Chapter Text
Eddie was nearly asleep when he heard the quiet tapping on his window. Had he not been used to his friends sneaking over in the middle of the night, a tap on his window probably would have felt straight out of his worst nightmare. “Worst nightmare” being relative, of course, because what even constituted as his worst nightmare anymore? Every night was filled with terror of red balloons, clowns, lepers, and twisted bodies in refrigerators.
He pulled himself out of bed and opened the window, allowing Richie to climb through. Eddie flicked on his lamp, his stomach dropping at the sight of Richie’s face. He was sporting two black eyes, one swollen shut, a split lip, and a gash above one of his eyebrows. Blood had dripped from his brow all the way down his neck, staining the top of his shirt.
“Holy fuck, man,” Eddie whispered, rushing over to Richie to try and see his injuries better. “Are you- what- we need to clean you up.” He grabbed Richie’s arm, pulling him silently out of his room and into the bathroom across the hall, careful not to wake his mother.
Eddie closed the door behind them, Richie sat on the toilet lid, still not saying a word. Eddie rummaged in the cupboard for the first aid kit, trying not to have a panic attack about Richie’s face.
He grabbed a clean cloth, wetting it under warm water. He walked over to Richie and started carefully wiping the blood from his face. Richie winced at the contact but didn’t say a word. There was blood all over Richie’s hand. Eddie pulled his sleeve up to see a long gash on his forearm. He wiped the blood away there too.
“Who did it?” Eddie found himself asking, just to break the silence.
Richie shook his head.
“ Who ?” Eddie pressed, pushing a lock of hair, matted with blood, out of Richie’s face.
“My-” Richie started, his voice cracking. He cleared his throat, taking a shaky breath. “My dad.”
“What the fuck?” Eddie pulled back to look at Richie’s expression to see if he was joking or not. “Has he done shit like this before?”
Richie nodded. “Sometimes,” he admitted. “Nothing- nothing visible .”
Eddie was silent for a minute, continuing to dab at Richie’s face. “What makes this time different?”
Richie let out a surprisingly loud laugh at this, his open eye watering. “He found my magazines .”
“Didn’t realise your dad was such a prude,” Eddie commented, grabbing a new, wet cloth and some disinfectant. “This’ll sting.”
“They- I’m-” Richie closed his eye, pulling his face away and taking a few deep breaths through his nose. “They were gay magazines, Eds.”
“Fuck your dad,” Eddie spat, his heart clenching at Richie’s confession. Five years of crushing on a dude, and you find out he likes guys too? You’re going to be a little excited, even if the guy is bleeding all over the floor. “Seriously, what a fucking asshole. What a stupid reason to hurt someone. Let alone his own kid-”
“Eddie, shh, your mom is going to hear, and you know how she gets when she hears my voice...”
“The “your mom” jokes don’t work too well anymore,” Eddie pointed out with a quiet laugh.
“I still have room in my heart for your mom,” Richie said with a smirk. Eddie dabbed the alcohol on Richie’s lip, earning a gasp.
“I would offer to let you live here, but you know how my mom gets. Stan’s family could probably-”
“I’m leaving Derry,” Richie told him, grabbing his wrist to stop Eddie’s assault of his wounds. Eddie felt his stomach drop, his throat clenching. Richie was just going to- going to leave him?
“Where-” it was Eddie’s turn for his voice to get stuck in his throat. “Where are you going?”
“Dunno, LA maybe?” Richie whispered, still not letting go of Eddie’s wrist. “Leaving in the morning.”
“I see,” Eddie whispered, pulling his wrist out and getting back to work on Richie’s face. He did his best to avoid looking Richie in the eye. He could feel the tears pricking away at his eyes, but he blinked them away quickly.
“I want you to come with me,” Richie told him, grabbing his chin and forcing him to make eye contact. Eddie’s heart skipped about seven beats. “If not,” he whispered, quieter, less confident this time. “I just want one more night with you.”
