january embers

Eddie blinked, once, twice, and then looked at Bev, as if he had just snapped out of his thoughts. “Hm?” He asked, his voice quiet.

Bev repeated the question to him, and he looked at the other Losers, who were looking at him (he did not look at Richie, though) awaiting his answer. Eddie looked away for a moment, thinking.

Thinking, Eddie always looked like he was thinking nowadays, his mind was always far, far away from wherever Eddie was. Richie knew this because his eyes rarely left Eddie’s form. In class, at lunch, whenever the Losers would hang out at the Quarry together. He was always watching Eddie, because that was the only way for Richie to know how he was doing (since neither Bill nor Bev knew anything, they hadn’t pried). Richie could always tell how Eddie was doing just by looking at him, even before they had started dating, a change in Eddie’s posture or how he held his hands could have indicated that something was wrong.

Richie often sought out Eddie’s gaze, he just wanted those chocolate eyes to be looking at him for once and for Eddie’s eyes never seemed to find Richie’s. They had had two shared gazes in the past five months, the first one had been when Eddie returned to school, the second had been when Richie had caught Eddie looking at him while he and Bev were talking.

Everything in Eddie’s eyes screamed ‘something is terribly wrong’ to Richie.