants to stop the anxiety attacks.

“But, if Eddie is by my side then all my anxiety tends to go away,” Richie finishes and quickly digs into his pocket, fiddling with the ring in his pocket. It’s hidden away from the way he’s sitting which is the important thing.

But he’s unsure of what to do, does he do it now in front of hundreds? Or does he do it later at a restaurant? If he does it now and Eddie says ‘no’ then that’s going to leave an awkward 25 minutes left of the panel. 

He looks back at Eddie. 

“If you ever get married, would you become Richie Kaspbrak or Eddie Tozier or Richie and Eddie Kaspbrak-Tozier?” Richie’s eyes almost pop out of his head, the pain is unbearable, he needs to break, he wants to break but it’s an impulsive move to propose without thinking it through. 

He hasn’t thought of how he would do it.

Hasn’t thought of what he’d say.

“I uh,” Eddie faulters, “100% Eddie Tozier, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Richie chokes on his saliva and bursts into a coughing fit, what the fuck?

“You for real, Eds?” Richie questions, he takes one look at the audience, who are anticipating on what happens next, then back to Eddie. 

“If you’re taking it as a proposal, I don’t thi-” Eddie’s cut off by Richie holding a white gold plated ring. “Are you -” The look in Richie’s eyes is enough for Eddie to take the ring and place it right on his finger. Sure enough, it is, surprisingly a perfect fit.

“Ask him!” Some dude yells from the crowd, a chorus erupts and causes Richie to fall from his chair and onto one knee.

“I know this isn’t a restaurant and is entirely impulsive but it wouldn’t be me if it wasn’t. I love you, have since we were 10, instead of it being hypothetical, will you truly become Edward Tozier? Marry me?”  

“Yes,” Eddie replies pulling Richie up from the floor, the crowd erupts as he kisses Richie’s cheek before sending him back to his own seat. 

“Next question?” Richie says.

#reddie #richie x eddie #eddie x richie #edward kaspbrak #eddie kaspbrak #richard tozier #richie tozier #it chapter 1 #it chapter 2

[trickkombowerskru]

Welcome Back-Henry Bowers Imagine

Request: Anonymous: Can you do an imagine where the reader was apart of the losers club and when they come back to kill pennywise she see's henry and is like really mad at him for all the stuff he did but like still happy to see him after all that time

A/N: I am so sorry for the long wait, thank you for being so patient  with me anon. 💕 Also this unintentionally turned into like 25% a Reddie fic near the end that wasn’t the intention, but that’s just where it went

Warnings: Angst and Slight canon divergence obviously

It felt strange being back in Derry, especially considering the circumstances were anything but welcoming. The air was thick with an unspoken tension and while you were elated to see your friends again after all this time, the unknowing doom you would soon face was hard not to think about. That along with finding out about what happened to Stan, it was almost too much. 

You were in your room playing with your token for the ritual, it was a necklace, one you had once promised you'd never take off. It was a simple necklace just with a single fake red stone in the middle of it. And boy after some of those memories coming back to you did you need a drink, but before you could get one Eddie came bolting out of the bathroom with blood spurting from his cheek.You along with Bev, Ben, and Richie  rushed over to him, trying to stop the bleeding. 

"Holy shit!"

"Uh guys Bowers is in my room."

And just like that the pin on the grenade was pulled and every single memory flooded back, and hit like a tidal wave.

"You guys patch Eds up, I know how to handle him." 

"You handled him alright," Richie quips 

"Rich just shut the fuck up and help him okay."

Richie snickers to himself, shaking his head as Bev attempts to calm Eddie down.As you rush into the bathroom, you take a deep breath, not sure if you're ready for what lies inside.The sound of the door opening wider catches Henry's attention.He looks at you wide eyed, paying no mind to the knife that was now in his stomach. 

You could see his face contort almost like he was at war with his mind before blinking a few times and coming out of whatever trance like state he was in before. Probably the same one that fucker had him under when you were kids.

"Y......Y/N?" Henry questions in a tone of awe and hurt.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"You um you got a little...."

He looks down at the knife.

"Oh shit!"

He quickly pulls it out, ripping off a piece of shower curtain for a makeshift bandage. Looking into those deep blue eyes of his made you feel like you were 13 again. With those memories came all of the feelings, feelings of anger for all the shit he put your friends through, feelings of empathy from the times you've seen his soft side, and mainly feelings of shock that he was even still alive. 

Not knowing what else yo do you wrap your arms around him. It catches him off guard, making him stumble for a moment before reciprocating it. You and Henry's history was complicated to say the least. You were never fully together, publicly at least but you sure sneaked around with him. He was nearly your first everything, first boyfriend, first date, first kiss, had everything not gone down that summer eventually he probably would've been your first time too.

"I'm pissed you stabbed Eddie in the face, but shit I'm so glad you're okay. I mean fuck I thought you were dead."

"Might as well have been. Getting thrown into that shithole."

He sees your look of confusion

"After the fuckin' clown messed with my head, I got blamed for his shit when they found the old fatfuck's body, they chucked me into the damn loony bin. I've been stuck in there all this time, until the clown came back, made me go wild again and helped me escape with a damn zombie version of Hockstetter."

"Oh my God."

"Yeah. Good to see somethings never change though," he smiles at you when he sees the necklace on.

"You could say that," chuckling while eyeing his mullet.

"Come on let me take you to my room. I'll actually get you patched up properly, and talk them into letting you stay we're back to kill that fucking thing once and for all and God knows you've got more than enough reasons to help."

When he removes his shirt you can't help but let your eyes travel down to his abs, it's amazing that he's stayed in such good shape while in there. He hisses as you apply some antiseptic before applying the bandage. There's a comfortable silence between the two of you before he breaks it.

"I-uh...I saw you on some magazines and shit when I was there. You some fancy model now huh Darlin'?"

Hearing that nickname come from him again sets your heart on fire, "Yeah. I do some modeling here and there."

Once he's fully patched up you head downstairs where you see that Bev and Richie took care of Eddie...well really Eddie probably took care of himself. Richie cuts in mid explanation.

"Uh uh no way. No fucking way can he stay here. How do we know he won't go off the deep end and slit our throats in our sleep?"

"Richie please! I promise I'll make sure that doesn't happen. I mean he has more of a reason than any of us to want IT dead. That thing ruined his entire life!"

"Yeah and he used to ruin ours."

"Rich....come on. Besides tell me you wouldn't feel safer with him on our side for once."

Richie bites his tongue and sighs sighs knowing you're right.

"Fine.....fine, but if he kills me in my sleep you're paying for my funeral.", Richie concludes making you roll your eyes.

"Well don't give me a reason to wanna kill you Trashmouth and you won't have anything to fuckin' worry about," Henry sasses back, getting a slight laugh from the rest of the group. 

That night for the first time in a while since before you even came back here you slept soundly, Henry holding you in his arms, had the circumstances not been what they were, there would be an almost peaceful vibe that night. The next day you explained the plan to Henry and were off. 

Now after literally almost being crushed to death and Henry almost getting beaten to death by his father, you two saved each other and were on the way with the rest of the gang to as Richie put it "Kill this fucking clown.

You were all fighting with all your might, when you got thrown against a wall, regaining strength just in time to look up and see Eddie get impaled by one of IT's claws.

"Eddie!," you scream in horror as you watch the claw come out at his barley alive body limply fall to the ground. You quickly run over with the rest of them, watching Richie desperately try to stop the bleeding and save him, and hearing him weakly let Richie know he has something to tell him. 

"I fucked your mom."Richie lets out a broken chuckle, before his face falls as Eddie's breathing shallows even more. 

He begs him to hold up while you all once and for all get rid of that thing. Mike ripping out IT's heart and crushing it. You all gather up at the quarry, after Richie had to be dragged away from the crumbling Neibolt house and you notice your scars faded away. Henry kept his distance as the rest of you comforted him. 

That night as you were packing everything was set, you had paid off the asylum, and Henry would be coming with you back to your place the next day, Ben and Beverly were off together as well, Bill was going back to his place, and Mike would be making the prep to finally go and see Florida. 

Your heart broke thinking of how Richie was going back alone, whether he would tell you or not because you were like the group therapist back then you knew how much he loved Eddie, how he would've done anything to have been able to bring him back to LA with him and get him out if being married to his mother. 

Once you drifted off to sleep this weird feeling you had earlier intensified and in your dream you saw it. You saw the Neibolt house crumble down with Eddie's body inside, but then the strangest thing happened. 

You saw Eddie slowly breathing again, before coming to full consciousness, and freaking out about being trapped underground. You heard him crying about how he probably really would die down there because you all thought he was dead anyway. And you could feel your heart wrench at the thought. Before anyone left that next morning you told them all about your dream. 

Once again you all trekked back to the now empty sight of the house with shovels in hand,ready to hopefully rescue Eddie. You dug and dug for hours before Richie started crying saying it was probably just hopeless and that Eddie was really gone. 

You were going to agree until Ben threw his shovel back and you could hear something and it sounded like Eddie extremely muffled you keep digging and sure enough Eddie's arm can be seen. Once you have enough dirt out of the way you all pull him up.

"Eds!," Richie exclaims practically clings onto him before you join up into a group hug. 

Richie turns to you, the tears now being happy ones.

"Thank you."

You smile and nod as you all laugh at Eddie going right back to being annoyed at Richie for calling him 'Eds' like nothing changed. The entire way back you laugh as Eddie goes on about how filthy he is and how there "Is dirt in places where there shouldn't be dirt." 

Once Eddie gets cleaned up and you all finish packing, you part ways, Richie finally having the guts to confess and Eddie more than feeling the same way heading out with him. You smile watching them walk out, but before you leave, Henry moves his hands to have a grip on your hips.

"Henry what are doing?""Soemthin' I've been wantin' to do again for all these years."

One of his hands moves to cup your face and he kisses you, you kiss back and once again it felt like nothing had changed, it felt as perfect as you remember it did. And now with Henry here to stay you could have those perfect moments as much as you wanted. 

#it 2017 #it chapter 2 #the bowers gang #henry bowers #henry bowers imagine #henry bowers x reader #nicholas hamilton #teach grant

[thoughtfullyyoungduck]

Pain

A/N: this was requested by @reddie-fangirl24​ thank you for requesting, I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think! 

Summary:  Can you write a fix where Richie has to tend to Eddie’s wound. After being discharged from the hospital the wound still requires mending by doctors orders.

