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neverwasreddie · 2 years

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Part 2 of my reddie Christmas ficlet that nobody asked for!

Eddie’s trying really, really hard to be chill about Richie’s Christmas gift, but 1. “chill” is not a word that has ever been used to describe Edward Kaspbrak, like, not ever as long as he’s been alive, and 2. how can he possibly be chill about this?

Richie swears up and down that it’s nothing, that Ben loves tinkering around in his little garage-turned-woodshop and it gave Richie an excuse to try and reenact the Ghost pottery scene with the hottest Loser without his Beverly around to interfere.

But Eddie knows better, saw the flicker of fear on Richie’s face when he finally opened the gift. Knows that this means something special to Richie, something he’s too shy to put into words.

And the fact that the wood is from the Kissing Bridge of Derry is no coincidence, either. That is the detail Eddie keeps getting hung up on, no matter how Richie tries to brush it off.

“I just don’t get it!” Eddie is still saying a few days later, dusting the shelf around the frame with the utmost care. “Did they demolish that safety hazard while I was in the hospital, or what?”

Richie snorts, not even bothering to look up from the Rubik’s cube he’s fiddling with on the couch. “Well, someone almost did. Lucky Mikey boy caught me before I burned his whole stupid town to the ground.”

He’s casual on the surface, but there’s enough bite to his words for Eddie to turn and ask carefully, “What?”

Sighing, running a hand through his hair and refusing to look up at Eddie, Richie shrugs. “I wasn’t exactly in tip-top shape while you were in your little coma nap, there, bud. When they finally kicked me out of your room to go shower and sleep, I took the long way back to the inn. Got some of my frustration out on that stupid bridge. And before you say anything, I didn’t vandalize the whole thing, alright, just that one slat that was already rotting in the center. Didn’t take much to rip it off.”

A flashback to his hospital room strikes Eddie, then: the feeling of Richie’s raw, scraped hands gripping his tightly, Eddie assuming the injuries had come from his fall from the Deadlights.

“You really took this wood from the bridge?” he asks carefully, dropping his dust cloth and carefully approaching the couch. Richie is still sprawled out on his back, gaze turned from Eddie, so there’s no room to sit beside him, but Eddie feels the inexplicable need to be near Richie for this conversation.

Always feels that need, if he’s being honest with himself.

“Yeah, well, excuse me for not exactly thinking straight,” Richie mutters, and it’s a testament to the sincerity of the moment that he doesn’t even go for a low-hanging gay joke at his expense. “I thought I was losing you after just getting you back, and I…”

He squeezes his eyes shut, shakes his head and lets the Rubik’s cube drop to the floor.

“Hey.” Eddie drops to a knee beside him, picks up the toy and squeezes Richie’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring it up if it was going to upset you. I’m…I’m still just really surprised about the gift, that’s all. It means more to me than you know, alright, even if I…even if I’m showing it in a stupid way.”

Richie cracks an eye open, then smiles when he sees whatever pathetically earnest expression Eddie’s probably wearing in return.

“Just glad the work was worth it, Eds,” he says softly. “That stupid hunk of bridge is about the only thing worth taking from that town.”

Eddie doesn’t know how serious Richie is about that statement until later that night.

Their evening of Hanukkah and Christmas gift-giving with the other Losers had been a smashing success, with all the stupid gag gifts one could expect from the friends of Richie Tozier mixed with all the sentimental and heartfelt presents to be expected from the likes of Mike, Ben, and, surprisingly, Stan, secret sap that he is. By the time the others stumble back out to their homes or hotels for the evening, safely and drunkenly tucked into Ubers lined up like Christmas sleighs, Eddie is feeling warm with love like he hasn’t felt on Christmas Eve in decades.

Richie is looking just as warm and relaxed from his spot on the couch in the corner, flushed from mulled wine and cozy in an ugly Christmas sweater and smiling at Eddie like he’s never been so content.

“Did you have a good Christmas Eve, Eddie Spaghetti?”

“The best,” Eddie says honestly, ignoring the nickname in favor of painful sincerity. “Thank you for letting me host that here. That was…you’re really the best, you know? That was the best Christmas I’ve had since the last time we were all together.”

Richie’s smile only grows at that. “Glad to hear it, Eds. Anything for you.”

