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One day, Richie thinks, the world flipped on its axis and without giving him any kind of polite warning, flipped him with it. Although most of his life was spent no differently from others around him, was no more exciting than those before him, and he guessed, anyone who embarked on this Journey of Living after him wouldn’t stray from the same course that seemed to be set for the average, everyday kind of person. He knew, despite his certainly desperate attempts to skew it, that for whatever reason, it would persist with linear progression toward the same destinations that were predetermined for the rest of the Earth’s population. No matter how hard he tried to take control, the reigns always seemed to be ripped from his hands just as soon as they had fallen into his grasp.
He had no say in what the universe was planning for him and life made sure to teach him that lesson before he started thinking any different. He could run and he could scream and he could cry, but nothing could change what had been written in the stars. He couldn’t and wouldn't avoid the inevitable.
There was no refuting this, and he learned the hard way, when, at the age of thirteen, he and his best friends—his only friends, frankly—fought an evil, otherworldly, child devouring clown and fucking won even though they knew they didn’t stand a chance. When they—all seven of them—had been prepared to die; for each other, for Georgie, for everyone else and then walked away with only cuts and bruises and sewage-drenched clothing and a stench that even made Richie gag. It didn't smell like millions of gallons of Derry pee—it smelled like death.
Sometimes, right after, Richie often worried that they might have actually died down there. Who was to say they ever really came out of the sewers? No one knew for sure; they could have very well been down there, still, floating amongst all of the other missing kids, forgotten just like the rest of them. It was an ugly thought, and it was loud, too, and on the bad days it scared him so bad he hid in his closet and pinched himself until he bled and cried when he did because it was the only thing that made him feel better; the only thing that told him he was alive, that they had survived.
On the worst days, though—days that he couldn't leave his bedroom, days that he couldn't stare at nothing too long in fear of it becoming something or someone else, days where he laid in his bed in the dark with his eyes shut tight for so long, so afraid of opening them and finding himself in those sewers again, beneath the lifeless bodies of kids he knew and kids he didn’t, standing in front of the world’s biggest lost and found pile and at the bottom, Georgie’s yellow raincoat…his paper boat… and then, as the fear consumed him whole (a flash of It’s split open mouth—whirlwind of yellow, blood-soaked razors—a kaleidoscope of teeth and blood and death; its only intent to devour and maim and pulverize him) and he couldn't bear to be alone; alone with his thoughts or his dreams or himself; on these days he bounded down the steps, trembling and clumsy, tripping over his feet as he raced toward the phone. Knuckles white as he held onto it, like it was the only thing tethering him to sanity and reality and safety, fingers stuttering as he punched in a number so quickly he sometimes forgot who it was he was calling. Until the line clicked, and with bated breath, Richie would wait, clamoring heart in his throat, blood on his teeth and on his tongue and his lips.
“Hello?”
At the sound of Eddie’s voice, gravity dragged him down to Earth, to Derry, to his house at the end of the street; one word and he was on his way back home, and his heart left to lodge itself back home in his chest, the taste of blood in his mouth leaving with it. He could breathe, he could see and he could think.
One word and he was back. One little stupid word and he felt better. Felt okay.
“Say, what’s on the agenda today, Link?” he would huff into the phone, faint and breathless.
On the other line, a sigh, but not the you’re-annoying-me-Richie sigh, or the you’re-disgusting-Richie sigh, or the leave-me-alone sigh, never those, and instead, the you’re-okay-we’re-okay sigh; something like a code between them, a secret—theirs and no one else’s. And then, after, came Eddie’s invariable response,
“Not sure. Got any ideas?”
and Richie could feel his toes again, could feel the blood as it pumped through his veins, his lungs expanding as he inhaled and exhaled; Normal, he would think, I’m normal.
