"Hungry Eyes is my favorite," Eddie tells him.
Richie smiles, stocking the shelves with cans. His boyfriend sits on the step ladder to his left, but Richie doesn't need it anyways. His legs are long enough to allow him to reach the top shelf on his own.
Eddie reads the back of the mixtape cover for the seventeenth time in the past ten minutes, memorizing the tracklisting. "There are a few I don't know."
"So go home and listen, you dweeb," Richie laughs. He continues stocking cans, his new part time job at the market filling his pockets with money he has no idea what to do with.
Eddie looks up, his eyes more visible beneath his new haircut. His hair is still feathered and messy, but now his face is clearer. The freckles are coming forth with summer approaching. His skin is going to bloom.
"What? No. I haven't seen you in, like, three days. I wanna hang out for a bit," Eddie says.
"I get off at four," Richie promises, putting the cans down to approach the sitting boy. He ghosts his hand along the outside of Eddie's cheek, his fingertips trailing down his neck to touch the necklace his ring is on. He remembers this beaded chain, he remembers the way it hung from Henry's throat with an arcade golden band slipping off of it.
"That sucks," Eddie scoffs. "I wish you got the job at Blue's. We should kick Bev's ass for stealing that from you."
Richie smiles and shrugs. "She didn't steal anything. Bevvie was the one who showed me Blue's in the first place, she should have it."
"But still..." Eddie mumbles under his breath. "I'm leaving next week, Rich. I want to spend some time together before I go."
The road trip.
Richie sighs, turning back to the shelves as he resumes working. They're not kids anymore. Richie's got a job, he's in therapy, and he talks to Wendy once a month about volunteering down at the youth center to help troubled kids. Eddie's gotten into the university up in Bangor. Him and Bill start in the fall, so this is their last summer to just go wild. Henry got Eddie's car working, so the plan came together pretty quickly after that. Eddie and Bill leave next Thursday. Richie's been counting the days down in his head, a silent death sentence looming in the back of his mind.
"You won't be alone," Eddie says. He knows what's on Richie's mind, he can practically read his other half like a well described novel. "Stan and Mike are losers and will always want to hang out, and Ben will come check on you when he's not at practice. I don't know about Beverly, though."
Richie shrugs again. Since the breakup, Beverly has been distant. She's "reflecting" and "looking inside herself" to "make a change". Richie feels as if she's too embarrassed to show her face around the boys again, or maybe it's her pride that she just can't swallow down. Either way, she's focused on her studies more than ever. She doesn't have time for anybody these days.
"It just feels... empty. You and Bill will be gone, and that's just... it'll feel weird."
Eddie reaches out to take one of Richie's limp wrists, bringing it up to kiss the boy's ugly, scarred knuckles. "You know what day I'm coming home?"
"July 28th," Richie reassures himself.
"There we go. Just repeat that in your head, over and over," Eddie tells him, promises to return embedded in his skin wherever Eddie's lips touch.
It's hard to believe anybody when they tell him things like that. Richie doesn't believe in things like "I'll be right back." If someone leaves him, he assumes it's permanent. He's got too much trauma to just blindly trust like that nowadays.
"Maybe I'll keep Hen and Vic out of trouble," Richie mumbles another idea.
Eddie smiles, though it's a bit forced. Henry got a job working down at the construction company on the west side of the river. His days are going to be spent breaking up concrete while Victor scoops ice cream at the parlor. Nobody really has time for Richie anymore, but Eddie doesn't want the boy to feel like he needs to be babysat.
"You'll be fine," Eddie promises. "I still think you should come with."
Richie gestures his arms around at the food aisle they're in, cheesy disco music playing on the overhead speakers. "Can't leave here. Besides, Sharon would definitely get empty nest syndrome and go crazy or something."
"Yeah," Eddie laughs, "My mom's going to flip out. She'll go insane and call my aunties and everything. You better be prepared to be apart of the search party lookin' for me... again."
"I'll be front of the line," Richie chuckles, but then drops the act when he sees his manager pass by the aisle.
Eddie notices too, very aware of how frustrated the bald man gets whenever Richie slacks off for too long. The tiny boy stands up and picks a can of peas off the shelf, mumbling a thank you to the very nice employee who helped him locate it. Richie tries to hold back a smile as he nods and sends Eddie up to the register. Not exactly their best performance, but they're just teenagers, not actors.
