Chapter Text
It is wordlessly decided between all of the Losers that Beverly gets to pick the movie, given that she is only back in Derry for a weekend, having snuck away from her father’s house in New Jersey to see them. She also never misses an opportunity to remind them all that she was the one that stared down the barrel of a murder-clown’s gaping gullet and saw untold horrors in the deadlights that one fun trip they all took into the sewers a few years back. It’s pretty hard to deny her anything once she brings that up.
She picks Terminator, stating wistfully that Linda Hamilton could “kick her ass any day”. None of them mind this choice; Bev has fantastic taste in both movies and women. Ben dutifully slots it into the VCR, and they all arrange themselves in their usual spots on and beside his parents’ kitschy, woven furniture. Mike and Bill sit cross-legged on the huge velvet cushions they’ve dragged onto the floor, Ben slumps into the wicker rocking chair, Bev curls herself into the Papisan, and Richie and Eddie sprawl out end to end on the loveseat sofa, their feet in each other’s faces until they get tired of bickering and shoving, and one of them inevitably turns himself around to lean against the other.
Sarah Connor’s journey of dogged heroism is frequently interrupted by the group’s competing attempts to provide witticisms and commentary, but it doesn’t matter. They’ve all seen the movie hundreds of times. Richie saw it the day- heck, the night it came out, a fact he reminds everyone of several times.
“Just ‘cause you queued up with a load of other sci-fi nerds at midnight to watch it doesn’t make you the world’s biggest fuckin’ fan, Rich,” Eddie grumbles after enduring his boasting for the fifth time. “Shut up about it.”
Richie winds an arm around Eddie’s neck (they’ve given up on the toe-to-toe thing early tonight) and holds him tight as he digs his knuckles into Eddie’s scalp. Eddie shouts and flails until Bev throws a cushion at them, and Richie releases him, laughing. Eddie pinches him in the side, and everyone groans when the inevitable slap-tickle fight ensues. Richie wins, red-cheeked, glasses askew, and utterly, gloriously high on the sight of Eddie’s adorable little face all pink and scrunched and angry because he gave in and called a time out. He pulls Eddie into the crook of his arm and earns himself yet another slap for his trouble, but Eddie doesn’t yank himself free, instead surrenders to his fate and falls against Richie to watch the rest of the movie.
They want to stay up late, they always do, but as usual Bill drops off to sleep before the credits roll, and Mike’s eyelids are half-closed because he gets up crazy early to do farm work every day. Ben suggests, in the tactful way he always suggests it, that they just “set up the beds for later” so that they won’t have to do it when they’re all ready to sleep. Beverly aims a soft, fond smile his way when he says this, and Ben doesn’t notice it, but Richie does, and something about it makes him want to pinch Eddie’s pink little ear.
“Ow! You fucker, what was that for?”
Richie shrugs as Eddie rears away from him, hair sticking up where it’s been ruffled against Richie’s shoulder. “My bad. Your mom always liked it.”
Eddie scowls and climbs off the sofa, grabbing his stuffed overnight bag and heading towards the bathroom. Richie catches Beverly’s eye, which seems to be waiting to meet his from across the room, and they exchange a silent, loaded look. A quirk of the corner of a mouth, the flutter of an eyelid, and they’re up out of their seats one at a time, making lame excuses and sneaking through Ben’s quaint, farm-style kitchen towards the back door.
On the porch, overlooking the modest, neat garden, drenched in a darkness speckled with bobbing fireflies, the two of them smoke a cigarette each. Bev produces them from a gold case that Richie suspects is her dad’s, though neither of them mention that detail. Cigarette dangling from his lips, Richie pats his pockets in search of a lighter he knows he does not have because he’s a mooch in every respect. Beverly just laughs in that low, careless way of hers - the way that would make any guy feel as though she had an x-ray gun pointed at his crotch and was nothing but amused by the sight - and pulls out a proper zippo, gold to match the case.
