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“Stop squirming for god’s sake!” said Beverly for the fourth time in the last five minutes.
The humidity of the clubhouse was already overstimulating, sweat forming on Eddie's forehead, inside his cast and his clothes sticking to his skin. The hot summer air was significantly more tolerable underground, the soil and trees providing protection from the blazing sun and making the air more breathable. The humidity was almost worse than if they were outside. At least for Eddie, because…asthma or whatever.
He wasn’t even sure if he even had asthma. Sure, the relief that his inhaler provided was undeniable but with everything that went down this summer he couldn’t really be certain of anything. Greta Bowie had called his medicine fake which made him question their true purpose and he’d been experimenting with taking less of the medicine his mother gave him every day. On days when he was braver, he would leave his inhaler home just to see if he could survive if anything happened. On other days, it made him incredibly nervous just to even think about the possibility of not having the familiar-shaped plastic in his hand or fanny pack. Today was one of those days.
“I wouldn’t be squirming if you’d let me use my inhaler, I’m suffocating!” he replied while rolling his eyes. He didn’t know why his friends were so adamant on convincing him he didn’t need it. Eddie knew they were most likely correct, but still. He wanted to do this his own way.
“You’re not gonna suffocate, stop being so dramatic,” said Bev with a blank expression.
“I’m not dramatic!” he started rambling.“There is a very real possibility that the humidity mixed with whatever powder thing you’re shoving in my face is going to cause a huge asthma attack and I’m gonna die right here. I did not fight an evil clown for you to kill me with makeup!”
“You wouldn’t have agreed to doing this if you thought that was true,” she replied with a small laugh. “and makeup is not going to kill you, I promise.”
“Couldn’t you just ask one of your girl friends to help you with this stuff?” Eddie sighed defeatedly and watched as Beverly reached into her bag of little containers filled with many types of strange liquids.
Her hand stopped on top of the beige colored stick she was holding and looked up at Eddie with a tired face. When he was still looking at her, half-waiting for an explanation, she raised her eyebrows at him like what he said was the most amusing thing she’d ever heard.
“Oh, right,” she started. “Why didn’t I just think of that. Remind me, who are they again? My girlfriends?” she said with a deadpan voice.
Right.
“Sorry,” he replied awkwardly, looking away from her intense, staring eyes.
He looked around the clubhouse, to avoid Bev, who resumed her previous activity of searching in her bag and taking some items out. Bill, Mike and Ben were out, probably riding their bikes or wandering in the forest, so that left Stan and Richie with Beverly and himself. Stan was sitting on the white foldable chair across from where Eddie and Bev were sitting, he had his baby blue shower cap on with small daisies scattered across the pattern. Despite always making sure that his whole head is covered and protected from all evil insects plotting to jump in his hair; after a couple of hours the cap became less intact, revealing a few light brown curls around his forehead and at the nape of his neck. He’s been reading some book about woodpeckers which had made Eddie pull a face when he first saw it. It looked so boring he could probably fall asleep just by looking at the cover for too long.
Richie was buried somewhere in the hammock on their right, which he had pretty much claimed for himself on day one. His leg was dangling from the side, revealing his striped socks and skinny leg. Eddie couldn’t see his face, it was turned the other way, but he assumed that he had fallen asleep by the lack of sound and movement that was coming from the hammock.
Neither Stan nor Richie were paying attention to the two sitting on the floor, but Eddie still felt watching eyes on him as Bev was preparing to start her “makeover” on Eddie. She had asked him the day prior if he would help her practice her makeup skills, since she had no one she could ask for advice. He was confused how he could be of any help since he knows way less about the subject than Bev, but then she revealed that he would be a “test subject” as she called it, an opportunity for her to practice her skills better. Because apparently doing this while looking in the mirror is “not the same” and “so much harder”. Eddie had no experience so he had no choice but to believe her words. What he didn’t understand was why he was selected for this task out of their fairly big friendgroup.
Beverly had just shrugged and said “we look the most alike I guess…”, which was a total lie by the way because to him, Stan resembled Bev a lot more than Eddie, and so he had started to argue obviously, but Bev wouldn’t budge. After a lot of convincing – and some free candy – Eddie eventually gave in.
Right now he was questioning his own decisions, but there was no going back.
“Relax, the brushes don’t bite,” Beverly rolled her eyes.
“Sure they don’t,” Eddie snapped, then sighed. “Let’s get this over with.”
