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It was all Patty's fault.
She never took time to get her oil changed when she was supposed to - OK she had student loans and she and Stan worked 49584 hours a week, but Eddie was in a bad mood and bad moods meant you didn't have to be fair.
Eddie had told her he'd drop by the apartment building to check it out. He liked getting his hands dirty. From the time he was 10 to the time he left for college, he'd had a stack of car magazines piled under his bed - his dirty secret. Cars meant nicks, and scrapes, and blood, and dirty fingernails - everything that would've sent his mother to an early grave.
He was bent under the hood of her old clunker, tinkering, when he heard two sets of whistles. He knew the whistles - Beverly and Richie, the demonic duo - and he knew he was turning red, just like he always did. This was one of those moments where he would've tried to get out to tell them to fuck off, and end up smashing his head. The full picture painted in his mind in those frozen seconds - saying he was fine, begging not to call his mother, passing out, waking up in the hospital with his mother standing over him, crying, asking the nurses if he had too much radiation or if one more test would help find that disease she was sure he'd had since the day he was born.
Eddie froze because his mother wasn't here anymore - he'd come home to tell her he was gay and madly in love with budding novelist and frequent seller of short stories Bill Denbrough, only to find her in her recliner...just staring at cartoons. While Bill had dialed for the ambulance, Eddie had wanted to ask her if she was a big fan of Wacky Races or if she just hadn't had a chance to change the channel.
Once the numbness had worn off, and his wracking sobs in Bill's sure arms had hardened into tighter hugs that had seen him staring into the abyss of their tiny bedroom set, he'd wanted to ask her if she'd known what he was, and that's why she'd made him doubt himself, hate himself, kept him inside when he wanted to run, kept him alone when he wanted to be loved.
He couldn't ask her any of those things, and he didn't do dramatic graveyard scenes, so he was just left slowly making his way from under the Blum-Uris sedan, 28 years old, sitting on the ground like he was 8 years old, gasping for the inhaler he no longer used.
Mike and Ben and Stan, racing from the building like an episode of one of those Chicago shows, were hovering around him, with Patty ruffling his hair and Beverly and Richie looking on in a daze. If he could get his breath, he'd apologize, but really he knew if he could get his breath he'd just tell them to go fuck themselves.
He was feeling better, propped up inside the sedan, lightly snickering at Stan's stealth shit-talking of pretty much everyone in their lives, by the time Bill got there. The fear in Bill's eyes nearly set him off again, those soft brown eyes welling up with the unspoken sentiment of - you're all I have left.
When Bill pulled Eddie into a bear hug, kissing him so hard people in the next state could probably hear their lips smack, Eddie whispered an apology. Bill shook his head.
"Not y-your fuh-fault," he said, before he buried his immaculately tear-stained face into the flannel shirt Eddie had nicked from his side of the closet that morning.
Eddie wanted to tell Bill it wasn't his fault, either - not his fault his baby brother had been murdered, not his fault that their parents had stopped giving a damn about being parents to their surviving son, not his fault that after Bill had scraped together every last dime he could find to get into a community college, his parents hadn't even bothered to go to his graduation, or visited him when he'd gone flying off his bike on his 26th birthday and nearly lost a leg. Bill had finally stopped trying this Christmas - no calls that were never answered, no cards that went ignored or mailed back. Eddie knew how much that was killing him inside, but didn't know how to tell him he knew, or how proud he was, or how he'd never let anybody hurt Bill again.
"lets have NYE party 4 Bill," was the best he could come up with, a few hours later, in a rushed text to Richie while Bill was waiting for him in the shower. If you wanted a party, Richie was your man.
He never heard anything back, which surprised him, because Richie was always there for them when it counted.
Around 11 PM, while Bill was busy cleaning his desk, he finally got a text back, from Mike.
"Richie's plastered. Bill said to let you have the night alone. HNY."
Eddie smiled. Fair enough.
Eddie started dozing to Anderson Cooper, only woken up by the feel of Bill's head in the middle of his chest, Bill's arms wrapped around his slim waist.
"Love you," Bill said, so serious, so pure, staring right into Eddie's soul, the way he had since the day they'd first met, Bill picking up his pencil case for him.
Eddie pulled Bill onto his lap, Bill straddling him through their meeting of sweatpants and boxers.
"I love you too...and -" hesitating to get the words out, he traced a thumb along Bill's temple as he gently gripped his thinning curls, "...I'm so proud of you."
Bill's broad shoulders slumped in his white tee, and he stared at Eddie, awestruck, numb.
"Nob...no one eh-ever told me they -"
Eddie's eyes filled up, knowing it was his turn to hug Bill tight, never let him go.
They laid on the couch, tangled in knots, through the next hour, staring, breathing, lightly kissing, not-so-lightly kissing. They heard the countdown, saw the descending ball from the corners of their eyes, but were happy in their own world.
"Yo-you're my best friend," Bill whispered in Eddie's ear as Auld Lang Syne dragged them into the new year. Eddie kissed him again in response, not needing to speak. They'd been best friends most of their lives, even before they met the others, even before they'd both told themselves they could never be more, should never be more. Schoolboy crushes weren't meant to be for other boys. Men weren't supposed to touch each other, or need each other, or love each other.
"Happy New Year."
After the words whispered In-between soft kisses to a sleepy Bill's forehead, Eddie smiled, grateful that he and Bill would never do what they were supposed to do again.