Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Eddie’s chest rattled with every breath, but he could barely hear it over the grind of stone as the sewers collapsed around him. Vaguely he could hear voices, but they sounded miles away, grasping at the rock around him his hand closed on nothing but dirt. To his right was Richie’s blood soaked jacket, Eddie vaguely recalled arms around him and excruciating pain as there was pressure against… against where his arm should have been. Twisting over made his vision go topsy-turvy, but even as it swam he could see the blood pooling on the rocks, spilling down into the grey water below like an oil spill and he managed to grab the material, pressing it back into place. With a clumsy hand he pulled his belt free from his hips, missing the loop several times before he got it around the stub, biting down on the leather as he pulled it as tight as it could go, and somewhat muffling his scream. Rifling through the jacket, he found a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, but nothing he could use to cauterize—

A piece of rock slammed down next to his head, big enough to split his skull. Cracks split through the ceiling overhead, debris crashing down around him hard enough to break the rock below. For once, Eddie didn’t know the way out as he looked around the collapsing cistern for an exit, but his eyes caught on a slither of something down the rocks. Bulbous and streaked orange, but his brain somehow automatically knew it was a tapeworm making its way towards the water-- IT. Throwing himself down the rocks, Eddie caught the tail of it before it could slither into the water, and it pulled him along before he could even take a breath.

In hindsight, Eddie would have thought infection would have crossed his mind first as he was dragged along rock and sewer bottom, but all he could think was, I will not die in the gutter in vain. His grip didn’t fail him on the slippery body of the tapeworm, nails biting into fat, but he could feel his consciousness ebbing. Dragged into a smaller, dry pipe, air hit him like a car windshield being torn away and he coughed up disgusting water and blood onto the ground. The tapeworm turned on him, rows and rows of sharp teeth bared as it opened its mouth as though it were a creature from Dune. 

Eddie spat blood right into those teeth, thinking of all the words his mother had let fester in his head. “I’m a sick queer, die of AIDS, bitch.”

The tape worm writhed as it shrank down before shriveling up in the pipe. Eddie ground it under his heel until all that was left was dust. Leaning heavily against the wall, he could hear the echo of the collapse, but the pipe he was in showed no fault lines. Reaching around him, he found first the most terrifying decaying teddybear he had ever seen… which he used to soak up some of the water in the package of cigarettes and then a few splintering pieces of what had likely been plywood for this or that but washed up, and dried up in the smaller off shoot. Teddybear, cigarettes, and plywood all got lit up until he had a decent fire going. If he could be choosy, he would have heated up a piece of metal for cauterization, but with the way his vision was cutting in and out, that wasn’t a privilege he had. So he snuffed the fire with his own wet jacket, then pressed his stump to the burning wood. 

And passed out. 

Eddie woke up choking on water, weakly, he managed to get his head above, but he realized too late that the collapse of the sewer must have risen the water level to reach the pipe he was holed up in. It washed him down, down, down into darkness and it was all he could do to find the surface again every time he went under. Dark. Eddie woke up the second time on the bank of the Barrens, washed up with lost toys and knickknacks, trash running along the river like a parade under the moonlight. Bill always said that was where Georgie would wash up. A paper boat bobbed by him. 

Eddie slipped in and out for a few minutes before he managed to crawl over to a tree, to drag himself up, palm scraping against the bark, and nearly tipping over again. Disoriented, lightheaded from blood loss, and unbalanced with his new center of gravity. Making his way through the Barrens was like walking through a pinball machine as he slumped from tree to tree, but even after all the years, he knew his way out. Stumbling out into the street, headlights blinded him, but he didn’t move out of the way even when they honked and it came skidding to a stop in front of him. Eddie collapsed, taking in the numbers of their license plate and the sound of footsteps before it went dark again. 

The beep of a hospital monitor wormed its way into his skull, antiseptic clogging his nose, and the weight of sedatives hanging off his eyelids as he struggled to open them. There was a spider sitting on his chest. Eddie screamed, trying to whack it away only for his whole body to burst into blinding agony as it realized his right arm was missing. Nurses flooded his hospital room, dampening the agony with morphine like throwing a wet blanket on top of house fire, hands holding him down so he couldn’t do further damage to himself, and shushing him like a startled horse. None of them tried to bat the away the spider skittering along his body like its own personal jungle gym.

“Spider,” Eddie managed to gasp as it skittered down his leg.

The nurses ran their eyes over him before glancing at one another. One shook her head.

“There’s no spider, Mr. Kaspbrak, it’s not uncommon to feel somewhat disoriented considering the pain medication you’re on, you’ve just had major surgery…”

Eddie tuned her out as he stared into the yellow eyes of the spider sitting on his knee, big as a wolf spider, oil black hairs lining its wiry body. 

“This better be the fucking head trauma,” Eddie said before being swept under by the morphine again.

Eddie woke up to the spider sitting on his nightstand, he didn’t scream that time, but his heart rate jumped enough to alert a nurse who calmly explained that they had cut away more of his arm before infection could set in from the amateur cauterization, stitched him up, and put him on a course of antibiotics. There was about half of his bicep left of his right arm and even that stump had several stitches ringing it where Pennywise’s teeth had sank in rows and rows. 

“—Dr. Manning said she had only seen those types of injuries in shark bites, she’ll be in shortly to answer any further questions, but for our records—“

“Do you have a phone?”

“Is there someone you would like us to call for you? We noticed you didn’t have an emergency contact listed—“

Sitting in the airport, Eddie had revoked Myra’s access to his medical records, his bank accounts, and sent an email to his lawyer to start the divorce process before boarding. After Mike’s phone call, the way her words rang in his ears as he tried to leave might as well have been a recording of his mother, and when he pulled free of her hands he had declared that he wouldn’t be returning before making his escape. 

“The Townhouse,” Eddie said.

“Mr. Kaspbrak, you have quite a lengthy hospital stay ahead—“

“I have friends staying there.” 

If any of them made it out.

“Of course, we’ll call—“

“I asked for a phone,” Eddie said, trying and failing to keep the bite out of his tone.

“Of course.” 

She returned shortly with a phone, dialing in the number for him when his hands shook, and he held the phone to his ear, glaring at her when she stood only a foot away. She took a few steps back, turning away under the illusion of privacy.

“Derry Townhouse,” a reluctant voice answered.

“I’m calling for Richie Tozier.”

“We don’t got anyone here under that name.”

Eddie’s heart seized. “You— you don’t? Are you sure?” 

“Yeah, I’m sure, checked out late last night when I was trying to head off to bed.” 

Eddie almost dropped the phone. “What?”

“Yeah, I know, real piece of work those celebrities, huh? The whole lot of ‘em reeked of that kinda entitlement, think one of ‘em designed that ugly ass buil—“

“They all checked out?” Eddie demanded. “Bill Denbrough, Beverly Marsh, Ben Hanscom, and Richard Tozier?”

“Yeah, had to call half of ‘em taxis to the airport.” 

Eddie’s eyes blurred, glaring at the nightstand where the spider swam in his vision, raising one leg like it was waving at him. He was tempted to slam the phone down on it and find out if hallucinations went splat when hit. 

“What… what about Edward Kaspbrak?”

“Tozier checked him out, probably for the best ‘cause after seeing the state of the room, I’d wring the guy’s neck if I saw him, though Tozier did pay for the damages…”

Eddie hung up the phone while he was still talking.

“Mr. Kaspbrak? The nurse said tentatively.

Eddie blinked hard, clearing his throat, holding out the phone. “Thank you.”

“Is… is there someone else I could call?”

“No,” Eddie’s jaw worked, focusing on the spider to keep back tears. “No, there’s no one.”

The nurse made herself scarce. Eddie nodded along when the doctor came, telling her blandly someone must have flushed a shark down the toilet for it to end up in the sewers in Maine when she asked what had happened. It didn’t even get an amused look, but Eddie could hear the echo of Richie in his head saying, Aw, Eds, you flubbed that joke, it’s supposed to be an alligator, everyone knows that, you should’ve told them you’re an extra on the Jaws remake. Aside from the whole missing arm, blood loss, and concerns of infection, he had several scrapes and bruises, but no head trauma.

Eddie stared at the spider. “Can any of the pain medications I’m on cause hallucinations?”

“…it’s rare, but not impossible. Mr. Kaspbrak, are you currently seeing any hallucinations?”

Eddie looked away from the spider. “No, I… I don’t like taking medication, can you please start lowering my dosage?”

Dr. Manning didn’t look like she believed him, but she agreed. It left him sleeping fitfully for the rest of the stay, nightmares waking him frequently only to still end up staring at the spider, and near-feverish from the pain. By the time, they talked release with plans of physical therapy and checkups, the spider had taken to crawling along his good arm until he shook it off like it was trying to land him with a 72 hour psychiatric hold. 

Walking out of the hospital, he took the taxi right to a car rental even though he wasn’t supposed to be driving, and paid for three days. Driving out of Maine, he stopped at the nearest outlet to first buy a cellphone. Sitting on the concrete, he scrolled through his emails to find that after his work tried to reach him for days via phone they had decided to send him a letter of termination over email, which hadn’t been much of a surprise after going MIA, a flood from Myra which he left unopened, and a few from his lawyer that he starred to answer later. Then he googled. 

Richard Tozier comes out as gay on Twitter…

Designer Beverly Marsh divorces husband and business partner Tom Rogan…

Insider sources say Bill Denbrough ran off on the final days of shooting, is there trouble in paradise between Hollywoods favorite starlet and her horror novelist husband…

Ben’s mentions were older for projects he had completed, but his social media accounts were all active if only through retweets and likes. Mike didn’t have any news articles mentioning his name, but his location was marked as Florida on his Facebook though he hadn’t posted any photos. 

“Fuck you,” Eddie whispered to his phone.

Shoving his phone into his pocket, he decided then and there that he wasn’t going back to New York. Unlike the other Losers he couldn’t just… go back to his old life, if he could even call what he had been doing for the past twenty-seven years living. There wasn’t anything worth returning to, not even to pick up his meager possession from the apartment, they were all replaceable. He stocked up on supplies: a few pairs of jeans, button downs (pinning the loose sleeve up with a twist and a safety pin), pajamas, toiletries, Advil (lots of Advil), and a laptop before getting back into the car.

Turning West without any particular destination in mind, he almost crashed the car into the guardrail a mile onto the highway as the spider from the hospital leapt up onto the dashboard.

“Motherfucker!”

Pulling over, Eddie pulled his shoe off, slamming it down on, but missed the spider by an inch. It tried to scurry away, but he got it the second go. Splat. Cringing, he wiped away viscera from the dashboard of the rental car and threw the napkin out the window along with the spider body. Shoe returned to his foot, pretending he wasn’t thinking about the spider guts on it, he started driving again. 

Eddie couldn’t drive for long before the ache in his shoulder became too much for him and the exhaustion of his body fighting to heal made him pull into the first truck stop diner he found. Sitting at the near empty counter, he flipped through a menu full of the kind of greasy artery clogging food he hadn’t eaten since he was a kid. Though to be fair, back then he bitched about how none of them would live past fifty, and Richie had stuffed a mouthful of fries into Eddie's mouth to shut him up saying, at least we’ll go together.

Eddie slapped the menu down on the counter, glaring at the red booths off to the side.

“Long trip?” A waitress, Beth according to her name pin, ambled over. 

“Long week,” Eddie said.

“You’re in luck, just put on a fresh pot of coffee.”

Eddie didn’t drink coffee he was such a nervous man, you know you can’t have caffeine, Eddie-bear, poor thing, here, have an Ativan, calm you down.

“Thanks,” Eddie said.

“You ready to order?” 

Eddie glanced at menu, but thought of the other Losers teasing him for rattling off his allergies at the Chinese food place and sat up straighter. 

“Yeah, uh, I’ll have a cheeseburger, side of fries, onion rings, and, oh, screw it, a chocolate milkshake.”

Beth raised her eyebrows. “Hungry, huh?”

“Yeah, feel like I haven’t eaten in twenty years,” Eddie said dryly.

“I’ll tell ‘em to make it quick then.”

“Thanks.”

Eddie shrugged off his jacket, which had been laying over his right shoulder rather than trying to put what was left of his arm through it, but he still heard Beth’s slight inhale as she caught sight of the pinned up sleeve. Tossing his coat on the stool beside him, Eddie raised an eyebrow at her. 

Beth’s expression smoothed out. “You want whipped cream on that milkshake?”

“Sure, why not,” Eddie said tiredly. 

There were only three other diners in the place: a trucker sat in a booth by himself and a pair of twenty year olds discussing the next leg of their road trip, both wearing sweatshirts with different colleges on them. Eddie pulled out his phone, opening up Wikipedia. Beverly had gone to Otis College. Bill had dropped out of Middlebury College. Richie had gone to Pepperdine University. Ben to Colorado State University. Mike’s didn’t say, but Eddie could make an educated guess it was likely the one over in Bangor. Stanley had gone to University of Georgia, he didn’t have a Facebook, but it was on his LinkedIn. Which was still active, but Eddie supposed it had only been a few weeks, and deleting social media would likely be low on his wife’s list of priorities. 

They had been too busy comparing now and then in the restaurant that no one had talked about the 20 years or so of in-between: college, building a career, moving apartments, annoying neighbors, friends, ex-girlfriends. Eddie set his phone down with a thunk before he could dig further. Why should he? Even if he had any social media, he doubted the other Losers were digging into his. 

“Here you go, hon.” Beth set a milkshake before him piled high with whipped cream and half a dozen cherries.

Eddie’s eyes widened at the behemoth.

Beth laughed a little. “You look like you could use it. Actually, you look like you could use a stiff drink but we don’t serve that here.”

“I’m driving anyways, so I guess this’ll have to do.”

“Where you heading?”

“I don’t know.” Eddie fiddled with the straw. “Not New York. Not Maine.”

“That still leaves a good forty-eight states left.”

“Got a map and a dart?”

Beth snorted. “If you’re looking for a view, you should head up towards the Rockies, hard to go wrong there, it’s a lot of beautiful country.”

“And snow.”

“Part of the beauty.”

“Thanks for the recommendation.”

“There’s also a hotel about two miles down the road. You might want to think about catching an hour or two before hitting the road again, you look fit to crash.”

“I thought that’s what the coffee was for.”

Beth shook her head, but she set a cup in front of him, and he choked it down, black and bitter, between sips of his milkshake ignoring the voice screaming everything from lactose intolerance to diabetes in his head, digging into his food with vengeance when it was set before him. His spite simmered out somewhat as he demolished his burger, half his fries, and a quarter of his onion rings, ketchup, salt, and grease all over his hand. Using a napkin turned out to be harder with one hand than he anticipated and he ended up running to the washroom to use the sink instead. 

A familiar spider popped out of the drain and Eddie fell on his ass with an undignified squeak. It clambered out of the basin to sit on the ledge, raising two legs to wiggle menacingly at him. Eddie closed his eyes, counted to ten, then opened them. Wiggle. 

Eddie groaned. “No, no, no, you are not a hallucination, I am not hallucinating, I felt you go splat! You are a different spider, just, an eerily similar looking one.”

Rising to his feet, Eddie wadded up a bunch of paper towels, squishing the spider and washing the remains down the drain for good measure. He let out a full body shudder as he threw out the paper towel and exited the bathroom. Settling his bill, he took a styrofoam box of fries and onion rings to-go as well as a paper cup of coffee and got on the road after knocking back a few Advil.

Even with a tentative destination of the Rockies Eddie still drove a winding way West. His rental might expire, but he could always get rent another car, and driving slow bought him a little time to mull over what he would do past seeing the mountains. Aside from a business trip or two, Eddie had never left the East Coast, but he never had an urge to wander, too steadfast in his sense of direction of life. College, steady work, promotion, fiancee, wife, apartment, townhouse, and eventually retirement and death. Only now he had thrown out the map he had followed for twenty-seven years and had to start over. 

Even with onion rings and shitty diner coffee in his system, he eventually had to crash at a motel and catch a few hours. Only a few because when he woke up from a nightmare there was a spider sitting on his chest, a little fatter than its predecessor in the diner bathroom. It met an undignified end of being beaten to death with a pillow while Eddie cussed it out. 

His shower was cut short by the fact that he kept yanking the curtain back to check he was alone in the bathroom, but it cleaned him of any spider guts at the very least. Facing himself in the mirror he took in the scar slicing down his cheek, yellow green bruises, scabbed over scrapes and the stitches he would have to stopover somewhere to get removed. He had lost a little weight in the hospital (not including the arm), making his face a little more angular, his eyes appear bigger, more haunted especially paired with the dark circles. His hair curling and falling in his face without his usual gel to comb it back. 

“Richie was right,” Eddie said. “Guess not all of us grew up handsome, huh?”

Pulling on his shirt with no small amount of effort and cursing, he left the bathroom, and willfully didn’t look at the bed as he exited the motel room, lugging his bag along.

Chapter Text

Eddie figured at some point fast food would lose its charm, but three days into his road-trip he was still chowing down on anything and everything he hadn’t let himself have in the past twenty years or so. Reaching for a candy bar, his hand closed around something warm and wiry. Looking over slowly with his heart in his throat, all eight eyes of the spider met his gaze. Eddie screamed and threw it out the open passenger side window. 

“No, no, fuck no!” Eddie rolled up the windows as though it might crawl back in. 

Taking a few deep breaths, Eddie met his own eyes in the rear view mirror.

“IT is dead and if it wasn’t it would do a lot fucking worse than torment me with an immortal spider, it’s… it’s just trauma or something.”

The spider leapt out of his backseat at him roughly six hours later and he nearly caused a four car pile up with his swerving. Eventually he managed to trap it in an empty soda cup in a move that included spilling gummy worms across the seats and holding the wheel steady with his knee to use his one hand.

Shoving it in the cup holder, he put his attention back to driving, ignoring the honks he got. A plastic squeak made him look over to see the spider peeking out of the cup.

“I swear to god if you come out of that cup I’ll throw you out of the car again. I don’t give a fuck if it’s littering, I’ll pay a fine.”

The spider disappeared back into the cup. 

Turning on the radio, Eddie tried to pretend as though there wasn’t a demonic spider the size of a child’s hand riding shotgun. 

“—ecial guest tonight folks, an interview with Richard Tozier! Now if you’re old like us you’ll remember way back when he had his own radio show before he put a face to those outrageous voices!”

“To bad it was this face,” Richie said, earning a laugh from the host. “Thanks for having me, Don, it’s nice to be back in the studio again, it’s making me feel like my back doesn’t hurt when I wake up in the mornings.”

Don laughed again. “I hear that, now, you know I’ve gotta ask…”

“The gay thing?”

“Is that what we’re calling it?”

“That’s what everyone else is, so, sure, why not, the gay thing, but I don’t really get why people have so much to ask about it. Are you gay? Yes or no. I checked yes.”

“You checked yes after a fifteen year career of telling people sleazy stories about ex-girlfriends.”

“Yeah and I told the boy I liked growing up that I fucked his mom. Like daily.”

“Oh?“

Eddie slammed his finger on to another station, music blasting through the car, and the gummy worms roiling in his stomach. They were Richie’s favorite candy… which meant it was the candy Eddie had eaten the most as a kid because he never had any of his own. He thought the worms might actually make a come back if he had to sit and listen to Richie talk about whoever his childhood crush was or worse find out that Richie had ended up with the person of his dreams when he returned to LA, getting his fairytale ending just like Ben.

“You believe this shit?” Eddie asked the car at large (he was not talking to his hallucinatory trauma spider, he wasn’t) and the weird little squeak of the plastic cup seemed to agree with him. 

Eddie groaned. 

The spider was still there when he looked into the cup after checking into a motel, so he left it sitting in the cup holder while he went up to his room. Laying on his back on the sheets, he stared at the ceiling, batting away the thought of how many people had lain in them before.

“I think a therapist would call this great exposure therapy,” Eddie said to himself, then blinked. “A therapist might make the hallucinations stop… or antipsychotics.”

Eddie scrolled through a list of psychologists in the area who might be have an emergency opening as he fell asleep, only to wake up with a Diet-Coke-damp-demonic spider sitting on his chest, riding rise and fall of his nightmare induced hyperventilation. 

“Fuck you,” Eddie spat.

The spider shrank back half a step. 

“Fuck you, I’m going to a doctor tomorrow and he’ll give me antipsychotics and you’ll go away.” 

The spider crouched down on his stomach, raising its front four legs menacingly.

“Or you won’t and I’ll find a way to kill you for good.”

The spider hissed, but Eddie used its distraction to trap it under a glass on the nightstand. Eddie knew exactly what to say to get an emergency supply of antipsychotics: he was traveling for his mother’s funeral and in his haste he had forgotten to pack his Haloperidol and though of course, he knew the hallucinations weren’t real, he didn’t want to cause a disturbance at the funeral. Sitting on the bed of the motel, Eddie faced off with the spider which he had trapped in a more stable mason jar; he hadn’t poked any holes, but the spider didn’t appear to be in any respiratory distress. 

“You’re going to go away,” Eddie informed the spider, knocking back the first dose.

The spider only stared.

Eddie dreamed of his friends calling his name and when he woke up in a panic on how to reach them he found the spider was still sitting on his nightstand. It looked a little bigger than the previous night. 

Several states and nights (and nightmares) later, the spider was still in the confines of its mason jar, tapping against the glass with its furry legs, and occasionally hanging from a single web from the lid only to swing idly back and forth. Eddie’s orange prescription bottle was empty.

Eddie picked up the jar, holding it eye level with a sinking feeling in his stomach. “You’re one of IT’s creepy little spider babies.”

The spider wiggled a leg that appeared to indicate yes, but Eddie hadn’t really been asking. In a way, he had known since he first woke up with it sitting on his chest. Setting the jar down, Eddie flopped down onto the bed.

“Fuck. Of fucking course.” Eddie scrubbed at his face.

You can’t kill it alone, a voice inside his head that sounded suspiciously like Big Bill said.

“No shit,” Eddie ground out. “No, you know what? Fuck that. You all weren’t even there when I finally offed IT, so fuck the power of friendship, I can kill a baby alien demon spider all by myself.” 

Google did not have answers for him about how to do just that. 

Eddie screamed into a pillow before rolling to his feet, picking up the mason jar, and hitting the road again. 

He drove until he didn’t feel like screaming anymore, ate an actually decent meal, had a hot shower, and opened up his computer to idly research ‘killing demons’. 

The divorce proceedings with Myra were relatively clean according to his lawyer, which was the beauty of a prenup and the twenty-first century where he could sign things and fax them over without having to actually return to New York. According to his email inbox, the divorce was messy. Myra’s emails had gone from betrayed to wrathful to pleading and right back around again. 

The most recent email declared she would kill herself if he didn’t come home with a graphic description of how she would do it. It made Eddie’s stomach churn, but he had heard his mother say the same when he left for college, and he knew she wouldn’t. That it was just another ploy. Another tactic. It still made him think of Stanley. Typing his name into the search bar again, Eddie frowned when he didn’t find an obituary. 

Beverly had known from her time in the deadlights that Stanley wouldn’t return. That he would kill himself. Eddie swallowed down bile realizing she must have known the same for him, though according to her, they all would have died gruesome deaths even if they hadn’t come home as revenge for besting Pennywise years before. Waking up in the hospital, Eddie had assumed he missed Stanley’s funeral while recovering, but now that it was weeks later he would have expected an obituary to be on the internet, or there to be some mention of him on his wife’s Facebook, well wishes, condolences, anything. Didn’t he have people who loved him?

Eddie’s fingers paused on the keys as he realized that in none of Myra’s emails, did she mention his friends calling her. Richie had cleared out his room, but he would have heard from Myra if she had been mailed his belongings. If any of his friends had called to tell her the news. Or even to ask about coming to his funeral. Had they gone to Stan’s? Or had they left all the ghosts behind when they returned to their lives. The spider thunked against its mason jar.

“Shut up.” Eddie wiped quickly at his face. “I’m not moping.”

The spider did not appear to believe him.

“Why are you a spider anyway? If you’re baby IT then why aren’t you like more terrifying?” Eddie asked. “Or are you too young to be able to shape shift like your mom?”

Stare.

“I’m not a fan of spiders, but if you were going to pick a form to scare me, this wouldn’t be at the top of the list.”

Stare.

“…okay, then.”

Eddie collapsed into bed.

Chapter Text

Eddie had almost reach Montana when he realized the pattern. On nights when he had awful nightmares, the spider appeared bigger in the jar, on nights where he drove through without sleep, it shrank a little.

“Motherfucker, you’re feeding on my fear, aren’t you?” Eddie shook the jar.

Stare.

“Asshole.” Eddie thunked it into the cupholder of his car. “I’m going to find a way to kill you, seriously, fuck you.” 

It was snowing in Montana and as soon as he could see the Rocky Mountains, he pulled onto the shoulder and got out of the car without his jacket, letting the snowflakes melt into his skin. Leaning against the still-warm hood, he watched the snow fall, staring at the immovable sight stretched out before him in the evening. 

“Okay,” Eddie said to himself once the engine was cold under his hands. “Let’s find a tourist trap.”

Wandering through the souvenirs, Eddie ended up buying a fucked up looking stuffed animal of a big horned sheep, unsure if the weird look he earned was because he was a thirty-eight year old man buying a toy or because his flannel had the sleeve tied up and out of the way, a skill he was getting better at every day. It was odd to say the least to go from New York where no one batted an eye at an unremarkable business man in a suit to a one armed traveler with a facial scar that people stared at when he walked past. It made Eddie itch to flip them off, but they never looked more than a second or two too long. Not long enough for him to justifiably start shouting over. 

On his way out, he saw a book with the name Bill Denbrough splashed across it and a shiny sticker to show that it was a new release. The title of the work was IT.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” 

Snatching up the book, he marched right back up to the counter to buy it. Throwing it into the backseat of his car, he placed the stuffed animal more gently in the passenger seat and it made him feel mildly better about the fact that he could pretend he wasn’t talking to the spider when he started ranting. 

“Seriously? Seriously? It’s only been weeks and he’s churning out our lives for his next pay check? Is he fucking joking?”

Eddie drove until he couldn’t stand it anymore, pulling over on the side of the road just past the sign for a small town, reaching into the backseat, and cracking the book open. He read it in a blind rage, reading out the more outrageous chunks to the stuffed animal (and the spider) and blatantly ignoring the pages describing childhood stories chockfull of bravery, kindness, and friendship. 

His rage burned hot enough that he didn’t realize his engine had cut out until he got to the last page and his fingers were numb with the cold. Turning the key did nothing. Neither did cursing up a storm as he realized the snow was piling high on the rental car like it intended to bury it. Trying to get a signal had him clambering all over the car before he could reach AAA who informed him that it would be at least three hours before they could reach him, but patched him over to a smaller local business.

Eddie’s teeth were chattering by the time he saw another set of headlights and risked cracking the door to catch the attention of the tow truck. 

“A rental?” The guy whistled as he hopped out of the truck. “From Maine? How’d ya get all the way out here?”

“Took a wrong turn,” Eddie bit out, bitter at the cold, bitter at the book in his backseat. “I think the belt of the alternator busted from the stress of running in the cold.” 

And then Eddie had run out the battery rage-reading on the side of the road with his engine on like a damn idiot, but he wasn’t about to tell that to the guy currently hooking up his car to drag it back to his shop and likely charge him a bitch to fix it up.

“Hop in,” he said, slapping the side of the truck as he passed.

Grabbing the jar from the cup holder, Eddie climbed into the passenger seat of the truck, the heat prickling at his cold skin like a pins to a cushion. The guy climbed in a handful of seconds later with a sigh as he shut the door.

“It’s comin’ down good out there, we’ll have a foot by morning, easy,” he said, starting the engine. “Name’s Luke by the way.” 

Dressed in jeans, flannel, and fleece-lined jacket, he looked more like a ranch hand than anything else, roughly Eddie’s age if not a handful of years older, perhaps closer to forty-five than forty, a little salt in his five o’clock shadow and at the temples of his brown hair. The spider’s jar was cold through Eddie's jeans where he had it resting on his thigh, hand on the lid.

“Eddie.” 

Eddie stared out the window as Luke drove, bluegrass music played softly from the speakers. It was a hook and chain tow not a big flatbed truck, and Eddie already knew that they were heading to a hole-in-a-wall of an auto-shop. 

“What brings you out to Red Lodge, Eddie?” Luke asked.

Eddie stared at the spider who didn’t appear to feel the cold in the slightest despite its sparse fur. “Nothing.”

“Long way to come from for nothing.” Luke glanced his way. “Is Maine home?”

“Used to be.”

Luke glanced at him when he didn’t elaborate, lips upturned at the corners. “A man of few words, huh?”

Eddie let out an amused exhale, but it came out sharp. “Never been described that way before, but, yeah, sure, I suppose I am now.”

Now that he had no one to say them to aside from a burgeoning monster he trapped in a mason jar.

Luke let him ride in silence the rest of the way to the shop, unhitching his car in the garage, and Eddie popped the hood to take a look at the engine. The worst part about being half knowledgable about cars was that he often knew what was wrong and how to fix it, but still ended up wasting money in the shop because he didn’t have the time to do it himself. Or. Or Myra would throw a fit if anyone other than a professional fixed up his car, she was convinced they both would die in a fiery accident from Eddie's amateur work. 

“I can fix it up,” Luke said. “But you won’t be able to make it down the street much less to a motel in this weather.”

Eddie let out a frustrated sigh and he felt a twinge of phantom pain at the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose with his right arm. He rolled his shoulder, trying not to get swept under in the nausea that rose every time he thought about the fact that his arm, his arm, had been bitten off his body and there were teeth marks in his skin and he needed to have his stitches out soon and—

“My apartment’s above the shop, you can crash on my couch for a night, and I’ll fix the belt in the morning.”

“I’ll sleep in my car.”

Luke let out an amused exhale. “Go ahead if it suits you, but it’s a lot colder in the shop… and there’s no whiskey down here.” 

Eddie glanced up, glaring at the ‘gotcha’ look on Luke’s face.

“Come on, let’s have a drink, you look like you could use one.”

Eddie looked down at the spider. “You’ve got no idea.”

Grabbing his backpack from the backseat seat, Eddie leaned further in to tuck the sheep stuffed animal into the side pocket, reluctant to leave it in the cold of the garage.

“That Bill Denbrough’s new book?”

Eddie slung his backpack over his shoulder, slamming the door shut.

“Any good?”

“No,” Eddie bit out. “It fucking blows.”

Luke snorted, leading him up the stairs. “Not surprised, he’s a half decent writer, but he can’t find an ending worth shit.”

Eddie chewed on the inside of his cheek, white knuckling his grip on the jar as he followed Luke into the apartment. It wasn’t a lot to look at, the way many bachelor apartments ended up somewhat simple, but it was clearly lived in by the accumulation of books on the shelves, jackets by the door, scuffed boots, and a few photos pinned to the fridge with magnets. Retrieving a bottle from a cabinet above the fridge, Luke poured them both a generous helping of whiskey, nodding towards the couch. Eddie sat down, setting the jar on the floor by his foot to accept the glass of whiskey.

