✧alive✧ reddie

eighteen

Mature language

Mike POV

I opened the front door to only reveal Will and Eddie. "Will, Eddie? What are you doing here??" I asked a bit shocked and nervous, looking through a small gap between the door to prevent them from seeing Richie behind my smaller frame.

"Are you okay? You seemed upset, and we didn't see you at any other classes after lunch." Will explained.

"Yeah, I'm fine, I just need to rest okay?" I say, trying to convince the two from prying the real reason out of me.

"Are you s- Richie??" Will says, utterly shocked as his eyes widen behind me. Eddie picks up on this too, his eyes starting to buldge out, then a feeling of hurt sweeps over his chocolate irises that pierced through mine.

I close the door slightly, still peeking my eyes through and say, "No one's here, okay..?"

"I just saw him. There's no reason to deny it anymore, Mike." Will says, stepping closer with Eddie trailing behind. I take a deep breath I didn't know was holding then open the door completely.

"Okay, okay!" I say, throwing my hands up in defense.

"Why the hell is Richie with you?" Eddie joins in, a bit flustered. This confuses me, because why would he be- "Are you going to answer me, Mike?"

"He needed a place to stay. Did you know he's been sleeping in a dirty, old, unsecured tree house?" I defend him. Eddie's eyes start to hollow in sadness, while Will doesn't seem convinced.

"Sure, yeah. But do you realize what he did to Eddie? To you?" Will fires back. This takes me off guard, because I don't recall Eddie even speaking of what happened on the field when Richie kissed me in front of him. Unless Richie slipped it out to one person, then it spread to him or something. Who knows?

"I-I should go.." Richie stutters in, then brushes past the two heading down the porch steps.

"Richie, wait!" I call out, only to be ignored. "What the fuck, you guys??" I exclaim, turning to them.

"What the hell were you even doing with Richie in the first place?" Eddie asks.

"Like I told you, he needed-"

"You know what I mean."

"I actually don't." I say, making Eddie groan in annoyance.

"You were all mad at him this morning, what happened?" Will asks.

"I was all upset at lunch so then I went outside, Richie came to me and started to comfort me or whatever, and I guess I forgot about the fact that I should hate him or something. You know, there's more than one side of the story." I briefly explain.

"Why were you upset, you never answered me?" Will questions.

"I.. I can't tell you. Look, I'm sorry, I want to tell you I really do but- it's just complicated.. okay?" I say earning a shrug from him. I notice Eddie looking behind him, glueing his eyes to where he saw Richie last, then turned towards us.

"You know, Richie told me about you and him." I tell Eddie, pink dusting across his splattered freckles.

"Well he shouldn't have.." Eddie said.

"I don't know about you guys, but I'm going to go find Richie, Cya." I wave, walking down the steps.

"W-wait..!" I hear Eddie call out as I get on my bike, Will looking at Eddie as to why he would say that. "Can I come..?"

"Eddie are you sure?" Will says, making sure this is truly what he wanted and not out of pity. "Yeah." I heard Eddie whisper back in response.

"Sure, just grab your bike. Will, you coming?" I call back. He shakes his head no and gives Eddie a kiss on his cheek and walks away. "Its my turn to make dinner tonight." He says, then gives us one last glance before riding his bike off. I turn to Eddie and gesture him to ride along behind me, considering I was the one who knew where this tree house is. But little did I know Eddie did too.

After quite some while, we made it to the forest and walked through the dirt and plants, our bikes to our sides. We were constantly looking up to try to spot the tree house, in which this lack of focus to where we were stepping caused Eddie to trip on something.

"Aw fuck!" He yelped, trying his best to get up.

"You okay?" I ask, a bit concerned. "I guess.." he replies, digging through his phanny pack, searching for something. Once he found it, he pulled out a bandaid and placed it over a scrape on his shin from the fall. He nodded at me in indication to keep heading forwards. Once we spotted the tree house, we quickly climbed up the ladder and saw Richie sitting in a corner, back facing us.

Without hesitation, Eddie ran up to him and hugged him from behind, arms wrapping around his chest. Richie put his hands over the backs of Eddie's forearms as if he were hugging back, accepting the embrace. I smiled softly at their approaches to one another. This felt.. right. Maybe not only to them but, on an outside perspective, it felt as if they were soul mates.

Eddie POV

At this moment I didn't care anymore. I missed him, I absolutely missed his presence, I couldn't deny it.

"Rich.."

"What happened to 'going our seperate ways', eds?" He says, letting out a soft chuckle. I ignored his reply, burying my head in the crook of his neck, still having having my arms around him.

"I'm sorry." I apologize, him turning from the corner to face me.

"No, I am. For- for everything. You don't need to apologize." He reassures.

"Yes I Do! You did nothing wrong! I was the one that shut you out!" I exclaim. "I'm just.. so, so sorry.."

"Eddie." Richie says, taking my hands in his own. "Don't blame yourself, it's not just on you, okay? I shouldn't have just run away like that, I'm weak."

"But what's wrong with that? Everyone has a weakness, right? Let's just say, by both of our actions, we caused each other to do things we regret. Unless, that is, you don't regret it." I say. I almost completely forgot Mike was still here until I heard him clearing his throat. Richie and I let go of our hands, realizing we have been holding them this whole time.

"So um, Richie, are you still up for staying at mine if I'm allowed to have you over?" Mike says awkwardly, standing near the doorway with his fingernails picking at each other. I look over back at Richie, to see if he's made up his mind.

"Yeah, sure, if it's okay with you and your parents?" He says, then looking at me with a small smile, in which I gladly return.

"Great, I'll just call my mom one sec," he says, grabbing is phone from his back pocket. He quickly taps some thing on the screen before he brings his phone up to his ear. It rings a few times, before someone picks up on the other end.

"Hey can my friend, Richie stay the night? His parents are cool with it." Mike says. He let out a few "uh huhs" and "yeps" before he finally said goodbye and put his phone back in his pocket.

"She said yeah, just make sure not to be too loud." Mike explains to Richie.

"Yeah, yeah, of course. Thank you."

"Anytime."

Okay first of all I apologize for not updating sooner I wish I could've updated yesterday but I was busy with things. Also IM SO PROUD OF CALPURNIA AHH City Boy is like my new favorite song thank you guys for blessing my ears💕 happy late birthday Ayla and also happy international women's day💕💕 wow so many things going on not to mention the new episode of Riverdale that aired yesterday I'm shooketh anyways I hope this was an alright chapter and hope to update soon soo