Being stabbed by an intergalactic monster, Eddie decided, was no fun at all. He groaned, trying to pull himself upright for the fifth fucking time, and he was getting irritated. It finally worked this time, though the stitches in his abdomen protested against the movement, and all Eddie really wanted to do was lie back down.

He was still so tired, even after a week of being discharged, and two weeks before that him being in the hospital. The doctor had warned him about the side effects of the medication, that it would make him dead tired and would make him feel like he was out of it, but the stab wound hurt way too much to go without it.

He was gradually taking less and less of the painkiller, but Eddie didn’t feel any more energized. He was crawling out of his skin. When he woke up in the hospital, both Richie and Myra by his bedside, he had mumbled that he wanted a divorce, before promptly falling back asleep. Richie later told him that Myra had a fit, and Richie himself had been freaking out, but all Eddie was aware of was utter and overwhelming contentment.

He had survived pennywise, claimed he wanted a divorce, and he was fairly certain that the man he had been in love with since he was twelve was in love with him too. Eddie was ready to jumpstart into his new life, to move out his stuff, to find a new job and to go on a vacation with his new boyfriend because goddamnit they deserved it.

After everything they had been through, they fucking deserved it. But it turns out that getting almost deadly wounded took a lot more energy than Eddie had accounted for, and so he spend his days in a haze, even despite the fact that he wanted to be fully aware of Richie at all times.

It made him feel guilty towards Richie, that he didn’t really do anything besides eat, sleep and get his bandages replaced. Which he couldn’t even do himself. It was Richie who needed to disinfect the giant scar just under his chest, and above his major organs.

Eddie didn’t really want him to do that. Not because he didn’t trust Richie, in fact Richie had never left his bedside when he was in the hospital, so he knew Richie was perfectly capable of doing it, but he didn’t want Richie to feel like his caregiver.

They were supposed to be in the honeymoon phase, the weeks were they couldn’t keep their hands of each other and would go on dates and actually do stuff together, but Eddie couldn’t. And he was getting tired and sick of not doing anything. Which is why he forces himself of the bed, stumbling towards the bathroom, hoping that the disinfect and cream lay there, because he was convinced he wouldn’t be able to walk towards the living room.

Richie’s t-shirt, in which he slept and so spent pretty much the entire day in, was sliding of his shoulders, but he didn’t bother trying to fix it. Eddie was already heaving, leaning against the wall with a huff.

He refuses to give up though, taking a second to prepare himself before walking forward again. He hopes there’s a long line at the supermarket, and that Richie won’t be home for a little while. If he saw Eddie out of bed he’d freak out.

When Eddie finally makes it out of the bathroom, he feels like could cry from happiness. He sits down harshly at the edge of the bathtub, wincing when it jolts his body, but at least he made it.

Their cat, which Richie annoyingly dubbed Mouse, much to his delight and Eddie’s annoyance, comes crawling up the bathtub next to him. For some reason the cat had taken a liken towards Eddie, and it was rare that Eddie woke up and Mouse wouldn’t be there.

Eddie grins and reaches out towards her, petting her soft fur. When Richie told him that he had a cat living in his house, Eddie had expected to be revolted by the furred beast, and he was convinced that the feeling would be mutual. Instead of that happening, he got home, and fell a little in love with Mouse, and Mouse fell a little bit in love with Eddie. Richie could relate.

Mouse looks up at Eddie, seemingly mocking him a little, as if she’s saying; ‘what are you going to do now you idiot’?

Eddie nearly laughs, thanking god that he’s home alone so Richie can’t see him being affectionate towards an animal.

He glances towards the clock on the wall, an ugly old brown colored thing that he inherited from his mother. It was the only thing he really took from Myra’s house, not because he was sentimentally attached to it, but because he somehow wanted to stick it to his mom.

Hanging something she was so fond off in their house, the house Richie and Eddie share, feels like a pretty big fuck you to her.  

The clock just strikes 3 p.m., and Eddie knows he has to hurry. Richie should be getting home in tops 30 minutes, and though Eddie wouldn’t be able to keep Richie from noticing he had been out of bed, he wanted to be back in it so he could avoid part of the lecture.

The lecture he’s expecting to get from Richie doesn’t fill him with as much dread as the one’s from his mother and Myra. Richie would never make him feel the way they did, but Eddie knew that Richie would at least want to be there when Eddie tried to get out of bed on his own for the first time, just in case something would go wrong. But if he had to stare up at the ceiling for one more hour, he would have lost it.

He hopes Richie will bring the cheeseballs he’s desperately craving, maybe if he’s lucky Eddie would be able to stay awake long enough to watch a movie with him. Eddie shakes his head determinately, he has to focus on the task at hand.

Without getting up from the his spot on the bathtub, he reaches forwards towards the cabinet. He’s seen Richie do it enough times to know by heart where he placed all the stuff. He has a little trouble opening the cabinet, his fingers just too short. He contemplates getting up, but he’s already tired and he wants to save his energy as much as possible. Mouse jumps up from beside him, running out of the room. ‘Thanks for your help’, Eddie yells after her, but he’s laughing while he says it.

He manages to lodge open the bathroom cupboard, a towel falling out as soon as he does. Eddie huffs, but he doesn’t try to pick it up, that would require his body to bend way more than he is capable of doing right now.

He’s already thinking about how he’s going to pester Richie about it, trying to grab all the products he need, when he abruptly loses his balance. Eddie yelps, his arms thrown up, grasping at air. It doesn’t help, he fall backwards into the bathtub, and though it’s not that deep, the fall causes him to groan out in agonizing pain, his wound feeling like it’s about to be ripped open. He lies at the bottom of the bath completely motionless, his legs thrown over the edge. In the living room, Mouse yelps at the ruckus coming from the bathroom.

He must have blacked out for a bit, for he wakes up to his face being liked by Mouse. It says enough about how bad he feels, when he doesn’t even try to push Mouse away. Instead, he starts crying. He thought his wound hurt bad before, but he had never felt this kind of pain before. He furiously wipes at his eyes, trying to stop to tears so he can think with a clear head, but the pain in his back is all consuming.

He suddenly really wishes that Richie would get home. Mouse must sense that something bad is opening, because Eddie doesn’t respond to any licks she gives, so she lays her head on Eddie’s arm, which is curled around his abdomen.

Eddie would be grateful if he could process it. He tries to get up, but the pain is too insistent, so he instead lies there, trying to take a peak at the clock, but not quite managing too. He can hear his mom cackling laughter. Her delight in his pain. It makes him want Richie even more.

When Eddie doesn’t hear anything ten minutes later, he knows that he needs to get up. He can’t lie in the position he’s fallen in without damaging anything, so he takes a deep breath and tries with all his might to get out. He screams, his voice nearly giving out under the sound.

‘Eddie’, he hears a worried voice bellow. He’s siting back in the position he’s started in, just with way more pain than before. ‘Richie’, he says quietly, watching as Mouse runs out of the bathroom again. Richie appears but a second later. His eyes widen when he sees Eddie. For a second his face turns pale white, and Eddie is worried he might pass out. He doesn’t thankfully.

He runs towards Eddie dropping op his knees and placing his hand right above Eddie’s healing wound. ‘Eds’, he mutters, his eyes darting all over Eddie, trying to access the damage. ‘I’m sorry’, Eddie whispers, feeling embarrassed and disappointed in himself. Richie look sup sharply, leaning forward and pressing his mount to Eddie’s quick and soft, trying to reassure him. He doesn’t speak, which is unlikely for him. It stresses Eddie out.

‘Okay baby, it’s okay. I’m going to get you back to bed.’ He waits for Eddie to nod, which he does, before sliding his arms under Eddie’s armpits and knees. He tries to keep himself as steady as possible, which Eddie finds sweet, even though his attempts don’t help much.

Eddie grips Richie shirt hard, to help with the pain, and Richie sobs when he sees it. ‘I’m sorry Eds, I’m going to do everything I can to make you feel better okay?’ Eddie doesn’t nod, but he does believe Richie when he says that.

When they reach the bed, again, and Richie has manages to discard Eddie, he gets up again, shushing him when Eddie whines. He promises he’ll be back in a minute, and then he runs, actually runs. Eddie laughs despite himself, knowing that he doesn’t have to go through the pain alone anymore. When Richie comes back with a whole hurray of stuff. Some of it is his usual tend to wound supplies, but he also has ice with him, Eddie’s medicine, a couple of movies, and Eddie’s cheeseballs.

Richie smiles at Eddie, trying to mask how worried his feeling. He gets some water, and then presents the medicine along with it. Eddie hesitates, knowing how tired the medicine will make him, but then he’s reminded of how much his injury is burning, so he takes it anyway.

He shuffles up a bit on the bed, giving enough room for Richie to change the bandages. Richie’s hand trembles, as it always does when he might hurt Eddie. Eddie is starting to get worried that Richie is mad at him, because he still hasn’t said much since arriving. It’s then that Richie speaks up.

‘Why would you do that Eds? If you wanted to do this yourself you could have just told me.’ He’s not making eye contact, still focusing on the task at hand. Eddie’s entire body starts to shake. He sighs.

‘I’m sorry Rich’, he hisses when Richie pulls off the last part. Richie smiles apologetic, saying sorry, and presses a kiss to Eddie’s forehead. It looks like his wound is bleeding a bit, and Eddie almost panics, before he realizes that it’s just the small scratch Mouse gave him that has reopened. He nearly cries out in relief.

‘I just didn’t want to always depend on you. You’re not my caretaker, and I feel really stupid about doing nothing all day and letting you do all the work. I just wanted to start doing it on my own.’

Eddie feels elated to talk about it, but he knows he owns Richie an explanation. He suddenly feels really guilty. Richie has been nothing but thoughtful to him, and he just said he didn’t need his help.

Richie smirks, and Eddie knows what is about to come out of his mouth. ‘It’s okay Eds, your mom always asked me to take care of her too.’

Eddie rolls his eyes hard, and Richie takes advantages of the Eddie’s distraction to pour the disinfection over his wounds. He turn serious all of  a sudden.

‘I’m sorry Eddie, if you wanted me to stop being so fussy. I just wanted to help. Look how about this, you starts cleaning your wound, and walk around and stuff, and I won’t help you unless you ask, but I get to be in the house with you. That way if anything happens I’m here. I’m sorry if I reminded you of your mom,’ Eddie tries to interject, but Richie doesn’t give him a change.

‘But next time please tell me, don’t do stuff likes this when you know you’re not ready. If you want me to leave then I’ll do that, I just love you too much for you to hurt yourself.’

