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Eddie isn’t sure, looking back on it, when cars had become his Thing – the Thing that makes him tick, that everybody else turns to him for when they need advice. Oh, you’ve got a problem with your car? Ask Eddie Kaspbrak, he’s the car guy. He wasn’t the first of his friends to learn how to drive – that would be Mike, who’s been operating tractors and quad bikes on the farm since he was about twelve years old – nor was he the first to actually own a car. He’s always had a knack for directions, that much is true, but there was a time not so very long ago when even the thought of being behind a wheel would have been enough to send him into a panic attack, his mother’s voice at the back of his head reciting dire statistics about road traffic accidents involving teenage drivers.
All that, of course, had changed with the revelation that Sonia had been lying to him about every single aspect of his life, and two months after his sixteenth birthday, Eddie had gone behind her back and tentatively asked Mike to give him driving lessons. He’d still been nervous to begin with, and he’d almost called it quits after the first time he crashed, but Mike was endlessly patient and encouraging, and once he started to relax and enjoy himself he was surprised how quickly he got the hang of it. One time, after a particularly nifty bit of parallel parking, Mike had beamed at him and called him a natural, and Eddie knew right then and there that he’d gotten the bug.
He knows that for most kids his age, owning a car is a status thing, a symbol of wealth and power in the complex social hierarchy that is high school, but to Eddie it represents more than that. Having his own car means freedom from his mother and her unshakable hold on him, the possibility of someday leaving both her and the shitty town that created her in his dust and moving on to bigger, brighter things. It’s sort of like the feeling he’d gotten when he was finally allowed his own bike at the age of nine, only magnified by about a thousand – and so after passing his test, he’d spent the better part of a year saving money from his part-time job at the Aladdin, browsing through auto magazines whenever he got the chance. For his seventeenth birthday, the rest of the Losers had clubbed together to give him the last bit of cash he needed, and the very next day he’d gone down to the used car lot and purchased his very first set of wheels.
Richie, naturally, had just about killed himself laughing when he’d first seen the car, a 1985 Pontiac Grand Am in a sickly shade of green with doors that creaked too loudly and an engine that constantly sounded a split-second away from giving up the ghost. Even Eddie had to admit that it had definitely seen better days, but he was never one to be deterred easily, and he spent hours in the library reading up on car maintenance, learning about carburetors and spark plugs and how to take an engine apart without fucking up anything vital. Before long, he’d discovered he had an affinity for that, too; he’s always been good at fixing things up, from his friends’ scrapes and bruises to the faulty air conditioning unit his mother could never be bothered to look at, and his car is no different.
He doesn’t really know how to explain it, just that cars make sense to him; he understands intuitively how they should work, in a way he rarely has with people. He likes that he has his own Thing now, an idiosyncrasy that belongs to him and him alone, like Ben’s poetry and Richie’s voices and Stan’s birds; that he isn’t just the weak one, the sickly one, the queer one. He thinks there’s probably a contradiction in there somewhere – that small, dainty, fragile Eddie Kaspbrak, who hates dirt and used to carry a surgical face mask with him everywhere he went now spends his free time elbow-deep in the guts of his beloved car, covered in grease and grime – but he finds that he likes that, too. That he can’t be so easily pinned down and tucked away into a neat little box. He defies convention, Beverly had told him once.
He hid he car at Bill’s to begin with, while he was fixing her up, and when he finally brought it home Sonia damn near had a conniption, sobbing that it was a death trap and he was going to get himself killed and leave her all alone. Eddie had put his foot down, telling her in no uncertain terms that this was happening, and then spent the next few days making a show of swallowing his pills and helping her around the house, generally being all sweetness and light until she got the message: accept this one thing, and I’ll play by your rules. Theirs is a relationship of mutual manipulation now; it doesn’t make any of what she’s done to him okay, but it makes his daily existence a little more bearable. He still feels guilty, sometimes, when she tells him to drive safe before he leaves for school in the morning, but he suspects she’s less worried about him going headfirst through the windshield than she is the possibility that he’ll just drive off into the sunset one day and never come back.