“Hope you’re not fancy, ‘cause this is bottom dollar.”

Aside from a glass of whatever was offered here or there at a business dinner out of polite obligation, Eddie hadn’t truly drunk since his college days, or more like the end of high school when all that was left of the Losers was Stanley, Mike, Richie, and himself, somewhat crippled by the blow of Bill’s family moving halfway through sophomore year and pretending as though they weren’t floundering through adolescence without their leader. 

The only time Eddie remembered being truly drunk was in Mike’s barn, complaining idly about allergies on account of the loose straw that littered the loft they were tucked away in. Eventually, the other three had started skipping him when they handed around the bottle of Scotch Stanley had stolen from his father, but Eddie hadn’t minded, already laying over Richie’s lap tuning in and out of the conversation as it interested him, more focused on the feel of Richie's worn-soft jeans against his cheek, the way one of Richie’s elbow rested on his waist, his other hand running through his hair in spite of Eddie’s bitching about him messing it up. Eddie had ended up with straw in his hair because Richie was an asshole. 

At the Chinese restaurant, Eddie had drank enough that he had let his shoulder press against Richie’s in the booth after winning their arm wrestling competition and sank further into his side when Richie had tossed his arm around his shoulders without looking away from the argument he was having with Beverly like there hadn’t been twenty-seven years since the last time he had done the same.

“No.” Eddie cleared his throat, taking a sip. “I’m not fancy.” 

Luke sat down with a sigh, kicking one foot up on the coffee table, and sipping his whiskey. Eddie let the silence sit, the Losers had always teased him about having a short fuse, but that meant he needed a spark to get going. 

“What’s with the jar?” Luke asked.

Eddie knew that Luke couldn’t see the spider because anyone who see’s a strange man carrying about a jar with the world’s ugliest spider would be saying, ‘what the fuck is the deal with the creepy ass spider’ and not ‘what’s with the jar’.

“Long story,” Eddie said. 

“Weather’s not letting up anytime soon,” Luke said.

Eddie sipped his whiskey rather than respond.

Luke studied him for a minute. “You military?”

Eddie looked up. “What? No.”

Luke shrugged. “You’ve got that look about you.”

“What look? Like I should be in a Wounded Warrior commercial?” Eddie bit out.

“Like you’ve got ghosts,” Luke said. “It’s in your eyes.”

Eddie opened his mouth, but his eyes caught on the chain dipping under Luke’s shirt, the edge of a tattoo under the rolled up sleeve of his flannel, the scar cutting through his eyebrow. 

“…I’d like to retract my Wounded Warriors comment,” Eddie said after a long minute.

Luke laughed. “Relax, man, I heard a lot worse when I was actually in the army. They called me OT for about four months, short for Oxygen Thief ‘cause I talked too much my first tour, ’n a whole lot worse when I became a medic. People ain’t at their nicest when they’re hurtin’.”

“Yeah, well, don’t cut me too much slack, I was an asshole before all of this.”

Luke let out an amused exhale.

Eddie looked down at his hand. “I’m the ghost.”

Luke raised an eyebrow, sipping his whiskey. “You gonna expand on that?” 

“Why would I tell my shit to a complete stranger?”

“You got someone else to tell?”

“Fine,” Eddie bit out. “My friends left me for dead in the sewer and I’ve wasted the last twenty years of my life because I had lost the memory of my entire childhood and forgot what I actually cared about as a person.” 

Luke’s eyes widened, setting his glass down on the table. “Holy shit.”

Eddie knocked back the rest of his whiskey and Luke topped him up.

“Yeah, you think that’s bad, I worked in risk analysis,” Eddie said dryly.

Luke let out a sharp laugh. “You poor son of a bitch.”

Eddie managed a shallow smile and he could feel the thump of the spider against the glass of the jar, bumping into his ankle. 

“How’d you go from army medic to mechanic?” Eddie asked.

“Ah, well, after I got discharged I figured paramedic would be an easy choice, but first day on the job we got this guy with a GSW and I thought I was right back in the desert. My partner had to sedate me ’n not the patient. Figured I’d stick to fixing up cars after that.” 

Eddie grimaced. “Ouch.”

“I like cars,” Luke said. “I ain’t never had one throw up on me, that’s for sure.”

Eddie pulled a face. “Ugh.”

“What’s your plan then? If you’re out of the risk analysis game now.”

“You’re not my career coach,” Eddie said because he didn’t have a real answer.

“I’m wearing many hats as your bartender for the evening.”

Eddie snorted. 

Luke let up. “You like music?”

“Only if it’s good.”

Luke laughed as he set up his speakers. “Ain’t that what everybody says?”

Eddie tipped his head back on the couch, letting the whiskey go right to his head as country music started to play, only tolerable because it was older country, the kind that someone might get away with slipping a song or two into a classic rock playlist without protest. It was funny, to do small talk after more personal revelations, but Eddie didn’t mind. Talking about the weather, sports, and music would have felt like he was trying to put a ‘caution wet floor’ sign on an ocean if they had done it before, but standing knee deep in the water already Eddie didn’t mind. 

Eddie fell asleep curled up in the corner of the couch with a half empty whiskey on the table, a country musician crooning at him, and his fingertips just brushing the spider’s jar. 

Snow piled high in the windows when Eddie woke up with a mild headache and a dry mouth. The door to the bedroom of the apartment was closed and there were two glasses in the kitchen sink. Knocking back a glass of water, he brushed his teeth in the kitchen (of all the things to relearn, brushing his teeth had been a bitch until he ended up sticking the wrong end of the toothbrush into his mouth so he could squeeze out toothpaste with his one good hand), grabbed his jar, and headed back down to the shop. 

Being idle never suited Eddie, so after meandering around the shop, he popped the hood of his car, and got to work. Before Myra, he had fixed up his car plenty of times, especially since he had bought it second hand when he left for college— promising to visit frequently was the only thing that kept his mother from chaining him to the radiator when he committed to NYU, but he hadn’t visited. In hindsight, he didn’t know if that was part of IT’s magic. If he had gone home would pieces of his childhood have come back to him? Would he have bumped into Mike and had all the puzzle pieces slotting back together? 

If the others were here, I could ask them if any of them went back to Derry during their winter breaks.

Snatching up a wrench, Eddie tore into his engine with a vengeance. Fixing up a car turned out to be significantly more difficult with only one hand, but he paid no mind to the grease staining his button down —he had yet to figure out a way to roll up his left sleeve one handed—  and did a little improvising on the correct way to use tools until he had fixed the belt.

“Didn’t know you were a mechanic yourself.”

Eddie’s grip tightened on the wrench as he turned around to find Luke standing on the stairs, dressed for the day, but sleepy around the eyes and holding a cup of coffee.

“I’ll still pay you,” Eddie said. “I did steal a part and bang-up your tools.”

Luke walked over, looking into the engine. “Decent fix.”

“I had a junker of a car in college.” Eddie wiped at his face then stared at the ceiling as though he were praying for strength as he felt the grease smeared there.

Luke looked amused, but didn’t say anything as Eddie awkwardly twisted to try to wipe his own face on his shoulder. He set the coffee on the workbench, though he lingered as he looked at the empty jar already sitting there.

“Can I ask about the jar now?”

“No.”

“Coffee’s for you, there’s more in the pot upstairs. I was going to start on breakfast if you’re hungry.”

“The roads plowed yet?” Eddie asked.

“Not even a little.”

Eddie set the wrench aside, trying to clean off his hand before giving up and picking up the mug, engine grease and all, to take a sip. “Then I suppose I’m hungry.”

Luke snorted, heading back for the stairs. Eddie looked down at the spider which thumped its legs against the glass, then down at his coffee, then up at the jar.

“Motherfucker,” Eddie said. “I’m going to be the bitch that takes multiple trips from their car to unload their groceries.”

The spider wiggled its legs at him. 

“Yeah, yuck it up, killing you is still on my to-do list, so you’re not going to be around to see it.”

Thunk.  

With some maneuvering he managed to pin the jar under his armpit and carry the mug with his hand as he made his way up the stairs and back into Luke’s apartment. 

Luke glanced over his shoulder, standing at the stove. “Bathroom’s through there if you want to get cleaned up.”

“Yeah, thanks.” Eddie knocked back the rest of his coffee, setting it in the sink, and lugging his backpack (and spider) into the bathroom for a shower.

As a mechanic, Luke actually had the kind of soap that could pry grease from skin, and Eddie felt cleaner than he had in weeks as he stepped out of the shower. Ignoring the fogged over mirror, he pulled on underwear and jeans before fighting with a roll of bandages, his t-shirt, and a flannel. Twisting the loose sleeve up into a knot, he pulled it tight with his teeth with a little more violence than necessary. In the hospital, the nurses had told him that it would become easier with time, but it didn’t stop his frustration at being a thirty-eight year old man who had to relearn how to get dressed. It made him feel five years old all over again.

The nurses had also told him he should stay with family or a friend to help out. 

Eddie knocked back several Advil before exiting the bathroom. Luke had finished with breakfast, leaning against the counter to eat, and nodding at a second plate waiting on the island. Eddie mumbled his thanks before digging into cheesy scrambled eggs and toast, it wasn’t anything fancy but it was hot and it didn’t come out of a greasy paper bag. It was a quiet affair.

Eddie offered to do the dishes and immediately regretted it as he had to scrub, turn the water on and off, and move dishes all with one hand, and he was pretty sure his fury was evident, though Luke didn’t offer to take over as he towel dried the dishes.

“Haven’t had to do this one yet, huh?” Luke asked.

“Fuck you,” Eddie said.

Luke snorted. Eddie whipped around at a sound below, holding tight to the handle of the soaking pan as he stared at the door like he expected it to be kicked in.

“That’s just my guys, must mean the roads are plowed now,” Luke said it all casually, but the way he was watching Eddie was like a trained boxer waiting for their opponent to swing.

Eddie released his hold on the pan, forcing himself to turn his back to the door, and finish cleaning it. Luke put it back into the cupboard before waving him towards the door.

“Come on, I’ll introduce you.”

Frowning, Eddie hefted his bag over his shoulder, and followed him down the stairs. If Luke had any concerns about the way it looked to have a strange man, freshly showered, exiting his apartment in front of his coworkers, it didn’t show. 

“Eddie,” Luke said. “This is Jesse.”

Jesse waved a hand, she looked to be in her late twenties with her dark hair braided back out of her face, and coveralls tied around her hips to show off a fraying Pacman t-shirt.

“And Gus.”

Gus looked to be in his late forties, his hair thinning, face rounded out, and a decent beer belly beginning to form, and dozens of tattoos on his thick arms, but he gave Eddie a warm smile.

“Jesse, Gus, this is Eddie, he’s new in town.”

“Keep him away from Blue Horse then, I hear Delilah’s on the hunt for husband number three,” Jesse said.

Eddie’s distaste must have shown on his face because Gus laughed when he looked at him.

“Roads clear?” Luke asked.

“Enough,” Gus said. “I reckon the calls will start coming in soon.”

Luke sighed. “Ice in the fuel.”

“Ice in the fuel,” Jesse said.

Luke looked back at Eddie who was inching towards his car. “Every time we get a storm we get a dozen calls about cars stalling out ‘cause ice gets in the fuel, leaves us with no hands for any actual repairs that come on in as we’re running around town.” 

Eddie made an appropriately sympathetic sound, hand on the door handle of his car.

“You want to stick around?” Luke asked. “We could use the hand. I’ll pay you for the day.”

“I’m not a certified mechanic.”

Luke waved a hand. “One of us will double check your work for liability’s sake then.”

The spider thumped against the jar, but with it tucked away in his backpack, Eddie could hardly feel it.

Luke raised an eyebrow. “Unless you’ve got plans?” 

Eddie scowled, opening the driver’s door, throwing his back inside, and slamming it shut again. “Fine. Where do you want me?” 

Luke smiled.

Chapter Text

Luke paid Eddie under the table for his work at the auto shop, totaling up his hours and matching his rates to Jesse and Gus’s despite Eddie telling him that was stupid because he wasn’t a certified mechanic and should have a lower wage. Handing him cash, Luke had told him where to sign up for a training program, and Eddie had flipped him off after pocketing the money. 

It was pennies compared to his risk analyst salary, but his stock portfolio was still decent and at the very least he wasn’t bleeding money anymore. He was staying at a local inn that had peeling rose wallpaper and a suspicious stain on the hallway carpet, but the sheets were always clean and the bathroom scrubbed. Every three nights, his checkout loomed, and every time he went down to the front desk and paid another three nights instead, earning an amused look from Roseann, the owner and often the concierge and even housekeeper when necessity called for it. 

His shirts and pants were hung up in the closet, his socks and underwear in the drawers, his toothbrush sitting in a cup in the sink beside a package of floss, bottle of mouthwash, and Advil that he kept telling himself he was going to ease off of, then taking four at a time when he woke up sweating and shaking from a nightmare and reaching out for friends who weren’t there with an arm that was gone. The spider got fatter with every nightmare, no matter where in the room Eddie placed the jar, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave it anywhere else. The spider was his responsibility, after living through the damage Pennywise had done to Derry, he couldn’t risk the spider getting loose, especially not as it got bigger. Stronger. 

Idly, he researched how to kill the spider, but even digging into the Native American myths Mike had been researching showed no answers and he wasn’t in the mood to just try everything once and see if it stuck. So the spider stayed in the jar and the jar stayed with him. Even when he went out drinking at the Blue Horse with the guys from the shop.

“Alright, alright, I keep meaning to ask, but Luke keeps telling me not to—“

“Gus—“

“What the fuck is up with the empty jar you carry around?” Gus asked, sipping his beer.

Luke sighed, leaning back in the booth they had commandeered.

“It’s… it’s my responsibility,” Eddie said.

“Your responsibility?” Jesse asked.

“It’s a long story.” Eddie looked at the scar on his palm. “In short, I made a promise when I was younger and now I have to carry around this jar until I can find a way to get rid of it, so.”

Gus looked at him for a long minute. “…yeah, that didn’t make any sense to me, either of you?”

“Is it a metaphor?” Jesse asked. 

Eddie let out an amused exhale, but it came out bitter. “More of an allegory.”

“I’m either too drunk or not drunk enough to understand this conversation,” Gus said, earning a few laughs. “Imma get a refill.” 

Eddie shifted out of the way as he slid out of the booth.

“So in this allegory,” Jesse said. “What’s in the jar?”

Hate, Eddie almost said, but that wasn’t true, because hate was just an offshoot of fear, fear of what someone couldn’t understand, fear of change, fear of losing power, fear of being treated the way they treated others.

“Fear,” Eddie said, turning it around in a circle, the fat spider bouncing on its thread. “Now I just have to find the fear killer.” 

“The fear killer,” Luke repeated. “Let me know when you find that.”

Eddie hummed, sipping his beer.

Jesse shook her head, a smile on her lips. “You’re a weird guy, Eds.”

Eddie tensed, his voice coming out sharp. “Don’t call me that.”

Jesse’s eyebrows raised. Luke looked unimpressed.

Eddie cleared his throat, staring at his hand. “It’s Eddie. Just Eddie.” 

Jesse held her hands up in surrender and the tension slipped away as Gus squished Eddie further into the booth upon his return despite his protests. The conversation shifted over to books, to movies, to sports, where Eddie got heckled to no end.

“How is it a fucking crime that I’m a Jets fan when Montana doesn’t even have an NFL team?” Eddie demanded, thunking his beer down on the table so he could jab a finger at Gus. “You’re a Green Bay Packers fan, Jesse’s a Seahawks fan—“

“I’m from Seattle!“

Eddie jabbed his finger last at Luke. “—and you’re a Vikings fan!” 

Luke looked like he wanted to laugh, but instead he just sipped his beer. “So?”

“So? Why am I getting all of this shit!”

“Oh trust me, we give everyone shit when it’s game day, but at least ours are respectable teams—“

“Respectable?!” Eddie’s voice raised to a level that made the rest of the table laugh and he slouched down in the booth rather than finish his tirade when he got a few dirty looks from other patrons. 

Knocking back the rest of the beer, he not so gently pushed Gus out of the booth so he could get a refill. Standing at the bar, he kept one eye on the jar sitting in the booth, unable to carry both it and his beer back without a little juggling and potentially spilling beer on his button down. Even though he didn’t work in an office anymore, he still had a preference for an ironed button down or polo when not at the shop where he wore t-shirts, flannels, jeans, and anything he didn’t mind getting ruined even if he was wearing coveralls. Despite being paid under the table and refusing to put a name tag on the borrowed coveralls, Eddie had come into the shop one day to find the right sleeve of his coveralls shortened and sewed up where he usually tied it out of the way. 

He had gotten more practiced with safety pinning the sleeve of his button downs up, doing it about two dozen times in front of a mirror as though it would restore that clean cut look he had in New York. He still ironed his shirts, he still hung them up neatly to prevent wrinkles, he still shaved every morning, he still brushed his hair, though he had abandoned the gel and it could use a trim, but it didn’t stop the fact that when he looked in a mirror his eyes went first to the healing scar cutting down his face then to the empty space on his right side. 

After settling into the inn, his eating had evened out somewhat, ditching the gluten free, lactose intolerance, made-up-allergy-diet for one that while still healthy, didn’t taste like cardboard. He had gone for a few light runs, but his body was still aching, and he didn’t even know where to start with his old workout routine, so he stuck to PT exercises for anything aside from legs. His stitches were due to be out two days prior, but he had been waffling about actually going back to a doctor, about shifting out of the ‘I’m healing’ stage into ‘holy shit this is just what my life is like now’ part. 

“Do you have a prosthetic?”

Eddie turned to look at the guy who had sidled up beside him. “Excuse me?”

“For your arm,” the man pointed as though Eddie would have somehow missed the fact that he was missing his arm. 

“Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m Joe, you’re Eddie, right? New in town?”

“Now I know how Ben felt,” Eddie muttered, ‘new in town’ was starting to feel like it was his last name.

“So, what’s the story?”

Eddie gave him a blank look.

“You know,” Joe gestured again to his arm, or lack there of. 

“Are you a doctor?”

“Uh, no. I own the ranch over—“

“So what makes you think you’re entitled to that information?” Eddie snapped.

“Oh come on, everyone’s curious—“

“And I’m curious as to what kind of people raised you for you to turn out like a jackass, but I’m too polite to say so.” 

Leah, the bartender, stifled a laugh behind her hand, holding out Eddie’s beer.

“Thank you,” Eddie said, his voice still sharp, but Leah didn’t look as though she took it personal.

Marching back to his table, he had almost made it before a hand caught his left arm, and Eddie twisted away from the touch to face a woman in her sixties, though by her appearances she looked wealthy enough to afford to make sixties look like her fifties. Designer labels, salon-upkeep hair, and makeup perfected with years of practice all completed the look, making her appear a little too old money to be enjoying the rustic-chic of Blue Horse Bar. 

“You’re new.”

Eddie thought he might break his beer bottle against the table and use it to slit his own throat.

“Eddie, this is the lovely Miss Delilah Saint-Claire,” Luke said, a little dry humor edging into his voice. “Delilah, this is Eddie Kaspbrak, he’s been doing a little work for me at the shop.”

Delilah looked at Eddie as though he should be kissing the back of her hand at such an introduction. Instead he raised his beer in a little hello, and stepped back closer to the table. Delilah wasn’t dissuaded, matching him with a step closer, fingers skimming his chest.

“You don’t look like a mechanic,” Delilah said.

“He worked in risk assessment,” Gus said ‘risk assessment' like he was trying to order off a menu in an authentic Italian restaurant.

“Risk assessment? My,” Delilah said, fingers following the line of his buttons. “You must be an old hand at stocks and investments, perhaps you could give my portfolio a glance?”

“The only stocks I’m willing to manage are my own, but I can give you some contact information of some consultants I know.” Eddie stepped further back, until he was right against the table, holding his beer between the two of them like a priest might ward off a vampire with a crucifix.

“My card, if you change your mind.” Delilah took her time sliding it into the breast pocket of his shirt.

Eddie ground his teeth to keep from smacking her hand away. The rest of the table waited for her to walk at least ten feet away before the cajoling and wolf-whistles started up.

“Shut up.” Eddie shoved Gus aside to sit down again, pulling the jar a little closer to him before taking another swig of his beer.

“What? Not your type, Eddie?” Jesse teased.

“You should be flattered,” Luke said dryly. “She usually goes younger.”

Eddie scowled. 

Gus bumped his shoulder. “What is your deal, man? You don’t uproot and move cross country if you’ve got a girl, so, what? An ex?”

Eddie wanted to say to throw a sharp word back at him, but of the three of them, Gus was the only one in a relationship and he had been happily married to his wife for twenty years and with the way he talked about her, they were looking at another happy twenty ahead of them at least.

“Bad break up?” Jesse guessed. “C’mon, we’ve all been there.”

Really? Eddie wanted to say. You’ve all had the first eighteen years of your life erased by a demonic clown from outer space and slept walked through the next twenty years only to wake up and realize you didn’t even know who you were anymore?

“Yeah? Then let’s hear all the stories of your failed relationships,” Eddie said.

Gus ‘oohed’ like a teenager whose friend had just been called to the principal’s office.

Jesse held her hands up in surrender, leaning back against the booth. “Tell us about New York then.”

“People there drive like morons,” Eddie said, earning a few laughs.

Eddie tossed them a few stories of living in the city, mildly surprised that he actually missed a thing or two about New York. The others traded stories of their hometowns and where they ran off to college and Luke had three sentence story about treating bruises on an army base from a food fight involving undercooked baked potatoes. It earned a few laughs from the others, but Eddie could only manage a short exhale. He was the first to leave, paying his tab, and walking out into the night with his jar in hand. 

Richie’s arms were around him, holding his jacket over the stub of his arm, and Eddie wanted to bite out something about how unsanitary it was after they all had a dip in the grey water, but he couldn’t get any words out past the pain. Richie was speaking, his mouth moving as always, but Eddie couldn’t hear his voice. It didn’t matter, his hands were still warm through the soaked fabric of his own bloody clothes. Warmer than the blood pumping out of him. His glasses were dirty and with his left hand, he tried to reach up to wipe them clean, but his body didn’t move. Suddenly desperate to see Richie’s eyes, he tried again, but his fingers didn’t even twitch.

Richie’s hands were losing their warmth, no, they were just gone leaving no trace of his touch behind. 

Eddie laid on his back, grasping at his shoulder, and taking short, sharp breaths as he stared at the ceiling. Once he caught his breath, he turned to check the clock on the nightstand, 5:04, the spider was watching him with those beady eyes, heavy body crouched low in the jar.

“Fatass,” Eddie said breathlessly.

Stare. Rolling out of bed, Eddie washed away the cold sweat from his nightmare in the shower, tactically avoiding the mirror, and bandaging up his arm with practice only to pause before he could tie it off. The bandages were unnecessary, the stitches were overdo, and the bottle of Advil was sitting empty on the sink counter. Getting dressed, he headed to the shop even though it was two hours before opening. The door wasn’t locked.

“Guess we know there was no clown-murderer in your town growing up,” Eddie muttered, stepping inside. 

It was quiet in the shop and he couldn’t hear any movement upstairs, but there weren’t any projects left over night that needed fixing. In the very back of the shop under an oil stained tarp he found the remains of a motorcycle. The frame and corroded engine might have been a Kawasaki but with the Frankenstein of pieces used in a clearly failed salvage attempt made it hard to claim a make or model, it was just a mechanical mutt. 

“Never could get her to run.”

Eddie tensed, glancing over to the stairs where Luke was leaning over the rail, still in his pajamas.

“Jesse and Gus both gave it a shot too, but no luck.”

“You don’t lock your door.”

“Not a lot of people here do.”

“You’re going to get robbed. Or killed in your sleep. Or both.”

“Which one are you here to do?” Luke asked with a wry smile. 

Eddie ground his teeth. “I- can— I want— look, you were a medic, right?”

Luke raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“My stitches need to be taken out, about four days ago, actually, but I…” Eddie couldn’t stand the thought of walking himself back into a hospital. “Can you help me or not?”

“You got a please in there for me?”

Eddie glared, but ground out, “Please.”

“Come on up.”

Eddie forced himself up the stairs to the apartment over the garage, sitting on the couch, and glaring at the spider in the jar sitting on the coffee table while Luke cleaned himself up and set up his first aid kit. Pulling on a set of gloves, he gave Eddie an expectant look. Reluctantly, Eddie undid the buttons of his shirt, easing it off of his bad shoulder, and starting on the bandages with the shirt still half on. He didn’t look at the stub as he pulled the last of it free. He flinched at the first touch.

“These healed up good, so you shouldn’t feel anything more than a little tugging as I cut ‘em free, alright?”

Eddie thought he might be sick. Staring at the wall, he took slow measured breaths, reciting every car brand he could come up with in alphabetically order in his head to keep from spewing all over Luke’s couch as he pulled the seams from his body. He didn’t ask about the ones higher up, circling his arm like shark teeth, just pulled the stitches free all the same after he finished with the nub. 

“All set,” Luke said.

Eddie bolted from the couch to the bathroom to throw up what little he had in his stomach. Rinsing out his mouth in the sink, he didn’t look at his arm as he redid his buttons before exiting the bathroom. Luke had cleaned up his supplies and now was sitting on one end of the couch.

“Thank you,” Eddie said.

“Anytime,” Luke said.

“I’d really rather not repeat this.”

Luke snorted. “Fair enough.” 

Chapter Text

Eddie wasn’t willing to commit to an apartment, even on a month by month basis, but the inn had a little fridge and he vastly preferred preparing his own meals even if they were simple. Mostly, he got a little fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, and other supplies for salads even if he was going to get an earful about eating ‘rabbit food’ from Gus at the shop.

Eddie’s eyes caught on the magazine rack by the checkout of the grocery store, a paparazzi picture of Beverly and Ben talking with their heads inclined towards one another over breakfast at a quaint cafe, a smile on Ben’s face, and Beverly clearly mid-sentence, her fingers curled in the sleeve of his sweater. The header was, ‘Amid divorce from Tom Rogan, designer Beverly Marsh spotted cozying up to architect Ben Hanscom, inside sources say an affair may have had to do with the split, more on pages 6’. Holding onto restraint by his fingertips, Eddie just barely kept from knocking the entire display over and instead paid for his groceries.

By the time he had finished unpacking his groceries, his anger hadn’t simmered down in the slightest, and he ended up marching into the shop looking for anything to do that wasn’t putting his fist through the wall. By the schedule written up on the whiteboard on the wall, Jesse should have been in, but she must have been out on a call seeing as the tow-truck was gone and so was she. 

Eddie found himself ripping the tarp off the mutt of a street bike in the back and getting to work without even bothering to pull on a set of coveralls. He ended up stripping down to his t-shirt when the sleeve of his flannel kept getting in his way, sweat sticking it to his skin as he tore into the bike. At one point or another he had turned on the radio, leaving fingerprints on the dial as he cranked up a classic rock station, ACDC covering the sound of his own muttered curses as he ripped apart failed repairs and tried to find exactly what the problem was with the engine that looked like it was refusing to start out of stubbornness rather than any mechanical failure.

“Ah, man, bike’s got you now, huh?”

Eddie looked up as Gus strolled in, turning down the music to be heard. Eddie shrugged his flannel over his grease stained shirt to cover what remained of his arm as Gus walked over.

“Luke, Jess, and me all had our turn at it, I worked on her for about three months straight, obsessed over it actually, but no luck. I told Luke to scrap her, but he wouldn’t.”

Eddie tried to pushed up his sleeve only for it to fall back down to his wrist and he let out a frustrated sigh. Gus reached out, Eddie leaned back, but Gus was undeterred, rolling up his sleeve for him like he was a child wearing an oversized hand-me-down, and Eddie wanted to spit an insult or two at him. 

“Luke said a stranger left her here with a note saying whoever could fix her up could keep her, but none of us have managed it. Honestly, not sure you’d want it even if you could get her to run, seems like she’s got a curse or something,” Gus said.

Eddie looked at the bike. “I don’t even know how to ride, I just… just needed something to do.”

“Well, then it’s perfect, here’s the task that never ends.” Gus laughed, clapping his shoulder and stepping away.

Jesse returned and Gus took over her shift as she clocked out, turning the radio back up, and humming along as he took care of the few customers who needed oil changes and windshield wipers fixed. Luke appeared at one point, but he just set a cup of coffee next to Eddie without a word about the bike, and talked with Gus for a bit before heading out again. 

Eddie worked well into the night and when he finally slept, he didn’t dream at all, spider sitting smaller in the jar on his nightstand come morning. 

After clocking out, Eddie often stayed to work on the bike, or came in early, during the grey hours of dawn. The others never commented on it, sometimes they sat with him to shoot the shit as he tinkered, but never offered any help or possible solutions. Or the others talked and he bit back with a dry comment here or there, but ignored and deflected personal questions in equal measure. He didn’t tell them how he lost an arm, he didn’t tell them about what happened in Derry, he didn’t tell them about forgetting his whole childhood for twenty years, he didn’t tell them when his divorce was finalized, he didn’t even tell them he had been married at all.

“I’m looking for Edward Kaspbrak, I know he’s here—“

Eddie’s whole body tensed at the sound of her voice and he genuinely contemplated knocking the jack out from the car he was working on so it would crush him flat.

“—that awful woman at the inn refused to let me wait in his room for him but she said he worked here which has to be a mistake because my Eddie—“

Eddie pushed himself out from under the car, hauling himself up to his feet. Myra gasped upon seeing him, clamping her hand over her mouth, and tears springing to her eyes.

“Eddie! What— oh god, your arm, your face— oh god, you poor, poor thing, you—“ Myra closed the distance between them, but Eddie pulled away as she grabbed for him.

“Myra, what are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here? You went missing! I hired a private investigator and he traced a rental car—“

“You had someone stalk me?“

“I’m your wife!”

“We’re divorced!” Eddie threw his hand up. “The paper work went through two days ago!”

“That’s how I knew I had to come find you! That you weren’t in your right mind and, oh, look at you, I…” Myra’s swallowed hard like she might actually be sick. “I understand that… that because of your disfigurement that you must have thought that you had to stay away, but I… I can… I can look past it—“

“Look past it?” Jesse said with no small amount of indignation.

“—especially now that you must need me more than ever, oh, you poor thing, don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything—“

“Myra!” Eddie raised his voice. “I don’t need you to look past anything or to take care of anything. We’re divorced.”

“Look at the state of you! You’re clearly in no shape—“

“I told you when I was leaving that I wasn’t coming back and that was before—“ the words stuck in Eddie’s throat. “Before.”

“You always come back, Eddie. Now, I’ve been patient, I’ve waited for you to come to your senses, but now I can see that you’re in no state to think clearly, so let’s go—“

“No.”

“Eddie, don’t be ridiculous—“

Eddie barked out a laugh, covering his face with his hand. “Ridiculous? I’m the ridiculous one? You’re the one who bombarded me with emails all through our divorce proceedings, tracked me down with a private investigator, and then proceeded to make a scene at my place of work!”