Bev took the brush in her hand and dipped it into a palette with creamy beige stuff and lifted it to Eddie’s face. The brush made contact with his skin just as he closed his eyes, and he slightly furrowed his brows when he felt the strange substance on his face. Beverly began applying the makeup with gentle strokes and after a surprisingly short amount of time Eddie got used to the sensation, but his face was still scrunched.
“You do know it’s gonna take more time if your face is all weird and I’ll have to keep redoing parts” said Bev with another sigh.
Eddie tried relaxing his face, but it seemed like an impossible task. He was pretty sure he was always frowning, even without noticing. He had gotten a couple of comments from teachers and other kids that if he keeps that expression on for too long it’s gonna stay there forever, but to be honest, he hadn’t given it much thought. He was an expressive person and people needed to accept it or leave it. He was fine with the way he was really, but when even his friends had mentioned something about him needing to relax or to not let things bother him, he admitted that made him a bit insecure. The constant teasing with his friends was fun, he and Richie spent like eighty percent of their time bickering, it was a very them thing to do and he wouldn’t have it any other way. Despite his loud complaints of his friends, he loves the fact that they are able to argue constantly, and it not affecting the sincerity of their friendship.
It was the way things always have been and everyone was content. However. Sometimes when things were more heated – a stressful day in school, or parents being annoying at home – they went too far. It wasn’t a frequent thing, it had only happened a handful of times, and after every occurrence they had managed to get over it. It was always something small that just hit the right nerve, and it hurt like shit. For Eddie, his sensitive spot was his over-expressiveness. For Bill, his stutter and Georgie. It was the things everyone else gave them shit for, but they didn’t matter, because everyone else didn’t matter. They didn’t know them, they had no relevance whatsoever. When it was their own friend, their little patchwork family, it hit differently. But their closeness is what made the other realize their mistake immediately and the apologies were instant, desperate and sincere.
Eddie relaxed his face and tried not to fall down the rabbit hole he started digging for himself with that thought process. One time he called Richie too clingy and felt like shit for the next week. But it was okay now. They were fine.
As the minutes dragged on, Eddie actually found himself relaxing under the calming strokes of the brush, and Beverley began to switch between different types of makeup. She was now only focusing on his cheeks, which made Eddie think she was using blush (?) maybe. Just when he was getting used to the repetitive strokes, the brush left his cheeks, and there was clattering noise coming from the direction of Bev’s makeup bag, and as it stopped he felt Beverly softly tap his mouth. He was confused for a second, drawing his eyebrows together, but then realized a moment later that it was her asking him to open his mouth, because they reached the lipstick part of the process.
Understanding the task at hand, he parted his lips, letting her swipe the stick across them, leaving behind a thick layer of paste which was mildly uncomfortable.
“Okay, you can open your eyes now,” said Bev as she made one final stroke at the corner of Eddie’s mouth.
“Are we done?” murmured Eddie while his eyes started adjusting to being open again. It didn’t take long since barely any light made it inside the clubhouse.
“Nope,” said Bev with a pop. ”I’m just starting to apply the mascara.”
At that, Eddie closed his eyes for a brief moment, trying to calm himself for what was coming. To be quite frank, he saw a mascara wand one time and he’d been terrified ever since. He knew he couldn’t say no to Bev now, but he still made a face when he opened his eyes again to express his disapproval.
The urge to close his eyes again, as the wand was getting closer and closer, was overwhelming, and it didn’t stop as it actually touched his eyelashes. He flinched, making the wand poke his eye, causing him to let out a big yelp. From the hammock Richie also made some kind of noise, but it was incomprehendable due to him being half-alseep, but none of them needed to hear his words to understand what he wanted to say. He was complaining about the loudness disturbing his precious nap time. He always complained. Every single day. Without fail. Eddie was actually starting to wonder if they could go a day without Richie throwing a fit over his sleep being interrupted. It wasn’t possible, because Richie was just that annoying.
“Eddie!” yelped Beverly also. She hesitantly licked her thumb and held Eddie’s face with his other hand. “You smudged the whole thing, now I have to wipe it off!”
“What are you doing? You are so disgusting, do not get your fucking saliva on me, that is so gross!” he said as he tried to free his head from Beverly, but her grip was firm and eventually, after a lot of struggling, she managed to get her finger on his eyelid. “Yuck!”
“A-ha! Got it!” she cried as she actively rubbed his left eyelid so urgently he thought he was going to go blind. Her rubbing stopped after a couple of seconds and Eddie opened his eyes and looked at Bev through his now saliva covered eyelashes with a deadpan expression. With the amount of sweat that was already on his face, he was pretty sure he gave the impression of a wet dog.
