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For probably the first time ever, Richie’s not dreading going back to school— somehow, having a demonic chucklefuck trying to kill you and your friends all summer makes strict teachers and stupid assignments look appealing. He’ll probably change his tune after a week, but right now Richie’s craving mind numbing mundanity after the fucking hell they’d been through.
Not that it was all bad. Ben, Mike, and Beverly were part of their club now, though it feels as if they always were. Stan would probably say that’s because of shared trauma or whatever, but Richie thinks it’s because in some way, they were destined to be best friends. Lucky number seven, the way it’s supposed to be. He knows it’s right, knows that it’s fate or whatever the fuck, because of the way the losers make him feel. It’s the buzz he gets when he lands a joke right and they’re all laughing, the comfort and solace he felt when they wrapped their arms around each other in the sewers, how light and easy it is when they’re cramped in the clubhouse, doing their own thing but soaking in one another’s company.
The clubhouse. That’s where he’s going right now, on the last day of summer, just a few days after bashing that ugly motherfucker’s head in with a baseball bat and making their oath. The others won’t be there—he didn’t call them up, and they’d all been at home since they parted ways in the fields. Partly because their parents were angry with their sudden disappearance, and partly because they needed time to recuperate, or at least attempt to. Hanging out in the clubhouse without them won’t be the same, but Richie wants to be in the place they’ve made their own little safe haven. (Literally, that place is fucking tiny as shit). He wants to be surrounded by that feeling of belonging his friends give him, so that he can have the strength to take a deep breath and keep going, to put this fucking summer behind him.
Besides, his hyperactive brain already read his new comics like, five, times and he was fucking bored.
His bike falls with an awful clatter as he drops it unceremoniously at the entrance of the woods, making the rest of the way to the clubhouse on foot and narrowly avoiding tripping over tree roots. Once he reaches it, he can see that the hatch is propped open slightly by a cinderblock. A frightened chill runs down Richie’s spine. No one else should be here. Did they not kill It? Was it Bowers, escaped from jail and trying to finish what he started?
Their safe place, not so safe anymore.
He picks up the cinderblock, in case he needs to protect himself, and cautiously steps down the ladder, jumping off at the last couple rungs.
“Alright, you musty motherfucker!” Richie yells as he whips around, raising the cinder block and ready to swing.
Except, it’s not the clown or Bowers across from him, but Eddie, clutching onto a discarded plank and screaming.
“WHAT THE FUCK?!” Eddie screeches, and they remain in a standoff, makeshift weapons raised and shrieking at each other until their brains finally realize they aren’t in danger. Eddie drops his wooden plank and sighs, a mixture of relief and frustration. Richie, not thinking, does the same and almost drops the cinderblock on his feet.
After jumping away from the cinderblock at the last second, Richie clears his throat awkwardly, brushing his sweaty palms against his jeans. “Well, uh, fancy running into here.”
“Jesus fucking Christ Rich,” Eddie snaps, running a hand through his hair, which is slightly curlier than usual. Cute. “Could you, I don’t know, announce yourself next time? I thought you were that—that clown.”
“Me? You’re the one down here with the fucking door propped open and shit.”
Eddie settles back into the hammock that’s tied between two posts, the most sought-after spot in the clubhouse. “This place is stuffy and dusty as shit. I was trying to let in some fresh air.”
“Whatever, I’m not gonna do the whole, ‘Honey I’m home’ routine with that red nosed bastard,” Richie says, making his way to the crate that’s filled with their comic book collection. “Don’t wanna give it the wrong idea—I’m way out of its league. Eugh, imagine having to kiss that bucktoothed, rotten egg smelling motherfucker hello every night.”
“You say that as if you don’t reek,” Eddie quips, so quickly that it feels like second nature. He reaches for a notebook on the ground, and a pencil from his fanny pack.
Richie frowns, selecting which comic to read. “Whatever. What’re you doing here anyways?”
"I… needed to get out of the house. Away from my mother.” Eddie answers, flipping open his notebook. “Why are you here? I thought you’d be hanging with those guys at the arcade.”
A sharp pain spreads through Richie’s chest, his cheeks growing hot as he remembers the other week. How he asked the other boy to play another round, how Bowers embarrassed him in front of everyone, how he called him a name that Richie couldn’t even find it in himself to deny. Because it might be true.
