Title: Cross My Heart, Won't Tell No Other


The horrific sound of someone rapping their knuckles on glass wakes Eddie up. Eddie freezes under the covers, terrified that it’s It, that he’s somehow back and come to finish Eddie off.

“This isn’t real, this isn’t real,” Eddie whispers to himself, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Eddie!” A voice calls, causing his eyes to fly back open. He squints his eyes, trying to see through the darkness, and can just barely make out Richie’s glasses-encased eyes and slightly buck-tooth grin.

“Richie?” Eddie exclaims as loud as he possibly dares to. He scrambles out of bed and over to the window.

“What the fuck, Richie?” He asks as he opens the window.

“Oh, shit. Is this your bedroom? My bad, your mom must’ve accidentally given me the wrong directions.”

Eddie doesn’t even bother with a response to that, just starts lowering the window back down.

“Wait,” Richie says and something in his voice makes Eddie stop. He doesn’t yell it like Eddie would expect him to and his voice is uncharacteristically soft. “Can I...can I stay over?”

Eddie studies him for a second, notices how Richie is refusing to look him in the eye, and he suddenly knows what’s happened. A nightmare. It’s happened a lot since summer ended. To all of them. But Richie’s the only one’s who’s parents will let him out of their sight. He’s the only one who can go to one of the Losers for comfort.

Eddie knows his mom is overbearing but at least he knows she loves him, that she cares. Eddie’s pretty sure that Richie could move into his or one of the other Loser’s houses and Richie’s parents wouldn’t even notice. Which is partially why Eddie lets out an irritated “Fine,” and helps Richie climb in.

“Make a fucking prep and you’re out of here,” Eddie threatens.

Richie holds up his hands in innocence. “Me? Make a sound? I would never.”

Eddie rolls his eyes and climbs back into his bed, vividly aware of every move Richie makes as he slides bed beside him. They’re at least two feet apart but it feels like Richie’s pressed right up against him, making it hard to breathe. Eddie pointedly looks at the ceiling and tries to focus on his breathing. When he feels like he can breathe semi-normally again, he asks Richie, “How bad was it this time?”

It takes a few seconds for the reply to come.“Bad,” Richie says, his voice cracking.

Eddie knows it had to have been if Richie’s being this quiet.

Eddie continues to stare at the ceiling and wordlessly reaches out his hand for Richie to take. But Richie never does. Eddie turns to him in confusion. Richie is never the one to refuse physical contact. He’s always grabbing Eddie by the wrist or gently placing a band-aid on Eddie’s knee. Eddie’s always the one worried about germs and whether or not Richie has washed his hands recently.

Eddie turns to face him and finds Richie staring down at Eddie’s proffered hand. “What is it?”

Richie doesn’t respond, just keeps despondently staring at Eddie‘s hand.

Eddie closes it but Richie doesn’t appear to notice. He uses the same hand to gently touch Richie’s shoulder. “Rich,” he says softly.

Eddie’s hand on his shoulder breaks Richie out of whatever daze he’s in. “Huh?” Richie notices Eddie’s hand on him and flinches away.

Eddie frowns, a little hurt. Richie has never rejected him in any way. Ever.

“Richie, what happened?”

“What? Nothing happened. What are you talking about?”

“In your dream,” Eddie says slowly.

Richie relaxes a little and then seems to tense back up again.


“Oh, nothing,” he says, “Just evil murderous clown shit, the usual. It’s nothing. Let’s just go to sleep.” He turns over so the only thing Eddie can now see is his back.

Eddie purses his lips, knowing that Richie’s lying, but decided it isn’t worth trying to drag it out of him right now. If experience is anything to go by, Richie will tell him when he thinks he’s ready.

Half an hour later, just as Eddie’s finally starting to drift back to sleep, Richie whispers, “I couldn’t touch you. You were dying and I couldn’t save you because I couldn’t touch you.”

“Why? Why couldn’t you touch me, Rich?”

“I-I don’t know,” Richie says, “He said I was dirty. You said I was dirty.”

That doesn’t make sense to Eddie, Richie’s never once cared when Eddie has called him dirty or filthy or outright trash, but nightmares don’t make sense and he can tell whatever this one has shaken Richie.

“You’re not dirty, Richie,” Eddie says reassuringly, grabbing Richie’s hand, ignoring how Richie stills and rubbing his thumb soothingly across the back of it. “You’re not. I know you would’ve saved me.”

Richie shakes his head but before he can protest Eddie shushes him and pulls him to where he can burrow his head into Eddie’s side, the way he likes to when he gets like this.

Eddie wraps his arm around Richie, pulling him closer, ignoring the way the closeness makes him feel the same way he ignores the panic that rises up every time he’s around Richie, the same way he’ll wake up in the morning and ignore how much softer and nicer Richie looks while sleeping, the same way he’ll ignore how seeing Richie without his glasses makes Eddie wanna do something stupid like lean over and kiss him on annoying, always-open mouth.

Low, muffled sobs start coming from Richie and Eddie just pulls him even closer, as close to him as he possibly can be, and ignores those too.