After a while, it became their new routine. The months after their… whatever the fuck that was—were the hardest by far. Covered in dirt and grime and the ghosts of the past, Richie and Eddie and the rest of the losers biked home in a daze, wordless and unsure and terrified, and they fell apart for a while. Retreated into the safety (or pseudo safety, anyway) of their homes, hiding away from the truths they had discovered and the evil they had (maybe?) defeated. And Richie tried to pretend, he tried so hard to joke and to smile and eat and breathe and sleep. He tried so hard that it hurt; a hollowness inside him that dug deeper with every movement, the point of the shovel digging itself into his heart and his soul. He tried and tried and tried until trying was no longer feasible and all that was left to do was blink up at his ceiling and count; count the days, the hours, the beat of his heart, and the rise and fall of his shuddering chest.
Strength in numbers, Richie had repeated to himself as they walked into Neibolt, heart thumping in his ears, and out loud he joked and said that they were lucky they weren’t measuring dicks with his stomach in his ass and a heartbeat in his throat. And he didn’t dare say it then, not in front of Eddie and especially not in front of Bill, that he was terrified. That his ribcage was rattling against his skin, that he thought his lips might turn blue if oxygen never returned to his body, that the joints in his fingers felt like tectonic plates scraping up against one another during an earthquake. No, he couldn't say any of those things, and really he shouldn’t have said anything, but even now, he has yet to master the skill of reading the room. The silence of the house was deafening—he had no choice but to fill it and if he couldn't scream then he could tease. The fear never left him, only clung to him as Eddie exhaled an unsteady sounding “shut up, Richie” that lacked its usual bite. Strength in numbers strength in numbers strength in numbers, Richie chanted, and maybe it was foolish, but maybe as long as they stuck together, as long as they were close and as long as he could hear Eddie’s gasping little breaths and Bill’s converse press against the rotted, creaking wood, they would be alright. They would be safe. As long as they clung to each other; maintained a united front. They would be okay.
It’s why they won in the end, he knows. Because it had been all of them—all seven; lucky number seven—together, and they were not seven separate souls fighting the same demon but an unbeatable coalesced core with a unified heart and strength that frightened even a sinister evil as that of It. When it had ended and the only evidence that they had fought something at all were the cuts (no—teeth marks—It’s mark on him) on Stanley’s face and the muddied cast on Eddie’s arm and the bloodied bat in Richie’s right hand, he had thought this is it. We beat it and we’re best friends and we always will be. We have to be.
So, the first week following the battle (he felt silly calling it that, but that had been what it was, right?), Richie let the fear drown him until he was submerged in darkness and force him into the fucking ground, burying him. But then the phone rang. And when he answered, he heard the now familiar sobs of his best friend, of Eddie, and, despite not remembering forgetting, he remembered that it hadn’t been just him; he hadn't gone through it alone.
It wasn’t long before the rest of them came round; by that time, Richie had been calling Eddie almost every night and they had cultivated a routine of sneaking out to meet up where the fuck ever; the destination never mattered so long as one of them was there, waiting. But then Ben called, and then Bill and Mike and Bev did, too, and they made a promise that Richie thinks he might seriously regret one day—that they all will.
They did what they could with the few remaining weeks of summer they still had left. They went to the quarry and raced down the hill and went to the movies and hung out at the arcade and pretended to be normal, okay kids during the day. Nighttime was harder; it always was.
One day, while they weren’t particularly doing much of anything aside from spending time together, they stumbled across an abandoned shed—“Looks like histoplasmosis to me,” Eddie repulsed—or maybe it had been a bunker; none of them were sure.
Curious, they ventured inside and found that it was empty. Aside from planks of wood that had been set aside what looked like decades ago and cobwebs in every corner, there was nothing.
“Hey… you still have those empty crates in your garage, Bill?” Ben asked, scanning the room with a careful eye. “I got an idea…”
The idea was what Ben and Bill called Operation: Clubhouse. And eventually, what the losers called it, too. And none of them had to ask why because they all knew.
Derry wasn’t safe; the streets and the buildings and even their houses all seemed to serve one purpose, now: to remind them of the before and the during and the after. That Derry would be there, was there and always had been. That, even in their pretending, there was no escape. This place wasn’t theirs and it never would be.
