#PJWrites

[s-oulpunk]

Sorry Seems to Be The Hardest Word - Reddie

Summary: “Do you want me to be mad at you?” Richie snaps, and Eddie does his best not to flinch. “What the fuck do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie admits. “I just want you to know I didn’t mean any of it.”

“It’s okay if you did,” Richie murmurs, which is possibly the worst thing he could say. “It’s mostly true.”

--

Or, in which Richie finally takes a joke too far, and Eddie has to be there to pick up the pieces from his own explosive reaction.

Richie is, without a doubt, an asshole.  Now that’s not to say the losers don’t love him, because they do.  Perhaps a bit too much.  They let him get away with far more shit than anyone should allow.

But they all have their breaking points.

They have all told him to fuck off at some point.  They have all stormed off in a puff of rage.  But, no matter who it is he’s managed to piss off, it’s all sorted out in a matter of hours.

Unless it’s Eddie, of course.

Not that Richie knows that.  While Eddie always fights back, always has something to say about each and every one of Richie’s one-liners, he’s never been pushed past his limit.  Perhaps, in Richie’s mind, he is limitless.  So he keeps pushing and pushing and pushing, and, of course, that has to end with disaster.  But Richie’s never been good at seeing that far ahead, he wears glasses for a reason.

But there’s a first time for everything.

The day starts simple enough.  They’re in the clubhouse, crowded close together in the hammock.  The material hangs so low it nearly touches the floor and Ben’s warned them more than a few times that it can’t support both their weight for much longer, but neither of them can find it in them to care much.

Richie’s holding a comic book, his fingers gently curled around the edges, careful not to bend it, and Eddie’s trying very hard to look at the pictures and not the way Richie’s mouth moves as he whispers the dialogue under his breath.  But Eddie can’t help it.  One moment he’s looking at tiny cartoon Captain America, next his eyes are gliding across the page until they’ve crossed the barrier from comic book fights to Richie.  Two entirely different worlds.  Both fantasy, of course.  Because in no real world scenario would Richie look at him the way he wants him to.  But that doesn’t stop him from dreaming.  Perhaps a tad too obviously.

“Enjoying the view, Eds?”

Eddie blinks slowly, his brain taking longer than his eyes to realize, oh shit, Richie’s staring right back.

So he says the one thing he can think of in a crisis such as now, “Fuck off.”

Richie cackles, “It would be easier if your mom helped.”

“That is so not funny.”

“It never gets old.”

“It was old when we were thirteen and it’s old now.  We’re almost adults, get some new fucking material.”

Richie closes the comic, to show just how seriously he takes this, and gently taps his lips with the corner.

“I’m wounded, Eds,” he says. “But I suppose I could do with new material.”

“Yeah, try to think of something actually funny this time, dipshit,” Eddie snarks.

Then Richie grins wide as a shark and says just about the worst thing Eddie can possibly think of.

“I know what was wrong with my material.  You were just jealous all these years, weren’t ya?”

“What?” Eddie squeaks out.

Richie nods, looking far too serious despite the never fading grin that’s plastered on his face. “Mhm.  You should be the one helping me out.”

“No.  That’s worse.”

“It’s what the people want!”

“People? What people?  There are no people.”

“I’m the people.”

“Oh fuck off.”

Unfortunately, his opposition to the idea only seems to spur Richie on.

“Awe, c’mon, Eds.  Are you saying you don’t want a piece of this?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying,” Eddie spits, though he can’t seem to look Richie in the eye for the exact opposite reason.

“Baby,” Richie drawls, “don’t be that way.”

“Fuck off!”

Richie does no such thing.  Instead, to Eddie’s horror, Richie rolls over until he’s directly on top of him, held up only by the arms on either side of Eddie’s head.  Eddie feels his entire body go cold in the same moment each inch of skin bursts into flames.  His lungs have frozen over, he can barely get a breath in, but at the same time he fears he might burn a hole right through the hammock.  Ben would kill him, of course, but that would almost be preferred to this torture.

“Awe, you’re all red,” Richie coos.  He reaches over to pinch Eddie’s cheek and for once Eddie doesn’t have the brain capacity to stop him. “Does Eddie Spaghetti have a crush?”

Fuck.

Fuckfuckfuckfuck.

“I thought you didn’t want a piece of this?”

“Richie,” Eddie chokes out.  He can hardly hear himself over his own thundering heart. “Richie, stop.”

“I mean, I know I’m hot stuff, Eds, but this is a surprise.”

“Richie, seriously.”

“But you need to know I can’t actually stay away from your mom.”

“Richie.”

“But I guess you could be like my secret lover.”

“Please stop.”

“We have to be careful.  An affair would break your poor mother’s heart.”

