Mixtape

14

14

9:01 pm.
Richie props his bike against the last house on the street with a red mailbox, circling around the yard to see the first floor window with a light on. He buzzes in excitement, reaching out and gently tapping on the glass.
Eddie's face appears in the curtains a moment later, the boy pushing the window upwards with his quaint arms. He leans in the window sill, grinning at Richie, and hums in amusement as his eyes travel up and down the tall boy's frame.
"Come to say goodnight?" Eddie asks, checking his watch. "You're a minute late."
"Got a bit caught up," Richie says, taking a step forward. "You know, it's hard to go anywhere without women chasing me."
Eddie rolls his eyes but still laughs, stepping backwards and saying "Come on then, come inside."
Richie hoists himself up into the window, colliding with Eddie's floor when he loses balance. Eddie watches the clumsy tumble with fond eyes, sitting on his bed and waiting for Richie to recover.
Richie looks around, noticing the flower wallpaper and shag carpet. Eddie doesn't have posters or photos hanging up like Richie does, however, there is a picture of all the losers sitting in a frame on his bedside table. Eddie's room is as neat and orderly that Richie would have expected, but that does not take the soul out of it. There's still Mad magazines stacked by the closet door, comic books lining the bookshelf that holds very few novels, and a small television set in the corner of the room.
"You have your own TV?" Richie gasps, admiring all of the Star Wars stickers that Eddie has put in lines around the thick box frame.
"Mhm. Do you want to watch MTV?" Eddie stands, but Richie quickly shakes his head.
"Usually I would say yes, but... tonight is for you, not the music."
"You didn't bring your Walkman?" Eddie asks, sounding genuinely shocked.
Richie stands up, approaching the fish tank in the corner of the room and watching the colorful aqua life swim around frantically. Eddie loves the shades of blue that glow upon Richie's skin, but he doesn't comment on it.
"No, actually. Just thought we could talk instead," Richie says, distracted by the fish. Apparently something else catches his attention, because he quickly crosses the room and starts flipping through the stacks of baseball cards that Eddie collects. "I use that thing as a crutch, I guess I'm trying to learn to walk on my own. Some asshole told me I need to learn how to be alone with my thoughts."
Eddie laughs and says "Whatever. I'm glad you're growing, but it's still okay to have a crutch. Whether it's pills, or music, I think it's all okay. Music is good, music is nice."
"Hm," Richie chuckles to himself, his fingers dancing along the line of pill bottles. At the very end, Eddie's aspirator sits, and Richie thinks about all the times that it's touched Eddie's soft lips. He feels jealous.
Eddie yawns, which reminds Richie of why he's initially here. He crawled in Eddie's window to say goodnight, yet the words haven't even left his mouth.
"Goodnight, Eds," Richie smiles, moving back towards the bedroom window.
Eddie gets up and approaches Richie. The tall boy thinks, just for a second, that he is going to be kissed for the third time. Though, what Eddie actually does instead is just as exciting.
He shuts the window.
"You want me to stay?" Richie's tone is hopeful.
"No, dipshit, I just closed the window so that you could smash through it and hospitalize yourself," Eddie scoffs, returning to his bed. He sits with his legs underneath him, and Richie can't help but notice how cute Eddie's pajamas shorts are. Especially when they're paired with the shirt of Richie's that Eddie is still wearing.
"Watch that mouth, Eds," Richie sits on the floor, staring up at Eddie like a follower worshipping his god. "If you don't knock it off, I'm afraid I might have to shut it for you."
"Oh?" Eddie smirks, leaning down on his bed and propping his head up with his hand. If Richie didn't know any better, he would think that Eddie is inviting him to join. "And how would you go about that?"
"I don't know, ask your mom," Richie responds.
Eddie shakes his head, sighing out "Again with the bad jokes. They're unoriginal, Richie! With that giant head of yours, you'd think you would be able to think of a better comeback, but I guess not."
"Ah, you love it, Eds!" Richie chuckles. The air is thick with sleepy yellows, the smell of old comic books, wet rocks, and the familiar trace of bubble gum Amoxicillin. It's a combination of things that are entirely true to Eddie's nature, and Richie wouldn't mind the smell lingering on his clothes. On an impulse, he asks "What do I smell like, Eddie? Jokes aside. Do I have a certain smell?"
Eddie lays back down, staring up at the ceiling with his hands folded over his chest. Richie admires the profile, his eyes outlining the edges of Eddie's features, and he feels the moon whisper to him; telling him to love this boy because nobody else has.
"Honestly?" Eddie asks, but doesn't wait for Richie to respond. "Cigarettes is pretty dominant, yeah. Cigarettes, but the shitty kind. Unfiltered. I didn't think there was a difference; tobacco is tobacco, but you smell... you smell different. It's a kind that I could learn to love, just like my dad's."
