Work Text:
Eddie doesn’t know what’s worse.
The fact that his mark clearly, boldly states that his soulmate is IN LOVE WITH HIS BEST FRIEND in black block letters, reminiscent of a fucking twelve year old’s handwriting, which is like--
Well, fuck, it’s like the universe sucker-punching him. Assuring him, after eighteen years of worrying that he’d be one of those rare and unfortunate few who weren’t destined for anyone (because it’s what he does, he worries, he gets himself worked up about things and then someone has to talk him down from it; tell him he’s being irrational), that there is, in fact, someone out there whose soul is connected with his own. That he won’t end up scorned for his deviance from the norm, that whispers won’t follow him through his daily life about his lack of a soul mark. Divine retribution, punishment for something he did in a past life that he can't even remember, some cultures would say. An abomination, others would accuse. Something to be shunned.
But, no, he isn’t any of those things, because he’s eighteen years old as of this morning and there’s a soul mark printed on his skin, plain as day. Telling him there is, indeed, a person who carries part of his soul next to their heart. And that person is already in love with someone else. Has been, probably. If this is the biggest secret his soulmate carries with them right now, then there’s weight to it.
It’s important.
Is it more important than him?
Will it change, in the future, to reflect that his soulmate is capable of loving him instead?
(Is that selfish to wonder? Shouldn’t he want his soulmate to be happy, no matter what?)
Or, is it worse that this mark says “his”? That his soulmate, the person he’s destined for, is another boy. That people are going to know, eventually, and while some are willing to accept the universe’s intentions as pure, others view people like him the same as those who have no mark at all. He’s an abomination, to them. To those people.
People like his mother.
And then: is it perhaps the worst of all that this soul mark is in plain sight, stamped across his forearm, where he can cover it up with sweaters and coats for now but what about in the spring? He never anticipated having to hide his soul mark. Not actively. Yeah, most people don’t leave theirs on display, but it’ll raise a few eyebrows if he’s always got his right arm covered. It’ll be obvious what he’s hiding. That it’s something shameful. It isn’t. It shouldn’t be.
But hide it he will. From his mother, from his friends, from anyone who dares to ask about it. He’ll take the pity that comes with the need to hide a soul mark. To be ashamed of it (he isn’t, doesn’t want to be, but he’s afraid of the world around him, and it will never show him kindness, not like this). He’ll take it. He’ll tell whatever lies he has to tell, because he doesn’t want this to change anything. None of them will question it. It’s a personal matter, to some people, and while rumours might fly they are well within their rights not to share their mark’s contents with any curious mind that feels the need to pry.
But the other Losers don’t have to work so hard to hide theirs. It’s that little fucking tidbit that sets him apart from everyone else. Richie’s is wrapped around his right shoulder, he says, and none of them have seen it and he hasn’t offered and they leave it at that. People in his classes ask sometimes, maybe hopeful, but he declines to impart that information upon them, every fucking time, and now there's all kinds of gossip floating around campus about his soulmate being a serial killer or a drug dealer or just plain old looneytunes -- rumours that his soul mark tells him where to find the chopped-up body parts, because people are cruel and curious and that’s a bad combination.
Ben, for his part, has refused to show anyone his own, including his own mother. It’s common practice for parents to be the first to know, but he’d had the willpower to keep his lips zipped. Eddie doesn’t have a single clue what it says, but he knows whatever it is makes Ben desperately sad. Saw it in his eyes when he came down for breakfast on his eighteenth birthday last month and it hasn’t really gone away since. People don’t ask him as much. Maybe they can tell they shouldn’t. Maybe none of them are quite so interested in the idea of Ben being their soulmate as they are in Richie, for some fucking reason, so the need to ask never arises (though Eddie can’t understand why, because, objectively, Ben is very handsome).
Bill didn’t say anything about his own soul mark back in January, back before they graduated high school, when they met up at Richie’s house for video games and hot chocolate the day after his birthday and everyone looked up when he walked in the room. Anticipating. Curious.
But he just shook his head and took a seat beside Stan and he looked fucking miserable and it was all any of them could do to wrap him up in a lingering hug and make terrible jokes until he could smile again.
No one knows what his mark says except Eddie, and Bill doesn’t even know that. Eddie’s wisely chosen not to mention it. It was, after all, an accident. He walked by while Bill was changing his shirt, and his door was open just enough to see, and when it caught his eye, well-- he didn’t mean to read it but it was like it engraved itself into his brain. Just three words, fanning out across his upper back like a pair of wings (which was strange, because Bill had said he had a soul mark on his chest, but he supposes if you’re going to hide it there’s no point being honest about where it is), wider at either end, baby blue and soft -looking, in contrast with their meaning. How could he not read them?
WANTS TO DIE
Yeah, Eddie feels a little sick thinking about it, so he can only imagine how Bill feels.
But there’s no effort needed to hide those things.
Not like this. Right on his arm like that, right out in the open, where no one even has to look very hard to read it.
“Fuck,” he says, loudly. And then again, louder, “Fuck!”
Because, yeah, between his dad dying and his mother being fucking batshit insane and a sewer clown trying to eat him when he was, like, twelve, and every other little obstacle he’s faced in his life, he should have expected this. He should have anticipated that he’d have a soul mark that just made everything fucking harder, in a place where keeping it hidden would be nearly impossible, and he’s trying really fucking hard not to cry but how is this fucking fair?
Eddie’s always known, of course, that his soulmate would be a man. He’d just… deluded himself into thinking that his soul mark wouldn’t reflect that.
If he’s being completely honest with himself, he’d gotten it into his head that his mark would give him some indication it was Richie, which is just unbelievably fucking stupid, because Richie’s never liked him that way and Richie’s ashamed of whatever is written on his shoulder and even if it was fucking Richie, well, apparently he’s already in love with someone else anyway. Who? Bev? It would have to be, wouldn’t it? And isn’t that just Eddie’s fucking luck?
He doesn’t know when he started crying, and he doesn’t know when the tears turned into borderline hysterical laughter. His soulmate is in love with someone else. His soulmate is a man, which he knew was coming but is still enough to throw him for a loop. He’d thought, once upon a time, maybe he was wired wrong and his soulmate would come along, some faceless, nameless woman that his mother would approve of, and fix him.
Maybe this is what he deserves, though. Because how is it fair of him, to feel cheated upon learning that his soulmate is already in love with someone, when he’s in the same goddamn boat. The exact same goddamn rickety, leaking, taped-together, shitty cardboard boat, sinking right alongside them. Maybe that’s what makes him and this stranger soulmates, is loving someone they can never have.
Maybe the universe did manage to get this one right. He’s going to spend his life being stupidly, pointlessly in love with Richie, and the person whose deepest, darkest secret is tattooed on his arm is going to spend their whole life in love with their person, and he and Eddie are going to… he doesn’t know. Mourn together. Drink their sorrows away together. Live together under the pretense of being soulmates, of being in love, but it’ll be a lie, won’t it?
There’s a spark of hope -- just tiny, so dim -- that just maybe this soulmate he’s expected to find is right for him. That what he’s felt for almost a decade is just a kiddie crush, the way he used to feel about Bill before he even understood it, when Bill was tall and strong and charming and kind, and Eddie followed him everywhere like a shadow because he trusted Bill with his whole life. Maybe this is just… that, stretched out over years and years and growing in intensity until it became an untameable wildfire and he had to let it consume him.
He’s glad Richie isn’t his soulmate, because he couldn’t stand knowing that and having to watch him be in love with someone else. Even if that person was Bev.