He had gone there afterwards, of course, though he had been a bundle of nerves, and let himself get swept up into the game, releasing all his frustrations towards Henry and Bill and this stupid fucking town out on Street Fighter. This time no one crowded around to see Ol’ Trashmouth beat his own record again.
The arcade’s not his safe place, not like this is, not like what he needed right now. It was too tainted with vitriol and the news that Beverly was taken, too void of the innocent, money wasting fun it used to be.
“No,” Richie swallows thickly, nervously fixing his glasses so they sit correctly on the bridge of his nose. “I’m kinda sick of spending my time there.”
“Oh,” Eddie nods, looking away for a moment before meeting his eyes again. “Well… Good. I told you it’d be a crappy way to spend the summer.”
Richie snorts, plopping onto the swing that’s across from the hammock. It’s less desirable, since the strings have become slightly uneven, and the seat is uncomfortable, digging into his bones. “Yeah, because I’m sure the rest of it was on your bucket list.”
Shit. He needs to stop thinking about that murderous bitch. He watches as Eddie turns his focus to his notebook, biting at his lip as he thinks before beginning to write. It looks sloppy, unlike his usual penmanship, though that makes sense, since he broke his right arm, and his left palm is wrapped with a bandage. Eddie catches him staring, raising a brow at him and giving a brief smile before continuing whatever he was working on. Richie feels a little awkward, but also feels overcome with the urge to annoy Eddie, so he gets off the swing and stands in front of the hammock.
“Get up.”
“What?! No!” Eddie scowls, “I got here first, and we’re the only ones in here. Go sit somewhere else.”
Richie starts swinging the hammock back and forth, “Oh, weird, I thought there was a ‘verbal agreement’ that we had to take turns.”
“Shut the fuck up, that’s different,” Eddie argues, and fends off Richie with his foot as he tries to climb in. Richie grabs at Eddie’s ankles keeping him from kicking and folds up his legs. “What the hell are you doing, dipshit?”
“You’re shorter than me, it’ll be easier for your legs to hang off the side,” Richie explains, stumbling into the already wobbling hammock.
Eddie lets out an indignant squawk as he’s jostled around, the hammock almost flipping over. “I’m not fucking short, asshole, and I didn’t agree to this!”
Richie tries to situate himself, one of his legs is over half of Eddie’s stomach, foot hanging over the side. He sticks out his tongue. “Too late. I’m already all comfy.”
“Seriously, what the fuck? What if we fell out and I like, broke my arm? Again! Or broke my other arm?! Then I’d have two broken arms!”
“Then maybe you’d let me sign the other one, so I didn’t have to look at that ‘losver’ thing.”
Eddie furrows his brows, “It’s not—I wrote the ‘v’ over… Never fucking mind.” He goes to continue his work, but scoffs after just a moment. “‘Losver’, are you stupid? Like, are you literally devoid of any braincells?”
Richie shrugs, smiling to himself, enjoying the way he knew just how to rile Eddie up. He had already asked Eddie about it while they were waiting for everyone to come to the field, now that he’d had an opportunity to really look at it. (‘Who’s your lover then, Eds?’ ‘Don’t call me that, and your mom, Trashmouth’). When he had pushed a little harder, Eddie said something about not giving a shit if others like Gretta Keene think he’s a loser, because he’s got a lot of love, and he’s loved by his friends. He was ‘declaring it to Derry’, making sure they knew what he did, or whatever. It still seemed like there was more to it, since Eddie’s eyes were darting around and his leg was bouncing with nervous energy, hoping that Richie wouldn’t prod any further. Richie had just cracked some joke about Eddie being and inexperienced sap and turned his attention elsewhere. Truthfully, he likes what Eddie did with his cast, though it sort of makes his stomach turn itself into knots, like when he held his hand during their oath and caught another glimpse of it.
Eddie tries to knock Richie out of the hammock once more, but when it’s evident Richie’s not getting out, he huffs and brings his legs back from over the side, draping one of them over Richie’s own and letting the other one nestle in the middle of their entangled limbs.
“Ugh, I can’t get comfortable now. Thanks, Rich,” Eddie sighs with disdain.
Richie spreads his comic book atop his stomach. “You’re welcome, hypocrite.”
“Did you just call me a fucking hippo?! If anything, this shit is going to break because of you.”
