𝓟𝓾𝓻𝓮 𝓘𝓶𝓪𝓰𝓲𝓷𝓪𝓽𝓲𝓸𝓷

[4]

Drowning, Eddie's worst fear, he dreads swimming with his friends everytime they suggested going to the hidden lake he cringes a bit. He doesn't ever go past where his feet are flat on the bottom and his chin is just above the water line, he really doesn't want to drown, being so helpless as water crashes its way through his lungs until it pulls all the air out of him, slowly drifting out of consciousness and then finally stopping forever.

He thanks his mother for the fear of never being able to fully trust himself, sure he has a basic understanding of how to swim, he just can't. So here he stands just like always watching his friends twirl, and splash around as he zones out on each of them as the hours go by.

Eddie goes back to shore and dries off on the rocks a towel draped around his shoulders bound to fall off if the breeze hits too hard. The kids have this routine, Eddie gets out first because just standing there gets boring, Beverly going up to look for a cigarette, Ben going to tell Bev a fun fact, then Stan who saw a bird and wanted to write it down, then Mike and Bill to see what everyone else was up to.

Richie was part of the routine but stopped showing up as frequently, but here he was now for once, Eddie had dragged him here.

The group has these small routines for everything, They even find a way to have sleepovers once a week even with Sonia down Eddie's neck about every little detail of his existence.

They all get in Mike's truck to get to Ben's house for their weekly sleepover. Ben and Stan in the front with Mike, Stan hates how the wind makes his curls frizz, and Ben feels safer in the cab. And everyone else in the back.

The group pulls into the driveway and pile out of the mud covered red pickup. The group walks inside. They grab whatever snack they could find and sit in the living room as they talk.

Richie looks down at his bag of doritos and flattens the empty bag setting it on the coffee table trying not to move his head too much, He was on the floor in front of Beverly so she could braid his hair. She did this often seeing as no one else in the group had long hair like Richie did, even she made sure her hair stayed short in a pixie cut with her curls just above her piercing blue eyes. Richie however didn't like going to have someone else cut his hair, he didn't want to walk around looking dumb.

Eddie kept looking over at Richie noticing the busted lip he had failed to clean along with other small cuts on his face, He assumed the situation was escalating, Eddie stood up and walked over sitting next to him and gently taking the glasses off of Richie's face.

He pulled out a small pocket wallet out of his pocket on his jeans, the older he got the more he realized his pills were meaningless, so now he just keeps spare cash, bandaids, alcohol wipes, and just for Richie, some eyeglass cleaning wipes. He gently went over both sides of the lenses inspecting the crack across one and sighed putting them back behind Richie's ears, Eddie looped his arms under his knees and pulled his thighs closer to himself after putting his things away and glanced at Richie, he hadn't really spoken that day yet.

Richie looks over at Eddie making a small hum noise and Eddie only sighed and averted his gaze to the rest of the kids wondering how to bring up asking if Richie needed a place to stay for a night, He settled on just waiting till the group said goodbye later on.