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bellamuertes · 5 years ago

Text

and miles to go before i sleep

i saw @amikoroyaiart‘s devastating reddie fanart and this one-shot flowed right through me because i love Suffering.

“Richie couldn't remember when he first heard of the legend of Ludlow. It was a campfire story — as if Derry itself wasn't some kind of twisted campfire story. Deep in the woods in Ludlow, past marshes and fallen trees and great sucking mud puddles, there was a patch of ground where if you bury your dead, they'd come back to life.

This was the part of the story Richie was clinging to, not the part where the dead would come back wrong.”

cw: death, noncon, suicide, definitely no happy endings

Richie sat in the front seat of his ostentatious car, going 25 over the speed limit, practically begging to be pulled over.

Comedian jailed after speeding, found to be in possession of a corpse — wouldn't that be some wild, made for TMZ shit? He barked out a harsh laugh, sparing a glance over his shoulder at the body laid out in the backseat. A corpse, a body? Show some respect to the love of your life, Richie!

The love of his life… 27 years spent feeling like a part of himself had been torn out, that some kind of secret lobotomy had made him incapable of feeling love for a person. Never settling down and blaming it on the nature of his career. Then he stepped back into Derry and saw Eddie Kaspbrak again.

Eddie Kaspbrak, who died saving his gangly ass, like he deserved it or something.

Eddie Kaspbrak, who was now cold and going through rigor in the backseat.

Richie, honey, he's dead.

Not for the first time on this fucked up road trip did he start to sob, loud and wet and hiccupy. His vision blurred with tears behind his glasses, which were still stained with Eddie's blood, and he only cried harder.

He was going to make this right. If he could get to Ludlow without some state trooper pulling him over, he could make this right.

---

Richie couldn't remember when he first heard of the legend of Ludlow. It was a campfire story— as if Derry itself wasn't some kind of twisted campfire story. But to tell the story of Derry meant confirming the evil that had lurked there and that wasn't something many were able to do. So they talked about Ludlow instead.

Deep in the woods in Ludlow, past marshes and fallen trees and great sucking mud puddles, there was a patch of ground where if you bury your dead, they'd come back to life.

This was the part of the story Richie was clinging to, not the part where the dead would come back wrong.

Whether or not he actually resurrected parts of his family, some doctor was found dead with his wife and two children in the farmhouse at the edge of the woods. And because true crime was such a booming business, the house had been scrubbed from top to bottom and thrown on Airbnb with all its lurid history. And because Richie Tozier had a platinum AMEX, he was able to rent the house for a week.

Once he got across Ludlow town lines, he took his lead foot off the gas and slowed down a little. He was still drawing too much attention, though, with the flame-red sports car and the fact that he looked like he crawled out from a sewer because, haha, he had. If any shit went down, the locals were sure to point to him.

A few minutes later, he pulled into the driveway of the farmhouse, right next to the main road. There was a key in a lockbox, which he retrieved before he shouldered his bag and Eddie's giant suitcases into the master bedroom. Then he was right back out to the car to get the more precious cargo.

He had fought tooth and nail to get Eddie out as Neibolt crashed down around them. He clung onto him, his blood staining his front as they all waded through waist-deep rushing water, up through the well and the crackhouse before it fell in a heap before them.

After a long moment of silence, sprawled in the dirt, cradling Eddie's body, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

W-w-w-we gotta b-b-bury him, Richie, Bill had said gently.

Bury him. Words spoken by their fearless leader made everything far too real. Richie began to sob into Eddie's shoulder, clutching him, willing a heartbeat to rise to his chest.

I'll bury him, Bill. I'll find the perfect place.

---

Richie hadn't paid much attention in school, but as he walked through the forested wetlands behind the farmhouse, snatches of poetry came to mind:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

It was impossible to know how far he walked, only that he could feel something guiding his steps, making sure his feet found the right path. In his arms, he held Eddie, and if he didn't know better, Richie could swear he was just sleeping. His eyes were closed now, his face blank, not a mask of pain but smooth, almost innocent.

"I promise, Eds, I'm gonna make this right," he said into the foggy blackness of the forest.

Promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep.

Finally, he reached a clearing with a great stone staircase, leading to a summit, and it didn't take a genius to know this was the place. Richie felt some mysterious power flowing through him, giving him strength he didn't otherwise have to climb to the top with Eds draped over his shoulder.

The air was clean and thin at the top of the mountain and he could see out for miles around him, a sea of tree canopies stretched out ad infinitum. The stars winked in the blackness of the night sky and the nearly-full moon illuminated the patch of rocky earth where Richie began to dig.

Out here, time had no meaning. All he knew was the task before him, removing great clumps of the dry dirt that stained and bit into his hands. His fingernails chipped and his palms bled but at last, there was a shallow trench big enough to accommodate Eddie's body.