--
By the time they turn eighteen, Richie is the only one out of his group of friends who hasn’t even started learning to drive, and he seems more than content to let Eddie chauffeur him around everywhere. Eddie acts like it’s an inconvenience, but in truth he’s come to selfishly enjoy the time that he and Richie spend alone in his car together, eagerly anticipating each journey and hoarding the memory of Richie sprawled in his passenger seat for when they head to separate colleges in the fall.
On this particular morning, Eddie pulls up outside Richie’s house at precisely 8.30 to give him a ride to school, the same as he always does. Richie emerges like some kind of caveman at 8.39, clutching a piece of buttered toast and yawning widely as he climbs in the passenger side. Eddie takes a moment to just drink him in, thinking how unfair it is that Richie can still look so good with his hair unbrushed and a stain that Eddie sincerely hopes is toothpaste on the collar of his shirt. Then Richie tears into his toast with the savage enthusiasm of a starving man, and Eddie feels his expression immediately twist into a scowl.
“If you leave grease stains in my car with your disgusting butter fingers, I’m cutting your dick off.”
“Kinky,” Richie says through a mouthful of toast. He swallows with what appears to be some difficulty, then says, “What do you say we blow off school today?”
Eddie stares at him, trying to gauge from his expression how serious he is. It’s already April of senior year; finals are looming on the horizon, and while Richie could probably waltz into every exam without opening a single book and still get straight As, Eddie needs to actually study if he wants to have any chance of getting into college and finally escaping his mother for good. He’s good at English and woodwork, terrible at math and varying degrees of average at everything else, whereas Richie seems to just be naturally gifted at whatever he turns his hand to. It’s irritating as all hell.
“I can’t just blow off school,” he says, when it becomes apparent that Richie is, in fact, one hundred percent serious. “I’m only averaging a C in Bio; I need to turn that into a B by June or I won’t even get into my safety school.”
“It’s only one day,” Richie says. “Bio will still be there tomorrow, I promise you.”
“Why today, specifically?”
“Why not today?” Richie shrugs. “Life moves pretty fast, Eds. If you don’t stop and look around every once in a while, you might miss it.”
“Don’t call me that,” Eddie says automatically. “Also, are you seriously doing Ferris Bueller right now? You’re almost ten years too late with that reference.”
“There’s no time limit on the classics, baby,” Richie says. Eddie shoves at him and steadfastly ignores the way his cheeks burn and his chest gets all fluttery whenever Richie calls him dumb shit like that. It doesn’t mean anything; Richie is Richie, flirtatious and over-friendly with anything that moves, and if he does it with Eddie more than most it’s only because he gets some kind of perverted kick out of pushing Eddie’s buttons.
“So? What do you say?” He prompts when Eddie doesn’t say anything for several seconds. “We’re young, it’s a beautiful day, we’re never gonna have this much freedom again in our lives. We could drive up to Portland, hang out with Bev. Tell me that doesn’t sound better than sitting in some stuffy classroom all day.”
In truth, Eddie is already tempted, but he isn’t about to concede defeat so easily. “Beverly is in school,” he points out. “Where we should be right now.”
“Yeah, about that…” Richie rubs the back of his neck, looking suddenly sheepish in a way that sets all sorts of alarm bells ringing in Eddie’s brain.
“What did you do?”
“I may have phoned ahead and told her to expect us.”
“Oh my God.” Eddie slumps forward and rests his head against the steering wheel with the realization that he’s been had. “You’ve actually planned this all out, haven’t you?”
“You can thank me later,” Richie says. “You don’t want to let down Miss Marsh, do you, Edmund?”
“I hate you so much,” Eddie groans. They both know he doesn’t mean a word of it. Invoking Bev was a dirty tactic on Richie’s part, it’s true, but Eddie was probably always going to end up agreeing. It’s not that he has difficulty saying no to Richie, but rather that spending time around Richie seems to bring his own inner rebel to the surface. “What the hell, we’re gonna be late for school now anyway. Let’s do this.”
“That’s my boy,” Richie beams, ruffling Eddie’s hair as he puts the car into gear. Eddie bats his hands away with more irritation than he really feels, a well-rehearsed routine he barely even has to think about anymore.