“Richie, stop.”

Richie drops down until they’re nearly nose to nose. “What?  Are you not enjoying - holy shit, are you crying?”

Eddie realizes with a sort of delayed horror that, holy shit, he is crying.  Or at least, he’s about to.  His eyes burn with unshed tears and he hurriedly shoves at Richie’s chest before any of them can fall.

“Fuck off, Richie, get off me!”

Richie scrambles away from him.  He topples out of the hammock and lands with a thud on the floor, where he watches Eddie with eyes as wide as saucers.

“What the fuck is your problem?” Eddie finds himself shrieking.  He scampers away from the hammock himself, desperate to put as much distance as possible between them. “Don’t you have any idea when to fucking stop?  Or is the fucking joke more fucking important?  And, for the record, no one was fucking laughing!  No one’s ever fucking laughing!” At this point, his mouth is moving of its own accord.  As if someone’s severed the connection between it and his brain. “Actually the funniest part is the idea that I would actually like someone like you!” He can see it in Richie’s eyes, the moment he goes too far, but he can’t get himself to stop. “You’re fucking pathetic!  I feel bad for whoever falls in love with you, if anyone at all!  I wouldn’t be surprised if you end up alone!  I wouldn’t be surprised if you push every fucking person on earth away because you have the worst sense of humor of all time and can’t take a fucking hint!”

A thick silence falls over them as Eddie’s monologue comes to a halt.  The only sound that can be heard is the heaving of Eddie’s chest, having prioritized insulting Richie over breathing throughout most of his speech, and chest-rattling sobs from the floor.  Because Richie’s crying.  Not almost crying, but crying.  Sobbing, in fact.  Big fat crocodile tears roll down his cheeks, fogging up his glasses and soaking his shirt.

Eddie’s feels a pang of distant regret somewhere in the back of his mind and he nearly considers apologizing.  But his brain still doesn’t feel quite connected to his mouth.  So he doesn’t say anything at all.

“I’m sorry,” Richie whispers.

And then he’s gone.

Eddie scrubs at his own tears as he watches the empty doorway, hoping against hope that maybe he’ll come back.  But he doesn’t, and Eddie’s left feeling no better than he did before.

“Eddie,” says a soft voice.

Eddie just about jumps out of his skin.  But it’s just Bill.  Which, holy shit, when did he get here?  In fact, the entire losers club is there.  Because, oh yeah, they had all come down together.

Eddie winces.  How could he forget that?

“I didn’t mean to say any of that,” he says. His brain finally feels like it’s reconnected with his mouth, but he still feels distant and fuzzy.

“I know,” Bill says. “Buh-Buh-But maybe you should tell him that.”

Eddie shakes his head. “He was an asshole.”

In an instant, Bill is at his side, wrapping an arm around his shoulder and squeezing in a one-armed hug.

“He’s an asshole a luh-lot,” Bill says.  He pulls him into a more private corner, away from the watchful eyes of the rest of the losers.  Away from Stan, who looks like he’s just about ready to burn Eddie at the stake. “But you know he doesn’t really mean any of it.”

“Bill, you don’t understand, he was so mean.”

“So were yuh-yuh-you,” Bill says, smiling softly.

“Yeah,” murmurs Eddie. “I guess so.”

“You know he loves you.  Just talk to him, you’ll feel better.”

“But he - I think he knows, Bill.”

Bill cocks his head curiously. “Knows?  About th-th-the whole you’re in love with him thing?”

Eddie narrows his eyes. “Say it a little louder, why don’t you?  Yes, about that.”

He glances towards the rest of the losers in a panic, but they don’t appear to have heard.  They’re caught up in their own whispers, and Stan’s already disappeared.

“Well I’m puh-puh-pretty sure you made sure he duh-doesn’t think that anymore.”

Eddie groans. “I really fucked up, didn’t I?”

Bill smiles sadly. “You should talk to huh-him.”

Eddie nods. “Yeah, yeah, alright.”

In a flash, he’s out of the clubhouse and on his bike, ignoring the rest of the losers’ attempts to talk to him.  He peddles to Richie’s house as quickly as he can, practically throwing his bike to the ground once he’s reaching his destination.

He knocks furiously against the door.

Once.

Twice.

By the third time, he’s just about ready to kick the door down himself.  But then, to his relief, someone opens it.  His relief is short lived, however, when that person turns out to be Stan.  Stan who still looks like he’s ready to carve out Eddie’s heart.

“He doesn’t want to talk to you,” Stan says shortly.

“No, wait, I’m just here to apologize,” Eddie says, rushing to get the words out before Stan can shut the door on him.

Stan observes him the same one might observe a piece of dirt on their shoe, or perhaps a slug.  But he opens the door anyway.

