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mitchsmarners · 5 years

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ask me to stay. | chapter one | 6k.

“Your lip is all busted,” Eddie said, as though pointing out that Richie’s lips were injured would somehow make it okay that Eddie was paying attention to them. Richie’s hand came up, long fingers wrapping around Eddie’s tiny wrist, and he gently guided Eddie’s touch away.

Eddie finally wrenched his eyes away from Richie’s lips and met his best friend’s gaze. There was a softness there that he rarely got to see, not even the smallest hint of teasing or joking there. It was just Richie, just Richie looking at him and Eddie looking back. For a single moment, it was just Richie and Eddie alone in the world. Nothing to bother them, nothing to live up to.

[or: the year is 1994, and Eddie Kaspbrak is in love.]

chapter warnings: minor depictions of violence, gay slurs. it’s the 90s man.

click title to read on AO3!

The final bell rang through the class, and it took every inch of self control that Eddie Kaspbrak had not to toss the papers on his desk up in the air and cry out with joy. Richie Tozier, it seemed, had much less self control than Eddie did- and Eddie had Richie’s papers landing on his desk and Richie’s shouts in his ears.

“ Mr Tozier,” Ms Campbell, their junior AP English teacher, gave him a long withering look but Eddie could see her fighting off a smile. Richie seemed to be the only person in the world who’d mastered annoying and amusing somebody at the same time. “I can still give you detention for this afternoon.”

Richie gave her a small half smile. “But I’m pretty sure that you’re just as excited as I am to get out of here, so you probably won’t.”

Richie Tozier was all things that a good girls’ daddy would warn them about. His hair never laid flat on his head, and his clothes were always rumbled with wild patterns and mix-matched styles. He still forced his feet into the same pair of Dock Martens from freshman year, even after growing up them back at the beginning of the year, and it gave him a permanent skip in his step. He wore braces on his teeth even at sixteen years old, and the grudging white women down at the salon always seemed to have something bad to say about the Tozier family.

Eddie wasn’t like Richie. It sometimes felt like Eddie’s mother still dressed him, even if he technically chose out his own outfits every morning. Eddie Kaspbrak was similar to Richie in one way; he was also the kind of boy that men didn’t want around their daughters. No man wanted their daughter running around with a boy who dressed like a faggot. Eddie may not choose his clothes, but that didn’t make all of their claims untrue.

Ms Campbell shook her head, fully smiling now. “Get out of here, Richard.”

Richie let out another excited noise, slightly quieter this time, and grabbed hold of Eddie’s hand. Eddie barely had enough time to grab up his own things before Richie was dragging him from the building. He seemed to not have any regard for his own belongings that were scattered all over the classroom. Eddie had known Richie Tozier for pretty much as long as he could remember. A real sandbox love, and Richie had been this obnoxious ever since Eddie could remember. Richie had been a messy child, loud, and Eddie’s mother had forbid him at four years old to ever see the boy again. Being friends with Richie Tozier had been the first time Eddie had ever disobeyed his mother, and every time since had been Richie inspired.

Richie openly pranced into the hallway, slipping and high fiving some random person that Eddie barely recognized. He looked ridiculous in his too small boots, and jean overall matched with a Hawaiian print shirt that lost what little fashion cred it had back in the early 80s. Richie quickly returned to Eddie’s side, tossing an arm around his friend shoulder and pulling Eddie into his side. “Eds, my love, I have a feeling that this is going to be the best summer of our lives. I can feel it in my bones.”

“Don’t call me that, dick,” Eddie shoved at Richie, but not enough that they actually broke contact or that Richie would pull away. Richie just grinned down at him. “You say that about last summer and then I spent the whole six weeks with a cast on my wrist. Thanks to you, I might add. So, sorry if I maybe don’t take your word for it.”

“Eds…” Richie sighed, shaking his head. “I’m telling you. This is the summer of Losers.”

Richie dropped his arm from around Eddie’s shoulder and skipped towards the doors to freedom. Eddie slowed his steps and watch Richie move, a small smile growing on his cheeks.