“You can’t work here, look at you!” Myra said, aghast. 

Eddie sighed. “Please go. Just go home, Myra.”

“Not without you.”

“Then I’ll call the police,” Luke said, stepping out from the back. “And have you escorted from the premise.”

“You can’t do that! I’m his wife!”

“Pretty sure in your whole hullabaloo I heard the word divorced,” Gus said easily.

Myra spluttered. “You can’t talk to me like this!”

“Why not? It’s a free country, ain’t it?” Gus said. 

“Eddie—“ Myra began.

“I’m pretty sure he’s heard enough of your bullshit,” Jesse said.

Eddie turned his back, looking for a replacement part he needed for the engine. 

“If you don’t come back with me right this instant, I’ll kill myself,” Myra said.

Eddie tensed, clutching right to the screwdriver in hand, and staring at the fat spider in the jar on the work table.

“I swear I will.”

“Then do it,” Eddie said, white knuckling the screwdriver.

Myra gasped as though he had struck her.

“Because if I go back with you, then I’ll kill myself.”

“Eddie-bear…“

Eddie turned to face her, his hand shaking. “I swear to God, Myra, you can either have a dead husband or no husband, but you’ll never have me.”

Myra’s watery eyes met his, but she must have been able to see on his face that he meant it, because her tears disappeared and she turned on her heel and walked out of the shop. Throwing the screwdriver off to the side, Eddie gripped the edge of the work table, taking slow deep breaths, and trying to find a way to face the silent shop. The spider scuffled around its ever narrowing confines.

“Wow,” Jesse said. “What a bitch.”

Eddie couldn’t help the laugh it startled from him, his shoulders relaxing. “You have no idea.”

“Is it five o’clock?” Gus asked. “You got anything to drink in this joint, Luke?”

“It’s 5:06,” Eddie said. “And we’re on the clock.”

“You’re not,” Luke said. “I pay you off book.”

Gus laughed. Jesse was already pulling out a bottle of Scotch hidden away in one of the work drawers under a box of screws. Luke flipped the closed sign on the door and the four of them ended up sitting on the oil stained concrete to pass the bottle around.

“To divorce!” Jesse raised the bottle.

“You know, I’m not usually an advocate for running away from your problems but if she comes back here I’ll buy you a ticket to Switzerland,” Gus said.

“Not sure that’s far enough, maybe Mars?” Jesse suggested.

“If she does, you should get a restraining order,” Luke said more sensibly. “You shouldn’t have to buy a ticket anywhere just ‘cause she doesn’t have her head on straight.”

Eddie looked down at the spider in the jar sitting before him.

“You ever gonna tell us what’s in there?” Gus asked.

“I told you it’s—“

Gus waved his hand. “A metaphor for fear, yeah, I meant like less cryptically.”

“It’s an unkillable demonic spider from outer space that will grow up to inspire some of the worst killings of all time and feed on children,” Eddie deadpanned.

The others were quiet.

Gus let out a dramatic sigh. “Fine, fine, don’t tell us why you carry around an empty jar at all times.”

The others traded amused looks. 

Luke passed him the bottle. “What are we drinking to, Eddie?”

Eddie thought for a minute. “To waking up.”

“Here, here!” Gus said, and the others laughed and echoed the sentiment.

Chapter Text

It felt like the lights were drawing him in and though he tried to claw his way back, the ground felt like smoke slipping through his fingertips. The lights dragged him back, his friends voices dimmer with every second, but it wasn’t until he was torn past the giant empty shell that he screamed. No sound came out.

Eddie cranked away at the motorcycle’s engine even though there didn’t appear to be anything wrong with it now that he had cleaned away any rust and replaced corroded parts, but it still wouldn’t run. Luke ambled down the stairs, still in his pajamas, balancing two plates and two cups of coffee like a well practiced waiter. Luke set half down in front of Eddie, before sitting down and digging into his own breakfast. Eddie ignored it.

“You run, right?” Luke asked.

“Sometimes.”

“Eat up and we’ll go. I’ve got a two mile route.”

Eddie glared.

“C’mon.”

“You’re not my fucking physical therapist.”

“Nah, I’m your boss.” 

“I’m off the clock.”

“You like making everything this difficult or you just that deep in your self-hatred?”

“Fuck you,” Eddie said quietly, looking at the spider. 

Luke kicked his leg. “Eat.”

Eddie managed to stomach about half of it before Luke got him up and moving to go for a run in the cold morning air. Luke goaded him into running until his lungs ached and his legs burned despite the temperature. 

It became part of the routine. If Eddie came in early to the shop, he showed up in work out clothes, and they went running. Afterwards, Luke did strength training and Eddie forced himself to do a few PT exercises before borrowing his shower and helping him open up the shop for the day. 

“I’m not doing push ups,” Eddie said, wiping sweat from his face as they returned to the shop. “I’ll fall on my face.”

“Come on, you don’t want to lose that upper body strength,” Luke said.

“I’ve already lost half of it.”

Luke laughed. “Oh, so now we’re making jokes?”

Eddie rolled his eyes.

“Come on.”

Luke showed him the proper form of a one armed push up. Eddie did one. Then fell on his face the second attempt, lifting his face just enough to glare daggers at Luke who was trying desperately not to laugh. The next day, Luke had a few different exercises waiting him that included bands, though it took a little practice before Eddie could stomach having anything touch what was left of his right arm to do a little resistance training to build chest and shoulder muscle. He got himself up to five one armed push ups. 

Gus wolf whistled as he walked into the shop. “Guess that rabbit food is good for something, huh?”

“Shut up.” Eddie pushed himself back onto his knees, half of him wanted to feel accomplished at one armed push ups, but the other half whispered that he used to be able to do twenty pushups without any real trouble.

“That’s alright, Virginia’ll get some real food in you when you come over for the game,” Gus said.

“I told you—“

“Oh, come off it, we all know you don’t have any other plans besides messing around with that bike, so you’re coming,” Jesse said.

Eddie scowled, but after the work day was over, he made his way over to the address he was given. Aside from Luke’s apartment —which in Eddie’s mind was more of an extension of the shop— Eddie hadn’t been to any of his coworkers’ houses and he had yet to meet Gus’ wife, Virginia, but he had heard more than enough to not feel the slightest bit of surprise when she greeted him at the door. 

Her blonde hair was darker at the roots, crimped with natural curls, falling down to her shoulder blades. She had the build of an athlete from teaching people to ride horses but softened by the appreciation of a good hearty meal, and crows feet crinkled at the corners of her eyes that made her appear to smile before her lips even turned up. Eddie only caught a glimpse of her smile before she pulled him into a hug he wasn’t expecting.

“And you must be Eddie! Welcome!” Virginia gave him a solid squeeze even though he hadn’t made any moves to hug her back. “Come on in, the others have made themselves at home.” 

Releasing him from her hug, she put a hand on his back, steering him deeper into the living room where the others were sprawled on the couch calling out their hellos, the first quarter of the game already started, and an abundance of homemade food spread out on the coffee table. There was mac’n’cheese, barbecue ribs, and cheesy stuffed peppers. 

“Can I getcha something to drink? We’ve got cold IPAs in the fridge, a bottle of James Dean, and an open bottle of red.”

“Beer’s good, thank you.” Eddie shrugged off his jacket, but she took it from his hands before he could ask where to put it.  

Moving deeper into the living room, Eddie didn’t sit down until Luke shifted over on the couch. There was no need, there had been plenty of room, and he only moved a centimeter or two at most, but it was a clear gesture. Eddie settled on the edge of the couch, setting his jar on the coffee table so he could accept the beer Virginia brought him, cold from the fridge.

“Thank you."

“You’re welcome.”

Gus pulled Virginia down into his lap by the belt loop on her jeans with a grin, and she settled down with the ease of someone who had experienced the move a thousand times before, taking Gus's beer right from his hands to have a drink. Jesse put a plate piled high with food on Eddie's lap with her eyes still half on the TV. Conversation came in couples and trios of sentences in between cheers and boos at the ongoing game. Virginia shouted at the TV with such gusto that Gus had to keep her from knocking dishes off of the table or spilling the beer she had commandeered, but he did it all with a smile, and a laugh when she did tip some beer onto his flannel.

Eddie got a little more into the game than he anticipated, earning a few startled laughs when he barked out an ‘Oh come on!’ at a fumble, half out of his seat. He settled back down, his face hot, and taking a swig of beer to try to cool off. Luke knocked his knee against his, giving him a smirk.

“Shut up,” Eddie mumbled, slouching back into the couch.

Luke turned back to the TV, but his lips were still upturned. By the end of the game, Eddie had a mild buzz from a few beers, and watched with mild amusement as Jesse and Gus had a heated discussion over one of the ref’s calls from the third quarter. Picking up as many plates as he could carry with one hand, he brought them to the kitchen and Luke did the same.

“You can just put those by the sink,” Virginia said. “Gus’ll take care of the clean up, it’s the price he pays to eat my cooking every night.”

“He got off cheap,” Luke said.

Virginia smacked him with a hand towel. “Flatterer.”

Luke laughed. “Thank you for dinner, Virginia.”

“It was great,” Eddie said. 

“You come on over anytime,” Virginia said. “Both of you, we gotta fatten you up before some Hollywood types come and take you to replace Tom Cruise.”

Luke gave her a good natured smile and a little shake of his head, but Eddie’s stomach knotted, and he headed back towards the living room, trying not to hear echos of popular girls in high school, leaning into his space and telling him that your polo is so cute, don’t you think so Jennifer, like, hm, what’s his face from Revenge of the Nerds? No, don’t laugh, I thought he was cute, like… like a one eyed cat. 

Stepping back into the living room Eddie stopped in his tracks. Jesse and Gus had switched off of the sports channel and now Richie Tozier standing on the stage of some venue or another was taking up center screen, his voice ringing in Eddie’s ears like the aftershock of a bomb. 

“Turn that off,” Eddie said.

“Oh come on, he’s actually pretty good now that he writes his own jokes,” Gus said. “His old stuff was... whew…”

“Now, listen, no one’s surprised when I say my gay awakening was my best friend, I mean, come on, that’s a classic, but when I describe him? Ooh boy that’s when I start getting looks that say hey, you’re in therapy, right? I am, thanks for your concern, but that’s because a clown tried to kill me.

“Anyways, so my best friend, he was, like, tiny but absolutely vicious, my other friends would just tell me to shut up when they got sick of hearing me talk shit, but this guy? No way, he would give it back just as good as I gave it. He once told me that if the governor of Maine met me he would legalize abortion.

“And I was like,” Richie pretended to swoon. “Marry me.”

Eddie thought he might throw up. “Turn it off.”

“Yeah! I was in love with this asshole! He told me he wanted me six feet under on the regular and I was like, that’s it, he’s the one. He was a hypochondriac too and he would climb into a hammock with me and complain about my germs!”

Eddie could hear the audience laughing.

“Here’s the best part about my Eds though, is that he’s shy. No, really! My Eddie Spaghetti was that kid in class that the teacher had to ask to speak up when answering a question, but once he got going, oh boy. So, naturally, I did everything I could to rile him up, I take partial credits in every demerit on his school record and he never let me forget it—“

Eddie slammed the off button on the TV earning wide eyed looks from the others. He threw the remote off to the side, snatching up his jar from the coffee table.

“…are you the Eddie he’s talking about?” Jesse asked, her voice quiet, and eyes wide.

Gus’s eyes bugged out of his skull. “You… you’re friends with famous comedian Richard Tozier?”

Eddie glared at the wall, holding the spider’s jar to his chest, and trying to ignore the way it felt like his heart was tearing itself in little pieces in the cage of his ribs.

“Not anymore evidently,” Jesse said, her tone cooling slightly. “...because he had a crush on you as a kid?”

Eddie’s jaw worked.

“That’s not cool, man,” Gus said. “I mean, I was raised a certain way, but I got nieces and nephews that I love who love who they love, ’n they look up to him since he came out—”

“It’s not because of that! It’s because he left me to die in the gutter,” Eddie spat out. “He left me to bleed out among the garbage with— so he can say whatever the fuck he wants on TV about being in love with me when we were thirteen, but it’s not true because I never would have-- I never would have done that to him.” 

All of them were looking at him with eyes wide as saucers and Eddie’s arm ached so fiercely he thought he might pass out from it. 

“Thank you for having me,” Eddie said dimly in Virginia’s direction, turning for the door even as his vision slanted and swayed. “I have to… I’m leaving.”

Eddie made it down the walkway and to his car, shoving the jar into the cupholder, and putting his head down on the steering wheel. Slamming his hand against the dashboard he let out a frustrated scream, but the pain lanced along his shoulder with the motion as though the ghost of his arm had tried to make the same movement. Clutching at his shoulder, Eddie tried to breathe through the pain, but it came in short gasps. He couldn’t bring himself to look up even as he heard the passenger side door open and close.

“It’s alright.” Luke put a hand between his shoulder blades. 

“It hurts, it hurts, it…” Eddie breathed out.

“Deep breaths,” Luke said.

Eddie hated the staccato sound of his own breathing far too similar to his old asthma attacks and he didn’t even have his inhaler help anymore asthma or not and it hurt, it hurt so bad.

“Those are not deep breaths, man.”

“Fuck you,” Eddie gasped out.

Luke let out an amused exhale.

Eddie bit back another scream, it felt like his arm had been bitten off fresh again, but without adrenaline to dull the pain. 

“Why does it hurt?” Eddie gasped out. “It’s not even fucking there and it hurts, it fucking hurts—“

“I know, here, c’mon look, ready, c’mon, just look for a second.”

Lifting his head from the steering wheel felt like a herculean task, but when he did he saw his own eyes staring back at him as Luke angled the rearview mirror down. A little further, until Eddie was looking at what remained of his arm. It made his stomach knot, but the edge of the pain dulled, breathing easing.

“There we go,” Luke said. “Mirror therapy can help with phantom limb pain, helps your brain realize it’s not there, that it doesn’t need all those pain signals.” 

Eddie blew out a slow breath, leaning back in his seat, and tipping his head back. 

“Does it ever stop hurting?”

“Which part?” Luke asked.

Eddie didn’t have an answer for that.

Chapter Text

“Fuck!” Eddie tossed the wrench aside when the motorcycle’s engine still refused to turn.

Jesse gave him a long look. “You ever even ridden a motorcycle before?”

“…no.”

Jesse tossed him a rag. “C’mon, let’s get out of here before that thing takes the last of your sanity.”

Eddie huffed, wiping his hand clean, and grabbing his jacket. Rather than turning towards Blue Horse like he expected, Jesse slapped the passenger side of her truck before getting behind the wheel. Climbing inside, he did his seatbelt as she started the engine.

“Where are we going?” Eddie asked.

“Impatient, aren’t you?”

“I think taking someone to an unknown secondary location counts as kidnapping.” 

“And so funny too,” Jesse said.

Eddie rolled his eyes. 

“Maybe you should be a comedian instead of your friend.” Jesse stole a glance at him. “Ex-friend? It’s complicated? What’s your Facebook status?”

“I don’t have a Facebook, I’m a grown man.”

“Your ex-friend has a Facebook.”

Eddie glared out the window. 

“Look, we’re all entitled to our secrets, but there’s got to be a limit. Like, I don’t know, ten big secrets and five little ones or something.” 

Eddie raised an eyebrow. “How many secrets do you have?”

“I haven’t counted, but it’s got to be like less than twenty,” Jesse said. 

Eddie looked down at the jar.

“And that empty jar counts as like three secrets,” Jesse said.

“What? Why?” Eddie asked.

“Because it’s just that weird.” 

The spider wiggled its legs as though in protest.

Jesse pulled up before a ranch house that could definitely be considered a fixer-upper, her own bike parked out front.

“Is this your house?”

“She’s a work in progress.” Jesse climbed out of the car. “When I moved out here it was just to be anywhere but where I was and I needed something to do. I’m sure a shrink would say something about wanting to fix something broken, but after I started remodeling… it started looking like home.”

“What were you running from?” Eddie asked. “Or is that one of your fifteen secrets?”

Jesse let out an amused exhale. “My family wanted a certain life for me and I gave it my best shot, but… it was never quite good enough for them, so why stay miserable, right?” 

“Right,” Eddie said quietly. 

Jesse pulled the tarp off her bike, and held out her helmet. “Ready to learn a new trick?”

Eddie scowled. “Are you calling me old?”

“That entirely depends on if you say yes or no.”

Eddie took the helmet.

“Congrats, it’s another few years ’til I send you to a farm upstate.”

Leaving his bag (and the jar) sitting safely in the passenger side of her car, Eddie got on the bike, more than familiar with how it should work in theory, and absolutely no idea in practice.

“Okay, here’s what you’re gonna do,” Jesse said. “You’re not going to crash into my house and you’re not going to crash into me, everything else is free range. Don’t go too fast ’n all you’ll hit it grass and dirt.”

“You’re a terrible teacher.”

Jesse stepped back onto her porch, giving him a thumbs up. “You’ve got this!”

“What am I gonna do? Die?” Eddie muttered, starting up the engine. 

Going two miles an hour, Eddie tipped over onto the ground and heard Jesse howling with laughter on the porch. Righting the bike, he tried again, and again. Five miles an hour and learning to turn. Ten miles and doing circles. Twenty and kicking up dirt on Jesse's property. By the time he got off, his hand was shaking, but he felt like he had just gotten off the back of Big Bill’s bike who took insane turns around the corners with the bravery of a kid who felt the worst had already happened. It flit across Eddie’s mind for a brief moment that he wanted to see the look on Bill’s face at him on a motorcycle, but as he picked up his jar from the passenger seat, the thought burned at the edges like kindling. 

“Want a beer?” 

Eddie hesitated.

“Not actually a question, we’re going to sit on my porch, I’m going to complain that there’s this bat that keeps getting in my attic and you can complain about everything else since you’re so good at it.”

Eddie scowled, but sat down on the steps, and accepted the beer Jesse brought him. 

They complained until the sun started to sink and they had killed three beers each. As they brought the empties inside, they both paused at the distant sound of squeaks. 

Jesse snatched up a shoe box and handed him a broom. “Alright, that’s it, call me the Joker because I’m catching myself a bat."

Eddie made a face. “Ugh, a DC fan.” 

“Come on.” Jesse marched up the stairs.

Leaving the jar on the counter, he followed her with the broom. “Do you know how many diseases bats carry? Are you trying to get rabies?"

“I’m trying to get a good night’s sleep for once.” 

“It’s a bat, not the Tell Tale Heart, buy earplugs.” 

“Ugh, a Poe fan.” Jesse grinned over her shoulder.

“I’m not a fan, its classic literature, everyone’s read it.”

Jesse coughed into her fist. “Nerd."

Eddie scowled. “At least I have good taste in comics."

Jesse led him into the attic. “Alright, you shoo him over this way, and I’ll grab him."

“You’ve lost your mind.” 

“Oh, there!” Jesse pointed.

Eddie yelped, waving the broom in defense against a tiny bat. 

“This way, send it this way!” 

“Jesus Christ! I swear, if I get fucking rabies—“ Eddie tried to shoo it towards Jesse.

The two of them ran around the attic trying to catch the bat for nearly half an hour before she managed to get it into the box, slamming the lid closed. “Gotcha!” 

Eddie slumped against the wall. “I’m never coming over again."

Jesse laughed. “C’mon.” 

Box firmly in hand, she set it in his lap as though it didn’t contain a live disease filled animal as she started up the truck. She drove them several miles away to a field and Eddie happily shoved the box back into her hands. Exiting the truck, she walked a few paces away before opening it up, and the bat fluttered off. Climbing back in, she started the engine, and turned on the radio. 

“I’ll drop you at the inn on my way back,” Jesse said.

Eddie tapped his fingers against his knee, listening to the radio for a few minutes. “I had a group of friends when I was a kid. We were… attacked by this… this psycho and it— he got away. He had been terrorizing the kids in the town for years, but the adults never believed us. After that summer, we thought he was gone, but we promised we would go back. Incase we were wrong. Incase he started going after the kids again.”

“And he did?”

“And we went back.” 

“And… and you got hurt.” 

“And I got hurt.”

“And they left you behind?”

Eddie looked out the window. “That about sums it up.” 

Jesse nodded, pulling up in front of the inn. “Well, there’s one secret off your plate."

Eddie snorted.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, man.” 

“See you.” 

Gus took a different approach to the meltdown he had in his living room, rather than pestering him for answers, he brought him to the boxing gym in town.

“What, am I here to play cheerleader?” Eddie droned.

Gus fit a glove onto his hand.

“I feel like you’re forgetting something,” Eddie snarked, looking at the other glove sitting in Gus’s gym bag.

“Nah, you don’t need a mouth guard, figured we’d just work mitts today.” Gus held up the pads. “Hit.” 

Eddie tapped his glove against his hand.

“Ah, c’mon, you’ve been more violent to a rusty bolt while changing a tire, put a little heat behind it,” Gus goaded.

Eddie hit harder. Harder. Gus walked him through the proper forms, teaching him how to roll and duck under the mitts, but as Eddie worked up a sweat, he let him loose on one of the heavy bags, just holding it still as Eddie hit it over and over until every muscle in his body ached, and he dropped down to his knees to catch his breath.

“Here you go.” Gus handed him a water, sitting down beside him with a groan. “You know, I was kinda an angry kid.”

“I’m not a kid,” Eddie said breathlessly.

“But you are angry,” Gus said.

“I think I’ve got reason.”

“You can have all the reason in the word but it ain’t a very pleasant way to live.” 

“And what? Macho therapy’s gonna fix me?”

“It don’t take the anger away, but it’ll take the heat out of it.” Gus leaned back on his hands. “See, me and my old man never got along, and in high school any time I was home, we were fighting. It was hell on my mom, on my little sister, so I’d come here, and I’d work myself to the bone until I was too tired to start anything, too tired to rise to the bait, just did what needed doing, and if I was angry ‘bout it, I’d just come back here the next day.” 

Eddie wiped his face on his shoulder. “You think I should… tire myself out of anger?”

“I think it’ll give you a little patience if the iron’s not so hot, a little peace maybe.”

Eddie curled and uncurled his fingers. “Yeah. Maybe.”

Chapter Text

Laying in bed, Eddie stared at the jar on the nightstand, the clock beside it reading 3:03 AM. Ben had his first love. Beverly had a blooming fashion career. Richie had a Netflix special. Bill had a book with a decent ending (according to the critics, but not to Eddie). Mike had gotten out of Derry. Eddie had a spider that fed on his nightmares and refused to die. Typical. Rolling over, Eddie closed his eyes and started listing car brands until sleep decided to put him out of his boredom. 

Tom Rogan charmed his way past the front desk of the hotel, taking the elevator up the stairs, and down the hallway to room 34C. Knocking on the door, he called, ‘room service’, as his hand pulled his belt free from the loops until it dangled from his hand. Beverly opened the door— 

Ben stumbled out of a bar, red eyed, and swaying. The road was lit up by headlights, but he must have mistaken them for streetlights because he walked right out in front of a Mac truck—

Bill stepped onto the set, nudging an actor out of the way as he faced off with someone eerily similar to Henry Bowers' likeness, miming the fight scene. Except when the actor swung, the knife didn’t detract against his chest the way a prop should—

Mike looked out the window of a plane, the wing tearing free in one sharp rip—

Richie stepped out of a club as a fan called his name, asking for an autograph, but his hand was in the pocket of his jacket—

Stan’s heart rate was steady on the beep of a monitor, breathing on his own, but with a cannula in his nose and there were lines of patients hooked up to machinery around him. The coma ward. A nurse pushed back his curtain, filling a needle with an unlabeled vial, and reaching for the IV—

Eddie woke up with a gasp, falling nearly foot down onto his mattress from where he had been floating, all eight of the spider’s eyes glowing like deadlights where it sat on his chest, the lid of the jar on the table. 

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

It took a few tries to catch the spider and jam it back into his jar. Throwing the necessities into a duffle (including both the spider jar and his unnamed sheep stuffed animal), Eddie left his keys on the unattended front desk. His coworkers had convinced him to stop renting a car the previous week, picking him up for shifts at the shop, and not so casually mentioning apartment listings on the rides. It worked out in his favor that one of the few cabs in town typically sat right by the Blue Horse waiting to ferry drunken patrons home. The bar was only a few blocks away and for a hefty tip Jim got him to the auto shop in record time. 

Eddie let himself in, flicking the lights, and pausing only to write a quick note across the whiteboard before pulling the tarp off the bike which was finished in the way a puzzle was: all the pieces were together to make a picture, but that didn’t make it a photograph. Fitting the keys into the slot, he revved the engine, and he felt it kick to life underneath him where it had been still the previous day. Walking it out of the shop, he climbed on top, fit a pair of sunglasses he had stolen from Luke’s workbench onto his nose, and took off down the empty street. 

As the dawn rose, he let gut instinct guide him where to go, first to a shop to buy riding leathers, boots, and a helmet, then to the nearest airport, buying a ticket to Atlanta, Georgia. Sitting on a near-empty red eye, Eddie looked out the window picturing red strings pulling in different directions, tied around the bloody hands of thirteen year olds, but he could feel the tightening of Stan’s string, like it was cutting into his circulation. The nightmare had been in unfinished fragments, but the pull of the invisible strings told him that if he didn’t make it to Georgia in time then Stanley would be gone for good. 

It was less of a shock than it should have been for the deadlights to reveal Stan had survived his attempt, Eddie thought that deep down perhaps he knew that IT never would have died if the circle had been broken. Looking down at the bag at his feet, spider jar safely zipped away inside, Eddie knew in his gut that if he couldn’t prevent the visions, then he really would be carrying the jar to his grave. Maybe that was his fate, to be buried with the spider after all, the jar could lay in the coffin next to him, occupying the space where his right arm should have been.

Eddie called every hospital in all of Georgia once the plane touched down until he managed to get an address to give to the taxi driver outside the airport, not bothering to buckle his seatbelt, hand hovering over the handle the whole ride. He was out before the car came to a stop, but he forced himself not to burst through the ER and get himself dragged out by security. Instead he walked right into the back, shrugging off his jacket as a nurse stepped in his path.

Eddie spoke before she could open her mouth. “This is the way to orthopedics, right? My doctor said he could squeeze me in for a follow up before he started his rounds, I’m just… I’m just in a little pain…”

Her eyes widened as they went down to his stub then back up. “Oh, of course, uh, sixth floor, do you want me to show you the way?”

“No, no, it’s okay, thank you though.” Eddie made his way towards the elevators, pressing the down button once he was sure she wasn’t looking.

Eddie had been in enough hospitals to guess where they would keep coma patients, but it didn’t make him feel any better as he stepped into the near-silent sub level, surrounded by the sound of ventilators. Walking slowly, he peered through curtains, almost walking past Stanley’s except— he could almost see Stan's thirteen year old self sitting in that bed, his fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen year old self all laid over his forty year old face. Closing the curtain behind himself, Eddie sat down on the edge of Stanley's bed. Taking his hand, the tugging sensation in his gut eased.

“Hey, Stan,” Eddie said. “You missed a real shit show, though this doesn’t exactly look like a party either.”

Long pink scars with stitch indents ran up from his wrists to his forearms, his skin pale and washed out by the white light overhead, eyes closed, but eyelashes occasionally fluttering. Eddie hoped he wasn’t dreaming, he hoped it was quiet up there, that one of them was sleeping through the night. 

“I thought you were dead,” Eddie said. “Hypocritical, I know, but I didn’t call your wife because I thought I had missed the funeral with my own hospital stay, and it seemed selfish to call with condolences. I didn’t want her to feel as though she didn’t know you, I didn’t want to make her grieving harder by handing her a thousand questions I couldn’t answer. I thought… I thought she deserved to love you the way she had you. That you deserved that too.” 

Stanley didn’t stir.

“Did the others call?” Eddie asked. “Do they know you’re still kicking?” 

Letting go of his hand, Eddie picked up his chart, thumbing through it with a well practiced eye. Aside from the fact that he simply wouldn’t wake up, there didn’t appear to be anything wrong with him physically. There was some concerns that the blood loss had deprived his brain of oxygen, but an EEG had shown promise, and even if there was damage they wouldn’t be able to tell the extent until he woke up. 

Eddie’s grip tightened on the plastic as he heard the ding of the elevator. Footsteps echoed across the tiled floor, coming closer, closer. The curtain pulled back and the nurse’s eyes went wide to find Eddie siting on the edge of the bed.

“You— you’re not allowed to be here,” he said.

“I’m family,” Eddie said easily, rising to his feet, waiting for nerves to come, but they didn’t. “What’s in the bottle?”

The nurse glanced down. “M-medicine.”

“Unlabeled medicine?”

The nurse opened and closed his mouth.

“Insulin?” Eddie guessed. “That’s what I would use to kill someone in a hospital without it looking too suspicious.”

“I—“ The nurse took a step back. 

“Why?” Eddie asked.

“Why?”

“Why kill him?”

“I- he- he won’t pay out my grandfather’s savings!”

“Do you have a copy of your grandfather's will naming you the inheritor?”

“I- no, but my grandfather would have wanted it to go to me! Not to some charity!” 

“Are you fucking stupid?” Eddie asked, stepping closer. “He’s an accountant, killing him doesn’t get you the money, it barely even gets you revenge!”

The nurse locked his jaw, lunging forward with the needle, but Eddie knew it was coming, smacking his hand with the clipboard and sending the needle flying across the floor. The nurse went for a good old fashioned punch next which Eddie took to the jaw before bringing his foot down hard on the man’s knee who collapsed with a howl, clutching at what was likely a busted kneecap. Kicking him in the same knee for good measure, Eddie walked past him to the medicine cabinet nearby. Wrapping his hand in a sheet, he punched through the glass, inspecting the vials until he found morphine. Filling up a syringe, he made his way back over to where the man was sobbing into the tiles. 

“This is morphine, do you want this?” Eddie wiggled the needle.

The man nodded.

“Good, hold fucking still then.” Eddie fit it into the corner of his elbow and pressed the stopper down.

It wasn’t enough to give him an overdose (most likely) but it was enough to make him pass out only seconds later. Grabbing the collar of his scrubs, Eddie dragged him across the floor and into the elevator with the needle still dangling from his arm. He tucked the needle and vial of insulin into his own pocket before pressing the button for the first floor and stepping back out into the sub-level. Stanley slept on.

“Goodbye, Stan.”

Eddie took the stairs out of the sub-level, avoiding the commotion by the elevators, and heading back out into the morning. Back at the airport, with a ticket to Florida in hand, Eddie closed his eyes trying to remember details from the plane in his dream. On the wing, he could see the airline written, but that wouldn’t tell him where it was going or when the take off was. After landing, Eddie sat down in front of the flight board, watching flights tick by over the top of a magazine. 

A familiar figure stepped in front of him to read the board and Eddie stared at Mike’s back, a hiking-style backpack over one shoulder, and a leather-bound journal in his hand. Mike turned left. Following him down the hall, Eddie kept his eyes on Mike from a ten foot distance until he ducked into a gate. Taking a few steps back, Eddie matched the gate number to a flight to London.

Eddie walked over to the help desk.

