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Eddie and Richie had found the Barrens together. It was their place, before it was anyone else’s. It was one of the many things the clown had stolen from them, but now that It was dead and the thirty-year nightmare was over, it was preserved in memory. Suspended in time. Eddie could draw every detail of their childhood if asked. Every color and smell and feeling. And he thinks of the Barrens—and some other memories, too—most often now when everything gets too quiet, or too loud. It’s become a creature comfort for his anxiety—like the smell of rain, or a burning candle.
Richie skipped stones along the river. Each one traveled further than the last. Eddie’d been sitting on the bank, prodding the water for the better part of an hour.
Any onlooker might have thought he was bored, but he wasn’t. He was elated in the peace and quiet. Eddie had always thought that the constant bickering that Richie initiated in front of their friends was a bit performative. When they were alone, they could sit in a comfortable silence that only they could understand. Eddie loved it as much as he loved any time spent with Richie. Time away from home was worth treasuring, he’d learned. He loved the silence. He loved the noise. He loved all of it, with Richie.
Of course, Richie talked then and again. He always talked. But when he did, and they were alone, it was often more disparate and stream of consciousness-type stuff. Not expecting Eddie to even respond, most of the time.
“—but Bill said he wouldn’t go with me to teepee Bowers’ place ‘cause he’s a pussy and an asshole, so maybe I’ll bug Stan to go with me instead. He probably won’t wanna do it either. But I’ve got blackmail material, Eds. Loads of it.”
Eddie made a noise in the back of his throat as he pushed his stick into the dirt, just to show that he was listening.
“I know you don’t wanna do that. So I won’t make you,” Richie said, soft. “You’re invited to the party though, if you wanna come.”
Eddie gave a, ‘pfft’. “Doesn’t sound like much of a party. Sounds like you’re gonna get killed.”
“Nah,” Richie said. “I’m quick, Spagheds. Like the wind. They’ll never even know what hit ‘em.”
Richie looked back at Eddie.
“How’s it you’re always out here with me, anyway?”
Eddie frowned. “What do you mean?”
Richie wrinkled his lips. “Eds, Bill and I can’t walk down to the arcade with you without you stepping in a dirty puddle and freakin’ out about tetanus. Now, you’re playing in dirt. So, what gives?”
Eddie blinked. “Oh,” he said. His stick froze in the middle of writing his name in the mud. He hadn’t thought about it before.
“I don’t know. Uh…” he said. He dropped the stick. “Uh, I don’t….”
Richie was right, of course. His knees were scraped and dirty and his shoes were covered in mud and he hadn’t even thought about it. The Barrens had become second nature. Richie had become second nature. Every muscle grew tense. He hadn’t even thought about it.
“Hey—” Richie started, and suddenly he was in front of him, kneeling on his hands and knees in the grass and leaning in so he was everything that took up Eddie’s view. He managed a big, dumb grin and behind his glasses, his eyes looked huge. “Hey. Hey, never mind, okay? Don’t worry ‘bout it.”
Richie blinked at him.
Eddie blinked back.
He forgot whatever it was that he was worried about.
“Race you to the top of the hill, dipshit.”
Richie was up and gone and out of sight past the tree line, and Eddie was sputtering, struggling to stand on scraped knees.
“H-hey! Fuck you—not fair!”
“Yeah? Whine about it, shithead!” was called out through the leaves. Eddie started sprinting. The wind whipped at his body and all his brain could process was the rustling of the trees, and the pounding of his heart, and smell of the air. Running through the woods and through the tall grass and onto the top of the rise. And when it was over, it didn’t even matter that Richie had gotten there first, because they both collapsed on top of the hill, heads lying close on the ground, and with Richie’s hand resting on his chest and Eddie’s grasping at the grass, they breathed heavy and laced with laughter. Resting on the ground, and not even thinking about it consciously, he could feel Richie’s little finger grazing his, maybe just seeking contact. But that’s all it did. And after all of it, Eddie realized that Richie had made him forget. Forget to be afraid.
It felt that way at the quarry, too. A summer or two later, when everything turned both awful and terrible and wonderful, all at once. Eddie’s childhood had never been so confusing.
Eddie would not have jumped in the lake on his own—he’s sure of it. But Bev had gone, and everyone had been looking at her like…like…like that. Even Richie. She had looked like she wasn’t even afraid—no, more than that—like it was fun. Like she was enjoying it. The thrill of the jump, and the way they all watched her. Like some free-spirited, dangerous…thing.
Eddie was partly repulsed by it. And partly amazed.
The amazed part won out. And after Bev had jumped, and Bill after her, Eddie strode up to the cliff edge next, before his brain had caught up to him or before there was even any conscious feeling in his body.
He paused once—just once. And gulped as the smallest part of him looked down the probable mile that separated the cliff edge and the quarry lake and said, “Well, here’s where you die”. But then, to stifle it, he glanced back over his shoulder at Richie.
Richie’s look was different from when he had been looking at Bev. But not far different. And even…maybe…a good different. His lips were parted slightly, and his eyes shone and met Eddie’s and didn’t even once move off him. Like he couldn’t even tell where they were or who they were with or what was going on except that Eddie was standing in front of him, about to dive into the lake without fear.
And Eddie could already tell that it would be an easy thing to get addicted to.
Feet carrying his decision, he turned, and jumped, and screamed when he did—but it was less in fear and more in the boundless, thrilling surrender that came the moment before his leap crested and he realized there was nothing underneath him, and he started falling.
He hit the surface of the water with a crash, and let himself sit beneath the lake in the echoes of the water for a few seconds longer before he swam up and gasped for air.
