Chapter Text
Richie decided, right then and there, that the rest of the Losers club were so incredibly fucking stupid. And he had no clue what he would ever do without them.
Somehow, the majority of them had gotten permission to go on a huge road trip. Maybe it was because it was summer and everyone was sick of the generally hyper group of teens, or because they were all around 16 or 17 at that point so they had to be at least kind of responsible, or maybe because they had been vocal about how Bill Denbrough was the one to come up with the idea and all of their guardians liked Bill. Eddie was the only one who hadn’t gotten permission. Richie was certain they didn’t even try, knowing Mrs. K. They ended up lying to her, though Richie had no idea what the lie was.
Richie stood in his front doorway, staring in astonishment at the van in the road. Bill sat in the driver’s seat, considering he had borrowed the car from his mom. Mike was next to him with what appeared to be a pile of maps and other assorted papers. Richie could only see those two since Bill had rolled down his window to yell at Richie to hurry up and get in. He grabbed his backpack and waved subtly at his mother, an unspoken compromise so his friends couldn’t see and she wouldn’t complain. As he approached the sidewalk right next to the van, Bill started shouting more specific instructions.
“Go around b-back and throw your stuff in the t-trunk,” Bill said. “You’re sitting in the back r-row with Eddie, but we will change that if needed.”
Richie rolled his eyes dramatically but he did what Bill told him to, mainly because he knew he could potentially fuck up the entire beginning of the trip if he was more of a little shit than necessary. When he slammed the trunk closed, Bill yelled for him to go to the left side. Richie rounded the car and slid the door open. He saw Stan sitting all the way on the right in the middle row behind Mike and Eddie behind him. Richie knew Stan's placement was entirely intentional, considering the last time Bill drove them somewhere and Stan sat in the seat behind him, he kicked the chair whenever they were stopped, ultimately achieving his goal of annoying the shit out of Bill and being banned from sitting there permanently.
Richie shoved himself into the back row, leaving a space between Eddie and himself. As comfortable as he was around Eddie, Richie was also hopelessly pining after him. He could only handle so much skin-on-skin contact with him at a time, and this was shaping itself up to be a long ass car ride. He quickly fastened his seat-belt before he got an Eddie lecture on the importance of car safety. Not that he would have minded one, really. Eddie had a nice voice.
“‘Ello, loves!” Richie loudly exclaimed in his poor British accent. It elicited groans from over half of the car, which only made it funnier to him.
Soon, Bill started up the car again and asked Mike where to go next. Stan looked out of his window, seemingly trying to enjoy the peace as much as possible before everything turned to chaos. Eddie’s fingers thrummed against a bump-out for a cup holder in the wall, which meant he was undoubtedly nervous. Richie guessed it was something about inexperienced drivers and how gross the hotel rooms they were inevitably going to stay at would be. Either that, or Eddie was going through the entire plan for the trip in his head. All Richie knew about the itinerary was that they were gonna pick up Ben and Bev, drive for days until they were in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, and stop at some unknown location that Bill repeatedly swore was worth it, Mike nodding in agreement. Of course Mike was the only person Bill trusted enough to tell where they were going; those two had gotten really close ever since Pennywise, but especially over the past few months.
Richie kept quiet for a while after his initial obnoxious greeting. It was probably weird to his friends, but he was tired as fuck. He had thought that the road trip would be easy all the way through, but the night before his brain had kept him up for hours, agonizing over how close he would be to Eddie, how they would always end up together, whether it be because the others grouped them up or because they naturally gravitated towards each other, and how likely he was to fuck up and impulsively confess that he had be in love with Eddie since they were like 11, which was decidedly not good. He ended up getting approximately three and a half hours of sleep, which his body apparently decided to chuck out of the window considering how sleepy he still was.
After an amount of time that Richie couldn’t even begin to guess, he felt a nudge on his shoulder. He finally looked up from the pattern on the faux leather in front of him, meeting Eddie’s big, concerned eyes.
“You okay?” Eddie asked, his voice quiet but still loud enough to easily carry throughout the whole van. It was strangely silent, which Richie could only assume was because he only said one thing before shutting up and that was most certainly not normal.
“Hm? Yeah, just running on no sleep,” Richie replied. Stan whipped around, glaring at him. His entire expression screamed something along the lines of ‘If you don’t start taking better care of yourself, I can and will beat the shit out of you’, a sentiment that Richie wholeheartedly believed. He dodged Stan’s glare and turned back to Eddie, smirking. Eddie noticed the set-up to the joke, but he was too late to stop it. “Guess I spent too much time with your mother last night.”
“Shut the fuck up, Richie,” Eddie said. “That was so not funny.”
