When In Derry
Hi, I'm sad, welcome to my story.
It was freezing in Derry the first time that it had happened. A cold January morning in their freshman year of high school. The monthly Losers sleepover was this time taking place at the Denbrough's house and mainly everyone was still asleep at six in the morning, having had stayed up too late watching bad horror movies and trying to make each other jump.
Everyone except for Richie. He had dragged himself onto the back porch of the house fifteen minutes ago to sit on the creaky old swing, regretting not bringing his blanket from inside.
But the sunrise was especially gorgeous today, something he hadn't purposely watched in years, since before his parents had stopped paying any ounce of attention to him.
The screen door creaks open behind him and he turns around. Eddie's standing in the doorway with two blankets and a raised eyebrow.
Richie grins and pats the seat next to him, ignoring the usual increased speed of his heartbeat that always happens when he sees his best friend. It's been happening for years but he's long since learned to hide it, knowing nothing can ever happen between them.
"You're going to freeze out here, you idiot," Eddie grumbles, taking a seat and flopping one of the blankets onto Richie's lap. He pulls the other one taut around his shoulders and tucks his feet up so every part of him besides his head is swallowed by the blanket. "What are you doing out here, anyway?"
Richie smirks slyly, leaning his head onto the smaller boy's shoulder. "Your mom gave me a call and I didn't want to wake everybody up by-"
"Oh, shut up!" He swats the back of his head, getting a laugh out of him and forcing him to cuddle closer into Eddie's shoulder.
"I just like the sunrise, I guess," Richie says in a much softer tone.
"You? The trashmouth? You love the sunrise of all things?"
"It's pretty! Almost as pretty as you, Eds." He nudges his head into Eddie's neck whose cheeks tint a bit darker but rolls his eyes anyway.
"Yeah, yeah. We all know you're going to charm some unlucky girl one day with that kind of humor." He nuzzles the top of his head into Richie's with a smile.
If Eddie had blushed, Richie's face was now practically the color of a tomato. He turns his head so it's tucked firmly into the crook between Eddie's neck and shoulder causing him to jolt.
"Hey? Hey, what's up, Rich? Did I say something?" His voice is starting to verge on panic when Richie still doesn't respond, and he knows he can't have that.
"Maybe I don't want a girl." His voice is low and soft and muffled by the material of the blanket but Eddie can hear every word perfectly.
Eddie's heart leaps. He's sure the boy on his shoulder can feel the acceleration of his pulse so he makes a desperate attempt to calm his breathing while Richie waits in bated breath for his response. "Oh. Well, that's okay. Nothing wrong with that."
Richie pulls his head abruptly off his best friend's shoulder to look at him incredulously. "That's it? That's what you were going to say? I thought you were supposed to throw me off of you and scream something like 'oh, my heavens!' and call me a fairy or some dumb shit like that."
Eddie rolled his eyes, still trying to hide his nerves. "Is that really how little you think of me, Richie?"
"'Course not, just y'know. I've never told anyone that. I was expecting something dramatic, I guess."
"Not everything has to be dramatic."
"Says the biggest drama queen I know."
"Shut it." He pulls Richie back against his shoulder where he lays with no complaints for a minute or two.
"Hey, Eds?"
"Not my name. What?"
"Remember how I said, 'Maybe I don't want a girl?'"
"From when you said it literally less than five minutes ago? Yes. What about it?"
"There's someone specific I want." At this point, Richie literally felt like he was going to throw up, but the words now or never were pounding in his head like a mantra.
"Oh, God, it's Stan, isn't it?" Eddie's face was a mask of actual horror now and Richie swallowed down the urge to laugh.
"What? No! No, but it's uh- someone. Someone in the Losers Club."
Eddie's jaw dropped, his big doe eyes that Richie adored growing impossibly wider with each passing moment. "Who is it? Ben? Oh-oh, or Bill? Oh to everything that's holy, if it's Mike-"
"It's you, you absolute idiot." And then Richie kisses him.