→ → →

Beverly Marsh tucked her hands into the pockets of the much oversized jean jacket that she’d stolen from Richie, and watched Bill Denbrough upend his pack into the green garbage can outside the school. She was pretty sure at least three calculators and an actual full-sized novel fell out and into the garbage, but she didn’t make a peep.

“Don’t you think you’re going to need those things?” Ben Hanscom asked as he approached. Ben had always been a cute kid, Beverly remembered when they first met in the seventh grade. He had been, for a lack of better word, fat. He’d hit a good growth spurt the year before, and gone out for the football team with Mike Hanlon in sophomore year and it had slimmed him out a little bit. His sandy brown hair still flopped all over his face, and his cheeks still pushed out with chub, and Beverly wouldn’t have had any other way. She would never tell anybody, but she thought that out of all her friends Ben Hanscom was her favourite.

Bill Denbrough looked up and smiled. This past year, Bill had started letting his hair grow out and it now tickled at the back of his neck, and fell well into his eyes. Richie hadn’t yet managed to convince Bill to tuck it back into a ponytail, and Beverly often wondered how Bill even saw. He glanced down at the bag, seeming to think about it for a moment, then tossed the whole bag into the garbage behind his belongings.

Mike walked up to them, still wearing his red-and-white letterman jacket that Ben would never be seen wearing outside of game days, and grinned. Mike Hanlon was definitely the nicest jock that Beverly had ever met in her life. The Hanlons were on the of only black families in the very town of Derry, Maine and they lived out of the outskirts on a beautiful farm. Beverly practically lived out there when she could. Mike had been homeschooled through their elementary school days, and she’d only known him through reputation until then. He’d fit right in their little group of Losers immediately, and they’d all been inseparable since.

“That was overkill, Billy, don’t you think?” Beverly asked, pulling out the package of cigarettes from the pocket of the jacket and lighting one up. She supposed technically they were Richie’s, but she told herself that Richie would never have started smoking if it hadn’t been for her, so that made them partly hers. “You really didn’t need to throw out the whole bag, dude.”

“I don’t want to th-th-think about school for the next s-s-six weeks!” Bill announced, cheeks turning pink the way they always did when his stutter came through. It was remarkably better than it was when they were children- the speech therapy his parents had been taking him to Portland was working wonders- but it seemed to slip through just often enough that he couldn’t quite live down the nickname of “Mush Mouth.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re not going to need that stuff next year, man,” Ben said with a laugh. In the past few months, it had seemed that Ben Hanscom had been trying pretty hard to give himself a newer image. His sentences got shorter, he’s words got rougher, and his little black notebooks stopped appearing in his hands. Beverly figured that he was still writing poetry- or at least, she hoped he was- but Ben had effectively been shutting himself out the last few weeks.

“What are we talking about?” Richie’s voice carried over to them, wrapping an arm around Beverly and pressing a kiss to the top of her head. Junior year had done wonders to Richie’s height factor, springing him up almost a foot and prompting him to finally catch up to the other boys in their grade.

“Bill here thinks that because the school year is over that he can just throw out all of this stuff from this year- backpack included.” Ben informed Richie, reaching into his own bag and tossing the curly-haired boy a PEZ dispenser that had Daffy Duck from the Loonie Toons on it.

Richie caught it without concern, grinning a little sheepishly as Eddie Kaspbrak came up to them. He was a little wheezy from trying to keep up to Richie’s larger steps, but had that same mischievous grin on his face that he always did. “That’s nothing,” Eddie said with a cocky wiggle of his eyebrows. “ Richard here tossed all his shit up into he air once the bell rang like they were graduation caps, and then left them laying around the classroom.”

Beverly and Mike burst out laughing in the same moment, turning Richie’s slightly embarrassed grin to the genuine smile that always came out his friends laughing. Eddie looked at Richie’s smile, and the sound of Bev and Mike’s laughing sort of dimmed in his ears.

