Archive of Our Own ^beta

"We should do that!" Richie cried excitedly as the credits rolled. Eddie popped a kernel of popcorn in his mouth and raised an unimpressed eyebrow.

"Do what? Steal your dad's Nissan and hijack a parade?" 

Richie rolled is eyes. "No dumbass, steal your mom's station wagon and hijack a parade. You're obviously Cameron in this scenario." 

Eddie scoffed. "Why the fuck am I Cameron?" Richie shot him with an incredulous look, and despite himself, Eddie felt his cheeks flush. Okay, sure, he was absolutely Cameron. It was actually almost like, freaky, some of the similarities, but he wasn't about to admit that out loud. "Oh, shut the fuck up."

"You could always be Sloane," Richie cooed, leaning in and making kissy faces. 

Eddie blanched, pushing Richie's face away. "Ugh, gross!"

"No, no, it's perfect! You both got those big ol' brown eyes."

"Rich–!"

"And you're both cute, cute, cute!"

"Shut up, fucknut!" Richie laughed, loud and long, expertly dodging the popcorn being flung in his direction. Eddie scowled, biting back his own grin as Richie managed to catch a kernel in his mouth and pump his arms up in victory. "Okay, but seriously. Skip school together?"

"Yes!"

"And do what?"

"Whatever we want!" Richie cried, his eyes practically twinkling. "I mean sure, it's not like we can actually steal a car and go to Chicago or anything, but we can find some stuff around Derry to do. Anything is better than school, even in this shit-hole town."

Eddie couldn't argue with that logic, but he wasn't about to give in that easily, so he crossed his arms, challengingly. "You do realize how bad that movie ended for Cameron, right? Like, there is no way he wasn't toast after that, and I do not need that kind of trouble with my mom."

Richie groaned, closing his eyes and gently hitting his head against the back of the couch. "There wont be any trouble, Eds, because we're not gonna do something stupid and get caught."

"Uh huh. Because we never do anything stupid."

"And you need this, dude," Richie continued, ignoring him. "Just like Cameron. Life moves fast if you don't stop missing looks, or whatever."

"That's so not even the quote."

"Trust me," Richie said with a beam, plopping an arm around Eddie's shoulders, and throwing on what Eddie assumed was supposed to be his old-timey mobster voice. "It'll be a piece of cake, shweethaht."

It ended up not, in fact, being a piece of cake. Try as they might, for nearly six months, every attempt they made to fake sick on the same day ended up nothing more than a spectacular failure. 

During their first attempt, Eddie, apparently a far better actor than he gave himself credit for, ended up in the emergency room.

"What the fuck, dude? What the hell happened?" Richie had asked on the phone that night, once Eddie had had returned home from being theroughly poked and prodded and run through the gauntlet at Derry Home Hospital and been deemed nonterminal enough to talk on the phone. 

"Mom took me to the hospital."

"Holy shit."

"Yeah, holy shit."

"What did you even do? I thought you were just gonna, like, cough!"

Eddie rubbed the heels of his palms into his eyes, letting out a deep breath. "I did just cough. Ma decided it sounded like pneumonia."

"Yowza."

"Yeah, it sucked."

"Okay," Richie began, and Eddie could almost see him adjusting his glasses in that way he always did when he was thinking. "So, new plan. Next time, less coughing." 

Eddie snorted. "Yeah, genius, I figured that out for myself." 

The second attempt hadn't gone any better, since Richie apparently forgot they were supposed to be trying again until he showed up at Eddie's doorstep that morning to pick him up.

"Eddie will not be going to school today, Richard," his mom told Richie cooly, while Eddie glared daggers at him over her shoulder, a cold compress balancing of his head and a thermometer sticking out of his scowling mouth. "He's feeling ill."

"Yeah, Rich," he bit out around the thermometer. "I'm ill."

"No talking while we take your temperature, Eddie-Bear," his mom reminded him, starting to slowly close the door in Richie's face. "Goodbye, Richard."

"Sorry!" Richie managed to mouth as the door snapped shut, taking just long enough to close for Eddie to flip him off before it latched all the way. 

As it turned out, Eddie couldn't stay mad at Richie for long, not after he was the one who forgot they were doing attempt number three. 

He'd overslept, forgetting to turn on his alarm after he and Richie had stayed up late, whispering grand plans for their day off into the phone into the wee hours of the morning. His mom had barged in two minutes before Richie was due to pick him up the next morning, scaring the ever loving shit out of him, and sending him out the door still half-asleep with his sweater on backwards, mismatching shoes, and an untoasted, unfrosted, strawberry Poptart shoved haphazardly into his mouth. 

It was only after Richie didn't immediately show up for him that Eddie remembered he was supposed to be playing hooky, and unfortunately, at that point, there was nothing he could tell him mom that wouldn't send him directly to a day of fun at the doctor's office, so he swore, and dragged himself to school, reasoning that Richie owed him for last time anyway. 

Attempt four was blown when Richie's attempt to heat up the thermometer with a hair dryer sent the reading up into the low two-hundreds, earning him not just a trip to school, but a lecture from Wentworth on top of it. 

