5555 reddie (Completed)

Part 28

"What?" Eddie asks, and Richie feels Eddie come up behind him. Then Eddie crouches down beside Richie to see what he is looking at.

"They must have a young kid," Richie states, gesturing. "Look at all these stickers."

"I think I used to have that sticker book," Eddie thinks out loud, and if he bumps Richie's knee with his own it is only an accident. Scraping his nail to the corner of one of the spotted dog stickers, Richie peels it off and sticks it on the leg of Eddie's jeans. "You shouldn't do that. The kid that put them up will be upset one's out of place," Eddie says, but he doesn't remove the sticker, he just stares.

"I think they can deal with one missing sticker," Richie says quietly. He rises to his feet before Eddie can reply, and makes his way over to the thermostat right above the couch. Eyebrows raised, Richie huffs. "This is fucking weird. Look at this, Eds." Eddie stands up and eyes the thermostat.

"55.55," he reads the thermostat and a small grin pulls at his lips. "That's really cool."

"Why is that cool? Kinda gives me the creeps." Richie reaches to turn the heat up, because the house is freezing and there are goose bumps all over his body. This house is most likely nothing but a vacation home; the temperature is so low that nobody could possibly have been here for a while. But Eddie grabs Richie's wrist and shakes his head, eyebrows furrowed and lips parting.

"You can't change it," Eddie says.

"Why not? It's freezing."

"Yeah, but 5555," Eddie says.

"5555?" Richie questions. Eddie is acting a little ridiculous. "What in hell is 5555 and why is it more important than us being warm?"

"It's an angel number," Eddie states, looking at Richie a little strange, as if he is stumped Richie didn't already know. "You don't know about those?"

"Fuck no. What's an angel number?" Richie asks incredulously, because what is Eddie going on about?

"Angel numbers are cool," Eddie replies shyly, rubbing his arm. "They can mean a bunch of different things, depending on when you see them in your life... basically it's a message from an angel." And Richie stares.

"You don't actually believe in that kind of garbage do you?" Eddie only shrugs, perhaps a little embarrassed.

"I like that kinda stuff. It always seems to work for me, at least," Eddie says. "Like... the night I met you... a few hours before I took off from my house, I was doing my math homework, and I got 5555 as an answer for one of the problems." Richie waits for more context, because while this whole angel number thing seems a little farfetched and childish, the way Eddie's face lights up as he recalls the night he and Richie met is too good to disrupt. "I figured that was the angels telling me something. And then you talked to me in the woods. We spent hours together. And then we just... picked up and left Derry."

Turning back to the thermostat, Richie keeps the angel number 5555 in mind. Curiously, he asks, "So what could this be telling us right now?"

"I don't know," Eddie says. Richie smiles teasingly, throwing an arm over Eddie's shoulder as they stand side by side staring at the low temperature.

"Ah, so you're no angel expert, then." Eddie shrugs off Richie's arm and swats him on the back of the head, smiling.

"It could mean literally a million things," he explains to Richie. "Like, it's really common for you to see it if something important is about to happen... or when you need to let something go, or someone go. Usually you don't know what it means until the something actually happens, and you connect it." While Eddie looks to Richie expectantly, Richie simply nods slowly, biting his lip, feigning consideration. It is no surprise when he turns around and walks to the kitchen, shouting, "So lame, Eds!" over his shoulder.

"It's not lame!" Eddie calls back. "Just you see!"

"Lame," Richie sings. The kitchen is relatively bland; there are plain tiles on the floors and walls, an empty fridge, a microwave left open, forgotten. "This house is way nicer than my folks' place."

"Mine too," Eddie agrees softly. "I wish they had some food."

"I wish we'd taken our snacks with us from the car," Richie admits. "That would've been a smart move."

"I wish I'd remembered to bring my sketchbook," Eddie says, looking disheartened. For some reason Richie's heart swells. Eddie has always liked to draw. The day he and Richie ran away, he had insisted they stop back at his house for a quick second, so that he could take all his drawing supplies with him.

"If they've got kids here, I'm sure they've got some colored pencils and paper around," Richie says, and he leaves the kitchen to try and find the child's bedroom, which he does, right around the corner from the master bedroom. There is a small twin bed in the center of the room, with pink polka dotted sheets and several stuffed animals tucked around the pillows. Richie goes to the closet and rummages through bins of arts and crafts, and eventually he finds a notebook and a pack of crayons, which he supposes is better than nothing. He finds Eddie in the master bedroom, inspecting the silky sheets, feeling them between his pointer and thumb fingers. "Here. Found these for you," Richie tells Eddie, and Eddie peers up at Richie, hesitance written in his eyes. Eddie says nothing, only keeps his eyes trained on Richie as he accepts the paper and writing utensils. It has been quiet so long Richie has lost track of time. Clearing his throat uncomfortably, he asks, "What is it? Have I got something on my face?"

It feels like decades pass before Eddie replies.

"Would you let me draw you?" he asks, and Richie blinks, startled. That is at the bottom of things he expected Eddie Kaspbrak to ask. "I've never drawn you before. I wanna try."

"Well." Richie is at a loss for what to say. He swallows nervously and pulls his bottom lip between his chattering teeth. It is still so incredibly cold in here. "Okay. I don't know how good of a subject I'll be... but okay." Eddie takes Richie's wrist and walks him over to sit on the bed. He looks at Richie expectantly, and Richie is unaware of what Eddie wants. "What do I do?"

"Just sit there," Eddie tells him, and Richie doesn't think it's ever been this hard to sit still. Eddie sketches him for a whole five minutes until he shakes his head and rips the page out, slamming the paper and colored pencils onto the beside table. "You look uncomfortable."

"Can't say I'm not," Richie replies honestly. "Maybe you can draw me later."

Eddie hums in reply.