Richie stares into her eyes as she leans in, delicate hands cupped to guard the flame, and lights the tip of his cigarette for him. She has grown up to be just as beautiful as they all thought she was when they were kids and had never so much as touched a girl their age. She is sickly pale with a sudden flame of shimmering orange hair, like the cigarette in her hand, slim and white with a glowing tip. She leans back as she inhales, the sleeves of the big, baggy shirt she’s wearing riding up to her bony elbows.
“Miss you, Bev,” Richie says, like it’s not poundingly obvious that they all ache for her, feel her absence like a wound in their collective body when she is gone.
He blows a smoke ring and she makes a ‘wahey’ noise, like she’s impressed, even though Richie learned the trick from her, because he’s only a sliver of the cool she radiates by breathing.
“I miss you too,” she says, smiling at him through the smoke. Her eyes are deep, revoltingly endless reservoirs of pain. Richie doesn’t tend to waste time hating people. But he hates Mr Marsh with his whole damn heart. “Sometimes when I’m away from you all…” she hesitates, dragging the smoke deep into the tiny cavity of her ribs, “it’s like you’re not real. Like if I stopped focusing, let myself get immersed in something else, you’d slip away. And then one of you’ll call or write me or whatever, and I’ll get this whoosh of you all, rushing back so quick. So intense.”
They’ve been drinking a bit, here and there, throughout the evening. Ben’s parents have a liquor cabinet, and Mike brought along what he called his cousin’s homemade gin, but is really probably more like moonshine. Richie didn’t think any of them were drunk, but maybe a bit buzzed, which is why the nicotine screeching through Richie’s veins probably feels so damn good. He studies Bev, wondering if she might have had more than the others, or a weaker tolerance, but she seems perfectly sober, apart from the odd, incomprehensible things coming out of her mouth.
“Nope, sorry, don’t buy it,” Richie says, his words twisting into the cool dark in coils of silver, “I’m unforgettable.”
She laughs, but as usual, it doesn’t reach those flat, sea glass eyes. “Do you think Ben misses me, too?”
Richie snorts; two puffs of smoke disperse quickly before them. “Seriously, Marsh?”
She aims a grin at him, her white teeth flashing. A firefly brushes her cheek, briefly. “What?”
“Is this the price of a cigarette? I gotta be your li’l snitch?”
“That’s right, bitch,” she says, still grinning. “Spill. I wanna visualise his torment, having me so far away.”
“You’re a sadistic wench,” Richie says, impressed. “Have you always known he liked you?”
She shrugs, dislodging the loose collar of her too-big shirt. “Oh, he doesn’t really. I’m the unobtainable dream. He’s infatuated. He’ll get over it.”
Richie’s shoulder throbs. He itches it distractedly, forgetting there’s a lit cigarette in between his fingers. “Aw man. Singed my favourite shirt.”
“That Hawaiian monstrosity is your favourite shirt?”
“Fuck you,” Richie mumbles, brushing off the ash, “what do you call that outfit? Lumberjack chic?”
“I call it hiding,” Bev answers bitterly, then finishes the last of her cigarette with one deep drag. “C’mon.” She angles her head towards the back door, still slightly ajar, and begins to shove the lighter and case back into her huge pockets. “They’ll all have passed out if we stay out too long.”
*
“You stink of smoke,” Eddie complains when Richie shuffles down into his sleeping bag, the one he’s pulled to lie next to Eddie’s, because if he didn’t then Eddie would just pull his to lie next to Richie’s. “I’m gonna have to breathe through my blanket to avoid inhaling it second hand.”
“God, what a relief,” Richie replies, “now I won’t have to look at your face.”
“Please shut up,” Bill moans from way across the room. “I’m exhausted.”
“When did you turn into such a lightweight anyhow, Billiards?” Richie asks.
“Getting a decent amount of sleep does not make him a lightweight,” Eddie argues, because he cannot help disagreeing with anything Richie says. Not that Richie minds, because arguing with Eddie is, hands down, his favourite activity. “Just because you prefer to wander through life in a sleep-deprived haze, bags under your eyes and taking naps at the back of class whenever it suits you-”
“Is it just me or does Eds’ stick seem particularly jammed up his rectum tonight?” Richie asks the general room. “Did you sit down too fast, Spaghetti man? Need a hand yanking it back into a more comfortable- ow!”