The worker gave him a big bright smile, eyes dull. “Hi, what can I help you with today?”

“There’s a mechanical problem with flight 767,” Eddie said.

Her red-lipstick smile strained. “I can assure you, that all of our planes go under thorough checks before take off.”

“You’re not listening to me,” Eddie said. “There’s something wrong with the wing, I don’t know if it’s the slats, or whatever, I’m a car mechanic, not an aerospace engineer, but you need to get the crew to check it again.” 

Her smile stretched further. “If you’re a nervous flier—“

“Is there anything I can say to convince you to call someone and check that plane?” Eddie asked.

“Would you like a refund on your ticket, sir?”

“Thank you.” Eddie stepped back from the desk. “For absolutely nothing at all.” 

Buying a disposable cellphone from one of the shops, he looked up the right line to call on his own phone before dialing it in, and lifting it to his ear. Standing in the corner of the airport, as far out of hearing range of passengers and workers as he could manage, he listened to it ring, cutting off the company greeting when the call picked up.

“I put a bomb in the wing of flight 747,” Eddie said.

“I— excuse me?”

“I put a bomb in the wing of flight 747, heading to London, take off at 4:14.” 

“Sir, did you—“

Eddie hung up the phone, wiping it clean with an alcohol wipe, and tossing it into a garbage can. Moving closer to the gate, he watched the board turned to ‘delayed’ for flight 747. Sitting by the window, he watched the plane get moved away from the gate and an hour later another one took its place and the passengers got on. He watched it take off with one hand on the glass, stepping back once he lost sight of the plane in the clouds. 

On his own flight back to Montana, Eddie slept fitfully, dreaming of the fragments he had received except now he could see himself in the background of each of the visions, standing there, doing nothing but watching the events unfold, the same way the adults in Derry had never protected the kids from anything. Just watched with those empty eyes. He woke with a jolt as the plane landed a sharp tugging feeling in his gut as the sun set outside his window. 

Eddie shouldered past other passengers to get off the plane in record time, paying for parking, and climbing back onto his bike. On the highway, he headed for Colorado. Beverly or Ben. Ben or Beverly. He watched the state blur by around him, keeping his eyes out for familiar hotel signs and a bar called the The Keep. He almost went right by it, flipping a U-turn to ditch his bike by the curb as Ben Hanscom stumbled out of the bar, blind drunk, and barely upright. 

Eddie shoved him back when he stepped off the sidewalk, holding on tight to the front of Ben's shirt when it almost tipped him right over, though if Ben did go down, it was more likely he would take Eddie with him. The Mac blared its horn as it rolled by, but it was more likely a complaint to Eddie’s horrible parking job by the curb than the near vehicular manslaughter.

“Woah,” Ben said. “Wasn’t looking.”

“Yeah, I can see that, c’mon, let’s get you home,” Eddie said, thankful for the helmet covering his face.

“Don’t wanna go home.”

Eddie grunted as Ben leaned far too much weight on him and he staggered under it.

“You ever… you ever love someone who loves you second best? And I thought I could be okay with that, and I was, but she… she knows, that I know she doesn’t love me, ’n she went to a hotel—“

Eddie stopped. “What hotel?”

“The O’Hara.” Ben slurred. “Wouldn’t even let me pay for it, she came all the way out here with me and can barely look at me ‘cause she knows I love her more than she loves me, and…” 

Eddie said nothing, hailing a cab with a sharp New York whistle so he could focus on keeping Ben upright, and shoved him into the back. Pulling out Ben’s wallet, he read the address off to the driver and tipped him heavily with Ben’s money before closing the door with a slam. 

At the O’Hara, Eddie reserved a room on the third floor, feeling as though he was seeing double as he walked down the hallway, like he was Tom Rogan. Standing in the hall, he looked at room 311 where Beverly was likely watching TV and smoking out the window. She had always loved a good murder mystery movie, even if they were D-list. She said it was like one of those paperbacks you bought in an airport just to kill time on your flight. Entertainment for entertainment’s sake. 

Eddie unlocked the room across from hers, tossing his backpack onto the chair by the desk, and setting the spider jar on the nightstand beside an ugly lamp. Glancing at the clock, he stepped up to the door, watching through the peephole as he pulled his belt free from his pants, looping the end through the buckle, but not fastening it. 

His heart kicked up a few notches as he heard the heavy thud of footsteps, hand slick with sweat, but not shaking. Hand laid on the handle as he watched Tom approach the door. Stepping out of his room, Eddie threw his own looped belt around Tom's neck and pulled it fast before he could knock on the door. Tom made a choked off noise as Eddie yanked him back into his room like a dog on a leash, kicking the door shut.

“Is this what you were going to do to Bev?” Eddie hissed as Tom’s face reddened, hands scrabbling at the belt. “Or were you going to beat her first?”

Tom threw him off, ripping the belt free, and turning to face him with blind fury written across his face. He hissed out an insult he didn’t have enough air to land before swinging Eddie’s own belt at him like a whip. The sting was so fierce that Eddie was shocked it hadn’t torn right down the front of his shirt like a knife would have. Ripping the bedside lamp out of the socket, Eddie took another lashing before he brought it down on Tom’s head who staggered back as blood bloomed along his hairline. A second swing knocked him onto his back on the bed, trying and failing to rise. 

Eddie looked down at the lamp in his hand, a vivid image of blood spattering on the sheets and walls like crime scene photos popping into his head. Looking over at the mason jar on the nightstand the spider wiggled its legs and he set the lamp down beside it. Pulling a needle from his pocket, he stuck it into the vial, pulling the stopper back with his teeth before climbing onto the bed. Pinning Tom’s arm with a knee on his wrist, he fit the needle between the webbing of his fingers and pushed down the stopper. 

Returning the needle and bottle to his pocket, Eddie raided the mini bar, ignoring Tom’s slurred insults and demands to know what had been in the vial. By the smell of his breath, Tom was already blind drunk so Eddie didn’t worry about how it would look as he poured bottles and bottles of liquor down the sink and threw the empties around the room without any real purpose. Drawing back his fist, he broke the plaster of the wall in a fist shaped indent, and gave the floorboards a few kicks as well to illustrate what he hoped appeared to be a grown man’s tantrum. Putting his own belt back into the loops of his jeans, he pulled Tom’s free to leave near one of his hands in a half hearted excuse for the marks around his throat.

Tom had stopped moving by the time Eddie finished wiping down the room, cleaning off the lamp and plugging it back into the wall. The blood was cooling on Tom's forehead when Eddie collected a few drops to smear on the sink counter in the bathroom to account for the head trauma. Giving the room one last scan, Eddie shouldered his bag, and picked up his jar wondering if he should avoid hotels in the future lest he hit three and qualify as a serial killer. 

Eddie didn’t look at the door across the hall, taking the stairs, and exiting through the side door where his bike awaited him. Jar safely tucked into his bag, he pulled on his helmet, and turned for LA. 

It only occurred to him as he stopped to refill his tank and knock back an energy drink (the ones he always told Richie would stop his heart if he had more than one) that he was technically fleeing the cops. Googling Tom Rogan only brought up articles about the divorce which Eddie took to mean the police had yet to find the body; check out wasn’t for another few hours. There was a missed call and a voicemail from Luke. 

Eddie’s thumb hesitated over the play button before stuffing his phone back into his pocket, checking the jar was secure, and pulling on his helmet. Hours on the road left him stiff and sore, but he made record time with a few short cuts -he always had a good sense of direction- and by the time he reached LA the tug in his gut said Bill. 

“Now I just have to find a movie set in Hollywood,” Eddie muttered.

Buying tickets for the tour of horror movie sets got him onto the lot, leaving his helmet with his bike, but he wore his jacket loose over both shoulders not wanting the lack of an arm to draw attention to him as he slipped away from the guided tour. Grabbing a tray of coffees, he scratched Bill’s name in big letters on one of them and walked like he had somewhere to be. Security barely spared him a glance. Catching a glimpse of Bill talking with the director made Eddie's heart seize and he swiftly changed directions, slipping through costume racks to find the props. 

“Look at this,” one of the technicians said, holding up a switchblade.

“Is that real?” Another asked.

“Yeah, Denbrough wanted it to look authentic in the close up.”

The other held up the fake. “It’s a good match.”

Someone called out, taking their attention, and Eddie watched the knives get set down in opposite spots. Shouldering past them, he pocketed the real one with a mumbled ‘scuse me. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of them flip him off, but neither noticed the missing knife. Eddie let himself fade into the background of the set, hovering by one of the light fixtures they had yet to hang as the scene got set up. His heart rate spiked as Bill stood in place of one of the actors, but when the Henry Bowers lookalike stabbed him there was no blood and the blade popped back out of the knife handle like a push pop when the actor pulled it back. Eddie let out a relieved sigh.

“Excuse me, can I see your badge?”

Eddie looked up at the security guard. 

Eddie looked up at the security guard, making a show of patting himself down. “Uh, damn, must have left it at home.”

“You’re going to have to come with me, sir.” The man grabbed for his right arm, looking bewildered when he closed around only empty fabric.

It pulled the jacket right off his shoulders and Eddie snatched it back from the stunned security guard who was staring at the pinned up sleeve of his shirt.

“I’ll just go get that badge then,” Eddie slipped past him.

“Uh, yeah, go, um…” the security guard trailed after him lamely as Eddie walked off the set. 

Eddie could feel eyes on his back, but he didn’t risk turning around incase he met a familiar gaze. Leaving the lot, he got back onto his bike, closing his eyes once he had his helmet on again. A bar. A knock off speakeasy called Don’t Ask for Disco with 70s music spilling out when the door opened. Richie was back lit and he was-- Starting the engine, Eddie wanted to crash the bike into oncoming traffic, but instead he made his way down the winding streets looking for, looking for…

Stayin’ Alive spilled out onto the side walk as the door to Don’t Ask for Disco opened and Richie stepped outside. His dark hair was just as wild as it had been when they were kids, not even an attempt at brushing had been made, glasses perched on his nose, a little flushed from drinking. His loud Hawaiian shirt loose over a faded ACDC t-shirt and a pair of dark wash jeans. One Halloween in high school, Richie had dressed up as Edward Scissor hands, dark hair sticking up in all directions, and all Eddie had wanted to do all night was run his fingers through it, even though it was tacky with hairspray. When Richie caught him looking, it had been like seeing him naked without his thick glasses to separate their gaze. Looking at him now without a TV screen to distance himself, Eddie felt naked, no, he felt like his skin had been flayed from his bones, and if Richie so much as breathed in his direction-- 

“Rich Tozier!” A man crossed the street towards him, waving him down. “I’m a huge fan!”

“Oh, thanks, man, I appreciate it,” Richie said.

“I was wondering if I could have an autograph—“ the man reached into his pocket.

Eddie threw his bike aside, crossing the distance in a few long steps, and tackling the man to the ground. Richie let out a yelp, but it was drowned off by the echo of a gunshot, the bullet lodging itself in the bricks, the handgun skittering away from the fan’s hand on the concrete.

“Jesus Christ!” Richie exclaimed.

Eddie wrestled with the fan, trying to keep him out of reach of the gun, only to get the air knocked from his lungs from a hit to the ribs. Gaining the upper hand, the fan flipped them over, pinning him down on the concrete while Eddie tried to throw him off. The man slammed his helmet against the concrete and Eddie’s ears rang, but through his doubled vision he saw the guy reach over— Eddie yanked him down by the front of his shirt to crack their skulls together. The fan roared in pain, grabbing his helmet, and ripping it off of him so he could land a direct hit to his face and Eddie’s mouth filled with blood. The fan reached— Richie’s beat up sneaker came into Eddie’s line of vision to kick the gun away.

“Dude, I’m literally fucking calling the cops, are you seriously trying to commit homicide in front of— Eddie?” 

Richie’s face turned white as a sheet, phone slipping from his fingers to crack against the concrete, and the fan used his distraction to lunge at him. Eddie caught him before he could make contact with Richie, twisting to slam him into the ground. The man’s skull cracked against the ground and Eddie didn’t give him a chance to recover before bringing his fist down again, again, again even as the sound of sirens got closer.

“Eddie, Jesus, stop!” 

Big hands hauled him up off of the man, who lay there moaning something about queers ruining comedy, blood drooling from his lips, and eyes starting to swell shut. Eddie stagger slightly, the taste of iron on his tongue as he met Richie’s eyes. Richie cupped his face with shaking hands, eyes wide behind his glasses.

“It’s… it’s really you.”

Eddie shoved him off, grabbing his helmet, and moving towards his bike.

“Eddie! Wait, hey— don’t leave, Eds, please—“ Richie’s fingers curled in his jacket.

“You left me first.”

Eddie knocked his hand away, taking off with red and blue lights behind him, but they faded as he sped away. Pretending as though the ghost of Richie’s hands on him was just the wind tearing through his clothes.

Riding well into the night, exhaustion and aching limbs forced him into a diner with ketchup stains on the tables and tears in the cushioned booths. Pulling the jar out of his bag, the spider was large enough that its legs were cramped up against the glass. The news of Tom Rohan’s death had broken with the headline, ‘Sources close to the police say Tom Rogan drank himself to death amid divorce proceedings from designer Beverly Marsh’. Eddie’s thumb hovered over Luke’s voicemail, there had been no further calls or texts despite his three day absence. Staring at the spider, Eddie clicked play, raising the phone to his ear.

“Taking a couple days vacation is a pretty vague note, so, I don’t know if you’ve got divorce paper work to go through, or if your ex got her hooks in you again, or if you’re just running again, but I guess it doesn’t really matter because whatever the case is, we’ll be waiting for you at the Blue Horse on Friday with your usual order, alright? It don’t gotta be this Friday, and you don’t gotta stay for more than one drink, but we’ll be seeing you there.”

Eddie met the spider’s unblinking gaze as he set his phone down. 

“Anything I can get you?” The waitress asked.

Eddie wiped sleep from his eyes only to hiss when he pressed against a bruise. “Yeah, uh, coffee. As strong as you can make it.” 

Friday, 8:03 PM, Eddie walked into Blue Horse, the bike and helmet out front, but his backpack still slung over his shoulder, spider jar in hand. The others were sitting at their usual booth. Jesse’s eyes widened as she took in his appearance. Gus blinked a few times before pushing a beer in his direction. Luke didn’t look surprised, a small smile tugging at his lips, and he clapped Eddie’s shoulder as he sat down. 

“You seen the game?” Gus asked.

Eddie gave a slight shake of his head, setting the jar down on the table, and picking up his beer.

“Oh my god, it was total bullshit…” Jesse started.

Eddie fell asleep half way through his first beer.

Chapter Text

Aside from Gus asking how many miles per hour Eddie got the bike up to, they never asked where he went on his four day absence or why he returned bruised and bloody and exhausted. It was easy to fall right back into his routine, running with Luke, working at the shop, Blue Horse on Thursdays and Fridays after work, and watching the game with Gus and Virginia on Sundays (or dinner if there was no football to watch), Roseann had even kept his room for him. 

“Had a feeling you’d be back,” she said, handing him the key. “Had the sheets double washed for you, nothing on ‘em, not even a speck of dust.”

Eddie cradled the key as if it were something precious as she smiled at him, barely managing to get out a rusty thank you. Double washed sheets still didn’t stop the nightmares. 

Every night he dreamed he had been too late to save one of them. Watching Stanley’s heart monitor slow and flatten without any reaction from a comatose Stanley aside from his chest falling entirely still. Watching Tom pull a belt tight around Beverly’s throat as she raked red lines down his hands and her own neck with her nails, trying to get free. Watching from the ground as Mike’s plane tore itself apart, sifting through the burning rubble for pieces of him. Ben’s body already flattened in the road. Bill bleeding out with Henry Bower’s face staring down at him. Richie choking on air, laying on his back on the concrete, one hand reaching for Eddie—

The spider was barely squished in the mason jar and Eddie’s research was no longer idle. Even if the dreams were only the echo of dead light visions, he had no illusions that saving the Losers once would break the curse. As long as Pennywise’s blood lived, so did the curse. His search was not idle, but it had been thus far futile. 

“I’m not doing this,” Eddie said, even as the bartender set the behemoth of a drink before him.

“You just don’t want to lose,” Jesse said.

Eddie glared at her. “Fine, but you all have to one hand your drinks, you can’t have a tactical advantage.”

Gus laughed. “Tactical advantage?”

“If we’re doing this, then we’re going to take it seriously.”

“Yeah… I think that’s the intention behind drinking games,” Luke said dryly. 

Eddie shot him a glare.

“Come on, let’s do this!” Jesse slapped her hands on the counter. 

The spider thumbed a leg against its glass in protest of how the action vibrated through his jar. 

“Alright, come on.” Eddie reached for the first shot.

“Eddie,” Luke said quietly.

“What? Pussying out on me now?” Eddie asked.

Eddie turned towards Luke only to stop dead as he watched Richie lead Bill, Mike, Ben, and Beverly into the bar. Other patrons were turning to look at the four celebrities, whispering and nudging their companions, but the Losers all had their eyes locked on Eddie. 

“Oh shit,” Gus said.

“Dude, how many famous people do you know?” Jesse hissed.

Luke didn’t say anything, but his shoulders were squared, hands loose by his sides, but free from his pockets. Ready.

“I knew it,” Bill said. “I knew you were on set that day but I just thought…”

“I was seeing a ghost,” Ben said faintly. “You… you helped me into a cab.”

“You… you died,” Beverly said. “You…”

“Yeah, well, clearly not.” Eddie reached behind him and knocked back one of the shots before grabbing his jacket, throwing it over his shoulder and reaching for—

“Eds— Holy shit, what the fuck is that.” Richie pointed at the spider. “Oh please don’t tell me that’s what I think it is.”

Eddie grabbed the jar, moving to step away, but Luke caught his arm, raising an eyebrow.

“S’fine, I’ll see you at work tomorrow,” Eddie said.

Luke gave the group one last look before letting go. Eddie shoved his way past the Losers who all flinched away from the jar in his hands, which at the very least proved the spider was real. Stepping out of the bar, he was afforded one beautiful minute of quiet before the other five tumbled out after him, all talking over one another. Keeping his back to them, Eddie walked towards his bike.

“Oh absolutely not.” Richie grabbed his arm. “Do you know how long it took me to find you? To convince the others that you were alive?”

“Why do you have that?” Mike pointed at the jar.

“How are you here?” Beverly asked. “I saw… I saw you die. I saw it in the dead lights.”

“Like you saw Stan? Because he’s in a coma in Georgia,” Eddie said.

Richie flinched back. “He— he’s alive?”

“He’s breathing,” Eddie said, holding tight to the jar. 

“And you didn’t think to tell us that?” Bill asked. “You didn’t think to tell us you were alive? We mourned you.”

“Your numbers are unlisted! And you left me to die in a sewer! Fuck that, reverse those two reasons. You left me to bleed out in the sewer like I was garbage with my worst fears for company!”

Richie recoiled as though physically struck.

Beverly looked vaguely ill. “We thought you were dead. We all would have died if we stayed—“

“Does he look fucking crushed to death to you?” Richie gestured sharply at him. “Are you saying that Eddie had time to fucking crawl out, even down one arm but we couldn’t have carried—“

“What do you mean your worst fears?” Ben interrupted, eyeing the jar. “That’s not—“

“We killed IT,” Bill said.

“Almost,” Eddie said. 

Ben paled. “Is that—“

“No, this is just one of its offspring, so, y’know good work tying that loose end up.”

Ben flinched.

“Actually,” Eddie said with a humorless laugh. “It’s probably best that you didn’t kill IT ‘cause it was my ticket out of there. IT dragged me through its last little escape tunnel before I managed to kill IT and washed out in the Barrens.” 

“You—“ Richie made a choking noise. “You were— you were right there?”

“Of course I was fucking there! Where the fuck were you? Fucking back off to LA for your Netflix special? To have your little happy ever after? To travel the world while I was rotting in Derry? To turn fucking profit on the worst parts of our lives and put it out into the world for everyone to see?” Eddie spat, reveling in the way they flinched away from his words. 

“I didn’t—“ Richie’s eyes were full of tears, reaching out towards him. “I didn’t want to leave you.”

Eddie pulled away. “Yeah, well, you didn’t waste anytime doing it, did you? I called the inn when I woke up and every last one of you was gone. So don’t act like I’m the one who should’ve tracked you down when you didn’t even bother to tell my wife I was dead or try to come to my funeral. Though I guess I shouldn’t take it personal because if any of you had bothered to call Patricia then you wouldn’t be so shocked about Stanley.”

“Eddie, please…” Beverly’s eyes were shining. 

Eddie climbed onto his bike.

“Why were you there?” Bill asked. “On set.”

Eddie’s jaw worked. “I had a dream.”

“From the deadlights?” Bill asked.

Eddie pulled on his helmet.

“And the spider?” Mike asked.

“I’ll give you a ring once I find a way to kill it,” Eddie said.

“We should do it together,” Ben said.

“Yeah, because we did such a great job last time.” Eddie revved the engine, and took off down the street without looking back.

At the inn, he collapsed face-first into bed with a muted scream. It was awhile before his heart slowed enough to let him slip off to sleep. 

Richie choked, coughing up blood—

Bill’s skull split—

A tornado tore down the highway and Mike—

A forgotten iron set fire to a half finished dress—

Ben’s glassy eyes—

The hospital monitor flat lined—

Eddie woke up with a gasp as he fell back onto the bed, looking over at the squished spider as its eyes faded from its milky white to beady black once again.

“Motherfucker.”

Eddie allowed himself ten more minutes of lying in bed before forcing himself up to his feet. Dressed and jar in hand, he jogged down the stairs of the inn.

“Oh, Eddie,” Roseann caught his attention. “There’s a man sitting outside who says he knows you. I think he’s been there all night. Do you want me to call the police?”

Eddie grimaced. “No, I’ve got it, thanks.”

Stepping out of the inn, he found Richie sitting on the curb, a cigarette burning down between his fingers, but it fell forgotten to the concrete as Richie jumped up to his feet.

“Eddie—“ Richie reached out, like he wanted to touch him, but Eddie leaned back, and he let his hand fall.

“Roseann says you’ve been out here all night.”

“Yeah, I didn’t want to miss you, and she wouldn’t tell me what room your were staying in, or even let me wait for you in the lobby.”

“That’s because my ex-wife tried the same tactic,” Eddie said, a phantom pain flaring through him as he made an aborted move to cross his arms before letting his hand fall again with a grimace. 

Richie’s eyes flicked down to his arm and then back up to his face. “Ex-wife? So she knows?”

“Be hard to get a divorce if she didn’t.” 

“Right, I—“ Richie swallowed. “Eds, I’m so s—“

“I don’t want to hear it,” Eddie said, suddenly exhausted. “Look, are the others still here?”

“Yeah, yes, they were texting about breakfast, but I didn’t want to go and risk not getting to talk to you.” Richie pulled out his phone and Eddie caught sight of a group chat labeled ‘Losers’ and his anger turned white-hot again. “Do you want to see them?”

“Tell them to meet me at Jo’s.” Eddie moved towards his bike, picking up his helmet. 

“Now?”

Eddie fixed him with a look so scathing Richie didn’t bother saying anything, just started tapping away at his phone. The spider thumped against the jar, tucked into the side pocket of Eddie's backpack, and Richie looked queasy as he looked at it.

“Is it… should you have it like on you? Is that safe?” Richie asked. 

Eddie pulled on his helmet. “Jo’s. Now. I have a shift to get to.”

Richie opened his mouth, but Eddie lost whatever he was going to say in the rev of his engine, pulling away from the curb, and taking his time with the short ride over to the diner. Dinah gave him a warm hello, he wasn’t a regular, but it was an everyone-knows-everyone type of town and for some reason, a lot of the folks appeared to have a soft spot for him, even with his temper. She got him a booth, setting out menus, but he sat at the counter as he waited, nursing a coffee as he watched the door. The bell clinked overhead as the five Losers stepped inside and for a split second they looked like teenagers again, getting breakfast for dinner after a long day of tramping through the Barrens. Eddie blinked and it was gone. Nodding his head, the five of them settled tentatively into the booth, and Eddie dragged up a chair to the edge. Thunking the jar down on the center of the table made all five of them flinch as he sat down.

“I had another set of dreams last night,” Eddie said. “Whatever curse Pennywise put on all of us, it’s not over, and I don’t think it will be until this spider is dead.”

“So, let’s kill it,” Ben said. “We know how, we defeated Pennywise.”

Eddie’s jaw ticked. “You think I haven’t tried that?”

“You were alone,” Beverly said. “It took all of us last time, even if you… even if you had the final blow.”

Eddie made a go on type of gesture. Beverly hesitated before leaning closer to the jar and whispering insults to it. The spider thunked four of its legs against the glass making the jar wobble and tip. Beverly jumped back, but Ben already had a protective arm between her and the spider. Bill glanced at the others, then leaned in and gave it a few insults of his own, but it didn’t shrink in the slightest, fixing those dark eyes on him.

“Alright, I guess we’ll have to find something else,” Mike said.

Richie pushed his glasses up to scrub at his face. “Great.”

Eddie picked up the jar, tucking it back into his bag. “There’s no ‘we’. I’ve already spent months researching and I’ve got a few leads. I’m only telling you to warn you about the visions.” 

“Eddie—“ Bill said, using his Big Bill voice, but Eddie was immune.

Eddie slid a napkin over to them. “This is my number, if I call you, you pick up and you listen to what I tell you to do.”

Richie picked it up, phone already out to type the numbers into it, and Eddie felt his own phone buzz in his pocket a second later, but he didn’t pull it out to check.

“And one of you needs to go to Georgia to watch over Stan,” Eddie said. “I can’t be everywhere.”

“I’ll go,” Mike said.

“No,” Bill said. “You’ve done enough watching over for a life time, I’ll go.”

“What about your career?” Beverly asked. “I can’t imagine it’ll be good for you to just take off again.”

Bill glanced at Eddie then down at the menus. “I, uh, I called the movie off last night. Told them to stop filming. It… I wrote the book because I was afraid… I was afraid I would forget again, forget all of you and everything we had been through, but the movie was a bad idea.”

“I told you that when you started filming, dude,” Richie said.

“Yeah, for once, you get to say I told you so, trashmouth, so enjoy it,” Bill said with a dry smile.

Richie’s own smile made Eddie feel like his heart was being cut out of his chest with a butterknife. Standing up, the feet of his chair screeched against the floor, and they all turned to look at him with wide eyes.

“Then it’s settled,” Eddie said.

“Wait, Eds—“ Richie tried to get up, but he couldn’t reach him with the others squished in on either side of him on the booth.

“You all can go back to your fairytale lives now.” Eddie tucked a couple of bills under his half empty coffee cup before stepping away.

“Eddie.” Bill caught his arm. “You have to know we wouldn’t have left you if we thought you were still… if you were still with us.”

“No, you would’ve just let me rot with all the ghosts down there without even bothering to give me any kind of funeral,” Eddie said.

Bill’s lips parted, but he didn’t say anything.

Eddie pulled away, heading for the door. “Keep your ringers on.” 

Stepping into the auto shop, Eddie turned his own ringer off as his phone kept vibrating as the Losers texted to give him their own numbers as well as whatever bullshit they wanted to tell him. 

“You’re late,” Jesse said, but there was no weight to it, her gaze concerned.

Eddie threw his phone off to the side. “Had some business to take care of.”

“Dude, how many famous people do you know? No, scratch that, how many famous people have you had a falling out with?”

“What do you define as famous?” Eddie asked.

Gus made an incredulous noise. 

“You okay?” Luke asked.

Eddie set the spider on the worktable, staring into its beady eyes. “Yeah. Fine.” 

Gus slapped his back as he passed and likely getting grease and grime all over the back of his shirt with the action, but Eddie’s answering glare was half hearted at best.

“So do we get to know the deal about the jar now?” Gus asked. “Because, uh, those guys seemed like they knew what the deal with the jar was.”

“You don’t want to know what the deal with the jar is,” Eddie muttered darkly. “Trust me.”

Gus held his hands up in surrender, turning up the music to take the place of their conversation.

Chapter Text

Richie had apparently charmed his way into waiting in the lobby of the inn, sitting in one of the fading armchairs, but he jumped up when Eddie stepped inside.

“I thought I told you to leave,” Eddie said.

“When have I ever done as I was told, Eds?” Richie joked but it was strained.

“He waited all day,” Clara said from the desk. “Even though I told him you were at work.”

“Thank you, Clara,” Eddie bit out.

Clara sank back behind the counter.

“Where do you work?” Richie asked.

“Why? Going to stalk me there too?” Eddie started on the stairs.

Richie followed him a step behind. “You’ve got grease on your clothes. And your face.”

Eddie wiped his cheek futility on his shoulder, earning a weak smile from Richie. Eddie scowled, stopping on the second floor, standing in the hallway, but making no moves towards his room.

“What do you want, Richie?”

“What I want I don’t think I’m going to get,” Richie said, not bitter, but resigned.

Eddie looked away, squashing down the echo of Richie’s comedy show knocking around in the back of his skull.

Richie cleared his throat, tucking his hands in his pockets, and rocking on his toes. “But you didn’t say at the diner if you got any visions of yourself.”

Eddie looked back at him. “What?”

“I mean, you saved me from a former fan, and Bill saw you on set, and you kept Ben from walking into traffic, and well… Tom Rogan kicked the bucket pretty recently…”

“I heard it was natural causes from chronic alcoholism,” Eddie said mildly.

Richie gave a slight shake of his head. “At what point do they start calling it serial? Three?”

“I did what had to be done,” Eddie hissed, jamming a finger into Richie’s chest.

“Hey. I would have done the same. Although, it’s probably better that it didn’t come down to it, I don’t think I’ve got your forensic skills, or, uh.” Richie’s eyes slid along him. “The upper body strength.”

“Don’t be an asshole.” Eddie shifted his weight, so his right side was somewhat turned away from Richie. 

“I wasn’t, Eds, seriously, what have you been doing? Getting tips from John Wick? You tackled a guy with a gun and came out on top.”

“I’ve been running,” Eddie said, rubbing his jaw, remembering the ache that had lasted for days from the fan’s fist.

The lashes across his chest from Tom Rogan’s belt had been worse. 

“Running he says,” Richie joked. 

“And physical therapy.”

Richie’s smile slipped away. “Eddie, I…”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Eddie said. “There’s nothing you can say that’ll change—“

You had your arms around me, Eddie thought. You cradled me in your arms and told me I would be okay and then you put me down to bleed out among the trash with my worst fears for company. 

Eddie choked on the words. “—just leave, Richie.” 

“You didn’t answer my question,” Richie said, trying and failing to tuck away his wounded look. “Do you have visions of yourself?”

Eddie cleared his throat. “No. No, just of all of you.”

“So you’ve got a pass then?” Richie asked. “You’re exempt from the ‘we all meet a gruesome end’ thing?”

“Didn’t I already?” Eddie bit out. “Or have you not read Bill’s book.”

“Eddie.” 

