Archive of Our Own

Eddie inhaled the soft scent of Richie's cologne as they spun around outside the high school gym, welcoming the pressure of Richie's knife-sharp chin where it rested on the top of his head. Eddie's neck was kind of straining, but if he actually put his head where it naturally came up to on Richie, and he was face to face with the collarbones he'd guiltily fantasized about since freshman year, he wasn't sure what he'd do with himself past just. Dying right there in the hallway. He was getting dizzy on the close proximity, on the warmth still radiating off of Richie from the mortal sin he called dancing. He smiled into Richie's shirt, laughing to himself.

"What's going on, Edster? Thinkin’ about the fine piece of ass you landed?"

Eddie shoved Richie on the shoulder. "Edster is the worst one, and I can't admire landing a fine piece of ass on someone who's flat as a fucking board."

Eddie pulled Richie closer and wrapped his arms around his waist, digging his balled up fists into the skin just below the small of Richie's back, emphasizing how there was, literally, no fucking curve. It just went straight down to his stick thighs as Richie yelped as his knees bent forward away from him, knocking into Eddie's legs. They laughed as Richie squeezed Eddie to stay upright, and Eddie tried harder to get him to fall. He felt like all of the air had been sucked out of the room, like the overflowing amount of happiness he had in his chest bubbled up and was constricting his airway.

Richie laughed and leaned back, careful not to mess up Eddie's hair. "Sure, Eds, but just remember you told me about your gay feelings first. You're the one who thought I looked hot in this suit." He kissed his forehead again, and Eddie felt all of his blood rush to his face. He buried his face back into his chest, groaning as Richie laughed at him.

"That suit is so ugly, Richie, I almost refused to get in the car with you."

Richie rolled his eyes, smiling at Eddie in a gooey way that made Eddie's fucking insides convulse. "I love you too."

Eddie's heart flipped and he smiled against Richie. Another song faded out, and Eddie knew that it wasn't the first since the slow dance. Someone would notice they were gone soon, or someone would come out here to fuck in the bathroom or whatever normal kids did when they went to their proms. "We should probably go back inside before someone finds us out here."

A chill went down his spine at the thought of it. It made Eddie happy, to be with Richie, but the thought of Richie getting hurt because he couldn't be clear-minded enough to be careful, shook his bones until he was sure he'd fall apart. Richie had already been hurt by his parents, by his father, by that stupid fucking clown, Bowers and his minions. Eddie would never intentionally put him in a situation where he got hurt because of him. He just wouldn't let it happen.

"Yeah," Richie agreed, frowning for a second before grinning again. "Before Beverly shoots me for leaving her out on the dance floor with Ben."

Eddie laughed and separated from him, instantly missing the embrace. "Why would she be mad about that?"

"He looks like a noodle when he dances," Richie explained, trying to smooth down his hair, which is beyond fixing at this point, and holding the door open for him. "I can't think of any good puns for that. Ben-ne pasta?"

"Benn-ucine alfredo," Eddie replied, walking through the door. "And you have a lot of fucking nerve saying anyone has worse dancing skills than you, fuckin' Wiggly Dick."

Richie's jaw dropped in the corner of Eddie's eye as he halted to a dead stop in surprise. Eddie just kept walking, smiling to himself as he came up the table with all of their friends, who were all draped across each other in their chairs with various components of their tuxes removed, Bev's gloves had been tossed onto the table, and all the bobby pins Audra used to pull her hair into its intricate style were sitting on a small plate. Mike and Stan were the only ones who looked normal, still flushed from being outside, Stan's hair mussed from either Mike or the wind or both.

Beverly sat in Ben's lap, because why waste a chair, the satin of her green dress gleaming in the light from the disco ball in the middle of the gym as she finished another cup of punch. Eddie grimaced, remembering the artificial, oddly soapy tropical fruit flavor he could taste on his lips from kissing Richie. Kissing Richie.

"Hey," Eddie greeted, leaning against the back of an empty chair. He tried to wipe the dumbass smile off of his face and failed miserably.

"Finally! Where were you two?"  Beverly yelled over the music, a weird power ballad everybody knew and screamed along to, their voices pressing against the gym wall and going right through Eddie.

At Beverly's question, Eddie froze. Every conceivable excuse fell out the window. His brain turned to jell-o and every known word in the English language poured out of his ears. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

"Out, getting some air?" Eddie said, swallowing around the lump in his throat as he tried to look convincing. Wait. Fuck. Mike and Stan were outside, for their slow dance, so they could be together without getting murdered in this shit town. And Beverly knew that. His eyes darted to where they sat together, almost a foot apart.

To his relief, Mike and Stan remained blissfully silent, smiling at Eddie knowingly, but discreetly enough so nobody else would pick up on it. Eddie loved them. Even if they completed jigsaw puzzles as a date and Stan, who usually was a steel trap when it came to secrets, had a big mouth when it came to Mike. Eddie really did love them.

"Hey guys," Richie greeted, coming back with a tiny cup set out for the punch, but instead full of pretzels. There were like, two, max that could fit in there, but Richie acted like this wasn't at all weird. Also, he was still blushing, his cheeks up to his ears and down past his shoulders blooming outward towards his chest. Eddie's eyes widened. He wasn't even trying to hide it, just stood there and let their friends study him inquisitively without anyone saying anything. A well of pride opened in Eddie's stomach, along with the weird possessive thing he still needed to work out. Richie was his, and without saying it directly, Richie was letting everybody know.

He ate the last pretzel in the cup and asked, "We ready to leave yet?"

"Honestly," Bev sighed, rolled her eyes into the back of her head until they closed and she pretended to be asleep on top of Ben, body splayed out like a starfish. She rolled her head and kissed Ben's sweaty hair, pressing her cheek to it. "I'm ready to pass out."

Ben smiled and leaned up, kissing her jaw. "Which is why I'm driving home." He furrowed his eyebrows. "Well, not home. To Bill's. That's still happening, right?"

"If you guys want to still, but I'm not sure how much energy I actually have left in my body," Bill told them, from where he sat leaned over, forehead flush with the tablecloth. He sat up, little sequins they used to decorate the tables all stuck to his forehead. He didn't seem to notice.

"That's fine. Loser sleepover?" Mike asked.

"Hell yeah!" Richie yelled, throwing back the pretzel dust in the bottom of his cup like a shot. Eddie was gonna kiss him later, knowing he did that. God.

When people said love was blind, they weren't fucking kidding.
---

They all left together, practically stumbling down the halls as they weaved their way through the school to the main lobby and out to the parking lot. Eddie and Richie trailed behind, and if Eddie intentionally stood too close, so their hands brushed against each other while they walked, then that was nobody's business but their own.

If he could be honest, though, for a second inside his own head, he achieved an Elysium-like high from kissing Richie that he genuinely thought would not be the same if he'd been in love with anybody else. And he could say that because it was in the silence of his own mind, where Richie can't give him shit for being absolutely stupid with love for him. His lips buzzed and his hands felt like they were filled with static, the way they do when they fall asleep, but he was so fucking awake. Never before had he felt this way, like every molecule of him was seen and understood. He had all these hidden feelings, that he couldn't even tell his best friends about without crying, all laying dormant at the bottom of his heart. Now, Richie knew. The boy he loved knew he loved him and he could finally breathe for the first time in his life.

Eddie looked over at Richie, eager to see if he was as in his head as he was. He'd put his jacket back on, which highlighted the broadness of his shoulders and the size of his hands, the thin strip of skin exposed by his open shirt that Eddie had been tucked into just fifteen minutes ago contrasting against the we're-having-a-boy! baby-shower blue suit. Eddie was tired, and all of his walls were pretty much down now, so he could freely admit to himself that all he wanted in that moment was to tuck himself back into Richie's chest and fall asleep there for a good three days.

Richie looked over at him and laughed when he caught Eddie staring, then swung his arm around his shoulder as they walked out to his truck.

---

The near oppressive silence of Bill's living room after prom and the aching pain of the hardwood floor warping Eddie's rib cage into a rectangle both paled in comparison to the insistent feeling of Richie lying close enough that their arms touching, but not enough that it satisfied Eddie's growing need to hug him so tight he turned to dust. He turned further onto his side so he was laid half on top of Richie, moonlight casting shadows on his face.

"Richie?" Eddie whispered. "Are you awake?"

"Yeah. What's up?" Richie lifted his head up from his pillow to look over at him, eyes squinting in the darkness to see him. Eddie thought about getting his glasses, but they would just complicate what they were trying to do.

Eddie didn't answer his question, just leaned in and brought their lips together. Richie froze, and Eddie pulled back, confused.

"Are you sure?" Richie asked, tangling their hands together. Eddie's heart dropped to his stomach. Did he do the wrong thing? Was Richie not comfortable? Had he made Richie uncomfortable? Shit, shit, shit. "We don't know who's asleep right now and who isn't." He stared at Eddie's chest. "I don't want to make you, like...uncomfortable."

Eddie furrowed his eyebrows. "What?" He flinched as Beverly shushed them, but she got to sleep on the pull out couch with Ben, Stan, and Mike, so Eddie didn't care much about her opinion at the moment. Some people just didn't understand their privilege.

He rolled his eyes and got up. "Come with me."

"You really like to drag me places, don't you," Richie grumbled, but he followed anyway, socked feet shuffling on the wood floors as he tried not to slip.

Eddie led him to Bill's bathroom off of his kitchen, so he could turn the lights on without disturbing anyone else. Richie left his glasses in the living room, so he did this weird squinty thing that Eddie would think is funny if he weren't knee-deep in Richie stupidity right now. This kid was the smartest person Eddie has ever met and he's been the object of his affection for the past seven years, and yet he still managed to possess three brain cells, all of which live on opposite sides of his huge head and none of which have ever met each other.

"Okay, now you can talk louder," Eddie told him once he shut the door. Richie made a face.

"You never asked me to do that before," he joked, smiling, teeth still stained red from the punch he must've had right before they left despite the fact they he'd brushed his teeth an hour ago. "Thirteen years you've known me, and you never once asked me to talk mor --"

"Richie, I'm serious!" Eddie shoved at his shoulder again, lightly , he wasn't cruel. "What were you saying before?"

Richie blushed and looked down. "You never...came out to the others."

" What? "

Out of all the things he thought Richie would say, he wasn't expecting that. That he was scared? Sure. That he didn't want any of their friends finding out about the fact that they kissed now or ever? Eddie didn't love it but it was something they could work on. That it was all a mistake and he didn't really mean what he said, but he felt like he had to say it because he didn't want to break Eddie's heart at their senior prom? Worst possible scenario, but Eddie would be able to bounce back in a week, or at least act like he'd been able to bounce back in a week. This, though? Completely out of left fucking field.

"You've never come out to the others before!" Richie repeated, louder this time. Eddie wanted to brain himself on the sink faucet.

"No, I heard you, asshole! I'm asking you what you mean by that! Why does that matter? "

Eddie knew he'd never come out to the Losers formally, but he'd also made peace with the fact that mostly all of them probably knew already. They'd long since stopped asking him about girls, except for Richie who had continued to ask until Eddie told him he wasn't interested in girls, and Eddie was fine with that. He loved it, actually, because the searing hot, itchy wave of nervousness that overcame him like a plague when someone asked if he had a girlfriend was entirely absent when it came to people he actually cared about. They loved him no matter who he was, and Eddie would never stop being grateful for that.

Plus, there was no need to come out to them. As much as he liked being the center of Richie's attention, he couldn't stand being the complete center of everyone's attention. And coming out meant gathering everyone up in a room and telling them something very personal about himself, which to him was, at this point, a casual detail of his life, and then having to stay there and wait for their reactions before they could do anything else. Eddie was seventeen, he was gay, he had brown eyes, he hated seafood. It was simple. He didn't have to take time out of their day to stop everyone and tell them he hated seafood. This was effectively the same thing.

"They know, Richie. I didn’t have to tell them,” he told him. "Do you want me to go and tell them right now? Cause I'll do it. I’m not embarrassed to love you, Richie, I’ll tell them right now."

Deep down, Eddie was surprised how honest he felt. He thought maybe he'd be scared for them to know, or maybe he wasn't as comfortable with himself or with Richie as he thought, but the pit of his stomach, where the majority of his anxiety laid, was empty. Richie pushed his hands out in front of him and flailed them wildly, like a bird.

"No! No, I'm not saying that! I'm not out to them, either, it's just like--" He sighed and leaned against the sink counter, trying to make out the words. "Hold on, let me think."

Eddie rolled his eyes, but smiled. "Sure."

They stood in the silence of Bill's bathroom for twenty seconds, listening to the buzz of the light, before Richie spoke. Eddie tugged at the string on his shirt, waiting.

"Okay, so, like. I'm gay, right?" He was turning red again. "A-And I was really scared to say that, before, but knowing that you're...also gay...and like me, like that , it makes it easier. Because, because before , I was so scared to tell the guys about me and about me liking guys because I thought, once I confirmed that, then they'd find out that I was in love with you."

Eddie sat down on the closed toilet seat and watched Richie ramble on, mostly because he felt his knees give out at the word love. He was certain if you measured the emotional stability and sanity in the room right then, there wouldn't be enough to fill a teaspoon.

Richie continued, "And I was scared that once they found out about me, and about how I felt about you, that they would think that, that that was fucked up, to want my best friend as much as I did for as long as I did, and then they would tell you and you would hate me." He looked up at Eddie with a face as red as a lobster and tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. "I've liked you since I was twelve, maybe before then, and I would die if you hated me, Eddie. Like, I would think about telling you and you hating me and I wouldn't be able to breathe, like all the air in the room got sucked out and I got so sick I could vomit."

"Richie--"

"And when my parents found out," he interrupted,"I couldn't tell you about all of it because I was still so scared of you hating me that I was willing to take that to the fucking grave if it meant being able to keep being your friend. So, uhh, I'm fine with telling them about me now, when I think of how I want to do it, but I wasn't sure if you were, so I didn't want to kiss you in front of everyone and be the reason you got outed to all of our friends."

The familiar wave of wanting to kill Richie's fucking parents swept over Eddie. He craved nothing more than to bust down the door to his house, run up the stairs he and Richie used to play on when they were kids, break into their bedroom and scream so loud he exploded and took them with him.

He looked up at Richie and oh . There was one thing he craved even more. This stupid, beautiful boy who he loved so fucking much he could drown in it.

Without another word, he surged up and grabbed Richie's sleep shirt, because he'd actually thought to pack clothes to sleep in, which was surprising, and slammed their mouths together, just, fucking horribly . Half of Richie's chin made contact with Eddie's teeth, but he corrected himself and shit he could die right here in the Denbrough bathroom and not give a single fuck about it. Eddie kissed him so hard he could feel butterflies in the pit of his stomach, spreading out to his hands and all the way down to the tip toes he had to stand on in order to reach him. Richie's hands grabbed Eddie by the waist, pulling him closer until he was satisfied with the closeness before going up to cup Eddie's jaw. Eddie felt dizzy, pulled back.

"Have you done this before?" Eddie gasped, breathing into Richie's mouth, which was kind of gross in theory, but in practice made Eddie's central nervous system go into overdrive. "Kissed someone?"

Richie shook his head, panting. "Not really, outside of like, stupid games we play with the others. I've never wanted to kiss anyone but you. It would feel like...” Richie pursed his lips, testing the word in his mouth before he decided whether or not to say it. "It would feel like cheating," he admitted, then looked away from Eddie. "Have you kissed anyone?"

"Who the fuck am I gonna kiss?"

"Thought we just answered that question." He palmed over Eddie's jaw again, inching his face closer to Richie's. "You could've kissed me at any point, I wouldn't've stopped you." He paused, adding, "Definitely wouldn't have stopped you."

"Fine, then. Who the fuck, other than you, would wanna kiss me? " Eddie asked.

He looked up at Richie and then back down to his collarbones, which, okay. He was seventeen, and had long since come to terms with the fact that this was a juvenile thing but fucking god he wanted to give Richie a hickey. Being gay in Derry, or just in general, meant he never got to be stupid when he was a younger teenager when it came to crushes and kissing and dating. Now that he actually had someone to be on the receiving end of all his romantic bullshit, instead of Eddie just wishing he was, he kind of wanted to make up for lost time. No, fuck that. He really wanted to make up for lost time.

Richie screwed up his face. "Who the fuck wouldn't? You're a hot piece," he insisted, with way more conviction than should be necessary when using the phrase 'hot piece' in a sentence. "Anyone would be lucky to have you."

"Fuck off."

"I mean that shit, dude. Anybody would be lucky to have you. No joke."

"Sure," Eddie said. " However , the only person I want to kiss is you. Nobody else fits my very niche taste of six-foot-tall brainless idiots with hideous hair and mile thick glasses who drive me insane, named Richie Tozier that I've been obsessed with since before I could tie my fucking shoes."

Richie giggled like a fucking dork. "Cool," he whispered, red as a beet, and kissed Eddie again.

By the time they went back out to the living room, everyone was definitely asleep, judging by Mike's snoring and everyone's total silence about it, where they usually hit him with pillows until he woke up and stopped. He practically pulled Richie across the hard wooden floor so he could drape himself over him and leech all his warmth in the chill of the room. He manhandled Richie's awkward, gangly limbs so they were a nice combo of not stabbing him in his major organs and also not being crushed under the weight of Eddie's entire torso, until they were both comfortable, and fell asleep.

---

He woke up uncomfortable and stiff as shit from the hardwood, but also intricately tangled in Richie's body, which he definitely didn't mind. Richie crossed his legs at the ankles when he slept, which Eddie told him a long time ago not to do because it fucked with your blood pressure, but he never listened, and Eddie was tangled up in the knot of them, thigh over thigh, ankle over ankle. Richie smelled like the apple cinnamon air freshener in the bathroom, but his hair smelled like vanilla. He could also smell pancakes, which sounded divine , but he didn't want to get up just yet.

"You guys okay?" Beverly asked, in one of Ben's shirts and sleep shorts. Everyone except Ben, actually, was still present in the room. Eddie cheered inside his own head, Ben's pancakes were the best pancakes. 

Richie grumbled from his spot next to Eddie as his eyes fluttered open, turning to tuck himself into Eddie's side. 

"We're good," Eddie assured her. He looked down at Richie, then at everyone else. "I'm gay, by the way." Richie stiffened, then smiled into his shoulder.

"Oh!" Bev exclaimed, taking off her fuzzy sleep socks, trying not to meet his eyes. "Cool. Glad you told us."

"You already knew," Eddie said. It wasn't a question, and Beverly could tell, smiling weakly and looking at the pull out couch for anybody else to help her.

"Of course we fucking knew," Stan agreed, sitting up and raking a hand down his face. "You told Bill you wanted to marry him in kindergarten, and then said you would never marry a girl because they’re ‘gross.’ You never really changed.” Then he paused and smiled at him, face soft at his edges and crooked with fatigue. "In that sense, anyway."

Eddie smiled at him, Richie grumbling as Eddie pushed him away so he could sit up before resting his head in his lap. "Thanks, Stan, but you liked Bill until the eighth grade and you have the nerve to call me out? Bull shit! "

Stan turned beet red as Bill cackled from the chair him and Audra were sandwiched on. "You know, I don't have to stand for this." Gracefully, as Stan always was, he swung his legs over onto the floor, marching off to the kitchen.

"The eighth grade?" Mike asked, watching as Beverly followed Stan out of the room.

Richie laughed. "Yeah, cause he saw Bill fawning over Beverly and he didn't see the point in liking someone who had a crush on someone else."

"He's a good compartmentalizer," Bill explained as he and Audra now folded his blanket and set it on the chair.

"Lucky you got in when you did, Mikey," Richie beamed. "Or else in two years we'd be goin' to temple for the civil union ceremony of Staniel Uris and Billiam Denbrough, and you know what they say..." He wiggled his eyebrows and Mike.

"What do they say?" Beverly called from the kitchen.

"Bev!" Stan shrieked, accompanied by Ben's laughter, the quick smack of a spatula, and then Ben's breathless yelp as he tried to stop cackling. Metal clanged and clattered in the kitchen, but nobody commented. At this point, if the kitchen didn't look like a warzone by the time any of them were done using it, assume it's because they had all killed each other in the living room and never got to the kitchen.

Richie clicked his tongue. "Well...let's just say Bill puts the rough in Denbrough."

Eddie snorted as two separate pillows came flying at Richie's face, followed by Stan's hysterical Richie! coming from the kitchen and Bill and Ben's hysterical laughter. He really loved his friends.

---

"I want to tell them," Richie said on the drive home. Eddie, who'd been spacing out thinking about how nice last night was, came back into focus, removing his head from the warm car window and looking over to him in the driver's seat.

"Huh?" Eddie asked, before Richie's statement registered and he understood. "Oh! Okay."

"It's just, it's easier now." He turned at a stop sign, taking one hand off the wheel to bite at his nails. "But still really difficult."

Richie parked the car in the driveway of his house, then got out and started the walk home to Eddie's. If his mom ever saw Richie's truck in their driveway without Eddie asking four hours in advance if Richie could come over, Eddie is sure he'd be publicly executed. Hell, someone finds out he's with Richie at all and he might be...publicly...executed. Shit.

Eddie slammed the door of Richie's truck shut and jogged over to the other side where Richie waited for him. He walked a considerable distance apart from him so they didn’t touch. Just in case. He could see Richie's hands flex when he glanced over, and Eddie smiled to himself, the knowledge that Richie felt the same way as him continuing to set off this giddy feeling in his chest.

"I get what you mean," he continued, keeping up their conversation.

"But I swear I'll do it. Soon."

Eddie stopped and turned to face Richie entirely. Luckily, Richie noticed, and turned to face him too. (There have been times where that didn't happen and Richie just kept on walking with no clue that he just left Eddie standing there looking like a dumbass . He was glad that was not one of those times.) Richie picked at the skin around his thumbs as he waited for Eddie to speak.

"Richie."

"Edmeister."

Eddie inhaled sharply through his nose and gave him a pointed look. " Richie. Listen," he lowered his voice and checked to see if anyone was around. He watched as two girls he thought were staring at them turned and went into the comic book store, and another elderly man walk out of the barber shop. Nobody cared about what the hell two teenage boys were doing standing a mile apart on the sidewalk.

Eddie sighed. "I love you, and coming--" He looked round again. "Doing that is terrifying and hard to explain, and I, obviously, totally get that, but it's your choice. You could call them all the minute we get home and tell them, or you could never tell them and have that information stay between us until the day we shrivel up and die when we're ninety, I don't care. Point is, it's your choice, your decision, and no matter what it is, I'm here for you. With you. Cause I love you."

Richie smiled so wide Eddie thought he'd go blind with the brightness of it. "Thanks, Eds. Love you, too."

Richie didn't say another word the rest of the way home, but he didn't stop smiling either.

---

Now, Richie might've been the valedictorian of their class, but Eddie was, by no means, an idiot. Sure, math made him want to slam his head against a wall and sometimes trying to read Elizabethan English led him to an frantic state, but he passed with a 3.6 GPA and comfort in the knowledge that he got, at least, a well rounded education out of high school. In addition, killing a demon clown from outer space also lent Eddie to be pretty intelligent in, like, common sense, and emotional maturity in most situations. He also had extensive medical knowledge due to his mother's constant...being herself. He got a good score on the SAT, he knew how to make the right decisions, he knew how to pick the right friends.

That being said, laying out in the bed of Richie's truck, with Richie's hand intertwined with his and his thumb tracing shapes over the back of Eddie's, is making him go kind of stupid. Like, almost all of his thoughts were about Richie and Richie's hands and Richie's eyes and the fact that this was always the sort of intimacy Eddie always wanted with Richie but never thought he'd get, that no other coherent thoughts will enter his mind.

School was practically over by now, finals were done and graded, all they had to do was go in for three hours each morning for graduation practice, and Eddie couldn't be happier. He got to hang out with his friends every day, and got to be alone with Richie every night without having any homework or projects to do. They had the whole summer laid out in front of them, and Richie said he wanted to start that summer here, on the edge of Mike's property, looking up at all the stars in the pitch blackness of the night.

And Richie was a gangly kid, but his hands were huge and could wrap all the way around Eddie's, which, even if it was irrational and not true, made Eddie feel safe. He turned over to look at Richie, the detailed architecture of his face, sloping cheekbones and the triangle of his nose, lips in a strict straight line as his long eyelashes fluttered against his cheek. His eyes were closed, and for a second Eddie thought he might've been asleep, if not for the consistent changing of shapes he drew on Eddie's skin.

Eddie thought that by this point his resistance would've worn out enough that they'd be making out by now, but it hadn't. He was content to just lay here with Richie, until the sun came up in the morning and went down all over again, until the summer ended and autumn came and winter turned them into ice and spring came and thawed them.

"Do you ever think about how small we are compared to all the stars?" Richie breathed, his eyes blinking open. It took Eddie a moment to realize he was crying. "Like, if all the problems I worry about now are so insignificant compared to the scale of the universe, then what's the point in worrying?"

Eddie untangled their hands to sit up, wiping Richie's tears from his face and kissing his forehead. Richie looked up at him, eyes so dark they reflected the sky like a mirror.

"Are we dating?" Richie asked. Eddie leaned down to kiss him, but stopped short at the question. Richie continued, "Or are we more than that? Or less?"

Eddie felt like Richie had inhaled the stars, every aspect of the known universe, and then exhaled, setting all of it inside Eddie's chest. He felt like he could tear up himself, overwhelmed by everything in his heart, while his mind had achieved full clarity.

"I don't know," Eddie said, breath shuddering. "I know that I love you, and that I want to be with you. We can start from there."

Richie nodded. His eyes dashed over Eddie’s face, mind moving before Eddie could even process a thought, flipping through a series of different topics in the span of a second without mentioning any of them, like he often did. Eddie combed his hair away from his forehead, staring down at the boy he loved more than life, waiting for him to reply.

"I'm glad I have you," Richie eventually told him. "And, even if it turned out the way it did, I'm glad my parents know about me." Eddie furrowed his eyebrows as a lead for him to continue.

"I--In some way, it's better knowing when I'm younger how my parents feel, than being an actual adult and putting on an act in front of them every time I go home to see them, and hiding a huge part of what I actually feel only for them to still reject me as their kid when I'm older.

"I get to go to college and start clean, instead of trying to undo my whole life and every part of myself my parents have ever known because, I, and they, couldn't handle a part of myself that I can't change, but tried to anyway to gain their love." He kissed Eddie quickly. "Plus, I can be with you, which is sweet."

"Insightful," Eddie commented, resting his hand on Richie's stomach. He laid back down so he could rest his head on Richie's chest and tangled their legs together. "I'm never telling my mom about me, or you. She takes everything I love and she tries to ruin it, I'm never gonna let her touch you."

If Richie wanted him to come out to his mom to be with him, Eddie would have to step back from whatever it was they were doing, set that boundary early and then let Richie decide if he could live with that. If this was the line he needed to cross to be with Richie, Eddie would have to come to terms with the fact that they would always remain on opposite sides of those lines. He loved Richie so much, but if he asked this of him, Eddie would never be able to love him in a way that didn't destroy himself first.

To his relief, Richie grinned. "Okay. Sonia doesn't need to know shit about shit." He sniffed and wiped his tears with the arm Eddie wasn't crushing. "I'm just one asshole with an opinion, Eds, doesn't mean you gotta do what I do, or that I want that from you." He leaned down and kissed Eddie's hair, breathing in the fresh air as he set his head back down on the floor.

"Good," he whispered, wrapping his arms around Richie. "Great, actually. That's one thing I wouldn't be able to do, even if you asked me. She can't ever know about anything."

"I already said that's fine. Plus, once we're in California, and Sonia spends all her disability money calling and calling and calling you long distance, I'm gonna use my money from my stripping job to take you out on dates and be the best boyfriend--" he sang 'boyfriend' like it was the first time he heard of the word, like he invented it, "--I can be."

Eddie's eyes widened at the thought of a mostly-naked Richie, then went back to regular size so he could roll them. "Shut the fuck up, you're not gonna be a stripper. You're too boney."

"That'd be my thing! Boney would be my stripper name, and all my dances would be just me showing off each notch in my spine and shit." He did some weird fucked up version of the worm and laughed, kicking his feet as he cackled, echoing into the night. "We'd be swimming in money! We could maybe even afford to eat!"

"Shut up!" Eddie laughed. "Did you figure out what you actually want to do yet, dipshit?"

Richie waited to stop laughing, then looked down at him. "I think I wanna do comedy, I think."

Eddie intertwined their fingers. "You said 'I think' twice."

"Yeah, because it's, like, a stupid thing to say. And it's shitty, 'cause you don't need to go to college to do comedy, but my parents aren't gonna give me the money I need to get out of this shithole unless I go, so I have to go." He hugged Eddie closer to him. "But then comedy is hard as shit to make an actually good career in, and is Hollywood even ready for me?"

"And by that I assume you mean something other than you being a ginormous asshole?"

"Hey! My ginormous asshole is something I save for the second date, dick. I mean because of the gay thing. It's like a fucking catch 22. Other people can make jokes about gay people and say all this rude, fucking awful shit and everyone laughs cause they think it's funny, but someone who actually is gay gets up there and all of a sudden he's a joke, just not the funny kind." He swallowed loudly. "We can only be a joke, we can't tell them."

Met with silence, Richie continued. "Plus, even if I hid it. If I acted straight just to get famous and came out the minute I knew I'd be secure, it wouldn't be worth it because it would just be all fucking lies. If I can't get up in front of an audience and talk about how you're the weirdest kid on earth, and how funny, and just plain fun, it is to be in love with you, then it's not worth it, man. Even if that means I have to work twenty times harder in order to gain a semblance of something worth being proud of."

"We can do that. You can do that." Eddie turned so his head was on Richie's chest. "Like, you can never tell a single soul, you're actually not allowed to remember this conversation after we've had it, but you are funny, Richie. You're a dick, and an asshole, but you're a funny one, and you make me laugh more than I can even handle sometimes, even if it's not appropriate. Even when you're not funny, you're funny." Eddie smiled. "But that's just because I like you so much. Against my better judgement."