Eddie has flicked him in the temple, making his glasses jerk askew. “Beep beep, asshole!”
A few of the others are laughing softly, Richie can hear them. It’s like hearing the faint notes of his favourite song from another room. “Ok, ok, Eds. Sleepytime. You wanna be the little spoon tonight, or-?”
Eddie kicks him with both feet, as within his sleeping bag they are a singular organism. Richie shrieks in pain that he doesn’t actually feel, feeble as the kick had been through two layers of padding. Bill groans even louder, and someone chucks a stuffed animal that Richie needs to remember to mock Ben about at their heads.
“Please, Rich, I’m begging you,” Bill says, “quit pulling Eddie's ponytail for the night. He gets it enough all day every day.”
“Whaddya think Eds, I give it to you enough all day every day?”
“Rich,” Bev intones in her smoke deep, authoritative voice, “give it a rest. Tomorrow’s a whole new day for tormenting him.”
Reluctantly, Richie admits his defeat in a long suffering sigh, rolling onto his back to stare into the void that Ben’s ceiling has become. Something sharp swats him in the shoulder.
“Why am I even friends with you?” Eddie hisses under his breath. “I hate you so goddamn much.”
“We’re not friends, Spaghetti,” Richie whispers back, just as quiet, “we’re family. I’m your new stepdaddy, remember?”
“Get fucked.”
“Oh, don’t worry, your mom makes sure of that.”
“I swear to God,” Eddie spits, now seething as he rolls onto his side to jab a finger in Richie’s face, “if you don’t stop with the jokes about my mom…”
“Yeah? Then what? You’ll go cry to her?”
Richie knows, deep down, that this is a little much. He’s pushing hard, and he’s not entirely sure why, only that he needs Eddie to react, needs the heat and pull of the arguing, familiar and constant. So he rolls onto his side as well, until their faces are inches apart, until Eddie’s hot little stuttered breaths ghost over his face, toothpaste-fresh and oh-so exhilarating.
“Go fuck yourself.”
“Fuck me yourself, coward.”
“Why do you wanna piss me off so bad?! Why not pick on one of the others?”
“You’re the cutest, obviously.”
“I-”
Eddie cuts off, the tips of his ears rosy and glowing. At least, Richie imagines they are, given that the lights are all off, and all the glorious shades of Eddie’s angry, pinched face are greyed and flat. His eyes, however, are sharp and bright, darting across Richie's face, exposing a roughly concealed alarm. Richie lives for that speck of panic in his victims. For the swooping stomach, the heart stuttering over its rhythm. The niggling doubt that he's really, truly just kidding around.
Eddie’s lost his rebuttal to this panic, Richie realises in the next moment. But the swell of victory that surges up is swiftly extinguished by a different feeling, a tsunami of some other, entirely unexpected thing, looming over them both, about to plummet over their heads. They're so close that they could be sharing a pillow if they wanted. Why had that not been weird ten seconds ago?
For a long time, a weirdly long time, they just stare. The evaporated light makes it difficult to fully read Eddie’s expression, which makes Richie uneasy. He prides himself on being able to read people's forefront emotions; it’s how his comedy lands so well, most times. He can sense which topics get under people’s skin, how far to push them before they truly can’t take another jibe. But this… Eddie has a new look on his face. It’s open, and vulnerable, and… scared. Not scared like Richie remembers, when Eddie was shitting himself in the face of a terrifying clown-alien, but something else. Something deeper, closer to the soul.
There’s a crescendo of panic, overwhelmed by the certainty of this electric impulse that has formed in the breath of space between them. He’s feeling this as well, Richie thinks, only able to briefly consider the possibility of murder-clown manipulation before he’s pushing forwards, through the space that separates, needlessly, his body from Eddie’s. In that second, as he moves, he feels as if his organs are vying for position to project themselves from his gut, but in the next it’s ok, because Eddie is moving too. Eddie - sweet, cautious, furious Eddie - is dipping his face into the snatch of darkness between them, just the same.
