Helpin’ Hand - Chapter 15 - cortexikid - IT (2024)

Chapter Text

“Holy sh*t, I love you.”

His heart stopped.

Richie was looking at him, right at him, saying the exact words he had longed to hear for what felt like his whole life, even if he didn't always know it.

Oh my Go—

“I f*ckin' adore all you Losers. You guys are the best,” Richie continued hurriedly, his wide eyes darting away from Eddie as he smacked an obnoxious kiss on Mike’s cheek, then Bill’s.

“Who’s challenging me first? Don’t even try it, Mellon-head. You weren’t f*ckin’ born when this game first came out, you fetus.”

“Eh, I’m more of a Tekken fan anyway.”

“You shut your whor* mouth!”

Eddie blinked as the spell broke, everything coming back to him in a rush of sound as if his submerged head broke the surface of water.

He could only watch agape as Richie leapt into action, whizzing right past him toward the machine, tokens in hand, with a single-minded focus. The rest of the Losers dispersed throughout the room, heading for the air hockey table and pinball machine, respectively.

From his right, he felt Bev’s concerned gaze zeroing in on him, and oddly, Stan's too, and suddenly couldn’t take another second in this room anymore.

“I’ll, uh, go make some drinks. Maggie, you want an Old Fashioned?”

Looking at Mrs Tozier proved to be a mistake, however, as meeting those eyes, identical to his best friend’s, only looking back at him with something akin to sadness, almost took him out.

“Thanks, sweetheart. That would be great. I’ll come with you.”

Before he could protest, she linked her arm through his and guided him back out to the kitchen. Which was good in a way because his brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders, still trapped in the echo chamber of, Holy sh*t, I love you. Holy sh*t, I love you. Holy sh*t, I…

Bev, hot on their heels, waited exactly 1.3 seconds for Maggie to leave to go get some glasses before she piped up.

“Ed—”

“Nope.”

“But—”

“Drop it, Bev.”

She snapped her mouth shut so fast he heard her teeth clack together.

They didn't say anything for a long time.

It was a small consolation. And not a very good one.

Richie tried his best to focus on the bright lights and catchy music, haphazardly smashing the buttons on the control panel in a way that would've had thirteen-year-old him spitting acid.

“You’re an idiot. You know that, right?”

“Noted, Stanley, thank you.”

He wasn't sure just how long it had been since his ever-trashy mouth betrayed him and spewed his oldest, deepest secret out loud for God and Edward Kaspbrak to hear, but it was long enough for Stan to call him on his sh*t.

He felt his friend shift his weight, a familiar, long-suffering sigh that he had honed at eleven, escaping him.

"We all know you weren't talking to us, Rich."

Richie tried the Shoryuken. Ken Masters blocked.

"How long are you going to keep doing this to yourself?"

He tried the hurricane kick. Ken pivoted.

"He's not going to wait around forever, you know that, right?"

"Oh, I'm aware," he snapped back as Ryu’s health dwindled. "He has a date tomorrow, remember?"

"And you're sure it's definitely a date?"

"I'm pretty sure it's not not a date if the way Rick was lookin' at him tonight was any indication."

HADOUKEN!

"Then you have," Stan glanced at his watch. "About sixteen hours to tell him how you feel. Honestly. Everything. All of it. From back then and now."

Richie watched as Ryu folded his arms in his very slim victory, his blond rival crumpled on the ground.

“Yeah. Maybe.”

After confirming that his forty-two-year-old self did indeed still have Street Fighting ‘skillz’ that wouldn’t totally shame preteen him, they all congregated in the living room for food and drinks, of which Eds seemed to have appointed himself bartender, his shirt sleeves rolled up in the way that always had Richie’s mouth going dry.

“Whiskey, neat, my good man,” he sauntered up to him with his best John Wayne impression, not quite able to look him in the eye yet, but getting close.

"You sound like Foghorn Leghorn," he snipped back, pouring him a healthy measure of Jameson and sliding it across the mahogany table. "Your John Wayne needs work."

"See, that's why I need you, Eds. You keep me humble."

"Hmm."

It wasn’t exactly their usual schtick, but Richie would take what he could get. Anxiety and guilt swam in his gut as he watched his mom absolutely obliterate Ben at Gin Rummy.

Taking a sip of his drink for that ol’ Dutch Courage, he cleared his throat.

“I, uh…I wanna say thanks again. This, Street Fighter, everything, it means a lot, man. More than you know.”

A lot more.

From his peripheral vision, he saw Eddie still, hand stirring what looked like a pitcher of Long Island Iced Tea.

“You’d do the same for me.”

“I would.”

They let that sink in, taking quiet sips of their drinks.

🎵 When the night has come, and the land is dark, and the moon is the only light we’ll see…🎵

“Oh, Richard!”

His head shot up to meet his mother’s eyes that were lit up from across the room.

“It’s your father’s favourite song!”

She had a small, pleased smile on her face as she bolted out of her seat and began pulling him by the hand onto the makeshift dance floor that Bev and Patty had carved out in his living room.

“Come on, dance with me,” she urged, chuckling loudly as Richie, pulling a face, still happily twirled her around and exaggeratingly began waltzing with her.

He heard the Losers laughing and cooing at them both. He was pretty sure that Patty had taken a picture on her phone, but he homed in on the feeling of Eddie’s gaze on him, a familiar warmth pooling in his stomach.

🎵 So darlin’, darlin’ stand by me, oh stand by me, oh stand, stand by me, stand by me… 🎵

“I’m so proud of you, honey,” his mom murmured into his shoulder, squeezing his hand. “Your father would be too. So much.”

His heart skipped in his chest as his eyes stung. Blinking rapidly, he merely nodded and rested his cheek on the top of her head.

“Were you really surprised?” Maggie asked, leaning back and squinting up at him.

“Yeah,” he smiled into her hair. “I had no idea. All the Losers being here, or you, or getting me Street Fighter. Any of it.”

Maggie hummed, sounding pensive.

“Eddie reached out a while back. Told me his plan. He worked really hard to surprise you, Richie. I don’t think he’s ever been this glued to his phone in his life.”

Something clanged in the back of Richie’s mind at that. All the covert texting he had seen him do over the last few weeks, what he had assumed had been little flirty messages with Rick…had they really been about the surprise instead?

Not sure how to respond to that, he changed tact.

“How did you even get here? I thought you were goin’ to Aunt Marcie’s in Florida for your cruise?”

“Oh,” she waved a hand. “That was Eddie, too. He took care of everything. He rearranged my trip, helped with my new flights and picked me up from the airport last night. He has set up your guest room for me, too. That boy has thought of everything.”

She leaned in conspiratorially, her voice lowering.

“He had to bribe your aunt with tickets to your show in Sacramento, though. So. Ya know. Heads up for that.”

Richie let out a chuckle, feeling warm all over as it dawned on him just how much Eddie, in particular, did to ensure he got everything he could have ever wanted.

Well, almost everything.

🎵 And darlin’, darlin’, stand, by me, oh stand, stand by me… 🎵

He could feel his mom’s eyes narrowing at him just before she lowered her voice even more.

“When are you gonna talk to him, honey?”

His stomach rolled as he let out an awkward laugh.

“I was talking to him like two minutes a—”

“You know what I mean, Richard. Don’t play dumb. It doesn't suit you.”

He swallowed the bile rising in his throat as his mom squeezed his hand again, her big eyes shining up at him.

“You’ve loved him since you were ten years old. And while I won’t speak for him, I think it’s pretty obvious from even just tonight how much he cares about you.”

He opened and closed his mouth several times, searching for words and failing to find them. Maggie merely kept eyeing him, her face giving away exactly nothing.

🎵 Whenever you’re in trouble, won’t ya stand…by me…oh…🎵

“Well, that,” she shrugged, her tone light. “And you’re sleeping together.”

He froze, his jaw dropping.

“Ma, what—”

She patted him on the shoulder, cutting him off.

“Don’t waste your breath, honey. We both know I’m right. And even if I wasn’t sure, the look on your face right now confirms it.”

With that, she leaned up and kissed his cheek, then turned back to the room and called out.

“You keep the party goin’, kids, but this old lady is tappin’ out. I’ll see your lovely faces in the morning for brunch, though, right?”

After big hugs and good nights and promises of banana pancakes the next day, Maggie Tozier made her exit stage left while Richie silently reeled from the revelation that she somehow knew that he and Eddie had…had…

Oh, Jesus Christ.

He took some deep breaths and deeper sips of his drink before pulling himself together and re-engaging with the rest of the Losers. His brain was at full capacity right now, so if he allowed himself to entertain the notion that his mother somehow knew about his and Eds’ arrangement and wasn’t just fishing, it’d start leaking out of his ears like clam chowder.

Forcing himself to sit down, he basked in the comforting sound of his friends chatting and laughing around him, a pleasant buzz in his veins.

It was his own fault for not seeing it coming, really. He never should have allowed himself to be lulled into a false sense of security.

“I had a very interesting conversation with an up-and-coming actor today.”

Adrian’s voice carried throughout the room.

The Losers each made noises of interest, prompting him to continue.

Some spidey sense prickling the back of Richie’s neck had him glancing up and looking at Adrian, who was very noticeably already squinting back at him.

Uh oh.

“Is it true you give the best head in Hollywood, Tozier?”

He inhaled his whiskey, spluttering and coughing against the burn in his nose and throat, his eyes watering.

“J-Jesus, f*ck,” he rasped as he wiped at his chin, shooting Adrian a (no doubt ineffectual) glare.

“You try’na kill me, man? My mother is in the next room.”

A paper napkin was draped in front of his face. Tilting his head back, he saw an upside-down, absolutely ecstatic-looking Beverly Marsh beaming at him, a manic gleam in her jade gaze.

“Answer the question, Trashmouth.”

His face was on fire as he cleared his throat, snatching the napkin from her and dabbing at his shirt uselessly, ever aware of several pairs of eyes boring a hole into his skull, awaiting his response.

Adrian’s and Bev’s, but also Don’s, Patty’s, Bill’s, and...Eddie’s.

f*ck.

And to think, it had been a dignified affair so far...for the most part.

“I’ve uh...not had any complaints.”

Adrian hummed thoughtfully.

“Oh, don't be modest! The way I’ve heard it from certain thespians, your mouth’s not always Trash,” he grinned, throwing him a knowing wink as Don rolled his eyes good-naturedly, elbowing his fiancé.

Richie coughed, something catching in his throat as he forced himself to stand, making his way over to the kitchen island where Eds had painstakingly laid out tasty little crud-ites (it’s pronounced crew-du-tay, you animal! ) they pairing well with the much-less-healthy appetizers he had shoved in his face a few minutes ago.

“And what exactly is it you’ve heard?” Bev asked when it became obvious that Richie was ignoring that any of them even existed right now.

He halted beside Stan, who seemed just as determined to pretend this conversation wasn’t happening, doggedly watching Mike and Ben squabble over playlists on the other side of the room, sipping his Gin ‘n’ Tonic with narrowed eyes.

“Oh, words like ‘mind-blowing’, ‘transcendent’, and ‘the best I’ve ever had’ were thrown around. Richard Tozier is a real throat goat, apparently,” Adrian replied, a smirk evident in his tone as Richie kept his back to him, crunching on carrot sticks dipped in hummus and trying not to draw any parallels.

He saw a grey blur shift in the corner of his eye. Eddie was topping up his drink at the mahogany liquor cabinet that he insisted they buy in an antique shop for Christmas last year.

More booze. Good idea, Eds.

He crossed the room in practically two strides as Bev asked what he himself was afraid to.

“And who exactly gave him that glowing review?”

He sidled up to Eddie, who didn’t look at him but handed him a fresh drink anyway.

Their fingers brushed.

“Eric.”

Richie stopped dead, hand frozen mid-air, Eddie’s pinky still pressing against his.

“Eric Rose?”

The name was only halfway out of his mouth, and he already knew it was a mistake. As blind as he was, even he could see Adrian’s giant, sh*t-eating grin from here.

Eddie turned back to the cabinet, taking his pinky with him as he reached out to stir what looked like another pitcher of Long Island iced tea.

“Oh, so you remember him, huh?” Adrian asked, all innocent-like, despite being lit up like a Christmas tree, “he was in that one episode of Degrassi back in the day. Short, dark hair, kinda twinky?”

Richie stared at the side of Eds’ head for a beat before shaking himself, forcing out:

“Uh...yeah? We sorta—"

“Dated?” Adrian interjected, a mischievous glint in his eye.

“blowj*bs in an Arby’s parking lot does not dating make, Mellon-head.”

A chorus of exclamations from laughter (Bev and Patty) to grossed-out groans (Bill) to pensive hums (Don) rang out around the table at that.

But it was Eddie’s utter silence that he noticed most.

Adrian huffed out a breath, “Poor Eric will be heartbroken.”

“Uh-huh, devastated,” he responded with a healthy heap of sarcasm, forcing his feet away from Eddie, not trusting himself to resist the urge to outline in graphic detail just how, in every single way, he was far superior to any guy Richie had ever fooled around with.

He would happily never suck a dick again if it meant Eds would live with him, throw parties with him, buy ridiculous furniture with him, read comic books with him, play videogames with him, laugh with him, yell and cry with—

“But seriously, Rich,” Adrian broke through his sappy thoughts incredulously, “do you have any idea just how much of a hot commodity your dick is right now?!”

Richie snorted.

"Right. I'm the gayer, uglier, Brad Pitt or somethin’?"

“Practically!" Adrian exclaimed excitedly, "I've got the inside scoop, Toze. Tons of guys in Hollywood want you to rail them. Zachary Quinto, Jaime Waldorf, Zachariah Daniels—

“You,” Don interjected with a cheeky grin on his face, winking at Richie.

“I am a happily engaged man, Donald. Hush,” Adrian gave his fiancé a dismissive pat on the chest and levelled Richie with a stare, "Richard. Do you have any idea how many celebrities I've interviewed who only wanna talk to me 'cause you name-dropped me in your set? You’re hot sh*t right now, trust me."

Richie sank back into his seat, giving a half-shrug.

“If you say so.”

Adrian scoffed, “I do. You gonna do anything about it?”

He blinked, catching Patty’s eye, who merely grinned at him, tilting her head inquisitively.

“Like what?”

Adrian rolled his eyes, throwing a mini quiche that he expertly dodged. It skid across the floor with surprising speed. Oddly enough, Eddie didn't seem to notice.

“Like going on dates? Meeting people who are not in this room? Hooking up? You know, pretty much anything other than procrastinating, having Meg Ryan marathons, and live-streaming your and Kasp’s culinary exploits on Instagram?”

Richie had been thoroughly called out. Adrian could be brutal when he wanted to be.

“Hey! You love our Meg-a-thons,” he scolded him with a pointed finger, not failing to notice that Eddie had come to sit down again, a large glass, fuller than his last, now in front of him.

“Richie,” Bev joined in, an almost whine in her voice, “you deserve to be happy, honey.”

He levelled her with a pointed glare.

I know what you’re up to, Ringwald.

“Who’s to say he’s not happy?”

His head whipped around, surprised to hear Eddie speak for the first time since this whole debacle began. He wasn’t looking back at him, though. Instead, he was staring right at Bev and Adrian, eyebrow arched. That seemed to quieten them, both clearly at a loss of how to answer. Richie felt an odd tension begin to creep into the room.

“Well, we’re not saying that,” Adrian said eventually, after a long beat. “Just that he has the ability to be…happier, you know?” He turned to Richie. “If he just got outta his own way every once in a while. Kinda like someone else I know.”

If he didn’t already know that Adrian was aware of their arrangement, failed or otherwise, he sure as hell would know now. The other man glanced between them, gaze shifting from him to Eddie and back again as if double-dog-daring them to argue his point.

Minutely, Richie felt Eds shift in his seat, the heat from his thigh pressing against his.

“So we went with some ‘80s classics because Ben’s white boy crooning was getting on my last nerve,” Mike snorted as he approached, dropping back into his seat beside Bill and unknowingly breaking the weird vibe that had befallen the table.

If Mike wasn’t happily entangled in some sort of weird will-they-won’t-they-they-definitely-are dance with their newly-divorced fearless leader, and Richie was not hopelessly in love with his best friend for the last thirty years, he would have reached across the table and kissed Mike right on his sexy, minty mouth, with tongue.

“Well, thank god for Michael Hanlon, for he saves us from the dulcet tones of Chris de Burgh,” he said, raising a glass instead of making out with him.

Mike rolled his eyes, “Shouldn’t we be toasting you, Rich? It's your big day.”

Before he could argue, the whole room was scrambling for their drinks and holding them up. It was reminiscent of their toast in the Jade, only with a few extra faces and less existential dread.

“To Richie ‘Trashmouth’ Tozier,” Bev smiled, her eyes dancing at him, “success looks so good on you.”