“You do know my name isn’t Edmund, don’t you?” He says as they peel out onto the road, just to double-check. With Richie, it never hurts to be sure.
--
The drive to Portland takes a little over an hour, and Richie spends much of it alternating between singing along to the radio in a horrible off-key voice and sticking his head out the window like a fucking Labrador. Eddie wishes he didn’t find it as endearing as he does, and lectures him on the possibility of being decapitated by a low-hanging tree branch just to keep up appearances.
Beverly greets them outside her aunt’s house when they arrive, a blur of skinny limbs and bright orange hair that tackles Richie in a bear hug as soon as he exits the car. Richie returns her embrace with just as much enthusiasm, picking her up and spinning her around while she shrieks with laughter. Watching them, Eddie feels a brief pang of envy, wishing he could be that unrestrained in his affections; it doesn’t matter if anybody thinks Richie and Bev are a couple, but Eddie’s gotten stick just for standing too close to Richie in public before now.
“Let her breathe, Rich,” he says dryly, forcing himself to shake off whatever weird funk is threatening to overcome him. “Hi Beverly.”
“Hey, Eddie,” she greets once Richie sets her back down, sounding a little winded, and then she’s hugging him, too; a little more restrained, but no less warm. She smells exactly the way she always does, like cigarette smoke and laundry detergent and drugstore perfume, and Eddie is struck by just how much he’s missed her. He feels a little guilty, coming up to visit her without the others, but fuck it – Ben sees her practically every other weekend anyway, and as Richie’s designated driver, Eddie feels it’s his responsibility to make sure he gets his share of Beverly time.
“So, Richie’s got you playing delinquent too, huh?” He asks as they pull apart.
“Oh, I don’t need Richie's help for that,” Beverly says with a wink, and slips her arm through the crook of his elbow. She does the same to Richie on the other side, so that the three of them are linked. “So, what’s the plan, boys?”
The plan, as it turns out, is pretty much nonexistent (“I didn’t think that far ahead!” Richie protests when Eddie and Beverly both turn to him) but the three of them pass away the day at East End Beach, Eddie and Richie filling Bev in on what she’s missed back home while she regales them with tales from Portland in return. Eddie’s never really seen the appeal of beaches before, but he finds that he enjoys the sea breeze against his skin, the faint tang of salt in the air. He can definitely see why Beverly likes this place so much; she has a healthy glow about her that she never had back in Derry, and she seems much more settled, comfortable in her body.
At one point they pass a couple of older guys in their early thirties maybe, holding hands as they stroll along the beach like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and Eddie’s stomach twists with something like longing at the sight. They still attract their fair share of looks, but if this was Derry they’d probably get beaten to a pulp. Eddie feels a familiar itch under his skin, the urge to run away and never look back; it’s something he’s been feeling more and more often lately, and he has to remind himself that he doesn’t have long to wait now.
As if reading his mind, Richie loops an arm around Eddie’s neck, dragging him close and planting a wet, messy kiss on his cheek. Then he does the exact same thing to Beverly, and Eddie tells himself again that it doesn’t mean anything, it’s just Richie. He’s like an overgrown puppy, brimming with affection and willing to give it to anyone who so much as throws a snack his way.
“Are you ever going to tell him?” Beverly asks later. Richie has wandered off in search of ice cream, and the two of them are sitting on the promenade, feet dangling over the edge as they watch the tide come in.
“Tell who what?” Eddie feigns ignorance, keeping his eyes on the horizon. He’s not surprised that Beverly knows – she’s always been one of the most perceptive of them, even now that she lives over an hour away – but that doesn’t mean he feels any particular inclination to talk about it.
“Okay, fine, if you wanna play that game,” Beverly sighs, throwing her hands up in exasperation. “I’m just saying. You do realize September is – what – five months away? And the odds of you ending up in the same place are astronomically small. You don’t want to miss your chance and spend the rest of your life wondering what might have been.”
“How are things with Ben?” Eddie asks pointedly, because everybody seems to forget he can play dirty when he wants to.
“Ouch.” Beverly raises her eyebrows, but otherwise doesn’t take the bait, damn her. “That was mean, Kaspbrak. I’m impressed.”
