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Richie was the one who had come up with the plan which was how Eddie knew it was doomed to fail.
It had snowed all through the night and well into the morning. Derry almost looked pretty coated in white, like frosting on a cake that was crawling with maggots and mould when you cut it open. Even the permanent sewage smell was buried under a clean, sharp frostiness that burned in Eddie’s lungs in a not unpleasant way every time he breathed in deep.
The problem was walking a few steps ahead of him, leaving deep footprints in the snow, and it was carrying an axe. Eddie really would’ve preferred if anyone other than Richie carried the axe. Only recently their gym teacher had, not unreasonably, referred to Richie as a (barely) walking lack of hand-eye-coordination during the basketball unit. But he knew if he said something Richie would only take it as an invitation to mess around and might actually end up taking his own leg off. Or Eddie’s head.
Richie’s parents had made the grave mistake of entrusting Richie with procuring the Tozier family Christmas tree this year. It was a simple task in theory. Richie was meant to take the money, walk to the Christmas tree sale down in the church’s parking lot, find a tree with at least three tips (Maggie owned multiple ornaments meant to go on top of it and could never decide on a single one to use) and drag it home through the snow.
Or at least that was how easy Eddie imagined the whole thing went. He had never bought a tree before. His mom put up one made of plastic every year because she thought it was unsanitary to bring nature into the house. Eddie thought it was nice. He liked the pine smell that mingled with the familiar scent of the laundry detergent Richie’s mom used in the Tozier home every Christmas, and he didn’t even worry about bugs that might crawl out of the branches that much anymore.
Only Richie had had the idea that, since they lived in rural Maine, it was easy to pocket the money his parents had given him for himself and sneak out into the woods to cut a tree down himself.
"You do know that the proceeds from the sales go towards supporting the local fire department, right?"
"My mom buys their ugly calendar for the guest bathroom every year anyway, they’re gonna be fine", Richie said, using the axe to scratch a clump of snow from his boot.
Eddie remembered the Derry fire department’s calendars from years ago when he and Richie had gone through it to draw mustaches and devil’s horns in sharpie on the firefighters that were posing shirtless in front of their battered truck and shook his head.
"Your house is gonna burn down when you set it on fire", he said, matter of factly.
"If I set it on fire?", Richie tried hopefully.
Eddie glared at him. "When."
"Alright, then I better never cook lunch for you again, just to be on the safe side."
"Please don’t! It always tastes burned anyway." The snow really was awfully deep the closer they got to the forest. Riche would have to dig out his tree before he could fell it. "Dude, are you sure you don’t want to be an upstanding citizen and go to the sale?"
"With what money?", Richie asked. They had reached the edge of the forest. Richie pretended to hold a branch back for Eddie only to flick it into his face. Eddie brushed the snow off his brow and decided to ignore the minor offense in favor of pursuing the conversation.
"You already spent it? What do you mean you already spent it? On what?", he demanded to know. "Your parents always get a huge tree. They must’ve given you like a hundred dollars."
"Well, you see, Spagheddie, I asked for your mom’s wishlist when I stopped by her bedroom last night and she has expensive taste so…"
Eddie’s eyes narrowed. Richie was throwing him two bones to sink his teeth in as a distraction — the silly nickname and an improper comment about his mother — and any other time Eddie would’ve been happy to oblige, but Richie seemed a bit too eager to move on from the subject.
He started to get worried. "No, seriously Rich, what did you need the money for?"
Richie wouldn't meet his eyes. A faint blush spread over his cheeks, but maybe that was just the cold.
"Richie, are you in gambling debt?"
"It’s the mob actually", Richie said. "They put a dead fish in my mailbox this morning. Some blood got on Went’s newspaper but his eyes are even worse than mine so he didn’t notice."
Eddie’s eyes widened comically. "Oh my god! You’re unbelievable! I didn’t even know we had the fucking mob in Derry!"
Richie smirked. "Maybe we do."
Eddie stopped so abruptly Bill, who was walking behind him, careened into him. He’d forgotten Bill and the others were there too.
"You’re not funny. I’m not stupid for thinking you’re messing with the wrong people, you do it all the time. You probably would be in gambling debt with the mob if Derry wasn’t so fucking depressing that not even the mob wants to live here."
The column set on moving again. Behind Eddie was Bill, and behind Bill was Mike who in Eddie’s opinion should be the one carrying the axe; he’d feel much more comfortable if that was the case, followed by Bev, Ben and Stan. Why did they even need to be seven people to pick out one tree? He couldn’t blame them though. Of course everyone wanted to be there to witness Richie embarrass himself with the axe.
"What about this one?" Richie pointed to the next best pine tree. He was only wearing one glove because he had lost the other one. The skin on his naked hand looked pink and raw from the cold.
Eddie looked up at the tree skeptically. "It’s bigger than Paul Bunyan. It doesn’t even fit into your front yard, much less your living room."
"And this one?" Richie pointed to another vaguely tree shaped snow heap.
"That’s a blackberry bush", Stan said.
"Since when are you an expert on Christmas trees."