Richie snorted, propping his chin in his hand and fluttering his eyelashes, “Not bad for ‘growing into my looks,’ huh, Marsh?”

A flurry of laughter met that as they all leaned forward and clinked glasses. Here, his gaze fell on Eddie, who offered him a small smile that warmed his bones.

“Your looks have served you very well if the internet is to be believed anyway,” Adrian piped up, clinking their glasses again.

“Oh, Mellon-head,” Richie winked, relieved by the familiar banter now void of tension. “I’m charmed.”

“You flirting with my man, Tozier?” Don joked, tilting his head at him.

“Nah,” he smirked, hyper-aware of who was beside him, “he’s not my type.”

Something dangerous gleamed in Adrian’s eye.

“Uh, I’m a short, feisty brunet. I’m exactly your type, Trashmouth.”

He opened his mouth to say…something…to that but was cut off by Stan’s hand clapping down on his shoulder.

“So, now that you’ve conquered Netflix, when can we expect the memoir?”

Eddie was going to commit a murder.

Two, in fact.

A double homicide right here in Richie's living room, chock full of witnesses.

But two consecutive life sentences would be worth wiping those smug smirks off Adrian Mellon and Beverly Marsh’s faces.

“Top up, Eds?” the woman in question asked, dangling some concoction that was definitely not what he had been drinking all night in front of his face.

“What the hell is wrong with you two?” he replied through gritted teeth, wearily watching as Richie and Ben chatted animatedly about something out on the balcony.

“Whatever do you mean, Kaspy?” Adrian grinned innocently, slurping his Mai Tai through a crazy straw.

“You know what I mean, asshole,” he growled back. “Knock it off. Both of you.”

The duo exchanged grins.

“Eds!” Bill yelled from the kitchen, saving them from his wrath. “We’re outta co*ke!”

“Guys, I told you I can’t do cocaine anymore. It’s murder on my colon. I didn't sh*t for like all of 2006,” Richie whined as he made his way back into the room, swaying a little.

“Ha, ha,” Eddie rolled his eyes. “We’ve more soda at my place, Bill. I’ll go get it.”

With that, he weaved around him (who was grumbling about how very unfunny constipation is, actually, Eds) and made his way out of the apartment. He blamed the excessive amount of rum in his system for the reason he didn’t realize he had a tail for a solid ten seconds.

“Getting soda is not a two-person job, Beverly.”

A hand clasped around his elbow, pulling him to a stop in the middle of the hallway, only a few feet from the apartment.

“You didn’t talk to him, Edward.”

Heaving a sigh and accepting his fate, he turned to her.

“I started to, I really did. Then…then we were talking about our childhood crushes, and I thought maybe showing him Street Fighter might—I don’t know. Show him what I meant without me having to tell him?”

It had made some sort of sense at the time, but thinking about it now, he realized it may have been a little too…vague. Richie wasn’t a f*ckin’ mind-reader. How could he possibly know that an ‘80s arcade game was the physical representation of his lifelong, undying love for him? Especially considering he himself hadn't realized that was what it was until very recently.

“Well, you know what Trashmouth is like,” Bev sighed. “The time for subtly is over. Club him over the head. With your dick if you have to.”

He groaned, elbowing her and sobering.

“I—I’m scared, Bev. What…what if he doesn’t…” he shook his head, just as a text alert rang out from his pocket.

Frowning, he fumbled to dig out his phone.

Rick Lebedev - 12:47 am
Thanks again for tonight, Kaspbrak. Me and Tony had a blast. Thank Richie for us too. Looking forward to tomorrow!😎

“sh*t.”

Bev stepped closer to him, reading over his shoulder.

“That your guy from New York?”

“He’s not ‘my guy.’”

“No. Richie is. Has been since like 1986.”

“How do I let him down easy?” Eddie asked, pointedly ignoring that comment, no matter how truthful it was, staring at the text from Rick with guilt swirling in his gut. “I don’t wanna hurt him, Bev. He’s a great guy, and I do care about him, obviously, but…”

“It’s not gonna go anywhere,” Bev finished, patting him on the shoulder.

“It’s not gonna go anywhere,” he echoed. “We’re just…friends. That’s it. How do I tell him that without messing everything up?”

Bev sighed, squeezing his arm.

“Just be honest with him, Eds. But maybe tomorrow? After we’re done celebrating, and all the booze is outta your system?”

He nodded, double-tapping the message to send a thumbs up and shoving the phone back into his pocket.

“Yeah, you’re right. It’s not a good time. It’s Richie’s night, and I gotta focus on that.”

He could feel Bev’s eyes boring a hole into him before the predictable punch to his shoulder.

“And talk to Richie too! After all the booze is outta your system. And use actual words instead of metaphors this time, maybe?”

He grinned wryly, liking her arm and leading her down the hallway towards the elevator.

“Yeah. Maybe.”

Richie frowned at the liquor cabinet, realizing what was missing. f*ck. They were all out of tonic water, too. Stupid Sophisticated Stanley and his gross drinks.

He watched as Bev’s fiery hair disappeared out the door after Eddie and weighed up his options. On the one hand, he could just text either one of them to bring down a bottle, or on the other, he could spend his time annoying a cutely-tipsy Eds in person.

It was a simple decision, really.

He followed them, making his way to the front door, finding it ajar.

“—Richie is,” he heard Bev’s voice waft in from the hallway. “Has been since like 1986.”

He paused at the sound of his name, glancing quickly over his shoulder and found no other Losers lingering nearby, so turned back, just as Eddie’s voice met his ears.

“How do I let him down easy? I don’t wanna hurt him, Bev. He’s a great guy, and I do care about him, obviously, but…”

Ice seeped into his chest cavity, freezing his heart mid-beat.

“It’s not gonna go anywhere,” he heard Bev pipe up as a wave of nausea washed over him.

“It’s not gonna go anywhere,” Eddie repeated firmly, shattering Richie’s frozen heart into a million pieces. “We’re just…friends. That’s it. How do I tell him that without messing everything up?”

His world began to tip on its axis.

Bile climbed up his throat.

“Just be honest with him, Eds. But maybe tomorrow? After we’re done celebrating, and all the booze is outta your system?”

The whiskey in Richie’s system was having a raucous encore in his gut.

“Yeah, you’re right. It’s not a good time. It’s Richie’s night, and I—”

He slammed a hand over his mouth and stumbled back towards the bathroom, dodging in and out of Bill and Mike and barely making it in time before he spewed chucks everywhere.

Coughing and spluttering, he just about registered Ben’s concerned tone asking him if he was okay from somewhere behind him. With a shaking hand, he leaned back to shut the door with a loud snap.

“I-I’m fine, Haystack,” he called out as loud as he could, which wasn’t very. “Just—went a bit hard on the ol’ water of life, you know how it is. I’ll be…I’ll be out in a sec.”

With a groan, he flushed the toilet, watching as the disgusting remnants of the once-delicious appetizers washed down the drain and felt his broken heart follow after them.

Jesus, dramatic much, Trashmouth?

Wincing, he gave another half-hearted dry heave, dragging himself up off the floor, gripping the sink tightly and staring into the mirror.

“Pull yourself together,” he growled at his reflection. “It’s nothing you didn’t already know. You’ve always f*cking known. He doesn’t want you. He’ll never want you. Just accept it already.”

Richie is. Has been since like 1986.

That was what Bev had said. And what else could that possibly mean other than she knew? God, Eddie knew. His oldest secret was out in the world, and the love of his life was going to 'let him down easy.'

f*ck. Stop thinking about it. Stop thinking about it. Stop—

With one last firm nod (which was fooling exactly no one), he brushed his teeth, swept a hand through his hair, and stepped back out of the bathroom.

His friends had spent weeks planning this night for him.

And he wasn’t going to let his sad, foolish, broken heart ruin it.

He could fall apart later. In the privacy of his own bedroom. In the dark, under the covers, just like the not-so-good ol’ days back in Derry.

So, summoning every trick he had long since learned in his pining teenage years, he held his head high and painted a grin onto his face.

And even when Eds and Bev came back laden with bottles of co*ke and Tonic Water (Patty must have sent up the SOS), the grin stayed and never faltered.

Not once.

Richie was hammered. sh*t-faced. White-girl-wasted.

And something was wrong.

Eddie couldn’t say what, but something was just off about his best friend in a way he had never seen. Richie was typically a happy drunk, a little louder and even more affectionate than his sober self, throwing his arms around people and forgoing personal space altogether, but this was different.

It seemed forced. Practised. A hesitancy to it that was never there before.

And he hadn’t looked him in the eye in over two hours.

(Not that he was counting, of course.)

(Except he 100 percent was.)

“Okay, I’m callin’ it—bedtime everyone,” Stan's voice rang out over Bev and Ben’s impromptu conga line of two, Mike and Bill’s loud debate on what was the best breakfast sandwich, Adrian, Patty and Don’s breakdown of the latest episode of Game of Thrones and Eddie’s fervent tidying and not so covert surveillance of his best friend.

They could have stayed up another while. Maybe not easily, and they would have hated themselves tomorrow, sure, but they could have.

If it weren’t for the man of the hour being mostly face-planted into his empty glass of what was once whiskey.

“You hear me, Trashmouth?” Stan raised his voice, practically yelling into his ear. “Time for bed!”

“Oh, S-Stanley The Manly, don’t threaten me with a good time,” Richie slurred back, groggily lifting his head and gifting Stan with a dopey, sleepy, impossibly-fond smile that Eddie pathetically wished had been aimed at him.

“Alright, Netflix Star,” Stan leaned down and wrapped his arm around his shoulder, hauling him up with surprising strength, “let’s go have a good time by getting you some water, Advil, and a solid eight hours sleep ‘til brunch, huh? Say ‘goodnight, Losers’.”

Richie giggled, actually frickin’ giggled into Stan’s hair, calling out, “‘Night, Losers. Love you!” and allowing Stan to direct him, drunk-Bambi-style, towards his bedroom.

He still never spared Eddie a glance.

Stomach churning, he watched them go, barely registering that he was on his feet and following after them until he ducked under Richie’s other arm and bore his weight, helping Stan steady him.

“I gotcha, Rich,” he murmured into his shoulder.

“Spagheds!” Richie exclaimed, blearily staring down at him, his tone still sounding off. “Did you know that S-Stanley’s strong? I think he has…a f*ckin’ eight-pack under all those sweater vests.”

“Uh huh, I bet,” he agreed, thanking a God he didn’t believe in that he and Stan were just to the left of tipsy and actually able to manoeuvre their 6’2”, 176-pound friend without too much trouble.

“It’s a six-pack, but I’m flattered Rich,” Stan muttered drily, pushing Richie’s bedroom door open. “Can you get the lights, Eddie?”

Nodding vigorously, he twisted to the side to hit the switch, feeling Richie sway into him with the motion, only to freeze and wrench himself away, stumbling towards his bed.

“‘M’okay, guys, you can go…go…do whatever,” he waved a hand, tripping over a wayward sneaker and catching himself on his nightstand.

“I’m gonna go get him some water,” Stan muttered under his breath to Eddie, his brow furrowed. “You try and get him horizontal.”

Eddie’s cheeks burned, but before he could open his mouth, Richie let out an obnoxious snicker.

“Good one, Stanny Boy, but I don’t think Eds’ new boyfriend would be cool with us doin’ that anymore.”

He froze as he and Stan locked eyes, the latter conveying exactly zero shock or surprise on his face.

Stan knows. f*ck. Of course he does…

Shaking his head, he shoved down his conflicting feelings at that revelation and reached out for Richie’s arm.

“C’mon, Rich. You can’t sleep in your suit. Where’s your sweats?”

His hand gripped his elbow, only for him to pull away, the back of his knees hitting the edge of the bed and forcing him to sit down.

“I can undress myself, thanks,” he said, tone dripping with annoyance as he wrenched off his glasses and dropped them onto the nightstand. “Goodnight, Eddie.”

It was a dismissal. God knew he had heard enough of them in his lifetime.

“Rich—”

“Goodnight, Eddie.”

He looked to Stan, unable to swallow the hurt and confusion swirling within him, his face no doubt painted with the sting of it.

Stan gave him a look he couldn’t quite decipher, reaching out and squeezing his shoulder.

“Thanks, Eds. I got this. You go to bed. We’ll see ya in the morning for brunch.”

It was also a dismissal. If a little gentler.

Blinking back the embarrassing well of tears building behind his eyes, he merely nodded, not trusting himself to attempt speech, turning on his heel and letting the door slam shut behind him.

“That was a dick move, Dick.”

“f*ck off, Urine.”

Richie felt rather than saw Stan take a seat next to him.

“You didn’t talk to him, did you?”

“What do you think?”

“I think you’re being an asshole, and Eddie didn’t deserve that.”

“H-He doesn’t love me back, Stan.”

His voice sounded all of thirteen again, small and wounded as the dam he had carefully constructed around his heart for the last thirty years finally burst, a rush of emotions flooding him, dragging him down and drowning him from the inside out.

He felt arms encircle him as a loud sob shook loose from his ribcage.

“I overheard him telling Bev,” he gasped into Stan’s shirt, it somehow already damp. “He…he said that he doesn’t wanna hurt me, so he'll let me down easy 'cause we’re just f-friends and ‘it’s not gonna go anywhere.’ So, that’s it. I have my answer without ever having to ask the question.”

Stan made a noise in the back of his throat.

"Eavesdropping isn't always reliable, Rich. Are you sure—"

"I'm sure," he insisted, leaning back from him and dabbing his eyes with the heels of his palms.

"That's all she wrote, man. Game over. It's done."

He didn't need to see Stan to know he wasn't convinced, but frankly, he was too goddamn tired to argue anymore.

Heaving a shaky sigh, he gave a half-shrug.

"I'll apologize to him tomorrow. Just…blame my crankiness on booze and lack of sleep. The least I can do is not be a sh*tty friend to him after everything. I still just…want him to be happy, you know? Even if it's not with me."

The crease between Stanley's eyebrows deepened, but Richie could tell he was tired too, the fire dimming in his gaze.

"I know, Rich. I know."

Something had taken a sh*t and died on his tongue last night.

That was the only possible explanation for the absolutely disgusting taste permeating Richie's mouth when he blinked his eyes open at 10:47 a.m.

Frowning, he scanned his fuzzy gaze around his room, trying to find the source of whatever woke him, only to have it smack him in the face.

"Ow! Ma? What—"

There, standing over his bedside, brandishing a pair of jeans, stood his mother.

"We're late for brunch. Come on, get up and get dressed. Don't make me throw another T-shirt at you."

With that, she dropped the pants onto his unsuspecting face and slammed the door behind her in a way that had his head pounding.

"Up and at 'em, Richard…” her voice wafted from the hallway. “Banana pancakes await!"

"Have you any idea how much I drank last night, ma?!" He yelled in vain after her. "I shouldn't even be conscious right now, and you want me to eat pan—"

How much I drank last night.

sh*t.

It all started coming back to him…

The surprise.

'Holy sh*t, I love you.'

'It's not gonna go anywhere.'

The whiskey.

The tequila.

The schnapps.

'Goodnight, Eddie.'

The snot on Stan's shoulder.

'He doesn't love me back.'

‘Game over. It’s done.’

…f*ck.

"I'm a f*cking asshole," he said out loud to his empty room, burying his head in his hands and forcing himself to take several deep breaths.

“Okay, Tozier, time to face the music.”

He dragged himself out of bed, groggily shoved on his glasses and pulled random crap from his closet, not wearing the clothes his mother left out of spite.

“He hath risen,” Bill’s far too chipper voice penetrated his delicate skull when he stumbled out of his room ten minutes later, dragging a comb through his tangled hair.

“No thanks to you, Mr Let’s-have-two-more-tequila-shots-Rich-it’s-your-big-night,” he groused, stepping over where Bill and Mike were still lying (noticeably close) on his inflatable air mattress.

Several laughs followed that, the loudest from his pull-out couch.

“I remember the tequila being your idea, actually,” Adrian snorted from where he sat up on the makeshift bed, scrolling on his phone beside a dozing Don.

Richie flipped him the bird, shuffling over to his coffee maker just as Patty and Stanley came through the door, looking annoyingly put together for the hooliganism that occurred mere hours ago—like two swans entering a nest of ugly ducklings in various states of undress and hangovers.

“Morning, boys!” Patty, the sweetheart that she was, beamed as she stopped by Richie, leaning up to smack a kiss on his cheek. “How’s your head, Rich?”

“Like I said last night, I’ve had no complaints,” he shot back, winking at her and ignoring Stan’s presence, a creeping sense of dread in his veins as more of last night came to mind. “How was sleeping at Casa Kaskbrak’s? Did he leave mints on your pillow? Did you find a Bible in the nightstand?”

