Work Text:
Eddie falls in love with Richie “Trashmouth” Tozier when he is twenty-three years old. Of course, at this point, he hasn't actually met him.
He’s flipping through the channels on the tv, feeling agitated and restless after another argument with his mother. He doesn’t expect to actually settle on any channel. The rhythmic and aggressive motion of his thumb on the button is enough, and it has the added bonus of annoying his mother with discordant blips of noise through the wall.
After twenty minutes of Eddie’s little passive aggressive act of rebellion, his thumb slips. He could easily pick the pattern back up, but the chorus of raucous laughter on the screen gives him pause. When the screen cuts away from the audience to land on the small stage, it gives him even greater pause.
Standing in the harsh spotlight is a man around Eddie’s age. He’s tall — impossibly tall, with gangly legs that seem to stretch on forever. He doesn’t pace around the stage so much as he bounces. It’s like the bright lights and the laughter and the cameras pinned on him from every angle are a direct source of energy. Like he’s a flower blossoming in the sun.
And wow, Eddie thinks, that’s pretty gay.
But not as gay as how warm he gets at the sight of that sharp jaw. How he starts to sweat when he watches how broadly he gesticulates with big, big hands. And that voice, how it carries on in an endless litany of the filthiest things Eddie has ever heard. An ache of want settles in Eddie’s chest. It’s rivaled only by the ache that spreads through his abdomen the more he’s assaulted by his own shocked and delighted laughter at the ridiculous jokes pouring out of the comedian’s mouth.
After a particularly raunchy joke, Eddie’s mother stomps into the living room with her signature pinched up face. “Turn that garbage off,” she demands. “A good boy like you doesn’t need to be listening to things like that.”
Eddie hates that his mother still treats him like a child. He hates that she can make him feel like a child even more. As she retreats back to the kitchen, his fingers twitch to do as she’s ordered.
Before he can flip the channel, the screen focuses on a close up on the comedian’s face. He’s pushing his thick glasses back up the bridge of his nose and laughing at his own joke.
Eddie punches the volume up higher.
—————————————————
Eddie’s celebrity crush isn’t a thing, no matter how much his best friend Bill teases him about it. It's normal. Common, even. With how Richie Tozier’s career blows up over the next handful of years, Eddie can’t believe he’s the only one harboring fantasies about the guy, either.
Richie’s little comedy special turns into talk show appearances, which turn into sketch shows, which turn into comedy tours, which turn into movie roles. Eddie never goes to any of Richie’s tour dates, but he has all of his Netflix specials favorited, and he owns all of the movies he’s ever been in. Even the really terrible ones.
Bill refers to it as his obsession, but Eddie knows he doesn’t really mean it. It’s just, Eddie can be sort of high strung, so it’s funny to watch him get wrapped up in something (or someone) so frivolous. When Richie’s on the screen it’s like a switch is flipped. It’s like the constant buzz battering against the edges of Eddie’s brain finally has something to focus on.
By now, the familiarity of Trashmouth Tozier’s jokes is like a soothing balm to Eddie. On his bad days, of which there are many lately, the cadence of lewd punchlines feels like coming home. He imagines, sometimes, what it might be like to actually come home to Richie. To know him. To laugh at him and with him. To maybe be lucky enough to make him laugh.
But the days stretch on. Then weeks stretch on. And months. Years.
Eddie has started dating. Gotten engaged. Married.
He and Bill grow apart. Talk less. Not at all.
And soon Richie and all his DVDs take up residence in the back of Eddie’s closet. There’s a joke there somewhere that Richie might have made, had Eddie ever met him.
—————————————————
Eddie is thirty-five years old, and everything is kind of falling apart.
He’d thought things were going okay. He’d taken all the right steps. Followed the rules. If life was some kind of standardized test, he should be fucking acing it.
He’s not like other guys his age that he knows. He’s not on his third marriage in a line of women that get younger and younger. He fell in love with Myra when he was twenty-eight, and he stayed faithful, and loyal, and well-behaved.
Well-behaved is wrong. He wouldn’t call it that. He’d call it… It doesn’t matter.
Sure, his marriage has always been mild, but he’s always assumed that’s just how those things go. Crazy passion is for people who have affairs. It’s for people who are insecure. He needs something he can count on. He needs the stability.
Myra, apparently, needs something different.
Eddie had thought she was joking at first. Somehow. She never tells jokes, doesn’t really like them, but the words “legal separation” coming out of her mouth just seemed so absurd.
Now he’s just drifting through life like a ghost. A pathetic loser ghost. His brain, which is normally barreling forward at break neck speed, is slumping along. He usually prides himself on being put together. On top of things. But he feels like he’s slowly shaking apart, and everyone can see right through to his crumbling insides.
As he sits on a bench in Central Park — Well, as he sits on his suit jacket on the bench, because he doesn’t know who sat there before — he notices people steering clear of him. He must look like a zombie. Or a lunatic.
When Myra had first sat him down with her too serious pinched expression, Eddie had kind of thought he was going to get different news. He’d thought maybe she was pregnant. Not that he was excited about that. He’d sort of gone numb straight from the beginning.
That’s weird, right? That going from objectively good news to objectively bad news hadn’t affected his mood? He should be crying now, or something, right?
Maybe he has a tumor. Maybe there’s some brain disorder that makes you feel all the wrong things. Maybe there’s some sickness in him that makes it so he can never have anyone and no one really stays.
“Eddie?”
He flicks his eyes up at the man standing in front of him, and he feels something for the first time today. Hell, maybe in years. “Bill?”
Bill Denbrough — good ol’ Big Bill that he hasn’t spoken to in six or seven years — laughs a joyful sound. His blue eyes get wet and shiny, crinkling up at the corners like he doesn’t know how to keep the happy inside. “How the hell are you?”
Eddie twitches as Bill throws himself down on the bench beside him. “I’m…”
Lonely. Ravenously, torturously lonely. Now that Bill’s here sitting in front of him, it’s like someone has pointed out an itch he’d forgotten he’d had, and now he can’t stop scratching. A chasm opens up in his chest and suddenly he can’t breathe.
“Eddie?” Bill’s voice isn’t that bouncy, bright shocked delight anymore. It’s a nervous concern. Eddie realizes it’s maybe because he’s gasping, clutching at his throat like he’s going into anaphylactic shock. “Eddie!”
Between the two of them, they manage to wrestle the inhaler out of the pocket of the suit jacket Eddie is still sitting on. Eddie pumps excessively, breathing in whatever relief he can. If only the little plastic pump could solve all of his problems so easily.
“I’m fucking miserable, Bill,” he chokes. “I’ve wasted my entire life. I have. I told myself everything was perfect, but I’ve been living like some subhuman creature. I have a great job, and a nice brownstone, and a wife, and I don’t really have a single fucking thing at all. Oh God.” He grabs Bill’s forearm in an alarming grip. “Oh God. I’m going to have to jump off a bridge. I’m too old to start over.”
“You still talk a mile a minute.” Bill laughs softly and untangles Eddie’s fingers from his sleeve. “Slow down. What’s going on?”
“Myra kicked me out.”
Bill’s eyebrows raise toward his hairline and his lips twist in a complicated pattern. He’d known Myra and he’d never liked her. Hated her, even, and he’d told Eddie as much. They’d fought about it constantly there at the end. It’s the main reason they fell out of touch when Bill moved out to LA.
Eddie rushes to say more so Bill can’t. “Temporarily. Maybe. I don’t know. She said she needs space to figure out if our marriage can work. She said she loves me, but I’m not the person she thought I’d be.”
“Do you love her?” Bill asks calmly.
“Oh God,” Eddie continues, dodging the question. “I’m going to have to move back in with my mother until Myra takes me back.”
“No!” Bill grabs him by the shoulder, firm and steadying. “No. You’re not gonna do that. I… I know a place.”
And isn’t this just like Bill. He’s stumbled back into Eddie’s life for less than an hour, and he’s already taking charge and putting everything right. Eddie’s missed him like a limb.
“What kind of place?”
Bill smiles and takes his hand off of Eddie’s shoulder to drape his whole arm around him. “It’s nice, Eddie. I promise. It’s the apartment right next to mine.”
“You moved back?” Eddie is shocked and delighted and maybe a little hurt he didn’t know. Mostly he’s a little ashamed he hadn’t asked about Bill at all during his little meltdown. “When?”
A light flush pinkens Bill’s cheeks. “Oh. Uh. Well. I’ve been bouncing back and forth a bit the past couple of years. B-but I… I moved in with my boyfriend six months ago.”
“Congratulations,” Eddie says, and he means it, even if it sounds a little hollow. He’s so glad that Bill’s happy. He deserves it. “That’s great.”
“It is.” Bill’s eyes go a bit dreamy. “Stan’s amazing. You’ll love him. We’ll put in a good word with the landlord, and we’ll help you move and everything.”
Eddie’s a little nervous. What if he doesn’t slip back into Bill’s life as easily as he had into Eddie’s? “This apartment…” He swallows the growing lump in his throat. “Why’s it available? What’s wrong with it? Did somebody die? Is it haunted?”
Bill laughs and hugs Eddie to his side. “Nobody died. The old tenants just wanted a change. They were nice. Adrian and Don. I knew them. Very clean. The apartment is in good shape. Trust me.”
“Okay,” he concedes dubiously.
“It’s a perfect fit for you, buddy. Everyone on the fifth floor is—” Bill stumbles over himself for a moment, like something brilliant has just occurred to him. His smile widens into something calculating and dangerous. “Everyone on the fifth floor is a good neighbor. A good friend. You’ll adore them.”
Eddie squirms on the bench. “Fine. Does the building allow pets?”
Myra can have their brownstone, and their car, and all the petty little material things she wants, but Eddie is damned if she gets to keep their Pomeranian, Penny. The damned dog has only ever liked him, anyway.
—————————————————
Move in day is, in most regards, anti-climactic. It’s not like Eddie has many possessions to call his own. Sure, he has four suitcases and three garment bags full of clothes, but beyond that it’s just four cardboard boxes of odds and ends and a duffel full of his emergency supplies. All of his furniture is back at his old place with the ghost of his old life. He had to order everything new. He’s lucky enough that his mattress is arriving today, if not the bed frame.
There’s Penny, too, curled up in the soft-sided dog carrier slung over Eddie’s shoulder. She huffs and grunts as she’s shifted back and forth while Eddie tries to haul the box of dinnerware out of Bill’s car. If he knew a box of plates would be so fucking heavy, he would have tossed them all out and bought the tacky paper ones.
“Need any help?”
Eddie turns on his heel to bite out something irrationally snappy, but stops in his tracks at the sight of the world’s most unfairly attractive man. No one that handsome should have eyes that kind, and Eddie is a little embarrassed at the bitchy expression he knows is almost permanently scrunching up his face.
“Oh. No. No, I can probably figure something out.” He scratches awkwardly at the back of his head. “I don’t want to waste your time. My friend Bill is helping me, anyway.”
The man’s expression gets somehow warmer, like he was created in a lab or willed into existence by a very lucky woman. Or man. Not that Eddie is hoping, or anything. “Bill? You must be Bev’s new neighbor!”
“Bev?” Eddie blinks, a little lost after mostly forgetting to listen to the words the stranger was saying.
He laughs. “My girlfriend. She lives up in 5E. You’re 5C, right?”
“Yeah. Eddie Kaspbrak.”
“Ben Hanscom.” He shakes Eddie’s hand before hoisting the box of dishes up like it’s nothing. “Lead the way.”
Like Bill promised, the apartment is actually very nice. With the rates that apartments go for in Manhattan, it fucking better be. But it has a working elevator and everything. It’s a one bedroom set up with a living room that’s more spacious than Eddie had thought it would be. The kitchen is a good size, with marble counter tops that look easy enough to clean. Nothing is leaking in the bathroom. Plus, there’s a doorman, so Eddie probably isn’t going to get murdered any time soon.
It’s probably a fancier place than Eddie should be setting himself up in short-term. He should’ve holed up in Brooklyn somewhere. Or swallowed his pride and crawled back to his mother. Maybe he should have pushed harder against this whole separation thing in the first place. But he’s here now, and he can afford it easily enough, so he might as well enjoy it.
As Eddie leads the way out of the elevator, he and Ben almost run directly into Bill. There’s startled stumbling, and friendly laughter, and many manful back pats. Bill takes the box from Ben, and he at least looks like the weight gives him trouble.
“Sorry we disappeared for a bit,” Bill starts as he turns back around toward Eddie’s apartment. “Stan and I got wrapped up in drama in 5A. Stan’s still over there pretending he’s not yelling.”
5A is directly across from the elevator, and as they pass Eddie can hear the exasperated and clipped tone of Stan’s voice hissing, “Richie!” Eddie can’t imagine what kind of person could push Stan to that level of over it, because when he’d met Stan twenty minutes prior he was nothing but mild and soft.
Ben laughs as they pass 5B, where Bill and Stan have set up a nice, cozy little love nest. “What did he do this time? Stan doesn’t usually bother, anymore.”
Sporting a poorly concealed smile, Bill nudges open the door to Eddie’s apartment with his toe. “You remember the Dick Pic Catastrophe of 2018?”
“June or July?” Ben asks. Eddie is horrified by the fact that one man could have two entirely unrelated penis incidents — incidents only one month apart, no less.
“July.”
Ben groans, and before Eddie can ask for details he’s not really sure he wants in the first place, there’s a commotion in the hallway. There’s the rattling thunk of a door flying open to bounce off the wall. The patter of feet hurrying down the hallway.
“Come back here you little fucker!”
There’s something about the voice that strikes Eddie as familiar. He can’t place it, though. His brain buffers, buffers, buffers.
“Get off of me before both of us break something,” Stan snaps. “You’re just as heavy as you look.”
“Oh Stanny, I didn’t think you’d noticed. Does Bill know you’ve been getting an eye full?”
Shadows stretch down the hall, and Eddie can see the silhouette of wrestling bodies through the doorway. He tenses up as the scuffle gets closer and closer. This was supposed to be a nice place. Nice places don’t have grown men grappling in the hallway.
“Ow! You fucking goblin.”
“Richie,” Stan warns. “Don’t you dare.”
With a loud thud the two men crash to the floor in front of Eddie’s open door. Eddie takes the scene in slowly, piece by piece. A cellphone skitters out of Stan's grip. Stan is sprawled out on the floor with mussed hair and cheeks that are blotchy from annoyance. The man tangled on top of him looks up, and Eddie forgets how to breathe.
Richie. Richie Tozier. The man Eddie used to have a mental shrine for, until he turned off all the lights in the corners of his brain that mattered.
He feels hot and cold all at once. His face and his chest and his stomach burn, but his arms and legs are frozen. He blinks and blinks and blinks. Almost drools because he forgets how to swallow. When he remembers, he almost chokes on his tongue.
“What… What the fuck?”
Richie cocks his head, his glasses sitting crooked on his nose, and grins like an idiot. “Hey, new guy — I don’t know you, but by the looks of it, it seems like you’re the kind of guy that receives a lot of dick pics.”
Stan punches Richie on the shoulder, and Eddie splutters. “I- Well, I… No.”
Richie’s face falls, a comical farce. “That’s a tragedy. I can change that if you want."
The blood rushes up to Eddie's face so fast that he sees spots, but he's mostly just grateful it didn't go speeding in the other direction. It’s not like Eddie is the kind of person who gets starstruck, but he's certainly Richie-struck right now. The flurry of admiration, excitement, and attraction almost sends him into a panic attack.
He crosses his arms, ready to fight off feelings he’s spent too long without. He puts up a little mental wall. Defensive spikes. A fucking moat. And a little waving flag declaring Richie Tozier ain’t shit.
“Yeah right, asshole,” Eddie snaps. “Anyone that desperate to flash their junk around town is just seeking validation, and if I was gonna dive back into the dick pool I wouldn’t start with something so mediocre.”
Ben and Bill snicker as Stan rolls his eyes at the look on Richie’s face, which resembles that of a boy on Christmas morning. Stan is the one who pushes Richie off of him, but Richie is the one who risks life and limb to stumble over himself to get as close as possible to Eddie. Eddie adds a second mental moat to his defenses.
“Where have you been my whole life, Shortstack?”
“Eddie.”
“Eddie,” Richie tests the name on his tongue. His stupid smile widens. "Well Eds, I’m Richie, and I’m probably going to marry you.”
With a tidal wave of shame and nerves, Eddie immediately moves to start twisting the gold band on his left ring finger. The eyes of everyone else in the room follow the movement. For an awful, awkward beat Eddie is suffocating under the weight of all his failures.
“Looks like you’re too late,” Ben says lightly, trying to find his footing in the growing tension.
Bill grabs Eddie’s wrist and moves his wedding ring back out of sight by his side. He wraps an arm around his shoulders and squeezes, smile a little too sly. “Eddie is separated.”