When he brushed his wet hair back and turned and looked at the source of another splash, Richie had surfaced soon after—eyes finding him over the water’s surface, and between the splashing, gleeful figures of their friends. Approval shone in them, and Eddie reveled, turning away then with delicious pride in the new and certain knowledge that he was being watched in the same delirious, drunk-from-the-summer-heat-type way that Bev so often was.
His feet swing back and forth in the deep pool that is illuminated only faintly by moonlight. He hangs his head and stares down at the familiar shapes the water makes.
Seconds were minutes were hours. Eddie has been here since a little after dinner and he doesn’t know what he’s been doing, exactly, except that he’s been lost in some thoughts that were less thoughts than feelings—powerful, wistful, and longing. Both sad and not. It’s late now, or so it seems, and there is no longer any sound but the distant chirping of bugs.
There comes the sound of soft foot pads in the grass behind him, and after a time, fingers attached to hands press soft but firm on his shoulders, and the gentle weight of Richie’s breath meets the back of his neck only briefly before lips meet the top of his spine. They hold there. Then, they kiss, kiss, kiss, across all the skin that Richie can push the collar of his linen shirt to bare. Down, then right across the space between his neck and shoulder.
Richie releases his lips and taps his nose there, then finally rests the weight of his forehead on the shoulder.
They remain. For however long.
Then…
“What’re you doin’, Eds?”
It says, and his lips and hands say, “I didn’t know where you were. I missed you. I always miss you. Where are you right now? Come back to me.”
Eddie doesn’t know how to or doesn’t want to give any real answer, so he blinks and breathes and turns his head a little, waking up gently out of a trance, and makes a noise in the back of his throat that Richie could feel free to decipher for himself.
Richie reaches out and brushes a loose bit of hair from Eddie’s forehead, answering the all-consuming pull that Eddie knew he felt to put his hands on him, take care of him—fix him.
“You take your new meds today?
Eddie—never having seen any reason or point in lying to Richie, even despite not having the faintest desire to—gently shakes his head.
“Eddie,” Richie breathes, not trying to be chiding and hiding the nagging tone as best he can. Instead, the tone is quiet and desperate and secret-sounding, and stirs something in the pit of Eddie’s groin. “Tomorrow, yeah?” Richie offers with a look that demands Eddie’s acknowledgement, at the very least. And Eddie nods.
Richie is so good.
He understands, without hardly any words having passed between them on the subject at all, the very crucial thing that Eddie needs him to understand. Which is that Eddie has no desire to be fixed. Taken to see a therapist, yes (though that had taken months of searching and then more months of building unfettered trust). Given medication if recommended, sure (though that had been its own struggle, too). But not “fixed”. Never that. Never again.
He’s been treated as a test subject before. As a thing that was barely even human. As other, in his own house. By his own mother, and then a wife who did her level-best to live up to her example. It was nothing he would ever return to. He’d die first.
But he couldn’t live outside his own body forever. Richie’d made him understand that. Better than anyone, because he feels it to some degree, too. But he’d picked himself up, after the clown. Like a switch suddenly turned on. Therapy, social life, AA chip, coming out party, house, dog, boyfriend, tour. Not all in that order, but certainly like a rigorously tended checklist.
Eddie doesn’t have one of those. He has Richie. That’s it.
Or…no. That not it. That’s enough.
Behind him, Richie moves away. His fingertips trail from Eddie’s shoulder all the way down his arm and part from him at his wrist only because they have to, in order for Richie to stand.
“It’s late,” Richie says, which says, “Come to bed. Let’s get naked, and roll around in sheets. It’ll make you feel better. Make you forget.”
Eddie casts his head further over his shoulder, to watch him. And Richie beckons, with a jerk of his chin and unmoving eyes, to follow him and come back inside. Eddie begins to stretch and follow, but follow slowly. And Richie continues to back up, all the way back in through the sliding glass doors and into the house, eyes watching him all the while.
For all that Richie understands—does his best to do right by Eddie—does his best to love him the way he wants…it…it just…
To Eddie’s misery, when Richie’s eyes watch him now, it is always with the unmistakable undercurrent of concern.
“It’s late.”
Eddie made some noise—some unthoughtful, noncommittal noise—in response to his ma’s nagging observations that it was late, and she thought his costume looked dirty, and she never cared for Halloween anyway, and he was coming home by eight-thirty, wasn’t he? It was nearly seven already—how was he going to be home by eight-thirty if it was almost seven already? Maybe he shouldn’t go. Maybe he should just stay home with her, and just watch a movie, and go to bed early. Wouldn’t he like that?
Of course, she had said it all while intermittently peering her beady little eyes out the front door, confirming, to her continued irritance, that Richie Tozier still waited there on the sidewalk, as he had been doing for the past thirty minutes.
“It’s late,” she said again, louder and more forceful, as surely she had reached the conclusion by now that Eddie either hadn’t heard her, or was refusing to listen.
He was refusing to listen. It felt great.
He was rifling through their coat closet, for a bag to store all of his would-be hard-earned candy in. He found one—a cloth sack, but it’d do.
“Of course it’s late, it’s Halloween,” he said, unthinking, moving towards the front door. He chewed absently at a pixy stick that hung between his lips like a cigarette. Richie had given it to him earlier, in class.
His ma ripped it out of his mouth, slammed it on the counter, and moved her body to shield him from the front door, crossing her arms and twisting her lips. Eddie froze, and shrunk.