Okay. Maybe Richie did need six assistants to pick out one tree. How could he ever survive on his own? He was so incompetent. Eddie didn’t know why that made him smile.
Mike confirmed that the thing Richie had pointed to was indeed a blackberry bush and not a weirdly grown pine tree and Richie was stupid, so they ventured deeper into the forest.
Eddie tried not to walk in front of Richie (Richie would bombard him with snowballs) or behind Richie (he would flick branches back into his face) or beside Richie (he would shove his hands that were freezing and pink from grabbing at all the snow he had previously tormented Eddie with under his sweater) which left him with very little options. He decided to use Stan as a human shield between them. Stan shot him an annoyed look when Eddie pressed himself into his side. Stan really valued his personal space. He pushed Eddie away right into the line of Richie’s fire, the traitor.
"You should’ve waited until dark to break into the fire department’s sale", said Stan, who was evidently starting to regret that he’d let Richie rope him into this. "Their fences aren’t that sturdy."
"Hey, look!", Bev called out. "The Kenduskeeg is completely frozen over!"
The others rushed to her side. "Do you think it’s thick enough to hold our weight?", Ben asked.
"Maybe not yours", Richie said and jumped right onto the ice without testing it first. He immediately slipped and landed on his ass but at least the ice didn’t crack.
"Rich, I don’t think that’s safe", Eddie said, while Richie shuffled closer to the middle of the stream.
"It’s fine!", Richie called back to the group. "It’s not gonna break."
"I’m not talking about that."
Richie, during his last try at ice skating two weeks ago, had fallen flat on his face and broken off the edge of his tooth. It still wasn’t fixed. Eddie couldn’t stop looking at it. It was a cautionary tale.
Richie held a hand out to him. It was the one without a glove. "Don’t worry, Eds, you’re not gonna fall. Unless I push you."
Eddie glanced at the hand skeptically. "I’m not worried about me."
"You’re worried about me?" Richie retracted the hand to press it to his heart in mock emotion.
Eddie hated when he slipped up like that. "I hope you fucking fall on your face and break your jaw and they sew your mouth shut with wires at the hospital and I don’t have to hear you talk for a month."
Richie laughed and held the hand out to him again. "Come on."
Eddie calculated the chances of Richie falling and dragging Eddie down with him were around a hundred times higher than the ones of Richie keeping him steady on his feet and decided to take the risk.
He reached out for Richie’s hand but pulled away at the last second before Eddie could grab it. Eddie looked at him annoyed.
Richie slithered away across the river and promptly fell again. Deserved, Eddie thought. Bev gave him a gentle push from behind, so he joined his friends on the ice.
They weren’t far from the place where they’d run into a bleeding and battered Ben in the summer of ’89. It looked different in winter, almost unrecognizable. It made it easier, being there without getting haunted by bad memories. They slid around the ice until Stan pointed out that it would be dark soon and Richie still hadn’t found a tree.
The group reconvened on the shore and started looking around. Suddenly it started to snow real hard. Eddie looked up and saw that Richie was shaking the fir branch above his head with a stupid grin on his face. "Richie, stop that! You fucking—"
He tackled him and they went down into the snow together.
"I’m getting snow in my boots. Stop! I mean it!", Eddie complained despite being the aggressor in the fight. They rolled down a small slope, limbs entangled, and bumped into a tree.
Eddie blinked and abruptly stopped wrestling. Richie went slack under him too. "Peace?", he offered. Eddie whacked him over the head one more time, got up and dusted off his gloves. "Get the axe", he said. "This is the right tree."
"I can do it", Mike offered and picked up the axe where Richie had dropped it earlier, but handed it over when Richie made grabby hands at him.
Everyone took cover while Richie took an uncoordinated swing at the tree. The axe immediately got stuck and Richie had to put his foot against the tree and pull at the handle with all his strength to get it free again.
Eddie couldn’t bear to watch it anymore.
"Dumbass. Let me have that", he said brusquely and grabbed the axe from Richie.
"Why would you help him?", Stan asked. His hands were buried in the pockets of his coat. A single curl had slipped out from under his hat and bounced on his forehead.
"If I let him do it he’s gonna take his own leg off. Or… or my head!"
In the background Mike volunteered to do it again. Eddie ignored him. He could damn well fell his own tree. It couldn’t be that hard.
"Look what you’ve done", Stan said, to Richie now. "You’re making Eddie a complicit in your crimes."
"You’re a witness too, Stanny", Richie said unbothered. "If we’re going down, you’re going down with us. Obstruction of justice and all that."
"That’s not what that means", Stan said.
Eddie turned around. "Just so you know, if we get caught I’m blaming everything on you."
It only took a couple of determined swings at the trunk and the tree started swaying.
Eddie gave it a kick for good measure and it went down in a cloud of icy snow. A muffled scream sounded. Bill’s gloved hand reached out through the branches of the tree he was now buried under.
"Oh my God! Bill!", Eddie screamed.
Richie was laughing so hard he keeled over.
Eddie rounded up on him. "Look what you did!", he hissed. "You killed Bill!"