Eddie throws his hands up. “What the fuck, Bill? Do you want to give them a detailed medical history, too? Maybe a greatest hits compilation of all the times I got beaten up in high school?”
“Why’d you leave your husband?” Richie asks, leaning on a haphazard box and knocking it over. Luckily it wasn’t the plates. “He not putting out enough?”
“My wife,” Eddie corrects sharply.
“Oh.” Richie tries to right the box, but mostly just drops it again. “Did your wife leave you because she found out you were gay?”
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Eddie swats at Richie to get him away from the box he keeps trying to pick up. “No. I’m- I mean — Look, it’s none of your business.”
Richie backs away from Eddie, palms raised defensively. He takes one step too far and knocks over the box of dinnerware.
“Get the fuck out of my apartment.”
—————————————————
The Dick Pic Catastrophe of 2018: June Edition is explained to Eddie when he meets Bev a day later.
Bev is amazing. She’s ridiculously beautiful and unfairly cool. She’s all easy kindness and wicked humor. Eddie wishes he could carry himself with half the dignity that she does.
It makes sense that she and Ben are together. They’re the kind of couple you look at, and you just know there’s no one else in the world better suited for each other. Maybe that’s why Eddie doesn’t feel the heat creeping up his face when he’s around her. He figures that if there’s any other woman in the world that he could want besides his wife, Bev would be it.
But he doesn’t.
Which is not to say that he doesn’t feel something. See, the difference between Ben and Bev, is that Ben sometimes has trouble taking up space. He’s a little too nice. A little too soft.
With Bev, Eddie falls in love with her immediately. Not in love. But all it takes is her knowing laugh as she watches Eddie poke his head out of his apartment and check both ways — her contagious amusement as she drawls, “I see you’ve already met Richie well enough to avoid him.”
Bev is his now, and he is Bev’s. Bill might protest at how quickly she usurped his role as best friend, but Bill can fuck off, in Eddie’s opinion. Bill is the one who got Eddie into this whole Richie mess. He knew exactly what he was doing.
Anyway, Bev invites Eddie inside to 5E, and they share a bottle of pinot noir while Bev giggles through the story of how she and Richie first met.
“I love Richie,” she declares, a little tipsy. “I do. He’s an absolute jack ass, and that’s everything to me. But he’s a real sweetheart, too, if you take the time to see it. The thing is though, he’s an idiot. He doesn’t use his brain if he can help it.”
Eddie nods along, taking large gulps from his glass. “Yeah, I got that vibe.”
“So we met last June while I was watching the movers cart my things in. We got to chatting, talking about our favorite bars in the city. I gave him my number because we made plans to grab drinks that weekend. Well. He got confused later that night, I guess. I received a very racy picture meant for some guy on Grindr.”
“Jesus,” Eddie laughs. “What did you say?”
Bev shrugs, laughing as she tosses back what’s left in her glass. “I told him ‘Nice equipment. Doesn’t mean I’m gonna pay for those drinks, though.’ He was more mortified than I’ve seen him be since. He avoided me at all costs until about three weeks later.”
“What happened three weeks later?”
Her eyes practically sparkle as she over pours them each another glass of wine. “The July Dick Pic Catastrophe. Have you met Mike?” At the shake of Eddie’s head, she continues. “Well, he lives next door in 5D. He’s a very nice guy. Practically unrufflable.”
“Let me guess,” Eddie rolls his eyes. “Richie found a way to ruffle him.”
“Oh yeah. Ben was over, so the six of us were all hanging out when Mike’s girlfriend Sarah texted him. Richie’s penis was all over the internet. Apparently he’d sent another dick pic to a hook up, and the guy felt like bragging. Mike made the mistake of following a link Sarah sent, and I’ve never heard a grown man screech the way he did. It was basically inhuman.”
Eddie’s stomach swoops. He works overtime to avoid thinking about what the picture might have looked like. He mutters, “Christ, has everyone in the building seen his dick?”
Bev curls her legs up on the couch, smirking. “Jealous?”
“No!” He’s embarrassed by his defensiveness. Tries to cool himself down with another mouthful of alcohol. “No.”
“You don’t need to be,” and Eddie can tell by her tone that she’s fucking with him. No wonder her and Richie get along so well. “I’m sure he’d trip over himself to send you a picture of your own.”
“He already offered.” Eddie almost bites his tongue off trying to get himself to stop talking.
Bev throws her head back and laughs so hard her dog startles. “And you said no?”
“Basically.”
“Basically?” Bev hums. “Interesting.”
Eddie feels like a stupid ant under a magnifying glass. His face feels too hot. He needs to stop drinking. He empties the contents of the glass down his throat.
“He needs to stop that shit,” he mutters at a manic pace. “The dick stuff. It’s dumb. Especially if his junk is out on the internet again. He’s a comedian, not a porn star. He could benefit from some shame.”
Bev strokes a calming hand down Eddie’s arm. “Richie sees it differently. He came out to the public a few years ago, and it was one hell of a battle, from what I hear. Maybe he’s a little reckless, but he refuses to let anyone make him feel bad about that stuff anymore. Besides, the pictures he sends are private communications between two people. He’s not the one posting them for the world to see. It’s not really fair to give him too much flack, if you ask me.”
It’s a fair enough point, but Eddie’s still bothered. His skin feels too tight and he’s not in the mood to be generous. He doesn’t know what it is. The thought of Richie feels like a pebble in his shoe.
Beverly sets her empty glass on the coffee table and continues on before Eddie can offer a counterpoint. “Richie is a good guy who wants to believe that people aren’t shitty.” The statement feels loaded, but she brushes past it. “Half the reason he was so upset he’d sent that picture to me was because he was worried I’d feel uncomfortable. It’s not like he’s airdropping his nudes on the subway, Eddie. If someone’s not interested, all they have to do is tell him no.”
“Right.”
“A real no,” she says, lips twitching back up into a smile. “Not basically a no.”
The room feels too small then, so Eddie makes his excuses and says his goodbyes. Beverly walks him to the door. She pulls him in for a hug before he can make his way directly across the hall to 5C. She kisses him on the cheek.
As she disappears inside, Eddie sees Richie lingering by the elevator. His smile seems off, like a rehearsed mirror image rather than anything sincere. It’s one of the more unsettling things Eddie has ever seen.
“Bev, huh?” Richie tosses his keys back and forth in his hands. “She’s hard to resist.”
Eddie furrows his brow and tries to even out his heart rate. What right does Richie have to look even better than he ever has on television? “Yeah. She’s, uh. Great.”
“Ben’s not so into sharing, though. Bev, either. Trust me, I’ve tried. No threesomes for those vanilla cats, but man, I would’ve endured the trauma of pussy to touch that guy’s abs.”
Eddie doesn’t think that bares a response, so instead he just scoffs and retreats into the safety of his apartment.
—————————————————
Eddie doesn’t like porn.
That’s not true. Eddie says he doesn’t like porn. It’s been years since he’s watched it — he doesn’t dare to even think about it in the same apartment as Myra. He pulled some up on his computer once when he was at a hotel on a business trip, but he couldn’t get through thirty seconds of it without slamming the laptop shut.
He’s not an idiot. He was surprised by Myra’s request for a separation, but it’s not like it came out of nowhere. There were problems in their marriage. They never touched anymore. Eddie never touched her. He shrunk away when she’d reach for him. He can’t really explain why.
In his early twenties, Eddie couldn’t get enough of physical touch. He’d cuddled, and kissed, and fucked with the best of them. He loved fingers through his hair and smiles pressed to his shoulder. The patter of a heartbeat under his ear was intoxicating.
Things were fine, even, the first couple of months he’d been with Myra. It’s not like they were tearing each other’s clothes off at any given opportunity, but they were having sex an average amount. Somewhere down the line, though, it’s like a switch in Eddie just flipped off. His desire for pretty much anything flickered out like a candle in the wind.
Maybe he got too comfortable. Maybe he got too old. Maybe there’s something wrong with him, even though the doctors never find a single thing.
Now it’s like he’s hitting puberty all over again, discovering want for the very first time. Porn is all he can think about. Nudes. Richie’s nudes. His dick pics.
They would be easy enough to look up online, especially the new one that’s been circulating through all the gossip blogs. A quick glance would sate Eddie’s curiosity. Because curiosity is all it is. All it can be.
He wonders if he should feel guilty thinking about it. Bev was right, those pictures were supposed to be private. Eddie’s not the one that put them on the internet, but if he goes looking for them, isn’t he just as bad?
Then again, Richie offered to send him a picture. Does it count as permission? Is Eddie only allowed to look at one, and not the others?
He has Richie’s name typed into the search bar. The cursor blinks at him in judgement, waiting for him to complete his inquiry. He types in the next letter, a deceptively innocent looking D. Bile rises in his throat.
He exits out of the browser and heaves a deep breath.
Why does he even care what Richie’s dick looks like? He could pull up any video he wants on an infinite number of virus-ridden free porn websites. Though, while the idea of that isn’t all together unappealing, he knows that’s not what he wants.
But what if Richie found out somehow? What if he looks at Eddie and just knows? What if he’s smug about it? Amused, and Eddie gets embarrassed? What if he’s disappointed? Angry? Betrayed?
Worse yet, what if Myra finds out? What if she stops by Eddie’s apartment to talk things through, but suddenly remembers an important bill she has to pay. What if she asks to borrow Eddie’s computer and pulls up his search history and she sees Richie Tozier’s penis right there.
She would never take him back, then.
Eddie closes his computer and folds his hands over his stomach. Looking up a picture of his neighbor’s penis on the internet isn’t something a good man would do. So he won’t.
He buried this burning in a secret, hidden grave once before. It should be easy enough to do it again.
—————————————————
Richie never leaves Eddie alone. He’s like a toddler who’s acting out for attention. Every time Eddie comes home from work, or the gym, or the store, Richie is miraculously in the hallway. As if hanging out in the hallway is something a normal adult man should do.
“Hey Eds!” Richie half-shouts as Eddie’s exiting the elevator six days after he’s moved in. “What you got there?”
Eddie rolls his eyes as he slides a box that very obviously displays a picture of an entertainment center down the hall. “A sense of personal boundaries. But I guess you wouldn’t recognize that.”
As if he were invited, Richie bounces down the hall after Eddie. “You want some help throwing that thing together? I’ve been told I have magic fingers.”
He wiggles his fingers a centimeter away from Eddie’s nose, and the shorter man slaps him away. “Can you get your little germ sticks out of my fucking face, please? I don’t know where your hands have been.”
“I’m more than happy to tell you every excruciating detail about where my hands have been. I didn’t know you were into that kinda thing, Eds. Hot.”
Eddie covers his face with his palms. “You’re a moron. Don’t you have some internet stranger you could be sexting right now?”
“Not when I could be helping my sexy little nugget of a neighbor with his furniture. Domesticity is my kink.” He takes up pushing the box toward 5C, as if Eddie is an invalid who can’t do anything for himself.
“Be careful with that, asshole.”
“Don’t worry, I know how to handle wood.” Richie rolls his hips forward and gyrates against the box. Eddie wonders if it’s too dramatic to take the damn thing back to the store and ask for an exchange.
“Are you actually going to be any help with this?” Eddie puts his hands on his hips the way Bill used to say made him look like an old queen. Maybe Eddie is old now. Maybe this whole journey is part of his mid-life crisis. He drops his hands just as quickly as he raised them. “I don’t want to get a nail through my hand because you’re being an idiot.”
Richie’s mouth parts in a sly grin. Eddie’s already groaning, because he knows he’s handed the joke to him on a silver platter. “Trust me, that’s not how I’m planning to nail you.”
The door to 5B opens and Stan steps out. His reading glasses sit perched on the end of his nose, and his expression is chronically unimpressed. “Can the both of you take your obnoxious flirting out of the hallway? Some of us are trying to finish a puzzle.”
Eddie’s face glows beet red and he splutters over himself to deny taking part in any amount of flirtation. Richie throws his head back with a cackle. “Okay, Dad. Try not to get Bill too hot and bothered with your grandpa routine.”
Stan slides his gaze slowly between Richie and Eddie. “Hilarious, Richie. But only one of us is getting laid tonight. So laugh about that.”
The door shuts on them with a quiet dignity. Eddie is queasy. All of his clothes feel three sizes too small. His palms have started to sweat, and he wipes them nervously on his jeans. Richie is the only other person left in the hallway, but it feels like the fourth wall has been removed and there’s a whole audience of people with their eyes on him.
With shaking fingers, Eddie turns the key in the lock and pushes open his front door. “I’m not flirting with you,” he mutters softly. At the lift of Richie’s eyebrow, he continues. “What Stan said. About the obnoxious flirting. I wasn’t doing that.”
Something softens in Richie’s expression. The chaotic tension bouncing between them like electricity dissolves into a gentler hum. Richie’s voice is almost sweet when he speaks. “Okay. Is my obnoxious entirely one-sided flirting okay with you?”
Bev’s words from the other day rattle in Eddie’s brain. If someone’s not interested, all they have to do is tell him no.
“I need to put this entertainment center together,” Eddie asserts seemingly out of nowhere. He knows he should’ve said something more significant. Then again, maybe the fact that he didn’t is significant enough.
With a smile he’s awful at hiding, Richie plops down in the center of the living room and rips open the box. He starts pulling out the slats of wood and making piles. The reckless and thoughtless way he goes about the task makes Eddie’s brain scream.
“Careful.” Richie hums in acknowledgement, but Eddie is already at the level 4 hand-wringing stage. “Careful, really. You could get a splinter or something. Then it could get infected, ‘cause you probably don’t wash your hands enough. And if you leave it long enough you’re gonna need to… To get it amputated or something.”
Richie pauses, straightening his glasses. “Eds, this stuff is barely wood.”
“Stop calling me that. And while you’re at it, can we remove the word ‘wood’ from all of our future conversations?”
“What would you like me to call it?” He continues pulling pieces out of the box. “Tree bones?”
Eddie purposely nudges him with his shoulder as he gingerly sits beside him. “Absolutely not. ‘Bone’ is another word we’re gonna strike from our vocabularies.”
“You never let me have any fun,” Richie sighs. It’s weird, though, because this somehow feels like the most fun Eddie has ever had.
An hour and a half later, they’ve barely made any progress. Mostly it’s been a lot of putting the wrong screws in the wrong holes — two more words Eddie has banned forever. Richie is sweating and bitching about needing a smoke break. Eddie is trying not to stare at Richie for too long at a time.
“Alright!” Richie claps his hands, and it startles Eddie enough to make him jerk. “This is bullshit. Time to pull out the big guns.”
“The big guns?”
“5D.” He rises to stretch and Eddie has to quickly glue his eyes to the ceiling. Ignoring Richie is an entirely doable task until he has to start catching glimpses of skin. “It’s time to meet Mikey.”
Eddie scrambles to his feet to stop Richie before he gets to the door. “No, no, no. I don’t want to inconvenience him. And that’s a terrible first impression, Richie. Hello, nice to meet you, I’m too dumb to put a TV stand together. I’m gonna come across as some high maintenance jack ass.”
“And… You’re saying that’s not what you are?”
Eddie swats at Richie’s chest and immediately hates himself for it. It reminds him of all the nights spent in college, drinking too much shitty vodka out of red solo cups and laughing too loud at jokes told by tall boys who weren’t very funny. The chest swat is slut language for I’m gagging for it. Everybody knows that.
Tucking his hands into his arm pits, Eddie nods toward the door. “Fine. Lead the way.”
In the end, Mike is handsome and warm and more than happy to help. He talks to Eddie like they’ve known each other for years, and with the kind of goodwill most people only have at Christmas time. He finishes putting the entertainment center together in forty-five minutes. Richie and Eddie barely help.
—————————————————
Eddie doesn’t Google Richie’s dick pic that night. He thinks about it, but he doesn’t.
He does, however, pull up Netflix and watch his favorite special of Richie’s until he falls asleep. When he drifts out of consciousness, he’s smiling.
—————————————————
Richie is sitting on the steps outside when Eddie makes his way back from walking Penny. He’s smoking and cradling a brown paper bag between his knees. His dark eyes light up when Eddie gets close, and he makes the mistake of reaching out to pet the Pomeranian.
“What a cute little—” Penny snarls and snaps, and Richie immediately draws his hand back. “What the fuck?”
“Sorry,” Eddie apologizes in a bored tone that implies otherwise. “She doesn’t really like strangers. Or people who aren’t me. Besides, you’re too big.”
Richie stubs the cigarette out and gets to his feet, tucking the paper bag in the crook of his arm. “Never heard complaints about that before. Mostly it’s, ‘Oh, Richie, you’re so big. Put it in me.’”
“You’re disgusting,” Eddie huffs. He scoops Penny up, who’s vibrating with rage. “I have trouble believing anyone wants to fuck you.”
