(Being around Angela was almost as calming as it was to be around the Losers. Not quite entirely, but Eddie was positive that the bond he had to the Losers was a unique thing separate from most relationships. Maybe that was his childhood speaking to the only sense of belonging he had ever really had back in Derry, or maybe it was a strange displacement that occurred between adults and children whether or not you loved and trusted an adult. But all the same, it isn't to devalue how important it was that he felt calm around her period. Most adults frightened him half to death just by looking at him, by hovering near him. They made it so easy for Eddie to begin to panic about how he looked, what he was doing, and how exactly that adult might be judging him.
Eddie never worried about that with Angela. Of course, with his issues, he always had some humming anxiety at the back of his mind with any of his interactions- Losers, Angela, and everyone else alike. But it was easily quieted by reassuring words, touches. By Angela, and others, just being good and kind to him. Like right now, even as his mind split wide open to begin ripping into his most tender insecurities, Angela's effortless calmness made it so everything didn't feel quite so big and loud.
She wasn't staring him down with critical eyes. She wasn't talking with sharp words about how disgusting some part of him was. There was no violence in Angela, no cruelty. There was just this soft, endless acceptance that Eddie still didn't know what to do with coming from an adult.
Oh, he was already in that corner of sexual insecurity. Had been since last summer, really, when Beverly started to hang out with the boys and Eddie never could wrap his mind around why Ben and Bill drooled after her. He's spent the past year working back and forth against himself, and he still sometimes wondered if it would just be easier to ignore things. Most of the time, that's precisely what he did.
For some reason, the idea of him playing matchmaker strikes him as absurd. Absurd enough that a laugh is startled out of him and he closes his hand over his mouth before he drops it away.)
Sorry. I'm not trying to play matchmaker. Trust me, I'd suck at matchmaking. I don't....Romance and all that shit- It's...You could talk to my friend Ben about that stuff any day. But me? I'm...(He gestures to himself and then laughs a little. Eddie might be softer than the rest of the guys in his group. He liked clothing and liked looking nice, enjoyed flowers, and was on the smaller side. But a romantic? No. Ben was the one who wrote love poems. Eddie's idea of flirting usually involved telling Richie that he wasn't a complete asshole.)
I guess it's hard for me to tell the difference between friendship and love sometimes, and maybe just thinking of you guys not being friends anymore is what bothers me most.
(For Eddie, those lines were often blurred. Half the time he was around Richie, he couldn't figure out exactly what was making him blush so badly. It was endlessly confusing, and Eddie would love to go back in time to before he was aware of this kind of bullshit.
Then he's growing quiet and serious again, those gray eyes of him darkening and seeming to grow in size somehow. He tugs at some more weeds, slower this time.)
...I haven't told you before. But I've seen my future, you know. (Eddie spares Angela a brief smile, but it's not a happy smile.)
It's not a future I want. And it's...It's like what society has told me to want, but more than that, what my mom has made me feel I deserve or that I need. I marry some woman who's just like my momma. In every way. From her personality to her-. (Looks. Eddie can't stand to say it though, his face burning with shame, and he rips at some more weeds.)
And in that future, my medicine cabinet is more full than ever. It's even got quaaludes in it. Can you believe that shit? (What those would be for...Well.)
cw: some severe homophobia & internalized homophoba.
I think every group of friends has that one person who plays matchmaker and likes the romantic stuff. [ She wondered who that would be in their group. Certainly not herself. Lena maybe? Lena wanted everyone to be happy. Not to mention she was deliriously in love herself. Most of them though took their work far more seriously than romance.
She would have understood the push to feel attraction to someone. She had tried to fit in for a time with her peers. But she hadnβt really ever understood the men they drooled over and she had found it exhausting. Eventually she had stopped worrying about it, she hoped Eddie would find that peace someday too.
Though it didnβt sound like it, because as he talked about who he married and what she was liked, it sounded like he was going to be stuck in a relationship that didnβt work for him. She wished there was something she could do to protect him from a future like that. Often times she had heard that children married some version of her parents. If she was being honest she wasnβt even sure she knew who her parents were enough to marry someone like them. Still from everything Eddie had told her it wasnβt a good thing that he had gotten married to a woman like his mother.