Eddie turned to the window. Richie never got Eddie to laugh at his your mom jokes, but sometimes, he did get him to smile a little in spite of himself. This was one of those times, and oh, did Richie revel in the small grin tugging at Eddie’s lips. He reluctantly moved his gaze from Eddie after a few seconds. As much as Richie wanted to stare at him all day, he knew that Bill was a responsible driver and would check his rear view mirror eventually, which Richie had no doubt he was visible in.
Instead, Richie leaned his head back, staring up at the car ceiling and trying to keep his eyes open. At some point in his attempt, he failed, though he had no idea when. He nodded off for a bit, waking up groggily when Ben sat in the seat in front of him. Everyone greeted him, barely including Richie.
He caught Eddie looking at him concerned again a bit later. Richie looked back, which got Eddie to start talking.
“I can’t believe you’re this dumb, you seriously need to work on your sleep schedule.” Stan whispered something to Ben, probably explaining the context to Eddie’s rant. “You know you’re supposed to get 8 hours a night, you’re gonna end up shaving so many years off of your life, you know that right? You’re going to bed as soon as we figure out sleeping arrangements tonight…” Eddie continued on while the others started their own conversations. Richie listened to Eddie, not so much listening to his words as much as just listening to the way he spoke. The annoyed worry in his voice, the moments he took to to breath before quickly picking up right where he was, the occasional frustrated noises at Richie’s apparent nonchalance before he realized that it wasn’t Richie ignoring him, it was Richie focusing on him more than he usually did. That calmed Eddie down fast, which was honestly disappointing since he stopped his rant after finishing his sentence.
“Do you wanna see if you can rest some more before we get Bev? After we do, I don’t think you’ll get a chance until everyone else is tired, too,” Eddie asked. Richie nodded his head. “God, sleeping in cars has got to be somehow dangerous…” That time, Eddie mumbled more to himself than anything. Richie mainly took it as nice background noise for his nap until he felt a hand around his upper arm. It was Eddie’s; no one else could reach there. The touch was warm and pleasant whenever Richie’s thoughts didn’t turn to panic because why did Eddie grab his arm. He cracked his eye open, peering over at Eddie and hoping against hope that his face wasn’t overly red. Eddie saw him and merely muttered ‘precaution’, staring straight ahead. Richie let his eyes slide shut again.
Something about Eddie’s touch was even more comforting to Richie than his voice as he tried to take his last-minute nap. It was more personal, more… intimate. Richie would have melted at that thought if it wasn’t for his bones.
Some time passed before the van stopped again. Richie was vaguely aware of that, but he wasn’t brought back to full awareness until Eddie moved his hand off of his arm. Richie felt the loss immediately, even if it was a small touch that didn’t mean much to Eddie beyond trying to keep his friend alive. He sat up and blinked around the car. Ben had already slid over to make room for Bev.
“I c-can’t just honk at Bev’s house like the r-rest of your’s,” Bill sighed. No one really knew why that made sense, it just did.
“So someone’s gonna have to knock on the door,” Mike said, looking around the car. Richie’s hand shot up automatically. No matter how much sleep he still felt in his entire body, he would never miss the opportunity to be the first to greet and annoy Bev. Mike nodded, though Richie was already pushing through the door to run up the path to Bev’s aunt’s house. He knocked on the door before his feet fully stopped moving and prepared his opening line.
He saw a shadow through the stained glass and heard the creaking of the door knob, and once the door opened enough to see Bev and her signature wild red locks and overjoyed expression, a smile broke out on Richie’s face.
“Package for Molly Ringwald?” Richie said through his grin. Bev scoffed and threw her arms around him. He happily returned the hug. Somehow, she was always a little bit taller than him no matter how much he grew.
“I’m so glad to see you, you little motherfucker!” Bev exclaimed, stepping back and grabbing Richie’s shoulders. “You got new glasses?”
“Good ol’ Maggie got tired of the tape!” Richie explained quickly. “Did you get an undercut?”
“Hell yeah, it looks cool!” Bev laughed and released Richie, grabbing his wrist and bounding over to the van. They clambered back into the car. Richie’s energy was back up to a ten, though he had no idea how long that could possibly last. He had to be running on pure adrenaline.
With Bev there, the car burst into life. The group was complete and the van was loud, various greetings and conversations happening at once. Richie sat up as straight as he could, determined to get in as much interaction was possible. At some point, everyone joined a single conversation.
“I still can’t believe I agreed to multiple days of driving in an enclosed space with all of you,” Stan said, nearly exasperatedly. “It’s gonna be so overly chaotic.
“Oh, and don’t forget how you won’t be able to escape us out of the car either!” Richie replied. Stan groaned. “It’s gonna be fast food and weird hotels galore!”
“Interesting how you managed to choose the two most unsanitary parts of this all, it’s almost like you’re trying to give Eddie an aneurysm.” Bev quipped back. Richie stuck out his tongue at her, a gesture she promptly returned. Eddie elbowed Richie, barely holding back some sort of rant about grease or black lights or something. Richie just laughed in return.