“What are you doin’?” she asked, a stern whisper—like she was genuinely afraid for the answer. Eddie blinked. “Listen to me when I’m talkin’ to you. I don’t like this, and I don’t like you going out tonight.”
Eddie’s lips formed words that didn’t come, and the only thing that came was a feeble gesture and, “B-but Ma—”.
“Oh-ho, don’t you dare play the victim with me, when you come home and bombard me with—with this, and—you didn’t even ask!”
“It’s Halloween! Why shouldn’t I go out on Halloween?”
“I have never let you go out before.”
Eddie huffed under his breath. “Yeah, no kidding.”
“What did you say?” his ma bit back.
Eddie said nothing.
“I think you should stay home,” said his mother. “You’re staying home. You don’t need to be out so late, going door to door, asking for candy from strangers, mixing with…” she shot another quick glance out the window. “Older kids. The wrong company. It’s dangerous. All those scary costumes. Decorations. And with your…condition?” she whispered condition, like it was a secret. A scandal. “You’re staying home.”
Eddie frowned, and glanced out the window, and the tears threatened to come but didn’t. He just stared at her, in hot, defiant anger, and balled his fists up tight, like he might say something. Like he might say…like he might…
He said nothing. His shoulders dropped. He turned, and shuffled off upstairs to his bedroom, looking stupid and dejected in an improvised pirate costume.
One step into his room, one look at the window by the tree that Richie had spent many-a-night and many-a-day climbing up and down and up and down again, and Eddie had made a fearless, not-so-difficult decision.
“Arr, ye matey!” Richie said in greeting as Eddie walked on the grass to the sidewalk, holding up his plastic hook hand and twisting his mouth into a roguish snarl. “What took ya so long?”
But Eddie only hopped onto the back of Richie’s bike and said, imperatively, “Drive.”
“Wh—” Richie managed, before Mrs. Kaspbrak had flung open the front door of their house and the screen door in front of it and began screaming after them at the top of her lungs, flinging a dish towel in the wind. Richie turned and pedaled like his life depended on it. It kinda did.
When they were far enough away and out of sight—far enough for Richie to let off a bit on the pedals and just coast down a hill—Richie turned his head a little behind him.
“What was that all about?”
Eddie gave an angry, resentful frown. “What do you think?” Then: “Let’s stop talking about it.” Then: “Fuck her.”
At the bottom of the hill, Richie pulled over to the sidewalk and hopped off, and just…stared at him for a second. Grinning, eyes shining.
Eddie shrugged. “What?”
Richie shook his head, still smiling. “Nothing.” Then, he grabbed his hand, practically—and eagerly—pulling him off the bike. “Come on.”
Richie is above him, moving, sweating—hair a mass of stringy waves that falls over his face as he looks down as he thrusts. But thrusts gently. With love, and care, and so much devotion. It feels good. To be filled. Loved. Taken care of. He supposes. After all, it’s not like Richie would do anything else.
It’s not like Eddie isn’t gonna come. He is. Richie will make sure of it—with a hand job and some long, slow, methodical, but pointed thrusts at his prostate. A string of “I love you. God—fuck, I love you”-s whispered in his ear as Richie’s panting mounts slightly and he spills into the condom. And he will lay there for two, five, ten seconds at most—in a brief but heavenly display of Richie’s (very hot, and obvious) desire to continue to be as close to him as was physically, humanly possible despite practicality—before he will inevitably give in—sigh, and pull out his softened cock, remove and tie up the condom, and toss it in the trash. All while Eddie lays there.
Eddie has less experience than Richie. As in, he’s only ever fucked Richie and his wife. And his wife didn’t count, and Richie has fucked…lots of people. He doesn’t wanna get into it when Eddie asks. But…lots, is the gist. Men, mostly. And some women.
“Were they all…I don’t know…good?”
“Huh?”
“Did you enjoy…I mean…are you glad that…um…”
“Eds, I’ve had bad lays, okay. Some of them were my fault, too.”
“Well, yeah. I guess…I don’t know what I’m asking.”
“Eds, it doesn’t matter. They weren’t you.”
That’s always the answer, more or less. So, Eddie is left to the odd and creative whims of his imagination. Strings of one-night stands of varying quality. Hot, bathroom hook-ups. Long-term, friends-with-benefits relationships. Actual, real relationships, that eventually faded due to the fact that, well, they weren’t Eddie—but had probably been more exciting than him. He pictures a guy with a pretty smile and a prettier laugh, that thought Richie was funny at some early set in some underground Chicago dive bar, that maybe started showing him around the city and started fucking him soon after, and was intelligent and quick-witted and went to the gym five days a week. He pictures a woman with a California tan and fuck-me eyes, who was into the same music that Richie was into but Eddie wasn’t so much, and lived in his spacious, open-floor-plan apartment with him and blew him in the kitchen, and suggested one day of her own accord that they, “invite another person into their bed”. Maybe another man. Maybe another woman.
His therapist would say that these thoughts “aren’t productive”. Richie would tell him, with mild-to-moderate irritation, to “fucking stop”. He can’t really help it. They come most often as Eddie is lying down at night, just after they’ve fucked.
He has less experience than Richie. So he doesn’t really know what to ask for. Or whether it’s in his wheelhouse to ask at all—maybe he should just let Richie call the shots. Do what he’s comfortable with. After all, if Richie isn’t comfortable with it, what were the odds that he would be?
And maybe that isn’t even the kind of relationship they have. Sex with them isn’t so much about sex, as much as it is about how much they love each other. As long as it’s with Richie, it’s good. Everything is good.
Eddie frowns, suddenly.