Attempt five was shot when Eddie's mom was so worried about him, she decided to take off work and smoother the sickness out of him with soup, tea, and an extra spoonful of love so he was unable to escape her all day outside trips to the bathroom (and even those were dicey). 

Richie gave himself actual food poisoning somewhere around either attempt six or attempt seven (they were starting to lose count), even though Eddie had told him eating the the old, moldy mystery meat growing in the Tupperware at the back of the fridge to make himself sick was a fucking stupid idea, and ended up puking and shitting his guts out for three straight days. 

But this time. This time. They had a plan. 

And it was going to work, damnit. 

"Oh god, this is so fucking disgusting."

Richie snorted, continuing to stir the lumpy, chunky, greenish brown liquid whatever they had thrown together in the bucket they had found in Richie's garage with a stick. "Yeah dude, that's kind of the point."

"Herk," Eddie gagged, plugging his nose as Richie grinned and poked at a particularly large lump of something floating around. "I'm about to get you real vomit here in a second. Holy fuck, how are you not blowing chunks right now? You puke like, all the time. You puked in the middle of doing a presentation of the Civil War, how is–herk, oh god– How is this not making you sick?"

"My puking is like, a nervousness thing," he said with a shrug. "Public speaking and shit. Gross stuff is cool."

Eddie stuck out his tongue. "This is not cool." He paused to regard their concoction critically. "It does look like puke though."

"Fuck yeah it does." He gave it one last dramatic stir before chucking the stick into the air, Eddie yelping and jumping out of the way as it fell back toward the ground. "By George, I think we've got it!" he cried in one of his shitty Voices. 

"Well, let's just hope it works," Eddie sighed, kicking the bucket lightly with his foot. "School ends in like, three weeks. This'll probably our last chance." A bubble burst in the fake puke, and Eddie choked back another gag. "I think my mom's got an old chicken casserole in the fridge if you want to give yourself food poisoning again to be safe," he offered with a smirk. 

Richie stuck out his tongue but laughed, popping the top on the bucket and grabbing the handle. He struggled a little to pick it up at first, but batted Eddie away when he went to try to help, lugging it into the house and waddling with it up the stairs and into his room as Eddie trailed him, barking advice from three steps behind. After shoving it into his closet, he turned back to Eddie, and gave him a thumbs up with a stupid grin. Eddie shook his head. 

"Well, Ferris, here goes nothing."

O

Eddie's mom glowered at him over the rims of her glasses, so he held his old quilt tighter around his body and tried his damndest to look as tired as humanly possible. 

"And you're sure you're just tired, sweetie?" she asked skeptically. "You aren't feeling like you're coming down with something?"

Eddie nodded. "Yes Mommy, I'm sure. I just stayed up too late last night studying. I think I just need a day home to sleep, and I'll be better tomorrow." He paused. "I don't want to push myself too hard on so little sleep today and get sick." Thankfully, that seemed to soften her resolve, at least a little.

"And you don't need me to stay home with you?"

Sure fucking don't, he thought bitterly, but did his best to smile sweetly. "No, I think I'll be able to sleep better if everything is quiet."

Though he was pretty sure she still wasn't completely, one hundred percent buying it, she adjusted her purse on her shoulder and turned to the door, just barely grasping the knob before spinning around to face him once again. "And you wont be missing anything important today? I don't want you falling behind and getting yourself sick with stress because of it."

Like that ever stopped her form keeping him home, before, he thought bitterly. "Just a review for the science test tomorrow," he shrugged, throwing in a yawn for good measure. In the back of his mind, he could practically hear Richie praising him for his truly inspired improve. "The guys can help me study at lunch, and I'll read over my notes again when I wake up. I studied a lot last night though, so I should be okay."

Finally, finally, Sonia smiled softly. "You're such a good boy, Eddie-Bear. Get some rest today, and call me if you need anything, okay? Anything." She started opening up the door, then paused, leaning down slightly, waiting.

Eddie bit back his grimace, kissing her on the cheek. "I will, I promise. Bye, Mommy."

He gave it exactly five minutes after her station wagon pulled out of the driveway and puttered down the street, then waited one minute more, just to be on the safe side, before dropping the quilt and booking up the stairs, two at a time. He checked his alarm clock, knowing that Richie's parents always left for work by seven forty-two on Thursdays, meaning he had roughly twenty minutes to wait until he could call and see if their plan worked. 

To kill some time, he took a quick shower, threw on some clothes, changed his mind almost immediately and changed his clothes again, and grabbed a granola bar from the pantry, hopping around on his toes as he ate, watching the glowing green clock on the microwave. Four more minutes. He just needed to wait four more–

Riiing. Riiing.

"Hello?!" he practically yelled into the phone, like an idiot. He winced, willing himself to not be such a spaz for once in his life, jesus christ... 

"Eds?!" the familiar voice on the other side of the phone asked excitedly, and Eddie promptly pepped up at the sound.

"Rich?!"

"Holy shit, did we actually pull this off?" 

"Oh my god, we did!"

"Eddie," Richie said, the grin obvious in his voice, making Eddie grin right along with him. "We're taking the day off. Now come over here and pick me up."