#bathtook

As soon as Richie sees the body, flailing helplessly back and forth, his already startled breath catches in his throat and all he can do is stare. His eyes never leave Eddie-Eddie, Eddie--and he doesn’t know if he’s shouting or thinking it so loudly that the cavern shakes. Maybe he has the strength to move mountains to reach him, if he believes--somehow that thought catches and he remembers the Paul Bunyan statue again. The paragon of masculinity he will never be towering over him until he willed it away.

He clenches his eyes shut and thinks that if he wills this away, it might be the same. And sure enough a scream escapes Eddie’s lips, and then, a thud. Richie scatters to his feet, the rubble around him pulling him down to his knees again until he finally gets the traction to race across the chamber to the love he had forgotten, remembered, and now couldn’t help fearing the loss of. The gaping wound in Eddie’s chest makes Richie’s heart leap into his own, a phantom pain. This time, closing and opening his eyes again doesn’t make the wound disappear. “Eddie,” he whispers close to the man’s face as his eyes bob in and out of focus, perilously. “Hey, hey,” he repeats, muttering nonsense low enough that only he could hear just to keep him awake, to keep him here. 

Eddie’s eyes lock onto his as if by some magic and he’s thirteen again, the boy’s surprisingly clean feet kicking him in the face with that roguish smile that Eddie reserved for him on his face. He was never uptight like Stan, he just played the part and today, he’s proved again to Richie he is brave at heart, maybe even his personal hero. The man who has never believed in anything, believes in love in that single moment. ‘Richie, Richie,’ And he nods to show that he is there, he is listening with every fiber of his being. ‘I gotta tell you something.’

Richie’s heart stops in his chest, his eyes soften, and the panic falls away. This moment lays suspended between 1989 and 2016 and despite the setting, Richie thinks it’s just about perfect. He knows before the words escape Eddie’s lips what he will say because he’s felt it since he picked up the arcade token at the movie theater, or maybe even as soon as he picked up the phone and puked his stupid guts out. ‘I fucked your mother.’ Those are the words everyone else in the room hears but mostly, they don’t know how much four vulgar words can mean to Richie “trash mouth” Tozier. Because what he hears is ‘I love you,’ and really, some of them get the gist as well. He sees understanding dawn on Bev’s face and she gives him a small smile.

While the others move on to become the heroes, he stays with Eddie, tragic and terrified. This love is over before it has begun, unless--as they stem the tide against the fucking clown, he clenches his eyes closed and repeats ‘go away, go away, go away,’ in his mind before he marches into the fray again, armed with a new understanding that they will win and Eddie will live and they will be together because he believes it’s the truth. And once the fucker’s heart has been crushed into a thousand floating pieces, he returns to Eddie with a triumphant look on his face quite sure the wound is healed and his eyes are open and a smile is on his face.

Sure, the blood is still on his shirt. Richie’s stomach sinks and his mind changes pace ‘you’re ok, you’re ok, you’re ok,’ becomes his new mantra. He places a hand on his shoulder. Eddie doesn’t respond, not even when Richie shakes him. The panic is back, the sick rising in his throat again but they just defeated an ancient evil by believing and so--Richie stays there, eyes glued to Eddie’s own, wide and petrified but unresponsive. Why don’t the others believe? He wonders as Bev steps closer to him and calls his name.

The bile melts into anger at the strained sadness in her voice. None of them believe! “What?” He snaps, before turning resolutely back to Eddie, his mantra still pounding in a steady rhythm at the back of his mind. “We can still help him, we can still help him,” he begins to repeat as if he can conjure their shared belief by speaking the mantra aloud but there are hands all over him now, grasping at his shoulders and he pulls Eddie into his arms. He feels strong enough to carry the whole gad damn cavern out and then they’ll see, they’ll see he’s just resting his eyes and the hospital can patch him up!