It’s hard for Eddie to look too closely at Richie when he’s turning his full attention on him, knowing he’ll never have it like he truly wants it, so he fiddles with the decorations on the bookshelf for something to do. A nutcracker and a snow globe and a fat, squishy snow man, lined up next to Richie’s homemade frame.

“It’s just nice having everyone together. It’s just…we’re so lucky, you know?” he murmurs, his wine-clumsy fingers knocking the nutcracker over, hurrying to catch the frame before it can fall.

It’s only then in his hands that he sees the back of the frame for the first time, the engraving on the back that looks much older than Richie’s more recent carpentry efforts on the front.

R + E

“Oh,” Eddie breathes, a rush of cold panic and warm hope pouring over him all at once. “Richie, what’s…is this from the bridge?”

Richie looks up, curious, paling slightly when he sees what Eddie is looking at.

“Oh, yeah. That. It was, uh, it was on the part of the bridge I broke.”

“It’s our initials, Richie. R and E.” Barely able to hear over the pounding in his ears, Eddie whispers, “Is that us?”

Flushed from the tips of his ears to the collar of his sweater, it’s impossible for Richie to do anything but nod, a little sheepish as he drops his gaze to the floor.

“The summer of the clown, when you were grounded and we were all in that awful fight and I couldn’t see you, or anyone…” He laughs, a bleak and mirthless sound. “I thought I was going crazy, you know? I needed you more than I ever did, because that stupid clown knew my secret and…and I was already so scared of him doing something to me, but then he knew how I felt about you, and if he did something to you…” He shakes his head, eyes falling shut as the fear of the memory washes over him.

“How you felt about me?” Eddie clutches the frame to his chest like a raft in a stormy sea. “How did you feel about me?”

Richie opens his eyes and looks steadily at Eddie. “How did I feel?” he asks. “I felt enough to carve our initials into the Kissing Bridge without caring if anyone saw. I felt enough to rip that bridge apart and take those letters with me in case that’s all I had left of you when I left that stupid town this time around.”

He closes his eyes, briefly, and then, like he’s steeling himself for something, he adds, “I don’t know why we’re saying ‘felt’ in the past tense, like I just gave that frame to you for no reason. As if any of those feelings ever went away.”

All at once Eddie feels lightheaded, like the first thrilling time he drank a beer with Richie and thought he was going to fall over, but knowing all the while without knowing how he knew that Richie would catch him if he needed to.

“You still like me like that?” he whispers, running his fingers over the letters with reverence before placing the frame back on the shelf.

Richie smiles ruefully, makes a buzzer noise out of the side of his mouth. “Wrong four-letter word, there, Eds. Try it again. Same first letter, whole different set of consequences for me.”

Eddie approaches Richie with all the care needed to approach a startled fawn, quiet slow steps forward and a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Come on, Rich, don’t chicken out on me here. Can you say it? Please? For me?”

Eyes wide with someone less like fear and more like wonder, Richie swallows and grips the hand on his shoulder with all the strength of someone about to unburden something he’s been carrying for far too long.

“I love you, Eddie. I’m in love with you. Always have been and always will be.”

It’s like someone unlocked a box that had been hiding in Eddie’s chest, flipped it upside down, and shook it until every joyful emotion he’d ever known came tumbling out in one jumbled mess. It’s a thrill unlike anything Eddie’s ever felt: every leap into the quarry, every stolen moment in the hammock with Richie, every night sneaking in and out of windows and whispering in the too-near closeness under bedsheets.

Richie loves him.

“Does it count as a Christmas gift,” Eddie says breathlessly, pulling Richie to his feet, “if I tell you that I love you, too?”

Dazed, eyes wide and lips parted slightly, Richie nods stupidly until it seems his brain has caught up with his heart.

“Only if you mean it,” he says, gathering Eddie into his arms and pulling him in to a first-class kiss for the ages.

Eddie thinks, if this is how Richie is going to kiss him every day, he’s going to have to find him a Christmas gift, after all.

“Merry Christmas, Eddie,” Richie whispers against his lips, and there’s a lot Eddie wants to say back to that, but it’ll have to wait, he decides, as he pulls Richie in for another kiss.

They’ve got a lot of catching up to do.

#reddie #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #it chapter 2 #reddie fic #it 2019 #it (stephen king)#reddie hc #it stephen king #richie x eddie #i don’t even know my tags anymore #trashmouth tozier #reddie christmas fic #i know this is late but I decided it needed a part 2 lol #merry christmas y’all #happy new year #long post #sry lol

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