No wonder there was sedatives in his medicine cabinet and he hadnβt been able to quit all of the drugs. Not for the first time she wished that there was some way that she could take him away from that life. ]
Society has that way about it. I canβt even say that the future is much better, itβs just bigotry in a different way. Humans are notorious for pushing what they want onto everyone else and telling you that you are wrong for wanting to choose a different path. Itβs a very normal thing to end up stuck on the same path our parents choose for us. I also hope for you that there are other possible futures out there that have a better outcome for you.
And I probably donβt need to tell you, but be careful with the quaaludes.
(Eddie had felt similarly to Angela but in the opposite. There was this trucker's place back home in Derry who had his desk by one of the windows. Hanging over that desk was a pinup calendar and the window outside his office was spotless from how many of the Derry boys would stop by, wipe at the glass, and peer inside to get a glimpse at that month's centerfold.
Eddie had never understood the appeal, though he had gone through with the motions. He had wiped at that glass and peered in, tried to wrap his mind around what was so appealing about the naked curves of the woman presenting herself for the world to see.
He always turned bright red, knowing he shouldn't really be looking at that kind of thing, but his buddies and the other boys would figure he was blushing for other reasons. It worked fine enough for Eddie.
Then he'd go and play ball with the rest of them, or rather, sit on the sidelines and stare at the way the boys would throw the ball back and forth and would feel a good deal more interest in the shapes of their calves and how their shoulders looked when they had thrown a particularly perfect ball. It was so much more interesting to him than those naked ladies on that calendar.
Marrying a woman was bad enough in Eddie's opinion, but marrying a woman like his mother? That was something else, and Eddie hated the idea of it. Eddie's staring at his fingernails then, at the dirt collected under them. He can't help but think about how if his momma were here, she'd have a fit at those hands.)
I've seen how I die too, you know. (He doesn't know why he says it. It has nothing to do with marriage at all. Except...Maybe it does. His face feels a bit warm, and Eddie shifts around before he can think twice. His face goes to rest against Angela's chest and he slumps against her, quiet for a long while.)
I don't want to go back home ever, Angie. I never told you before, but -. (His voice wavers, cracks.)
I don't want to go back. Going back means losing my friends, being chained to momma for my life even long after she's gone, and it means taking quaaludes to try and be with a lady how people want me to be with a lady, and it means dying down in some fuckin' sewer.
[ Pretending to be something you weren't was an incredibly exhausting and so Angela had no doubt that Eddie was fighting a very hard battle.
At the mention of death Angela swallows roughly. She doesn't want to even think about him dying. Death is a huge area of struggle for her and with a life littered with loss. She worked hard to conquer those deaths and she knows that in that moment that Eddie dies, she won't be there to wave her staff and reverse it.
As soon his head falls to her chest and arm goes around him to hold him there. She's sure that he can hear the steady beat of her heart and wonders if it's as soothing to him as it is to her when she is close to someone. Her fingers move to stroke through his hair in another effort to soothe. Just the fact he would rather stay in a place that is so filled with terror is telling of his situation back home. ]
Who knows what will happen next. Maybe our lives are being altered as we sit here talking. Coming here certainly was not forecasted. Maybe we can do something to fix your future here.
[ She had hope. Angela always held on to hope.]
cw: literally every warning to exist in Eddie's canon. child death + horrors etc
(Eddie knows he's way too young to keep doing this kind of thing, but he's always been underdeveloped in every kind of way. That and his mother complex ran deep, so it's not much of a surprise when Eddie completely pulls himself into Angela's lap. He wraps his arms up around her and clings. Panic fluttered in his chest wildly, and it's been some time since he's spoken about this to anyone.
He bobs his head against her shoulder slowly.)
