Bill Denbrough stood at the bottom of the stairwell, looking over at Eddie and Richie, both of them still fast asleep. When he first saw them, he had immediately ran back upstairs and called the rest of his friend group on the phone, telling them all to get over there as fast as possible.

Stan had arrived first. His mouth had fell open when he saw them lying there, eyebrows raised.

"Fuck, that was quick," he had muttered to Bill, and then sauntered off to the kitchen to make himself some breakfast, as he hadn't had the chance before he received the call to come over.

Beverly arrived with Mike Hanlon a few minutes after, chatting idly as they walked in. Bill put a finger to his lips, shushing them. They had looked at him with confused expressions, but when they walked closer and saw Eddie and Richie, Beverly's quickly switched to excitement. Mike on the other hand, looked more confused, (he, like Eddie, had never met Richie before, though he had heard stories,) and looked toward Bill for an explanation.
"That's Richie, they w-went on a date last night." Bill said in a hushed voice. Mike nodded and gave Bill a thumbs up.

They all froze as Eddie shifted, lifting his head up a little. He opened one eye and saw Richie lying beneath him, glasses askew on his face, mouth wide open, snoring quietly away. Eddie smiled sleepily and fell back into the crook of Richie's neck. He hadn't noticed the four other people staring at him from the other side of the room, much to their amusement.

Ben Hanscom walked through the door soon after. "Hey Bill, I'm-" he was interrupted by a chorus of "shh!"s from the group.
Beverly grabbed him by the arm and walked him over. "Don't wake the kids!"

Richie suddenly started to wake up, scrunching up his face and rubbing his eyes. They half-opened and had to shield his face from the sunlight coming through the window. He then looked down at Eddie, who was nuzzling his nose against Richie's jawbone. He exhaled happily, and ran a hand through Eddie's hair.

"Morning babe." he whispered, smiling.

"Morning!" Stan and Beverly exclaimed at the same time.

Eddie's head shot up, wide eyed, looking like a startled deer. He pushed himself up, almost falling into the coffee table and knocking the wind out of Richie in the process. The rest of the group were beside themselves. "Have a good sleep there, Eddie?" Stan asked, biting his lip to stop himself from laughing.

"What the fuck you guys," Eddie wheezed, and Richie sat up, stretching his arms above his head.

"Yeah, a little privacy would be nice," he teased, sleepily trying to pull Eddie back towards him, but he just swatted his hand away.

"We're going to the quarry, feel free to join us when you're finished here, okay boys?" Beverly chirped, winking at Eddie, and then linked her arm with Ben's and walked to the front door, Mike and Stan in pursuit. Bill turned to follow behind them.

"Don't m-mess up my house Rich, my f-folks will be back tomorrow," he called out as before he shut the door.

Eddie collapsed onto the couch beside Richie with a huff. Richie put an arm around his shoulder.

"Oh man, the quarry, it's been a while since I've been there," he said fondly.

"You wanna go?" Eddie yawned, leaning into his chest.

Richie looked at him, with a sleepy grin on his face. He hadn't seen him in good light before now, and he noticed a lot of things that he hadn't last night. Eddie had a spattering of freckles over his nose and cheeks, and long eyelashes that would have made any girl jealous. His features made him look younger than he was, he could have easily been mistaken for thirteen or fourteen, despite actually being almost eighteen. And his height certainly didn't help.

The sunlight coming in through the window made his eyes look almost golden. Richie was hypnotised at this point.

"You're fucking beautiful," he mumbled, pushing his face into Eddie's hair.

Eddie let out a happy sigh and closed his eyes, taking in the warmth coming from the open window and the slow rise and fall of Richie's chest as he leaned up against him. He was overwhelmingly tempted to just fall back asleep and not move for the rest of the day, but Richie carefully moved him and stood up, stretching with an exaggerated groan.

"C'mon, we should go meet up with the others." He offered a hand to Eddie, to pull him up. Eddie whined in protest.

"M'tired."

"Hi tired, I'm Richie, now up you get."

Eddie rolled his eyes at the joke but took his hand and stood up, so he was standing basically on Richie's feet, barely any space between them.

"God, those are filthy."

He grabbed Richie's glasses of his face and wiped them on the edge of his sweatshirt, holding them up to the light and then wiping them down some more, until he was as satisfied as he could be without having used cleaning spray. Eddie went to hand them back, but slipped them onto his own face instead.

"Wow," he said, looking around the room, "you're blind as fuck."

"Well I'm not exactly wearing those as a fashion statement, am I?" he laughed. Eddie took off the glasses and gave them back to Richie, who put them on and pushed them up the bridge of his nose.

Richie jumped in the shower as Eddie went to Bill's room to get some clean clothes. He had borrowed clothes from him before and he reckoned it wouldn't be an issue. The bathroom was right next to the bedroom and Eddie could hear Richie singing, quite loudly, and quite well, surprisingly.

Sleight of hands and twist of fate

On a bed of nails she makes me wait

And I wait, without you,

He picked out a t-shirt and a pair of khaki shorts, not worrying too much, seeing as they were usually just in their underwear when they went to the quarry.

