1. Straightforward. Soft and heavy, like morning before the coffee’s started brewing. Like that’s all there is to say.
you’re in his room. (again.)
he’s in your arms. (again.)
you look at him past the blur of your glasses sliding down the wrong half of your face, too lazy to right them, and your heart is thumping to the rhythm of your favorite song, grounded by the weight of him (his left arm, technically, but, well, tomayto tomahto, you’ll take what you can get) pressed against your chest. (again, again, again.)
it’s a feeling you’ve long grown used to, more fitted to your body (like a warm blanket swaddling your skeleton, down to your tippy toes) than the harsh stretch of puberty, one day sporting limbs like gangly, giddy tentacles, arms and legs wrapped around whatever body is closest to you (you play favorites, and everyone⏤even, and sometimes most especially, victim numero uno⏤is grateful for it). but this⏤a) feeling b) tsunami c) cavity filler d) all of the above⏤just settled along the expanse of your ribcage one day; this sweeping emotion that leaves your mind calm (not quiet, never quiet, buzz buzz, beep beep, etc etc), sated and smiling somehow in the knowledge of its existence, even in the heady intensity of it sharing a space with the rest of you (by far your favorite pet worm in your apple), even as it makes the rest of you so dizzy you feel as if you’ll turbo into outer space and moonwalk among the stars.
the radio’s on, but it’s soft; neither of you would risk invoking an investigation from his mother right now, like you sometimes do, just to be hastily pushed into his closet and chuckle at the irony (is masochism a drug? hello? stop ignoring me, siri!), but tonight he asked for you, an occasion so rare you almost wanted to go buy a diary just to write it down.
(see, you’ll come over unannounced and he’ll sigh and pull you in through his window before you start throwing rocks, but as he pulls a face in response to your feet monster mashing all over your curtains, he’s hiding a smile to match yours. see, he never has to ask, and neither do you. see, any and all disruption to the status quo is big, huge⏤hear ye, hear ye! dial the derry press!)
it’s something about his mom (it always is), and he doesn’t want to talk about it, so there you two lay, in his perpetually made bed listening to a station that is drowning out the tune of your heartbeat, so you talk over both, senseless shit that goes in one ear and out the other. it looks like⏤well, it looks like he only wants you. your mind is already warping the very notion into something bigger, twisted butterflies jazzing it up in your stomach in imitation of your happy, jiggy heart, while your big head is already on bullet point twelve of why that is Not The Case and while we’re at it, says said head, poor ol’ eds has had enough bad medicine in his life, your selfish desires aren’t a balm for anything, especially not him.
unfortunately, your heart (for once, the express link to your mouth) could never shut up, and off it natters, isolated amongst the bullshit.
“i love you, eds.” (you heard somewhere the “i” was important. you almost left it out, if you had been thinking at all.)
you’re always quoting something, most of the time you never know what, but there’s a truth in your words that makes you want to take your glasses off completely and burrow beneath the covers you’re never allowed under (you burrow into his hair instead, digging into it like you’re searching for the dignity you were born without). richie tozier ain’t home, no siree, come again next time, or how about never at all!
and eddie.
he laughs, like it’s a joke rather than a revelation, but maybe it’s neither, maybe it’s a fact of the universe, like peanut butter and jelly being soulmates, or howler monkeys and their huge balls (self-proclaimed as your patronus in seventh grade), or his stupidly cute train shirts that you dream about seeing in your own closet one day. it’s something he already knows, something you both do. maybe it’s not something you understand, yet, but what else is there to say? so your laughter melds with his, joining the chorus of your heart.
and his left arm shifts to make room for his right, the full weight of eddie kaspbrak resting on your chest, and that says it all.
one out of ten ways to say “i love you”