“I’m an acquired taste,” he admits. He pulls a bottle out of the bag. “Like this shitty booze. Wanna get trashed with me?”
Eddie narrows his eyes. “Why? What’s the occasion?”
“Oh, nothing.” He shrugs, too casual. “I just figure you’d turn me down if I asked you out to one of the bars, and I wanna see if you get any nicer to me if you’re tipsy.”
Eddie’s treacherous mind dives into the fantasy. What if Richie did ask him out for drinks, and what if he said yes? Sitting on a divey bar stool, leaning over too close, shoulder to shoulder. Hooking his ankle around his. Making sure everyone knows that he showed up on Richie Tozier’s arm, and that he’s going to leave that way too.
People would be jealous. If Eddie gave him the go ahead, Richie wouldn’t be able to keep his hands off of him. They’d kiss, and strangers would watch, and no one would have any doubts that the resident funny man was all his.
Someone would probably take pictures. They’d be on Twitter or whatever website twenty-somethings use these days. Myra would probably see it. Their separation would turn into a divorce quicker than Eddie could stumble out an apology.
Eddie huffs and enters their building. He punches the call button for the elevator. “I’m not the kind of guy who’s going to bend over for you just because I’m drunk, you know.”
“Trust me, if we’re gonna smash bits I wanna be sober for every freaky second of it.” Richie leans across Eddie to select the fifth floor. Penny devolves into another round of snarls. He ignores it like a champ. “I just wanna spend time with you.”
When the elevator doors chime open, Eddie can’t leap out fast enough. He holds Penny close to his chest, like she can block out the rest of the world. His feet stutter in front of 5A. He whips around to face Richie.
“I’m married.”
“Separated,” Richie corrects him, rubbing the back of his neck like he’s already expecting the let down. “I can work with that.”
Eddie continues on to 5C. “Goodnight, Richie. Don’t drink that whole bottle by yourself.”
Richie doesn’t. He splits it with Bev.
—————————————————
It’s a month in when Myra finally calls him. He’d wanted to pick up his phone and call her himself so many times. He hadn’t, though, because she’d asked for her space. He was going to listen. That’s what good husbands do.
Now that what he’s been waiting for has finally happened, his heart leaps up into his throat. “Hello?”
“Hi, Eddie Bear,” she croons. “Are you doing okay?”
“I’m—”
He wants to say fine. He thinks he’s fine. Maybe a little bit better than fine. He’s been reconnecting with Bill, and watching that new documentary series with Stan. Sipping wine with Bev, and talking music with Ben. The three of them even went to a concert, once. Mike drops by sometimes because his girlfriend Sarah likes to bake, and there’s always extra. They’ll toss a few baseball stats back and forth, because Mike is the only other person on this floor who gives a shit about sports. Richie lingers and lingers and lingers. The two of them argue any chance they get.
It seems like the wrong move, though. To say fine. You’re not supposed to be fine during a separation. Not if you want your wife back.
“I’m making it through.”
Myra tuts on the other end of the line, and Eddie feels like he’s passed a test. “Are you taking care of yourself? I had a bad dream last night. You were sick. You stopped taking all your pills and vitamins and you let yourself catch something. You became paralyzed.”
Eddie closes his eyes and lets a little bit of that old comfort wash over him. The worrying is good. It means she still loves him. Hope isn’t lost yet. “Yes, Honey. I’m taking care of myself. I promise. I’m sorry you had a bad dream. I know you sleep better when I’m there.”
“I love you,” she says on a sigh. Like it’s a chore. “But I’m not ready for you to come home yet.”
“I understand.” He doesn’t.
“Thank you. You’re always so good to me. I just think that maybe if you miss me enough, when you come back home things will be like they’re supposed to be.”
Enough? How is he supposed to know when he’s missed her enough? That isn’t something he can even control. Except maybe he could spend a little less time with his new friends. He doesn’t know. He didn’t really have friends before all this. Not after Bill left. It was just Myra.
“Okay,” he says softly, sounding just like that pathetic little boy whose mother told him he couldn’t sleep over at a friend’s house because other mommies don’t know how to keep their kids clean.
“Goodbye, Eddie. I’ll try not to wait so long before our next talk.”
There's a beat of silence where she waits on the other line. Eddie fumbles, comes in late, but he remembers his cue. “Okay. Bye. I love you.”
The call disconnects. He scoops Penny up and buries his face in the soft fur of her back. His eyes sting, but he doesn’t even know the last time he cried. Frustration and loss and helplessness bounce around in his brain like a manic game of Pong.
There’s a knock at the door.
He shuffles over and swings the door open, mostly for something to do. The sight of Mike standing there in the hallway, a warm smile stretched across his face, almost makes Eddie crumble. It’s like when you go inside after standing in the freezing snow and your fingers and toes start to burn hot.
Penny, of course, sets to growling low in her throat. “Sorry. Fuck. Shit. Sorry.” Eddie sets her down and gently pats her butt to send her scurrying off. He swipes at his eyes to push back the tears. “Sorry.”
“Hey, don’t worry about it, man.” Mike claps him on the shoulder and squeezes. Eddie bets he gives good hugs to people who aren’t having a psychotic break in their own doorways. “You okay?”
It would be easy enough for him to smile around an I’m fine this time. He knows Mike isn’t waiting on a specific answer. But Eddie can’t bring himself to lie.
“I just got off the phone with my wife.” His voice is rough. He wonders if he always sounds this tired, or if it’s just the affect Myra has on him. “It could’ve gone better.”
A furrow settles between Mike’s eyebrows. “Do you want to talk about it?”
The thought makes Eddie’s skin crawl. “No.”
“You sure? It doesn’t have to be with me. You’ve got Bill. Bev or Ben. All of us.” He cracks a smile. “Even Richie, if you wanted to deal with the trash talking that comes with it.”
Eddie laughs, and it’s so real that it startles him. “No, no. I just… I want to forget it.”
“Alright. I came over to invite you across the hall, if you’re up for it. Richie’s new Netflix movie went up today. We’re all going to drink and tell him how bad it is.”
There’s not a single thing that Eddie can think of that sounds better.
When he walks over with Mike, the rest of them are all already there. Bev and Ben are tangled around each other on a gigantic, overstuffed recliner. Bev is trying to catch pieces of popcorn she keeps tossing into the air while Ben laughs into a beer bottle. Stan is sitting with his legs on Bill’s lap on the couch. Bill is soft-faced and pink-cheeked, and Stan is trying and failing not to smile.
Eddie feels like he’s crawling out of his own grave. Like he clawed his way out of a coffin and spat out mouthfuls of dirt to get here. Like the feeling — the warmth — is finally returning to his limbs. Like every breath is the first one.
He takes a step toward the open seat on the couch, and Stan stretches his feet out further, blocking his destination. “No. You’re not sitting here.”
Eddie blinks, stunned. “What? Why?”
“Because there’s only room for three people, and either Richie is going to try and cram his ass next to you, or he’s going to be yelling across the room all night, desperate for your attention. I’m not dealing with it. You two can go share the love seat.”
Eddie’s jaw drops as Richie enters from the kitchen, carrying his own bowl of popcorn and a bottle. Liquid sloshes as he jerks his arms up. “Eds!”
“This is exactly what I mean,” Stan sighs. Bill leans forward and does his best to kiss the disdain from his lips. Mike shrugs and takes the seat Eddie’s been banned from.
“What’s goin’ on?” Richie flops down on the love seat, more beer sloshing. “Come on, Eddie Spaghetti, boogie on over and cuddle it up.”
“Fine.” With as much dignity as he can muster, Eddie strides over to the love seat and sits as far away from Richie as physically possible. Even if it means he has to jam his ribs against the armrest. “Let’s get this tacky movie started."
Richie shoves a handful of popcorn in his mouth, talking around his food. “Eager Beaver. The only kind of beaver I like.” Everyone groans, but he powers on. “I wouldn’t have thought you were the type to enjoy such frivolities. Your whole look screams ‘I’m an asshole who loves foreign films.’”
Bill splutters a laugh. “Are you kidding me? Eddie loves all your stuff. Even that movie where you played that magician.”
Eddie’s shoulders come up to his ears, and he’s suddenly burning a thousand degrees. His blood pressure is probably skyrocketing. He’s going to have a stroke. He knows it. He’s too young to die. “Bill!”
Realization dawns on Bill quick. He pales. “Oh shit, Eddie. I’m sorry. I didn’t know he didn’t know!”
“Why the fuck would I have told him?!”
All the attention in the room is on Eddie, and he wishes the couch would grow a mouth with a million razor sharp teeth to swallow him whole. Bev has her face buried in Ben’s chest to stifle her laughter, but all the others are looking at him with some sick, amused schadenfreude. And Richie. Richie’s stupid face with his too big eyes making him look like a cartoon. Maybe a stroke wouldn’t be so bad about now.
“Eddie,” Richie starts, like he’s discovered some lost cavern full of gold, or stumbled upon the cure for cancer, or touched his own dick for the very first time. He starts to poke relentlessly at Eddie’s side. “Eds. Are you a fan?”
“Stop,” Eddie snaps. “Stop it.” He’s going to puke. He’s going to hurl all over Mike’s apartment and it’s not his fault. “I’m going to smash that fucking beer bottle over your head in a second, dickweed.”
Richie stops his poking, only to grab Eddie’s forearm in a death grip. “You’re a fan. You’re a fan of me. This is my new favorite fact. I’m fucking obsessed.”
Eddie grinds his elbow into Richie’s gut. “I used to be a fan. Your shit just gets worse and worse.”
“Do you have any of my merch? Do you want some? I can get you all the free shit you want. I can sign it. Oh shit — have you ever masturbated to a poster of me?”
“Richie,” Eddie says, soft and pained. Everyone else’s attention immediately snaps away from them. Ben is suddenly very invested in the dust collecting on a lamp.
“What?”
“Stop,” he begs. “I don’t want to be embarrassed. I don’t like it.”
Something in Richie just melts. He presses close to Eddie’s side. Speaks low so only the two of them can hear it. “I don’t think it’s embarrassing. It’s cute. I like that you like my stuff.”
“Yeah, well…” Eddie burrows into the love seat and steals Richie’s beer. “Liking your stuff doesn’t mean that I like you.”
The tension breaks just like that. Bev and Richie start tossing popcorn at each other from across the room. Stan curls his fingers up in Bill’s hair, and Mike cues up the movie. The movie itself is pretty good. Eddie laughs a lot, even though he can feel Richie’s eyes on him every time he does.
Eddie’s only complaint is that it ends too soon.
Everyone moves to the kitchen to pour themselves more drinks and keep the night going, but Eddie begs off. He has work early in the morning. Besides, drinking too late ruins a person’s sleep cycle. He’s already a little tipsy, anyway, just from the beers he systematically pilfered from Richie’s hands.
They all boo him as he makes his exit, but Richie follows him out, eyes soft and smile small. “I could walk you to your door?”
Eddie snorts, pushing Richie back inside Mike’s apartment. “What the fuck for?”
“A good night kiss.” Richie laughs as Eddie pulls a face. “No? Not your style? A good night hand job, maybe?”
Eddie steps in close, holding the other man’s gaze. He knows at least part of the swooping in his stomach is from fear. Fear that maybe Richie won’t live up to the man Eddie’s built up in his head. Or worse, that Richie will be even better, and Eddie won’t know what the fuck to do with that.
Smiling sweetly, he leans in to whisper softly. “Die in your sleep.”
—————————————————
September fades into October, and a storm follows on its heels. The news had predicted it, but it’s worse than anyone had bargained for. Thunder rattles the windows and howling wind sends swirls of garbage tumbling through the streets, and all of it makes it impossible for Eddie to catch one fucking second of sleep.
Penny is curled up on Eddie’s side, whining and growling with every eerie sound. It sets Eddie’s nerves on edge. What if it’s not just the storm that has her guard up? Dogs are more perceptive than humans. Maybe there’s someone using the storm as a cover for an intricate robbery. Maybe someone is already in Eddie’s apartment, disappointed that he doesn’t have much, and ready to take their rage out on his feeble body? With a knife. Or a hatchet. Murderers love hatchets.
It’s three in the morning when Eddie gives up on the concept of sleep. Even if he managed to close his eyes, the only thing he’d see would be nightmares. He slips out of bed and pads to the kitchen. Penny gets a snausage treat while the electric kettle is set to boil for tea.
For a moment there, it’s almost nice. The storm is quieter in the kitchen away from the windows. With only a few of the lights flicked on, Eddie feels tucked away and hidden. He’s always felt safer out of sight.
Then the power goes out.
Eddie doesn’t scream, but it’s a near thing. His heart is already hammering in his chest when he hears a loud thwump. He scrambles for his phone, fumbling to turn on the flashlight. Penny has picked her growling back up as he sweeps back and forth with the light, looking for intruders.
Another thwump. The scream claws its way out of Eddie’s throat this time, hoarse and high. He picks up a heavy brass table lamp from the living room. It had been a wedding present from his mother. Myra had hated it. Eddie suspects his mother knew that she would when she bought it.
A grunt accompanies the third thwump, and Eddie recognizes that the sound is traveling up and down the hall. Maybe it’s someone dragging a dead body. Did one of his friends kill somebody? Is one of his friends dead?
With all of the courage left in his violently trembling body, Eddie throws his front door open. There’s no one in the hall, but as he scans the length of it with the light of his phone he notices three things: A cellphone with a familiar crack across the screen. A pair of glasses with slightly twisted frames. And the wide open door of 5A.
“Richie?” His voice is small and weak. He’s more terrified than he’s ever been, and that’s saying something. He’s been pelted with rocks in a schoolyard. Dragged around by the arm by his mother as she raved about all the things he was going to catch if he didn’t start behaving. Sat in the icy silence of Myra’s consideration, waiting to see if he’d slipped up too much — looked too long at the wrong picture, smiled too warmly at the wrong person, strayed too far.
He’s spent his whole life being afraid, and it’s never felt as palpable as this. “Richie?”
Maybe the night doorman fell asleep downstairs. Maybe someone crept up four flights of stairs looking for Richie. It could be some rabid fan. It could be a hookup that Richie brushed off too callously. Any number of people who don’t understand how to read between the lines of Trashmouth’s vulgarities. But then again, maybe it’s not about Richie at all. Maybe it’s just a serial killer who knows a good opportunity when he sees one. Eddie thinks back to the hatchet idea, and he’s a little startled to find it bothers him more to think about Richie’s feeble body getting hacked to bits.
Somehow Eddie reaches even deeper into himself and finds an undiscovered well of strength. It’s not much, but it’s more than he ever knew he had. It’s enough to have him scooping up the phone and the glasses. Enough to have him creeping down the hall.
“Richie?” He slips into the open apartment. He doesn’t know if his heart will survive it if something’s happened. It would probably just stop. He’d die on the spot. “Come on, Tozier. Where are you?”
Someone grabs his wrist. He drops his phone and whips around screaming. He swings the lamp around wildly, catching the other figure on the third swipe.
“Ow! What the fuck, Eds? Cut that shit out.”
The tension bleeds out of Eddie so quick he goes weak in the knees. “Richie.” He drops the lamp with a loud clang and throws himself forward. He buries his face in Richie’s scratchy sweater that smells like whiskey and sweat and being alive. “God, I thought I was going to stumble across your dead body.”
Richie’s arms hesitantly come up to wrap around the other man. “What?”
“The noises and your stuff in the hall — I thought… Well. I thought someone was hurting you.”
He can hear the smile on Richie’s face better than he can see it. “And you were gonna save me? With a fucking lamp?”
Eddie squeezes Richie closer. Adrenaline is pumping through his veins like cocaine. He feels like he’s flying. “Are you drunk?”
“Nah.” His hands have started to rub circles on the small of Eddie’s back. “It takes more than five whiskey sours to get me down.”
Eddie laughs. He takes the smallest step back, his arms still around Richie, but with enough distance to start making out his face in the dim light from the city. “So what was all that thumping about, you clumsy fuck?”
“It’s dark, asshole! And I dropped my glasses, so I had to Helen Keller my way through this bitch to find my spare pair. I’m sorry we can’t all—”
Eddie tips his face up and crashes his lips against Richie’s. It is the most imperfect thing Eddie has ever done — their mouths slotted together crooked and uncertain — and he’s never been happier. He adjusts, settling his lips more squarely against Richie’s before parting them, a silent plea for more.
Richie quickly gets with the program. His hands slip to Eddie’s hips, pulling him flush against him as he flicks his tongue into his mouth. Eddie moans and Richie feels like a king. He deepens the kiss. Sucks on Eddie’s bottom lip before sliding his tongue back in, hot and slick.
They stumble slowly towards the couch, both cautious of the dark and reluctant to stop kissing for too long. Richie almost misses the cushion when he sits. He ends up sprawled on his back halfway on the floor.