He reverently picked up his body, settling him in face up in the cold ground. "You won't have to be here long, Eds, I promise."

Promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep.

He stared at Eddie's face for a long moment—his strong jaw, his dark brows, the stray pieces of hair that fell over his forehead. He pressed his bloodied hand against his cheek, tried to stifle a ragged sob.

"We'll be together soon," he whispered, voice cracking in anguish. He began to push the piles of earth into the trench, letting it cover Eddie's body completely. Once he was hidden beneath the dirt, Richie stood, wiped his palms on his jeans, and stumbled back into the darkness.

---

Richie woke up in the farmhouse, long limbs splayed out on the bed. He was still in his clothes, covered in sewer muck and blood and burial ground dirt. Bleary-eyed, he looked down as his hands, filthy and scratched raw. His whole body ached and his stomach growled with hunger but first, he needed to shower.

Sitting up in bed, he yelped when he saw someone at the edge of the mattress.

"Eds…?"

"Hey, Rich."

He scrambled over, throwing himself at Eddie and pulling him into a tight hug. He sobbed against his shoulder, this time, tears of joy and relief making wet tracks on his cheeks. When he pulled back, Eddie was looking at him placidly, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

"We killed IT, didn't we?"

"Yeah buddy, we sure as fuck did."

Eddie nodded, the smile disappearing as he asked, "What happened to me, Richie?"

He paused, frowning slightly. "It doesn't matter, Eddie, you're here now."

"It was cold where I was. And dark."

"Yeah well, old Pennywise wasn't the best interior decorator."

After another long moment, Eddie met Richie's gaze. "Can I clean up?"

Rich gave him a wide, relieved smile. "Eddie, my love, you can do whatever you want."

---

Eddie sat in the bathtub and for the first time, Richie saw this might not have been the best course of action.

For one, Eds barely noticed the water was brackish around him, that he was sitting in his own filth instead of washing it away beneath the showerhead.

The water, dirty as it was, was so hot as to be steaming yet Eddie didn't seem to register the heat. He stared blankly in front of him, those once-bright eyes now dark, deep and almost black in his skull.

Second, there was a ragged, gaping hole in his chest.

This wasn't the way that Richie had wanted to see Eddie naked but something about his thin voice and hollow eyes made him want to stay by his side, even while he bathed. Eds didn't seem to have any objections to him sitting on top of the toilet seat.

Stealing glances, he could see straight through that hole in Eddie's chest, see that he wasn't drawing breath, couldn't possibly be drawing breath.

What were they gonna do? Had Richie really expected to be able to bandage Eds up and bring him back to Chicago with him? No one knew Eddie was dead except The Losers and what if they came sniffing around? Did he really think no one would notice his undead...what? Richie never got to tell Eddie how he felt before he bit the big one. What if Eds wanted to go back to New York, back to Myra?

Maybe he could call Kevin, his assistant. He had savings, stocks, credit. He could buy this fucking Maine crapshack and just live in the woods with Eddie for the rest of his life. And then what?

He really didn't think this shit through. Typical.

"Richie?"

He raised his head, meeting those dark, undeniably empty eyes. "Yeah, Eds?"

"I died, didn't I?"

Richie swallowed hard, couldn't say anything, merely nodded. Eddie nodded back in confirmation, understanding.

"It was my fault, Eds," he said, tugging at his shaggy hair, eyes welling up with tears "You didn't deserve it. You died saving me and it wasn't fair. I...I needed to make things right. And I did, you're here now. Nothing bad's gonna happen to you again."

Eddie didn't say anything. Richie sighed, got up from the toilet seat. "I'm gonna make us some breakfast. There are clothes on the bed."

---

They had survived day one. Richie had spent most of it on the phone, trying to talk Kevin down from the ledge as he urged him to cancel the rest of his tour dates and find out how much the owner was asking to buy this Airbnb.

Richie, are you having a nervous breakdown or something?

Or something.

The Losers had all tried texting and calling him but Richie ignored them all. Their questions were all the same — Are you alright? Did you bury Eddie? Do you need anything?

He got what he needed; he got Eddie back.

Eddie had parked himself in a ratty armchair and stared into space for most of the day as Richie finally washed himself off then went to pace around the farmhouse.

With clothes back on, he could almost forget the hole in his best friend's chest, but the shower hadn't alleviated the lingering scent of earth and rot that clung to him. Rich had turned on the ancient tv to make it a little less quiet, a little less weird, but he knew Eddie's black eyes weren't focused on the screen.

Eddie hadn't eaten the eggs Rich had made for breakfast or the mac and cheese he made for lunch and dinner.

Corpses don't eat, dumbass.