Richie’s grabbed his shoulders and Eddie’s whole body tensed up at the way his palm rested on his right shoulder. Even when the others at the shop slapped his back or shoulder, they stayed safely to the left. Pain sparked along the nerves like a train grinding to a halt on the rails as it realized the rest of the track had disappeared. Like he should have felt the warmth of Richie’s touch all the way down to his fingertips and his nerves couldn’t understand how to loop back to his brain. 

“I’m asking if you’re safe,” Richie said. “Look, you can— you can hate me all you want, but I’m not leaving here if you’re in danger. I already hate the thought of you carrying around that thing—“

“I’m fine,” Eddie said, brain still half occupied with screaming about his arm, about the warmth of Richie’s hands, about how he used to grab at him like a little kid who didn’t understand you had to pet cats gently well into their teenage years. “The last cycle skipped me. I had to rescue all of you, but there was no vision for me, no close calls, nothing.” 

“Okay,” Richie said, taking a deep breath, and letting his hands slip away. “Okay, good, that’s… that’s good.” 

Eddie felt off kilter, resisting the urge to grab at his stump, to curl in on himself to protect from damage that had already been dealt. 

Richie rocked on his heels. “You know, the beauty of comedy is I can write wherever—“

“No,” Eddie said, stepping back.

“Eds, please, I just got you back, I—“

Eddie turned his back, so his own blurry eyes couldn’t give him away as he unlocked his room. “I told you to leave, so leave.”

Richie made a quiet sound that Eddie didn’t risk looking back for, stepping into his room, and closing the door. Leaning against the wood, Eddie scrubbed away tears with his sleeve.

“Fuck,” Eddie said wetly, throwing the latch, and storming into the bathroom.

He was more than practiced at showering without giving himself more than a glance, but with a shaky breath he looked over, half expecting to see Richie’s handprint burned on his shoulder, but there were only rings of scars from IT’s teeth. Leaning his forehead against the wall, he tried to pretend the hot water wasn’t replicating Richie’s warmth. When they were younger, Eddie had been scared to death of catching anything, everything. It meant he kept his distance, avoiding even a high five after a good joke, but it never stopped Richie. Richie who would grab his face with hands sticky from eating gummy worms and get into his face to say, ‘cute, cute, cute’ like there weren’t hundreds of diseases that could be transferred between them in milliseconds. Like there was no reason to treat a frail boy like Eddie as though he were the boy in the bubble. 

Eddie had locked his door, pillow over his ears to keep from hearing his mother wailing about how he must have every STI in the book and was doomed to die before high school graduation because he had contracted mono. The kissing disease might as well have been stage four cancer in his mother’s eyes. Though at the very least he could get away with trying to keep his distance from her because he was contagious and he just loved her so much he couldn’t stand for her to catch it. Ironically, it was Stanley’s fault who had accidentally mixed up their sodas the last time they hung out, though to be fair, Stanley had gotten mono the traditional way which all the Losers had heckled him for accordingly.  With his head buried under the pillow, he didn’t notice Richie leveraging his window open until he tumbled into the room. The crash made him scream and throw the pillow at his head.

Richie flailed. “Wha— hey! Is that how you treat your bestest friend in the world?"

“That’s how I treat an intruder,” Eddie said.

Richie smiled, rising to his feet, and bopping him lightly with the pillow before joining him on the bed with a bounce. 

Eddie turned away, pulling the collar of his t-shirt over his own face like a mask. “What are you doing? I’m contagious, idiot.” 

“So? We’re not playing spin-the-bottle or nothing.” 

“I could cough on you or something."

Richie waved a dismissive hand. “My immune system’s like an ox.”

Eddie kicked his leg. “Get out before I get you sick!” 

“Aw, Eds, you do care!” Richie clasped his hands over his heart.

Eddie’s face flushed, making him feel lightheaded as the warmth under his skin added to his fever.

“Besides, you can’t kick me out because I’ve got this!” Richie pulled out a stack of comics from under his shirt. “It’s the good shit too, stole ‘em from Big Bill.” 

“He’s going to kill you,” Eddie said.

“Worth it."

Richie readjusted the pillows and blankets around them, though it didn’t change that they were two sixteen year olds crammed into a twin bed, pressed together shoulder to thigh as he opened the first comic for them both to read. The words blurred in Eddie’s vision, looking over, he couldn’t help his smile at the way Richie’s lips moved slightly when he read as always. Eddie wasn’t sure if he knew he was doing it, for whatever reason, he could never quite bring himself to tease him about it. Maybe it was for the same reason that Richie would make fun of him for freaking out about every little thing, but never for crying. The X-men blurred before him, his head dropping onto Richie’s shoulder as he fought to stay awake.

“Aren’t you afraid ‘m gonna get you sick?” Eddie slurred, half asleep.

“Then we’ll be sick together,” Richie said. 

Eddie couldn’t say whether he was afraid of being contaminated, or if he was afraid of infecting the people around him. Of being patient zero to his friends, family, and with the festering rot of anger in his chest, no hot shower would ever make him clean enough for Richie to stay within three states of him.

Chapter Text

Over the next several days, Eddie got a flood of calls, but he didn’t pick any of them up. Mike was the first to leave a voicemail and Eddie only managed to ignore it for two days before pressing play.

“Eddie, I don’t know what the likelihood of you listening to this is, but I thought it was worth a try. When my memories returned, I remembered Bill first, you second. I remember you throwing rocks at the bullies chasing me even though you had tears in your eyes and you had no idea who I was. Bill was larger than life, I know I don’t have to tell you that, we all would have followed him anywhere, but honestly, half of what made me follow him was you. You were… you were so scared of everything but you still would have followed Bill to the ends of the earth and I remember thinking that if a kid who was terrified of someone coughing ten feet away from him decided Bill was worth his loyalty, then he had to be really something. I’m heading to Germany, actually I’m sitting in the airport right now, with a little luck I might be able to find something to help with the spider. I’ll call back if I do.”

Eddie played the message again before opening up his texts. Richie had added him to the Losers group chat, but there had been little activity aside from texts to say that they all had gotten where they were going. 

Bill had left him a voicemail of his own along with a text saying he arrived in Georgia. 

“Eddie, I, uh, I just wanted to tell you that I’m here with Stan, he… he looks okay considering and the doctor’s say his brain activity is good, so. Um, I spoke to Patricia a little, I told her that I was a friend from high school who had been trying to reconnect with old friends to write a memoir and she… she seemed happy to hear a little bit about Stan’s life. I didn’t tell her anything about IT, just… just Stan the Man. I think Richie might have beat me down here though, there’s uh the ugliest bird stuffed animal I’ve ever seen sitting on his nightstand, but he hasn’t mentioned it. Ben and Bev said they would come visit in a few weeks too. Anyway, that’s… that’s my update. I’ll keep you posted if his condition changes.”

Ben had sent him links to electro-prosthesis as well as mentioning he had several friends in engineering should Eddie want to talk to them about a specialized prosthesis. 

Beverly had called a few times but left no voicemails or text messages. 

Richie had flooded his text messages.

‘At the airport’

‘On the plane, envious of your short legs with the way they keep cutting down on legroom.’

‘Landed.’

‘I realize you never actually told me what you did for work.’ 

‘Greased pig wrestling?’

‘I can keep guessing.’

‘Also, since when did you ride a motorcycle? Shouldn’t you be reciting facts about how many people die in bike accidents a year? I mean, it’s a sick bike though. Did look very cool when you showed up to save my ass. Tell Mr. Cruz he’s teaching you well.’

They went on for awhile with the most recent one being, ‘okay, you have to respond to one of these or else I’m gonna have a panic attack and just fly right back to Montana, the others said they haven’t heard from you either’.

Eddie typed out, ‘I’m a mechanic. Don’t fly back.’

‘Should’ve texted faster, I’m literally on the plane.’

‘Get off the plane.’

‘Hell no, I paid for this ticket, and it’s way too late for a refund. See you in four hours.’

Eddie screamed into his pillow. 

‘I’m not picking you up from the airport.’

Ignoring his phone entirely once he got to the auto shop backfired more than Eddie expected. He knew who the wolf whistle belonged to without looking away from the engine he was bent over. 

“You really are a mechanic,” Richie said, leaning in the open garage doorway.

“Not certified,” Eddie said, straightening up.

“Despite the fact that I keep telling him to take the classes,” Luke said, stepping up beside him. “So I can stop paying him under the table.”

“Scandalous,” Richie said. “Little Eddie Spaghetti commits tax fraud.”

Eddie scowled.

“Hey, I’m Rich.” Richie extended his hand.

“Luke.” Luke shook just once before letting go.

“This is your shop?” Richie asked.

“Mhm.”

“You know it makes sense, I mean, you weren’t like Stan with his birds, but you always did like cars.” Richie looked away from Eddie to toss Luke a smile. “I used to tell him he’d make a great New York cabbie ‘cause he’s got this crazy sense of direction.”

“Yeah and then you’d fucking jump on me and shout, ‘take me to Broadway’,” Eddie said.

Richie grinned.

Eddie looked away.

“Yeah,” Richie said softly. “You always were a tough crowd.”

“I’ve got work to do,” Eddie said, stepping over to grab a wrench from the work bench.

“Yeah— oh shit, you bring that thing to work with you?” Richie looked vaguely nauseated as he looked at the spider.

“He brings it everywhere with him,” Jesse said, giving up on pretending as though she and Gus weren’t eavesdropping. “Even to the bar.” 

Richie’s eyes widened. “They can’t— oh my god, Eds, you coworkers must think you’re crazy carrying around an empty jar.”

Eddie scowled. “It’s my responsibility. I can’t just leave it in my room at the inn.” 

“So, are you going to tell us what the deal with the jar is, Mr. Comedian?” Gus asked.

“Just B-list will do, Mr. Comedian was my father,” Richie said, throwing on his southern drawl for effect.

Gus snorted.

“And, uh, to answer your question, no, I will not,” Richie said. “It’s a whole childhood blood oath type of deal, real boring stuff actually.” 

“Blood oath?” Jesse repeated.

“I know, yawn, right?” Richie said, easily breezing past the whole ordeal. “Anyways, I don’t mean to interrupt, what time do you close up? I’ll buy you all a round, you deserve it for putting up with Eddie for, uh... four months?”

“Three.” Eddie glared. “First month I was mostly in the hospital.”

If Eddie didn’t know Richie so well, he wouldn’t see the way his smile was pinned up as though by thumbtacks and the way his eyebrows dipped for a second or two, just like when they were kids and Eddie accidentally landed a jab a little too close to home. Richie brushed off apologies like they were flies because accepting one meant admitting his feelings could be hurt by a wrong word so on a whim one day when Eddie cut a little deeper than intended Eddie blurted out, ‘beep, beep, Eddie’ and it had smoothed out Richie’s face as he laughed saying, ‘guess I’m not the only trashmouth of the group’. After that, it had become a sort of inside apology, an ‘I take it back’. 

Eddie didn’t take it back, even though his glare faltered somewhat at seeing Richie’s expression.

“We close up around eight,” Gus said. 

“I’ll get out of your hair then,” Richie said. “I’ll see you later, Eds.”

“Don’t call me that,” Eddie spat, more venomous than the moment called for.

Richie’s eyebrows dipped further, but managed a weak, “Sure thing, Spagheds.”

Eddie wanted to bring the wrench down on the car until he had beat it into a pile of scrap metal as he watched Richie walk out of the shop.

“…at some point are you going to explain this whole mess to us, or are we just supposed to watch it unfold like catching the last five minutes of a soap opera every week?” Jesse asked.

Eddie glared at the engine, banging around inside of it without making much progress.

“Eddie,” Luke said quietly.

Eddie slammed the hood down, looking at them. “I’ll tell you once and that’s it, got it?”

The three of them gave him their full attention.

“We had this friend group when we were kids, we lost touch after we left home, but when we were thirteen made a promise to return to meet up back in our home town twenty-seven years later, and we all did. Our reunion was cut short by this serial killer and it— he got us all down in the sewers. I… I got hurt and then the sewer started to collapse and they left me there. With the serial killer.” 

“Holy shit,” Gus said.

“How did you get out?” Jesse asked.

“I cauterized my arm, crawled into a smaller tunnel, got washed out when the water levels rose, and stumbled onto a road. By the time I woke up in the hospital, they had already left to go back to their own lives. The end.”

“In the bar, it sounded like they thought you were dead,” Luke said, it was a nonjudgmental statement, but it still made Eddie’s whole body tense up.

“They were wrong.”

“…so I shouldn’t ask for an autograph?” Gus asked. 

Jesse elbowed him.

“I genuinely could not care less,” Eddie said, returning his attention to the car. “Steal his glasses and sell them on Ebay for all I care.”

Luke snorted. 

Richie looked a little surprised to see him waiting out front when he returned to the shop; Eddie was a little surprised himself. His eyes dipped down to the jar on his hand, looking a little queasy before throwing on his usual smile.

“Alright, where’s the classiest joint in this one-horse town?”

“Blue Horse is only a few blocks that way,” Jesse said with a nod. “It’s our go to.”

“Helps that it’s a close walk to my apartment,” Luke joked.

“And here I was hoping to get a spin on that bike,” Richie broke out his school-girl act. “Not so fast, Mr. Kaspbrak, if my mother sees that bike she’ll have a right heart attack!”

Gus laughed, Eddie glared at the traitor.

“Seriously, I can’t believe you ride a motorcycle. Shouldn’t you be talking my ear off over how many motorcycle related deaths there are a year?”

“I’m not an idiot,” Eddie said. “I wear a helmet and riding leathers.”

“Riding leather… god, and I thought those little red running shorts were bad.”

Eddie scowled.

“Seriously, almost swooned when you came in to save my ass from that homophobe, all badass with your motorcycle and leather and Tom Cruise action flick skills. Could hardly believe that was my little Eddie Spaghetti!”

“I still can’t believe you got it to run,” Jesse said. “I worked six months on that bike only to tear it all apart again to try to find the problem and… nada.”

“You built that?” Richie asked.

“Fighting homophobes, is that where you disappeared to?” Gus asked. “Wait, wasn’t there a story in that gossip rag—“

“About a former fan attacking me? And a mysterious stranger saving me?” Richie asked. “Oh yeah, someone snapped a couple blurry photos of Eds in his whole action hero glory, I hope they pick someone stupid hot to play me in the movie, like Megan Fox.” Richie said.

“They’d cast Steve Buscemi,” Eddie said venomously.

Richie laughed, holding the door for him. Eddie only let it happen because his own hand was occupied but he scowled to indicate his displeasure at the gesture. Eddie loitered so he could sit down last, stealing the end of the booth next to Luke with Richie heading to the bar to get them a round before sliding into the booth opposite him. The others were used to the jar sitting in the center of the table while they drank, but they couldn’t see the spider inside. Richie, on the other hand, leaned back when Eddie thunked it down on the table so he could take a drink of his beer.

Eddie raised an eyebrow.

Richie cleared his throat. “You know I’m digging this whole mechanic, motorcycle get up, vast improvement from the polos. Less tired dad chic.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t really clean up as well now,” Eddie said, turning his scared cheek away from the rest of the table.

“Tell that to Ms. Saint-Claire,” Gus teased.

Eddie scowled.

“Who is Ms. Saint-Claire?” Richie asked. 

“A local who is trying to make Eddie husband number five,” Jesse said.

Eddie took a deep drink of his beer. 

“Oh?” Richie raised an eyebrow at him. “Is she making any progress, huh? Wearing you down, Eds?”

“No.” 

“Heartbreaker,” Richie joked.

“You got no idea,” Gus laughed. “He’s the new handsome stranger in town, we’ve had a couple people come into the shop six months before they were due for an oil change just to try to talk to him.”

It was true, but it made Eddie feel like a freak show had come to town not a movie star.

Richie grinned, leaning over the table slightly. “Baby, you can change my oil anytime.” 

Eddie sneered. “That’s the line you came up with? That’s your best car-related pick up line?”

“Well, talking about lubricant just seemed tacky,” Richie said, earning a choked off laugh from Jesse who had just taken a sip of beer. “Heh. Tacky.”

“You’re disgusting,” Eddie informed him.

“That’s not what your mom said last night.”

“She’s dead you sick freak.”

“They don’t call me the ghost whisperer for nothing, Eds, who do you think makes those ghosts moan?” 

“That didn’t even make sense, you absolute—“

“All that bed shaking? Yep. That’s me, guilty as charged—“

“Don’t interrupt me, motherfuck—“

“Motherfucker is right—“

Eddie slammed his hand on the table half rising out of his seat. “I’ll show your mom a motherfucker if you don’t shut the fuck up!”

Richie’s eyes widened, then he laughed so hard he started to snort and Eddie’s face went hot as his friends joined in and other bar patrons gave him a mixture of weird and amused looks as he sank back down into his seat. 

Richie’s whole shoulders were shaking with his laughter. “Jesus Christ, Eds, you always did give it back as good as you got it.” 

“You guys were childhood friends, right?” Jesse asked.

Richie wiped at his eyes. “Yeah, ever since I asked him how the view was from all the way down there in third grade and he said, ‘I’ll show you the view!’ And knocked me over.” 

“So he was always like this,” Luke said wryly.

“Yeah,” Richie’s smile was softer. “Or at least when I was around. He was kinda a shy kid, but I always brought out the worst in him. Seriously, he literally got a report card that said so.”

Eddie’s chest felt tight and he barely got out the words, “I wasn’t shy.” 

“Yeah, you were. You were all please-and-thank-you’s and you looked at the floor so often you could recognize people by their kicks, it was only with the Losers that you were really yourself with.”

Eddie took another sip of beer, but it did nothing to quench the unpleasant heat in his chest, like desert air filling his lungs.  

“The Losers?” Jesse asked.

“Oh, uh, that’s what our friend group called ourselves back home because, well, that’s what everyone else called us, so we decided to make it official. Had a clubhouse and everything. You know, us against the world.” Richie said, with a sweep of his hand like he could picture a big sign before him.

Biting back bitter words felt like choking on acrid smoke. 

“But you two lost touch?” Jesse asked.

“We all did,” Richie said. “Until a few months ago where we had this, uh, this reunion and little Eddie Spaghetti walked in wearing an ironed polo and enough hair gel that he might as well have worn a hard hat, telling me he was a ‘risk analysts’.”

His friends looked at him with amusement.

“And so of course, I start tearing into him for having the most boring job on the face of the planet, which he should have anticipated with y’know the whole comedian thing, which is getting me a couple of brownie points at this reunion until it comes out I’ve got ghostwriters and this guy goes, ‘I knew you didn’t write your own jokes, you talentless hack!’.” 

The table let out a few incredulous laughs.

“Can you imagine that? You see your childhood best friend for the first time in twenty years and he calls you a talentless hack?” Richie laughed. “But it’s alright, ‘cause all I’m taking this to mean is that at some point in those years you watched one of my shows.”

Eddie glared.

“You, uh.” Richie sipped his beer, but there was a nervous edge to his smile. “You seen my new one, super-fan?”

“No,” Eddie said. “Congrats, on, uh, all your success, all five of you really, but some of us had other things to deal with after Derry than designing a new line, or writing a tell-all about our trauma, or getting a full house at wherever the fuck you filmed your special.”

Richie’s smile slipped away entirely. “Eds, it wasn’t like that.”

Eddie knocked back the rest of his beer. “Thanks for the drink, have a safe flight home, Richie.”

Rising to his feet, Eddie picked up his jar, giving a nod to his coworkers, and another to Delilah at the bar before making his way back out into the night.

Chapter Text

Eddie had not anticipated finding Richie leaning against his motorcycle when he left the inn the next morning holding two cups of coffee and a brown paper bag.

“Don’t touch my bike,” Eddie said. “Shouldn’t you be on a plane?”

“Haven’t even booked a flight yet, say cheese.”

Eddie flinched back as Richie stuck his phone in his face snapping a photo.

Eddie just barely kept from grabbing his phone and smashing it against the ground. “What the fuck?”

“Proof of life.” Richie tapped at his phone before stuffing it into his pocket. “Coffee?”

Eddie scowled, pulling on his cross body bag to flip it around to his stomach and shove the jar inside, flipping it back around before snatching up the coffee. Richie was still leaning against his bike and inside the backpack he could feel the spider knocking the jar around with its cramped shifting. 

“You know, you’re getting really good at that whole storming out thing,” Richie said. “You do that to your friends on the regular?”

“They’re not my friends,” Eddie said. “They’re coworkers.”

“They, uh, they seem pretty fond of you for coworkers.” Richie sipped his own coffee. “Especially Luke, said you two met when your car broke down in a snow storm, and he let you crash at his apartment. That’s, uh, practically a rom-com moment.”

Eddie bristled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just wondering if there’s a reason you’re turning down marriage proposals from Ms. Saint-Claire,” Richie said, his voice far too casual.

“In what world would that be your business?” 

“The one where you’re my best friend,” Richie said, his voice raising a little, finally.

“What? When we were kids a hundred years ago?” Eddie got up in his face. “You don’t even know me now.”

“I know you.”

Eddie scoffed. He didn’t know him. He didn’t recognize himself in the mirror and some days he didn’t think it had anything to do with the scars or the missing arm or even the look in his eyes that he had never seen before. 

“Don’t you have a tour or something to go on?” Eddie said.

Richie held out the bag. “Gotcha breakfast, you were always a monster before eating in the mornings.”

Eddie looked at Richie, down at the bag, down at his coffee-occupied hand then back up.

“Ah.” Richie said, hand still stretched out between them. “Trade you?”

“I don’t want your fucking breakfast,” Eddie said. “I want you to go back to your life.”

“If you watched my special you would know that… that it’s not much of a life, not without you and the rest of the Losers. Honestly, I should’ve just tacked an ‘in memoriam’ on at the end, it was almost entirely about you.”

“Am I supposed to feel flattered?” Eddie hissed.

“What can I do, Eds?” Richie asked. “Tell me what to do, and I swear I’ll—“

“Leave.”

Richie’s expression cracked wide open. Thirteen year old Eddie would have inhaled quickly, breathed the words back in, and exhaled different ones to glue the cracks closed again, even though thirteen year old Richie rarely let the fracture lines show, disguised under a thick paint of inappropriate jokes and too-wide smiles. Eddie felt the thump of the spider, muted through the jar, through the bag, against his back, and he kept his jaw locked.

“Don’t ask me to do that,” Richie begged. “Please don’t ask me that.” 

“You’ve done it before.”

“I didn’t want to,” Richie said. “I didn’t— I never would have— if I thought even for a second that you were still there, but you weren’t breathing—“

“You still left my body down there with the rest of the broken toys like I was garbage.” 

Richie’s blinked hard. “Eddie, please…”

“You had me in your arms and you told me it would be okay and you put me down!” Eddie’s voice rose. “And you left me there to be forgotten with the rest of the ghosts!” 

Richie made a noise like a wounded animal.

Eddie’s chest rose and fell quickly, but his eyes were dry, tears burned away by the anger roaring in his chest, hot enough that Eddie was surprised there weren’t blisters forming on his skin, on Richie’s. 

“Leave,” Eddie said, barely audible. 

“Let me take the jar.”

Eddie took half a step back. “What?”

“You’ve… you’ve done enough, more than enough, you don’t deserve to have to deal with all of this, let me take the spider.”

“No,” Eddie said, the words almost surprising him.

“Let me give you a break, Eds, even if it’s just for your shift at the shop today, let someone else hold onto it.” 

“No,” Eddie said, setting the coffee down to pick up his helmet. “I’ll tell you when it’s dead.”

Richie stepped back as he got on his bike, looking like he wanted to say something more, but he didn’t. Eddie took his anger out on the junker of a car that needed everything fixed, ignoring his coworkers even when Gus specifically put on Like A Virgin because he knew Eddie hated the song for no reason in particular. Slamming the hood, Eddie settled somewhat when the engine started and he couldn’t hear anymore clicking. Wiping sweat from his face, he stepped over to the work bench to pick up his water.

“Rich stopping by again tonight?” Jesse asked, her tone casual, or at least aiming for it.

“No.” Eddie took a deep drink. “He’s heading back to California, so I hope you got that autograph.”

“Really?” Gus raised his eyebrows. “He said he was going to stick around in town for awhile. Even asked for breakfast place suggestions.”

“Seemed like he wanted to catch up with you,” Jesse said.

The plastic water bottle crinkled in Eddie’s grip. “Then he shouldn’t have left me to die in the sewer.”  

“Sometimes we had to leave bodies behind in combat if the risk was too great to the rest of the squad,” Luke said, using that infuriatingly neutral tone. “And sometimes I didn’t have time to double check the casualties.”

“Then you go catch up with Richie if you’re both so good at leaving your friends behind to die!” Eddie snapped, making a sharp motion with the water bottle, spilling over his fingers.

“Dude,” Gus said disapprovingly.

“Hey,” Jesse said sharply, half stepping between them.

“Would you have wanted him to die trying to pull you out?” Luke asked, and it sounded genuine, as though he really wanted to know the answer, not like he was waiting for one or another.

Last night, Eddie had dreamed of Richie choking on his own blood, trying desperately to tell one last joke while Eddie tried and failed to find a wound to apply pressure to. Wherever the wound was, it was nowhere he could reach, nowhere Eddie could put his hand over and stop up.

“Hey.” 

Eddie didn’t realize he had completely checked out until Luke was standing right there in front of him, squeezing his left shoulder hard, but Eddie could barely feel it. 

“There you are, you with me?”

Eddie couldn’t unglue his tongue from the roof of his mouth to answer.

“Hey, alright, that was my bad. I’m a little too used to poking around to find where it hurts, but I think I pressed too hard there.” Luke steered him towards the door. “C’mon, we’re going to get some air.”

Eddie only managed to plant his feet by the door.

“Hey, c’mon, the air will make you feel better, we’ll just go on a little walk, alright?” 

Eddie didn’t let himself be moved further, eyes trained on the spider sitting on the work desk. Gus followed his gaze, jogging over to grab it, and handing it to him. Holding it close to his chest, Eddie let Luke bully him the rest of the way outside. Eddie’s breathing eased in the cold air, he hadn’t realized he was breathing like he still needed his inhaler until it settled out.

Luke tucked his hands into his pockets. “I used to tell the other guys in my squad that our fallen would understand, that they wouldn’t want them to die trying to bring their body home, but… but maybe that was a lie, maybe that’s what we told ourselves to feel better.” 

Eddie looked out at the evening sky, the stars far brighter here than they ever were in the city, and in Derry often the clouds turned the sky black as pitch. Like there was a great shadow over the whole town, or perhaps a vulture circling over head, great wings blocking the starlight.

“No,” Eddie said barely audible. “It’s not a lie.” 

Luke glanced over.

“I just don’t understand how,” Eddie said.

Eddie may have been a coward at heart, but he didn’t know how the others could have left him dying with their worst nightmare when he would have laid down and died with them if he couldn’t drag them out in time.

“In the army, they always tell you to focus on who you can save,” Luke said. “Because if you waste time on someone you can’t, you can’t get those minutes back and use them on someone you could have. You just have two dead bodies and nothing but your morals as an excuse to tell the families.”

Eddie bought the first round at Blue Horse that night and the others took it for the apology it was.

Back at his room at the inn, Eddie created a Netflix account and scrolled through until he hovered over the special entitled, ’Let’s Kill That Clown’. The spider thumped against the glass of its jar with enough violence that it almost toppled off the nightstand and he pushed it further from the edge after clicking play. Richie’s voice filled his room. 

“Alright, show of hands, how many of you here are hoping I’ll crash and burn spectacularly?” 

The camera didn’t pan to the audience but by the outraged noise Richie made, it had to be more than a few hands in the air.

“Shit, if my manager knew having a break down on stage would sell out this many tickets, he’d change up his pre-show pep talk a little. A lot less, ‘you’ve got this Richie, please stop throwing up, here’s some gum’ and more ‘hey, remember when that clown killed your childhood best friend, yeah? Great, get out there, champ!’.

“…you can laugh. Actually, please laugh, because it’s one of those laugh or cry situations and my doctor told me that I’m getting dangerously dehydrated. That’s a joke by the way, I don’t go to the doctor they’re always giving me awful advice about eating better, and sleeping at night, and going to the gym, and not drinking myself into a hole.

“Yeah, I know, awful, right? I should be allowed to have a drink before bed, and hey, pro-tip, if you drink right from the bottle that only counts as one drink! No? Yeah… that did not fly with my therapist either, guys, let me tell you. She’s doing her best with what she’s working with, I mean, I’m a forty year old comedian who only came out of the closet because he almost died via a serial killer with a clown fetish, who he lost two of his best friends to, and suddenly recovered from a super long bout of amnesia. So, you know, I’m basically paying her mortgage single handedly at this point.

Eddie listened to Richie ramble on, moving around the stage with the same unrestrained energy he always had, even when they were tangled up in a hammock together he was tapping, poking, prodding, and squirming. 

“Now, listen, no one’s surprised when I say my gay awakening was my best friend, I mean, come on, that’s a classic, but when I describe him? Ooh boy that’s when I start getting looks that say hey, you’re in therapy, right? I am, thanks for your concern, but that’s because a clown tried to kill me.

“Anyways, so my best friend, he was, like, tiny but absolutely vicious, my other friends would just tell me to shut up when they got sick of hearing me talk shit, but this guy? No way, he would give it back just as good as I gave it. He once told me that if the governor of Maine met me he would legalize abortion.

“And I was like.” Richie pretended to swoon. “Marry me.”

The audience laughed.

“Yeah! I was in love with this asshole! He told me he wanted me six feet under on the regular and I was like, that’s it, he’s the one. He was a hypochondriac too and he would climb into a hammock with me and complain about my germs!

“Here’s the best part about my Eds though, is that he’s shy. No, really! My Eddie Spaghetti was that kid in class that the teacher had to ask to speak up when answering a question, but once he got going, oh boy. So, naturally, I did everything I could to rile him up, I take partial credits in every demerit on his school record and he never let me forget it. 

“We lost touch after high school due to, uh, circumstances outside of our control. Let’s just blame the clown for it, alright? Yeah, blame everything on the clown, no this is not a metaphor, just, blame the clown, okay? Right, so, I didn’t see him for a little over twenty years, and then we had this reunion in our home town and he walked in and I was like… fuck.

“He’s wearing the saddest dad polo and khaki combination I’ve ever seen, his hair shellacked enough to be a hard hat and I’m still in love with him. Isn’t that a bitch? Like, it wasn’t enough that my childhood crush grew up to be crazy hot even in the worst outfit I’ve ever seen and I own a mirror, but before he even opened his mouth again he had me. 

“I let it slip that I didn’t even write my old shit and he called me a talentless hack! I almost got down on my knees right then and there. Oh, shit, I mean, uh, one knee.” Richie winked, but his smile slipped slightly. “Not to give away the not-so-happy ending, but, uh, I did not get the chance to tell him I loved him, so, uh, I’m telling all of you. Like if I tell enough people then y’know, he’ll get the message somehow, y’know, save me from getting scammed out of hundreds of dollars by some psychic. Forget 'I hear dead people', I hope dead people hear me. So, yeah, do me a favor and tell everyone you meet that Richie Trashmouth Tozier’s queer and hates clowns, goodnight everybody.” 