A heavy silence hung in the bathroom, but Richie didn’t let Eddie break the eye contact. Normally, a million thoughts, all the “what if’s”, would have been running through Eddie’s mind. Right now, however, the only thought running through Eddie’s mind was that this would be a great time to kiss Richie.
“You don’t-”
“My mom wakes up at six on Wednesdays, so we’ll have to be gone before then.”
“What?” Richie asked, his eye roaming all over Eddie’s face, probably searching for a hint of humour. He wasn’t going to find any.
“We need to be gone by six,” Eddie repeated. “My mom will have the entire police department searching for me by six o’ four, so we should get a head-”
Richie apparently had similar thoughts to Eddie, because the next thing Eddie knew, Richie’s lips were pressed to his. Eddie should probably be more worried at the fact Richie’s blood was literally in his mouth but his brain was too busy flatlining for him to care.
Richie pulled back quickly, his eyes going wide. “Sorry. Fuck- shit-” Eddie dropped onto Richie’s lap, his knees going onto either side of Richie’s hips, and pressed their mouths back together. Richie’s hands immediately went to Eddie’s back and pulled him closer.
Eddie swiped his tongue along Richie’s bottom lip, the taste of iron filling his mouth. Richie gasped and Eddie pulled back away. “Sorry, I’m getting my spit in your cut.”
“You have my blood all over your face,” Richie laughed, grabbing the cloth from the counter and passing it over Eddie’s mouth and chin. “That’s fucking nasty.”
“You don’t have like, HIV, right?” Eddie asked, suddenly remembering a thousand and four reasons why you shouldn’t put other people’s blood in your mouth.
“No, my blood won’t kill you, Spaghetti,” Richie told him, running his hand over the side of Eddie’s face. “You’re serious about coming with?”
“Yes,” Eddie said, smiling softly. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Thought your smart ass was going to community college or something,” Richie said, dropping his hands to Eddie’s thighs. “Or at least that’s what your mom wants, isn’t it?”
“I applied to a bunch of universities outside of Maine,” Eddie admitted, leaning over to grab a bandage from the first aid kit. He peeled it open and stuck it on the cut above Richie’s eye. “I never wanted to stay here.”
“UCLA didn’t happen to be one of those, did it?” Richie asked. Eddie smiled, slipping off his lap and starting to clean the counter.
“Perhaps,” Eddie told him, excitement rushing over him. He grabbed Richie’s hand, pulling him from the washroom, back into his room. “And perhaps,” he rummaged through the drawer in his desk, pulling out the letter from UCLA. “I got accepted.”
Richie grabbed the letter from him, his eyes going wide. “A full ride? Eddie that’s perfect.”
“I know I am,” Eddie teased, pretending to flip his hair over his shoulder. “Shit, I need to pack.” He looked to Richie, who was sitting on the edge of his bed, smiling at the letter. “Didn’t you bring anything?”
“I have a bag in my car. Parked around the corner so your mom wouldn’t see.”
“Smart.” Eddie pulled his duffle bag out from under his bed, and stared at his closet, not knowing where to start.
“Do you still have those red booty shorts?” Richie asked.
“No, dickwad. I’ve grown almost foot since I fit into those things.”
“Please, you grew maybe five inches, what are you? Five-six?”
“Five-seven,” Eddie told him through gritted teeth. He started rummaging through his clothes, pulling out an even selection of t-shirts and dress shirts, as well as both pants and jeans.
“That’s a lot of fancy clothes, Eds.”
“Yes, Rich, I’m going to university. I need to look half-decent.”
“It’s only July, you don’t need them yet,” Richie pointed out as if they were going to have the funds to just go shopping for all the clothes they might need right away. Eddie rolled his eyes, and walked over to his dresser, pulling out various pairs of socks and underwear. “Nice panties.”