Richie seems like he’s tearing up a bit, and so is Eddie, so he tries to diffuse the situation. ‘You big sap’, he says too Richie, pulling him forward to press his lips to Richie’s. Richie taste like strawberry’s, and something distinctively Richie, and Eddie can’t get enough.

‘Of course I don’t want you to go, I love you too idiot.’ Eddie says sincerely, maintaining eye contact to prove to Richie that he means it.  

‘Do you want to start today?’ Richie asks, grabbing the cream and new bandages. Eddie shakes his head, his eyes feeling very heavy.

‘No’, he yawns, the medicine has finally kicked in. He hears Richie chuckle, after he closes his eyes, and Richie gets to work. He can feel the cream being spread, and though it normally hurts, Richie is so careful that it feel kind of nice. It makes Eddie feels even more tired, but he tries very hard to stay awake. He wants to watch a movie with his boyfriend.

He falls asleep anyway.

He wakes up 4 hours later, when it’s already dark outside. He’s pressed against Richie side, having his hair played with. The pain is only slightly there. When Richie notices that he’s awake, he grins, dipping down to give Eddie a kiss.

‘Hey there sleeping beauty’, he teases, grabbing hold of three DVD’s on his side of the bed. He holds it up above Eddie’s head, and it takes a while before Eddie’s eyes can focus on the words. The shining, 16 wishes and Lilo and stitch. The choices are widely spread, but it’s something so Richie, Eddie can’t help but love it. He ends up chooses Lilo and Stitch, even though he knows he won’t stay awake long enough to watch all of it.

‘I’m sorry we haven’t been on an actual date yet. This supposed to be our honeymoon phase, what if I’ve ruined our relationship because of this?’, Eddie murmurs after Richie has put on the DVD, and grabbed the cheeseballs Eddie’s been craving all week. Usually, Eddie wouldn’t be caught dead eating in bed, but he knows that Richie would buy him a new bed of he wanted to, and he also knows he won’t be able to get out of bed.

‘Are you kidding me? Eds we’re hanging out all the time. Sure you’re asleep, but I’m not. I love this too. I mean, I hate that you’re hurt, but we are spending time together and it doesn’t matter what we’re doing. This is just as much a date as anything else is.’

Eddie smiles brightly feeling better thanks to Richie’s words. ‘Besides, the honeymoon phase? You mean the phase where you can’t stop touching each other? I’m pretty sure that has been us forever. Even when we were kids, I’m pretty sure that’s going to keep going, no matter how long we’re together. I swear your mom was so jealous when she says us together all the time.

‘And you’ve ruined it asshole,’ Eddie says, but he can’t help the fond feeling spreading through him. He’s lucky to have him.

#reddie #reddie imagine #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrack #My writing #reddie fluff #slight angst #like really really little #the losers club imagines #it chapter two imagine #Eddie lives

[jarchivist]

Sound

My Reddie fix-it fit because fuck ur canon Stephen.

Read on AO3 here!!

Sound.

It was sudden, soft, and comforting; Almost as though it was bursting through a deep darkness that Eddie had found himself trapped in. It was something he felt as though he hadn't experienced in a while - A faint voice came through the ring in his ears. What were they saying? He could barely make anything out. The words sounded jumbled and muffled, and - Why couldn't he make his eyes open? Why couldn't he move? Everything hurt. Where was he? His home? A hotel? Somewhere with Myra?

Derry.

Memories rushed into his mind as he struggled to open his eyes. He had come back to Derry. Mike Hanlon had called, and they — They had all come back together. The Loser Club. They had Chinese food and drinks. They reminisced and laughed and joked and shouted — The fortune cookies.

Pennywise.

Eddie felt his breath catch in his throat, but something kept it steady. Was something helping him breathe? His chest ached. Why did it hurt so badly? He was vaguely aware of tubes and wires and the pressure on his chest. But why the hell were they in him? Why were there so many things poking at him? Damn, why did it hurt?

Richie.

Pennywise had him caught in those lights. The deadlights. He couldn't break out of it. He was dangling limply in the air, his eyes blank, staring into nothingness. The fence post. 'It kills monsters if you believe it does.' The words Beverly had spoken to him echoed in the swirl of memories filling his head. He had to do something. Eddie couldn't let Richie die; He wouldn't. He threw the post, convincing himself that it would hit. He made himself believe that it would be enough to save Richie. He remembered thinking that he had done it. That everything was over. He was sure he had redeemed himself and saved everyone — Then it was dark.

Richie...

It was Richie's voice that had broken through that thick darkness. The emptiness he was feeling — the hollowness in his chest and throat. But he knew now that the words he had been hearing were Richie's. Though, there was a tone to his voice that Eddie didn't recognize. Almost a crack in and between his words.

"Eddie, please..."

It was soft. Sad. Was Richie crying? Why in the hell would Richie 'Trashmouth' Tozier be crying? No, he never cried. He cracked dirty jokes and spat on his hand then tried to rub it on your face. He was the one that always made everyone laugh. He always made Eddie laugh...

Touch.

Eddie felt a gentle warmth against his hand. Calloused fingers desperately brushed against his own. Richie's hand closed gently around his; He was shaking. "Please..." Eddie felt a shift in weight and felt a tickle of curls against his skin. Richie's forehead was pressed against his hand. "I can't lose you, dipshit. Please," he continued, a quiet whimper breaking his words. "Don't leave me again."

Richie.

That was enough to keep him grounded. Enough to force himself to pull away from the darkness; To focus on the breath filling his lungs and the steady beat of his heart. Eddie made himself listen to Richie's voice as the sound of it became more and more stifled. Behind his closed eyes, he could feel the world spinning. Where was his inhaler?

"Eds... Eddie..." A sob.

Richie...

Nothingness.

----------------

Hunger.

How long had it been since Eddie had felt hungry? Or anything, for that matter. The air around him was thick and cold, and damn did it smell horrible. But it was familiar. He had been in hospitals enough times to recognize that he was in one now. He moved. Fucking hell, he was stiff. How long had he been stuck in this place? His fingers twitched against another's hand. Callouses.

Richie?

Eddie squeezed his eyes tight before slowly opening them. The room he was in was dimly lit; Dull sounds came from the small TV hanging against the wall. He strained against the sting of air as he readjusted to sight and tilted his head just slightly enough to see the man sleeping in the chair next to his bed.

"Richie..." His voice came out as a soft hum, his throat burning with each syllable. He barely recognized it. In the pale light, he could tell that Richie hadn't shaved in a while. "Rich..."

"Nngh..." Eddie felt Richie's hand twitch against his own. "Fuck'ff... 'm stayin.." Drool ran down his chin. Eddie cringed.

"Hey... Richie..." He tried to move, every bone in his body screaming in protest, begging him to stop. With a deep, even breath, he gathered every ounce of energy he had to nudge Richie's hand off the bed. "Hey."

"AH! What the fuck!" Richie jumped three feet off of his chair, his weary eyes wide, panicked. "What..." He reached up to rub at the sleep still lingering on his face and adjusted his glasses. "E - Eddie?"

"Hey, Rich..." Eddie cracked a smile, fighting back the urge to vomit. The room felt like it was spinning.

"H - Holy fuck, Eddie!" Richie lunged forward, gently setting a shaking hand against Eddie's cheek. "Eddie! Holy shit. Holy fucking shit." He was smiling, but - Tears filled his eyes, his voice was cracking. Eddie could count on one hand how many times he'd seen him this way. Richie had always seemed unbreakable. Unwavering from his comedic front, but now - It was almost as if he didn't know what to do. His thumb rubbed quick circles into Eddie's skin. He kept rocking forward but hesitated at the last moment, like he was resisting the urge to throw himself onto the bed. "Jesus, we thought you would never wake up..." His head leaned forward, defeated. "Fuck you, man..." Eddie heard a few drops hitting the rumpled bedsheets. His hand dropped from his cheek and clenched tightly onto the hospital gown covering Eddie's weak shoulders.

"Hey," Eddie managed, shifting his head to the side to press a warm cheek to Richie's still trembling hand. "Relax..."

"Don't you fucking tell me to relax, Kaspbrak." He didn't lift his head. He barely even moved. "I thought that I -" Richie cut himself off and paused before quietly continuing, "I thought I lost you... And I - I had barely just gotten you back, dipshit..." His shoulders jerked. "I saw your stupid face in that," he scoffed and shook his head. "In that fucking nasty restaurant and I... When I remembered you - I realized that I'm fucking sick of living in a world without you and..."

Eddie felt his heart flutter, his breath leaving his lungs. Who was this man that was sitting at his bedside? He was tired and broken. He was so soft, so quiet. Eddie closed his eyes, nuzzling into Richie's fingers. He remembered when they were younger - More than once, Eddie snuck out of his house when his mother was being particularly hard on him. It was never too early or too late for him to show up at Richie's home. His parent's always welcomed him with open arms, offering anything he could need. He always appreciated their kindness but, the only thing he ever really needed was time with Richie. He smiled, remembering the countless nights they had spent hiding in Richie's bedroom, reading comics, watching stupid movies, doing homework, or just talking. They talked about everything. School, parents, music, the other losers, crushes...

Rumors.

He remembered one night in particular. One of the only times Eddie had ever seen Richie truly break - School had been rough that day. Henry Bowers was relentless, calling Richie some horrifying names, and then the rumors started circulating; And of course, being in middle school, it happened fast. Eddie could tell that it was all getting to him - Even though he insisted that it wasn't. So when he showed up at his house later that evening, he wasn't shocked to find Richie sitting at his desk with his face in his hands. He yelled and cried and hit his fists against his thighs. He didn't make one stupid joke.

They slept in the same bed that night. They held hands. Eddie vaguely remembered watching him cry himself to sleep, wishing he could do more to help.

More than once, Eddie was the one crying and yelling - More often than not, about his overbearing mother and how she had been giving him more and more medication. Things with weird side - effects now. They made him dizzy. They made him sick to his stomach. So maybe the pills had never been placebos in the first place... But no matter how upset, no matter how sick he got, Richie always brought him back from it. So -

"I - Richie..." Eddie closed his eyes. What in the hell was he supposed to say to that? 'Oh yeah! Sure, sure! I'm sick of that too! Let's get fucking married!' Holy fuck, he needed some pain killers. He could tell him that everything was okay; That he was okay, and that it was all over. He could tell Richie that his voice was what anchored him to this absolute shitstain of a life he had been living - But all he could manage was, "I'm sorry."