Eddie watched the credits roll until it got to the end. He clicked replay and fell asleep to the sound of Richie’s voice filling the room the way he did on movie nights, all curled up in one big pileup on Bill’s floor, with a movie playing, and Richie’s uncontrollable need to give commentary. 

Chapter Text

“Hey, can we— you’re Bill Denbrough.” 

Eddie pushed himself out from under a car to find Bill hovering in the entrance to the auto shop, though his posture eased out as he met Eddie’s eyes over Jesse’s shoulder, who had first intercepted him.

“Yeah, I am.”

“Your endings are terrible,” Jesse said.

Bill grimaced. “So I’ve heard.”

“Why aren’t you with Stan?” Eddie asked, wiping his hand off on his coveralls.

“Richie’s with him, thought maybe if he talked his ear off long enough, he might wake up just to tell him to be quiet,” Bill said. “I, uh, I thought we could talk maybe?”

“Take him,” Luke said without looking up from his car. “He skipped his lunch break.”

“Great,” Bill said with a smile.

Eddie scowled, but shucked his coveralls and straightened out his clothes before snatching up his jar, passing close to Luke to mutter, “I hope you know you’re aiding and abetting a kidnapping.”

Luke gave him a dry smile. 

“Is that your motorcycle?” Bill asked as they stepped out of the shop. “Richie said you had one, but I didn’t really believe it.”

“That’s what’s hard to believe?” Eddie asked.

Bill gave him a sheepish smile. 

“I haven’t figured out how to kill the spider yet,” Eddie said.

“That’s not why I’m here.”

“Why are you here?”

“To take you out to lunch?”

Eddie scowled, but led Bill a few blocks over to a lunch place that had a salad he liked. Bill updated him on Stanley’s condition, even showing him photos of his medical charts which was definitely a HIPPA violation, but one Eddie appreciated.

“Did you meet Patty?” Bill asked.

“No,” Eddie said. “I was too busy trying to save the rest of your asses to stick around for introductions.”

“She’s great,” Bill said. “I mean, I know all of us got the monkey-paw version of the lives we wanted, but she clearly loves Stan, and I’ve seen the photos of the two of them… I think they were really in love.”

Eddie stabbed at his salad. “No wonder he couldn’t go back.”

Bill gave him a curious look.

“Think about it,” Eddie said. “If you’re a successful accountant with a lovely wife and a happy life and then all of the sudden you wake up to remember all of the horrors of your childhood and your promise to go back and face it all again? I mean, the rest of us were already living half a nightmare, but if he was happy… then he had a lot more to lose.”

Bill blinked. “I didn’t think of that. I thought… well, he had a lot harder time accepting what happened to us was real back then, he couldn’t even talk about it, I thought… I thought he probably just couldn’t handle it.”

Eddie turned his fork over in his fingers.

“Sometimes I’m a little mad that he… that he wasn’t there,” Bill said. “Sometimes I think things would be different if he had been.”

“What do you think he saw in the deadlights?” Eddie asked. “When we were kids?”

Bill opened and closed his mouth. “I don’t know.”

“Beverly saw us all die,” Eddie said. “I…”

I see all of you die.

“I don’t know that it was his death he was afraid of,” Eddie said quietly.

“You’re not mad at him then?” Bill asked tentatively and Eddie could hear the implied ‘not like you are with us?’.

“If I am, it can’t wait until he’s awake to hear about it.”

Bill’s laugh was weak.

“Why didn’t you call his wife?” Eddie asked. “After you left Derry? Why didn’t you call? Why didn’t you try to go to his funeral?”

Bill turned his coffee around his hands. “I… it didn’t feel like my place.”

“Bullshit.”

“It felt like he wouldn’t want me there. I mean, he killed himself right after Mike’s call, he didn’t… he didn’t try to contact any of us. It feels like, like it’s all intertwined, like I couldn’t go to the funeral without bringing IT there with me.”

“Like you’re infected,” Eddie said quietly.

“Yeah,” Bill said. “I just… I wanted to let him rest.”

“Interesting opener to your book then,” Eddie scoffed. 

“Eddie, did you read the whole book? It was for you. For you and Stan. I couldn’t stand the thought of going back to my life and not remembering either of you. Not knowing what I had lost. So I wrote it down, I wrote down every part of it.”

“Then why publish it? If it was for us, for you.”

“It was… it was an obituary. An eulogy.” Bill looked down at his hands. “I didn’t want the world to forget you either. I didn’t want the world to move on without knowing what you did.” 

Eddie swallowed hard. “The movie was fucking stupid.”

Bill laughed, wiping quickly at his eyes. “Yeah, I know.”

Eddie sat across from his best friend and tried to knock free all of those memories of elementary school when it was just the pair of them for a few years. The original two Losers. The spider rattled around in its confines, wobbling against the table top, and Eddie reached out to steady it before looking back up at Bill. At the boy and the man he would have followed off the end of the earth. You got me killed. You got me killed when I was thirteen and I just didn’t know it yet. 

Eddie pulled the jar closer, leaning back in his seat, and abandoning his lunch as his stomach tied itself into a knot. Biting down on his tongue filled his mouth with the taste of iron, but didn’t stop the words from building in his throat until he thought he might asphyxiate on them. Instead, he slapped a couple bills down on the table, rising in one sharp motion.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Eddie said. “You promised you would watch after Stan, it’s not fair to dump your responsibilities on other people.”

Bill’s eyes widened, opening and closing his mouth. When they were little, Eddie would wait for him to get through his sentence no matter how many stumbles, they all did, but Eddie was already walking away, holding tight to the spider’s jar before he could even get through a call of his name. That night, he opened the book to the first page, and started again.

Chapter Text

Eddie woke up as he landed on the bed, scrambling for his phone in the grey light of morning, and pressing call before he even thought about what time it would be in LA. 

Richie picked up on the third ring. “Eds?”

“What are you wearing?”

“…you know I’d say something sexy, but I wasn’t expecting a booty call from you.”

Eddie bit down on his tongue until he tasted iron, but kept his tone level. “I had a vision, but I don’t know when it is, so what are you wearing?”

“Oh,” Richie’s voice was smaller. “It’s, like, just jeans, and an ACDC t-shirt, and a Hawaiian shirt. Here, sending you a photo… there.”

Eddie opened it and his mouth felt dry as he saw Richie, whole, and half smiling, but not looking at the camera, and—

“Stay home today,” Eddie said. 

“Okay,” Richie said. “…is it too morbid if I ask what happens?”

“Pileup on the highway."

Richie was quiet for a long moment. “You know I still dream of the deadlights?”

Eddie’s jaw worked.

“Bev does too, she said she did even before she could remember, and I bet… I bet Stan did too. I talked to Bill the other day, he says, he says he’s doing okay, sleeping, but he doesn’t seem to be in any pain or anything. I went to see him and, damn, he just grew up to look exactly like I thought he would have looked like, y’know? If you asked ten year old Richie to draw forty year old Stan, well, that’s him, Stan the Man.”

“Yeah.”

“Never would have guess Bill would be short though,” Richie said.

Eddie almost barked out a laugh.

“Or that Ben would get hot, I mean, let’s all be real, we all knew Bev was a beauty, and Mike had that quiet farm boy charm, and you were a total cutie even when you were cussing like a sailor.” 

“Fuck you.”

Richie laughed. “Yeah, exactly like that, so yeah, you grew up hot, no surprise, Bev grew up hot, yeah, okay, everyone saw that coming, Bill, sure, he had that charm, Mike, well, he’s earned it staying in Derry, but listen, I cannot be the only one who didn’t grow up drop dead gorgeous. Seriously, I’m going to get a complex, one of you has to start balding to make up for the fact that I look like a frog that someone ran over.” 

“I look like I’ve been run-over.”

“Are you joking? You look like the person who ran over frog-me in your badass biker get up. You look like the sexy villain from a Bond movie, and you’re totally jacked and! You have all of your hair! How is that fair!”

“I look like a horror movie villain.”

“Only if you’re talking about Scream, damn, there was something inherently homoerotic about that kitchen scene, it’s like seared into my brain. Even the stabbing, I mean, come on, they were basically fucking.”

Eddie stared at the ceiling. “I’m starting to think you’re the serial killer between the two of us.”

Richie laughed. 

Eddie didn’t realize he was smiling until the spider thumped the glass hard enough that it almost tipped over and the smile slipped from his face.

“Stay home today.” Eddie ended the call, saying goodbye would only feel like a jinx.

His skin crawled all day, itching to get on his bike and race to LA, but he knew that even if he did, he would be too late. Checking the news, he found a minor car-crash, but nothing like the pileup in his head, the way a pipe impaled Richie to the driver’s seat like a pin through the body of a butterfly. A text from Richie popped up on his phone; a picture of his living room, socked feet on the coffee table, the Star Wars intro rolling by on the TV screen. Random texts continued throughout the day ranging from Richie debating pizza toppings (against himself seeing as Eddie didn’t answer) to asking if premonitions about his death were a good enough excuse for his manager as to why he hadn’t gotten any writing done that day.

The visions were more sporadic, one or two Losers in danger at a time, but each of them picked up when he called and listened to his instructions to a T. Bill also called to give him updates on Stan, which Eddie decided was worth picking up the phone for, and risking a genuine conversation. Mike had sent him a few theories on the spider, which had led to a phone call where he talked Eddie through a ritual, though it failed, and Eddie ripped him a new one about how he now had chicken blood all over his bathroom, hanging up when Mike started to laugh even though he almost wanted to smile. Ben called here and there, but more often tried to entice him into talking over text with awful sayings like, ‘I’m here for you’, ‘is there anything you need?’, and ‘we love you’. Richie just texted him inane things until Eddie couldn’t stop himself from snapping back once in a while. Beverly…. Beverly was mostly silent.

“Eddie?”

Eddie took a deep breath, oxygen returning to the room at the sound of Beverly’s voice, but his hands were still shaking, slick with sweat against his phone case, thumb hovering over the end call.

“Are you okay?”

Eddie took another deep breath, but he didn’t have any words to use it on.

“Deadlights or dream?” Beverly said gently.

“Dream,” Eddie said, his voice coming out raspy.

“About me?”

Eddie didn’t answer.

“I’m okay,” Beverly said. “I’m laying in bed, my bed, actually, I got an apartment and I bought these dumb little sheets with bees on them? I know, I’m like forty, but I thought they were cute and they feel… they feel like mine, you know? Even when I was a kid I never really felt like… like I was mine and then Tom and… it’s not that I don’t love… well, what I mean to say is that I don’t feel like a commodity laying in my own bed with my own sheets in my own apartment. That’s all.”

“…if we hadn’t forgotten, do you think you still would have ended up with Tom?”

“I think… I think I would have ended up with Ben, but I think the end result would be the same. I’d still feel like I was being kept. I think I’d feel that way about anyone right now.” 

Eddie closed his eyes. “Do you think I would have wasted fifteen years with Myra?”

“No,” Beverly said softly. “I don’t. I think you would have ended up with someone who knew exactly how to love you, someone with a lot of practice.”

Eddie swallowed down the lump in his throat. “And you think I’d be happy?”

“Yeah, I mean, I think you would be pissed as hell half of the time, but that’s kinda part of what makes you happy, isn’t it? That you have the freedom to yell and curse and be pissed off?” 

Eddie felt naked lying there in the dark with only the glow of the phone screen lighting up his room. 

“You should tell him,” Eddie blurted out.

“Tell who what?” Beverly asked.

“Both of them. You should tell them that you need them to love you without being in love with you, to know they can.”

Beverly inhaled sharply but Eddie hung up before she could say anything further.

The spider was glaring at him from the jar.

“Asshole,” Eddie muttered, turning over to go back to sleep with his phone still in hand.

Chapter Text

“Oh, Eddie,” Clara said. “A package arrived for you, I had housekeeping put it in your room.” 

Eddie frowned. “A package? I wasn’t expecting anything.”

“A surprise then.” 

“Because I haven’t had enough of those in my life,” Eddie said under his breath, making his way upstairs. 

Sitting on his desk was a heavy duty package stamped fragile and the return address in Massachusetts. Setting the jar aside, Eddie sliced open the package, and opened it slowly. Inside was a prosthetic arm so advanced it looked like it had been lopped off the Terminator himself. Eddie’s phone was in his hand, thumb pressing call before he could think about it.

“What about six unanswered text messages did you think meant send me Bucky Barnes’ arm?”

“Hi, Eddie,” Ben said. “Did you try the arm?”

“I only need the one to beat your presumptuous ass.” 

“I have a friend who’s a professor at MIT, that’s a remake of one of his PhD student’s final engineering project, it will respond to electrical impulses—“

“You’re on your final project, Hanscom!”

“I could come down and show you how it works if you’d like—“

“I’d like to kick your ass—“

“I’ll see you Sunday then.” 

Eddie hung up.

On Sunday, Ben checked into the very same inn, though his room was a floor below, and Eddie dragged him out of the lobby down to Gus’ preferred gym, who tagged along to play referee. Or perhaps keep Eddie from committing homicide. Ben had looked amused right up until Gus tossed him a pair of gloves and Eddie climbed into the ring.

“Well?” Eddie raised an eyebrow.

“Eddie, I…” Ben may have been too polite to point out the obvious, but his eyes flicked down rather pointedly.

Gus slapped Ben’s shoulder. “You’re gonna wanna pop that mouthguard in, big boy.” 

Ben looked at him next with the same incredulity.

“Alright, boys, I want a clean fight, a fair fight, nothing below the belt, you hear?” Gus gave Eddie a pointed look.

Eddie put his mouthguard in.

“Let the match begin.” Gus grinned, ringing the bell.

Ben didn’t even put his hands up. “Eddie, I’m not actually going to—“

Eddie punched him in the stomach, the rest of Ben's sentence ending in a wheeze as he doubled over, and promptly got laid flat by the following uppercut. Lying on his back on the mats, Ben blinked away reflexive tears, looking up at the ceiling with surprise. 

Eddie smirked down at him. “I can put on the damn prosthetic for the next round if you want, Hanscom?”

“Point. Taken.” Ben breathed out each word, holding up his hand.

Tearing off his glove, Eddie hauled him back to his feet. 

“…can we get lunch now?” Ben asked. 

Gus laughed, slapping his shoulder. “Gentle giant, huh?” 

Ben rubbed the back of his neck. “I, uh, I’ve never been much for contact sports. I ran track in high school.” 

Eddie blinked. “Did you really?”

Ben offered him a tentative smile. “Yeah, I, uh, I mean I didn’t have any of you guys with me once my mom and I moved so the bullying was… a lot worse. It was kind of my way out from the bottom of the pyramid.” 

Eddie sipped his water, climbing out of the ring. “Were you any good?”

“Not bad.” 

Eddie gave him a flat look. “So you won an award or something.”

Ben pinked. “I mean, just one.” 

Eddie rolled his eyes, picking up his bag, the clink of the jar inside familiar. 

Ben’s eyes lingered on the bag before lifting to his face again. “So, where’s good around here?”

The salad bar they went to was frequented with middle aged women on a yoga kick, but it wasn’t as though Eddie hadn’t frequented it before. His coworkers may have been able to sustain themselves on red meat and cold beer, but he knew far too many statistics to abandon “rabbit food” (as Richie called it) entirely. They talked work as they waited for their food and it was surprisingly pleasant to trade complaints about bad engines and low tread tires for talk of structural integrity and weight bearing walls. 

“Have you been talking to Richie?” Ben asked; apparently once their food appeared it was an appropriate time for far more personal conversations.

Eddie stabbed at his salad. “Why?” 

Ben chewed on the inside of his cheek. “I just… you two were always so close when we were kids, I figured if you had forgiven anyone for… well, I figured it would be him.” 

Eddie tried to quench the white-hot anger rolling up his throat with a long drink of a kale smoothie, but it did little to douse the flames. “He left me there all the same.”

Ben reached across the table, putting his hand on his arm. “He didn’t want to, Eddie. We practically had to drag him out of there, he loves—“

“I don’t want to hear it!”

Several heads turned their way. Eddie took a slow deep breath through his nose, fingers curled into a fist around his fork, trying to grasp at some semblance of calm. The jar rolled in the backpack sitting in the booth beside him like the spider could feel the waves of anger radiating off of him.

“Eddie—“

“Have you talked to Bev?” Eddie blurted out.

Ben’s eyes went wide, hand falling from his arm in surprise. “Beverly? I— I mean— what about her?” 

“Oh, you know, the fact that you’ve been in love with her since we were thirteen?” 

Ben’s shoulders tensed. “That’s not what we were talking about.”

“Don’t waste my time with hypocrisy, Ben.” Eddie tucked a couple bills under his plate, sliding out of the booth. “Don’t expect me to sit here and talk about Richie when you won’t do the same.” 

“Eddie, it’s a totally different situation—“

“Yeah, because in your case, all you have to do is prove that you’ll still care about her as a person not just the object of your affections and I have to deal with the fact that he left me to die.”

Ben opened and closed his mouth, he still hadn’t come up with a response by the time the door swung shut after Eddie. Making his way down the street, Eddie pulled the jar from his backpack, spider large enough that its legs were folded uncomfortably against the glass. 

“I really have to stop storming out of places.” Eddie sighed. “I feel like a toddler throwing a goddamn tantrum.”

The spider blinked slowly at him. 

“…I really have to stop talking to an evil spider too.”

Making his way back to the inn, he pulled the box off the nightstand, setting it on his bed, and opening it to stare down at the prosthetic. The thought of relearning all of the little tasks he had spent the past several months mastering for the third time was nauseating. From brushing his teeth to boxing to working on a car he had finally gotten a handle on doing it all one handed and the prosthetic glaring up at him spoke of months and months more learning to go. Pulling it from the box, he set the arm on the desk, fixing the fingers so one stood straight up. Opening up the Losers group chat, he sent his first non-emergent message with a photo of the rude gesture and the message, ‘thanks for the new paperweight, Ben’.

Chapter Text

Eddie ignored the buzz of his phone even as it moved steadily closer and closer to the edge of the workbench. Ever since he sent a message in the group chat the rest of the Losers appeared to take it as the go-ahead to blow up his phone. If he didn’t answer at least once a day the phone calls started up. As it crept towards 8PM, little buzzes turned to full-blown ringing.

“You going to answer that?” Gus asked.

“No,” Eddie said.

Jesse snatched up his phone, clicked answer, and lifted it to her ear. “Mr. Comedian! How are you doing?”

Eddie dropped his wrench, reaching for the phone.

Jesse fended him off with her free arm. “Me? I’m good, thanks for asking. Eddie? Oh, I don’t know, haven’t seen him around—“

Eddie wrestled the phone from her, glaring as he lifted it to his own ear. “Are you actively dying?”

“Uh. No?”

“Then call me back in an hour. I’m at work.” 

“…isn’t it like late?”

“It’s an auto shop, not a bank.”

“Whatever you say, Mr. Mechanic. I’ll have dinner waiting on the stove for all that overtime you’ve been pulling,” Richie cast his voice into  a mediocre impression 1950s housewife. 

Eddie hung up on him. Ignoring the looks the rest of his coworkers gave him, he finished the repairs on an old beater before clocking out and heading back to the inn. Scrubbing the grease from his hand, he changed out of his stained clothes into pajamas, his phone ringing as he dropped onto his bed. 

Eddie accepted the call. 

“What are you wearing?” Richie asked.

Eddie stilled. “…what.” 

Richie laughed. “Hey, come on, you’ve started like five of our phone calls like you’re working for phone sex hotline, emphasis on hot.” 

“I— no, I did not!” 

“So… what are you wearing?” 

Eddie could hear the accompanying eyebrow wiggle.

“Pajamas, you lunatic.” 

“I bet you wear those matching set silk type of shit,” Richie said. “And a cap with the long tail and pom-pom.” 

“I wear flannel pants and a sweatshirt like a normal fucking person.” 

“Mm, hot.” 

“I’m hanging up on you.” 

“I’m wearing boxers and a t-shirt with a hole in the armpit like God intended.”

“If God were real you wouldn’t be here.”

“Ah, you underestimate the Devil.”

Eddie made a gagging noise. “Who are you? Mrs. Bradshaw?”

“Mrs. Bra— our third grade teacher?” 

“She told us that left-handedness was a mark of the devil.”

Richie laughed. “Oh, I totally forgot, didn’t she like hit my hand with a ruler once to try to discourage the habit?”

“Twice and then Stan informed her that corporal punishment in schools was outlawed in ’75,” Eddie said.

“Good ole, Stan the Man, got our dumbasses out of more scrapes than I can count,” Richie said.

Eddie’s throat tightened. “Yeah.”

“Hey, you remember when I finally got the hang of throwing my voice—“

“—and you imitated Bowers in the middle of Math class and got him detention?”

“And the next day Bowers tore through the school, I mean, he knew it was us somehow, and we were all quaking in our boots except for Stan who said ‘it’s not like he has any proof’ and went about his day no sweat.” 

Eddie shook his head. “It was always all or nothing with him, either he was scared out of his mind or he was cool as a cucumber, no in between.”

“I figured it was like… a panic threshold, you know? Below this line, hey, it is what it is, above this line like all emergency systems online call the president we’ve got to evacuate.” 

Eddie snorted. 

“Bill texts me daily updates. I keep telling him to draw a mustache on him, but he says that would be inappropriate.”

“Shouldn’t he already have a mustache?” Eddie asked. “And a beard? I mean, the whole mountain man look?”

“I bet Patty keeps him baby-smooth,” Richie said. “I mean, they seem like they’re big time in love. I mean like rise up from their grave on Halloween for one night of revenge in love.”

“What.”

“You haven’t seen The Crow?” 

“Evidently not.” 

“This is totally unacceptable, I’m sending you a list.”

“A list?”

“Of all the must-see movies, you need to be re-educated, clearly it’s been too long since Richie Tozier took you to school.”

“You’re a comedian, not a film maker.”

“I’ll have you know, this face has been put up on a twenty foot screen. Twice.”

“Yeah, for movies that didn’t rate higher than 47% on Rotten Tomatoes.” 

Richie gasped. “You googled me.”

Eddie ground his teeth. 

“Oh don’t tell me,” Richie sounded entirely delighted. “You watched them?”

Eddie hung up on him. 

Richie called them right back, laughing once he answered. “Oh, little Spaghetti, you do care!” 

Eddie slammed his finger on the end call button.

Richie called again, again, again. “Okay, okay, I’m done, I’m done laughing, but seriously, what did you think?” 

“They were terrible.”

“Yeah, but I looked kinda hot in leather pants though, didn’t I?” 

“Oh please.” 

“I mean, not as good as you in those, what did you call them? Riding leathers?”

“They’re protective.” 

“Sure, sure, right.” 

Eddie couldn’t say how long the phone call lasted, only that when he woke up in the morning, Richie was still snoring on the other line and his phone was at 2% battery. Ending the call, he rolled over to plug it in, and found the spider was smaller than it had been in weeks now. 

“No nightmares last night, huh?” Eddie mused. “Looks like you’re on a diet then.” 

The spider glowered.

Chapter Text

Eddie threw his bike into park, jimmying the lock of the door with a switchblade (his neighbor of the first crappy apartment he had right out of college taught him that trick after he locked himself out) and running up the stairs. Slamming his fist on the apartment door, he didn’t let up even as a neighbor across the way opened their door and yelled at him to shut up. There were heavy footsteps, a mumbled curse, and then the door opened. Richie blinked blearily at him.

“Eddie?” Richie said, voice rough with sleep.

“You don’t have a fucking carbon monoxide detector?” Eddie shoved past him, storming into the kitchen to flick off the gas stove before moving to the windows to shove them open.

Richie rubbed at his eyes. “I took the batteries out. It wouldn’t stop going off.”

“That’s because you left your stove on, you absolute moron!” Eddie jabbed a finger hard into his chest.

“Did you drive all the way here?” Richie asked. “In the middle of the night?” 

“Well I would have waited for daylight but then you’d be in a coma!” 

“I didn’t want Stan to steal all the spotlight.”

“Un-fucking-believable.” Eddie turned for the door.

“Woah, hey, hey. Where are you going?” Richie caught his arm. 

“Montana.” 

“Uh, like hell, you were just on the road for hours, and you haven’t slept. I’m pretty sure you told me the stats on sleep deprivation car crashes.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“I’m protecting the other poor people who have to share the road with you.”

Eddie scowled.

Richie closed his door before hunting down his phone and glasses, looking at the missed calls on the screen. “Jesus, how did I miss all of these?”

“Carbon monoxide makes you lethargic, sleepy,” Eddie said, shifting his weight foot to foot. “You should call your doctor, make sure you don’t have to go to the hospital.”

Richie snorted. “I don’t have a doctor, Eds.”

“You’re a forty year old man how do you not have a fucking doctor?”

“I’m a youthful thirty-nine thank you and the last time I saw anything close to a doctor was in the ER getting stitches in my chin for falling off a stage during a rehearsal.”

“Should’ve done it during the real thing, slapstick's better than any of your jokes.”

“Eds gets off a good one!”

“You could have carbon monoxide poisoning. Headaches, nausea, drowsiness—“

“I’m a little tired, but it is 3 AM—“

“—you should go to the ER, give me your phone, I’m calling 911—“

“Hey,” Richie put his hands on his shoulders. “I’m sorry I scared you."

Eddie knocked his hands away, turning his back. “I wasn’t fucking scared.” 

“Right, because thirty-nine calls and breaking down my door gives me the distinct impression that you don’t give a flying fuck about me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” Eddie scoffed, running his fingers through his sweaty hair, and wiping his face on his sleeve with a grimace.

Richie’s biting tone mellowed out as though never there. “You want a shower?” 

Eddie hesitated.

“Who am I kidding? If the world wouldn’t run out of soap, you’d live in a shower. I’ll get you some clothes.” Richie stepped away. 

Eddie scowled, moving to cross his arms only to send a twinge up his right shoulder when he couldn’t complete the action, and his left arm fell back to his side. 

“Clean clothes!” Eddie called after a moment.

Richie’s distant laughter came back to him, but the folded pajamas he brought him looked freshly washed. 

“Your evening attire, Mr. Spaghetti.”

Eddie snatched the clothes from him, finding the bathroom himself out of spite, and locking the door after him. Setting the clothes on the counter, he muttered curses to himself as he futzed with the shower until warm water sprayed out. Standing under the spray, he let it run over him until his hand stopped shaking, and the adrenaline evened out with only an echo of nausea in its wake. Toweling off, he dressed quickly. The pajama pants were decorated with reindeer in inappropriate positions, rolled over twice to stay on his hips, but still too long on him. The shirt Richie had given him was short sleeved, the hem of the sleeve a few centimeters past the end of what remained of his right arm. 

Looking at his sweat-soaked henley on the floor, Eddie glared at it like he could scare off the grime of hours on the road. Then at the doorknob for several minutes before forcing himself to open it. Keeping his right side angled away, he stepped back into the living room. Richie looked up from his phone, lips parting slightly as his eyes ran over him, but he didn’t say anything. Not even to tease him about his height.

Eddie turned further to the side. “You got a hoodie?”

“Oh, yeah, right. It’s freezing in here, but google said I should keep the windows open.” Richie tossed him a hoodie. 

It took a little maneuvering to get it over his head, snaking his arm through the sleeve, and readjusting it around the residual limb. Leaving it loose was a pain, he had done it once or twice in the early stages of recovery only to realize how easy it was to get the loose fabric caught on doorhandles, accidentally shut in drawers, and generally in the way. 

“Here.”

Eddie blinked, looking up to find Richie holding out a safety pin for him. It took him a long minute to reach for it, twisting the fabric up and pinning it in place. Richie was grinning at him when he looked up.

“What?” Eddie bit out.

Richie plucked at the front of the hoodie he was drowning in. “So, Spagheds, what size shirt do you wear? Kid's medium?”

“I’m average height for a man in America—“

“What was that? I couldn’t hear you from all the way down there— omph!” Richie doubled over slightly with the punch to the stomach so they were eye to eye.

“Hear me now, tall-ass?” Eddie hissed.

Richie grinned, their noses barely centimeter’s apart. “Loud and clear.”

Heat crawled up Eddie’s face despite the cold seeping through the open windows. He turned away, scarred cheek tucked into his shoulder, and fingers balling into a fist. Stepping past Richie, he picked up his backpack, checking on the jar inside.

“Too much to hope you’d left that back in Montana, huh?” Richie asked. 

Eddie zipped it closed again.

“So.” Richie clapped his hands together. “I figured since you’re here and we can’t sleep until we’re sure the apartment has been properly aired out, this is a perfect time to re-educate you.”

“Re-educate me?” Eddie asked.

Richie dropped down on the couch, patting the cushion beside him. It felt like his joints were rusted over as Eddie made his way over to the couch, setting his backpack down by the foot of it before sitting on the edge of the cushion. Richie dropped a blanket over his head. Cursing, Eddie struggled to reemerge from the fabric ignoring Richie’s snickering until he had it around his shoulders like a cape. Cuing up Candyman, Richie settled down, arm stretched over the back of the couch, and feet kicked up on his coffee table.

It only took twenty minutes for them to fall into their old routine of shouting at the characters for their poor decision making skills. 

“Oh come on! Don’t go through the hole in the wall by yourself! At thirteen we knew better than to split up!” Eddie shouted.

Richie laughed so hard, he had to blink back tears. “To be fair, Eds, we did end up getting split up."

“Yeah, but we didn’t choose to, it was due to forces beyond our control!” 

Richie nodded knowingly. “The horror movie rules, have to up the suspense by breaking up the party."

Eddie threw a piece of cereal —which was serving as their impromptu movie snacks— at his head. “Don’t talk about it like there was some screenwriter pulling our strings."

Richie snickered.

“What?”

“I just, like, I imagined Pennywise sitting at the head of a table in the writer’s room defending his artistic choices.” 

Eddie tried not to laugh. “That’s not funny."

Richie grinned, putting on a scratchy voice. “No, no, the clown has to do a little dance, trust me it will be terrifying, no really, you guys just don’t get the vision—"

Eddie smothered a laugh with the back of his hand. “What’s wrong with you? That’s not even what he sounded like, and it was terrifying!”

“Yeah at the time, but I mean, c’mon, he danced at us? How am I supposed to explain that like a clown dancing a little jig activated like absolute fight or flight responses in me?” 

Eddie rolled his eyes.

Three movies in and an empty cereal box later they had converged in the middle of the couch under a pile of blankets as the cold settled deep into the apartment, but neither of them moved to close the windows. Stifling a yawn, the brief thought that he might be getting carbon monoxide poisoning crossed his mind before Eddie remembered that driving for hours through the middle of the night was a perfectly good reason to feel a little sleepy. At least that would be the excuse he told himself as his head dipped, and he drifted off on Richie’s shoulder. 

