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They were disgusting. Absolutely filthy, at least a trillion different germs and diseases in the awful sewers they’d been walking through before this. They were horrifyingly dirty, and Eddie was completely aware of this, but after fighting and killing a homicidal clown, he just couldn’t bring himself to give a fuck.
So the Losers walked. They walked as far as they could from Neibolt, on their way to the quarry.
“So what’d you tell your mom to let you out in the first place?”
Richie was curious as ever, though he figured part of it was him trying to forget everything they’d had to go through. Everyone else sure was trying, and nobody in the world would be able to blame them for it. Eddie winced, trying to forget about the ‘talk’ he and his mother had before he’d left.
“I, uh,” He gulped, looking down at his feet and getting smacked in the head with a branch for it mere seconds after doing so. “Fuck! Uh, I yelled at her.”
“You what?! ” Richie’s voice sounded more like a dog whistle than anything at the end of his sentence, his shock palpable. “For fucking what?”
“The fucking gazebos, Richie!”
“What, like,” A puzzled look on his face, Richie stopped to think. “The things rich people have in their back yards?”
“What? No, gazebos like bullshit. My medications are fucking gazebos.”
Richie stopped and stared at Eddie long and hard. “Are you being serious right now?”
“Yes I am, what the fuck Richie,” Eddie snapped, his brow furrowing the way it did before a rant. He didn’t like the way Richie was looking at him, all soft edges and sad eyes. “Fuck y-”
“Placebos,” Richie interrupted.
“Fucking what?”
“They’re called placebos, not gazebos.”
He mentally kicked himself for being a goddamn idiot. Eddie braced himself for the teasing, for Richie to yell “Hey guys, get a load of this!”, but nothing came. Instead, he got pulled into a warm hug that was all gangly limbs and bony elbows.
“I’m sorry, Eds,” It was quiet, a secret meant just for him. Tears sprung to his eyes, because he was sorry too. They may not have been gazebos, but they were still bullshit. They were still a lie.
Eddie relaxed into the hug, closing his eyes and just soaking up the affection, basking in Richie’s warmth. He’d never ask, never tell, but he could have sworn that he felt Richie press a soft and quiet kiss to the top of his head.
“Hey g-guys, h-hurry up!”
Annoyance lanced through him, cursing Bill for stuttering at them. In that moment, he kinda wanted to stay in Richie’s arms for something like forever. He wasn’t sure what to do with that, or what the butterflies in his stomach meant, so he just ignored them.
They begrudgingly pulled away, and immediately pretended like nothing had ever happened. They simply continued their trek to the quarry, Eddie rolling his eyes as soon as he saw the wicked grin on Richie’s face.
“So you really yelled at your mom for giving you fucking gazebos ?”
“Ugh, Richie,” Eddie whined.
“No, seriously!”
“Yes, okay? I told her that they were gazebos. Also that they were bullshit.”
Richie went quiet for a second before smiling wide as ever. “Fucking sweet. Fuck her and her gazebos.”
Eddie smiled brighter than the sun. They were at the quarry, and he knew that he couldn’t swim with a cast, but the look on Richie’s face told him that he just had to. Everyone else had already jumped in, and he was nervous, but Richie just took his hand and dragged him right off the edge into the water.
He resurfaced, wet cast and all. The world hadn’t ended, he was still alive and still safe despite his wet cast. Laughing, Eddie raised one single middle finger in the direction of his house.
Because, yeah. Fuck his mom and her gazebos.