Chapter Text
It was 11pm on the 13th of February, and Richie Tozier was losing his goddamn mind.
"It's so stupid…" He mumbled to himself, leaning back in his desk chair until his back cracked against it. He stretched, trying to clear his head. It was a fruitless effort.
In one hour, it would be Valentine's day.
Normally, Richie didn't put much stock into holidays. Most of them centered around family, something he wasn't too fond of. The rest relied on either being old enough to drink, or having a significant other. Neither of which categories he fell into.
But, and this was the biggest 'but' in the entire history of Derry itself, Richie did have a crush on someone.
A ridiculous, embarrassing, completely unobtainable crush.
On Eddie.
On his best fucking friend.
And in Derry, Maine, being Richie Tozier and having a crush on Eddie Kaspbrak was like volunteering to be put into a medieval torture device.
To put it mildly; it wasn't an optimal position to be in.
Richie sighed, standing abruptly from his desk chair and beginning to pace his bedroom. He shouldn't even be considering it.
'It' being the absolutely idiotic idea of giving Eddie a Valentine's card. It was dangerous, and reckless, and most of all pointless.
Eddie wasn't like him. Nobody in Derry was.
And revealing to Eddie the type of person he was would be practically asking for social ostricization, even worse than he already experienced under the mere suspicion that he might be gay.
Henry Bowers had gotten it in his mind that Richie Tozier liked boys, and despite having no proof and even less reasoning to back it up, that assumption had been the bane of Richie's existence for his entire middle school career.
Now he was a Freshman in high school. The stakes were even higher. The risks associated with revealing his feelings even deadlier. He couldn't be this stupid, this rash. It wouldn't do him any favours in the long or short run.
And… yet.
Richie stopped his pacing, eyes flickering towards the case he kept his glasses in, residing on his bedside table. It was red, like the frames of his glasses, but you could hardly tell what colour it was anymore, because the entire thing was covered from end-to-end in…
Stamps.
That alone wasn't unusual. Richie liked stamps. He was a bit of a collector, although he'd deny it if he was ever asked. He didn't really know why stamps were so appealing to him, but he'd been collecting them for most of his life. A habit he'd picked up when he was little was covering his favourite objects in them; a mosaic of serrated edges and prints of painted patterns.
Over the years, few of his friends had passingly noticed his collection. It was easy enough to miss, a hobby far less noticeable than Bill's mini library of books about boats, or Stan's bird-themed puzzles he kept neatly stacked on his shelf. To anyone who was vaguely aware, Richie's interest in stamps was a normal, idle hobby with absolutely no deeper emotional investment attached to it.
The part that he would never admit to anyone, though, was that his stamp-embellishing habits held more than decorative purpose to him. Stamps were sentimental to Richie, as ridiculous as he knew that sounded. He only ever put them on things he never intended to lose, like some sort of ritual ensuring he kept whatever item it was that he'd deemed to be of such great importance.
His glasses case, the cup holding his good pens, the cover of his favourite book, and…
The empty envelope addressed to Eddie Kaspbrak that was sitting quietly on his desk like it wasn't the most terrifying object in his entire house. Beside it, equally as deceptively innocent, was a crumpled pile of failed attempts at confessing his months-long, totally hopeless crush.
Not for the first time, Richie wondered who in his past life he had pissed off so royally as to deserve this.
He strode back over to his desk, pulling out the chair and falling into it with a huff. He ought to just give up on this; it was futile, he knew that. It was dumb, and pointless, and the worst idea he'd ever had by a long shot.
And yet.
He pulled out another page in his notebook, picking up his pen and trying again to properly word the feelings he was so afraid of expressing. He could hardly say this to himself in the mirror, how was he supposed to write it?
'Dear Eddie,' No. Absolutely not. Horrible start. Eddie wouldn't even give his letter the time of day if it started like that.
He crunched the page up into a ball, adding it to the pile.
Tearing yet another page out of the notebook, he restarted.
'Eddie,' Okay. Solid start. Carefully neutral. He could work with this.
Richie chewed absently on the end of his pen. How the fuck was he supposed to put this into tangible words?
'I know you hate this stupid holiday, and trust me, so do I. But I don't know if I'll get another opportunity to say this in an anonymous fashion, so forgive me for playing into the corporate cash-grab that is—' He stopped writing, scribbling out the words in frustration.
It sounded too much like him. He wanted this to be anonymous.
He started again, on a new page.
'Eddie, I know you hate this holiday. I do too, to be honest. But I doubt I'll get another chance to say this, so I'm saying it this way. I like you a lot. You're funny, and cute, and—' Richie stopped again, searching his brain for ways to describe Eddie that didn't give away who he was. Even calling him 'cute' might be too revealing, since it's a descriptor Richie often used on him teasingly.
"One more attempt…" He muttered to himself, starting on yet another new page.
'Eds,—'
"FUCK!" Richie shouted in frustration, slamming his pen down on his desk. He was hopeless. He couldn't do this. Couldn't express his feelings without the fact that it was him being written in between every single line. It was too personal, too intimate.
He wanted to bash his head against the wall.
But, because he must be some sort of glutton for punishment, Richie took a breath, grabbing his pen again. He'd quit when he ran out of paper, he decided.
With his notebook thinning in size with each failed attempt, that outcome was looking more and more likely.
'Eddie,
I know you hate this stupid holiday. I know there's a fat chance you'll crumble up this paper and toss it without even finishing it, but for my sake, all I ask is that you give it a read.
You don't know this, but I put stamps on the things I love. The things I never want to lose. It's corny, but stamps are symbolic to me. You'll notice that the envelope this letter is in is covered in them. That's because I never want to lose you.
Which is why writing you an anonymous Valentine's day letter is probably the worst possible thing I could do, but I don't have another way of telling you how I feel.
I like you.
I've liked you for a while, which is probably a mistake on my part, but oh well. I wish I could describe exactly what it is that draws me to you, but that would give me away. I want to keep you around forever, metaphorically cover you in stamps, and that feeling scares me.
I hope this brightens your day, even if it's corny as hell and you probably don't care.
— Signed, your secret admirer.'
Okay. There. He did it.
It wasn't perfect. He was already running over every line in his head, noticing the half dozen things Eddie might notice that could trace it back to him. But if he sat here rewriting it until it was foolproof, he'd be here until next year's Valentine's day.
Still, he ought to at least add a fail-safe.
"Maybe if I…" He mumbled to himself, turning the paper over.
'P.S, if your smart ass thinks you know who this letter is from, and you're not interested, then toss it and erase it from your memory. I'd rather not suffer the humiliation. Thanks.'
Good enough.
Richie folded the paper carefully, creasing the edges perfectly. It was dumb, putting so much care into a piece of paper that would probably end up in the trash by tomorrow afternoon, but it made him feel slightly better about the social suicide he was signing himself up for.
He inserted the paper into the stamp-covered envelope, licking it shut. Eddie would probably hate to know he'd done that, with his germaphobia. The thought made him smile, stupidly.
This whole thing was stupid, actually.
He found himself doing it anyway.