She punched him in the shoulder. Surprisingly hard.

“Eddie was a gracious host. Don’t be mean.”

“Ow! Moi?” Richie put on his exaggerated French waiter accent. “Mean? Never. Patricia, how could you accuse me of such things? I am a paragon of kindness. A patron of good deeds. A—”

“Pain in the ass and still terrible at doing a French accent?”

He blinked, his head shooting up to meet Eds, who was standing in his doorway, Maggie at his side, and Bev and Ben visible behind them, looking unfairly pretty if a little tired.

His stomach rolled uncomfortably, nausea rising within him, but before he could open his mouth to speak or vomit (he honestly wasn’t sure which,) Eddie jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

“Ubers are downstairs. Didn’t think it’d be a good idea for any of us to get behind the wheel right now. Move your asses. Maggie wants pancakes.”

Mustang Sally’s was a quaint vintage diner that he had found on his very first week in Los Angeles. Still reeling from his divorce and moving 2800 miles across the country to shack up with his best friend (and man he had refused to admit he’d loved since he was in the fifth grade), he sought out certain comforts.

Those comforts included grease.

And plenty of it.

He had limited saturated fats and practically no carbs for over a decade, so a place like Sally’s was nirvana for post-divorce Eddie and a lot of LA’s residents sick of juice cleanses and fad diets.

“Oh, this is gorgeous,” Maggie cooed, in awe of the retro ‘50s theme that was so often tacky in other establishments but here was somehow charming.

Eddie grinned at Donna, the thirty-something waitress originally from Kentucky that he swore must live somewhere on the premises as she seemed to always be behind the counter, day or night.

Somewhere over his shoulder, he heard Richie mutter something that sounded like, “Oh, great,” under his breath. Ignoring him, he cleared his throat.

“‘Mornin’, Donna. Our table ready?”

Her green eyes lit up as she threw him a huge grin, sweeping her blonde hair over her shoulder.

“Eddie Kaspbrak!” she exclaimed, taking in their large group. “You weren’t kiddin’ about the crowd, huh? I always knew you were a popular guy, but this is impressive! Are ya’ll visiting for the weekend?”

After several minutes of lively small talk, Donna showed them to the large, 12-person table (that was actually six 2-person tables shoved together) at the back of the room.

“Wow,” Bev chuckled as they all sat down. “She sure is friendly, huh, Eds?”

He scowled at her, but before he could say anything, Richie snorted from his seat directly opposite him.

“She practically dry humps his leg every time we’re in here. Think she’s angling to be the next Mrs. K.”

Eddie kicked out his foot, which connected roughly with Richie’s shin.

“Ow!” he hissed, their eyes locking for the first time in what felt like days. “The f*ck was that for? I was just saying—”

“Yeah, well, don’t,” he cut across him. “You’re just pissed she always gives me the bigger basket of fries and doesn’t laugh at any of your jokes.”

“You’d see she’d give you more than just the ‘bigger basket of fries’ if you paid attention, Edward,” Richie wiggled his eyebrows, tone obnoxious. “You’re just too blind to see when someone is obviously flirting with you.”

Eddie let out a huff.

“Yeah, he always has been,” Bev piped up before he could think of a comeback. “But then again, so have you, Four Eyes.”

Richie arched an eyebrow.

“You tryin’ to tell me something, Ms Contact Lenses?”

Bev merely tilted her head, something weighty passing between them.

“Alrighty, here ya go!”

The weird staring contest Richie and Beverly had started was abruptly broken by Donna’s arrival, handing out menus and jotting down their drinks orders.

Eddie, in turn, took that time to really drink Richie in, eyeing him up for any trace of whatever odd mood he’d slipped into last night. He looked…well, hungover. There were bags under his slightly bloodshot eyes, his hair looked like he’d stuck a fork in a toaster, and his clothes clearly hadn’t seen an iron in several years. Yet, Eddie’s stupid, love-sick stomach swooped all the same, gaze locking onto his stubbled jaw, fantasizing about leaning over and kissing along—

“—usual?”

“Hm?” his head shot up to find Donna smiling down at him, placing an Americano in front of him.

“I was just asking if you’re havin’ your usual?”

“Oh. Um…Yes, please.”

He was very aware as he and Donna chatted that the majority of the table was zeroed in on them, but no stare burned through him quite like Richie’s. He could feel those giant baby blues homed in on his every move and fought the urge to either fidget or grab him by the face and—

"Oh, Bill, I got talking to that charming literary agent of yours last night. Zach?" Maggie's sudden voice halted any indecent actions his horny brain could come up with. "He's so impressed with your novel. I am too, by the way. How do you come up with those wild plots? That clown scared the bejesus outta me."

The table exchanged some awkward glances, Bill forcing a laugh.

"E-Eh, you know me, Maggie. I’ve a-always had a wild imagination.”

Maggie nodded, face lighting up.

“Oh yeah, you all did,” she glanced down the table, smiling at them all warmly until her gaze stalled on Eddie. “I remember when you and Richie were about ten, you two would go out into the garage with Walt and tinker around in there. Rich had a whole backstory for you both, how you were going to open up your own autobody shop, how you’d be the youngest, most successful mechanic to ever live, and how he’d ‘schmooze the customers’ with his ‘wit and business savvy’ and win young entrepreneur awards. It was adorable.”

Warmth pooled in his stomach as he slowly turned to meet Richie’s eyes, which looked soft, a small smile playing about his lips.

“He had all these plans for when you both grew up,” Maggie continued with an airy chuckle. “How you’d move to a big city and live in your own apartment and—well, I guess you did actually end up doing that, in a way. Your fifth-grade selves would be very proud.”

“Ma…” Richie gently scolded, his cheeks a fiery red.

Maggie merely reached over and patted his arm, though her stare never left Eddie.

“Just goes to show what can happen when you don’t give up on a dream, huh?”

Something zinged through his entire body as eyes, identical to the love of his life’s, bore into him, the words echoing in his mind.

“Anyway,” she waved a hand after a beat, no longer X-raying him.

He breathed a shaky sigh of relief, feeling far too exposed as if she could read his mind and see her son’s name etched onto his ribcage like an inscription on the Kissing Bridge.

“Zachariah is such a nice man,” she continued. “He spoke very highly of you, too, Richard.”

“Oh, I bet he did,” Bill jumped in before Richie could utter a word, face lit up with something Eddie couldn’t place. “Talk about being too blind to see when someone is obviously flirting with you, huh, Rich?”

A sharp stabbing pain bolted through Eddie’s chest as Richie let out a snort, eyes narrowed towards their fearless leader.

“Even I’m not that blind, Big Bill.”

Bill's eyebrows raised at that, seemingly surprised by that response.

“Oh really? Could’ve fooled me. He's been asking about you in every single one of our meetings for months now. Said that he’s dropped hints that he would like to...collaborate with you.”

“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” Richie asked, his voice sounding high and thin.

Eddie lost his appetite all of a sudden. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Maggie was now focused on her son, an unreadable expression on her face.

“Are you going to take him up on his offer, Rich?”

Eddie felt himself tense up. Gripping his yet to be used fork so tight that his knuckles turned white.

“Uh…” Richie gaped at her, his jaw slack. “I—”

“Alrighty, what can I get you, ma’am?”

Maggie blinked, her attention nabbed by Donna. She offered her a small smile and began to order.

Eddie, as always, found himself drawn back to Richie, who was busy staring down at the table, his skin tinged with a notable blush.

Thankfully, the conversation was dropped, and the fairly quick arrival of his bacon and eggs provided a temporary distraction, even if all he did was push them around his plate.

Light small-talk filled the diner, the Losers happily tucking into their breakfasts, though some a little more gingerly than others. He couldn’t help but notice that Richie didn’t really eat much either and was also just pushing around his scrambled eggs with his fork and staring down at the plate as if it held all the answers to life’s questions.

“Oh, Maggie, we booked dinner for 7 tonight, so we have time to go to the observatory later if you still want to go?” Ben was chiming in over the murmurs and clattering of cutlery, doing marginally better than Richie at attempting food.

“Definitely, Ben. That sounds great! Hey, Eddie, aren’t you meeting your friend later?”

His head shot up, not knowing for sure where the hell she got her information but having a good idea that it rhymed with ‘Meverly.’

“Oh, uh, Rick, yeah. Around 5.”

A little furrow appeared between her eyebrows.

“Ah, okay, we’ll miss you at dinner. But you’ll be around tomorrow before my flight, right?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Richie stand up and excuse himself to the bathroom.

“Yeah, of course,” he assured her, rising from his seat and beginning to follow him. “I’ll be right back.”

He took a deep breath, swallowing down the bile rising in his throat and splashing cold water on his face.

Get a grip, for f*ck’s sake. How the hell are you gonna handle being around Eds and Rick if you can’t even manage hearing him talk about him?!

He felt rather than saw Eddie walk in behind him and just about managed not to jump three feet in the air Tom and Jerry style. Glancing up to the mirror, he saw that, yep, he was right behind him, annoyingly handsome face marred with something he couldn’t decipher.

“Hey Eds, uh,” he coughed, his hand reaching up to rub the back of his neck. “Think last night’s shots are not liking brunch. I-I’ll be out in a sec.”

Eddie glanced behind him, then stepped closer, looking concerned.

“You gonna hurl? If you’re gonna hurl—”

“Stop saying ‘hurl,’ man.”

“Sorry.”

Another wave of guilt washed through Richie as he was reminded just how much of an asshole he’d been the last twelve hours.

Be a better friend, Tozier, Jesus. He deserves better.

Forcing himself to turn around and face those bush baby eyes he loved so much, he took another deep, shaky breath.

“No, I’m sorry, Eds. I’m sorry I was such a dick to you last night. I think the booze and adrenaline wearing off got to me, but it’s no excuse, man.”

Eddie blinked, clearly not expecting that and making him feel even sh*ttier about his behaviour.

“Oh, uh, s’okay, Rich. I get—”

“No, it’s not okay,” he interjected, running a hand through his hair. “You planned this…this whole amazing surprise for me, the best I’ve ever gotten, and I acted like a complete f*cking asshole. I'm so sorry.”

Eddie looked conflicted for a moment, as if there were too many things he wanted to say, but he didn’t know where to start, before finally…

“Apology accepted.”

They stood there in the small, fluorescently-lit diner restroom. Staring at each other through the mirror.

Seconds ticked by, and Richie felt, for approximately the 1976th time, as if they were being drawn to each other like magnets.

Until he remembered.

It’s not gonna go anywhere. We’re just…friends.

“You—you excited for your date tonight?”

He dragged his eyes away from their reflection and forced himself across the room to dry his hands.

Words, quiet and hesitant, followed him.

“Uh, yeah, Rich, about that, could we maybe talk for a sec—”

“I am proud of you for putting yourself out there, dude,” he interrupted, tone frantic. He winced but continued, “You deserve to be happy. Maybe Rick will be Mr. Right, or maybe he won’t, but you won’t know until you try.”

He could tell Eddie was frowning now, even though he had his back to him.

Quieter still and almost but not quite lost under the roar of the hand dryer, he asked, probably the worst thing Richie had heard in a while.

“You really think I should give it a shot with Rick?”

His heart clenched painfully.

There were two ways he could go about this—either be a good friend and support Eds in his new romantic venture or be a bad friend and confess his lifelong, pathetic, undying yet unrequited love right there next to the soap dispenser and what he really hoped was a not-too-nefarious stain.

And like every cliché Hollywood movie, good triumphed over bad.

“Uh-huh. Sure,” he nodded zealously and shrugged, his back still to him. "He's gonna love you, man. I—we all do. So, to paraphrase the best guy I know—you're Eddie Kaspbrak. That's enough. So. Go be Eddie."

Those large, dark eyes branded him with their stare.

“I don’t know if I can do it. Dating. I’ve no idea what I’m doing, Rich.”

The admission was the quietest yet, so soft yet felt tangible, like Richie could almost reach out and clasp it in his hands.

“What if I'm terrible at it?” he continued, picking up steam, getting louder and more panicked with each syllable. “I—I have zero experience in being…being vulnerable with someone or whatever. I know we…we practised s-sex stuff, but what about everything else? What about…intimacy? L-Love? What about—”

Richie whirled around so abruptly that he almost collided with the sink.

“I don’t know sh*t, Eds,” he cut across him, his skin itching with every passing second, words flowing from his mouth so fast he hardly had time to think them. “I’ve been alone my whole life. Sex is sex, sure, but intimacy? Love? I’m clueless, man.

“I’ve never even undressed in front of someone, lights on and sh*t. I’ve never—I’ve never had someone touch me without it being sexual. I’ve never had someone take me on a date, or fallen asleep next to someone and woken up in their arms. I’ve never had anyone hold me, or brush their teeth next to me, or cuddle with me on the couch. I’ve never had anyone cook for me or buy me things just ‘cause they were thinking about me or kiss me ‘just because’. I’ve never had anyone love me. Not…like that. That’s not my life, that’s never been my life. It’s always just been me, myself and I, man, so I’m the last person in the world to come to for advice about dating. Okay?”

Eddie blinked as Richie tore his eyes away from him, letting out an awkward chuckle, his cheeks burning with humiliation.

“Sorry,” he rasped, staring hard at a crack in the restroom tiles. “That was uh…a bit of an overshare. I’m just hungover, don’t listen to me, man. Follow your gut. You got this.”

He forced himself to turn back and was met by the beautiful, wonderful, devastating sight of his best friend/love of his life, searching his face as if trying to read a book written in a different language.

Almost unbeknownst to himself, Richie's hand raised up to pat him on the shoulder.

It didn't seem to have the supporting effect he had hoped it would if Eddie's look of confusion and…something else was any indication, but he stepped away anyway, heading for the door, only to freeze when more words started tumbling from Eds’ lips.

“I wish we could have had that life you made up when we were 10 years old. Growing up together, starting our own business and living in a big city with my best friend. It sounds nice.”

Richie caught his eye.

“But I love our life now, too. You know that, right, Rich?”

Somehow, he knew that this was part of the ‘letting him down easy’ speech that Eddie had no doubt been referring to last night.

It was just as heartbreaking as he had feared.

Still, he painted on a smile.

Be a good friend.

“I know, Eds. Me too.”

He turned on his heel before abruptly whirling back around, hoping his face wasn't giving himself away as he hastily cobbled a sentence together.

“And who knows, maybe I’ll take a leaf outta your book after all.”

Eddie took a step forward, seeming even paler.

“What do you mean?”

He shrugged, aiming for nonchalant and probably missing by a mile.

“Dating. I might give it a try, like Adrian said. Maybe it won’t be so bad now that I’m out, you know?”

It might have been the fluorescent lighting or perhaps his imagination, but he was pretty sure Eddie had now paled to the point of a Victorian ghost, practically translucent.

“Oh. Cool.”

A beat of silence passed between them, and when it was obvious that he had nothing else to say, Richie gave one last nod, stepping away and letting the door snap closed, taking his battered, broken heart with him but safe in the knowledge that at this point, he had to be the best best friend in the entire world.

After brunch and a trek down Hollywood Blvd, The Losers (and Maggie) dispersed. Eddie had spent the entire time wrestling with acid reflux and a broken heart so it wasn't a particularly enjoyable experience for him, even if he wasn't reeling from the very recent news that the man he was in love with was going to start dating other people.

“‘Oh, cool.’ ‘Oh, cool?’ What the f*ck, Kaspbrak,” He grumbled darkly to himself as he made his way back to his apartment. Beverly had tried very hard to accompany him and, in fact, trailed him all the way to the parking lot and into the passenger seat of his car before he unceremoniously shoved her back out again with a quick “I love you, but I need to be alone.”

The rest of them had all made their way to Bill and Mike’s, Richie included. But he, after an afternoon filled with touristy bullsh*t and glib attempts to participate in cacophonous conversation with his friends and best friend's mother, he reluctantly excused himself to get ready for his date.

Admittedly, he had lost track of time between wallowing in the shower and changing his shirt three times, but finally, he was ready.

‘Oh, cool,’ he quoted himself under his breath one last time as he stood in the mirror, staring at the depressing picture he made.

Snap out of it, you look like you're going to the goddamn gallows.

A quick glance at his watch told him that it was 4:25 pm. He would have to leave right f*cking now in order to be only slightly late, but somehow, somewhy his feet remained glued to the floor.

A sudden buzzing in his pocket had him jumping out of his skin.

“Jesus Christ!” he pressed one hand to his chest while digging in his pocket with the other, picking up his phone without looking at the screen.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Kaspbrak,” said Rick, his 100-watt smile audible through the line. “Sorry, but last minute change of plans. I know we were meant to meet at my hotel, but long story short, the realtor called. They won't be able to show me the listing after all. So, yeah. Not sure what to do now. Any ideas? We could just have dinner, or...?”