Richie giggled. Eddie's heart secretly melted. "You like me. Stupid."

"You like me too! What the fuck?" Eddie sat up so he could shove Richie, but before he could, Richie tackled him down onto the bed of the truck.

"Hey!" Eddie yelled, writhing around so he could get out of Richie's grip. He was laughing hysterically, and if Eddie didn't know Mike was at Stan's for the night, he might worry about him coming all the way out to yell at them.

But Mike wasn't here, so Eddie made all the noise he wanted as him and Richie wrestled on the bed of his truck, at two in the morning, underneath the light of the stars.

---

Eddie all but tripped over his bike running to get to Stan's doorstep. After spending two hours with his mom taking pictures by himself in his living room with the camera on a timer, because she didn't like any of his friends and he didn't want her anywhere near them, and biking two miles in the May heat as fast as he could so he could be away from his house, he needed to cool down around people he loved.

He knocked on Stan's front door as hard as he could, making quick with the greetings and thank you's and the small talk with Stan's parents just enough so they wouldn't hate him forever before running up the stairs to Stan's room where they told him everyone was. He burst into the room and slammed the door shut.

"I hate my mom," he explained, when everybody looked at him. "I hate my mom, literally so much." He collapsed onto Stan's bed and crawled to put his head in Ben's lap.

"We know," Ben said, patting his hair, careful not to mess up the very carefully tailored coif Eddie spent forty minutes perfecting.

"Cheers to that," Bev said, raising an imaginary cup from Stan's desk chair, which she sat backwards on, her flowy blue dress falling just above the wheels of the chair so they didn't get caught, and her gown hiked up around her waist like a really big shirt. Her face was all outright enthusiastic agreement, but her eyes were kind in their gaze at him.

Eddie smiled back at her, knowing his friends loved him and that, no matter what, they always would. He sat up and leaned on Ben's shoulder instead, not wanting to wrinkle his clothes and look like an asshole in pictures. Stan moved closer to him on the bed, Mike following, not in a cap and gown but dressed nicely for the ceremony. Bill and Audra sat next to each other on the two big saucer chairs Stan got last Christmas, looking softly at Eddie, with sympathy but not pity, and Eddie couldn't have thanked them more for that.

"Oh, also," Eddie told them, sitting up fully and fixing his hair, "Richie's parents aren't coming. I can't tell you why, because that's really, like, not my place, but they won't be here. Try not to mention it?"

Beverly nodded, concerned but not voicing it. "Yeah, of course. Is everything okay?"

No. Richie's parents are assholes and it's basically all I think about, like, seventy percent of the time Richie mentions them. Given the slightest opportunity, I would blow them to smithereens, then glue them back together and proceed to tell them every wonderful thing about their son that, like it or not, they're going to fucking miss one day.

"No," was all he said before Richie crashed into the room, grinning and leaning in the room with one shoulder caught on the doorway and putting all of his weight on Stan's doorknob to stabilize himself.

"Who's ready?" He asked, all but tripping over his own body into the room. Everybody was silent, not knowing what to say, except for Eddie, whose heart was doing this melty thing it did whenever he saw Richie, which he hated, but really also didn't.

Stan sighed. "I know you guys are full of, like, rage or whatever, but if you rip my door off its hinges my parents will never let you come over ever again." He stood up and pulled Richie into a hug. "That being said, fuck yeah I'm ready."

Richie pulled Stan closer to him and swayed him back and forth before letting him go. He was practically vibrating, bouncing in place and smiling at Eddie like he'd never seen a human person before. He wasn't in his cap and gown, but he wore nice black dress pants and this fitted blue dress shirt that was making Eddie go kind of feral. It was fine.

"Where's your shit, Rich?" Bev asked, swivelling around in the desk chair in circles. "Kind of a dress coded event."

"It's in the car. Wanted to get up here as soon as possible 'cause I haven't seen any of you all day," he explained, jumping over and pulling Beverly by the wheels of the chair into his chest. She wrapped her arms around his waist and pinched his ass hard. "WoAH, that right is reserved for Spaghettis only, miss Beverly."

"I'll do what I want," she mumbled, actually wrapping her hands around his waist this time. "Love you, Rich."

Richie smiled to himself and kissed the top of her graduation crown. "Love you, too, Molly."

Soon enough, after talking about Richie's globe head and wondering how he was going to fit that into his cap, they all were called down to the living room, none of their parents wanting to be late. Eddie stood and Richie grabbed his hand, pulling them in front of Stan's door so nobody could leave. Eddie laughed and let himself be pulled, not knowing what was going on.

"Oh and one more thing," Richie informed. "I'm gay." He kissed Eddie quickly and turned back to the rest of them. "And Eddie is my boyfriend. Let's go graduate!" Richie beamed as he pulled them down the stairs, his big ass clown feet barrelling down the stairs.

"What the fuck?" Beverly whispered. Stan sighed miserably and slapped his hands over his eyes. Ben laughed loud enough that his mom asked what was so funny from downstairs.

"Wait, fucking actually?" Bill asked, blank look on his face as Audra but clenched her jaw shut to stop from laughing, but Eddie saw it anyway. 

Eddie sighed, like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. "Fucking actually," he said, following Richie down the stairs.

"I mean, thank God," Eddie heard Mike say as they all followed them downstairs. "It took Bill and Stan, like, seven years to realize they even like each other."

Stan elbowed at him and missed. "We'd gone numb to it! There's only so many times you could watch two seven year old assholes fight with each other before you learn to just roll with the punches, literally. We were victims."

"Stockholm Syndrome is no joke, Mike," Bill agreed, holding on to Audra's hand.

"Of course."

Beverly walked down the stairs at half the speed as the rest of them, trying to rezip her gown and walk down the stairs at the same time. "I think it would've been nice to know Richie and Eddie as little repressed babies."

Stan nudged Eddie out of the way so they could get by him. "It wasn't. Richie bit and Eddie thought he was rabid, it was a screaming match every single day."

"Still is a screaming match every day," Bill muttered. Beverly snorted.

"Damn straight."

Eddie smiled as Richie rushed back in the house with his cap and gown on. "I still think he's rabid, by the way."

"Yeah, rabidly falling more in love with you. Everyday."

Everybody groaned and Eddie slapped Richie's cap to the ground. Richie just threw his head back and cackled.

---

The bad thing about being the shortest guy in your class was that, if your class organized their graduation ceremony by height like Eddie's did, you had to lead a line of over one hundred people, with only six of those hundred assholes being people he actually fucking liked. And every parent who knew any popular person in your grade most definitely did not know you, so everyone who saw you first immediately made a face like you'd showed up dressed as their kid, and they were mad at you for making the joke. Also, the worst thing about dating the valedictorian of your class was that he had to sit on stage while the rest of the class sat on chairs on the football field, and you got to spend the whole ceremony looking at him being mildly uncomfortable the entire damn time. 

Richie's hair all stuffed underneath his cap made it look like if he took it off, he'd be bald underneath, and he hunched over himself throughout all of the speeches. He was excited to graduate, Eddie knew, but he ranted to him all the night before about how stupid it was that he was supposed to have written something to give their class, most of which had done nothing but make all of them feel out of place their whole school career.

Richie, as he explained, wasn't sure how he was supposed to give a speech tying their entire class together, when their whole high school career their class tried to sever each of them from it. They ridiculed all of them for 'looking queer,' tormented Beverly for no reason other than she didn't fit in with what their idea of a girl shouldhave been, ridiculed Ben for being fat, Stan for being Jewish, Eddie for looking more effeminate than what was considered normal, Bill for his stutter, for any single flaw they could find, and now Richie was supposed to get up in front of all of them and act like he was going to miss them? How the hell was he supposed to do that?

He wrote a speech, a bad one, which he read to Eddie three days ago and Eddie hated. He told him so, and Richie just groaned into his stomach and asked why he had to be sentimental with people for which he had no sentiment. Eddie didn't know, just turned off his lamp and made them go to bed so they could sleep at least a little before graduation practice the next day.

A guest speaker came, an alum from the school that graduated the year that they were born, which, okay, whatever, sure, and said a bunch of superficial shit that didn't really matter to him. Eddie didn't care about changing the world, he already had, and no amount of believing in himself or facing a million no's was going to change the fact that Eddie had already achieved what some of his classmates were going to medical school to try and do. Him and his friends saved every kid sitting around them's asses, and the kids in the grade below them, and so on. And they would never even fucking know.

Sometimes, when Eddie let himself think about the things he tried to ignore, he wondered if any part of this snow globe town, encased in glass and pretty only at first glance, was worth saving. Then he thought about his friends, and about Georgie, who was so close to being killed before Bill got there just in time, about all the actual kids who might be part of what they were fighting, or any who just might make it to see adulthood now that they had a chance to grow up, and decided of course. It had to be worth it. There was no other way for it to be.

Eddie watched as Richie stood from his chair as the salutatorian sat down. His hands shook as he crossed the stage, but when he got up to the podium, he didn't flip the pages in the binder where his bullshit speech he wrote up in ten minutes and handed in this morning was bookmarked. Instead, he closed the binder altogether, moved the microphone up so it would reach him, then leaned on the podium and looked out on the audience. He smiled, just for a second, and Eddie recognized it as the crazed smile he gave right before he was about to do something stupid.

"Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Richard Tozier, class valedictorian," he looked down, trying to find the words to say and stopping. "And let's be real, I'm probably the last person most of you want to see...if you even recognize me at all..." He trailed off before looking back at the class. He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders, puffed out his chest and elongated his neck to look more serious. He looked like a weird turkey-giraffe hybrid baby.

He began, "This wasn't a popularity contest, being valedictorian wasn't, even if a lot of you signed the petition to make it one, just so you wouldn't have to hear the kid you tormented for years get up on stage and spout some superficial bullshit about connecting with you guys when, really, we had no connection at all--" Richie turned and looked at the group of teachers staring at him, made a half hearted apology face for cursing on stage, and then turned back.

"I mean, let's be real here, most of us never even looked at each other kindly, if at all, and we definitely didn't form a, a bond that would last for the rest of our lives or whatever they expect you to say at these things. The truth is, you hated us, for whatever reasons you made up in your head so that beating the shit out of us on a semi-regular basis, or watching someone else do it for you, would seem justified. That's fine. We hated you, too. It went both ways, and I assume that that's how it was for every person who went here once." He leaned forward and looked out at the audience.

He breathed harshly into the microphone and Eddie heard Bill snort from somewhere next to him. "I'm assuming any of you guys who went here are the ones who had a good time in high school when you were younger, or else you wouldn't've stayed to send your kids here, so good on you, for making everyone else miserable. I hope you sleep well knowing that tonight.

"But let's not keep being negative, or else Kurt Hockstetter might try to fucking murder me for some dumb shit I didn't do, like ruin his high school experience, or literally anything else he tried to pin on me just to get a turn at beating my ass, which has happened so many times I couldn't count them on two hands." He looked at his left hand, inspected it like someone would a diamond in a jewelry store. "Of course, one of those hands is attached to the wrist he broke sophomore year, but I said we were done with the negative shit."

Eddie watched with a stunning amount of shock and an almost equal amount of childish glee. Oh, and pride. He had a lot of fucking pride for being the one person out of seven to be able to say he was friends with Richie fucking Tozier. He had even more for being the only one able to kiss the fuck out of him once they were done with this stupid fucking ceremony. Richie slapped his hands down on the podium and laughed, throwing his head back so far he had to reach back and hold his graduation cap to keep it from falling off.

He sighed dramatically. "Derry High School, you gave me some of my best friends and my worst memories, and truly made me put up with a lot of fucked up shit all so I could get one tiny piece of paper that, down the line, will probably get put in an attic somewhere very far from here so I never have to think about it again." He swatted away the dean of students trying to remove him from the podium, holding his foot all the way back so she had to keep her distance if she didn't want to get a kick in the chest. Not that Richie ever actually would, but...there weren't any consequences at this point, and Eddie certainly wouldn't fucking blame him.

"What're you gonna do gimme a detention?" He whispered, and Eddie burst out laughing. The kid next to him just stared at Richie, eyes as big as saucers and jaw dropped open slightly. Two seats down from him, Bill sat with his head in his hands, positively shaking with laughter as Richie managed to push the woman away and get back to his speech.

"Derry High, my love, several of both your students and faculty have told me I didn't deserve to be up here, that my ability to be a kid with a multidimensional personality and actual goals who also gets good grades while managing not to be a total fucking dick, somehow disqualifies me from the role, but you guys couldn't even do long division if I forced it on you, teachers fucking included, so I don't think I'm entirely in the wrong for being up here."

Richie looked at the microphone and went silent, examining it closer before he realized. The microphone was just a handheld in a stand. It wasn't attached to the podium at all. WIthout hesitation, Richie grabbed it off the post, and started walking around the stage with it, twirling the cord around his finger. Eddie bit his cheek so he wouldn't laugh anymore. Their principal rushed off the stage.

Richie walked over to the salutatorian. "Samantha, look, I know you're smart, and your speech was great, but let's face it. When Peggy Smith called you a bitch and spilled a whole bowl of punch down your white dress at winter formal junior year for looking at her boyfriend, did you really look at her and say, wow, I can't wait to give a speech one year from now about how much I'm gonna fucking miss you? No! Do you think, in writing my original speech four fucking days ago, that I forgot about when Bowers broke my fucking nose in the tenth grade and I had two black eyes for a week, and one of you assholes told me he should've killed me instead? That that would have been better for everybody else? Of course I didn't! Hey Shane, by the way."

He gestured to where Shane Forrester was sitting behind Eddie, who indeed was the one to tell Richie he should have been killed instead. Shane Forrester, while being nothing but a dick through twelve years of school, did have a place high up in the Losers' hearts. That place was in their unwritten, often spoken, 'hate list,' which both Stan and Eddie put him on after that incident. Richie cried and said it was fine, while Eddie signed his bare arm like Richie asked him too, since he didn't have a cast, and Stan paced around the clubhouse and ranted about it for fifteen minutes before he could calm down. So. Yes. Shane Forrester. Fuck that dude.

"And it's not like any of the administration didn't know! My parents went to the principal, I went, some of them found me, or my friends, getting half our internal organs punched out of our gut, and you said nothing. You asked if we did something to deserve it. And then you," he whirled around to face the group of teachers all sitting on stage. "You asked me to come up here, as a class leader," he mocked, "and asked me to write a speech detailing my final farewells to you assholes and these fucking dicks. Eat shit.

"And I'm not trying to be just some edgy kid ruining graduation for everyone else," Richie explained, hopping down to the grass and walking so far from the microphone plug-in that the cord pulled taut across the stage. "Like yeah, we did it! We survived! One thing that binds us all together was totally our hatred for Mr. Summers' junior bio class, but that's about all we've got."

He looked over at Eddie, and Eddie felt that wave of nervousness wash over him again, but instead of the nausea that usually came along with it, it was just. Happiness. He was so fucking happy.

"There were six people here that helped me get through high school, and if you have to wonder if you were one of them, it means that you probably weren't. If you and I never met, and you're genuinely a good person, and I just never got the chance to know, then I'm sorry, and I hope your graduation before and after this is better, but I'd rather give everyone a speech where I get to say what I've wanted to these entire past four-to-twelve years, than stand up there like an asshole, and tell you all the bullshit you just wanted to hear, from a kid you didn't want to listen to. So, thanks. Congratulations everyo--"

The rest of his sentence was cut off by the principal slamming her hands down on the switchboard and cutting his mic. Richie laughed and climbed back on the stage, instead of using the stairs like a dumbass, swinging his leg over the side of the stage and rolling onto his back before standing up again, bowing. He set the microphone down on the ground, and stood tall, taking a bow as he ended high school career in the best way he knew how.

"Fuck yeah!" Beverly screamed.

"Woo!" Mike cheered from the bleachers, and Eddie smiled.

He was not doing the whole cheering thing, but when he grinned at Richie from his seat, and Richie beamed his goofy ass smile at him right back, he knew Richie understood.

---

Eddie's whole body shook as he stood next to his mom with his arm resting on her pretending to be happy and take pictures with her like she wasn't the whole reason he thought he might never live to see today. Tears pricked his eyes as he felt her hand around his waist, his smile getting harder and harder to plaster on the longer Bill's mom took pictures. Ben, Mike, and Stan were all hugging each other and talking about California, almost bouncing with all the energy, and Eddie had to use a god-like amount of restraint not to run into the center of them and demand they give him a group hug until the sun went down.

"Eddie!" Beverly called, from where she was getting pictures with Richie for the last five minutes, taken by Bill on her 70's polaroid her dad had that she took when she left, and beckoned him over. Eddie could sob in relief.

"Eddie-bear!" His mother complained. Eddie just sighed and looked at her, tears in his eyes and a whole forest fire behind them, telling her everything she needed to know. She frowned at him, but backed off.

"I'll see you at home," He told her, no room for argument, and walked away. Bill's dad clapped a hand on his shoulder and made an understanding face before letting him go over with Bev and Richie. He loved them so much.

Richie crashed into his side even though Eddie was the one to walk up to him, and before he could even say hi, he'd intertwined their fingers. Eddie choked, before realizing the billowing of their gowns in the wind hid them entirely. Eddie squeezed his hand back and beamed at him, so happy that they were finally fucking free.

"Come with me," Richie said, grabbing Bev's hand and dragging them across the field and all the way back behind the bleachers.

"Why'd you bring us back here?" Eddie asked.

"Pictures," Richie explained, before kissing Eddie square on the mouth.

Eddie made a noise, almost pulled back, but realized. He took them behind the bleachers for this, and so he kissed back, sliding his hands into his hair, not even caring as Richie's cap fell to the ground. Beverly cooed before getting down on one knee and taking the picture, saying something about getting her gown wet in the grass, but Eddie wasn't listening. Richie smiled into the kiss, and Eddie turned away, laughing so hard he couldn't keep going. Richie made a humming noise as he pressed his smile into Eddie's cheek, pulled Eddie closer to him until they were standing chest to chest before picking Eddie up and swinging him around.

Eddie screamed. "Richie!" He swatted Richie's arms and tried to get down, until Richie lost grip and put him down, beaming so hard his cheeks strained. His face was flushed as he rocked on his feet, staring at Eddie like he wanted something, but he couldn't force his mouth to stop smiling to ask. Eddie smiled and kissed his temple, ignoring the second camera flash from Bev and the sound of a photo printing that followed.

"Oh! He likes me! Did you get that?" Richie asked, going to Beverly and taking one of the pictures so he could shake it himself, bouncing up and down for somewhere to put all of the excess energy.

"Oh, I got it," she told him. Richie whooped and then dragged them back into the clot of everyone else, taking approximately a zillion pictures with the rest of his friends before driving home to crawl right out of this stuffy dress suit that didn't fit, and right into laying under his comforter with Richie.

---

Later, the giddiness Richie felt wore off. They'd graduated, and he was happy, but Eddie knew Richie's discomfort at graduation had more to do with a stupid speech. He'd built all those walls, made a spectacle on stage in front of everyone to mask the fact that his parents hadn't gone to his high school graduation, and it still hurt to know even if he didn't talk to them anymore.

From what Eddie could gather, as he held on tight to Richie, crying into his lap, it maybe more than just hurt him. Actually, he'd gone up to Eddie's room, took one look at their caps lying side by side on Eddie's desk, and, as is customary when Richie is feeling an onslaught of emotions all at once, threw up out of Eddie's window. Then broke down crying. When Eddie got past the consequential nausea, his heart broke in two.

"I'm so sorry, Rich," Eddie mumbled, trying to let the bubbling anger simmer, to push it back and put Richie first, but his mind decided now that they could both be angry and sad, which was great. Didn't mix up signals at all. He ran his hands up and down Richie's back, which now was bare after Eddie made him shower and brush his teeth so he could at least feel a little bit better.

"I'm fine," Richie sniffed, moving back to face the wall. Eddie sat up and tried to pull him back.

Eddie kept trying until Richie swatted his hands away. Eddie groaned and started poking him in the sides. "Richie! I'm your boyfriend! I wanna hear you talk about what bothers you."

Richie squirmed and rolled over. "Stop!" Richie squeaked, trying to laugh at how it tickled, but because of everything else, it came out as half-broken hiccup-y sobbing noises that made Eddie's soul ache. "I'm just being a bitch, I said I was fine."

Eddie rolled his eyes. "You're always a bitch, but you've never not talked to me about something." He kissed Richie's forehead. "Just tell me. I wouldn't do anything to hurt you, Richie. I love you."

"Promise me you won't think I'm some, like. Like I'm some fucking broken thing you need to fix. I don't want you to pity me, or think you have to stay with me because I won't be able to handle it if you left. Promise me, I'm not kidding."

Eddie wanted to cry. "I promise, Richie. I can't think you're broken if I know you're not. And pity is not a thing I do. Ever." He kissed behind Richie's ear. "Plus, you're my best friend before my boyfriend, Richie, if I ever thought our relationship was going somewhere that would ruin our friendship, and you didn't want to fix that, or if you ever hurt me on purpose, I will leave you. But I don't think you're going to do that, I know you never would, which is why I'm still here. I love you, dude. I always have and always will, even if you tell me about what has you so upset. I promise I won't hurt you, but you have to trust me first."

So, he did. He put his heard in Eddie's hands until the sun came up the next morning, and told him about all the stuff he'd been thinking between when his parents finding out he was gay and graduation, which turned out to be a lot considering Richie thought a thousand things in ten seconds, and he’d been holding this back for five months. Eddie could hardly bear to hear about it, how much pain Richie felt under the weight of his life. All of the stuff he thought of, struggled with, that he never told anyone. Eddie's soul ached with longing for a different reality, for one where none of this were real, a bad nightmare, and they would wake up tomorrow in Eddie's bed, where they were the same, but the entire world was different.

As the sun shone high in their room and Richie was done talking, and done crying, when he dozed off and was snoring right into Eddie's fucking cochlea, Eddie made a mental note to put Richie's parents on the top of the Losers' fucking hate list. And another one to always protect Richie from his parents, no matter what.

No matter fucking what.

---

With graduation over and summer in full power by seemingly the next week, Eddie was probably the happiest he'd ever been. Everyday he got to wake up next to Richie, hang out with his friends all day, and then go home and fall asleep right next to Richie, rinse, repeat. They went to the quarry, the arcade, the movies, the arcade inside the movies, and basically whatever other teenage bullshit they could concern themselves with until the end of the month when they all decided they were going to get jobs, but even that was an activity in itself. Filling out job applications was way more fun than filling out the college ones, because at least for work you didn't have to write a fucking essay.

Though, it wasn't perfect. Eddie had finally managed to confess his feelings to the guy he'd been in love with since before he could remember. Now that summer gave them all an empty expanse of days off, which meant swimming in the quarry around a shirtless Richie he wasn't able to make out with without breaking the new 'no vomit-inducement' rule, which had been introduced and somehow passed through Loser court, stating that anything they considered sappy is expressly banned. 

The thing was that they all continually broke anyway, specifically Eddie and Richie more so than the others, because Richie liked to constantly touch people, especially him (Eddie was not complaining), and Eddie was trying to make up for literal years of not being able to do this before. Plus, there was no opportunity to sneak off with Richie because they were basically all conjoined together, and Eddie wanted to bathe in Richie's touch until he drowned, but he couldn't unless he wanted the high-pitched jeering of six other assholes, which he didn't. The point was, he had a boyfriend for the first time in his life, and he couldn't even force all of his super gay feelings on him because he was constantly banned due to the vomit rule.

He wanted Richie all to himself all the time, to just be able to be with him, without any interference, and listen to his constant rambling without having to say a word back, because Richie trusted him enough to know he was listening. He also had the need for Richie to just. Sit. Down on his bed and Eddie could just crawl all over him and figure out how they best fit together so that, when they slept, he wouldn't wake up with Richie's elbow in his fucking pancreas. To just be able to breathe in Richie and have his skin against his, just for the sake of it, Eddie could do it all day, all summer. Also, because they'd bought several new comic books with the money they took out of their graduation funds to spend, and Eddie wanted to read them with Richie first before he went to any of the other Losers with them.

In the back of his mind, Eddie wondered if it was an unhealthy thing. He'd had conversations with Beverly and Ben and Stan and even Richie about turning into his mom and always being so possessive of him, but they all assured him it was normal. Beverly called it the honeymoon phase, to which Eddie threw a pencil eraser at her forehead. He liked having a separate space away from the rest of the world, even his friends, where he could be with Richie however he wanted. He could be whoever he wanted around Richie, in their little bubble at the center of the world, and he cherished that more than anything else some days.

Still, he worried. All the time, anxiety crept across his head about what if he was being too clingy, too much, too often, all at once. What if he did it and Richie put up with it until one day, he would snap about never getting to see anyone and he broke up with Eddie from ruining all his time. For ruining his life.

However, it wasn't like he was preventing Richie from seeing anybody. He made them late sometimes, because the more effort they had to put in to get out of bed, the slower Eddie was, but they got there. Eventually. He couldn't help it! Richie smelled like petrichor and warmth and his hair was all curly all the time and looked so nice when Eddie wound his fingers through it. Plus his eternally dorky aura that Eddie hated to admit he loved, with a, probably, sky-high IQ, whose skull was also three miles thick with no thoughts in sight. He was funny and also the worst at telling jokes and he was gross all the time but also kind and considerate, and he was not attractive in, like, a conventional way, but also the most beautiful person Eddie had ever seen. He was a multitude of contradictions. He was Eddie's favorite contradiction.

His phone rang, bringing him back to reality as he ran into his mom's room to pick up the connection there. He knew this call was coming and he was still unprepared.

"I got it, mom!" Eddie yelled, ignoring whatever she said to pick up the phone. "Hello?"

"Eddie!” Richie yelled down the line. Eddie struggled to keep his ear drums intact. “I'll be at your house in a few. My parents went out for the weekend to their yearly convention so I was able to grab shit from the kitchen and get a few more of my clothes out, so it’s already a good day." He shuffled on the phone and Eddie heard the crinkling of a bag in the background. "God, cheese balls are so good."

Eddie twisted the phone cord around his finger, before dropping it. "Your parents are out all weekend?"

"Yeah, 'til Tuesday, why? Do you wanna do something here after the movie?"

"Well, uhh…sure…." He bit his lip and tried to come up with a good enough reason to ask them to stay in Richie's house until then without coming off as, like, the worst. "Can we…" he closed his mouth. "If I ask you something, will you promise not to make fun of me for it later?"

"Never," Richie told him, and Eddie had to give him points for honesty. "But you can tell me anyway."

"...Sure."

Following almost a minute of total silence, Richie cleared his throat. "...You gonna ask me? Or did you just call to listen to me breathe?"

"You fucking wish," Eddie argued, rolling his eyes. He took a deep breath before beginning, "I was wondering...if...we could...maybe, if you're okay with it, stay...at your house? Tonight? Only if you're okay with it! If you're not, then we can just pretend I never said anything."

More crinkling. "Yeah! Loser sleepover?"

"What? No." Eddie moved back to lean against the wall and put his knees up to his chest. "We as in, like, you and me. Like, right now, not later."

"But we're supposed to meet the others at the movies in, like, right now."

"Okay, but what if we didn't?" Eddie said, trying to get Richie to understand him even if he was giving him absolutely nothing to go on. For all the Richie stupidity Eddie dealt with, he really dished back a fair share of his fucking own.

"So we don't go to the movies and instead we all stay at my house? For...why? My house isn't even that fun."

Eddie sighed and leaned his head on his mother's nightstand. "To...hang...out?"

"But we'd already be--"

"Alone!" Eddie burst out, not really controlling anything in the situation now, since the part of his mind that took on impulsive decisions decided it didn't need the part of his mind that controlled his mouth. "I want to hang out with you, alone. Without the others."

"...Did I do something?" The incessant bag crinkling had stopped. “Did they do something?”

"No. I just wanna...be with you." He sighed. "I sound like an idiot." Eddie was going to slam his head against this table as hard as he could until he went from embarrassed as hell to actually standing at the gates of it.

"You don't, just tell me what you want to say. Or, tell me if I did anything, because if I di--"

"You didn't do anything Richie, I promise. I just wanna hang out with you and, like, play video games at your house and maybe make out with you, or something, or whatever." At this point, Eddie moved the phone so the receiver was away from his ear just far enough so that if Richie laughed at him, it wouldn't make him want to leave the planet. As much.

"Shit, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah," Richie babbled, chuckling in between his words, but there was no malice in it. "We can do that. Do you want me to pick you up, still?" Richie asked, and Eddie heaved a sigh of relief. 

"No. I'll just bike over. Call Bill and tell him, okay?"

"No prob, Spagheds, I'll unlock the door for when you get here."

Eddie smiled like an idiot and hid his face in his arm to pretend he wasn't as excited as he was. "Cool. See you in a bit."

"...Love you."

"Love you, too." Eddie rolled his eyes and hung up the phone.

He ran to his room and packed as much shit as he thought he'd need, including the new comics they bought and clothes to sleep in, just in case. Richie still had all of his games and shit at his parents house, since there would be no way to store it in Eddie's room without raising suspicion, so he really didn't need much. He went to the bathroom and grabbed his toothbrush, before running down the stairs and out the door.

---

"I'm here!" Eddie called as he walked inside Richie's parents' house, setting his bag down at the door. He heard Richie in the kitchen and followed, seeing him leaning against the fridge, biting his nails with the phone tucked between his chin and his shoulder, jerking his head to try and rip his nail off. Silently, Eddie wondered if he really liked Richie or if he was just tall. Because his insatiable need to look at his own fucking cuticle was. Definitely not one of the things that made Richie more attractive.

"Listen, Bill, I'm sorry , but me and Eddie aren't going today. We have other plans!"

Eddie walked up to Richie and wrapped his arms around him, clasping his hands together at the small of Richie's back. He rested his cheek on the side of Richie's chest he wasn't resting the phone on, breathing him in. Summer rain and warm vanilla. He decided Richie's height was just an added bonus to everything else about him. Richie kissed the top of his head while Bill talked.

