trick or treat!
a sequel to my neibolt au fic, to build a home! happy halloween!
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“I don’t know about this, Eddie.”
“Oh come on, Stan, don’t be a party pooper.”
“I’m on Stan’s side for this one, guys. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Wh-wha…what are you t-t-talking about? We’ll bluh-bl-blend right in!”
“That’s easy for you to say, Billy- you’re not the one with real fire on your head! No one will believe that this is just a costume.”
“Well, maybe you could wear a hat-”
“Fabulous idea, Rich, then my hair and my hat will be on fire-”
Eddie let out a loud, frustrated breath that quickly silenced the conversation between his friends. “Would you all just stop for a minute?” He whipped around, turning away from the bathroom mirror he had been using to fix his shirt collar. Six ghosts stood behind him, all of them crammed into the small hallway outside the bathroom on the second floor of the abandoned house on Neibolt Street.
Most boys Eddie’s age spent their free time down at the park playing soccer, or in the arcade trying to get a new high score on Street Fighter, or in the new comic book store in town, reading all the copies of Spiderman and Superman they had.
Eddie Kaspbrak, on the other hand, spent most of his time in the old abandoned house of 29 Neibolt Street- a place where most boys his age only ever came near if they were dared to. And while Eddie had once been just as terrified of that house, that fear was now just a distant memory. It had been a year since Eddie had discovered the secrets of the house, and what was once dread brewing in his stomach when he would look up at the broken down and rotten exterior of the building when he had first moved to Derry, was now comfort and warm sense of belonging, as he played hide and seek in the maze of rooms and talked to his new friends for hours after school.
Richie Tozier floated into bathroom, passing straight through the wall and taking a seat on the edge of the bathtub beside Eddie. “Yeah, Eds, tell them they’re being scaredy-cats for nothing!”
“It’s not nothing, Richie,” Stanley Uris countered. His body stood leaning against the doorway of the bathroom, and in his hands he held his decaptitated head, which was glaring down at Richie with narrowed eyes (Eddie had learned that Stan preferred his head and his body to be separated- he said he liked to give his shoulders a break every once in a while). “I mean, what do we do if someone gets too close? How do we explain ourselves? What happens when Richie throws his bugs at people like he always does? What about if someone knocks into me and my head falls off? Holy shit- what if Beverly sets someone on fire?!”
“Hey, I’ve learned to control it!” Beverly said, the orange flames on her head shooting up. Mike and Ben, who were standing the closest to her, flinched back.
“Beverly won’t set anyone on fire, she hasn’t had an accident in almost three months,” Eddie reassured Stanley. “And we’ll be careful, to make sure no one runs into you, Stan. And I already made Richie promise that he won’t throw any of his bugs. Right, Rich?”
Richie held up a hand over his heart. “Swear on my life.”
Stanley rolled his eyes. “Yeah, that means a lot coming from a dead guy.” At that, Richie picked a maggot from his cheek and launched it at Stanley.
Eddie sighed- he hadn’t been expecting the night to be so… challenging.
It was October 31st, 1990, and Eddie had spent the past week trying to convince his ghostly friends to come trick or treating with him. Richie, Bill, and Ben had been on board right away- even though they knew they wouldn’t be able to eat any of the candy they collected, none of them had been trick or treating since before they died, and they had spent the week buzzing about it. Beverly, Stanley, and Mike, on the other hand, hadn’t been as stoked- and Eddie could understand why. Even though it would be Halloween night and everyone else would also be dressed up as ghosts and zombies and monsters, some of the ghosts of Neibolt House worried that their “costumes” would stick out too much.
Eddie pulled off the plastic vampire fangs he was wearing to speak more clearly (the fangs were an amazing addition to his costume, but they did make it awfully difficult for Eddie to speak properly). “Look, guys, I get that it’s scary going out,” he said, in a gentle voice that very much contradicted the scary-vampire costume he was wearing. “But I promise, it’ll be fun! And we won’t even be out for very long- I have to be home by nine, anyways. So, whaddaya say?” At his friends’ silence, Eddie added on one more thing, “Besides, last Halloween, Henry Bowers totally kicked my ass and stole the candy I had been collecting for an hour. If I run into him again this year, I’m gonna need some terrifying ghosts to scare him shitless.”
At that, Beverly and Mike smiled. Eddie looked to Stanley, who was still thinking it over, until he finally lifted his head back onto the stump of his neck and blew out a breath. “Alright, I’m in,” he said, with a small smile.
“Me too,” Mike said.
“Me three,” Beverly said, the flames on her head burning a bright orange.
Richie shot up from the bathtub, letting out a loud, cheering whoop as he did a loop-di-loop in the air. “Hell yeah!”
Eddie smiled widely as his friends broke out into conversation again, thought this time it didn’t consist of arguing- only excitement, as they spoke about which houses they remembered gave good, full-sized candy bars and how they were going to be the scariest-looking kids in town. He stuck his teeth back into his mouth and turned back to the bathroom mirror to continue getting his costume ready; he had bought a tube of fake blood from the Halloween store, and had to paint it onto his face in the most vampirish way he could think of. He thought back to when he had gone to see that scary vampire movie a few weeks earlier, and tried his best to copy how the monster in the movie had looked. Eddie wasn’t nearly as spooky-looking as his friends, but he didn’t care about that. He didn’t care about which house gave the best candy, or even how much candy would end up in his bag by the end of the night.
