serendipity {sequel to pop} || reddie

quatorze

Notes: the motivation has been GONE. sis is DEAD. but I'm trying to write new chapters. sorry for all the long waits :/

Richie wakes up to a less-than-ideal situation. He's got a massive hangover, he's just had a rather disturbing nightmare, it's around three in the morning, and he has to piss really bad, but Eddie's got him in a death grip. Eddie's like a dog, in the sense that once he cuddles up against Richie and falls asleep, it would be a crime against humanity to disturb him.

So Richie tries not to commit a crime against humanity, worming his way out of Eddie's arms as gently as possible. He miraculously manages to leave the bed without his usual clumsy nature stepping in, and he pauses for a second to thank the universe for bringing him the beautiful creature asleep in front of him. Richie grabs his glasses and uses the bathroom quickly, hurrying back into the main room only to find that Eddie has woken up. He's huddled up in the corner of the bed, knees drawn to his chest, eyes wide and face pale, trembling the tiniest bit as his chest rises and falls dramatically.

"Richie." Eddie says in a broken voice upon seeing his husband, and Richie rushes to his side. He hasn't seen Eddie so small and scared in a long time.

"What is it, baby, what's wrong?" Richie asks, wrapping his arms around Eddie and pulling him into his lap.

"I swear I saw It." Eddie whispers, arms banding around Richie's torso, hands clutching onto Richie's shirt, eyes darting nervously around the room. "The fog... I swear..."

Richie gets this. Eddie's had to deal with his wild, thrashing nightmares on multiple occasions, where Richie wakes up screaming in that awful moment of fear and panic where it's nearly impossible to distinguish between dream and reality. And then Eddie holds him and he calms down (usually- the first time Eddie tried to hold him, Richie had felt trapped and had panicked even more). It didn't happen often, but Richie had had some destructive people darken his door in college, some of whom Eddie still only knew the surface-level information of. It was the one thing Richie almost never talked about, that he would avoid speaking about at all costs.

Richie kisses the top of Eddie's head, squeezing him a little tighter. "Just a nightmare, love. I'm here to protect you, just like you're here to protect me. We've got each other's backs, yeah?"

"Y-yeah." Eddie clings to Richie like his life depends on it as his panic slowly subsides. He feels drained, and he's angry at himself for tiring himself out immediately after waking up.

"I'll beat the shit out of that fog for you." Richie says quietly, and Eddie giggles a bit. He disentangles himself from Richie's embrace, lying back on the bed and motioning for Richie to do the same.

Once Richie does, Eddie returns to his previous death-grip, winding his arms around Richie's body and pulling him in close. Richie tosses his glasses on the nightstand before snuggling up next to Eddie and falling asleep.

They only get in a few more hours, however, before they reluctantly get up at around seven in the morning to get ready for Memorial Park. They each shower and dress casually, a sort of grim resignation hanging in the air. Eddie complains about not being able to go on his morning run (and Richie teases him about being a health nut, which he really is- at this point, he basically has the body of a Greek god), but it's halfhearted.

They're going to talk about It today. It didn't happen last night, everyone was too drunk and too happy; but today, it's fitting to have the conversation, as everyone is hungover and gloomy.

The Losers Club meets at Memorial Park at around nine in the morning, all looking exhausted.

"Did you all have nightmares?" Beverly is the one to bring it up, and everyone in the group nods.

"Well, I guess It's hopping right into action." Bill sighs, pressing his palms over his tired eyes.

"Yeah. It." Richie says. "Wanna tell us what the fuck is happening with that, Mike?"

Mike hesitates for a moment, looking around at his old friends. "Well... It's back in Derry."

"How do you know?" Bill interrupts.

"Six children missing already." Mike answers grimly. The group goes deathly silent, and it feels like the sun is dimming. "This isn't a coincidence. We left too early last time. The ritual didn't work."

The ritual didn't work, bounces around in Eddie's mind. It's something he's never considered, too scared to even admit that it's a possibility.

"It worked." Bill shakes his head, and the group all looks at him confusedly. "I just didn't kill It. But the ritual worked, if I remember... It surrendered, but It didn't die."

"And It came back." Beverly says, eyes cast down at the ground as dull fear courses through her veins, through all of their veins. And it is dull, this fear; it's not panic, it's not screaming and gasping, it's the realization that something awful is going to happen, and that you are utterly powerless to stop it.

"Alright. Okay." Richie nods slowly, then shakes his head. "No, hold on- you called us all back to fight this... this fucking evil... thing, because of a promise we made as a bunch of sixteen and seventeen year olds?"

"Listen, Richie." Mike sighs a little. "Whatever happens, you've all already made good on your promise. You came back. So going forward, I have no expectations."

The group is quiet for a bit. It's almost a tender moment, but then Richie speaks again.

"Fuckin' A." He mutters, pulling his car keys out of his pocket. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm getting the fuck out of here before I get murdered."

"Sounds like a good plan." Eddie looks up at his husband. He knows Richie will stay if he stays, but does he want to stay? "I'm sorry, Mike. I just..."

"We're not going to give up our whole fucking lives to get killed by a space alien we haven't seen in fourteen years." Richie says bluntly, and Eddie looks down at the ground, guilty.

"Richie, come on. Other people are going to die." Bill argues, face a whirlwind of complex emotions, and understandably so. His connection with death caused by It is too real, too close.

"Other people die all the time, it's not my problem." Richie shoots back, the volume of his voice raising just a bit, and Eddie puts his hand on his Richie's arm to calm him.

"Richie, quit it." He says, voice firm. Sometimes it's impossible for Richie to read a room, being so emotionally constipated himself, so a lot of the time Eddie has to help him out with it.

"What?" Richie whirls around to face him, wearing an expression of anxiety and anger and pain. Eddie frowns at him. Richie only gets this way when he's really upset, and Eddie hates this mood of his- whiny, childish. Richie takes a breath at Eddie's stern expression. "Look, guys, I love you, I do, but just... I can't stay in Derry."

"We're all hurting, Richie. It sucks to be here for all of us." Beverly says.

"It does, but..." Eddie releases Richie's arm, wrapping his own arms around himself. "I can't stay here. I can't." Eddie repeats Richie's words anxiously, feeling much too cold for the warm weather.

"One more day." Ben proposes. "One more. Let's all walk around town, find out what all is happening. Just one more day, and then if you want, you can leave."

"That sounds fair to me." Mike nods.

"Fine." Richie agrees reluctantly. "One more. That's it. Me and Eddie are out this bitch."

"Eddie and I." Stan corrects, and Richie looks at him for a second, a small smile playing across his lips. Stan smiles back a little, but his eyes tell a different story. He's absolutely terrified. He doesn't know if he can do this.

"Eddie and I are out this bitch." Richie repeats, slinging an arm around Eddie's shoulders, spinning his car keys around his middle finger- which is the only one up. "Bye, Losers."