it imagines.

eddie.

y/n l/n has never been the one for hospitals.
if she can,
she avoids them at any cost.
even walking by them gives her skin a moment to erupt into chills;
how haunting they are.
y/n imagines if purgatory exists,
it'd be a damned hospital.
so far,
she's made good on her promise to stray away.
y/n stays in good health,
is conscious of her surroundings,
and has enough at home remedies to ward away any sickness tainting her body.
until today.
y/n decided to climb the highest point of a tree to prove a point to her underestimating friends.
then on the climb down,
she grabbed a faulty branch and fell the rest of the way.
luckily,
she was close enough to the ground that no serious damage was done.
but in a moment of blinded fear,
she contorted her body and fell all the wrong ways onto her arm.
y/n's friends tried to hurry and help,
but she shrugged them off in a demand to be left alone.
she sulked all the way to the hospital on her own,
her arm aching a bit more with each passing second.
now here she stands,
staring at the closed doors of the hospital in hopes of willing herself inside.
but the courage never comes.
y/n doesn't think her arm is in that desperate need of help.
smelling the sterile environment,
feeling the burn of the fluorescent lights,
seeing the sick people...
she shivers at the mere thought.
"y/n! y/n!"
the girl turns her head to see eddie running down the sidewalk to where she stands,
clutching the pack strapped around his waist.
"what are you doing here?"
"beverly told me what happened. i know how much you hate hospitals."
y/n attempts to shrug her shoulders but finds that a piercing pain shoots from her arm.
she winces despite her best efforts not to.
"i'm sorry i wasn't there, y/n. my mom was being...well, she was being my mom."
she exhales a laugh with the nod of her head.
"you know how richie is. gets to taunting and challenging...i just had to shut him up."
"and you did,"
eddie reassures.
"he's too much of a coward to climb that tree but you did it."
"busting my ass on the way down hardly seems like sticking it to richie."
eddie scoffs.
"remember that time he gave himself a wedgie trying to jump off that branch?"
at the memory,
y/n let's a burst of laughter ring free from her diaphragm.
eddie, too, finds himself laughing alongside her.
then when it settles,
the boy takes her free hand and says,
"come on. let's get you fixed up."
eddie and y/n walk through those hospital doors with a shared strength given to her by her loving friend.
though when the two take their seats in wait for the doctor,
y/n feels the pain in her arm worsen.
"is it broken?"
"i don't know, eddie,"
she mumbles through her discomfort.
"that's why we're at the hospital."
"...well, come here."
she shifts in her seat to better face him,
though she is wildly confused.
eddie sifts through his fanny pack and finds an ace bandage tucked away in there.
he lets his gentle, careful fingers caress her sweltering skin as he wraps it well enough to subdue her ache until she's called back for care.
y/n feels the better part of her throbbing calm thanks to eddie's care.
but she finds a swelling beginning in her heart at this new sight of her friend.
how he ran miles to find her and help her inside this haunted place,
how he handled her with such care and ease,
how he looks at her now.
"you...you have beautiful eyes. don't know if i've ever told you,"
eddie says through a dry laugh.
he scratches the back of his neck in nervous habit.
he wonders if y/n can see through the flesh of his existence and see the heart that beats in syllables of her name.
"thank you. you-you too,"
y/n returns in a laugh of her own.
the pair look around the room with burning cheeks and racing hearts,
anticipating their very next move.
and when y/n turns to thank eddie for all that he's done,
today and in the entirety of their kind friendship,
she is interrupted by the calling of her name.
"go,"
eddie encourages with an easy smile.
"will you be here when i get out?"
"are you kidding? i'm not going anywhere, y/n."
she nods her head in thanks then walks alongside the doctor to finally receive permanent aid for her arm.
"nice wrapping there. did your boyfriend outside do it for you?"
the doctor asks,
pulling away at y/n's bandage.
a furious wave of heat overcomes her flesh at the mention of eddie being her boyfriend.
"oh! n-no, god,"
she laughs rather awkwardly.
"that's just my friend."
"ah. old man's mistake,"
he excuses with a reassuring smile.
y/n accepts it but still feels the effects of her heightened nerves.
it soon eases though when she's distracted by the casting of her arm.
it was broken after all.
she soon steps back into the waiting room with her arm casted and finds eddie where she left him,
just as he promised.
"are you okay?"
eddie asks as soon as he sees her,
rising quickly from his seat to be by y/n's side.
"yeah...i am now."
"i'm sorry it's broken, really. richie's got what's coming for him."
y/n laughs at eddie's passion,
which makes him smile in return.
"but i'm glad you're okay...see? hospitals aren't so bad after all."
"not with the right company,"
she says with a smile.
the pair walk out together after this and find great entertainment in the setting of the sun.
then in the silence,
y/n speaks,
"the doctor...he thought we were, like, dating."
she says it as though it were something insane,
but she is just testing the waters.
should he exclaim out in disgust and denounce her,
y/n will take the rejection in silence.
but maybe he'll entertain the idea of them as something more...
wouldn't it be wonderful?
y/n hopes he sees it that way too.
"oh!"
eddie begins with a crimson hue kissing his once porcelain skin.
"w-wow. that's, uh...that's something. was it-was it weird for you? when he said that...you know?"
y/n shrugs.
"...no,"
she admits.
eddie looks to y/n with glossy eyes at this.
"why-why not?"
"would you stop getting so flustered? you're freaking me out,"
y/n teases with a nervous giggle.
eddie shakes his head with a laugh at her antics.
"it wouldn't be...wouldn't be totally weird,"
she finally answers.
their stroll suddenly comes to a halt when eddie stands still and fumbles with his words to finally say,
"i like you a lot."
"you do?"
eddie nods.
"i have for a while now. and-and i don't want you to think everything i did as your friend was me having some-some, like, ulterior motive because i would never do that. i love being your friend, but..."
y/n waits a beat,
but eddie seems to have run out of steam.
"but?"
she inquires.
"but i also love you more than that."
eddie wrings his fingers in wait for her response.
it isn't long until she meets eddie halfway and lets their lips lock.
it seems to say enough for eddie,
because he accepts it with softened lips of his own.
they mollify into each other in an effort to create the purest of loves to ever bless their lives.
eddie's greatest wish has finally come true;
the girl in which his existence yearns for is finally entwining herself into him.
y/n finds it ironic that her greatest lover was found in the cursed waiting room of a hospital.