At which point Richie's brain basically explodes because, wow, he is indeed kissing Eddie Kaspbrak. Who is..kissing him back? It's all too surreal and he fights the urge to pinch himself and instead focuses on this bloody brilliant kiss.
Eddie's the one that eventually pulls back for air and when he does, the smile that's decorating his face almost stretches to his ears.
"Holy shit," he whispers and Richie nods in agreement.
"Yes. Holy shit, indeed."
And then Eddie's crying. It's all very sudden and he's not quite sure why he's crying but one minute, he's smiling at the boy he just kissed and the next, his face is buried in the palms of his hands as he sobs.
Richie only hesitates for a second before wrapping both of his arms around the boy and squeezing tight. "I know. I know," he whispers, into the mess of his hair and Eddie suddenly remembers why he's crying.
He sits up with a strangled gasp from his throat but manages not to sob, brushing away a few stray tears. "I-I just wish we could be together," he whispers brokenly and Richie's face falls but he doesn't look surprised in the slightest.
"Me too," he mumbles, tucking one of his hands to tenderly cradle the back of Eddie's head. "I do too. God, I want that more than anything."
They don't talk about how neither of them are in a good place for a relationship right now. They don't talk about how they live in a small homophobic town in Maine where gossip travels at an almost alarming speed. It's more of an unspoken thing.
The two boys stay in silence until Richie speaks. "We should probably go back inside now?"
"Probably. But right now, we're going to stay here and pretend everything is okay and that we're the only two people in the world."
Richie smiles. "Fine by me."
Eddie leans into his chest and Richie brings his arms back to encircle him in a warm embrace.
"I love you, Richie Tozier," he whispers.
Richie places a tender kiss to the very top of Eddie's head. "I love you too, Eddie Kaspbrak."
The two boys sit in each other's arms and watch the sunset, both silently hoping that one day they could be together.
...
The second time is a full two years later at junior prom. Stan had gotten a girl from his English class to accompany him, Ben had finally mustered up the courage to ask Bev, Bill had asked a small mousy-haired girl named Rosie that sat two tables away from them at lunch and Richie had refused to ask anyone but had instead convinced Mike to come with him so he didn't look like even more of an idiot than usual but he was currently talking up some girl on the soccer team so that plan didn't exactly pan out the way he had hoped.
And then there was Eddie. Eddie, who had been forced by his mother to ask one of the girls who was close friends with Greta Keene, who had miraculously said yes. Eddie, who was now sitting alone on the other side of the gym.
This, of course, was not okay with Richie, who had spent the last half hour bopping around the snack table and found it was not acceptable that his best friend had been left partnerless on the biggest night of the year for most of the high school population.
Heaving a great sigh, Richie puts both hands into the pockets of his suit and marches over to Eddie's little folding chair. "Where'd Banana, or whatever her name is, go?"
"Her name is Hanna," Eddie grumbles lowly, "and she went off with her ex-boyfriend to go have sex or something five minutes into this thing."
It's at this point that Richie practically sees red. Did she not even see how perfect Eddie was? It took all of his willpower to not storm off to find the couple and slap both of them across the face but he reins it in and instead pulls up another folding chair and sits next to him.
"You know you don't have to do this," Eddie mumbles, a slight blush creeping up his cheeks.
"And do what? Eat the rest of the food until this thing is over?"
"No. But do something more exciting than sitting with me in the corner."
"Aw, I think you're plenty exciting, my dear Spagheds."
"Shut up," Eddie replies, but he's blushing even harder.
After another few minutes, Richie sighs again and jumps to his feet, extending a hand to the other boy, who takes it hesitantly.
"What are we doing?"
"We're at prom, aren't we? I think we both deserve at least one dance."
Eddie's jaw drops so far that it's almost comical. "Richie," he hisses, "you know we can't do that, you know that-"
"I know that, you big drama queen," he answers, rolling his eyes, "I had something different in mind. C'mon."