“Up,” Eddie demands, already feeling the stubble burn across his chin and the swelling of his kiss-bitten lips. “Fix it. Get on the couch.”
Richie scrambles up, lying flat across the cushions. He tugs Eddie down on top of him. His hands are greedy, running over cotton clad thighs and sneaking under Eddie’s t-shirt. His mouth is greedier — neck craning up to press sloppy kisses over Eddie’s abdomen, trail his tongue over his ribcage, close his teeth around a nipple.
“Wait,” Eddie gasps, even as his hand cradles the back of Richie’s head to pull him closer to his chest. “Wait.”
“What?” Richie mutters softly, stopping but refusing to remove his lips from all that warm, flushed skin.
It feels like Eddie’s run a marathon. Every gasp of air stings as he sucks it in through his lungs. “Is this a bad idea? I don’t want to ruin our friendship.”
Richie groans, head thunking back against the armrest. “What friendship? Are we friends? You’re so fucking mean to me.”
Eddie pauses, feeling a little pang in his chest. He never knows how to say what he means. Can’t ever figure out the grace with which to lay his feelings bare while drawing all the right boundaries. His words are so often all or nothing. Usually nothing, nothing, nothing. That sort of thing doesn’t feel right in this moment. But he can’t handle ‘all,’ either.
So fuck words. He starts rolling his hips. Grinding in little circles. Richie gasps and smiles, and it doesn’t seem like he minds the shift in topic at all.
He leans back in to kiss Richie. If a hatchet murderer is in their building after all, this wouldn’t be the worst way to die. This might be the only thing he ever wants to do until he eventually meets his maker. Well. Not the only thing.
Eddie slides off the couch and Richie gives a sound of protest, making grabby hands after him. “What? No. What? What’s wrong now?”
Rolling his eyes, Eddie settles on his knees. “Nothing.” He pushes and pulls at Richie’s legs, trying to get him to sit up. “Come on, get your pants off.”
“Oh. Fuck.” Richie flails as he drags himself into a sitting position. He nearly kicks Eddie in the face in his haste to wrangle his pants down. It’s almost funny, but by the time his jeans and boxers are dropped to his ankles and his knees are on either side of Eddie’s shoulders, no one is laughing.
Eddie stares up at him — at his hard length. He can’t really see much of anything through the darkness, but he lightly brushes his palms up Richie’s thighs and forgets how to breathe. He hasn’t done this in a decade. Maybe longer. It’s not like he’s been keeping track. He’s thought about this, though. Thought about doing this to Richie. Thought about it while he’d been doing it to someone else. While he was alone in his bed. A decade ago. Five years ago. Five days ago.
He’s shaking as he leans in to mouth up the side of Richie’s length. Trembling from the joy of it. He’s excited. He’s doing this by touch alone, and it feels hotter. More electric. Like with every move he makes he gets to rediscover Richie all over again. It only makes him want more.
“I wish I could see you,” he breathes, licking a stripe up the shaft. “See if you’re as big as you feel.”
Richie chokes a little on his own spit as Eddie takes the head into his mouth. “I can grab a flashlight. Call the power company. Fuck, you can blow me on the fire escape by the light of the moon, if you want.”
Eddie pulls back a little to laugh, and then he’s diving back in with purpose. He was an expert at this once. He hasn’t forgotten how — it’s a bit like riding a bike. An oversized bike he doesn’t quite fit on right, but the mechanics are the same.
He slides his lips down, taking in as much as he can. Drags back up, slow and teasing. With the next few bobs of his head he brings his hands to the base, his fingers meeting his lips as they stroke together.
“Shit,” Richie pants. “This, uh, probably isn’t going to take too long.”
Eddie doesn’t care. He flicks and rolls his tongue under the head. Loves the way that Richie’s knees hug his shoulders. Gets drunk off the whiny huffs that he makes. He redoubles his efforts when long fingers grip his hair. It feels like he was made for this.
He pulls off when Richie warns him that he’s getting close. He finishes him quick and dirty with his hands. Richie seems to melt into the couch when he comes, but he still manages to fumble around for something on the floor to wipe Eddie clean. It feels like a t-shirt, but Eddie doesn’t want to ask why there are clothes around the living room.
Richie is still reintroducing himself to his own brain cells when Eddie climbs back on top of him. They’re both sweaty and sticky despite the cold, and as they press closer it’s almost unbearable. Eddie’s palming at his chest, kissing up his neck, vibrating with energy and want.
“Touch me,” he begs, almost delirious. “Richie, please.”
Well. It’s not like it’s a hardship. Richie spits into his own hand and Eddie’s face crumples. He doesn’t know if this is a complete turn off or a devastating turn on. He stops thinking about it when Richie shoves his hand down his pajama pants.
Eddie squeezes his eyes shut, exhaling wet puffs against Richie’s shoulder. He quakes and clutches and comes apart. It feels like he’s seen the face of God, and it’s just as beautiful as the first time he saw it on tv.
—————————————————
They’re still smooshed together on Richie’s couch as the sun rises. Like clockwork, Eddie’s eyes open. Some of that numbness seeps back into his chest. It’s not as easy to hide in the pale light stretching through the windows.
Richie must have awoken around the same time — or maybe never really slept at all — because his arms tighten around Eddie’s waist. “Is this where we have an awful conversation?”
Eddie huffs a laugh. Wants to cry. “We don’t have to.”
“What’s the alternative?”
“We keep laying here. You kiss me. I come back here tonight. Then the next night. For as long as you’ll have me.”
Richie sits up. Eddie moves to the other end of the couch. “I kind of feel like the second you walk out the door you’re never going to touch me again.”
Shame creeps up Eddie’s neck, mixed with a horrible cannibalistic guilt. “I want to.”
Richie nods, and he’s still not wearing pants, and his expression is so serious. It should all be very funny. It’s not. “Yeah, you seemed very enthusiastic last night. You haven’t been all that shy about being into dudes. But, you know. You have a wife. And you’re kind of cagey about it.”
“It’s 2019, dickhead,” Eddie jibes. Because it’s safe and easy. “Have an open mind.”
“Hey, bisexuality is legit, Eddie, but you have to actually like women for that to be a thing.”
Sighing, Eddie lets his gaze drift to the ceiling. “I’m just doing what I’m supposed to be doing.”
“What do you mean?” He must let the question hang between them for too long, because Richie places a hand on Eddie’s knee before rephrasing. “What are you supposed to be doing?”
“You know,” Eddie makes a vague gesture that means nothing. “You have to follow all the right steps to have a happy life. You go to the right school, and you get the right job, and you marry the right person.”
Richie is nodding along as if any of this makes sense. “And… The right person has to be a woman?”
“It’s like chocolate cake,” Eddie says with a sudden manic clarity.
“What the fuck?”
“Chocolate cake,” Eddie continues. “No one blames you for wanting it. Cake is good. And when you’re young you can eat anything and it doesn’t matter. No one looks twice. But when you’re an adult, you know better than to eat the cake. You have to be sensible. Responsible. A healthy man is supposed to nibble on egg whites and run five miles. Maybe at first that just makes you want the cake all the more. But you get used to not having it.”
Richie’s head aches. He reaches down and finally — finally — slips back into his boxers. Eddie can look at him again. “So… Chocolate cake is cock, right?”
Eddie’s cheeks burn pink. He pinches at the bridge of his nose. “Yes, Richie. Jesus.”
“Well if you don’t want to eat pussy — Sorry, egg whites — then who the fuck cares? Eat cake for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Fuck ‘supposed to.”
Shaking his head, Eddie stands. His heart sinks to his feet like a stone. “You don’t get it.”
“Yeah, sure. Self-hatred is totally foreign to me.”
“It’s not just me,” Eddie insists. “I’m not like you — I can’t just go on stage and laugh it off. I have a real job, and my mom is… I can’t stand to be thought less of.”
“Do you think less of Bill?”
It feels like a complete non sequitur to Eddie. He blinks, trying to catch up. “What?”
“Bill,” Richie bites back in frustration. “Do you think less of him for being balls deep in chocolate cake every night? Do you think less of me?”
The thought pains Eddie, like a bullet to the chest. “No. Of course not.”
Richie laughs then, but it’s not a happy sound. “So what makes you so fucking special?”
Eddie’s eyes slip closed. He wishes the night could have lasted longer. He hates the sun. He hates the time he spends awake and present and stepping over his own egg shells. “I’m a coward. I don’t know what else you want me to say.”
“Eds-”
“I have to go.”
Turning his back on Richie isn’t easy, and every step he takes makes his stomach turn. But it’s easier, he tells himself, than the life he would have if he stayed.
—————————————————
Life post-sex-with-Richie almost goes back to normal. It’s not like they avoid each other. Whenever he’s in the hall, or hanging out in another apartment, or leaves his door open Richie is there. Eddie is weak and has never been very good about taking care of himself without Myra’s or his mother’s help, so he never tells Richie to keep his distance.
They still bicker like pubescent boys who don’t know how to keep their spiky emotions inside. They eviscerate each other with smug smiles and self-satisfied snickers and Stan still rolls his eyes until they hurt. But they always leave at least two feet of space between them now, and Richie always stops himself right before he shouts out something flirtatious.
It gets too quiet sometimes. Richie will open his mouth, and then it quickly clicks closed, and all Eddie wants to do is fill the silence. He remembers what Richie sounds like when he comes. He remembers what it sounds like when he startles a laugh out of him. He’s become addicted to both, and the hardest part of recovery is the detox.
He’s not proud of it, but he googles the picture.
—————————————————
Eddie is in a definite downswing. It hasn't been this bad in years, where he scrubs his hands under scalding water until they’re screaming red, or reorganizes his refrigerator three times in the middle of the night, or inspects every inch of his skin under a magnifying glass for signs of cancer. It feels like the structure has fallen right out of his life and all of his pent up energy has nowhere to go. Like if one tiny thing goes wrong he will splinter into a trillion tiny pieces.
This wouldn’t have been a problem a few weeks ago. He could have just left his apartment and Richie would have been there, ready to distract him without even knowing that’s what he needed. He’d say something disgusting, or make him laugh, or say something so incorrect that Eddie would have to spend a whole forty-five minutes making sure he knew just how wrong he was.
A new question turns over and over in his brain. Is he a mess because he misses his wife too much, or because he’s sad he fucked things up with Richie? Was this what his mom always meant when she said how hard it would be to be with a man? This gaping hole?
Eddie has to laugh at that train of thought. Richie would have had a lot of riffs off of ‘gaping hole.’
A knock pounds at his door, even and firm.
He shuffles over, mind still racing about Richie. His guard is down when he flings the door open, assuming it’s either Mike or Bill. It’s not.
“Ma?”
Sonia Kaspbrak stands in the doorway, a soft smile on her face that makes her son erupt into a cold sweat. “Hi, Eddie Bear. Are you going to invite me in?”
Hiding under the couch, Penny starts up a vicious snarl reserved for only vacuum cleaners and the most hated of guests.
Eddie wordlessly steps aside to let his mother inside. It feels like someone punched through his chest and wrapped their hands around his lungs. He’s trying not to wheeze. Not to run five steps to the kitchen and puke in the sink. The last thing he needs is his mother swaddling him in blankets and rushing him to the emergency room.
“I figured you might be lonely with no one to take care of you.” She looks him up and down, and judging by the flat expression on her face, she finds him wanting. “I was hoping you would take me out for dinner. Have some nice mother-son time.”
Eddie can’t think of anything he would rather do less. “Dinner?”
She walks further into the apartment, shrewdly inspecting everything from the light fixtures to the drapes. He knows everything is cleaner than it would be if it came straight from the factory, but that doesn’t mean his mother won’t find fault. Maybe dinner is the safer bet.
“It’s smaller than I thought it’d be,” Sonia says with a disapproval so casual Eddie almost has the pavlovian response of breaking out into hives. “It’s clean, but it’s not homey enough. I don’t like you being here all alone.”
When Eddie was thirteen and had slowly begun to figure out the exact way he liked other boys, a bit of a rebellious streak ran through him. Everything she’d said to him that summer felt like stroking a dogs fur the wrong way. He’d lashed back — screamed when she screamed — but mostly his mutiny lived in the tiny, cutting remarks he threw back at her hypocrisy.
It didn’t last long, because when she’d found out about the little things that made Eddie feel happy and free and right, she did her best to poison him against them. There were always little aftershocks, though. The times when that angry kid would pound against Eddie’s chest begging to be let out. When he was sixteen and she’d told him it wasn’t healthy to be so close to a boy like Bill. When he was was nineteen and lost his virginity, but had gotten hell for coming home so late even though he was legally an adult. When he was twenty-three years old and he saw a beautiful man on the television, and she creased her face like he was the devil and told him to turn it off.
He feels that thumping on his ribcage now. It sounds the same as Richie’s fists always do thumping wildly on his door.
“What do you want from me, Ma? I don’t have a lot of options. Do you want me to stay married to a woman you can’t stand, or do you want me to live somewhere cozy?”
Sonia glares, lips pressing together in a thin line. “Well, I don’t want my son to be single this close to his forties.”
To say he’s close to his forties is uncalled for. He’s got five fucking years. He rolls his eyes. “Why? Because you’re embarrassed to tell your friends?”
“Because it’s bad for you,” she snaps. “Look, it’s already making you nasty. Who knows what else it’s filling your head with?”
Eddie goes to argue, but he’s cut off by the sound of voices drifting from the elevator. His body locks up in full blown panic mode, muscles wound tight and breaths coming short. He knows exactly what’s been filling his head, and half of them are standing in the hallway.
He loves this place. He really fucking does. Maybe it’s not cozy and warm. Maybe he hasn’t let this apartment become his yet, covered in books he never has time to read, and pictures that he got to choose all by himself, and those stupid impractical spiral fruit bowls that he secretly adores. But he has the option. The freedom.
And it comes with the people. Bill, who grew up with him, and felt terrified with him, and fought by his side, and who he never thought he’d ever see again. Stan, who pretends he doesn’t have time for anyone when all he ever does is take care of them, who’s logical and loves the simplest of things. Bev, who is fierce and wild and so frighteningly brave. Ben, who is loyal, who believes in softness even in the hardest times. Mike, who would hold a person up even when his own arms are tired, who always believes in doing what’s right.
“Richie?”
And Richie.
“Richie!” Bev repeats, louder this time, her laughter-shaky voice bouncing up and down the halls.
Eddie knows what happens to the things that he loves. Sonia Kaspbrak burns them to the ground, and Eddie lets her. She takes and takes from him, and even when he tricks himself into believing he can be brave, all he does is watch.
It’s like the boys at school who used to tease him because he looked gay, or because they thought he was gay, or because he was actually gay. They used to punch, and trip, and chase, and Eddie never fought back. He never knew how to, and he’d heard stories about how throwing a bad punch could hurt worse than taking one. So he didn’t fight. But he’d learned to hide.
“Maybe we should just stay in,” Eddie speaks too fast. “I can make dinner. We can make dinner together! You used to love that, remember? It’ll be just like when I was a kid.”
Sonia looks doubtful. “What’s gotten into you?”
“Nothing.”
‘Not yet,' the awful voice in his head that sounds like Richie says.
Eddie audibly gulps. “Nothing. I guess I just didn’t realize how lonely I was here until you came. I… I like that someone else is here.”
“Those aren’t your friends in the hallway?” Her eyes narrow. “Those rude, noisy people?”
He feels four feet tall, like the little eight year old who would gawp up at his mother with giant doe eyes full of tears and a soft, susceptible brain. “Of course not.”
Sonia huffs. “Well, it feels too stuffy in here, Eddie. It could be carbon monoxide, you know. One day you’ll go to bed and you’ll never wake up. You need to get someone here to check it out professionally. Maybe you should stay with me until you figure it out.”
“No, Ma,” Eddie replies too shortly. He winces, knowing he’s lost some of his leeway.
“Fine.” She turns her face away, like he’s so desperate for her attention that five seconds without it is excruciating. Which is… Fair enough. Because he used to be. “But I’m not going to eat here until you get an inspector.”
“That’s not how carbon monoxide works,” Eddie argues.
“Are you a scientist?” Sonia asks, already moving toward the door. “A doctor? No? Then I’m not going to chance it.”
Eddie is halfway up her heels as she exits out into the hall. The scene they walk into is like a tableau from one of his worst nightmares. Bev, Bill, and Richie are hanging out by the elevators, grinning and practically shining with joy. Bev balances on her tippy toes in the middle of the men, arms thrown around their shoulders.
Sonia clears her throat, crude and pointed. Three pairs of eyes snap toward them. It feels like the confrontation is unfolding in slow motion. Eddie’s whole body runs cold.
Bill, of course, recognizes Sonia from their childhood. He tenses up. His eyes glaze over a bit. Harden. Eddie’s seen his face do the same thing in the mirror when he’s on the phone with his mother. It’s less like putting up a defensive layer and more like a tiny piece of himself dying inside. But Bill’s jaw winds tight, and he remains steadfastly silent.
