°°·.⬧︎ ᴀꜱᴛʀᴏɴᴏᴍʏ ⬧︎.·°° | ʀᴇᴅᴅɪᴇ |

#26: ᴇᴜʀᴇᴋᴀ

Eddie didn't need to be told twice.

He took off, in a shaking, almost drunk-seeming manner, clutching his mouth as if he would puke again. I wanted to as well, I couldn't blame him. But I couldn't stop, I had to keep going until we were fully gone for the hills. My fight or flight reflexes had been activated, and I chose flight.

Once we had darted from the building, I could hear tight footsteps behind us, and a very distorted Henry Bowers shouting in an extremely nasally voice, "WHAT ARE YOU DICKHEADS WAITING FOR? GO FUCKING GET THEM!"

I rounded over a park bench, where the evening breeze circulated my moves. I glanced around quickly, noticing that Patrick was hot on our tails, sneering an amused expression, as if certain that he would catch up with us. I made my way quickly past a grove of trees in an attempt to lose him, and Eddie seemed to follow my motives. 

Once Patrick was reeling and beginning to lose track of where we were, I silently motioned for Eddie to follow me behind the dumpsters, which had a good waiting area. I should know. I'd been dumped in it plenty of times.

His voice echoed eerily through the moonlit night, but I knew that he'd be too dull to check around the school. He'd assume that we ran for the barrens or something. "I'm gonna find you, Tozier."

Like hell you will.

Eddie had a slight dribble of fresh blood exiting the side of his mouth as he panted quickly, clutching the back of his head. "Shit, man.." he whispered softly, mostly to himself, once realizing that Patrick had gone down the bank toward the stream, and far out of earshot. "Shit."

I brought my knees to my chest, feeling my sweaty back press against the brick wall, shielded and numbed by the smell of the garbage before us. "Couldn't have said it better myself, Spaghetti."

Eddie looked over at me for a second, and then down at the pocket knife wedged into the surface of my side. He winced. "You're gonna get one hell of a battle scar from that shit. Once we get out of here, that's the first thing we're removing."

I smiled weakly and flexed with one tired arm. "Think I'll look like a tiger slayer?"

"Sure," Eddie stared vacantly at the stars above us, clutching his elbows in a cold manner. After a prolonged moment of silence, he picked at a scab on his knee, dropping his voice. "But Rich... you fucking totaled him, man."

He was talking about the fucked up nose that Henry was going to have for a few months. But his nose was already fucked up, so maybe I fixed it for him. The thought made me smile a bit.

I blinked, picking anxiously at my fingers. My knuckles still pulsated from the impact. "I did?"

"You did."

I leaned back, uncomfortably resting my head against the brick, taking this moment to relax and catch my breath. "I don't even know what happened back there, I just-" I didn't even know how to describe it verbally. "Eureka, you know?"

Eddie nodded, pursing his lips. "You saw his hand after I got slapped. He was gonna punch the shit out of me, and you did it first. You did it cause he was going to hurt me, huh?"

I heard a cricket trying to fill in the awkwardness somewhere inside the dumpster, and my cheeks flared again. I rubbed my sweaty forehead, turning my head away in embarrassment. "No, Eds, I punched him 'cause he had a mosquito on his face."

"I'm serious."

"Sorry."

Eddie smoothed over his knees using his palms out of comfort, taking a deep and long breath. "Y'know, Richie Tozier, you're not half bad as people say you are," he lightly bumped my shoulder. "Some might even say you're tolerable. I don't get why I keep wanting to hang around you, even though I can't stand a single word you say. But I'm not going to stop."