I hope that- I hope that all the time. You know a couple months back when we saw those weird moments and everything was kinda hazy? I saw a future then too. Only it was different. I was- I was married to someone I think I wanna marry- and my cabinet was normal. And I was real happy in it.
(Eddie leans back, and his eyes have gone bright with tears. For once though, they don't fall, because he knows he needs to tell Angela the truth about his life. Mostly so she knows. Cause his life is too big sometimes. He slowly eases back and shows her his palms. They are dirty, yes, but she's got a good medical eye and no doubt will instantly noticed how badly scarred his hands are. It looked like there was a star burst of scars on each hand.)
Back home, there was this um. This ...I don't know. It was this being from- from before everything existed. It was just...fear. Raw fear. Knew all your insecurities and what you were most afraid of. And it would- um. It would hunt children mostly, but it made our whole town rotten. It usually looked like a clown, but it'd change to- to whatever...
(Eddie sucks at telling this story sometimes, only because he can feel himself shifting out of reality. Dissociation, but he doesn't know it, his face going a little blank and his limbs felt wooden and stiff.)
None of the adults ever noticed it in town. There were all- all these kids dying and the adults would just...Forget. Put up posters over the old ones. Move on.
(Eddie's tongue felt thick and heavy, the words coming out slowly.)
One of those kids was - Bill's little brother. He's the leader of our group and um- has this stutter? He's amazing. But he lost Georgie about a year ago in October and...After that, everything got so bad. Or maybe...maybe it was after Dorsey's daddy killed him, I dunno. But things go bad in Derry, Angie, real bad, and we had no one to go to. Adults wouldn't listen to you, and God didn't listen either. So it was just us- us lucky seven. (His fingers wiggle loosely to get the blood flowing again and he sucks in a shallow breath.)
I can't tell you how it happened exactly. Or maybe I can and I just don't know how to work it good right now, but we managed to stop It. Went into the sewers where It lived and we- we stopped it. But we made this promise? To come back to Derry if It ever did. And that's what happens in the future. The future I saw. It came back when we were all older- like old as you maybe. And when we go to fight it for a second time, I don't make it. Sorry- I'm real sorry. I know it's....It's so much.
Re: cw: literally every warning to exist in Eddie's canon. child death + horrors etc
[ She nearly falls back when she suddenly has the entire weight of the boy in her lap, but she catches herself and is quick to envelop him and steady them together. She lets herself be that safe place to go to as he starts to tell her about all the things in his world. It's more than she had really expected. She knew things were bad, but a town with adults that didn't even listen to the children and ignored their deaths. It sounded awful. Having lived in her own war torn world, she knew how bad people could be to each other, but this was a different kind of cruelty.
It wreaked of the same thing that made humans destroy innocent omnics because they thought them lesser. Just cold and horribly cruelty because man had to be cruel to those smaller than them.
It was a lot to take in but she followed what he was saying. It was a relief to know that he had seen potentially a different future. In her mind the future was not set in stone until it became the present and so she would hold out hope that there was something for Eddie Kaspbrak to look forward to. He wanted him happy. In a marriage with the person that he loved and with his medicine cabinet not even needed save for the occasional flu or cold medicine. A future where he could be happy with his friends. ]
There is no need to apologize. You can always talk to me about anything. I hope you know that by now.
[ Words weren't coming easily in response to the rest of what he was saying. She had been in situations where it was her responsibility to tell someone their loved one was dead, but words were never easy when the death of children was involved.]
Your town and it's adults sounds like it's failing you on a monumental level. There are no words for how sorry I am. But what you are saying only confirms that I was right about just how brave you are.
[ She placed a kiss to the crown of his head. ] To go back to your childhood and face that, even at the risk of your life. I know a girl who would say that the world needs heroes just like you.
(It's always more than people expect. To this day, Eddie never knew when to tell the story or who to tell it too. Some adults would never believe him, and he knew that, but he had hoped and thought that maybe Angela would. Maybe some part of him felt assured since Moira had seen It herself. Right in the flesh. Though he hadn't really explained it much to her. He wasn't so sure he had to. Didn't take a genius to figure out that the leper that had attacked Eddie wasn't human- and Moira is a genius, so you know.