Richie bursts into laughter, so intense that he begins to wheeze. “Hypocrite, Eds, not hippo. Y’know, someone who yells at people for doing the exact same shit they do?”
Eddie’s face is completely red, and Richie can almost feel the heat radiating off his skin. “Oh.”
They return to their individual activities, but Richie can’t get past the first few pages of his comic. He can’t focus, not with how close they are. Their bare legs are brushed against one another, and Eddie’s leaning his head against Richie’s shin as he writes, jutting his tongue out as he erases something. The touch, the way he looks, it’s overwhelming. It’s overwhelming that he’s alive, that they’re both still here, together, after everything.
“What’re you working on, anyways?” Richie blurts out, leaving his comic abandoned.
Eddie looks up at him, lifting his head off his leg. “The summer essay.”
“Shit,” Richie groans, his head falling back. “I already forgot about that. Whatever, I can just write it tomorrow. Can’t be that hard to fill up a page with all the bullshit that happened.”
“You’re gonna write about Pen—It?”
Richie shrugs, “Might as well. They’ll think it’s a joke anyways, no one takes me seriously.” It comes out less joking and unaffected than he’d hoped.
“I’d take you seriously,” Eddie says immediately. Richie wants to laugh, because they’re always bickering and calling each other stupid, but he hears how genuine and soft his voice is. He understands what Eddie really means. That Eddie will take Richie seriously, at least for the stuff that matters.
Richie’s fingers twitch against where they rest on Eddie’s knee, his throat closing up. He fakes a cough, trying to dislodge the emotions that are bubbling up. “Okay, so. What are you gonna write about, then?”
“Well, you know, I have so much to choose from. Having a clown almost eat my face off, cleaning a bathroom covered in blood, scrubbing off demon vomit in my shower for hours while my mom yelled at me through the door…” Eddie lists off jokingly, though his voice and face looks exhausted. Like he feels weak. Unfortunately, Richie knows there’s more Eddie could say. He knows that they all went through a lot, but Richie hates that Eddie went through so much, that he almost fucking died when they first went to Neibolt, and that wasn’t even Eddie’s first encounter with It. Obviously, if that had happened to any one of them Richie would’ve been freaked out, but for some reason, because it was Eddie, it made him snap, made him fight Bill for bringing them there. “Anyways, I’m just making up some bullshit story about how I broke my arm falling off my bike and how it taught me to be more ‘careful’ or whatever.”
Richie barks out a laugh. “Careful? Eddie Kaspbrak, the badass that hit Ronald McDonald’s evil twin in the face?! Who screamed at it and whacked it on its ass with a piece of metal? Yeah, you’ve learned to be super careful this summer.”
He says it because it’s true, but also because Eddie needs reminding that he isn’t weak.
Eddie smiles bashfully, his cheeks full and flushing. Richie thinks it’s one of his most favorite things he’s ever seen. “Well, you’re the one who called it an asshole and swung a baseball bat at it’s head.” He bops the side of Richie’s head slightly with his socked foot to demonstrate.
“True,” Richie throws his arm behind his head, trying to pull of a Cool Guy Pose. It just makes Eddie laugh at him. “I’m pretty great, aren’t I?”
“You also almost broke my arm the other way when you tried to reset the bone, so…”
Richie eyes the cast again, sitting up a bit. “Does it… hurt?”
“No shit, Rich,” He snaps, flexing his fingers. Fuck, now Richie feels bad. Eddie notices the flash of hurt on Richie’s face and pokes his thigh with his toe. “I mean, it’s better now, at least compared to that day. And… Don’t let this get to your giant head or anything, but it’s probably a good thing you did, or else it’d be, like, fucking flopping around and shit the whole time I was in Mike’s basket and be worse off, so… Thanks.”
Richie nods, seeing that through Eddie’s expletives and nervous ramblings, he was being sincere. “Sometimes…” he starts, his voice getting quiet—a rarity that piques Eddie’s interest, the other boy setting down his things on the ground. “I think it’s all some stupid nightmare. That it didn’t happen. Or that it did, but we didn’t actually make it. Like, this, you and I, being here, is all fake too.”
“It did happen though. But we made it,” Eddie says, sitting up. “I mean, my arm, the cut on our palms. That’s proof. You aren’t making shit up, not… that thing, not that we survived.”