"What the fuck are you sorry for?" Richie snapped, almost offended. "You have nothing to be sorry for." He had lifted his head, eyes puffy and red.

Eddie blinked, "I -" and stopped.

"If it weren't for you, I would be dead," hesitation. "We'd all be dead, Eds."

Was that true, though? Eddie had also almost gotten Richie killed and... He grimaced. It was a memory he wished he could forget. "...Don't fucking call me that."

"Man shut the fuck up." Richie smiled, Eddie grinned. He had gotten what he wanted. "I am trying to have a touching moment with my best friend that almost fucking died. Like twelve times. Let me call you Eds."

"Better than fucking 'Eddie Spaghetti...'" Eddie smiled and tilted his head downwards to avert his gaze, but it wasn't lost on him what it did to Richie's attitude. He saw him choke on a bit of a sob, then hide it with a laugh. "Don't laugh at me, I'm fucking right." He raised a brow, waiting for the snarky reply or another silly nickname - But it was silent for a moment before Richie spoke again.

"Don't... Don't distract me, you piece of shit." Richie reached out and grabbed Eddie's hand, holding it tight in his own. "I have to get this out now before I lose my fucking nerve and end up having to wait another 27 damn years."

Oh, God.

"I almost lost my chance, okay?" Richie's face tensed. Eddie could tell he was fighting off tears again. "I don't want to lose you. I can't. I don't know what the fuck I would do." He tilted his head, forcing their eyes to meet. Eddie could feel the heat rushing to his cheeks.

'For fuck's sake, Eddie, you're 40 years old. Stop acting like a fucking school girl.' He bit his lip, waiting for Richie to continue.

"If you had died, Eds - I... I don't think I would have been far behind."

Eddie felt his heart skip a beat, the breath leaving his lungs. "Don't - Don't say that -"

"I'm a little bitch, Eds. I wouldn't have been able to last without you. Not after remembering all these fucking..." He chuckled to himself. "Do you remember the kissing bridge?"

"How could I not?" Eddie smiled, letting his fingers lace together with Richie's. "You got shit on by a bird on that bridge," his smile faded, "and then you tried to wipe it on me. Fucking asshole."  

"Would you expect anything less of me?" He shrugged. "If I recall correctly, you kicked me in the shin, so I'd say we're even."

"Even?! You wiped bird shit on my fucking face! I should have kicked you in the di -!" Eddie cringed, gripping at his stomach. "Jesus fuck..." He closed his eyes tight, then leaned his head back against the pillow. There were eyes on him.

"Eddie..?" Richie's voice dropped, his fingers brushing against Eddie's pale arm. "Hey, I'm trying to fucking confess here, don't go... Don't crash on me... Eddie."

Eddie could hear the panic in Richie's voice. He needed to pull himself together. "I'm fine, Rich. Stop worrying so damn much." He opened his eyes; a soft smile spread over his lips. Richie looked so tired... "Listen -" He stopped and broke the gaze between them, reaching up to grab Richie's hand. It was so familiar in his own - It was just like when they were kids, though much bigger now. Eddie's lithe fingers laced through Richie's clumsier ones. "Why... Don't you try and get some sleep?"

Richie stayed quiet for a moment, his eyes focused on their entwined fingers. He tightened his grip, trying desperately to hold himself together. "This fucked me up, man..."

"I -" A pause. "I'm sorry."

"You should be Goddammit." Richie's eyes stayed focused on their hands, but Eddie could feel the tears stinging them. "I... I almost lost my," A pause. "I almost lost my fucking chance to tell you and..."

"Richie." Eddie shook their hands, trying to break him from his daze. What he said next shocked him. It was nothing but word vomit, and he was surprised his pride didn't get in the way. Maybe it was something induced by the insane amount of drugs running through his system. Perhaps it was real vomit? "Shut the fuck up and stop being a damn coward. Fucking do it."

Oh, God.

Sound.

The chair Richie had been sitting on screeched against the ground, and there was a new weight against Eddie's chest. He hadn't even seen him move. He barely noticed Richie's hand leaving his own.

Touch.

Richie's lips pressed desperately into Eddie's. They were chapped, thirsty, sad, tired. A hint of cigarettes lingered for a moment before he stopped caring. They kissed for seconds, minutes, an eternity, making up for so many lost years. Eddie's stomach ached, his muscles screamed in protest but -

Richie.

"It's about fucking time," a voice came from the doorway.

Richie fell back into the chair, wires tangled around his arm. "JESUS CHRIST, MAN." His face was burning red, Eddie's head buried in his pillow.

"When were you going to come and tell the rest of us that he was awake?" Stanley leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, brow raised.

"Fuck you, man. Do you have any fucking idea how long I've waited to do that?" Richie stood, a finger pointing accusingly in Stan's direction.

Stanley grinned. "Yes. I have. You were 12 when you started pining. So what? You're 41 now... That's 29 years?"

#reddie #Richie tozier #Eddie kaspbrak #it chapter 2 #fix it

[derryhawkins]

Life is a Highway [2/49]

summary: The seven of them made a plan in middle school: use the months between high school and college, and take a road trip through all of the states. Their twelve year old minds didn’t think it would actually happen, but six years later with enough saved up money, they’re going on an extremely long trip together in a large van. pairings: reddie; benverly; hanbrough; stanpat word count: 7.51k a/n: yes i had stenbranlon as one of the pairings but then i fell in love with stanpat so that changed pls don’t be mad lmao (but yes stan still has a crush on mike right now, but i mean who wouldn’t have a crush on mike??)

AO3 Link | First Chap

chapter two: massachusetts

The three hour car ride is filled with blasting music, singing along to said music, and talking nonstop from everyone over said music. Bill does a decent job of driving; he unnecessarily speeds, cutting down time immensely, and Stan keeps on telling him, "You're going twenty over the speed limit, slow the fuck down!" 

But with Richie proclaiming that everyone speeds on the interstate, Bev urging Bill to pass anyone who's going "too slow" in the dark of the night, and Mike standing through the opened sunroof to act as if he's flying, Stan's urges for Bill to slow down goes unheard. Even Eddie tries to talk some sense into Bill. It isn't until Ben says something about cops that Bill finally does so. Only a little bit, though; not much at all, but enough to make a difference that makes Stan relax the littlest bit.

They make it to Boston, Massachusetts just ten minutes before one in the morning, and pull up to a cheap Holiday Inn fifteen minutes later. Bill, Stan and Mike are the ones to go in and ask the front desk person for the cheapest room possible for seven wired on excitement eighteen year olds; meanwhile the remaining four stay in the parked van as they finish the game of “I’m going on a trip” without the others.

“I’m going on a trip to Canada and I’m bringing a cat, a map, Eddie’s mom, a blanket, cigarettes, a walkman, Mr. Chips, Georgie, coffee, a lighter, a winter coat, board games, a tiger, Mike’s Grandma’s homemade chocolate pie, shoes, Stan’s pillow, condoms, a first aid kit, and uh... Binoculars!” Bev grins, proud of herself for remembering everyone else’s items and turns to Ben. “You’re turn.” 

Ben sucks in a breath of air and let’s it out. “I feel so pressured, oh my god,” he whispers before speaking louder, smiling almost shyly as the others laugh. “Alright, uh, I’m going on a trip to Canada and I’m bringing a cat, a map, Eddie’s mom, a blanket, cigarettes, a walkman, Mr. Chips... Shit. Georgie! And coffee, and a tiger-.” 

“You skipped two!” Eddie shouts. He’s pointing at Ben with a large smile, and is obviously too happy that someone has messed up.

Bev playfully whacks Eddie’s shoulder as Richie laughs. “Hey, be nice to Ben,” she defends him. “He did his best. Besides, it’s a miracle any of us made it as far as we did in the game.”

Eddie pouts and rubs his shoulder, acting as if Bev genuinely hit him. “Meanie.”

Bev snorts out a laugh. Richie leans to the side and gets close to Eddie, pinching the shorter boy’s cheek. “Oh, don’t be such a baby, Eds! What, are we gonna have to swaddle and rock you so you don’t cry?”

His expression quickly pinches into annoyance and Eddie swats Richie’s hands away, and shoves him – not too hard, but hard enough to get Richie out of his personal space bubble. “Fuck off!” Eddie yells. “I’m not a baby!” His cheeks are tinged pink, and while Richie just chalks it up to be Eddie’s anger, Bev knows full and well it’s not.

She covers her mouth with one hand to hide her smile, and she leans her elbow against the back of her seat. Her blue eyes quickly move from the two boys in the row of seats with her to the one sitting behind her. She’s acutely surprised to see him already looking at her, eyebrows moving up the slightest bit. Ben’s eyes widen and he looks away, and he clears his throat quietly as his face reddens. Bev removes her hand and rests her chin on top of the headrest, smiling, ignoring Richie and Eddie who are both now play fighting.

The thought of Ben liking her back worms it’s way into her brain. She quickly shoves the thought away, though, and sadly remembers how he used to like her. As in, not anymore. She then pushes that thought away, and decides to just talk with Ben.

“How’re you liking the trip so far?” She moves to get into a more comfortable position. Her chin stays on the top of the headrest, and she undoes her seatbelt so she can turn fully around, arms wrapping around the bottom of the headrest as she sits on her knees.

Ben looks back at her, eyes still wide. “Hm? Oh, uh.” He shrugs and smiles. “I’m really liking it, yeah. It’s nice – fun, too.”

“That’s good. Same here.” She stops. Eddie’s body leans against hers for a moment before he gets pulled away by Richie, the lanky teen trapping the other in a koala-like hug.

“Take back what you said about Bowie! Do it, or you’re dying via the Tozier’s bone crushing hug!”

Eddie laughs and wiggles. He’s barely trying to get away from Richie, not at all doing is best. Because he can get away if he wants to – all of them know that. “Suck a dick, Richie! I just said he wasn’t my favorite! I’d pick Elton John over him any day!”

“That’s it! Prepare to die, Kaspbrak!”

“Not until you drop dead first, Tozier!”

Bev moves her eyes away from them as she rolls them, and they land back on Ben who’s shaking his head at their friend’s antics. “They’re something else, aren’t they?” She asks, keeping her voice low.

Ben meets her eyes again. “If they’re not dating by the end of this,” he whispers, “I’m locking them in the clubhouse back in Derry and not letting them out.”

She snickers. “I’ll help.”

“I’d like that.”

“Really?”

He smiles, looking a bit shy now, but hums in confirmation and nods. “Of course I would.”