“Where the hell is Stanley?” Bill finally asked, looking around as the court yard quickly emptied around them. Most days the courtyard would be filled for hours after school let out, with clubs and teams all loitering around for meetings, but nobody wanted to stand around on school property once summer had officially started. “It’s not like him to be late.”

“He had a meeting with the counsellor after school, said it wouldn’t take long.” Richie said, popping out three of candies and popping them into his mouth.

“Probably discussing a way to get Stan valedictorian over you,” Mike said with a smirk. Richie clicked his tongue and winked at him.

Eddie’s gaze moved towards the loud rumbling of a certain Chevy truck that was moving down the road towards the school and his chest hitched. “Oh, shit. Incoming.”

Beverly groaned, quickly reaching down to tighten the laces on her combat boots. “Don’t they ever get tired of harassing innocents?”

“Nah,” Richie said, looking towards the truck with the few expression of true disgust that he owned. “People never get tired of the things that get them off. Why did you think I spend so much of my time picking fights with Eddie’s mom?”

“Oh my GOD!” Eddie squeaked, whacking Richie on the air. “You’re so fucking gross, Tozier, I swear-“

“Okay, we gotta move,” Mike said suddenly, reaching out and taking hold of Bill’s arm. Bill had already squared his shoulders, readying up for the fight as he always did at the sight of Henry Bowers and his gang. It was sometimes like there was a tiny part of Bill’s soul that burned for getting his ass handed to him by bullies twice his weight.

“What about Stan?” Eddie asked hesitantly, glancing back at the building. The last thing Eddie wanted was to be caught in any sort of altercation with the Bowers gang that he’d so carefully avoided since they’d graduated from Derry High the year before but he also wasn’t the type to leave a man behind.

“Don’t worry about it,” Richie said, patting Beverly between her shoulder blade and ushering her towards Ben. “Patty boy and I have an understanding. You guys just get out of here.”

Eddie’s chest clenched slightly, and he noticed the same panic settled over Beverly’s face. “Babe, we can all go. We don’t even know how long Stan is going to be in there, we don’t know that they’ll even still be around when he’s done.”

“I don’t know,” Richie said in a voice sung with false confidence. “I’ve sort of missed them. It would nice to have a reunion with our old pals.”

“You’re on your own feeling that way,” Mike said with a nervous laugh. The truck was approaching rather quickly, and he pressed an arm around Beverly’s shoulder. She ushered her away, Ben right on their heels. The truck started to honk, and Eddie squeezed Richie’s wrist before taking off after the others. Richie turned slightly, making eye contact with Bill, who grinned back at him. Richie lowered his hand slightly, and Bill met it with a low five.

Patrick Hockstetter was jumping out the passenger door before the truck had even skidded to a stop. His black hair was longer and greasier than Richie remembered it being, and his clothes looked like they hadn’t been washed since the last time they’d seen him. His boots were caked in mud, and it was definitely the same flannel that had once been oversized. He grinned at them wolfishly, actually going as far as to lick his lips. “Well, well,” Patrick said with a chirp. “If it isn’t my two favourite Losers. Where are the rest of your gang?”

“Oh, haven’t you heard?” Richie asked, raising his brow and matching Patrick smirk for smirk. “Seems the end of days has finally come. Everybody else was raptured up to Gods playground and we’re the only poor bastards left on Earth.”

Bill snorted and tucked his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. As Patrick limbered closer, Richie realized that he was actually the same height now and he couldn’t control the pride that settled in his chest.

Henry and the other two minions that mattered a whole lot less all came strutting out of the truck and towards them. “Huh-huh-huh-huh-hey buh-buh-buh-Billy,” Henry Bowers exaggerated stuttered as he approached. It was weak and overused means of teasing, but it still made Bill clenched his fist and grind his jaw. “You guys all alone here?”

Richie exhaled hard, with an overdramatic roll of his eyes. “We’ve been over this. If you’re going to show up late, at least have the courtesy to be quiet.”