That isn’t what he wants. That isn’t the relationship he wants. Articulating it so clearly—realizing that that’s the relationship they have—suddenly makes him feel a little sick.
They’re finishing up, now. Eddie’s come, and Richie’s come, and he’s giving a few last, lazy thrusts when the phone on Richie’s nightstand rings, and Richie hangs his head a little in defeat before looking over and reading the caller ID.
“Shit.”
He grabs the phone in a hurry and pulls out of Eddie as he answers, squeezing his arm a little in apology as he crawls off the bed, ripping off the condom.
“Heyyy, Dreah. No, no—it’s fine, I can talk now.” And Richie’s voice, which he works to keep even and free of the vestiges of sex, fades as he walks into the office in the next room, until it’s nothing more than a low, unintelligible murmur.
Eddie remains on the bed, picking at his nails. Thinking.
Later, maybe at around nine (Eddie was blissfully unable to tell. The sun had gone down and it was dark and well-past the point of no return—his ma would be furious regardless, whether he came home in five minutes or in five hours), Richie and Eddie had separated from their friends and had come to sit on a small wooden dock on a lake just on the edge of the Barrens. They had emptied their bags and were sorting their candy—Richie distinctly unimpressed by the lack of king-size bars, and Eddie wide-eyed and thrilled at the pile he had amassed, regardless of what was in it.
Eddie paused from sorting his Mr. Goodbars from his Milky Ways, sat back on his haunches, and stared at the pile beneath him. All at once, he began to shove it towards Richie.
“You have to take this.”
Richie made a questioning sound as he gnawed on a Snickers.
“All of it. She’ll never let me keep it in the house—she’ll toss the whole thing in the trash as soon as I’m not looking.”
Richie swallowed his bite and his jaw slacked. His brow furrowed dark. “…You serious?”
Eddie nodded. “Please. You gotta.”
Richie frowned. “Well, what the hell’s the matter with her?”
“Richie—”
“And what’s with you sneaking out the back window earlier just to go out on Halloween night? I mean, I knew she was a little tough, but Jesus, Eds, what—what does she—”
“She just…” and Eddie looked away so he could blink back whatever tears had grown there. “She’s really…”
“…I hate her,” he settled on, staring back at Richie with determination, not caring if his wet eyes were betraying him. “As soon as I can—when I’m old enough—I’m gonna move out. And I’m never gonna talk to her again. Not on my wedding day. Not on her deathbed.”
Eddie doesn’t know at what point, during that, Richie’s warm hand had reached out and covered his.
“Hell yeah. That’s badass. You’re badass.”
And there it was again. The bright, mischievous eyes and grin, that looked at Eddie like…like…
Richie’s fingers crawled up Eddie’s wrist. Once, twice—then Richie pulled away, as if burned. Richie turned his head. He coughed. Awkwardly. But then turned back to Eddie and smiled. Probably at the realization that Eddie had not turned or shied away.
“I’ll keep it for you.”
“Okay,” Eddie said, fast, breathless.
“For a kiss.”
As soon as he said it, Richie looked like he might be dying to take it back. Eddie’s eyes went all wide and haywire, and only because there was no way to be sure he’d heard him correctly, went: “H-huh?”
“I—Well, no, I mean—Uh—”
But Eddie’d made another bold, split-second decision. He leaned forward in one smooth motion, and let his breath linger on Richie’s lips as he stared at them, then looked up.
He did it. Pressed his lips to Richie’s. It’s quick and over fairly fast and their mouths don’t open, but he fully commits.
When he backed off, Richie’s face was, rather predictably, beet red. And his stare felt like crashing waves of awe. Like with every second that passed, he reached new heights of disbelief that Eddie was even real.
Eddie blinked at him, and his mouth threatened a smile.
“Is that what you w—”
“I wish you didn’t live with that bitch,” Richie spat out impulsively, like it was the only thing on his mind. “I wish she didn’t make you feel like shit all the time. ‘S not fair.”
Eddie blinked at him some more, his hint of a smile gone.
Because it was Eddie’s turn to look at Richie different. To look at Richie like he hung the moon and put the stars in the sky. In moments like these, it was hard to believe that he hadn’t.
“I’ll keep the shit for you,” Richie confirmed, and looked away out at the wide-open lake, as his jaw set.
“FUCK SONIA!” Richie screamed out at it, after a brief moment of consideration. “FUCK HER!” And Eddie lost it in a fit of giggles, before joining in in a battle of who-could-scream-the-loudest.
“Aye!” Richie roughed out, slipping back into his pirate brogue and flipping his eyepatch back down. “Arrr, the wench should walk the plank!”
“Stop—” Eddie laughed, but didn’t mean it.
Eddie stands up from the breakfast bar and pads barefoot through their bright, open kitchen and into the hallway, abandoning his coffee on the counter as soon as he hears the faint sound of shower water turning on.
It’s not so much a plan as it is a natural, thrilling pull—which is exactly why he gives in to the urge. To open the bathroom door quietly, close it so the dog doesn’t get in, and, breathing in the thick steam—letting it fill his lungs and make him drunk—strip, feeling dangerous and sexy, and slide back the frosted glass pane while Richie has his back turned, fingers at work shampooing his hair.
He wraps his hands around Richie’s waist and rests his lips against his spine, praying that Richie doesn’t turn around and look at him with a question in his eyes but just…stays. Just for a moment. Breathes. Feels Eddie’s wet, warm body against his and lets the feel of Eddie’s hard-on against the cleft of his ass raise his heartbeat just a little—and lets himself drown in both the moment and the comforting thrill of anticipation. Like how it once felt, to be young, and in love.