Eddie bolts inside as soon as there’s room, shouldering his way past Stan and thundering up the stairs.  He can feel Stan burning holes in the back of his head, but he doesn’t follow him up, which Eddie can’t help but be thankful for.

He knocks softly on Richie’s bedroom door. “Rich?  Can I come in?”

For a few excruciating moments it seems he’s not going to answer.  Then, a barely audible, “Come in.”

The sight is enough to break Eddie’s heart a million times over.  Richie’s sitting, curled up, in the farthest corner of his bed.  He’s completely swaddled in blankets, and if the situation were less dire Eddie thinks he might have laughed.

But, as it is, Eddie’s starting to worry he may never laugh again.

“Rich,” he says.  Then, because he could barely hear himself, he clears his throat and repeats, louder, “Rich.  I’m - I’m really sorry.  I didn’t - I shouldn’t have-”

“It’s fine.”

Eddie gapes at him. “It is not.  It - Look, I was just upset, alright?  I was embarrassed and I took it out on you and I shouldn’t have done that.  I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, I get it.  It’s whatever.”

Eddie knows he should be grateful for Richie’s forgiveness, but he just looks so sad.  All Eddie wants is to hug him.  Nothing fancy, nothing special.  Just a hug.

But he can’t.  He can’t even bring himself to go near him.  He lingers awkwardly by the door, hand still gripping the handle as if he’s planning to rip it open and escape any moment.

The space between them seems infinite.  Like he could walk for a million lifetimes and still never reach him.  It’s so foreign to Eddie.  He’s so used to Richie being there.  They’ve always been RichieAndEddie.  Now it’s starting to feel like they’re Richie.  Eddie.  There’s not even an “and” anymore.  Just an infinite amount of space.

“It’s not - It’s not whatever.”

“Do you want me to be mad at you?” Richie snaps, and Eddie does his best not to flinch. “What the fuck do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie admits. “I just want you to know I didn’t mean any of it.”

“It’s okay if you did,” Richie murmurs, which is possibly the worst thing he could say. “It’s mostly true.”

Eddie doesn’t respond simply because his brain is short circuiting.  How could any of it be true?  How could Richie think that?  It just doesn’t compute.

Richie, however, must mistake his silence for an agreement, because he continues, “I probably will end up alone.  Just me and all my cats.”

Eddie’s throat feels like sandpaper.  Richie has to know how untrue that is.  He has to know that anyone would be lucky to have him.  And Eddie would gladly tell him so.  Except the only thing he says is, “There’s nothing wrong with having cats.”

Richie snorts. “Then you can babysit them for me.”

Richie’s laugh, while cold and empty of any sort of life, gives Eddie the courage to step forward.  He sinks into the opposite end of the bed, watching Richie warily.  The space between them still feels unfairly big, but less so now that Eddie can’t flee at any given moment.

“Rich, I’m serious.”

“About the cats?”

“No!  Forget about the cats!” Eddie huffs. “About what I said before.  I’m serious.  I didn’t mean it.”

Richie squirms. “It’s fine.  Can we just not talk about it anymore?”

“No!”

With an over exaggerated groan, Richie tugs one of the blankets over his head. “Why?  There’s nothing else to say.”

“Because you still don’t believe me-”

“I believe you.  There.  Now we’re done.”

“Stop that!” snaps Eddie. “We’re not done!”

“Eddie-”

“Why do you think that?  What makes you so sure that you’re never gonna find someone?  Rich, someday you’re gonna find some - some perfect girl and settle down and have the worlds loudest babies.” The thought makes Eddie’s insides burn, but he pushes forward anyway. “She’s gonna love you for your loud mouth and your stupid glasses and the weird gap between your teeth.  She’s gonna love your ugly style, she’ll wear your ugly ass hawaiian shirts all around the house.  And you’ll burn everything you cook but she’ll love you anyway.  Hell, maybe she’ll try to teach you how to cook.  It won’t go well, obviously, because you’re a menace, but you’ll still be happy.  You’ll order take-out instead and watch whatever’s on TV and you’ll make her laugh with all your terrible impressions.  Richie, it’s gonna be really good.  You’re gonna be happy.”

“I’m not gonna marry a pretty girl,” Richie says, voice muffled by the blankets.

“Richie-”

I’m not gonna marry any girl.”

“Dude, shut up, you’re a total catch-”

“Do you remember when you tried to teach me how to cook?”

Eddie has to stop and recollect his thoughts because, yeah, of course he does.  Richie couldn’t have possibly made the connection between Richie’s fake wife and Eddie’s own fantasies, could he?

“Yeah,” he says, choking back a wheeze.

