Who: GhostEddie and Richie What: Dealing with it? Where: Hotel in Wheel 1 When: After this Closed/Ongoing/Warnings for gore, death, general IT things
Seeing Eddie the first time had been a punch in Richie's gut. He knew what to expect but actually seeing it had still been hard. It felt like that fist lodged itself somewhere between his stomach and rib cage and had taken up residency. He'd wanted to throw up.
But then he'd seen Eddie's face. And he'd just wished so hard he could hold him, do anything to make it better.
He'd mostly let Bill take charge, the way he usually did, and done his best to act okay. There had been jokes, but they pointedly avoided the gaping hole in the room. They'd been like the jokes he knew he made back there, the ones to cover his fear and pain; not like the ones he usually made on the station that were really just to make people laugh.
He was quiet now though. Bill had gone and it was just the two of them in the hotel room they would come back to year after year at all different points in time and age. He'd made the suggestion thinking that maybe the good memories there would help Eddie feel more whole. Hoping that maybe they could slow the rot if he wasn't angry and sad the way Shine ghosts usually were.
He stepped up in front of Eddie, where he stood but also didn't, and reached out. He badly wanted to be able to feel him but knew his hand would probably just go right through so he just hovered it. Letting it hang in the air where he would have been touching Eddie's bandaged cheek if he could.
"Is there anything I can do?" He'd ask softly, just watching. He hadn't cried yet, but the tears started to fall heavily down his cheeks then. Not because of the sight, or even because of the state Eddie was in; he had no doubt it would go back to normal eventually. These tears were for the inevitability of it all. He knew, deep down in parts of his mind he didn't like to visit, that it would always happen. That some version of themselves would always go through it. He himself would live a life that left him nothing but scared and depressed and alone and Eddie would be trapped in a life he hated with a woman he hated even more and would die protecting him. No matter how happy they were here, some version of their future selves would always end there. "I don't…I don't know what to do."