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Catfish

He knew there was no chance he was sleeping at all tonight.

They met on a chatroom for gay and bi-sexual teenagers to talk to each other in a safe place. It was full of teenagers that all had their own problems to deal with, and Eddie had finally typed out a little spec about himself, to which Richie had responded.

They hit it off so well that they created their own chat and exchanged numbers. Eddie was fifteen and Richie had just turned seventeen.

He never told anyone about Richie, he didn't want to get the whole, "online relationships are dangerous" talk and he definitely didn't want his mother finding out as she would ban him from the internet forever and take his phone way.

Which wasn't an option, not now that he had someone to talk to. Richie was like a breath of fresh air in Eddie's claustrophobic life. He was the sun in Eddie's darkness and the more they got to know each other, Eddie found himself falling more and more in love.

There was only one problem.

A big problem.

Eddie had never sent Richie any pictures of himself, at least not really. There were two, one of him at the age of fifteen, taken two months before they started talking, and another when he was seventeen, but it had half his face cut out.

It wasn't that Eddie was hiding something big from Richie, he wasn't, he was just who he said he was. The reason was simple. He wasn't good looking. His skin was a sickly pale colour, his hips were a little too chubby, his eyes too close together. His hair was dry and a ugly brown colour and he was short. He definitely was nothing compared to Richie, who sent him pictures all the time. Whether he was walking his dog, or taking care of his little sister Rosie, Richie had a picture for it.

Richie had asked him on multiple occasions after he had graduated High School to meet up, to come to New York and visit him, but he always chickened out by making up some lame excuse.

He was going to his Aunts in Virginia.

His mother was sick.

He was working.

The more Richie asked, the more pathetic the excuses became. Eddie could tell that Richie was becoming impatient with him, after all, they had been talking for almost six years now. Eddie was three weeks away from being twenty-one and Richie was twenty-two.

Eddie never thought that Richie would ever contact Catfish though.

Yet here he was, walking to the public park at noon on Saturday morning, each step becoming more slower than the last. He could see the statue in the distance and his heart rate picked up when he saw all the cameras surrounding the area where Bill, Stan and....Richie were standing. From where Eddie was he could see Richie's thick curly hair, he could see he was sporting one of his infamous Hawaiian shirts and his heart filled with affection for him.

The affection was quickly replaced with fear as he realised that this was it. This was the moment that he lost the best thing that ever happened to him.

Eddie wasn't sure he was ready.

Richie Tozier was a dramatic son of a bitch, anyone who was close friends with him would tell him that. He starred in most of his High School plays and even went on to study Drama at Tisch University in his home city of New York. Yes, Richie was all about the dramatics, but when it came to Eddie Kaspbrak he would go to the lengths of the earth to meet him.

So to him, writing in to Catfish was the least dramatic thing he could have ever done.

Eddie was, in one word, amazing. He had came into Richie's life during one of the darkest periods and if not for him, Richie wasn't sure he would be where he was today. For the day he first started talking to Eddie, was the same day his parents told him they were getting a divorce.