A thump startled Eddie awake, looking down to find the spider had somehow managed to roll the jar free from his backpack, looking up at him from the ground. The taste in the back of his throat was like beer curdling after a long night of drinking and he eased himself up and off the couch. Up from where he had been dozing on Richie’s chest. Richie snored on, lips slightly parted, and glasses crooked on his face. Easing the glasses off, Eddie set them on the coffee table, and tossed a blanket over the man. Picking up the jar, Eddie tucked it back into his backpack before slinging it over his shoulder. 

Opening the front door, he didn’t look back as he stepped out into the hall, but he did close the door gently behind him. Jogging down the stairs, Eddie got on his bike, and tore out of California as the sun started to rise.

Chapter Text

Eddie woke up to a heavy weight on his chest as he dropped back down onto the mattress, visions still dancing behind his eyelids, and eight eyes staring down at him. The spider was the size of a small dog, the mason jar shattered on the nightstand. It leapt away towards the open window.

“Shit!” 

Eddie tried to grab it by the leg, but his fingertips only grazed it as it scuttled out into the night. 

“Motherfucker!” 

Raking his fingers through his hair, Eddie snatched his phone, pressing the call button.

“Eddie?” Bill’s sleep-thick voice greeted him.

“I lost it,” Eddie said.

“What?”

“I lost the damn spider,” Eddie said. “It’s loose in the town.”

Sheets rustled on the other line, then, “I’ll get a plane out, call the others. We’ll find it.” 

“Bill, the town, it can’t— it can’t be like Derry, there are good people here, I can’t—“

“Hey,” Bill said. “We’ll fix this.”

Eddie closed his eyes, drumming up that thirteen year old’s faith in Big Bill. “Yeah, okay.” 

“Hang in there.” Bill hung up.

Eddie called the others one by one, short calls that ended as the Losers headed for their cars, bought plane tickets, train tickets, whatever would get them to Montana fastest. Sitting in the foyer of the inn, Eddie’s knee bounced as he waited for one of them, any of them to arrive. 

“Eddie.” 

Eddie looked up to find Ben standing before him, not even carrying a backpack, clearly just thrown on whatever clothes he had nearby, and gotten the next flight out. 

“I lost it,” Eddie said, rising to his feet. “I can’t believe— it was right there, and I—“

Ben’s arms wrapped around him and Eddie’s whole body tensed as he was folded into the hug, only just tall enough to see the fading rose wallpaper over Ben’s shoulder, his chin pressed against his collarbone, and he felt small again. Ben's clothes smelled like expensive cologne and sawdust and Ben “Haystack” Hanscom, who had always given the best hugs when they were kids even if they were all too proud to admit they ever wanted one.

Ben pulled back, hands on his shoulders, and meeting his eyes. “We’ll find it, okay?” 

Eddie opened his mouth, but the door opened and Richie came tumbling in, walking right for him, big hands catching his face, and eyes locking with his behind those thick glasses. His hair stood up at odd angles like he had been running his fingers through it rather than a comb and he was still in Star Wars pajama pants.

“Are you hurt?” Richie asked.

Eddie’s throat went tight, but he shook his head, a slight movement so as to not dislodge his hands. Richie’s shoulders relaxed, hands slipping away from his face, but one settled on his shoulder instead, still holding tight as he turned to give Ben a quick one-armed hug hello. Beverly arrived only ten minutes later, giving Eddie a little wave and shy smile, and he nodded back. Mike walked through the door next, but Bill was only a step behind him, the former with an actual duffle bag, and the later with a backpack that he must have had since college and thrown whatever was closest into by the look of the half done zippers. 

“Okay,” Bill said, all of them turning to him. “Let’s do this. Again.” 

“It’s first steps will be to put down roots,” Mike said. “It feeds off of fear, so it needs somewhere it can grow, and quick.” 

Eddie’s stomach turned. “There’s a carnival in town.”

“But of course there is,” Richie said. “Why wouldn’t there be a carnival in town the night the demon spider escapes. Seriously, does it always have to be clowns?” 

“Let’s go,” Beverly said. “We have to catch it before it gets its hooks into any of the towns people.” 

“On the bright side, there won’t be anyone at the carnival,” Ben said.

Richie stared at him. “Yeah, because that’s a bright side and not inherently creepier.”

Bill rolled his eyes. “Come on.” 

“I’m going to die in Star Trek pajamas,” Richie mourned. “My ghost will be made fun of for eternity.” 

“That was inevitable,” Eddie said.

“For that, I’m haunting your ass.” Richie pointed a finger menacingly. “It’s going to be raunchy jokes and bad puns for the rest of your life.” 

Eddie gave him a flat look. “How is that any different from current day?”

Richie opened and closed his mouth. “Uh. I’ll be incorporeal?”

Bill snorted. 

Standing outside the chained-off carnival, the shadows appeared to loom and stretch from the rides like an abandoned cityscape. All six of them stood by the links separating them from the carnival and while there wasn’t a soul in sight, the air was thick with a familiar weight like the invisible smog that laid over Derry.

“It’s here,” Eddie said. 

“Then let’s finish this.” Bill stepped over the chain.

Following him into the amusement park, Eddie’s eyes flicked over the attractions; spinning tea cups, house of mirrors, and a Ferris wheel in the distance. Strung overhead between the various stands were strings of lights connecting rigged game to rigged game. One of the bulbs flickered.

“Should we split up?” Mike asked, only half joking.

All of the rides came to life at once, bulbs flashing like a hundred cameras going off, and discordant music flooding the fairgrounds. All of them jumped like electrocuted cats and Richie’s hand clamped tight around Eddie’s wrist as they watched the tea cups spin and the popcorn crackle in the poppers. 

“Oh that’s… that’s great,” Richie said faintly, clutching so tight to Eddie's wrist it may as well have been an iron shackle.

“Yeah, not creepy at all,” Bill muttered, looking around. 

“Maybe there was a power surge?” Beverly asked. 

“Because that’s the kind of luck we have?” Eddie asked.

Ben let out a nervous laugh. “Let’s—“

“Hey!” 

Whipping around they found themselves face to face to a security guard, aiming a shotgun at them. 

“You’re trespassing.“

“Oh no,” Richie said.

“Run,” Bill said.

All six of them scattered as the first shot went off, although with Richie’s death grip around his wrist, Eddie found himself pulled behind the spinning tea cups. 

“Over inflated mall cop, or…?” 

Out of the corner of his eye, Eddie saw a creature the size of a cat scuttle past.

Eddie grimaced. “Definitely under the demonic influence. Come on.” 

Eddie grabbed Richie's hand, keeping low as he hauled him onto the spinning platform. Richie let out a yelp, nearly losing his balance, and then falling on his butt when the next shot went off. Through the spinning tea cups, Eddie could just make out the security guard heading in the opposite direction as Beverly dove behind the counter of a milk-bottle stand. She started throwing baseballs with more accuracy than the swing of the shotgun. 

“Come on.” Eddie tried to haul Richie to his feet only to overbalance and both of them to topple over. 

“That was dignified,” Richie said, only a hairsbreadth from his face, and skewed glasses reflecting the carnival lights. 

The spider leapt out of one of the tea cups and slipped off the ride. Eddie shoved Richie off, scrambling after it, and judging by the string of curses, Richie followed. Running after the spider, Eddie chased it into the funhouse. A dozen copies of his own face swam before him, distorted, and stretched out. Eddie’s eyes caught on one where the scar on his face stretched, tearing open, and bugs crawled out from the wound. Flinching back, Eddie dropped his flashlight, clawing at his face.

“Eddie, Eddie!” Richie’s hand caught his, pulling it away from the scar.

“Am I bleeding?” Eddie asked, chest heaving. 

“No, you didn’t break the skin.” 

Richie’s thumb slid over the curve of the scar on his cheek. Eddie shivered at the touch, but if what he had seen were real there wouldn’t have been any scar tissue for him to touch in the first place. Swallowing hard, Eddie stepped back, picking up his flashlight. 

“What did you see?” Richie asked.

“Nothing I haven’t seen in the mirror already.” Eddie kept his eyes low. “Go left, I’ll go right, it has to be here somewhere.” 

“Uh, no. Horror movie 101. We stick together.” Richie curled a hand around his arm.

“Pussy.” 

“Pu— you’re a dick, you know that?” Richie laughed. “This is like the biggest trauma of our lives round three!” 

Eddie smiled. “Made you laugh though, didn’t it?” 

“That’s fine, I’ll be your Bond girl, if you’re going to call me Pussy, then let it be Pussy Galore at least. I can’t believe you’re making jokes while we’re chasing down an evil spider…” Richie kept up a steady chatter as they moved through the mirror.

Eddie did his best to keep his eyes averted from the mirrors because when he looked up he saw his face rotting like the leper from his dreams, he saw his arm bleeding fresh, his thirteen year old self with tears in his eyes and a cast—

His own face smiling back with Pennywise double-rowed shark teeth. 

“Eddie. Eddie, what is it?” Richie tugged on his arm. 

Eddie’s reflection smiled, lips curling back all the way to the hinge of his jaw, and teeth yellow. 

Little Eddie Spaghetti, back from the dead, and rotting from the inside out. 

“Shut up,” Eddie said.

Your friends can’t see it yet. They still love you. They don’t know you’re only a corpse wearing the face of that scared little boy you used to be. 

“Shut up!” 

Oh, but they will, they’ll see how rotten you are inside. That you didn’t come back right. There’s a black cat clawing to get out of your rib cage, screaming—

Eddie slammed his flashlight into the mirror and it shattered. In the blank space behind it was the spider, skittering away from the glass. Eddie chased after it, even though Richie’s hand slipped from his arm. Distantly, he heard a call of his name, but he kept his flashlight fixed on the spider. It ran for the Ferris wheel and Eddie threw himself on after it, closing his hand around it bulbous body as the cart rocked and raised. The spider hissed, but Eddie kept it pinned even as it tried to wriggle out from his grip.

“Stupid, motherfucker—“

Eddie yelped as the cart rocked like a ship in a storm as Richie managed to haul himself inside despite it already beginning to climb up, up, up. Fumbling to close the gate to the cart behind him, Richie was practically on top of him in the little space between the seats. 

“Jesus, that’s one ugly motherfucker,” Richie said.

“Backpack!” 

“Right!” 

Richie scrambled for the gallon sized jar in Eddie’s backpack, holding it open, but he cringed when Eddie tried to jam the spider inside, leaning back from its flailing legs. Forcing it in, Eddie yanked is hand back, and Richie slammed the lid down, screwing it on tight. The ride jolted to a stop, lights flickering out across the amusement park, and leaving them stalled at the very top of the Ferris wheel. Richie’s eyes were huge as they met Eddie own before barking out a laugh, relaxing against the seat behind him. 

“Not exactly the romantic moment the movies make it out to be, huh, Eds?”

“More romantic than the Notebook,” Eddie said. “At least you’re not threatening to kill yourself if you don’t get a date.” 

Richie narrowed his eyes. “…hypothetically, would that work?”

Eddie leaned back against the opposite seat. “Shut up.” 

Distant shouts of their names made them clamber —carefully— to their feet, peering down. Richie waved his flashlight at the ground below and the rest of the Losers appeared, staring up at them. 

“Are you two okay?” Mike asked.

“Well, we’re trapped forty feet from the ground with a demonic spider, but, uh, mostly?” Richie called back down.

Mike snorted.

“We’ll see if we can’t get the power on and get you down,” Ben said. “Hang tight!” 

“Right, we’ll just… do that.” Richie said, sitting down on one side, but his long legs took up most of the space between the seats.

Sitting down opposite him, Eddie took a deep breath, trying to shake off the remainder of the adrenaline, but with the jar in hand again it felt like the fear that had been carrying him through the night was slowly curdling into anger. Chewing on the inside of his cheek, Eddie thought about the reflection of himself with bugs crawling out of him, and with the way irritation was buzzing under his skin, he may as well have been a kicked hornet’s nest. 

“Eddie?”

Eddie looked up. “What if… what if I did die?”

“Eds, you’re right here.”

“No, I mean, what if I did die and something down there brought me back, like Bowers. What if I came back wrong?”

“Bowers came back without any injuries.” 

Eddie looked at the jar, the spiders long legs squished against the glass. “What if it wasn’t strong enough to do that much?”

“Eds…” 

“Ri, there’s something wrong with me, I’m so… I’m so angry. I’ve… I’ve hurt people. What if it brought me back for something like Bowers? What if I hurt all of you?”

“You won’t.”

“Richie—“

“You won’t because you’re the loyalist son of a bitch that ever lived, those thoughts? That’s not you, Eddie, that’s the spider, it’s poisoning your mind just like its mother poisoned Derry, and it’s going to be okay, because we’re going to kill that son of a bitch together.”

“What if I’m still like this?” Eddie asked. “What if we kill it and I’m still… what if I did die down there in the sewer and whatever came back is all there is left of me?”

Richie took his face in both hands. “Then I’ll love whatever version of you came back to me regardless.”

“Richie.”

“I don’t care. I don’t care if you came back wrong. You came back. You’re here and I’m never leaving you again.”

Eddie could feel sharp words clawing their way up his throat, lurching forwards he kissed Richie in an attempt to stifle them. Richie kissed him back like he wanted to steal whatever awful remark Eddie was trying to hold back right from his mouth, to taste the words on his tongue even if they were bitter and biting. The cart shifted under their feet and they broke apart, Eddie’s hand braced on Richie’s chest in an attempt to keep his balance, and one of Richie’s hands holding tight to his waist, while the other grabbed the rail of the cart. The lights of the Ferris wheel came on and it slowly started to descend, bring them down to their friends waiting below. 

Chapter Text

Sitting on the floor of Eddie’s room, they circled around the gallon sized jar as though simply looking at the spider would tell them how to defeat it. All of them jumped as the door opened.

“Just me,” Bill said, a giant bag of McDonalds in hand, likely the only place still open.

“Dude,” Richie said with feeling, hand over his heart like he thought he might have a coronary. 

“Sorry,” Bill said with a little laugh, handing out burgers, fries, and drinks before joining them in the circle.

“Are we really going to eat looking at this?” Ben asked.

“Well, we used to eat looking at your face, so I think we’ll manage,” Richie said.

Beverly shoved him. “Not nice.”

“Is he ever?” Mike asked.

Yes, Eddie thought, but it wasn’t the type of nice you could see. It was the type of kindness that came from taunting Eddie into riding a bike with chicken noises when his mother had convinced him that he was too frail to manage it. It was sharing his candy with him even though it was followed by Richie poking his face with his disgusting sticky fingers immediately after. It was sending him obnoxious text after obnoxious text so Eddie would know Richie was alive after he had a vision of a ten car pile up. It was not letting him live in the world of fear.

“No warnings about how chemical preservatives are going to kill us all?” Mike asked, raising an eyebrow.

Eddie took a long sip of his milkshake. “You know, after having your arm bit off in a sewer, McDonald’s sort of pales in comparison.” 

Richie jabbed a finger at him. “Not funny.” 

“Oh please, if you lost an arm it’d be all ‘oh let me give you a hand’ jokes all the time,” Eddie said.

“Yeah, but I’m a comedian, leave the trauma comedy to the professionals.” Richie leaned over and took a sip from his milkshake.

“Ew, get your own!” Eddie shoved him.

“And there’s our Eddie,” Beverly smiled. 

Eddie threw a fry at her face. 

Bill frowned at the spider. “Do we… does that thing eat?” 

“Only nightmares,” Eddie said. “That’s why it’s such a fucking fatass.” 

The spider glared at him with all eight eyes.

Eddie flicked the jar just to make it wobble and the spider hissed at him. 

“…you just flicked a demonic spider from outer space,” Mike said.

“Yeah, well, the demonic spider from outer space is a dick, so he had it coming,” Eddie said. 

Bill gave him a long look. “When it feeds on your fear, does it, like, actually prevent you from feeling fear?” 

Eddie looked off to the side. “I think it twists it into something worse like hate.” 

Mike looked thoughtful. “I think it amplifies it, but only in a certain sense. The adults in Derry, they weren’t cowering in fear, they were damn near blind with hate. I think it twists what you feel so that you can create more fear for it to feed on. It makes someone hateful enough to set a whole house of people on fire to feed on the fear of the people trapped inside.”

“That’s… disturbing,” Ben said.

Eddie glared. “Thanks.” 

“No, I just meant… I meant that sounds rough,” Ben finished lamely.

“Hey, haystack? Shut up,” Richie said.

Ben winced. “You never want to hear trashmouth tell you to be quiet.” 

Beverly stifled a laugh. “So what now?”

“Now we kill the damn thing,” Richie said. 

“Oh, wow, if only I tried that,” Eddie snarked.

“I think we had the right idea the first time,” Mike said. “The only problem was, we didn’t have all of us.” 

“Stan,” Bill said.

Mike nodded. “I think if he’s there to complete the circle, we’ll be able to kill it once and for all.” 

“So… roadtrip?” Richie said.

“In the morning,” Mike said. “I think we could all use a little sleep after nearly getting blasted with a shotgun.” 

“Here, here,” Ben said.

“Good luck with getting a room at this hour,” Eddie said. “Roseann is definitely asleep by now.” 

“…sleepover?” Richie said.

“Absolutely not,” Eddie said.

And only thirty minutes later found himself sandwiched between Bill and Richie on the bed while the others had spread out pillows, blankets, and towels along the floor of the room before falling fast asleep. Beverly had even helped herself to some of Eddie's pajamas. 

“I hate all of you,” Eddie told the ceiling.

“Shh, sleeping.” Richie smacked him in the face in an attempt to cover his mouth.

Eddie contemplated kicking him off the edge of the mattress, but the retaliation wouldn’t be worth it. 

“If you drool on me, I’m feeding you to the spider.” 

“The spider would be so lucky to have a piece of this,” Richie snarked.

“You know, I’m actually sleeping so if the two of you—“

“Shut up, Bill!”

Eddie woke up into the morning with Richie sprawled across his chest, one arm around his waist, and snoring into his t-shirt. The upside, he supposed, to missing an arm was that it wasn’t currently crushed under Richie’s weight. It took some finagling to free himself without waking Richie or accidentally shoving Bill off the bed. Straightening up, he found the spider watching him with no small amount of judgement. Eddie flipped it off and headed for the bathroom to get ready for the day. The others were hauling themselves out of bed when he stepped out.

“S’there a place to get breakfast around here?” Beverly asked, wiping sleep from her eyes.

“Or coffee? Please let there be coffee,” Bill said.

“I thought we were going to get on the road,” Eddie said, shoving the mason jar into his backpack. 

“Coffee first,” Mike said. “Definitely coffee first.”

Eddie led them out of his room, ignoring the wide eyed look Roseann gave them as they walked by the counter… and the whispers that immediately followed. 

“Think she recognized me?” Richie asked with a grin.

“I think she’s more concerned with the fact that there’s one queen sized bed and six people who just walked out of Eddie’s room,” Bill said.

Beverly bit back a laugh. “Those rumors are going to be fun.” 

Eddie flushed. “Shut up.”

Breakfast was a relatively quiet affair, more focused on fueling up for the drive than anything else.

“I’ve got to stop by the shop, tell Luke I’m leaving town,” Eddie said as they stepped out.

“Oh yeah?” Richie said, feigning nonchalance. “You two are telling-people-when-you-leave-town-for-a-few-days kind of close?” 

Eddie stared at him. “He’s my employer, you absolute freak, I’m telling him I won’t be into work.”

Richie opened and closed his mouth. “Oh. Right.” 

Eddie rolled his eyes.

“In my defense, he’s a very attractive employer and he saved you from a snowstorm and—“ Richie cut himself off.

Eddie raised an eyebrow. “And?”

“…you laughed at his jokes.” 

“I laughed at his jokes.”

“Okay, listen—“ 

Eddie fought to keep a straight face. “So I can never laugh at anyone else’s jokes? Just yours?” 

“Yep. Laughing at another man’s jokes is infidelity in a comedian’s world.”

"I’d laugh at yours, but you’re not funny.” 

Richie mimed being stabbed by a knife and all of his guts falling out onto the pavement.

“…good to see something’s never change,” Mike said with a little smile.

After picking up a van the rental place, they drove to the shop, and Eddie hopped out.

“Wait here.” 

Beverly leaned forwards. “No, I want to meet this funny, suave—“

“I did not say suave!” Richie waved his hands. 

“Wait. Here.” 

Eddie stepped into the shop, the door unlocked despite the early hour, and making his way up to the apartment above. Knocking on the door, he could hear Luke shuffling around inside before the door opened.

“Little early for a work out,” Luke said, stifling a yawn.

“I’m leaving for… a road trip.” 

Luke raised an eyebrow. “A roadtrip.”

“Mhm.” 

“The same kinda roadtrip that got you stranded here?”

“Maybe.”

Luke nodded, leaning in the doorway. “You gonna be back?”

Eddie could feel the spider thumping against the walls of the container in his backpack. “I don’t know.” 

Luke’s eyes slid past him. “Not so much of a solo trip this time, huh?” 

Following his gaze, Eddie found the rest of the Losers standing in the shop, Ben gave them an awkward wave as he realized they had been spotted. Luke gave them a bemused smile, and a three-fingered wave in return. Eddie’s eye twitched.

Luke’s smile slipped away, expression turning more serious. “This what you want?”

“Wants a strong word, but it’s what I’m going to do,” Eddie said.

Luke put a hand on his shoulder, giving him a squeeze. “You got people here, man, don’t forget that.”

Eddie nodded. “Thanks.” 

“Don’t worry ‘bout it.”

Descending the stairs, Eddie herded the Losers out of the shop and into the van once more. Taking the wheel, he complained out on principle as Richie climbed in passenger side, and the others piled up in the back. Driving out of Montana, his eyes lingered on the Rockies in the rear view mirror. After a little fiddling, Richie managed to hook his phone up to the car speakers making the music selection a complete dictatorship as he cycled through his Spotify playlists. 

It took four songs for Eddie to notice. Mixtapes took hours to burn and Eddie found the processes entirely painstaking unlike Richie who had made dozens of them. Half of Eddie’s collection had been mixtapes Richie had made him in the name of educating him on real rock-and-roll. The only mixtape Eddie had ever given him in return had been handpicked songs to defend his own taste. It had been carefully curated with Eddie’s favorite artists, but picking songs he thought Richie would like best rather than his own favorites.

“Is this…?” Eddie stole a glance at him.

“Is this the amazing Shut Up, I’m Right mixtape you made me when we were fifteen?” Richie asked with a smile, but his eyes were out the window. “Yeah, I recreated it.”

“You remembered every song on there?"

“No, after Derry, I…” Richie took a deep breath. “I went through all my old stuff looking for anything that I might have forgotten over the years and apparently I had taken that mixtape all the way with me to college. I think I even listened to it a few times while I was there, but it always made me…” 

“What?” 

“Blubber like a baby?” Richie flashed him a self deprecating smile. “Seriously, like, tears, snot, like big gobs of it just dripping—"

Eddie gagged. “Beep beep.”

Richie snickered.

Eddie stifled a smile, turning the volume up, and earning a few complaints from the other Losers who had always been vocal about their various musical tastes.

Eventually he had to pull over for gas and the others jumped at a chance to stretch their legs, tumbling out the back of the van.

“Oh my god, I’ve never had to pee so bad in my life.” Beverly beelined for the shop.

“I’ll grab up some snacks,” Ben said, following at a more sedate pace, the others trailing after him.

“And coffee,” Eddie called after him as he grabbed the fuel pump.

“For you, Spaghetti? Anything,” Richie winked, jogging to catch up with the others. 

Bill lingered by the van rather than follow, stretching out his back, and groaning as it cracked. Eddie tapped his foot as he filled up the tank, watching the spider through the window were its jar had been wedged into the cupholders much to Richie’s displeasure.

“So,” Bill said.

Eddie tore his eyes away, lifting an eyebrow. “So?” 

“I don’t have to spell it out for you, right?”

“Spell what out?"

“The whole Richie’s proclaimed his love for you on national television and to your face repeatedly thing?”

“Oh. That thing.” Eddie focused intently on numbers ticking by as it crept closer to a full tank.

“Yeah, Eddie, that thing.” 

“Don’t we have bigger problems at hand?” 

“Not to be a pessimist, but last time we did the whole let’s-kill-this-spider thing, we almost lost you, so I figure now’s a pretty good time for hashing these kind of things out.”

“You want a dying declaration? Sorry, I used mine up already."

“Eddie, you want us to grovel? We will, but I don’t think that’s what’s going to make you happy.”

Eddie’s eyes fixed on the spider’s through the glass. “I don’t think I was brought back for happy, Bill.”

Bill gave him a long look, but whatever he wanted to say next was lost by the others making their way back with their arms full of various snacks and sodas. 

“For Mr. Spaghetti himself.” Richie dipped into a deep bow, presenting a Coca-Cola slushie.

Eddie scowled as he took it. “I asked for coffee.”

“I know, but I knew if I got you coffee then you would just steal half of my slushie and I wanted blue raspberry,” Richie sipped his own, blue already beginning to stain his lips.

“Blue raspberry is fucking disgusting."

“Which is why I got you your own, so you couldn’t drink half of mine and bitch about it.” Richie grinned.

Eddie scowled.

Beverly laughed. “Don’t you know bitching about it is half of the fun?” 

Eddie glowered into his slushie as he took a sip and the others laughed.

“Whatever.” Eddie moved for the driver’s seat, only to be yanked back by his belt loop.

“Nuh uh.” Richie nudged him towards the passenger side. “It’s totally your turn to be passenger princess."

Eddie stared at him. “Passenger what?” 

“It’s what the kids are saying these days.”

“Yeah, Eddie, aren’t you hip with the kids?” Mike asked dryly, climbing into the back. 

Eddie stuck his tongue out at him for lack of ability to flip him off with his hand occupied with a slushie. 

“Good to see we’ve all grown up so much,” Ben mumbled.

Richie pointedly opened the passenger side door for him. Grinding his teeth, Eddie climbed in, putting his cup between his knees to do the belt buckle. Rather than close the door, Richie leaned in closer, producing a bag of Twizzlers from the pocket of his hoodie with a little flourish, tearing the top open, and dropping the open package on his lap. Eddie blinked at him.

“Package opening tax.” Richie stole a Twizzler, biting into it, and winking as he closed the door in his face.

Eddie stared at the open package in his lap, then over at the spider who was pressing two of its forelegs up against the glass like a prisoner with their hands wrapped around the bars of their cell. 

“Fuck you,” Eddie said quietly, pulling out one of the Twizzlers, and tearing it between his teeth.

Richie started up the car. “Okay! Let’s get this show on the road!” 

Chapter Text

Eddie woke up with a gasp, grabbing at his shoulder. 

“Easy, you’re okay.” Bill’s arm tightened around him to keep him from bolting upright from where he had been apparently dozing across his lap. 

“Just a dream,” Beverly squeezed his ankle, his legs stretched across her lap. 

“Yeah.” Eddie took a shaky breath, squeezing his shoulder in an attempt to dispel the deep ache that never quite seemed to leave.

They were in the very back of the van, Richie snoring away in the second row, completely sprawled out. Mike behind the wheel, Ben riding shotgun and thumbing through a novel. A Bill Denbrough novel. 

“Why are we all squished in the back when Richie’s taking three seats for himself?” Eddie asked. 

“Because he kicks in his sleep,” Beverly said. “And you only drool.”

Eddie’s hand flew up to his mouth, but there was no drool to be found.

Beverly smirked.

“You’re the worst,” Eddie informed her.

“That will break Richie’s heart to hear, he works hard for that spot in your heart,” Bill said, arm still loose around his shoulders. 

“Fuck off.”

Ben twisted around from the front seat. “Was that, um, regular dream or like…?” 

“Past horrors, not future ones, but I’ll be sure to keep you posted,” Eddie said.

Ben gave him a thumbs up before returning to his book.

“Hey, now that the sleepyhead’s awake, can we get breakfast?” Beverly asked, leaning forwards from the back.

“It’s like five in the morning,” Mike said.

Eddie had driven the first leg, then Richie had swapped him out, and after they broke for dinner, Beverly had offered to take the night shift rather than hunt for a hotel. Despite trying to keep his eyes open, Eddie had nodded off on Bill’s shoulder as Beverly smoked out the window, radio turned down low, and only a few murmurs here and there for conversation. Evidently at some point while he slept, they had swapped drivers again. Peering out the window, Eddie found his surroundings vaguely familiar.

“I think there’s a truck stop diner around here,” Eddie said.

“Works for me,” Bill said, pulling up his phone to get more precise directions than ‘around here’.

All of them stumbled out of the van with various aches and pains to remind them they were far too old to be sleeping in the car like a bunch of college kids on a spring break roadtrip.

“Ow.” Richie cracked his back.

“Tell me about it,” Ben said, rolling out his neck. “Hotel next time?” 

“No next time,” Bill said, dropping down heavily into a booth. “If I ever have to travel this far again, I’m taking a plane. First class.”

“Snob,” Richie coughed into his hand as they settled around the table.

“Don’t you have a Netflix special?” Beverly raised an eyebrow.

Richie flapped a hand. “Oh please, like I saw a dime of that after the shit show of my last tour.”

“Are you going to tour again?” Ben asked. 

“Uh.” Richie’s eyes flicked over to Eddie for some reason. “I don’t know. I’ve mostly been doing some writing. Mulling over my options, you know?”

“Have you ever thought about writing for TV?” Bill asked. “Writers rooms can be a pain depending on who you’re with, but it definitely helps to not be the only one churning out ideas.”

“Seeing as my ghost writers almost had a mutiny whenever I opened my mouth, I think solo might be the way to go,” Richie said.

Eddie snorted.

“Hi, folks, what can I get for you?” A familiar waitress with the name pin Beth stepped up to the table. “Oh, hey, I remember you. Milkshake, whipped cream, and extra cherries, right?”

Eddie almost laughed. “Well, you said you didn’t have any whiskey.” 

“Still don’t,” Beth smiled. “Just coffee at this hour.”

“Bummer.” 

Beth took their orders.

“You came this way after Derry?” Mike asked.

Eddie sipped his coffee. “Yeah."

“So, let me get this straight, you got out of the hospital and went on a roadtrip?” Richie asked. “With a demonic spider baby?” 

“First of all, the spider hitchhiked with me. I didn’t just pick it up like some little kid collecting bugs."

Beverly’s eyebrows raised. “Wait, I thought you took it with your for safe keeping. If it followed you, why didn’t you try to get rid of it?”

“I threw it out of a car window. A couple hours later it was back.”

“The cat came back, the very next day…” Richie singsonged.

Eddie elbowed him in the ribs. “I figured if I couldn’t kill it or leave it behind, it was better in a jar. At least then it wouldn’t be able to jump-scare me.”

All of the Losers looked uneasily at the jar sitting next to him in the booth. The spider thumped two legs threateningly against the jar and they all jumped. Eddie bit back a laugh.

After Georgie went missing, but before they stumbled into IT’s web, the Losers had seen Child’s Play in theaters. It hadn’t even been all that scary, but sitting in the theater, each and every jump scare had gotten to them, Ben sending popcorn flying everywhere, Beverly clutching Bill’s hand, and Richie shrieking right into Eddie’s ear. Stumbling out of the theater, they had gone to a diner to pool their money on a three milkshakes split between the seven of them. Talking through the best parts of the movie, it hadn’t seemed nearly as scary under the yellow lights, and sipping a strawberry milkshake. Even his mother’s warnings about transferrable diseases hadn’t seemed all that scary laughing with his friends, but the smudge of whipped cream next to Richie’s mouth had been downright terrifying.