He drags a reluctant Eddie out of his chair in a circle around the gym, ending up behind the bleachers with a big grin, arms spreading wide. "All ours, Eds. Every inch of this very cozy, nicely decorated, behind some high school bleachers is ours for however long you want it to be."
Eddie still looks skeptical, craning his neck back to peer all around the space. "I dunno, Rich. Shouldn't there be people making out down here?"
"Nope! They made the dumb mistake of leaving the doors to the gym unlocked so people can go wherever in the school they please. Pleaseeeeeeee?" He draws out the please as long as humanly possible, so long that Eddie finally rolls his eyes in the middle of the plea.
"Alright, fine. For a little bit."
Richie's smile brightens and he quickly wraps his arms around Eddie's waist who blushes and attempts to put his hands where they're supposed to be to varying results.
Neither of them are very good dancers, but they try their best to move to the rhythm of the song for the most part and not trip over each other's feet. They both end up collapsing in heaps of giggles after the fifth time Richie steps on Eddie's shoe, getting a glare out of him. The two boys sit down against the back of the bleachers, shoulders barely touching, and listen to the mad screams of a high school prom behind them.
"Ah, I missed this, my Eddie-bear," Richie sighs wistfully.
Eddie nudges his shoulder turning his head to peer at his thick, Coke-bottle glasses. "You missed what, Rich?"
"I dunno. Just you, I guess. Spending time with you. Alone."
The smaller blushes harder than he has all night. "I missed you too, Trashmouth," he says softly, leaning against him. "Hey. Remember that morning in freshmen year?"
Richie doesn't even have to clarify, he knows exactly what he's talking about. "Do you think that I could ever possibly forget it, Eds?"
"I think about it every single day," Eddie admits quietly. "And, uh, it's still true, you know. What I said that day."
Throwing caution to the wind, Richie carefully reaches over and takes hold of Eddie's hand, who grabs right back. They are officially two people sitting under the bleachers at prom, holding hands. "It is. For me too, I mean."
They both smile and lean against each other, just like they had on that fateful, chilly morning.
"We could get out of here together," Richie mumbles into Eddie's dark hair who sits up quickly.
"Get out? What do you mean?"
"After graduation. We could move out of here, together. Go to somewhere more accepting, we could be together."
Eddie's smile grows wider and wider as he thinks about the concept. Leaving Derry. Leaving his mother. Leaving all of the homophobic shit that's been imprinted on him. Getting to be with the boy that he's been in love with since before he knew how to read.
"Yeah." Richie's eyes widen behind his glasses. "Yeah. Yeah, let's do it. Let's get out of this place, Trashmouth."
Said Trashmouth lunges forward and kisses him full on the mouth and Eddie melts instantly into the kiss, something that feels so familiar even though it's only happened once, two years ago.
When they pull just the slightest bit apart to breathe, they're both smiling again.
"I love you so much," Eddie whispers against his mouth and Richie pulls him back in for another kiss.
"I love you more, my beloved pasta dish."
The boys don't stay behind the bleachers for very much longer until they head back out into the throng of teenagers, knowing that one day, in a year and a half, they're going to leave Derry. Together.
...
Richie shoves both of his hands into the pockets of his jeans, trying to hide the scowl on his face.
Bev pulls back from the group to fall in pace with her bespectacled friend who was now staring at the floor. "You could at least pretend to be happy for him."
"I am!" His head snaps up to frown at Beverly. "I am happy for him. I'm just...sad he's leaving, I guess."
"I know, I know," she says sympathetically and wraps an arm around his shoulders. "I'm going to miss him too."
Senior year had presented a prestigious medical school of some sort offering Eddie a full-ride scholarship and he'd took it almost instantly leaving Richie behind in the dust.