Her own smile grows into a wide grin that showcases her teeth. There’s a faint blush on her cheeks, and she hopes that it’s unnoticeable in the dim light. “Good. Great.”

One of the side doors to the van is suddenly pulled open, startling Bev and Ben, yanking the two from their little bubble. They turn their heads to the now opened door and peer around Richie and Eddie to see Mike standing there with a happy smile.

“We’ve got a room! C’mon, guys.”

The four eighteen year olds are then piling out of the car, and they grab everything they need for the night, along with Stan's and Bill's things so they don't have to come back out to the van. 

The room isn't the biggest. It's small and with all of their suitcases on the ground, there is barely any room to walk; the room becomes a maze of sorts, and the Losers have to jump over their friends and the luggage to get to the one bathroom they have to share. Then there are two double sized beds and a chair that pulls out into a small twin mattress. It's not the best, and it's certainly not ideal, but they make it work.

Bill absolutely refuses to pick a place to sleep until everyone else has a place, meaning he ends up with the space between the two beds on a makeshift pallet that Eddie makes for him with whatever extra hotel blankets they can find. Bev and Stan end up sharing the bed closest to the bathroom, and then Ben and Mike share the bed near the AC, and finally Richie and Eddie get the small pull out. 

None of it is awkward. It's something they're used to, something they've always done. There's even a time when they were fifteen when they all got into a dog pile to cuddle one night, and they all fell asleep like that. So, sharing beds is the norm. It's almost expected at this point and they're so used to it, which is why at some point during the night Bill sluggishly makes his way into the bed with Mike and Ben, neither boy disturbed or frustrated that another body has joined them.

+++

Stan isn't a morning person. It's not that he doesn't like the mornings - because he does, a lot - but it's more of the fact that it takes a while for him to wake up, and if people don't give him his time and space, the person will most likely get either a death glare or harshly snapped at. He knows the same thing goes for Eddie - the spitfire is always harsh and snippy until he's downed some coffee, and he just doesn't like waking up early - and so they're two peas in a pod when morning comes. 

Bev can arguably not be a morning person as well, but she, like Stan, just takes a while to wake up. She's just not verbal. So, during the early morning hours of breakfast and checking out and getting their things together for the day, the three of them stay by each other, knowing neither of the two beside them will mess with them too much.

Stan leans against the van beside the opened door with crossed arms and a blank, tired look. It's currently early in the morning, because apparently beforehand he had thought that getting up earlier to have more daylight during their day was a fantastic idea.

Of course, when that idea came to him, he hadn't thought about how grumpy both he and Eddie are in the mornings, and how nonverbal Beverly gets. Or how annoying Mike and Ben are, because they're both very much morning people, talking and laughing and being their usual selves, but somehow it's incredibly annoying. Meanwhile, there's Richie and Bill; neither morning people nor not morning people. Just...two teen boys functioning like zombies until they are awake enough who won't snap your head off if you confront them.

Stan casts his eyes to the side as Ben laughs at something Mike says to him as they put the suitcases back into the trunk. He frowns, crosses his arms tighter over his chest, and rolls his eyes. He tries to tell himself that the feeling in his chest is just his usual morning mood, not him becoming jealous at the simple fact that Mike is laughing with someone else. He sighs and half heartedly rolls his eyes at himself, tuning most of everyone out.

Currently, Richie and Bill are back on top of the van, just laying there until further notice. Eddie is sitting on the edge of the seat in front of the opened van door, staring - correction: glaring - at nothing in particular with a cup of shitty hotel coffee clenched in both hands. Bev is behind him, eyes closed, a half eaten cinnamon muffin on her stomach as she just lays in the row of seats. No one is quite lively at the moment, with the exception of the two morning people. For now, the excitement of everything has dwindled down. Though, Richie is talking Bill's ear off. His words are just slow and lazily spoken as if he's high. Stan knows that's about to change, both because as time passes by everyone is waking up more and more and also because he can hear Richie's words get livelier.

"So, what's the plan for today?" Mike asks suddenly.

It takes a moment, but Stan is quickly realizing that Mike is talking to him. Not Bill or Ben, or even Richie. But him. Stan turns his head to look at Mike, who has the kindest smile on his face despite the early hour, and his dark eyes are directly looking into his own. Stan hopes that he isn't blushing, and shrugs before speaking. "I know there's a few parks and museums. Maybe even a zoo or an aquarium, but I don't know how expensive everything is."

"We should go to Salem!" Richie suddenly yells out, sitting up from his position on the van and peers down at Stan and Mike before the latter can even respond. He sends a subtle wink the Jew's way as Mike looks to Stan to see his reaction.

From inside, Beverly starts to groan in annoyance but cuts herself off. Suddenly she's behind Eddie and poking her head out, the boy looking way more than annoyed at the close proximity as she leans on him for support. "Salem Witches!" She yells, suddenly lively and awake and verbal. "Fuck yes, can we go Stan?"

"Is that Salem even in Massive Two Shits?" Bill asks, still waking up and obviously not caring about pronouncing Massachusetts correctly.

Richie giggles. "Massive Two Shits," he repeats.

"Fucking grow up, Rich," Eds grumbles.

"Oh, like you don't find Massive Two Shits funny."

"It's not."

"Kinda is," Bev butts in, earning a glare from Eddie and a loud thank you from Richie, accompanied by Bill's agreement.

Stan rolls his eyes fondly. "The Witch Trials did, in fact, happen in Salem, Massachusetts," he tells them.

"So can we go? It'll be fun! Oooh, what if we get to see the exact spot where they hung the thirteen witches?"

"They're not real witches, Rich."

"Says who?"

"Says me."

"Well fuck that, man."

"I will fucking fight y-."

"Okay!" Bill shouts over Eddie's threat and sits up. He quickly moves to lean over the edge of the top of the van like Richie. "Keep the b-b-bickering to a minimum, pluh-please, until we're all a little more awake. Please."

When Eddie opens his mouth to talk back, Bill just looks at him and Eddie shuts his mouth, eyes going to Stan who gives him a Look. One that he gets told is a lot like a parent getting onto their kid. So, of course the curly haired boy uses it when he needs to, because it always works in whatever situation. Eddie licks his lips and stays quiet, and hands Bev the rest of the coffee. Behind Stan, Mike is motioning to Richie to zip his lips for the time being. At noticing some movement, Stan looks up and watches Richie do the action back and toss the invisible key to Mike. He can't help but smile softly at the interaction after Mike 'catches' it.

"I say we go to Salem," Ben speaks up for the first time, sharing his opinion on the matter. "We might not ever get a chance again."

"But we're in Boston," Eddie presses.

Stan frowns. "But things are also really fucking expensive here."

"If it were up to me, I'd skip Boston and go to Salem," Mike says. "Save the big city stuff for New York or something else. Besides, we can't spend all of our money in one place. We have a limited amount, so we gotta be smart about spending it. We only have one shot at this road trip."

"I'm w-with Mike. Do a few things there, it won't be too exp-p-pensive most likely, and just chill out."

Beverly, who is now sitting on the floorboard of the van by Eddie's feet, shitty cup of coffee between her thighs, asks, "Does going to Salem mess up with the route you made, Stan?"

The route. Stan certainly hasn't forgotten about it. It took months to get it right, to find roads that hit one major fun place in each state but to also find ways that wouldn't make them have to go through one state too many times. Eventually he got it right. It's the main reason he's in charge of the map, if anyone is being honest. He smiles, pleased that Beverly actually remembers it. "Depending on how far away Salem is, it shouldn't."

"I saw a sign on our way here for an exit for Salem. Think it's about..." Ben trails off and thinks for a moment. He then lights up some and nods. "fifteen-ish miles out of the city."

"Works for me," Bill says with a tiny shrug. "Work for y-you, Stan?"

Stan nods, appreciating how his friends are taking the route and all he made into consideration. He doesn't know why it's so surprising or so uplifting, but it is. "It does, yeah."

"G-Great! Everyone hop in, we can't waste away our day!"

+++

Beverly stays sitting up during the car ride, too excited to do much else. She's sitting in the same spot as the night before but instead of Richie and Eddie in the row of seats with her, it's actually Ben and Mike, the aforementioned boys sitting behind them while Bill drives once again, Stanley in the passenger's seat with the map. During the thirty minute ride, Beverly tries her best to not lean on Ben too much. At the same time though, she makes sure to not lean too far away on the sharper turns Bill takes that push her away from Ben. All the while, she's also trying to act as if sitting beside her crush isn't the main root of her excitement. It's hard, she'll admit, but it's also worth it. 

“What d’you think there is to do in Salem?”

She shrugs at Ben’s question. Then, she’s looking at him and smiling. “What if there are actually witches and they teach some magic?” Her brows lift some. Obviously, that’s not going to happen. But a girl can dream, right?

Eddie scoffs from behind them. Mike, who’s talking to Stan and Bill about lunch plans, glanced behind him briefly to look at the other boy before focusing his attention back on the two up front. Bev turns some in her seat to look at Eddie properly, Ben doing the same; both are relatively surprised to see Richie fast asleep and sprawled out, head in Eddie’s lap. Beverly makes eye contact with Eddie and grins teasingly. The grin merely spreads as his cheeks turn a dark shade of pink.

She isn’t surprised when he ignores the look the best he can and says, “Witches aren’t real, Bev.”

“Okay, obviously,” she says. “But it’d be cool if they were! Right, Ben?”

Ben looks taken back but he recuperates quickly. He’s then nodding and smiling, agreeing with the redhead beside him. “Uh, yeah! It would be pretty neat.”

“C’mon, Eddie, you can't deny the truth! If they were real, think of all the cool magic you would be able to see them do! Or, better yet, if you were a witch.”

“You would be able to have a cat – or another animal,” Ben tells him, knowing that will win him over in an instant. Eddie has always wanted a pet – more specifically a cat – his entire life. Unfortunately for him, his mom never let him get one.

And it works. Bev watches as Eddie’s eyes brighten and how his expression shifts from slightly bored to excited. “Okay, it’s official, I’d much rather be a witch than see one.”

“Good. Because I think you already have a cat.”

At his questioning look, Bev simply points to his lap where Richie’s head is resting with his lanky arms around Eddie’s waist and face close to his stomach. Eddie blushes deeply, unable to get a proper sentence out. He crosses his arms and averts his eyes away from his two friends just as Mike turns around to look as well.

“Shut up,” Eddie mumbles the same time Mike lets out an aw at the sight. Though, he’s clearly fighting back a smile, face hot and pink with blush.