He takes a few calming breaths. Scrubs at the tears on his cheeks. The other side of the room is empty (thank God, because he’d hate for anyone to witness whatever the fuck kind of breakdown he just had, especially Richie). It’s early, too early for Richie to be awake, but it makes sense that he’s gone. Privacy. You leave someone to see their soul mark for the first time in private. It’s common courtesy. It gives them time to… absorb it. Make sense of it. In some cases, figure out how to accept it. In others, figure out how to hide it.
Eddie dares to look at it again. The black stands out sharply against his skin. If he squints hard enough, the letters blur together and he doesn’t have to accept the reality, which seems to be that in spite of having a soulmate, he’s doomed to be on his own forever.
There’s a knock at the door, Richie’s voice overlapping with it as he says, “Hey, can I come in?”
Eddie, in a fit of panic, yanks his sleeve down over his arm again and shoves it under his blanket. “No!” he cries, breathless from his… fit. His eyelashes are still wet.
There’s a lingering pause from the hallway. Then, “Okay. Okay, um, I wanted to let you know, your mom’s on the phone.”
Fuck, of fucking course she is, it’s his eighteenth goddamn motherfucking birthday and she’s his mother and she wants to know. She wants to hear how bad it is. She wants to hear her future daughter-in-law’s biggest secret. She wants her precious baby boy to just be normal.
He’s going to break her heart. He’s going to crush it. He doesn’t have to tell her, could just tell Richie to hang up, but she’s his mom. She raised him. Sure, she didn’t go about it in the best possible way, but who does? Sure, he hasn’t spoken to her in months. Sure, they had an explosive fight about him going “all the way to Portland” for college, as if that was far at all. Sure, he screamed at her about treating him like he was made of porcelain for his whole life and lying to him about his medication and making him fucking miserable, and about how she couldn’t keep him from his friends forever, but he could resent her for it forever.
(And he’d cried, great, earth-shaking sobs, the entire first night in the Losers’ new house, and they held him through it, and every time he tried to pick up the phone to apologize, Richie had calmly set it back down and held him until he didn’t feel the need anymore.)
He’s felt… better, since. Lighter, maybe. He’s not spending half his energy trying to please his mom, trying to keep himself out of situations she’d disapprove of. Trying to keep his clothes un-stained, his knees un-scraped, his hair un-mussed, lest she berate him for it. Cry about how he hated her, how he only ever did things to hurt her.
It’s been easier without that. He’s tried not to think about her, mostly, since he left. She tried calling a few times once she figured out their phone number, but someone else always hangs up before he can get it, and he knows better than to call back.
They’re giving him the choice, now, because they know this is important. This is a milestone. They may not like her -- they’ve made that abundantly clear -- and may believe she’s bad for him, but she’s still his mother. And it has to be his decision, in the end. At least for this.
“Fuck,” he says once again.
“Eds, I can hang up, you know that. I can tell her to stop calling here. We can get caller ID, and I can pretend this is a crematorium every time she calls.” Richie chuckles hollowly from the other side of the door. “Tozier Crematorium! You kill ‘em, we grill ‘em.”
Even with the prospect of having to speak with his mother -- after the screaming match on his front lawn while Richie shoved all his crap into the back of the truck, followed by months of radio silence -- looming over his head, he can’t fight a quiet chuckle at that. He rolls out of bed. Shucks off his pyjamas and replaces them with jeans and a sweater that he’s positive is so oversized, the sleeves will hang down over his hands. Not a chance in hell of anyone seeing his arm. Of course it has to be on his dominant hand. Nothing in life can just be simple.
“I’ll talk to her,” he tells Richie. “I have to talk to her, eventually. If she wants to… make up for things, then that’s fine. If not, then that’s it. That’s fair, right? To give her a chance?” He opens the door and Richie is right there, leaning against the door jamb, hands in his pockets.
He looks terribly sad about this whole ordeal. Eddie can understand why. He was there for the whole thing. Some nasty accusations were thrown around. Sonia’s never approved of him and she made that clear, but Eddie’s never been her fucking property, he insisted, and Richie listened to the whole argument and never once flinched. Just held Eddie after, while he cried it out. “I guess it is, if you think so.”
“I want…” He curls his hands into the fabric of the sleeves where it brushes his fingertips. Toys with the frayed edges. This thing is old. It’s worn. It’s massive on him. He’s pretty sure it used to belong to Richie and ended up on his side of the room and neither of them ever said anything about it, and fuck, he is not going to start crying about his soul mark again. He’s got to deal with this first. “I want to give her a chance, Richie. She’s my mom. She… she fucked up. I hate her, but she deserves a chance to redeem herself.” Hopefully Richie attributes the shine in his eyes to his conflicting feelings about his mother.
“Is now the best time?”
His gaze flickers down to his covered arm, then back up to Richie’s face. “Yeah,” he says, utterly lacking conviction. “I want it to be.”
Richie stares at him for a long time. Too long. His blue eyes search his face, expression unreadable, and the moment seems to stretch on for an eternity. “Fine,” he relents. His shoulders drop. He side-steps, out of Eddie’s way. “The crematorium offer is always on the table.”
Eddie cracks a smile at that, knocking his elbow into Richie’s on the way by. “Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.”
Five heads turn to look at him as he enters the kitchen. Whatever hushed conversation was taking place ceases altogether. Bill is holding the phone out in front of him like it’s a fucking bomb, and he visibly relaxes when Eddie takes it from him.
“Hello?” Eddie says, and his mother makes a pained noise on the other end of the line.
“Eddie-bear?” she whispers. “Eddie, how are you? Mommy misses you. I miss you so much, every day.”
“I know,” he tells her, and he understands, because he feels it, too. Even if he tries not to think about it. She’s never been out of his life before, and he’s angry with her, of course, for getting everything wrong and making him so fucking miserable for his entire high school career, but she’s his mom. She’s his mom, and she’ll always love him, no matter what -- she has to. Because he’s her son, and he knows that even if his soulmate isn’t destined to be his, even when all his friends find their soulmates and go off to live their happy lives, she’ll be there for him. She’ll take care of him, anyway. Even if he doesn’t like the way she goes about it. “I’m sorry.” His voice breaks. He blinks away tears.
“Eddie, I need you to tell me. Are you going to tell mommy?”
He doesn’t need her to elaborate. The mark feels like it’s burning, but he knows he’s just imagining things. He also knows this is a conversation he wants to have in person. Not just because his friends are all lounging around the kitchen, pretending not to listen but definitely listening, and he’s not sure he’s ready to show them. Not sure he’ll ever be ready.
What a sad fucking soul mark to have.
“Can I... Can we talk? In person? I can be in Derry by ten, we can go get brunch, if you--”
“Oh, Eddie, I’d love that! I’d be the happiest mother in the world!”
“Okay,” he says, and smiles, because she sounds so different from the last time they spoke, and he isn’t boiling with resentment anymore. He just misses her, same as she does. He tucks a stray piece of hair behind his ear -- it’s longer now, curling at the ends, and she’ll definitely disapprove. He maybe misses that, too, in a strange way. How she’d fuss about his appearance and smooth his hair back when it got too wild. Things she did because she just loves him and just wants what’s best for him. “Okay, um, I’ll meet you at Rosa’s on Center Street for ten?”
“Okay,” she agrees, sounding teary. “Oh, Eddie, I’m so happy. I forgive you for everything, I promise. I love you so much.”
“I…” The words seem to stick in his throat for a second, perhaps because it’s been so long since he said them to her. “I love you, too. I’ll see you then.”
When he hangs up and turns around, everyone is gaping at him.
