Chapter Text
When we get out of here...
Richie knew when he saw the doors that he had been the world's biggest idiot. For his whole damn life. And sure, maybe he had expected that once or twice, especially in his twenties, but it hit him like a brick when he opened that door and flicked on that little closet light.
Of course the one labelled "very scary" was a fucking closet.
Your dirty little secret.
And Eddie . . . Eddie was beside him. Seeing the legs-sans-everything-else dance toward them was not the scariest part of that door, and of course It knew that. It was fucking with him, but in a way that had him turning red. A way that had a familiar feeling of shame and dread wash over him, panic clogging his throat.
Afterwards, as they ran, he thought, I'm going to fix it. When we get out of here. That's what this was all about, right? Facing your fears. Not letting trauma define your life. Something like that, anyways.
He had been wasting his adult years. It all became clear when he came back to this town, when Eddie fucking Spaghetti Kaspbrak sat down next to him in that Chinese restaurant and they immediately fell into their old ways.
When he'd moved away, when he'd forgotten Eddie, he'd forgotten how to be brave, too. He tried dating girls, and when that didn't work, he'd had a few one-night stands with guys he didn't give a shit about and just made him feel worse. Lately, he hadn't even been able to bring himself to do even that, and would spend his nights alone, drinking, writing material that he would never even show his agent.
I need to tell him, Richie thought, almost desperately. When we get out of here.
But then it was too late.
As Eddie lay there, the light fading from his eyes and the blood pulsing from his limp form, Richie sobbed over him. "I love you," he whispered into Eddie's ear, long past the point that his confession would be heard. "I fucking love you."
He was the biggest idiot in the goddamn world.
#
There were voices, yelling, calling for an ambulance. Everything was hot and too cold and pain, oh dear god, the pain.
It was easy to slip back into the dark.
Then, bright lights. More yelling. Too loud. He was put on a bed, and he felt relief. Maybe now they would let him rest, turn off the lights . . .
But then the bed was moving. Like it was on wheels.
"—stab wound, severe puncture going all the way through, could have a collapsed lung."
The lights above him whizzed by and he understood. It must be the Deadlights.
But, wait. What was that? The Deadlights? He shook his head, tried to speak, couldn't.
"—Going into shock, somebody—"
A mask was lifted over his face and he tried to swat it away. Hands gripped his wrists and held them down and he writhed on the bed. He had to get away, get out of the Deadlights.
But then the darkness carried him away again, and it was all too easy to let it do so. He was so tired.
So tired.
I love you. I fucking love you.
#
When he opened his eyes again, he was in a bright room, but it was sunlight pouring in through the window beside him. He was lying down in a cot with an uncomfortable blanket. Everything smelled sterile, and he found that oddly comforting and disturbing at the same time.
Hospital. The word floated to the top of his mind like debris in a storm drain. He was in a hospital.
Someone was sitting beside him, in a chair. The man was asleep, slumped over so his chin was resting on his own chest, and his glasses, with thick dark frames, were sliding down his nose.
He wanted to reach over and push them back up, but when he tried to lift his arm, his whole body was wracked with pain. He hissed in a deep breath and looked down at his bandaged chest. What . . . what happened to him?
Wait. Who . . . was he?
Holy shit. He couldn't remember his name.
"Oh my fucking god," he whispered, his breathing coming out in painful tight pants. His hand fluttered to his chest. "Wh-who the fuck am I? What am I doing here? Hello?"
The last word he tried to holler, but found his voice was too hoarse and he tried to keep from coughing. As it was, the supressed coughs were agony, and only added to the panic rising in his throat.
The man in the chair started, his head shooting up.
"Eddie!" he exclaimed. He was at his side in milliseconds, grasping his hand . . .
"Eddie, oh my god, oh my fucking god, you're awake, you're alive," said the man. The panic quelled a tiny bit as tears filled the man's eyes. Eddie . . . ? Was that his name? It sounded like it could be right. But then who was this? He couldn't find a name to match the man's face, but . . .
