Home (Reddie fanfic)

Chapter 15

It had taken them ten minutes to get through the trees and actually find the route that led back to civilization and that whole ten minutes had been full of Eddie muttering about how they would never have been able to find their way out of the forest without Mike's help, and how stupid Richie was. Richie wasn't offended of course, but he couldn't let Eddie keep calling him an idiot and so replied, "Eduardo if you don't shut the fuck up, I'm gonna have to tell your mom what a dickhead her son is, and she won't want to hear that while I'm fucking her." 

This earned him a hard shove in the shoulders, Eddie may have been tiny, but he sure as hell wasn't as weak as everybody though he was. He made sure to tell Richie that, as he laughed at the taller boy, who, for the second time that day ended up flat on the ground. Richie had scowled, plucking a few leaves out of his hair and jumping up, telling Eddie that he'd be getting him back, and was just about to leap on to the smaller boy, who had his eyes narrowed in challenge, when Mike decided it was best to not let whatever was going on play out, because Eddie didn't look like he would hold back against Richie, who was holding his scrawny limbs up in a boxers stance pretending to throw tiny uppercuts at Eddie's head.

 
"Guys... maybe you wanna not...do whatever this is just yet, we're not gonna get back to the farmhouse in time,"

"So?" Richie asked, his arms dropping to his sides,

"So my grandpa will throw out lunch out to the pigs."

"To the pigs?? The pigs like... eat the same food we eat?" Richie sounded genuinely surprised, which was a little concerning to both Mike and Eddie. 

"No dingbat they eat dogshit that they find in their pens... of course they eat the same food we eat," Eddie rolled his eyes, "It's all just food, now come on, I'm hungry too."

And with that they managed to make it to the farmhouse without too much of a scuffle and keeping the arguments minimal, well actually, they didn't get a chance to argue because mike spent the walk telling the boys a bit about himself, so that he wouldn't be bringing complete strangers to lunch.

They walked along the path up to a fair sized bungalow that sat next to a large field, littered with sheep. The field had a short length of barbed wire around it, to prevent them from escaping, but the wire didn't look strong enough to stop a small lamb from twisting it in just the right way, so it could leave, which explained the lamb sized hole in the far-left corner. On the other side of the bungalow was a large wooden farmhouse, from which they could hear all sorts of mooing, neighing, and bleating. Eddie wondered whether mike's family had ever gotten a quiet night of sleep with all the raucous going on, sleep was very important for the brains and the body, without a good rest they could get sick, and it could cause worse medical problems in the future. He was about to bring this up to Mike, when Richie spoke first.

"Hey who's that kid over there?" Richie squinted into the distance, "I thought you said you lived with your grandpa?" 

"I do," Mike said confused, turning to look where Richie was looking, with furrowed brows. His face relaxed into a smile when he caught sight of who Richie was talking about and called out to the small figure that was waiting by the bungalow, "HEY! Over here! Hi there ben!" He waved vigorously with a huge grin on his face, as the person turned around waving back, then began to make their way over. It took a few minutes, but the stranger ran over to where the boys were standing, panting a little, he stuck his hand out and said, "Hey, I'm Ben Hanscom,"

Richie immediately shook the boy's hand, giving him a smile, "I'm Richie, and this is Eddie," he pointed with his thumb at Eddie, who also shook Ben's hand, and then sanitized his own. Ben glanced at Eddie's little fanny pack with interest, and Richie noticed, adding in, "He always does that, don't be offended or anything. I'm sure he doesn't think you're a .... a living piece of bacteria, Ed's always thinking about health and other stuff,"