Richie looks at Eddie’s left palm, bandaged with care and precision. “Can I… See it? To be sure?” He hates the way his voice goes all high when he says it, and the fact that he said it all. He’s ready for Eddie to call him weird or stupid, but Eddie just looks at him for a moment and readjusts his posture, holding out his hand.
It takes Richie a second to realize he’s gotten permission, that he’s expected to unwrap the bandage. He leans closer, carefully removing the white gauze, letting it fall to the ground. Eddie’s cut isn’t bleeding anymore, thankfully, but it’s still raw and pink. It’s looks out of place on Eddie’s smooth skin, jagged and puckered.
Tentatively, Richie’s fingers hover over the scar, trembling. He meets Eddie’s eyes, which are wide but soft, and he’s not pulling away. Richie slowly touches the point where the glass first met his skin, and Eddie inhales sharply through his nose.
Richie pulls back his hand as if he’s just been burnt. Touch, it was Richie’s lifeline, a way of showing and receiving reassurance. But now it was tainted. No, Richie was tainted. He hated that he wanted to reach out for Eddie more than anyone else. That in some way, it was a little different.
I know your dirty little secret, the clown hisses in his ears. The disgust in the boy from the arcade’s face. Fairy. Eddie, shaking with fear in the house on Neibolt. DON’T FUCKING TOUCH ME. DON’T FUCKING TOUCH ME. DON’T FUCKING TOUCH ME! DON’T FUCKING TOUCH ME! DON’T FUCKING TOU--
“Rich?” Eddie’s voice, gentle and worried, pulls him from his thoughts. His hand is still held out in the little space between them.
“Yeah?” Richie breathes out.
“It’s fine, really. Just stung a bit. You’re good.”
Richie tries to find the lie in Eddie’s face, but he doesn’t look uncomfortable. He doesn’t know why Eddie’s humoring him, but he is. He shouldn’t. He might not, if he thought of Richie the way Bowers and everyone else did. The way he is, if Richie’s honest with himself.
And he knows Eddie likely didn’t mean it like that, but the way he called him good… It settles warmly in his bones, his heart swelling up. Maybe he isn’t as wrong as he feels.
For once in his life, Richie is tender and cautious as he reaches out once more, slowly tracing the scar with his fingertips. His touch is feather light, scared of hurting him again, or taking it too far. He doesn’t dare look at Eddie, fixating on the lines on his palms and just listening to his heavy breathing.
His own breathing is erratic, and he feels lightheaded, but he’s blaming that on the poor air circulation down in the clubhouse.
The whole thing feels strange. Typically, when he touches Eddie it’s quick and casual, an arm thrown around his shoulder, a nudge, a teasing push. Now, his touch is lingering, is purposeful. It’s invited and affectionate. This is intimate, not all the jokes about sex and shit. He’s able to feel every dip and crevice of Eddie’s hands, trying hard to memorize the way it feels.
Their oath, the scar they now share, both on their skin and in their souls, terrifies Richie. Because they don’t know if they really ended everything, and either way, what happened this summer is going to follow them around forever. In some way he’s glad he shares that with them, with Eddie, because he won’t feel so alone in it. But he also wishes they didn’t, that Eddie wouldn’t have to carry that pain around in him.
He hopes that, in tracing the scar, he replaces those memories with something good, for Eddie and himself. That it serves as a reminder that they’ll be there for each other, even if they have to come back and fight again. That when they look at the raised flesh on their hand, they won’t think about the stinging pain of the glass, or the tears spilled, but the tender moment they shared, the sensation of fingertips brushing against soft skin.
Finally, he lets himself pull away, daring to look at Eddie. His freckled face is flush, and his eyes have gone soft.
“Let me see yours,” Eddie says, voice barely audible. He clears his throat. “I mean, I don’t trust your medical skills. You probably have gangrene or something.”
Richie laughs anxiously but looks down and sees that the shitty band-aid he’s been using to cover up the cut has fallen off already. Shit, he hopes it’s actually okay.
Unlike Richie, Eddie takes his wrist without much hesitation, only wavering for a moment to look at Richie and then his forming scar before gently pressing his thumb against the marred flesh. That’s something Richie loves—likes, no, admires about Eddie. He may be logical and wary at times, but really, Eddie’s braver than he knows.
