Work Text:
three
he’s at the barrens.
it’s over. richie doesn’t know how he’s breathing. it’s over. it’s over. It is dead. they are free, and they freed everyone from derry in the process. the water isn’t clean, but it's cleaner than down there and he's glad that all the mud was washed away.
down there. where eddie is. richie feels his lungs full of something that isn’t air. all the remaining losers are talking about him. eddie. he knows bev saw them. she was there when they said goodbye. maybe the others did, too. he doesn’t care. he's tired of hiding.
"he'd take care of us,” he hears someone say. maybe it’s bill.
"like he always did. remember that fanny pack he carried around?,” mike is laughing. it’s a good sound. he deserves to laugh, after all these years, the only one who remembered them. richie wishes he were laughing with his friends, too, the laugh of the survivors. but he can’t, he just can’t.
he starts to cry. again.
the first one by his side is mike, hugging him, and then all the others are there, with their arms around him. and richie is shaking, his heart heavy. they left eddie down there. in the dark. in that smelly shithole, with what remained of It. eddie and that fucking clown are in the same place.
eddie is alone.
“I… miss him,” the words fight their way out of his mouth. I know, we know, he hears them whisper. but do they, really? (bev does). he wants them all to know. he takes a deep breath, trying not to drown on his own feelings and tears. “he was-- he was my. h-he,” he tries and he tries, but it’s so hard. It’s so hard without him by his side.
“we know ,” he hears mike say, and then a gentle kiss on his hair.
it’s good, being known. he realizes that maybe they always knew. it should be enough, but it isn’t. eddie deserved more. eddie is dead and the least he can do for him – for them – is to be honest. to be proud.
he thinks about eddie and his brown eyes, turned gold by the sunlight. he thinks about the taste of eddie's mouth. blood, mud, tears and sweat. he can't forget this taste. he can't forget him, not again. he wants – he needs – to honour eddie.
“he was my first love,” richie murmurs, and feels his lungs filling with air again, feels the weight holding his body down finally gone. he can breathe.
they hold him tighter.
“he was my first love,” richie repeats, and again, and again, and again, the words feeling like magic in his tongue. it feels real, so real that new tears start falling from his eyes. his friends knew. his friends knew and they were still there, by his side.
now that he's said it, he can’t stop. he doesn't need to. his heart is broken and his friends are trying to mend it with love, with gentle kisses, with hugs. “he was my first love, my first love, he was my love.”
two
he’s dying.
there is something to be said about it: he isn’t afraid. for the first time he can recall. little eddie, always afraid of everything, from weird plants that could make your skin burn to a psychopath giant spider alien. but not now, that he knows he won't make it. he's in peace.
of course, that hellish clown is still there, still lurking, but he had hurt him. didn’t that feel good? eddie had hurt It, while It tried to hurt richie. he saved richie from the deadlights, the same way he saw ben save bev all those years ago. ben has always loved bev, ever since he first laid his eyes on her. eddie can relate.
(he smiles to himself thinking oh richie i should have kissed you better, just like ben did.)
but he can’t kiss richie until they're both fine. richie is crying in a way he never saw him, in a way they never saw him. eddie thinks he’s beautiful. and eddie is so comfortable there, in richie's arms. he smiles to himself, and bev is there too, her hands in his hair. he can’t look at her now, he just wants to look at richie, but he hopes that she knows how much she meant to him, to all of them. she was so brave. it was his time to be brave, too.
only now he realizes that richie is saying something, his beloved trash mouth moving too fast for eddie to keep up. how could eddie have forgotten him? forget richie, of all people? he remembers when they were kids, richie squeezing his cheek calling him cute cute cute. how about a lick on your rocket? your mom wouldn’t approve, eddie. oh, he wants to laugh. even not remembering him for twenty-fucking-seven years, eddie always had this feeling that something was missing. not only richie, of course, all of them, all the losers. but richie was… brighter.
richie was a secret, his secret. a good one. the kind of secret you kept under a hidden smile, your heart beating so loud because you’re the luckiest person on earth. gathering all his strength, eddie moves his hand to richie’s face. now his fingers are wet with richie's tears. his trashmouth stops talking immediately.
