...eddie with touched-based empathy esp.

eddie who shies away from touch because he was raised by sonia and every time she touched him, every hand to the back of his forehead, every lock of her fingers around his skinny little wrist, was basically agony for him

like he could feel that she cared about him. he knew that. but he could also feel her panic, her anger, her jealousy. he could feel her thinking about hurting him, and it curls through his stomach like nausea

it started happening so early he identified the source before he met the losers, and he brushes his fingers against bill's once when they're five years old to find out it's not just his mom, it's everyone

bill's mind at five was a wide open plain, but kind and full of laughter. some touches weren't so bad. eddie still didn't like to touch most other people, it felt like being hijacked.

his health anxieties were an excuse, if anything. he didn't think much of germs, that much was true, but if his fanny pack and hand sanitizer kept people from shaking his hand, touching his shoulder, excused his flinches when fingers brushed, that was fine with him

to be continued, i have to go teach middle schoolers, will rt when i'm back in an hour

me coming back from my class like “wtf did i do??” and then remembering oops lol

so anyway, eddie uses "germophobia" to excuse him shying away from physical touch

and as he ages he begins to be able to interpret these emotions better, both because of the increase of his own emotional range and because the complexity of the emotions of those around him increases

and while he does not like to touch or be touched, he desperately wishes he did. wishes he wasn't exempt, now, from bill's gentle shoulder pats or bev's cheek kisses

wishes he could sit in the hammock with richie and let their legs tangle together, let their fingers brush for more than a second

but the flicker of someone else's emotions runs through his whole body like an electrical current every time. the only person who touches him for longer than a moment is his mom, usually testing him for imagined illnesses that become real the moment her fingers linger on his skin

after the clown, after georgie, he tries to comfort bill and the storm the swirled inside him made eddie afraid for him

the first touch he's ever been grateful for was mike's, when he carried him to his bike basket. mike's worry and care was genuine, the first time anyone's has ever been genuine, and his own pain made it easy to focus on something besides mike's emotions

the first time his mother touched him after he swore off her pills and fled her "care" he ended up vomiting all over her and his own joy at her distress muffled all the horrible aching feelings she passed onto him

after the clown pt 1 was over, he started testing his limits. he held bill's hand at georgie's 1-year memorial service and it hurt, it hurt a lot, but after the initial overwhelming shock of grief outside his own, it settled down into an "i'm here" instead of an "i'm yours now"

he touches ben's hand in the library and ben's love for him, for all of the losers, is so full and total he almost wishes it was his now instead of just there, but knowing the magnitude of what ben feels for them will be enough. he does what he can to show ben he cares, too

he touches stan's shoulder once, at the quarry, and almost immediately bursts into tears. the darkness in stan's mind is still to complex, too much for him to understand. he tries to show stan he cares the same way he does with ben, and he

lets his fingers brush across the back of stan's hand every now and again just to check. sometimes the darkness is worse, but sometimes it's better.

the first time he touches bev he has a panic attack. thankfully, they're alone, but he can feel all the touches she's never wanted, all the words she's outwardly brushed off, all the fear and the pain and the remnants of the deadlights like a brand in his heart

he wants nothing more than to comfort her, his fingers locked around her forearm in the clubhouse, and he's panicking and she's trying to calm him down, and he tells her everything. They're fourteen.

he feels it, when it dawns on her that he's telling the truth. that he knows how she feels inside. they call cps for her together.

she wants him to call cps for himself, too, but he can't. he's not as strong as she is. bev presses a goodbye kiss to his cheek when she leaves for portland, for her aunt's, and he feels the surface lightness, with the darkness still buried underneath.

mike, after, is easy. mike has a heavy heart but a calm one. his emotions are gentle, ripples in a puddle not waves in the sea. eddie gives mike a hug when his grandfather gets sick.

richie is the last loser eddie practices being able to touch, mostly because he's afraid of what he'll find. afraid of what he won't.

it turns out he didnt need to worry, at sixteen after a growth spurt, richie's too long legs take the choice out of his hands. richie trips headlong into eddie in the school hallway, eddie catches him with both hands and would've dropped him again if ben hadn't been there to help

the things richie feels, affection, love, happiness. a tinge of fear. shame. eddie doesn't want to let go, so he doesn't. once he and ben have steadied richie, eddie pulls richie down the hall by the hand, yelling excuses back to ben

they end up behind the cafeteria, and eddie tells richie. richie's the first person he's told since bev left almost two years earlier. she hasn't called, like she promised. he tries not to think about it.

he tells richie, and richie tries to run. if eddie can feel his emotions, what he feels for eddie isn't in the privacy of his own mind anymore. but eddie has always been faster than richie. their first kiss changes everything for both of them

eddie can feel the fear in richie's heart melting away, can feel his own going with it. who cares what other people think, they have each other. eddie knows the other losers, knows none of them will mind. they're 16 now, they don't get bullied anymore. who cares what people think

they still lose each other when they leave town, all of them, but it changes things. being out and proud in high school leads to richie staying out in college. even without eddie, the ghost of a boyfriend he never broke up with, he knows there's nothing wrong with who he is

eddie clams back up, stops trying to reach out, but doesn't fall back under his mother's spell. he meets myra and feels the things in her that make him sick. he remains a bachelor, but he does follow the career of an up-and-coming gay comedian all through the 90s and early 2000s

ben, having known what it was to have his platonic love reflected back at him, is both less and more lonely, chasing two ghosts instead of one.

bev doesn't remember derry, doesn't remember eddie, but remembers being known entirely. remembers being strong enough to overcome demons because of it. the whispers of the deadlights still make her prone to melancholy, but she doesn't marry tom. he reminds her of her father

and she knows that her father never knew her, only wanted to hurt her.

tbh for bill and mike things don't change much. mike still remembers, but the hugs eddie gave him do leave his memories warmer. for bill, his grief is in solidarity until he remembers, and then he knows it isn't.

stan, unfortunately, still carries the darkness inside him. eddie's best efforts as a teen were better than nothing, but they were far from professional therapy. patty is a light, though, and he gets therapy with her help and his own ghosts of platonic love and acceptance.

when they all come back together to defeat pennywise, all seven of them, the jade scene is different. richie and eddie's fingers join under the table like magnets. richie's sorrow at the time they've lost flows through eddie, who squeezes richie's fingers to let him know he knows

bev thanks eddie with her own gentle touch, her hand sliding along his forearm. they know him, both of them. she knows her life would've been different if he hadn't changed hers.

when they go off to search for their tokens, the terror eddie feels when he chokes that fucking leper is telling, and he leads his friends into the sewers, eyes open, heart full, hand in hand with his boyfriend of apparently 29 years, knowing exactly what they need to do.