Of course, Richie had been happy for him, hell, he'd been thrilled, had been the first one to wrap him up in his arms and congratulate him. But it's not like he wasn't saddened to hear their deal to get out of Derry together had been postponed.
Convincing Sonia Kaspbrak to say her good-byes to her son at their own house so the Losers could have their own private good-bye at the airport was a tricky task, but Eddie had managed to accomplish it through many days of pleading and promises to come back as soon as possible (a promise he didn't plan to keep of course).
So now it was just the seven members of the Losers Club at the airport with Eddie and his fidgeting and his mumbling about how disgusting and dangerous airplanes were.
They reach the small sitting area in the airport where Eddie carefully balances his two carry-on bags.
"A-are you s-s-sure you don't want us to st-stay any longer, Eddie?" Bill inquires, tilting his head at him but Eddie just shakes his head.
"I have a few hours before I have to board and I don't want you guys waiting that long."
"Well, I guess we'll just say our good-byes here then," Bev replies and she's the first one to hug him, whispering something in his ear that makes him turn bright red but neither of them acknowledge it as they pull apart.
Next is Mike who doesn't hesitate to pull him into his arms getting a loud 'oomph!' out of him. Mike is followed by Ben, who is followed by Bill and then Stan and then Richie's the only one left to say his farewells.
Before he can, Bev clears her throat loudly. "We'll, uh, give you two some space."
"W-w-we w-will? Ah! Y-yes, we will," Bill says in a pained voice after having his shoe stomped on and Beverly drags their four friends away.
That leaves them with just each other. Eddie's smiling. Richie's trying to.
"Oh, it won't be that bad. Honestly," Eddie says and steps forward, wrapping his arms tightly around the taller and he hugs him back with just a brief moment of shock.
"Never forget I love you," Eddie whispers in his ear and Richie nods against his shoulder, trying to hold back tears.
He steps back and gives another sad smile. "It'll just be for a couple years. And then we'll get out of here. Go somewhere else. I'll call you everyday all right?"
"I'll answer everyday."
Eddie doesn't respond to this, just turns around to walk away towards the heart of the airport.
It's then that Richie decides that he doesn't care. He doesn't care who hears him, who witnesses it.
"Eddie!" he calls out, who turns around to face him, looking slightly bewildered. "I love you too."
He's drawn quite a few stares but he's stopped caring. All he can see is Eddie. Eddie who's not yelling at him to shut up. Eddie who says nothing but his eyes are saying how much he loves Richie more than his mouth could ever.
He disappears into the throng of travelers just as he disappeared into the crowd of partying teenagers a year and a half ago.
Shoving his hands right back into his pockets, he makes his way back to the Losers Club who are standing at the front entrance. He doesn't think they heard his love confession, but he thinks they know what happened anyways.
Bev doesn't wait a second before replacing the arm previously around his shoulders. "What do you need, buddy? Anything at all."
He cracks a smile. "Well, I would love to beat all of your asses at poker, but I'm not feeling up for something that mind-numbingly easy to win at right now. So let's go get ice cream."
"Ice cream it is, Rich."
He can't help but cast one last longing gaze at the airport as they pull out of the parking lot. "I'll be back, Eds," he murmurs, "and we'll be okay."
...
Eddie and Richie don't get out of Derry together. They don't go move someplace warm where killer clowns and homophobes can't get to them.
In fact, they forget each other. More or less.
Eddie's unhappily married. Richie's not happy with material he doesn't like that he doesn't even write himself.
And then the phone call.
That fateful phone call that pulled both of them straight back to their hometown. To a Chinese restaurant where almost three decades of unrequited love came crashing back into Richie when he saw Eddie Kaspbrak.
A knee-jerk feeling in the back of his brain wants him to go back to the Kissing Bridge where he had carved R + E as a thirteen year old.
He had never shown Eddie that. He supposed that way, even if he lost Eddie in some way, he'd always have that.