“What? I got something on my face?” Richie asked.

Eddie flushed at having been caught staring. “Just those coke-bottles, four-eyes.”

“Aw, Eds, you say the nicest things… and so does your mom when I’m in her bed!” Richie crowed.

Eddie elbowed him. “That barely even made sense!” 

“You never make sense, so how’s that, Mr. Spaghetti?”

“I barely make sense? Half the words you say are nonsense!”

The red leather booths hadn’t been made for the wrestling match that ensued, but Stanley fixed that real quick by giving Richie a good shove and sending them both sprawling onto the checkered diner floor. The others howled with laughter, but as Richie looked down at him, propped up on one arm, he had only stared. Eddie’s breathing went tight, eyes locked with Richie’s, whose glasses were sliding down his nose, only an inch from Eddie’s own. 

“Get off me before we get kicked out,” Eddie said, but it lacked any bite.

“As you wish, Mr. Spaghetti.” 

Climbing to his feet, Richie hauled him up, and made a show of dusting him off until Eddie shoved him away.

As they ate breakfast, Richie reached over to steal various pieces of his food the same way he used to snag fries off his plate. Twenty-seven years and he still smiled with his cheeks pudged out when Eddie was too slow to smack his hand away. Eddie wondered what Richie would think if he knew that when they were kids, he always pretended not to notice the first few steals, letting Richie put his grubby hands all over his food even though it made his stomach churn without thoughts of communicable diseases. Maybe at thirteen that’s what love was.

“What about you?” Richie asked.

Eddie blinked. “Huh?”

“Big plans for the future? Illegal street racing? Cage fights?” 

“Shut up.” 

“I’m serious,” Richie said, even though he was smiling. “You, uh, you seem to like it in Montana."

Eddie raised an eyebrow. “So?”

“So, are you going to stay? I mean, the guys at the shop seem pretty attached to you, wouldn’t want to break their hearts if you go galavanting across the country again.” 

Eddie sipped his coffee, eyes sliding over to the spider. “I hadn’t thought about it.”

Richie nudged him, waiting for Eddie to meet his eyes. “You should. We’re going to kill this thing and then you’re going to need a place to live that isn’t pay by the night.”

“I pay by the week.”

Richie snorted. “Oh, I’m sorry, my bad. Please, feel free to disregard all the totally valid points I made before that.”

“I will,” Eddie said, taking an obnoxious sip of his coffee. 

Richie stole another bite of his hash browns while his hand was occupied, chewing for a moment before saying, “…it seems nice there.”

“Yeah?”

“Might have a good ambiance for writing.”

Eddie opened his mouth to reply, but the spider threw itself so hard against the wall of the jar he had to scramble to catch it before it toppled right off the booth, and the moment slipped away. Once they finished their breakfast, Eddie stepped up the counter to pay, including a hefty tip for Beth. 

“I went to the Rockies.” 

“You find what you were looking for?” 

Eddie glanced back at the others lingering by the door. “Yeah. Think so.”

Chapter Text

Stanley looked exactly as he did when Eddie had seen him last. Sneaking in after visiting hours had been easier than he expected it would be with a group of six, but apparently the coma ward wasn’t particularly well watched seeing as the patients weren’t exactly a lively bunch. On the nightstand were little action figures, a wonky stuffed bird, and even a few pictures Richie must have saved from their high school days. 

Picking up a photos, Eddie found all of them smiling at the camera, arms around each other and squished close together to fit into the frame. Eddie was tucked between Bill and Richie, both several inches taller than him despite the growth spurt he always claimed was coming to him. It didn’t show in the photo but with both their arms under his own, Eddie had to stretch onto his toes to keep up, fingers curled in the back of their shirts to keep his balance.

“I found those tucked away in a box after our second go with the clown. I don’t think I ever opened it after leaving for college, but somehow I still packed it every time I moved,” Richie said. 

“You couldn’t have gotten my good side?” Beverly asked, wrinkling her nose slightly at the photo. 

“We were fifteen, there were no good sides,” Mike said wryly.

Eddie put the photo down, setting the jar on Stanley’s chest, spider meeting his eyes like it wanted a staring contest. “Ready?” 

“Ready,” Bill said, taking one of Stanley’s hands, and holding out his other to Beverly.

Beverly took his, then Ben’s. Ben took Richie’s. Richie took Eddie’s hand, interlacing their fingers. Before Eddie could open his mouth to point out the obvious issue, Mike set his hand on his shoulder, giving him a little reassuring squeeze. Eddie’s teeth clicked together, hand tightening on Richie’s to the point where he was sure his nails were digging into his skin, but he didn’t earn any protests. Taking Stanley’s other hand, Mike completed the circle around his hospital bed.

And the ritual of Chud began.

Eddie opened his eyes to find himself surrounded by darkness, ankle deep in sewer water, and empty handed. The darkness stretched out around him on all sides, not another soul to be seen except for the shadowed figure looming before him. All he could make out of the figure was a pair of glowing eyes and a sharp-toothed smile in the dim light, it’s tongue lolled out of its mouth almost down to the water below. Eddie bit down.

“Step out of the dark, coward,” Eddie said.

“Is that really what you want? You want a look at all the creepy-crawlies under the surface? We all know you can’t handle it, Eddie-Bear.” The voice was low, rasping, almost wet like its throat was filled with phlegm. “Your poor heart. Your weak constitution. Your lack of spine—"

“I’m not the one hiding. I’m not the spineless one! Come out and face me!”

“Doesn’t that scare you more, Eddie? That you had to die to grow a spine? That what came back was rotting and festered and bitter? The worms had already gotten to the best parts of you. Chewed them away like maggots on a corpse. Your friends will see that. That’s why they’re not here with you. They know you’re filthy, infected, dirty.”

“And you’re nothing. You’re all that’s left of a bad childhood dream. You don’t fucking scare me, you pathetic—"

“I’m pathetic? You’re the one who can’t even look in the mirror. Can’t see what’s right in front of you because you’re too scared to see—“ The shadow stepped into the light. “—just how sick you really are!”

It was his own face, smile stretching to the ears, teeth rotting and falling from his mouth, and eyes a sickly yellow. There was blood crusted around his mouth and nose, sores stretching before his eyes, breaking open, and oozing down his skin. It was the leper wearing his own damn face. Eddie’s grip slipped and the darkness rushed by him like he was being road hauled down a dark highway except there was no friction. Even the water felt more like smoke underneath him as he went racing backwards. Racing back past a giant empty shell. Past the echoed calls of his name. Towards the oh-so-bright deadlights waiting to swallow him up. Raking his fingers through the darkness, he reached for anything to hold onto—

A hand grabbed his and the world slammed to a stop. Looking up, he found thirteen year old Stanley Uris holding tight to his hand. When Stanley hauled him up to his feet, it was thirteen year old Eddie Kaspbrak that rose to meet him.

“Stan.” 

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I was… I was scared.” 

“You’re here.”

“I’m still scared.”

“Me too.”

Stanley held tight to his hand. “Do you know the way?”

“I know the way.” Eddie held tight to his hand as he walked back through the darkness.

As they walked, he stood taller, but the fear grew stronger. Beside him Stanley looked thirteen and terrified then slowly but surely thirty-nine and absolutely petrified. Eddie’s whole body started to shake as the shadow of the spider came back into view, stretched out before them. Stanley opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

“Hey, loser!” Eddie shouted. “Come out and face us! You’re not the boogeyman you’re a D-list horror movie no one bought tickets to!”

The sound of the spider scuttling around met them, but the shadow didn’t move only stretched larger, legs lengthening.

“What loses its head in the morning, but gets it back at night?” The spider rasped.

“We’re not scared of you,” Stanley said, even though his voice shook. 

“They are dark and always on the run. Without the sun, there would be none. What are they?”

“Step out of the shadows and face me! You don’t scare me, you chihuahua-sized pest!” Eddie called. 

The scuttling sounds got closer. “I’m soft, delicate, silky, but if you’re wrapped in me you’ll scream. What am I?” 

“You’re nothing!” Stanley’s voice raised. 

“Who makes it, has no need of it. Who buys it, has no use for it—"

Eddie stepped forwards, into the shadows. “You’re nothing, you’re pathetic, you’re—“ 

“—who uses it but cannot see or feel it. What is it?” The shadow lunged for him, voice echoing around them.

Eddie’s whole body shook, but he kept his feet planted, biting down on the shadow now that it was close enough. 

“What is it?” The voice shook them down to their bones like an earthquake. “What is it? What is it?”

Eddie bit down so hard he could taste iron in the back of his throat, but he didn’t know if it was his own or the spider’s. If the spider even could bleed. Stanley’s grip was tight on his hand, but there was a pressure to it, like he was close to being torn away. Like Eddie was all that kept him from falling off a cliff’s edge. 

“A coffin!” The shadow lunged for him, but Eddie held his ground, it’s break rancid in his face even if he couldn’t make out any of its features. 

Trying to meet its eyes the shadow shrank down inch by inch. Dimly Eddie became aware of the absence on his right side, blood flowing freely down his side, and soaking into his clothes. His hand was slick in Stanley’s either with cold sweat or blood he couldn’t tell and he could feel it running down his chin from his bloody tongue.

“Eddie. Eddie. You’re killing us.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Eddie could see the blood flowing freely down Stanley’s arms, slit wrist to elbow. Faintly, he could feel the weight of another hand on his shoulder, on his arm, hands still holding onto him even though they were nowhere in sight. The spider was barely a handful, cowering before him, the shadow shrunk down entirely.

“You’re just scared,” Eddie said. “You’re just scared and pathetic and small and you’re trying to make yourself bigger to protect yourself but it’s just… sad.” 

Eddie took a step back and stumbled into the hospital room. Richie’s arms came around him to hold him up, blood soaked the side of his button down. Richie’s palm was bloody, the old scar split open fresh and the others had nicks and scrapes from where the glass jar had shattered leaving the spider curled up on its back on Stanley’s chest. Stan the Man whose arms were cut open wrist to elbow, Mike and Bill’s hands pressed tight over them trying to stifle the bleeding as it soaked into the bedding. 

“You’re just scared,” Eddie whispered.

The spider’s belly split open, seven tiny spiders climbing out of its carcass, scrambling towards the edges of the bed. Lurching forwards, Eddie grabbed one with his bloody palm and it slipped under the broken skin, skittering up his wrist and— and coming to a stop under the inside of his elbow like a burst blood vessel. A dark black mark, more of a blur than outline of a spider, but there. 

Another spider climbed between Bill’s bloody fingers into Stanley’s slit wrist, the mark appearing further up on his pale skin, but the bleeding slowed. Bill’s eyes widened slightly, but he grabbed the nearest spider, flinching as it crawled under his skin, nails biting into his own arm as he stared down at the mark.

“Don’t let the fear escape,” Eddie said, holding tight to the stub of his arm even though the bleeding had slowed. 

“What?” Ben asked, still clinging to Stanley’s arm. 

Beverly let go of his hand, dropping to her knees to catch her own spider in both hands, clasping them tight as though praying. Mike lunged forwards to grab one before it could clamber off the edge of the cot, stumbling back as he watched it disappear under his skin. Ben slapped his hand over one by the foot of the bed like he thought he could squish it, but it made his whole body flinch as the mark appeared on the back of his hand.

“Richie!” Beverly said.

Richie let go of Eddie to dive for the last one scurrying for the door, closing his hand around it, and shoving it in his mouth when it tried to wiggle free rather than burrow under his skin. Sitting on his butt on the floor, he looked up at the rest of them behind his crooked glasses. 

“Is it over?” Richie asked.

Eddie looked at the carcass on Stanley’s chest, then down at the mark on his arm. “You can’t kill fear.” 

“But you can carry it with you,” Beverly said, meeting his eyes and accepting Mike’s hand as he helped her to her feet. 

Bill tied sheets around Stanley’s arms, but the bleeding had basically turned to a trickle. Eddie looked at his own arm, or what had been his arm, the fabric was soaked through, and he was lightheaded from blood loss, but the ache was dull. Not the blinding pain of the first go around. Richie stepped up to his side, hands hovering over him like he was afraid Eddie might break. The scar on his palm had already scabbed over. Eddie held up his own hand to find the mark on his own hand matched. Looking back at Richie, he found the same black blur of a spider on his neck like the abomination of a birth mark. 

“It’ll never go away,” Eddie said, his bloodstained fingers light over the mark on Richie’s skin.

“Loving you won’t either.” Richie’s hands settled on cupping his face, leaning in.

Eddie turned away. “There is no way I’m kissing you after you ate a demon spider.” 

Richie squawked. “It was heroic! Romantic even! I did it for love!” 

Eddie’s lips turned up. “You need a new definition of romantic if that’s how we’re going to spend the rest of our lives.”

Richie’s expression softened like melted butter, tears welling up in his eyes, and his voice choked up as he said, “I’ll show you romantic."

Eddie put up a token protest, but stretched up onto his toes when Richie kissed him, holding on tight to his shoulder, fingers curling into his shirt. Just like he had when he was fifteen and trying to look taller in a photo. The Losers whooped and laughed like they really were in high school all over again as they broke apart. The elevator doors opened with a ding and a security guard spilled out, fumbling for his tazer.

“Freeze!”

“Ah fuck,” Bill said, holding his hands up.

The rest of the Losers followed suit. Like any rational person, the security guard called back up in the form of the police despite Bill’s half-assed attempt to first claim it was part of a new movie he was working on, and then Ben’s more sincere attempt to try to explain that Stanley was a friend of theirs and they hadn’t hurt him. The cops took one look at the bloody scene and arrested them on the charge of trespassing to start with, but what he said into the radio was ‘satanic ritual insanity’ before stuffing them into patrol cars. At the station they were put into holding cells, five of them in one, and Beverly in the other, not that it mattered because the cells were right next to each other anyway.

“So, which one of you rich celebrities wants to pull strings to get us out of here?” Mike asked.

“Who do you want me to call? My manager?” Richie asked. “I don’t think he has sway with the Georgia police.”

“Oh man,” Bill put his head down on the bars. “When the press gets a hold of this…”

“I can see it now, fashion designer Beverly Marsh arrested for… what exactly are we under arrest for?” Beverly asked.

“Trespassing for the moment, but I figure they’ll add on assault and battery and… destruction of property?” Eddie said, grimacing at the tacky feel of his bloodstained clothes. 

“Perfect,” Beverly sighed.

Captain Jenkins, who had taken one look at them when they walked in and proceeded to turn around start making phone calls in his office walked over, keys in hand.

“Sir, this has all been a really big misunderstanding—“ Richie started.

“So Mrs. Uris has been telling me,” Jenkins said, not sounding like he believed it for a moment even as he opened up the cells.

Patricia Uris stood a few steps behind him, smiling a little shyly, but standing tall.

“Patty,” Richie said. “Oh boy am I glad to see you."

“I’m sure,” Patricia said with a little grin. “I was just explaining to Captain Jenkins that you were performing a little, um, religious ritual that was supposed to help communicate with lost spirits and bring them back to their bodies which, of course, is not illegal, but we should have been more mindful of visiting hours. And the mess.”

“…right,” Bill said after a moment. “Our bad.”

Captain Jenkins looked at him like he was full of shit, but stepped out of their way. “Please leave my station.”

“Yep, absolutely,” Ben said. 

Patricia led them out of the station. “If you were happy to see me, you’ll be over the moon to find out who sent me your way.”

Eddie stopped in his tracks. “Stan?”

“Awake and asking for you,” Patricia caught his hand, even though it was covered in dried blood. “I really don’t care if you made a deal with the devil himself if it means I can have him back. So, thank you.”

Eddie’s throat was too tight to speak, but he squeezed her hand.

“Hop in.” Patricia smiled, waving them over to her mini van. “It is visiting hours now, you know.”

Richie laughed, offering Eddie a hand up into the van like it was a limo on prom night. Eddie rolled his eyes, but took his hand regardless. The Losers all piled in, grinning at each other like fools as Patricia started up the van. 

Chapter Text

“Riddle me this.” Richie’s arms wrapped around Eddie's waist, peering over his shoulder. “Our current president is actively working on stripping the rights away from queer people and of all our friends we’re the ones hosting a forth of July party? Why?”

“First of all, we actually have a house big enough to host, and second, we live in rural Montana.” 

“So the mid-west propaganda got to you?” 

“Can’t you see I’m fucking busy?”

Richie raised an eyebrow.

Eddie took a deep breath, blowing it out slowly.

Richie smoothed his thumb over the black mark on his arm. “You’re a little wound up today, huh?”

Eddie mixed the salad with a violence it didn’t deserve. “The snot-nosed brats down the street set off fireworks last night, not that you could hear it over your snoring.” 

All of them had their moments of sharp words and over-reactions after taking the mark— nothing more than what a therapist would diagnose as symptoms of PTSD, but Eddie certainly was quicker to anger than the others. Mike theorized it was from carrying the spider around so long. That wasn’t to say they could just blame it all on the spider and move on, but they were learning to differentiate what was just a reaction and what was genuinely an argument they needed to have. 

“You would think the snoring would drown the fireworks out for you,” Richie teased.

“Reminded me of the sewer coming down, I think."

Richie’s arms tightened around him.

Eddie leaned back into him with a sigh. “Which is why I’m being a total dick today.”

“You’re in luck, Mr. Spaghetti, because I’m strictly into dick.” Richie smacked a kiss against his cheek before stepping back. “What time are the others coming?”

“Two hours—“ the door bell rang. “Or now if you’re fucking midwestern and obnoxious and—“

Richie snickered on his way to opening the door. “Luke! Eddie was just cussing you out in the kitchen!”

“Course he was,” Luke stepped inside. “Anything I can give a hand with, Eddie?”

“Go fuck yourself,” Eddie called back.

“He means, do you want a beer?” Richie asked. 

Luke laughed, shaking his head. “Yeah, thanks.”

“You got it.” Richie clapped his shoulder.

Slipping back into the kitchen, Richie squeezed his shoulder as he passed, an absent reaction. It almost seemed like Richie was incapable of not saying acknowledging him in someway— when he came home he called out crazy greetings, kissed him goodbye, patted his knee when he left the couch to get another beer. 

“How’s the showbiz going?” Luke asked.

“Oh, well, if you want me to brag.” Richie clicked on the TV, pulling up his Netflix special. “Bam. You’re having dinner with a celebrity.”

Luke raised an eyebrow. “Weren’t you a celebrity last week too?”

“Uh, yes, but now I’m a relevant celebrity instead of washed up one.”

Luke snorted. There was another knock.

“Are you fucking joking?” Eddie asked. 

Luke laughed, opening the door and waving in Gus, Virginia, and Jesse.

“Come on in,” Luke said.

“Go the fuck home and 'come on in' two hours from now!” Eddie leaned over the counter to shout.

Virginia made her way into the kitchen, pressing a kiss to his cheek, and holding up a bottle of whiskey. “Why don’t I get you a drink, huh?”

“I’ll need it. Richie’s about to start playing his own special and he’s going to mouth along like he’s a ventriloquist's puppet.”

She laughed, giving him a hefty pour. Grabbing a beer from the fridge, Gus started on the dishes in between sips while Virginia helped Eddie finish up dinner preparations.

“Hey, aren’t you supposed to put coke in that?” Richie stole a sip of his whiskey.

“If you’re in college,” Virginia said. “Or buying the cheap stuff."

“I wouldn’t know. I’m a vodka kind of guy, got to maintain my figure, you know?” Richie struck a pose.

Virginia laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind for next time.”

Eddie snatched his glass back. “Ever heard of getting your own?”

“Why? You’ve already got all my germs, baby.” Richie planted a kiss on him, one arm around his waist so he could dip him.

Eddie made a sound of protest, trying to keep from spilling his drink, but he kissed back all the same. The same way he bitched when Richie brought him lunch at the shop, but ate every bite. The same way Eddie brought flowers home on his way home from work sometimes even though he complained about the pollen. Eddie’s friends hooted and hollered at the show. Richie’s smile broke the kiss.

“I hate you,” Eddie informed him. 

“No, you don’t.” Richie grinned. “If you did, you would never let me embarrass you in front of all your friends like this.”

Eddie flushed. “They’re not my friends.”

“Hey! I helped you with half the repairs in this place!” Jesse protested.

The fixer-upper they had bought had come with sticking windows, busted pipes, and warped floorboards.

“You know I can buy us a place where the water works, right?” Richie asked after walking through it.

Eddie looked it over. “There’s no asbestos, no mold, no cracks in the foundation.” 

“So?”

“So it’s fixable.”

Richie glanced back at him. “Then we’ll fix it.”

It had taken more than a couple tries to actually fix the house rather than break it further. Eddie’s therapist liked to say renovating the house was a “healthy outlet for emotions”. Richie liked to turn on action movie sound tracks and pretend he was a MMA commentator when Eddie took a sledgehammer to their wall. Eddie returned the favor by only complaining about the quality of the paint job, and not the colors Richie agonized over swatches of before painting their walls sunshine yellow. Or the mismatched furniture he picked up piece by piece like strays he was taking home. Or the absurdly large vinyl collection taking up most of the bookshelf he had bought for the books that were still stacked on the floor.

“And we thank you for your help.” Richie straightened up. “Want a beer?”

“Yes, please,” Jesse said.

Richie squeezed Eddie’s hip before stepping away to grab her a beer. 

“Hello?” Patricia called.

“You leave your door unlocked?” Stanley asked with judgement as he stepped inside the house.

“You just walk into people’s houses without knocking?” Eddie returned, stepping over.

Patricia offered a little apologetic smile.

“Not you, Patty, you bailed us out of jail, you walk in here whenever you damn well please,” Richie said, giving her a hug first, then Stanley.

“Besides, this is Red Lodge not New York,” Luke said, offering his hand. “Hey, I’m Luke.”

“Patty.”

“Stan.”

“In the kitchen is Gus, Virginia, and Jesse,” Eddie said.

“The people who have to put up with you on a daily basis,” Stanley said dryly.

“That’s us,” Jesse said brightly.

Richie fetched a glass of wine for Patty and a soda for Stanley, who he bullied for being a stick in the mud even though all the Losers were well aware he was on antidepressants. Stanley just stared flatly at him until Richie gave up trying to get a rise out of him and instead started asking him what birds he hoped to spot while in Montana. Gus looked baffled when Stanley explained that no, he wasn’t interested in hunting, he just wanted to watch the birds. Not shoot them.

Bill arrived next. 

“Does no one understand that you’re supposed to show up at the time you’re invited?” Eddie asked, standing in the doorway.

“My flight got in early,” Bill said, giving him a hug.

Eddie grumbled, but hugged back, and let him inside.

“Bill!” Richie called from the living room. “Write anything good recently?”

“Nope.” Bill stole a beer.

“Write anything bad?” Eddie asked.

Bill laughed. “Yeah, a couple things actually.”

“You know.” Luke sat up straighter. “I actually read your last novel a couple weeks back. Eddie left it at my place, and I couldn’t help noticing that all the names in there are pretty damn similar to your little friend group.”

Eddie tensed up.

“Uh, yeah.” Bill rubbed the back of his neck. “They were definitely… inspired."

Luke’s eyes flicked to the scar on Eddie’s face, then to the remains of his arm. “Inspired, huh?”

“I told you,” Eddie said. “It’s a shitty book.”

“Here, here,” Stanley said dryly, lifting his soda.

Bill winced. “My bad?”

“In your next book, can you write me to be like super buff?” Richie asked, pretending to flex. “Oh! And I want a say in casting for the movie adaptation too!” 

“There will be no inspired-by-real-life-events in my next book or movie,” Bill said. “I promise.”

Ben arrived next with Beverly and her friend Kat who he had personally flown in on his own Cessna and the introductions started all over again.

“Your friend has a plane,” Jesse said. “Like, his own plane."

“I’m aware.” Eddie sipped his drink.

“Man, I grew up with the wrong people.” Jesse sighed. “Why didn’t any of my friends turn out to be celebrities?” 

“I think the bigger question is why are they all celebrities and we’re not,” Eddie said, nudging Stanley with one foot.

“Fame, fortune, those were their dreams, I got mine.” Stanley looked over at Patricia, who was in deep conversation with Richie and Bill, gesturing wildly as she spoke.

Eddie’s chest tightened, his eyes lingering on Richie whose whole face scrunched up as he laughed. “I can live with that explanation.”

“That was… disgustingly cheesy.” Jesse looked back and forth between them. “Seriously, I’m gonna go get another drink and barf, probably."

“Barf? In Eddie’s house? I think that’s a capital offense,” Beverly said. 

“Death by bleaching is the sentence, I think,” Ben joked.

Eddie set his whiskey down so he could flip them off.

“Doesn’t your boyfriend puke when he’s nervous?” Jesse asked. “There’s like a whole segment on it in his new special.”

Richie leaned away from his own conversation. “We’re talking about my special?” 

“We’re talking about how you puked before filming it, you narcissist,” Eddie said.

“Oh, man, I bet Eddie didn’t kiss you for weeks,” Bill said.

“Actually, he rubbed my back, and told me everything was going to be just fine,” Richie said with a grin.

“Seriously?” Beverly asked.

“Oh, yeah, he was trying not to gag the whole time so it was like, Richie, you’ll be—“ Richie made a horrific choking noise. “—just fine, seriously, oh god, how do you still have anything to puke up?”

Eddie flipped him off while the others laughed. Richie blew him a kiss.

“I think it’s sweet,” Patricia said.

“It was sweet,” Richie said. “And it’s also definitely going in my next set."

“Asshole,” Eddie huffed.

“If I’m an asshole and you’re a dick then we’re a match made in heaven, baby,” Richie grinned.

Eddie sighed. “I set myself up there."

Mike arrived exactly on time.

“See? This is a respectful guest!” Eddie waved at him.

“Nice to see you too,” Mike said, stepping inside, and holding out a brown paper package.

“If that is any sort of supernatural trinket, we are not taking it,” Richie said, even as he hugged Mike hello. “I mean, seriously. Not even if it’s a rabbit’s foot."

After leaving Derry, Mike hadn’t left the supernatural entirely behind him seeing as he had spent the last twenty years or so researching occult, paranormal, and unnatural phenomenon. Instead, he traveled the globe, researching, trading various occult items, and even started up what was quickly becoming a very successful paranormal podcast. 

“It’s a t-shirt from the airport,” Mike said.

“Oh, sick!” Richie took the bag, pulling out a shirt that said, ‘I’d rather be in Canada’.

Eddie snorted. “Topical.”

Settling in for dinner, they got a little ribbing for their mismatched furniture and the seventeen different paint samples on the walls of the bathroom until Eddie barked at them to shut up, took a lap through the kitchen, and apologized by refilling drinks. Richie drank his too quickly, put his foot in his mouth, and damn near got slapped by Beverly for it. Beverly went out for a smoke that lasted three cigarettes before Ben coaxed her back inside and promptly said exactly the wrong thing. Bill got in his face about it in Beverly’s defense. Stanley not so jokely said to put them in time out until they could get a handle on their emotions. Mike told him that was bold words from the man too afraid to even drive back to Derry. Eddie kicked them all out into the garden to watch the fireworks down the street and by the time the sparks died down, their tempers had flickered out too.

Eddie lingered outside with Beverly as she got one last cigarette before turning in for the night. The Losers all planned to crash at their house even though they only really had one guest bed, a futon, and an air mattress to cram them all onto along with Patricia and Kat. Through the patio doors, Eddie could see Richie, Ben, and Bill arguing over how to inflate the air mattress. Richie’s hands waved wildly as he spoke as though he could win the argument through a game of charades. Eddie bit back a smile only to wrinkle his nose when Beverly blew smoke into his face.

“Aren’t you going to tell me that I’m taking years off my life?” Beverly asked dryly.

“I think we’ve all earned the right to decide how we’re going to die,” Eddie said.

Beverly laughed. “Oh, yeah? How are you going to go?"

“Murder-suicide if Richie doesn’t stop trying to paint our bathroom Pepto-Bismol pink.”

Beverly shook her head, biting back a smile. 

Eddie took a deep breath, leaning back against the side of his house, and looking up at the clear night sky. “We’ll be in our eighties. Rich’ll go from pneumonia or something mundane. I’ll follow a couple months later with stress cardiomyopathy. Buried in Bangor. Not too far from where his parents will end up, but I’m not chancing a cemetery in Derry.”

“Afraid you’ll end up a zombie?"

“Rich says I’m one already.”

“That’s real diplomatic of him.”

“He’s a diplomatic guy.”

Beverly laughed and Eddie couldn’t help his own smile.

“What about you?” Eddie asked. “You know who you’re going to be buried next to?”

Beverly smiled around a cloud of smoke. “Right along with you and Richie, of course. All seven of us in Bangor Cemetery. I’ll update my will.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Eddie said. 

“No,” Beverly said softly. “It doesn’t.”

Stubbing out her cigarette, she stepped into the house. After another breath of summer, night air, Eddie followed her in. On the TV screen Richie’s special was playing. The air mattress had been bolstered with pillows, blankets, and couch cushions to cover practically the entire living room floor, the Losers all piled up on top, throwing popcorn at the screen, and booing Richie’s jokes. For a split second, Eddie could have sworn they were all thirteen again, sticky with sweat from the summer night, but crowded close together regardless— the seven of them watching some horror movie, flinching at the jump scares, and laughing at the gore like it was only a movie when they knew all too well that monsters were real.

Stanley’s eyes met his and the memory fell away. Patricia was cozied in beside him, giggling at the raunchier jokes like she wasn’t sure she should laugh or not. Kat passed a wine glass back and forth between her and Beverly, two shades of lipstick staining the rim. In the kitchen, Virginia and Gus had forgotten their self assigned task of dishes in favor of waltzing along to one of Richie’s vinyls. Jesse cheered them on, sipping a beer. Luke had his boots on, standing by the door, and giving Eddie a little nod goodbye. 

Eddie nodded back, watching him slip out the door before dropping down in the little space between Richie and Bill, the inflated mattress shifting uneasily under the added weight. Without looking away from the screen, Richie grabbed a pillow, shoving it under his chest so Eddie’s one arm didn’t have to hold all his weight. Bill kicked his ankle hello, throwing a piece of popcorn at the screen and snickering when he managed to hit TV-Richie right in the forehead.

”Now, here’s the real argument I keep having with my partner. It’s what undead creature he would be. Pro-tip, don’t say zombie. I said zombie and he didn’t speak to me for three days except for passive aggressive sticky-notes about the chores. Here’s the thing though, you know how in every zombie movie, there’s that heartbreaking scene where the leads gotta kill someone they loved ‘cause they got bit? Oh, yeah, tragic, beautiful, and absolutely the wrong choice. In sickness and in health, right? We’re just gonna be zombies together, shuffle along, eat people, hold hands until our arms fall off, call it our honeymoon.”