Another groumble came from their left, but again, they didn’t pay much attention. If Richie was actually bothered by them, he should use his words instead of expecting everyone to understand what he wants by groaning and sighing. They did understand him, but that was irrelevant.
“That was one of the grossest things that’s ever happened to me, and I’ve walked in graywater the whole summer and saw actual corpses.” he said and opened his mouth to continue his rant, but before he could say anything, Beverly’s hands were back on him and this time she held one of his eyes open with her fingers.
“No, stop!” he yelled helplessly.
“I’m not gonna!” she yelled back, her enthusiasm through the roof, still grabbing his whole face like her life depended on it. She moved to his other eye, vigourously swiping the wand against his eyelashes as he protested even louder than before. Another audible grunt from the left was heard and was ignored for the third time.
When she pulled her hand back, she quickly reached for what he assumed was powder and started tapping a pad all over his face before he could pull away. The white powder was yet another weird sensation, and when she was going over his lips, he accidentally took a quick breath, which was enough for some loose powder to make it inside his nose, making him sneeze loudly, right onto Bev.
“Ew gross!” she shrieked as she looked down to her top, searching for snot, but couldn’t find any. Eddie thanked every god in existence that she didn’t sneeze back at him because he wouldn’t have been able to survive that.
“Almost as gross as your saliva! It was payback time!” he ignored the fact that his previous prediction of powder flying into his nose came to life and he didn’t end up with an asthma attack.
“Hey!” came a shout that interrupted their little fight, and they both looked at the hammock, which was now swaying with movement, a very sleepy and grumpy Richie squinting at them, his face barely visible above the hammock's edge. “What the fuck are you dickheads doing? Some of us are trying to rest over here!”
“Oh, just in time Rich, I’ve just finished my masterpiece.” said Bev with some laughter in her voice. “Look at our dear Eddie, isn’t he the prettiest?”
Richie finally began opening his eyes more, and Eddie could see his big eyes starting to focus as they moved to look at his face. Eddie prepared himself for laughter and endless teasing. He had gotten used to his teasing, as stated before, but still he was already frowning with irritation at the adjectives that were going to be thrown at him in a joking manner in the next minutes. Possibly hours. He couldn’t even blame Richie for it, because if the roles were reversed Eddie knew would do the same. It would be so funny to see Richie like that, with his softer features emphasised, his skin smoothed. The image which appeared in front of him was nothing like Richie and he struggled not to make a face at the thought as he looked back at his friend, waiting for the teasing to begin.
It didn’t. Instead, Richie just stared at him, confused at first, tilting his head a bit, then his expression shifted to the one he usually had on when he was deep in thought – which to be fair wasn’t that often, so it was easily recognizable. Bev and Eddie both opened their mouths to question if he was alright or he had fallen back to sleep when he leaned slightly forward, making the hammock sway and he fell to the floor with a loud bang.
“Everything okay Richie?” said Stan from the other side of the room casually, briefly lifting his eyes from his book. Bev looked back at him with a small smile, looking like she was about to burst out laughing.
“Yes, Richie are you alright?” she said with a smile. At that, Richie looked up at them, big eyes studying all three of their faces before scrambling to sit criss-cross apple sauce and changing his expression to a defensive one, but a blush was creeping from his cheeks to his ears.
“Yeah everything’s fine, no need to stare you fucking weirdos” he said as he made a hushing gesture with his hand. “Eddie looks…uh…nice?” his confused expression overtook his face again.
“I know, right?” agreed Bev. She was still smiling when Eddie saw a sparkle in her eye, the type she gets when she has an idea. Eddie was already terrified of whatever she was thinking about. Looking at the record, her ideas this week only consisted of this weird makeover thing, and she was way less happy about it than she was now, looking back at Eddie. That meant grave danger. “Wait, actually no. I think I put too much lipstick on and I fear it’s going to smudge easily. We should test that, so I know just how much pressure to use next time.”
“How exactly?” said Eddie, now macthing Richie’s confused look.
“Well, by kissing Richie of course, dummy!”
Silence. All three of them stared at eachother.
“What?!” Eddie and Richie both shrieked when they fully registered what Beverly had just said.
“You know…lipstick leaves a stain and I just want to see how intensely it shows on skin!” she sighed, pretending to be tired but she was holding a grin back.
“But why the fuck would I need to kiss Richie for that? Skin is all over on every one of us. I could just like…,” he thought about it for a second “kiss my own… arm or whatever. It doesn’t need to be Richie’s face”
At that Richie made a loud noise of protest, like someone had just offended his entire bloodline.