“You didn’t know how to cook anything either,” Richie says. “We burned everything.  Took us forever to clean up but we still had fun.  We were laughing the whole time.”

“Uh-huh,” Eddie nods. “Rich, where is this going?”

“We ordered take-out and watched TV until we fell asleep.”

“So?”

“Just like what you said, Eds.”

Eddie’s stomach drops to the bottom of his feet. “That’s not - That’s not what I meant.”

One eye peeks out from the mass of blankets. “Sorry.”

“It’s - It’s okay,” Eddie says, though he feels anything but okay. “Why are you sorry?  You shouldn’t be sorry.”

“I thought-” Richie stops himself, tugging the blankets down to reveal his face.  He wears a pinched expression, eyebrows furrowed and glasses askew.  If everything weren’t so awful, Eddie might have taken a moment to internally coo over how cute he was. “I thought you were saying something else.”

“What did you think I was saying?” Richie looks like he’s about to dive right back under his nest of blankets, and in a desperate attempt to get him to stay, Eddie hurriedly backtracks, “It’s okay.  You don’t have to tell me.  I’m just - I was just wondering.”

For a second, Eddie thinks maybe Richie is going to tell him.  He looks like he’s considering it.  But then he just shrugs and sinks further into his blankets.  He doesn’t hide again, but he’s only about a hair away from it.  Only his eyes are visible.

“Rich,” Eddie says, voice slow and calculating.  As if talking to a frightened child. “Can you come out and talk to me?” There’s a moment of hesitation, where it looks like Richie might be considering it.  Then he shakes his head. “Okay.  That’s okay.  I - I love you, Rich.  I really didn’t mean any of it.  And I don’t know how you found out, but it - it just scared me.  I know everything is a joke to you, Rich, but - but this isn’t.  Not to me.  It’s how I feel and it just hurt for you to make fun of it.  I know it’s not an excuse for what I said but-”

“What?”

“The - The - What you said.  Back at the clubhouse.”

“I was just messing around,” Richie says weakly. “I didn’t know anything.”

“Oh.”

“Are you-”

“Yes,” Eddie spits the word out before he can think better of it, ignoring how the word burns his lips.  Then, because his friendship is probably fucked anyway, “So everything you’re scared of can’t possibly be true because - because I want that.  I want to cook dinners with you and laugh when we burn them.  I want to steal your stupid Hawaiian shirts and laugh at your even stupider jokes.  Nothing’s wrong with you, Rich.  You’re perfect.  And I - I’m sorry I didn’t act like it.”  No response. “I can go.”

He’s halfway across the room when Richie’s voice stops him. “No.  Don’t go.”

He turns just in time to see Richie struggle to open the pile of blankets.  Eddie doesn’t remember crossing the room, but the next thing he knows he’s burrowed under the blankets, tucked safely into Richie’s side.

“I didn’t know that,” Richie murmurs. “I wasn’t making fun of you.  I was just - It was the only way I could tell you.”

“Tell me?”

“That I - That I love you.”

The heat from earlier rushes back to Eddie, and he’s silently thankful for the darkness the blankets provide.  He doesn’t think he could stand Richie’s teasing about how red his cheeks are at the moment.

“I love you too,” he whispers. “In case you couldn’t tell.”

Richie chokes out a laugh, but it only lasts a moment.  His face has returned to that unfamiliar stony look before Eddie’s even had time to register the laugh.  It makes his stomach sink to the bottom of his feet.  He hates that look.

“I’m sorry,” Richie murmurs. “About earlier.  I shouldn’t have said any of that.  I took it too far.”

“I’m sorry too-”

“I know.”

“Just let me say it, asshole!” Eddie snaps, but he’s smiling. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you.  None of it was true, but that doesn’t make it okay.  I shouldn’t have said it.”

“It’s okay,” Richie grins. “But maybe you should prove it.”

Eddie can barely hear himself over his own heartbeat when he asks, “What exactly did you have in mind?”

“Can I kiss you?”

Eddie doesn’t give himself time to answer.  He closes the gap between them as soon as the words have left Richie’s mouth.

Richie’s lips are soft.  A bit chapped, but soft.  And they press firmly against Eddie’s own, like he’s worried Eddie will disappear.  Eddie can’t say he’s not worried about the same thing.  He’s woken up from far too many pleasant dreams just like this only to realize he’s, yet again, alone in his bed.

But this is not a dream.  This is real and there’s not a doubt in Eddie’s mind that this is the best moment of his life.  It’s all downhill from here.  But he doesn’t mind.  Not when he has Richie to help him through it.

[pjs-pondering-refs]

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[jades-latex-kingdom]

2 posts?! Impossible?! Lewd energy has returned to me, and I’ve a backlog of photos to make use of, which means you sluts are gonna have a lot of content

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