He gives her a very long, somber look, not blinking once. It was a bit more like he was looking somewhere inside of her rather than just at her face, and after some time, he nodded.)
I know. I wouldn't be telling you all this stuff if I didn't. (That's all there was to it. Eddie was pretty simple. Adults scared him enough to drive him away. Even though he liked a lot of the adults here, that didn't mean he trusted them, necessarily.
Eddie shrugs very slowly, looking down at his lap.)
I'm not brave, Angie. My friends are. Without them, I'm nothing. It's only because of them that I would ever go back.
(He blushes at the kiss for no reason other than it's unexpected and makes him feel warm. Eddie doesn't think his mother has ever kissed him for any reason besides wanting to check his fever. He blushes harder when she says what she does next.)
I'm not a hero either. That girl- she'd be wrong. All this freaky stuff happening in Deerington and I'm fine with hiding in my room. If something were hurting you or Chloe or Richie, then yeah, I'd come out..but otherwise..
(He shakes his head. He wasn't gonna be on the front lines anywhere. But there's more. There's the one important thing. Eddie raises his arm, the one with his tattoo on it and shows it to Angela.)
You ever hear of the Achilles heel? Cause I'm pretty sure this is mine. I've broken this arm a whole bunch, and when I get killed, this is how I go. IT eats my arm and I bleed out in Richie's arms and I-.
(Eddie gags on the last word. Purely because it's still hard to talk about, and he winds up covering his mouth, staring over at the house.)
Richie doesn't know. I don't know how to tell him.
[ As a scientist Angela always faced things with a thread of doubt until she had had a chance to dig in and experiment with it. That being said, she also knew that there were many things that she did not understand and that because certain things couldn't be experimented on she couldn't dismiss them either. Deerington had further pushed her into a mindset that maybe the world was vastly different then she had thought it to be.
And she also trusted Eddie. If he had a reality that she wasn't familiar with, that didn't mean that his reality was wrong. She trusted him and she trusted his experiences. That showed in her features and in the way she did not even for a moment dismiss anything that he was saying to her. And while she may have once thought it merely a children's nightmare or the conjured up image of a stressed mind, she was different now. She knew now that there were vastly different realities and she trusts whole heartedly that this is his experience.
Adding to that how angered she was that anyone would torture him and her friends. She wanted to take this monster that haunted his daily life and show him the hot end of her pistol. ]
Sometimes bravery is in who we choose to surround ourselves with. Besides, you are young yet. There are many ways in which it's completely justified that you want to hide out in your room and wait for the rest of us to take care of it. That doesn't make you a coward. Sometimes what people consider bravery is stupidity in disguise.
[ At the mention of him getting his arm eaten and it being how he dies, the fire burns even worse in her belly. She doesn't care what this monster is, she would find a way to destroy him if she ever saw him near him.
She holds him a little tighter, forcing her emotions to not show too much. ]
Thank you for sharing it with me. I'll do what I can on my end to protect you or get you to a better place. And I can't tell you how or if you should tell Richie, but I think when the time is right you will know what to say. Don't let it sit for too long, it will eat you alive holding a secret like that.
[ She, meanwhile, still held hope there would be a different future for the boy. ]
It's hard for me to do that. The um- wait for adults to take care of things. (And now she kind of knows a bit more why. Sonia was one thing, but the adults of Derry were another. Kid's not had much to rely on in terms of outward help.)
I don't even know how to ask adults for help most of the time. (Even when he needed it the most. He would sooner rush to his friends or sprint away from his problems than ask an adult. It was something he was trying to work on.
It would also later be a giant red flag when he lures people out to the corn maze.
Angela taking down IT would certainly be a sight to see, but truthfully, he hoped she never would have to encounter IT. He holds her back, knowing that this is probably not the easiest thing to hear. After he had told Majima about how he died, Majima took up a quiet habit of always walking on the side of Eddie where he'd lost his arm in the future. Back when Bill was around, he'd done the same thing. Eddie wasn't so sure if that kind of caution would do much in the long run, but maybe it didn't matter sometimes.