To Eddie’s shock, he does. He sighs. He leans with his arms against the tiled shower wall and gives in.
It’s so unlike Richie anymore—around him, at least. To let go. To not be on edge, for once. To not look as though, at any moment, Eddie might suddenly combust on the spot, from pulling a wrong rib muscle, or forgetting to take a pill.
He turns eventually, though. And when he does, it’s, predictably: “Eddie—”
But Eddie leans up and in, in one smooth action. His breath lingering on Richie’s lips. That gets him to stop. Shut up, as Eddie looks conspiratorially between Richie’s mouth and his eyes, as their cocks touch gently beneath them. Eddie runs his hands up over the V of Richie’s hips, over the knife scar his dad gave him when he was drunk and Richie was thirteen, over his broad pecs and the wet chest hair, over his shoulders that drive Eddie to the edge of insanity, and they rest on his neck.
Eddie pushes up and latches on to Richie’s bottom lip, kissing and gnawing at it like a last meal.
“Remember me?” the kiss asks, a plea. “Remember when I was like this? Please say you do. Please want me again, the way you did then.”
But Richie is still so gentle, so careful. His hands floating, uncertain, around Eddie’s hips before finally settling on them, pulling him just a little closer.
Eddie shoves them closer. Backs them up so his back is flat against the shower wall, encouraging Richie to press into him. To take. To take. God, to take.
“Mhm—” Richie makes a sound with his tongue wrapped up in Eddie’s mouth. “Eds—” he says, when he pulls away for a breath, and dives back in.
Because Eddie knows Richie won’t do it, he turns himself around in Richie’s arms. Wraps his own hand around his dick, sliding around the wetness there with his cheek turned against the wall.
“Eddie—!” Richie repeats, strangled and desperate.
“Put your hands on me and fuck me.”
He feels Richie freeze. Feels the subtle step back.
“I—”
“For fuck’s sake. Do what you want to do to me, for fucking once.” And Eddie reaches around, grabs him by the hip and pulls him closer again.
The sudden, rough grip on his hipbones—by hands so big that they dig into the flesh of his ass—feels like nothing in his life has felt in twenty-seven years.
He’s flush between the wall and Richie’s pressing body, with lips that mouth at his ear and the nape of his neck, snarling hotly— “Is this what you want? Is this what you fucking—want—?” punctuated with pointed thrusts of his cock in between Eddie’s thighs, lubricated by the falling water and dripping soap.
Eddie can only moan a response. The slutty, whorish “yes” gets lost, somewhere in the pleasure.
Richie grabs something from behind them in the shower, and starts working his dick with it, and then Eddie’s hole. From the slide and feel of it, Eddie can only guess it’s coconut oil. He could cry. He thinks maybe he does start to, a bit. His dick, however, is fucking weeping. Forced, pressed against the shower wall—Richie had since wrenched his hand away from it, pulled it behind his back, keeping him from touching himself.
Richie pushes in—not gently. Not kindly. With his cock that's bigger than any cock had any right to be. Splits him open and makes him feel whole again, all at once. He’s fucking him. He’s fucking him. Richie is moaning against the back of his neck, deep, strained, guttural sounds, rolling his hips. Eddie is whimpering—little gasps. Whining.
Richie’s other hand—the one that isn’t holding both of Eddie’s wrists—flattens its palm against it skin and rubs all the way up to grab him by the neck, pressing him impossibly harder against the shower wall, then grasping at his hair, threading through the soaked strands there, as Richie pounds into him, relentless.
He’s alive, Eddie thinks. He’s alive. He’s real, and alive, and he can’t break like glass. His heart can beat fast, and Richie can want him like this, like animals do, and he’s alive.
Richie’s thrusts slow and get longer. He lets go of Eddie’s wrists. Though Richie may already have intended it, Eddie reaches around again, grabs Richie’s hip, and presses it into him in a way that is very clear on its demands. Richie doesn’t fight it.
He does, however, try to reach around and grab Eddie’s cock—and this time, it’s Eddie who slaps him away. Richie doesn’t argue that, either, like he would normally. It’s incredible. The way Richie fucks him now that Eddie’s set him loose. Where was this? Eddie wonders. Who are you? I’ve never met you before.
He feels it when Richie comes and fills him. Hard, mercilessly. For the first time. Richie’s hands move rough all over his body, like he were trying to commit it to memory, as his breath goes low and long.
He continues to breathe, pushing Eddie still against the wall—though with declining force—as he rocks out the final waves of pleasure, and finally rests in the aftershocks. After a few long breaths—remaining inside of Eddie longer than he ever has before—he pulls out all at once, so fast Eddie nearly whines, and spins him around.
Before Richie can reach for Eddie’s still-hard-and-weeping dick, Eddie stops him.
“No. Don’t.”
Richie quirks an eyebrow at him.
“I don’t want you to.” Eddie clarifies. “I’ll take care of it on my own.”
Richie’s eyes go a little big.
“Or…” Eddie thinks better of it. “Maybe I won’t. If you…if you tell me not to.”
Richie’s eyes are a wash—all dark and hazy again. He crowds Eddie back up against the wall, a big, muscular arm braced above Eddie’s head.
In his right ear, Richie snarls—
“You’re not gonna come until I fuck you again tonight.”
Eddie’s eyes stare at Richie’s mouth when he pulls away.
Then, his eyes.
Eddie’s chest heaves. The corner of his lips twitches. In sweet, sweet success.
He slips out of the shower without another word, and out of the room.