“Every time you open your mouth, I regret agreeing to this,” Eddie muttered, continuing to pack. He filled his bag to the brim with clothes, and then pulled out a second duffle bag. Richie watched him quietly, before slipping off the bed and walking to the door. “Where are you going?”
“I’ll be right back,” Richie whispered, sneaking out the door silently. Eddie continued to pack in silence, listening for Richie to fuck up and blow their cover. When he returned five minutes later, Eddie hadn’t heard a sound.
“Thought you might want something out of here,” Richie said quietly, balancing a cardboard box on his hip as he closed the door. Eddie recognized the box instantly, feeling terrible that he hadn’t even thought about it. Richie set it down on the bed, and Eddie walked over, tracing his fingers over the messily written “Daddy”.
“Thanks, Chee,” Eddie whispered, opening the box carefully. There weren’t many things inside. After his father’s death, his mom had gotten rid of most of his dad’s stuff, claiming that it was just taking up space. She had kept one small box of things, valuables and things Eddie refused to part with. She had told Eddie he wasn’t allowed to open the box, and so he never did.
A photo lay on top, the corner ripped, deep creases across it from being carried around so often. In the photo, Eddie was riding on his dad’s shoulders, and his dad was laughing at the camera. It had been taken only a few months before his dad died. Eddie had carried the photo around everywhere for almost three years, until his mom found it and hid it away, claiming that it was only hurting Eddie more.
He handed the photo to Richie, and carefully rummaged around the box, looking for more items. Most of it was his valuables, watches, his wedding rings, things his mom had probably kept just in case they needed to sell things for money. There were a few more photos of Eddie with his dad, which he handed to Richie silently, without really looking at them.
Besides the photos, he also grabbed the dark green plaid shirt. His mom let him sleep with it for two nights after his dad died and then took it from him, because keeping it would only make it worse, apparently. He also grabbed a notebook full of his dad’s writing, and his favourite book that his dad would read to him. Maybe one day he’d read it to his own kid.
He closed the box, letting a single tear fall from his eye before he went back to the washroom to pack a toiletry bag. He also made sure to pack a first aid kit, with plenty of disinfectant, thinking of the nasty cut above Richie’s eye.
When he returned to his room, Richie had tucked the photos into the front of the journal and had started to collect the rest of the photos in Eddie’s room. Most of them were just the two of them, or with Stan, but there were a few of all of the Losers from when they were younger, and the last time Bev and Bill had come back to visit.
“Alright,” Eddie whispered, taking the photos from Richie and placing them in the notebook. He zipped it up into the second bag, along with his toiletries. “Alright, I- that’s all I need.”
“You sure?” Richie asked, grabbing Eddie’s bags and setting them on the floor. Eddie shook his head, the reality of the situation starting to sink in. Richie sighed, grabbing Eddie’s hand and pulling him onto the bed. “You don’t have to do this, Eds.”
“Yes I do, dipshit.”
“I don’t want to make you feel like I’m trying to force you into anything,” Richie whispered, ruffling Eddie’s hair. Eddie leaned forward, resting his forehead on Richie’s shoulder.
“I can either leave with you, or never see you again. I don’t really have a choice-”
“You do . You don’t have to-”
“I love you,” Eddie confessed, wrapping his arms around Richie. He crawled onto Richie’s lap, his head never leaving his shoulder. “I love you, Chee. Staying here isn’t an option. And that’s okay, because it’s dangerous here. I want to go somewhere where I can hold your hand, and take you on dates, and kiss you in the park. That would never happen here, and it’s so fucking stupid, but we have to leave if we really want to be happy.”
“I love you, too,” Richie whispered into his hair, rocking Eddie side to side. “I- fuck. Yeah. I want- I want that too. All of that. Yeah.”
“You really have a way with words,” Eddie laughed, pulling back just enough to press a chaste kiss to Richie’s mouth, avoiding his cut. “We should sleep.”