"That's really-" Richie begins to say, but then he's cut off by Eddie continuing to ramble his perfectly posed ballerina words.
"But that's not all. Once you get past that; it's like a concoction of smells that are easy to pick apart if you know what you're looking for. I don't think I would have guessed most of them if I didn't spend the night with you, but when I was taking a shower and I spotted your shampoo, I understood why the smell of coconuts often flowed from you. And when I saw the wrappers on top of your desk, I understood why your breath smells of polo mints. And when I saw the photo taped to your wall, showing Beverly wrapped up in your arms, I understood why you smelled like Marlboros and water lilies; her perfume. There are some things I haven't been able to pin down quite yet, like the aroma of dusty pages despite a single book not being in your room, or the leather smell that persists even though all of your furniture is suede. I don't know the source of these scents yet, but I'm waiting for the day that I do."
By the time that he's done, Richie is resting his head on the mattress and batting long eyelashes up at Eddie. He feels the air escape the room, and if Richie didn't know any better, he would assume that he's the one with asthma.
"You... you pay attention to all of those things?" Richie asks, the air inflated in his words surprising him with its twitterpated inflections.
"I do," Eddie rolls over, his eyes meeting Richie's on the tiny twin size mattress. "I... I don't know why. Is it bad?"
"No," Richie breathes out, his voice shaking. "Nobody has before, that's all. I didn't know there was so much to notice."
Eddie smiles, his eyes dropping down to the lower half of Richie's face and then dragging back up to the cracked coke-bottle glasses.
"Have you ever considered being a writer?" Richie asks Eddie, high on a euphoria that he hopes lasts forever. "You'd be great."
"You think? I don't know. Bill was always the one so good with words," Eddie sighs, batting his pretty brown eyes at Richie so innocently.
"Bill?" Richie scoffs. "Stuttering Bill?"
"Yeah," Eddie shrugs, then says "Everyone calls you Richie the Mouth, yet you've been sweet talking me all night. Reputation isn't everything, you know."
"Not true," Richie denies, but the smile on his face gives him away. He loops back around to their original subject, saying "I'm serious, Eds. You... You describe things beautifully. And the way you talked about falling in love this morning? It felt... It felt real. At least start a journal, or just write about your day, do something. Don't let those adjectives go to waste."
"It takes more than adjectives to be a good writer, Richie," Eddie says.
"You would know," Richie responds.
Eddie shakes his head again, and then another yawn slips from his mouth. When Richie sees this, he backs up and removes himself from leaning on the bed, resuming his position on the floor comfortably. Eddie looks at him, very curiously, as if he's trying to figure out what to say.
When he finds the right words, he asks "Richie? Can I ask a big favor?"
"Of course, kid," Richie nods, pushing his glasses off of his face while Eddie stands up to turn the light off.
"Since you didn't bring any music with you," the light flickers off. "Could you hum your favorite songs? I have a hard time falling asleep."
This isn't true, in fact, it is as far from the truth as it could get. Eddie takes sleep aid vitamins before bed in order to help lull him into a slumber, and they work just fine. Even now, as he fumbles back in between his bedsheets, he can feel his eyes growing heavy with each blink. Falling asleep is easy, however, staying asleep is a different story. Night terrors wait for him on the other side, calling Eddie's name in their seductive whispers. Eddie doesn't give in.
"Yeah," Richie nods, moving closer to the bed and lying on his side to get more comfortable. He hums quietly, the vibrations traveling through his chest and echoing between his ribs. He starts with an Elvis song, one that his father used to sing to his mother before they started drinking every night. Can't Help Falling In Love.
When Richie reaches the verse 'take my hand, take my whole life too' he realizes that Eddie must have been following the words in his head because the boy's hand falls from the bed. Again, without hesitation, Richie lets his hand engulf the tiny one and settle it onto his chest. He continues humming, and he hopes that Eddie can feel the vibrations in his hand against Richie's chest.
Soft. So soft. Richie feels as if all of the blood in his body has been replaced by honeysuckle sugar water. The two fall asleep quickly, Richie's dreams focused around peach colored cheeks and apple-rot stained eyes. Even in his dreams, the sun shines warm, and everything smells like firewood.
"Help," Richie hears, instantly pulling him from his dreams and throwing him into a hurricane of panic. The strained voice cries again, saying "H-Help. Stop... stop!"
He sits up, squinting in the darkness to see Eddie restlessly thrashing in his bed. Richie panics, reaching out and putting his hands on Eddie's chest. His lungs move like they're going to collapse, his body trembling underneath Richie's hands.
"Hey, hey, Eds, come on," Richie shakes the boy, nudging him awake and trying to fight the nightmare off. "Eddie. Eddie!"
