open post;; yeah why's it so fuckin' funny dickwad?

[hypochondrias]

text/call/action ; open to losers and cross-canon! ; drop a starter or send me a prompt! ; specify era/age if you please

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[trashmouthing]

[ suddenly richie is glad he left his hand where it is because some part of him loosens all at once, sagging his shoulders into the worn mattress, turning his knees to jelly, the withering iceberg of his pretenses starting to melt at full tilt. he chokes back a sob and pushes his glasses off his face all the way so he can scrub at his eyes with the back of his wrist, knotting his fingers in his hairline after and pulling in deep breaths to try and steady out. he can still taste liquor on his breath but there's a kind of sick clarity sobering him fast: he needs to hear this, he needs to be heard. ]

Fuck.

[ part of him is always combative. he wants to say why didn't you say something but he knows he could ask himself that question just as easily. why didn't he say something at fifteen, when it might have made an even bigger difference? why didn't he say something the first night they were back in derry? he has fewer reasons not to do it. less to lose. practically nothing at all.

he sits up and uses the hem of his shirt to scrub at his face a little, sniffs, lets out a vaguely hysterical huff of a laugh. ]

I, uh. Used to wonder ... I dated, a little, you know, I'm fucking forty, you play a numbers game and you're gonna say yes sometimes and someone's gonna say yes sometimes. But it never really worked out. I got good at this thing where eventually, it doesn't matter how good it was, eventually someone was gonna ask for something and I wouldn't wanna give it. It wasn't always anything big, either. I dug my heels in about a lot of stupid shit. Eventually they'd get the picture. It didn't matter how fucking nice somebody was, I wasn't going to bat for them, I didn't want them enough to do it, I wasn't even playing ball. And I was like, yeah, it's me. The answer to the question what the fuck is your problem, Richie, it's always been me.

[ he keeps his hand over his eyes for the most part, feels more dampness against his fingers, but it doesn't stop him from gesturing out as he speaks. man used to monologuing. ]

But actually it's been you. —no, well. It's still me. Obviously it's me. It's me and the fucking thirty-year Wile E. Coyote hole in my brain you left when I forgot you. I won't pick somebody up from the fucking airport but I stayed in our shithole nightmare hometown for fucking ... weeks, I've never ...

[ never wanted so badly to pick another person up when they fell. ]

And that's not me being like, oh, [ mild voice ] I kept vigil by your bedside how darest thou not fall into my arms immediately [ end mild voice ] nah, man, I didn't do shit. You did all that shit, you got better on your own, you were so fucking strong, and brave, I just wanted to be there when it happened because I love it so much, I love seeing you like that. Not—hurting. Just—strong. It's who you are. I know you are. I've always known.

[ he wraps his arm around his knees, lets out a long breath for this last and awful truth. ]

It's all I know how to want.

i'm fucking EMOTIONS!!!!!!!!

[hypochondrias]

[ in the months after derry, eddie had come to learn a lot about richie. not just about his life now, but the important things: what he thought, what he believed, what he wanted. all of it was information eddie craved, like nourishment for a starving man. and each idea, no matter how minuscule or irrelevant, was precious. another step to close the enormity of the gap between them, the twenty-some years of emptiness.

but even after months of this, of hours of conversation during eddie's every waking hour, it's never been so raw. it's not a revelation so much as a dawning, sunlight breaking over the horizon. this is where the threads meet, his and richie's both, and eddie is so close to the truth he feels like he can reach out and touch it.

because whatever richie says, that's shit eddie's thought about himself too.

as eddie listens, he gets the immediate sense of not just vulnerability, but relief. an inherent trust richie places in him to reveal so much, to unburden himself three times his weight without expectation. eddie can hear it, the emotion in richie's voice and finds it moves him too, the beginning of tears welling up in his eyes. it's not just the honesty, or the fact that richie's expressing some kind of experience that's a mirror image of eddie's own, or that richie thinks he's not just brave, but strong when his whole life eddie's been anything but - it's everything. the way it's all come together and though three thousand miles separates them now, they've been in the exact same place since they were thirteen years old.

he's quiet save for a sniffle or two, until richie finishes and eddie finally releases a breath, fingers loosening from where they'd been curled tightly into the shoulder of his shirt. ]

Richie.

[ just his name, to reaffirm that he's here, he's heard him. he doesn't pause long for what he says next, in a tone that doesn't waver despite how overwhelmed he is. ]

I'm in love with you.

[trashmouthing]

[ richie drops his head on the tops of his knees, eyes squeezed shut. he can feel his face twisting in another effort not to cry out loud or lose his shit on the phone, the hard ache in his chest all cracked open and filling him with this liquid longing. ]

Eds—

[ the nickname, even now. one of the first claims richie ever staked on him before he knew what it meant to want someone bad enough to mark them like that, to hold onto them fast with limbs and teeth.

his whole life he's only wanted one thing. even when he didn't remember eddie, he wanted him. wanted him when he was small and slim and loud, wants the way he is now, rangy, scarred, even louder, just as perfect as he's always been, the vanishing point of all richie knows of desire. before derry richie figured the long years had frozen him over for good, but he knows better now, burns so fucking hard and hot he could give a fuck if anybody else gets hurt.

he's gripping his phone so tight the case is creaking in his hand. the room isn't spinning anymore. it's just dark, and richie is by himself, in his bedroom in los angeles, hugging his knees as if physically bracing his body can keep him from flying apart. ]

I'm so fucking in love with you. I lived my whole life in love with you. I'm gonna die in love with you.