“Oh, Trashmouth Tozier is telling me to be quiet? That’s rich.” Henry stepped towards Richie, a good several inches shorter now. For the first time in his life, Richie Tozier felt he might have the upper hand in a situation. Until Patrick opened his mouth again.

“Hey, Tozier, where’s you’re little fairy friend?” Patrick slurred over to him. Richie’s posture stiffened and he heard Bill let in a small inhale behind him. “I wanted to give him a special hello if you catch my drift.”

Richie saw Patrick grabbing at his crotch from the corner of his eye, and forced a smile onto his face. “You know what I love about bigots.” Richie said, forcing laughter into his voice. He could practically feel Bill vibrating behind him. Richie turned quickly from Henry to Patrick, socking the bully directly in the nose. “Nothing.”

“OH SHIT!” Bill shouted behind Richie, grabbing at his friend’s arm and pulling. Richie stumbled slightly as they took off in the opposite direction of the school.

I picked the wrong day to wear shoes that don’t fit, Richie thought to himself. He could hear the angry shouts of Patrick and his buddies as they chased the two of them through the crowded Derry Park. Richie took a running jump over the park bench, and laughed breathlessly when he heard the distinct thud of Belch Huggins running into it.

Bill took a sharp left and slid underneath the singing out legs of a child on the swing, and nearly fell when he heard Vic Criss shout when the girls feet landed directly in his face. Glancing over his shoulder, he watched Hockstetter mad dive forward and tackle Richie into the sandbox. Wincing, Bill turned away as Patrick began to rub Richie’s face into the sand.

“You ever going to learn to watch that fucking trashmouth of yours?” Patrick growled at him, pressing his face angrily against the dirt. Richie flailed, but he knew it was no use. He and Patrick may be nearing each other in height these days, but Patrick had always had superiority upper body strength. Or really, all types of strength except possibility intelligential but given his recent actions- maybe even there. “Always been a problem for you, hasn’t it, Tozier? Never, never learn.”

Richie could dimly hear how Henry and the rest of the goons were cheering Patrick on, but he was pretty sure he was getting sand in his eyes at the moment so he couldn’t make out any words. Patrick’s words, he could still hear nearly clear as day. “Are you really this stupid? Is that what this is? Or is it because I made fun of your fairy friend there? You protective of little Kaspbrak?” Richie thrashed all the harder, even though he knew that it was only going to make things worse for him in the end. “Oh, ho ho! Did I hit a nerve, Tozier? Should I go find him, maybe? Do you think that you could save him from me?”

Richie managed to push himself onto his back, fighting at Patrick’s chest and trying to blink through the sand that had settled all of his over face. Patrick was grinning down at him and there was something hard that was not a knee pressing into Richie’s side, but he couldn’t think about that right now. It seemed like Henry was gone- bad news for Billy – but Richie had to focus on Patrick right now. He’d take the most brutal beating Patrick Hockstetter had in him if it meant that he’d leave Eddie alone.

Patrick was practically drooling, so if that was any sign to what Richie was in for then this was going to be a long couple minutes. Richie spit out a mouthful of playground- possibly peed in, oh god, was there pee in this? – at Patrick and scowled up at him. “Why don’t fucking pick on somebody your own size, Hockstetter? Afraid to loose?”

“Last I saw, Tozier.” Patrick’s breath smelled like the worst kind of mixture of marijuana and the Orangesicile smoothie down at the Prince’s on main. Richie’s stomach churned, and he had to fight not to turn his face away. “We are the same size.”

Richie’s last thought before Patrick’s fist came falling towards his face was- predictably- fuck. He didn’t know how long it went on, could have only been a few minutes but it easily could have been hours. But the next thing he knew, Patrick was pulling back and kicking at Richie’s side. Richie groaned and curled into himself.

“Be seeing you, Tozier.”

Richie laid there for a short moment before Bill seemed to appear from thin air and help him up to his feet. “You’re a piece of shit friend, you know that, right?” Richie groaned, pulling on the sleeve of his shirt to wipe at the blood underneath his nose. “Just let ‘em beat me.”