Belief, after all, was impossibly strong. That's what he'd found out. Him and all his friends down there in the sewers.)
You don't gotta thank me. You're the one who...(Eddie trails off, his voice going soft before stopping entirely. He chews on his lower lip, before eventually figuring out what it is he wanted to say.)
You're the one who makes me feel safe enough to talk to you about stuff. You already help. Those pills you gave me work really nice and they make my head a lot quieter sometimes. (Not all the times, but it helped a hell of a lot more than the hokey medicine Sonia used to have him on. He didn't use them too responsibly, but he was getting better. Slowly. And it was thanks to Angela.
He squirms a tiny bit, because God, she was right. Secrets kept from his best friend wasn't exactly the kind of thing he liked the idea of. He hoped there was a different future for himself too. It's why he was trying to open up, why he was trying to learn himself better, talk to Angela more openly.
There's enough gratitude in him for this woman that he doesn't really know what to do with it. So he thinks of a simple gesture, one he's only really ever bothered with with his closest friends, and he leans up to give Angela a kiss on the cheek. Then he's out of her lap, hands back into the garden, and his ears burning a little.)
You deserve to be happy, you know. (And that, maybe, is the closest thing he can think of to express his gratitude.) I love you and I think- I think you deserve it. Being happy. I mean.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Re: cw: some severe homophobia & internalized homophoba.
Eddie never worried about that with Angela. Of course, with his issues, he always had some humming anxiety at the back of his mind with any of his interactions- Losers, Angela, and everyone else alike. But it was easily quieted by reassuring words, touches. By Angela, and others, just being good and kind to him. Like right now, even as his mind split wide open to begin ripping into his most tender insecurities, Angela's effortless calmness made it so everything didn't feel quite so big and loud.
She wasn't staring him down with critical eyes. She wasn't talking with sharp words about how disgusting some part of him was. There was no violence in Angela, no cruelty. There was just this soft, endless acceptance that Eddie still didn't know what to do with coming from an adult.
Oh, he was already in that corner of sexual insecurity. Had been since last summer, really, when Beverly started to hang out with the boys and Eddie never could wrap his mind around why Ben and Bill drooled after her. He's spent the past year working back and forth against himself, and he still sometimes wondered if it would just be easier to ignore things. Most of the time, that's precisely what he did.
For some reason, the idea of him playing matchmaker strikes him as absurd. Absurd enough that a laugh is startled out of him and he closes his hand over his mouth before he drops it away.)
Sorry. I'm not trying to play matchmaker. Trust me, I'd suck at matchmaking. I don't....Romance and all that shit- It's...You could talk to my friend Ben about that stuff any day. But me? I'm...(He gestures to himself and then laughs a little. Eddie might be softer than the rest of the guys in his group. He liked clothing and liked looking nice, enjoyed flowers, and was on the smaller side. But a romantic? No. Ben was the one who wrote love poems. Eddie's idea of flirting usually involved telling Richie that he wasn't a complete asshole.)
I guess it's hard for me to tell the difference between friendship and love sometimes, and maybe just thinking of you guys not being friends anymore is what bothers me most.
(For Eddie, those lines were often blurred. Half the time he was around Richie, he couldn't figure out exactly what was making him blush so badly. It was endlessly confusing, and Eddie would love to go back in time to before he was aware of this kind of bullshit.
Then he's growing quiet and serious again, those gray eyes of him darkening and seeming to grow in size somehow. He tugs at some more weeds, slower this time.)
...I haven't told you before. But I've seen my future, you know. (Eddie spares Angela a brief smile, but it's not a happy smile.)
It's not a future I want. And it's...It's like what society has told me to want, but more than that, what my mom has made me feel I deserve or that I need. I marry some woman who's just like my momma. In every way. From her personality to her-. (Looks. Eddie can't stand to say it though, his face burning with shame, and he rips at some more weeds.)