Eddie knew that his mouth was doing something, but it definitely wasn't anything that resembled speech.

“Or something else may—

“I need a drink!” was not what he intended to say, but was what came out of his mouth anyway.

“Uh…” Rick replied slowly. “I could do drinks. Where?”

Which was how he found himself downtown in one of the bars that Richie insisted was fantastic but was actually a pretty sh*tty dive bar that happened to serve pretty fantastic co*cktails.

“I had you pegged for a Sex On The Beach kind of guy,” Rick joked in a lame opener that Eddie felt just charitable enough to let him away with.

He hated to admit it, but Rick looked... gorgeous. All slick hair and broad shoulders and tight shirt with even tighter pants that fit him like a glove.

And yet, all Eddie wanted was graphic tees, converse and bird-nest hair.

“I'm a man of mystery,” he replied sarcastically, knowing well that he had drunk a-near excessive amount of that very drink (and others like it) only fourteen hours prior.

He dragged his straight whiskey to his lips and took a big gulp, just barely managing not to wince.

How the f*ck does Richie drink this?!

“So,” he forced himself to initiate a subject change that kept his mind as far from Richard Tozier as he could manage, watching as Rick took a sip of his own vodka soda, “did the realtor at least reschedule?”

He allowed himself to get lost in Rick’s recounting of the very frustrating couple of hours he had had going back and forth with the real estate agency that was supposed to be showing him listings in the area that he had emailed to him a few weeks back to get his advice on.

“So yeah, a f*ckin’ bust,” he sighed as he dredged his glass. “Not one drop of sympathy for the fact that I specifically made the trip from New York to view the apartments, and I’m unlikely to be able to take more time off before the end quarter.”

Eddie made a noise of what he hoped was empathy.

“Are you still gonna transfer to the LA office in the new year?”

“I could. I mean, my sister and Tony already said I could have their guestroom until I find my own place,” Rick shrugged, “and Macken already spoke to my boss, so it’s pretty much a done thing.”

Eddie blinked.

“So…we’ll be colleagues?”

“Looks like it.”

A silence engulfed them. It wasn’t awkward necessarily, but it was definitely not the comfortable silence he was used to when he and Richie did their own things in the same room.

Stop comparing him to Richie, Jesus.

Almost as if being able to read his mind, Rick piped up, bumping their elbows together.

“Anyway, how’s Richie? I’d say you guys had one hell of an afterparty last night, huh?”

Eddie shifted in the barstool, his fingers tapping along the wood, far too jittery.

“Uh, yeah. He—” his voice broke embarrassingly, and he swallowed down the lump in his throat, trying to banish all thoughts of arcade machines, thwarted attempts at love confessions and bathroom conversations about dating other people.

“He’s…good. The show went well. We’re all so proud of him.”

It was the truth. The words easily flowed from him despite the sinking feeling in his stomach he had had since last night.

“Good,” Rick nodded, eyeing him a little strangely. “And how are you? You, uh, you sounded a little off on the phone.”

He just about managed to suppress a wince.

God, am I that obvious?

“sh*t, sorry, man,” he threw him a sideways glance. “I…I’ve had a lot on my mind lately, I guess. I don’t mean to—sorry, I’m not great company.”

Rick looked surprised for a moment until he reached out and clapped him on the shoulder, squeezing him tight and leaning in close.

Holy sh*t, is he gonna kiss me?

That thought had his gut twisting as the confirmation hit him like a mack truck that, yep, he definitely did not want Rick to be his first kiss with a man. No. Of course he didn’t. Like most things, he wanted it to be Richie. His best friend and love of his life and—

Rick did not kiss him.

Instead, he gave his shoulder another squeeze and let go, his eyes shining with something Eddie couldn’t figure out.

Suddenly, his skin felt too tight for his face.

Taking a deep breath, he poised himself to ask the question he had wanted to ask all night.

“And…this…” he waved between them, “won’t be a problem when we’re colleagues?”

Rick stared at him for a beat before an enigmatic smile spread across his face.

“Eddie,” he began with an air of amusem*nt. “This,” he waved between them like he had, “won’t be a problem because this,” he waved again, “is just two soon-to-be colleagues and hopefully already-friends sharing a drink.”

Eddie’s ears started ringing.

“What?”

Rick continued to speak to his empty glass.

“I mean, maybe once upon a time, sure, I kinda hoped it would be a date, but, c’mon, bro. I’ve seen you and Richie together. I pretty much knew you and I were never gonna happen the second I saw you both in the airport.”

Eddie’s jaw dropped as he jolted around so hard to face him that he almost gave himself whiplash.

“What do you mean? Me and Richie are just…” he trailed off lamely, surrendering to Rick’s disbelieving stare.

He felt him lean into him again, his voice a decibel lower.

“The man looks at you like you hung the moon, Eddie. And had a ten-minute set dedicated entirely to you in his Netflix special. Come on, I might not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I’m not blind.”

Silence hung between them.

Needless to say, it spoke volumes.

“And then after Richie’s show?” Rick continued as if he wasn’t just upending Eddie’s world. “Hearing how he talks to you and about you in person? And seeing the way you act when he’s around? Hearing all about him in our Skype calls…I knew there was no way this would be a date. But that’s okay. You and Richie are made for each other. I can see that. He’s great, and you’re a cool dude. I’d still like us to be friends if you’re down with that?”

It felt as if the room was getting smaller and smaller with each passing breath.

How he talks about me? The way he looks at me? Made for each other?

He took a quivering breath.

A spark of hope ignited deep within him.

Could Richie maybe…?

Any other time, he would have dismissed that thought almost before it could form, had done many times in the past when any of the Losers alluded to…something between them. But now, this time, he didn’t. There was just something about the fact that it was Rick, a virtual stranger who admittedly had a romantic interest in him, saying that he and Richie were something else, so much so that he decided not to try to pursue him, that had him wondering.

Had him needing to know if it was true, once and for all.

Have we really been dancing around each other all this time?

The dumb friends-with-benefits arrangement came springing back to his mind because, of course, it did. But now he let himself linger on how easy it all was, just like Bev had said. How weird it was that it wasn’t weird at all. How it made him feel things he had never thought possible. How it was Richie, without asking for anything in return, that made him feel accepted and safe and euphoric and horny and happy and…and…

Holy sh*t.

“Eddie?” Rick’s concerned tone broke through his building panic attack. “You o—”

“I gotta go!” he leapt out of his seat, clapping him on the shoulder and throwing an apologetic look. “I—I’m sorry, Rick. But I…I gotta go right now. Before I lose my nerve.”

He threw down several bills onto the bar and clutched his jacket in a tight fist.

“You’re a great guy,” he gasped out, holding his gaze. “ And I know I’m an asshole right now, but I’d love for us to be friends. Next time you’re in town, I’ll treat you to a steak dinner and be the best f*ckin’ wingman you’ve ever seen. Even though you don’t need one because f*ck, bro, you’re awesome and you’re hot. Really, really hot. Ya know, in a platonic, friendly way, because you’re right, I’m totally in love with Richie Tozier, and I need to tell him that right the f*ck now.”

Rick gaped, shocked.

“Wait, you’re serious? You guys aren’t already—”

“Nope,” he retorted, one arm caught in his jacket sleeve. “But I wanna change that.”

Rick’s laugh followed him as he raced to the door, his shaking hands eagerly ordering an Uber, praying to a God he didn’t believe in that Richie hadn’t left for the restaurant yet.

“Better late than never, Kaspbrak! Don’t forget to mention me in your wedding speech!”

I wonder if Eds and Rick are hooking up back in his hotel room yet? Has all of his practising with me helped with his handjob technique? Will he do that sexy thing he did with me and jack him from behind? Will Rick be his first blow—

He felt a knock to his elbow, shaking him from his torturous reverie.

Blinking, Richie pulled himself back from where he had been staring into space for the last…however long…and turned, meeting familiar jade eyes.

“Ringwald,” he threw her a tight smile that he knew wasn’t fooling anyone, his hand clenching around his glass of what would hopefully prove to be a cure for his hangover if he ever managed to take his first sip.

It had been a nice afternoon, all things considered. After breakfast, they had milled around the city, his mother and Patty in particular excited to explore, and Richie had done his best to perk himself up, let the here and now drown out his ever-chatty inner voice.

It hadn’t worked.

No, all it had kept reminding him of was—

Eddie’s going on a date. Eddie is gonna start dating perfect Rick with his perfect teeth and tan, and he’s going to forget all about me and be disgustingly happy, and I’ll have to watch the man I’ve been in love with since I was a kid fall in love with someone else and—

(His thoughts descended into a jumble of run-on sentences. Trashmouthy even in his head.)

“Richard,” Beverly nodded back, sitting next to him on Bill’s couch and linking her arm between his free one. “What’s goin’ on in that big brain of yours, huh? You’ve been weirdly quiet all day.”

A lilt in her tone told him she knew exactly why he hadn’t been himself all day. The same lilt he remembered hearing way back in the Clubhouse a lifetime ago, the day that Eddie told them that Stacey DeMarco had called him cute and was hinting she wanted him to ask her to the dance, and Richie had scoffed loudly, his nerves frayed at the possibility.

“That your way of callin’ me five-head?” he asked, the pathetic excuse for a joke falling flat.

(Hadn’t he just kicked off a sold-out comedy tour last night?)

“That,” she flicked said five-head with a perfectly manicured nail, “is my way of showing concern, Tozier. Come on, tell me. What’s goin’ on?”

She punctuated her question with a squeeze of his hand.

He glanced down to where their fingers were now linked and heaved a sigh, squeezing back.

“Nothing, I’m fine,” he lied, sounding so insincere it made him wince. “I mean…I’m just being dumb and hungover. Ignore me.”

“I’ve never been able to successfully ignore you since the day I met you, Rich,” she said blithely, a smile spreading across her face. “None of us have.”

When he didn’t quip back at that, her face fell.

“Rich,” she whispered, a small wrinkle forming between her eyebrows, her eyes conflicted. “Is this…are you…” she faltered, looking around the empty living room as if it knew where her words were.

Finally, she turned back to him, something determined in her gaze.

“This is about Eddie, isn’t it?”

He couldn’t hold back the line of tension that seized his body at that. Heat rising to his face, he tried to pull his hand from hers, but she tightened her iron grip.

“Bev—”

“Richie, I’m sorry, honey, but we are talking about this. Right now. I can’t…I can’t watch you torture yourself anymore. None of us can.”

As if summoned by magic incantation, Stanley appeared in front of them, dropping down to perch himself on the edge of Bill’s gleaming coffee table that Ben had made him for Christmas last year.

“What is this,” Richie asked, his eyes narrowing. “An intervention?”

Are there such things as broken heart interventions? Am I an Eddie Kaspbrak addict in need of help?

Stan took a slow, steady sip of his lemonade, gaze locking on him.

“Bev and I had a very interesting conversation this afternoon,” he began as if Richie hadn’t spoken. “Right after Eddie left for his date, looking as if he were about to face a firing squad. What exactly did you say to him?”

Richie glanced from Stan to Bev and back again.

“What? When?”

Stan and Bev shared a look, the latter replying, “When you came back from the diner restroom looking like you just found the clown staring up at you from the urinal drain.”

He suppressed a shudder at that image, shifting uncomfortably.

“It was nothing!” he exclaimed. “We just…talked about his date. He—he asked me for advice, and I told him I knew f*ck all about dating, but maybe I’d take a leaf outta his book and give it a try. It was nothing big.”

He knew as the words came out of his mouth that they weren’t ringing true. Even if, technically, that was exactly what had happened. But from the looks on their faces, Bev and Stan weren’t buying it either.

“Right,” Stan retorted, his tone indecipherable. “‘Nothing big.’ Just the love of your life going on a date with someone else while you stand idly by.”

Richie’s jaw fell open, betrayal surging through him as his entire body went into flight mode.

Four hands reached out and pushed him back down onto the couch before he could bolt.

“Easy, Rich,” Bev murmured as if he were a startled horse. “It’s nothing I didn’t already know.”

A fresh wave of humiliation, sharp and stinging, rose within him as he swallowed down bile, blinking at them both.

“Right…” he rasped, trying to shove down the memory of when he had screamed himself hoarse, being dragged, literally kicking and screaming, out of Eddie’s lifeless arms from under Neibolt. “Because you all know, don’t you? Every f*cking one of you.”

He choked out a humourless laugh, tears welling in his eyes as Bev squeezed his hand again.

“Not everyone. Not the one person who matters most.”

He guffawed at that, pulling his hand from hers and shaking his head.

“No way. I’ve already reached my quota for worst ideas ever when I convinced him that friends with benefits was a perfectly normal, low-risk thing for two emotionally damaged people to enter into. Been there, done that, got the sh*tty f*cking T-shirt.”

It was as he was taking his next breath that he realized that Bev didn’t look surprised. Sad, sure, worried, absolutely, but surprised? Not even slightly.

Well, that confirms it…

Everyone knowing he was in unrequited love with his best friend was one thing, that was thirty years coming, but the fact that more knew about his stupid, ridiculous, pathetic f*ck-buddy-arrangement on top of everything? Unbearable.

Gritting his teeth as another surge of humiliation shot through him, he whipped off his glasses and wiped furiously at his eyes.

“And what use would telling him be anyway, huh? All it would do is make things awkward and uncomfortable for all of us, and Eds would have to ‘let me down easy’ just like he told you last night, but things wouldn’t ever be the same betwee—”

“Let you down easy?” Bev interjected, brow furrowed, looking as if she were trying to solve a particularly hard crossword. “What do mean, Rich?”

As if Bill’s couch cushion had morphed into an ejector seat, Richie shot out of it, on his feet, slamming down his still-full glass so that it sloshed everywhere and was halfway to the front door before either of them could stop him.

“Look, stop, okay? I—I can’t,” to his horror, his voice shook, his throat tightening dangerously. “Please, don’t. I…I know you’re only trying to help, but it’s breaking my f*cking heart, and I can’t—”

“You need to talk to Eddie, Richie. Now,” Bev interjected again, she and Stan getting to their feet, looking more serious than he had ever seen them. And that included whenever Pennywise was involved.

“You,” she held up her hands almost in surrender, frowning. “You don’t have all the facts, okay? Whatever you heard—”

“I know what I heard!” Richie spat, dimly aware that the rest of the Losers, and his mother, were now standing at the edge of the room, looking on silently.

Bev shuffled toward him, a desperate gleam in her eye.

“Richie, please listen to me,” she stressed, sounding more urgent as seconds ticked by. “Whatever you think you heard us say last night, you’re wrong. It wasn’t…he didn’t mean…” she let out a growl of frustration, running a hand through her hair. “Look, it’s not for me to say, so you need to talk to him yourself. Right now. And sort this out once and for all.”

A breath caught in his throat as he felt the concerned stares of everyone he loved in the world all homed in on him at once.

All but one.

“I can’t…” he rasped, turning on his heel and storming out, letting the door slam shut behind him.

Honking horns and flashing lights streamed in through the backseat window.

“sh*t, sh*t, f*ck! Can’t you go any faster?!”

“Sorry, dude. No can do.”

The traffic on the way to Bill and Mike’s had been f*cking deplorable. Something about a fender bender and some asshats having a ‘demonstration’ that was clearly orchestrated to ruin Eddie’s entire life.

Staring at his watch as if he could magically speed up time, he shifted in his seat, frantically checking his phone to see if Richie had replied to his text yet.

Me - 6:07 pm
Hey, Rich, you still in Bill and Mike’s, or did you go home and change? We need to talk ASAP

That had been ten minutes ago, and there was no sign of him having seen it, which was very unlike him as his phone was practically superglued to his hand every second of the day.

Maybe he’s ignoring you… a pesky, petulant, Pennywise Voice whispered in his head. You do text like a f*cking grandpa who’s gonna scold him for something.

Shoving down those irritating thoughts, Bill’s (and now Mike’s) house finally came into view. With its large glass windows and sleek, modern finish, it looked like something straight out of a Beverly Hills mansion magazine (that just so happened not to be in Beverly Hills) and had a much more LA-hot-shot vibe than Richie’s very nice but perfectly regular apartment building.

“Thanks,” he threw some bills at the driver and scrambled out, racing up to the electronic gate and pushing the intercom button.

“Bill? Mike? It’s Eddie. Let me in.”

After far too many seconds, Bill’s voice crackled down the line.

“Eds? What are you—”

“Is Richie there?” he asked, trying to shove down the adrenaline-fuelled desperation without losing his tenuous nerve. “Hurry up and let me—”

“He left about twenty minutes ago,” Bev’s voice suddenly cut across, and when he glanced up, he could see her and Bill and f*ck, all of the Losers and Maggie Tozier peering out at him from the long window by the front door.