Something in Eddie’s face must, somehow, be enough for Bev. Her body slumps a bit, and every line of her face smooths out into something soft and sorry. She doesn’t say anything, either.
But Richie. Richie, the absolute fool, lights up like the sight of Eddie is water in the desert. If they were alone, Eddie would probably tell him not to. He’d say that Richie deserves better than the fate of letting himself care about someone so terrified of himself that he’s buried himself under six feet of dirt and denial. He’d tell Richie that he can’t even keep himself from getting hurt, and the last thing he ever wants to do is cause Richie pain, but he doesn’t know how to stop it.
But they’re not alone.
“Eds!” He slips out from under Bev’s arm and bounds forward like everyone else in the hallway ceases to exist. “I was hoping to see you.”
“It’s Eddie,” he replies, and it’s nothing like the way he snaps ‘Don’t call me that,’ with fondness woven so tightly into the disdain that they’re inseparable. It’s short and cold, and Eddie makes sure he doesn’t blush. Doesn’t swoon forward. Doesn’t move a single muscle in his face.
Sonia straightens up a bit. Looks smug. Approving. Eddie hates her more now than he has in his entire life.
Looking like a kicked dog, Richie takes a half-step backward. “Eddie. I… I was just gonna tell you that I-”
“I don’t care,” Eddie cuts him off, violently jabbing at the down button for the elevator. “I cannot tell you how uninterested I am. In fact, unless you have something to say in regards to the frankly horrifying amount of frozen dinner boxes you can’t seem to properly dispose of in the recycling bin downstairs, then you could never talk to me again, for all I care.”
Bill’s eyes drop to the floor. Bev’s hands curl into fists at her sides.
“I get it,” Richie mutters, and his eyes slide to Sonia for the first time. He sounds more tired than Eddie has ever heard him, and he once discovered him on the roof at four in the morning burning through shitty material that wouldn’t have made the kindest of audiences laugh. “A man’s got to clean up his own mess.”
Nausea crashes over Eddie like a plate to the head — jarring and violent. He wants to apologize, but the elevator doors open and his mother is already stepping inside. “Some people are messier than others,” he says instead.
The doors close between them.
“Was that Bill Denbrough?” Sonia asks almost immediately. “That little delinquent who used to run off with boys all the time?”
Eddie laughs, a fraction manic. It’s the only thing keeping him from bursting into tears. “I’ve seen Bill with maybe three guys the entire time I’ve known him. If he was running off with anyone back then, it would’ve been girls.”
“It’s not right,” she sniffs. “His parents should’ve taken better care of him.”
‘Like you did?’ he wants to say. His brain rifles through all the things Sonia’s love and care drove him to do. The times he snuck out — too young and even more naive — to go to bars and see if there was a place on Earth that made the pit in his stomach shrink. The times he stumbled into alleyways and cars with strangers that could have killed him because he didn’t know how to want what he wanted in comfortable spaces.
When Eddie doesn’t respond, Sonia changes the subject. “That red-headed woman — she seemed like trouble.”
“Bev? No.” Only the best kind.
“I can tell,” she insists. “I’ve got an eye for it. She’s too pretty by half, and she’s flaunting it everywhere. She’s asking for trouble. She’s going to end up pregnant and unwed in a gutter somewhere.”
Eddie stomps out of the elevator. “Knock it off, Ma. She’s nice.”
“You’re not dating that woman, are you Eddie?”
“I’m married,” he sighs. It feels like he’s reading off of a script. “I love my wife. I don’t want anyone else.”
Sonia tsks. “Well. If you change your mind, I know plenty of nice, respectable options who would love to spend time with my Eddie Bear. You don’t have to stay with Myra. There are women after women waiting for you.”
Women after women, like shovelfuls of dirt.
She doesn’t mention Richie, though. It’s a small victory, but if he can keep him safe and close to his heart — just this one precious little secret that’s all for himself — then his mother can say anything else she wants.
—————————————————
Eddie is ashamed. Of his mother. Not Richie. Never Richie.
All the times Sonia told him he would get sick? If he didn’t take his pills. If he didn’t go to bed on time. If he didn’t stay out of the grass. If he didn’t stop touching other men.
It turns out she was the virus all along. She creeps under Eddie’s skin before he even notices. He flushed her out once, but the second strain is always worse. It leaves parts of him rotting and sore.
Sonia might not have said anything about Richie, but she’s not stupid. She noticed the way he looked at Eddie. She saw the way her son did everything he could not to react, and that was reaction enough. She’s not stupid. She knows that the power of making Eddie feel like he’s keeping something from her is far greater than the power she’d have if she told him she knew.
If she doesn’t say bad things about Richie, Eddie will bend over backwards to keep her happy and away from him. It just takes Eddie too long to figure out her game. It takes him six more dinners, a drive to the doctor’s office, a night in watching old movies, and a deep clean of both of their apartments.
In those three weeks, Eddie doesn’t speak to anyone else. He goes to work early and he comes home late, where all he does is sprawl out in his bed. Bill and Ben and Mike call him almost a hundred times between the three of them. Stan knocks on his door. He knows it’s Stan because he can distinguish all of his friends knocks by now, and also because he yelled at him from the hallway. Beverly picks his lock, and her face is twisted and angry until she sees his empty expression. She sits next to him on the bed, but they don’t talk.
Richie doesn’t try to reach him. That’s fair enough. It’s better, even. Eddie doesn’t know what he’d do if he had to pretend to be alive around him. He doesn’t know what he’d do if he had to open his mouth and be honest.
Poor Penny is agitated by Eddie’s mental state. She follows his emotional cues even on the best of days. Now she spends all of her time tucked against his side, heaving whiny sighs. She’s antsy when he moves from the bedroom to the kitchen to the bathroom and back. Her little feet tap all over the place, like the latest circuit around the apartment will finally be the one to snap her owner out of it.
It’s the beginning of December and it’s raining. Everything looks and feels so gray, but Penny is sitting by the door barking. Eddie doesn’t want to go outside, but he knows he owes it to her. She didn’t ask for him to be depressed, and she has to pee.
They’re on their fourth trip around the block when Eddie sees the cab outside of his apartment building. Richie stumbles toward it with a giant suitcase missing a wheel. He’s jamming his things in the trunk as Eddie approaches. He doesn’t even flinch when he speaks, like he has an awareness of Eddie’s proximity at all times.
“Going on a trip?” Eddie asks. It’s soft and reserved, but also treading dangerously close to pretending like everything is normal.
Richie looks over at him with a sad little smile. “I’ve got some gigs on the West Coast.”
“Oh.” His heart starts to pound. It’s irrational maybe, but the last time he watched someone fly across the country it was almost the last time he saw him. “For how long?”
“Two weeks.” He shrugs, slamming the trunk. “A pal of mine in Vegas was doing a residency out there, but he had to take some time off ‘cause his wife had a baby.”
“Oh,” he says again, dumbly. He almost wants to ask why Richie never told him, but he never really gave him the chance to, did he?
“Yeah.”
Eddie huffs a laugh that’s awkward enough to make Penny cringe. “You’re skipping town for two weeks and that’s all you’re bringing? You’re going to run out of clothes by Wednesday. Do you even have an extra pair of shoes packed?”
“I’ll make do,” Richie says, wrapping his arms around himself as the wind picks up. “Take care, Eddie.”
‘Not Eds?’ he wants to say. ‘Not I’ll miss you? Come with me? I want you?’
There’s an alternate timeline in Eddie’s mind where Richie and Eddie are laughing. They can’t stop touching each other and the sun is shining. Eddie packed two suitcases for Richie, because he can’t stand the thought of him being so far away and so unprepared. Richie kisses down Eddie’s neck as Eddie piles the luggage into the cab. Eddie pushes him away, but pulls him back once his hands are free. The cab driver is laying on the horn, but Eddie and Richie are still pawing at each other, promising to have phone sex every night that they’re apart.
“See you when you get back.”
But Richie is already climbing into the cab, so he can’t be sure he heard it. What would it matter, anyway? Because it’s not ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘I’m trying’ or any of the other things he should have said.
—————————————————
Richie has only been gone four days, but the internet is raving about his stint in Las Vegas. Eddie reads all the reviews. Sets a Google alert and refreshes Instagram every couple of minutes to see if Richie has posted what he’s doing on his story. He keeps googling that damn picture.
He almost calls him so, so many times.
Instead he picks up his phone and dials Myra. It rings once. Twice. And then there’s a knock on the door — loud and even: Bill — and he hangs up like his surprise visitor is a sign from God that he’s being an idiot.
Eddie trips over himself to throw open the door. He almost wishes he hadn’t. Bill is there sweating profusely. Not sweaty like he just ran five miles, sweaty like he might barf. His cheeks are violently red and he’s swaying on his feet.
“Bill?” Eddie takes a step back, because he’s already hit rock bottom, he doesn’t know what he’ll do if his best friend vomits in his face. “What’s going on? Do you need to go to the hospital?”
“C-c-can I come in?” He doesn’t really wait for an answer, just walks an uneven line straight for the couch. “I’ve g-got something to t-t-tell you.”
Bill hasn’t stuttered this bad since high school. It comes back sometimes, when he’s tired or stressed or excited. He doesn’t look like any of those things right now. He looks like there’s a very real possibility he’s going to shit his pants. Or pass out. Or shit his pants and pass out.
Maybe something terrible has happened. Maybe Stan got in a freak subway accident and lost a leg. Maybe Bev fell down the stairs and suffered extreme retrograde amnesia. Maybe Richie mouthed off to some mafia kingpin in Las Vegas and he was shipped back home in pieces.
Eddie sits down heavily next to Bill. “What happened?”
“Nothing happened.” Bill reaches over and takes Eddie’s hand — an apology and a reassurance. “I promise. I j-just… I need you to tell me I’m not an idiot.”
Arching a brow, Eddie squeezes Bill’s fingers between his. “I can’t agree to that without context.”
Bill laughs, breathy and nervous. With his free hand he fumbles around inside his jean pocket. His now closed fist trembles as he withdraws it, then he turns his hand over and splays his fingers. In the flat of his open palm sits a dark — almost black — ring.
“I want to ask Stan to marry me.”
Eddie’s throat closes up. He wants to ask why Bill came to him for this when they’ve only been reconnected for a few months. Surely Bev would be a better help. Ben has probably been waiting to be the support system in a scenario like this his entire life. Besides, Eddie is a miserable cynical shit who wouldn’t be able to hold his own marriage together if his life was on the line.
At the same time, he thinks he knows exactly why Bill came to him. It’s that little fear that grips a person’s chest when they’re at their most vulnerable. It makes them feel small and childish. And Eddie, despite disappearing from his life for nearly a decade, was there with him as a child. He maybe knows him better than anyone — what he’s capable of, what he wants, what he’s lost.
All Bill wants is for someone he trusts to tell him this is the right thing.
“Do you love him?” Eddie asks, clutching Bill’s hand even tighter.
Without even a beat of thought, Bill responds, “More than anything.”
“Does he make you better?” Eddies voice quivers.
“Without even having to try.”
“Then you should ask him.” He pulls his hand away and has to grip it between his knees. “You guys are… If there’s someone you want to spend the rest of your life with, you should get to do that. I’m happy for you.”
A soft, sappy smile spreads across Bill’s lips. He traces the circle of the ring with the pad of his pointer finger. “Thank you.”
Eddie is not a good friend. Not a good person. Maybe not a good anything, because he is consumed so suddenly and entirely by a toxic jealousy. Bill is the happiest he’s ever seen him, and Eddie wants to punch a hole through the wall.
Bill is going to spend every day coming home to someone who makes him smile. He’s going to fall asleep beside someone knowing that they love him. He’ll wake up in the morning and reality will be better than every single dream.
When Eddie thinks about Myra taking him back, he feels relief. Not joy. Not excitement. He doesn’t blush when she calls him sugary names, and he sure as hell doesn’t quake at the thought of her hands on him. He’s spent his entire adult life playing things safe, never really understanding the curse of comfort until now.
After Bill leaves, the tears that Eddie’s been holding back for years pour out of him. It’s quiet at first, but then he buries his face into the couch cushions to muffle his wracking sobs. It feels like it’ll never end. His throat aches and his eyes burn and he’s shaking down to his toes.
Eddie is in love with Richie “Trashmouth” Tozier, and it’s nothing like the infatuation of twelve years ago. It’s not shallow and intangible, it is endless and suffocating and unavoidable. It’s something that has crawled down his throat and pierced his heart, traveling through his veins to fill his body from scalp to heel. It is the best thing that’s ever happened to him, and he’s betrayed it by treating it so poorly.
As his sobs wring him out right there in the living room, Eddie promises himself that the next time he sees Richie he’ll tell him everything.
—————————————————
Richie comes home on a Tuesday night. Eddie wants to beg off work and be there at the airport to greet him. He’s seen too many movies and knows very little of actual romance, but mostly he doesn’t know how to keep the truth inside of him anymore. He wants to wait at baggage claim and run into his arms and kiss him in front of everybody. He wants all the tabloids to have covers splashed with pictures of the beginning of their beautiful love story.
He goes to work, though. It’s been too long since he’s seen Richie — really seen him and spent time with him where things weren’t stilted and awful. There’s a little seed of doubt in the pit of his stomach about how Richie might feel about him in return. If a rejection was splashed across the tabloids, then Eddie would just have to make a date with a bottle of Drano.
So he works and he waits. He knows Richie’s plane lands at three. He knows that everyone on their floor is meeting at seven at some Spanish restaurant downtown to catch up. He knows he’ll have to wait until he and Richie are alone before he carves out his heart and hands it over. And time is ticking too fucking slow.
By the time he gets out of the office it’s already seven fifteen, and he’s defying the physics of time and space to get to the Lower East Side as fast as he can. He barrels into the restaurant, hurdling over the cramped cluster of chairs to get to their table. Tapas are already spread out between them, and they’re clearly already a little tipsy if the easy amusement on their faces is any indication.
“Eds!” Richie crows happily. He kicks the chair beside him out for Eddie to sit, and with those glossy eyes he’s almost certainly beyond tipsy. “Love you in that suit.”
A flush crawls up Eddie’s neck as he takes a seat. He thinks about the possibility of Richie peeling him out of the suit later. “Thanks.” For posterity, he also rolls his eyes. “I like your Hooters t-shirt.”
Richie laughs and slings an arm over the back of Eddie’s chair. “Don’t look at me like that, it’s not offensive. I’m gay — wearing it is a show of solidarity.”
“It’s a show of idiocy,” Eddie says, failing not to smile as he pinches Richie’s side. “It’s winter and you’re going to get pneumonia, asshole.”
“Maybe I want to get pneumonia. Maybe this is all just a ploy to get you to play doctor.”
Richie jerks suddenly, kneeing the bottom of the table. Eddie follows his glare across the table to Stan, who’s blinking back innocently. And he’s not the only one watching them. Bill, Mike, Bev, and Ben are all waiting with patient amusement.
“This is a group dinner,” Stan sing-songs. “Not the Richie and Eddie Show."
Eddie sinks down in his chair as Richie flips Stan off. "You jealous, Stan the Man? Don’t worry, my little Eddie Spaghetti just got here — I still know how to spread the love.”
Under the table Richie runs his foot up Stan’s calf, earning him a bread roll to the face. “I swear to God, Richie. I will stuff you in a trunk and ship you right back to Vegas.”
“Ooh Daddy, tell me more.”
Bill dips his fingers in his water glass and flicks the droplets into Richie’s face. “Back off, Tozier. I’m the only one who gets to be bossed around by Stan.”
Stan gasps, climbing half on top of Bill to cover his mouth. The others erupt into laughter. It’s warm and cozy, and to Eddie it feels like home is supposed to be. Like after looking in all the wrong places, he’s finally found a family.
Feeling eager and brave, Eddie leans over to rest his chin on Richie’s shoulder. “I missed you,” he breathes, quiet enough so only Richie can hear.
Their friends are distracted, already talking over each other and laughing. Richie turns to face him and their noses bump a little. His gaze is dark and hot. Eddie feels like he’s melting. “Yeah? You think about me while I was gone?”
“I always think about you,” he admits. His hand falls to Richie’s thigh, closer to his knee than anything. “It’s my favorite thing to do.”
Richie swallows, tongue suddenly dry. His hand slips on top of Eddie’s, just idly tracing patterns across his knuckles. “Careful,” he starts, voice trying for joking, but wavering from earlier’s confident tone. “A guy could get the wrong idea.”
“Richie, I—”
A shrill, electronic chirping cuts through the noise around the table. Everyone pauses, heads turning toward the phone lighting up and buzzing against the wood.