“It’s cute, Eddie,” Ben tells him.

Bev nods and smiles some more. “Adorable, actually.”

“Where’s Bill’s camera? We need a picture of this,” Mike says.

Eddie’s jaw drops. “No! No we don’t!”

“Don’t wake Richie up!” Bev whisper-shouts.

“Too late.”

Beverly covers her mouth with one hand as Eddie freezes up, but before anyone can say anything else the van is coming to a stop at a red light, and everyone’s attention is diverted to the windows. As she turns to look out of the window beside her, she catches Richie sit up from the corner of her eye. She’s tempted to look back just to see how much he’s blushing, but doesn’t. So, she keeps her eyes on the window. Even when Ben leans closer to her to look in the same direction, she doesn’t move. One of his arms go over the head rest and he sits up to look over her. 

“Massive Two Shits is actually really pretty,” Bev says, eyeing the scenery before them. The vehicle finally starts to move again, causing them to pass by trees and plants and a few other cars in a blur.

“It’s not when you call it ‘Massive Two Shits’,” Stan mumbles from the front seat.

“But,” Richie starts, and Bev can hear his grin, “it is funny!”

“Massachusetts. Massive Two Shits. Whatever, same fucking thing here. Either way you say it, the state is still beautiful!” She exclaims with a smile, and motions outside.

“I have to agree,” Mike says.

“Me too,” Ben mutters.

She turns her head to look at him. At realizing how close the two of them are, she only inches back a little bit and gives him a warm smile, not thinking into too much detail about how he’s already looking at her. “Glad you agree, Ben.”

Mike sputters from his spot on the other side of Ben. “Hey!”

Bev laughs and leans to the side to look at him. “The same goes for you, Mikey.”

“Thank you.”

Not too long later, the Losers Club are officially in Salem, Massachusetts. Bill drives around for a few moments until he finds a café parking lot to park in. For a bit of time, the seven of them just sit and talk about what they can do in Salem - Mike got a brochure about the town from the front desk at the hotel they slept at the night before. Eventually, they settle on going their own ways for the first little bit of the trip. Eddie has to call his mom, Stan and Bill want to find something breakfast-like, and Bev, Ben, and Mike are content with just walking around for the time being. 

So, that’s what they do.

“Remember to meet up at the Derby Drawf Light Station in an hour!” Stan calls out to everyone as they part ways.

Bev happily links her arms with Ben’s and Mike’s, turning her head over to smile at him. “Don’t worry your corkscrew curls off, Stanny! We’ll be there.”

“You better be!”

+++

“That was the longest twenty minutes of my life,” Richie complains as he and Eddie finally walk away from the payphone. 

“Well, you didn’t have to come along, y’know,” Eddie tells him.

Richie shrugs, smiles, and bumps his shoulder with Eddie’s. The smile just grows as the familiar warmth from just touching his crush went through him. “Wanted to,” he says simply. Then, “Besides, who knows what would’ve happened if I let you go alone. Talking to Mrs. K never turns out as good as it just did! She would’ve dragged you back home through the phone, but I would have stopped her! What’s the look for? I so would’ve saved you! Who needs Big Bill or Mikey? You’ve got Trashmouth Tozier, ready to keep you from her suffocating clutches at a moment’s notice!”

Eddie laughs and shakes his head, rolling his eyes after. “My knight in shining armor,” he says sarcastically. “You’re so dramatic.”

Richie can only stare down at him for a moment. The midmorning’s sun rays are hitting Eddie just right, causing his usual dark brown eyes to look a bit lighter - more golden, if anything - and his freckles stick a bit more already. Short brown hair is styled neatly but looks soft to the touch. To put it simply, Eddie Kaspbrak looks absolutely stunning - which, hey, isn’t that big of a difference from any other day in Richie’s eyes, but still - and it’s taking everything in Richie to not reach over and kiss him. 

So, he holds himself back. He forces himself to look in front of him instead of at his crush. He stuffs his hands in his cargo shorts’ pockets and says, “You’re the one who just mentioned a knight in shining armor, Eds, I merely said I can save you.”

“It’s the fucking same thing, dickhead! And seriously? ‘Eds’? We’ve talked about this, it’s not my name!”

“And it ain’t goin’ away, sweetcheeks, it’s been fourteen goddamn years,” he responds with in the best country accent he can muster up. It’s better than it has been, he knows, but it’s still not perfect.

It’s silent for a moment. And then, “Has it really been fourteen years?”

Richie nearly stops in his tracks. Actually, he does. He blinks, thinking about it, and then his brows raise. “Huh. It has, yeah.” It’s mind boggling, to be honest, to think about how long he’s been friends with Eddie, and even with Stan and Bill. Fourteen years. Nearly their entire lives.

“Never really… It doesn’t seem like it,” Eddie says and faces Richie. “Well, I mean, it does, in a sense, but. Like. I dunno.”

Richie chuckles. “Eloquent as ever, Spaghetti.”

“Fuck off. I mean, I… It just feels like I’ve known everyone else the same amount of time, when reality we’ve only known Bev, Ben, and Mike for six years. Not fourteen. It’s weird.”

“Yeah. I get it.”

“You do?” 

“Yeah.” A beat of silence. “I feel like you should be telling me to fuck off by now.”

Eddie rolls his eyes with a fond smile and turns on his heels to walk away, giving Richie the bird as he did so. Richie starts walking as well, merely watching Eddie with what he knows Stan would describe as ‘heart eyes’ if he were there with them. So, when Eddie starts to speed up and start to jog, Richie notices instantly. He doesn’t have time to question Eddie, because suddenly the shorter boy is dashing away, Richie barely catching his words.

“Race ya to the light station!”

Richie sputters and quickly starts to run. “Th- what?! This isn’t fair, Eds, you were on the track team! Plus, you’re cheating - didn’t even count to three! Get fucking back here, asshole, we’re starting over!”

They don’t start over.

Richie doesn’t care, though. He is just happy to be able to spend some time with Eddie, to see the other laugh and have fun and be actually carefree. And he’s happy the he feels the same way. No school projects or assignments are looming over them, no deadlines for anything, no bullies, no suffocating Sonia Kaspbrak who hates every single one of Eddie’s friends except for maybe Bill – because, weirdly, a lot of adults love Bill – and they just aren’t in Derry anymore. 

It’s nice. Fun. Freeing. It’s a breath of fresh air.

Richie tries to catch up with Eddie. The fucker was on the track team with Ben, and unfortunately for Richie, his long legs can’t exactly keep up; he isn’t athletic in the slightest. He was a stupid band kid during high school. And he really wants to catch up. He just can’t. So, he slows to a jog, letting out a quiet groan and some unkind words about how stupid the amount of energy running takes, and eventually just settles for a fast paced walk. The heat of the summer sun doesn’t help anything.

A few people are looking at him, and Eddie, oddly. But it’s not the bad odd – more confused, if anything, about two old teens running around as the curse one another out jokingly. They aren’t in Derry anymore. People aren’t so blatant about how weird and possibly stupid it is to see two friends genuinely have some fun.

Richie shrugs the looks off and continues his fast walking. “Eddie! C’mon, man, I’m not a runner like you!” He huffs and stops walking to lean against one of the buildings to catch his breath better. Not too long later, Eddie is standing in front of him with a cocky smirk. Richie chuckles and gently pushes his face away, causing Eddie to stumble backwards a step. “You’re a little bitch.”

Pushing him away is more for his own benefit, if anything. Because Eddie has gone from absolutely stunning to really fucking hot within moments. His hair is a slight mess, some of it pushed back at the front and a few strands sticking in different directions thanks to the wind from how fast he ran, and he’s a bit sweaty but not much. His skin is flushed and he’s breathing heavily, too. It takes all of Richie’s willpower to not do anything. To push that inter turmoil of “I want to jump my best friend’s bones but I can’t for obvious reasons and it sucks” away.

Eddie laughs and shoves Richie’s hand off of him. “And you’re a lazy bitch,” he retaliates with.

At first, for a split second, Richie’s confused. But then—

Right, Richie reminds himself, I called him a little bitch.

He grins. “You betcha!”

“Alright, c’mon, let's cool off. Wanna go in this store for a few minutes?”

“You think we have time?”

“You are worried about time?”

“Eds, I love you, but I don’t wanna face Stan’s wrath already just one day into the road trip.”

“Just five minutes? Please? It’ll be fun!” And then Eddie is doing the puppy dog eyes. For the full effect, he even sticks out his bottom lip a little bit.

Richie groans. “Okay! Sheesh, fine, no need to bring out the puppy eyes.”

Richie doesn’t have time to feel bad, to even think about how late they might actually be, because right then and there, Eddie is grinning from ear to ear and dragging him by the wrist into the little shop they are standing by.

+++

Mike holds the Polaroid camera safely in his hands. Before they all left the van, he had asked Bill if he can use it and take a few pictures. Bill had agreed, so long as Mike didn’t break it or ruin anything. He’s only taken one picture so far, and it’s of Bev and Ben standing together by the tiny, white square building of a lighthouse near some water. The two didn’t notice he took the picture, both too engrossed non whatever they were talking about to notice but they also had looked relaxed. Happy, wide grins and fond eyes paired with the scenery of the Light Station makes for a good picture. 

Now, Mike is just wondering when in the hell his two friends are going to get their sit together and date, because he knows Ben’s statement of being over Bev had been a lie those months ago whether he realized it or not. And Bev clearly feels the same way. Mike just doesn’t know for sure how long that’s been a thing, but it’s a thing nonetheless. Everyone already has to deal with Richie and Eddie, they don’t need another oblivious blooming relationship. Or else, Stan might just rip his hair out from how stupid their friends are being, and Mike, despite loving his friends, can certainly relate to that feeling.

He smiles to himself, content. So, maybe four out of the seven of them need to figure out some things before they make Stan lose his mind, but he honestly wouldn’t have it any other way. They’re all together. Happy. Currently having a grand time on a road trip that just started. The nerves that he had felt just the day before are gone for the most part. He doesn’t have a worry, right now.

He lifts the camera to take a picture of the horizon, but stops himself right as he’s about to as two familiar voices meet his ears.

“—and, like, it’s gonna take the entire day but I think I’ve figured out what to do. We can walk to these spots, which takes from five to ten minutes if I did the math right, and I think we’ll have more fun as a group.”

“SSS-Sounds really fun, man. The others are gonna be excited.”