It would have been eerie if he didn’t adore all those assholes.

“Uh, hi guys,” he gave a stupid little wave before his brain caught up. “Wait, he left? Why? Where did he go? Is he not going to the restaur—”

“We’re not sure where he went, but probably home,” Stan piped up. “He was upset, Eddie. You need to talk to him. You need to…” he faltered as another voice jumped in.

“You need to tell him you’re in love with him and wanna bone him full-time!” Adrian practically yelled, then cleared his throat, pausing and saying quieter, “Uh, sorry, Maggie.”

Eddie’s cheeks burned as he stared at Richie’s mom through the gates, catching her beaming grin even from this distance, before—

“He’s right, Eddie,” Maggie agreed, her voice gentle. “Richie needs to hear it. He deserves to hear it, especially after all this time. You both do.”

Those words wrapped around his heart and calmed it a little.

She was right. They were all right. He and Richie had already lost far too much time, and he didn’t want to waste another second.

But as her words caught up to him, you both do, doubt, his ever-constant companion, took hold once more.

“But what if he—”

A chorus of shouts, protests, and groans filtered out through the intercom, making him wince.

“You got this, Eds,” Bill’s voice called out over all of them, Ben adding with an arm around Bev, “It’ll all work out, Eds, trust me,” before finally, Mike finished with a beaming grin, “It’s like Richie said last time, you’re braver than you think. Prove him right!”

Adrenaline spiked in him again, renewed by their response. Taking one last second to revel in their support, he smiled, “Okay.”

With that, he raced back down towards the Uber driver, who was thankfully only beginning to pull away and pleaded with him to take him home.

His already precarious passenger rating was gonna take a hit.

But Richie Tozier was worth it.

Trying to waterboard himself in the shower hadn’t worked on healing his stupid, childish, broken heart.

Neither had f*cking himself on his fingers with reckless abandon.

(Screw his brain for being bombarded with images of Eds being f*cked by perfect Rick and his probably perfect dick stopping him from his pathetic org*sm.)

So he had gone for the ol’ hair of the dog, mixed with his childhood favourite as a last, albeit preferable, resort—Maggie’s famous cocoa with a shot of Jameson.

With still-dripping hair and steaming mug in hand, Richie eased open the door to his office/arcade room with his socked foot, his gaze falling on the brightly lit video game of his youth.

Streetfighter.

His heart panged in his chest.

He took a gulp.

Wincing, he placed the cup down on the air hockey table, its thunk far too loud for his ears, and picked up the tokens, weighing them in his hand.

As if teleported, his mind shot back in time to his thirteen-year-old self, just as desperate and just as lonely that summer of ‘89, with no Losers and no Eddie and only this video game with its bright lights and catchy music for company.

With shaking hands, he slid a token into the slot, heaving a sigh as the game came to life.

He let himself get lost in it, his mind, soul and heart numb to the outside world, nothing but Ryu and his fight for glory existing. His fingers tensed, his hands flexing and aching after being out of practice for so long, but he let it distract him, let it help him forget Ed—

“Richie.”

He jumped at least a foot in the air, one hand clinging to his chest and the other painfully slamming down on the joystick.

“Jesus, what the—”

He whirled around to see his best friend, flushed and breathless, standing in his doorway, leaning against the frame for support as if he had run all the way up six flights of stairs and into his apartment.

“Eddie?” he frowned, glancing down at his watch, surprised at the time. “What are you doin’ here, man? Shouldn’t you be with—”

“Is that a Freese’s T-shirt?”

Eddie’s head was tilted in bewilderment as if those were not the words he intended to say.

Richie mirrored him, tilting his head back.

“Uh, yeah,” he gave a wry smile as he glanced down at his shirt of choice. “Was feelin’ nostalgic.”

Something soft passed over Eddie’s face before he cleared his throat, tapping a hand on the wall next to him in a jittery way.

“Don’t date Zachariah.”

Richie blinked.

“What?”

A wild look replaced the softness on Eddie’s face as he stepped further into the room unsteadily.

“Don’t date Zachariah. Or…or anyone else. Please.”

His voice sounded raw, like he had spent the last few minutes yelling, crying, or both.

Richie felt himself frown, irritation spiking in his veins as his arms crossed over his chest, over his heart.

“You don’t get to tell me who I can and can’t date, Eddie.”

“I know, I’m outta line. I’m an asshole. But that’s nothin’ new,” he shot back a little more steadily. “Just…just hear me out, okay?”

A beat of silence settled between them.

Richie raised an eyebrow.

“Okay. I’m hearing you out, Eds.”

Another beat passed.

And another.

And another.

“Okay,” he began to turn back to Streetfighter. “Good talk. I’m gonna get back to—”

“You have.”

The words were quiet but resolute.

He stilled, keeping his back to him, staring into the glass of the machine.

“I have what?”

He watched his reflection take a deep breath, edging closer and closer to him until a hand landed softly on his shoulder.

Slowly, he allowed himself to be turned, standing so close now that their feet were practically touching.

Their eyes locked.

“You said that you never had anyone touch you without it being sexual. You never had anyone cook for you or buy you things just because they were thinking of you. That…” Eddie swallowed, his eyes shining bright as if tears were seconds from falling. “That you never had anyone love you ‘like that.’ But you have, Richie. You just didn’t know it.”

He felt his heart stop, afraid to let himself read into what Eddie was working up to.

“E-Eds,” he gasped, a mix of petrifying fear and blooming hope in his chest, his voice barely above a whisper. “What are y—”

“I never should’ve agreed to the arrangement. It was a f*ckin’ stupid idea,” Eddie interjected, his gaze homing in on his, wide and dark with sincerity.

Alright, then. Suppose Richie had asked for it. Tempering down the wave of hurt and offence, he made himself nod and force out a reply, always the glutton for punishment.

“Uh, okay. You’re probably right about that, man. But uh, do you wanna go through your thought pro—”

Lips covered his in the smallest, lightest kiss he had ever felt. Warmth washed over his entire body, from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. But before he could process what was happening, it was gone.

He heard rather than saw Eddie fall back down onto his heels. That was when he realized, even in that split second, his eyes had slipped closed.

A sharp intake of breath had them bursting back open, just in time to see Eddie’s alight with sheer panic.

“sh*tf*cksorry!” he rambled frantically, clearly misunderstanding Richie’s stillness, looking about three seconds away from sprinting through the wall and leaving a cartoon outline of himself behind. “I-I shouldn’t have done that. I-I had a whole speech, but then I thought actions speak louder and not like the metaphoric ones but something more tangible, but this was a bad idea. A f*cking terrible—”

Richie pressed his finger to his lips, the same lips that had just brushed his, leaning in to meet his eye.

“Deep breaths, Eds. It’s okay. It’s just me. Breathe. In and out, come on. How you taught me.”

In—one, two, three, four. Hold—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Out—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

“That’s it,” Richie whispered, his finger still feather-light on his lips, their faces so close together that he could count his eyelashes.

Slowly, he let his thumb sweep across his bottom lip, marvelling at its sheen and desperate to savour the taste but needing some answers first.

“I’m uh, I’m starting to think thoughts here, Spagheds, not gonna lie,” he murmured, transfixed as Eddie let him trace the edge of his mouth softly, “but I’m gonna need you to spell some things out for me. Like I’m five years old. I never thought I’d say this, but I need a Kaspbrakian rant right about now, just so there’s no misunder—”

“I should’ve known better!” Eds exploded, running a hand through his hair as he broke away and began pacing back and forth, Kaspbrakian rant in full swing. “Of course I’d get f*ckin’ hooked on fooling around with you. I’ve only been fantasising about it since I was at least 13 and started to have some semblance of an idea of what sex was, so it makes sense that when I finally, finally got to touch the dick of the man I’m in love with, I’d get f*ckin’ addicted to it! And that’s not really ideal when trying to maintain a friendship, no matter what you say about friends-with-benefits or f*ck buddies or whatever, and I f*ckin’ knew that!

“And that makes me a terrible friend ‘cause I had a decent idea of how I felt about you when you floated ‘the arrangement’ in front of my face. I just couldn’t fully admit it to myself. But deep down, I knew the risk I was taking, and I did it anyway. I was too scared to be honest with you. To tell you…” he trailed off, shaking his head and letting out a humourless laugh.

“And then I ended up kinda leading Rick on, too. Though apparently he saw right through me the second he saw us at the airport. But I didn’t know that. Then, on our supposed date tonight, all I could think about was coming home and shoving my tongue down your throat. When he leaned in, and I thought he was gonna kiss me, I panicked. I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want him to be my first kiss with a guy. I wanted it to be you. I want all my firsts to be with you, and I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you that before, and I know I’ve ruined everything now but—”

“You’re in love with me?”

Richie didn’t even realize the words had left his mouth in a choked gasp. The only thing that told him that they had was Eddie’s abrupt halt, both verbally and physically, he now standing so still he could give Michaelangelo’s David a run for his money.

After what felt like eons, he blinked, looking as if his own words were lodged in his throat as he struggled for breath, chest heaving. Finally, he looked back at Richie, who knew he was gaping at him like a fish, his brain having short-circuited somewhere around, ‘when I finally got to touch the dick of the man I’m in love with.’

“Uh...yeah?” Eddie eventually rasped, brow furrowed. “Didn’t bursting in here and kissing you kinda clue you in?”

Richie felt something complicated wash over his face at those words. His world began to tip on its axis as several things slotted into place, like old puzzle pieces found under a coffee table decades after the incomplete picture was long forgotten.

“But…” he swallowed roughly, a ringing in his ears. “But what about you wanting to ‘let me down easy’?”

A little line formed in between Eddie’s eyebrows. He wanted to smooth it down with the pad of his thumb and barely restrained himself.

“Let you down easy?” Eddie asked, sounding baffled. “What are you talk…” he trailed off. A light shone in his gaze, clearly putting two and two together.

“You heard me and Bev,” he said rather than questioned, wincing, holding his hands up. “Rich, we—we weren’t talking about you. I was talking about Rick, letting Rick down easy because I knew my heart wasn’t in it. I didn’t want to date him. I never wanted to date him. I…” he swallowed again, his trembling hand reaching down to clasp Richie’s. “I couldn’t date him. Because I knew I was already in love with you. I have been, for a long, long time. Even before I scratched a heart with an ‘R’ in it on the Kissing Bridge in seventh grade.”

An exhale, sounding a cross between a laugh and a sob, wrenched from deep in Richie’s chest. His heart, now fully free of its shackles, the dam he had constructed around it since he was a kid, not only well and truly burst but flooded and now settling into a stream.

Relief never felt so good.

“You’re right. The arrangement was a dumb idea,” he choked out as a tidal wave of emotion hit him. “My worst ever, probably. And I’ve had many, many bad ideas over the last forty years, trust me. Because…because I know I said I’d done the whole friends-with-benefits thing before but, I knew it’d be different with you when I was pitching it.”

He felt his face heat up to furnace level but forced himself to continue.

“I know I was wrong and more than a little f*cked up, but I thought I could, I dunno, ignore my feelings for you. The same f*ckin’ feelings I’ve had since grade school, to be your…helpin’ hand because I don’t like when you’re not happy. I’ve always—” he swallowed, turning his eyes to the ceiling to try and stop the tears that threatened to fall. “I’ve always only wanted you to be happy, Eds. Even if it would never be with me.”

That had Eddie stepping toward him, something blazing in his gaze as he snatched up Richie’s hands again and squeezed them, encouraging him to continue.

“I scratched an R plus E on The Kissing Bridge,” he admitted, barely above a whisper, squeezing his hands back. “For Richie and Eddie. I stole Went’s pocket knife that summer of ‘89, right in the middle of all the clown bullsh*t, because I thought I’d explode with it. My deepest, oldest secret that Pennywise used to bring out my biggest fear.”

He bit his lip, surprised, though he really shouldn’t have been, when a tear finally trailed down his cheek.

“Losing you.”

Eds paled, his mouth dropping open and looking as if he was going to interrupt.

“But then, I lost you anyway,” Richie hurried to continue, the confession fleeing from him after so many years in capture. “I…f*ck, Eds. I lost you for 25 years, got you back for three days, then lost you all over again in the worst way. So, when you came back for good, I-I wasn’t risking losing you a third time.”

He knew what he wasn’t saying was heard loud and clear.

I couldn’t risk telling you how I feel about you. How I’ve felt for most of my life.

Eddie squeezed his hand again, firmer this time, his stare never wavering from him.

“You wouldn’t have.”

A beat. An exhale.

“No. I know that now.”

Seconds ticked by as they trailed each other’s faces, desperately drinking each other in.

There was a wayward curl hanging loose from the side of Eddie’s face. Richie ached to brush it between his fingertips.

“You…really scratched R plus E into The Kissing Bridge?” Eddie asked tentatively as if too scared to let himself believe it.

“Yeah,” Richie replied easily, his heart lighter than it had ever been, “back in ‘89 and then again after…you died.”

A flash of anguish shot across Eddie’s gaze as he pulled his hands from his, placing them on either side of his face.

“I’m sorry I did that. Died on you. I can’t—I can’t imagine how it must have—”

“It’s okay, Eds,” Richie assured him, even though they both knew it wasn’t. He laid his hand over his chest, comforted by the strong beating of his heart. “We got you back.”

Eddie let out a deep breath, one of his hands leaving his cheek to cover his hand, interlinking their fingers.

It felt amazing. Intimate and close in a way that he had never felt, even during sex.

Which reminded him…

You’re braver than you think, Tozier.

“So, uh,” he swallowed the lump in his throat. “Just—just so we’re clear. The Pretty Woman rule is lifted, right? K-Kissing is on the table now?”

He hated how nervous he sounded, like his thirteen-year-old self had temporarily taken over his voice box.

Still, he watched as an adorable blush rose to Eddie’s cheeks.

“It’s very much on the table,” he nodded earnestly, biting his bottom lip, looking conflicted. “Only if you want to, tho—”

Richie leaned down and crashed their lips together before either knew what hit them.

“Oof!”

Eddie exclaimed into his mouth but didn’t pull away. Instead, his hands came up to grip his shoulders, dragging them closer together with a strength that had his stomach swooping.

It was somehow exactly how he had always dreamed kissing Edward Kaspbrak would be and better, a rightness settling into his bones.

A thrill rushed through him, more exhilarating than any drug, as he trailed his tongue along Eddie’s bottom lip, groaning as he opened his mouth wider to deepen the kiss. They stumbled slightly, both feverish and zealous, and more than a little desperate, oxygen at a dangerous low when something occurred to Richie.

“Oh,” he broke the kiss, feeling flush, dizzy, and giddy. “I’m in love with you too, by the way. Always have been. In case that wasn’t obvious from, like, everything.”

And there it was. His oldest, deepest, but never dirty secret.

f*ck you, clown.

“It wasn’t always obvious,” Eddie admitted. “At least not to me. But…I’m starting to get an idea now.”

With that, he clearly started making up for lost time by kissing every inch of Richie he could reach, peppering along his skin with heated bites, nipping pointedly at his apparently ‘ridiculously attractive’ (if his mutters were to be believed) jaw.

“Jesus, Rich,” he groaned into his stubble, gripping his hips as he moved down to suck a kiss into his pulse point.

“Y-You givin’ me a hickey, Kasprak?”

Richie’s voice was far too shaky to be teasing, unable to hold back the full-bodied shiver that raked through him at his ministrations.

“Damn right I am,” Eddie growled into his skin, setting his blood on fire as he backed him into the Streetfighter machine. “Teenage me has a lot of fantasies he needs fulfilling. So, buckle up, buttercup.”

An actual giggle rattled up from Richie’s chest before he could stop it.

“‘Buckle up, buttercup?’” He pulled back a little, blinking at him, knowing his eyes were fond. “That’s the line of seduction you’re going with?”

Eddie’s eyebrow raised.

“Yeah. That’s the line of seduction I’m going with because…in case you haven’t noticed, Trashmouth…it’s working.”

Slowly, he lowered his gaze to the front of Richie’s grey sweatpants, which were doing a particularly shoddy job of hiding his very enthusiastic erection.

His cheeks caught fire as he stared down at himself.

“Touché.” He cleared his throat and waved a hand. “Please continue, good Sir.”

Eddie snorted.

“Well, since you said, ‘please.’”

Richie let out a noise that was a cross between a yelp and a shout as Eds sunk to his knees and started undoing the knot in his sweatpants with determined concentration, the tip of his tongue peeking out from the side of his mouth.

Richie’s dick twitched in anticipation, his still slow brain just starting to realize what was about to happen.