“What the fuck was that?” Richie demands, dumbfounded, gesturing at the phone as if it’s done him a personal offence.
“What was what?”
“Eddie, are you insane?” asks Bill. Sincerely. Like, he’s holding a placating hand out to him and everything, as if Eddie might bite it off if he moves too fast.
“She’s gonna try to kidnap you or something,” Ben tries to point out.
Eddie’s eyebrows twist together in confusion. “No she’s not. We’re just going out to eat. It’s my eighteenth birthday, you guys. It’s… important. She wants to talk.”
“You can talk over the phone,” Bev insists, from where she’s trying to wrangle Richie, who’s pacing the cramped kitchen like his ass is on fire. “Call her back.”
He could. But he’s got a bombshell to drop on her and he doesn’t want her to be able to hang up on him. He wants to take her hands in his own and assure her that he’s still her son, still her baby, and he’s perfect just the way he is, and let her do with that what she will.
“Richie, I’m borrowing your truck. I’ll fill up the tank when I’m done.”
“Eddie, Eds, c’mon, think about this--”
“She’s my mom!” He’s already got the keys in his hand as Richie chases him into the foyer. “I’m allowed to see her! I want to!” What he wants, really, is to break this burden up into bite-sized pieces as he presents it to her. To make sure she can handle it. To be there with her while they figure it out together.
Richie, frozen by Eddie’s outburst, springs into action again when he yanks the front door open and grabs his coat off its hook. “I’ll come with you, then.”
And-- ugh, Eddie’s heart has been through the fucking wringer and he hasn’t even been awake for an hour. He’s been hopelessly in love with Richie for half his life and what does he have to show for it? A soul mark that shatters his hopes and dreams? If Richie is allowed to hide his mark from them indefinitely, then Eddie deserves the same courtesy. He wants to explain that, but he’s… all kinds of things right now. Too many things. He’s nervous and heartbroken and terrified and lonely and he’s angry, with himself and with the universe, and what comes out is, “I don’t want you there,” as he slams the door behind him.
*
Eddie doesn’t know what the fuck he expected.
He’s pretty fucking naive, apparently. Tears are blurring the road ahead and he keeps wiping them away but the road just goes out of focus all over again. They don’t go away for the whole two hour drive. At a gas station just outside of Portland, he fills up the tank for Richie, buys a water bottle, gets a weird fucking look from the cashier, slams a pack of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups on the counter (because he isn’t allergic to fucking peanut butter and he fucking loves peanut butter and his mother is a liar and a bitch) and storms back out. He scarfs down the chocolate and chugs half the water in one go. Rehydrates so he can keep fucking crying the rest of the way home, because why not? Why the fuck not? He did this to himself. He can have his fucking fit about it and move on.
He’ll just move the fuck on and live his life as one of the universe’s mistakes, right? That’s fine. That’s what his mom probably wants her abomination of a son to do, huh? He’ll just never find love because “something is obviously wrong” and he was never made for it anyway. And he’ll watch everyone he loves pair up and lead their stupid sappy romantic lives, leaving him in the dust. He’d like to imagine a world where they still prioritize their friendship with each other over their soulmates, but he knows better.
He’s all fucked up, and now he’s got a fucked-up soul mark, and no one is going to want to put up with him forever, especially if they’re not his predestined soulmate. He’s laughing again, parked beside a fucking gas station, melted chocolate on the tips of his fingers, tears trickling down his face, the stupid turtle keychain he bought Richie when he first got the truck staring up at him, unblinking, from the dashboard. “What a fucking day,” he says to the turtle, which does not respond, as it is a piece of plastic, and then he just laughs more. Someone is going to think he’s gone off the deep end and call the authorities on him if they see him like this.
God, and then he’ll get dragged down to Juniper Hill, probably, and Henry Bowers will find him and finish the job, and wouldn’t that just be one last great big “fuck you” from the very same universe that seems to want to beat him into the ground at every turn.
He wipes his hands off on a napkin from the glovebox (praying it’s clean even though this is Richie’s car and the probability of that is low, at best), starts the engine, and drives the rest of the way home so he can at least finish off the day wallowing somewhere more comfortable. Like in his bed, buried under every blanket in the house. Preferably with more junk food to fuel his pity party.
A few of the Losers are downstairs when he gets home, but he anticipated this. He’s already got his shoes and coat off when he opens the front door and he drops them and books it upstairs before Bev has so much as stood from her chair. They don’t need to see this. It’s his own fault, anyway. They’ll just say, 'We told you so.'
'We kept her away from you for a reason, you ungrateful--'
'See what happens when you go crawling back to mommy? She can’t love you, either.'
That’s wrong and he knows it, knows they wouldn’t-- it still hurts. Like he’s been cracked open, ribs splintered, all the air sucked out of his lungs, a fist squeezing around his heart. If his own mother can hate him, anyone can. His friends could. Maybe they already do. He’s… God, he’s pretty fucking sure they already do. He’s done nothing but cause problems since they moved here, hasn’t he? He made them stay up with him that first night while he mourned his relationship with his mother and then he spat all over that just to go see her again, just to talk to her, believing in his shameful naivety that she would have changed at all.
He snapped at Richie this morning. He’s always snapping at Richie, but what if he really hurt his feelings this time? What if Richie hates him? He couldn’t live with it if Richie hated him, above anything else.
He never should have let his childhood crush blossom beyond that. Just a crush. Now it feels like Richie holds the fucking sun in his hands. Like Eddie wants to just exist beside him and within him and all around him, all the time. He’s… magnetic. Eddie never stood a fucking chance. Which is worse -- infinitely worse -- because now he gets to sit on the sidelines and just suffer while Richie meets some girl with a soul mark that’s made for him.
Eddie’s poor fucking soulmate probably has an identical mark to his, he thinks bitterly, as the door to his and Richie’s shared room creaks open. He’s already burrowed so far under the pillows and blankets he could probably escape detection if he held still, but his shoulders are jumping with sobs he can’t suppress and his wet, ragged breathing is enough of a giveaway.
“Go away,” he mutters into the blanket he’s curled up under.
“I brought you ice cream,” says Richie from the safety of the doorway. “Strawberry. Your favourite.” And he’s so playful about it, almost teasing, but Eddie can hear in his voice that he’s worried.
He keeps worrying them. The guilt of it gnaws at his insides. He scrubs the snot from his nose with his sleeve, because the tissues are too far and his face is probably super gross right now, and sits up a little. “Okay.”
Richie’s smile is blinding in the darkness of the room. “That’s the spirit!”
He’s clambering into the bed with him before Eddie can make space for him, his stupid sharp joints poking him all over as he shoves one of the bowls he’s carrying into Eddie’s hands. It does make him feel a little better, for a bit. Probably the sugar. They eat their ice cream in silence and it isn’t until Richie’s hand is waving in front of his face that he realizes he’s completely zoned out with the empty bowl on his lap.
“You alright?”
Eddie starts nodding, realizes there’s no point in lying because he obviously isn’t, and shakes his head instead. Both empty bowls are deposited on the nightstand and then he’s got Richie’s full attention on him, and oh, what a wonderful thing that is. Richie’s got a gift, something to go hand-in-hand with the ethereal beauty he’s quickly growing into and the undeniable charisma that he accidentally nullifies with his nasty sense of humour and foul mouth. Having his attention feels like being at the center of the universe. He makes you feel like everything you say matters. Like there’s nothing he’d rather be doing than listening to you.
Eddie doesn’t know why he ever thought he deserved that.