Except for the clubhouse, that is. And when they had finally cleared it of cobwebs and weeds and litter and replaced them with Richie’s band posters, Bill’s drawings, Bev’s records, Ben’s poetry, Stan’s books, Eddie’s comics and Mike’s photographs, it felt like theirs. It was theirs and only theirs and no one would ever take that from them—so long as any of them had a say in it.
It wasn’t long before the clubhouse became the rendezvous point; and soon, Richie was biking there, panicked and panting, in the middle of the night, to meet Eddie and cling to him as they sunk to the ground, shaking as they held each other.
“Just a dream,” Eddie would whisper as Richie shook in his arms; his face buried in his neck, “just a dream, Rich.”
There were good days, too. Though they may have been few and far between, and sometimes felt like some kind of cruel joke, there were good days. And on those days, there was no panic and no fear and no darkness—only them; sharing each other’s space, basking in it. They were the days that Richie cherished the most, and when Eddie called to tell him to meet them there, he knew that today would be no different—he wouldn't let it be.
Prone to chronic procrastination and susceptible to distraction—a fancy way of saying he wasn’t sure what he should wear, Eddie’s favorite color or Eddie’s favorite t-shirt of his (a Night of the Living Dead shirt he stole from his mom), Richie is the last one to arrive, and when he ducks his head to go inside, he isn’t quite sure what the fuck he is supposed to be looking at.
“Guys, if I’d’a known we were joining a ladies swimming team, I would’ve dressed the part,” he snorts, observing the room full of shower cap clad heads.
No one entertains him; he is only spared a single glance. But Eddie rips the cap off of his head the second he thinks Richie isn't paying attention.
He is.
The rest resume their conversation, mumble something about how long and when amidst other bullshit that Richie figures is just that: bullshit. So he pays them no mind, though continues to wonder where they even found shower caps and why they found them at all, and sets his eyes on a comic book that hadn't been there yesterday. Eddie beats him to it.
“No you fucking don’t, I just bought this,” Eddie snaps as he swipes it from the table and clutches it to his chest.
Eyebrows flying up, Richie scoffs. “And you brought it here?” He asks, looking around with a face that says to this dusty shithole?
Rolling his eyes so far back into his head Richie thinks Eddie must be getting a priceless view of some pink mesh right about now, Eddie settles into the hammock, comic in hand, and sighs—it’s the you’re-annoying-me-Richie sigh. His Richie sigh, if you will. The sigh that makes his chest warm.
“Yeah, to share with everyone,” Eddie grumbles and starts to flip through the pages.
“But not with me?” He scoffs again, incredulous. Eddie nods.
Well, that just isn't fair. Here he thought that he was Eddie’s favorite.
There is silence between them, then, as Eddie reads through the comic (that Richie knows he has already finished because he wouldn't have brought it with him if he hadn't got to read it first), and Richie watches him with a careful (and maybe slightly affectionate…) eye, thinking nothing and too many things all at once.
Suddenly, as if he had been possessed by whatever ghost haunts their clubhouse (there is no way there isn't one down here), he is overcome by the urge to annoy annoy annoy and before he can really think any better of it, he clambers into the hammock. Which is definitely not equipped for two but damn it, it is now.
“Richie—hey!” Eddie squeals and then growls, a squawky little bird and then a grumpy old badger in one switch; it makes Richie laugh and laugh and laugh until he has to hiccup to catch his breath. “Can you—ow!—fucking quit, you asshole!” he screeches, and now they have the attention of the entire room and since when are hammock so fucking wobbly? “Jesus fucking—that’s my fucking ribcage—knock it off—!” Eddie continues to shout and protest and jab Richie on purpose whenever Richie jabs him on accident until finally, Richie’s mission is a success. They have done the unthinkable, effectively managed to get two people onto the little hammock Ben put together last week. Even if they are kind of squished and a little cramped and a lot uncomfortable.