He wasn’t serious, and Bill’s laugh sounded that he knew it. “Hey. N-not all of us are guh-g-gonna go Huh-huh-Hulk to defend suh-suh-somebody who isn’t even h-h-here.” Bill said, letting Richie move to stand on his own. “P-p-pick your b-b-battles, Rich.”

“I pick plenty of battles,” Richie shot back, winking at Bill even thought it definitely hurt his rapidly bruising eye. Bill rolled his eyes.

“Pick fewer battles, Richie.”

→ → →

Eddie rubbed his hands together, and looked up out the window of the Denbrough’s kitchen. Eddie had always thought it was weird how Bill’s kitchen faced out onto the street, growing up neither his, Richie nor Stan’s had been placed that way, but he was thankful for it right now. Every year on the last day of school, starting way back in the second grade, they had always had a sleepover at Denbrough’s house to celebrate the start of summer. Throughout the years, the sleepover had gotten larger, then smaller again last year when Bev’s aunt had deemed it inappropriate for her to be sleeping over with so many boys.

Eddie was fretting, and he knew it. Bill and Richie weren’t back yet, and it had caused a deep anxiety to settle itself in his gut. It had been nearly a year since Eddie Kaspbrak had needed to use his inhaler, and it had been three years since he- with the help of Richie’s overly enthusiastic support – had started weening himself off it. At thirteen, Mr Keene down at the pharmacy had told him that all of his medication were actually falsehoods brought up by his mother. Misted water and sugar pills, all of them. It had broken Eddie, for a long time. He was sure that he’d never be the same person again, that he would never trust the same way again. He was better now, stronger he believed, but if Richie and Bill didn’t show up soon- Eddie might regret not bringing his inhaler.

"Why don’t you wake outside, Eddie?” Georgie Denbrough asked from he kitchen table where he seemed to be doing some sort of homework despite school being over for the term. “It’s the perfect kind of summer night you love. The kind where you have to wear a sweater.”

Eddie smiled softly. Bill had been complaining for the last few months that Georgie had become a pain in the ass, going through some sort of angst-y teenager phase that was annoying to Bill and his parents alike, but Eddie had never seen that sort of behaviour from him. Anytime Eddie was around, Georgie seemed like the same sweet child to Eddie.

Eddie picked up his hoodie from the couch on his way outside, nodding at Stan and Ben who were sitting on the couch. He walked out the front door and hummed to himself as the soft summer wind hit his face. There was a chill to it, but Eddie sort of like the sting it brought to his skin.

He walked across the Denbrough’s lawn, that was sort of getting a little overgrown and no doubt Bill would be roped into mowing in within the next few days. He looked up to the big maple tree on the front of the lawn, and grinned to himself. A good hundred times a year, Eddie could have to yell at Richie to get out of it before he’d hurt himself. Last summer, he’d finally let Richie convinced him to go tree climbing with him- and it hadn’t been a normal sized maple in their friend’s front yard.

“I made soup.” Bev and Mike both startled and looked down at Eddie.

“What did you make soup for?” Beverly asked, still giggling slightly and Eddie shook his head. Richie and Beverly had been together so long that Eddie could barely remember that days before their relationship. Dim memories of believing that Bev and Ben were going to be together, even dimer ones of the days when Bev and Bill were childhood sweethearts. Yet, sometimes Eddie believed that he knew Richie better than Beverly ever even tried. But maybe that was just wishfully thinking.

So Eddie just shrugged, and contemplated it for only a second before scaling up the tree himself. He wiggled himself in between Mike and the trunk, looking down at the ground a little nervously.

“It’s not that high,” Mike said with a small smile. “Don’t worry.”

Eddie cast him a dark look, frowning deeply. “Last time somebody said that to me, I broke my fucking arm.”

“I…” Mike cleared his throat then nodded. “Okay, yeah. That definitely happened.”