Mike turns and spots Stan and Bill right away, walking close together as the former holds a pamphlet. Bill has a large coffee in one hand, and with the other he’s pointing to something. Mike just stared at them both for a moment. Then, he lifts his camera and takes a picture. The film slides out and he grabs it before it can fall just as both Stan and Bill look at him from hearing the shutter of the camera. Stan’s ears turn the slightest bit pink, and Bill grins wide.

“What w-was that f-for?” Bill asks.

Mike smiles and shrugs. “I just wanted to take a picture of you two. Also got one of Ben and Bev earlier,” he tells him. Then, he’s handing one picture to Bill and the other to Stan. “Here.”

The honest truth is that Mike just wanted to take a picture of Bill – don’t get him wrong, he loves Stan to pieces – because he looks great. Not only in the sense of attractiveness but also in the way where he seems relaxed. Calm, even. Nothing’s bothering him. He’s just having fun with his friends, something Mike hadn’t truly seen since they were kids.

The stress of senior year had all eaten them up. Not one of them had been put together well during those horrendous months of their last high school year. Each of them had to calm Eddie down from a panic attack at least twice because the poor boy was so worried about not passing, not being able to get away from his mom. Stan shut down a few times, causing the Losers to then help him time and time again. Bev had a mental break down after Christmas break and chopped her hair again and even dyed it blue until the school made her dye it back to a ‘normal’ color. 

Out of the seven of them, Ben, Mike, and Richie seemed like the better collected of them all, which is far from the truth. Richie had been tempted to drop out, and Mike had given a good ‘you made this far, you can make another few months’ speech to him; Mike is pretty sure the others said something similar to him at some point. Ben had started to go to parties pretty often just to find something to help him relax in between major assignments – alcohol, generally. And between football at the beginning of the school year and school in general, Mike was pretty keyed up as well.

Then there’s Bill. He couldn’t relax once, too stressed and worried about anything and everything, and he probably slept the least out of all of them. Mike’s surprised he didn’t turn out being 72% coffee. It was honestly a crazy experience for all of them. One they don’t want to relive, but one they will because, yes, college is a thing that they’re going to do.

But right now, Bill isn’t stressed. Sure, Mike knows that he misses Georgie a shit ton, who Bill is also bound to worry about, no doubt, but he’s not on his third cup of coffee already from lack of sleep. He’s not scowling from stress, or even showing an ounce of any negativity. Mike smiles more at noticing that, and glances at Stan as he leaves the two for Ben and Beverly who are starting to walk over.

Bill smiles fondly at the picture Mike took. “This is a g-good photo, Mike.” His blue eyes then lift and lock with Mike’s brown ones. But he quickly diverges his stare, cheeks tingeing pink.

Mike chuckles softly. “Thanks, Bill.”

And, alright, Mike isn’t dumb. He can read people. He knows himself. He has a crush on Bill, who likes him back - if the blushing and nervous laughs and that kiss from New Year’s are anything to go by - and you may be wondering: why aren’t you dating, then? Simple answer: Mike also can tell Stan likes him - if the blushing and tiny nervous smiles and lingering stares are anything to go by - which puts him in a predicament. Because Mike only likes Stan as a friend; he likes Bill. So, naturally, Mike doesn’t want to hurt Stan in anyway. If Stan didn’t like Mike, though… 

Mike would have asked Bill out by now.

But also there’s this thing called homophobia (or, well, biphobia), so maybe that’s a lie.

So scratch what was said earlier, all seven of them need to figure out some things before someone loses their mind.

Beverly suddenly jumping on his back pulls Mike out of his thoughts. He catches her and stays balanced easily, and once Bill takes the camera from him, he securely puts his hands under her thighs to keep her up. The auburn haired boy is quick to snap a picture as Bev smacks a wet kiss onto Mike’s cheek. A grin spreads across his face.

“Aw, Bev, love you too,” he says laughing. Then, he turns his head and kisses her cheek, less went and more gentle.

She tightens her hold on him as a way to give him a hug. “You’re a sweetheart, Mikey.”

“Where’s Dumb and Dumber?” Stan asks. It’s not directed to anyone in particular, but because Bill and Ben are looking at the picture of Mike and Bev, Mike is the one to answer.

“No clue.”

Bev rolls her eyes. “They probably got distracted by something, knowing them,” she says.

“It probably wasn’t a good idea to let them walk alone,” Mike thinks aloud.

“Wait, who’s Dumb and Dumber in this situation?” Ben asks, looking between his friends. “I mean, they’re both pretty smart - Richie made straight A’s with ease.”

“The fucker was stressed for nothing,” Bev mumbles, and everyone nods in agreement.

“Eddie has more c-c-common sense, s-sometimes,” Bill speaks up.

“Sometimes,” Stan repeats, stressing the word to make a point. “But they need to hurry up. I said an hour, and it’s been an hour.”

“Give ‘em a few more minutes,” Mike says. “They’ll be here in no time.”

Richie and Eddie are not, in fact, there in no time. 

Twenty minutes later the two remaining Losers walk up. The look Stan gives them – and Mike, too – makes everyone laugh, and even Stan gives the tiniest of smiles so nothing is really taken too seriously. After Eddie shows them a crystal rock he bought, explaining in detail with fast words and very little breaths of air how ‘Witches’ use crystals for magic and different energies, they set off to go on with their day.

+++

The plan Stan – “Give it up for Stan the Man with the Plan, folks!” – came up with while he was with Bill had them going to seven different spots in Salem, all within walking distance, which doesn’t include the Derby Wharf Light Station.

They walk to the Salem Maritime National Historic Site. It isn’t a long walk at all, maybe ten minutes at most, but they spent about an hour at the 9-acre park. They don’t think that they’ll spend much time there – 30 minutes at most – but then they explore a few buildings and a ship or two and whatever a wharve is, and suddenly an hour has gone by. They go the Salem Witch Museum next, which is another ten minute walk, and all of them groan with relief at seeing it was inside a building. The group spends an even longer time in there. 

Upon arriving, they got a very dramatic re-telling and history lesson of what happened in 1692 with life-size props and such. Richie wants to complain for the sole reason he wasn’t expecting to learn anything, but he can’t because he’s too interested and invested along with his friends (Mike and Ben especially) as they figured out that the “witches” had been no different that the blacklisted Communists in the ‘50s and the Japanese-Americans in WWII who had been encamped. Then they learn some stuff about witches today, and witchcraft as well, and then they’re off to the Peabody Essex Museum (Richie makes a lot of crude jokes simply because of the word Essex). By the time they get through the museum – it doesn’t take too long, especially with how fast they all walk and they don’t take too much time looking at the different things – they’re all starving.

The rest of the day is like that. Going to and from different popular sights in the town. After getting a cheap lunch, they do the Hocus Pocus Tour, visit a Witch House, go to the memorial for the Witch Trials and end everything with a wax museum because apparently Stan likes museums. They have fun the entire time. Bev buys a witch’s hat from a gift shop, which not so surprisingly suits her, and they got to see where the thirteen women were hung. There’s a continuous debate on whether or not witches are actually real the entire day - nothing serious, obviously.

By the time they are finished, the sun is starting to lower in the sky. Not drastically so, given that it’s only close to five, and everyone is tired from walking around everywhere. Ben and Stan lead the way, the two talking about something or another, and Mike is right behind them with Beverly on his back once again, the witch hat on her head. Eddie is walking beside them, and as he goes on about the various cool things in Salem, the other to listen carefully. Richie and Bill are taking up the end.

“Did you realize it’s been fourteen years since we first started being friends?” Richie asks suddenly, eyes on Eddie for a moment before moving to Stan, and then finally he looked to Bill.

Bill blinks for a moment. It takes a second for him to comprehend what Richie just said to him, but when it finally clicks, his mouth parts slightly. “Really?” That can’t be right. Can it? 

“Not the Losers, just… Us, and Stan and Eddie.”

Oh, that makes more sense. “That’s…” Bill can’t think of anything, so he just whistles lowly and mutters a, “Wow.” Then, “What the hell, that’s almost our enti-tire lives!”

“I know!” Richie exclaims back. “And like, what- who gets to say they’ve stayed friends with someone from elementary school? Or even middle school? It’s fucking crazy, man.”

“Dad told me a m-m-month or so ago that what we have is s-something sp-special,” Bill tells Richie. Briefly, he thinks to that day and how Zach Denbrough was even prompted to say that. 

At first Bill doesn’t remember, but then it all comes back to him in an instant. It had been after one of those rare occasions during the school year where they did an impromptu sleepover at the Denbrough household, all cooped up in Bill’s bedroom despite the size. Nothing dramatic happened. They laughed most of the time and played games, and everyone was reluctant to leave the next morning despite the fact they made plans to go to the clubhouse that afternoon. Once everyone was gone, Zack Denbrough stopped Bill, explained that not many people stayed best friends with one person from their younger years - let alone six - and then went on to say that the seven of them had - have - something special.

“Why did he have to word it as if we’re all dating?”

Bill rolls his eyes. “Who knows, maybe we are and w-w-we’re just too stu-stupid to realize it,” he jokes.

Richie laughs. “Wouldn’t that be something.” He pauses, dramatically of course. He then reaches over and Bill grins as Richie winks at him just as Richie puts his hand in one of Bill’s pockets. “Babe.” Then, he’s pulling out the keys and dashing to the van. “I’m driving! Everyone get in the fucking car, we’re going to McDonald’s!”

Bill’s jaw drops for a second and then he’s laughing. “You f-f-f-fucker!”

“Oh, hell no!” Stan is then racing after their friend. “You’re not driving, Richie! I love you, but I do not trust your driving skills!”

“I’ve been driving longer than any of you shits!”

“Doesn’t equate to safe driving!” Eddie shouts, cupping his mouth.

“Says the one with the road rage,” Mike comments, earning a laugh from Ben and Bev, and the finger from Eddie.

Bill chuckles and steps beside Eddie while they walk the rest of the short distance. “It’s true, Eddie. Y-You have some b-b-b-bad road rage.”

“Whatever,” he mumbles.

None of them manage to talk Richie out of driving - and poor Stan tries so hard to get someone else to drive - so they all get into their respective seats, but Ben takes Richie’s old spot and Bill takes Ben’s (not so he can sit beside Mike. That’d be absurd!).

(...Okay, fine, it’s so he can sit beside Mike but the others don’t need to know that).

Then finally, they’re off to McDonald’s. They chant the fast food’s name for a solid thirty seconds until they realize they don’t know where a McDonald’s is. 