Their lips collide clumsily, too off-base to be considered a kiss at first, but enough of a shock to their individual systems that both of them gasp on impact. They pull back, wearing matching expressions of horror, and then, just as quickly, lunge back for more. This time, Eddie tilts his head, and their noses don’t knock together, they slot side by side, allowing the plush of their lips to impress upon one another. Eddie tastes like strong, cold peppermint toothpaste. Richie undoubtedly tastes like hours-old smoke and the popcorn kernels still stuck in his teeth, but Eddie… he doesn’t seem to mind one bit. And that might be the weirdest part of all.
Eddie’s fingers, short and scrabbly, wind into the threadbare cloth of Richie’s old Fleetwood Mac t-shirt, gripping so hard that it makes the collar dig into the back of his neck. Eddie uses it to pull Richie closer, to cement their mouths together more firmly, so Richie takes a shuddering breath, one that goes right to his toes, and slips his own hands into Eddie’s sleeping bag, so he can rest them on that tiny, fragile waist. It feels like his hands were meant to touch there. Eddie shivers, and the dips beneath his ribs contract, adjusting to the curve of Richie’s fingers as they splay over the warm body beneath his starchy pyjama shirt.
Eddie kisses exactly as Richie might have imagined, were he to allow himself such daydreams. He kisses like a first timer, because that’s exactly what he is. He kisses like he’s vaguely disgusted by the idea of it. He kisses like he’s desperate, like he's tasting a forbidden fruit he never thought he’d get to try. Like Richie is the fruit. Like Richie is the sweetest, juiciest fig, and Eddie’s tongue has only ever tasted sour, bitter limes.
Richie knows he is pushing his luck when he sweeps his tongue over Eddie’s lower lip. He half expects to be shoved backwards, for Eddie to wipe the excess saliva from his mouth with the back of his hand, for him to shout and swear. But Eddie only gasps again, quiet and involuntary, his mouth slackening as Richie traces it. Eddie fits himself in closer, shimmying into the heat of Richie’s body - an earthworm, burrowing into sun-warmed soil. Tentatively, Eddie’s tongue creeps out to meet his, and for a glorious, prolonged moment, they twine with one another in an explorative, silken dance. Eddie groans, quiet as a mouse, then pushes hard against Richie’s shoulders, rolling him backwards, and Richie is sure it’s all over.
Then, Eddie rolls on top of him.
It could last hours, or only minutes more. Richie kisses with everything he has, suddenly sure that this, right here, above him, is his salvation from the hormonal, adolescent angst, and the trauma he’s plagued with daily. He feels - in the bumps of Eddie’s freshly brushed canines, in the slide of his tongue, in the hollow of the roof of his mouth - a kind of Eden. A gateway to something beyond the selfish trawl he makes through his days. Eddie is pure, he is radiant, he is here, wanting Richie, kissing Richie, and it is Heaven.
Finally, when Richie’s jaw aches, and his hands have carved deep, invisible impressions through the valleys of Eddie’s hips and back, someone in the room moves, shuffles, and Eddie leaps off him so fast it would probably make him laugh in other circumstances. A light flicks on, and Richie shuts his eyes tight, still on his back, breathing too fast for a sleeping person, but he hopes whoever it is doesn’t notice. Footsteps pad softly across the room to the door, the tread of a person with a full bladder trying hard not to wake his sleeping buddies.
Across from him, Richie knows Eddie is pretending to sleep too, just as alert, just as petrified, but he doesn’t dare open his eyes to look. Seeing Eddie in the light would be too much for him, he knows, as tempting as it is. Plus, it’s too risky. What if this peeing person knows what he and Eddie were doing? Was awakened by it, even? So, Richie keeps his eyes shut tight, and wills his breathing to even out. The pee-er takes an impossibly long time.
By the time they’ve returned and shuffled down into their sleeping bag again, then reached up to turn out the light, Richie isn’t sure he can hear Eddie breathing as loud. He waits, but there is no movement from the boy beside him, no indication that they are about to start up their frenzied snogging again. So, Richie tells himself, Eddie must have decided to sleep. And he should too.
It takes several hours, long and tormented. But he does.