“E-Eds,” he gasped, trying and failing to control his jackrabbit heart, “you don’t—”

“Here’s what's gonna happen, Rich,” Eddie interrupted him, still laser-focused on the task at hand. “First, I’m going to ‘beat you off with the same rigorous intensity of Ryu’s Shinku Hadoken.’ Then,” he leaned forward to nuzzle his face into the clothed outline of Richie’s co*ck, making him jump, “I’m going to put all that blowj*b practice with the bananas to good use. Deal?”

Holy sh*t. Did I actually drown in the shower, and this is my brain’s last-ditch effort to put on a show before I die?

“D-Deal,” he replied, still not in control of his voice as his entire nervous system lit up like the Fourth of July at the fact that one of his oldest, deepest desires was so close to coming true.

Eddie pecked a kiss on his hip through the fabric and began to peel it slowly down his thighs.

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Richie moaned, staring down at him making quick work of his pants and trying not to black out. “I really wish I wasn’t wearing a Freese’s T-shirt right now. Not exactly my sexiest look.”

Eddie paused briefly, glancing up with the stink eye.

“You’re hot. Shut up. Stop looking for an ego stroke.”

Richie chuckled down at him.

“Oh, trust me, Eds. It’s not my ego that’s looking for a stro—oh f*ck!” he hissed as his dick was palmed through his boxers.

“f*ckin’ stupidly huge dick. What do you even need a dick that big for?” he asked, clearly rhetorically because not even a second later, he added, “Well, to f*ck me with, eventually, but we’ll have to work up to that if I don’t wanna be split open like a cantaloupe.”

Yep, Richie was going to have an aneurysm.

“Now there’s an image I won’t get outta my head anytime soon…” he wheezed in awe, “you in my lap, impaling yourself on my dick.”

He blamed the fact that all the blood in his brain had flooded south for not catching his faux pas until Eddie smirked up at him.

“Yeah, that’ll sure beat the other kinda of impalement. Trust me, I’d know.”

“Eddie!”

The scolding was pointedly ignored as Eddie, in a mind-melting move, licked a stripe up his palm, coating his fingers with spit, reaching into Richie’s boxers and pulling out his dick, pumping it hard, once, twice, three times with yep, a rigorous intensity worthy of Ryu.

Richie’s head thunked back against the edge of Streetfighter, his eyes rolling into his skull.

“J-Jesus.”

“Eddie’s fine.”

His mouth dropped open in a wordless retort before he let out a high-pitched whine (that he would definitely deny later) as a wet heat closed around the tip of his co*ck.

His eyes burst open, heart leaping into his throat as his gaze landed on the delectable sight of Edward Kaspbrak—whose own eyes fluttered closed as he wrapped his mouth around Richie’s dick and sucked it down slowly, inch by inch, clamping his fist around what he couldn’t fit and building up a torturous, steady rhythm.

Holy f*cking sh*t, those practice bananas really helped.

He almost let out a laugh at his wayward thought, but the sound of Eddie slurping and sucking his co*ck as if going for a gold medal in fellati* had him moaning loudly instead.

He watched, transfixed, as Eds’ mouth stretched around him, bobbing up and down eagerly before pulling off, his tongue lapping at the head, sliding along a thick vein and back up.

Oh, yeah. Totally worth the twenty-five-year wait.

Not really sure what to do with his hands, he clamped them at his sides, ignoring the aching want of burying them in his hair.

That was until the choice was made for him, Eddie’s free hand reaching out and grabbing his, guiding it to rest on the nape of his neck. Richie bit his lip as he tangled his fingers in his short hair, not pushing but allowing his hand to go with the motion of his bobbing head, his stomach clenching when his fist twisted at the base of his co*ck, in just the way he liked it.

“Y-Yeah, Eds, sh*t, just like that.”

Eddie hummed, and the vibration of it shot through Richie’s co*ck as he licked across his slit, where precome was steadily seeping, and that did it—Richie's already precarious knees buckled.

A strong arm wrapped around the back of his thighs, keeping him upright as Eddie continued to go to town on him, clumsy but enthusiastic, mouth pulled wide as he took him down a little more until he choked, pulling off with a slight wince.

“Stupid big,” he wheezed to himself, “the bananas don’t do you justice.”

That had Richie snorting out a very unattractive laugh that had Eddie slapping him on the thigh in return.

“Shut up, Trashmouth,” he scowled, face blooming like a handsome tomato. “I’m doing a very sexy thing here. This is no time for laughing.”

Richie laughed louder, staring down at his pouty, shining lips with what he knew was an entirely too sappy/horny expression of his own as he petted his hair.

“Sex is the best time for laughing, Eds. And you can be funny and grumpy and sexy at the same time. In fact, that’s kinda your brand, man. I dig it. I always have.”

God, after the big confession, the little ones just crept up on him.

Eddie narrowed his eyes.

“My ‘brand?’ What the f*ck does that mean? How is—” he broke off as he no doubt felt Richie’s dick twitch in his hand.

“Wait…” he said slowly, glancing from the very hard, weeping erection in his grasp up to Richie’s rapidly reddening face. “Do you get off on me yelling at you?”

Busted.

“Uh, yeah, dude. Have since like 1988. Thanks for finally noticing.”

Eddie stared at him as if his whole worldview had been altered at that exact moment. Which, in a way, it probably had. Richie didn’t know whether to be happy or concerned about that.

But before he could feel one way or the other, a downright mischievous look flickered in that dark gaze, and he swept his thumb over Richie’s leaking co*ck, ignoring his gasp.

“Noted.”

With a dark chuckle, he wrapped his mouth around his co*ck again and swallowed with fierce determination, his gaze burning a hole into him as he did it.

“Oh, f*ck, Eddie!”

His brain was pooling out of his ears. It had to be. He watched, entranced as his dick disappeared into the tight, wet heat of Eddie’s mouth, white-hot pleasure zapping through him, his whole body fuzzy like TV static at the tell-tale tightening of his balls.

“EdsEdsEds,” he rambled, tapping him on the shoulder frantically, “you gotta stop now, or this is all gonna be over before it starts, man. I’m–I’m gonna—”

Eddie’s fist tightened around him almost painfully as he moved off him with a pop, a string of spit in his wake that Richie would save to his mental spank bank to review later.

“You’re not gonna come until I f*ck you into your mattress, Richie. Got that?” he said in a low tone that almost sounded like an order and had Richie’s ears ringing in shock.

“Yessir,” he gave a mock salute, a zing of excitement sparking straight from his dick all the way up his body.

Something crossed Eddie’s face at that, almost like he enjoyed hearing ‘Yessir’ more than he thought he would.

Hmm. Filing that away for later, too.

“Good,” he nodded, wiping precome from the side of his mouth and tucking Richie’s still painfully hard co*ck back into his boxers and patting his thigh. “Take me to bed then, Tozier.”

Richie’s knees threatened to buckle again at those words.

“f*ck, Eds,” he groaned, “you can’t just say things straight outta my wet dreams like that, man. You’re gonna kill me.”

He extended a hand to help him to his feet. Wincing at the sound of cracking knees, he pulled him flush against his chest, they both leaning heavily against the Streetfighter machine for a beat.

“Now that was my kinda high score,” he murmured, enamoured with Eddie’s flushed, shiny mouth, holding up his other hand for a high five.

Eddie blinked at him.

Richie shrugged, using his hand to high-five himself before leaning down and kissing him square on that same gorgeous mouth.

He realized his mistake the second their lips met, but he couldn’t pull away, thrilled that he could taste himself on his tongue.

Surprisingly, Eddie didn’t balk like he thought he would, though. Instead, strong hands gripped his shoulders, bunching his T-shirt into tight fists and dragging him down, exploring tongue licking behind his teeth and sucking on his bottom lip.

Pleasure pooling in his stomach, Richie wrapped his arms around his waist, pulling him even more flush against him until they were practically melded together, he hunched over and Eddie on his tip-toes. Struck by a sudden bolt of inspiration, Richie bent his knees and hauled him up into his arms, just about restraining himself from groaning at the twinge in his back at the ambitious move.

“Whoa—Rich!” Eddie exclaimed in alarm, legs coming up to wrap around his hips and arms winding around his neck, clinging to him for dear life.

“Always wanted to sweep you off your feet, Kaspbrak,” he replied in what was only a slightly winded voice before attempting a shaky step towards the door.

“I swear to God, Richard, if you drop me—”

“I’m not gonna drop you, Edward, I’ve been to the gym—”

“For like fifteen minutes a year ago, and you spent the entire time slurping a smoothie and flirting with Jason, the Spin Instructor!”

Richie paused mid-step, catching Eddie’s eye, who had a notable tinge to his cheeks.

“Were you jealous, Eds?” The flush on his cheeks deepened. “Oh my god, you were! And here I thought you offered to come with me out of the kindness of your heart and to use your free guest pass!”

Eddie glared at him and pinched the side of his neck.

“Ow! You little—”

“Yes, I was jealous, okay? Jason is ridiculously hot and was like five seconds away from offering you a cool-down massage. Of course I was f*cking jealous. I always have been whenever anyone shows interest in you; I just didn’t always realize it.”

Richie both hated and loved the purr of satisfaction that settled in his chest at that.

“Well,” he murmured, taking another few steps out of the room and adjusting his firm grasp on Eddie’s ass and lower back as he gingerly headed down the hallway, his heart hammering in anticipation, “you never need to be jealous again, Spaghetti. You’re the only man for me. You always have been.”

It was probably a bit too sappy for the sexy/playful vibe they had fallen into, but he couldn’t help himself.

“Besides, if it makes you feel any better, the whole time you thought I was flirting with Jason, I was actually just ogling your ass on the elliptical.”

He squeezed said ridiculously sexy ass with one hand (hyperaware of his currently trapped and neglected hard-on) as he reached out to his bedroom door with the other, pushing it open and standing on the threshold.

Eddie’s legs wrapped tighter around him as he digested that.

“I started doing yoga in your living room just to see if I could catch you looking at me,” he admitted, planting a kiss into the curve of his neck where he had pinched it seconds ago.

“I knew it! Those yoga pants will be the death of m-me.”

Richie’s knees wobbled dangerously as the exertion got to him. Eddie may have been on the smaller side, but he was far from light. And yeah, okay, Richie was far from fit, either.

“Rich!” he yelped as he was unceremoniously dropped onto the bed with a dull thud.

“What?” Richie chuckled down at him. “Technically, I didn’t drop you. I just…put you down a little heavily, that’s all.”

“Uh-huh.”

God, how does he make even the stink-eye look sexy?

They stared at each other for a beat, the intensity of the situation settling over them.

This was it. The moment little Richard (both in age and appendage) had been waiting for forever.

Eddie Kaspbrak was in his room, in his bed, for the sole purpose of having sex. With Richie. No arrangements, no ifs, ands or buts (well, two butts technically), and Jesus Christ, was it possible for your heart to explode with happiness?

“Well, what’s my score anyway?”

That spat him from his reverie.

He tilted his head.

“What? What score?”

Reaching up, Eddie pulled him down by the hem of his T-shirt so that he toppled onto him, knees landing on either side of his hips.

“You said it was a high score,” he murmured, his breath bouncing off Richie’s lips, his eyes molten as he gripped his waist, pulling him into his lap. “But did it beat my ‘solid 4.7’ handjob?”

Richie stared at him for a second, seeing through his competitive bravado for the vulnerability underneath.

Eddie was nervous. He was self-conscious, as if he was actually worried that Richie hadn’t just had his mind blown. (And well as, you know, the obvious.)

He cupped either side of his face with both hands, staring into his favourite eyes in the whole world, dredging up every ounce of sincerity he could muster.

“Edward Spaghetti Kaspbrak. Hear me when I say that I’m ready to explode from all the edging because that was the best blowj*b I have ever had. Eleven outta five stars. Triple platinum gold medal. Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony—all the awards, okay?”

“How the f*ck would I get a Tony for dick-sucking, Trashmouth? Am I takin’ the show on Broadway?”

“I hope not. I was kinda banking on monopolizing your dick-sucking for a while. And Richard Wentworth Tozier don’t share.”

Eddie snorted, unable to hold back hi laugh, as he slid his hands up to his face to entwine their fingers.

“You have me, Rich,” he assured him quietly, earnest in a way that had his stomach clenching. “It’s me and you, okay? For—for however long you want.”

Forever. I want forever.

Instead of voicing that long-held desire, Richie leaned forward and pressed their foreheads together, just taking in the sound of their breaths, the smell of Eddie’s citrus aftershave and the feel of his skin against his own.

“Okay.”

With that one word, it was like they reignited, the passion ratcheting back up between them as Richie pulled him into a deep, desperate kiss, hands roaming everywhere he could reach.

Eddie, however, seemed to have other ideas as Richie felt his entire world flip, now sprawled on his back, the little turd staring down at him with a wry grin and a cheeky wink.

He pressed him down on the bed, manhandling him until his head hit a pillow.

Before Richie could open his mouth, fast, nimble hands clicked on his lamp, bathing the room in a soft glow and began wrestling his T-shirt up, cool knuckles brushing against his abdomen and making him jump in surprise.

“Holy—Eds, whoa,” he exclaimed as excited hands mauled every inch of him they could get to under his T-shirt, trailing up and down his body, brushing over his nipple and making him gasp.

Without thinking, he snatched one hand up and squeezed it, halting it in its speedy tracks.

Eddie’s eyes locked on his.

“You okay?”

Richie opened and closed his mouth, searching for the words. He was being ridiculous. He finally, finally, after thirty years of yearning, had Eddie frickin’ Kaspbrak on top of him, in his bed, enthusiastically tearing his clothes off and…and he was getting self-conscious.

“I…” he tried, swallowing around his suddenly dry throat, staring at a point over his shoulder.

Something like understanding crossed Eddie’s face. Not pity, not amusem*nt, just pure—getting him.

“Richie,” he whispered gently, leaning down and pecking his cheek. “You really have no idea, do you?” he murmured, his breath bouncing off the thin skin of his lips. “You are so f*cking hot, oh my god. I’ve been dreaming about ripping your clothes off since…since high school, at least. But Jesus, these last few months especially…it’s all I could think about. I won’t force you to get naked if you don’t want to, but please don’t think it’s because I don’t want to see you.”

He bit his lip, not meeting Richie’s eye but rubbing comforting circles into his hips, speaking somewhere to his right.

“Besides, if either one of us should be self-conscious about how they look, it’s me, dude. I’m f*ckin’ deformed. My chest is…scarred and weirdly dented, and it’s gross, really. I look like a half-inflated skin balloon and—”

“You are the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen, shut the f*ck up.”

The words burst from him before he leaned up and clasped his jaw, moving his head ever so slightly to meet his eye.

“Jesus, Eds. You’re gorgeous. You’re the hottest f*ckin’ person I've ever known, and I mean that. I’ve met a lot of people in my life, and they all pale in comparison. Have you any idea how hard I came in the shower after I blew you that first time? I almost passed the f*ck out, man. The image of you writhing on my couch, moaning as I swallowed your come will live on in my fantasies for the rest of my life.”

Jesus. These confessions are relentless.

“But it’s not just that,” he forced himself to continue, leaning up to kiss the space where his neck met his shoulder. “You’ve always been gorgeous to me. Even before I was a hormone-infested puberty monster. I remember dreaming about your big, brown, beautiful eyes when I was like 10 years old and comparing everything and everyone to them. And now, I still do that. You’re the beauty and sexiness standard for me, and not in spite of your scar. It’s just another part of you. It’s proof that you went through hell and came back. And you may not think so, and I’d get why, but I love and want every inch of you—inside and out.”

He watched as fresh tears welled in those beloved eyes, Eddie nodded rapidly, clearing his throat.

“So why can’t you believe me when I say that I think all that about you, huh?” he whispered, thumbs still rubbing very distracting circles into his hips. “Jesus, Rich. When I saw you all dressed up in your suit last night? Or the green one with the f*ckin’ elbow patches? I almost came in my pants like a teenager. You’ve been all I’ve been able to think about for the last two years, and back in Derry for a lot longer than that. f*ck, those dumb boardshorts and your stupid graphic tees have starred in more than one of my wet dreams. I’d still be insanely attracted to you if you wore a trashbag, Trashmouth, but the idea of you naked has my brain short-circuiting. You and your dumb, handsome face, broad shoulders and stupidly sexy barrel chest have a straight line to my dick at all times. I’m not kidding.”

The fact that Richie couldn’t muster the ‘not-so-straight’ joke said it all, really.

Eddie reached up and cupped his face, staring into his soul.

“You’re the most attractive person in the world to me, Richie. You always have been. Even if you don’t always see it.”

He stared back.

“...so what you’re saying is, I don’t know I’m beautiful?”

The slap to his shoulder had him snort-laughing again, his wonderful rendition of One Direction’s classic hit clearly lost on Mr-I-Don’t-Listen-To-Music-Produced-After-1999, who was now wiggling in his lap in a way that had his co*ck waking up from half-mast back to full.