“Sorry,” Eddie mumbles, and then Richie is back with three dripping ice cream cones: strawberry for Eddie, mint chocolate for Bev and some kind of hideous, electric blue monstrosity for himself. He looks between the two of them suspiciously, apparently picking up on the weird atmosphere.
“What’d I miss?”
“Eddie was just telling me about Mike’s new girlfriend, weren’t you, Eddie?” Beverly says smoothly, and Eddie wonders exactly when she became such a good liar.
“She’s not good enough for our Mikey,” Richie grumbles, apparently convinced, and squeezes himself awkwardly to sit between them.
“Nobody is,” Bev agrees, and then the three of them lapse into silence, watching the waves. Eddie finds it almost hypnotizing, the rush of the ocean going in and out, swallowing up the beach. He wonders fancifully how far away Europe is on the other side; how long it would take to get there if he started swimming now.
“Do you ever wish you could just… pack up your stuff and leave, start over again where nobody knows you?” He asks, without really meaning to.
“I think that’s called going to college,” Beverly deadpans. Richie doesn’t say anything, staring out over the sea with an uncharacteristically pensive look on his face.
They say their goodbyes not long after that, conscious of the need to return to Derry before it gets late enough for Eddie’s mom to start wondering where he is. Before they go, Beverly gives him a letter for Ben, with strict instructions not to read it and definitely not to let Richie anywhere near it, and as she hugs him goodbye she whispers “think about what I said” in his ear where Richie can’t see.
--
“This was such a fucking stupid idea,” Eddie says for about the tenth time in the last half hour. “I can’t believe you got us lost.”
He’s driven to Portland and back plenty of times before without any trouble, but for some reason he’d let Richie talk him into taking a “shortcut”, despite the fact that Eddie is both the driver and the navigator of their group. Now he has no idea where they are, and judging by the current orange hue of the sky he guesses they’ve got maybe an hour of light left. He tries very hard not to think about how much his mother is probably freaking out right now, and how much sucking up he’ll have to do to get her to slacken the leash again.
“We can’t be lost, you’re like a human GPS,” Richie says, infuriatingly unbothered by the whole situation. “I have complete faith in your navigational abilities.”
“Well, I appreciate the sentiment, but your faith is unfounded,” Eddie sighs. “We’re definitely fucking lost.”
There are no other cars around, probably because Richie has directed them down some fucking one-lane back road, so he pulls over and takes out the map that he keeps in the glove box for instances such as these. He’s never had to use it before, but he’s always figured it’s better to be prepared. He squints at it now in an effort to figure out where the fuck they are, but his vision blurs and the squiggly lines that are supposed to represent the roads seem to move of their own volition, writhing like snakes across the page. He can’t make heads or tails of it, and he realizes from the growing pressure in his chest that he’s about two seconds away from having a full-blown panic attack.
“Fuck!” He smacks the palm of his hand against the steering wheel and forces himself to take even, measured breaths, just like his first therapist had instructed him to do after he found out his “asthma” was bullshit.
“…Aaand here’s where Eddie goes berserk,” Richie mutters to nobody in particular.
“Wow, thanks. More dumb movie references, that’s exactly what we need right now,” Eddie says, pinching the bridge of his nose. Weirdly, it does sort of help, even if only because his stubbornness kicks in and he doesn’t want to give Richie the satisfaction of being right.
“How dare you?” Richie slaps a hand over his chest in mock-offence. “That movie is a classic, Eds. Even you like that movie.”
“Yeah, the first time you made me watch it,” Eddie allows. “It kind of lost its appeal after the next hundred. Though I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised you’re so obsessed with a movie where the lead character is basically you.”
“First of all, I’m flattered, but I could only aspire to Ferris’ level of genius,” Richie says. “And everybody knows the movie is really about Cameron, so there.”
Eddie stares at him, nonplussed. He feels a little bit ridiculous, arguing over a goddamn John Hughes flick while they’re stranded in the middle of nowhere with darkness fast approaching, but Richie isn’t making a lick of sense right now. “Did you hit your head or something? It’s right there in the title, dipshit: the movie isn’t called Cameron Frye’s Day Off.”