The thought of seeing Richie in his underwear made his stomach flip.

And the thought of Richie seeing him in his underwear made the feeling twice as bad.

He shook the thought out of his head. He wasn't necessarily self-conscious about his body, he was actually in quite good shape, ever since his mother had given in and allowed him to try out for track at school.

And he had been around the quarry with the boys (and Bev), plenty of times, and even in the change rooms in the gym, and never worried about being practically naked in front of anyone before.

"It'll be fine," he uttered to himself.

With or without youuuuuuuu

I can't live, with or without youuuuuuUUUUUUUU

Richie's 'singing' had turned more or less into wailing at this point. He had been in there for over fifteen minutes, and Eddie needed to shower as well, seeing as he could still smell popcorn butter and cigarette smoke on his skin. He went and banged on the door. Richie's singing stopped abruptly, and he heard the water stop quickly after.

Soon Richie unlocked and opened the door, with only a towel wrapped around his waist, his hair still dripping wet and stuck to his face. Eddie shuffled past him, not allowing himself to stare.

They were both dressed, had eaten breakfast, and were heading out the door within the next hour. It was nearing midday, and the outside air was pleasantly warm. Richie still wore his denim jacket, only with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

They hopped in the truck and drove off with the windows down. Eddie closed his eyes and tilted his head half out, the wind hitting his face and definitely messing up his hair, but he didn't mind. The radio was playing some song he sort of recognised but didn't know the words to. Richie hummed along to it idly, taking the moment in as much as he could.

They arrived at their destination all too soon, it felt. Richie parked the car on the side of the road. There was a growth of trees obscuring the view from the road, but they could hear faint squeals and giggles in the distance.

That's probably them, Eddie thought.

They made their way through the trees, and after a couple minutes they came across five bikes, four of them were just thrown on the ground, only one of them was standing, leaning against the kickstand, belonging to Stan Uris. Next to the bikes was a pile of clothing.

Richie walked over to the edge of cliff. The rest of the gang were splashing around in the water 30 feet below. Bill had climbed on Mike's shoulders and Beverly on Ben's in a chicken fight, laughing and squealing as they tried to push each other off. Beverly quickly won, Bill (and consequentially Mike), falling backwards into the water and coming up gasping, but smiling. Beverly fist pumped the air above her head and let out a victory hoot.

"Mind if we join you?" Richie called out from above, cupping his hands around his mouth.

"You have to jump though!" Stan yelled back at him, "Eddie too!"

Richie gave them a thumbs up and jogged back over to Eddie, who had only taken off his shoes and watch. Richie started stripping down, throwing his jacket and shirt on top of the pile of the others clothes. Eddie couldn't help but stare.

Fuck, he was skinny. Like, really skinny. You could all but see his ribs.

He was also even paler than Eddie. It made his hair and eyes look so much darker in contrast.

Richie smirked to himself when he caught Eddie staring. He stepped out of his skinny jeans, revealing black boxer shorts underneath.

Eddie almost tripped as he shook his shorts off, now only wearing a pair of white briefs.

Richie was waiting for him at the edge of the cliff, and he could hear the others chanting from below, eager for the boys to jump.

Richie turned his head towards Eddie.

"You checking me out, love?"

Eddie went a hot shade of pink and shook his head, though he still had a dorky grin planted on his face.

"Well, you should be." Richie winked at him, and then leaped off the rock without hesitation, hollering as he did. Eddie heard a big splash followed by cheers from the others.

"Your turn Ed!" Mike yelled from down below. Eddie stood just out of view on the rock.

He had jumped a handful of times before, but still, standing up there, that high off the ground, never failed to make him incredibly nervous. He took a deep breath in and then made a running jump. He held his breath as he fell, he always did. The drop felt so much farther than it looked. Every time he jumped, he always panicked that he would never hit the water. That he would fall forever. Stuck in time.

But of course, logically, he hit the water feet first, and his legs stung as he did, but he didn't care because that meant it was over. He came up to the surface and gasped for air, and they all applauded him, and he laughed along, smiling wide, feeling pretty out of breath but under control.

For the rest of the afternoon they swam and played and messed around on the rocks, like they had been doing since they were kids. Richie made sure he spent time talking to everyone individually, including Mike and Ben, who he hadn't known when he lived in Derry ten or so years back. They both immediately took a liking to him, even laughing at some of his jokes, though they were eye-roll worthy at best and mildly offensive at worst.

He spent the most time with Beverly though, even separating from the group at one point to go have a more serious conversation on the rocks without anyone else hearing, though Bill had assured Eddie it wasn't anything to worry about, just that Bev and Richie had been rather close back in the day. Eddie just accepted this as it was, and tried not to think about it too much.

He and Stan went to sit next to the edge of the water. He had noticed Stan had been a little.. off, but he knew he would probably come forward himself if something was bothering him. He was usually pretty open with Eddie, and vice versa. Stan was the first one he had ever come out to, back when he was 14, a whole month before he told anyone else in their group. He was a good listener.

