#i'll be back very soon i promise im already 4k into the next chap

[eudaimonic-writes]

Whisper Your Love - Chapter 1

Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14005500/chapters/32251545

Masterpost

Some say life has a way of bringing you what you need, and that if you let it, happiness will come to you. Others take a more liberal approach, claim that to find happiness you must grab it by the balls and run with it... or something.

Richie Tozier has never been one to listen to what other people say, he prefers to think that the reality of life is somewhere in the middle; what you give is what you get, where you go is what you see, and what you find is what you take. Blah blah blah. So, when Richie's mom decides to leave his dad (about time) and move them out to Bumfuck Nowhere, Maine, Richie (ever the obedient son) grumbles unhappily the whole way there, but goes anyway. Despite his outward appearance and general attitude, Richie's always been a sort of "it is what you make of it" kind of guy, and so he decides, walking into Derry High on his first day of senior year, that he'll take whatever this shitstick of a school has to throw at him and he'll make it something worthwhile. 

After all, when life gives you lemons...

"Make it your bitch." he mumbles, hiking his backpack higher on his shoulder as he curves past a group of younger girls who standing by the obnoxious statue of a man with a handlebar moustache and are actively staring at him, doing nothing to hide their obvious gossiping. He grins back, tossing out his signature wink as the girl's titter and hide behind their hands, huddling in towards each other in that way all high school girls seem to do. 

Richie's early, he knows, because he's used to a longer walk to school in Cali and hadn't really accounted for the fact that Derry is half the size of his old town. Everything here seems to be half the size, even the cheerleaders, he thinks, eyes lingering on a particularly short boy in a baby blue cheer uniform, crossing the lawn in front of the school gates towards another group of people - mostly girls - dressed in baby blue. The group scream loudly as he gets within hugging distance, and soon the boy is lost among a sea of ponytails and blue pleated skirts, and Richie is left scowling at the unnecessary amount of cheer they seem to exude. Even on a Monday. 

"Tiring, isn't it?" a voice calls from behind him, and Richie turns towards a girl with short auburn-red hair standing a short distance away from him, leant against the waist high brick wall surrounding the school's perimeter with an unlit cigarette in her hand. She smiles when Richie moves closer.

"I thought Cali cheerleaders were loud, but I guess nobody told me about small-town pride." Richie remarks. The girl tilts her head, a small smile playing at her lips as her eyes rove over Richie's form. A little closer up, Richie notices that the girl is taller than he expected - though, still not tall by his standards - and has freckles all over her face that she hasn't bothered to hide with any sort of makeup. 

The girl seems to make up her mind about something, because soon she's nodding and patting the space on the wall next to her. Richie joins her, already pulling his packet of tobacco from his back pocket and his papers from his front. "Pride is one thing Derry High has far too much of." The girl says, placing her cigarette in her mouth and lighting it with a clipper. "I'm Beverly Marsh." she says around a mouth of smoke, holding out her hand. 

Richie fumbles with the half-rolled cigarette he'd managed to accomplish as she spoke, shifting it to one hand so he can shake hers. "Richie Tozier."

"So, you're a roll-up kinda guy? Think you could teach me?" She asks offering her lighter once Richie is done. Richie takes it, quickly lighting up before passing it back without a word. He takes a moment to suck in a drag, breathing the smoke out through his teeth as he leans his head back, relishing in his first nicotine rush of the day. 

"You've never rolled before?" He asks. She shakes her head. "Not even a joint?" Another shake. "Huh. You Maine kids are weird, everyone knows how to roll in Cali." 

Beverly scoffs. "Okay, Mr. West Coast, can you teach this poor East Coast Kid your magical hipster ways?" She leans towards him as she says it, flicking the ceramic clown pin Richie has on the collar of his favourite denim jacket.

Richie laughs enthusiastically, deciding that Bev would make a good friend to have around. "Sure, Marsh, sure."

He can see a sparkle of mischief in Bev's eyes, but just as she opens her mouth to say something else, a sudden burst of loud music begins playing from across the lawn. Every pair of eyes in the courtyard turns towards the grass, and Richie's eyes widen at the sight. Small town pride indeed. The Cheerleaders Richie had clocked when he first entered school grounds were now in formation, a few already chanting along to the upbeat music as a crowd of boys in varsity jackets that hadn’t been there before gather off to the side. As Richie watches, time itself seems to slow as he spots the short boy again, a pair of pompoms in hand as a taller male holds him high in the air by his foot. There's a smile plastered on his face, but unlike a few of the other cheerleaders, his doesn't seem forced. His eyes crinkle prettily as he raises his arms along with the now indiscernible chanting, and Richie's eyes zero in on the way his lightly curled hair falls slightly into his face. 

