𝔸 ℝ𝕠𝕤𝕖 𝔹𝕪 𝔸𝕟𝕪 𝕆𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕣 ℕ𝕒𝕞𝕖 - reddie

#𝟚𝟜: 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔽𝕖𝕒𝕣 𝕠𝕗 𝔽𝕠𝕣𝕓𝕚𝕕𝕕𝕖𝕟 𝔽𝕖𝕖𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕘𝕤

"On pain of death, no person be so bold."

I remember Shakespeare had said that. He was one of Eddie's favorite poets and playwrights in history. Even though Eddie had never been much of a play person or a poems person, he could appreciate the small morsels of reality that Shakespeare always served.

"Then love-devouring Death do what he dare."

From Romeo and Juliet, Eddie's favorite play.

Romeo and Juliet. Two lovers. One assumed dead, and grieving, the other takes his own life. One partner wakes from her drugged slumber and finds her lover dead beside her. In her own state of grieving, she plunges his sword deep into her chest.

I shuddered. The clown's praying mantis hand. The blood. The crying.

I shook the thought away.

Too soon.

The exchange of Romeo and Juliet, the tragedy of it all. Neither of them wished to live in a world where the other did not exist. Beside Juliet, Romeo drank poison. Beside Romeo, Juliet stabbed her own heart. Side by side. Together. No matter the setting, no matter the grief, all they wanted to do was be with each other.

And the worst part of it all.

Romeo could have avoided both of their deaths altogether. Juliet was simply in a coma, and his own suicide was not something that needed to be done. But even then, that's where the shame seeps in. If Romeo hadn't killed himself and had simply checked to see that Juliet was truly alive, then she wouldn't have found him dead beside her. She wouldn't have killed herself too.

And I guess I understood Romeo. You wish you could take it all back for a chance to fix it.

And every loophole I thought about led to Eddie. 

No.

No, no, too soon.

The more I let my head rest against the bank of the fallen barrens, surrounded by the losers, the more I could feel the blood rush to my head. I felt even more delirious and light-headed. It was sickening to even imagine what the future would be like.

And I didn't necessarily mean ten years from now, I meant tonight, tomorrow, next week, in a month, and so forth.

I hated the idea of going home and having to fall asleep. I was livid about it, if I was being honest. I had to slump back to my apartment in LA, remove my shoes, take a shower, get fresh clothes on, and lie in bed. Lie in bed and stare at the ceiling. I doubted I would be sleeping again for a while. I had seen too much today.

When we had battled the clown the first time, I didn't sleep for weeks. I would lie in bed and stare directly at the door, waiting to see a red balloon drift through my room. It made me paranoid, paranoid enough to not walk home alone after school. And even back then, I didn't see the amount that I saw this time. 

If fourteen-year-old Richie Tozier had watched fourteen-year-old Eddie Kaspbrak get stabbed through the torso, directly in front of him, he would never sleep again. 

And even now, I wasn't sure I wanted to.

As the sun rays began to beat down against my head, soaking my cob-webbed hair with a deep coat of sweat, I felt my stomach lurch. It murmured softly in the repulsion it felt. Now that I had time aside from the panic I felt to think things through, everything started to dawn on me.

It wasn't a dream.

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

What goes down must also go up. Or something like that.