“Well, no, but that’s sort of the point,” Richie says, shoving his glasses further up his nose the way he always does whenever settling in to defend his position. “Everybody loves Ferris, right, because Ferris is the man, but really he’s just the comic relief. Cameron’s the one who actually grows as a person and stands up to his shithead dad. Plus he’s the one with the car, so, you know, he literally drives the plot.”
Richie looks almost embarrassed by the end of his spiel, and he’s watching Eddie with this sort of soft expression on his face, and – well. Eddie’s not an idiot. He’s well aware that he’s the Cameron in their relationship; the high-strung, neurotic hypochondriac to Richie’s spontaneous jokester. It’s just a stupid analogy, he knows, but to hear that Richie views him that way – not as the sidekick, but the protagonist – it’s a fucking lot, and suddenly he realizes just why Richie had been so insistent on doing this today.
“I think you’re being a little hard on Ferris,” he says, hiding behind the clumsy metaphor because it’s safer than spelling out what he actually wants to say. “He just wanted to show his friends a good time before they all graduated and went their separate ways.”
Richie shrugs kind of miserably, and Eddie knows he’s hit the nail on the head. Richie is scared of clowns, sure, but he’s terrified of being left behind. “You’ve been so stressed out about finals lately, it feels like I’ve hardly seen you, and I just wanted to do something fun together. You’re gonna get out of this town, Eds, we both are, but in the meantime I don’t want us to – to miss out on what we’ve got right now, you know?”
“I know,” Eddie says quietly. Getting out of Derry means freedom from his mother, but it also means leaving Richie and the rest of his friends behind, maybe for good. He likes to believe that they’ll remain in touch even when they’re all scattered across the country, but he’s not naïve enough to think that things always work out that way.
“For what it’s worth, I think I’d rather be Sloane than Cameron,” he says in an attempt to lighten the mood, before his brain has time to fully register what’s about to come out of his mouth and slam on the brakes. “She gets to kiss Ferris.”
Richie’s eyebrows practically disappear into his hairline while Eddie practically has an out of body experience because Jesus Christ, did he really say that. “Is this you coming out to me?” Richie eventually asks after several excruciating seconds of silence, voice carefully neutral.
“I don’t know, maybe?” In truth, Eddie had been planning on doing nothing of the sort. Up until now, he’d been more than content to keep up the status quo, where his friends all know that he’s gay and he knows that they know, but it’s one of those things that they just Don’t Talk About. “If it was, would that, um. Would that be a problem?”
“What? No, no, of course not,” Richie is shaking his head so vehemently Eddie is almost surprised it doesn’t fall off, and even though he never really expected Richie to think differently of him, even though he’s sure Richie has known for years anyway, Eddie still feels a weight lift from his shoulders at the acceptance. “And just so you know, if – hypothetically speaking – if Cameron wanted to kiss Ferris, maybe Ferris would totally be down with that? I mean, sure, he likes Sloane, but maybe he likes Cameron too? Maybe he’s always liked Cameron, and he’s just been waiting for Cameron to make the first move because he’s too chickenshit to do anything –“
“Richie.” Eddie interrupts his nervous rambling, not even bothering to try and hide the sappy grin that’s threatening to erupt all over his face because holy shit, Richie likes him, who the fuck knew. “I’m going to kiss you now.”
“Okay,” Richie says weakly, and then Eddie makes good on his promise before he can talk himself out of it. It’s a little awkward at first, with the gearstick between them and both of them still belted into their seats, but they make it work. Richie’s lips are soft and a little chapped, and he tastes faintly of menthol cigarettes, and the happy, slightly stunned noise he makes when Eddie winds his fingers through the curls at the back of his neck is one that Eddie thinks he could stand to hear for the rest of his life.
They’ve only been at it for a few minutes, but Eddie notices when he pulls back for air that the car windows have already started to fog up. So have Richie’s glasses, and Eddie snorts out a laugh at the ridiculous picture he makes, ducking his head to hide how deliriously happy he is.