With a jolt, Richie realises that the chanting has stopped, as well as the cheerleader's movements, as one of the jocks steps out from the huddle to address the watching crowd. He's in the middle of some speech about the football team, and how they're definitely going to win the East Coast championships this year, but all Richie can focus on is the boy in baby blue, still smiling, and still perfectly balanced in the air. The speech must end, because there's a flurry of movement and the boy is gracefully dropping into the waiting arms of two cheerleaders below, and then stepping into the embrace of the jock - who must be the team captain - and promptly kisses him on the mouth.

Richie coughs and looks away, suddenly noticing that his cigarette has burned down to the filter and that he's in danger of adding to the litany of small burn scars on his fingertips if he doesn't smush it out against the wall. When Richie looks back up, the cheerleader is tucked under the arm of the jock, smiling at a taller boy with tight curly blonde hair and the most pristine collared shirt Richie has ever seen a person wear. 

A chuckle from beside him brings his attention away, and Richie turns to Bev, refusing to let his ears burn red for being caught staring. "His name is Eddie, Derry's resident Gay Angel, his boyfriend, Chris, is the football captain."

Richie grunts, chastising himself internally for being so transparent, "bit cliché that, isn't it?"

Bev grins knowingly, tilting her head again in that same considering way she did earlier. Richie has yet to decide if he likes that look. “It would be, if it weren't for the whole, raging homosexuals thing." 

 *

 Richie learns pretty quickly that Derry is both exactly how he imagine small town life, and exactly the opposite of how he imagine it - all at the same time. It's a bit of a dream town, if he's being honest. White picket fences everywhere, nice mom's in pastel blouses smiling from their pristine lawns, your local pastor living two doors down, the butcher just after that. It has that 'everyone knows everyone' vibe that he'd thought would make him feel like an outsider but, surprisingly, he fits in quite nicely with Beverly Marsh, and her friend, Bill Denbrough. He's still the 'new kid' (one day Bev points out the last 'new kid', a stocky boy with sandy brown hair sitting beside Eddie Kaspbrak at lunch, and says that it’s kind of redundant to call him that since he moved there more than five years ago. "He's just called Ben now," she'd explained, "We all kind of forget that he hasn't always been here like the rest of us."). So what Richie is learning, and what he'd expected, is that everybody here is nice, but what he hadn't expected about that, is that people are actually nice - not just smile at you when you walk by and then talk shit about you at the book club nice. He'd been fully prepared to have to shove himself back in the closet when he came here, and had been pleasantly surprised to find out that that wasn't the case; he'd asked Bev all the way back on that first day how everyone felt about their star quarterback being gay with the cheerleader, and Bev had looked at him like maybe she was reconsidering befriending him until he'd clarified that he is in fact very queer and was just concerned about how that was going to go down in the small-town life. 

Apparently, an incident a few years back had rocked the people of Derry, and since then the town had all collectively decided that it was more important to protect their own than hold hostilities based on personal preferences. And thus, the small-town life Richie found himself in was one of "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil".

And he was perfectly fine with that. 

So, Richie sunk into his new life with an ease he hadn't necessarily expected.

Another of those things he didn't expect was quite how often he'd see Eddie around town - which, in retrospect, he really should've been expecting since the town is pint-sized and there's only so many places to hide - but Eddie really was everywhere. In his classes, Richie finds himself distracted by the way Eddie's light brown hair curls over the collar of his baby blue cheer uniform (and occasionally the adorable white knit cardigan he wears over it). In the library during the same free period, Richie spots him reading quietly just a table over from where Richie is pretending to do homework but really listening to music. At lunch, Eddie's table is close enough that Richie can sometimes hear him laugh. Even outside of school, Richie catches Eddie leaving the greengrocers with a paper bag full of veg, he sees Eddie at the cinema eating popcorn with his friends, and he sees Eddie in the street, walking with his headphones in and his nose in a book.

He doesn't mind, not really, but Richie knows his crush is as pointless as they come - and he really wishes Eddie wouldn't constantly be in his peripherals, because it doesn’t help the fact that he's also constantly on his mind.