Richie is too good. He’s gaudy and he has no filter, sure, and he gets in trouble for his behaviour even now, while they’re in fucking university, because he’s Richie. But he’s good. His heart is in the right place. He never means any harm, he always makes up for the things he does wrong, and he's always, always there for his friends when they need him.
He’s going to make some girl very happy, someday.
Eddie’s not. Eddie’s not even going to make some boy very happy, because he’s too busy being in love with his own best friend, and he supposes that, yup, that makes him and this stranger whose secret is on his arm just a fucking perfect pair. And he’s definitely not going to make his mom happy, ever, not with a soul mark like that, but hey! On the bright side, they won’t have to put up with her phone calls anymore.
It’s that, more than anything, that sets him off again. The first sob hits without warning, shuddering through his ribs and forcing him to collapse forward, pressing his face to his knees. How he has any liquid left in his body to produce tears is beyond him, but the blanket he has draped over his legs is soaked almost immediately, so clearly he’s not dehydrated yet.
Richie’s hand presses between his shoulder blades and his thumb strokes past the nape of his neck, comforting, soothing, and he’s so good and it’s not fair and Eddie’s so goddamn selfish.
“The real divine punishment here, Eddie, is not directed at you, no. It’s directed at me. I don’t what I did to deserve this, but--”
“I just want her to love me,” he wails between agonized breaths that make him feel like his lungs are collapsing. Burning. “I just want…” That fist around his heart squeezes ever tighter. Richie’s shushing him, wrapping his arms around his waist and dragging him onto his lap. “What’s gonna happen to me when all of you are gone?”
“What do you mean, Eds? What’s wrong? What happened?” Richie’s heartbeat is erratic against his cheek. His hand finds its way to Eddie’s hair to comb through it the way he likes and he’s swaying, subtly, side-to-side. The movement is calming, but Eddie’s spent all day working himself into a panic and it’s not planning on subsiding any time soon.
“I don’t--” He cuts himself off, wheezes -- fucking wheezes, like he’s twelve years old and having a fake asthma attack again -- and more tears spill down his cheeks. He feels pathetic. He’s so pathetic. Richie doesn’t need to put up with this, yet he can’t bring himself to stop. Isn’t that, if nothing else, selfish of him? To take advantage of Richie’s caring nature to satisfy his own needs? His own desires? The guilt burns, now, deep inside him, and his hands shake. “You’re all going to leave, you’re all… you’re going to find someone and leave, and I’m…” he doesn’t know how to tell Richie. Doesn’t know what to tell Richie.
Richie is quiet for a painfully long time. He probably breaks a record, with how long he keeps his mouth shut for. Eddie lifts his head to look at him through his tears, concerned by his silence, and is met with a terrible, anguished gaze. “Okay,” Richie says after some time spent staring at each other, voice a hoarse whisper. “Um… fuck. Okay.” He shoves his glasses up his face to rub at his eye, an uncharacteristic frown dragging at his features. “Eds, it’s alright if you don’t have… I mean, I hear what you’re saying, and there’s nothing wrong with…” Whatever point he’s trying to get across, it isn’t getting anywhere, and finally he heaves a sigh so weary it’s worthy of Atlas and says, “We’re not going anywhere. Losers gotta stick together, right? No matter what happens, we’re gonna be there for each other. I promise, Eds. I promise you.”
Eddie’s still quaking, still playing his conversation with his mother over and over in his head despite his best efforts to banish it, but he’s got the presence of mind to hold out his pinky. Richie dwarfs it with his own and asks, “Want me to call in the troops?”
Eddie hesitates, but he’s still… he’s so much, and he’s guilt-ridden, and there’s a voice in his head trying to convince him that everything his mother told him was true, and another one trying to convince him that everyone else hates him, too, and he just wants it all to go away for a minute. And there’s no remedy like whatever magic all seven of them being together creates. (Selfish.) He wants them right now. Maybe they do hate him, and think he’s a burden, but if they’re willing to help him anyway--
He nods. Richie pops two fingers into his mouth and whistles, and there’s a commotion in the stairwell. “Ah,” he says, “like trained dogs.”
Eddie doesn’t have it in himself to laugh. His limbs tremble. His heart is in a vice. The mom-voice in his head just keeps getting louder and louder and he’s starting to give up drowning it out. He doesn’t look when footsteps thunder into the room but he can feel when five other bodies land in the bed around them. Can feel someone’s hand on his shoulder and Bev’s lips on his cheek, can see Stan settle in right next to Richie, back to the wall, and his hand stretching out towards him. Eddie takes it. Squeezes. Stan squeezes back. He breathes in a little deeper and tries to hold it and count.
Arms wrap around him and he’s being dragged off of Richie, onto Bev, who presses more fluttering kisses to all over his face. “You’re perfect! We love you!” she says brightly, squishing his wet cheeks between her hands. His lip wobbles.
He wants to feel okay.
He wants her to be right.
Richie’s hands are on him again, pulling him back, and he goes willingly. His fingers tangle with Stan’s again, while Richie shakes a fist at Bev. “Don’t touch-a my Spaghetti!”
“Hey, I love him, too, y’know!” She drapes herself over his back, effectively pinning him against Richie, and you’d think that would make it harder to breathe but if anything it relaxes him.
Mike and Bill’s faces both fill up his field of vision, but Richie shoves Bill’s shoulder and says, “Hey, Big Bill, let Mikey work his magic, here. You can have your turn.” Bill sticks his tongue out but relents, flopping back over Eddie’s legs, and therefore Bev’s as well, which makes Richie groan. “You’re crushing me, you fucking monsters.”
They bicker about Richie’s ability to handle their combined weight while Mike takes the hand Stan isn’t holding, calm and steady, grip gentle, and presses it flat to his chest. “Okay?” he says. He’s smiling, eyebrows drawn with the same concern he always carries whenever Eddie gets this way, and his guilt is making him feel sick. He sucks in a shuddering breath.
He needs this. “Okay.”
“With me, then.” He breathes in deep, until Eddie can feel his lungs expanding under his palm. Tries to replicate the movement. A shudder sets his shoulders quaking and Bev’s cheek presses against his, warm, soft, the smell of her favourite perfume flooding his senses. He holds what little air he took in until Mike exhales. “Good. Again.”
Mike and Ben are, among them, the self-proclaimed “masters of zen.” This is easy for them (this is common practice, for them). Mike is all warm dimpled smiles and gentle touches and encouraging words. “You got this,” he says, like he always does, and Eddie believes him, like he always does. Then, when Eddie isn’t halfway to hyperventilating anymore, “Okay?”
Eddie nods.
“I’m here.” Mike’s nearly lying down now, too, not breaking eye contact, head brushing Stan’s knee.
“I’m here,” Eddie repeats.
“I’m safe.”
“I’m safe.”
“I’m loved.”
“I’m loved,” Eddie says, voice cracking on the last syllable, and Mike’s eyes shine with the threat of tears.
“You are, I promise you. Again?”
Eddie nods and by the time they’ve gone over the process thrice, he’s practically melting into Richie, exhausted from the events of the day even though it’s barely one in the afternoon. Bev’s knee is digging into his calf and Stan’s thumb is rubbing over his knuckles and he’s pretty sure that’s Ben’s hand on his back, a grounding weight. Richie presses kisses to the crown of his head periodically. He doesn’t feel hated. This doesn’t feel like a burden on them. Mike’s heartbeat is steady under his hand and none of them are going anywhere, just existing with him in the quiet, and they don’t have to, but they do it anyway.