As the manager walks away, Eddie runs back and presses his hand right against the front of Richie's lap. "I'll see you later. And I'll definitely see you later."
Richie flusters, pushing on Eddie's shoulders. "Do not talk to my dick in public, you freak," he says in a hushed voice, but he can't help the grin he gets when it comes to Eddie's idiocy.
Once Eddie is gone, his smiles fade and the monotony of his life resumes. This is what he's got to get used to, for his days will lack the tiny smiles that keep him company on his shifts. All he'll have are scattered phone calls from various payphones across the country paired with the postcards he's bound to collect. He won't have Eddie pushing him forward anymore, he'll have to rely solely on himself. The thought of being independent terrifies him.
Richie was independent once. Fed himself, did his own laundry, faked his mother's signatures while nobody else was home. It's a terrifyingly lonely feeling, he doesn't want that anymore. Not when he's found the one.
Richie clocks out at four o'clock sharp, then walks home to his suburban safe haven. He can't leave Derry, not with a home like this. His biggest fear is that it won't be standing here much longer if he were to look away from it for too long. He doesn't want these floorboards to forget the creak of his footsteps.
"Hey-o, champ!" Zack greets Richie as he comes in. "I just got home myself, how was work?"
"It was fine," Richie shrugs the windbreaker off his shoulders, sighing heavily.
"Go say hello to your mother and then make sure to wash up," Zack advises, then takes his seat in the recliner chair he'll inevitably fall asleep in.
To get to the kitchen, you need to pass through the dining room. While doing so, Richie pauses briefly to greet Eddie sitting at the table. Eddie is fumbling with a Walkman, rewinding to specific part. Richie stops, presses a kiss to the top of Eddie's head, and then sets forth to the kitchen to find his mom.
"Oh, there you are!" Sharon looks up from where she was whittling a piece of wood above the sink. Richie eyes the sharp knife in her hands, taking cautious steps forward. She looks down and blushes, dropping her items off and holding her hands out to him. "I've got a couple college brochures for you to look at, dear!"
"Ahh..." Richie trails off, spinning on his heel to duck out of this conversation before it can begin. "Maybe later, ma. Eddie and I are going to head upstairs and work on some homework."
Eddie lifts his head at the mention of his name, smiling brightly to cue himself into the conversation.
"Yeah, right, 'doing homework' my ass," Zack scoffs from down the hall. "Wear a condom, boys! I don't care if there's no uterus!"
Richie groans in embarrassment while Eddie giggles, so Richie gathers up his boyfriend and shoves him up the flight of stairs. Richie heads right, while Eddie goes left.
"I'll only be a moment," Richie whispers, nodding his head towards Bill's room.
Eddie glances towards the door and hears the sad synthesizer of Cyndi Lauper spilling out from beneath the frame, so he nods and says "Give him my best wishes."
Richie knocks on the door and waits for a few moments before entering. Bill is lying in bed, his geology textbook hanging on his stomach. Richie fidgets on his feet for a bit before taking his seat next to his depressed brother.
"You wanna come hang out and listen to records with me and Eds?" Richie asks. He doesn't make a joke, he doesn't do a funny voice. He simply invites someone who is feeling more alone than ever.
"No," Bill scoffs. "Don't want to watch you two be in love."
"We're not... that bad," Richie rolls his eyes. "I'll keep the handholding to a minimum."
Bill is silent after that, so Richie moves the book off of his brother and lies his head down on the male's tummy. It's flat, sure, but there's still some squish to it. Richie only just recently started regaining his own squish, and it's moment like these that remind him that it's normal for his body to have fat in extra places.
"I don't know what to do," Bill sighs. "S-S-She was all I wanted. What now?"
"You find something else to want. You heal. You learn from this. You grow. You move on," Richie says. "Whether she comes back or not... you can't control that. If it's going to happen, it'll happen. If it doesn't, it doesn't. You can't control that outcome so there's no point in listening to You Give Love A Bad Name on repeat, dude. You don't have to forget her, you just have to remember how to live without her."
"Without her..." Bill trails off, brushing some hair off of Richie's forehead. "I guess you've gone through this before with Eddie, huh?"
