Work Text:
Tap, tap, tap.
Eddie turns over in bed, reaching for his pillow to wrap around his head.
Tap, tap, tap.
He groans, pressing the fabric hard against his face.
Tap, tap, tap.
“Okay, what the fuck,” he whispers, kicking off his covers.
He walks over to his window, ready to rip whatever the fuck is tapping the glass a new one and—Oh. Oh.
It’s all he can think, really, oh, when he sees curling dark hair and thick-rimmed glasses on the other side of his window. Richie gives him a big, toothy grin as he opens his window, and it’s like his mind has been wiped.
They stay like that for a few beats, Richie smiling and Eddie probably looking like a complete dumbass. It isn’t until Richie goes to speak that Eddie finds himself able to snap out of it.
“What the fuck are you doing! What if my mom—"
"Chill, Eds. I already visited your mom, don't worry." He winks.
Eddie scowls. "Seriously Richie, she could wake up at any second, and I would be dead and I'd have to talk her out of banning me from seeing you again."
It's the same spiel Eddie gives Richie every time he knocks on his window. It doesn't happen often, but often enough that Eddie knows what to expect by now.
Richie’s used to it, too. But that doesn’t keep the nervous expression off his face.
“I just need to get out. Get away.”
Eddie knows what that means. He knows that Richie can’t take being alone in these moments.
It still makes Eddie panic. They’ve been doing this for about a year now—ever since Richie got his license.
Richie will show up at his house, usually in the middle of the night, sometimes right after school. He’ll tell Eddie he needs to get out of Derry, just needs to get away. The first time it terrified Eddie. He didn’t entirely get it, at least not until Richie would spend what Eddie is sure the longest he’s ever gone speaking without a joke or a stupid accent. He didn’t get it until Richie tells him how fucking terrified he is of life, of life after high school, of life in Derry, of life out of Derry.
Because everything Richie opened up to him about was startlingly familiar. Hell, terrifyingly familiar. Because he understands. He understands like Richie pulled the thoughts right out of his head.
So everytime Richie shows up at his house saying he needs to get away, Eddie can’t refuse. Because deep down he knows that he also needs to get away. That he also needs to be completely alone.
Alone with Richie.
It spikes an intense fear in him, though. Not even just at what they’re doing, but at the idea of getting caught. Sometimes he lays awake and thinks about how his mom would react, how disappointed she would be. How much it would hurt her. It fills him with a shame that weighs on his chest and makes it hard to breathe. It makes pangs of guilt beat sharply in his chest for days after he goes out, terrified that somehow she’s waiting for him to bring his betrayal to her, that when the week goes by she’ll reveal that she knows what he’s doing, that he’s hurt her like nothing else in this world could. That he’s a liar and a sneak and not the boy she raised. The thoughts make his skin crawl, give him goosebumps like someone’s walked over his grave.
But he does it anyway. Because Richie needs him. (And he needs Richie).
“Okay,” he sighs out. “Give me a sec to put real clothes on.”
The joy that lights up Richie’s face that is truly incomparable to anything else, Eddie thinks.
*
Richie drives them out of town. He pulls onto the I-95, and in minutes Derry is behind them.
Eddie grips onto the edge of his seat. Richie drives too fast, always too fast, like a bat out of hell. It’s worse now, with a seemingly endless stretch of highway in front of them. Part of him wants to warn him about cops, about the possibility of an animal running onto the road, about someone driving too slow and not being able to break fast enough to prevent an accident.
But he doesn’t. He digs his fingers into the seat and concentrates on breathing, on where the hell Richie could be taking them.
Richie, it turns out, isn't really taking them anywhere. He doesn't know how long they've been driving, doesn't know how far from Derry they are, when Richie takes an exit Eddie didn't catch the sign for. He slows as he comes up to a dirt road, gravel crunching underneath the tires.
"You driving us here to kill me?" Eddie jokes.
"You wish," he replies, tapping out a quick beat with his fingers against the steering wheel.
Eddie scoffs and looks out the window, feeling the car come to a halt when he notices the clearing off to his right.