The last thing he says before he falls asleep, a bit slurred from the exhaustion and a bit hoarse from the prolonged attack he just had, is, “Thank you. I love you. Thank you.”
“Anytime, Eddie,” he thinks he hears Bill say, but he’s already pretty much dead to the world, anyway.
He’s fucking starving by the time he wakes up. He didn’t really get far into brunch before his mom kind of forced his hand in showing her his mark and then casually tore him a new one in the middle of the diner. He’d stormed out only about halfway through her tirade because, as his friends often remind him, he’s under no obligation to listen to her whenever her goal is to hurt him.
Pretty much the only things he’s eaten today were peanut butter cups and ice cream and those… aren’t really the most nutritious snacks in the world. His stomach is quite literally growling and his alarm clock says it’s close to five, which means someone probably whipped up a meal for the rest of them recently (in other words, Ben probably made them all something perfectly healthy but still delicious, because he’s got that shit down to a science, and it’s the only way to get Richie to eat a vegetable).
Someone was kind enough to cover him up with blankets after he fell asleep. Probably Richie, because Richie is infuriatingly considerate like that, and he always does little things that make Eddie’s heart go haywire, and yeah, if he thinks about that too long he’s gonna work himself into a fucking frenzy again. So he banishes any nice thoughts he wants to have about Richie (easier said than done), scrubs his face clean in the washroom down the hall (his eyes are still red and swollen but at least he doesn’t look like he’s half-dead anymore) and shuffles downstairs.
Sure enough, Mike, Bill, and Stan are crowded around the sink, sharing the task of washing dishes, and Richie’s pushed one of the chairs back towards the open window for his post-dinner cigarette, headphones looped around his neck blaring music. He’s got his head tipped back against the wall, eyes closed, but he jerks to attention as soon as Eddie enters, clicking the Walkman off. “Eds! You’re awake. Welcome back to the land of the living.” He snuffs out the cigarette in the ashtray balanced on the windowsill. He looks just about how Eddie feels, which is approximately what being run over by an eighteen-wheeler is probably like. Eddie tries very hard not to assume that’s his fault, but he did cry all over Richie for the better part of an hour earlier, and he’s quite aware of Richie’s tendency to over-empathize. He probably set something off in Richie, too -- fuck, don’t think that, he tries to tell himself. It’ll only bring the guilt back tenfold. “Sit. Benny Boy cooked us some weird Italian shit that tastes like God’s jizz.”
“I really wish you wouldn’t phrase stuff like that,” Stan sighs, at the same time Bill makes a face and says, “Beep beep, Richie. What the hell?”
“Am I wrong?”
“How can you know you’re right?” Eddie asks, doing as he’s told and pulling up the chair opposite Richie to sit down. He already knows Richie’s going to grab it anyway, because Richie does shit like this all the time when Eddie’s had a particularly rough day.
“Touché. I'll take notes next time I get a chance to blow God.” Richie retrieves a plate from the microwave and sets it in front of him. Eddie’s stomach growls louder. Fuck, he’s starving.
“Thanks.”
They sit in silence for some time, Eddie toying with the food on his plate between bites, the only sound accompanying them the quiet conversation and clattering of dishes from the sink.
Bev walks in after a while, equally quiet -- lips drawn in a thin white line -- trailed by Ben. The two of them sit across from each other at the table, between Richie and Eddie, and share some meaningful eye contact that has Eddie cringing.
He sighs. Sets his fork down. “Yes, I know I’m an idiot.”
“Wasn’t gonna say that, but if the shoe fits…”
“Richie.” Bev’s got her arms folded across her chest and she is very pointedly not looking at Eddie. Yet.
“Listen, Eds--”
“Richie.”
“No, let me talk. I’m allowed.” No one protests. The drip-drip of the tap across the room is clearly audible. Satisfied that he’s been given the go-ahead to reprimand Eddie for his stupidity, intervention-style, Richie takes a deep breath, sets both hands on the table, and says, “You shouldn’t see her anymore. Full stop.”
They had a conversation similar enough to this when they first moved here that he can’t say he’s surprised by that.
Bill chimes in next, with, “I’ll be honest, I’m pretty pissed you went at all.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I just…” Eddie tries to defend himself but he really, honestly should have known how this would go. He was stupid and naively optimistic and, above all, desperate for his mother’s help with this. Her… he doesn’t fucking know. Her approval. Her acceptance. Her love. He’s never really had any of those things, not really, so he doesn’t know why the fuck he thought she’d start now. “I just wanted--” God, he doesn’t fucking know.
Everything is all fucked up and he hates being eighteen and he hates this stupid soulmate business and he hates himself for being such a whiny little bitch about it, but he doesn’t dare say that in front of his friends.
“You don’t have to apologize, Eddie. I’m not…” Bill huffs out a sigh, striding across the kitchen to wrap him up in an embrace. He kisses Eddie’s forehead, a rare gesture coming from him. “I’m not mad at you, it’s just that I wish you’d, I dunno. Make decisions that weren’t so detrimental to your well-being.”
“So you’re not pissed at me, you’re just pissed at all of my choices.” Eddie’s sniffling again but he gives Bill a cheeky smile and gets one in return.
“Yeah, exactly. You got it.”
“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind for next time I have to decide between cupcake flavours at a birthday party.”
He’s startled to find Bev’s eyes on him when Bill backs out of his personal space, intense and sorrowful and all kinds of things he doesn’t want to examine too closely. They’re… cut from the same cloth, the two of them. Bev is in his head like she’s a fucking shrink, sometimes. Acts like she knows him better than he knows himself (he’s pretty well convinced she does, by now).
She’s the only person besides Stan who really gets him, thanks to the unfortunate circumstance of their shared experiences with parents who simply didn’t love them, or tried and got it all wrong. And Stan doesn’t talk about that, like, ever, so Bev is the one who’s always rubbing his back and repeating advice from her therapist to him.
Like, “You’re tough as nails, and a lot more independent and capable than you let yourself believe.” She pulls a dart from her breast pocket and lights it up, exhaling smoke through her nose, not once breaking eye contact. Eddie kind of wishes they’d stop smoking in the damn kitchen (kind of wishes they’d stop smoking altogether, because he’s already lost a loved one to lung cancer and he isn’t looking to lose more). “But she’s got a stranglehold on your self-worth, and you’re not going to be able to grow beyond that unless you let her go.”
That’s a lot fucking harder than she makes it sound. He doesn’t voice this opinion but he hopes she realizes that.
“I know. It’s not like that’s easy.” Good thing they’re all so fucking in tune with each other, or maybe that Bev is mind-reader. He’s half-convinced she is, sometimes. “It’s hard to accept the idea that your parent, the person who chose to create you, and chose to keep you, never really loved you. But what can ya do?” Her laughter is hollow at best as she shakes her head, earrings jangling. “Except go to therapy about it.”
She’s tried nudging him in this direction before. He’s told her, every time, that it wasn’t necessary because what his mom did wasn’t even in the same league as what her father did to her. Now he’s… ugh. He shoves his plate away and folds his arms on the table, resting his head on them. His chin digs into the spot on his forearm that’s branded with his supposed soulmate’s biggest secret. He takes a couple breaths to steady himself the way Mike taught him -- little samples of the meditation and yoga he and Ben do together and invite Eddie to join, but he doesn’t want to intrude, y’know?
“...’Kay,” he relents after a long, uncomfortable silence.
“Huh?”
He lifts his head to look at her again. At the cigarette pinched between her fingers and the spray of freckles across her cheeks and the melancholy that’s always lived behind her eyes. “I’ll go.”