His smell was familiar. The cologne, the sweat underneath it, the shampoo in his hair. He looked down at where their hands intertwined and he remembered the barest sliver of a voice in the dark.
I love you.
"What's happening? Why am I in a hospital?" he asked the man. "Why can't I remember anything? My name . . . I can't remember my own name."
His hands were trembling. The man with the glasses grabbed his other hands too to stop the shaking. He nodded down at him even as tears streaked his cheeks and his face twisted as he tried to keep from sobbing.
"The—the doctor's say you have amnesia. It's temporary, so don't worry, but it can be scary. You were . . . were in a really bad accident. But you came out of your coma fairly quickly so the damage shouldn't be too long-lasting."
The man released one of his hands so he could swipe the tears from his eyes and run a hand over his snotty nose.
"Ugh, gross," the man—Eddie?—said, grimacing.
The other man laughed, but halfway out it turned into a sob and he hunched over, shoulders shaking. Eddie found himself wanting to comfort him, but he didn't even know his name . . . But he must have, before. This was clearly someone very special to him.
"Sorry," the man said. "I know you don't need this right now, I just . . ." He let out a deep breath. "Your name is Eddie. Eddie K-Kaspbrak. You're a risk assessor, you live in New York and—"
He trailed off again in a choked, hiccuping kind of sob. Eddie squeezed his hand, not knowing what to say. Somehow, knowing that it was temporary amnesia made him feel a lot better. The other man squeezed back, and smiled, but it was a complicated smile. It looked like it hurt.
"You . . ." said Eddie, taking a stab at who the man must be. "Are you my . . . boyfriend?"
The man froze, then scoffed, looking at him with saucer-wide eyes.
"No . . . ?" Eddie guessed again. He would have shrugged if everything didn't hurt. Guess this guy wasn't who said he loved him. "Sorry, I just thought, maybe . . ."
The other man clearly wasn't listening. He was looking off into the middle-distance like he was having an out-of-body experience.
". . . No," he said slowly, finally, turning his gaze back on Eddie, though he still had a weird look in his eyes. "I'm Richie. We, uh, we were childhood best friends."
Oh. Well maybe it was still him, then. Friends loved each other, too. Especially best friends.
"Richie," Eddie said, testing it out. Yes, that fit the guy. The name sounded comforting, cozy, familiar. Someone he could hang out with. Richie.
"Were you there with me?" he asked, still trying to puzzle it together.
". . . Yes."
"What, uh, what happened?"
Richie's lower lip trembled before he pursed them and looked away. Eddie immediately regretted asking. He was about to tell him to never mind, he didn't really want to know anyways, but Richie managed to bite out an answer.
"You almost died," he said. It was barely more than a whisper. "You were . . . imp-impaled. God," he laughed, "I sound like Bill."
"I was impaled?" Eddie asked, horrified. "By what?"
Richie hesitated. "Um. Okay, so we were in this abandoned house and . . . it collapsed?"
Eddie frowned. "Why are you saying that like it's a question?"
Richie made a scrunchy sort of face. "Uh . . . no reason. I just . . ." He pursed his lips again. "I don't like to remember."
Eddie swallowed. Wow, he felt like a dick. "Sorry," he said.
Richie laughed again. "What the fuck? No. You don't need to be sorry, man. I'm just . . . I'm so fucking glad you're alive."
"Hey, I'm glad I'm alive too."
They grinned at each other, and Eddie found his own eyes welling up for some reason. He let his head sink back into the awful hospital-grade pillows and shut them, still smiling. He rubbed his thumb in circles around one of Richie's knuckles.
"Eds?"
Eddie hummed. "Ugh, don't call me that," he said. There was a long pause. "I'm just tired," he added. "Don't worry."
"Okay," came the choked reply.
"It's okay," Eddie murmured, trying to hold onto consciousness just a little bit longer. "I'm okay."
The last thing he was aware of before he succumbed to sleep again was Richie running a hand through his hair and whispering something that Eddie could almost, but not quite, make out.