“Why are you guys in the tree?” Stan called up to them, Ben standing beside him. Stan had shown up at the Denbrough’s house not long after the rest of the Losers had gotten there. He’d been quiet since he’d gotten there, more so than usually, and kept worrying his bottom lip. He hadn’t given up any sort of information about his meeting with the guidance counsellor, and Stanley Uris wasn’t the kind of person you pushed. (Unless you were Richie Tozier, who pushed everybody.)

“We’re waiting for Bill and Richie,” Eddie and Beverly answered in unison. They quickly pointed at each other and shouted “JINX!” and then burst out laughing. Mike smiled and looked back out to the street, tuning out Eddie and Bev’s continue attempt at jinx through their giggles. He saw Bill and Richie making their ways down the street before anybody else, and Richie wasted no time coming forward and slapping Stan on the shoulder.

The boy looked a little worse for wear, dirt and blood streaked on his cheeks, eye already seeming to be bruising. But he was smiling none the less, a regular old Tozier grin, and he looked up at his friends in the tree. “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!”

Beverly giggled but Eddie jumped out the tree as though he had some sort of Spider Man powers and hadn’t just been fretting about the height. Mike crinkled his brow, as Beverly jumped down from his other side.

Eddie touched the cuts on Richie’s cheeks and his lips tugged down in a worried frown. “What the hell happened to you?” He asked in harsh words that didn’t match the concerned tone of voice.

“Patrick beat him up in the sandbox.” Bill came practically skipping up onto the lawn. “It was like being seven again, which i-i-isn’t something I thought I n-n-n-needed but I really enjoyed.”

Richie scoffed and rolled his eyes. “The only thing you enjoyed, Denbrough, was chatting up that weird newspaper girl in the park.”

“That’s n-n-not true,” Bill challenged, but the flushing of his cheeks implied that it was at least a little bit true. “I also enjoyed you p-p-p-punching P-P-Patrick.”

Richie grinned and nodded but Eddie let out a horrified squeak. “You punched Patrick? Have you lost your absolute goddamn mind, Richard? What could be possibly say that would make you do something so stupid?”

Richie and Bill exchanged a quick look between the two of them, almost a silent conversation, before Richie was reaching out and ruffling up Eddie’s meticulously styled hair. “Awe, don’t you worry about it, Eds. Just trust that he deserved it.”

“Of course he deserves it,” Eddie snapped but he was starting to smile. “Doesn’t mean you should be stupid enough to actually do it. Now, come on. Let’s get those scratches cleaned before you get an infection and they have to cut your dumbass head off.”

Richie wrapped an arm around Beverly and grinned as Eddie pulled him towards the house by his hand. “Did you at least make soup? You know I love soup after getting my ass handed to me.”

→ → →

Richie was rested on the Denbroughs kitchen counter, as Eddie rummaged through the cupboards and complained about how ill stalked it was. Mike chuckled into his bowl of soup, knowing that all Richie really needed was a some soap and hot water. Toss the lanky boy into the shower, and he’d be good as new.

He turned to where Ben and Beverly were both sitting, talking quietly to each other and seemingly blind to Eddie’s frantics not three feet away from them. They all snapped to attention as Bill and Stan came into the room. They both seemed a little knocked off kilter and Mike felt concern settle into his gut at the sight of them.

He didn’t seem to be the only one, Richie shifting to sit up straighter on counter. “What happened, dudes?”

“Somebody is m-m-m-moving into the old Gr-gr-Gray house.” Bill stumbled through his words. “A f-f-family, I guess. There was a g-g-girl…”

Richie waggled his eyebrows and grinned deeply. “A girl, yeah? Is she hot?”

Beverly grabbed one of the bread rolls off the dining room table and wiped at Richie, nailing right in the head, at the same time that Eddie whipped him with the dish cloth in his heads. Richie yelped, rubbing at his arm and pouting. “DAMN! Forgive a man for asking a damn question.”

“You’re not a man,” Stan told him dryly. “You’re an extremely tall, skinny infant that was somehow cursed with the ability to speak.”

