Eddie | Richie
The fact that Richie had gone from a shade of pink straight to red was concerning. He'd felt the heat rising to the other boy's face just beneath his fingertips and he should be pulling back, right? Richie had a fever or something. Or maybe... maybe Eddie was making him sick? Infecting him with whatever it was that Eddie had that made him frail and weak and weird.
He should've pulled away. Should've apologized and stopped staring into Richie's too bright eyes. He should've moved back and away and just stopped this whatever was happening. He didn't. He couldn't. That wasn't entirely by choice. He felt his own skin heat up and turn the same matching red as Richie's the moment the other boy's fingers wrapped gently around his wrist to hold him in place.
There were no jokes. No voices. Just Richie, still bent over a little so that Eddie could reach his hair. Still red in the face with too bright pleading eyes and three words that should've made no sense but somehow did. He thought of his first encounter with It. Of feeling alone and lost and untouchable because of things that seemed too big for a boy his age and his size. It had asked him what he was looking for before proceeding to scare the shit out of him. He didn't know. He hadn't known but maybe... maybe it was what had been in front of him the whole time.
He didn't think he was brave enough to kiss Richie in front of a bunch of strange kids. He certainly wasn't ready for the two of them to find out what these kids did to boys like them because, of course, he would assume the worst. They'd grown up in a town that was basically the worst during an era that was pretty terrible. He couldn't do that to Richie but he did move. He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around the other boy in a tight hug. If his lips grazed against the other's cheek for a split second no one else had to know. "Promise you'll always be."