Though, he won’t lie—it feels different later. Later, after dinner, when Richie keeps his promise, but the darkened heat is (mostly) all gone from his eyes. They’re back in their bed. Richie takes him from behind on all-fours, mostly at Eddie’s encouragement, and he fucks him and hard, but there’s less heart in it. It feels less genuine—as though Richie is only trying his best to mimic his behavior from the shower.
Richie flips him back over, fucks him on his back. Eddie reaches out, grabs one of Richie’s hands, and says, in no uncertain terms: “Hit me.”
Richie’s brows furrow and he yanks his hand back.
“What? Eddie—”
“I want you to—”
“Stop. Just—”
And Richie sounds like he has something more to say on the subject, but doesn’t in favor of dropping it and getting them both off.
Eddie frowns.
He’s started to hold back again. Just a little, maybe, so Eddie won’t notice the violent switch between earlier and now. But he does. And when they’re done and they’ve both had their pleasure, Richie comes and Eddie comes, hard—then it’s like an “on” switch. Richie reaches down. The unwavering, oppressive gaze of concern is back.
“Did I hurt you?”
“What? No.”
“Are you sure? Even…earlier?”
“Yes, I’m sure. I’m not—it’s fine.”
“I just don’t ever wanna…I mean, the scar…they said the stitches could—”
Eddie turns over on the bed.
“Richie.”
And that’s enough to say, clearly, “stop.”
Richie exhales in an almost-sigh. They separate. They roll over to their respective sides of the bed. Richie takes one glance at him before looking away. And Richie bites his lip in worry, before reaching over and turning off his light.
Bev got her hands on a baggie of weed at the end of that summer.
And when she did, the first person she told was not Richie. It was not Bill, or even Ben Hanscom, who was sweet on her.
It was Eddie.
“Come over.”
“What?”
“Just come over. It’ll be fun. If you don’t want any, you don’t have to have any. But kid, you need to loosen up,” she’d said on the phone, Eddie clutching the landline nervously to his ear. And with that, coming from her, Eddie took her word like it was the word of God.
Her room was dark and her dad was gone, and the only light came from the open window.
Eddie wrung his hands in nervousness, as he watched her smoke, cool and effortless, like she did everything.
“So,” Beverly said matter-of-factly, after a puff. “We don’t really talk.”
Eddie blinked, not knowing what to say to that. What, was he supposed to agree? I mean, no, of course they didn’t.
“But I think you’re cool. If not…way too high-strung.”
“I’m not that—”
“Yes, you are.” And there wasn’t really any arguing with that, since she said it in a very final-sort-of-tone that could make you believe she was an authority on the subject. Which, she probably was.
“You keep Richie in check, though. And that’s good.”
“Someone has to,” Eddie grumbles.
“And you and I probably have more in common than you think,” she ended, and that made Eddie blink up at her with eyes gone big. She pursed her lips, looking at him and thinking.
“So, again, you do what you want. But,” and she held out the cigarette. “I really think you should take this.”
Eddie grabbed it from her. He brought it—with only a touch of hesitation—to his lips, where he cautiously inhaled and puffed, as he had seen her do.
He coughed up a storm. Bev laughed a little. But it did not deter him, even when it was clear she thought he would hand the joint back to her. He kept it, composed himself, and brought it to his lips again.
That was when he heard metal rattling outside the window, and a shaggy, brown head duck through the opening and push aside the curtains.
“Beverly,” Richie began. “You’ve gotta listen to—”
Richie raised his head, and stopped moving.
He blinked.
Eddie breathed a thick stream of smoke out his mouth and nostrils. He passed the joint back to Bev.
“Uhhhhh…” Richie made a long, confused sound.
Bev smirked a little. “Hey. Want some?”
“I…yeah…? I…um…”
That made Eddie smile—staring up at Richie, while Richie stared back, absolutely empty-headed save for one thing. It made Eddie almost flush to think about, with both power and adrenaline. And a little bit from the weed.
Richie sat down cross-legged, placing his Walkman and earphones down on the floor beside him. His eyes flittered between Bev and Eddie. But mostly Eddie, even though Eddie wasn’t even the one that was smoking anymore.
Bev took a long toke. Then, she held it in for one, two, three seconds—and all at once exhaled in a big cloud. Eddie’s eyes shone, with an idea.
Bev handed the joint to Richie and stood.
“I’m gonna go grab some water,” she said, and headed out of the room.
As soon as she went, Eddie yanked the cigarette out of Richie’s hands. Richie frowned.
“Hey—”
“What’s on that?” Eddie asked, pointing to his Walkman.
“Uh. Just…music.”
“Oh? No shit?”
“I don’t think you’d…like…or even know—”
Eddie reached over and grabbed the Walkman, too.
“What’s mine is yours, I guess.”
Eddie put the headphones over his ears. He pressed play.
“I don’t care if Monday’s blue,
Tuesday’s grey and Wednesday too…”
“Can I have the fucking joint now, please?” Richie asked, sighing.
“You want it?” Eddie asked, raising an eyebrow, and shaking the cigarette a little coquettishly.
“Uh, yeah, Eds, I would—”
“I’ll give it to you.”
Eddie brought it up to his own lips and took a long drag, as he’d seen Bev do. Then, he took it out and closed his mouth. He leaned forward and crooked a finger at Richie, whose eyes were dark, and who might have been shaking a little.
Richie leaned forward, just a bit.
Eddie put a hand on his shoulder, pulled him forward more, reached up and moved one headphone so it covered Richie’s ear, too.
