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“Is It… dead?”
There’s an eerie silence that falls upon them. However, there's still their ragged breathing and the far off drip drip drip of condensation on the walls. It’s Beverly who speaks, rocking back and forth on her feet, anxious. She glances around her at the others, who look as shaken as she feels.
“I think so,” Eddie says, finally.
“Guys,” Mike says.
“I can’t believe we fucking bullied It to death,” Ben huffs. It's part-way between a sigh and a laugh. A murmur of agreement follows.
“Guys,” Mike stresses. They all turn to look where he’s pointing. Away from them, lay Richie, unconscious from the Deadlights. “We’ve gotta get him and the rest of us out of here. This place isn’t going to hold up for much longer.”
He’s not wrong: the whole thing is seeming to shake, dust clouding from the walls. They all sprint to where Richie is, and Ben scoops him up like he weighs nothing, which Eddie takes note of.
To be honest, he’d thought they’d just been glamour muscles.
Bill seems to take the lead. He takes them back through the small space they’d come from, through the sewer and up into the Well House. They run out just in time for the building to collapse behind them.
Ben lays Richie down onto the empty road as the dust begins to settle.
“W-What do we d-do?” Bill asks. They’re all standing around and staring at Richie, which doesn’t do much. He’s still limp on the ground and dead to the world no matter how much they ogle at him.
A silence settles upon them, then: “I kissed Bev when it happened to her and she woke up,” Ben points out. The groups share a glance between themselves and collectively figure, ah, fuck it . It’s all they’ve got. Beverly shrugs and moves to kneel beside Richie’s body. Cupping his cheek, she leans down to press a kiss to his mouth. The group watches curiously.
Hope stirs within the group of friends, but when she pulls away, Richie is still unresponsive.
“I tried,” she says. “Someone else needs to give it a shot.”
“I nominate Eddie,” someone says, but he’s too freaked out to even figure out who it was.
“What?” he asks incredulously. Eddie stares narrow-eyed at the group. “That’s insane,” he says, crossing his arms across his chest. He has no fucking clue why they’d nominate him out of any of them. “Why me? Why not one of you?”
The group shares a look between them, like they’re in on something Eddie’s not. It makes him feel very left out. “Well,” Ben says. “I had feelings for Bev when it happened. Maybe it has something to do with that.” Ben says feelings like there’s some kind of implication behind it. Is he insinuating that they think Eddie has feelings for Richie?
(They wouldn’t be that far off, but it’s not like Eddie thought they knew.)
He thinks about denying it outright, but he can’t seem to force I don’t have feelings for Richie out. Eventually, he settles on, “how the fuck does that apply to me?” instead. Again, they all share that same fucking look, and it’s starting to piss Eddie off. “Can you guys fucking stop that? Just say what you’re thinking. This is a very time-sensitive situation.”
“Y-You guys have a t-t- thing,” Bill, of all fucking people, says. Eddie turns his head away because he can't stand the way they're all looking at him. It’s ridiculous. Feelings? Sure. Tons of feelings. But they absolutely don’t have a thing. It’s crazy that Bill would even suggest that he thinks they have a thing.
Eddie can feel the Losers' eyes boring into him, so he looks back to glare.
Fine. Maybe there’s a slight thing. That doesn’t mean that it’ll work. Just because Eddie and Richie have a thing doesn’t mean that it's going to make Richie wake up. Eddie should do it just to change the subject. “We do not have a thing,” he stresses. “God. Can you shut the fuck up, guys? You know what? I’m going to do it just to prove you assholes wrong.”
Eddie wrings his hands by his sides and teeters on his feet. This is fine. He can do this no problem. If it works, it’s great. It means that Eddie gets his best friend back. Worst case scenario, one of the others has to wake him.
(Eddie tries to ignore the fact that the worst-case scenario is actually this: it doesn’t work for him or any of the others and Richie never comes back .)
He advances towards Richie at a steady pace, feigning nonchalance he doesn’t have. It’s going to be fine. This definitely won’t awaken anything in him.
Lowering himself onto his knees, Eddie studies Richie for a moment. His scruffy cheeks are battered and dirty, eyes white from the Deadlights, his hair is a disgusting mess. He reaches down and brushes a strand out of Richie’s face. Eddie’s chest squeezes. He lets his hand cup Richie’s cheek, taking one last look before muttering Here goes nothing to himself and dipping down .
Richie’s mouth is warm and unmoving beneath Eddie’s, his lips chapped and dry. Eddie’s not sure how long he’s supposed to stay here like this, but part of him doesn’t want to move. The rest of him, however , urges him to cut the show short for the crowd.
When he pulls back and glances over his shoulder to tell them he was right, he can hardly get out, See, dickwads? before two hands are wrapping around the back of his neck and he can hear a small, shaky “Eddie?” that makes him whip his head back. Richie’s large eyes bore up into his, blinking to focus.
Eddie can’t help the grin that spreads across his face. “Hey,” he says. Before he knows it, Richie is pulling him down and they’re kissing again, for real this time. He holds himself up with one hand and holds Richie’s jaw with the other. Richie's stubble burns against Eddie's chin and he smells kind of like musk and sewer. Eddie supposes that by that logic, he smells too. Despite this, it’s all nice. It feels right. When they pull away, Eddie offers Richie a hand up. He dusts his hands on his pants and looks sheepishly to the others, who stare at him in what he can only describe as a steady mixture of surprise and It took long enough . He and Richie share a glance. “ Maybe there’s a thing,” he says.
“No fucking shit,” Mike says, and then they all pull into a group hug. Like they used to.
“You all fucking stink,” Richie tells them, the first real words he’s uttered. It results in a small echo of laughs.
“Shut up, Trashmouth,” Bill says, but he's smiling.
“How about we all go get cleaned up?” Beverly suggests. They start walking.