And in that future, my medicine cabinet is more full than ever. It's even got quaaludes in it. Can you believe that shit? (What those would be for...Well.)
cw: some severe homophobia & internalized homophoba.
She would have understood the push to feel attraction to someone. She had tried to fit in for a time with her peers. But she hadnβt really ever understood the men they drooled over and she had found it exhausting. Eventually she had stopped worrying about it, she hoped Eddie would find that peace someday too.
Though it didnβt sound like it, because as he talked about who he married and what she was liked, it sounded like he was going to be stuck in a relationship that didnβt work for him. She wished there was something she could do to protect him from a future like that. Often times she had heard that children married some version of her parents. If she was being honest she wasnβt even sure she knew who her parents were enough to marry someone like them. Still from everything Eddie had told her it wasnβt a good thing that he had gotten married to a woman like his mother.
No wonder there was sedatives in his medicine cabinet and he hadnβt been able to quit all of the drugs. Not for the first time she wished that there was some way that she could take him away from that life. ]
Society has that way about it. I canβt even say that the future is much better, itβs just bigotry in a different way. Humans are notorious for pushing what they want onto everyone else and telling you that you are wrong for wanting to choose a different path. Itβs a very normal thing to end up stuck on the same path our parents choose for us. I also hope for you that there are other possible futures out there that have a better outcome for you.
And I probably donβt need to tell you, but be careful with the quaaludes.
cw: ...eddie's entire canon ok ok
Eddie had never understood the appeal, though he had gone through with the motions. He had wiped at that glass and peered in, tried to wrap his mind around what was so appealing about the naked curves of the woman presenting herself for the world to see.
He always turned bright red, knowing he shouldn't really be looking at that kind of thing, but his buddies and the other boys would figure he was blushing for other reasons. It worked fine enough for Eddie.
Then he'd go and play ball with the rest of them, or rather, sit on the sidelines and stare at the way the boys would throw the ball back and forth and would feel a good deal more interest in the shapes of their calves and how their shoulders looked when they had thrown a particularly perfect ball. It was so much more interesting to him than those naked ladies on that calendar.
Marrying a woman was bad enough in Eddie's opinion, but marrying a woman like his mother? That was something else, and Eddie hated the idea of it. Eddie's staring at his fingernails then, at the dirt collected under them. He can't help but think about how if his momma were here, she'd have a fit at those hands.)
I've seen how I die too, you know. (He doesn't know why he says it. It has nothing to do with marriage at all. Except...Maybe it does. His face feels a bit warm, and Eddie shifts around before he can think twice. His face goes to rest against Angela's chest and he slumps against her, quiet for a long while.)
I don't want to go back home ever, Angie. I never told you before, but -. (His voice wavers, cracks.)
I don't want to go back. Going back means losing my friends, being chained to momma for my life even long after she's gone, and it means taking quaaludes to try and be with a lady how people want me to be with a lady, and it means dying down in some fuckin' sewer.
no subject
At the mention of death Angela swallows roughly. She doesn't want to even think about him dying. Death is a huge area of struggle for her and with a life littered with loss. She worked hard to conquer those deaths and she knows that in that moment that Eddie dies, she won't be there to wave her staff and reverse it.
As soon his head falls to her chest and arm goes around him to hold him there. She's sure that he can hear the steady beat of her heart and wonders if it's as soothing to him as it is to her when she is close to someone. Her fingers move to stroke through his hair in another effort to soothe. Just the fact he would rather stay in a place that is so filled with terror is telling of his situation back home. ]
Who knows what will happen next. Maybe our lives are being altered as we sit here talking. Coming here certainly was not forecasted. Maybe we can do something to fix your future here.
[ She had hope. Angela always held on to hope.]
cw: literally every warning to exist in Eddie's canon. child death + horrors etc
He bobs his head against her shoulder slowly.)
I hope that- I hope that all the time. You know a couple months back when we saw those weird moments and everything was kinda hazy? I saw a future then too. Only it was different. I was- I was married to someone I think I wanna marry- and my cabinet was normal. And I was real happy in it.