“Sorry,” Mike says, reaching forward to silence the device. He absent-mindedly opens the notification, skimming the text. He tenses from his fingers all the way up to his shoulders. It’s a move so subtle Eddie would have missed it if he wasn’t paying such close attention.
“What’s wrong, Mikey?”
His eyes flicker over to Eddie, flashing with panic. He pushes the emotion down and stuffs his phone away in his pocket. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it. Just Sarah filling me in on work gossip.”
Stan’s eyes narrow suspiciously, but before he can call Mike out on his lie his own phone is ringing out. He fishes it out of his slacks and skims the message. Bill, practically connected at the hip, eavesdrops. In an eerily synchronized moment, the color drains from both of their faces.
Bev, who has always been too perceptive, darts a look around the table. “Maybe we should all turn our phones off. This is supposed to be a night about connecting, right?”
“Sure,” Richie shrugs, already cutting the power on his Android. “I’m always happy to dodge calls from my agent, anyway.”
Eddie, a little confused and a lot uneasy, is reaching for his own phone when it beeps in his hands. His brow furrows as he flicks open the Google alert notification. The link directs him to a blog, startlingly pink and trashy.
Richie Tozier Gets Frisky at the Flamingo
Eddie knows well enough that headlines tend to be deceiving. One stupid article is hardly damning evidence. But the pictures on the blog sure are.
He drops the phone to the table with a clatter. Nausea rolls over him and he feels stupid. Hotly embarrassed. He wishes he could rewind the last half hour and start over. Enter with some sense of self-preservation.
Richie is reaching for him and he’s squirming away. “Eds, what’s wrong?”
A sweat breaks out over Eddie’s top lip and he blinks so fiercely he sees spots. He gestures weakly at the phone between them and wheezes out the saddest attempt at a joke. “At least it’s not a dick pic, right?”
Richie’s eyes fall to the paparazzi photos. They’re not just of him, but another man. The stranger is tall and, frankly, gorgeous. Eddie can’t help but to catalogue the differences between them. If this is Richie’s type he doesn’t know where he factors in at all.
His chest seizes up, because he’s a fool, isn’t he? He’d thought there was something. A real something. That Richie had — but he’s there on the screen, laughing with this blue-eyed blonde-haired genetically perfect freak. He’s kissing him on the balcony and wrapping his arms around him from behind. They’re sharing cigarettes and drinking champagne straight from the bottle. Speaking with heads bent close as they unbutton each other’s shirts.
“I can explain,” Richie says, looking like a deer caught in headlights.
“I don’t think you need to,” Eddie bites back tightly. “It’s none of my business.”
Their friends shift uncomfortably in their seats. Bev scoots her chair over an inch, petting a hand down Eddie’s arm. “Do you need to take a second? We can go for a walk?”
Eddie shakes his head. His cheeks burn red and everything is a little blurry from the tears collecting in his eyes. “I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be fine?”
Like the absolute mess that he is, Richie throws back the rest of his drink. He swipes his mouth with the back of his hand before turning to Eddie with wild, desperate eyes. “Look, Matt and I are just friends.”
“Who cares?” Eddie says faintly. He feels like he’s separated from his body. “I don’t care. You and I are just friends, too, right?”
And that’s the kicker, isn’t it? Because Eddie had known they weren’t anything. Not really, not yet. They weren’t dating and they weren’t even really sleeping together. But Eddie had wanted so badly to be special. The disappointment is bitter on his tongue.
“Don’t put this all on me,” Richie says, panicked like an animal backed into a corner. “I’m not the one who’s been moping around after his wife.”
“Richie,” Bill snaps sharply.
Eddie waves him off. “No, it’s fine. He can say or do whatever he wants. He always does.”
“Oh come on, Eds.” Richie lays a calming hand on Eddie’s shoulder.
“Don’t touch me!” He shrugs him off. “And don’t fucking call me that.”
“You’re being a fucking baby.”
Ben scrapes his chair back and walks over to plant himself between them. He puts a hand on the back of both of their chairs, leaning in a bit to make himself more level with them. He’s radiating all kinds of calm, like they’re wild dogs who just need to break eye contact. But Eddie’s feeling pretty fucking rabid.
“Guys. You’re letting this get out of hand.” He sounds equal parts pre-school teacher and marriage counselor, and it sets Eddie’s eye to twitching. “Should we maybe put a pin in this until everyone can relax enough to think about what they’re saying?”
“Good idea,” Mike agrees, looking around wildly like a waitress will suddenly appear with a check.
Eddie grinds his teeth. The fact that everyone he knows and cares about gets to take part in his grand humiliation is just an insult to injury. “It’s fine. The conversation is over anyway.”
Ben sighs. “You don’t think that’s something you guys should both decide?”
“Ben,” Beverly mutters warily.
But Eddie has already snapped his full attention to him. “That’s a great idea for some wonderfully healthy communication. But I don’t need that. Richie can fuck off, because we’re not in a relationship. I barely even know him, apparently.”
Ben huffs a little laugh, slightly misjudges the air of the room. “Give him a little credit, Eddie.”
Stan buries his face in his hands, and Bev is behind Ben in an instant, trying to gracefully pull him away from the storm that’s brewing.
“Credit?” Eddie squawks. “Credit?”
Flustered, Ben fumbles back into his seat. He looks like the embodiment of those nightmares Eddie used to have where he was in the middle of taking a test when suddenly the language changed. Like he missed a few steps in between and he’s desperately trying to catch up. “I just… Maybe Richie didn’t really know you had feelings for him.”
Eddie leaps to his feet, ears ringing from the sheer mortification of having someone put his emotions into words. “You’re such a fucking Richie apologist!”
“Okay honey,” Bev starts, authoritative but not unkind. “Remember who you’re actually mad at here.”
“Thanks Bev,” Richie rolls his eyes.
Bill starts drumming his fingers against the tabletop in agitation. “J-jesus, Rich. C-can you just go off to talk somewhere and ap-p-pologize?”
“Apologize?” Stan says aghast. “What do you think he has to apologize for?”
Bill’s jaw drops. “You’re on Richie’s side?”
“It’s called rationality,” Stan drawls.
Mike is wringing his hands, still looking for a waitress in a restaurant that might as well be abandoned. “Alright, guys. There’s no need for ‘sides.’ Let’s remember we’re adults here.”
“What would I do without you, Mike?” Stan mocks. “Who else would be so patronizing?”
“He’s just trying to help,” Bill snaps. “You don’t need to jump down his throat.”
Bev throws her hands in the air. “Why not? Eddie already bitched out Ben, of all people.”
“Sorry,” Eddie starts in a tone to the contrary. “I just don’t remember asking any of you for your opinions.”
Stan scoffs. “The hypocrisy—”
“Enough!” Richie shouts. His hands are tangled in his hair, pulling to relieve the stress fogging his brain. “This is fucking ridiculous. Eddie, get the fuck outside. We’re going to either talk this out or strangle each other to death. I’m not picky about the outcome at the moment.”
Huffing and puffing, Eddie stomps toward the door. Richie is close on his heels, and all he wants to do is wheel around and tackle him. He wants to kick him and punch him and bite him, maybe, except he doesn’t want to hurt him at all.
The sharp night air hits Eddie’s face and he deflates. All of his big plans for the night went to hell so quickly. Maybe they were supposed to. Maybe it’s for the better. A week and a half ago, Bill was starry-eyed and excited to marry Stan, and now they’re at each other’s throats because of Richie and Eddie.
Richie and Eddie.
How can something that sounds and feels so right be such a disaster? It would be one thing if they destroyed each other, but they’re destroying everything. Is it worth it? For Eddie to pretend he knows how to be happy for a few months at best? To have his found family go up in flames?
The safety he seeks in Myra might curse him with a tepid, loveless existence, but he never has to lose anything. If he loved Richie and lost him, he’d lose Ben and Bev and Stan and Mike. Bill, too, probably, because he’d follow Stan anywhere. Even if Eddie was going to kid himself that any of their friends would pick him, he wouldn’t wish that on Richie.
How could Eddie ever be so dumb as to think any of this love fantasy was viable?
Maybe he’s delirious. Delusional. He could have caught something. Gotten sick from some black mold living under his sink.
“Eddie,” Richie says softly, when they’ve been standing too long in the cold, dark night not speaking or facing one another.
“Richie.” Eddie turns to face him, and he knows he must look as wrecked as he feels. This was supposed to be such a happy day. But now he’s back in reality. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have had to see that. I should have talked to you for real before I left, even if you were avoiding me. I should have called. I should have not fucked a guy outside.”
Despite himself, Eddie laughs. “Richie, stop.”
“If I had known you—”
“Please,” he cuts him off. “Don’t. I know you’re being nice, but I can’t… I don’t want to have this conversation.”
Richie looks like someone’s set his kitten on fire. “So what conversation are we having instead?”
“I shouldn’t have gotten angry. What you do with guys is none of my business. I mean it this time.”
“What if I want it to be your business?” Richie’s mouth twists in a nervous, uncomfortable smile. “What if I would rather you be pissed off than not care?”
“I care,” Eddie smiles back wetly. “But what? What did we think was going to happen? You came out years ago, and you have this spotlight on you — a spotlight you deserve — and I… I’m married, and I’m always going to be married, because that’s what my life is. That’s who I am.”
Richie reaches out and takes his hand. “So what?”
“You’re gonna be my dirty little secret?” Eddie challenges. “You’re gonna keep yourself from touching me in public and talking about me, and pretend it doesn’t kill you when I push you away? You’re gonna be okay when I move back in with Myra, and when I have kids? You’re not gonna be angry, and resentful, and justified in feeling that way?”
“Maybe some day you’ll leave her,” Richie says, holding Eddie’s hand so tightly that both their knuckles turn white. “Maybe you’re braver than you think.”
“Maybe it’s better to assume that I won’t,” Eddie says softly. “Because if I never get the nerve… If we turned into something that made us hate each other, then I would die on the spot.”
Richie drops his hand, and Eddie knows that, no matter how much he’s been protesting, he understands. He gets it. He maybe even agrees. “But we’re friends, though. Right?”
“Of course,” Eddie promises with conviction. “Best fucking friends, asshole. You can’t get rid of me.”
They fall into a hug. It’s too close and too tight to be friendly, but they deserve this one last thing.
“We should go back inside,” Richie whispers after a long while neither of them were keeping track of. “And maybe pay for everyone’s dinner.”
Eddie laughs, loud and real. “We’re going to have to pay for everyone’s next five dinners.”
“Six,” Richie agrees.
—————————————————
Christmas is quiet, but the week leading up to it is not. Ben, unsurprisingly, loves the holiday season. Even though the six of them have perfectly good apartments within a few feet of each other, Ben drags them all out twenty minutes away to his place. His apartment looks like a Christmas bomb went off. That or he got decorating tips from Macy’s.
Eddie gawks at the veritable Winter Wonderland, even as his friends swarm around the food and booze Ben’s laid out like a buffet. Growing up, Christmas was never really about fun for Eddie. It was about church and more family members than he could keep track of and behaving to keep up appearances. But this… This is like the Christmases in movies.
“I hate Christmas,” Stan gripes, nibbling on the edge of a sugar cookie.
Richie risks life and limb by reaching out and tickling his side. “You’re such a fucking Grinch, Stanley.”
“Give him a break,” Mike laughs, looping an arm around both their necks. “He’s Jewish.”
Bill laughs, tugging a fluffy Santa hat down over Bev’s eyes. “Stan doesn’t hate Christmas because he’s Jewish. He hates Christmas because he thinks it’s tacky.”
“It’s a consumerist holiday perpetuated by the oppressive–”
“Are you not getting laid enough, or what?” Eddie cuts him off. Richie throws his head back and laughs so hard he cries.
He makes Richie laugh a dozen other times that night, and it aches somewhere deep in his chest, but in the way that all healing wounds do. It’s fine. Or if it’s not, Eddie knows that it will be, and that’s enough.
All in all, it’s one of the best holidays Eddie’s ever had. They watch terrible Christmas cartoons at full volume. They exchange presents which are mostly scathing commentaries on each other’s sex lives. They even get tipsy off of eggnog and have an ill-advised competition to see who can fit the most cookies in their mouth. It’s Mike.
And at the end of the night when they’re crowded around the piano as Richie plunks out Christmas carols, Stan is singing louder than anyone.
—————————————————
By the time New Year’s Eve rolls around, everyone is back from visiting family. Bill finally proposed when he and Stan were in Maine with the extended Denbrough clan, so the two of them are hosting the party to ring in 2020 right. Eddie isn’t even jealous of them anymore.
Well. He is a little bit. But he’s mostly happy and excited for what’s to come for them. The jealousy that he harbors is healthy. There’s no lingering resentment. Just the fleeting thought of God I wish I knew how to be that in love.
But he’s doing well.
He took Richie off of Google alert. He doesn’t wake up in the middle of the night and have to put on one of his specials just to fall back asleep to the sound of his voice. He doesn’t make extra noise in the hallway when he goes to walk Penny so that Richie will come out and follow him.
He’s doing so, so much better.
And if today Eddie can’t stop thinking about kissing Richie… Well, that’s what the holiday is all about. It doesn’t count.
—————————————————
Valentine’s Day doesn’t count either.
—————————————————
Mid-March brings with it half-melted snow sludge. When they walk together outside, Richie likes to kick the watery mush up at Eddie as he shouts in the loudest, most obnoxious voice possible, “Garbage Icee!” It’s juvenile, but Eddie always laughs as he punches him in retaliation.
Eddie is fine and better, but it’s awful. The fading itch of a nasty wound. He wants so badly to scratch at the Richie-sized blemish in his chest, but he doesn’t. He behaves. They stay friends.
But Christ, he’s known Richie since August — seen him sweating in the sun, and crunching through the leaves, and sticking his tongue out to catch the snow. He’s worried that he’s going to love him in every season.
Bill just kicked off a book tour following his latest release, and Stan is pretending not to pout about it. While Bill is out on the West Coast, the six of them are crammed in Eddie’s apartment this time. His television is all queued up, waiting to play Bill's pre-recorded interview on Late Night with Seth Meyers, the volume turned almost all the way down while he’s off screen.
Eddie sits on the floor as Penny darts back and forth across his lap, wound up by all the company. She jostles his beer, and some of it sloshes ice cold onto his thigh were his cotton shorts have ridden up. “Motherfuck. Cocking ass fuck fuck fuck.”
Snorting at the unintelligible words tumbling unbidden from Eddie’s lips, Richie ruffles his hair from beside him. There’s enough space for one more person on the couch beside Stan and Mike, but he’d opted to crawl around on the floor anyway. “If you wanted me to fuck your mom so bad, all you had to do was ask."
“Richie,” Eddie sighs, rubbing his thigh dry. “You’re gay.”
Clutching at his heart, Richie sucks in a melodramatic gasp. “Edward Kaspbrak, I am so disappointed in you. Gay is not a synonym for shitty.”
Eddie can’t contain the adoration that’s bubbling up in his chest and threatening to splay across his traitorous face, so he rolls his eyes and pushes Richie over. “Yeah, I know that, asshole. You just happen to be gay and shitty.”
Richie doesn't offer up a verbal response, just snags the beer from Eddie’s hands and chugs the whole thing. Eddie flings himself at Richie, and in a matter of seconds they’re wrestling like a couple of teenagers. Behind them Bev and Mike exchange bets—Mike pegs Richie as the winner due to height advantage, but Bev knows Eddie has a vicious streak a mile long.
With a long suffering sigh, Stan nudges the tangle of limbs with his foot. “Hello. Hi. I’m waiting to see my future husband on tv. Could you behave for two seconds?”
It’s like someone’s dragged a cube of ice down Eddie’s spine. He knows Stan doesn’t mean anything by it, but it rattles loudly against all of the hurts Eddie’s been trying to shove deep down. He climbs stiffly off of Richie, wondering if it’s too obvious that he’s about to have a panic attack if he runs off to the bathroom now.
Luckily his phone starts buzzing on the floor beside him, and it gives him the excuse to beat a hasty exit.
“Hello?” He locks the bathroom door behind him and sits on the closed toilet lid.
“Eddie,” Myra starts softly. Eddie’s a bit surprised — he’d been so desperate to escape he hadn’t looked at the caller ID. “How are you?”
He blinks, taken aback. “I’m… I’m fine. Is everything okay? It’s late for you.”
“Everything’s fine,” she says too quickly. “It’s just… Where do we keep the lightbulbs?”
Eddie smiles softly, closing his eyes and tipping his head to the wall. Myra’s question is the kind of flimsy excuse Eddie is constantly coming up with for a reason to talk to Richie. ‘I ran out of butter’ or ‘Have you seen Stan?’ or even on one memorable occasion, ‘Do I smell okay?’
It’s sweet, almost, that she thinks she has to fabricate a reason to talk to him. It reminds him a little of how things were in the beginning, when they were both a little unsure but desperate for someone to rely on. Maybe there really is a chance for them to go back to normal.