“C’mon, off, off, I want you naked, Rich,” he growled into his collarbone, knuckles brushing the front of his sweats, “you’ve no f*ckin’ idea how long I’ve wanted to…to see and…touch and—what the f*ck, are these pants glued shut?!”

This time, Richie buried his smile in the crook of his arm, something warm pooling in his stomach and soothing his nerves as he helped him detangle him from his sweatpants.

“Oh, God,” Eddie murmured to himself as his hands brushed Richie’s clothed co*ck while peeling off his sweatpants and throwing them over his shoulder with reckless abandon before zeroing in on him.

Richie almost squirmed under his laser-focused gaze but just about managed to keep it together. With a shaking breath, he watched him shift above him, rising up on his knees and kicking off his shoes and socks, unbuttoning his slacks and dragging them down his gorgeous thighs. Brain still half-disconnected from his body, Richie fumbled to help him, clumsy fingers bumping against his as they both very awkwardly divested him of his tight, ass-hugging pants.

Something embarrassingly close to a mewl left Richie’s mouth as Eddie’s sleek, black boxer briefs came into view, the thick, long outline of his co*ck standing to attention. His mouth watered at the sight, his brain supplying him with many tantalizing memories of how it felt to have that glorious dick hit the back of his throat, and Christ, he wanted to feel it again, on him, in him.

As if reading his mind, Eddie shifted his weight up slightly, leaning down and rocking his hips so that their co*cks brushed together through their underwear.

“J-Jesus, Eds,” Richie groaned, eyes rolling back into his skull, already feeling like he was about to crawl out of his skin at the contact.

Eddie’s own groan mingled with his as he did it again, roughly thrusting up, the drag achingly slow with just the right amount of pressure.

“Rich,” he murmured into the skin of his neck, causing goosebumps to rise and a shiver wrack through him. “Can I…?”

Nimble fingers brushed the hem of Richie’s T-shirt, softly trailing back and forth, waiting for permission.

Summoning every ounce of bravery he could and stomping down that insecure little voice in his head that reminded him about love handles, muffin tops and Dad bods, he nodded firmly.

Having felt his answer, Eddie leaned back to stare down at him, something on his face that defied explanation. Something, if Richie were a different man, would have labelled reverence. Wonder. Adoration. But, seen as he was Richard ‘Trashmouth’ Tozier, he settled on ‘horny.’

Which was still f*ckin’ awesome, if he was being honest.

With a wry smirk, Eddie slowly began peeling his shirt up his body, exposing the expanse of his skin inch by inch until he eased him up, reefing it off his head and dropping it to the floor.

Before Richie had the chance to burn with embarrassment, he yelped as Eds shoved him back down on the bed and began exploring his now naked chest with his mouth, muttering to himself.

“Jesus, Rich, you’re so f*cking hot,” he informed him as he buried his face in his chest hair, smattering kisses across his collarbone and down his left pec, hovering above his nipple, his breath tickling him.

“Y-Yeah,” he mumbled shakily, “I guess it’s a little toasty in—holy sh*t,” he groaned as a warm, slick tongue lapped over his nipple, circling it and sucking it roughly.

“Hmm,” Eddie pressed into his skin, reaching up to his neglected right nipple and pinching it between his thumb and finger, causing Richie’s back to bow as a zing of pleasure shot through him, his dick throbbing almost painfully.

“Yeah. I had a feeling you had sensitive nipples,” he murmured, sounding smug. “Been dreaming about getting my mouth on them ever since that night I jacked you off.”

Richie let out a loud whine as he moved to lick and suck at his right nipple, feeling so unbelievably turned on that he was in danger of coming just like this.

“E-Eds,” he wheezed as hands raked down his sides, squeezing his hips as he continued his torturous ministrations. “Let–let me see you.”

Those giant, bush baby eyes blinked up at him, his mouth crimson and shiny again as he waved a hand in a ‘have at it’ motion.

Not needing to be told twice, Richie scrambled to get at least one of his brain cells together to shakily begin unbuttoning one of Eddie’s many stupidly sexy shirts.

“You like my shirts, Trashmouth?”

He blinked, realizing that he must have mumbled that out loud.

“You kidding? I f*cking love your shirts, dude. Your work suits? With the fitted jackets and slacks that hug your ass? And God, when you roll your shirt sleeves up to your elbows, and I can see your stupid, sexy forearms? I almost pop a boner every f*cking time,” he admitted, his cheeks aflame but his mouth unable to stop now. “I’ve fantasized about you coming home from work and me bending you over the couch and f*cking you with your suit still on, your pants hiked down just enough for me to get my dick in you.”

“Whoa.”

Richie cleared his throat, embarrassment surging through his veins when he realized what he’d just said.

f*cking. Confessions.

“Uh, sorry, I—”

“No, no,” Eddie interrupted, clutching his jaw and forcing him to look at him, his eyes molten with arousal. “Don’t be sorry. That is the hottest thing I’ve ever heard, Rich, Jesus. We can do that. We’re definitely f*cking doing that. ASAP.”

He bit his lip, face reddening, gaze glinting.

“What…what else have you fantasized about?” he asked, tone small and almost shy.

Richie felt an inferno rise in his cheeks but heard himself reply, “Get…getting my tongue in you. Tasting you. Coming inside you and licking my come out of—”

Their noses smacked together as Eds attacked his mouth, muttering between biting kisses, “Yep, yep, we’re doing all of that too. Every single thing.”

“N-Nice.”

He focused back on the task at hand rather than his scorching face, and after a few fumbles with the shirt buttons, his throat drier than the Sahara, inch by inch, golden skin dusted with fine, dark hair, was revealed to him.

Over the years, he had seen glimpses of Eddie’s chest, here and there, tantalizing little snapshots that he tried (and failed) not to commit to memory, but now, having it presented to him all at once was overwhelming. He felt his hands tremble as he slipped off his shirt, it billowing to the floor as he greedily drank his fill of the ridges and valleys of tanned skin.

“Yowza,” he croaked, marvelling as he dragged his thumbs down his firm muscles. “You have f*ckin’ abs, man. Abs! You’re 42 years old and have an honest-to-God six-pack, Eds. How dare you.”

“Your words sound pissed, but the rest of you seems pleased,” Eddie retorted drily, his smile giving him away as Richie continued his very thorough exploration of his chest, not put off in the slightest by the giant, jagged scar that caved in the expanse of his torso.

“Oh, Little Richard is very pleased,” Richie murmured, still transfixed. Biting his lip, he brushed his thumb over Eddie’s ribs and down to his belly button, warmth pooling in his gut as he shivered at his touch. “Beautiful,” he whispered, almost to himself.

“Still a dumb f*ckin’ name for your d-dick,” Eddie grumbled in reply, its effect lessened by the hitching of his breath as Richie leaned up and began following his trail with bites and kisses, suckling at his nipples.

“O-Oh,” Eds gasped into the near-silent room, clutching the hair at the back of his head in a tight grasp, shoving his face further into him with a force to almost break his glasses.

Richie chuckled to himself, basking in the scent of citrus and clean sweat.

“Now who’s the sensitive one?”

He laved over the stiff, dark pink nub, listening as Eddie’s breath became more and more laboured, his hips jerking up, seeking friction and dragging torturously against Richie’s hard co*ck.

“God, Richie,” he groaned, sounding strangled. “I need…I want…”

“Anything,” Richie murmured into his skin, circling his tongue and sucking. “Anything you want, Eddie baby, just—”

“I want to f*ck you. Now.”

Richie clamped a hand down on the base of his co*ck and squeezed hard as he felt a bead of precum dampen his boxers.

Jesus Christ, he’s gonna kill me.

“O-okay,” he rasped, dazed but managing to nod his head and wave towards his nightstand.

Eddie practically pounced on the drawer, flinging it open and riffling through it impatiently until he grinned triumphantly, Richie’s lube and condoms clenched in his grip.

Throwing them down onto the bed, he suddenly frowned, hesitating.

Richie raised a hand and cupped his cheek, tilting his head questioningly.

“Sorry, I—” Eddie cleared his throat. “It’s, uh, just now hitting me that I have no actual clue what I’m doing. You’re uh…you’re gonna have to walk me through this, Rich.”

Worry tightened Richie’s chest at that.

“Yeah, I can do that, Eds,” he swallowed, hands shakily fixing his lopsided glasses, tilting up and nuzzling his neck, breathing into his skin. “But uh, just so you know? It’s sorta been a while for me, man. I’m a little…out of practice, so sorry if it…disappoints or whatever.”

If I disappoint, went unsaid but likely not unheard.

He could feel he had tensed all over, even before hands came down to smooth along his shoulders.

“Richie. Look at me.”

With a herculean effort, he dragged himself back and met his eye.

“I was a repressed gay man stuck in a loveless, sexless, marriage with a woman uncomfortably similar to my mother for years, with nothing but my hand to keep me company,” Eddie confessed, his voice quiet but firm.

“Then, my world imploded, and I remembered I was in love with my best friend right before I f*ckin’ died. Then I came back, mostly okay but with a supernatural horniness and still in love with my best friend, who I’ve been attached to the hip to for the last two years, but didn’t let myself dream of touching. Then when I finally did, I knew I was f*cked. Forever. Trust me, you’re not the problem here. I—I’m not gonna last long. Not after waiting for this for most of my life, but…but I’ll try to make it good. You don’t need to worry about anything. You’re perfect, okay?”

Horrifyingly, Richie felt tears well up behind his eyes and blinked furiously, unable to make a sound, but nodded his head fervently.

Something like relief with a pinch of nervousness clouded Eddie’s face as he snatched up the lube and condom and rose up onto his knees.

Wordlessly, Richie reached out and began dragging down his boxers, his mouth going dry as his flushed, thick co*ck sprang free, smacking against his stomach.

And there he was. The man of his dreams, fully naked, sitting on top of him.

I can die happy now.

…but maybe don’t? Wait until you get dicked down by the love of your life, at least, his voice chided in his head.

Eddie kneeled up off him, kicking off his boxers, flinging them off his legs with feeling. Richie, meanwhile, tried not to get too distracted by his teenage fantasy coming to life in front of him, and gently took the bottle of lube and slathered his own hand with a healthy amount, warming it between his fingers before fisting Eddie’s co*ck in a shaky but tight grip.

“Oh, sh*t, Rich,” he moaned, throwing his head back, his eyes snapping shut. “Yeah, yeah, like that. Jesus, I love your big, strong hands. f*ck.”

Richie jacked him hard for a few seconds, revelling in the sight of him naked as the day he was born, his usual tanned skin tinged a dark red, a sheen of sweat forming on his wiry, taut chest.

He was f*cking gorgeous.

And all his.

Finally.

“Ah, R-Rich,” Eddie gasped, eyes bursting open and pining him with a hard stare that ignited him from the inside out. “I need you now. Right now, or I won’t—I won’t be able to k-keep it together much longer.”

Biting his lip with quell a nervous chuckle, Richie watched as Eddie drank him in in all his naked glory, fighting the overwhelming urge to fidget.

“sh*t,” he breathed. “You’re so f*cking handsome, Richie.”

His voice was soft, too soft, and far too awed for him to handle, so instead, Richie leaned over and grabbed a pillow, shoving it under his hips and snatched up more lube, coating his fingers and circling his hole, stretching his legs as wide as he could and slipping his index finger slowly in.

“Oh, f*ck,” Eddie gasped, watching his every move, his gaze somehow even darker and more intense than ever before.

Shoving down the anxiety in his veins at his impromptu show, Richie closed his eyes and focussed on relaxing and opening himself up, much like he had done in the shower earlier and many lonely nights over the years, plunging his finger in and out of himself, stretching the tight ring of muscle, the slide slickening with each movement.

Distantly, he registered the sound of the lube bottle opening.

“Can…” Eddie whispered, his voice hesitant. “Can I…?”

He nodded enthusiastically, eyes still shut, groaning as he slid his finger out of himself, only for Eddie’s to immediately replace it, gentler than him as he pushed in and out.

“H-Harder,” he rasped, keening his hips, a spurt of precum dripping onto his stomach as his poor, neglected co*ck ached for attention.

Eddie did as he was told, his finger pushing deeper, harder, and faster until Richie was practically careening off the bed.

“A-Another, Eds. Give me another,” he growled, sweat dampening his temples as he forced his eyes open just as Eds again obeyed, two fingers now buried in him, stretching him to the point it burned in a painful but tethering on pleasant way.

“Yeah, yeah, just like that,” he whined, blinking up at him as he came achingly close to hitting his prostate again and again until—

“f*ck!” he yelled as a finger crooked roughly against his prostate in a way that had him seeing stars.

“J-Jesus,” he gasped, “now, Eds, come on,” he gritted out through clenched teeth, unable to take it anymore. “I need you now.”

He didn’t care how desperate and f*cking wanton he sounded, transfixed on how Eddie slowly pulled out his fingers, shakily ripping open the condom and rolling it onto himself, slicking his now rock hard co*ck with more lube before pausing, looking up at him with those beautiful eyes.

“You ready?”

Richie nodded eagerly, all the years of wanting, yearning, and pining washing over him at that moment. He had never felt more ready for anything in his entire life.

With that, Eddie took a deep breath and lined himself up, his co*ck resting against Richie’s hole as he wrapped his legs around his waist, nudging him forward.

Biting his lip in adorable concentration and with a nervous little laugh as if he couldn’t quite believe this was actually happening either, he pushed the tip of himself in gently.

“Oh, f*ck,” they both hissed in unison as their bodies finally met for the first time.

Embarrassingly, Richie felt a stinging at the back of his eyes as he watched Eddie’s co*ck slowly slide inside him, his breaths rapid and shallow.

“Yeah, like that,” he whispered as pressure built up within him, his glasses slipping down his nose with sweat, but he refused to take them off. No f*cking way he was missing any of this.

“E-Easy,” he rasped, wincing slightly at the burn, reaching up to grip his shoulders.

“sh*t,” Eddie paused, alarmed. “Am I hurting you?”

“No, no, it’s good,” Richie quickly reassured him, never more relieved to have loosened himself up in the shower during his sadsack routine. “I’m good, Eds. So—” his breath hitched as Eddie sunk deeper into him, the feeling of fullness overwhelming him. “So good. Keep going. Don’t stop. Please.”

Clearly aiming to please, he slid in another inch, the drag impossibly slow and maddening to almost breaking point until finally, after what seemed like eons, Richie let out a breath as Eddie stilled, bottoming out, fully buried in him, his balls pressed flush against his ass.

For a beat, all that could be heard was their mingled breaths.

Eddie stared down into his eyes searchingly.

“You’re quieter during sex than I thought you’d be.”

Richie had no idea what his face was doing, but his insides were practically singing.

“Yeah, well,” he attempted a nonchalant shrug and failed by miles. “Just takin’ it all in, Eds. f*ck knows I’ve dreamt of this exact moment for most of my life.”

f*cking confessions. Zero f*cking chill.

Something unbearably soft flashed in Eddie’s gaze.

“Me too.”

Their lips met in a soft, warm kiss.

By unspoken agreement, Eddie took that moment to finally move, his hips snapping up, rocking into Richie gently and wrenching a loud whine from him.

They weren’t going to last long, either of them; that was obvious after nearly thirty years of waiting, but there was always next time.

f*ck. We’re gonna have a next time.

Biting his lip, Richie basked in the elation of both what was happening and knowing with utmost certainty that it was going to happen again and again and again.

“Y-Yes, Eds, just…just like that,” he gasped, the heat and pressure inside him making his eyes roll back into his head as he canted his hips to meet his shallow thrusts.

“f*ck, Richie,” Eddie groaned, pulling out slightly before thrusting in deeper, his movements a little clumsy, “you’re so tight, h-holy sh*t.”

Richie latched onto his earlobe, leaning up to murmur teasingly.

“Faster, Eds, come on, you can do—” he let out what was definitely not a yelp of surprise when hands cupped behind his thighs, hitching them up higher and plunging his co*ck deeper into him, nailing his prostate in one swift move and ripping a shout from him.

“Oh, sh*t! Yes! Eddie, f*ck!”

The wet sound of skin slapping against skin was obscene and exhilarating, the headboard smacking loudly against the wall in time with their ministrations, the rhythm an entwined cacophony along with his racing heartbeat.

Something swooped in his chest as a hand clasped his, their gazes locking before they kissed again, panting hot breaths into each other’s mouths. Eddie’s thrusts grew more erratic, a tell-tale sign he was getting close, and God, wasn’t that just so f*cking hot.

Richie had never been more turned on in his entire life. In all his years of having downright awful to semi-satisfying sex with strangers and acquaintances, he could honestly say, he had never once been f*cked like this. Fast and hard, yes, but also somehow gentle and considerate and…loving.

