Sometimes Richie had to marvel at the way emotional pain didn't hurt the way physical pain did - he'd been cut and bruised, he'd been hit in the face with rocks, he'd gotten into drunken brawls he had no business being in. And yet that paled in comparison to when grief would just hit him out of nowhere; it was so heavy, and every movement caused a sting in muscle or bone. The inside of his head was a riot of so many thoughts, memories, and old aches anyway - when grief hit him, he couldn't shut it off even if he tried.
Tonight, he couldn't sleep.
He stopped tossing and turning and just started pacing in the bedroom and bouncing around like a boxer getting ready for a prizefight. Rather than wake Enola in the other bedroom, he hit the front door, the hallway, the elevator, a glimpse of unease in a black long-sleeved t-shirt and a pair of grey sleep pants knotted low on his hips. The fleece sagged slightly with the weight of hidden items in his pockets, the pack of cigarettes and his lighter. It was a switch for him. Usually he looked like he needed his own warning label due to the shade of his overshirts.
On the rooftop garden, a cigarette twirled between his fingers like a lazy baton. Richie lit up, placing some papered mercy on the edge of his mouth and burning it with a spark of butane from the hold of a lighter in the cusp of his hand. The first puff was amazing and -
"Those will kill you, dipshit."
A shockwave rippled through him because the voice was so familiar - that fast clip, rushing words, laced with ever-present anxiety. Richie turned, blue eyes bugging out behind thick lenses as he took in the sight.
"Eddie?" Besides the fact that he was clearly some hazy phantasm, he looked...fine. Like, pretty normal? No cheek wound where he'd pulled Bowers' knife out of his own face, no gaping hole in his chest, his mouth was free and clear of oozing blood - which was an image Richie didn't think he'd ever be able to forget, thanks very much.
"Yeah, it's me." It was. It was just him, with his old man cardigan, looking like he had when he was still alive and there went the ache again, a wave of grief because Richie knew he wasn't. Alive, that is. "I'm okay," Eddie said. "I promise."
Damnit.
Richie started to cry, quietly, feeling like a furnace on the inside but at least he wasn't all screams of misery and hiccuping sobs again, like when Ben and Mike had to drag him from the wreckage of Neibolt - he had these moments often when he was alone, crying over the loss of Eddie and Stan and how he was a fucking failure for not being able to help them. Survivor's guilt was a bitch and he hated it, along with how much he hated not knowing if his friends were okay, hated not being able to call them and make stupid jokes while dancing around telling them he loved them because he was bad at saying things like that.
He didn't know how much time had now, so maybe he should just cut to the chase. "I saw...in the Deadlights. I should have - " Richie started.
"Should have what? You think IT would have showed you anything that would tell you how to fix shit?" Eddie asked. "Of course not. It's not on you. It wasn't on Beverly either, when it came to Stan."
Smoke was drifting, and Richie's hands were shaking too much to be able to keep a grip on the cigarette so he stubbed it out in an ashtray. And took his glasses off, wiping his face, his eyes, with the sleeve of his shirt. He didn't know if this was real or not, but he wanted to believe it was - he put his glasses back on, to be able to see Eddie more clearly. "I can't believe your last words to me were 'I fucked your mom.' You're such a dick," he huffed a half-hysterical laugh. How was this even happening. "But - you saved my life...thanks."
Eddie's smirk was triumphant. "Maybe quit smoking so you don't die of lung cancer then, asshole. Smoking is the leading cause of preventable disease and death - "
"Not gonna happen, Spaghetti."
With a sigh, Eddie's facial features released a bit of tension. Which, for him, was saying a lot. Then, he added softly, "You don't need to punish yourself, Rich. Not anymore. Not about - anything."
There was so much he wanted to say to Eddie - things he should say to Eddie, but he was so overwhelmed and his tongue felt too big for his mouth. He liked to think that maybe Eddie understood, however - he always had. "I'll try," he promised. "Oh, by the way? Eds?"
"Don't fucking call me that - "
Richie flashed teeth, and the honesty in his eyes was all electric blue, the kind of electricity that made your blood dance; they crinkled at the corners when he grinned. He wasn't at one-hundred percent, but in this moment he felt less like a block of concrete was drying in the center of his chest. "I fucked your mom."