“I take it back,” he says, swiping a finger through the condensation. “You’re way too much of a dork to be Ferris.”
“I can live with that,” Richie says. It’s all too tempting to lean in and kiss him again, but nighttime is truly setting in now and they’re not any less lost than they were before. Eddie sits back in his seat with a sigh, trying to ignore the buzzing in his lips and resolving himself to study the map until the lines start to make sense to him.
“Okay, I think I can get us home now.”
“I never doubted it for a second,” Richie says, draping an arm around his shoulders, and Eddie feels lighter than he thinks he ever has before as he starts the engine and gets them back on the road.
--
The following morning, Eddie pulls up outside Richie’s house at precisely 8.30, just like he always does. Richie stumbles out the front door with his glasses askew and a half-eaten croissant in his hand at 8.43, and Eddie tells him he’s a dead man if he drops crumbs inside his car, slaps his hand away when he goes to fiddle with the radio dial. All in all, everything is exactly the same as it always is.
“I’m starting to think you love this car more than me,” Richie says when Eddie parks in his usual space outside the school at 8.51.
“You’re starting to think that?” Eddie repeats. “Of course I do, Rich, that’s not even a question. You’re a close second, though,” he adds to soften the blow, then has a moment of internal panic because what if it’s too soon, they’ve only kissed once and they haven’t so much as talked about it since – but then Richie grins at him, crooked and a little goofy, and his doubts start to melt away.
“It’s okay, Eds, I’m pretty fond of this car myself.” He pats the dashboard absently, and then his smile turns just a little bit wicked. “We’ve got some good memories together, you know?”
Eddie rolls his eyes at that, but he can’t help leaning over the center console, angling his face for a kiss. Richie meets him halfway, his palm huge and warm against Eddie’s jaw, and it’s easy, like they’ve been doing this for years. Eddie is distantly aware that they’re not exactly in the most concealed location, that anyone walking by could look in the window and see them, but in this moment he couldn’t care less.
Richie looks slightly dazed when he pulls away, his mouth pink and swollen, and he blinks a couple of times as if to clear his head. “Um. We should probably get to class,” he says, somewhat regretfully. He makes as if to get out of the car, but Eddie stops him with a hand around his wrist.
“Wait. We’ve still got a couple of minutes before the bell goes, can’t we just… stay here?”
He doesn’t know how to explain it; that he isn’t quite ready to leave the safe, protective bubble of his car and face the rest of the world just yet. Thankfully, Richie seems to get it anyway, because he doesn’t try to make a joke or ask for clarification, just nods understandingly and settles back into his seat.
Eddie knows that they could probably just walk right into school and pretend like nothing has changed, keep this thing private between the two of them. Richie would go along with it, if he asked. But his classmates have been calling him a fag since he was about six years old; they’re not likely to stop no matter what he does, and Eddie doesn’t see the point of depriving himself of one of the few things that have ever made him truly happy just to appease a bunch of assholes who had already made up their minds about him long before he ever kissed another boy. He only has a few months left with Richie before go their separate ways, and he intends to make the most of them; he just needs a minute to gather his courage first.
He takes a deep breath, feeling his mind clear as he lets the air out slowly through his nose. “Okay. I’m ready.”
He taps the steering wheel one last time for luck, then opens the door and climbs out. The morning air is crisp and cool as it hits his face; he takes Richie’s hand as they walk together towards the main school building, and decides that the stares and whispers are worth it for the look of pure, unadulterated happiness that breaks out over Richie’s face at that moment.
“Where the hell were you two yesterday?” Stan asks as they fall into step with the rest of the Losers, a knowing smirk on his face that makes Eddie want to curl into a ball and beam with pride all at once.
“I’m afraid our dear Eddie Spaghetti was struck down by a nasty case of senioritis,” Richie says without missing a beat, letting go of Eddie’s hand to sling an arm around his shoulders and draw him close. “I took it upon myself to nurse him back to health, and thankfully he’s feeling right as rain again today. Right, Eds?”
“Yeah,” Eddie agrees, aware that he’s probably gazing up at Richie’s stupid, familiar face like some kind of lovesick idiot, but entirely unable to stop. “Never better.”