Chapter Text
As the warm blood seeped from his hands into Eddies, Richie couldn’t think of a better moment. He slowly squeezed the other boy’s small hand, and looked around at the Losers. His friends. After killing the clown, everyone looked distinctly sadder… no, that wasn’t it. Everyone looked older. More mature. He guessed that attacking a psychotic clown was enough to knock someone's mentality up a few years.
“P-Promise that if It ever comes back, we’ll come back too. And kill It.” Bill said the bond with a fierce determination in his eyes, with his full intent to fulfill the bond. But what about the others? Richie knew sure as hell it would suck if he ever had to come back and face that thing again, but he’d do it. If he did it with Eddie and the others, of course. Not alone.
It seemed like that was what everyone else was thinking. The dread of ever having to risk their lives like that again, but the duty they had to protect their town, and make sure that no one else would be a victim of the clown.
Their hands dropped and the bond was complete.
After that, Richie sort of lost track of time. He sat by the banks of the river with the others as everyone left one by one. First Stan, then Mike, Ben, Bev, and Bill. He could have sworn that Bev and Bill were holding hands as they walked away, and snickered at the image.
That left just him and Eddie sitting by themselves. All alone.
He looked over. The setting sun in front of them was on Eddie's face, showing off his freckles and making the end of his usually brown hair tinted gold. Eddie’s customary miffed expression was replaced with one of ease. He turned around and looked at Richie, who hadn’t realized he had been staring for so long. Blush instantly rose from his neck into his cheeks and he very quickly looked away. “Um.” Richie felt Eddie’s eyes linger on him for a couple of seconds in confusion, then turn back to the sunset. He exhaled with relief and tried to turn to the sunset as well to ignore his heart suddenly beating super fast- what the fuck was that about?
They sat in silence for a few more minutes before Eddie finally spoke. “Do you really think we killed It?”
“Can we not think about that shit right now?”
He sighed. “Sorry. It just makes me anxious to think that… y’know.” His face was tight with worry again, the calm face he had earlier now completely gone, which made Richie pissed. Eddie shouldn’t have to worry about shit like this. He wanted to bring back the happy mood that had just been disrupted.
Slowly, as if testing the waters, he reached out his non-cut hand to Eddies, and slowly slipped it over. He felt Eddie’s hand tense a little bit which made him think he made a mistake, but it slowly loosened up and their fingers laced together in the grass. They sat like that for a minute or two, hand in hand, not saying anything. They didn’t look at each other either and Richie was glad, because he was blushing so hard he thought his head was going to explode.
Suddenly, Eddie whipped his hand back and abruptly stood up, brushing the dirt off of his shirt. “I… have to go. Mom said I had to be back by 8...” he trailed off and started speed walking out of the area, leaving Richie alone and flustered.
“Wait! So I’ll see you tomorrow, right?”
He heard Eddie rush a half-hearted response and hurry off, soon disappearing behind the trees. Fuck. By the looks of it he’d made a horrible mistake, and Eddie would most likely never speak to him again. Why was he such a fucking idiot? He groaned and slapped his hands onto his face, nearly cracking his glasses. Stupid fucking idiot!
But then again, there was that moment where Eddie didn’t pull away. Their hands had stayed locked together for a minute- even if just a minute. There was no overlooking that. But then why was he walking away now?
Eddie was just so god damn confusing. But he’d kind of always been like that.
Richie gathered himself and stood up, leaving the spot near the river. Now it would be tainted sour with the memory of him getting up and ditched like that. He scoffed, and headed back to his bike.
As he biked back home, he thought about what the hell to do next. He’d most likely just end up pretending like nothing happened. Eddie is probably freaking out right now and honestly, he is too. It’s not very fucking platonic to hold hands with your best friend while watching the sunset. If he just forgot it ever happened, then things could possibly go back to the way it was, which would mean ambiguous shoulder clasps and prolonged glances.
It had been no secret to Richie that he’d had a crush on Eddie for some time- of course he’d never told anyone, and barely had the guts to bring it up in his own thoughts, but it was there. It had always been this far away idea, at most. Never gonna happen in a million years, there was no way in hell that Eddie Kaspbrack would like him. But thinking back on it… was it really that impossible? The two had always been closer than all of the other Losers, and had always shared a bit of a stronger bond than everyone else. And there were these moments here and there, like at the river, where things just seemed to be super…
Romantic.
Richie immediately shuddered. It wasn’t normal for him to be thinking these things about his best friend. Who was a boy. That was the other thing; Eddie was a boy. Things would be so much different if he had just been a girl instead. If he was, then no doubt about it Richie would kiss him every second he got.
Wait, what the fuck?
Jesus, he really liked him.