"Eddie, how-" Stan bit his lip, unsure of how to ask what he wanted to ask, "how did you know? That you, y'know," he trailed off, poking at a bruise on his knee.

"That I what?" Eddie asked, though he was pretty sure he knew where this was going.

"That you liked boys?"

Eddie saw that Stan was looking over at Bill, who was currently being splashed mercilessly by Mike, giggling, using his hands as a shield.

Eddie shrugged. "Dunno really. Everyone would talk about how they had crushes on girls and I never did. I never really noticed girls in the same way other boys said they did. But I realised that I had those feelings for guys instead, and one day it just sorta clicked." Of course it wasn't that simple, really, but that was the gist of it.

"What does it feel like, when you like someone then."

"It's like-" Eddie paused. He wasn't sure he would be able to put it in words. "It's like, you feel weird in your stomach, and you just want to look at them all the time and you think about them a lot when they're not around."

"Oh."

They sat in silence for a couple minutes, watching Ben and Mike team up on Bill in quite a brutal water fight.

"I think I like Bill." Stan said, almost under his breath, like he didn't want to say it out loud but couldn't stop himself.

Eddie wasn't surprised by the confession, but he didn't want Stan to know that. He elbowed him gently and gave him the softest smile he could manage. Stan leaned his head on Eddie's shoulder, looking down. Eddie could tell he had said all he needed to say. Neither of them were much about big emotional conversations.

The sun had started to set by the time they all walked up to collect their things, and the warmth was slowly disappearing from the air, replaced by the familiar chill from the night before. They all sorted out who's clothes belonged to who (except Eddie, who had folded his and set it apart from everyone else's). They all got dressed, pointing out each other's sunburn while Eddie schooled them about skin cancer.

They started to walk as a group out to the road.

"Does anyone want a lift? Got room for three in the truck," Richie offered, but they all said they were happy biking it. He didn't argue.

He and Richie stood and watched Beverly, Mike, and Ben ride off.

"See you at home!" Bill called out as he started off in the other direction next to Stan. Eddie figured he had probably asked to stay over for the night.

The drive home was much like the drive there, windows down, radio volume all the way up. Eddie was sure he was going to develop hearing problems if he had to do this often.

When they were about halfway to Bill's, Richie turned the radio down.
"What's wrong?" Eddie asked after a moment. Richie looked genuinely worried about something.

"I'm just- I wasn't planning on staying." His voice was uneasy.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm mean I'm only here for, I don't know, a couple weeks, and then I was gonna leave. This was supposed to be a short visit to catch up but then Bill told me about you and I thought I'd give it a shot but," he exhaled sharply, reached into his pocket to grab a cigarette and lit in with the lighter under the radio. "I honestly thought this would just be a little fling, you know? And we would have our fun and then I would go."

Eddie's breath hitched in his throat. He couldn't make sense of it, who the hell says shit like that, he thought.

His first thought was to get angry, to lecture Richie about how fucking shitty that was. He tried to script out what he was going to say in his head. It had been about a minute of the most tense silence he had ever experienced.

"You're an asshole," he finally choked out, and it wasn't anywhere near as angry as he wanted, but Richie still flinched at the tone of his voice, dry and serious. Richie had heard those words plenty of times before with humour from his friends, and in high pitched scoffs from girls at parties who slapped him or threw drinks in his face, but this time, it hit really hard. He felt like he had been punched in the chest.

"Yeah, I know."

Eddie had turned so he was looking out the window. He knew if he looked at Richie he might start crying and that was absolutely the last thing he wanted to do.

"So, this is just you having your fun then? Because i'm not just going to make out with you for two weeks and then let you leave if that's all you want. You can go find someone else to do that with."

"It's not like that, dude, I-"

"You just said that's what it was!" Eddie was trying desperately to hold back tears.

"Yeah it was, that was what I had planned before I got here but then you," he threw the half finished cigarette out the window, "I actually like you. A lot, and I've been trying to figure out what the hell to do about that and I just don't know."

Eddie's expression softened. He looked over at Richie, and from what he could tell he was being sincere.
"That still doesn't mean anything if you're leaving." Eddie let out in a hoarse whisper.

They drove the rest of the way in silence. Richie stopped in front of Eddie's house and they sat with the engine off, the sky having turned a fantastic shade of pink.

"Why not just stay?" Eddie said, breaking the silence. "Like, why do you need to leave?"

"No where to stay, I can't just sleep on people's couches forever." Besides, staying in one place would kill me.

"You could come with me." Richie said. "Drive around the country, sleep under the stars, Life a'la Tozier." He was really only half joking.

"My mother would never let me."

"You're almost eighteen aren't you? She can't control you for much longer."

Eddie laughed. "You don't know my mother."

They sat there, looking at each other, hoping for a solution to just appear. But nothing came, and Eddie kissed Richie on the cheek before hopping out of the car and walking to the front door. He looked back as he opened the door. Richie gave a small wave and turned the keys in the ignition, driving away towards Bill's.

Eddie watched him go before closing the door behind him.