"I killed Bill?", Richie repeated incredulously from where he was kneeling in the snow. He was only wearing jeans so now his clothes would get soaked and he’d catch pneumonia and die, but that wasn’t Eddie’s problem. Eddie was much more concerned with making sure he hadn’t accidentally bludgeoned his oldest friend to death with a Christmas tree.
A muffled sound, like a dying raccoon, came from under the tree.
"Guys, he’s alive", Bev said.
"Bill?" Mike lifted up the tree which allowed Bill to crawl out from underneath it.
"Are you okay?", Ben asked.
Bill was covered in white from head to toe, like he’d barely survived a run-in with the abominable snowman.
Bev took his hat and dusted it off for him. Stan’s cough sounded suspiciously like suppressed laughter but who was ever able to tell with this guy.
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They carried the tree out of the forest. They had just made it to the edge of the road when a police car pulled up.
The crime rates in Derry had gone down since Sheriff Nell had been forced to come out of retirement and rejoin the force after Bowers had murked his dad. This wasn’t because Sheriff Nell was especially good at his job; he had probably been a contemporary witness for the founding of the town sometime in the 18th century and his eyesight simply wasn’t good enough anymore to see the crimes taking place. He also frequently forgot to file reports.
Eddie, who didn’t fancy spending his Christmas locked inside a police cell for tree theft, dropped the stolen goods into the ditch where it was hidden from immediate sight.
"Act innocent!", Eddie hissed.
Richie crossed his arms behind his back and started whistling. Eyes turned towards the sky, he evoked the image of a culprit in a 40s screwball comedy.
Bev, trying only a little bit not to laugh, looked over at Ben who had to look away, because he actually tried not to laugh, having a good soul and all that.
Stan pretended he had never seen any of them before in his life. He was already halfway down the road, nearly out of sight.
Sheriff Nell scrambled out of his car. "What are you boys up to?", he asked.
Eddie decided to do the talking. He was the most convincing liar among his friends, thanks to all the practice he’d had with his mom. Bill’s stutter immediately made him sound suspicious and Richie probably didn’t even know what a secret was, that’s how bad he was at keeping them. "Just taking a walk, Sir."
Sheriff Nell squinted at him. "What’s your name, son?", he asked.
"Uhh..Tozier, Sir", Eddie replied without blinking. He heard a scandalized gasp to his right. "Richard Tozier."
"Tozier", hummed the Sheriff and Eddie briefly worried that Richie’s face actually graced the cover of a wanted poster down at the precinct. He began to sweat under his coat.
"I know your father, boy. He fixed up my dentures the other day, best dentist we’ve ever had in our town. Tell him a merry Christmas from me."
"Will do, Sir. Merry Christmas to you too", Eddie said politely.
Sheriff Nell shuffled back to his car.
Eddie breathed out a sigh of relief, but then the Sheriff turned around one more time. "Say, you need a ride home? It’s cold out."
Eddie visualized his mother’s reaction if he really were to roll up to the house in the back of a police car and couldn’t suppress a shudder that had nothing to do with the cold. "No, that’s alright, Sir."
Sheriff Nell raised his hand in greeting, got into his car and drove off.
"What the fuck", Eddie mumbled to himself.
Richie laughed. "What were you afraid of, Eds? That guy wouldn’t notice anything suspicious going on if he caught us in black ski masks climbing through a broken window into Keene’s pharmacy in the middle of the night."
He climbed into the ditch and with Mike’s help heaved the tree back onto the street.
The group broke up one by one. Mike headed towards his farm, Bev and Ben headed towards Ben’s house for dinner. Stan had already tapped out when the police showed up and even Bill eventually had to take a different path home.
Eddie and Richie both pretended that Richie needed help carrying the tree to his house. Eddie didn’t want to go home. The longer he spent away, the harder it was to go back. Sometimes, when he’d been locked up for a while, he began to think that it wasn’t so bad. He was just fine there, nothing to rattle or upset him. But then he went out into the world with his friends and was reminded of what living really felt like and that he didn’t want to miss out on it.
"You sure you don’t wanna come in for a bit?", Richie asked, looking at him hopefully. "Maggie is making hot chocolate."
They’d come to a stop on Richie’s front lawn. He lived in a nicer neighborhood than Eddie, the houses were big and clean and twinkling with Christmas lights.
Eddie shook his head. His chest ached a little. He knew every second spend in the warm, inviting comfort of Richie’s home would make leaving harder, and his mother was definitely furious with him for staying out past dark already. How was it Eddie’s fault that it got dark at fucking 5pm in winter?
The warm light that fell through the window softly reflected off Richie’s eyes behind the glasses and suddenly Eddie felt very fond of him. He reached out and brushed a clump of snow out of Richie’s damp curls. Without quite meaning to his hand came to rest on Richie’s cheek that felt icy to the touch under his warm fingertips. He vaguely noted that Richie had stopped breathing.
Eddie shoved the snow he had picked off from Richie’s hat down his neck. Richie yelped and stumbled backwards. Eddie smirked at him. "See you tomorrow", he said.
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