All Eddie cared about was that he was going to get to spend one of his favourite nights of the year with his best friends. That was the best thing he could have asked for.
By the time Eddie had finished up with his costume, the sun had almost completely set, the sky now shades of orange and red. When Eddie stepped out onto the front porch of the house, there was a cold breeze in the air, and Eddie was starting to wish he had listened to his mother and brough a coat to wear. But, he was quickly warmed once again as Richie stepped out beside him, grabbing his hand and pulling him forward. Richie’s ghostly hand might have been cold, but seeing the wide grin on his face was enough to warm Eddie’s heart. “Come on!” he said, as he floated down the stairs and Eddie stumbled down behind him. “We gotta get started before all the good candy’s gone!”
Eddie laughed as the rest of the ghosts trailed out of the house behind them. “What are you so eager for?” he asked Richie, having to speedwalk to keep up with his pace. “You can’t even eat the candy you get.”
“I know,” Richie said, his head doing a full 180-degree-turn on his shoulders to look back at Eddie, while his body still faced forward. “But you can! And I know that your mom doesn’t let you buy candy, only that gross sugar-free crap that tastes like dirt, so we gotta get you stocked up on candy until next Halloween!”
Eddie’s eyes widened, and he felt his cheeks heat up. “You’re gonna give your candy to me?”
Bill laughed from beside him. “Well, duh,” he said, showing off his mouthful of sharp teeth as he smiled. “Wha-wha-what’d you thu-th…thi-think we were guh-gonna do with it?” Eddie hadn’t put much thought into it, and the realization made his blushing face grow even warmer and his smile grow wider.
Richie let out a snort of laugher and gripped Eddie’s hand tighter. “Come on, let’s go this way,” he said. “I know exactly where to start.”
And he did. Richie took them to a house owned by an old lady, with eyesight bad enough to see the ghosts just as children in costumes, and with a heart big enough to give each of them two full-sized candy bars. The seven of them travelled from house to house, their pillowcases growing heavier and heavier and their enjoyment of the night only increasing as the night went on. Eddie had always liked Halloween (after all, what was there not to like about getting free candy?), but he had never spent a Halloween night like this before. He had never had a group of friends quite like this before, who could make him laugh so hard that he shot juice out of his nose, and who were always there for him after a bad day at school, who he always knew would warmly welcome him into 29 Neibolt.
Eddie looked over to Richie, who had been walking right at his side all night, and nudged him with his elbow. “Hey, Richie” Eddie said softly.
Richie took a break from scaring the group of little kids who were passing by them to look over to his friend. “I only promised that I wouldn’t throw bugs at people,” he said defensively. “You never said anything about general scaring.”
“That’s not what I was going to say.”
“Good, ‘cause I ain’t stopping. So, what’s up? Want another Kit-Kat?”
Eddie shook his head. “No, if I eat any more candy I think I’ll barf,” he said.
“So… what is it?”
Eddie thought for a moment, looking around at the rest of his friends. They were all busy in their own conversations, comparing the treats in their bags. Eddie turned back to Richie. “Thanks,” he said. “For coming out with me tonight. It means a lot.”
The threads stitching his lips together stretched thin as Richie grinned widely, throwing his arm around Eddie’s shoulders. “ ‘Course, Eds!” Richie paused, and Eddie watched as Richie’s smile softened from that goofy grin of his to a more genuine smile. It was a smile that Eddie had only seen a handful of times during their friendship, but he knew well enough what it meant. Richie leaned his head down against Eddie’s shoulder, and lowered his voice so that just Eddie could hear. “Thanks for not forgetting about us,” he said.
Eddie kept his smile, though it was wavered by a small wave of confusion. “What do you mean?”
Richie shrugged. “Well, it’s just… I don’t know. Sometimes when you don’t come around to the house for a few days, I think… I sometimes wonder when will come the day that you’ll move on. That you’ll make new friends and…” He didn’t finish his sentence, but he didn’t have to. Eddie knew exactly what he was talking about, and it broke his heart. “Don’t get me wrong, I love Bev and Bill and Stanley and Mike and Ben, I love ‘em loads, but… you’re my best friend, Eds.” Eddie didn’t miss the way Richie’s voice cracked slightly at that last part.
“Hey,” he said, shrugging Richie’s head off his shoulder. When Richie didn’t look at him, Eddie reached out and grabbed his hand. It was cold as ice, but Eddie held on tight. “I already told you before,” he went on. “There’s no way I’m forgetting about you. Not ever, got it?”
Though Richie’s eyes were a complete milky-white, Eddie could still see the joy returning to them as Richie’s smile grew once again. Richie’s chest puffed out in confidence, and the stitches on his mouth seemed like they were about to break open at the size of the smile on Richie’s face. “Good,” he said firmly. “ ‘Cause if you do, I’ll-”
“You’ll haunt my ass forever,” Eddie finished for him. “Yeah, I know.”
The two fell into laugher just as Beverly, a few feet in front of them, turned and called for them to catch up. “Come on, slowpokes!” she said. “Mike says there’s a place around the block that’s giving out ice-cream sandwiches!”
The two boys didn’t have to be told twice. Richie grabbed Eddie’s hand, and Eddie laughed as his short legs stumbled along to keep up with Richie’s speedy floating as they caught up with the rest of their friends.
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