*
“The idea that you are inherently unlovable is a byproduct of your mother’s abuse. You have to take this belief you hold and turn it on its head, by any means necessary. It’s the root of the vast majority of your problems with anxiety. You have to, in essence, rewire your brain to make the assumption that you are loved the new default.”
“Well, how can I do that, when I’m already convinced everyone I do love just hates me already? I-I mean, like, I know what you’re saying, but I just. Fuck, I just feel bad asking them to reassure me that they actually like me all the time.”
“You don’t have to. A big part of realizing peoples’ love for us is accomplished by making ourselves vulnerable to them. You’d be amazed by what a difference it makes when we express vulnerability in the presence of a loved one and their reaction is acceptance rather than anger.”
“You mean, like, crying in front of them? ‘Cause I kinda do that already. A lot. Probably too much. I feel bad about that, too.”
“And how do they react? Is it with resentment? Is there rejection? Do they ignore you? Are you berated?”
“No! No, Jesus, none of those things. They, uh… they just kind of hold me through it, I guess would be the word. They try to comfort me until I feel better, and it usually works.”
“Good! That’s good. That’s exactly what I’m looking for. How do you feel when they do that?”
“I mean, a little… okay, like really guilty for bothering them. But also kind of like-- I know they don’t have to do that for me, and I know I’m not forcing their hand, and that does feel kind of nice.”
“Kind of like being loved?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. What I want is for you to take that a step further. I want you to voluntarily make yourself vulnerable to someone you are close with. Not when you have an anxiety attack, as I can clearly see your friends have a handle on that situation. But, however you feel comfortable, find something you can do.”
“Like… what?”
“Well, something you’d worry would get you in trouble, or cause you to be rejected. Like explaining your thoughts and feelings one-on-one with someone when you’ve had a difficult day. Saying something that might be a little controversial. Nothing bad, of course, but simple. That you like pineapple on your pizza, for example.”
Eddie surprises himself with a little laugh at that. “I really don’t.”
“Me neither. But it opens up the floor for sharing, of thoughts, beliefs, and opinions. That’s vulnerability at it’s finest. You could, perhaps, share a secret. Big or small. Watch the reaction. As you do things like this, I want you to compare these reactions to how your mother would react, or did react, in some cases. You’ll begin to realize that the people who love you -- who truly love you -- accept you as you are, flaws and all.”
He thinks Richie’s seen him plenty vulnerable before. Not just because he literally holds Eddie together through, like, almost every anxiety attack or panic attack or whatever the fuck they’re calling it these days (not fucking asthma, that’s for sure). Or because they share a room, and have now walked in on the other masturbating several times and it’s honestly just normal at this point, ‘cause Richie is fucking insatiable and neither of them ever thinks to knock.
It’s just that, when his therapist puts it that way, he’s kind of starting to realize that he’s “made himself vulnerable” to Richie a lot more often than he realized. In the form of crawling through his fucking bedroom window several times a week while they were still living in Derry, to cry it out or just for some company or because he needed a distraction so badly. Or, there was also, you know, the summer with the clown, and almost dying. That probably counts. And Richie was the only person who got the full taste of the Kaspbrak Household Falling-Out of August 1994, a glorious occasion that Eddie can only assume counted as a “vulnerable moment.”
So he’ll just test these theories out on Richie. That seems sensible. Richie’s never rejected him for his emotional bullshit and his frankly astounding amount of baggage before, so he probably won’t start now.
Not much has changed in the intervening months since he turned eighteen. There was that one incident where Eddie walked in while Richie was, well, fortunately not jerking off, but changing his clothes, which was worse, honestly. Richie somehow has the foresight to always keep his left side towards the door so no one sees anything in the event of a slip-up, but they both change clothes in the washroom now instead to prevent any… soul mark-related problems. Richie has his reasons for hiding his. Eddie isn’t going to pry.
He’s pretty fucking grateful he didn’t see it. Doesn’t think he could stomach it, seeing Richie’s soulmate’s secret. Is it possible to resent someone you’ve never met and know nothing about?
Is it possible for anyone to be able to put up with Richie as a soulmate? Like, yeah, maybe Eddie’s been a little bit in love with him since they were kids playing Cops and Robbers on the school playground, but he can still acknowledge that the man is a fucking menace. Just this morning he woke Eddie up by blowing one of those dumb plastic party favour horns right in his face and hollering, “Top o’ the mornin’ to ya, laddie!” in an accent that was significantly more Australian than Irish, and like-- who the fuck wants to put up with that for the rest of their life?
(Eddie. Eddie does.)
He kicks the door open, forgetting once again that knocking when Richie is your roommate is in everyone’s best interest, and is relieved to find him lounging on his bed, fully-clothed, strumming the acoustic guitar Wentworth gave him for his sixteenth birthday (the electric keyboard tucked in the corner was Maggie’s gift).
“Heya, Eds.” Richie’s eyes flicker up from the sheet music he has balanced on his knee. “How’d it go?”
“Same as usual.” Richie’s already moving over before Eddie can jab a knee into his ribs to tell him to make space. He flops down on the bed beside him and gets a fantastic view straight up Richie’s nostrils. Richie’s fingers smooth stray hairs off his forehead, almost absentmindedly, and Eddie barely suppresses a shudder. The contact is gone as quickly as it came, as Richie squints at the papers again and plays a few uncertain chords.
“What are you learning now?” Eddie asks, though he’s sure he recognizes the tune anyway.
“You Can Call Me Al.” Richie plays the chords again with more confidence this time. “Your favourite.”
“Wow, are you just learning songs by my favourite artists in some, like, desperate attempt to impress me?”
Richie reaches down again but this time it’s to flick him lightly on the forehead. “Everything I do is to impress you, genius. Why do you think I put pretzel sticks up my nose when I was drunk last week? For fun?”
“Yes. Because you’re an idiot. Literally why would that impress me?”
“Well, you laughed.” He shrugs and starts the song over, and Eddie goes quiet, content to listen to Richie stumble over chords and laugh at himself as he tries again. At some point one of them starts humming the words under their breath.
He’s happy to lie there with his head resting on Richie’s shin, pointing out when he makes mistakes and getting flipped off in return, until Richie finally figures out what the fuck he’s doing with the guitar and starts singing along. That’s a bad, bad thing, because Richie’s singing voice is enough to make anyone’s ears bleed.
Eddie rolls up onto his knees so fast that the papers spread across Richie’s lap flutter to the floor, but Richie leaps out of his reach before he can actually clamp a hand over his mouth, strumming furiously at the guitar and screeching, “If you’ll be my bodyguard, I can be your long lost pal!”
There’s a thumping from the other side of the wall and Bill’s voice pleading, “Make him stop!”
Richie laughs at that, his damn spindly legs carrying him away across the room before Eddie can grab at him again. “Richie, seriously, I’m begging you. You’re going to make me deaf.”
“I’m only the guitarist, here. I need a new lead singer. Any suggestions?”
“Anyone but you,” Eddie says, lunging at him again and finally succeeding in catching him around the waist, sending them both toppling over onto Eddie’s bed. Richie’s still plucking away at the strings even as Eddie slaps a hand over his mouth, but Richie keeps humming anyway. “You’re a monster.”
Richie licks his hand and Eddie barely suppresses an ungodly shriek and he frantically wipes Richie’s fucking slobber all over the front of his ugly flamingo-print shirt. “Sing with me, Eddie Spaghetti! Please?”
“If you promise never to call me that again.”
“I will, but I’ll cross my fingers while I do it.”
“You’re so predictable.”