There isn't much to see from here, not in the middle of the night. But it's a clear sky and the moon is illuminating the wide expanse of grass. Grass that Eddie is sure to be filled with all kinds of bugs and things that can burrow in through his ears and eyes and mouth, and in his hair. It's probably mixed with the same dirt and rocks beneath them right now, too.
Richie leans over him, opening the glove compartment. It draws Eddie from his thoughts, makes him focus on Richie instead of on himself. He looks at the curve of Richie’s arm, bathed in pale moonlight. It’s skinny, like the rest of Richie is, all gangly and skinny and limbs going for miles. There’s a mole near his wrist that Eddie first noticed when they were kids. (He'd grabbed his arm, with all the might a tiny ten year old could muster, and Richie just let him. Richie always lets him touch him, always without hesitation. He let him pull his arm towards him, let him examine the mole, let him declare as he still held his arm that he should go to the doctor, because Eddie doesn't know how harmful it is.)
Eddie watches him fumble around the glove compartment, long fingers gripping around the dark space. He can feel the heat radiating from his arm onto his lap. It makes Eddie want to squirm, to move as far back as he can in his seat so he doesn't have to think about heat in that part of his body, and coming from Richie.
Thankfully, Richie finally finds what he’s looking for—an all too familiar slender black cylinder and a lighter—and leans away.
“There’s a blanket in the backseat,” Richie says, pulling the keys from the ignition and moving to open his door.
Eddie blinks. “What?”
“To sit on? There’s a blanket in the backseat. So you don’t have to sit on the grass.”
Oh. “Oh.”
He twists as Richie leaves the car, grabbing the tattered woven blanket from the backseat. He watches Richie walk around the hood of the car before getting out.
He looks so pale in the dead of night, his skin very starkly contrasting to the washed out pinks and oranges in his Hawaiian shirt. Eddie watches him lean against the car, watches him shake his head, the longer curls against his neck and forehead bouncing. He watches him fumble with the container in his hands, watches him pull out a joint and put it between his lips. He watches him turn to look at him through the windshield, watches his expression shift to amusement.
“The fuck are you doing, Spaghetti? Get out of the car!” He slaps his hand against the hood of the car, and Eddie jumps.
He scrambles out of the car, blanket clutched close to his chest.
“Maybe if we did this at any other time besides the middle of the fucking night I wouldn’t be too tired to move,” Eddie says. He knows Richie doesn’t care, but that doesn’t stop him from defending himself. He’s always got to have something, a justification at the ready.
Richie rolls his eyes, taking the blanket from him and walking toward the clearing.
“Complain all you want, Eds. You’re still here right now.”
Eddie scowls, following him.
*
Richie stretches out on the blanket as soon as they spread it out. He props himself up on his elbows, joint still hanging from between his lips as he smiles lazily at Eddie.
“C’mon, I brought the blanket for a reason. Sit down, Eddie.”
He hesitates. Anxiety prickles in his chest. He doesn’t know if he can take this right now, now that he’s actually standing in the grass. It’s too dark that even standing in it he can’t see the ground properly beneath his feet. He shivers, palming the back of his neck.
“And what if shit crawls out from the grass onto the blanket and up my pants? Or under my nails? What then, Richie?”
“Then I’ll protect you.” He turns onto his side, reaching a hand up to Eddie, gesturing for him to sit down.
“I’m too tired for this,” He says, swatting Richie’s arm away and slowly sitting cross legged on the blanket. “My brain can’t take this. How did you even find this place?”
Richie shrugs. “Found it driving the other day. Wanted to show you.”
He sits up properly now, pulling the lighter from his pocket. Eddie watches him light the joint, watches his slender fingers flick the lighter on, watches them cup around the flame with a kind of poise that Eddie’s watched him practice over and over again.
Eddie always watches Richie make the first light when they smoke together. Usually, he watches from the passenger’s seat, or on the hood of his car. Usually, he can’t hear the paper crackle and burn over the tape—Richie & Eddie’s Super Ultimate Mix—playing in the background.