"Well we have plans now! You and Audra cancelled last week to go do whatever , and don't even say the watching Georgie excuse because I know you're lying . You did not! You and Audra went-- You were not! You fucking liar!" Richie argued, scoffing, smoothing over the back of Eddie's hair with his free hand. Eddie smiled up at him.  " Anyway! Me and Eddie aren't coming today, dude, we're at my house if you need us, okay? ...'Kay, love you, bye."

Eddie looked up at Richie. "Hey, fuckweed."

"Howdy, my love," Richie greeted with a southern accent. "What're you doin' 'round these parts?"

"...Missed you." Eddie told him, honestly, then panicked. "Missed your big head blocking my face from the sun when I wake up every morning."

"Nice," Richie laughed. "Now you gonna tell me why you cancelled movie day?"

"...No." He looked down at their feet. "Don't think I will."

"But what if you did?" Richie walked Eddie backwards into the living room so they collapsed back onto the couch. He tapped his fingers against Eddie's temple. "Let me know what's up there."

Eddie buried his face in Richie's shirt. Logically, he knew this conversation was coming, judging by how vague he was on the phone. It would be concerning if Richie didn't ask any follow up questions after that conversation. Emotionally, though, he was high on Richie pheromones and he was way too proud to admit it. Is it not enough, to simply be selfish without explanation and leave your boyfriend entirely confused but willing to give you affection anyway because you loved each other the same amount? Apparently not.

"I just…" He rolled over to lay next to Richie. Immediately, Richie clasped his own hands together between them, not knowing where to put them, and Eddie held the knot of Richie's intertwined fingers in his own so it was just one large tangle "We see everyone else everyday, and everyday because of the vomit rule, I can't, like, do shit with you because they think it's gross . And I get that it's not just us and that everyone also has to stick to it but you're mine and I don't care about what everyone else does in their relationship." Eddie realized what he said and proceeded to go into minor heart failure. "I, What I mean is--I didn't mean, like. I just--"

"Just keep going, keep talking," Richie told him, blush spreading across his cheeks, which were covered in freckles from the sun, and staring straight ahead at Eddie's neck. "I'm not saying anything. Not a word."

"Finally," Eddie sighed. Richie huffed a laugh, before Eddie tangled his pinky with his. "So...what I was saying...I would like to do shit with you, like kiss you whenever I want or...make out with you...when it's just us. I want to spend time with you and have it be just us . Every so often, not everyday. I can't be the only one who has to endure you every single day."

Richie, who had not gotten any less red, cleared his throat. "That's really nice, Eds. I appreciate you telling me that. Thanks. I...was also kind of going kind of crazy because basically every time I see you, my brain activity stops and all my blood rushes--"

"Richie!"

"--to my heart! What did you think I was gonna say?" Eddie took his hands from Richie's to roll over away from him, wriggling out of Richie's desperate attempt to get him to stop.

"That’s where your blood comes and goes to anyway, fuckhole!" Eddie yelled, taking the pillow they shared and hitting Richie in the face with it. Richie yelped and Eddie dropped it, but didn’t move it from between them. "I hate you. I've changed my mind. I'm going to the movies. Bev wouldn't treat me like this."

"Well I hope she wouldn't," Richie muttered, pulling Eddie closer against him and wrapping his arms around his waist so he couldn’t leave. "I want to spend more time with you, too."

"Actually?" Eddie asked, shifting to get more comfortable in Richie's arms, but not really trying to get up, so it was more wiggling than anything else. "You're not just lying to make me feel better?"

"Course not." He sat up and pulled Eddie into his lap. "I'd think of something way better than that if I was lying."

"Dude, I swear to fu--"

"You make me crazy, Eddie. Every time I see you my heart explodes and Stan yells at me for being stupid because I think of you and my mind doesn't know how to work anymore, okay? You're not alone in this, man."

Eddie nodded and grumbled. "Cool."

"Groovy, dude," Richie agreed. Eddie rolled his eyes. "Wanna play Mario Kart?"

"God, yes."

---

By five o'clock, they'd long since abandoned the game they were playing, when Richie mocked Eddie for losing for the fourth time in a row so Eddie kissed him to shut him up, and it developed from there.

" Why? " Eddie complained as the phone began to ring. He sat up, giving both of them a chance to breathe.

Richie sighed when they parted, before smiling his fucking. Okay . Eddie was momentarily blinded by the radiant , dumbass smile Richie gave him, arms falling splayed out. His lips were bright red and Eddie sort of wanted to keep them that way forever, even if he had that one scab on his lip from his relentless picking. His freckles that Eddie adored were drowned out by his red--bordering on pink-- face, which would surely sunburn later in the summer and erase the freckles entirely. He used to have them all the time when they were kids, but as they grew up they'd disappeared. Eddie missed them.

Richie still beamed as he rolled them to let Eddie fall gently on his side so he could stand. "I'll be right back."

Eddie groaned but didn't protest, watching as Richie got up and walked away. His shoulders were so fucking broad, arms stick thin with his plywood body. His was basically eighty percent leg, with his head at the top making up another fifteen percent, and everything else stuffed into that slim five. Gumby. Eddie was in love with Gumby.

"Hello?" Richie asked. He leaned against the back door off the kitchen. "Oh! Hey, Bill."

Eddie got up and joined him in the kitchen, noticing for the first time that it had started raining. He scoured Richie's cabinets, pulling out instant macaroni and cheese. His mom fucking never let him have this shit when he was a kid, and everyone's parents who had Eddie over for dinner were always too nice to serve it when they knew Eddie was coming. When Richie first made it for him when he was fifteen, Eddie almost always insisted that's what they ate every time he went over. He missed it since him and Richie couldn't make it at his own house with his mother around.

Richie held the phone away from him, covering the speaker. "Bill wants to know if we want to go over to his, they're all hanging out there."

"I mean, we can if you want to, but I'd...rather just stay here."

"Thank god. I really didn't want to go to Bill's knowing I could be here making out with you instead."

"Fuck off. I'm making mac and cheese."

"What a good housewife," Richie said, going back to the phone. Eddie breathed through the rage. "No, Bill we're good…one minute." He pushed the phone away again. "Hey, are you free Thursdays?"

Eddie furrowed his eyebrows. "Like, all of them?"

"Most of them, yeah." Richie hesitated. "Like, to hang out."

"Sure."

Richie nodded. "Cool." He put the phone back on. "Yeah, Bill, by the way me and Eddie are no longer free on Thursdays. Just. Cross us off for those. Unless you're doing something really cool, then you can tell us, and we'll decide then. But yeah, Thursdays off. Okay? Unless you're doing something we cannot miss, then do not count us out. Are we good? Cool. Love you, bye." He hung up the phone before propping his head up on his hands on the counter island as Eddie turned on the stove and put the saucepan of hot water on the burner.

"What was that?" Eddie asked, going over to stand next to Richie and lean against the counter. He swallowed as Richie moved to stand in front of him and put his arms on either side of him, bracketing him in. Eddie wrapped his arms around his waist.

"I was thinking , since you said you wanted it to be just us every so often, why not carve out a day just for us."

Eddie wanted to drop dead on the floor. He had to know, "Why Thursday?"

Richie kissed him, making Eddie feel like he was floating as he rested his hands on Richie's neck.

"Thursdays were always our thing," Richie explained. "Is that okay?"

Eddie kissed the shit out of Richie until the water started boiling, and even then he still would have preferred letting it evaporate than stop kissing Richie. Thunder boomed and rattled the kitchen window, lightning struck outside, but Eddie barely noticed. He was safe, as long as he was with Richie. Even if he was gonna burn the house down when the empty saucepan melted, or whatever it did. He wasn't gonna know because he'd still be kissing Richie, and so he didn't care.

---

In all his years of doing stupid shit, Eddie could not be called the king of looking serious while doing stupid shit. That would be Stan, who while holding the title of class president and also honor society president, also was the mastermind of their senior prank to put thousands of cups of water in the gym, covering it wall to wall, and also broke them into the gym to do it. He also managed to convince Richie when they were in middle school that you had to eat the menorah candles after hannukah was over, and got him to give himself poison ivy twice in sophomore year by daring him he wouldn't.

Which is how they ended up here.

"Are you actually trying to pick the lock or are you just going straight for my last nerve?" Stan asked, fully dressed even though they were standing outside of the community pool, which Eddie hated the whole idea of, angrily tapping his rubber sandals on the pavement while they waited for Richie to suddenly gain dexterity after his past eighteen years of being an absolute klutz.

"First of all, nothing I do is straight. Secondly, you're the one with lockpicking skills, Stan!" Richie snapped, dropping the lockpick Stan kept on his person at all time to the ground. Shady motherfucker. "I don't know why you're making me do it!"

"Because you said you wanted to! I taught you how!"

"Yeah but that was, like, forever ago."

"It was last week!"

"Shut up! " Eddie interjected into the middle of their domestic. "If Mrs. Holden sees us she will tell my mom and I will be murdered! Do you want me to die, Stanley? Do you want to go on with your life knowing that this dumbass argument got me murdered? " Eddie asked, clutching two towels to his chest, referring to the woman who lived across the street that was in a Bible group with his mother.

"Sorry," Stan whispered, pushing Richie aside with his hip. "Let me do this."

Richie scowled as Stan effortlessly picked the padlock keeping the gate closed after hours. Eddie nudged him with his elbow, because if Eddie was going anywhere near a public pool, he was only doing it on the condition that Richie would not be pouting the whole time. He needed him to talk nonstop in Eddie’s ear to block out all of his very real fucking concerns that he knew he was being a bitch about, but still was going to bring up anyway. Richie tugged on his arm and pulled them closer, kissing him before letting them walk in through the gates.

"It's kinda cool lookin'," Richie commented, pointing out the underwater lights, illuminating the pool in a blue-ish green glow.

"Sure, if you don't mind the bodily fluids and bacteria and grime that's in a community pool. It's disgusting."

"I don't mind bodily fluids as long as they're ours," Richie said matter-of-factly, sending Eddie to new levels of rage he didn’t even know were possible to achieve.

Richie pulled off his shirt and glasses, kicking his shoes in the opposite direction. He smiled at the pool and turned behind him to check if he could get a good running start on a cannonball. Before he could go, though, Eddie put his hands just below Richie's shoulder blades, and then, without remorse, Eddie shoved him into the pool with as much force as he could, which didn't show for much. His body made a thick thwack as he hit the water, stomach down, splashing over the pool's edge and onto Eddie's feet. He wanted to vomit, it wasn't even cold or warm it was just greasy.

"You fucker! " Richie yelled, not being able to see without his glasses and his hair in his eyes, diving under the water and swimming to the ladder.

He rushed out of the pool, breaking the first rule in the list of them nailed to the side of the building by running and chasing Eddie around the perimeter. Eddie screamed, but his short ass was no match for Richie's fucking spider legs, and as soon as he felt Richie's hand on his shoulder, he held his breath for what he knew was coming. He screeched as Richie picked him up and carried him bridal style around the pool, back over to the deep end where Eddie wouldn't crack his head and die , and then bodily threw him in. Eddie scrambled to hold his nose before he went into the water, cannonballing down until his back touched the bottom of the pool, and then floated back up.

"Richie!" Eddie screamed. "This is disgusting."

"It's what you get, babe." He jumped in right next to him, dousing him in water once more. He sunk below the water before coming back up, whipping his soaking wet hair to the side so he could see. He pulled Eddie to him with no resistance, taking off his wet shirt for him and throwing it over to where his clothes were.

"I actually hate you so much," Eddie grumbled, wrapping his legs around Richie's waist. "I'm leaving you for Ben."

Richie snorted. "Please. Ben would much rather have a tall man like me."

"It's a sin to lie, asshole," Eddie said, looking around the pool. "Where's Stan?"

"He said he wanted to go see the poolhouse," Richie explained. "I don't know what he plans to do with what he finds in there, but I thought it would be better if I didn't ask."

"Stan is a creepy bitch," Eddie whispered.

"Oh, absolutely."

"But we're alone now." Eddie pointed out, and then kissed Richie when he smiled.

" I think we're alone now ," Richie sang into his mouth. Eddie rolled his eyes and twirled Richie's hair around his finger. "I thought you'd be freaking out more by now."

Eddie kissed him again before he answered. "Just be glad I'm not drowning you for throwing me in." He shifted to get a better grip on Richie. "This water is pretty fucking viscous though, we're taking showers when we get home."

"That's fine." Richie twirled them around the water, puffing his cheeks out as he dipped under the water to get his hair wet again without letting go of Eddie.

Eddie laughed as he came up and squished Richie's face between his hands. His cheeks had a weird amount of extra skin for someone whose cheekbones were so defined and gaunt-looking, as Eddie pulled at them while Richie just smiled. Probably from losing his baby fat, Eddie guessed, as he pushed Richie's wet hair back further and kissed his forehead. He ran his hands down his face to his neck to his shoulders, pushing up on them to get a better vantage point from where he kept fucking slipping. Stan was still fucking around in the poolhouse, and the rest of them wouldn't be there for another few minutes.

"I'm gonna make out with you right now," Eddie told him. "Okay?"

Richie grinned like he wasn’t conscious of it. "Yeah, yeah. Whatever you want, Eds."

Ten minutes later, Richie had Eddie pinned to the wall of the pool and Eddie was two seconds from ripping Richie's hair out with how hard he was gripping it. He needed something to hold onto , and he wasn't risking getting a finger ripped off by the grates on the pool. If Richie went bald by the time they were twenty from Eddie's minor obsession, he had nothing to worry about because it wasn't like he was trying to preserve his looks for anybody else. And he could always grow it out to cover that, anyway.

Richie's hands were on his hips, his waist, gripping at his wrists and running his hands along Eddie's legs. Eddie was fucking wired , he felt like an electrical current was rippling through his body, and it wasn't just because one of the pool lights dug into his lower back.

"Eddie, Eddie, Eddie," Richie panted, pulling away from where Eddie had been in the process of sucking Richie's bottom lip into his mouth.

"What, what, what?" Eddie breathed harshly against Richie's skin, smiling as Richie kept kissing him like he wasn't able to stop.

"N-Not here." Richie stood them up straighter. "This isn't how I want this to happen. And, uh, I don't think I'm ready yet."

Eddie looked away from Richie's face so he could actually concentrate on the very serious topic they just introduced into the community pool. His shoulders, face, and also the entire fucking rest of him , were very distracting. He looked up at the sky and took a deep breath, letting his heart slow.

"Me either," Eddie admitted. "This is also the one time I enjoy your lack of filter." He kissed Richie's forehead. "Thanks for telling me."

Richie's bright, fire engine red face was evident even in the glow. "No problem," he choked out. "I've also decided right now that I will be dying today."

Eddie laughed as Richie broke away and submerged himself in the water, turning on his stomach so he was face down. Eddie sighed as Stan walked out.

"What did I miss?" Stan asked, toeing off his sneakers before shuffling his jeans down his legs.

"Richie is drowning himself," Eddie explained, and Stan looked confused, before shrugging. He went over to the gate and opened it again, while Eddie heard the sound of a gaggle of flip flops carrying his friends. Beverly appeared first, hugging Stan and walking through the gate.

"Richie drowning himself?" she asked, throwing her bag on a chair and pulling off her cover-up.

"Apparently," Eddie said, kicking Richie lightly with his foot. Richie shuddered, then came up for air, throwing his head back to get the water out of his face and drenching Eddie.

"Did I do it? Am I dead yet?" He yelled, reaching around with his eyes closed and accidentally hitting Eddie in the face. His eyes snapped open as Eddie gasped out loud.

"You bitch! " Eddie laughed, tackling Richie and dunking him down into the water. He came up and held Richie's head underwater until he writhed out of it and grabbed Eddie, lifting him up before body slamming him into the water.

"Ah, young love," Audra joked, sighing dreamily before slipping into the pool.

"You look like a SeaWorld show," Ben commented, standing on the edge and dipping his foot in the pool before jumping in. "But, like, a cagefighting SeaWorld."

"That's just our love language," Richie replied, swimming up to Eddie from behind and hugging his waist.

Eddie covered Richie's hands with his so he wouldn't let go. "I don't know this man."

Richie bit Eddie's side. "You fucking wish!"

"You rabid bitch ," Eddie whispered, escaping from Richie to wrestle with him in the pool.

"And suddenly," Stan commented as he floated by Bill on a pool floatie they bought for two bucks at Dollar General, "I'm back in kindergarten again."

Bill gagged. "Don't say shit like that. I had a bowl cut in kindergarten."

"You have a bowl cut now."

Stan screamed as Bill flipped over his innertube, and Eddie came up for air just as the tube was whipped away so that Bill and Stan could try and see who could drown the other first.

Richie laughed as they splashed water in his face. "Stan's not wrong."

"What did you say?" Bill asked as he came up for air.

"...Nothing."

"No, no repeat it," Bill insisted, not even waiting for Richie to do what he asked before jumping on him and taking him under.

"Stan!" Richie yelled, "He isn't wrong! Eddie help!"

"Choke," Eddie told him, laughing as Richie screamed.

"This was a mistake," Stan declared, trying not to smile as Mike tangled their hands together underwater.

Beverly scoffed. "No shit! "

---

Eddie loved Richie, he really did, he was his sun and moonshine or whatever sappy shit that filled his head twenty-four-fucking-seven, but he swore to god , when Richie reached over and poked him in the cheek when he was trying to fucking sleep , he could kill him. He really would not hesitate if he was any less exhausted.

"Eddie," Richie whispered, with that voice he used when he really wanted Eddie to listen, because he was an asshole who knew how to play with Eddie's heart .

"Yes, Richie?" Eddie groaned as he lifted his head from where it was buried in the space between Richie's shoulder blades and resting his chin on Richie's spine.

"Before, at the pool, when you said, like, you weren't ready…"

"Yeah?" Eddie said, fully awake before he could even fucking prepare for it, all his sleepy fatigue zipping out of his body, staring at the nape of Richie's neck so he wouldn't explode in his bedroom at four in the morning.

"Does that mean, like, I'm not asking you to be, like. I'm not trying to rush anything. I just want to...ask, like, it's not because it's me, right? Like, if it was someone else, you...you still wouldn't be ready, right? It's not just me?"

Eddie pressed his forehead in between Richie's shoulder blades. "Richie, no. No. You're...okay. I'm gonna tell you something right now, and you cannot say anything until I am entirely done."

"Okay...alright."

Eddie took a deep breath. "Okay. So. In the sixth grade--"

"Fucking Jesus, Eddie."

"Shh! You said you wouldn't say anything, fuckweed. Anyway . The sixth grade. You came into school one day and you, uhh, you got your braces on, like, the day before, and your mom wouldn’t let us come see you because she wanted you to rest, right? Because you were in a ton of pain."

"Right."

"Right. So...the next day , you came into school, and you were so upset that your mom 'let' the orthodontist give you braces, and while you were ranting I noticed that, like, I kind of...didn’t think you looked that ‘ugly' like you said you did—" Eddie shh’d Richie again when he saw him turn around to try and argue, "—And I thought you looked really cute. Then I realized, I thought you always looked cute, no matter what, and that I liked you.”

"What does this have to do with...what I said?"

"Maybe if you waited until I was done you would know ." 

"Okay, jeez. You’re really fuckin’ brave, though, for liking me when I looked like a failed medical experiment."

"Richie, you do not and never have looked like that. That’s when I realized I liked you for the first time, and I pushed it down until I was thirteen and you had your growth spurt and then I couldn’t hide it anymore, because apparently when you go through puberty, you uhh, you start liking people in different ways."

Richie swallowed so loud Eddie heard it, but he didn’t say a word. 

"And you, you got taller and broader and all fucking lanky and you started dressing differently in addition to your horrendous other clothes I’d gotten used to, and so all of a sudden I was hit with this wave of feelings for you that weren't even all the shit I’d been dealing with before. Because you’re fucking cute , Richie, still . And also hot and all the other things that you can think of that just mean you're fucking beautiful , and I don’t know who ever told you that you weren’t, but they were wrong."

"Eddie, you don’t have to tell me this shit. Like, it’s nice, and I like hearing about us when we were younger, but if you’re just saying it all—"

"You’re the reason I wonder how God allowed people to be hot and stupid while also being smart," Eddie told him, face burning before he could even think his next sentence. "The first time I ever got off was because of you. You, like, threw me over your shoulder one day, and I was so frustrated by how that made me feel that I couldn’t talk to you for the rest of the day," Eddie admitted. He cared more about proving to Richie that he found him attractive than he did about saving his own pride. 

"Holy shit."

"I’ve had a crush on you since I was eleven. I’ve been in love with you for probably just as long, and I’ve been consistently driven to sexual incoherence by you since I was four-fucking-teen. If you even insinuate at any moment that I am not attracted to you, I’m going to get the pubescent version of myself in here, constantly turned on by your voice and your laugh and you’re stupid fucking face, and have him smother you. We good?"

"Yeah," Richie mumbled. "We're good." He’d curled up into a ball since Eddie started talking, red to his roots, the back of his neck and all down his shoulders. "I want you too, by the way. Sometimes I think I’m drunk on how much I want you."

Every neuron in Eddie's brain misfired. Somehow, in the midst of all his immeasurable love for this fucking asshole, he entirely forgot that one part of Richie loving him back meant that all the stuff he thought he was dumb for feeling, Richie also felt. Apparently that also extended into this territory.

"Oh. Cool," Eddie whispered, his entire body tense.

"You give me a whole inspirational speech spanning six years of our friendship and ending it by telling me you're sexually attracted to me and one sentence reduces you to incoherence? Color me flattered."

"Richie, one part of me loving you for so long was me realizing that because I could and would never tell you about how I felt, and that I would never get over you, because you were my best friend and I also wanted to be your friend until one of us fucking died , and so I would live my whole life alone and in love with you without being able to move on because nobody would compare to you." He held Richie close to him. "I was prepared to do that, just to be able to keep you."

"Eddie, shit." Richie reached to wipe his eyes.

"So, I went from a person who was content to spend the rest of his life happy with you but also miserable, to a person who is deliriously happy to be with you and also goes a little stupid every time I realize that because we're dating that means you like me back."

Richie rolled around to face Eddie. He had given up on trying to wipe his eyes, blinking fast to make his tears fall away, but it only made them drop onto their pillowcase faster.

"I wanted to be the big spoon, asshole," Eddie told him, his mouth working faster than his mind.

"I love you," Richie breathed. "It hurts to breathe I love you so much, Eddie, I can't."

Eddie kissed his forehead and smoothed his hair back. "I love you too."

"Also, just to let you know, when we were in fourth grade, I skinned my knees on the playground because I jumped off the swing set at the park. You lectured me on it for, like, ten minutes, but then you just sat down in front of me and cleaned all the scrapes and gave me Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles bandaids for my knees and I don't remember anything you actually said, but I remember thinking about how I wanted to marry you." He said it all in one breath, like he couldn't wait to slow down.

"I knew I was your best friend because you told me." He tangled their legs together while he spoke. "And I thought, when we were fighting Pennywise, I thought I had to do that, for you. And for me, too, because I was thirteen and I didn't want to die yet, but also because I didn't want to die and have you lose your best friend, and I had to fight him twice as hard so I didn't lose mine."

"Did you rehearse this or something?" Eddie asked, tears rolling over the bridge of his nose and onto their communal pillow.

Richie kissed the space between his eyebrows, which he knew made Eddie's heart do somersaults before self destructing. "When I came out to my parents, I knew what was going to happen. Pennywise showed me what was going to happen, back then, because that was my worst fear, and I did it anyway, knowing, even if I didn't want to admit it, that I would have you guys to support me when they didn't." He sniffed and wiped his face. "I knew that if I ever got a fucking spine and confessed to you like I wanted, and I wanted, that I would want to be with you without hiding, and that was my first step into coming clean. It was shitty, but I knew the outcome, and even if it doesn't make me any less upset about how things turned out, it's not all bad. You remind me that it's not all bad."

Eddie sniffed and kissed Richie desperately, with everything he couldn't put into words. It felt like Eddie was starving for him, like this was the only thing that would satisfy that hole Richie just carved out in his chest, then filled with so many emotions that weighed so damn much, he needed this just to fill them with something else. Something better. His throat felt like it was collapsing, and he had to pull away so he could sob. Richie pulled him closer and rested his head on top of Eddie's. Eddie pulled back so he could put his head on top, because Richie meant so much to him, and he wanted him to know that even if he couldn't get the words out right then.

He realized, that even if he hadn't loved Richie back, Richie would have loved him anyway. Eddie knew, for a third of his life, that if Richie never got to him, that if, in his romantic life, Eddie never came up in that list of people Richie wanted to be with, then he would love Richie anyway until the stars went out and the universe was nothing but dust. Eddie would stand and face his God, whether He loved him for it or damned him, and he would love Richie anyway. And now he knew Richie felt the same way. That was all he ever wanted, and way more than he could've ever hoped.

"I have all these poetic feelings for you and I'm not even able to express them," he babbled, because he didn't know what to say and the silence was just making him think more about how much he loved Richie. He loved Richie so fucking much .

"Turning into Ben, are we?" He moved so that Eddie was on top of him, curled into his chest. "Does that make me Beverly?"

Eddie felt the heat of his tears hit Richie's chest. "You wish you were half as cool as Beverly."

"You're twice as hot as Ben," Richie said, running his fingers through Eddie's hair as Eddie decided not to ruin the moment by throttling Richie right then.

"You smell like chlorine still." He pressed his lips to one of Richie's ribs, inhaling the pool smell and the fruity body wash Eddie made him shower with because they ran out of what Richie brought from his house.

"We can't all be perfect," Richie slurred as he started to fall asleep, his head lolling to the side and arms loosening on Eddie's waist.

"You can be close sometimes, when you're not talking." Eddie climbed up so they were next to each other again, closing his eyes to sleep, which had been the whole point of going to bed until Richie opened up a box they couldn't close until empty.

Richie laughed, until it morphed into the soft snoring Eddie grew used to falling asleep next to. It was only about thirty minutes until he was going like a fucking foghorn, so Eddie savored the quiet.

Outside, the sun peeked over the horizon into Eddie's bedroom, bathing them both in pale pink light.

---

If Eddie were to use long, drawn out metaphors, he would describe his feelings for Richie as a roundabout of which Eddie stood in the center. Except every road off of the circle had a brick wall sitting at the front, blocking him off from seeing what was behind it. Preventing him from processing it. In the first grade, the first wall crumbled, and he got to be friends with Richie, which broke the second wall and they became best friends, sharing almost all of each other secrets and always picking each other when they were captains in gym.

When he was twelve, a part of him started to chip away at the one wall he didn't want to touch, and then with one fell swoop at thirteen, he drove a wrecking ball straight through it and fell so far in love with Richie he really couldn't figure just how he'd gotten there in the first place. He wandered down the road he'd discovered until he reached the end of it, and when he did it picked itself back up and continued going, and everyday Eddie had another mile of it to walk and find another part of Richie he loved.

After he was fourteen, he'd looked at the brick wall of a particular road, one that connected to the loving Richie road but also stood so far distant, so tempting but so sacred, that he was afraid to walk down it. It crossed a line, a line he wasn't prepared to cross, so he stood right on it. One glimpse, one time, once under the cover of night, and that was it. Just once. But then, he--

He fell off the wagon, and it happened over and over, and every time he saw Richie he felt guilty, and when he wasn't seeing Richie, most of the time he was either thinking of him, or crossing that line. And he'd felt so fucking guilty . Mortified at his own worst fear, of Richie just looking at him and knowing. Knowing how far in front of that line he stood, how much he wanted to turn back and erase it all, all while he travelled further down that road without ever knowing what he was headed towards.

Then, he was seventeen, and Richie joined him in the Richie roundabout, and he erased the line. Eddie never thought it would be possible, he thought he would die ashamed of it, and never be able to truly face Richie without some part of him being afraid of Richie knowing. But he knew, and he lit up that road for Eddie without being asked, and that road led to an exit where Richie stood, in a roundabout of his own, but for Eddie.

Without the line there, and with nothing to be ashamed of, Eddie thought about it. He thought about everything he never let himself think of, let himself have things he never thought he would ever get to, feel things he didn't before.

Eddie told Richie he wasn't ready. It only took him about two weeks for him to change his mind.

When they were at the pool, Eddie hadn't truly thought about anything like that with Richie yet. He was stuck on just being able to love him, to hold his hand whenever he wanted (in private, because Derry is the worst), and actually kiss him like he'd been wanting to since the sixth fucking grade. He'd thought about it in passing, frequently, but never in much detail, because he didn't want to move too fast and ruin everything, and he still had so much to know about himself and Richie and just how to go about doing what he thought about. And what he did think about, he wasn't necessarily prepared to actually act out in real life. He wasn't ready. But then, Richie opened a door, erased a line, and now it was all Eddie thought about all the time.

Theoretically , if Richie were to come to Eddie and say he was ready, Eddie would also be ready. Physically, absolutely not. He'd need like three days, one to fully research, one to have Richie drive him out of town to buy supplies, because there was one general store in Derry and no fucking way, and then the third one to do the stuff he researched and then actually do it. In his mind, though, one word from Richie and he was good.

That didn't mean Eddie saw having sex with Richie as something small, or casual, in any sense of the word. He, in a weird way, felt kind of...honored? Richie was so important, to Eddie and to all their friends, and he'd been through so much with growing up and his parents and coming out to them, he deserved to put so many walls up, to block everybody out. His willingness to be that vulnerable, in that sense, with Eddie, meant something. It meant a lot. Everywhere Eddie expected there to be a wall, a point in which Richie would shut him out and push him away, he just kept letting him in. Eddie was prepared to fight a war, to knock the walls down once Richie was ready for him to, he never expected Richie to already have them demolished. He felt honored to be allowed that.