Pointless. Richie thinks, two weeks into his first semester, as he's standing on the edge of what Bev's friend Bill described as The Rager (seriously, not A rager, The rager), at Derry's quarry and listening to shitty pop music, watching as Eddie and his boyfriend dance in the middle of a mismatched group of seniors. Richie had never partied with such a diverse group in his life, even in a diverse place like California, Richie had only ever partied with people like him; the fuck-ups, the ones who listen to fast music with too much guitar and smoked cigarettes like they breathed through them. In Cali, Richie had never ran in the same circles as the cheerleaders, or the jocks, or anyone else, so he never partied with them. When he agreed to go to The Rager with Bill and Bev, he hadn't accounted for the fact that Derry only has one social circle - and that is Derry Residents. 

"What do you think?" Bill asks - Bev is God knows where doing God knows what, Richie had discovered within five hours of knowing the girl that she's even more of a free spirit than he is. You can’t hold her down or expect her to do anything, because she'll do exactly the opposite and then call you a loser for having any expectations at all. Bill's a cool guy, if a little quiet on the quiet side; he's told that the guy used to stutter pretty badly in middle-school, but that he'd grown out of it around 10th grade. He's tall (shorter than Richie, but go figure) with a floppy fringe just a shade less red than Bev's and slightly mysterious blue eyes that he likes to underline with a smudge of black. He's handsome, but he's not Richie's type. 

"I think I've never been to a party where literally the whole school was invited before." Richie replies sardonically, frowning down at his empty solo cup. He was told when he arrived that they only had so many, so he had to keep it if he wanted any more drinks. "Or rules."

"Derry isn't really big enough to be divided... I s-suppose it wasn't the same in California?"

"Being in a clique is a prerequisite to being a Californian. If you get to high school and you haven't found your niche yet, you're pretty much a social pariah." Bill snorts, and Richie sighs. "I'm going to get another drink."

He doesn't notice as he's walking over, too absorbed in not walking straight into anyone's flailing limbs, that Eddie and his boyfriend had migrated over to the 'bar' (an overlarge table filled with bottles of assorted alcohol and mixers), but he sure notices once he finally reaches the table. He's standing on the opposite side, and he feels his limbs freezing up slightly when he hears the conversation currently going on between the two and another boy, dressed similarly to Chris. They're arguing, or, at least, Chris and the unknown (jock?) are arguing. Eddie's just looking away dejectedly, like he doesn't quite know what to do. 

Richie places his cup on the table, reaching blindly for the bottle of Jack Daniels as his eyes flit from Eddie to where it rests, right by Eddie's arm. He feel's almost awkward, like if he gets too close he'll hurt Eddie - like Eddie is a butterfly and Richie is at risk of accidentally breaking one of his pretty wings if he so much as brushes him with his pinkie. Eddie moves slightly, and Richie has more room to grab the Jack, so he does, snatching it up quickly and pouring himself a good amount before placing it back. Eddie is grabbing onto Chris's arm pleadingly, his brown eyes wide with concern.

"C'mon. Baby, drop it, let’s go dance again." He mumbles. Richie swallows, he's never heard Eddie's voice this up-close and it’s possibly the sweetest sound he's ever heard. He feels a little resentment when Chris just shakes Eddie's arm off, like it's nothing, and Eddie only sighs, eyes sweeping along the table awkwardly. His eyes rove straight over Richie - like they always do - but Richie's heart skips a beat anyhow. He jerkily reaches for the bottle of Coke to cover up the fact that he's been standing there way too long, but once again, Eddie doesn't seem to notice or care.

Others have started to notice the argument now that Chris and the other guy have resorted to shoving, and Eddie tries once again to pull away his neanderthal of a boyfriend. He tugs on the back of his jacket, and groans, "Chris plea-" just then, the guy Chris is arguing with yells, shoving Chris harder than before, and Chris stumbles backwards into Eddie, sending the boy careening a few steps back before he loses balance on the uneven ground. Richie's heart skips another beat, another several beats, and curses whoever placed the stupid drinks table where they did because it is way too close to the edge of the cliff - the edge of the cliff that, with a surprised squeal, Eddie has just disappeared off of. 

There's a collective gasp from the crowd, someone yells Eddie's name, and Richie barely has time to take in the sound of a splash from down below, and Chris leaning over the edge of the cliff before he's throwing off his leather jacket onto the table and diving off the cliff after Eddie. 

 He briefly wonders if he'll ever be the type of person to consider the consequences of this actions before the icy water is hitting him full on and shit this is nothing like the water in California - which is warm. Richie break's the surface with a gasp, pushing his wet hair out of his eyes and taking a moment to take in his surroundings. A few feet away he can hear Eddie thrashing in the water, his breaths gasping, and from above he can hear the distant screams of the entire senior class of Derry High. Richie ignores them, paddling over to Eddie and snaking an arm around his waist.

