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Richie shook the whole way there.
It was late August, the air was hot and muggy. He slapped mosquitos off exposed arms and neck every few blocks, his brow furrowing in irritation. His legs were sweating in his jeans but he didn’t dare roll them up, knowing any more real estate offered to the bugs would be taken up immediately.
He can feel the knife in his shirt pocket, too heavy and cold against his heart. Most of the boys were somewhere in the Barrens. Beverly, too, but she was one of the boys. Richie had been spending every moment with them that summer, and even had to elbow his way out of the hammock and untangle himself from Eddie’s exposed legs to run this errand.
“Where are you going?” Eddie asked, too loud in his ear when he started shifting to get up. He had been planning this for a long time and didn’t want anything to get in his way.
“Your place. Sonia said she wanted me to—“ Eddie grabbed his shirt and shoved him hard before he could finish his sentence, and nearly smacked his head on a beam before catching his balance and landing on one knee.
“Oh!” Eddie flung off his shower cap and started leaning forward to get up. “That reminds me. I’m having dinner with your sister.”
Richie felt that first burst of panic and pushed Eddie back into the hammock, trying to smile.
“No, you aren’t, asshole.” He launched his lanky body up the ladder, disregarding’s Eddie’s shouts of indignation, muffled behind the slammed trapdoor. He could hear Beverly’s light laugh and then he was too far away to hear, walking assertively through the whispering trees.
They didn’t whisper unnaturally anymore. Or at least none of them have noticed it. This was supposedly just the wind. He found himself trying to rub the goosebumps away himself, chills running rampant down his back.
They talked about it, occasionally. Mostly they would be reminded of it randomly and they would all grit their teeth in unison until someone started talking about something else.
Richie wondered if they had any paranoia like he and Eddie did. Eddie was the one he spent the most time alone with. In those little sunlit moments, Eddie’s motormouth revealed sleepless nights and an awful panic attack. He had to fight off his mom for hours so she didn’t drag him by his ear to the hospital.
Richie could picture it perfectly, and in the moment, he gripped the edges of the hammock so tightly that his knuckles whitened. Eddie didn’t notice, scraping his sneakers across the dirt floor.
Although he did joke about nailing her a lot, Mrs. K had become a sort of hate sink for Richie. Now that Pennywise was gone and Henry was carted off, he needed someone else to blame his problems on. To be fair, she did in fact cause a lot of his problems.
Richie remembers sitting on his bike for so long that his ass hurt while Eddie’s mom squawked at him and didn’t let him leave the bathroom for more than an hour. She was insistent that he had gotten near something he shouldn’t have and that the infection was racing towards his mucous membranes.
When Eddie finally stomped through the front door and out to the sidewalk, his eyes were teary and all the skin Richie could see was between pink and bright red. He tried to swing his leg over his bike and winced.
Richie felt so upset his stomach felt hot and queasy. He slid off his bike and nudged the kickstand into place. Eddie looked mortified and had started glancing back towards the front door, so embarrassed that walking back into the lion’s den was looking like a viable option.
“Hey,” Richie said hesitantly, desperately trying to make his mouth move. “Don’t flake on me now, Eds. Are we going to the movies or not?”
He got back on his bike and nodded back. “Get on.”
“Uh, I don’t know how safe...” Eddie trailed off hoarsely, then frowned, clambering up to sit behind Richie. His raw hands grasped at the front of the taller boy’s button up, which prompted Richie to kick the kickstand back up and start pedaling steadily.
“Slower,” Eddie yelped, and Richie could practically feel his heart beating against his back.
“You killed a murderous clown and you can’t ride on the back of my bike with me?” Richie laughed, swerving to avoid a little girl with a bow in her hair, drawing with chalk on the sidewalk. “You’re fine. I’ve done this before.”
“Oh, so it’ll be fine,” Eddie replied skeptically, shifting his weight and wincing again. Richie gripped the handlebars so tightly it hurt.
When they arrived, Eddie reached into his fanny pack to pay for his own ticket but Richie didn’t let him. Once they got their drinks and popcorn to share and got settled in the dark chatter of the theater before the previews. Eddie turned to Richie.
“I’m not paying you back for that, you know. I have this comic book I—“
“Shhhh!” Richie replied, right in his face. “I’m trying to watch the movie!”
“It’s a fucking black screen!” Eddie took an angry sip of his drink, then tried to punch him in the side. Their popcorn was disappearing rapidly already and Eddie was knocking back his cola like it was his job.
He missed, and Richie looked away, hiding his smile in the darkness.
He was so deep in his thoughts about Eddie that he almost stepped into the river. He accidentally yelped,“Whoa!”, grabbing a thin tree nearby that almost broke in his hand. He stumbled, then sat down hard on the bank, his heart pounding. His ankle ached and he rubbed fussily at it for a second before hauling himself to his feet. He had somewhere to be.
By the time he got to Bassey Park, his ankle was only aching the slightest bit and his gait was brisk but measured. He had to pick up his knife at home, dodging his mom and sister’s dinner plans to rush out the back door toward the Kissing Bridge, heart in his throat.
