Richie and Eddie hanging all over each other was pretty normal. Like a constant. The two of them doing their own personal thing was about as expected as the sun coming up in the morning, or Stan looking on in disapproval when either of them got too rambunctious. It just was. They just were.
Well. So long as Rich didn't let it go too far. Because then it'd just be him, alone.
Or that was what he'd thought anyway -- it'd been one of his concerns for a long time now. That the secrets he had, he had to keep even though he had six best friends and that was more than a lot of people had. But some things just couldn't get out into the open. Some stuff wasn't safe with anyone.
Except here he was, standing in the middle of some tiny ass little town holding hands with Eddie and that was kind of going above and beyond what normal friends did, wasn't it? No thirteen year old boys wandered around holding hands. That wasn't a thing. He felt like he ought to say something but the concept of being serious sort of made him nauseous. So he just... let it happen and didn't bring it up.
Richie didn't know who he was going to find behind the red door, and the more they focused on it, the more he was worried he was just making shit up. Like he was remembering something from a dream, or something. It didn't feel like an unsafe thought, but who really knew what that meant anyway?
He couldn't help but pause at that little huff though, the insistence that Eddie wouldn't grow up to be boring, because Richie was gonna be there, and he'd never let that happen. Even though that felt like it ought to be true, there was just...something about it that, for a short second, made Richie feel a kind of sadness that he'd never really felt before, and wasn't even really sure how to comprehend. He blinked away the watery feeling in his eyes and only gripped Eddie's hand tighter. "I think you overestimate the power of my great influence," he decided after a beat, trying to bring the levity back up within himself. "Hey, do you think we should just try the coffee shop for breakfast?" Bill felt like a lost cause, and that split second of hopelessness felt like more than enough for a lifetime.