This all came to Eddie's mind as he watched Richie ramble on and on to Stan about something, who was pretending not to listen but also laughed at all of his jokes and answered each question. Eddie sometimes wondered why Stan was a closet sap, but he never let it worry him for long. He liked Stan’s quirks, he wouldn’t have him any other way.

The conversation, though, Eddie really wasn't listening. He'd tuned them out in favor of watching water from the quarry drip down Richie's collarbones, down his chest. His swim trunks clung to his spindly legs, which spread into a wide v, and Eddie's shorter, tanner legs were draped over top, with a ratty towel Richie brought underneath them. His hair started drying, chestnut brown in the sun, almost red, and his glasses had been discarded, leaving the constellation of sun freckles all visible from where Eddie sat. He leaned back on his arms, head thrown back, long column of his pale throat on display, leading naturally to his wide as the fucking freeway shoulders, his arms which somehow had muscles despite Richie never touching the thought of exercise, with his torso swept with dark hair leading down to those swim trunks, which were bright pink and fucking hideous.

This, this was what Eddie considered the apex of sexuality.

He chewed his bottom lip like fucking bubblegum, watching Richie's adam's apple bob up and down as he went on and on, and Eddie felt like he might have something to contribute to this conversation, as he heard bits and pieces of it underneath the sound of blood rushing in his ears. All he could think about was Richie, and the way he smelled and how his hands felt on Eddie's hips when they made out, how they would feel when they--

"I need to cool off," Eddie choked out, scrambling up and standing at the edge of the rocks. Below, he could see the others, Beverly, Ben, Bill, and Mike, all playing chicken, with Bill losing horribly.

"I could use a cool down, too, Spaghetti, what a wonderful idea," Richie agreed, getting up after him and standing next to him. Eddie's eyes widened as Richie's hand came up to rest on the small of his back, which did not fucking help his problem right now.

Eddie looked over at Richie, with the summer breeze blowing in his hair off of his face, and realized: It was okay if he was ready and Richie wasn't. He had his whole life to be with Richie, even if he was never ready. Even if Richie came to him tomorrow and said the reason he wasn't ready is because he never would be, Eddie would still be lucky to be able to love Richie, and to accept his honesty like that. He trusted Richie with his heart, and Richie trusts Eddie with his. He’d never break it over something trivial like that.

He knocked down another wall in the roundabout. A different road, where their roundabouts merged and it was just the two of them for as long as that road was willing to take them.

Eddie knew this for years, had always thought this in more complicated terms than necessary, but now it was all clear. Richie was it for him. There could be a million people out there all shouting for Eddie to love them, all wanting him just as much as Richie did, but it wouldn't change the fact that he always would only ever want Richie. College could come and the others could stay together or break off and experiment with other people, but Eddie will still only want Richie.

Richie looked over at him, wanting Eddie to jump first. Eddie turned and kissed him for just a second, holding Richie's face in his hands.

"I'm going to marry you someday," Eddie told him, and then jumped off the cliff. He felt the lightheadedness that came with the distance, and just as it morphed into the hint of fear, he plunged into the water.

It only took a few seconds for Richie to dive in next to him. Eddie saw Richie's pink shorts balloon up with water as he breached the surface and wiped his hair back onto his forehead. He blinked water out of his eyes and someone, Richie , grabbed him by the waist and kissed him on the mouth. Eddie hmmph 'd and kissed him back, wrapping his arms around Richie's shoulders as the rest of the Losers wolf whistled and called a vomit-rule violation. Eddie flipped them off.

Richie pulled back first. "You mean that?"

Eddie grinned and blinked up at him. "Mean what?"

"Shut the fuck up. Did you mean what you said, up there? You gonna make an honest woman out of me?" Richie asked, all smiles, but a flash of fear in his eyes, like Eddie would say that as a joke.

"If you want me to." Eddie combed his fingers through Richie's nape. "We couldn't do it legally, but if you want to do something else, have a ceremony where everyone throws rice on us, or something that can't get in my eyes and make me blind, then yeah. I would love to."

Richie stared into his eyes. "...What if in ten years you decide you don't want me anymore? What if we get to college and the most beautiful dude you've ever seen comes up to you and asks you to date him instead, and you want to, but you're stuck with me?"

"You are the most beautiful dude I've ever seen."

"Yeah, maybe, but we live in fucking Derry, Maine. The hottest person here is, like, gutter trash in California," he linked his hands together behind Eddie's back.

"No, you're definitely the most beautiful person I've ever seen. And I've fucking seen movies, if Christian Slater isn't enough to turn me off of your dumb ass, then I'm certain nobody else will be. And if that happens, which honestly, it won't , you have full permission to punch me in the face."

"You won't press charges?"

Eddie cleared water droplets from Richie's eyebrows. "No. No charges. I'll deserve it, but it's never going to happen, becasue that's never going to happen."

"Then, yeah."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, I'll marry you."

" Dude ." Eddie kissed Richie again, running his hands over Richie's shoulders before noticing something. Hesitantly, he ran his hands over Richie's shoulders again, and found the same thing. Richie stood with wide eyes and his jaw clenched shut, lips pursed so that Eddie could barely even see them anymore.

"I told you to put on sunscreen before we left," Eddie said. "Your shoulders are fucking grease-free. Like you just jumped in the water and your shoulders are bone fucking dry, dude. Did you listen to me?"

"Now, if I say no--"

" Richie ."

" Will that revoke your promise not to press charges?"

Eddie sighed and pressed his forehead to Richie's chest. "I hope you get sun poisoning and die so me and Christain can run away together."

"Oh? You're on a first name basis with Mr. Slater? Okay. I see how it is. I'm just a piece of meat to you."

Eddie rolled his eyes, smiling but trying to force it down, pushing Richie into the water before swimming over to the rest of them. 

---

The next day, Eddie woke up about two shades darker than before, and Richie woke up red as a fucking lobster with his shoulders already starting to peel. Eddie gagged before reaching over Richie's body and into his bedside table to get the bottle of aloe out from the top drawer.

"What're y'doing?" Richie muttered, face smushed into the side of the pillow. He watched Eddie move in the corner of his eye. "'S early, still."

"I'm helping you, dumbass. Now be quiet," Eddie replied, moving so he was straddling Richie's back. He squeezed aloe onto his hands and rubbed it on Richie's shoulders, which were still dotted with some of the freckles Eddie loved. He kissed below his shoulder blade before rubbing over that space, noticing the constellation of beauty marks he had dotted all over, standing out darker than the freckles.

Richie hissed and turned away when Eddie got to the worst of it, but Eddie kept going, all the way down to his sides. Richie hummed and squirmed around, shuffling further into the mattress as Eddie basically massaged aloe further into his skin until he looked like a Slip 'N Slide.

"This feels nice," Richie told him, folding his arms and laying his head on top of them. "Love you."

Eddie rolled his eyes and poked at him. "Roll over onto your front."

Richie groaned, lifting his head to look around the room. He squinted at something on Eddie's floor, then grabbed his discarded towel from when they got home the night before. He sat up a little so as to not knock Eddie over and put it on the bed underneath him, flipping so he was looking up at Eddie, smiling at him even though Eddie knew Richie couldn't see shit. Eddie's heart flipped for him, his quiet consideration for him that Richie always had, he could cry.

"You're cute in the mornings," Richie said, dreamy look on his face, his hands skirting Eddie's shirt, tickling at his sides. Eddie thought about how he could never tolerate if Richie played guitar like he wanted to in the tenth grade, his hands would drive him mad long before he even got a full song out.

"You look like a lobster and I hate you." He poked his crimson skin, warm to the touch, grinning in satisfaction as Richie bit his lip to prevent himself from crying out at the pain. "You can't even see me, fuckface."

"You're fucking cruel." Richie rubbed over where his finger had jabbed.

Eddie ignored him, rubbing more aloe onto his chest and the sides of his neck, the outsides of his arms. He held his breath so Richie wouldn't hear how odd it sounded, trying to keep up with the beat of his heart. Richie didn't indulge in such restrictions, breath hitching and his whole body going rigid as Eddie kept going. He kept his hands on Eddie regardless, on his back, his arms, his wrists. Frequently, Eddie lost track of what he was doing, and Richie would laugh at him and Eddie would poke more of his scalding sunburn as revenge. Rinse, repeat.

"...Hey, Eddie?"  asked, his hands currently on Eddie's knees.

"Yeah?"

Richie choked back his laughter. "Why did you have aloe in your nightstand? Like...what do you use that for?"

Eddie clenched his teeth together so hard he could turn coal into diamonds at Richie's smug bastardous little face. "Not that , you asshole." He swatted at Richie's hands, Richie fighting back, until they were full on slap fighting in Eddie's room at nine o'clock in the morning. Richie grabbed Eddie's wrists and pulled them away from each other so he could kiss his nose and god Richie was supposed to be the red one.

"Did you know if you have a cold sore on your lip and you lick your hand to jack off with you can get genital herpes?" Richie asked, seeming to forget the train of thought for their conversation entirely. Nevertheless, it threw Eddie off guard.

"Yeah, actually." Eddie dropped his hands to his sides and Richie let go of them. To make up for the loss of contact, Eddie put his hands on Richie's stomach, at the edge of where the aloe stopped so he wouldn't aggravate the sunburn further. "I knew that. Why do you know that?"

Richie winked. "I like to know what I'm doing." He put his hands back under Eddie's shirt. "And apparently so do you." He pointedly glanced down to the aloe again.

"I fucking hate you," Eddie muttered, pulling their pillow out from underneath Richie's head and hitting him in the face with it. He grabbed another towel from the floor and threw it on Richie's front so Eddie wouldn't ruin his shirt.

Richie laughed as Eddie laid down on him, wrapping his arms around him. "I love you too."

---

Eddie knew that college was expensive, and that getting a job was necessary if he had any plans to eat for the next four years, but god , he hated working at Louie's.

Working at Louie's, the one actually nice restaurant in Derry, was like watching a costume show in which every bad person you ever knew in your life dressed up as someone worthy of respect and pretended like you had no personal history with them, and instead of getting to ignore them like usual, you were forced to be nice to them and also not spit in their food. Then, you got to clean up after them for a five percent tip that Eddie saved to buy new work shoes, so that after eight straight hours of doing this, his spine didn't crumble to dust the second he got time to rest.

Overall, it's not the worst . He's just a waiter, he doesn't have to wash dishes or cook on the million degree heat of the grills, and it's air conditioned in the dining areas, unlike Stan's job at the amusement park a half an hour outside of town, where he operates the rides after all the gift shop jobs were taken. And hates it. Eddie can at least tolerate his job most days, and he had Thursday's off to spend with Richie (or the others, when he wanted) and his friends to make up for all the shitty customers and even worse pay.

It was at the end of one of the bad days, where he had to serve his ex-classmates celebrating their premature engagement no doubt to be followed by their 'premature' child they'd have in the following six months. Eddie honestly had nothing against it, he just wished if people were allowed to be so openly obnoxious with their choice of romantic partner, they'd just own the fuck up to what they were doing. If Eddie had half a chance to even go somewhere with Richie without it being an immediate danger to both of them, by god he would take the fucking chance. God, given half the fucking chance, he'd make out with Richie in the fucking town park. These people didn't even know how lucky they were.

He was in the middle of that thought process, though, when a hostess spilled a whole plate of scalding alfredo down his shirt, and he'd been forced to take his break and clean it off his shirt, which did not survive and was partially covered in white stains, which covered his tender, red skin that they refused to give him ice for because the machine was broken. He made about two hundred bucks in tips, though, so there was that.

Eddie all but crashed into the door of the Lunarcade, where Richie worked, lined with just about every arcade game you could dream of. The walls were painted with black, blue, and purple galaxies inside, with glow and the dark stars and planets etched into them and a mural of the moon on the wall by the bathroom. The prize counter was the only place in the whole arcade that had normal lights, where Eddie watched Richie emerge from the back room. He shoved a basket of mini bouncy balls back in the glass case behind a 25 TICKETS sign, looking around the arcade before his eyes landed on Eddie, who let out a sigh of relief at finally being around someone he actually liked.

"Hey, Eds. How was work?" He called, his smile turning to a frown as he saw Eddie's uniform underneath the lights. He usually thought Eddie looked 'smokin'' in his uniform, but now he didn't seem to think so, which Eddie didn't blame him for. "What happened? "

"Nothing I'm willing to talk about right now. Are you ready to go?"

Richie nodded and clocked out, grabbing a few Twizzlers from a basket in the case when Nick, the sixteen year old kid with a neck tattoo and a retainer that said "rockstar" across the roof of his mouth, which he'd shown Eddie the first time they met, wasn't looking, before hopping over the case and joining Eddie on the other side. Eddie cringed as the buttons on his jeans scratched against the counter, but Richie didn't mention it.

"Now I am." He handed Eddie one of the Twizzlers and they left, walking down the street as the sun set.

"I can't wait to go home and shower ," Eddie whined, ripping open the licorice. He had alfredo sauce drying on the ankles of his socks, and if he felt it for another minute he's sure he'd have to fling himself off of a cliff.

"Oh, speaking of going home, after you shower I wanna do something."

Eddie looked at him, almost getting bulldozed by a family leaving the ice cream parlor as he did, as his heart started to race. "Do what?"

"I wanna take you somewhere," Richie said, in lieu of explaining, because he was going to college for a major in idiocy with a specialty in confusing and annoying Eddie, and he was going to fucking graduate suma cum laude in that field.

Eddie chewed slowly as they walked. "Take me where?"

"On a date ," Richie whispered, but also sang, somehow, as they parted ways. Eddie, to the front porch of his house, Richie to the side to climb through the window. Romeo and Juliet truly had fucking nothing on them.

Eddie unlocked his door and went inside, taking the stairs two at a time as he thought over Richie's words. Date . They'd never been on one before, or at least Eddie hasn't. One time Richie did go out with this girl in their geometry class, to this fair when it was in town, but it hadn't ended well. Not everybody loved Richie's rambling as much as they did, and that girl made it very clear she did not appreciate it. Eddie could have exploded in jealousy, but all the Losers agreed that they didn't discuss that event, and so Eddie didn't mention it much.

Eddie wondered where they were going on their date as he watched Richie climb in his window. Everywhere here was too well-known and too full of familiar people for them to actually be able to sit down alone and just talk. It was like walking around town with an 'I'm gay' sign on your forehead and a target on your chest. He didn't want that to happen to them tonight, for any part of this to be ruined.

That being said, he had no idea what to wear.

---

"Richie! Turn around!" Eddie shrieked, at a reasonable volume, as to not trigger Sonia's supersonic hearing, but frantically nonetheless. He rummaged through his dresser drawers as Richie sighed and turned to face the far opposite corner of Eddie's bedroom.

"Eds, I basically live here. I've seen whatever it is you're trying not to show me."

"You do live here, I don't deal with your grody ass socks just for you to claim you don't live here, but that's not the point . I don't want you to criticize all the outfit choices I make before I decide on whatever one you're allowed to see." Eddie pulled out one of Richie's shirts by accident and sent two of his falling to the floor.

"Why do you suddenly care now about what I see you wear?"

"This is our first date, asshole! I don't want to look back on this moment and be like wow , I looked fucking ugly on while you were looking like that ."

Richie laughed, and Eddie heard shuffling on the floor. He whipped around to see Richie feeling his way across his bedroom with his eyes closed, reaching the edge of Eddie's bed and sitting down. Eddie watched his long legs stretch out on his floor, black jeans contrasting over the general beige-y- ness of his whole room because his mother thought bright colors made you 'delusional' and dark colors made you a satanist, so. Neutrals. Eddie shook himself out of it and turned back to his dresser.

"I'm dressed like a tire fire right now, Eds. Not exactly anything to envy."

Eddie sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Richie, I'm in love with you, what you wear is what I'm into." He noticed that his and Richie's shirts were all mixed together, not separated like Eddie put them. "You're the only person I've ever liked, and so my entire type is basically whatever you look like on a given day. Do you get that?" He stuffed three shirts back into the drawer before pulling out a button down, one of Richie's, that was covered in oranges overlapping each other with little white blossoms dotted everywhere. Hmm. It wasn't atrocious .

"You're really trying to butter me up right now. I'm concerned about your intentions." He played with his hair the way Eddie usually did. A drop of overwhelming want came over Eddie, to be close to Richie and feel his warmth radiating down to Eddie's bones.

"My intentions are to get you to pay for dinner," Eddie told him, pulling the light ripped jeans he bought with his first paycheck out of the bottom drawer and put them on. If his mother knew he owned these, she would murder him. When Richie saw him looking at them at the mall, he'd fallen to the floor and pretended to be dead until Eddie forced him to get up by threatening to kick him in the ribs.

"Don't act like I didn't see that fat wad of cash when you came into the arcade. I know what you're packing."

Eddie slid the cool fabric of Richie's shirt up his arms, but didn't button it. He walked over to Richie and kissed his forehead, then the bridge of his nose, then his lips.

"Who said I wasn't just happy to see you?" Eddie asked, smiling as Richie's eyes opened to show Eddie how they rolled back into his head and fell flat on his back on Eddie's comforter.

Richie was silent as Eddie got dressed, tucking the shirt in and buttoning it, putting on his shoes and brushing his hair so it at least looked like he didn't try and scrub all the Louie's grime out of it so hard he almost gave himself alopecia.

"You can open your eyes now, but don't say anything." Eddie paused. "Anything mean."

Richie nodded and opened his eyes. His mouth, which had been smiling, dropped. He curled both of his lips inward so it looked like he didn't have them at all, and the sunlight shining into Eddie’s window illuminated Richie’s eyes as his pupils drowned out his irises.

"That bad?" Eddie whispered, before Richie dragged him in by the arm to kiss him. Eddie smiled and buried his hands in Richie's hair, soft and tangled, as Richie kissed the corner of his mouth, his jaw, and then his neck. He pulled Eddie's legs in so that he knelt on the bed, Richie's waist between his knees.

"Not bad at all," Richie breathed, hand on the back of Eddie's upper thigh before he pulled away. "We have to go, or else I wouldn't let you leave."

Eddie left through the window too, partly so his mom wouldn't see him wearing what he had on, and partly because of the thrill he got when Richie caught him after Eddie jumped off the side. His hands on his hips, up his stomach for a brief second before letting him go. It was all they could afford, with the sun still inching below the horizon but not quite yet gone, shadows and silhouettes still visible to all too nosy neighbors, but Eddie got drunk on it.

"Where are we going?" Eddie questioned, walking down the block and further towards Richie's parent's house.

"Out of town."

"Oh, thank God."

---

Richie drove them past the Derry borders, past Stan's job (honking the horn loudly as he did so), and even further out. The whole time, Eddie watched Richie bob his head along to songs on the radio, staring out onto the winding road. Eddie didn't want to say anything, and then run out of things to talk about once they got to wherever they were going, so he hummed along to the music and watched the trees pass as they drove.

It was only about fifty minutes out of town when they pulled into the parking lot of a 1950's style diner, which okay. He didn't know what he expected, but this wasn't exactly not what he expected. It made sense, and it kind of looked awesome inside, so he didn't complain. He didn't want to.

"This is the lame part, by the way," Richie told him, unbuckling his seatbelt and turning the car off. He took his wallet out of the glove compartment, a stupid place to keep it, and got out of the car. Eddie followed, kind of way too excited.

Eddie went inside through the door Richie held for him. "Lame? I think it's cool."

The whole restaurant was an explosion of bright neon clashing with chrome and sparkly plastic booth seats. There were small jukeboxes on all the tables, and Eddie readily emptied out all the change in his wallet and sifted through the coins to find the quarters. The waitresses all wore vintage uniforms, which didn't look comfortable. Just looking at them Eddie felt a deep sense of empathy. He was going to tip them so well.

"What happened to you at work today?" Richie asked, pinching the front of his shirt to gesture. "With the--?"

Eddie groaned and rolled his eyes. "The new girl, Hailey, who's perfectly fine literally any other time, just had her college boyfriend break up with her today and because she doesn't realize that because she's fourteen that her boyfriend is a scumbag , she was crying at her great fucking loss and--What are you doing?"

"Nothing, keep going." Richie slid his foot between Eddie's crossed ankles, using the other to go underneath Eddie's, tangling their legs together.

It was the most private form of intimacy they could manage, and Eddie's face burned at the thought of it. They always had to be so careful, not even looking at each other without fear of what might happen. But they were here, where nobody knew them or could get back to their parents, and Eddie relaxed into the position without fear. With the amount of feelings he had bouncing around in his head, a person would think they were making out on the table, but no. It was just this.

Eddie loved it.

"Uhh, yeah. So." Eddie blinked. "What was I saying?"

"Hailey?"

"Oh! Hailey! I feel bad for her, y'know?"

Eddie ranted for a good ten minutes about work, only stopping to order their drinks and food, and Richie just. He sat there and listened. Eddie kept going, talking about the one dishwasher who called him a fucking fairy, until he noticed Richie gazing at him like Eddie had four fucking heads. Eddie stopped and looked back, where Richie was also loudly slurping a strawberry milkshake.

Eddie blew the straw paper across the table and hit Richie in the face. "What the fuck are you looking at?"

"It's nice," Richie stated simply, like Eddie was supposed to just know what he meant by that. At his confused face, Richie continued, "Everything sucks, except you and the arcade, and I always feel like everythings kinda nuts." He twirled his straw around his glass. "It's nice that we can live through all this shit and you still go into nervous rambling on a first date. It's nice that we can have things like that."

"Who said I was nervous?" He dropped his hands in his lap.

Richie ignored him. "You're my favorite person in the world, you don't have to fill up all the silence just so it's not silent. I'm not here to get anything from you, and you don't have to give me shit." He swallowed and ducked his head down. "I'm okay just being here with you."

"Me, fill up the silence?" Eddie squeaked. "We call you Trashmouth for a reason, asshole!" He could hardly get the words out without laughing, and soon Richie joined him. Eddie threw his two cherry stems from his milkshake at him, only growing more hysterical as Richie caught one of them in his mouth and ate it.

"You're terrifying," Eddie stated, sitting back in his seat.

Richie winked just as the waitress came over with their food, and Eddie wondered how this was, in any way, the lame part of the date.

---

Okay. So. To be fair , Eddie could now see how eating was a lame part of the date, as he sat in a dark, empty theater, and mentally prepared to watch Jurassic Park for the first time while physically holding Richie's bottom lip between his teeth.

"Think about it," Richie said into Eddie's mouth, which was barely comprehensible because Eddie hadn’t yet let go of his lip. "If this is out of town, imagine out of state."

"Shut the fuck up," Eddie murmured. "Nowhere in California is gonna have empty fucking theaters."

"Empty fucking theaters, eh?" Richie's eyebrows furrowed and then wiggled and then did something that made it look like he was choking on drain cleaner, before Eddie kissed him to shut him up as another movie trailer faded away and plunged them into total darkness.

---

They walked out two and a half hours later, having devoured Jurassic Park in its entirety. They wanted to see it since they heard it was coming out, having both read the book and talked about it frequently, but nothing prepared them for the utter fucking glory of that fucking film. Eddie tried to cope with the fucking hole in his heart now that he wasn't watching it.

"Eddie--"

"No," Eddie interrupted, bringing his hand up to swat at Richie in the chest. "I need thirty minutes. To process."

"Absolutely fair. No, no I get it." He held the door for Eddie again on the way to the parking lot, not speaking up again until they got to the car.

"Hey, Eds?"

"Yeah, Rich?"

"Holy fucking shit."

"I KNOW."

They spent the rest of the drive home ranting about the movie. At one point, Richie tangled their fingers together as they drove, and for a moment Eddie felt his ribcage fill with sunlight, with the hope of a future they were going to have together. The glass was as thin as it ever has been, and he was going to break straight through, taking Richie and all of their friends with him.

"I'm sorry if this was a stupid date," Richie apologized, as they walked through an empty alleyway.

They had to park Richie's truck in the Supermart parking lot, and then walk the remaining distance to Bill's, where the other Losers were having a 'thing' as Beverly called it, because even if Bill said they all had to go home after, everyone knew they were going to end up staying the night. They'd already promised to withhold the information that they saw Jurassic Park, and instead to say they watched Last Action Hero, a movie they'd all already seen, so that they could make out in the back row, which was good enough to invoke the vomit rule and cease all other questions.

"Shut up, Richie." He stopped walking to pull Richie to him, kissing him hard on the mouth. "First off, it was the only date I've ever been on, making it the best one by default. Second, even if we did nothing but eat animal crackers in my room as a date, I'd still wanna take you home at the end of it."

"I just wanna give you what I can." Richie hunched over to hug Eddie around his middle as they walked. "I'm homeless with no money, I'm just trying to do, like...I want be a good boyfriend for you, 'cause you do so much for me."

"...Richie, just because you sleep at my house, which is my mother's, by the way, I hate that house, doesn't mean I'm being a good boyfriend. It means I'm being a decent human being with the means to secretly house you. It's not charity, and it's not a romantic pawn in levels of boyfriendhood or whatever the fuck." Eddie watched as Richie waddled on either side of him, as his shoes bracketed Eddie's own.

"Yeah, but--"

"Plus," Eddie powered on through, "if you moved in with Ben and saw how unbelievably hot he was without me there to constantly distract you with my bullshit, you would leave me."

Richie made a dismissive noise but pressed his smile into Eddie's neck. "Nope. You're it for me, babe."

"I fucking better be."

They neared Bill's backyard, unlatching the gate and walking up the entryway to knock on his kitchen door, the problem largely put to rest. Eddie nudged Richie off of him so that Bill wouldn't reprimand them, in his dad way that he put to use too fucking often, and waited for a response.

Bill swung open the door, grinning, but morphing into a confused face. He pushed the screen door open and let them in.

"Eddie, what the fuck are you wearing ?"

---

The first thing Eddie noticed when he woke up is that, somehow, they hadn't collapsed the hammock and crashed into the ground. The second is how good Richie smells, which Eddie knew , but sometimes when he woke up he expected the detergent smell of his meticulously cleaned sheets, and instead he was always met with the earthy, sweet smell of his boyfriend.

The third thing, he noticed, though, was the sound of someone crying just outside the clubhouse. Eddie got up and climbed to open the door, surprised to see Mike sitting on the forest floor bawling his eyes out all curled up not two feet from the door.

"Mike?" Eddie asked, throwing the door back and letting it land on the ground so he wouldn't have to hold it. "What's wrong?"

"I-I, I can't. I-I didn't know where else to go. Stan has a-a thing, and I don't know where else to go. I didn't think anybody was gonna be here, b-but I heard snoring, a-and—"

"It's just me and Richie, come here," Eddie said, climbing out to let Mike in, wincing as Mike knocked over several cans they had stacked next to the ladder and Richie snorted awake.

"Wh," Richie murmured, as Eddie came back down. "Eddieee," he groaned, facing away from the light. He made grabby hands at Eddie until he came over and stood next to him. He grinned, but Eddie flicked him in the forehead. Gently , he wasn't a monster.

"We have visitors, dude," Eddie laughed, blocking Richie's hands where they weakly swatted at him for flicking him.

Richie looked past him and finally at Mike, who curled up in Beverly's beanbag she got at the thrift store. He desperately tried to wipe away his tears as soon as they fell, face pinched together in, what seemed to Eddie, pain. Richie gasped softly, and then let Eddie go, falling off the hammock to the floor and crawling over to Mike.

"Hey, Mikey, what's wrong?" Richie whispered, sitting next to him. Eddie faltered at the tonal switch, but recuperated, joining Richie on Mike's other side.

Mike made a noise and shook his head, but Richie didn't let up. Eddie watched him climb up behind Mike and wedge himself between him and the back of the beanbag chair. Or, well, whatever could be considered the back of any beanbag chair.

"Dude, c'mon," Richie whispered, wrapping his arms around Mike and resting his head on his shoulder. "Tell us what's wrong. Is it Stan?

"...Rich."

He nodded. "You're totally right, he would never. He's too calm to be bad at communication."

"And nice."

"Yeah, he's cool. Is it your grandpa?"

Eddie realized that they'd done this before, Mike and Richie, as Mike relaxed a little and moved his head to make more space for Richie's on his shoulder. Eddie and Mike were never as close as Eddie would've liked them to be; they were close, but Richie always took time to carefully craft his friendships with people actually willing to know him, and so all of Richie's friendships were individually unique when compared to everyone else's. Richie loved like he couldn't do anything else, like he couldn’t help it , and Eddie was so grateful to be one of the people able to be cared for like that.

"Yeah," Mike sniffed, sitting regularly and leaning back into Richie. Eddie didn't know what to do, so he leaned on Mike's leg for, like, moral support.

Richie shifted. "What happened?"

"He uh--" He wiped his eyes. "I told him about California and, well. He knew I was going to school across the country but I, uh, I lied and told him it was for business, which wasn't even really the issue, because I accidentally told him I wanted to get an apartment with Stan, and--"

"Did you come out to him yet?" Richie blurted out.

Mike shook his head, but otherwise remained unphased by his interruption. "No, he thinks Stan is just my best friend, which, uhh, he is , and, obviously he's more, but no. He doesn't know. But, but I told him I wanted to get an apartment with him and he asked me why because he thought I was coming back after college, but I don't--" He squeezed his eyes shut as more tears fell, and Richie moved his hand to graze through Mike's hair.

"I know, buddy. It's alright."

"I hate it here. I love my family but god, I can't stay here for eighteen more years of my life. I can't. I won't ," he insisted, and Richie nodded quickly. "I told him that, and he freaked out. He started yelling about all he's done for me and how I can't just leave, but I have to. It's not just--He thinks it's because I think I'm too good for a small town like here, but it's not about that!"

"Of course it's not," Richie agreed. "You would never think that. You're too kind."

"I just don't want to be in a place that hates everything about me while I'm trying to be someone that I actually like. I feel suffocated here."

"I get it," Eddie whispered. "Is there anything your grandpa could do to make you stay?" He continued when both Richie and Mike looked at him, confused. "Like, is there any leverage that he could use against you to make you stay. I'm not saying he would, but sometimes it's good to know, for stuff like this."