“Tuesday, Wednesday, stay in bed,
Oh, Thursday, watch the walls instead,
It’s Friday I’m in love,”
Richie, getting it, opened his mouth. Eddie opened his, and their lips touched—just grazed each other—as he blew a cloud of smoke into Richie’s mouth.
It couldn’t be kissing. Because it wasn’t. Richie just wanted some weed. It was an easy out for Richie, even when Eddie knew—well, they probably both knew—what had just been exchanged between them.
They broke apart. The headphones snapped back and fell around Eddie’s neck. Bev stood in her doorway, eyebrows shooting towards her forehead. She smirked as she moved to sit down.
“Enjoying yourself, Rich?”
“Ye-yeah,” he coughed. “Uh-huh.”
Richie crosses, uncrosses, crosses his legs. Folds his arms, then, not comfortable—apparently—with that, unfolds them, and folds his hands instead. He fidgets, generally, in his seat.
“Richie, why don’t you start by explaining why it is you wanted to sit in on this session?”
At his therapist’s question, Eddie looks calmly over to Richie, and waits.
“I, uh…well.” Richie’s hand comes up to rub at the back of his neck. “I guess I have some…questions. And some concerns. And I feel like, sometimes, when me and Eddie talk, he’s not really…well. That’s not fair. I don’t know. Maybe we’re both not really listening.”
“I am in the room. You can talk to me like I’m here, you know.” Eddie hopes there is a very subtle venom to those words.
There is, probably, because Richie looks immediately apologetic, gazing across at him with sad eyes and an apology on his lips. Like he’s said the wrong thing, and, “Oh no, maybe that means Eddie’ll blow up into another panic attack and revert back to crawling up into a ball and puffing on his inhaler for weeks!”
Eddie would roll his eyes, but he won’t, in front of his therapist. Instead, she interrupts them.
“I think it would be productive not to talk about people like they’re not here, yes. If a conversation where you are both hearing each other and actively responding is your goal. But let’s move forward. Richie, what’s brought this on? What’s one of your concerns?”
“Well, I…I’m…confused, Eddie, I…I’m a little…yeah.”
“How so?” Catherine asks.
“Uh, for starters, we’re doing it the other night, and no warning, the man just grabs my hand and says, ‘hit me’, like that’s even—like that’s remotely fucking okay—Look, sorry, doc, if that’s too much—”
“And striking in the bedroom is not something you’re comfortable with?” she asks.
“No, I mean, I’ve done it before—I mean, varying degrees of it, but that’s not the point—we didn’t talk about this. We never—Eddie, you just kind of…jumped me the other day, and I’ll be honest, it was fucking hot, but I was a little…freaked out.”
“Freaked out?” Eddie prods, eyes probably a little wild with frustration. “Why would that freak you out?”
“Because you never…because you never wanted anything like that before? I don’t know—you never…” Richie closes his eyes and sighs. “Look, if I’m being honest, and I’m just gonna say it…we live in the same house, but Eddie is…you’re prone to just…avoid me. Go for hours, just…sitting by the pool, or on the bed, just…zoned out. And I thought the new medication was supposed to help with that, with the…episodes, but you were late on starting that—”
Eddie shoots him an angry fucking look. Richie winces a bit, knowing what he’s said but clearly not fully regretting it.
Catherine turns to him with mild concern.
“You didn’t want to start your new medication?”
“That’s not…I did.” Eddie quickly reassures her. “I’m on it, now. But that has…Jesus, that has nothing to do with—”
“Oh, it has nothing to do with it?” Richie asks, beside himself.
“Richie, please,” Catherine moderates.
“I mean, I’m sorry, but, God, it has everything to do with it. I’ve been living with you—with watching you walk around the house like you’re a ghost.”
“I’m fine.”
Richie scoffs. “Well, you’re not fine, you have depression. I can tell you that for free.”
“Thanks Richie, yeah, that’s kind of why I come here.”
“No, I just…Look, I just know, because I went through the same thing, it…I know how that feels. What that does to a person. And seeing you like that, is not…it’s not something I…”
“Well, I’m so sorry it’s hard for you.”
“It is!” Richie insists. “And I don’t think you appreciate that!”
“You know what else is hard? Being treated like a live fucking bomb, rigged to explode.”
Richie sighs and turns in his chair, rubbing his eyes and face with his hand.
“And that came way before the depression. So don’t pretend like that’s it,” Eddie accuses. He exhales. And— “I got that from my mom all my life. I don’t need it from you.”
Richie turns in a flash, brow furrowed, eyes a little wet and wide in shock. Hurt. That’s what it is. Eddie feels a sharp pang of regret but also a flood of relief, that he’s said it. That’s it’s out now, and can’t be taken back or swept under the rug.
“Alright, let’s—” Catherine starts. “Let’s not start hurling insults. Let’s move the conversation back in a direction that’s more productive. Eddie, you seem to have a lot of frustration as well.”
“Yeah. What we did, the other day, you enjoyed it. You loved it. I know you did. I loved it. I asked for it. Even though I know I…I never ask for anything. But then you doubled back, and started acting like…like it was a mistake. Like you can’t be that way around me, even though I know you were with—with—”
“Eddie…” Richie starts. A soft, gentle…not warning, but maybe an apology. Or realization.
“—with other people. And you know what that feels like? Not only does it feel shitty, just to be treated differently by you, it feels like I’m a burden, Richie. Like I’m preventing you from doing what you want. From…being with…who you want.”
“No—” Richie starts, so quickly. Almost jumps in his seat at the chance to respond. Eddie doesn’t let him.