It does sting a bit, a lot actually, but Richie doesn’t fucking care. There’s no room in his brain to be able to anyways, because he’s just hyper focused on the fact that Eddie’s touching him. His heart is racing, hammering against his ribs to the point where it’s probably a medical concern. Each inch of skin feels electric, though he feels like he’s going to actually going to burst out of it, buzzing so much that he’s vibrating at an inhuman frequency.
His hand is shaking so bad that Eddie cradles it with his other hand, brushing his fingertips against Richie’s knuckles until they’ve reached his wrist, wrapping around and resting at the pressure point on wrist. Surely, he can feel how crazy fast Richie’s pulse is going. It’s embarrassing, really.
Eddie looks focused, eyebrows pinched together, and lips parted, like somehow this is the most important thing in the world. He looks up at Richie through his lashes for a second, and it’s as if the hammock broke in two, but the dirt floor of the clubhouse is gone, and now Richie’s tumbling out in the void, nothing to hold onto.
He clears his throat, needing to dissipate the energy even if he doesn’t want to. “So, uh. What’s the verdict doc?”
“What?” Eddie asks absentmindedly. It takes him a moment to remember their conversation, and he looks embarrassed that he forgot. “Oh, uh, it looks fine. You should probably get a better bandage for it, though.”
Richie’s fixated on the fact that Eddie’s still holding his hand, so he doesn’t really think about what he says in reply (not that he ever does). “What a shame. Here I was hoping you’d kiss it better.”
Oh shit. Fuck. Why are none of his jokes landing today?
He gulps, waiting for Eddie to say he’s weird and gross, or brush it off, but Eddie just looks at him, eyes scanning his face with an expression that Richie can’t place.
It takes a moment for Richie’s brain to process what’s happening, but Eddie brings his hand close to his face and bends down, pressing a kiss into the scarred palm. It’s just the barest brush of lips on his skin, but Richie’s brain short circuits. Maybe this wasn’t actually real like Richie had thought, but not in some sad as shit way, but in that there’s no way he’s lucky enough for this to be happening.
Just… He can’t even try to find the words to completely encompass what he’s feeling. There’s a warmth spreading from the place where Eddie kissed (kissed!!!!!!!!!) his hand and enveloping his whole body. Eddie’s shy smile is blinding, everything about him his blinding, he’s glowing and radiant, even though he’s wearing a fanny pack and an oversized tee. Richie feels like he’s staring at the sun, it almost hurts to look at, but if he tries to look away from Eddie, he can’t see anything else.
He had made fun of Eddie for his cast, because really, what did an incoming freshman know about love, or being a lover? Now he gets it. He gets it because there’s really no other explanation for why Richie can feel so undone in the best possible way with just a brush of Eddie’s soft lips against his palm. What would even happened if they kissed, like, for real? He’d like to see, even if he died immediately after because he was so blissed out. Eddie’s filled with love, and he’s giving it to Richie, just him, and it’s making Richie go crazy and—
Oh.
Shit.
Does he, like… Love Eddie?
Across from him, Eddie raises their hands, aligning their scars. The position is a little strange, since their cuts are both on their left hand, but Eddie touches them together. Richie’s hand is bigger and bony, compared to Eddie’s, and he wants to intertwine their fingers, so he does. He doesn’t let himself think twice about it, because right now he knows him and Eddie are safe, in the clubhouse, and with each other. He squeezes Eddie’s hand, probably a little too tightly, drawing out a giggle from the other boy.
“There,” Eddie whispers, “All better.”
Richie’s hyper aware of the smile in Eddie’s twinkling eyes, of every point where their bodies are touching, not just their hands, but their knees knocking into each other, how there’s only a few inches between them now that they’re sitting up and leaning into each other space.
There’s something about it that makes Richie think that if they move even a muscle, the moment will be ruined. It reminds him of when Eddie held him under the water at the quarry that one afternoon, making incomprehensible noises. Like he’s just holding his breath as long as possible to have some more time with Eddie, his lungs begging for air, but he doesn’t care, because breaking the surface means that the water will be disturbed. He’d much rather drown.
In the end, neither of them makes the first move to pull away (or pull closer), but rather, the alarm from Eddie’s watch going off in the silence causes them to jump and fly apart. The hammock almost tips over, and Richie has to grab for Eddie so that he doesn’t fall out and land on his broken arm.
“Shit. Goddammit. I should get going, my mom will be back home soon and if I’m not there she’s gonna like, call the FBI or some shit.”