Richie leaned down and kissed Eddie's forehead. "I swear to god I'll fist fight your mother. You say the word and I'll roundhouse kick her to the fucking moon."

"I know." Eddie’s eyes fluttered shut as warmth spread through his body. "Thanks, Rich."

"I still have all the insurance money from my parents," Mike told him. "It's in my name, though, it's not like he can just take it away. He wouldn't even think to touch it, anyway, but it is good to know. If worse comes to worst." Mike shifted on the beanbag and turned on his side, resting into Richie's chest. He waited for something, but then he looked behind him. "Get over here, Eddie."

"Oh!" Eddie snuck behind Mike and put his arms around his waist. "I'm sure your grandfather wouldn't do that."

"I know, but I'm so scared. What if he doesn't let me go?"

"You're a whole adult, Mikey," Richie assured him. "Can't keep you here if you don't want to be here. And if it really does come down to it, we'll all put every cent we have into helping you out. We'll do whatever."

"Thanks, Richie."

"Even if it means I have to be a stripper for you," Richie continued, shimmying his chest.

" No thanks, Richie."

"Suit yourself."

Eddie nuzzled his face into Mike's back. "He is right, though. Your grandfather can't make you stay where you don't want to."

"But he's getting older, and he needs somebody to run the farm once I'm gone, or...once he's gone. I can't just leave him here, man."

Eddie held Mike closer to him. Eddie was stuck with an abusive mother who he couldn't wait to leave. He would call her once a week and no more and he would maintain relative peace in his life, only coming home for holidays and summer but staying at Ben's so he wouldn't become trapped in her house once again (he had it all planned out), with Richie tagging along because they were a package deal. It was easy to walk away from all of that, when the only things that would make him want to stay are coming with him. He couldn't imagine what Mike must be feeling, when you still had something to leave behind, a reason to come home.

"You have those cousins in Connecticut," Richie reminded. "The ones that came up last summer--"

"But that's not for sure."

"You won't know until you try," Eddie argued, throwing his one leg over Mike's hip.

"Yeah!" Richie cheered, albeit quietly, nudging Eddie with his foot. "Listen to him. We can drive you home and talk to your g-pa--"

"G-pa?" Eddie looked up from Mike's shoulder. Richie grinned down at him.

"Short for grandpa, keep up, Eddie. Explain the super awesome solution we just figured out, call your cousins, and everything will be fine ."

Mike chuckled but regained composure. "I don't wanna go back just yet. I need to...cool down, and so does he. We'd only get into another fight if I went back now."

"Alright." Richie rested his chin on top of Mike's head. "Do you want to go to Stan's?"

"He has a scout meeting until four," Mike explained, wiping his tears and sitting up. Richie grumbled about the loss of warmth, but Mike leaned back on him to shut him up. Eddie sat against Richie's other leg and grinned when Richie's hand buried itself in his hair.

"It's five now," Eddie answered, looking down at his calculator watch Richie made fun of him for owning.

Mike laughed. "It was three thirty when I left. Y'all were asleep down here for a while." He stood up and brushed off his jeans, fixing the braided bracelet Stan made him and then refused to admit ever seeing before. "Can you drive me over?"

"Absolutely," Richie muttered as he got up, groaning as his knees cracked when he stood. Eddie cringed at the noise. "We'll even walk you to your door and kiss you goodnight."

"See, I just don't know how Stan would feel about that." Mike climbed the ladder up and crawled out onto the forest floor.

"Don't know how I would feel about it either," Eddie mumbled. Richie rolled his eyes and kissed him.

"Eddie, I love you, but sometimes you're really dumb."

---

"This feels like I'm getting dropped off on my first day of school by my parents," Mike complained when they get to Stan's front door.

"If I was your dad, you would be so much cooler," Richie replied, incessantly pressing Stan's doorbell. Eddie rolled his eyes.

"I really don't think so." Eddie pushed down the thought of raising kids with Richie and tried to stay in the fucking moment. He would have to take so much migraine medication if they grew up to be anything like Richie. Then again, it would be totally worth it.

"What do you want? " Stan roared, ripping open the front door. He had the green polo shirt he once almost killed Richie for getting ketchup on, Eddie noticed. "Oh! Hey."

"Stanley!" Richie gasped. "What if I was a kind neighbor, or a relative here to visit? Did you even wonder, before answering the door like a common dick ?"

"The only common Dick here is you, asshole. Plus, you've been ringing my doorbell like that for twelve years, I fucking knew it wasn't going to be anyone else." He smiled at Mike, like he'd found eternal peace for the first time in his life. "Now, what's wrong?"

"Mikey's depressed," Richie explained, overdramatically frowning so his face looked like cake fondant.

"And we're fucking hot, so can we come in?" Eddie asked, grinning in an equally overexaggerated way so that they looked just. Frightening. Like drama masks, but worse. 

Stan grimaced at both of them. Mike laughed. "Yeah, sure."

---

If Eddie could write an essay about the no-vomit rule and how it applied to each of the Loser's respective relationships, he would. Not actually, because he would have no reason to put that much effort into something which had no reward, but it would be an interesting piece regardless. One of his observations in that essay, however, would be Stan's strict rules to never be the cause of any of the Losers invoking the no vomit rule. He also didn't like the inevitable teasing that came as a result, which Eddie had long since gotten used to when he realized he'd much rather just get yelled at and be able to make out with Richie whenever than not make out with RIchie and maintain the peace. Stan, though, got all red and embarrassed like they weren't supposed to know his heart, like, worked, even if they all knew he loved them more than anything. It was weird, but the rest of them respected it, and Mike seemed to be fine with the situation as Stan's boyfriend. Again, it was something Richie would know, but Eddie had never been told.

The relevance of his thinking, however, comes to Eddie's mind when Stan sat Mike down in his living room and all but shoved Eddie out of the way to sit down next to him. Richie sat down on the armchair opposite them, and Eddie sat in his lap.

"You're an asshole," Richie complained, holding his hips.

"And? Don't complain."

Stan was already red by the time he grabbed Mike's hand and held it in his, but it was a familiar movement, without hesitation. "What happened?"

"It's--I'm fine now, I got most of it out at the clubhouse where they were--" Mike gestured to them, and Richie waved from behind Eddie. "But, no, yeah it was my grandpa again."

"...Which grandpa thing?" Stan asked. Mike looked like he could cry again. "Did he find out about--"

" No ," Mike replied, again. "He knows I'm going with you, he knows , but he didn't-- I told him I didn't want to come back, and he freaked, and I don't want to leave him here but I can't stay and I just...I wanna be with you. And at college, where I'll be happier, but also with you." He blinked tears out of his eyes.

"Shut the fuck up," Stan warned Eddie, and probably also Richie, who Eddie was smothering by leaning all the way back so his glasses pressed into Eddie's spine.

"We haven't even said anything," Richie protested, muffled into Eddie's shirt. Eddie laughed at how it tickled.

Stan didn't answer, but he turned away from them and kissed Mike full on the mouth. Mike let out a sob, and then kissed him back, holding Stan's jaw gently with one hand.

"No fucking way," Richie breathed, looking out from Eddie's left side.

Stan pulled away from him. "What did I. Just. Say?" He was as red as a tomato, a firetruck, the hottest pepper in the world. He was so fucking red Eddie could cackle. 

"You're fucking cute, Stan," Eddie complimented.

Stan breathed serenely. Mike laughed and pressed his face into Stan's shoulder. "Get out of my house."

"Absolutely understandable," Richie said, both of them standing up.

"Have a good day!" Eddie called as the rushed out of the house.

Richie barked out a laugh. "Use protection!"

Stan's hysterical scream could be heard from fucking space.

---

Eddie went home that day content with the fact that he got to help Mike and embarrass Stan all at the same time. He couldn't wait until he got out of this fucking town, when none of them would have to deal with Derry or its distinctively horrible set of problems, and they could be in California as seven people who'd moved on from the shitty things that happened to them, not seven people stuck in the town that still reminds them of everything they'd been through.

He separated from Richie outside and unlocked his front door, stopping when he saw his mother inside, sitting on the couch instead of in her chair. She was crying, holding her handkerchief in her hands as she dabbed at her eyes. An increasing feeling of dread washed over Eddie. He had to deal with this now, or else his mother would either never let him forget it, or bother him with it until he let her do whatever the fuck she was trying to do.

"Eddie-bear?" She asked, sniffing loudly. Eddie sat down on the sofa as far away from her as he could, trying to give her what she wanted so he could get it over with. He thanked heaven and earth silently that Richie had set up a system for this, that Richie knew not to come down unless Eddie said a code word, which meant he was in trouble. He never had been before, but now he wasn't sure.

"Yeah, ma. What is it?"

Eddie's skin tried to crawl out of itself, to fold up and disappear as his mother touched his knee. A new wave of tears fell from her eyes. Eddie moved his leg so her hand dropped to the couch cushions. It felt like his knee was filled with ants, itching at him until he was sure they'd bust through.

"Eddie, I've been thinking, and. I don't think it's good for you to move to California. I-I've heard things--

Eddie sighed. "I knew you were going to do this--"

" Awful things. There's bad people there, Eddie! And-and-and drugs! And I'm so scared for you, honey, I don't want you to get caught up in a gang, or, or, the, the kind of terrible kinds of people that live out there--"

"Mom," Eddie warned, fists clenched in his lap.

"There's no God in California," his mother preached. She looked into his eyes and grabbed his hand, so much so that Eddie actually strained with the effort to take it back. He crumbled, let her pet him like he was her fucking dog, if it meant this being over sooner. "I'm so scared for you . Not even of the drugs but of how they drag you in . First it's asking you to miss church, then it's asking you to stop going altogether--"

" Mom ."

"They tell you that it's fine, make you undermine yourself and your religion. That's what they want." She looked up into Eddie's eyes. Eddie blinked away and she squeezed his hands. Eddie wanted to cry. He wanted to vomit. He wanted to stop existing, to have the space he took up vanish to nothing. "They don't care about you. They want you to forget everything I taught you, to become sinful like they are, all those kids you're always running around with. It's only because of me that I've kept you on the right path, honey. And it hasn't been easy, being a single mother, but--"

" First of all," Eddie interrupted. "Those kids I always run around with? They're the only people who have cared about me my entire life."

"Don't say things like that! I have cared about you since the moment I knew I was having you--"

"No! No, no no! You don't get to sit here and say all these things, all this bullshit --"

"Edward Kaspbrak!"

"Shut up , Mom!" He was on fire, burning from the inside out. "I thought we were done with all this, okay? With all the lying and the manipulation and the fucking warnings about something out there, something dark, that I can't control or see coming because I'm so defenseless that only you could prevent me from it. I've seen dark! I know darkness way worse than whatever it is you're trying to keep me from, more than anyone , except for those kids that I hang out with!

"And you wanna talk about drugs? You, customer of the month, every month, at the local pharmacy want to warn me about drugs?"

He stormed out of the living room and into the kitchen, opening the medication cabinet and grabbing handfuls of all the fucking pills, every fucking bottle with his name on it, her name on it, ones Eddie didn't even fucking want or need. By the time he came back into the room, Sonia was weeping pitifully. Eddie dropped a bouquet of medications at her feet.

"Eddie," his mother wailed. "Why are you doing this to me?"

He inhaled sharply through his nose. "I'm not doing anything to you. No amount of you telling me that can change it! You, you warn me, about everything, about drugs , when the only thing that has ever clouded my judgement has been you . You poison me, mom!"

He felt the burning sting of his own tears fall down his face. "You've poisoned me from the inside out until I couldn't even trust my self without worrying about what parts of me were mine and which parts you've fed me. I told you. I told you , when I gave up all the medication, that you couldn't do shit like this anymore. I meant it. I gave you one chance, and just when I thought I'd be allowed to leave, having one semblance of respect both for and from my own mother, you pull this."

"I am just trying to look out for you!" Sonia cried. "All I've ever done is try to look out for you! They're going to hurt you Eddie, your friends, lead you down a path I won't be able to save you from. A sinful path."

"Sinful." Eddie repeated.

"Pardon me?" Sonia asked, in the way she did, trying to catch him saying something uncouth. This whole conversation was fucking uncouth.

"Sinful. You said sinful. And, and I think you said it earlier, too, yeah. Sinful. Was the word you used." He sat down on the coffee table, ignoring his mother's protest. "When was the last time you ever cared about sin?" He immediately stood again to pace the room. "You sit here every single day, doing nothing but bossing me around. Sloth is a sin, and you lied to me from the time Dad died until I was thirteen years old. Bearing false witness. You, you think that you know all this shit, but you don't . You don't . You don't care about actual sinning, mom, so, for once, just say what you fucking mean ."

" Homosexuals , Eddie!" She screeched. Eddie fucking knew it. "If you go to California, you will end up as one of them, I just know it! I know it! And I don't want that for you. I want to keep you safe, here with me. And I know it hasn't been easy, that you're scared to talk to girls here, but we will find you someone, I promise we w--"

"I will say this to you once," Eddie cautioned. "I've heard everything you have to say, and I don't care if you want to say anything else, because I'm done. You are done."

"Eddie," Sonia whimpered. She was still crying, but she'd stopped trying to wipe it all away with her handkerchief.

Eddie stood right in front of her so he towered over her. " Done ," he repeated. "I'm going to stay here until the end of summer--" He put his hand up at his mother's hopeful face. "--but after that, I'm gone. You're not going to contact me after I leave, and you'll see me when I want, on my terms. If I don't contact you, assume it's because I don't want to see or hear from you. I'm done. Now, I'm going to my room. If you try and do anything , and I swear to god I mean fucking anything , you will never see me again."

" Eddie ."

"No. Just, no."

He took the stairs two at a time, busting into his own room and slamming the door behind him. He locked it before collapsing on his bed, jostling Richie, who had been sitting there when he came in. He grabbed his pillow and let himself sob into it, quietly enough so Sonia wouldn't wander in for the sake of 'checking on him.'

"Eddie, I'm so sorry." Richie mumbled, laying down next to him.

"Don't call me that anymore," Eddie sniffed. He hated the way she said his name, like he had to thank her for giving it to him. "I'm Michael now."

Richie brushed his hair with his fingers. "We already have one of those, babe. Try another one."

"Call me something stupid, then."

"Okay, Spaghetti-head. Whatever you want."

Eddie rubbed his face against his pillowcase. "Thank you."

Richie kissed his forehead. "You know it's a bad day when Mr. Spaghetti is okay with that nickname." He slid off the bed and went over to Eddie's (their) dresser, and started opening drawers.

"What are you doing?"

"Shh," Richie told him, rustling through their clothes.

Eddie watched as Richie threw a pair of shorts and one of his own shirts on the bed, along with another pair of his own shorts. Where they found the room in that dresser to contain two wardrobe's worth of clothes, Eddie didn't know. Richie cracked open the door and looked out, before turning back to Eddie.

"Come with me," Richie whispered, dragging him out of bed and into the hallway.

"Where are we going?"

"Shh. Bathroom."

---

Eddie watched the water pour down from the shower as he sat on the closed toilet lid. Tears ran hot down his face, but he didn't do much to stop them. All he could think about was getting out, and he'd almost made it. All he had to do was avoid her, for two months, and then he could actually live. He could escape with Richie, call once a week so she didn't bother him, and they could all survive in coexistence. Not peaceful coexistence, but they'd survive. He would be able to live with that. And she just fucking ruined it.

"Hey," Richie called into the bathroom. He peeked in the room before opening the door and sneaking inside. "I got you towels."

Eddie swallowed, his throat threatening to close. His heart felt heavy in his chest, like it'd been ripped out through his fucking mouth. "Thank you." He realized he didn't know what was going on. "I don't know what's going on."

Richie kissed his forehead before brushing his hair back. His big googly eyes stared at Eddie through his glasses as his thumb grazed Eddie's jaw.  "Just let me take care of you, dude."

Eddie sighed so hard his chest hurt. He was so tired. "Okay."

---

He didn't even have the time to grapple with his feelings before he was crying in the shower again. Richie had his arms wrapped around where Eddie curled in on himself against his chest. Richie didn't even say anything, just held him and laid one comforting hand on the small of his back and one anchoring him down between his shoulder blades. He was breathing deeply against the top of Eddie's head, trying to get him to do the same, but Eddie couldn't.

"I'm sorry," Eddie apologized. He pushed away from Richie and turned around. "I'm sorry."

"For what? There's nothing wrong with me." Richie turned around and took something off of one of the shower shelves. "And there's nothing wrong with you, either. Your mom is a manipulative, terrible fucking woman who hurt you so many times, the fact that you can stand to be here, anywhere near her, is pretty fucking astounding."

He poured out shampoo into his hands, Eddie could tell by the coconut smell, as he watched all the water pour down the drain. All that water, running and swirling down the drain, into the pipes. How did the pipes get to the water treatment center? What happened when all the water filled in the treatment center, but it wasn't treated yet? Or was that not how any of that worked? Did it just spill over and over and over until it flooded everything and everybody, until the town closest to it became nothing but an underwater museum? Artifacts of life. Evidence of the unexpected. That couldn't be it.

"Can I?" Richie asked, holding the shampoo out in front of Eddie to show.

"Uh-huh."

Richie plopped the shampoo onto the center of Eddie's head and worked outwards, making a mohawk on Eddie's head. "She isn't going to be in the same house as you forever, and when we get past the one year living in the dorms and we have the Loser apartment like we planned, she won't know a fucking thing about you except your name, and you can even change that, if you want. We love you for who you are, not the version of you that your mom has in her fucked up head."

Eddie nodded as Richie scratched across his scalp. "Thank you. Keep doing that."

Richie laughed. "Well, no, because we have to rinse this out, but conditioner is next so you won't have to wait, my love."

"I just." He balled his hands into fists and tensed up. "I feel like when she looks at me, like she sees somebody that I'm not, and I can't even tell her I'm not that person because she's like a fucking brick wall that no matter what I tell her, it doesn't go through to her fucking brain. I can change everything about myself, but around her I'm still the same spineless little kid." He choked on his own sob. "I disgust myself."

Richie hummed, turning Eddie around and rinsing out his hair. "You're not fucking spineless, dude, and there's no part of you that's disgusting. Even if there was, I love every bit of you. Not in spite of that shit, either, but as a part of it. You're more than just a hot piece to me."

"Shut the fuck up." Eddie smiled, listening as the water rushed past his ears until Richie pulled him out of the spray. "I love you too."

"I know. You can keep talking if you want. If you don't want to, then that's cool too. I just want you to know that--You killed a fucking demon, Eddie, and saved us and every other fucking kid here. You're the opposite of spineless, dude. But I'm done, you can say whatever you want, if you want."

"I kind of do."

"Okay."

Eddie closed his eyes as Richie started squeezing out conditioner. "What did I say last?"

"Brick wall."

"Oh. Yeah. When she touches me, I can't. I want to throw up, Richie. It makes me sick to my stomach, like there's some sort of physical mark, down to every cell in my body, that she can contaminate and ruin and kill. I can still feel it, Richie, all over my skin. She ruins everything, and everything I care about. Knowing that you all care makes it better but it doesn't change the fact that she's still there."

"I know, love, but, hey. We're in the shower. You can wash all of that away. It doesn't fix things, it doesn't change that you're here for the rest of the summer, but it could help. She knows to back off. If she's any kind of smart, which...is giving her a lot of fucking credit, she'll stick to the terms you set and be done with it. If she isn't, we can rent a hotel and live there for the rest of the summer."

"We're not dipping into our savings for this," Eddis insisted. "We'll be fine. I just hate her. It's terrible to say but, Richie, I hate her."

"I know."

"Like, I'm in the shower with you right now." He turned around to face Richie again. "We are naked right now."

"I know that," Richie muttered, pulling Eddie closer by the back of his head so his hair wouldn't get wet. "It has to stay in your hair, dumbass."

"Are you even listening?" Eddie laughed, guiding them until Richie's back pressed against the shower tiles. A chill ran down his spine as he stepped out of the warm water entirely, but heat pooled in his chest, down to the pit of his stomach. "We! Are! Naked!"

"I! Know!" Richie said back, smiling like an idiot. Eddie loved him so fucking much.

Eddie pulled Richie closer to him when he tried to lean against the wall so he wouldn't fucking slip and die. Richie smiled and took Eddie's face in his hands, kissing his lips, then the corner of his mouth, his cheek, cheekbone, between his eyes. Eddie scrunched up his nose as the one spot of Richie's lips, rough from all his picking at them, tickled his brow bone.

"This is the first time, since like the eighth grade, that I have seen you completely naked, and I can't even do anything about it because I'm upset over my stupid fucking mom." Eddie stared at the place where Richie's collarbones met, the hollow dip of skin. "Not that I'm saying I would, because we already had this talk like four times, and you said you weren't read--"

"We haven't had that conversation for like three weeks," Richie informed, swallowing as he looked down towards the floor. He said it simply, like that wasn't a complete 180 from before. "It's, uh. We haven't had that conversation in a while, but that's not. What this is about." He grabbed the washcloth from the shower hooks and put body wash on it, washing Eddie's shoulders first.

"Wait, no," Eddie interrupted, taking the washcloth out of Richie's hands. "Let's talk about this."

Richie blushed, face so heated Eddie felt it radiate onto him. "This isn't about this. I didn't. I didn't get into the shower with you for that. I wanted to help you, 'cause you're upset. It's not about that."

"Okay," Eddie agreed, handing Richie the washcloth back and turning to face away from him. He looked down and then right back up. "But if we're gonna, uhh, not talk about this here, you're gonna have to leave before I get out. For medical reasons."

"Shut up, Eddie."

"Richie, I'm not kidding, like I'm kinda compromised right now."

Richie stopped the washcloth as it ran over Eddie's back. "Compromised? Like, actually?"

Eddie's entire body was on fire, only it was different from before. He felt Richie's fingertips through to his skin, the presence of him standing tall at Eddie's back. His shoulders, torso, hips, his legs, him. Richie. Eddie couldn't stop thinking about his skin, covered in beauty marks, the angle of his jaw as his mouth dropped open, his lips, his eyes, his stupid nose. All of him. Eddie ached for him.

Mentally, he checked himself to make sure he wasn't just thinking about this to get his mind off of things. He thought about everything with his mom, reviewed that whole conversation. Richie was right, his mom was only part of his life until the rest of the summer. And then it was all on his terms. He didn't even have to fucking give his mom his phone number if he didn't want to. She was scared of driving long distances and wouldn't touch and airport let alone an actual plane. Meanwhile, he had every one of his friends to support him. He won. She was stuck here, and he was getting out. He fucking won. He felt like he was on top of the world, and he had his naked fucking boyfriend behind him, and he wasn't doing anything about it.

"Yeah," he breathed. "I'm not just trying to distract from my problems, either. I'm okay now. I just needed a moment to have a meltdown, but I'm fine now. I promise. Don't shut this conversation down because you think I'm not in a place to have it. Trust me, I'm in a place."

Richie cleared his throat. "Okay. Uh, if you swear you're okay with it, then yeah I'm-- It'd be cool to--Well." Richie continued running the washcloth over Eddie. "There's really nothing to say, dude. I think about you all the time. Not just in that way! But, in general. I love you, and I want to do that with you because you're--If I promise to say something, do you promise not to get mad?"

Eddie's head spun with how this conversation made him feel. He stumbled forward and turned the shower handle, gasping as cool water hit his chest. "Yeah. Say whatever you want."

"You're incredibly hot," Richie blurted. Eddie snorted and coughed as water went up his nose. "Like, more than I can handle. And yeah, what I said before, I think about you all the time. Because, like, I love you and you're my dream boy or whatever--"

"Oh?" Eddie asked.

"Shh, I'm talking," Richie joked, poking Eddie in the side. "Anyway, I love you, you're my dream boy, yeah, yeah, whatever. I have dreams about marrying you and kissing in a flower field 'nd shit, that's not what we're talking about. I, Eddie you're so hot. Like, it's summer and I see you every day. Like I live here, so obviously, and I see you in various states of undress all the time, and I was like wait hold on. So I said I wasn't ready, and I meant it, and then summer and it kept getting warmer, so in addition to all of the normal winter-temperature hots for you I had, there were all these new summer ones, and because I live here I see you all the fucking time, where before I didn't, and so I put a lot of serious thought into it, like, I drew diagrams and shit--"

"Now that's hot."

"Thank you." He handed the washcloth to Eddie to reach the front of him without. Bumping into anything. "I thought about it, took notes and everything, and I decided that I was ready, as long as we like, uhh, I wanna take it slow with you. If that's okay? I love you, and sometimes I see you in your work uniform, in those stupid black pants you have to wear, and I just about lose it. But yeah, I'd like slow."

Eddie nodded. "I think I should rinse my hair out now." He dropped his head into his hands. "That's not what I wanted to say."

"That's okay. Take your time."

"I don't need to take my time," Eddie clarified calmly, and turned to him. He noticed, but chose to ignore, Richie's glance down at him, before he snapped up to look him in the eyes. "Do you remember that day at the quarry? When I told you I was going to marry you someday?"

Richie nodded.

"That's exactly what I mean. I'm going to marry you, Richie. You're stuck with me for the rest of your life. That means an unlimited amount of years I get to spend with you, so, yeah. We can take it as slow as you want. There's no rush."

"I love you," Richie whispered. He kissed Eddie's eyebrow, but Eddie shoved him gently back against the wall and kissed him. Eddie put his hands firm, but not insistent, movable if that's what Richie asked of him, on Richie's waist, then moved his one hand to the back of Richie's head and pulled him closer.

"Eddie," Richie breathed.

"Yeah." Eddie pulled Richie's hair back and kissed over his pulse point, which Eddie could in his teeth. He bit down on the skin there and felt Richie's jaw drop as his head fell back onto the tile. Gasping, Eddie pulled back to see it, that one wide angle that he thought about all the fucking time, that he obsessed over since he was fifteen, wanted to mark into existence all that time. He stared at it as Richie shut his mouth, so he did it again, and watched until Richie ducked over and kept kissing him.

"Tell me when to stop," Eddie whispered, and Richie nodded. He kissed down Richie's neck, to his collarbone, chest, over each of his ribs. Eddie got down on his knees so he wasn't crouching anymore and nipped at his side. Richie's teeth clicked as he snapped his mouth shut, then opened it again to shakily exhale as Eddie kissed Richie's hip bone.

"You okay with this?"

Richie nodded.

"I need words, Rich." He leaned back. "If you want me to keep going, you have to tell me."

"Yeah, yeah," he rambled. "Holy shit, yeah, I'm fine with this--kind of been hoping for it my whole life, but, are you sure? This, we're in here for you, Eds. This isn't--"

"This is for me," Eddie interrupted before Richie could go into his anxious rambling. "Trust me."

"Okay," Richie agreed. "I trust you." His voice jumped as Eddie kissed across the flat plain of his stomach and smoothed his hands up Richie's thighs. "Eddie, holy shit, yes."

"Cool," Eddie breathed, and then began to focus on the task at hand.

---

Eddie swung open the door of the Lunarcade, kind of too excited to eat strawberries in the park with Richie for half an hour on break, only to be met with Ana Pheley from school leaning halfway over the prize counter twirling her hair in beat with every syllable Richie said. Eddie didn't hate Ana, offered her a look of comfort when they started calling her Feely Pheley in the tenth grade for making out with another kid from their class, but other than that they'd never personally spoken. Right now, though, Eddie was getting a little irritated. Not because she was flirting with Richie, but also because he only had twenty-five minutes left of his break, and he wanted to spend them with him. And also maybe a little because she was flirting with Richie. He wasn't going to freak out or anything, but he did like spending time with his own boyfriend, and didn't love that another person tried to infringe on that time. Or that boyfriend.

He watched as Ana's little sister ran around the arcade with some other girls, and Ana paid no attention. Eddie made eye contact with Richie as he neared the counter, standing at the end of it and listening to Nick pick pieces of taffy out of a basket to give to an already sticky-looking eleven-year-old for ten tickets a piece.

"Hey, Eds!" Richie greeted, before Ana captured his attention again.

"So, what were you saying about a summer job?" She asked, loudly, over Eddie's hello back. Ana's parents were rich. Like, could buy every part of Derry they don't already own and turn it into an amusement park rich. She didn't need a job.

"Uh, we're hiring since one of our guys quit," Richie explained, "but I have to take my break now, so…"

"Are you sure--"

"Yeah, sorry. Nick can't go 'til I do, and I have to go now. Bye."

Eddie's heart stewed in pride as Richie went to clock out. Ana Pheley was nice, and obviously since neither Richie or Eddie did or could come out, she didn't know he was taken or the fact that he was taken by the kid standing right next to her. But he was, by Eddie, and Eddie adored it. He wanted to grab Richie and kiss the shit out of him, let Ana know that she couldn't lay a finger on him. But he didn't, because he was normal. And. Because it was dangerous.

Ana looked over at him. "Oh, you! Hey, uhh…"

Eddie smiled so tight his lips felt like they were going to split down the middle. "Eddie."

"Eddie! Right! How have you been?" She asked, leaning on the case again. He noticed her orange spray tan on her arm blatantly turn to pale white on the underneath. It's only been two months since they'd last seen each other. He had twenty-three minutes left of his break.

"I've been good, working, how--"

"I can tell!" She seemed to forget about Richie and lean over to him. Richie came out from the back room. "You've filled out since the last time I saw you, and I know it's only been two months, but it--it shows."

Richie's eyes widened. "Ready to go?"

"Absolutely. Bye, Ana!"

---

Eddie ate his sandwich in total silence to distract from the fact that Richie took them to a park to have lunch in the middle of town. It wasn't a date, they didn't go on dates in town, or during the day, but it still meant something, to be with the love of his life in the middle of their shitty town, like rebellion. A revolution, like their revolution.

He looked over at Richie, who was using a plastic spoon to cut out the stems of all the strawberries, one of his weird idiosyncrasies that Eddie loved. Eddie watched him until Richie looked up at him.

"Do other girls do that?" He asked. He bit into the strawberry and Eddie watched as juice ran down his chin. He really wanted to fucking kiss him.