“It does,” Eddie interrupts. “It feels like that.”
Catherine ends the session soon after that, with some suggestions for proceeding the conversation at home and a promise that they would do this again in two weeks.
Outside, it is cloudy and spritzing rain, and they step out the front door under the canopy roof and Richie grabs him firm but gentle by the arm.
He kisses him.
Not deep. Not hard. Not rough. But insistent. A reminder. A promise. An apology.
Richie doesn’t even open his mouth. Just presses their lips together, then after a long moment, lets go.
“I love you.”
Eddie nods. “I know.”
“Do you?” Richie searches his eyes. “You know what that means?”
Eddie, in irritation, scoffs. “Of course I know—”
“It means I’m in it. For whatever. However long. I’m here. You say jump, I say how high. I might bitch about it a little ‘cause I got shit knees, but you pout and shake your cute little ass about it enough, and I’m gonna do it.”
Flatly, Eddie starts: “Where’s this metaphor going—”
“Same with this. Okay? I didn’t know. And God, it kills me to know you thought of me that way…even remotely. But we’re gonna talk, and we’re gonna work through it.”
Eddie nods. Tries not to cry.
“Eddie, I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t…it’s not your…”
Richie pulls him in and presses his lips to him again, but to his forehead.
“I’m sorry,” he says softer.
Richie starts to separate and walk away, and Eddie’s hands reach out for him, fall from his shoulder down his arm to his wrist.
“I love you,” Eddie tells him.
“I know.” Richie says.
“That’s Jupiter,” Richie told him, pointing to the sky. “Easiest planet to see in the sky. In summer, anyway.”
“Wow,” Eddie said, breathy. “God, your brain is so huge.”
Richie busted out a laugh. “Shut up.”
“You take girls up here and do this routine for them? Does that work?”
“Nah,” Richie coughed. “No. No. I…don’t take girls up here.”
They were at the quarry at night. Laying on the rock bed. Eddie knew he didn’t take girls up here.
He looked over at Richie, who refused to look at him. Eddie scootched closer, so their shoulders were touching. Too close to Richie’s ear, he rasped: “What’s that one?” and pointed to another bright star in the sky.
Richie swallowed. “Saturn. You can tell ‘cause of the…’cause of…’cause of the rings.”
Eddie smiled, watching Richie react to just his proximity. After a minute he relented, laying down on his back. Giving the poor boy some space to breathe.
“It’s a lot. All that.” Eddie gestured vaguely to the sky.
“Yeah.”
“Enough to get lost in.”
“Mm.”
“I want to jump into the lake.” Eddie stood up.
Richie laughed at the absurdity, and the suddenness of it, leaning up on his elbows. “Wh-what?”
“Come on. You don’t want to?”
“What—like when we were kids?”
“We’re still kids.”
“Well. Yeah, but…”
“I just feel…” Eddie sighed, stripping off his shirt. “I just feel…a lot. Right now. Like…alive. Like…don’t you feel that?”
Richie stared blankly at his bare chest.
“Uh-huh.”
Eddie looked at him. Breathed heavy.
“I think if we stayed here, at the quarry, for the rest of our lives, summer would never end. And we’d never get any older.”
Richie shook his head. “You’re...a lot, you know that?”
Eddie’s eyes sparkled at him. “You make me this way.”
And before Richie could get out: “Huh?” Eddie had turned and took the long, exhilarating jump into the lake.
They smoke weed naked in bed.
In between kissing, and after Richie had bent him roughly over the side of it, licked a stripe up his ass, and worked his tongue in ways that should, actually, probably be a sin.
Then he fucked him.
Richie takes a hit off the bong, turns, pulls Eddie up by the chin, and blows a thin stream of smoke between his lips.
“You remember when we used to do this?” Eddie asks, deliriously happy.
“’Course I do.” Richie smirks. “Gave me my first boner. It was a momentous fuckin’ occasion.”
Giggles erupt from Eddie’s chest. “I can’t believe I got over the…weed thing, and the smoking thing, and just…I mean, I was thirteen with health-related OCD. How did I…”
Richie laughs. “Shit, you’re telling me. I couldn’t believe it either. Imagine my surprise. And who’d’ve thought you’d only get hotter from there?”
Eddie looks at him. “You think?”
Richie nods vigorously, setting the bong down on the end table. “A fine wine.”
Eddie casts his eyes down. He gives a single, self-pitying laugh. “Yeah, and what about the Eddie Kaspbrak you met for the second time back in Derry? Forty-one with a fanny-pack and an inhaler, and a wife he married because of crippling separation anxiety?”
Richie stops. Looks at him.
“What’s that about? Huh?”
Eddie shakes his head. “Nothing.”
Richie lowers his glasses and looks down at him over the bridge of his nose. “Now, Edward, that’s not very productive of you—”
Eddie breathes out a laugh and shoves him.
Richie pulls his lips between his teeth and considers him.
“I wanted you even when I forgot what you looked like or what your name was,” he says, voice rough and deep and so electrifyingly hot. “So don’t worry about it.”
Eddie smiles, still a little unsure.
“You can rest easy knowing that the fanny-pack really did it for me, actually.”
And that, somehow, makes it all better. Heals it the only way Richie really could. Because there was not a shitty, dumb joke that Eddie can recall Richie ever telling him, that was not dripping with sincerity.
Eddie’s smile moves to brighten his whole face.
“It did not.”
“It did. Do you want to pull it out and, like, wear it one of these goes?”
“Shut up. Perv.”
Richie sighs. “Wasted. Wasted potential.”