"I've got you." He murmurs, hoping Eddie can hear him. Eddie's thrashing slows and his arm grips around Richie's neck like a lifeline. "I've got you, Eddie, c'mon we need to get to shore."

"Oh my God." Eddie yelps, and Richie can hear the fear in his voice. In the dark it's hard to tell where the shore is, but he can just make it out from the light of the moon and the several dozen flashlights from above that only just reach the quarry. Richie begins to swim in that direction, ignoring the chill of the water and the way Eddie seems to drag through the water. Eddie appears to be attempting to swim, but he's mostly just making a lot of noise and kicking Richie in the shin with his weird doggy paddling, and Richie is suddenly glad for his rash thinking when he realises that Eddie probably can't swim. He could have drowned. 

They make it to the shore, and Eddie's one armed grip on Richie’s neck loosens as he sinks to the dusty ground, shaking all over. Beverly is right there when they make it, holding Richie's jacket out and Richie takes it without thinking, draping it over Eddie's quaking shoulders. The boy seems out of it, huddling into the material with eyes that are unfocused and teeth that are chattering so loud Richie's own jaw hurts - or maybe that's because his teeth are chattering too. 

"Oh my God is he okay?" Beverly asks.

"I'm not sure." He tells her, crouching back down in front of the smaller boy and placing a comforting hand on his shoulder, his own breathing is loud in his ears, adrenaline still coursing through his veins, and he's barely aware of the sounds of several pairs of feet heading towards them from above. "Eddie? Eddie are you alright?" Eddie doesn't respond and Richie does the only thing he can think of; he reaches out and places his hand on Eddie's neck, turning his head so they can make eye contact. His eyes are out of focus at first, but soon they seem to zero in on Richie and stay there. "Eddie?" He repeats, trying to get over the jolt of satisfaction he feels at finally being noticed by Eddie Kaspbrak. Now is not the time, nor the situation, to get sappy over a dumb crush. Eddie almost died. "Are you okay? Eddie?"

Eddie still doesn't answer, but his eyes are wide and clear. He's still shaking but his breathing is less erratic, his panic seemingly calming down. He's looking at Richie like he's some kind of saint, and Richie, inappropriately, takes this moment to really take in Eddie Kaspbrak up close. Short answer: he's beautiful. Long answer: his hair is plastered to his head, though the curls are still evident in the way the strands bunch and form, he has freckles over his nose and cheekbones, and those, coupled with his unnecessarily large doe eyes make him look youthful and pixie-like. His skin, though currently pale from the cold and near-death experience, is tanned and clear, and his lips look so soft and kissable as they are, wet parted slightly as Eddie pants through them. As Richie watches, enraptured, they widen, as if Eddie is about to speak but, before he can, Richie feels a hand on his chest, none-too gently pushing him aside.

"Eddie, oh my God, Eddie, I am so sorry, baby, so sorry!" Chris is saying. Richie gapes at him for a moment, but then he looks at Eddie and Eddie's eyes have followed his and any insults he has for the dumb jock fly straight out of his head. Eddie isn't looking at Chris, his boyfriend, he's looking at Richie. His mouth is closed now, like whatever words he was going to say have lost their meaning, and Richie really wishes Chris could've been just a little slower navigating the path down to the water's edge. 

Chris is moving, and Richie thinks he's going to pull Eddie into a hug but then he just pushes Richie's jacket off of Eddie's shoulders and replaces it with his own - and that’s when Eddie seems to snap out of it. His eyes flashing back to his boyfriend and his teeth chattering anew. Chris picks Richie's jacket up off the ground and hands it to him, and it's only by sheer force of will that Richie takes it without making a dumb quip that'll come across bitter - because he's bitter but it would be weird for him to come across like it. "Hey, thanks man, I'll take it from here." Chris mutters, barely even looking in Richie's direction. Typical. 

Richie says nothing once again, and only thinks a little bit about how much he'd like to kick Chris' head in before he turns his gaze once more to Eddie, and finds, for the second time that night, Eddie looking back at him. Richie wishes Eddie would say something, anything at all, but Eddie only blinks, and then he's looking down, and Richie huffs, taking that for what it is and standing so that he can leave.

The walk home is a cold one, and Bev and Bill are only there half of the way to fill his thoughts with insults about Chris and the other neanderthal before they're each splitting off in the direction of their own houses, Bev with a hug and Bill with a simple wave. 

For the rest of the way home, Richie's thoughts are filled with every possible word Eddie could have said to him, had Chris not intervened. 

Eddie may not have gotten to speak to him, but he saw him. He looked at him. And in that moment, everything changed. 

