Too soon, Eddie moves away from him and back to his seat--yet, maybe not soon enough, because Richie can feel himself trembling under his skin. For a moment, Richie feels an almost undeniable desire to turn around walk out. Why did he think he could do this? College-roommate reunions were bad enough. This is like a seeing-a-highschool-friend-at-the-grocery-store moment on steroids.

Somehow, he keeps a smile or a grimace or something between the two on his face long enough for his feet to stay firmly on the carpeted ground beneath him. It doesn't take him long after that to realize he's now the only Loser still standing upright. Swallowing, he surveys the table and the seating arrangements as subtly as he can, noting there's a couple empty chairs at the round table. He stumbles into the seat next to Eddie's, as if he hadn't meant to sit there. But, by god, he had.

He waits until Eddie's engaged in a conversation with Bill and Beverly concerning Bill's book endings until he dares to look at him again. And then, once he starts, he can't stop looking at Eddie, with his burgundy bomber jacket and polo and blue jeans, looking every inch like a little preppy college boy. He's clean-shaven, with clean, combed brown hair, clean, soft-looking hands, clean shoes and clothes, all neat and perfect and sterile. Richie can tell he still matches and folds his socks for the drawer, still uses hand sanitizer, still lint-rolls his outerwear. He can picture him in a neat little blue scarf and wool jacket in the winter time, and he has to bite his lip to keep from smiling.

This close, he can almost smell him. All at once, a lost memory resurfaces of the time Eddie had sprung into the hammock when Richie was still sitting in it, their legs tangling together as Eddie's little red shorts had ridden up his thighs, and him toeing Richie's glasses off of his face, because he was a fucking adorable little attention whore. Richie remembers his cheeks flaming and his entire face on fire, as if he was sporting a hundred-and-two degree fever. Even now, Richie feels his blood warming in his veins, and he has to stuff his mouth full of rice so that no one wonders why he's not talking.

But once he starts running his mouth, finally engaging in conversation, he can't stop. His brain seems to have gone on autopilot, allowing every single ounce of dumbass inside of him to take the reins and control his meat bag. Hi-ho, Silver! AWAYYYY! Everything goes! Say you married his mother, snore at his job description, next you'll be taking your dick out of your pants and shoving it down his throat!

But, of course, there's another matter entirely. Eddie is married.

The moment Eddie announced it to the table, Richie's blood had gone cold. Everyone erupted into a slightly overboard cheer of congratulations, but all Richie had been able to manage was one small whoop. His big mouth had gone dry.

But of course Eddie had gotten married. Why shouldn't he? They were all painfully adult, and the gold band on his finger had been gleaming and obnoxious once it had been brought to his attention. He doesn't know how he hadn't noticed it before.

And he doesn't know how it's even possible to feel hurt and upset about the fact his childhood crush had exercised his human right to get married after twenty-seven years of being apart. But, Jesus fucking Christ, why did it have to be to a woman?!

He remembers the short-shorts and long socks that Eddie wore in middle school, a rainbow stripe on his tee shirt, his little neat haircut. And now, looking at him in his late thirties, Eddie Kaspbrack looks like the most stereotypical little fucking twink Richie has ever seen in his life.

A fucking woman, Eds? Not to hetero-shame or anything, but...

So, he does the only thing he knows how to do. Later, he'll look back and cringe, but for now, he's a little drunk and a lot emotional, and has even less control over his mouth than usual. He sticks his lips around a shot glass and does a blowjob shot of whiskey and spits the glass back onto the table, alcohol dropping from his lips and grinning. "S'wait, Eddie, you got married?"

Eddie turns to him, a familiar gleam of challenge in his eyes. "Yo, why's it so fucking funny, dickwad?" His words are fast and exactly as machine-gun fire as Richie remembers, and it's like listening to an old favorite song and remembering every single word.

Richie's head aches with his fast heartbeat and he replies without even having to think about it. "What, to like, a woman?" He immediately blanches, but Eddie takes it so much in stride that Richie doesn't want to think about what it means. But it doesn't mean anything, because Eddie's not gay. They never dated. Obviously. Fuck. But Richie's still giggling.

Eddie raises a chopstick and waves it in inches in front of Richie's glasses. "Fuck you, bro." But it's so goddam lighthearted and easy and it's just the banter they've always known. Richie is the only friggin' Loser at the table who's overthinking anything. 'Cept for maybe Mike, whose brow is so permanently furrowed that he looks like he's constipated. Why'd he ever stay in Derry?

Richie's still riding the high of seeing Eddie and talking to him and remembering bits and pieces of his childhood and feeling full of Chinese food, so he raises his voice obnoxiously loud. "Fuck YOUUU!"

But then, Richie remembers. He remembers it all.

And then nothing matters anymore. Nothing, except for the fucking clown and that asshole Mike who dragged them back to Derry without a single warning. Try this on for size: come back to Derry, see your old friends that all got hot except for you! Oh, yeah, and you'll fucking die.

(You'll laugh!

You'll cry!

You'll die.)

Come to Derry, but you'll never leave.

And then the fortune cookies--his first taste of good, old-fashioned Derry horror for the first time in nearly three decades--and then, Stan.