But he can hear it now. He can hear every tiny movement Richie makes. He can hear him prepare to breathe in, can hear the delicate little inhale he takes before taking a drag. He keeps his eyes trained on Richie’s face, on the end of the joint that lights up amber when Richie breathes in.
He watches him blow out the smoke, watches it curl into the night air. The sweet scent of it wraps itself around them, and even though he knows it’s a complete placebo, he already feels relaxed when Richie offers him the blunt.
“You have mints right?” Eddie asks as he takes it from Richie.
He nods, eyes closed and face pointed up to the sky.
Eddie takes a drag then, relishing in the way the smoke warms him up.
"You don't have to do anything you don't want to," Richie had said the first time they went out like this. He offered Eddie the joint he'd taken out earlier. Eddie was hesitant, knowing that Richie wouldn't try to hurt him, but also that his mom would fucking kill him if she found out he was smoking anything, let alone weed.
It had taken a few more trips out together, several panic attacks, and a lack of regard for his asthma for him to finally take Richie up on his offer.
Eddie never would have ever thought he'd be any kind of smoker, but it keeps him calm. Steadies him for long enough to get his footing again.
He likes the liminal feeling he gets. Always occupied by him and Richie, always lacking the parts of time that keep him on edge.
He passes the blunt back to Richie, watching him again as he takes a drag, this time much, much longer than the last. Something burns in his chest as he watches him blow the smoke out, lips pink and full, pressed into a delicate O.
Richie catches him looking and takes another hit, sitting up and fully facing him as he passes the joint over.
He blows out the smoke as Eddie brings the blunt to his lips, and Richie decides it’s his turn to watch.
So Eddie goes slow, taking in as much as his lungs will allow and holding it, watching Richie shuffle closer to him.
Richie plucks the joint from where it rests between Eddie’s thumb and index finger, millimeters away from his lips.
Eddie listens to him breathe in, listens to his breath hitch quietly. He breathes out the smoke, slowly letting it curl out of his mouth and around them. Something burns white hot in the pit of his stomach, and he hears Richie’s breath hiccup again.
“I’m tired,” Eddie whispers, leaning in.
Richie hums, and Eddie is close enough to feel it reverb through him. He can hear the rolling paper crackle again as Richie takes another drag. He’s fixated on the curve of Richie’s neck, close enough to see the smattering of freckles that dot over from the back of his neck.
He listens to Richie smoke, taking quicker hits this time. A bit later, Richie wraps his arm around Eddie. It’s nice. It’s warm. It’s comforting.
Comforting until Eddie feels him lean down, hears him rub the joint out on the sole of his Chuck Taylor’s. Comforting until his arm snakes back from around him and moves to push him down against the blanket.
Eddie moves easily. He lets himself lay back against the blanket, lets Richie lean over him, lets him throw a leg over him, loosely straddling his hips.
He lets himself reach up and thread his fingers through the belt loops on Richie’s jeans. He lets himself bite his bottom lip and smile at the way Richie’s eyes darken. He lets the fire burn almost unbearably hot in his belly, not making any kind of move to tend to it.
Eddie lets himself tug on Richie’s jeans. He lets Richie lean down further, lets him press those pink lips to his own, lets him breathe against him, hot air smokey and sweet.
Richie hums again, up against his lips so he truly feels it zing through the two of them. He untangles his fingers from Richie’s jeans, trailing them further to get a grip on his ass. Richie squeezes his knees in response.
All Eddie can hear is smacking and sucking and wet noises that would normally make him shiver with discomfort. All these sounds make him want to do is pull Richie closer to him. So he does, feeling the slight prickle of recently shaved stubble against his cheeks and the flatness of his chest against Richie’s, all of it so distinctly masculine.
But Eddie isn’t gay. No, he’s not gay because being gay means glares that cut like knives. It means words that cut even deeper. It means concealment and double, triple checking everything, constantly. It means lesions and disease and death and fear. No, Eddie isn’t gay, no matter how nice it feels to press his lips to Richie’s, to open his mouth against Richie’s. To grab Richie’s shirt and let his fingers explore the skin under it.