Richie blew him a kiss, and Stan rolled his eyes with the tiniest hint of a smile playing on his lips. Stan moved over to reached past Eddie to the rubbing alcohol that was on a shelf just out of Eddie’s tiptoe’d reach. Eddie tried to force himself to sound grateful as he accepted it.

He moved back to Richie and took his chin between his hands. Looking the marks over. It wasn’t as bad as it had looked outside, a singular black eye and some scraping on the side of his cheek. Richie had winced when he’d jumped onto the counter, which likely meant his ribs were bruised but Eddie saw no point in fussing with them just now. Richie had been walking fine, so they weren’t broken.

He still couldn’t help but frown as he dabbed Richie’s cuts with the rubbing alcohol. Richie let out a louder cry than was necessary, and Eddie gave him an unimpressed look. “Aren’t you getting a little old to be running around getting into fights?”

“Aren’t they a little old to still be beating up kids?” Richie challenged with a smirk that quickly turned into a wince as Eddie dabbed at his slit lip.

Then Bill’s voice broke through and shattered the moment, and Eddie tried not to be annoyed. As soon as the moment was over, Eddie had to question if there had even been a moment at all. “Did you m-m-manage to convinced your aunt to let you stay, Bev?” Bill asked, no doubt knowing what the answer would be. Almost immediately after Beverly’s fifteenth birthday, sleepover with the boys permission had been yanked. Eddie wasn’t sure what her aunt been trying to stop from occurring, as Beverly already been dating Richie for years. It certainly wasn’t stopping her from having sex, if Richie’s jokes were anything to go by, and Eddie knew from personal experience that if Richie wanted into somebody’s house… he got in.

“Nah,” Beverly responded with an eye roll. “Got her to let up and extend my curfew. 12:30. Which means if I’m not home by 1, I’m dead meat.”

“I’ll walk you home, babe.” Richie said, popping his lips. He dropped his hand, letting Eddie’s wrist fall from his grip and down to Eddie’s side. His skin was cold where Richie’s touch had just been and it felt him feeling unsettled.

Stan scoffed from where he was leaning against the counter at Richie’s side. “Please, Tozier. We’d have to be way more concerned about you out in the night than Bev.”

Richie pouted for a moment before breaking into a large grin. “Okay, then Eddie and I will both walk Bev, and my Eds will make sure we both make it back here to Billy’s safe and sound.”

“Don’t call me Eds!” Eddie snapped, ignoring just all too many things lately. “And who the fuck said I agreed to that? Why would I leave a perfectly comfortable house to go baby-sit your ass in the middle of the night?”

“Because you love me?” Richie suggested with a toothy grin. Eddie pursed his lips together to keep back his smile. There had never really been any doubt that Eddie was going to walk with Richie and Bev, and he tried to ignore the little thrill it gave them that Richie was inviting him along when he easily could have been using it as an excuse to be alone with his girlfriend. He cursed himself for being so weak.

“Oh, Eddie, don’t bother pretending.” Stan said, waggling his eyes at Eddie from Richie’s other side. “We know you’re going to do it.”

Eddie stuck his tongue out at his friend and tried to ignore how he was flushing right down the back of his neck. Richie squeezed his eyes shut and leaned closer so that Eddie could resume wiping at his face.

It didn’t help Eddie’s whole blushing issue.

→ → →

The dark streets were a comfort to Richie. He’d always preferred night over day, it made him free in a way that he could never been when the sun brought light down on all of his actions. He could more himself at night. He could put down his walls, remove his false face and be just a little bit more true.

Not very many got to see how Richie got under the darkness of Derry’s street. Derry felt endlessly safer at night, when the peering and judgment eyes of his snobby neighbours had gone to bed. Sure, he had to worry about Henry and his goons but he had to worry about them just as much in the light of the day so it couldn’t be a bother to him.