“You can share now,” Richie declares, poking Eddie in the side before he gets the chance to smack his hands away and steals the comic book away in one yank. “Ah, let’s see… Batman 436…” he scrunches his nose, recalling very distinctly an argument they had about whether or not Batman was any good and Eddie was on the opposing side, “since when do you like Batman?”
“Since I do. Give that back,” Eddie makes grabby hands toward the comic and Richie jerks it away.
He shakes his head stubbornly. “Nuh uh,” he says, “I don’t think you know what sharing means, Eds. Did you miss that day in kindy-garden or somethin’?” Peering over the book to catch a glimpse of Eddie, he is met by a scowl. Adorable, his heart sings.
“Can you get the fuck off? We’re gonna break it,” Eddie tells him, planting one foot on the ground, props the other one up beside Richie’s head, resting his thigh against Richie’s.
Underneath the material of his jeans, his skin burns. “Stop moving around like you’ve got ants in your fucking pants and we won’t.” He pretends to read the comic, eyes flicking to Eddie’s face every other millisecond. Makes sure to keep still, to not touch Eddie if he can help it. He can’t. He nudges Eddie’s thigh with his elbow.
“Turn that frown upside down, baby,” Eddie’s eyes bug out of his head—cute cute cute!, “and get yourself that long face lost!” He croons in his best impression of Judy Garland, which is, in reality, far too nasally to be believable. But he hears Mike laugh, and that is all he needs to keep going. He drops the comic into his lap vocalizes the instrumental break, mostly highlighting the trumpets as he airplays the notes.
“Will you shut up?” Eddie bites out, but it’s heatless. There is a smile on his face and—God, it must be hot in here or something—a blush on his cheeks. “That isn't even how you play the trumpet. You look stupid,” he kicks at Richie’s shoulder gently.
Stopping abruptly, Richie drops his fake trumpet and picks the comic up again. “You look stupid,” he retorts childishly, making Eddie laugh. He bites back a grin, giddy sensation coursing through his veins.
“Good one,” he snorts. “I thought we were sharing,” he reaches for the comic again, and this time Richie allows him to grab ahold of the other page.
Five minutes of peace pass by before Richie feels his arm cramp up from the weird position it’s in, propped up on thin air in order for he and Eddie to see the comic properly. He shifts, and the hammock creaks beneath him. Then he twists, and lifts his legs to move them to the other side of Eddie, and the chains keeping the hammock up creak, too.
“Sit still,” Eddie says under his breath, absentminded, he is too busy reading the comic to really care. So, Richie doesn’t listen, and keeps worming around to get comfortable.
This time, there is a cracking noise, like the sound a twig makes when you step on it, and both Eddie and Richie stop moving.
“You’re guh-gonna break it,” Bill calls to them from the other side of the clubhouse.
“We aren’t gonna break it,” Richie frowns, and then carefully, slowly, turns his hips as he returns his legs to their original position.
Just as he gets one leg over Eddie’s, however, there is another, much louder sound—the unmistakable sound of material tearing, and then he is falling—they are falling. His ass hits the ground with such a brutal and unanticipated force that he actually yelps. Eddie’s own bony ass falls flat against his thigh before their heads knock together and then Eddie topples backward and falls onto his back; comic book flattened beneath the two of them.
Quiet blankets the atmosphere. For a split second—everything stops. Hesitant—afraid of what he might see—Richie looks at Eddie, who is lying on his back with shaking shoulders, and he feels himself plummeting thousands of miles toward the Earth’s core, because fuck, he thinks Eddie is having an asthma attack and he doesn’t have an inhaler anymore and it’s all Richie’s fault and then—
—a hiccup, and a giggle, a fuck ton of them, spilling out of Eddie’s mouth and filtering into the silent clubhouse as he laughs into his fist. He isn’t suffocating or choking or crying—he’s fucking laughing.
Richie’s shoulder sink with relief—thank fuck. Eddie sits up and their gazes lock; their faces crack into matching grins.