“Hey! What is wrong with my face, it is very kissable, thank you very much! Not like your gross one, I can see why she chose me for the task. My cheekbones are perfect for kisses, but not yours’ though”
“Well I’m not gonna kiss your stupid fucking cheekbones so you can relax.” Eddie snapped back.
“Fine, I’m glad”
“Fine.”
Something angry started bubbling in Eddie’s chest. It was him who didn’t want to kiss Richie but, now that he said all that about Eddie’s kisses not being good enough for his cheeks, he felt familiar irritation rise in him. Richie’s cheekbones would be a great host to Eddie’s kisses, he thinks it would work quite well. Not wanting to kiss Richie is one thing, but being wrong is another, and he couldn’t have that. He couldn’t let Richie win this. He rolled his eyes at the thought.
With unusual confidence he quickly stood up and took a few big steps forward until he reached his friend – who, by the way, was still sitting on the floor. He quickly leaned down, stopping for a second as their eyes met, a couple of inches apart, and leaned forward and firmly pressed his colored lips against Richie’s sweaty cheek. His lips buzzed under Richie’s skin, heat radiating off the both of them.
When he pulled away Richie was staring at him, eyes wide, mouth open. Eddie couldn’t analyze what emotions Richie was currently going through, because he was distracted by a big reddish splodge on the boy’s left cheek. It looked like it belonged there, the curve of the imprint fitting perfectly under Richie’s cheekbones, giving color to the hollow of his cheeks.
His eyes wandered back to the ones infront of him – and yep Richie was still frozen in the same position.
“Great, it works! Looks just how I imagined!” Bev’s voice came from behind Eddie, her voice startling both of them, snapping them out of their little bubble.
Richie suddenly remembered that he had control over his body and pulled a face of disgust and began rubbing his cheek. Rubbing Eddie’s lipstick away. Or technically Beverly’s. Whatever.
“Dude, gross! You just got that gunk on me too, and I can’t get it off! My mom is gonna be so weird if she sees this,”
Eddie just continued to stare at him wordlessly. He needed to say something and he needed to say it now. He played back the last five minutes in his head and quickly remembered his anger that triggered him to go through with the kiss in the first place. After that, the words came easily.
“It wasn’t fair that I was the only one suffering, and you were just being annoying and wrong. My kisses are the best.”
“Sure, whatever you say. Just admit you wanted to kiss me, c’mon Eds it’s not embarrassing.”
A blush was beginning to spread across Eddie’s cheeks and Richie continued teasing, however he couldn’t help but notice the slight pinkness of Richie’s cheeks also.
“Shut up, just be grateful that I did.”
To that Richie just stared back at him, eyes lingering with something Eddie couldn’t recognise. He couldn’t have dwelled on it for too long, even if he wanted to, because at that moment their three other friends returned from their trip to the hot outside world. They looked at them weirdly, asked a few questions about Eddie’s makeup, to which Bev replied and explained her little experiment and the boys nodded in acknowledgement, not thinking about it too much. Bill had shot Eddie a questioning look as he tore his eyes from Richie’s cheek. Eddie just rolled his eyes and sighed, saying something like “don’t even get me started”, which Bill surprisingly seemed to understand as he gave him a small eyeroll back, accompanied by an affectionate smile.
The day dragged on, Bev eventually removed the makeup from Eddie’s face, ordering him to wash it with water when he gets home because micellar water is gross and weird, since none of them understood how it worked and Eddie didn’t want to risk getting a disease and actually dying because of makeup. Like he said, that would be incredibly embarrassing. His skin felt a lot fresher and softer though, which was nice. The wind against his face as they cycled back to their houses made him feel like he was free. Free from the heat, the suffocating humidity, the sweat, the various beauty products, and Bev’s know-it-all look when she observed him back in the clubhouse.
When they arrived at the road where he and Richie always parted from the group, they said their respective ‘bye’-s and ‘see you tomorrow suckers’-s and they continued to cycle in comfortable silence, which might have been an unusual sight to the people who knew them. They were usually loud and whitty, throwing insults around, trying to fight eachother. Not during their end-of-the-day cycling though. It was for the silence neither of them dared to indulge in when the others were around. They moved in quiet, mutual understanding, neither of them desperate to break the silence, the typical urge to do something, so they don’t get lost in thought disappearing.