Rich took some of his sleeping pills to ignore the cold feeling of dread that had settled in his stomach and fell into a fitful sleep.

---

Rich woke up to a strange sensation on his skin accompanied by a wet sucking noise. He frowned, moaning slightly, pushing his hips up into the feeling. His sleep-drenched brain finally caught up, realizing that he wasn’t dreaming, he was actually getting a blowjob.

Reaching for his glasses, he saw Eddie grinning up at him, his black eyes shining in the darkness, his fingers wrapped around Richie's half hardened cock.

"This was what you wanted, right?" He asked, his voice gravelly and wrong. "This was really why you brought me back, so you could have your gayboy happy ending."

Richie winced, trying to wiggle away from Eddie's grasp. He ran his rotted tongue over the head of his cock, lapping up the precum that had pooled unbidden. He mewled in confused pleasure, Eddie's other hand holding his hip down with more strength than he should've been capable of.

"You’re selfish, Richie. All that whining about making things right? Spare me, you fuckup. You just wanted a chance to get your dick wet, your rocks off, wanted to live out some queer fantasy. Lil Richie homemaker."

"No, that wasn't, it wasn't…" This wasn't Eddie, not his Eddie. This was like Pennywise had found him again, the same nasty words and tricks bubbling up from his mouth. Hadn’t they killed that fucking clown? Maybe he should've paid more attention to the stories, the legends of Ludlow's Pet Sematary. The dead came back wrong.

Sometimes, dead was better.

"Face it, Richie. The only way you could get me to love you is like this. Does it feel good, Rich?" The Eddie Monster asked, nails digging deep into the skin of his hip, making him yelp. He needed to fight back. It wasn't his Eddie, it wasn't his Eddie, he repeated to himself, smacking his large palm against his temple, hard enough to wiggle out from the monster's grasp. He pulled up his pants and kicked his long leg out, hitting Eddie in the nose with the heel of his foot. He felt bone crunch but the thing in his bed just laughed.

"It was your fault I died, Rich. Time for me to return the favor."

Eddie launched himself at Richie, who managed to stumble out of bed and out of the room. He fell in the hallway, the time it took to pick himself up just enough for the monster to catch up to him, yanking his leg out from under him once more. Richie's face hit the baseboards, knocking the wind out of him.

“See, I’ve always been fast, Rich. When you don’t need to breathe, you don’t have to worry about asthma attacks,” Eddie said with a vicious laugh. He had Rich pinned beneath him, throwing his glasses to the side. He roughly cupped his face in his hands, thumbs easing over his cheeks towards his eyes.

I did it, Richie! I killed IT!

Richie thrashed wildly beneath him, trying to buck the smaller man off of him but he only gripped tighter, laughed louder.

“Now you, you’ve never been able to see so well. Maybe it’d be easier for you without eyes.”

“Eddie, please, you don’t have to do this,” he sobbed, long arms held up in front of him, trying to find purchase on the other man’s throat.

“You didn’t have to do this either. You brought me back, Richie. You brought this upon yourself.”

Richie drew one of his hands back, fumbling in the pocket of his sweatpants, finding some smooth and cool to the touch. He’d placed it there while Eds was watching tv, unnerved by the way he stared unblinkingly. He nicked himself drawing it out but managed to draw the blade from his pocket knife, slicing his throat open.

A stream of thick black bile streamed from the open wound. Eddie laughed and laughed as the goop covered Richie’s face until the laughter turned to chokes and sputters, and he fell off Richie’s prone body.

Richie sobbed as he gripped the knife and stabbed it over and over into Eddie’s chest.

The scent of burning flesh hung heavy in the air as Richie sat in the backyard, another grave freshly dug, the charred body at the bottom of the shallow hole. There were no more tears to cry. The monster, Eddie, had been right. He was selfish and needy and he’d done this to himself.

He had taken what felt like every pill in Eddie’s suitcase, his head swimming, his stomach roiling as he tried to keep them all down. Maybe he’d see Stan where he was going. Maybe he’d see Eddie too, even if he didn’t deserve it. All he could hope was that Eddie’s soul had made it to a better place, hadn’t been warped by whatever was out there in the woods.

He took a long sip of beer, looking at the freshly piled mound of earth. It looked like a good place to rest. He set the bottle to the side and climbed atop the mound, closing his eyes.

He had walked all the miles. Now it was time to sleep.

At the head of the grave, before he took all the pills, he made a makeshift cross. In the wood, like he’d done with he was a kid at the kissing bridge, he’d carved into the planks R + E.

#reddie #reddie fanfiction #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #it chapter two #richie tozier x eddie kaspbrak #pet sematary #pet sematary au #reddie au fic #cyanide fic*#congratulations i played myself!!!!

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