Eddie Kaspbrak, who is the bravest person Richie has ever known. Honestly, who else would call their wife at four in the morning, tell her he's gay and that he wants a divorce to shrieking cheers from their friends and a dumbfounded look from Richie. Who else would pull a knife out of his own face, his face, and stab a man in the heart with it? Who else would manage to drive a post through the throat of a demonic clown? But that's just part of the problem.
...
Blood. There's blood everywhere. Too much of it splattered on Richie and his clothes and especially on Eddie.
Oh, God, Eddie is absolutely soaked in his own blood and it's all Richie can do to press his own jacket against his wound.
He's got to make it, he's got to make it, Eddie Kaspbrak can not die. No, he will not let Eddie Kaspbrak die. He can't. He won't. He-
"Richie."
"Hey. Hey, Eds, hey, you're going to be okay. Okay? Hear me? You're going to be just fine and then we're-"
"Richie, it's okay," Eddie whispers in what sounds like the most voice he can muster up. "It's all okay."
"Yes! Because- look, everyone's over there. You see them?" He points vaguely in the direction where the four remaining Losers are fighting Pennywise. "They're going to kill 'em, Eds, okay? And then you know what we're going to do?" He realizes that he's crying but doesn't care as he wipes away a few stray tears.
"We're getting out of this place. Just you and me. And we'll go somewhere. Anywhere but here. Remember? We were going to leave together. And now we're going to. Screw the amnesia, we're making good on that promise."
"Richie? Can I tell you something?"
"Anything," Richie practically sobs, one hand stroking up and down Eddie's cheek, one hand still desperately pressing against his jacket that's doing its very best to staunch the blood. God, there's so much blood.
"I love you, Richie Tozier. I love you so much it's physically painful. I know that I forgot I loved you for twenty-seven years and all, but that didn't make it any weaker. Because you are my first and my only love and I've never loved anyone as much as I love you."
If Richie wasn't crying before, he's definitely crying now. He moves closer to support Eddie's back with his forearm when he notices Eddie's not moving.
"Eddie? Eddie?! Eddie!"
He can barely register the other Losers loosely trying to pull him off of Eddie, but he clings tight. He can't leave him. He can never leave him.
"He's just hurt, we gotta get him out of here," he wails, throwing himself on his love. "Eddie! Eddie, please wake up. I gotta say it back to you, man, I gotta say it back! I love you. I love you Eddie, you gotta wake up for me, Spaghetti, please, you have to-"
Richie's vaguely aware that Bill and Ben drag him out of the Neibolt house, away from Eddie's body. He just keeps on sobbing.
...
Richie goes to the Kissing Bridge the next day with his pocket knife.
The location of where he had engraved the letters is basically imprinted on his mind. He would go there at least once a month. He wouldn't say anything, for once. Just look at it. Try not to cry. Just as he's doing now, but much older. And now he can't daydream about Eddie Kaspbrak. Eddie Kaspbrak is dead.
He touches up the letters R + E with a bittersweet smile on his face, brushing over them with a soft hand when they're done. He thinks Eddie might have liked this.
Eddie, who will never lecture them about every single disease they could ever catch again. Eddie, who will never brighten any of the Losers' day with his sweet, clear laugh that used to be Richie's favorite sound in the world. Eddie, who will never kiss him again, whether soft and sweet as their first kiss on the Denbrough's back porch or full of unbridled passion as their last kiss behind the bleachers at their junior prom. Eddie, who will never tell Richie that he loves him again.
Richie spends a few days in Derry before going back to L.A. He goes out for a couple of drinks with his best friends and only collapses sobbing in Bev's arms a few times.
When he does get back, he starts writing his own jokes material. He also comes out as gay to his audience with a few new bits based around him. Eddie, that is. It's a bold thing to do and something he never could do until that time.
But after all, someone had once taught him how to be brave.
I love pain. Also, I made Eddie divorce Myra because that would have made the movie 1000x better and I'm bitter. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.