“richie.”
“what?”, richie is holding him so tenderly. it doesn’t hurt, dying on the arms of his first love.
(his only love.)
“you know I… I…”, he closes his eyes and feels richie’s grip tighten. he can’t die thinking how to finish. what a stupid way to die, with a thought in your head and no words in your mouth. he forces his eyes to open again. to look at richie just for a second more. they deserve this. they deserve more . “I always…” but he coughs, the words too hard to get out, the loss of blood finally getting to his head. it's so unfair. maybe they'll forget everything again, so that richie won't suffer.
(but no, not really. if it was richie in his arms, eddie would never want to forget him, his face, his voice. not again, never again.)
“I know,” richie whispers, tears still falling. bev’s hands are shaking. “I know, I know, I know…”
when his eyes close again (this time, he knows he won’t open them, no matter how much he wants to), he feels lips on his. richie’s lips. eddie smiles.
he’s dead before richie is done kissing him.
one
they're together.
eddie's feet is on richie's face and richie complains just to keep their endless cycle going on. mike once said that they were like an old married couple and all the losers laughed. except mike, who kept looking at them with a genuine smile, so genuine that richie had a hard time thinking what stupid thing he could say so eddie would stop sweating by his side.
they're together. all of them. bev and ben are talking while ben fixes something in the ceiling. mike, stan and bill are playing some stupid card game only they understand (it's funnier when all the seven want to play together, because three players know what to do while four don't. richie loves the sound of their laughter mixing together, growing stronger each time a card is played). he's with eddie in the hammock.
together.
richie pretends to be reading a comic book, but really he’s just committing everything to memory. eddie's smell – so antiseptic!, the way his hair is just a bit longer – his mom will probably cut it soon, the way the light is caught in his eyes. brown eyes that turn gold. golden eyes that are looking directly at him.
richie feels his stomach drop.
he prepares to say something equally funny and annoying, but eddie does something first.
eddie smiles.
it's a little smile, one that richie never saw before and he knows all of eddie's smiles. he smiles and richie gets so aware of how close they are, of their legs pressed together, of the soft feeling of eddie's hand against his own.
the back of their hands touch between their bodies. no one would notice even if they bothered looking at their direction. richie looks at their hands and back at eddie. now his cheeks are a little pink and richie thinks his heart will collapse at any moment. cute, cute, cute. lovely. pretty. beautiful.
the smile is still there. a secret smile.
just for richie.
he glances at their other friends. no one is seeing this, and he thinks it’s funny that a miracle could be happening by your side and you wouldn't notice.
because that's how he feels when he decides to be brave and hold eddie's hand. he feels like he's living a miracle.
and eddie, as always always always, is braver and interlocks their fingers, their palms touching.
richie feels like they're in a picture. in his mind, the whole world shines with the gold of eddie's eyes. he knows that it doesn't matter what the future brings -- he'll never forget that look on eddie's face, the grip of his hand. he feels like this is the first time he's ever been alive, charged with electricity. he loves his friends, he loves them with all his heart, and he would die for them, but eddie is different. a different kind of fire, of light, of life.
eddie is who he sees behind his eyelids when he closes his eyes. and now he's keeping them wide open. he doesn't want to miss a heartbeat.
he forgets the clown. he forgets the blood. he forgets bowers, the screams, the fear. he forgets that his parents would probably hate him if they knew his secret (no, they wouldn't). he forgets every bad thing that's happened or is happening or will happen in the world, in their lives. he forgets all the negative feelings, all the your mom jokes, the smell of the sewers. the only thing he can see and think of is eddie's secret smile.
the summer feels infinite, and so does his love.