Chapter Text
Richie had just finished pretending to propose to Bev for the second time that week (it was only Wednesday) when she announced that she had to be going home.
‘No, m’lday! Stay!’ Richie cried dramatically, kneeling before her with his arms oustretched. ‘Am I moving too fast? We can slow it down down – maybe we could date for a year first before jumping right into the engagement?’
Bev rolled her eyes. ‘Yeah, because spending more time with you would solve the problem,’ she laughed. ‘No, I really have to go, I told you guys earlier I could only hang out for a bit. See you later!’
She headed off down the beaten track they had made through the gnarled bracken that surrounded this particular nook of theirs in the Barrens, leaving Richie and Eddie alone.
Bill and Mike would be coming along soon – they had gone on a snack run when they realised Ben wasn’t going to show up today with his usual sackful of goodies – but for a while, at least, Richie and Eddie had the place to themselves. Richie sat on the dusty sun-dried earth, flipping aimlessly through some comics, and Eddie himself was perched on a tree stump that he had covered in Richie’s jacket, so as not to get dirt on the seat of his trousers.
They had stumbled across this little space in the Barrens a couple of weeks ago, a fallen tree taking up most of what could be a nice little clearing. Richie had remarked how, if they removed the dead tree and cleaned the stump up a bit, it would make a great seat for Eddie’s prissy ass. They had decided to do just that, more out of boredom than anything else. They managed to haul the tree up against the bushes and then Ben had dutifully got to work with his hatchet, turning the old trunk into a bench and the stump into a little seat. Eddie would never admit out loud that he was grateful for Richie’s idea, since he knew it had been made to tease him—it wasn’t like he was that fussy about dirt, he just didn’t want to get his clothes dirty or his mom would have a bird—but the fact was, he sat on the stump every chance he could, unless Stan was having a particularly prissy day himself.
Eddie had some comics, too, but he couldn’t focus on them. He snapped his Little Lulu shut with a decisive clap of his hands and scowled down at Richie, lying on the ground below him.
‘Stop flirting with Bev,’ he said suddenly, surprising himself with the bitterness in his voice.
Richie turned to him, eyes wide. ‘What?’ he asked, genuinely confused.
So was Eddie for a moment, and then he remembered what he had been going to say – the reason why he didn’t like Richie flirting with Bev, or so he thought at the time.
‘It makes her uncomfortable,’ he clarified. ‘She always moves away from you or just ups and leaves completely when you start declaring your undying love for her. Get a clue.’
Eddie looked away with a frown on his face, as if he were too exasperated with Richie's immaturity to even look at him. He should have known this was a mistake because Richie just loved his grumpy face.
‘Aw, Eds, I didn’t realise you were the jealous type!’ he leered.
‘I am NOT—’
The words died in his throat when Richie jumped up and leant right into his face—as close as you’d be if you were going to kiss someone, Eddie thought randomly—his hands resting on the tree stump on either side of Eddie’s thighs, trapping him in.
‘Do you just want me to flirt with you alone, is that it?’
‘No!’
Eddie didn’t realise it was a lie until the word was out.
And then all of a sudden he did realise. That was exactly what he wanted.
He didn’t like it when Richie flirted with Bev or Bill or the others – which he did a lot, to be perfectly honest. He knew he shouldn’t be mad about it: it was just a joke, that’s just how Richie was. Flirting was only one arm of his monstrously vast sense of humour. It didn’t mean anything.
And that wasn’t the problem – that it didn’t mean anything. He didn’t necessarily want Richie to do anything with him or even to like him back. He just felt bad when Richie said nice things to the others like he’d sometimes say to Eddie, even if none of it meant anything with the others either. Even if it was a joke, it still felt nice to hear those things from Richie. And when he just said those things so casually to other people, too, it made Eddie feel…
He wouldn’t let himself give the feeling a name. It was too ridiculous. Too sudden.
Oh God, what’s wrong with me? Eddie screamed at himself. I don’t want Richie to do anything, but I want him to only pay attention to me. That’s not fair on him, and it doesn’t even make any sense. If you like someone, aren’t you supposed to want them to do something about it?
If you like someone…
It all crashed down on Eddie in the space of five seconds, not perfectly coherent at the time, but it would become so that night as he lay wide awake in bed and churned everything over in his mind.
And at that moment in the Barrens, he might have gotten away with his outspoken lie and all of this might have been safely locked away inside his head, never to be revealed...if only Eddie hadn’t looked away, his wide eyes unable to meet his Richie’s smug, teasing blue gaze.
But he did. It was an accident, a nervous reflex, he hadn't meant to turn away and make it so obvious - but he coudn't help it.
And it was on the third of those five long, unbelievable seconds that Richie saw all this. Saw the other boy’s eyes widen, saw Eddie look away, saw the first mist of a red blush creeping up his neck from beneath his shirt.
And it was on the fourth of those five seconds that Richie Tozier realised what that meant. His mouth fell open, but he was momentarily, for once in his life, completely speechless.
On the fifth second, Eddie snapped back to reality, surfacing from the tidal wave of thoughts that, it turned out, had been there all along.
‘I have to go,’ he exclaimed, taking advantage of Richie’s shock to push his way out of the cage of the other boy’s arms. He grabbed his inhaler from the floor, but left everything else – his coat, his comics, his handkerchief – and raced off through the underbrush, without looking back.