Mixtape

8

8

After what feels like hours, the Losers all drag themselves back up to the peak where they had left their bikes and belongings. Thankfully, nobody like Henry Bowers came along and stole their clothes, but that's the least of Richie's problems.
While everyone else gets dressed, he frantically scrambles with foliage to find the bag he's hidden. Dripping wet and soaked to the bone, Richie couldn't care less about dressing himself. He needs to find his backpack. He needs to find his music.
His heart rests at ease when he finds it tucked under a nonconspicuous branch. Checking to make sure everything is fine, he pulls out his Walkman and headphones, inspecting every surface for scratches or damage.
"Got any new songs?" Eddie Kaspbrak asks.
Richie lifts his head up, looking over his shoulder at the now completely dressed boy. He feels embarrassed and exposed at his lack of clothes, but Eddie pays no attention. Instead, he comes and kneels beside Richie, peering into the bag curiously.
"Y-Yeah..." Richie breathes out, offering the headphones over to Eddie. The small boy takes them in his dainty hands, sliding them over his head while Richie scrambles to get dressed. He's glad he picked out these clean shirts, he would look like a fool if he had stayed in the spaghetti-stained PacMan shirt he was originally wearing when Bill came over this morning.
Richie watches the others with anxious eyes, all of them joking around with one another and having fun. His attention comes back to Eddie, who is smiling up at the trees and focusing on the music. Richie watches the way that spotted kaleidoscopes of sunshine stream in through breaks in the leaves, kissing sunlight freckles all over Eddie's polka dot nose. Halos of light glow within his irises, and Richie has to physically pull himself away from staring too long.
"Richie, Eddie! We're going to bike down to the parlor!" Ben calls out, making Richie jump in alarm.
Hearing this over the music, Eddie slides the headphones off of one ear and says "Go on ahead! We'll meet you there!"
Stan gives Richie a curious look, but definitely one that isn't as hostile as his usual glares. Maybe he's warming up to me, Richie thinks. He quickly shakes his head, shutting the idea down before it can even take shape in his brain. Don't get too comfortable, dumbass. They're only tolerating you because Bev pities you.
Interrupting his thoughts, Eddie throws a towel over that smacks Richie right in the face. "Dry off!"
"You want me using your towel?" Richie holds the material in his hands, noting the distinct smell of bleach and disinfectant spray radiating from it.
"Yeah," Eddie nods, holding the tape deck in his careful hands. "Dry your hair. I don't want you catching pneumonia and giving it to me."
Richie falls silent, rubbing his messy hair with the towel as he watches the other boys start pedaling away. Richie feels a slight discomfort now that he's alone with Eddie, but he doesn't think Eddie is bothered at all.
"How come you stayed behind?" Richie asks, insecurity evident in his voice. He curses himself for sounding so stupid, reaching down and pinching the skin on his thigh as a form of punishment.
"What, and leave you all alone?" Eddie shakes his head. "What if a crackhead came and, like, murdered you?"
Eddie stands up, still far shorter than Richie, and clips the Walkman to his belt loop. Richie watches him with attentive eyes, still holding the towel up to his hair. Eddie smiles at the curls plastered against Richie's forehead, and with slow movements, he moves the headphones from his ears over to Richie's head.
"This is a good song," Richie comments, his head nuzzling into Eddie's palm as the boy pulls his hands away, just in the slightest way as an attempt to keep the human contact lingering for a second more.
"I've never heard it before, but I think I love it," Eddie grins, unzipping his fanny pack and pulling out hand sanitizer. Richie stares at him in confusion, watching as he undoes the lid and then hold it out patiently.
Richie's brain catches up, and he holds his hands out, palm side up. Eddie squeezes a bit of hand sanitizer onto each palm, and then places the bottle back into his fanny pack. Richie moves to rub his hands together, only to have Eddie take them between his own and start rubbing the gel all over Richie's hands.
Holy fucking shit. What the hell. Oh my god.
"You gotta get all the cracks," Eddie explains, his tiny hands working so gently against Richie's busted up knuckles. Richie's heart pounds in his chest, following time with the song that's playing on the tape. Play The Game, Queen. Eddie doesn't seem to notice the fact that Richie's fingers tremble, or that his cheeks blush redder than the polo shirt adorning Eddie's petite frame. "That's where all the bacterial diseases like to hide."
"O-Oh," Richie stutters, then feels like a fool for being so flustered. He can't pinch himself while Eddie is holding his hands, so he lets his left shoe collide harshly against his right ankle. It'll leave a bruise for certain.
"Okay, there we go," Eddie nods, releasing Richie's hands and reaching down for the volume. As he turns it up, Eddie says "Watch out."
Richie pulls the headphones down before they can deafen him, the music pounding so loudly that it can be heard clearly from the two miniature speakers. Richie wonders what exactly it is that Eddie is trying to get at, but he doesn't question the boy's methods at all.
"Your friends are probably waiting," Richie says. His words don't have their usual bite, but then again, he tends to speak much softer whenever it's with Eddie Kaspbrak.
"Let them," Eddie shrugs, taking Richie's hands once more. Richie inhales sharply, a soft rattle rumbling between his lungs that only reminds him to quit smoking. Eddie smiles up at him fondly with wide, curious eyes, ones that resemble every forest creature that Richie has ever seen. As if Eddie were a deer, Richie moves slowly. Don't scare him off. "Do you know how to dance?"
"Dance?" Richie repeats.
Eddie holds their hands up, two entwined messes where Richie's fingers appear ginormous compared to the fragility of Eddie's. Where Richie's knuckles have split open and bled from all the times he's punched brick walls, Eddie's delicate fingertips overlap the wounds and begin to heal what Richie assumed to be permanent damage.