They were…they were making love. Loud, messy, perfect love.

Richie had never made love before. Until now. Until Eddie.

The tears he had been keeping at bay welled up again as he squeezed his fingers, tightening his legs around his hips and driving him deeper into him, his face burying into Richie’s neck.

“J-Jesus, Rich, baby, you…you’re…this is…I’ve never…you feel so good, you—” A choked gasp shook through him as he reached down with his free hand and took hold of Richie’s leaking co*ck, smearing his precum on his stomach. “It’s perfect.”

Richie’s toes curled at the babbling praise, something feral mewling inside him at ‘baby’, heat surging through him as Eddie practically read his mind as always.

Reaching down, he covered his hand with his and together, they jerked him off, their timing disjointed but enthusiastic as Eddie nailed his prostate once, twice, and tensed.

“f*ck, Richie, I-I’m gonna—”

“On my chest, Eds.”

Their eyes locked, Eddie’s so wide it was comical.

“W-What? Seriously?”

Richie just nodded vigorously, too busy dealing with the tightening in his balls and his own impending org*sm.

Thankfully, that was all Eddie needed as, with a squeeze of Richie’s hip, he slid out of him, Richie hissing at the sudden feeling of loss and emptiness but was soon distracted by the wondrous sight of the love of his life leaning up, ripping off the condom, his angry-red co*ck in hand and pumping hot ropes of come onto his stomach, some droplets landing in his chest hair and one vivacious one making it as far as his collarbone.

“God, Richie!”

That yell of pleasure was enough to drive him those last few feet over the edge, his eyes slamming shut as they clung to one another, Richie spilling onto both of their hands, their come mixing together as he rode out his org*sm with shaking thighs, his back bowing and neck craning almost painfully.

“f*ck, Eds,” he gasped as pleasure surged through him. “I love you so much.”

Gentle kisses swept up his neck and across his jaw as he messily panted, chest heaving, struggling to catch his breath while Eddie collapsed on him.

“I love you too, Rich.”

He felt like he was floating. And not like in a “we all float down here” way, but in an honest to God, I’ve-been-f*cked-within-an-inch-of-my-life-and-now-I’m-light-headed kinda way.

And that was when it was missionary.

I think a rimjob might actually kill me.

“That…that was amazing,” he gasped, squeezing Eddie’s hand again. “You were amazing, Eds.”

He cracked an eye open and was met with the bright red, but ecstatic face of his favourite person in the world.

Another kiss landed on the edge of his mouth.

He hummed into it, turning his head, basking in the afterglow as, in a mind-melting move, Eddie slipped a finger back inside him, rubbing his hole until he was panting again, one last drop of come spurting from his spent co*ck.

“Jesus. Y-You are a quick learner,” he stuttered as Eddie laughed, taking back his fingers, picking up and disposing of the condom, slipping out of bed with a kiss on Richie’s shoulder and padding into his bathroom, naked as the day he was born. Gaze glued to that perfect, pert butt of his, Richie waited, sighing with ridiculous happiness at the pleasant ache in his ass that he’d have to be mindful of when sitting the next few days.

Thank God I’m a ‘stand up’ comedian.

Chuckling to himself at that, he watched Eddie cross back over into the room, a damp flannel now in his hand and taking a seat at the edge of the bed, beginning to run it over his skin, gently cleaning him.

“Aw, Spaghetti. My very own wet nurse,” he murmured, knowing his soft tone was not masking how touched he was for the aftercare, having never had a partner take care of him in that way after sex before.

“Gross. Don’t say wet nurse, Trashmouth. You’re not a pregnant woman,” Eddie faux-scolded him as he lightly yet methodically swept the flannel across his chest and down his stomach, picking up his hand and cradling it in his, wiping the digits slowly.

“Hmm,” Richie pressed his lips together to hide his bashful grin. “Okay, how about my ‘consummate companion’? Get it? Like a play on how we just consummated our—”

“‘Boyfriend’ is perfectly fine. And doesn’t make me sound like a healthcare professional taking advantage of an elderly patient, so let’s go with that, huh?” Eddie interrupted as he dropped the flannel into the laundry hamper by the bed and reached up to take off Richie’s glasses, planting them on the nightstand.

Richie froze, all teasing dying in his throat as he shuffled into the bed and settled on top of him, his head resting in the space between his neck and shoulder.

“Y-Yeah,” he forced out as tears wet his cheeks, his arms wrapping around his best friend and love of his life, squeezing him tight. “Yeah. Boyfriend is perfect.”

“Good. Now sleep,” Eddie whispered, he also having suspiciously damp cheeks, kissing his neck and burying his face into him. “You can make us omelettes when we wake up. We skipped dinner for this, Tozier.”

A laugh shook free from deep in Richie’s chest as they snuggled together, sheer, sappy happiness lighting him up like fireworks on the Fourth of July, Halloween, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and every other holiday combined.

“It’s a deal, Kaspbrak.”

He wasn’t exactly sure what woke him, but when Eddie blinked his eyes open, he was met with a sight that made him more glad to be awake than he had ever been in his life—including the time he woke from being dead—because there, with his head on his shoulder, sprawled on his stomach with one arm slung over Eddie’s waist, was a rumpled, sleeping, completely naked Richie Tozier.

Warmth spread through his entire body, a smile pulling at his mouth as he bit his lip, trying and failing to smother it.

“I can feel you staring at me, Edward Cullen.” Richie’s only half-awake grumble jolted him, tightening the arm around him. "Good thing I’m into it.”

“Shut up.”

He watched Richie snap one eye open, before winking and staring blearily up at him.

“Good morning.”

His tone was soft and tentative as he groggily took in their surroundings, almost as if waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Well. That wouldn’t do.

Leaning up on his elbow, Eddie crowded further him, squeezing his hip from where his hand already rested and pecking a kiss to his lips in a way that he hoped showed him there was no need to worry. This happened. This was still happening. And he was so f*cking ecstatic about it.

“Good evening, you mean. It’s eight-thirty at night, Rich. We fell asleep for like an hour.”

Richie gave an adorable scrunch of his nose as he digested that.

“Oh. Right.”

Eddie laughed, kissing him again before leaning over to pluck his phone and Richie’s glasses from the nightstand. Reaching back, he slid them onto his face.

“Hi,” he smiled, his insides feeling like he had just swallowed a hot cup of cocoa.

“Hi,” Richie echoed, looking unbearably cute, all sleep-rumpled and smiley.

God, we’re gonna be intolerable

To distract himself from his unbelievable sappiness, he looked down at his phone and read the last few texts of the group chat that had just popped up:

Beverly has added Richie

Adrian - 8:29 pm
Soooooooooooo…Kasp…I take it ya got to Richie’s ok?

Stan - 8:29 pm
Leave them alone, Adrian

Adrian - 8:30 pm
Stop giving me the stink eye across the table and eat your damn dessert, Uris

Beverly - 8:30 pm
Guess they’re too busy to text back 😏😏😏😏😏

Ben - 8:31 pm
Happy for you guys 🥰

Adrian - 8:31 pm
Yeah, we all are. First Bill and Mike, now Richie and Eddie. #loveislove #reddie

Mike - 8:31 pm
Wait, you know? All of you?!

Bill - 8:32 pm
Who told you?!

Stan - 8:32 pm
Hate to be the one to break it to you, Mr. Literary Genius, but you’re both about as subtle as the ending of your first novel

“Bev added you to another group chat,” he informed him, flushing at the flurry of suggestive messages and chuckling at the confirmation of Bill and Mike officially being a thing to no one’s surprise. “Our ‘Operation: Trash Day’ one.”

Richie snorted, leaning into him to look down at his phone, the scent of sex and his Amouage Interlude 53 aftershave making Eddie’s head spin.

“I still can’t believe you actually managed to hide everything from me.”

“I know, right?” he agreed. “I had to put on an Oscar-worthy performance. I’m kinda proud, to be honest. It wasn’t easy, we know each other inside and out—”

“Well, we do now,” Richie waggled his eyebrows suggestively, running a palm down his thigh that made him shiver. “But I meant you’re usually f*ckin’ terrible at keeping secrets.”

Eddie squawked indignantly.

“I am not! I’ve kept tons of secrets from you, asshole,” he shoved his naked shoulder as Richie let out a peel of laughter. “I’ve kept how Stan broke your limited edition Optimus Prime figurine back in eight-grade secret, how it was Bev who burned a hole in your mattress after Homecoming secret, and oh yeah, how I’ve been in love with you since I was like twelve secret too. So. There.”

It took him less than a second to realize what he’d just done, and in that time, he witnessed what had to be a dozen expressions cross Richie’s face until it finally settled on what he guessed was fondness.

His stomach flipped treacherously at the sight.

“The Bev thing I knew, but you told me it was you who broke my Optimus Prime figurine,” he said eventually, eyes narrowed in suspicion but sparkling with mirth. “Why’d you take the fall for Stan?”

Eddie shrugged, picking at a nonexistent thread on the comforter. “He said you’d take it better if you thought it was me and not him.”

“Well,” Richie gave a tilt of his head. “I was in love with you not him, so…he wasn’t wrong. I woulda f*ckin’ killed him. In fact, I still might. That little sh*t.”

His gut did another somersault at the casual way he had just admitted his love for him. He was still not accustomed to it and hoped he never would be if he got to feel even a fraction of the surge of pure happiness flow through him every single time.

“It took us all afternoon to glue his arm back on,” Richie continued, unaware of how much he was affecting him. “Wasn’t helped by the fact that I glued my sleeve to it like three times, either. And Stanley just watched, the bastard.”

Eddie remembered that day vividly. How he and Richie had planted themselves at Maggie’s dining room table with a mission—restore Optimus back to optimal form. And they succeeded. Mostly. With a lot of yelling and cursing and more than a little laughter.

It was his heart’s turn to flip now. At this rate, he would have to book himself in for a physical.

“I still have it, you know,” Richie said with a sheepish look his way. “I tried to throw it away multiple times over the years, but something stopped me. Now I remember what.”

Before he knew what he was doing, he hooked his leg over Richie’s waist and pulled himself on top of him, leaning down and kissing him deeply.

“You gotta stop saying romantic sh*t like that, or you’ll lose your Trashmouth card, Rich,” he murmured against his lips, something that felt a lot like a deep-seated contentedness lighting him up from the inside out.

“If it gets you to crawl into my lap and kiss me every time I do, I’ll throw the card away myself,” Richie mumbled back in between pecks, “especially if you’re naked.”

Eddie smacked his shoulder, not quite managing a guffaw as Richie took that moment to rock his hips up into his, his co*ck halfway to hard that had his stomach tightening with arousal.

…until it growled.

Richie let out a booming laugh. Eddie flushed.

“Guess round two will have to wait until after omelettes, huh? I can’t let my boyfriend starve after he worked up an appetite with a night of wild love-makin’. It wouldn’t be proper.”

He wasn’t entirely sure what Voice Richie was attempting, but he shut him up with another kiss anyway. It was proving surprisingly effective.

If only I knew that back in ‘89. Our arguing would’ve had a very nice bonus.

“Come on, feed me,” he ordered, climbing off him and searching for his boxers. “Then you can, I dunno, f*ck my thighs, or something,” he finished as if that was something off the top of his head and not something he’d been fantasizing about for months now ever since he saw it in one of the p*rnos he watched for ‘research.’

Richie let out a tortured moan.

“Edward Francis Kaspbrak, you’ll be the death of me.”

“Yeah, I’ll f*cking kill you if you don’t hurry up already, chop-chop.”

“So bossy,” Richie grumbled, sounding far too fond and more than a little turned on as he hastily threw on his boxers, his eyes darkening at what Eddie just pulled over his head.

“Not gonna lie, Eds,” he let his wide pupils sear a scorching hole into him as they traced every inch of his body. “There’s something about seein’ you in my ol’ Freese’s tee that really gets my motor runnin’. These are gonna be the quickest omelettes I’ve ever made.”

Eddie pulled up the collar of the shirt, but it slipped back down over his shoulder.

Richie looked ready to pounce on him.

Eddie was two seconds away from letting him.

…until his stomach growled again.

“Perfectly cooked eggs first, then sex,” he countered, snatching up his hand and tugging him out of the room and down the corridor.

“Then tomorrow, I’m taking you on a first date. A real one. With dinner and wine and sappy walks on the beach because I want to, and you deserve it.”

“Aww, but you hate sand, Anakin.”

“Yeah, but I love you.”

A small, watery smile broke out on Richie’s face.

But he wasn’t done.

“Then we’ll go on a second date, and third, and—”

"We'll hold hands and sip milkshakes,” Richie interjected with a cheeky laugh. “And—"

"You can f*ck me up against the Streetfighter machine. While I’m wearing my suit. And without the condom."

Richie froze mid-laugh, his eyes as wide as saucers.

Eddie smirked.

“Would you like that, Trashmouth?”

Richie’s entire body went rigid, and Eddie was starting to get worried when he suddenly came back to life like a computer rebooting, sounding awed.

“I think you’ve just awoken something in me while also fulfilling like a dozen teenage and adult fantasies, Eds.”

“Well, happy to introduce you to new things,” he shrugged, aiming for nonchalant but probably grinning too widely to really achieve it. “Speaking of new things,” he nudged him as they entered the kitchen. “I wanna try all those positions you talked about, too. What were they—The Security Guard?”

“The Bodyguard.”

“The Jumper Cables?”

“The Booster Seat.”

“The ATV?”

“The Bumper Car.”

“Huh,” he shrugged, stopping at the counter. “Well. Good thing I wrote it all down then.”

“‘Ready Eddie’,” Richie said, fondness lacing his tone as he allowed himself to be pushed toward the fridge.

“Exactly.”

Something flickered across Richie's face at that, his gaze pensive.

“How is the supernatural horniness anyway, Eds? I know things got a little…complicated for a bit, and we kinda lost sight of some things, but…you uh, good now? Or—or will you still be needing my helpin’ hand?”

He let himself reflect on that.

Honestly? He felt…great. Satiated. Happy. The undercurrent of arousal that had plagued him since his resurrection was still there, but wasn’t as desperate now. Instead of a rumbling engine, it was now a purring cat. It was content, that itch deep inside of him, finally scratched, and yet, now that he had gotten a taste for it, he only wanted more.

But he had a feeling that was more because of Richie than any supernatural bullsh*t.

Maybe it always had been?

Have I just been stupidly horny because I’ve wanted to f*ck Richie for thirty years and was attached to his hip for the last two?

Whatever it was, he decided he didn’t care.

Leaning up, he pulled him into a deep, toe-curling kiss.

“I’m definitely the most satisfied I’ve ever been,” he admitted, feeling the low heat in his abdomen that never truly went away whenever Richie was nearby. “But I’ll still need your ‘helping hand’ and everything else for the foreseeable future, Rich. That okay with you?”

Richie nodded enthusiastically.

“My hand, ass, dick, they’re all yours, babe, don’t you worry.”

It shouldn’t have sounded as romantic as it did, but that was Richard Wentworth Tozier for ya.

Stealing himself, he took a breath, a little nervous to broach something else that had been on his mind for a while.

“And, uh, I was thinking of taking some of my vacation days. Maybe I can join you on tour for a bit?”

He had just gotten to have this. This closeness. This…intimacy. He wasn’t too psyched to have to say goodbye to it, to Richie, so soon.

His heart skipped a beat as a large, pleased smile spread across his best friend’s (boyfriend’s?) face.

“You gonna help me out with my pre-show rituals?”

He rolled his eyes.

“As long as those rituals include blowj*bs in your dressing room and not bingeing It’s Always Sunny until three in the morning, then sure.”

“You know, I really am convinced now more than ever that you have an exhibitionist streak in you, Eds.”

“You’ve no idea.”

“Nope. But I can’t wait to find out.”

“Me neither.”

Despite what he may have said in the past, he was glad for their Friends With Benefits arrangement in the end. Because it got them here. Together. Finally.

Which, now that he thought about it, was how that movie No Strings Attached ended. And the 35,000 others too.

Huh. We should re-watch a few. Compare notes.

He punctuated that thought with a slap to Richie’s ass and pushing him towards the stove.

“Now get to work, Chef Tozier. I’m starving over here.”

Richie saluted with a “Yessir!” but before he could move a muscle, Eddie tugged him back.

Rising up on his tiptoes, he pulled him down into a deep kiss, nibbling on his bottom lip and sucking it into his mouth, tightening his grip on his hips as their tongues tangled.

After a beat or two or a thousand, he pulled away, pecking him one last time and lowering back onto his heels.

“Not that I’m complaining,” Richie mumbled, looking a little dazed, a private, pleased grin on his face. “But what was that for?”

Their eyes met, warm and happy.

Eddie shrugged, his thumbs tracing circles into Richie’s bare skin as he smiled.

“Just because.”