 *

 The next school day is a doozy, Richie is approached by several people proclaiming him the new hero of Derry High (better than new kid of Derry High) and clapping him on the back. He sees Chris in the short break between second and third period, and receives a bright smile that some may consider charming but Richie just considers asshole-ish, and another brief thanks.

Yeah, you're welcome dickhead. I only saved your ass from accidentally drowning your boyfriend.

But he doesn't see Eddie. He's beginning to wonder if the boy is even in school - it would make sense for him to take a few days to recover after a fright like that - but then fifth period study hall rolls around and Richie spots Eddie at the library sitting in his usual place at the table one over from his, huddled in a pastel pink woollen jumper he's certain is probably non-regulation with his cheer uniform, with his nose, as always, buried in a book. It's a paperback this time, and white, but that’s about all Richie can tell from such a distance away. 

Eddie glances up as Richie is watching, and their eyes catch. Eddie smiles, and Richie nods, trying not to die at the cute way Eddie's cheeks dimple on one side, because his smile is lopsided when he smiles with his mouth closed. Adorable.

This happens a few times over the course of the hour long period, Richie will glance up from pretending to be doing his trig homework (as he always has) and Eddie will be looking right back (as has never happened before). Five minutes before the end of period bell is due to chime, Richie glances up and Eddie stands, Richie thinks for one heart-stopping second that Eddie is going to come over, but instead, Eddie briefly glances in his direction and then makes his way over to the librarian's desk. He returns a moment later with a piece of paper, that he folds carefully, four times. As Richie watches, Eddie reaches into his bag by his feet and pulls out a non-distinct black ballpoint pen and begins to scribble on the paper. He looks up when he's done, and Richie quickly looks down and pretends he hasn't been staring. A tapping noise brings his attention back to Eddie, and Richie is once again shocked to see Eddie looking at him - this time with intent. 

He's tapping the end of his capped pen onto the piece of paper, lying flat on the desk, and when he notices he has Richie's attention he picks it up and tucks it in-between the pages of the book he'd been reading before flicking it closed. He bites his lip as his gaze lingers on Richie once more, as if he's trying to say something, but he only drops his pen back into his backpack and slings it onto his shoulder, and with one last meaningful glance, he saunters over to the library doors just as the first bell chimes. 

Richie's spirits droop a little - he'd really thought Eddie was going to finally talk to him. 

The tables around him are emptying, and Richie collects his stuff as students begin to filter out of the library. It's then that Richie notices it; Eddie's book is still there. Richie glances around, though he isn't sure why since he's not exactly doing anything wrong, and he rounds his own table to get to Eddie's vacated one. He'll never admit it but his heart is racing, and it only gets quicker when he picks up the abandoned book. 

The Year of Magical Thinking it reads, and up close Richie can see how loved the book is. There's a faint dog ear on the cover page, like it had been in and out of bags or accidentally dropped, and the spine is bent but not totally cracked. There's no plastic wrap covering, like the rest of the library books have, and Richie's suspicions that this is a personal copy are confirmed when he opens the front page and finds no library card. This is Eddie's book. 

Suddenly, Richie remembers Eddie placing the folded up piece of paper he'd been scratching on into the book before he left, and the meaningful glances suddenly make sense. Eddie didn't leave the book by accident, he left it for Richie. The late bell rings as Richie tips the book, allowing it to fall open naturally to the page with the paper inside it, and he keeps his thumb between the pages to keep it from closing back up as he reads the note Eddie left him.

butterfly garden, 16:00 - E

Richie's grin feels like it may be splitting his face, "yes!" he whoops, making sure to keep his voice quiet as students for the next study hall period begin to filter into the library. He's going to be late, so he quickly slips the note back into the book, but as he does so, something catches his eye - a bright red mark on the page where Eddie had underlined something. Curious, Richie reads the words Eddie had highlighted, wondering if they were perhaps important as to why Eddie had left the note on this page, or if it had just been a coincidence. 

"Life changes in the instant. The ordinary instant."

Richie thinks he might get it, the way he felt back at the quarry when Eddie first noticed him - like something in the air had changed - but he's not sure if that's what Eddie was thinking about when he underlined these words. The book looks old, well loved, and Eddie very well could have underlined these words a long time ago. Richie glances at his watch and realises he’s nearly ten minutes late to his next period, and quickly drops the book into his backpack before he can waste any more time deliberating.

Whatever Eddie meant by it, he's pretty sure he agrees. Life does change in the ordinary instant.

Chapter 2

Masterpost