✓ 𝗦𝗘𝗘 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗟𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧, reddie

vii. the magic

THE MAGIC!

　 ҉ SONIA KASPBRAK TUGGED EDDIE towards a hole in the floor that led to the basement. His knees scraped harshly against the wood, prickling his legs with blood. He fought against her, tugging, yanking away with all of the might in his small body. "Stop fighting me!" Sonia shouts. Richie is bleeding out on the floor, hardly awake.

"I will not stop fighting you, for every minute I'm in that hole," Eddie rasps, falling weakly onto the floor as Sonia stops tugging to look at him, "I will always be fighting to get away from you! But if," He glances towards Richie, face contorted in pain. The handcuffs are digging into his own wrists, but the physical pain doesn't hurt nearly as much as seeing Richie lying lifelessly on the floor. "If you let me heal him, I'll go with you," He says, turning back to Sonia.

She shifts and looks over his shoulder to where the taller boy lays. Weakly, Richie gasps out in disapproval of Eddie's words, but it's too late for any other choice to be made as Sonia clicks the small boy's chains open with a key and allows her son to crawl over to where his friend weakly lay. His body is heaving with wragged breaths, and his dark hair is sticky with sweat. "Hey," Eddie says, grasping onto his head to pull it into his lap, where he gently plays with his curly locks, "It's okay, it's okay. I got you." He settles a hand over the would and forces a sad smile.

Before Eddie can sing, Richie's hand grasps around the chain of his necklace and tugs it sharply; the chain cracks away from his neck, and Richie slams the glass into the wooden flooring, where the glass around the blood and pollen shatters. The ruby red substance drains from the crack in the glass slowly along the floorboard as Eddie cries out, trembling. He turns to see his mother; except, it's not her anymore, not the youthful woman he is used to seeing. Her hair is all gray and she's smaller and bent forward sickly, and her skin looks loose on her body. She takes a wobbly step back and falls into the hole that leads to the basement. Eddie's heart wrenches at the sight, but then he swings his head towards Richie, where tears gather in his eyes. "Eddie," Richie whispers, "It's okay. It's over."

"No," Eddie sobs out, watching as Richie's eyes close tiredly, consciousness draining from him. He grips onto his face carefully, watching as his head falls into his lap further. Tears begin pouring then, a steady river along his face as he towers over the boy. Again, he says, "No." It's a whisper now, hardly a noise from his hoarse throat as he sobs.

One of his hands is in Richie's hair, curly and matted to his forehead, dry against Eddie's clammy finger tips. His other hand is settled over the wound, which bled through the fabric of his tee sickly, a bright red which darkens as it spreads over the fabric. "Please," Eddie whispers, "please, don't, c'mon," And then he realizes that this is the last moment he will spend with the boy who he'd grown to know over the course of the week and care for more than anyone he's known. Still, he stays, and he cries. Richie's eyes are peering up at him, tired and glossy, and Eddie can't tell if he's still conscious or not. For a fleeting moment he turns and scrambles for the necklace, but his mother is gone, and he knows his powers died with her.