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Eddie’s alarm went off at 5:30, and he silenced it quickly, disoriented by the early hour. He sat up slowly, rubbing at his eyes. Richie groaned beside him, tapping the beside blindly for his glasses. “Last chance to back out, Eddie Spaghetti,” Richie mumbled, his voice deep from sleep. Something burned low in Eddie’s gut upon hearing Richie’s morning voice.
“I’m going to brush my teeth. How’s your face feel?” Eddie asked, clambering over Richie awkwardly, leaning down to press his lips to Richie’s cheek.
“Awful, but I can kinda see out of this eye now,” Richie murmured, sitting up and following Eddie to the washroom. Eddie looked around the room, make sure he had grabbed everything he needed, apart from his toothbrush and toothpaste. Richie grabbed the toothpaste, squirting some onto his finger and rubbing it over his teeth. Eddie rolled his eyes at him. Richie gave him a bubbly smile back.
It only took them ten minutes to get dressed and ready to leave. Richie grabbed Eddie’s bags, hoisting them out the window and onto the roof. They had decided to make their escape out the window because the front door would definitely wake Eddie’s mom up. Eddie stood in the middle of his room, running through a mental checklist of every belonging he’d ever had.
“Ready, Eduardo ?” Richie cooed, sitting on the window sill. Eddie nodded, staring at his desk. He considered writing a note for his mom, but there would be nothing to say that would comfort her.
“After you, Ricardo ,” Eddie said, gesturing for Richie to climb out the window. He took a deep breath and followed Richie out the window without looking back. He figured if he looked back, he might just have an anxiety attack.
The pair climbed down from the roof, trudging silently across the lawn. Eddie could feel his heart rate start to pick up, but he kept telling himself that it was excitement . He was just excited that he and Richie were running away together.
They put Eddie’s bags in the trunk once they reached the car, and Richie started to walk around to the driver’s side. Eddie grabbed his arm, stopping him in his tracks. “You can barely see out of that eye, I’ll drive for now.”
“Eds, I can drive.”
“Don’t call me that. Give me the keys,” Eddie argued, holding his other hand out for Richie. Richie sighed and handed the keys to Eddie. Richie hopped in the passenger side, and Eddie got in the driver’s seat, adjusting the mirrors.
“Mommy’s gonna be on our asses in six minutes, we don’t have time for your fucking mirrors,” Richie quipped, searching through his mixtapes that he stored in the glove compartment. Eddie glanced at the clock. 5:54. They needed to go.
He hit the gas harder than needed and took off down the road. Eddie tried to focus on driving, not looking at the passing houses that he would surely never see again. Richie finally found a tape and put it in the player, smiling to himself as the music began to fill the car.
They were halfway across the kissing bridge when Richie asked Eddie to pull over. Eddie listened without question, figuring Richie needed to take a piss. Richie hopped out, and then ran around, opening Eddie’s door for him. “Come here.”
Eddie followed him to the other side of the bridge. Richie ran his hand along one of the wooden beams, stopping once he found an empty area. He crouched down and pulled out his pocket knife, the one Bev had given to him for his birthday a few years ago. Eddie crouched beside him, watching as he carefully carved an R and a +, before handing the blade to Eddie.
“Vandalizing the place on our way out?” Eddie teased, taking the blade and starting off the letter E. He wanted it to look just as perfect as the letter Richie had done.
“One final ‘fuck you’ to this homophobic piece of shit,” Richie said, gesturing over his shoulder at Derry. Once Eddie was finished, the two stepped back, admiring their handiwork. Distantly, Eddie could hear sirens. “That’s our cue to leave.”
The boys climbed back into the car, Eddie still at the wheel. Richie leaned over, grabbing Eddie’s face with both hands and forcing him to make eye contact (not that Eddie minded). “I’m so happy right now,” Richie told him, his smile wider than Eddie had seen it in years.
“Me too,” Eddie told him, and then Richie was kissing him again. It was a fast kiss, but it held so much promise and hope that Eddie could still feel it tingling on his lips as they drove out of Derry forever.