“It’s part of my charm.” Richie winks lasciviously at him, which earns him a shove as they try to find a comfortable position again. “A man walks down the street, he says--”
Richie’s knee digs into his side and Eddie rolls his eyes and sings alongside him, “Why am I soft in the middle, now? Why am I soft in the middle? The rest of my life is so hard.”
The door flies open and Bev is there, Stan behind her, gaze travelling over the mess they just made in the already-chaotic room.
“Oh, great, he’s been recruited,” Stan complains, as Bev plants her hands on her hips and asks, “What is with all the banging?”
“I was trying to get Richie to shut up,” Eddie tries to explain.
“Ha, yeah, in your dreams, Eddie Spaghetti.” Richie pats him consolingly on the shoulder and Eddie levels him with a glare. He hates Richie’s dumb nicknames. It makes him feel all… all twisted up inside when Richie does stuff like call him Eds or pinch his cheeks or tell him he’s cute, cute, cute! It makes it harder to not like him so fucking much, and after five months of knowing Richie isn’t his soulmate, he’s started to get real fuckin’ frustrated with his inability to just give it the fuck up. Why can’t his heart listen when he tries to explain that, simply put, it’s never going to fucking happen?
“Eddie, please control him,” Stan says before turning on his heel and disappearing down the hall.
Bev looks back and forth between the two of them for a minute. A smirk plays at her lips. “You break anything and you’re explaining it to the landlord.”
Richie salutes her and she shakes her head fondly as she closes the door again.
Eddie turns to Richie. Richie turns to Eddie. Twin smiles break out across their faces and Richie picks up right where they left off. It’s when they’re both shouting, at the top of their lungs, “I can call you Betty, and Betty when you call me, you can call me Al!” that Bill hits the wall again and cries, “Why do you have to be like this? Why can’t I just live in peace?”
“You specifically chose the room next to theirs. What did you expect?” Eddie can hear Stan saying, and then Bill’s huffy response of, “If I recall correctly, you were also on board with this arrangement.”
They don’t move from where they’re all flopped over each other on Eddie’s bed for a long while. Long enough that Richie’s picked up another folder of sheet music from the side table and is trying his hand at Romeo’s Tune instead, another favourite of Eddie’s. Long enough that the front door opens and closes a few times as Losers come and go, work and school and appointments calling.
Long enough that Eddie starts thinking about this morning’s session again.
“I got class in like an hour. We should probably eat before I go. Maybe there’s some of that pasta Mike made yesterday left in the fridge. What d’you say? Spaghetti for Mr. Spaghetti?”
“I hate you,” Eddie tells him, definitely not smiling.
“I appreciate that.” Richie starts to stand, dislodging Eddie from his very comfy position where their legs are tangled together and he’s half-lying on Richie, probably making the whole “playing an instrument” thing more difficult than necessary.
And he’s pretty sure if he doesn’t try it out now, before he’s had a chance to figure out one hundred reasons why it’s a terrible idea, or a thousand things that could go wrong, he’s never going to give himself another opportunity to make himself vulnerable -- like, properly vulnerable, more than Richie’s used to -- in front of him. Share a secret. This counts as a secret, right?
“Wait, Rich.”
Richie freezes halfway off the bed. “Yeah?”
“Can I…” Eddie’s hand curls over his forearm, where the mark he’s going to have to figure out how to hide in the increasingly warm weather reminds him every day of his life of what it is he can’t have. And as much as he doesn’t want to see Richie’s, because he’s so terribly envious of this mystery soulmate already and he’s convinced he can’t handle knowing their deepest, darkest fucking secret, he’s just masochistic enough to let his curiosity get the better of him and maybe hope Richie will let him see his in return. “Can I show you?”
Oh wow, oh fuck, his heart is pounding. He can hear it.
The mattress dips under Richie’s weight again and he’s fixing Eddie with this… adorably confused look. “Show me what?”
Eddie sighs. He’s already nervous enough. He has to close his eyes and count a breath before he grits out, “My soul mark, what the fuck else?”
Richie doesn’t say anything for so long that he’s afraid he’s actually died, and when Eddie dares to open his eyes again he’s just gaping. His eyes are huge. His throat works over the start of several different sentences before he finally manages, “Wh-- you… I thought you didn’t have a soul mark?”
“What? Of course I fucking do.” He’s not even going to question what in the fresh fuck gave Richie the impression that he was markless, not least because he’s frankly a little offended Richie would dare think he doesn’t have a soulmate in the first place. Plus, like, what the fuck else would he have been so upset about on his birthday? Obviously it had something to do with his soul mark. Richie is just a dense, beautiful bastard at the best of times. “It’s just… sad,” he admits with a little half-shrug. His fingers tremble where they’re still clamped around his forearm.
“Oh.” Richie says, articulately. He lets out a very prolonged breath between his pursed lips. “Well-- okay, I mean, it can’t be as sad as Mike’s, for starters.”
Eddie’s just caught off guard enough to make an involuntary inquisitive noise as he leans in closer. “You’ve seen Mike’s?”
“It was an accident. And I feel bad about it so I never said anything.”
“Oh,” says Eddie, and in spite of his nerves a little laugh escapes him, because of course Richie did that, and now Eddie doesn’t have to live with the guilt of being the only one of the Losers to unintentionally sneak a peek at someone else’s mark. “I’ve… oh, wow, I saw Bill’s on accident and I felt awful about it. I really don’t think Mike’s could be worse.”
Richie actually grimaces at that. “I wouldn’t take that bet if I were you, Eds.”
He can’t imagine what could be worse than the kind of mark Bill has, that makes you just ache for your soulmate and fear for their well-being, day in and day out, but he knows when to keep private matters, well, private, so he doesn’t dare elaborate. Not knowing how pissed he’d be if someone saw his and blabbed about it, even to one of their friends.
“Well, lay it on me. I’m a tough cookie. I can handle whatever terrible, evil secrets your fated love is keeping.”
Despite his joking, Eddie can see that Richie is nervous, as well. As he should be. This is kind of a big deal to some people.
It’s definitely a big deal to Eddie, and his hands are fully shaking as he grasps at his sleeve. “You gotta… you gotta promise not to judge me, okay? And not to make fun of me, because this is, like, sad. Like, embarrassing.” Because, honestly, who the fuck gets assigned a soulmate and then told outright that their soulmate won’t even love them, but instead so busy loving someone else that it becomes their literal soul mark. How fucked up is that? That’s definitely worse than being markless.
“Eds, you know I wouldn’t. Ever. You’re my bestie. Cradle to grave, or whatever.”
“I really hope you weren’t still sleeping in a cradle when we met. We were seven fucking years old, weirdo.”
“I’m trying to be, like, sweet and sentimental here, dude. It’s a figure of speech. Can you just take it?”
“No.” Oh, yup, this was a terrible idea. This was-- yeah, he’s gonna throw up, or maybe pass out, or maybe both of those things. What if Richie reacts the way his mom did?
No, that’s the whole fucking point of this, is to prove that other people won’t do that to him. He’s gotta believe that they won’t.
Like ripping off a BandAid, right? He yanks his sleeve up to his elbow and his left hand flies up to cover his eyes so he can’t even look at Richie, can’t gauge his reaction at all, which was supposed to be part of the process, but he’s worried if he does look he’s gonna puke up his literal heart, so he settles for listening.
What he hears is not even close to what he was expecting. Not that he’s got any clue what he was expecting, but he’s positive it wasn’t laughter. It starts slow and then boils over into something pushing hysterics, and when he finally dares to look Richie’s got his head thrown back and tears streaming down his face.