He found himself pacing when he finally got there. He ran his fingers through his hair. Knelt down to re-tie both of his shoes. He realized after a while that he was waiting for someone to come up and catch him. Now or never.
He bent down and pressed hard with his knife, scraping it into the wood. His hands were shaking so much, he was surprised it came out as crisp as it did.
R+E
He touched his handiwork, a smirk ghosting upon his lips before the anxiety returned, phantom fingernails stabbing at his heart. He straightened up and started walking fast towards home. Eventually he realized he was running, his sweaty black hair plastered to his face and his face hot with exertion. The panic made him feel like he was flying, barely touching the sidewalk.
He collapsed at his front door, ripping his shoes off and irritating his hurt ankle. He held it for a second, grimacing and glanced back up at the house. All dark. Right, the dinner plans.
He pushed his glasses up, then let his head fall, resting it between his knees. He knew he needed a shower. He wrung the sweat out from his shirt and smacked an itching bug bite on his forearm before getting to his feet.
“Rich!” He turned quickly, his eyes widening as he held onto the partially open door.
Eddie, fiddling with the gate and covered in dirt. God, why was he so fucking dirty? Richie grinned and walked in his socks down the driveway, reaching over to unlock it for his friend.
“Why are you so sweaty?” Eddie demanded, looking very indignant.
“What?” Richie laughed nervously, scratching his arm again. “You look like you just crawled out of the sewer... again.”
“I wanted to keep hanging out with you but I couldn’t catch up. I tried to take a shortcut but it didn’t work,” he said flatly, glancing at Richie before strolling into his house first. When Richie got to the kitchen, Eddie was half-naked and shoving clothes into the washer. “Don’t look!” He squealed and Richie threw his hands over his eyes, a flutter in his stomach making him almost nauseous with gay panic.
“Can I borrow some of your clothes?” Eddie asked quietly. “Keep them covered.”
“Yeah,” was all Richie could choke out, and he heard Eddie’s bare footsteps as he slid past him to get to Richie’s room to raid his closet.
Richie removed his hands and took a huge breath, trying to slow his insane heart rate. He dumped some detergent powder into the machine and turned it to a random setting, kicking it to get it to work.
When he got to his room, he could hear the shower running down the hall. This was such an odd night for him that all he could do was sit awkwardly on his bed until he heard the faucet squeak shut. Then, out of fear like looking like a weirdo for sitting there and doing nothing, he grabbed a random book and pretended to read it.
A few minutes later, the door freaked open and Eddie threw himself on the bed. He was wearing Richie’s stained (but clean) Derry High School sweatshirt, and a pair of white briefs he didn’t even remember he had.
“Why are you reading an algebra textbook?” Eddie asked, before leaping to his feet and digging through his comic books.
Richie unfroze himself, standing up abruptly and flinging the book to his already cluttered floor. “Oh, just catching up on one of my passions,” he quipped sarcastically, before grabbing a ratty towel from the hook on the back of his door.
“Hurry back,” Eddie said casually as the door clicked behind him, and Richie grit his teeth in frustration, stripping off before he even got to the shower. He cranked the water as cold as he could bare it, and held his face under until his teeth chattered and he had to gasp for breath.
When he returned, Eddie was eating microwaved leftovers in his bed. Spaghetti. He looked natural there, Eddie thought to himself, before turning to fiddle with the radio.
“Sorry I followed you, I just felt third wheeled by Ben and Beverly,” Eddie broke the silence, between slurps of spaghetti. “Long walk you went on.”
Richie raised his eyebrows and felt terror squeeze his stomach. He flung a random CD into a slot and sat down at the edge of the bed. Does he know? Did he find it somehow and know it was him?
The jig is up, Richie. You have to skip town and forget about everything because Eddie knows h—
He jumped because Eddie brushed against his ribs. He pressed the play button with a dainty single finger and the music finally started. Eddie made a face. “What is this?”
“Must be something my mom gave me,” Richie shrugged, laying back on his bed. No, Eddie didn’t find the carving. Why would he come to his house and take a shower here and sit in his bed if he knew? “It’s still better than the shit you have at your house.”
Eddie grinned. “It’s not my fault my mom listens to classical and nothing else, like a psychopath,” he complained, leaning his head on Richie’s arm. He was still trying to eat the spaghetti, so he was now adding spots of red sauce to the already stained hoodie. Richie couldn’t bring himself to care, electricity crackling under his skin where Eddie was pressed against him. His hair was so fucking soft.
“True, but it is your fault that you listen to it with her!” Richie countered, closing his eyes. After a while, the sounds of spaghetti stopped and Eddie actually fell asleep. Richie opened his eyes and looked at the smaller boy curled up at his side. His boyish lips were pink and almost pursed, already halfway through some kind of dream or nightmare. He must’ve been tired.
Richie slowly moved off the bed and took the plate to the kitchen. He nibbled at a pop tart and gulped some water before switching out the laundry for Eddie. When he returned, he crawled next to Eddie and flung an arm around him, relying on the fact that his friend had fallen asleep.
Richie swore he saw him smile.