Heart starting to pound in his chest, Eddie swallows. “They’re in the bedroom closet. The top shelf, in a green hat box.”
“Thanks,” she says quietly, and there’s a long, charged pause like she’s scrambling for something to keep the conversation going. “It’s almost our anniversary.”
All of Eddie’s muscles clench. She’s right. Early April. “Less than a month away.”
“I was thinking we could go out somewhere nice and talk,” she starts, and she sounds almost excited. “Reconnect. See if it’s time for you to come home.”
His stomach does a strange lurch, twisting with conflicting relief and dread. What kind of man is Eddie when he’s with Myra? Scared and small and suffocating. But what kind of man is he without her?
“I love you,” he says, offering a response that can’t damn him either way.
He can hear the smile in her voice when she replies, “I love you too, Eddie Bear.”
“I have to go.” He stands up in a rush, clattering the toilet seat as his feet trip over each other. “I mean, I’m tired. It’s late. I have work tomorrow.”
“Of course. You should—”
He hangs up before she can finish. Guilt sloshes around inside of him. He stares at his clammy reflection in the mirror, trying to catch his breath. He shouldn’t be panicking. He has the opportunity to go back home. This is supposed to be what he wants.
There’s a knock at the bathroom door. Soft but sure. Bev.
Eddie props the door open, trying to maintain a cool demeanor. “Beverly. What’s up?”
“Just checking on you,” she says, eyeing him up and down. He can tell she’s not fooled. “Do you want to talk through your options?”
“I don’t have any options.” Eddie drags a hand down his face before correcting himself. “I mean, there aren’t any options to talk about.”
Bev shoulders past him into the bathroom and perches on the lip of the bathtub. She looks up at him, jaw squared with bravery. “Did you know I was married before I moved in here?”
“Uh. No, I didn’t.” Eddie shuts and locks the door, because that feels like the thing to do. He sits next to her on the tub’s edge. “For how long?”
“Too long,” she huffs a sad laugh. “We got together very young. I think I thought loving him meant I was running towards something, but after a while I realized it was just an easy way to run from something else.”
Eddie wrings his hands. “Running away isn’t always bad.”
She shrugs. “If you do it for the right reasons. Tom — my husband — was a bastard. Jealous. Mean. He left bruises where he knew no one would look.”
“Shit. I’m sorry.” Eddie feels sick.
“I am too. I spent years trying to be what I thought he wanted me to be. I thought he wouldn’t be so angry if I acted right. I shoved myself down and closed everything off so he could project whatever he wanted onto this empty thing I became.”
“Bev…”
She slips a hand between Eddie’s. “It must have been hard for you when Bill and Stan got engaged.”
“What?”
“When I was with Tom, we had this gigantic social circle. Rich men with beautiful, happy wives. It felt like every time we went to a party another one of them was pregnant. There were babies everywhere and it made me so angry. So sad. It wasn’t fair, because I wanted one too. Not with Tom. I wasn’t going to bring a kid into a house like that. But all these women had something that felt so impossible and unattainable to me. Something I never got to have because of one bad man. While my life was stuck in one place, all these people were moving on without me. I started to wonder when my life stopped being mine.”
Eddie feels a tear slip down his cheek. “What changed?”
“Everything.” Beverly gives a watery sigh. “I remembered how hard I worked to get away from my dad, who was just as awful. How much I’d promised myself I would never let anyone hurt me like that again. I thought about how disappointed that little girl would be if she saw me like that. So I gathered all the courage I’d forgotten I’d had and I moved out while he was at work. I served him divorce papers and a restraining order, and I regretted it for months. He convinced me he was the best part of me. I thought I’d be alone forever.”
“But you weren’t.”
A beautiful smile blooms across her face. “No. I was still living out of boxes in a cheap hotel when I ran into Ben. We were childhood sweethearts, you know. He was always brave enough to be kind. And he… He loves the parts of me I still hate. I feel safe falling asleep next to him. Maybe it took too much suffering and time to find him again, but he’s it for me. I’m not going to waste any more seconds without him.”
Eddie leans his head on her shoulder. “I’m not like you, Bev.”
“Of course not. But you’re not really like you either when you’re with her.”
“I’m afraid that even if I leave her, things won’t be different. That I’ll be with R—” Eddie stops himself, even though he knows he’s transparent. “That I’ll be with someone else and it’ll start to feel the same. Like he’ll tell me that what I want is disgusting, or scare me away from things, or start controlling me. Do you ever worry like that?”
She drops a kiss to the top of his hair. “Not anymore. I did at first, sometimes. When we were apart for a while and my brain wouldn’t stop. But that was all me. I just had to remember that Ben was my future not my past. That good things existed, and I deserved them.”
“It’s that easy?”
“It’s fucking hard,” Bev laughs. “But you know what? No one’s really noticed, but it’s been a little while since I’ve had a drink.”
Eddie pulls back, furrowing his brow. “Uh, okay? Did you want one or something?”
“Thank you for offering,” she says with a grin. “But I can’t. I’m pregnant.”
“Bev!” Eddie flails so hard he tips backwards into the tub with an echoing thump. “What the fuck? Congratulations!”
“Yeah, yeah,” she says, though her face is flushed with joy. “I’m only a month along and nobody but Ben knows yet, so be cool. I’m just saying, sometimes your life starts again and you get what you’ve been waiting for.”
“You’re a fucking inspiration, Beverly Marsh.”
“Don’t I know it.” She hops to her feet. “Now get out of here, because I’ve been peeing like twelve times a day and my bladder’s about to explode.”
Eddie cackles madly as he climbs out of his bathtub. He shoots her one last warm look over his shoulder before he leaves her to her business. Pregnant. Fucking hell.
He does feel better, though. Like maybe he doesn’t have to go crawling back to Myra. Like maybe he can take step one to getting his life back and not worry about steps two through one hundred just yet. Because even if he doesn’t get a perfect ending like Bev, isn’t that better than the ending his mother and Myra have written for him? Even if he never finds another soul to love him like he wants, he’ll never really be alone. Not when he has his friends.
As Eddie passes through the kitchen he stops in his tracks, flabbergasted at the sight in front of him. Richie. Richie cradling Penny in his arms like a baby, while the temperamental Pomeranian slobbers over every centimeter of his chin with her tongue.
“How the fuck…" He shakes his head like he’s trying to clear away a mirage. “How the fuck did you get her to tolerate you?”
Richie looks up at him and his smile is soft and sweet— eyes sparkling and crinkled at the corners. “I’m just a tolerable guy, I guess."
Eddie’s heart feels like it’s expanding like a balloon in his chest. That tall, gangly idiot full of chaos has gotten a canine monster with a hair-trigger rage to love him. And maybe Penny knows that Eddie’s edges soften around him. That he’s the only person in the world who makes him feel brave or normal or sometimes even beautiful. Or maybe it’s just because, despite the shit that flies out of his mouth, Richie is just undeniably good. The best.
“Tolerable?” Eddie says a little breathlessly. “I’m gonna have to call bullshit on that one.”
Laughing, Richie drops a kiss on top of Penny’s head before carefully setting her down on the floor. “Honestly? I’m so desperate for her to love me that every time I come over here I sneak her a shit ton of treats.”
Eddie splutters in amusement. He reaches out to grip Richie’s bicep as he sways with his laughter. “Dog treats aren’t supposed to be bribes! They’re for positive reinforcement.”
Richie’s eyes dart from the hand on his arm to Eddie’s bright, open expression. “What can I say? I like rewarding bad behavior.”
All of the air punches out of Eddie’s lungs so fast he almost grasps for his inhaler. His skin feels like it’s about to erupt into flames, and he doesn’t think he’s gotten hard this fast since he was nineteen. Maybe not ever.
Years and years and years of being told how to be a good boy or man or husband. Of trying to follow a predetermined set of rules for no real reason than feeling like he should — because he’s terrified of being alone or sick or disappointing. Battling with not understanding how the way he feels could ever be described as bad. And maybe it was only ever as simple as him needing someone who didn’t care how he behaved at all. Who maybe likes it when Eddie isn’t perfect.
And wow, Eddie is feeling very gay and incredibly horny.
“Fuck,” he hisses, hand tightening around Richie’s arm.
“What? Are you worried I’m going to make Penny fat or something? Because—”
Eddie slaps his free hand over Richie’s mouth. “Come with me to my room.”
Richie speaks a muffled ‘why’ behind Eddie’s palm. He flicks his tongue out, making Eddie recoil in disgust. “Bill’s thing is going to start soon. Stan will murder us if we miss it.”
Taking a deep, fortifying breath, Eddie snags Richie’s wrist to press his hand over the bulge in his shorts. “I don’t care. Do you?"
Richie gives a slow blink, brain scrambling to keep up. His eyes darken and he whips Eddie around, plastering himself against his back as he starts to urge him forward. “Let’s go. Come on.”
Eddie stifles a laugh, hurrying and tripping and doing his best to keep quiet enough that they don’t catch the attention of all their friends. The bedroom door closes behind them and Eddie spins, tugging Richie toward him and kissing him like his life depends on it. Or at least like his happiness does.
After a couple minutes of exchanging desperate, needy kisses, Richie tears his mouth away. He pants heavily against the side of Eddie’s face, squeezing him close. "Is this going to end as poorly as last time?”
“I seem to remember last time finishing up quite well,” Eddie grins, hooking his fingers through Richie's belt loops.
Richie huffs a helpless laugh. “Orgasm humor. I really am rubbing off on you.”
“Not yet,” Eddie drawls, dragging him closer to the bed. He crawls up onto the mattress on his hands and knees, but when Richie doesn’t immediately follow he slumps back on his heels. “What? Do you not want to?”
“I always want to,” he says warm and serious and a little scared. “But last time you ran out on me afterwards, and I almost lost my mind.”
Eddie sprawls out on his back and pats the mattress next to him. He waits until Richie is stretched out on his side, too much space between them, before he answers. “I was scared last time.”
“And you’re not this time?”
“I am,” he says, sliding his palm to the middle of the comforter between them, a little invitation. “But not for the same reasons.”
Richie slides his hand out too, bumping their fingertips. “I’m scared, too. I like you a lot, you know, Eds. And I’m scared I’m gonna fuck this up. ‘Cause I… I mean, I want to touch you, but you know this isn’t necessary, right? Because I’ll take you anyway I can get you. Even if it’s just, uh, friends. Like we said.”
Biting his lip, Eddie scoots closer. He melts a little at the blush dusting over Richie’s cheeks. He loves all sides of Richie, but this private, seriously sweet Richie is his favorite. “You’re a good man, Richie. You’ve never made me feel like I had to do anything.” He dips his voice, a devious little smile quirking at his lips. “But this is absolutely necessary. I need you to fuck me, like, yesterday. But if you’re not up for it I could always ask Ben maybe, or—”
Richie rolls on top of him, planting a bruising kiss on his lips. He nips with his teeth, something possessive and sweet all at once. Eddie just blooms under the attention, laughing as he goads him on.
“Or Stan is probably lonely enough with Bill gone—” Richie kisses him again, tongue dipping past his teeth as his fingers skate up under his t-shirt. “And maybe when Bill gets back he can join the two of us and really give me a good time.”
“No.” Richie shakes his head and leans in to bump their noses. “I want you all to myself.”
Eddie beams, craning his neck up to pull Richie into another long, searing kiss. “Well, you’ve got me. So do something about it.”
In response, Richie rakes his nails down Eddie’s ribcage. Eddie arches into the touch, moaning into another kiss. Richie almost tears Eddie’s shirt in half as he wrangles it off of him, but Eddie is the one causing a commotion by whining and groaning every second their lips aren’t touching.
Eddie locks his legs around Richie’s waist, holding their bodies flush together so every squirm and shift builds a delirious friction. Richie’s hands — big, strong, warm hands — slide down to cup and squeeze at Eddie’s ass at the same time that his teeth graze Eddie’s collar bone. It’s like they’re teenagers, groping and grinding and making out. And it’s perfect.
On a mission to see all of the man on top of him, Eddie starts violently tugging at Richie’s shirt. Richie doesn’t seem to mind, just laughs into every mark he sucks into his skin. And Richie’s body is so blazing hot under Eddie’s hands, as he thumbs at a nipple, and skims over the twitching muscles of his stomach, and tugs lightly at the hair of his happy trail.
Richie dips his hand into Eddie’s shorts to start tugging at his length, but Eddie abruptly stops him — hand grasping his forearm like a giant red stoplight.
“Fuck!”
“What?” Richie asks a little alarmed, but mostly stupid from all the blood that has left his brain to buy up real estate in his penis. “Too good?”
“No,” Eddie says a hair too derisively for someone who has the love of their life’s hand on their dick. “I don’t have any condoms in here.”
Richie rolls sideways off of Eddie, staring at him like he’s a textbook full of gibberish rather than a naked middle-aged man. “We need condoms?”
“Of course we do,” Eddie says flatly, lightly smacking at Richie’s chest. “No offense, but I don’t know how many other inhumanly gorgeous blonde guys you’re fucking, and I certainly don’t know where those himbos have been. And honestly, that’s just a mess I wouldn’t want to deal with anyway.”
“You’re still so jealous about that Vegas guy,” Richie hums, smug until the conversation fully processes in his brain. “Wait. What. Wait. You wanted to like, go all the way?”
“Are you fucking thirteen or something?” Eddie rolls his eyes. “Yeah. Didn’t I say I wanted you to fuck me?”
“That can mean a lot of things!” Richie says defensively. “What the fuck. What miracle did I commit to deserve this?”
Eddie sighs dramatically and rolls onto his stomach, burying his face into the pillow. He feels stupid, and silly, and disappointed. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever. We can just jerk each other off or something, I guess.”
He feels Richie throw himself off the bed. Hears him groan as he hits the wall shoulder first. Thinks for an awful second that maybe Richie is just leaving him there because he’s being ridiculous, or it’s not worth the trouble, or he never wanted to fuck Eddie in the first place.
But he’s just come around to Eddie’s side of the bed, standing in front of him now looking equal parts horny and crazy. “I have condoms in my room.”
Eddie turns his face out of the pillow enough to peek up at him. “Great. That’ll help all of those people fucking in your room right now.”
Richie rolls his eyes and swats at Eddie’s ass. Eddie shrieks and twists onto his back, kicking out wildly with his leg. Not looking forward to getting kicked in the face, Richie wraps a hand around Eddie’s ankle, holding his calf close to his chest. “Eds. Eddie. Stop being a little bitch. We’re just gonna go down the hall and fuck in my room.”
“No,” Eddie protests, twisting his foot to smack Richie in the face with his toes. “Literally everyone we fucking know is in the living room, asshole. I’m not doing a boner procession through my apartment.”
It shouldn’t be sexy, but when Richie starts to mouth down from his ankle to his calf Eddie melts back into the mattress. “We’ve been in here a while,” he mutters against his skin. He nips at the muscle. “Plus you’re kinda loud. They one hundred percent already know what we’re doing.”
“But it’s…” Eddie trails off for a beat as Richie massages his inner thigh with those strong, long fingers. He groans, eyes fluttering shut. “Richie…”
“Yep,” he pops the ‘p.’ And before Eddie can think about why Richie’s hands are sliding down to his hips, the taller man scoops him up and haphazardly hoists him half-over his shoulder.
“Richie!”
It’s awful, because no matter how much Richie teases Eddie for being short, at the end of the day Richie isn’t that much bigger. Besides, Richie hasn’t seen the gym in months, and Eddie is a compact, muscly ball of rage wiggling in his grip. So as Richie kicks the bedroom door open and marches out in full view of all their friends, it’s probably the least dignified thing Eddie has ever taken part in.
“I fucking hate you,” Eddie seethes, face redder than a tomato.
Bev and Mike are grinning so hard their faces almost split in two, while Ben covers his eyes like a traumatized child and Stan glares at them like they could eat shit and die.
“Nothing to see here!” Richie shouts, drawing more attention to them. “Just two half-naked men on a… What was it you called it, sugar plum? A boner procession?”
“I will literally never get another boner for you ever again,” Eddie bitches as Richie fumbles out of the apartment to pad down the hall.
“Hmmm,” he hums, slipping his hand around to squeeze Eddie’s increasingly prominent erection. “Me thinks you might be a liar.”
Eddie huffs as Richie finally maneuvers them into 5A to gracelessly set Eddie back on his feet. “Yeah, whatever. Fine. I’m full of shit. Is that the bad behavior you’ve been going around promising to reward? ‘Cause you could hop to it.”
A grin spreads across Richie’s face like wildfire, and he starts walking backward toward his bedroom, tugging Eddie along. “Oh, is that what got you hot?”
“Shut up,” Eddie snaps, regretting saying anything immediately. “Don’t talk. Don’t even look at me.”