“Richie?”
“Remember…” Richie has to take a couple seconds to compose himself. “Remember when you broke your arm and I set it for you?”
Eddie does not know what the hell this has to do with his soul mark being on display between them, but whatever is going on, he’s not being condemned to hell, or disowned, or called slurs, so like. He’ll take it. “Yeah?”
“And Greta Keene wrote ‘loser’ on your cast, but you changed it to ‘lover’, and when I asked you about it you told me it was ‘because you’re always saying how you’re a lover, not a fighter, and it was the best word I could think of to fix it.’”
“Yes, Richie, I do recall.”
“This is…” Richie reaches out towards him, eyes flicking up, asking silent permission to touch. Eddie nods. Richie’s index finger traces almost undetectably over the path of the words. “This is exactly where that was. Same orientation and everything. At least it’s not Greta Keene’s writing, though.”
Eddie watches him trace over the letters again. And again. Like he’s mesmerized or something. “Um, so you… don’t care about what it says?” He swallows down the knot of anxiety trying to prevent him from asking that question, transfixed on the way Richie’s fingers play over his skin.
“What? No, of course I fucking care, I-- Fuck.” Richie laughs again, and Eddie really doesn’t get what’s so fucking funny about this, considering he’s been dealing with the aftermath for nearly half a year now, and he hasn’t heard from his mom at all in that time (which is a good thing, he has to remind himself, but it doesn’t take away the hurt from their last interaction). But then Richie’s tugging his shirt over his head, and on instinct Eddie is looking away, because he always does, because Richie’s never let him see before and Eddie’s been too afraid of it. “Eddie. Eds, look at me. Seriously.”
And he does, but he doesn’t look at his shoulder, not yet, because, ugh, no, he’s decided that he can’t do this after all. He can’t expose himself to Richie’s soul mark like this and then just move on. “Richie, I--”
“Eddie, don’t make me read it out loud to you.”
A cloud of apprehension swells in his gut but he braces himself and looks anyway, at the blockish black letters printed neatly over the curve of Richie’s shoulder joint, all-caps, proclaiming…
“Wait, what?”
“I happen to know that I, Richard Leslie Tozier, have been terribly, ridiculously, head-over-heels in love with my best friend for, like, a decade.”
Now, Eddie’s kind of reeling, so he can be forgiven for trying to puzzle all this shit out in his head too fast and coming up with, “Stan?”
“Eddie, please, I’m supposed to be the stupid one. Who do you think I’ve been in love with?”
“I don’t…” Eddie’s not going to be presumptuous, and he’s especially not going to be hopeful, but he’s also, uh, pretty much desperate to be right, so he wets his lips and glances between Richie’s mark and Richie’s eyes and finally, finally, croaks out a terrified little, “Me?”
“Damn right, Spaghetti Head. Why do you think I was the first person to volunteer to be your roomie?” Richie’s still crying, but he’s doing a fabulous job of not letting it impede him, occasionally swiping tears off his cheek as they appear. “Carved our initials on the Kissing Bridge in a fit of passion and everything. It’s all very rom-com with a dash of teen angst, y’know?”
Eddie’s still trying to wrap his head around the possibility of Richie being his soulmate, his intended, his predestined. Because that doesn’t make sense (except it does -- Eddie’s never liked anyone the way he likes Richie, and never as much as he likes Richie, and really the only thing he’s struggling with here is how the fuck he managed to deserve Richie). He doesn’t know how to form a coherent sentence right now. He lifts a hand to Richie’s mark, hesitant, and Richie just grabs his wrist and drags him the rest of the way.
“Oh holy fuck,” Eddie whispers in one breath.
“I’m, like, really hoping I didn’t get this wrong, because I have been keeping my very sane and not-at-all debilitating love for you a secret to the best of my ability since we were, oh, thirteen, and I finally figured out why I wanted to just follow you around like a lost puppy all the time.” Richie shrugs, and under his hand Eddie can feel that he’s shaking, too. That this conversation is taking its toll on him as much as it is on Eddie. It’s a lot. It’s scary. This is… fuck, this is it, this is the fucking soulmate conversation, that once-in-a-lifetime thing that everyone looks forward to from the moment they learn about all this crap. Richie swallows audibly. “So just to clarify, I am literally begging the universe to just throw me some scraps here, and maybe let me know if you, also, have been in love with me, or even just that I’m your best friend, so this thing on my shoulder that’s been tormenting me for over a year can finally get its resolution, or whatever.”
Eddie’s-- God, Eddie’s fucking flabbergasted. Like, cannot get over the idea that Richie, of all people, is actually in love with him. Actually in love. Crying about it in love, snot and all, looking like Eddie’s rejection would kill him. Eddie’s fingers curl over the words on Richie’s shoulder. IN LOVE WITH HIS BEST FRIEND.
No fucking way.
“I do, of course I do, how the fuck could I not?” he says, all in a rush, tears spilling over onto his cheeks despite his efforts not to cry right now. He can’t help it, not with Richie’s expression crumpling like that.
He’s being bowled over onto the mattress before he can add anything else, Richie’s face pressed against his throat, hot tears soaking the collar of his shirt. Richie is sobbing, quaking under the force of it, and it’s all Eddie can do to wrap his arms around him and hold him through it. “Richie,” he breathes, “I think I’ve loved you since before I even understood what love was. You just, I dunno... you always make everything better. Except when you’re making jokes about your dick, obviously.”
“It really is massive,” Richie murmurs against his skin, and Eddie’s crying, too, but he still has to bite back laughter at that.
“Thanks, I know. I’ve seen it. It was traumatizing.”
Richie takes a few moments to calm his breathing. A kiss flutters over the sensitive skin of Eddie's neck. A little high-pitched giggle fills the space around them. “...I love you a lot. Like, so much I don’t even know what to do with myself sometimes. I want to, like, attach myself to you and, Jesus, I don’t even know. I want to make sure nothing ever hurts you.”
“I know exactly what you mean. I don’t really know how to explain it right, it’s just that I want to literally always be around you and sometimes I don’t know what to do with myself when I’m not. Fuck, dude, my biggest fear for years has been you moving on and finding someone else and I’d just be stuck here, like, not knowing what the fuck to do! I mean, I feel the same about any of our friends leaving, but you especially.” Eddie drags his fingers through Richie’s hair and starts untangling knots. Richie goes limp on top of him, and it’s kind of crushing all of his bones but he kind of doesn’t give a fuck right now.
“I know how to explain it.” Richie’s breath is warm on his throat. “We’re soulmates.” And he can feel him smiling. “You’re my soulmate.”
Richie’s laughter is contagious, and Eddie is breathless with it by the time Richie lifts his head to look at him again. He’s got dried tear tracks on his cheeks and his eyes are bloodshot and Eddie loves him so much he thinks it might kill him.
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah, holy shit. I’ve been worried I was gonna have to figure out how to love someone else, and I’m gonna be honest, I did not think that was possible.”
“My therapist is gonna go nuts when I tell her this.”
Richie’s chest rumbles with a quiet chuckle and when Eddie’s fingers scrape across his scalp he shudders. “You gonna include the part where we performed an award-winning cover of a Paul Simon song, or are you gonna make it boring?”
“Well.” Eddie sneaks a kiss to his forehead. Richie beams at him. “I’m gonna start by explaining that you can’t sing for shit, and that any dogs within a hundred-foot radius start freaking out every time you try.”
“... Wow. Okay. I guess I’ll never open my fucking mouth again. Jesus.”
“Really? We’ve been trying to get you to do that for years. It would be a blessing.”