And that’s how they spend forty minutes driving around searching for one.

TAGLIST: @samanthador1205 @snapmyneckandcallmeloki @eddiekazier

#it fic #it 2017 #it 2019 #road trip au #the losers club #benverly #reddie #hanbrough #mike hanlon #bill denbrough #beverly marsh #ben hanscom #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #life is a highway #liahw* #* #my writing #its 1 am so goodnight #pls give me something to wake up to (aka reblogs)

[peter-pantomime]

IT Fic Recs

Richie/Eddie

the years go by like days

It’s Eddie he wants to get a hold of, though, and he does, tucking him under his arm, and ruffling his hair, making him laugh. He’s startled when Eddie looks at him with such happy, shining eyes. And, for a split-second, he’s tempted to kiss him right then, right there in front of everyone.

He wants to. Badly. He doesn’t.

He leans in, instead, and he smacks a loud, wet kiss to Eddie’s cheek, punctuating it with a “mwah!” He does it again and again. “I’m so proud of my little Eds Spagheds!”

“Get off me!” Eddie says, laughing and shoving him away, swatting at his hands.

AU. in the 27 years in-between, Richie and Eddie forget a lot, but they don't forget each other.

just be still with me

Eddie Kaspbrak is 38, working as a driver in New York. Richie Tozier is a stand up comic who comes to New York on a one way ticket to audition for SNL, and his agent has hired Eddie as his driver. There's something familiar about Richie, though Eddie knows they've never met. While Richie insists on sitting in the front seat and making something more than small talk, Eddie struggles to maintain professional distance.

Basically - what if Eddie and Richie did forget, and didn't see each other for 25 years, but they fell in love anyways.

If You Believe

What if Eddie held on just a little bit longer? What if the losers figured out how to kill it just a little bit earlier? What if Eddie made it out of Neibolt, injured and barely holding on, but alive?

-

When Eddie emerges from the cavern to see Richie floating, he just about shits himself.

hit me baby one more time

Richie reaches up a shaking hand and puts it on Eddie’s stomach.

“Uhhh,” Eddie says. “Is this a bit? Is this a really inopportune bit? ‘Cause I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Richie, but this is kind of an important moment-”

“What the fuck,” Richie says, not for the first or last time, and lurches forwards to hug him.

(Or, Richie gets stuck in a time loop.)

in the morning

Beverly knows there’s something going on with Richie. The way he had lost it, the way he had cried—she’s not sure if he would ever cry like that for her, or Bill, or even Stan. He had always been particular about Eddie. She pets his hair back again and rests her head on top of his, sighing and closing her eyes. Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s more than she thinks. Either way, she’s sure he’ll say eventually. Richie’s never been good at keeping secrets.

This Is the Way It Ends

An AU in which everything is the same, except Reddie disappear to have sex through most of the plot points and Eddie doesn't have to die to save the day.

Love Me Like You Do

“I need you hear you say it.”

“I want it,” Eddie says back. He’s surprised by his own words, how concrete they sound, how they break through the wall of nerves that’s shrouded over him.

Richie, in all of his confident-not-confidence, leans down and kisses Eddie. It’s gentle at first, the rough chap of his lips barely grazes Eddie’s over moisturized ones but the electricity rockets down his spine and bursts into tiny electrodes all over his body. He immediately leans up, chases Richie’s retreating form and captures him in a kiss that Eddie never knew he was capable of giving.

Men of Fall

Do you remember? He watches his own hand slide closer along the armrest. Do memories transfer by touch, in this fucked up magic town? Remember, Richie, please, and tell me I wasn’t imagining things.

put it all aside and hold me tight

"I'm not sad," he lies. He thinks of how his hands had trembled after he'd gotten the phone call from Mike, the foul taste of bourbon and breath mints and his own bile in his throat. Every morning he's alone, even when he isn't. He isn't afraid, except for when he is. And he isn't sad, not really, but he is.

Not that it's any of Eddie's business.

Eddie's gaze feels like it goes right through him. There's little Richie hates more than being read, especially when it's by Eddie — there's always a split second of bone-deep terror that whispers he knows. It's familiar, something that goes way back to childhood. Still just as shit-your-pants terrifying.

Or: After the reunion dinner from hell, Richie and Eddie have a long overdue conversation about, like, feelings and shit.

up off the floor

"In a world where we can kill a fucking clown from space, Eddie Kaspbrak doesn’t get to die from a stab wound."

still it’s so

Beverly screamed when she saw them. Then she covered her mouth with her hands and just stared, tears standing bright in her eyes. Bill stood up so fast his armchair jumped back, and beside him Mike did the same. Ben got up slower, a painfully hopeful look on his face.

“Surprise!” Richie said. “We lived!”

Things that Happen after Eddie Lives

In a world where Richie manages to save Eddie from It after the deadlights, they still have problems on their to-do list. Featuring everything from Derry to Los Angeles—Richie Tozier's murder trial, Eddie Kaspbrak's divorce proceedings, bedsharing of the platonic and non-platonic varieties, an investigation of magic, a truly disgusting séance, the quintessential morosexual road trip, and OH MY GOD THEY WERE ROOMMATES.

swallow your heart

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.

Prompt: "I swallow your heart and it crawls right out of my mouth."

With a boulder on my shoulder

Feelin' kinda older.

Or, Eddie Kaspbrak has his fifteenth birthday party.

we’ve been migratory animals

As they reach the town limits, he sees the sign up ahead: You are now leaving Derry. A thrill shudders through him — they’re out. Things will be different now, no more deadlight-visions swallowing him up inside. Richie rolls down his window, and before anyone can do more than look at him quizzically, he unbuckles his seatbelt, lifts himself up out of his seat somewhat, and leans out the window to flip the sign off. “Fuck you!” he bellows. The wind whips his hair into his eyes, and he lets out a slightly manic laugh. Then he feels hands grabbing at his shirt, and Eddie is yanking him back into the car.

--

Or, the Losers take a road trip to Florida, and Richie's having nightmares from the deadlights that he can't seem to shake.

if the children don’t grow up

Richie Tozier dreams, sometimes, of heat soaking through the soles of his sneakers from the July tarmac in the town where he grew up, the name of which he can’t quite remember when he’s awake, and of someone small and warm and familiar pressed up against him everywhere.

(Some scenes from a life – Richie and Eddie at 40 and at 13 (and beyond) and at 40 again.)

Richie Tozier Versus The Flu

“His parents don’t take care of him,” Eddie had told Bill, shaking his head, “He’s probably holed up in his room with a flop sweat, and neither of his parents have ever been bothered to help him. We should go see him.”

“G-Go see him?” Bill asked, alarmed, “I d-don’t mind, b-b-but I thought you’d n-never -”

“He’s sick! Richie’s sick, Bill,” Eddie insisted, thinking Bill was not nearly as upset as he ought to be, “Richie’s sick, and no one’s gonna take care of him, if we don’t.”

last ones out

Richie wonders if it’s always been this hard for him to touch Eddie. It hasn’t; they were incredibly touchy as kids, falling all over each other, gangly limbs intertwined. Even as adults, a few days before, Richie had barely been able to keep his hands off of him. Eddie almost dying did something, though. Chipped away at something deep within Richie. From the bed, Eddie laughs.

Talk So Pretty (And Love So Sweet)

Eddie was going to kill him one day, in his lace and crop tops and knee high socks.

Let’s Hear It for the Boy

“Oh, before I forget- keep this one.”

He pulled a tape from his bag that he hadn’t played yet, and Eddie took it with a look of distrust on his face. It had his name scrawled across the label in Richie’s awful handwriting- looked more like it said Edota on it- but the thing that caught his attention was the very obviously scribbled out heart in front of his name.

“Welp,” He snapped his gum again. “I gotta go. See you later, babe. If you miss me when I’m gone, just listen to the tape. Plenty of gushy shit on there.”

June

He can’t handle being alone with Eddie anymore.

He squats next to Eddie, brings their faces close, and he looks at the freckles on Eddie’s cheeks, the familiar chestnut hair perfectly quaffed at his fringe, how long, and thick his eyelashes seem against his sunburnt cheeks.

He wants.

Desperately.

Blood Runs Cold

He wants to say the feeling in his gut is foreign, but the truth is it’s been flowering for years, vines twisting and growing in the pit of his stomach, just waiting for him to open his mouth so they can finally see the sun.

(or a short fic about Richie Coming out to Bevvie while they smoke in his room)

Show Me a Good Time

This wasn’t the first time that Richie had brought Eddie to one of his meetings. Meetings, used very loosely, meaning they were at a restaurant with however many Michelin stars, while his agent talked to him and whoever else decided to show up to the dinner. There were currently about eight of them, Eddie and Richie shoved into the corner of a booth, while someone told a story about their latest stent on tour. Lucky for Richie, the story actually happened to be good, because if not, well, they might have seen just how often Eddie was leaning over to whisper in his ear.

we’re f***ing killing it, babe

Richie has been back in Derry for three days and murdered an Eldritch horror-esque monster from space or possibly from some weird meta-verse, who knows, and faced both of his childhood fears of clowns and his own death, as well as the possibility of losing his first love just as he remembered they fucking existed, he’d like some slack cut for him on the emotional front, thank you!

OR

Eddie is dead, but the Losers carry him out of the house on Neibolt anyway. Which is good, because Eddie is not dead.

Roads

Richie pulls out of the Orient parking lot first, and stares at the headlights of Eddie’s car in his rearview mirror.

The drive back to The Derry Townhouse is short, scary, and not well lit.

“It’s just Eddie,” he tells his reflection, trying to give himself a pep talk, but that’s the problem.

It’s Eddie.

Lakes

Ben holds Bev’s hand as they walk. Richie feels sick with grief, staggering along behind them, carrying Eddie’s dead, heavy body on his back.

Intro // Skydiving

Eddie Kaspbrak is ten years old. It's his first time at the quarry with his friends.

--

The descent feels like it lasts both for a few seconds and for eternity. Free fall is terrifying, but his hand is still latched onto Richie's, and it tethers him, makes him feel like he isn't just lost in space.

soul, I hear you calling

He catches a glimpse of himself, bruise-eyed and unshaven, in the bathroom mirror as he turns to leave, and that's when he sees Eddie Kaspbrak.

"At least wash your hands, you nasty fuck," Eddie says.

"Holy fucking shit," Richie screams.

Eddie comes back, sort of.

#IT #it chapter 2 #reddie #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #myficrecs #quarantine entertainment #quarantine fics #quarantine fics it