“Told you,” Bill says with a sigh as Bev and Ben and Mike come over to help them.
Neither Richie nor Eddie can reply, though, because they, simultaneously, burst into fits of uncontrollable laughter. Laugh so hard that Eddie snorts and Richie’s face turns beet red because he can’t breathe but not because he is scared but because he is laughing that damn hard. They laugh until they cry, until Bev, Ben, and Mike give up and leave them on the ground, holding their stomachs as they cackle like a pair of hyenas.
“It took me three hours to do that…” Ben tells Bev with a dejected sigh, and Richie decides he will have to feel bad about it later, because for right now, all that matters is that he is laughing and Eddie is, too and their legs are tangled together and Eddie has his head on Richie’s shoulder and Richie’s on his, and he feels weightless. The only thing that keeps him from floating away is Eddie’s touch and the warmth he feels in his proximity.
“You’re so fucking stupid,” Eddie beams, and Richie’s heart melts down into molten lava right then and fills his stomach, because Eddie is looking at him like that, and for some fucking reason, he wants to kiss him.
He doesn’t.
A minute or two pass before they finally stand from the ground, dust each other off in the process.
“Smack my ass again, Richard, and I shove this comic down your throat.”
“I can think of something else you can shove down my—” Eddie clamps a hand down on Richie’s mouth to shut him up, but it’s a mistake, because Richie simply licks his palm in retaliation.
Eddie retracts his hand with a loud groan. “Asshole,” he grumbles, and Richie grins, thinking a complementary, Angel.
The rest of the afternoon proceeds without incident—Richie and Eddie help Ben use the two torn pieces of material to tie the hammock back up, nod gravely when he sternly tells them “One. At. A. Time.” They finish the Batman comic. Listen to the Pixie’s tape on the stereo. Wrestle over who gets the last Coke. Richie finally learns what the shower caps were for: “Bev accidentally bleached a piece of her hair off,” Stan whispered to him just before he left. And when the sun began to set, they numbered off, one by one, until it was just Richie and just Eddie. Richie and Eddie. Eddie and Richie.
“Alone at last,” Richie sighs dreamily, draping an arm over Eddie’s shoulders as they walk toward their bikes.
“Sure,” Eddie scoffs. “You going home yet?”
“I think I ought to. Mags and Went don’t like me being out when the sun goes down,” he pauses, “and I guess I don’t, either.”
“Yeah, me either,” Eddie admits in a small voice. Bends down and pulls his bike from the ground as Richie does, too. “See you tomorrow?”
“Wanna see a movie?”
“Okay. At twelve?”
“Sure. It’s a date!” Richie cheeses, mounting his bike with a whoop! that startles Eddie enough to make him jump.
Regaining his composure, Eddie rolls his eyes. “Shut up,” he says, and then starts off down the pathway, calling “Don’t be late!” his shoulder.
Richie watches him ride into the distance with an all too fond smile on his face. “Never!” he shouts after his best friend, cheeks burning.
And despite telling Eddie he would, he doesn’t go home—at least not at first. He isn't sure what wills him to do it, but his bike takes him in the other direction, past the Barrens and to the street, right to the Kissing Bridge in all its vandalized glory. Slurs and poorly carved hearts and names he doesn’t recognize stare back at him as he digs into his pocket and pulls out his dad’s old pocketknife.
He does something, then, that he thinks he has wanted to do for a long, long time now but never had the courage to do so. He gets off his bike and walks over to the Kissing Bridge, covered in hateful words and splattered with ugliness. He grips the pocket knife. He leans down. And he carves the same thing he has been writing in his notebooks since he was ten years old and bored in Mr. Karvlovsky’s fifth grade class when Bill still had a little brother and they still had their innocence and there was only one person who had anything to say when he made some stupid joke… right there, in dying daylight, where anyone could see him, catch him in the act, Richie carves the letters R + E into the thinning wood of the Kissing Bridge for the whole world to see, and for the first time in a long time, he doesn’t really care if they do.