Eddie's eyes fly open and he automatically swings at Richie. Richie, who has reflexes developed from the countless shots his mother would take at him, catches Eddie's hand by the wrist before it can come into contact with Richie's bruised face.
"Richie," Eddie realizes who it is, remembering where he is as reality begins to replace the state of dreaming that his nightmares hold him captive in. "I'm sorry-" deep inhale, "I'm so s-sorry."
"Hey, it's okay," Richie guides Eddie's arm back down. "Can you breathe? Hey, hold on."
Richie stands up, heading over to the desk and knocking pill bottles over as he blindly grabs for the aspirator he saw sitting over here. As he grasps at anything cylindrical, Eddie's breath becomes shorter and tighter, turning into frantic gasps. Richie moves faster.
When he feels the familiar shape, he trips over his feet trying to get back to Eddie. Eddie grabs at it, his hands wrapping around the tight fist Richie is holding the inhaler in, and the two guide the mouthpiece up to Eddie's gaping mouth.
Eddie breathes evenly, his fingers tightening on Richie's hand, and releasing the trigger as clumsily as he can. Relief comes within seconds, and when he finally feels as if his throat isn't on fire, he collapses backwards on the bed.
"Are you okay, Eds?" Richie asks with a voice full of concern. He leans over Eddie's body, hovering above the boy as if he can be some form of shelter.
"'M fine," Eddie whispers, his voice weak. "Just a nightmare, that's all."
"Are you sure?"
"Positive, Richie," Eddie says, his voice lacking any kind of confidence. "I get them all the time, this isn't anything new."
Richie stares at the boy, reluctantly saying "Okay," and sliding off the mattress. Before he can move very far, Eddie reaches out and clasps his hand around Richie's wrist.
"Don't," Eddie blurts out, fear still lingering in his words. "D-Don't... make me... sleep alone."
Richie stares at Eddie, the blue lights of the fish tank illuminating the boy's features. He looks terrified, he does, but not of the dream. He stares up at Richie with these kind of wide-set eyes that tell a story all on their own, and that is; he's afraid of what Richie will say. He's afraid of Richie rejecting him. He's afraid of Richie leaving.
Richie realizes in that very moment, when the suspense hangs in the air like paper lanterns, that it was never about the music that kept Eddie asleep. It was the fact that Richie was sleeping next to him.
So Richie crawls into the tiny bed, tucking his lanky limbs underneath the blanket and trying not to bump into Eddie. The small boy, however, takes this as permission to cross all boundaries. He nuzzles in close to Richie's side, picking up the boy's long arm and making himself right at home in the space between Richie's bicep and ribs. Richie doesn't mind, in fact, he thinks of how this is Eddie granting him the green light to hold back. So Richie does. He holds on, arms sliding around Eddie's waist, one hand slipping up his shirt to feel all the goosebumps that rise over the creamy skin coating his spine.
Richie's mind imagines the song that he was humming before, the one about falling in love. He thinks he's starting to understand the lyrics, but that in itself is a terrifying thought. Why does he think of Elvis songs when Eddie Kaspbrak pushes just a little bit closer? Why Eddie Kaspbrak? Why a boy?
"Your hands are freezing," Eddie murmurs, his voice shy and exclusive.
"Sorry," Richie moves his hands down Eddie's back, then lets them linger. "Can you tell me about your dream? Maybe it'll help to talk about."
Eddie sounds like he wants to object, but after a moment, he releases a sigh that hugs the curve of Richie's jaw.
"It's always the same. I don't know why, or where it came from, but it's been the same since I was a kid. I'm... I'm lost in the sewers... it's so dark, and disgusting, and nasty! It's nasty! I'm stepping around in the shit and piss of Derry, and then... the spider. Bigger than you could imagine, you know, bigger than a car. It rips my arm off and I have to... bleed out and die in the sewers. All alone. It's cold, and it hurts, and I can feel it. The loneliness, not the arm. I think that hurts worse."
Richie listens quietly, then says "There's no such thing as giant spiders, I think you'll be safe."
"That doesn't make it any less scary," Eddie sighs, reaching up and rubbing his own arm to remind himself that it's still there. Then, his hands settle on Richie's chest, and he plays with a loose thread straying from the rest of Richie's shirt. "I'm always scared that... if I die in my dream, I'll die in real life. I don't want to die alone in those sewers, Richie."
"Well," the boy whispers, nuzzling his face into Eddie's soft hair. "You won't die alone. At least, not tonight."
"I won't?" Eddie asks.
The world is a planet suspended in air, but Richie's world has the diameter of this bedroom. Nothing else matters in this moment except for Eddie Kaspbrak and his loud, gurgling fish tank, and his battery acid inhaler.
"No. If you die, you'll die in my arms. You aren't alone anymore, Eddie Spaghetti."