(Eddie leans back, and his eyes have gone bright with tears. For once though, they don't fall, because he knows he needs to tell Angela the truth about his life. Mostly so she knows. Cause his life is too big sometimes. He slowly eases back and shows her his palms. They are dirty, yes, but she's got a good medical eye and no doubt will instantly noticed how badly scarred his hands are. It looked like there was a star burst of scars on each hand.)
Back home, there was this um. This ...I don't know. It was this being from- from before everything existed. It was just...fear. Raw fear. Knew all your insecurities and what you were most afraid of. And it would- um. It would hunt children mostly, but it made our whole town rotten. It usually looked like a clown, but it'd change to- to whatever...
(Eddie sucks at telling this story sometimes, only because he can feel himself shifting out of reality. Dissociation, but he doesn't know it, his face going a little blank and his limbs felt wooden and stiff.)
None of the adults ever noticed it in town. There were all- all these kids dying and the adults would just...Forget. Put up posters over the old ones. Move on.
(Eddie's tongue felt thick and heavy, the words coming out slowly.)
One of those kids was - Bill's little brother. He's the leader of our group and um- has this stutter? He's amazing. But he lost Georgie about a year ago in October and...After that, everything got so bad. Or maybe...maybe it was after Dorsey's daddy killed him, I dunno. But things go bad in Derry, Angie, real bad, and we had no one to go to. Adults wouldn't listen to you, and God didn't listen either. So it was just us- us lucky seven. (His fingers wiggle loosely to get the blood flowing again and he sucks in a shallow breath.)
I can't tell you how it happened exactly. Or maybe I can and I just don't know how to work it good right now, but we managed to stop It. Went into the sewers where It lived and we- we stopped it. But we made this promise? To come back to Derry if It ever did. And that's what happens in the future. The future I saw. It came back when we were all older- like old as you maybe. And when we go to fight it for a second time, I don't make it. Sorry- I'm real sorry. I know it's....It's so much.
Re: cw: literally every warning to exist in Eddie's canon. child death + horrors etc
It wreaked of the same thing that made humans destroy innocent omnics because they thought them lesser. Just cold and horribly cruelty because man had to be cruel to those smaller than them.
It was a lot to take in but she followed what he was saying. It was a relief to know that he had seen potentially a different future. In her mind the future was not set in stone until it became the present and so she would hold out hope that there was something for Eddie Kaspbrak to look forward to. He wanted him happy. In a marriage with the person that he loved and with his medicine cabinet not even needed save for the occasional flu or cold medicine. A future where he could be happy with his friends. ]
There is no need to apologize. You can always talk to me about anything. I hope you know that by now.
[ Words weren't coming easily in response to the rest of what he was saying. She had been in situations where it was her responsibility to tell someone their loved one was dead, but words were never easy when the death of children was involved.]
Your town and it's adults sounds like it's failing you on a monumental level. There are no words for how sorry I am. But what you are saying only confirms that I was right about just how brave you are.
[ She placed a kiss to the crown of his head. ] To go back to your childhood and face that, even at the risk of your life. I know a girl who would say that the world needs heroes just like you.
no subject
He gives her a very long, somber look, not blinking once. It was a bit more like he was looking somewhere inside of her rather than just at her face, and after some time, he nodded.)
I know. I wouldn't be telling you all this stuff if I didn't. (That's all there was to it. Eddie was pretty simple. Adults scared him enough to drive him away. Even though he liked a lot of the adults here, that didn't mean he trusted them, necessarily.
Eddie shrugs very slowly, looking down at his lap.)
I'm not brave, Angie. My friends are. Without them, I'm nothing. It's only because of them that I would ever go back.
(He blushes at the kiss for no reason other than it's unexpected and makes him feel warm. Eddie doesn't think his mother has ever kissed him for any reason besides wanting to check his fever. He blushes harder when she says what she does next.)
I'm not a hero either. That girl- she'd be wrong. All this freaky stuff happening in Deerington and I'm fine with hiding in my room. If something were hurting you or Chloe or Richie, then yeah, I'd come out..but otherwise..
