| It's Always Been You | Reddie Fanfic |

19

The knock resonated through Richie's god awful empty house. Beverly waited for less than half a second before bursting into his house anyway.

"Richie?" She called with a grim tone of voice, "Rich, you there?"

"Up here!" The boy called back from his bedroom where he laid still in his comforters. The events from the night before tormented his mind and invaded every last thought he had. Fortunately, the warm blankets kept out as many unwanted thoughts as he needed, though, they only could keep out so many.

All of a sudden, the girl burst into the room, letting the door slam against the wall. Each slab of wood in the house shook, but neither noticed. Her eyes were red, bloodshot as if she'd been sleeping for 2 hours maximum every night. "Richie," her sweet voice was soft and broken.

"Bev? You okay?" Richie furrowed his brows, trying his best to read her emotional state.

There was a cold, discomforting silence before she chimed in again, "It's Eddie." Richie frowned. He didn't know what was going on with the small boy, but he knew it was anything but good. Mrs. Kaspbrak walked in on them kissing and now Beverly is in his house with the worst expression plastered to her face. "He's gone," her voice broke and she sniffled a bit. The red eyes made sense now, for she'd been crying for hours. Now, the tears forming in the room were not only her's.

"What?" The boy shot up from his bed, causing the frame to squeal in pain. "Where is he? Is he okay? What's wrong? Why is he-"

"Richie." Beverly quickly shut him up, "They're out of town. Gone." The dead silence reappeared and shock settled in. The air had thickened and quickly enough, breathing began to become hard. Richie had it the worst. His chest was bobbing up and down while he silently sucked in gallons of air so he kept himself alive. There was no explanation needed, Richie knew that Eddie had gone because of him and their immature kiss. He knew that after he left, Sonia had forced the small boy to pack his things and leave. However, the question of where he went continued to rest uneasy in Richie's coldblooded veins. Nobody knew where the small boy was going to be, or for how long, or even if where he was going was even safe.

Richie contemplated the possibility that his mother had thrown him into a rotting house to die, but when he realized the insanity, what he imagined then was much worse. Sonia had seen the two kiss, which obviously resulted in something bad last night, but what? Did she assume he's gay or assumes that the raven boy had forced himself on the smaller one? Of course, he would never dream of doing something so terrible to such an innocent boy, or anybody for that matter, but Eddie was everything to Richie. There was not something in this galaxy that would make him want to hurt the small boy, but everything in the galaxy seemed to want him to. It felt like destiny was telling them that it was never meant to be.

The second time he thought he'd found love, it was taken from him once again. His first love is somewhere in an abyss far away and his second love is lying dead in a grave under a headstone. Maybe love wasn't for him. Richie wondered every day if maybe his loving wasn't part of his story, or maybe it's just him. What if he's the issue in all of his relationships. He allowed Connor out alone, he kissed Eddie knowing that Sonia would kill them. Was he really the problem?

The raven boy just stared at Beverly for a few minutes before he burst into tears. His head spun and his breathing began to speed up. He clutched his bare white comforter tightly and he pulled it into his arms as if he was scrambling to hold something or someone. Soft-toned wails buried themselves into the thick blanket as he tried to comprehend the information. Nobody could've convinced him that it wasn't his fault because to him, it simply, was.

Soft hands tried to grasp onto Richie's shoulders while they shook violently. Beverly tried comforting tones in her voice to calm the boy down, but it was unlikely that he was even processing her words. She wandered over to the other side of the boy's bed and crawled inside. Her arms softly wrapped around Richie's lean torso. They shook with him and the rest of her body followed as she got ever so much closer to where her legs clicked right next to his. A soft kiss was planted on his upper cheekbone before she rested her face in the back of his neck to lay while he calmed his shaking. Her button nose softly let out clouds of air that brushed the hair on the back of Richie's neck. Beverly squeezed her biceps to hold her best friend just a little tighter.

The skeletal boy let in shuddering breaths in an attempt to breathe normally. However, he failed and then began to wail once more. The blanket he held was damp with snot and salty tears. His nostrils were raw from scratching against the unknown material that held in the cotton clumps inside the blanket. It felt like a cold that ran into his brain just to tear him apart from inside.

Every last bit of motivation Richie had to get up or even move washed away. The wailing and tears stopped, his breathing still shook, but he was just staring at his closet. The nails on his right hand dug into his left palm as he gripped the soggy blanket harder. He winced in pain as his mind raced in fear over having the keratin pierce his skin and have blood seep into the snow-white blanket alongside the tears. Eddie was probably being beaten and bruised on the ride to a conversion camp out of state. He was probably hurt and it was all Richie's fault for being in love with more than one person at one time. If only he could control his stupid fucking emotions like a normal person. Because of his idiotic moves, his first love and probably last would be killed in prison because he's in love.

What felt like hours passed by and he hadn't moved an inch. The left half of his face was soaked in tears from what his pillow had picked up. An arm was still draped over him and a body clung to his back. Beverly was such a great hugger, probably the best anyone could ever meet. Her body fit everyone's so perfectly. Maybe it was her universally loved personality that made it all the better. Maybe it was how she'd cry with you over something that wasn't even affecting her life in the slightest. Maybe it was everything, but it really didn't matter because whatever it was made every person feel just that much better.

"I love you bev," Richie choked out, still shaking violently in the small bed. Even though he was extremely sensitive, the boy barely told anyone how he felt, there was no need to. Most times that he did, someone would hurt him. The parents that once stuck by his side had left him after saying "I love you". To Richie, love was just a word and really only had meaning when it came to the losers club and Connor. Oh, Connor. This moment was probably the worst time to think about his deceased lover.

The redheaded girl snuggled her head into the back of the lengthy boy. "I love you too Richie," she smiled a bit and reached to intertwine her hand in his. She wasn't just crying because of her empathetic nature, but because Eddie really had meant a lot to her. He had helped her when her dad hit and abused her. The boy always had supplies to fix cuts, bruises, and clean up the blood. He knew when she was lying about eating, drinking, smoking, and about how she felt. There were times where he had gone over to her house, somehow knowing that she was at the top of the building preparing to fly off. Never was there a time where he wasn't perfect. Then he met Richie. He was everything that Richie wasn't and Richie was everything he wasn't, a true soulmate. And to her, he was a guardian angel.

They both laid there for hours, wishing that Eddie would be okay, crying their hearts out.

~~~~~~

Word count - 1528

Oh my god, you guys it's been almost 5 months since i last updated this story. I'm so so sorry! I know this is kind of a short chapter for having been working on it for 5 months, but the next one should be good and long!

My school year has been chaotic and had kicked my ass so hard. Writing has been my only motivation this year, and I've barely been doing it so :D.

How are all of you?

-Em