God, fuck Eddie’s mom, and not in the joking way.
“Okay.” He tries to hide his disappointment, but he probably doesn’t do a good job at all.
Eddie gathers his things, “Are you gonna head out too?”
Part of Richie wants to bike home with Eddie, but there’s something he wants—needs to do first. “I think I’m gonna stick around for a bit.”
Eddie nods, maybe a little disappointed himself, and heads towards the ladder.
“Eds?”
Eddie turns around, one hand on the ladder. Unlike usual, he doesn’t look pissed off, and he doesn’t tell Richie not to call him that. Instead he looks almost hopeful.
Richie fixes his glasses and smiles. “Thanks.”
Eddie breaks out into a grin, though he tries to suppress it, biting down on his lips. “Yeah, you too. I’ll see you tomorrow, Rich.”
He watches as Eddie climbs the ladder with one arm (shit, he really should’ve helped him), and falls back onto the hammock with a dreamy sigh once he’s out of view.
So. Richie likes Eddie. Like, a lot.
Truthfully, he knew it, deep down, all summer. And before that, even. How he always gravitated towards Eddie, how much he wanted to protect him, though Eddie didn’t really need him to. The way he reveled in getting Eddie all riled up and angry and blushing, so he’d always poke fun at him as if he was pulling pigtails on the playground during recess.
And yeah, it’s scary. It’s fucking terrifying, because Derry isn’t kind to people like him, and he wishes in some way, that he didn’t care for Eddie the way he does. But then, what was the point? Maybe it’d be worse to not be able to have someone that makes him feel the way he’s feeling right now. Because under all the nervousness, he feels pretty fucking great.
Richie thinks of Eddie’s cast, how he announced the love he’s filled with to everyone he passes by. That the things that make him a loser, makes him loved too.
For probably the first time ever, Richie has an idea that’s actually good. Well, it’s sort of stupid, but not in the way gorging himself on sweets or jumping over a firepit is. He could be caught, but he doesn’t care, because right now he’s feeling brave. He needs to declare this feeling too, right now.
He digs around the clubhouse for Stan’s knife from his boy scout days, finding it amongst a heap of junk they should probably sort through. Save that for somebody else though.
The whole bike ride to the kissing bridge, Richie is psyching himself out, both thrumming with excitement and apprehension. Because if he does this, if he carves their initials into the wood, there’s no turning back. Maybe the town won’t know, but he’ll know. He’ll be admitting it to himself.
Richie drops his bike on the curb and looks around cautiously, knowing that Bowers and his gang is gone, but still worrying about them catching him. (Or anyone else really. It’s not like Derry has a shortage of homophobes).
He picks a spot, on one of the top boards, and crouches down, bracing his hand against the wood. With a shaky breath and unsteady hands, Richie sticks the knife into the wood, carving a straight line. It’s kinda large, but hey, go big or go home, right?
R
Richie Tozier. The boy who cracks endless jokes about dicks and fucking moms and all that shit. The boy who uses all of that to hide what he’s really feeling, to put a boundary between him and everyone else. A boundary with himself, so that he doesn’t have to recognize the way he truly is. All these crude jokes, and he’s doing some big romantic gesture. He never thought he’d be all fucking cheesy and doing this, but that’s just the way Eddie makes him feel. Makes him want to be.
+
He swallows thickly, trying to keep his unease from bubbling out from his body. What if Eddie saw the carving? Would he know it was for them—for him? There’s no them. But would he want there to be? Richie doesn’t know if it’s him being delusional and getting his hopes up, but there’s something about what happened today that makes him wonder if Eddie’s the same. That their inseparable bond is something more than friendship.
E
Eddie Kaspbrak. God, he’s so fucking annoying. He acts like he’s not as obnoxious as Richie, and maybe that’s true in some capacity, but that little fucker sure knows how to push his buttons. But as much as it should grate on his nerves, Richie loves the way Eddie gets when he’s set off, words blending together and arms flailing around for emphasis. He loves the way Eddie is unwaveringly loyal to his friends, stands up for them even if he’s scared shitless. He loves the way Eddie knows just how to make him laugh or make him feel safe, the way he did today.
He blows the small shreds of wood off the carving and drinks the sight in for a moment, his fingertips tracing the engraving.
R + E.
Yeah. Richie loves Eddie.