"Dance," Eddie nods confidently.
Richie doesn't question it, just begins to move forward and backwards in time with the music. He's actually quite good, but the only living soul who knows is Beverly Marsh. Richie loves to dance, his hips can sync up with just about any song to play on MTV.
Eddie, however, is not as graceful. He trips and stumbles over Richie's shoes, his legs getting tangled when Richie takes broad steps, and he has to drop Richie's hands to tightly hold on to the tall beanpole's waist. He laughs and giggles, sounds that project much more clearly than the music spilling out of the headphones, and Richie can't help but admire the smiling boy with the most enamored gaze that Richie's face is capable of producing.
"Have you ever heard something so beautiful?" Eddie giggles, his hand sliding up Richie's chest to tap the headphones dangling around the taller boy's neck.
Richie stares, breathless and in shock. Eddie's giggle is more comforting than any song that Richie has on any of his mixtapes. This sound alone can fill up the cracks and crevices inside Richie's mind, this singular giggle can make him complete again.
"No," Richie exhales, an airy sigh that is full of all the flowers and bumble bees that the world has to offer. "No, I haven't."
Richie holds his arm up, spinning Eddie in the beams of sunlight that dance alongside the two boys. The cord of the headphones wrap around Eddie's waist, pulling and tugging Richie in until the two boys are chest to chest.
To anybody who happened to be passing by the forest trail that the two were waltzing in, it would be easy to confuse the two as childhood sweethearts.
At that moment, with Eddie's hands bunched up and squeezed against Richie's chest, a smile brighter than the sun itself beaming up at Rich, and eyes squeezed shut so tightly that the bridge of his nose crinkles, Richie understands exactly how Rick Astley felt when he wrote Never Gonna Give You Up.
"Eds," Richie lets out, too breathless to finish the rest of his name. He feels as if he is a balloon, inflating with a feeling he has never experienced before, his organs threatening to burst if this continues much longer.
Eddie cracks open one eye, his smile dropping and instead being replaced by a frown. "Do not call me that."
Richie feels embarrassed, quickly untangling himself from Eddie's embrace and reaching out to reclaim his tape deck. Berated with his own stupidity, Richie turns, packing his bag up far too quickly.
Eddie notices the swift change in moods, but he doesn't comment on it. Beverly had mentioned before that Richie is very temperamental. "Are you coming to the parlor with us?"
"No," Richie shakes his head, mounting his bike as if he can't leave fast enough. Richie can't bring himself to look at Eddie, feeling nothing but embarrassment and rejection burning in his bones. "Why would I? You're just a bunch of losers."
Eddie seems unfazed, after all, he's been hearing those words for years "Welcome to the Losers Club."
Richie stops, his hands nervously gripping the bike handles, and he says "Do you want me to come?"
"Wouldn't have invited you if I didn't want you to come, dipshit," Eddie remarks, propping his own bike up and hopping on, literally. Eddie's legs prove to be too short for the bike he's riding, but he still insists on riding it like the stubborn boy that he is.
"Fine, fuck, fine," Richie shakes his head. "Only because you're scared of crackheads killing you."
"It's a reasonable fear! Do you know what the rate of illness is within the stereotypical drug addict?" Eddie kicks off the ground, beginning to pedal through the clearing.
Richie follows him like a magnet being pulled to Eddie. "Who the fuck is doing studies on crackheads? Where the hell are you getting your information, Eds?"
"I said not to call me that!" Eddie huffs in frustration, picking up his speed as Richie begins doing circles around the kid.
"What else should I call you? Eddie Spaghetti? Spaghetti head?" Richie continues to tease him.
"If you call me that, I swear to god, I will snap your fucking glasses in half, Tozier," Eddie frowns. His little legs kick and pedal faster in order to keep up with Richie's, and as a result, his lungs burn with lack of oxygen.
"Ah, you love it, Eds!" Richie laughs. For a moment, he forgets about his embarrassment and just allows himself to experience this feeling. He thinks it might be happiness, but he's not too sure. He has the undeniable urge to smile, all Eddie's doing. This must be what happiness feels like. Happiness, belonging.
Eddie opens his mouth to spit out some quick response, but instead, he allows a smile to take over his features as he watches Richie ride his bike in zig zag motions all across the street.
When the two arrive at the familiar pizza/ice cream duo parlor, Richie stacks his bike against the rest of the clutter in front of the shop. He lingers by the door, waiting for Eddie to catch up, while the small boy carefully puffs off of his aspirator. Richie looks away, feeling a bit intrusive. Eddie might feel self conscious about Richie watching, so the tall boy focuses hard on the store's open hours taped inside the door.
"What are you waiting around for? Go in," Eddie's hand presses against Richie's spine, shoving the boy forwards just slightly. Richie smiles, following orders and holding the door open for Eddie to enter.
"What took you guys so long?" Mike asks the second that the two enter together.
"Got lost," Eddie says quickly, shoving into the booth next to Ben. "This idiot made me take a left down Knottingham street instead of a right."
Richie frowns, sliding in to the empty seat next to Stanley Uris. Why was Eddie lying? Was there something wrong with what they were actually doing? Does Eddie not want his friends to know about the way that the two of them danced in the warm sunlight?
It's not anything to be ashamed of.
Richie looks over at Eddie, who is now ordering an ice cream sundae with more sprinkles than humanly healthy. The boy's rosy cheeks seem to be in a perpetual state of flushed, and his tight fitting polo shirt hugs around the baby fat that he has yet to lose. Richie's chest burns with yearning, his ribs feeling as if they're harvesting a winter sunset, the orange and red hues bursting at the seams to spill out of Richie like a paintball explosion.
Is it?