Chapter Text
Richie pants, bent over with his hands on his knees after escaping Henry and his little gang for the second time within the hour. He doesn’t know where his feet have taken him until his sees all the carvings on the wood before him. What are the odds? He wants to laugh at the universe for bringing him to the kissing bridge of all places, but his sense of humor seems to have fled in a different direction from him.
Fuck Bowers and his stupid cousin, Richie thinks. They can both go straight to Hell.
So what if he liked playing with Connor? He was good at Street Fighter. That’s all. At least, he thinks that’s all. He doesn’t know. Connor is cute and all, and Richie guesses that made him nervous. But he wasn’t trying to flirt. He just wanted to play with someone.
Stupid Bowers and his stupid, stupid cousin.
With a final sigh, having caught his breath, he approaches the fence and looks over the copious initials and hearts carved into the old, discolored wood. He drops to his knees and runs his fingers over them, feeling how the texture changes with each carving he inspects. How nice it would be to have his own carving with his special someone.
He looks both ways and behind himself to make sure that no one is around to see him. Once he determines that the coast is clear, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the pocket knife his dad gave him last summer. Hesitantly, he draws in a breath to give him some courage and begins carving.
‘R’
Richie purses his lips, carving out his own initial. For a moment, he considers ditching the fence altogether. But it’s too late. The first mark has already been made.
There’s nothing wrong with this, he reassures himself. Once he’s done, he can leave and no one will even know that he was the one who did this. It can be his little secret. Just so he can have it out there.
‘+’
His nerves are somehow calming and jumping at the same time. Calm because he’s becoming comfortable in his skin. Jumping for a whole new reason. Jesus Christ.
Way too late to turn back now, Tozier. He begins to carve out the other initial, solidifying his self-proclamation.
“Richie?” He hears from behind him. From a voice all too familiar. The sudden voice causes him to jump out of his shoes with a yelp, turning swiftly to come face to face with the owner, back facing the fence and pocket knife dropped onto the ground.
“Jesus, Eds,” he heaves, clutching at his now racing heart. Eddie is standing in front of him, holding onto his bike handles as he looks down at Richie. “Don’t do that. You coulda given me a heart attack.”
Eddie smiles and huffs out a small laugh. “You look like shit,” he comments, and Richie nods along. He finds it the slightest bit weird that Eddie doesn’t make a face at the nickname he constantly tells Richie not to use.
“Well, I just got chased out of the arcade by Bowers,” he answers cautiously, causing Eddie to scrunch up his nose in disgust.
“What a dick.”
“Yeah.”
Richie watches as Eddie attempts to peek behind him. “What are you doing here? I thought your mom had you on house arrest.
Eddie shrugs, “I snuck out. She didn’t even notice.”
Bullshit, Richie thinks. Something is definitely up.
“Anyway,” Eddie dismisses, obviously not wanting to speak further on that topic. Which is, again, odd. Eddie could talk a mile a minute if given the chance. “Whatcha doin’ here?”
Richie gulps, heart failing at slowing down. Maybe it will burst out of his chest and he won’t have to contribute to this conversation much longer. “Nothing. I just ran until I knew no one was following.”
After Eddie hums in response, a moment of uncomfortable silence passes by in what feels like an eternity to Richie. He clears his throat and grabs his knife before stuffing it back into his pocket. With a nervous chuckle, he begins to collect himself. “Well, I should start heading home. Good to see ya, Eds; you should probably head home, too—“
“What are you hiding, Richie?” Eddie inquires, letting go of the handlebars and stepping toward him as his bike falls to the ground. The way he speaks holds an eery tone under all the curiosity this question holds. “I saw you carving something. I’m not dumb, you know.”
“N-Nothing, dude,” Richie stammers, unable to fool even himself. “I was just fucking around with my knife.”
“Come on, Richie,” Eddie insists, a smile that would have otherwise said something along the lines of I know you, Richie. You’re always up to something growing. But that’s not what Richie interprets it as. “You and I both know it’s not nothing.”
Eddie still doesn’t object to being called ‘Eds.’ It’s freaking Richie out immensely.
“You…You’re not my Eddie,” Richie accuses, kind of out on a limb that follows his initial gut feeling, backing up so much that his back presses up against the fence behind him. Pseudo-Eddie quirks his head to the side, confusion written on his face. This is not real, Richie has to tell himself. He has to or else he’ll go crazy.