And Richie isn’t either, he thinks. Richie is just—he’s just Richie and he isn’t gay even though he murmurs to Eddie how much he likes feeling him underneath him, how he never wants to be like this with anyone else besides him ever again.
They’re just Eddie and Richie, and sometimes they kiss each other. It’s not gay. It’s just—it’s them. It’s just them.
Richie presses himself further into Eddie, and he moves a hand up into Richie’s hair, twisting his fingers in his dark curls.
Eddie knows that tonight’s trip won’t have much in the way of words. And he’s really more than fucking okay with that.
*
They stop at Denny’s on the way back into town. Richie orders half the menu. Eddie orders an orange juice—no pulp—and steals Richie’s bacon until Richie sighs, grabbing a side plate and scrapping half his pancakes and hashbrowns onto it.
He’s too tired to think about contamination, to think about allergies and germs and dietary restrictions. Too tired, and still a little too high. So when he eats it tastes like heaven on a plate and he catches Richie smirking at him after every second bite.
“What, fucknuts?” Eddie says. “Take a picture, it’ll last longer.”
Richie just shakes his head, smirk still etched on his face.
It's sweet, Eddie supposes. Sweet to just smile and sit together. Well, sweet until Richie opens his goddamn mouth again.
"Just thinking about how much your mom is going to love a 3 am visit—"
Eddie kicks him under the table. "Shut up, fuckface."
"You just don't like to hear the truth."
Eddie just rolls his eyes.
When their plates are empty—and Richie threatens to lick his, much to Eddie's irritation—Richie pays.
It riles Eddie up again, because he can pay for his part just fine but Richie brushes him off.
"I'll pay for your orange juice, Spageds. It's fine."
Eddie grumbles about it all the way back to the car.
Richie parks in the same spot when they turn onto Eddie's street and walks with him back to his house.
Fear bubbles in his stomach as they walk around the side of his house to his bedroom window. It's a fear that exists in an unchanging constant, one that he hasn't been able to shake since he was a little kid. He worries his mom is going to be around the corner, ready to jump out of the shadows and scream and ground him. He fears she's going to be in his room, sitting on the edge of his bed and as soon as he crawls back in through the window she'll cry and throw herself at him and ground him. Or that she'll be waiting on the other side of his bedroom door, ear pressed against the wood. She's always been there, always when he least expects it, always to smother him, be it in obsessive affection or anger—anger so vicious that cuts so deep that it makes him panic. His fingers fumble for the inhaler in his pocket, wrapping around it but making no move to pull it out. It's a comfort just to know that it's there if he needs it.
"Eds? Eddie?" Richie's voice pulls him out of his thoughts.
"Huh?"
"Lost you for a minute there," he says, toeing the grass beneath his shoes.
"Oh." Eddie realises they're under his window. He's not sure when they got there, or how long they've been standing there for. "Sorry. I'll head in then?"
It's not a real question, but he makes it sound like one. Richie nods. He opens his mouth, presumably to speak, but quickly snaps it shut again. Eddie opens his, a joke on the tip of his tongue when Richie leans forward and kisses him.
He's never kissed him here before. He's never kissed him after they hang out. Never kissed him after taking a midnight trip to get high and make out. But he kisses him now and it ends almost as quick as it starts, Richie pulling back with embarrassment etched on his face.
"I should—I should go," Richie says. "See you tomorrow?"
All Eddie can do is nod, frozen in place, and watch him walk back around the side of his house.
Eventually, he snaps out of it, turning around and pushing himself through his window. It takes closing and locking the window, drawing the blinds and pulling off his shoes for him to realise that for the first time in years he didn't check every corner of his room for the presence of his mother. He didn't feel the need to pretend to sleepily walk to the toilet to make sure she wasn't lingering in the hall. In fact, he didn't even think about his mom as he climbed through his window. All he could think about was the kiss, and the way the moonlight caught the blush in Richie's cheeks as he pulled away.
And it terrifies him. It terrifies him to know he’s much, much more sober than not, terrifies him to give a second thought to what it means because he liked it. But most of all, it makes him smile.
And maybe the smile that lingers on his face as he settles in bed and waits for sleep to come is worth all the fear in the world.