Eddie could see his house now, he slowed his legs so he wouldn’t fall and break another limb, cycling with one was uncomfortable enough. He opened his mouth to say goodbye as they slowly reached his house. He didn’t know if he should bring up today's happenings, because it was a strange, uncharted area for the both of them, and Richie would just probably keep on cycling down the road after he said his own ‘bye’. As he was deep in thought, he didn’t even notice that he had stopped right in front of the driveway of their house, without even saying goodbye. He looked up at the road and he couldn’t even see Richie, which meant that he had been standing there for a while. Great, now Richie was probably thinking that he was making it weird.
“Shit,” Eddie sighed as he turned towards the driveway, pushing off of his bike.
“Hello…? Are you not gonna say bye to your bestest friend in the entire world?” said a voice from behind him. He spun around and saw Richie with a silly expression on his face, a mix between giddyness and uncertainty.
“Fuck, Richie, I thought you left ages ago, you scared the shit out of me,”
“What ages are you talking about, we have been standing here for 30 seconds exactly. I saw that you weren’t about to acknowledge my existence so I stopped to say bye.”
Eddie looked at him with confusion, not knowing what to say exactly.
“Oh, okay,” the two boys stared at eachother in – now uncomfortable – silence “Well…bye then” he waved dumbly with his plastered arm, and gave a small smile to Richie, who was now a lot more serious.
“Right…bye,” they didn’t move, standing a couple of feet away next to Eddie’s driveway and he realized that his mom might be watching them from the window. She most likely wasn’t, as she spent most of the day in her armchair, watching some shitty TV show. But it was still possible and the thought made him nervous. His mom had been livid when she realized that he’d started hanging out with the losers again, but had somewhat made peace with it, as long as she didn’t see any of them around her house. He wanted to glance back at the window to confirm that his panic was baseless, but he wanted to stay in this moment as long as he could.
He studied Richie’s face as the sunset cast golden streaks on it, making him look ever so soft, looking very different from the ridiculous “soft-Richie” image Eddie’s brain had created earlier.. His curls were sticking together on his forehead, slight frizz had formed at the crown of his head, likely induced by the intense humidity. If one squinted they might still see the smudged lipstick on his left cheek, which made Eddie’s chest buzz a little bit, but it might have just been his lungs starting to give out from the extensive amounts of physical activity he’d been doing all summer. Plus the humidity and his lack of inhaler use. His face had twisted into something Eddie was sure he’d never seen before. His eyes were unusually tender and soft, but there was a hint of determination and also nervousness in his gaze. Eddie looked at the sun-soaked Richie infront of him and suddenly felt like he should just go inside, before he said something crazy about the sun grazing Richie’s curls and making him look surprisingly good, despite his obvious tiredness.
His intense thinking was cut off by a pair of lips on his right cheek, softly pressing into his skin, which was still irrealistically soft due to the micellar water particles remaining on it. Richie had closed the distance between them, standing right infront of Eddie, their shoes now were toe-to-toe. After just a moment, Richie pulled back, his face now just displaying pure nervousness.
“Uh…,” he started “I just wanted to return the favour since you probably didn’t want a kiss either. Now we’re even. Both grossed out.” he said with the faux confident expression he used when he stood up to the bullies, fear creeping through his eyes.
Eddie stood there, brows furrowed, and whole body flushed. No one had ever kissed him before, not even on the cheek, excluding his mom of couse, but that was a rather unpleasant experience, not that he’d ever admit that out loud. This was different. He lifted his hand to touch his cheek, where he still felt the ghost of Richie’s lips. He relaxed his eyebrows, now displaying the same amount of nerves that Richie was.
“Oh…Yeah, right, that makes sense,” it didn’t. He turned to walk inside his house. “Bye Richie, see you tomorrow.”
He started walking on the driveway, with his bike when Richie called out so softly, Eddie wasn’t even sure it was him.
“Hey Eds,” and Eddie turned his head back so fast he thought he twisted his neck for a second. He raised his eyebrows, gesturing for Richie to talk. Richie opened his mouth and Eddie’s stomach twisted with anticipation. “Pass that kiss to your mother please, I forgot to kiss her goodbye when I left last night.” and he was quickly back on his bike, bolting away to the distance. He turned back once more with a grin. “See ya, Eddie!”
Eddie was left there still not quite sure what to do with himself as he turned to the driveway again, this time actually intending to go inside. He stopped for one last second and smiled to himself, replaying the events of the day in his head and he wasn’t able to repress another flush spreading across his body.
He thought about what his mother might have seen if she was indeed looking, and the idea made him giddy. He grinned as he entered their garage to drop his bike. He really hoped his mother wasn’t looking.