Angel's End / reddie ghost au

Eight - Awake

Dead is permanent. Dead is forever. Dead is when the spark in the eyes is extinguished, yet unlike fire is utterly without smoke.
This is what Eddie had been told all his life. His mother hadn't raised him religiously.
But now he was really about to find out.

Death was a transition. The individual, the personality and the memories die but the soul moves on. It seems so strange that humanity didn't understand the soul for so long, that like any other form of energy it cannot be created or destroyed.

Eddie was sure he was dead, but yet, he felt as if he were in a lucid dream.
His mind was cold and empty. A panorama of nothingness. Yet he could somehow feel the rise and fall of his chest. The trickle of sweat down his brow. The pulsation of blood through his veins.

Maybe if he tried hard enough. Maybe if he tried hard enough to open his eyes he would wake back up.
That this was all just a bad dream.
That he'd finally get the happiness Beverly told him he'd deserved. That he'd get to live out those wasted childhood days with Bill.

Maybe if he tried harder.

Come on Eddie.
Wake up
Wake up
WAKE UP
WAKE UP!

His eyes jolted open.

...Holy fuck.

He was surrounded by darkness. A familiar darkness.
Eddie had seen this darkness before, the kind that made his street like an old fashioned photograph, everything a shade of grey. This isn't like that. This was the darkness that robbed you of your best sense and replaced it with a paralysing fear. In this darkness, Eddie sat, muscles cramped and unable to move. He only knew his eyes were still there because he could feel himself blink.

This was the unmistakable darkness of his own bedroom. The poisonous blackness his mother loved to torture him with by locking him in it.

But how? How was he in his bedroom? Maybe he fell back asleep and was discharged from the hospital... maybe he didn't die!
Hope and excitement filled his body.
MAYBE HE DIDN'T DIE!

"Hello?"

The voice sent a painful shudder through Eddie's chest, causing him to jump in a mix of fear and surprise.
Eddie practically leaped to his feet and turned around, holding out his hands in front of his face to protect himself from the intruder.

When he finally let himself peak he was dumbfounded by what he saw.

Standing in front of him was a boy.
A boy that towered a good few inches above him with unruly black hair and thick bottle lens glasses. He was wearing baggy jeans and a grey top underneath a large Hawaiian shirt which hid his scrawny figure.

He smiled, intrigued, with his plush full lips. His sharp cheekbones protruding as he grinned.

"Who-who are you?!" Eddie asked alarmed. His cheeks feeling hot and his heart rate quickening.

The lanky boy looked down at his feet.
"I-I don't know how to tell you this Eddie,"

Eddie's eyes widened, confusion and panic rushing through him, "How the heck do you know my name? And how the heck did you get in my house?!"

The boy reached a thin arm up and adjusted his glances, tilting his head and looking sadly at the small boy.
"Eddie... It's me... Richie. Richie Tozier."

Suddenly it was like the car had hit Eddie all over again. But this time it wasn't a car of metal and oily parts but a car of realisation... and despair.
It felt as if on hearing Richie's words Eddie realised what he needed will never come and no matter how much he seeked he would not find. He had wasted his life away. He'd never tried to make friends. He didn't live his life to the max. He had just been a boy who seemed he wasn't born for great things, nor to find his place in the sun. He could've tried every day of his life to work for what he wanted and needed, but there were no paths to success for him.

"Oh my god," Eddie sobbed, his voice breaking. He fell to the ground, no energy left in his body.

In the hospital he had accepted death. He thought he'd die happy. But it wasn't that simple. In that brief moment he thought he was still alive he felt a feeling he had never felt before. Hope. Hope that he'd finally turn his life around. That he'd finally be happy. But no.

He was dead.
He was dead.
HE WAS DEAD.

"No!" Eddie wailed, tears forcing themselves from his eyes, "NO!"

Richie stood their watching. His heart breaking at the scene in front of him. Eddie seemed so fragile. So weak.

Richie walked slowly over to him, crouching down on one knee and placing a hand on Eddie's shoulder.

Richie could feel him trembling. Something that felt so foreign to Richie as he hadn't been able to touch someone in years.
Even though Eddie's hope had been extinguished, Richie felt a flicker of it suddenly enlighten in him. Richie wasn't alone anymore.

He wanted to look after Eddie. To make sure nothing hurt him. To protect him.

He had known Eddie for longer than Eddie knew. He had always been able to see Eddie, just never able to speak to him or touch him. How Richie longed for human touch.

"It's okay," Richie whispered, pulling Eddie slightly into a hug, "It'll be okay I promise."

Eddie's eyes froze over like the surface of a winter puddle, robbing them of their usual warmth. He's in there, Richie knew it, the boy he'd been dying to talk to for years. The boy with the wonderful imagination and best dance moves when he thought he was dancing alone in his room. Richie wanted to reach in and tell him it wasn't hopeless, but he knew Eddie wouldn't believe him.
Richie want to rekindle his heat but Eddie's insides were too damp with uncried tears. Richie always knew he had pain inside, he had seen how his mother treated him. But Eddie had been so strong. He had barley cried. But now its visible on his face and he wished it would go away. Richie knew that's a selfish want, people have a right to their pain, they don't ask for it - it just arrives like the gift they never wanted.
But now Richie wasn't alone anymore...
And neither was Eddie.

They'd both found someone.
They'd both found each other.
And it felt like perfect timing.