Chapter Text
Richie's eyes stutter open, his body a plank and his breath coming in short bursts, the breath knocked out of him, yet it takes him a second to understand why as he slowly comes to his senses he hears an excited, comforting voice and feels a warm weight above him.
Eventually when his eyes focus he finally recognizes that its eddie that knocked him out of the deadlight's hypnotizing glow, the brunette is looming above him, their faces a whisper apart.
"Hey Richie! yeah, YEAH THERE HE IS!!" Eddie exclaims as he pats the stubbled cheek of the man beneath him.
"I think ive got it man!!! I DID!!" he expresses excitedly as his hands tighten on Richie's cheek.
"I think i've killed it for rea-" he's abruptly cut off as Richie grabs the brunette by the waist, quickly pulling him taught beside him as if instinctual just as the claw pennywise wields zips right past where Eddie was just looming atop Richie.
The duo's eyes blown open as they breath rapidly, hearts beating as if in a marathon yet somehow in sync with one another, as if they shared a heart.
Richie turns his face over to Eddies whose entire frame is practically rattling, Richie immediately cups his face and whispers a soft "Eds, Eds you doin' alright?", he knows the brunette isn't yet, he needs to ask.
He cups eddies face, he fails to notice just how close they are, how warm it is, how red eddies face has just become.
"Eds-" before he could finish eddie suddenly lurches towards him and presses a soft yet passionate kiss to his lips, be it the adrenaline of the near death experience or the fear of losing him, Eddie seemed to move his lips with such urgency that it startled Richie.
yet before the stubbled man could even reciprocate, Eddie quickly pulls away, standing erect as his face flushes bright red even in the dim navy light of the cavern its visible to richie, as richie stares up at eddie they can start to faintly hear the others start to yell at the clown.
"shit, fuck- rich.. i- FUCK" is all eddie can utter as he visibly panics yet his panicking is interrupted as richie stands as abruptly as he did just seconds before, grabs the brunettes face with both of his dirt ingrained hands, and pulls him in for a soft, almost child-like kiss.
Even in the kiss' simplicity, in its all too brief warmth, eddie could still feel the mirrored nearly four decade long pining and love that consumed the two men to such an extent he could feel it in his very bones, making the brunette softly tremble in shock and awe, gripping at Richie's jacket as if it were his only anchor to the very ground they're standing on.
The thick tension between them is only broken by a yell from Bill
"G-GU-GUYS!!! COME DOWN HER N-NO-N-NOW!!" his stutter-broken yell echoing through the cavern as the rest of the losers crowd against the now infantile pennywise whose cranium had melted to almost a jelly-like consistency, as if it was full of heavy sagging liquid only being held in by a thin skin.
Richie grabs hold of the claw that nearly killed Eddie and brutally rips it off cleanly.
Eddie, who follows behind him, kicks the claw out of the way. "YOU'RE JUST A CLOWN!!!" Mike and Ben scream "A SICKLY LEPER." Eddie's voice booms as his hands clench into a fist.
"YOU'RE A FUCKING BULLY!!" Beverly screams before Mike naturally shuffles to the front, their screams and insults now hurtful whispers as Mike's soft and calm yet still strong voice echoes "a Clown... with a scared beating heart."
Pennywise's hands curl up still looking like that of an infant, they cup around its heart as if to try and protect it yet its fleshy hands stay too slow to stop mike as he reaches into its chest and rips it out.
ITs small hands failing to push mikes hands away, its mouth in a soft O as IT watches as all of the losers slowly cup around the rapidly beating heart, the sickening thud speeding up as all their hands tense and clench down onto its heart, IT lets out a sickening squelching yell before ITs body turns to an almost ash like consistency, floating away.
Right as IT fully disintegrates Eddie and Richie immediately fumble for each other, pulling one another into a constricting, teary hug just as Mike and Bill pull their foreheads together and Ben and Beverly hug yet it's not nearly as tight as Richie and Eddie do.
As the cavern begins to crumble around them, the six losers all rush out in a panic, yelling for each other to make sure no one is being left behind.
They finally are able to burst onto the broken and light grey road that has obviously seen better days, just in time to watch that old house that used to linger and lurk in the subconscious minds of the seven (now six) losers cave in on itself into a pile of rubble and wood.
As they watch the dust settle Eddie's hand fumbles for Richie's in a time when he would usually lurch for his inhaler.
Eventually the losers find the strength to silently walk down the rocky road all covered in the mess of what pennywise had put them through, whether it be the soil buried into every bit of bens exterior, the blood that is only half died on Beverly's soft skin and once white shirt, her hair sticking to her skin in a way that made eddies skin crawl, or the water that made each and every one of Bill's steps on the hard pavement squeak and slush.
After what felt like hours the group of once outcast tweens finally make it to the ledge that started this connection, looming over the lake they haven't been to in decades.
as was the same before Beverly jumped in first, the rest of the losers following closely after. They dive in, Eddie and Richie stay on the edge staring down as the other losers wait for them, swimming towards a shallower area of the water.
Richie looks up at Eddie and sighs softly.
"what are we gonna do, eds?" he asks, trying to hide his fear with a calm look yet failing miserably.
"what even happened down there..? well i know what happened but-" hes cut off as eddie interrupts "do you really need to ask that?" Eddie scoffs as his eyebrow raises just barely.
"Well, we don't have to put a label on.." he moves his finger between them in a way to point out how close and how intimate the tension between them is "..this yet.."
His voice is quiet and calm yet Richie can tell he's also anything but by the way his lips softly pout and his hands tremble.
richie stays silent for a second and, for the first time in his life, over thinking what he's about to say,
'What if I want to put a label on this?’
“ i mean, fuck eds.. we've been running around this since we were at the very least 13! i just- i want to know that you at least.. that you at least care like i do! that you want the same things I do..’
“that you also would want to live in an apartment with one another and adopt Pomeranians and grow so were old wrinkly assholes who bicker. i need to know that you, fuck.., that you LOVE me.."
Richie's eyes slowly grow misty before he takes off his glasses and turns his face away from Eddie, attempting to quickly blink away the hot tears that threaten to spill over.
"i-" eddie starts his eyes wide yet before he could even answer Ben calls from the water
"RICHIE? EDDIE? YOU COMIN DOWN OR WHAT??"
his voice is loud yet still holds the tone of that sweet caring fat kid they knew all those years ago.
"We should just go down," Richie whispers as he slowly takes Eddie's hand on his own. "dont want them to worry.." he adds as he squeezes the brunette's hand tighter.
"Fine, but we will talk about this when we get back to the motel. I swear to god, if you try and play this off as a joke I will have your head."
and with that quick quip Eddie slowly takes off his jacket, shoes and socks before jumping down into the water. Richie follows suit after wiping away his tears to the best of his ability.
When he and Eddie reunite they all start to wash up in a quiet, sad, yet safe silence.
They take the time to reminisce on stan and properly mourn.
The evening is filled with soft sobs from everyone as they share stories of Stanley, laughing, crying some more, and then laughing even harder than before.
This continues until the sun barely starts to set. They make their way back up the cliff to retrieve their belongings and head to the hotel or their own respective homes(in Mike's case).
Richie stumbles to his bathroom, taking a shower to scrub off the feeling of dirty river water and to change into some dry clothes.
By the time he steps out he spots Eddie perched at the edge of his bed, arms crossed and eyebrows furrowed, the look on his face stopping Richie in his tracks.
“Richie..” his voice is a soft whisper and richies mind starts to short circuit as he understands that it's time to address exactly what's been happening between them for nearly four decades.