affection || reddie 💫

Chapter 36

It was about 11:45am when Eddie and Richie finally arrived at the clubhouse, late due to the fact they spent like twenty whole painful minutes at Richies while he decided which socks to wear.

"You said you just needed to come here to grab a shirt Richie! You've spent fifteen minutes looking at socks!" Eddie spat.

"Hey you're interrupting my train of thought here; now I'm gonna have to start all over again."

"Rich I swear to god—!"

—

They both carefully made their way down the ladder, echoes of the other losers voices booming from the clubhouse followed by silent 90's music in the background.

"You're late," Bill eyed them.

Richie jumped from the second last step onto the dusty floor and pushed back the thick frames on his face, "what is this? School? You gonna give us a tardy slip or something?"

"No, but how about we give you— hey, what happened to you??"

Stanley was taken aback as he spun around and noticed the dark-bruises covering Richies usually clear skin, the other losers then taking notice of it too. He brought a hand up to hide his face in spite of them already seeing it and proceeded to rest his other arm on Eddies head, "got hit by a car while trying to save my pet fish," he blurted out, Eddie pushed his arm off and grimaced.

"Wait, really?" Mike asked, Stanley shot him a dirty look and threw a skittle at his head, "no you idiot, he doesn't even have a fish!"

"Hey how do you know? I could have a fish," Richie shrugged, still slightly covering his face.

"Because I'm pretty sure I would've seen it before."

"No, I could keep it in the toilet bowl or some shit—"

"Richie just tell them already, I swear to god!!" Eddie spat, crossing his arms, when he looked up, Richie was looking down at him with a slightly nervous expression on his face, and for a moment, Eddie was going to apologise and give him big hug or some shit, but Richie just sighed and walked over to the hammock, sitting down onto it.

"Last night.. when I left the party, Bowers saw me and- and he got out of his car.. and.. yeah you probably know what happened from there.. what I'm trying to say is, he's the reason for these bruises on my face.. and don't have pity for me or any shit like that because I'm honestly fine now, so.." Richie told them, playing with the hem of his shirt, Eddies eyebrows knitted together as he went and sat down next to him, giving him a small kiss on the cheek for reassurance.

"Oh shit.." Stanley glanced at Bill, his eyes wide.

Beverly scanned Richies face and shook her head, "we're sorry Rich.."

"What'd I say? I'm fine seriously guys, but just watch your asses alright? Henry's up all of ours," Richie lifted a hand momentarily just to put it down again, making it accidentally land in Eddies lap.

"He's- he's up our a-asses..?" Bill questioned, Richie rolled his eyes, "you know what I mean."

After that the other losers continued what they were doing before-hand, repairing some walls, spitting skittles at each other, discussing the maths homework, sitting there wondering why they ever even associated with these losers in the first place *cough cough Stanley*. Richie turned to Eddie, both of them still sitting in the hammock, about to ask if he wanted to fuck with Bens radio and turn off 'new kids on the block' just to annoy him, but before he could, he noticed how Eddie was kinda frozen, pupils blown wide as he glanced around nervously.