(He shakes his head. He wasn't gonna be on the front lines anywhere. But there's more. There's the one important thing. Eddie raises his arm, the one with his tattoo on it and shows it to Angela.)
You ever hear of the Achilles heel? Cause I'm pretty sure this is mine. I've broken this arm a whole bunch, and when I get killed, this is how I go. IT eats my arm and I bleed out in Richie's arms and I-.
(Eddie gags on the last word. Purely because it's still hard to talk about, and he winds up covering his mouth, staring over at the house.)
Richie doesn't know. I don't know how to tell him.
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And she also trusted Eddie. If he had a reality that she wasn't familiar with, that didn't mean that his reality was wrong. She trusted him and she trusted his experiences. That showed in her features and in the way she did not even for a moment dismiss anything that he was saying to her. And while she may have once thought it merely a children's nightmare or the conjured up image of a stressed mind, she was different now. She knew now that there were vastly different realities and she trusts whole heartedly that this is his experience.
Adding to that how angered she was that anyone would torture him and her friends. She wanted to take this monster that haunted his daily life and show him the hot end of her pistol. ]
Sometimes bravery is in who we choose to surround ourselves with. Besides, you are young yet. There are many ways in which it's completely justified that you want to hide out in your room and wait for the rest of us to take care of it. That doesn't make you a coward. Sometimes what people consider bravery is stupidity in disguise.
[ At the mention of him getting his arm eaten and it being how he dies, the fire burns even worse in her belly. She doesn't care what this monster is, she would find a way to destroy him if she ever saw him near him.
She holds him a little tighter, forcing her emotions to not show too much. ]
Thank you for sharing it with me. I'll do what I can on my end to protect you or get you to a better place. And I can't tell you how or if you should tell Richie, but I think when the time is right you will know what to say. Don't let it sit for too long, it will eat you alive holding a secret like that.
[ She, meanwhile, still held hope there would be a different future for the boy. ]
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I don't even know how to ask adults for help most of the time. (Even when he needed it the most. He would sooner rush to his friends or sprint away from his problems than ask an adult. It was something he was trying to work on.
It would also later be a giant red flag when he lures people out to the corn maze.
Angela taking down IT would certainly be a sight to see, but truthfully, he hoped she never would have to encounter IT. He holds her back, knowing that this is probably not the easiest thing to hear. After he had told Majima about how he died, Majima took up a quiet habit of always walking on the side of Eddie where he'd lost his arm in the future. Back when Bill was around, he'd done the same thing. Eddie wasn't so sure if that kind of caution would do much in the long run, but maybe it didn't matter sometimes.
Belief, after all, was impossibly strong. That's what he'd found out. Him and all his friends down there in the sewers.)
You don't gotta thank me. You're the one who...(Eddie trails off, his voice going soft before stopping entirely. He chews on his lower lip, before eventually figuring out what it is he wanted to say.)
You're the one who makes me feel safe enough to talk to you about stuff. You already help. Those pills you gave me work really nice and they make my head a lot quieter sometimes. (Not all the times, but it helped a hell of a lot more than the hokey medicine Sonia used to have him on. He didn't use them too responsibly, but he was getting better. Slowly. And it was thanks to Angela.
He squirms a tiny bit, because God, she was right. Secrets kept from his best friend wasn't exactly the kind of thing he liked the idea of. He hoped there was a different future for himself too. It's why he was trying to open up, why he was trying to learn himself better, talk to Angela more openly.
There's enough gratitude in him for this woman that he doesn't really know what to do with it. So he thinks of a simple gesture, one he's only really ever bothered with with his closest friends, and he leans up to give Angela a kiss on the cheek. Then he's out of her lap, hands back into the garden, and his ears burning a little.)
You deserve to be happy, you know. (And that, maybe, is the closest thing he can think of to express his gratitude.) I love you and I think- I think you deserve it. Being happy. I mean.
(What to do with all these emotions.)