Stanley fucking Uris, the Loser who always seemed the smartest, the oldest, the cleanest, just ... the best. And he's dead.

He's dead, and Pennywise may as well fucking killed him.

He's gone. There's only six of them left.

And Richie wasn't ready for this. He never was. He's not brave enough. In a blur, he leaves--Eddie hot on his heels--and, fuck, Eddie--and he's back in his car, hands trembling and half-digested Chinese in his throat.

He makes his way to the inn where his bags are stored, vision slightly blurred and in a condition that is most certainly unadvised for driving, but the streets are as empty as a nun's swear jar, and, has the town always looked this way? A shiver runs down his spine as he glances at dark buildings, bags floating down the lamp-lit streets like tumbleweed, and the black, lapping waters that surround the town. Thoroughly chilled, he snaps his eyes to his rearview mirror, almost expecting a pair of horrible yellow eyes to stare back at him from the backseat.

Nothing's there. "Fuck," he whispers fiercely through clenched teeth and screeches to a halt outside of the Derry Townhouse. Pushing his way past Ben, he lurches for the stairs, announcing that he's packing his shit and getting the fuck out of here, and ignores the fire inside of him when Eddie trails him so closely on the stairs that their jackets brush together.

He doesn't allow himself to breathe until he's laying flat on his back on the shitty mattress of his rented room with broken springs poking into his backbone. Horrified, he finds tears pricking at his eyes behind his glasses. He never wanted to do this again.

In a distant memory, Ben speaks up at the possibility of Pennywise's return: "Who cares? I'll be forty and far away from here."

Well, here we fucking are, Haystack. All but one.

But Richie's leaving right? That's what he said he was doing. That's why his bag is repacked, stuffed with clothes, lying in the middle of the floor. But the longer he thinks, the less panic he feels to leave; instead, he feels a strange compelling to stay. He thinks of Mike's face when he told him he was leaving. He thinks of Stan.

But most of all, he thinks of Eddie. He's not ready to leave him. Not again. Not when he'd only gotten him back, if only to see him, or if only for the memories from the summer of 1989. It makes him sick that he'd ever forgotten it, the fucking clown's magic shit be damned.

A quick, soft knock at the door breaks the silence and Richie's train of thought along with it. Startled, he struggles to sit up as his back tweaks. "Yeah?"

"Are you decent?"

He would know that voice anywhere, even if it is deeper than his newfound memories serve. "Come in, Kaspbrak."

Eddie lets himself in, closing the door behind him and palming his pants, looking rather lost. Then, looking at Richie's awkward sitting position on the bed, he frowns. "What're you doing?"

"Just thinking of your mom, Eds. You know I have to be alone when I do that."

"Fuck you. You've never fucking changed, you know that?" Eddie crosses his arms, but his twitching mouth gives him away.

"Neither have you, Eddie my boy. Tell me, do you have those, like, special controls on the steering wheel, or can your feet actually touch the pedals when you drive?" Richie shoots right back, a grin pulling his lips. He actually feels thirteen again. It's actually kind of exhilarating, the kind of fuckery this town gives off. Or, there's always the possibility that he's feeling this way because he has a fucking crush.

"I'm five-nine, dumbass. It's actually average height for males, and it's not my fault that you turned into this long-limbed muppet who still never managed to grow into his feet." Eddie's eyes actually widen after that one, and Richie finds himself laughing out loud.

"Not bad, Eds, not bad!" He shifts so he's sitting with his legs hanging off the side of the bed, and gestures at the empty space next to him.

Eddie doesn't hesitate as long as Richie had expected him to. He joins his side, and for a minute or two, they sit in silence.

Then, "I can't believe I forgot all this." Eddie looks at him, and in that moment, all Richie sees is the child he knew so well. His eyes, Richie's realizing, never changed for a second.

Richie nods. "That's what I was thinking about. I mean, it's all so fucking vivid now, right? And, like, two days ago, I didn't even remember you guys. I mean, not just the clown shit, but like, everyone."

Eddie swallows. "I ... I missed you, Richie. I mean, I really fucking did."

His fingers are numb and his head is buzzing, but Richie feels his hand reach over and cover Eddie's. Eddie freezes, but then his fingers tangle in his, and neither of them are breathing.

Richie thinks he might be crying.

He thinks, I love you.

He thinks, you're married.

He thinks, you married someone, and I never did, and I never could, because even though I didn't remember you, I think a part of me was holding out for you. No one was ever enough for me. Because they weren't fucking you, Eddie.

But he doesn't say any of that. Maybe, if fate smiles on them, he'll get to say all of that and more someday. Someday, when the sun is shining and Pennywise is in his grave, and someday when he can roll over in bed and feel the warmth of his body next to his own. Someday, Richie has to believe, Eddie will be his. Until then, the only thing he can say is,

"Let's kill this fucking clown."

AN: The more I think about  and write this story, the more I want to make this longer. Pretty sure this is gonna turn into more of a full-length fic. Consider this a fix-it fic where Reddie is endgame and that *AHEM* scene in the sewers is fixed. Hopefully. I haven't actually planned shit yet but I love this fic way too much to end it here. Hope you enjoyed! Pls send a comment or a vote my way if you did :)