“But Richie…Remember when we played Chicken in the Quarry?” Pseudo-Eddie questions with a sickeningly innocent tone that makes Richie’s stomach turn. This is not Eddie. It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s fucking with him. He just knows it. “And when I took your glasses so I could win? I saw how you looked at me when we finished playing. I just wanna tell you it’s okay.”
Richie whimpers, scared out of his mind. It’s not his Eddie. He has to keep reminding himself. Even if It says the right things. Even if It knows things only Eddie knows. Even if It offers to kiss him. Even if It assures him that everything is okay. Because everything is not okay. He doesn’t care that he wants to kiss boys. He just knows he can’t ever lose the friendship he has with Eddie. Eddie is everything. Eddie is the Sun. But this…Eddie is not whatever is standing right in front of him.
“I know! How about we play a game?” It muses, grin pasted onto Its face as It clasps Its hands together. Richie furrows his eyebrows, not sure of where It is going. “Let’s play Truth or Dare. Like we did with Bill and Stan in fifth grade.”
Speechless, Richie stays planted on the ground where he’s seated. He is unable to form a single word. Pseudo-Eddie is not phased at all.
“Truth or dare, Richie?” It asks, approaching Richie and crouching down to his eye level. The smile on Its face does not falter one bit. Richie’s breath hitches in his throat. It’s not real. It’s not real.
“Um—“
It laughs. “Come on, Richie. It’s not hard. Just pick one. Don’t you wanna play?”
“I—“
“Oh, right,” It sighs, pity prominent in Its words. “You wouldn’t wanna pick ‘truth’. So you’ll pick ‘dare’. Isn’t that right?”
At this point, Richie almost wishes he was dealing with Bowers and his dumb gang. At least then, he could just get kicked in the stomach and get it over with.
“I dare you…” It ponders, standing up straight once more and pacing as It thinks. Richie grabs onto the fence behind him to pull himself up from the ground. It turns to face him again, as if a lightbulb has lit up above Its head. It peeks beside Richie’s legs, which are just barely covering his carving. “To finish carving my initial.”
Richie inhales sharply, frozen in place. Never in a million years would he have thought that Eddie (well, a version of Eddie) would have him more frightened than an actual teenage psychopath.
“Go on, Richie. Finish carving.”
It’s not real. Richie’s hands clench into tight fists.
“No,” Richie utters. “No!”
Pseudo-Eddie is taken aback. It blinks. “No? Why not?”
“You’re not Eddie,” Richie spits. “Fuck off.”
It grins. “I could be,” It offers, walking toward Richie once more. This time, It has to look up at Richie to make eye contact with him. “I could be the Eddie you want. I know what you want, Richie.”
Richie tears his eyes away from the temptation set before him. He doesn’t want anything It can offer him. No “ideal” version of Eddie could ever beat out the one he’s known his whole life. He knows it’s a trap, and he’s not falling for it. He shuts his eyes tightly and shakes his head, gripping so tightly onto the fence that he knows his knuckles are turning white.
“Go away,” he demands, wanting nothing more than his peace. He’s had enough today. He just wanted to carve into a stupid fence.
Disregarding his request, It proceeds to taunt and poke and prod at Richie. “I know your secret.”
No you don’t, Richie wants to say. He wants to spit in Its face and push It over the fence. But, fuck, he could have and would have if It didn’t look like Eddie right now.
“Your dirty little secret,” It continues, and Richie’s stomach churns again. It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s not real.
Richie repeats those same three words to himself, whimpering and whispering to himself as he continues to keep his eyes shut so tight that his head starts to hurt. Soon enough, Its teasing voice is no longer audible. Carefully, he opens one eye to find that Pseudo-Eddie is no longer in front of him. He lets out a heavy breath of relief as he relaxes his tense muscles.
Just like he did when he first arrived, he looks both ways to make sure that It is gone for real. “Fuck,” he sighs once he determines that the coast is clear.
For a split second, he almost reaches into his pocket again to pull out his knife. Instead, he shakes his head and steps away from the fence, afraid of It coming back to fuck with his head again. Standing his bike upright again from where it’d been lying, Richie mounts it and starts to ride back to his house, leaving behind the faint ‘E’ that he’d begun carving into the wood beside his own initial.