"Just a lil'," Richie smiles. He sits up and asks "You gonna be okay, big guy?"
"Probably. I feel like... I feel like I broke the losers up. I gave Mike the leadership right as it was all crumbling down."
"We'll always be losers," Richie says. "We can make a pact later, but for now, you've gotta smoke up."
"I went through all my-" Bill is cut off by Richie tossing a pack of smokes towards him that he swiped from his coworker in the break room. Bill's eyes light up, and Richie supposes it's just the little things getting his brother through the day. "Thank you, Rich. Oh... and try not to be so loud?"
"I'm not-"
"Eddie is," Bill says, then glances away. "I still don't even know how that... works... like... do you just rub-"
"God, Bill, gross," Richie scrunches his face up. "Don't ask me that kinda shit. It's weird. You're my brother."
Bill rolls his eyes and Richie quickly leaves out of embarrassment, their sibling dynamic being as true to biological brothers as possibly could be. Richie pushes his own door open, spotting his boyfriend sitting on the bed with a book in his hands.
"Hey," he says when he looks up.
"He'll live another day," Richie brushes off the inevitable question about Bill before he can even ask.
"He just needs to get out of here," Eddie shakes his head and returns to the book he's reading. "This town makes people crazy. It'll be good for us once we leave."
That fucking roadtrip.
Richie's thought process has time to cycle through the pity party it usually throws when he imagines his boyfriend leaving. Once he pushes those feelings aside, he grows frustrated with the idea of not being able to touch what's his.
He crawls onto the bed, grabbing the book out of Eddie's hands and throwing it over his shoulder. Eddie looks up in surprise, his face flustering as Richie moves to pin him down against the mattress.
"I... I got something new," Eddie says in a quiet, feeble voice.
"Yeah?" Richie leans down to kiss against Eddie's neck, his hands holding the boy down by the shoulders. "What's that?"
Eddie's small hands push on Richie's chest just to separate them for a bit, but they quickly find the bottom of his knit sweater and start to lift the fabric up to expose his tummy.
Richie's eyes widen when he sees the new lingerie piece adorning his boyfriend's chest, so he breaks into a bashful smile and starts undoing the top button of his work uniform with fast hands. "Oh, you're gorgeous."
"Nuh uh," Eddie smacks Richie's hand away, flipping them over with all of his force so that he can straddle Rich. "You got to go last time. It's my turn now."
Richie rolls his eyes as Eddie unbuttons his shirt, the taller one reluctantly giving in and saying "Yeah, yeah, okay. But keep it down, Bill's giving me shit for how loud you moan."
"Oh, I can't help it!" Eddie laughs, lifting Richie up to slide the shirt off of his broad shoulders.
And that's how most of his afternoons go. He's not sure if he's ever "healed" or "reached enlightenment" or whatever it is that his therapist is always talking about. What he does know is that his loose ends are tied, or... the important ones are. He's not sure where his real parents went or if they ever think about him the way he does, but he doesn't really care to find out. He's got parents now, ones that care about him. Ones that aren't going to leave him in the middle of the night. He's got friends that aren't going to call him annoying, and he's forgiven his childhood bully for loving him in a way he couldn't return. Everything is just... peaceful. The way he wants them to be.
But Eddie is leaving next week, and as he takes it over and over from the boy he loves so very much, all he can think of is how this might be their last time. He's not sure what could happen to Eddie out on that open road. What if Henry's repairs backfire and the car explodes? What if a little thing like him gets kidnapped and sold into sex trafficking? What if some weird shit happens in Indiana? His friend Will always has crazy stuff going on, Richie doesn't want Eddie becoming a casualty in that drama. There are so many possibilities that end in Eddie being taken away from him for a second time. They all make him feel the same way he felt when he was standing in that train station all those years ago, watching the quivering boy shove a journal into his own shaking hands.
Richie doesn't think he went to that foster home a scared little boy and came out of it as a matured man, all cynical and hardened in the tough way that men are supposed to be. It wasn't a life lesson for him. Those two years alone didn't teach him anything about surviving without Eddie.
He thinks he went into that foster home as a boy, and he never came out of it. He still hasn't.
***
a/n: still not over yet.