Eddie furrowed his eyebrows. "Do what?" He picked one of the pitted strawberries out of the tupperware.

"Tell you that you like, filled out…" He swallowed. "Got hot, or whatever."

Eddie waited for his mind to work it out, tried to fit two pieces together, and when he did his whole brain connected like a bunch of magnets.

"You're jealous? Dude, when I got there she was half ready to jump your bones right on the prize case! And you're in a mood because she said I look like I finally went through puberty at seventeen! And you're jealous!" Eddie laughed like a mad man. "That's so dumb, Richie!"

Richie turned his red face away from Eddie. His sunburn had faded but he didn't get any tanner, and his freckles came back darker, which Eddie spent hours at night tracing and mapping. They were like stars, but cuter. He was an astronomer when it came to Richie's face and those freckles.

"I just wanna know if I have anything to be jealous about," Richie clarified, quietly, because they might have been in their own world, but this was still Derry. "Like, when girls say shit like that to you do you ever, like, do you ever wonder? What it would be like to date a, uhh, not me?"

"No," Eddie replied. "You're the only person I've ever loved, we've talked about this before. If I've ever done any wondering, it's just to be sure I truly want to be with you, and I answer yes every single time." Eddie took a sugar packet out of his apron and poured it in one of the corners of the tupperware and dipped another strawberry in it. "And to be honest, I don't do much wondering."

"If you don't stop I swear to god I'm going to kiss you right here, in the middle of this park, and get us fricking murdered--."

"Because let's be honest, if I could pick a Loser--"

"Ben?"

"No, you. That’s like the whole fucking point. If I had to make a second choice, though, then probably Mike. He's got worker's hands, a cute smile, and plus who doesn't love a library science major?" Eddie questioned, leaning back on the bench. "But the other point is, if you took little five year old me, and you asked me to pick a Loser, I'm not sure I would have picked the bowl cut idiot who already had mile thick glasses and a goofy fucking smile because all of his teeth went in different directions, I'm not sure I would've said yes, sign me up for that for the rest of my life.

"Now that I've had the pleasure--"

"Oh! Using me for s--"

"Of knowing you," Eddie said louder. "Of course I would pick you. Fuck Mike."

"I'd rather not."

Eddie looked over at Richie, heart stuttering as Richie looked right back at him, with his stupid bubble cartoon eyes that made Eddie want to take his heart out of his body and hand it to Richie on a platter. He wondered if therapy fit into the budget for when they moved out into California. Then again, sometimes the enormity of what he felt made total sense, when he considered the fact that he killed and would have died for this fucking kid, and that Richie did the same for him. They risked so much just telling each other they were gay, let alone about their feelings for one another, and it all had worked out. Looking at Richie, at all the miniscule puzzle pieces that happened to fit together to make this possible, make them possible, and. Really. There was no choice here. Too many things that were bigger than either of them, bigger than Derry fucking Maine, bigger that everything, made it clear that there was no choice other than Richie. Nobody would ever compare.

"You. It's you. I make that choice every single time." He took a sip of his water before remembering. "And also, that girl was flirting with you. Do you ever wonder? That’s what we should be discussing."

"Wonder about what? What it would be like to date someone else? No." He thought for a moment, then added, "I used to try and have a crush on Bev, if that's what you mean, but it never worked."

"That's not what I meant," Eddie argued. "I mean, like, do you ever think about a person you can love without hiding?" He coughed to displace the heavy feeling in his chest.

"No, I just want to love you without hiding." Richie took Eddie's water from him and drank fucking half of it, but Eddie appreciated the casual form of intimacy when anything more than that would raise suspicion.

Richie continued, "And it’s not like it's just you hiding. Your fears, our fears, which are basically just general knowledge at this fuckin' point, aren't based on nothing. We basically have to hide if we wanna fucking live, but even if we're in California and you still don’t want to come out, I‘ll still sneak through your window every night, 'cause it’s not about having everybody know. It's about us."

Eddie nodded, his throat tight. "Cool...but you don't have to sneak through my fucking window, man. We're living together."

"Romantic effect, dickface."

"Yeah, because watching some matchstick sized asshole climb through a sixth story window really fucking sets my heart aflame. How did you know?"

"Fuck you," Richie laughed, "but seriously. Whatever you want, I'm okay with. It's up to you."

"Okay. Love you," Eddie whispered, all the chatter on the street quiet enough that he could hear the hitch in Richie's breath.

"Love you too."

Richie smiled and reached for a strawberry, but didn't pick one up, just sort of left his hand dangling in the container. Eddie looked at him, made direct eye contact and everything, but he still didn't move, looking back at the strawberries, and then at Eddie, and then the strawberries again. Eddie, still confused, reached for one, but before he could, Richie tangled their pinkies together, for just a second, before Richie grabbed a strawberry and bit into it. Eddie's body was full of energy, bouncing around in his ribcage until he wanted to scream.

"Oh! And by the way, just to make everything clear," Richie spoke up, "Ana Pheley isn't my type. I like brunettes with short ass legs and a tendency to be the biggest asshole on earth."

Eddie threw a strawberry at the side of his head, laughing as it left a pink splash on his cheek. Richie laughed and snatched the other half of his sandwich from his lap, shoving it all into his mouth at once, arguing with Eddie about how he deserved that for the strawberry once he. Swallowed the sandwich. Near-whole. For what?

As Eddie watched Richie walk back into work later, and Ana Pheley gave Richie her phone number as her sister picked out which cartoon themed alarm clock she wanted for seven hundred tickets, Eddie just smiled. He had nothing to worry about.

---

Eddie startled out of his half sleep as he heard a loud thud on the side of his house. He was supposed to be reading a book Ben gave him, but he'd been up all night at Bev's house making lists about everything they needed for college, and was exhausted as a result, so he'd fallen asleep at some point after page thirty. The thud came before a series of groaning blunt sounds on the side of his house, as Eddie rolled his eyes and went to help pull up the window.

"Eddie!" Richie yelled, tumbling head first onto Eddie's floor. "Eddie, Eddie, Eddie!"

"What, what, what?" Eddie asked, as Richie scrambled to stand. His face was all red and his shirt stuck to him with sweat, glasses lopsided on his face. "Did you run here?"

"I got my roomie letter," he said, in lieu of an answer, presenting Eddie with the thick piece of cardstock, USC letterhead and all, that stated all of Eddie's own information right back to him.

"Only way you could ever get my number," Eddie joked weakly, like the thought of college didn't make him almost pass out in excitement. The thought of college with the added bonus of being with Richie and also his friends being there too without the constant threat to their lives due to numerous factors, made him almost go right past passing out and straight to passing away. He was fucking thrilled.

"You wish you had the balls to reject me," Richie whispered, tears welling in his eyes.

"I really don't." Eddie wrapped his arms around Richie's waist, yelping as Richie picked him up and spun him in a circle. He was glad his mother went to Saturday bingo, or else they'd be found out for sure. Eddie laughed as Richie put him down, arms falling to his hips. He flinched as a sharp corner poked him in the wrist, pulling back to look in Richie's back pockets only to find a bundle of envelopes.

"Oh! Yeah. I got your mail, too. I thought we'd, like, open them together, and have like an exciting romantic moment, or some shit, but then I got too worried that there were clerical errors or something and I would have to fight some dude named Brock who tried to perv on you while you slept."

"As opposed to you perving on me when I sleep?"

Richie rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically. "I have permission."

"Uh? Since wh---"

"Are you going to open the letter or not?"

"Fine." He got the letter opener from a cup on his desk as Richie flopped onto his bed. He hated that Eddie used an actual letter opener instead of just ripping the envelope to shreds like he did, but Eddie didn't care. He carefully split the seams and pulled the matching piece of paper out gently, like it was precious. "Oh my god."

Richie looked up from where he'd been inhaling pure carbon monoxide through Eddie's comforter. "What? What? Are we not roommates? Eddie, I swear to god--"

"It says Brock Somnoperv is my roommate. I can't believe it. I don't even know a--" He could barely get the words out through his laughter, before Richie came over and pulled him onto Eddie's bed. Eddie screamed as his bedroom ceiling swept by above him, before he hit the cotton of his pillow case. By the time he went down, he was laughing so hard his stomach hurt, and Richie knelt over him throwing fake punches at him.

"You scared me, you asshole!" He accused, switching to tickling Eddie's sides. Eddie was in fucking tears. "I thought I was going to have to revolt against the school!"

"Stop!" Eddie screeched, writhing on his bed until his foot connected with Richie's chest and sent him flying backwards.

Instead of doubling back like he usually did, Richie grabbed Eddie's legs and used them to pull Eddie closer until he was practically in Richie's lap. Past the initial panic, Eddie's heart pounded out an almost violent beat, as Richie's hands slid up the sides of his thighs until they skirted under the hem of his shorts. All the joking from before disappeared from Eddie's mind as Richie leaned forward and kissed Eddie. Eddie gasped and melted into it, burying his hands in the dense, knotted together curls at the back of his head, before Richie pulled back.

"I'm so excited to get to live with you in a place where your mom isn't around," he breathed.

"Richie, shut up," Eddie complained.

"Noted." He dove down, and kissed Eddie again, leaving their roommate letters discarded on the floor.

---

Rain poured outside as Eddie sat in his living room nursing a mug of this weird tea he bought at the supermarket, which, after drinking more than half of it, he still couldn't decide if he liked it. His mother was stuck at a friend's house until the storm let up, which Eddie couldn't be more delighted about. His house wasn't awful if he separated it from the memories of everything that happened to him there. He still found comfort in it, when his mother was around, it was her presence that left him confined to the fire of his bedroom.

He watched a Golden Girls rerun marathon, curled up in a blanket from his room that didn't smell like the potpourri his mother used, which clung to everything it could. One of Richie's shirts, another one that had been worn so much and thrifted from one person to the next that it was practically nothing, hung low on his shoulders from the stretched out neck of it. He set his mug down and turned the volume up louder, tugging on the fraying hem of his shorts with his free hand.

The sound of the phone startled him, as Eddie got up and picked it up from the table next to his mother's chair, pressing the receiver to his ear.

"Hello?" Eddie asked, withholding any other information before he knew who was calling. He wasn't looking to be the victim of identity fraud.

"Hey, it's me," Richie whispered, but he was so bad at it it just came out as several harsh breathing sounds. Eddie understood regardless. "Can I come over?"

"If you don't die trying," Eddie commented, flinching as thunder boomed over them. "Why? What happened?"

"Nothing really, they're just screaming at each other again." His sigh crackled over the speaker of the phone. "They were fine before, and now all they do is yell. I feel like if I left they'd just stop." He was silent for a few seconds. "I'll be over soon."

"I'll get towels out."

---

Richie stumbled into Eddie's house fifteen minutes later, soaking wet and carrying a basket. Like, an actual woven basket, with two wooden flaps for lids. His jean jacket turned dark from the rain, and his shirt pasted itself to his front so extremely that Eddie could see his belly button. His jeans dripped, sneakers squelching as he stepped inside. The ends of his hair were dripping water onto his shoulders, and his glasses were covered in raindrops.

"Jesus Christ," Richie cursed, taking a towel from Eddie and wrapping his hair in it, twisting the towel in front of him and throwing it back like a girl would. "It's rainin' sutin' mighty fierce out there."

"We're way too far north for you to be a country bumpkin," Eddie muttered as he kissed Richie's cheek. "I'm glad you're here."

"You're no fun," Richie whined, wiping off his glasses with the tail of his hair towel. "Too far north," he mocked. "Don't you want to see my assless chaps? I'm armed and ready to ride, buckaroo."

"I should've let you get struck by lightning." Eddie grabbed the rest of the towels from the table. "Now take all the wet stuff off so I can put it in the dryer. I have stuff for you to change into."

Richie's damp, ice cold lips pressed against Eddie's cheek. "Thanks, dollface." He set the basket down on Eddie's coffee table and shimmied out of his jacket and shirt. "I brought a picnic, by the way."

"You what?" Eddie questioned, setting all of Richie's things in a pile on a towel, and bundled them all up. He looked over his shoulder and saw Richie's bare ass walk over to the dry clothes Eddie picked out for him. His dry bare ass, which was at least one victory.

"I brought a picnic," he repeated, quieter that time. "I was gonna do it on a day you had work, so that you would come home and see me like in your room with it all set up and shit, but I had it all hidden in my room and I didn't want my parents to come looking for me and find it, and then...wonder what I was planning to do with it, who I was doing romantic sappy shit with, so I left the house and took it with me."

"Richie," Eddie whispered, with so much feeling he could melt. "That's--your parents are such assholes. I love this."

"And I was also thinking like, 'hey, it's Thursday anyway, might as well do it now, because Eddie deserves it,' and so yeah. Picnic." He jumped into his boxers and pyjama pants. "I think there's even a candle in there."

"Fire hazard," Eddie muttered, opening the basket as Richie put his shirt on. Inside there was a blanket with a white candle rested carefully on top, and an old disposable lighter, knowing they didn't have any in Eddie's house except for the one Sonia kept on a high shelf to light the stove. There were also a bunch of snacks underneath, things Richie could reasonably hide in his room without having to put in the fridge, but also an entire pack of string cheese at the top, which were still cold, and his fucking Sony D-5 stuffed in with it all.

"Swiped those as I left," Richie explained, laughing. He picked at the skin around his nails. "Thought we could play music, eat, y'know, all that shit." He was as red as a stop sign.

"Richie…"

Eddie felt like he was choking with how far his heart had wormed into his throat. His love for Richie welled up in the pit of his stomach and he refused to fucking cry every single fucking time Richie did something nice for him, because they were dating god dammit, of course he's gonna be nice to him. This, though, was different. It was fucking romance and courtship or whatever Richie called it. It was so fucking cheesy and sappy and Eddie wanted to kiss every single molecule that made up Richie fucking Tozier, even if it took his entire existence to do it.

"If you don't like it," Richie whispered, "we don't have to do it, or light the candle if you're worried about a fire."

"First of all, fuckweed, I love it, and you, and shut up and sit down on the floor because we're having this picnic right fucking now. Second of all, light the candle before I vomit from how gross you are." He kissed Richie. "This is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me."

"You deserve it," Richie dismissed, unfolding the blanket and using it as a tablecloth for the coffee table. "Plus, I get you, which is really the best part."

"Fuck off," Eddie warned, grabbing pillows from the couch and throwing them on the ground for them to sit on. "Talk about something else."

Richie laughed, like honey and lemonade, syrupy-sweet and infectious, lighting the candle and sitting down to unpack it all. "Okay. We're going to see Jurassic Park next week, with everyone, and I don't know how I'm going to recreate all the batshit insane reactions I had to like, every fucking part of the movie that I had when we went, in a convincing way, that also won't give us up immediately."

"Oh?" Eddie asked, unpacking the food and sitting down across from where Richie plopped all of his weight down on the floor at once. The boy had no ass, if he was any less careful and broke his tailbone, Eddie would not feel sorry for a fucking minute. "So you're willing to get us killed, just like that?"

"Eds, face it, we have to tell them--"

"We do not." He ripped open the string cheese. "And if you tell them we went to go see it without them, I will break up with you. And then kill you. You'll die."

"Fine, but when my bad fucking acting outs us as repeat viewers, and they stone me in the street anyway for my lies, you better bury me somewhere decent."

Eddie took the sparkling grape juice out of the basket, which was hilarious all on its own. Eddie loved that boy. He set it down on the table. "You'll get a landfill and nothing greater."

"And you promise you'll never take another lover besides me?"

Eddie pretended to consider it. "Depends on how Mike and Stan are holding up by then."

---

"I really don't think we're gonna need all this," Eddie said, watching as Beverly threw two blankets into their cart. They already had a gross amount of cheap but nice decor items neither of them were willing to leave Target without, and Eddie added up in his head the total cost of their entire haul until he didn't know how to add numbers that high anymore.

Beverly looked over at him from where she was observing sheet sets. "You're worrying about money again. Stop it."

"I just. I don't want to spend all of our money on stuff that we don't really need and have everyone get mad." He swallowed as he stepped away from the cart, a significant portion of his and Richie's college fund burning a hole in his back pocket.

"Nobody's gonna get mad. We have everyone's lists slammed together, we'll be fine as long as we get most of it." Beverly threw a set in for her bed and then three others for Mike, Stan, and Bill. "Do you think Ben would like green or gray sheets better?"

Eddie took a deep breath and reminded himself Richie said this was okay. "You're the one that's gonna sleep on 'em, you pick."

Beverly nodded. "You're absolutely right." She threw the green ones into the basket. "Do you know what Richie wants?"

"He doesn't care, just told me to pick whatever." Eddie looked at a set of zebra print sheets. He looked at a set of plain blue ones, but back to the zebra ones. He's sure this was one of the worst decisions he was ever gonna make.

Though...Richie did, in fact, tell him to pick whatever, but that was only after three hours of making lists when they were nearing sunrise. Richie had draped himself across Eddie, but on his back, so that his tailbone dug into Eddie's ass and they knocked their heads together whenever either one of them spoke, rattling off a list of all the stuff he'd thought of, which was actually good despite the fact that it was written on a Lisa Frank technicolor LSD-looking puppy notebook he stole from the Lunarcade. Then Eddie started falling asleep on his list and Richie went entirely lax as he started dozing off on top of Eddie, and so Eddie rolled them over and turned his lamp off, setting the list on the floor and letting Richie's steady snoring lull him to sleep.

"I wish I could room with Ben," Beverly sighed, adding the gray sheets to the cart too. "I need a set," she explained. "I wouldn't, though. We could just use one bed and the other could be for snacks. And...other stuff..."

Eddie gagged but nodded. "It's not like Ben's roommate is somebody you don't know, though. Plus, you're rooming with Audra, so you and Bill could just switch rooms. Not, like, actually, but you get it."

"I get it. So…" Eddie watched in the corner of his eye as Beverly watched him in the corner of her eye. "Are you excited?"

"Did Richie put you up to this?" Eddie joked, throwing the zebra sheets in the cart and then his own off-white set for his own bed. He knew Richie would not only hate the sheets Eddie picked out, but also love them so much he refused to let Eddie convince him they were ugly.

"No? Why? Is something going on?"

"No, but he freaks out sometimes about certain stuff and sometimes resolves it in dumbass ways." He walked next to Beverly as she pushed the cart into the next aisle. Eddie groaned as they entered the fabric aisle and Beverly got that look in her eye that Richie did sometimes, the crazed look that made Ben melt that Eddie refused to even sway for. He took control of the cart and pushed them right through.

"Hey!" Beverly moved into a jog to catch up to him, letting go of a pink fleece pattern she had pinched between her fingers.

"To answer your question, yes I'm excited. I'm worried, because Richie is gross and leaves his clothes all over my bedroom and snores like a fucking truck, but that's nothing I haven't already been dealing with for months." Eddie sighed miserably and covered his red face. "If I say something you have to swear never to mention it to anybody else. Like, ever."

"Cross my heart."

"I love Richie so much. He's dumb and a jackass and I want to be annoyed with him forever. Like, move to a house in the middle of nowhere and I could only be with him and it'd be totally fine and we wouldn't have to wear pants--"

"Uh," Beverly said. Well, not so much said. The noise sort of just tumbled out of her mouth as she elbowed Eddie in the arm. 

Eddie looked up, embarrassed at his own rambling. "Wha--"

He made eye contact with a man, who couldn't be younger than sixty, staring at them. His eyes trailed up and down Eddie's frame, disgusted look branded onto his features at his shorts and his shirts and his fucking face Eddie didn't know. his heart dropped to the shiny white Target floor tile. Fear pricked across every inch of his skin almost painfully, his whole body burning hot as he stood frozen in place. He felt like if he opened his mouth, his tongue would liquefy and pour out of his mouth, his teeth clattering to fossils on the floor. His body would fall apart in strips and all that would be left of him was that fear, left in a shadow of the heap that used to be him.

He swallowed. "Go," he tried, but no sound came out, just a raspy breath. He cleared his throat and tried again, "Go."

Beverly nodded and they pushed the cart out of that aisle, which had a bunch of cool shit they now couldn't look at, and Eddie almost collapsed as the guy followed them.

"Checkout," Beverly whispered, and they weaved through the store until they lost him. Not wanting to risk it, they continued and bought all of their stuff, only leaving with about half of their list.

Eddie sat in the passenger seat of Bev's car as she drove out of the Target parking lot. His hands shook as he buckled his seatbelt. Tears burned in his eyes.

"I was so careful." His throat ached when he spoke, tears ran down his face. "I was always so fucking careful. Richie is even more, because he'd--" he stopped. Beverly didn't know about that. Nobody did. "We're so careful, and I hate it, Bev."

"I know." She held his hand on the gear shift. "I'm sorry, Eddie."

"I can't wait to leave. It has to be better there than it is here." He wiped his tears. "It literally doesn't have another choice."

"Absolutely."

Beverly dropped him off at his house, knowing that Eddie didn't actually have anywhere to put their school shit in his room, where all of his and Richie's stuff was, or in the rest of his house, where his mom would most likely hide it or throw it away or hold it for ransom until he agreed to stay and not move at all. Some shit like that. Eddie rushed over through the door and up to his room, where Richie sat upside down on his bed, long legs against the wall and back on the mattress, reading one of the books Eddie tried to get him to read for years. He was on, like, the last page. Eddie knew for a fact he hadn't started it before he left. Why was he like this?

"Hey," Richie mumbled, turning the page. 

"Hey. Are you almost done?" Eddie asked, trying his hardest not to fucking burst into tears. He just wanted to be close to Richie right now, without any of that bullshit from before.

"One sec." His eyes scanned the last page and he threw the book on Eddie's desk, which missed by a mile because he was still upside down and knocked over his pencil cup, then sat up, pushing his hands out in front of him as he tried to balance himself while all the blood rushed from his head. "What's up?"

"I was talking to Bev about you--"

"Aw--"

"I was saying how I loved you and shit, and some guy was watching us in the store, like, watching me talking about you, like he could hear me, and then he, uh, he started following us, because there was no way I could've sounded straight in, when I was talking--" He struggled to speak. All of his anxiety stood as a roadblock thick in his throat. "We got out before he could follow our car, but it was, uh…"

"Shit, Eds, I'm sorry." He rolled them back as Eddie walked into his arms, situating it so Eddie was the little spoon.

"Wait, no," Eddie argued, sitting up. He pulled his shirt off his head and tugged at the hem of Richie's until he did the same, making this confused face that Eddie thought was cute but would never admit to finding cute because Richie's head was already big enough. He gently pushed Richie down and nudged him over until Eddie could curl around him, wedging his one leg under Richie and the other over his hip, arms under Richie's and hands flat on Richie's chest.

"You okay?" Richie's hands came to cover Eddie's own.

"Better now."

Eddie breathed in and out slowly, relishing in the deep longing in his chest at the feeling of their skin against each other, how he wanted to just lay there forever. Richie's everlasting summer sunburn was still there, but underneath he had actually gotten tanner, and Eddie was visibly 'golden', as Richie would put it before Eddie would try to smother him with a pillow. Eddie stared at the contrast before burying his face in Richie's shoulder. He wanted to liquefy this moment, to drink it in and have it surround every part of him until there was nothing left of his body that wasn't comprised of the both of them. The soft fabric of Richie's sweatpants grazed Eddie's bare calf. Eddie shuddered as tears fell again and he kissed Richie's back, the soft downy hair there that Eddie rubbed his face against. Richie shivered and his sharp shoulder blades poked out, and Eddie kissed there too. There was no part of Richie he didn't love, he thought, as Eddie inhaled the earthy comfort of him, his eyelashes fluttering against that one collection of birthmarks in the shape of a pentagon on Richie's shoulder.

Eddie didn't get it, he didn't understand, how any sort of love this strong that ran so deep through him that he could feel it in his bones, could be wrong.

How could this be wrong?

"When we're in California," Richie started, tangling his hands with Eddie's on his chest. "And everyone is gay in California, but even if they weren't, still. It's not like anybody knows us..."

"Yeah?" Eddie sniffed, wiping his eyes on Richie's shoulder as his hands were occupied.

Richie turned over to face him again, and Eddie protested at the change in position. "When we're in California, I swear to fuck I'm gonna kiss you in the middle of the street, any street, whenever I want. And nobody there is going to hurt us, or, or kill us. Nobody is going to even fucking care. And I'm gonna take you out on dates, and we're gonna fuck on the quad--"

Eddie barked out a laugh. "We're not gonna fuck on the quad."

"Sure we are!" Richie beamed at him. "Everyone does shit like that in Cali, baby, you just gotta trust me."

Heat rushed to Eddie's face. He refused to like how Richie calling him baby felt. He downright would not tolerate it. He also knew he wouldn't be able to handle it if 'baby' slipped into Richie's normal vocabulary. He would simply have to die. There would be no other way to keep on living. And so, he didn't comment.

"Shut the fuck up. And turn back over so I can be big spoon."

Richie smiled and kissed him. "Okay."

---

"You want us to help you what?" Stan asked, pushing his sunglasses further up on his nose. He dropped his arm and grazed the back of Mike's hand with his knuckles, and Eddie watched as Mike offered no comment, only a tight lipped smile he was trying to further contain.

"I said," Eddie repeated. "IwannadosomethingniceforRichie, and I need your help."

Stan looked at him again. "Yes. Because I totally heard it that time, y'know, with how you said it the exact same fucking way as last time."

Eddie groaned as Beverly, Ben, and Bill pulled up in Ben's car. He dragged his hands down his face.

"Tell me why you called an 911 emergency meeting on a Tuesday afternoon? Is one of us dead, or something?" Beverly called, getting out of the car and joining Mike and Stan in front of Eddie. She looked around. "Wait, where's Richie? Is one of us actually dead? Like, I'm kind of not kidding." She tried to laugh, but it didn't. work.

Eddie could screech. He just wanted to plan something for Richie, who was literally his favorite person and is always doing shit for him and just. He really. He had a lot of fucking feelings. And meanwhile his friends were apparently donating all of the group brain cells to Eddie, because he seemed to be the only one caring.

"Richie is fine. The reason I called you all here, is because I want. To plan--To do something. Nice for Richie. And now was the only time I could call it because I knew most of you didn't have work, and I didn't have work, and then Stan, who I thought was working, told me he was free, and I was like cool, perfect, the only person not here is Audra, and so I called a 911. Because Richie is at work and I want it to be a surprise. So, you're here. And Richie is alive."

"Cool, okay" Beverly replied. "I brought snacks." She ran back to the car and grabbed the bag of snacks from the backseat along with the blanket they kept that was big enough to fit all eight of them on it without squeezing. Well, it wasn't really a blanket. It was more of a quilt of different blankets, that Ben and Beverly had sewn together because they were tired of never having enough room if one of them forgot their own, separate blanket. 

Eddie sighed. This was supposed to be like a twenty minute brainstorm session, if he knew they were gonna hang out he would've gone to the clubhouse. His eyes caught a red bag. "Are those Bugles?"

---

Stan hummed as Beverly carded through his hair, curls turning golden with the sun. shifting back to brown as they tangled with the light. Bill laid out in the middle of the blanket as Ben and Mike sat huddled together in one corner of the blanket, talking about The Great Gatsby, which they decided to read after their English teacher failed to assign it to them after Mike had already read it for his homeschooling. Richie also read it, Eddie thought, which was probably why, even though he said it was for fun. He was such an asshole.

"We came here for a 911," Eddie blurted out, sitting up next to Bill. "I called us here. It was supposed to be urgent."

Beverly looked over from the several tiny braids she'd weaved into Stan's hair. "You're the one who got distracted, dude. Don't blame us."

Eddie made a noise as Bill sat up next to him. He smiled at Eddie and threw his arm around his shoulder, which in turn made Eddie lean against him. Bill always smelled like the pumpkin candles his mom had lit at all hours in their house and dryer sheets, and Eddie always enjoyed the calm feeling that overtook him whenever Bill was around. There was a reason Eddie had a crush on him in kindergarten, before moving on to grosser pastures. He felt Bill's cheek on his sun-warmed hair and sighed, content.

"Right," Eddie continued. "Richie."

"Him," Mike agreed, turning his attention back to Eddie. Ben did the same, offering that warm honey-handsome-Hanscom smile that Eddie could bask in forever. "What about him?"

"He's. Cool." Eddie mumbled. Beverly snorted and Stan grinned like Eddie was an idiot, which, fine, he had a point. "Okay, fine, I love him, and--"

"Woah!" Bill yelled, like Eddie said something obscene, laughing as Eddie pulled back and pushed him down. Stan's retching noises sounded fucking painful. "Love? Before marriage? I'm calling the poli--"

"Shut up! Anyway, we all, like...we all know, that Richie is...like, loving and caring and generally the best person ever, y'know, like whatever, shut up, but...he is. And he's cute, and I love him, and he keeps doing all this nice shit for me, and so I want to do something nice for him, but I thought it--"

"Just because Richie does nice shit for you--"

"--Doesn't mean I have to do nice shit for him, because love isn't a business transaction, I know," Eddie recited, quoting this one pamphlet they got from the guidance counselor's office about sex. They'd had a small freak out once about becoming their parents, and basically inhaled every help resource they could find, and that was one of the ones that, while they morphed it to fit them, stuck throughout the years.

"Making sure," Beverly replied, grinning at him with that smile he understood without her having to say anything else. It was their 'hey, our parents suck, I want to make sure our heads are in the right place' thing.

Eddie loved it as much as he hated it. All Eddie wanted was for him and his friends to be safe. Bev was safe, with her aunt, but there's only so much safety warranted when you were a bisexual Loser whose friends were mostly all guys, none of which were bad things on their own, but all of which caused rumors and even further isolation. Eddie couldn't wait to leave.

"I know," Eddie repeated, smiling back. "But yes, I want to do something nice for Richie, because I love him and he deserves it. And I thought it would be easier if you guys help me, because when we put all seven of our views of him together, you get one Richie. Not saying we all only get a portion of Richie--"

Stan interrupted, "Eddie."