He looped an arm around Eddie’s shoulder as he guided him down and away from Beverly’s house. It wasn’t the best part of town to be hanging around in, he knew that, and it was far from where you wanted to get yourself stranded or cornered. And even so…

“I don’t want to go back yet,” Richie said, quieter than he would usually speak. It just felt a little wrong to be breaking the soft stillness of the night. He felt Eddie stiffen for a moment, before he learned into Richie’s touch. “Let’s go to the Quarry.”

“I am not swimming in the middle of night!” Eddie squawked, a little predictably. Richie chuckled, squeezing Eddie’s shoulder to keep him from pulling away when he felt his friend start to squirm. ”Don’t laugh at me, jackass! Even if it’s kind of warm out, you can still get pneumonia! And die! Do you want to die?”

Richie pursed his lips, shaking his head a little bit. “Can’t say I want to die right at this moment. Ask me again tomorrow, maybe.” He could feel Eddie’s startled and concerned expression pouring into them and Richie wanted to shut this possible emotional moment down before it started. “I didn’t mean swimming, Eds. Let’s just go and... sit at the end of the world for a while.”

Richie glanced down at Eddie, finally, and found his best friend looking back up at him with an expression that Richie couldn’t read. Eddie seemed to realize that Richie was trying to get inside his head, because he wiped the look from his face and replaced it with a soft smile. “That’s pretty profound, Richard. What are you thinking?”

That was the question, wasn’t it? What was Richie thinking? God, wouldn’t it be so much easier if he knew. As it was, Richie was more confused now than when they first introduced Algebra into his life. Sighing, he kept his arm around Eddie’s shoulder and guided him to walk towards the Quarry in the opposite direction of Bill’s house. Eddie slipped away from Richie’s hold, and they walked side-by-side, not touching, the rest of the way. Richie supposed that it should have been awkward, but it wasn’t. It was never awkward with Eddie, always comfortable.

They hiked up the cliff and moved to sit with their legs dangling over the edge. Richie tilted his head back to stare up at the stars- always more visible out here than anywhere within town. He wanted to put his arm back around Eddie, missing the warm weight under him. He’d learned better, though, in the past few years. He’d stopped chasing Eddie after the boy pulled away, knowing it often only lead to a fight. There was only a few times that Eddie would pull back but want back under Richie’s touch- and he always made it clear.

Like now, when he pressed up against Richie’s side when they were settled and seated. Richie pressed his lips together sharply to hold back his smile, and let his arm drop around Eddie’s shoulders once more. “I’m thinking of breaking up with Beverly,” Richie blurted out in a typical-Tozier fashion. Eddie blinked at him, tilting his head back.

“What? Why?” Eddie didn’t sound as though he felt one way or another about it. Or maybe he did, and he wasn’t letting it show. Didn’t make Richie feel any better, and it sure as hell didn’t give him an answer to Eddie’s question.

“Why?” Richie asked with a bit of a nervous chuckle. Then he hummed, scratching the back of his neck with his free hand. “Why… I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, I guess? I’ve been with Beverly so long, and I never really… planned on it at all. We just kissed at that party, and suddenly- you know? Bev and Rich. Rich and Bev. And it’s been… years, yeah? And I just… I don’t know if I see myself being with Beverly for the rest of my life.”

Eddie was looking at Richie very seriously, a little softly, and Richie could get lost his Eddie’s eyes in this moment. And he felt a little guilty about it, and he had to look away. “Like, I love her. Obviously. But I don’t know if I’m… actually in love with her. You know? Sometimes it just feels wrong.”

Eddie swallowed loudly enough that Richie could hear him. For a long moment, it was just the two of them breathing. So close together that they shared air, and Richie’s heart was thrumming with anxiety. “You need to do whatever makes you happy, Rich.”

Rich just hummed, and dropped his head down on top of Eddie’s and stared back out to the endless water.

#reddie #reddie fic #my writing #amts #scl tag #if you read signs of life #you want to read this bc i scrapped sol and decided to do just reddie #so this has some of the same scenes #but also other scenes that werent in sol #thank ily

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