"Right. But yes. When we started dating, I kind of thought he would be weird and have all these hang ups about different shit, but he's. He's really good at, like--"

"Eddie, I swear--"

"Oh, fuck off, Stan!" Eddie argued, incredulous at the nerve. "You got so drunk on Mike's birthday this year that you cried for half an hour about how nice and kind and sturdy Mike is and you described SEVERAL THINGS that I did NOT need to hear, so I will be continuing thank you very much." He looked over as Stan bit his tongue to prevent himself from strangling Eddie right there.

"I'm calling the police."

"Do it, you won't," Eddie interjected. "Are you guys gonna help me or not?"

"Lap dance," Beverly offered, yelping as Eddie (lightly) threw the half empty bag of Bugles at her face. Stan laughed until Beverly tugged sharply at one of his braids.

"Beverly!"

"I'd say you can use the farm for something but you're already on my property enough as is. Stargazing, or whatever."

Eddie paused. "Excuse me--"

Mike held his hand up before Eddie could go on. "Me and Stan chart and track the stars, it's different."

"It is not!"

Stan sat up. "How the fuck is it not different? We're learning. You and Richie should be grateful that we're bringing up the general IQ of Derry's gay population, because we all know you two sure aren't."

Eddie unclenched his jaw, which he'd been holding tight together to prevent from laughing. "Those braids make you look like a bug."

"Fuck off!" Stan didn't even try to undo them, just laid back down in Beverly's lap and let her continue.

"Focus!" Eddie called after he could catch his breath. "Richie is the. Okay, you can't tell him this. Like, he knows, but you can't tell him that I'm talking about it with you because I'll throw myself off the face of the planet, but I...Richie is the person I want to marry. Like, I want to be with him for the rest of my life."

"Why wouldn't we be able to tell him that?" Bill asked. "You told me that in the second grade."

"We don't talk about that. Plus, that wasn't, like, actual marriage. I just wanted his Etch A Sketch."

"I bet you did," Bill laughed, under his breath. Eddie shoved at him again.

"Get him a promise ring," Ben offered, lying down on the blanket. Mike shrugged and joined them, until they were all squished side by side. There was no reason for all six of them to be this squished together, Eddie knew that the blanket could fit eight of them across and then some, but it comforted him that his friends liked the same close proximity that he did.

"Where would I get a ring?" Eddie wondered aloud. He couldn't drive, his mom never let him learn, and he didn't even have a car if he could.

"One of us could take you," Stan cut into Eddie's inner, outer monologue. Stan, steel cold exterior with a soft as butter center. "If we don't have work."

"Yeah!" Beverly agreed, followed by the consenting noises of everyone else. "Aren't you worried that getting him a ring will make him explode, though? Like. He might die."

"Good. It'll make him feel how I feel all the time. That's what I want. 'S like the whole point"

Mike sat up and turned to Stan. "Do you want me to buy you stuff?"

Stan didn't even blink. "Your love language is quality time, so no. If you had anything to worry about, I'd tell you, and if I wanted anything else than what we already have, you'd know."

"Because you'd tell me."

"Of course."

Mike beamed as every single one of them made a total ass out of Stan, cooing as Beverly tickled his neck, Ben trying to make kissing noises until he laughed so hard he snorted, then choked on the noise. Eddie leaned over and pinched his reddening cheeks as he tried to roll out of his grip. Mike's laughter echoed for miles.

---

"I gotta get home," Eddie complained later, "before my mom accuses me of fucking worshiping Satan or doing drugs or whatever she worries about me leaving the house for. We can talk about days to get a ring later, yeah?"

The rest of them made different assenting noises, draped on top of each other with the blankets from Stan's car all covering them as a cool breeze swept in. Eddie's heart squeezed in his chest when he remembered these were the people he wanted to be around forever. Just. Sitting in their apartment, in comfortable clothing and even more comfortable mindsets, arguing over what to get for dinner and still consistently giving Stan shit whenever he displayed affection for Mike. Though, once they were out of this stupid fucking area, Stan might drop that habit. He'd just have to find out.

"'Kay, cool. Richie should be home in a bit, so I gotta go home so it looks like I've been there all day."

Beverly turned to him. "I thought Richie only worked 'til four on Tuesdays?"

Eddie rolled up the bag of Bugles he'd returned to eating and tossed them near the bag of other snacks. "He does, but he has to stop by his house first for clothes, and then he's coming to mine."

"Does Richie live at your house?" Mike asked, looking at Eddie upside down from the blanket. Eddie's mind cleared. Like. Total memory wipe.

"Huh?" His brain disconnected and went offline, fans inside whirring as it tried to reboot the fucking system. Distantly, sirens were going off in his ears.

"You told us at y'all's graduation that Richie's parents weren't coming," Mike explained. "We assumed there was a reason, but we didn't want to say anything, obviously, because then Richie was there, but...it's been, like...Richie has been weird about his parents since before school even ended, and we didn't ever want to ask because it's none of our business, but--"

"Yeah, is he okay?" Beverly talked over him, Mike nodding. Eddie would smile at Mike's rambling if it had literally been on any other topic.

"Uh, no, but I can't tell you why because, like Mike said, it's not any of our business."

"Okay." Mike nodded and turned away, but it was obvious he was still thinking about it.

Stan sat up, half of his hair braided and half of it loose, and looked at Eddie. "Do we need to...like...kill Richie's parents?" He'd taken his sunglasses off once the sun fell away from directly overhead, and so Eddie saw full force the anger that colored Stan's eyes.

Eddie swallowed. "Yes. But I can't tell you why."

Stan clenched his jaw and looked down to one side. "Okay."

Beverly's hands were shaking, as she hid them in the circle formed by her crossed legs, angry red marring the tips of her ears, the only other part of her face Eddie could see. Bill nodded slowly to himself, the quiet, pensive look he got when he had to think about certain things. Ben's whole face was a work of confusion, fear, and worry.

"He's okay. I would never let them hurt him if I could help it," Eddie consoled them. He checked his watch. "I'm gonna be late. If he asks, I was with Ben!" He dashed away and picked up his bike, swinging his leg over it and riding back home.

---

Richie climbed through the window as Eddie threw his shirt in the hamper, which had quarry dust on it along with sweat from where Eddie raced home. He knew, somewhere in his mind, that he didn't have to actually act like he was home the whole time, but he wanted to keep the surprise as hidden as he could.

"Hey," Richie sighed, taking his shoes off and setting them by Eddie's window.

"Hey. Everything go okay?" He pulled a plain white shirt from his dresser and put it on.

"No worse than normal, but my mom tried talking to me...which is cool 'cause usually she can't even look at me, but bad because my dad saw her and they got into a fucking screaming match. That's when I left."

"Are you okay with her talking to you?"

Richie stretched out on Eddie's bed, spine cracking as he twisted to get more comfortable. "Depends. If she can't, like, accept me, or whatever, for being gay, or for being with you, then I don't really--Like, if she's gonna ignore that part of me, then it's not the kind of thing I want. There's no point in loving only certain parts of me, so she can either full-love me, or not love me at all. I don't want to be half-loved. And I don't want to be half-loved while my dad still fucking full-hates me."

"I can assure you there are six people that definitely full-love you, Richie. Even if we're not your parents, and I know we can't, like, fill that void, but we still do love you." Eddie laid down next to him. "They asked about your parents today."

Richie looked down at Eddie from where he was higher up on the pillow. "What did you tell them?"

"That it was none of my business." He watched Richie's throat as he struggled to admit, "And, uh, at graduation, I told them your parents weren't coming, and-and I told them not to ask about it, but that's all I told them. I didn't want you to be more upset about them not being there, but I also shouldn't've told them without your permiss--"

"I'm not mad," Richie whispered, kissing Eddie's forehead. Eddie kissed the base of his throat where he could reach. "Thank you for looking out for me. I'm glad you're one of the people that full-love me."

Eddie leaned into his pillow. "Me too."

Richie brushed Eddie's hair back from his forehead. "I'll tell them about everything the next time I see them."

"Oh, you don't--"

"I want to. You guys are my support system, man, 'nd I don't wanna hide things from anyone. I just kinda forgot, y'know, with everything going on, that my family drama shit wasn't common Loser knowledge." He looked at Eddie with these fucking eyes that said so many words Eddie couldn't even understand. "Besides, the only reason I didn't tell them in the first place was because I thought if they knew I was gay then they'd tell you somehow, remember that? To tell them my dad beat the shit out of me, and then not be able to tell them the reason, kind of tells them the whole reason, doesn't it?"

"No, it really doesn't, but I understand. Trauma and shit."

"Exactly. If I wasn't still reeling from all of that, and wasn't so scared of you finding out about all my gay shit for you, they would've known before, but that problem isn't a thing now." He looked down at where their legs were tangled together, where Richie's Lunarcade purple polo fucking monstrosity stood against Eddie's white shirt. "Since everything, I'm not really afraid of anything anymore, like…" He groaned and covered his face with his hands. "You make me brave or whatever. Eddie, fuck...I love you a lot."

"Dude," Eddie breathed, with fucking way more feeling than he'd meant to. "I love you too."

He kissed Richie, who tasted like bubblegum and Sprite. Richie faltered, but quickly caught up from the initial shock, rolling so he near-crushed Eddie with his body weight, which. Eddie had to admit made his brain overload and his heart beat out an army march as his head floated up to the clouds, boosted by all the details of Richie he never got over.

Eddie pulled away to look at him, his long eyelashes framing his eyes, whose pupils were so big Eddie could almost see his own reflection. His lips were still somehow chapped even in summer, and his jaw was sharp against Eddie's thumb. His whole body dwarfed Eddie's and the thought of it, of everything that implied and concerned itself with, made Eddie go a little dizzy.

"You're so beautiful," Eddie told him, and he fucking meant it. If Richie had been a work of art instead of a human person, and someone had somehow managed to carve and chisel out the contours of him into marble, or sweep and blot him onto canvas, Eddie would sell his soul just to be able to look at that piece every day. But he wasn't a statue, or a painting, he was Richie, and he was Eddie's.

Richie laughed, and Eddie's heart ached with how much he loved him. "Shut the fuck up."

---

The next day Richie went and told them everything, and Eddie was there for moral support and also to make eye contact with the other Losers, trying to communicate just how much he hated Richie's fucking parents. Ben, Mike, and Beverly cried, and they both got trapped in a group hug for almost twenty minutes, until everyone pulled themselves together and until Stan was willing to let go of where he glued himself to Richie's front.

"If they ever fucking touch you, Richie," Stan whispered, low enough that the others would miss it, but loud enough that Eddie, who was hugging Richie tight from behind, could overhear. "I swear I'll kill them. I'm not kidding. If you ever need somewhere to go," he looked at Eddie too when he said this, "my door is always open. I love you both."

Richie sniffed and wiped his tears. "Thanks, Stan. We love you too."

"Love you, Stan."

Beverly used the edge of her flannel shirt to dab at her eyes so her mascara didn't run any more than she let it (for punk rock reasons). "Who's turn is it to pick the movie?"

Ben stood up from his and Beverly's overnight bag with his copy of Dirty Dancing clutched to his chest, as he ignored the tears welling up in his eyes. "Take a guess."

A resounding groan emitted from the six other people in the living room. They had nothing against Ben's movie choices, usually, but the amount of times they'd watched Dirty Dancing since 1989 couldn't be counted on all sixteen of their fucking hands.

"Oh, Benny," Richie sighed, not breaking apart from Eddie and waddling them across the room to the pullout couch, which they were all going to try and squeeze onto, even if they were expressly banned from doing so by Bill's parents after they broke their last one sophomore year. Richie already gave Bill permission to explain the situation to his parents, and they'd understand that this was necessary. It's simple what had to be done.

Eddie squeezed Richie around the middle as they stood at the edge of the mattress and kissed behind his ear. "You okay?"

Richie knocked their heads together and twisted to kiss Eddie's temple. "Never been better, my dear."

---

"Hey," Richie whispered, interrupting Eddie's thought process as he tried to use the computer at the library. He always did this when they were at the library, and so Eddie refused to look over at him in hopes he'd stop.

"Hey," Richie repeated, like Eddie hadn't heard him the first time.

"What?" Eddie replied, unfocused, scrolling through the library index. They had to start planning the trip to California, and Eddie was tasked with finding some of the maps. Eddie. Not Mike, who was going to fucking get a degree for this...he imagined. Eddie didn't actually know what library science was.

"I finished that thing," Richie told him, and slid his sheets of printer paper over on the table.

He'd been working on this 'secret thing' for about a week and a half, and Eddie only hoped it wasn't some grand surprise that would totally outshine Eddie's thing, 'cause he already bought the rings yesterday with Stan and Ben and he wasn't returning them. Not that he would, or wanted to, but he did want it to be, like, a memorable moment, without it being overtaken by whatever cute ass thing Richie did now. Regardless, this secret thing was apparently these several sheets of paper, which Eddie knew he kept at the bottom of his half of their pants drawer when he wasn't working on them.

Eddie tore his eyes away from the list of atlases, shocked to find...schedules. Like, actual schedules, for cleaning and laundry and budgeting for the first three months of the school year. He had a predicted amount of quarters he would have by the time they went off to school so they could go to the laundromat, and a packing schedule that not only included Eddie's list, but an entire page of other stuff Eddie hadn't gotten around to thinking about. He also revised the Loser school shopping list, removing all the items they already had and shortening it, adding other things they could consider if they had extra money.

"Did you do this by yourself?" Eddie asked, running his fingers over the pages. Aside from the carefully dictated lists there were also doodles of the Losers in the corners, with beginning sketches of the outline for the dream house Ben had been planning for them since junior year. Eddie could recognize it anywhere.

"Everyone else pitched in, 'cause they have all the school stuff, but the rest was all me, baby. I thought you would like it, and I need to get my shit together before we go off to college so you don't make me sleep in the hallway."

Eddie looked down at the list, and then at Richie. Richie's eyes shifted as he tried to focus on both of Eddie's eyes at once. "Richie...this is gonna sound really fucking self-aggrandizing…"

"No different than usual, then."

"Eat shit, but no. Really. Did you do this...because you think I want you to do this? Like, it's nice and thoughtful and shit, but you don't have to do all this for me…" He stared at the little bubble person drawn on the corner of one page in a bikini. "Is that me?"

Richie ignored the last question. "I thought this is just what you would expect," he explained. "I know I suck at, like, cleaning and everything, but I want Cali to be a fresh start. Our life could literally only get better once we leave, but I don't want to be one of the reasons it doesn't get even better than that . I don't wanna be the reason--" He stopped and clenched his jaw. "Yeah."

Eddie bit his lips together so he wouldn't scream. "Fuck you," he rushed out, then bit his lips again.

Richie dropped to such a low volume it felt like Eddie couldn't actually hear him, that his voice just carried with draft of the central air conditioning and the comprehension deposited itself into his brain without process. "If I'm gonna be your husband one day, I need to get my shit together. This is me doing that. So, yeah, it's for you, but it's for me too."

Eddie stood up and left the computer, abandoning the other unhelpful books he'd been collecting and the papers. "Come with me to get more maps, you can reach higher."

Richie nodded, content with the fact that the topic had been dropped. "Sure."

Eddie didn't make eye contact as he kept a steady pace ahead of Richie, marching past where he would actually need to go if he hadn't lied through his teeth, past the children's section into mystery right through to the memoirs, where nobody went since they stopped keeping the biography of Vanna White after two moms got into a brawl over it.

He stopped in the dimly lit, well secluded area of the library, turning to face him for the first time since he stood up. Richie seemed to catch on finally, approaching Eddie until they met, and then walking Eddie backwards into the back of the hallway-like area the bookshelves created. Eddie groaned as his back hit the shelves and Richie put his hands on Eddie's hips. He dug his thumbs into Eddie's skin and laughed when Eddie hissed at the pressure, which turned into a stuttering breath he couldn't keep down. This asshole .

"You wanting to be a better person, for me , kind of drives me nuts, by the way," Eddie informed him, as Richie put his hands on the sides of Eddie's neck and used the leverage to press the heel of his thumb into Eddie's jaw and tip his head back. Eddie huffed and grabbed the hair at the back of Richie's neck, relishing in the stunted groan Richie let out.

"I'm always gonna try and be better for you, dumbfuck. You just get all hot when I call you baby." He smiled, like, way sweeter than his words or actions were implying. Eddie was supposed to be the one in control here, dammit .

"That's only, like, half of it."

"Sure, baby." He kissed Eddie then, and Eddie kind of didn't even kiss back because his mouth hung open, half in shock from his audacity and half just so hot for Richie in this library stack right now. He moaned as Richie pressed a kiss to his neck, to the side of his throat, where he fucking knew Eddie was sensitive, and then slapped a hand over his mouth.

Richie pulled away a bit, baring his teeth against Eddie's skin. His breath tickled Eddie's neck down to the core of his soul as he dropped a kiss on Eddie's shoulder. "You good?"

Eddie scrambled at the thoughts as they left his mind, Richie, Richie, Richie taking up his whole body. "Yeah," he managed. "Yeah, good. Just. Yeah, 'M great."

Richie laughed and pressed Eddie further into the shelves, owning whatever he was doing right now, and Eddie fucking loved it. He was drunk on it, as his hands took purchase on Richie's belt, for somewhere to put them, using it to pull him close to him and grind their hips together. Eddie whined against Richie's mouth. Richie just smiled like a fucking dick .

"Great."

---

Eddie tried to settle the tell-tale beating of his heart hard against his ribcage as Richie dozed off on his stomach. He wasn't sleeping yet, but he was getting there, and his head's weight on top of him brought a sense of serenity to Eddie he couldn't place. Richie's lips were pressed near Eddie's navel, his breath warming him, causing goosebumps to break out across the rest of his skin.

"You awake?" Eddie asked, combing through Richie's hair.

"Mmm."

"Do you wanna go to the drive-in later tonight? Like, you'd have to drive, but they're playing Jurassic Park this week--"

"W'already saw that." He rubbed his nose against Eddie's skin and kissed him there. "Twice."

"I know , dipshit, but remember how, when we went, you told me you thought it would be kinda boring because it couldn't live up to the book so we could just make out the whole time, but we ended up liking it so much we never got to?"

"Yuh."

Eddie sighed as Richie's sleep-muddled brain didn't catch on. "I'm saying we can park near the back to watch the movie and then make out, but then still watch the movie if we want. Plus, everyone makes out at the drive-in, and I want at least one normal high school dumbass experience, that I never got because I love you and not fucking, like, Beverly, or something--A guy. Because I love a guy, basically. I want to do that."

Richie bit his hip bone and Eddie jerked and kneed him in the head. "We c'n do that. Sounds fun."

"Wanna go later tonight?"

"Yeah." He yawned against Eddie's skin. "'M gonna sleep now."

Eddie scratched lightly at Richie's scalp. "Okay."

Richie made a noise and then went out like a light, arms wrapping tighter in the weird knot he wound around Eddie's torso.

Eddie smiled as he thought of his bookbag, already packed for this exact date in the corner, the ring in a box at the bottom of it. He was so fucking excited .

---

As Richie drove the half hour out of town to the drive-in, Eddie started to worry that this may be the worst idea on the planet. His hands laid in tightly clenched fists in his lap as they drove, because every time he looked at the palms of his hands and saw how fucking sweaty they were, another wave of anxiety washed over him. Any more and he would probably pull a Richie and vomit out of the window, which was not an option. One of the sole reasons they're going to the drive-in is to make out, he couldn't just throw up everywhere. Absolutely not.

A million thoughts ran through his head as Richie near-bashed his head against the steering wheel when the drums started in Bohemian Rhapsody, which he turned up to max the second it came on the radio. What if Richie didn't like the ring? What if he looked at it and decided oh, shit, this wasn't actually what he wanted. Eddie wasn't actually what he wanted.

Eddie was a fucking mess. He had a bunch of issues he still had to deal with because of his mom, some he might not even know he had because they were just lying under the big ones he was still picking apart, and for years he made Richie deal with all of his neurotic bullshit just. Just because . He just put all of this shit on him without ever. Asking if that was okay. He made Richie help change his sheets once every single week no matter what and took two showers a day and he washed his hands for three minutes at a time and sometimes watched Richie while he slept just because he couldn't actually believe they were together, and he was making Richie be okay with Eddie never coming out to his mom even if he said he understood but Eddie was just so fucking manipulative--

"You okay?" Richie asked, looking over at him as he turned the radio down. "You sound like a fucking printer." He proceeded to make several heavy inhaling sounds that, fine, did sound like a printer, but not like Eddie. Absolutely no way.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Focus on the fucking road, asshole."

Richie laughed and put one of his hands in the air, knowing Eddie would end him if he took both hands off the wheel, and kept driving. Eddie took a deep breath.

What was he thinking? It was Richie . Richie, who when Eddie told him he loved him didn't make fun of him or laugh or hurt him, but loved him back and did nothing but support him since then, even before then. They'd already talked about this, a million times, and Richie almost constantly referred to himself as Eddie's future husband when they were alone, even if Eddie yelled at him to stop because it made his heart do cartwheels in his chest and then tried to strangle him. They were young, but they'd face bigger things way before this, and gotten over them. Eddie would get over this. This stupid fucking fear. He'd killed a fucking demon, this was nothing in comparison. He nudged his bag, which was tucked under the glove compartment in Richie's car, with his foot and smiled to himself as he made contact with the hard corner of the ring box.

Yeah. He could do this.

---

"When we're rich in Cali, can we get a Jeep like that and paint them? Then ride it around everywhere?" Richie asked, tangling his hand with Eddie's, who had wiped his palms with alcohol wipes he kept in his bag to prevent them from hosting their own fucking aquatic ecosystem in his sweat.

"Absolutely not," Eddie whispers, moving in close next to Richie and leaning his head on his shoulder. Richie's shitty '77 Ford might not have been the nicest, most modern car, but Eddie had to admit he was glad there was no center console to prevent them from getting close to each other like this, because then Eddie would have to admit that he was not above climbing over said center console and just. Sitting in Richie's lap.

At this point Eddie expected to have given Richie the ring, but then the intro scene started playing and they both went wide eyed and they barely said a word to each other since until Richie brought up these bad financial choices.

"We were supposed to be making out by now," Eddie reminded him, watching as the tour cars halted to a stop. His pace picked up involuntarily. After this was all over, him and Richie were getting married to this movie.

"Holy shit, it's even better the third time." Richie turned to Eddie now. "Yeah, right. You wanna?"

Eddie smiled and kissed Richie once before reaching and pulling his bag onto his lap. "Hold on."

Richie's eyes widened. "I thought we were only making out! What are you looking for?" Richie tried to peer into the bag, but Eddie moved and obscured his view as he pushed past the bags of contraband snacks they snuck in. "Are you gonna kill me or something? Do you have a fucking gun? "

"No, dipshit, I don't have a fucking gun!" Eddie felt the sturdy cardboard of the ring box and pulled it out. He thought it would be velvet, but he realized he didn't actually want to give Richie a ring in a velvet box until it was the ring. The one that Richie would wear forever. This was his ring until they were ready to get the ring, but it was still special all on its own. A promise that a promise was going to come, one day. Eddie squeezed the box in his hand and turned back to Richie, setting his bag back on the floor of the car so he could put distance between them.

"What is this?" Richie asked, glancing down to the tight clasp of Eddie's hands as he hid the ring box from him.

"You have to promise not to freak out."

Richie didn't even look him in the eye, just stared at the knot of Eddie's hands. "No."

"Fine, but you can't scream or anything, because then people will come over looking for us, and it will be suspicious."

"...Fine."

Eddie took a deep breath, in through the nose, and out through the mouth. "Okay, so, I met with everyone a couple weeks ago--"

"Without me?" Richie put a hand against his chest and leaned back dramatically. "I'm kidding."

"Didn't you say you wanted to be a comedian? This is now how you do that." Eddie scooched back further away so he could see more of Richie. "Being literally the least funny person on earth is not how you do that."

"Okay, but you holding that weird fucking thing in your hands without telling me what it is is bugging me the fuck out and messing up my mojo. Show me what it is."

"Be patient , god ." He rolled his eyes and swiped his hands away from where Richie tried to pry them open, putting the hand with the box in it behind his back and pushing Richie's face away until he stopped resisting. Eddie covered the ring box with both hands took a deep breath again. "So--"

"So."

"Shut it. So ." He unclasped his hands so Richie could see, but he didn't open it. "Met with the Losers couple weeks ago, yeah, I told you that, and I talked to them about, like, how you're always doing all this nice shit for me, and how I wanted to do something nice for you--"

"Love isn't a business transaction," Richie interrupted. Eddie stared at him.

"Fuck off." He took one hand off of the box to pull Richie in by the neck and kissed him hard. "I wanted to do something nice for you because you're my fucking boyfriend, and all of the nice shit you do for me just reminds me of how much I love you, and I wanted to give you something so that you never forget that."

Richie raised his eyebrows and did this weird frowning thing with his face, which was his attempt at being suggestive, and said, "Wanted to give me somethin', eh?"

Eddie blinked. He could either argue about this until the movies were over about how Richie's dumbass constantly ruined his romantic moments, while also making them that much more genuine, or he could just. Not say shit. He took the road less traveled.

"Yeah," he agreed. "I want to be with you forever, and in ten years I might be a different person than the one sitting here watching Jurassic Park with you for the third time because we have a dinosaur fetish, apparently, and you might be different and develop the ability to make actually good jokes, but. Whoever you want to be, or whoever you end up becoming, before you even know you want to be that person, I want to be the person that's there for you.

"We're going to college in like a month, dude, and I. I'm fucking. Everything is going to change, and I'm fucking--I'm scared, Richie. Actually, the only part I'm not scared about is being able to love you without getting hurt, which is the scariest part of living here-- "

"Eds?"

"Yeah? What?"

"You're rambling." He kissed the space between Eddie's eyebrows. "Like I know I have no room to talk, but you seemed pretty determined to give me whatever is in that fucking box, so I wanna make sure you're not, like, spiraling."

"Oh I'm fucking spiraling, but fine." He sighed. "My point was, I've loved you since I was probably, like, five or six, which is more than a third of my entire life." He tangled Richie's hand with his free one. "I've loved you longer than I haven't, and college is coming and we're going to change and our lives are going to be so crazy and everything, but I just want you to know that no matter what happens, I'm always gonna love you."

"Even if I get addicted to partying and acid?"

"I'll just do the acid with you that way we're in it together."

"Dude . Your mom would be so pissed at you right now," he breathed, in awe, eyes all wide like an idiot. Eddie could watch the movie through his pupils.

"Thank you. My point was, by the way, that someday, whenever that it is, I'm gonna fucking marry you, and that even if that day never comes." He wiped tears that had formed in his eyes. How could this be fucking wrong? "If the day never comes that I can say, by law, that I am married to you, I'll be married to you. In my heart and soul, or whatever, and that I'll be there with you no matter what. Sickness and health, and all that"

"Yeah." Richie had his goofy fucking smile that made Eddie feel fucking interstellar. "All that."

Eddie opened the box and showed him the ring, and Richie audibly gasped. Like, he sucked all the air out of the truck and pushed all his Sour Patch Kids tainted carbon dioxide into the fucking vehicle. Eddie was going to suffocate if he didn't crack a window. He pulled out a cord necklace Eddie put in the bag, all wound up, raising an eyebrow at him.

"You lose things," Eddie explained as Richie nodded and reverently took the ring out and put it on his finger.

The ring wasn't gold or silver, but black, so that Richie could still wear it no matter where he went without asking about a wife, without the assumption he was already married. Eddie remembered what Richie said about kissing him in the middle of the street in California, about that promise he made, but he didn't want to make Richie endanger himself by correcting people about who his ring was for. He didn't want Richie to have to lie about who that ring was for.

The ring slid onto his finger with ease and Eddie smiled so hard his cheeks hurt.

"How did you know this would fit?" Richie looked at the ring with his arm outstretched like women did in all of the romantic comedies they watched at Bill's, or when they used to sit in Richie's room and watch piles of movies they rented from Blockbuster.

"Measured your finger while you were sleeping," Eddie admitted. What was he gonna do, lie? To the love of his life? At a special time like this? Eddie couldn't bring himself to do so.

Richie wiped his eyes. "Fuckin' creep." He kissed the ring and then Eddie. "Why black?"

Eddie allowed himself a lie this time. "Less formal than an engagement ring."

He hummed and inspected the ring again, making a fist with his hands and looking at it from a different angle. "This looks punk rock as fuck!" He shouted, bouncing in his seat so vigorously the car shook.

"Fuck yeah it does! I wasn't gonna pick some fucking nerd ring, obviously."

"Obviously." He stared at the ring on his finger. "But after we're done watching Jurassic Park for the third time, do you want to, like, maybe figure out a date to watch it a fourth time? Or is three enough? Or--"

"Fuck off ."

Richie smiled. "Make me."

Eddie tackled Richie into his door, which eventually turned into them making out laying across the seats in his truck as the movie rolled on, forgotten on the big screen in front of them. Eddie felt the cool metal of the ring on the back of his neck as Richie pulled him closer, moving Eddie around where he wanted. Eddie could die .

"Oh, hey," Richie panted. His flannel shirt had been pushed back by Eddie to reveal his plain white tank top and the breadth of his shoulders, which Eddie had been trying to get his hands on for the last five minutes but Richie refused to cooperate. "I love you too."

Eddie laughed as a velociraptor soared across the screen, a shadow reflecting off of Richie's glasses. "You're an idiot."

"But I'm your idiot, and you put a ring on me to prove it. Legally, you can't get rid of me now."

"Shit. Give it back then."

"Too fucking late." He said, and then pulled Eddie back down to kiss him.

---

Eddie leaned against the back of Bill's hatchback, next to Beverly, watching as everybody else helped load Eddie and Richie's compact collection of shit into the covered bed of his truck. They'd worked it out, actually spent two hours drawing diagrams of boxes and what would go in each box and the dimensions of everything and how they could fit it inside Richie's truck without having to take the cover off, because Eddie didn't want their stuff fucking stolen, and Richie didn't want to drive three thousand miles only to figure out every single one of his shirts were lying somewhere on Route 1. Overall, it took them about three days to catch up on the sleep they lost, which Eddie was perfectly comfortable with because it meant he didn't have to do anything except nap and get mad when Richie moved from their perfectly comfortable sleeping position.

"Do you guys plan on helping, or…?" Ben called, pushing a box labeled 'SEX SHIT' into the truck, which was. just. their underwear and sleep clothes. Because letting Richie label the boxes was a mistake.

"I packed all of it!" Eddie argued. "We made a bet, if I packed all of it I wouldn't have to help pack it into the truck."

Richie laughed as he put 'MY MONSTER COCK' into the truck. "That is not what happened, you fucking liar! You said you weren't helping pack the truck because you packed all of our shit, but when I asked you if you wanted help with packing, you said no, and then made me take a shower so you could pack without me."

"...That sounds like a bet to me."

Richie rolled his eyes. "Sure, counselor. And you, Ms. Ringwald?"

Beverly smiled in that sweet way only she could that let her get away with everything. "I just don't want to do shit."

Eddie ignored his mother watching him through the kitchen window, even though every time he looked over she was fucking staring at him without blinking like a fucking creep. He'd insisted on her staying inside, more for her own safety than for his pride, because Beverly could and would tear her to pieces. If nobody got to her first to do it themselves. Beverly glanced in his direction, and then offered him a sympathetic smile.

"Sweet," Ben nodded at her as Eddie and Bev turned away from everyone packing, jogging back inside the house to grab another one of their boxes. "Cause we need to be later than we already are!" He called over to them, but it was all joking. Being late was so habitual for them that it was built into the schedule already.

Actually, everyone had come to pick them up forty minutes ago, but Eddie woke up at seven and Richie at eight, who then insisted they went back to sleep because they'd be driving all day, and then they overslept, and missed the call from Bill saying they were on their way. Because they hadn't heard the call, they assumed everyone else was running late and so they could make out in Eddie's bed for, like, twenty minutes, but, as Bill demonstrated so wonderfully, by screeching at the sight of them when he busted into Eddie's room unannounced, they were, in fact, on time. So Richie made them go get Ben and Beverly, and then come back and get them. So they could make out for fifteen more minutes, and then get dressed. Bill was not amused, and Eddie couldn't care less.

"Uhh, Richie?" Mike asked, holding up the box labeled 'EDDIE'S WEENIE SHIT', questioning.

"Oh, it's just clothes, but he yelled at me for the other names and I got mad."

Stan stared at him. "I'm so lucky Eddie is the one who got stuck with you."

Richie winked at him and clicked his teeth. "In another life, Stanley, in another life."

"But not this one," Mike interrupted, going back inside the house and kissing Stan on the forehead. Stan struggled to conceal his grin as he turned on his heel and followed Mike back up the stairs.

Richie laughed and went with them, going in as Ben and Bill came back out. Eddie groaned at the 'STREET FUCKER' box of their shoes and 'CLOTHES' which...was where they kept their condoms and shit. Among other shit like pillowcases, but the whole point of that part was so that they could hide their fucking lube, etcetera . Eddie wondered how long it would take for someone to find that out, if they did at all.

"Do you think if I paid Stan money he would take that back and trade boyfriends with me?"

Bev reached in her pocket and pulled out two cubes of Bubblicious, handing one to Eddie. "Not in a million years."

"Shit." Eddie sighed, but then felt guilty, chewing his technicolor gum slowly. "It's not like I don't love Richie."

"I know," Beverly replied instantly, like she knew what he was thinking already. "Trust me I fucking know."

"I just don't want anyone to think I don't like him."

"Oh trust me, I know you like him." She crumpled up the gum wrappers and shoved them in her shorts pocket. "You went on and on last week about how much you love Richie and how he's so handsome and how even though you're fucking morons it was just your thing 'cause he's your soulmate --"

"Shut! Up!" Eddie shoved at her while she laughed, his face blazing as she swatted back at him, her sweaty palm pressing against his face as she tried to bat him away. He bit her finger and yelled as she pulled back but didn't let up. "We had a deal! What I say to you while high is not admissible in Loser court! Anything that comes out of my mouth when intoxicated in any way is off the record !"

Richie came up to them then, shit-eating grin on his fucking stupid face meaning he just heard everything they said, and Eddie wanted to die . "You ready to go?"

Eddie huffed. "I think I'm gonna go with Bill and Audra, because fuck you, and me and Beverly are no longer friends."

Richie smiled, getting close enough to kiss him but not actually being able to do it. Not yet. Three days. Three fucking days. "Okay."

Eddie looked down at the ring on his finger, which Richie only took off to sleep and to shower, and then back up to the necklace we wore all the time. "Get in the fucking truck asshole."

"Whatever you say." Richie bowed like a court jester and walked back to the truck, grinning at him as the gruff noise of the engine starting sounded in Eddie's ears. There's no way that shit was healthy for the atmosphere. No fucking way.

"We'll talk about this later, Marsh," Eddie warned, separating from her and joining Richie in the truck. The second he buckled, Richie grabbed his hand and kissed it quickly, enough so nobody would notice, but kindly enough so that Eddie would know what he meant. Bill started his car and drove down towards Audra's house, and Beverly, Bev, Stan, and Mike got in Stan's car and pulled out of Eddie's driveway.

"I hope you know," Richie told him as he pulled out to follow Stan. "The second we get out of town limits, I'm kissing the shit out of you." Eddie smiled at him before Richie added, "And maybe road head."

"Shut the fuck up! "

Richie laughed so hard he almost hit a mailbox, and kept fucking chortling all the way to Audra's house, who had put her stuff in Bill's car earlier but wanted to say goodbye to her parents, and they were off. Past the park, past the Lunarcade and Louie's, past city limits, and the amusement park Stan worked at, the one he would be returning to next summer, but they didn't have to think about it now. They drove until Eddie didn't recognize where they were anymore, and once the world in front of him became unfamiliar, a sense of overwhelming comfort settled in his chest.

He wasn't in Derry anymore. And he would never have to go back there unless he wanted to.

The world, at that moment, was infinite, and the glass walls of their town laid shattered on the road behind them.

---

"Psst," Ben whispered, nudging Eddie awake with his shoulder. "We're at the motel, dude."

Eddie groaned and sat up, pressing his head against the cool window of Beverly's car. They'd been making periodic rest stops as they drove, signalling to each other with walkie talkies they bought specifically for this reason, but they only switched cars once, somewhere in New York. The only issue with this is that anyone could drive Stan's or Bill's cars, but nobody was willing to steer the death trap that was Richie's truck, so he was stuck there. Stan was with him now, which Eddie knew would leave Richie feeling all bright and sunshine-y in the way that was just. So telling of how much Richie loved all of them that it made Eddie want to cry.

"Where are we?" Eddie asked, flinching when his neck cracked as he sat up and leaning against Ben. "Your shoulder is so much more comfortable than Richie's."

"I'm a softer guy," Ben explained, shrugging.

"I know." Eddie sighed. "Love you."

Eddie snuggled into Ben's shoulder, loving the warm vanilla smell of his clothes and the rough fabric of his flannel shirt. His hair tickled at Eddie's forehead, and Eddie kissed what small part of Ben's head he could reach. Ben was always so nice , and sweet, and knew how to make a dick out of you in a way that made you, somehow, feel better about yourself. Eddie loved Ben.

"Love you, too. We're in Ohio."

"...Gross. Whose room am I in?"

"Oh, we got two rooms, we have to decide who goes where."

"Sleepover." Eddie blinked slowly as he tried to swim through his thoughts and stay awake, but Ben was so warm and it was dark and he was already sitting down, he didn't want to get up.

Ben shrugged his shoulders to get Eddie off of him, because he was already falling asleep again. "Yeah, but first you gotta get out of the car."

Mike and Bill had already gotten out and were unlocking one of the motel doors, while Beverly, Audra, Richie, and Stan were unlocking the other one. Richie had their overnight bag with him, which had all the clothes and shit they needed for the trip there, so they wouldn't have to open any boxes, as he jumped up and down waiting for Stan to get the keys in the lock.

"Mmm, fine."

Eddie all but fell out of the car with Ben following, helping him steady himself. Eddie hated falling asleep on car trips, he always felt disoriented in waking up somewhere different and having to not only get used to your surroundings, but actually deal with the waking up itself. Ben walked him up to the hotel room Beverly and Richie were in, because neither of them were subtle in their clingy-ness, and guided Eddie to the bed, letting him go gently. Ben was honestly the sweetest person alive.

"He's fatigued," Ben told them, going over to Beverly and kissing her head.

"I'm fuckin' exhausted is what I am," Eddie corrected, as Audra laughed and inspected the hotel bed for bedbugs. If Eddie was straight, him and Audra would have it on lock. She let the mattress go and deemed it satisfactory, then left the room, to presumably go get Bill.

"You're exhausted?" Richie questioned, collapsing next to him on the bed so hard Eddie bounced. "I just drove thirteen hours, dude, fuck off." He draped his tree twig limbs over Eddie's body.

Beverly went up to Ben and whispered something in Ben's ear, smiling at Eddie as Ben's cheeks dusted pink and he nodded as he listened. They laughed together before he took her by the hand and left the room. Eddie watched them leave as Bev closed the door, confused until he saw Richie's little smug grin.

"Why'd they leave?" Eddie sat up and looked at Richie, who didn't answer. "Richie?"

Richie wrapped his body around Eddie and bit the inside of his own cheek. "Asked them to. This is the last night we'll get to be alone, without college, for a long ass time. I want that to be special, or whatever."

"Or whatever," Eddie mocked, smiling. He turned and kissed Richie, straining his neck but it was worth it. "Got any plans for this last night?"

"I got one, but it's super cheesy, and then we can watch movies and have the Loser sleepover if you want, and I brought two extra sets of sheets in our bag, because I knew you wouldn't want to sleep on hotel sheets. Or, motel sheets, whichever."

Eddie turned and kissed Richie, facing him fully now, twisting in his arms to face him. Richie hummed and let Eddie push him back onto the bed, swinging his leg over his hips. Richie laughed against his lips.

"Do you have something planned, Spaghetti?" His fingertips rested just under the hem of Eddie's shorts, which, okay.

Eddie stared down at Richie for a moment, trying to decide if he wanted to be honest and say no, so he could get to Richie's plan, or if he wanted to say that, yeah, having sex in a frankly disgusting motel bed was totally his plan, which Richie would never believe, but might acquiese to. They hadn't actually had sex yet. They'd done other stuff, and talked about having sex literally all the fucking time because they were young and in love and so fucking repressed for so many years that they jumped at the chance to have someone else to tell all of the shit they'd been feeling for years.

The fact that they haven't had sex yet is, frankly, impressive. At least to Eddie. Like, Eddie would love to make it romantic or plan it or whatever, but he could only witness Richie sweating and panting with the sounds that come out of his mouth that he tried to muffle so Sonia wouldn't hear, only to have to cover Eddie's mouth because Richie drove him so fucking crazy he felt like he couldn't breathe, before he went feral. Sometimes he wanted Richie so badly he couldn't speak, and then had to force himself to think about how, if he hadn't confessed to him at prom, he might be sitting, feeling that alone, and he cooled down.

"...We could do that. If you wanted." Eddie told him, noticing how Richie tensed around him. "If you wanted."

"...Eddie, I want, but you said it would take like days for you to be ready for that."

Eddie scratched at the back of his head. "That was days ago."

So, yes, Eddie had that plan in mind, and had prepared for it while Richie was working these last couple days and one night when he was asleep because he really wanted this to happen either on the way there on one of the nights, or their first night in their dorm. He could have both nights, he realized, because the idea of being dumbasses in a motel room with all of his best friends kind of sounded right up Eddie's fucking alley, but right now all he could think was Richie, Richie, Richie.

"You there?" Eddie asked, heart beating faster and faster until it harmonized with the humming of the air conditioning unit in their room.

"You just told me literally so much information." Richie untangled himself from around Eddie, who protested, and kicked his shoes off and onto the floor. He crawled up to the head of the bed and sat against the headboard. "Come here."

"I said one sentence…" Eddie trailed off, smiling as he turned around and jumped onto Richie, who groaned as Eddie's elbow accidentally jabbed him in the side.

Richie sank down the bed with Eddie on top of him, and Eddie dug his nose into Richie's shoulder as they both settled into the position. Richie smelled like fresh air and warmth, and his shirt was the kind of fabric that wasn't soft, but wasn't rough either. He linked his hands together behind Eddie's back, shifting his hips to get more comfortable, and that's when Eddie remembered the conversation they were fucking having right now.

"Yeah, but that has, like, fifteen implications, and I can't handle that many thoughts at once," Richie explained, playing with the hem of Eddie's shirt for something to do with his hands, which usually made Eddie calm, but now just made him that much more excited.

"You're a dumbass," Eddie laughed, shifting upwards to kiss Richie, who smiled and cradled the back of Eddie's head, keeping them together as he rolled them over, only breaking apart when Eddie was on his back, hovering over him so he could look him in the eyes. Eddie swallowed, felt like he was floating adrift at sea, in space, with nothing around him, not even the air he breathed, except for Richie.

Eddie raised his eyebrows at Richie staring. "Gonna take a picture or am I just gonna wait here until your eyes dry up and fall out of your head?"

"Shut up," Richie muttered, ducking down to kiss Eddie again.

Eddie smiled as Richie kissed him, pressing lightly into Richie's back to sneak under his shirt, revelling in the warmth of him. Richie hummed as Eddie grazed his fingertips over the thin skin over Richie's ribs, as he laid his palms flat and slid them up, over his sides and up against his shoulder blades. Richie sighed against his mouth as he shuddered and goosebumps broke out all over him. Eddie smoothed his hands over them, and pressed into Richie's pressure point, laughing when Richie's body tried to curl both down and into the feeling.

"You fucker," Richie hissed, laughing and dropping his head down, biting Eddie lightly on the jaw. "Fuckin' hate you."

"Well, I love you," Eddie whispered, pulling Richie by the hair to get him to face him. Richie smiled down at him, so fucking happy and bright and Eddie felt like sun had cracked open and poured itself into his chest cavity. His cheeks ached with it. "I mean that, Richie, I love you."

Richie laid down and put his whole weight on Eddie, which he knew drove Eddie crazy. Richie, it seemed, got taller and broader by the day, and every time he proved it, proved that he knew Eddie liked being smaller than him, being held by him, Eddie could barely handle the thought of it. And they were still teenagers. When they got older, and things slowed down and Eddie was able to. Actually pin down a consistent shape of Richie's body, because he'd have stopped growing by then, hopefully, Eddie knew it was going to drive him crazy. Meanwhile, Eddie knew he was done growing, that at some point if he was ever to get past the whole five feet two inches of him, it would have happened by now, and so he could happily spend the rest of his life burrowing into the larger frame of Richie, which he readily planned to do, but for now, god, this was enough. This was more than enough.

"I love you too, Eds," Richie said, kissing him before sitting up. Eddie set his legs on either side of Richie's waist, panting as Richie took his shirt off and went back down to rest his entire body on Eddie as he held his waist in his hands.

"Is this happening?" Eddie looked up at Richie, whose glasses were lopsided. The sun that had pooled in his chest spilled out and all over him, overwhelming him so much it almost brought tears to his eyes.

He wanted to do this with Richie forever, not just whatever they were actually doing at that very moment, but being with him, taking huge adventures with him and the rest of their friends. He wanted to feel Richie's hand in his, on his skin, over his shoulders, down every inch of him. He wanted Richie for the rest of his life. Distractedly, he thought about really wanting to smell Richie's hair, and knowing that if he said it, Richie would just let him without calling him on it, just made him feel more.

Richie smiled at him, not entirely showing itself. His hands were clammy on Eddie's hips as Eddie leaned into the contact. "Do you want to?"

Eddie nodded until he thought his head would fall clean off his spine. "Yeah. Do you?"

"Fuck yeah," Richie laughed, kissing him again. "Can I, uh…" He took a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut, scrambling away from Eddie.

Eddie studied him. "Are you trying not to throw up right now?"

Richie nodded. He breathed heavily and sucked in his stomach, which Eddie guessed helped him? He had no idea. "I'm not grossed out by you," he blurted out, shutting his mouth quickly so that only words came out.

Eddie took his own shirt off, which at this point was sticking to him. While Richie had the throwing up thing when he got nervous, the all encompassing prickly heat that poked all over his occupied Eddie. The best part about this, Eddie noted, is that he already knew Richie wasn't grossed out by him. He sometimes feared that he wasn't seeing something in their relationship, that it wasn't as secure as he thought. But then moments like this happened, where he was so certain that what he felt was felt in full back, and he was entirely calm. He threw his shirt at the foot of the bed.

"I know." He sat back against the headboard and waited for Richie to calm the fuck down, entirely prepared to do whatever he wanted, even if it meant leaving the room entirely so Richie could recollect his thoughts and feelings. As always, he was literally prepared for anything.

"You getting more naked is not the way to help me," Richie croaked, getting up off of the bed and standing over the mini trash can under the desk. Eddie sat up as Richie tried to prevent himself from dry heaving, waiting for any direction from him to leave or help or literally anything other than him gagging over a trash can. Richie held his hand up, asking for a minute, and then stopped heaving and stood straight. He took a deep breath and went back over to Eddie, kissing the space between his eyebrows. Eddie's whole body felt warm.

"You okay?" Eddie asked, sliding further down onto the pillows so he was laying down again. Richie laid next to him and took his hand, resting them on his chest..

"I am now," Richie assured. "Did I ruin the mood?"

"Not unless you wanted to."

Richie cleared his throat. "I didn't want to. I was trying to ask you if I could take your shirt off, and then I started to think about how this was actually happening, and I got kinda caught up, and you know I can't handle having a lot of emotions. Not on a full stomach, anyway."

Eddie, and he was really not proud of it, burst into laughter.

"Hey!"

"That's so cute!" Eddie wheezed, coughing and pulling Richie into hugging him until he laughed so hard he started crying. "I love you so fucking much, dude." He pressed a kiss as close as he could get to Richie's mouth, which was somewhere between his cheek and the corner of his lips.

"I love you too?" Richie pulled out of the hug. "You okay?"

"You don't have to be nervous," Eddie explained. "However this goes, I'm happy with it. Having you is more than I ever wanted, or expected, really. You're fine." He moved back to look at Richie. "But, if you don't want--"

"Eddie, we've talked about this. I fucking want to. I just have a problem with nausea, but I do still want this." Richie swallowed and looked down Eddie's chest. "God, I'm so lucky I'm even able to want this. Imagine if I was straight, and I was in love with Bev, or someone--"

"Ana Pheley?"

"Ana Pheley," Richie conceded. "Sure. Imagine I was not in love with you because I'm straight and dumb--"

"Hey! Ben's not dumb."

"Ben's not straight," Richie argued. "He puts too much emotion into spin the bottle. The man blushes. He uses tongue, dude."

"...Why do we still play spin the bottle?"

"Shut up, dude, I like Beverly's lip gloss, and that's not the point--"

"Right, sorry, continue."

"So, yeah, being gay in Derry sucks, but imagine if I wasn't, and I was dumb enough not to fall in love with you. My life would suck, cause you're the best." He looked right at Eddie and blinked, quick like he was caught off guard by it. Eddie sat, waiting for him to continue, because lord knows Eddie has forced Richie to listen to his stupid gay monologuing enough. He deserved this. "Loving you is my favorite thing to do, and while I don't, like need to have sex with you, like if you looked me in the eyes right now and told me you never wanted to fuck me, I would be cool with that, but I would, uh, I'd still want to have sex with you. Uh, because that's how I feel--"

"I know."

"Cool." Richie nodded, then looked down at his own lap. "Aren't you nervous?"

Eddie pushed Richie's curls behind his ear. "It's you. I have nothing to be afraid of when I'm with you."

"I'm gonna actually throw up if you don't stop this shit."

"Fine." He shoved at Richie's shoulder. "Be nervous if you want, you can literally jizz in six seconds and it's not gonna fucking matter because I love you no matter what, you dick." He sighed and rolled his eyes. "Plus, that would really boost my fucking ego."

Richie wrinkled his nose and laughed, face turning rosy in the yellow lamp light in the motel room. "Thanks."

"You don't have to thank me," Eddie breathed. "Just come here."

"Come where?" Richie asked, grinning like an asshole at him.

Eddie pulled Richie on top of him again and groaned at the sudden influx of pressure on top of him. Richie made a noise in the back of his throat as Eddie bit at his neck and licked over his pulse. Eddie's body was on fucking fire.

"Let's find out?"

Richie blanked for a moment as his brain dialed back up. He nodded. "Yeah."

"Yeah?"

"Fuck yeah."

---

Richie scrubbed a towel across his hair as he attempted to dry it, making him look less like a kid with curly hair and more like a kid with a tumbleweed for a brain. Eddie smiled around his toothbrush, turning around to stare at Richie instead of watching him in the mirror, as he took a bright pink hair tie and pulled his hair into it. It barely worked, leaving most of his hair sticking out like a halo around his head.

"You look like an idiot," Eddie told him, wiping the corner of his mouth as toothpaste pooled there. Richie smiled and backed Eddie further into the counter, pressing against him as he took his toothbrush from the ziploc bag-- the slide ones because the snap-shut ones were not to be fucking trusted, if Eddie had anything to say about it. Eddie would not be giving their kids snap-zip ziploc bags.

"What were you saying?" Richie asked, eyebrow raised.

"Kids," Eddie choked, then ripped his toothbrush out of his mouth and slapped his hand over it.

"Uh, we used a condom, Eds, I can't get you--"

"Shut! Up!" Eddie yelped, swatting at Richie's arm. Richie yelped and hit back, turning into a slap fight in the bathroom, as Eddie screeched when Richie slapped him on the ass.

"Shh!" Richie pulled Eddie back into his arms, so his face was flush with Richie's chest. "It's like four in the morning, and our friends are mean motherfuckers if you wake them up in the middle of the night."

Eddie's stomach dropped. "Do you think they heard us?"

"Oh, yeah, one hundred percent." Richie kissed Eddie's wet hair and waddled them out to their room, where they changed the bedding to the ones they brought. Eddie kissed the side of Richie's throat and grinned as he walked backwards. "We've never been great at keeping quiet."

"Think they'll forgive us?" Eddie laughed.

"They're going to live with us in a year, they don't really have a choice."

Richie kissed his forehead and walked away from him over to the desk, where he set his Sony D-5 earlier. Eddie watched him, studied the muscles in Richie's back and their minuscule movements, a surge of heat running through him as he noticed the bright red lines on Richie's back. Eddie breathed in and out slowly until he could relax, going over to their bag and pulling out clothes for them to sleep in, but only actually putting his own boxers on and discarding everything else..

"That's fair," Eddie replied, sitting on their bed as the beginning notes of "I Will Always Love You" by Whitney Houston played through the speaker.

"Yes! I didn't think this fucking thing had anymore juice left in it," Richie explained.

Eddie's soul leaped in his fucking chest. Their first dance at prom, when Eddie told Richie how he felt. Eddie wanted to fucking cry. Richie came over and dropped his towel on the ground, taking the boxers Eddie handed him and putting them on, also ignoring the rest of the clothes Eddie set out. Eddie had sex with him, like actually, and he was still trying to contain the overwhelming amount of satisfaction that gave him. Him doing stupid romantic shit like this was not helping that fact. Richie pulled him up from the bed and held him, accepting it as Eddie pulled him down to kiss him.

"It better. We totally don't have the money to buy you another shitty CD player." Eddie let Richie pull him close to him, swaying like they did at prom.

"Hey, we live together. It's our shitty CD player now."

"Sure."

Richie spun Eddie under his arm and kissed him again once they were back together, humming along to the music. Eddie took his hand from Richie's and used it to hold the back of Richie's neck and keep them together. Richie smiled and pulled away.

"Y'know, in two days, we won't even be able to do this shit without our dormie neighbors pounding the shit out of the walls."

Eddie laughed and kept moving them around the room. "Yeah, but we get to have a room all to ourselves anyway. And we get to decorate it--"

"Dude, if you start ranting about interior design again, I swear we'll break up."

"It's important for us to have a cool dorm!" Eddie insisted. "We're gonna be the ones all the Losers hang out in, because Mike and Stan will have some weird no noise after nine o'clock rule and I'm not having any college girls think I'm having an affair with Bev or Audra--"

"An affair--"

"And Bill and Ben are just, no. I can't handle them. They'll have all their weird sad poems and fucking. Drafts everywhere, Like I love them, but absolutely not."

"Drafts? Honey, you realize you're going to school to be a child psychologist. You plan to get a doctorate, and you're criticizing our Honey-Hanscom and Big Dick Bill for drafts. We're gonna have to eat off your dissertation when we don't have the money for plates, dude."

"Yeah, but that's like years away. I can't go to Bill and Ben's dorm trying to get help in English Comp and have Bill ask me to read his fifty bajillion word novel where you realize the protagonist is really a killer in the end. I wouldn't be able to cope."

"That's fair." Richie yawned, his mouth opening like the fucking abyss. His jaw clicked shut. "Wanna go to bed?"

Eddie laughed and nodded. "Yeah. If you crash the truck tomorrow, I'll be pissed."

"You'd be lucky if I crashed our shit tomorrow. Then you won't have to hear me give you shit for being Dr. Kaspbrak for the rest of your life." He pulled up their blanket and climbed onto the sheets, throwing his noodle arms all over Eddie when he got in bed next to him.

"By then I won't be Dr. Kaspbrak though. I'll be Dr. Tozier."

Richie snorted, head drooping onto the top of Eddie's. "Shut the fuck up, no you won't. I'll be Richie Kaspbrak, asshole extraordinaire, banned at all costs from performing comedy."

"You'll be dead in a ditch tomorrow if you don't go the fuck to sleep."

Richie settled back further into the mattress as his body went lax. "Amen to that, baby, amen to that."

---

Eddie burst out of Richie's truck with way too much energy for it being seven in the fucking morning, but he couldn't help it. He was in Cali-fucking-fornia. He was finally gonna get to be his own person without anybody controlling him, and the mere fucking thought of that was enough to make him feel like he could swallow the world whole. They all planned on getting tattoos after Eddie's birthday in September, and he couldn't wait. Maybe he'll get something pierced, he didn't fucking know or care. He was gonna learn how to fucking drive, and nothing his mother could do would be able to stop him. Anything he could think of to do were all within reach right now, the entire world was at his fucking feet.

Eddie pulled the list they all made out of his back pocket, detailing in ten minute intervals what they needed to have done and by when, so that they could all move in within the allotted fucking hour they were given. Which, bullshit, but that fact that there were eight of them helped. They were split into two teams of four, so they'd get a half an hour to bring everything up, and then they could all help each other decorate, but that part Eddie didn't need help with. He had a plan drawn up for their dorm. He was so fucking excited.

"Can you hurry up?" He groaned, watching as Richie climbed out of his truck at a fucking glacial pace. Richie deserved to be tired, they woke up at two in the morning to finish the drive here, and Eddie slept almost the entire way, until about an hour and a half in when he got so excited about being at college, finally, that he woke up. Richie, though, who usually didn't get tired until two in the morning, and instead of sleep downed a large gas station coffee, had to drive through all of that without someone to talk to. Eddie felt kind of bad, but not bad enough that it dampened his mood.

"Yeah, coming." He all but fell out of the car onto the ground. Bev joined Eddie on his right, big sunglasses blocking her eyes from him. Richie stepped up onto the sidewalk in front of their dorm building and grabbed the coffee Bev, who had actually slept, was holding, downing the entire thing in one go.

"Dude," Beverly complained, laughing in disbelief as Richie threw the cup in the garbage, whooping loudly and jumping up and down as the caffeine entered his fucking bloodstream.

"Okay!" He shouted. "I'm good! Let's go!"

"You sure?" Eddie asked, as Richie shook his head like he had water in his ears. Eddie watched with a warm fondness, one that he knew would wear off in a few seconds once he realized they were wasting valuable time. Still, Eddie let himself bask in how stupid and fucking cute his dumbass boyfriend was, and how happy he was to be here with him.

"Yeah, no, I'm fucking ready! I'm good!" By now, not only were the other Losers putting boxes in one of the big laundry carts provided for them, but other people were starting to stare. Richie shook out his whole body like a washcloth, the way dogs did when they came in from the rain and then stopped. "Eddie."

Eddie raised his eyebrows and laughed. "...Yeah?"

"We're in California," he continued, like Eddie would just understand. Maybe he wasn't as ready as he claimed, sleep still thick in his brain.

"...I know? Are you okay?"

Stan sighed. "Are you two gonna help us or...?"

"Shh, Stan, shut up for a minute" Richie scolded, waving him off.

Stan's eyebrows shot up. "Excuse me."

Richie ignored him, looking at Eddie and smacking the cover of his truck bed for dramatic effect. "Eddie, we're in California."

"No, I got that part." Eddie furrowed his eyebrows and tried to figure out what the fuck he was talking about, looking around for any hint of what the fuck he was talking about. "What about it?"

"Eddie! Cal-i-forn-ya!" He separated the syllables as he jumped closer and closer to Eddie, until he was holding Eddie's face in his hands, thumbs grazing over his jaw as he tipped Eddie's head up to look at him. Bev gagged and started helping Audra load their own stuff into their own respective cart, complaining about how boys were useless. "Do you remember what I said about what I was gonna do when we got here?"

Richie blinked at him with his stupid fucking googly eyes behind his glasses and Eddie remembered.

'When we're in California, I swear I'm gonna kiss you in the middle of the street, any street, whenever I want. And nobody there is going to hurt us, or, or kill us. Nobody is going to even care.'

"California," Eddie whispered. "Holy shit."

Richie smiled like a fucking dumbass, goofy and ninety-five percent teeth, and then, in front of every single person who could see them, kissed Eddie, and made good on his fucking promise.