Rather than listen to Eddie sling embarrassed abuses, Richie sits down on the edge of his mattress and pulls him down next to him. He cups his jaw as he leans in to bring their lips together slow and sweet, until the romantic, almost chaste kisses dissolve into a series of short, fond pecks.
“Don’t worry Eds,” he whispers, voice so honey sweet that Eddie is practically swooning. “I’ll treat you like a naughty boy all you want.”
“You’re such a dickhead,” Eddie sighs, flopping back on Richie’s lumpy comforter as the other man digs around in the bedside table. He wiggles out of his shorts and boxer briefs, trying not to pay too much attention to the weird looking stains on the sheets. “I… Can we turn off the lights?”
Richie shrugs, dropping a haphazard handful of condom and lube packets by the pillows. “If you want to.”
Eddie’s never been the kind of person to have sex with the lights on. It’s not an intimacy thing so much. It’s more about him. He’s never really liked feeling connected to his body when he was sleeping with someone, even though that’s probably beside the point. He could think about Myra during sex if he didn’t think about himself having sex with her. In college, he had no problem hooking up with guys at parties, or bars, or random dimly lit parks, because if it wasn’t his body he saw getting touched and groped and licked, then it wasn’t his body that would get sick or lonely.
He reaches over and clicks off the lamp. After an indecisive beat, he clicks it back on. He can’t believe Richie leaves his lights on all day. His electric bill must be a bitch and a half. He clicks the light back off. On. Off.
“Can I finger bang you now, or are you sending someone morse code?”
Eddie laughs loud and ugly through his nose. Clicks the light back on. “Yeah, okay. Go ahead.”
Getting fingered, Eddie realizes, is not like riding a bike. It’s like abruptly upending the bike and getting the handle bar stuck up your ass. He lets out a heavy breath as Richie gently presses a finger in, gripping his arm hard enough to leave bruises.
“Are you okay?” Richie asks, concerned and sweet and with half of his middle finger inside of him. “We can go back to mouth stuff.”
Eddie rolls his eyes. “I’m fine. It’s just been a really long time. Forgive me if I forgot what it was like.”
Richie brushes their lips together, a barely there tease of a kiss. He rocks his finger inside of him, slow but purposeful. “You haven’t even done this to yourself?”
“No.” Eddie’s skin crackles with heat — embarrassment and want tangling together. With the lights on, Richie can probably see the deep red flush inking down his chest. “Good husbands don’t… Don’t really fuck themselves.”
“Why not?” Richie’s voice is dark and low, and he squeezes more lube onto his fingers before pressing another one in.
“Fuck,” Eddie groans, head lolling back and forth on the pillow. “What?”
“I asked you why good husbands don’t fuck themselves. If you were mine, I’d think it was hot. Are you worried about getting caught? Because if I found you with your fingers in your ass I’d just be hard thinking about you all loose and ready for me.”
Eddie weakly pushes at Richie’s face. “Shut up. Shit. Your fingers are so big.”
“My dick’s bigger,” Richie says smugly.
With a groan, Eddie extends a shaking arm to click the light back off. “I know it is. I really had to go and find myself the best hung motherfucker in the city for my sexual reawakening."
Richie grins to himself, and sure enough that Eddie isn’t in danger of getting overwhelmed at the moment, he starts tapping at his prostate. Eddie arches his back and pushes against his hand, breaths coming out in short little pants. Richie spills out more lubricant between them and slides in a third finger. Eddie’s whole body starts quaking, and it feels like his bones are going to just rattle right off their hinges.
“Holy hell,” Eddie gasps. “I’m gay. I’m so gay.”
“Well yeah, I’d say so.” Richie is laughing hard enough that he has to stop what he’s doing for a second — he doesn’t want to get distracted, doesn’t want to accidentally hurt Eddie. But god he’s funny.
Eddie reaches over again and fumbles to turn the light back on. He gets one look at the fondness on Richie’s face and clicks it right back off. Richie’s fingers leave him and it feels like a kick to the stomach — like he’s hollow and his skin is too tight and he wants to scream.
But Richie just drops a kiss on his brow, carding the fingers of his clean hand through his hair. “You done with the light? ‘Cause I’m thinking it’s probably time to put my dick in you.”
“Yes,” Eddie gasps, breathier than he will ever admit to. He reaches out and clicks the light on one last time.
“You sure?” Richie asks, leaning over him with wild hair and glasses sitting askew.
He’s beautiful. Not just because of the strong jaw and the sharp cheekbones, but because of the soft eyes and the sweet smile. If getting to see all that means having the lights on — means having to be present and grounded in his body — well… Well then maybe this is the first time in his entire life he really wants to feel all of something.
“Yeah. Fuck me with the lights on.”
“Romantic,” Richie mutters through a breathy chuckle. But he’s fumbling out of his jeans and boxers which have stayed on way too long, and slipping on a condom.
Eddie’s nerves make him start to shake, but Richie is confident and sure. He rolls Eddie onto his side and tucks up behind him, back to chest, nuzzling his face into his shoulder. One of those big, warm palms slides up Eddie’s thigh, all the way over his side, and comes to a stop splayed out over his abdomen.
He feels safe and held and solid.
And then Richie is pressing inside of him, slow and endless. Eddie’s jaw falls open, and a guttural groan rips up out of his chest. His hand flies back to tangle in Richie’s hair, gripping tight like a wordless signal to hold the fuck up a second.
“Okay?” Richie asks between dusting feather light kisses down Eddie’s neck.
Eddie gives a full body shudder. He tries to relearn the English language. “I… Yeah. Just.” He swallows with a click and wiggles back, pressing his ass flush against Richie’s hips. “Just getting used to it.”
“You feel so good,” Richie rumbles, voice reverberating through Eddie’s whole body. His arms coil tighter around him, and his thumb brushes a nipple. Eddie whines and Richie grins and grins and grins. “Worth the wait.”
Desperate and needy, Eddie starts to rock his hips. Richie meets him in the middle every time, picking up speed. It’s good. It’s too good. A constant stream of delirious grunts falls out of him with every punctuation of Richie’s hips.
“I love cock,” Eddie gasps, stupid with sensation.
Richie laughs, slipping his hand down Eddie leg to grip and raise his knee. He thrusts harder, making Eddie see stars. “Are we talking all cock? Or like, mine specifically?”
“Yours.” It feels like the answer is stolen from him — shaken loose from his own brain without permission. “Christ. You’re so hot. How are you so fucking hot?”
It’s not like Eddie was waiting for a real answer, but Richie never gives one. Instead he bites down on Eddie’s shoulder, hard enough to leave a mark. Eddie, who had forgotten his fingers were still lazily curled up in Richie’s hair, tugs violently in an instinctive response.
Richie groans around his mouthful of skin. Pistons his hips harder. Dips a hand down to start tugging at Eddie’s length.
“Rich,” Eddie moans, breathy and soft. He’s sweaty — their skin glides slick against each other. He digs his nails into Richie’s forearm with his free hand and keeps tugging at his hair with the other, trying to see if he can get him to thrust even harder.
He does.
The room is loud and obscene, and Eddie can’t catch his breath. It feels like every intake of air hiccups right back out of him with the slam of Richie’s hips. Every single one of his nerves feel like they're set to explode.
“Richie,” and because he can’t help himself, “Baby.”
Richie twists his palm around the head of Eddie’s dick. His other arm lifts his leg up so high his muscles scream, and he’s pounding into him fast and desperate. He thumbs Eddie’s tip, and then Eddie’s eyes are rolling back and he’s coming so hard and so long he almost blacks out.
It feels like he’s floating. Like he might have actually killed the last of his brain cells with his orgasm. He’s only dimly aware of Richie gently pulling out and rolling Eddie onto his back.
Eddie wants to make Richie feel as good as he did, but his brain’s commands aren’t reaching his limbs yet. He makes an unintelligible sound, and nuzzles his face against Richie’s throat. He just needs a minute. He mouths lazily at whatever skin he can reach.
Richie, understandably, isn’t in a patient mood. He takes himself in hand and jerks quick and rough. With a deep, godly grunt, Richie comes hot across Eddie’s stomach.
Sighing, Eddie presses a kiss to Richie’s chin. “I wanted to make you come.”
“Yeah, you didn’t contribute at all,” Richie teases. His eyes are glassy and his smile is bright and beautiful. “What a lousy lay.”
Eddie shoves weakly at his chest, and Richie tips over onto his back. They lay shoulder to shoulder, catching their breath. It’s not awkward at all, like Eddie is used to. It’s just… Nice.
Richie reaches between them and laces their fingers. “You’re perfect, you know that?”
“No,” Eddie protests hotly. “I’m not.”
A dopey look crosses Richie’s face. “I mean, you’re deeply, deeply flawed. Neurotic little shit. Completely unpalatable for most of the human race. But perfect for me.”
Eddie bites his lip to keep himself from smiling. And his busy brain isn’t whirring about the come drying on his stomach, or how stupid he’s going to look hobbling around bowlegged tomorrow, or how Richie’s filthy apartment has probably given him hepatitis. He’s just thinking about how he never wants to leave.
—————————————————
Eddie wakes up in the morning with Richie’s face crushed against his chest.
They’d gotten up in the middle of the night to shower, entirely at Eddie’s insistence. They were dead on their feet and half-stupid from coming their brains out, so it was a quiet, lazy affair. Richie had scrunched down so Eddie could wash his hair, and Richie had taken far too many liberties soaping up the muscles along Eddie’s back.
Once they were dried off and clean, Eddie had slipped back into his little cotton shorts and fallen right back into Richie’s bed. Richie had stretched out naked beside him, and in a matter of seconds they had passed out. But like magnets, they had drifted together in the night.
Eddie smiles, pressing a kiss to the wild mess of Richie’s hair. He’s thirty-five years old and he got massively railed last night, so it’s not like he feels like he can start doing cartwheels, but his chest is lighter. A weight he wasn’t even fully conscious was there has lifted.
This is the first step towards the rest of his life, and he doesn’t ever want to turn back.
But first he has to go back.
Home. To Myra. To speak to her and get the very last bit of his things he left behind to reassure himself that he wasn’t leaving forever.
He should wake Richie up. Tell him he had a wonderful time last night, and tell him what he has planned for today. But he’s afraid that if he looks into Richie’s eyes he’s going to want to dive in there and hide forever — hide like the last six months, or eight years.
He can’t keep doing that.
So he carefully slides out from under Richie and digs around in his dresser for a sweatshirt to tug on. It’s way too big and way too hideously orange to be anything Eddie would ever own, but that makes it feel nice to wear it. It makes it feel like he borrowed it from his boyfriend. Like Richie is his boyfriend.
Maybe he is. Who fucking knows.
Eddie leans in, inches away from Richie’s sleeping face, and whispers, “Don’t freak out when you wake up and I’m gone.”
Richie snuffles, still softly dozing, and paws at the empty sheets beside him.
Eddie grins like a fool. “I’ve got something I want to tell you, but I don’t want to be married when I say it. So be patient, okay? And please, please don’t freak out.”
He’s halfway out the door when he doubles back and reconsiders. He could leave a note. A note is the smart, considerate thing to do. But he also feels like if he starts writing something it’s going to turn into a twelve page annotated love letter.
So instead he wrangles out of his boxer briefs — quick and dignified — and scrunches them up in Richie’s hand. Richie snuggles deeper into the covers, clutching the underwear like a child’s teddy bear. It’s enough to let Richie know that he’s coming back. And oddly… It’s kind of adorable.
Eddie snaps a picture for himself, and then he’s out the door to face his fears.
—————————————————
Their brownstone is empty when Eddie arrives. Myra must be on shift at the hospital. Eddie probably should have asked — if she gets home while he’s puttering around unannounced she’ll probably call the cops on him. But whatever. Worse things have happened.
The little townhouse is exactly as Eddie had left it, with the absence of some of his things laying around. Not that he ever took up much space to begin with. His coat on the hook, his shoes in their cubby. His laptop used to sit there on the coffee table, but now it’s just Myra’s soft-sided zip up pouch of nail polish.
All the stuff that really mattered to Eddie was packed away in boxes. Not because Myra wouldn’t let him spread his things around, but just because… Well. Eddie wasn’t ready to expand back then. Wasn’t prepared to be himself.
He finds what he’s looking for in the very back of their closet. The cardboard box is the only thing in the entire place that’s covered in dust. He cracks open the flaps, even though he knows what’s inside.
On top are old pictures from his childhood — him and Bill, riding their bikes around everywhere. There’s a pair of cufflinks that used to belong to his father. A half-empty bottle of cologne that he’d stolen from an ex-boyfriend — the first time he ever thought he’d been in love. A stack of faded and yellowed train tickets he’d used the summer before he graduated college, to travel all the way across the country just to get one last look at the world before he became a real, functioning adult. And at the very, very bottom are all of his Richie DVDs. Some cut outs of Richie from magazines. An ancient comedy tour t-shirt he’d gotten off of E-bay that’s probably a size and a half too small by now, worn thin and soft.
It’s his history, and it’s all of the best parts of him.
He seals the box back up and carries it over to the front door. This will be the very last time he ever leaves this box behind. Maybe he’ll display some of this stuff. The pictures of him and Bill, certainly.
Guts churning, he takes a seat on the couch to wait. If he leaves now, he might never get the courage to tell Myra the truth ever again. And it’s time. She deserves it. Richie deserves it. Eddie deserves it.
In the end, he doesn’t even have to wait that long. Only twenty, maybe thirty, minutes. He hears her footsteps up the stone front stairs, slower and dragging like she knows something’s already waiting for her. When she opens the door she doesn’t even look surprised to see him there.
“Eddie Bear,” she greets softly. Tentative. A little pained, a little hopeful. Her eyes dart to the box by the door. She pleads ignorance. “Are you moving back in?”
He stands up, wringing his hands in front of him. “No. I’m… I’m moving into my apartment for good.”
Myra’s face drops. Her hand comes up to her chest like she’s trying to physically hold the hurt inside. “You’re leaving me?”
“Don’t be like that,” Eddie huffs. He already feels the guilt heating up his face like greedy, hungry flames. “You asked for the separation. You knew we weren’t working. I’m just agreeing. I think we need a divorce.”
“Divorce,” she spits like it’s a dirty word. “I don’t want a divorce.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m asking for one.”
Her face is shocked, like the last thing she ever expected was for him to stand his ground. “Why? Is there someone else? Are you cheating on me?”
Eddie huffs a tired, humorless laugh. “You know it’s not cheating. That’s what a separation is.”
“Who is she?” Her face is blotchy and red, like maybe she’s trying to keep herself from yelling. Or crying. “Do I know her? Do you love her?”
“You know it’s not a woman, either.”
Myra’s eyes harden, and Eddie almost loses all of his resolve. “It could be.”
“It’s not,” he says, voice wavering. And thank god he’s not standing in front of his mother, because she would have known all the weaknesses to jab. She would have had him apologizing and groveling and moving back in by the end of the day. “And even if I didn’t love him — if I didn’t have him at all — I would still be leaving.”
“Why?”
He crosses the room and takes Myra’s hands in his. One last attempt at being kind and honest. Being good in his own way. “Because I’m gay. And even beyond that, I’ve spent years pretending to be a man that I’m not. We’ve both been lying, to ourselves and each other. All we ever do is hold each other back. It’s not fair to us.”
“Well, I hope he makes you happy.” It’s sneered, and she clearly doesn’t mean it. It’s a warning that his life will fall apart, that he’s committed himself to misery.
Eddie just smiles. “He does.”
He slides the ring off of his finger and sets it on the table near the door. It feels like removing the thorn from his side. Like not only has he climbed his way out of his hole in the ground, but he’s kicked the damn coffin shut and filled the hole with all the dirt that’s been clogging his lungs. He can never fall back in again.
With one last look at his house, and his wife, and the life he spent so long building for himself, Eddie picks up his last box of stuff and walks out the door.
—————————————————
Richie is in the hallway when Eddie returns, just like in the beginning when he would skulk around and irritate Eddie into an interaction. He looks good. He shaved and his hair is combed, and he’s wearing a tight pair of jeans with a t-shirt, sans the awful Hawaiian shirts he seems to love so much. He takes the box from Eddie’s hands immediately, and his eyes darken a bit when he sees that Eddie’s wearing one of his sweatshirts.
“You’re back,” he says, and it’s not surprised, but relieved.
“Of course I’m back,” Eddie laughs, and he’s grinning so hard his cheeks hurt. “I live here.”
Richie follows him down the hall to 5C, carrying his box like he’s a lovesick high school boy carting his girlfriend’s books from class to class. “I missed you. I wanted to wake up next to you.”
Eddie takes the box from him and rolls his eyes, fond and so far gone on him it’s disgusting. “I know, but there was something I had to do. It was urgent. Important.”
Richie pokes at the flaps of the box. “What’s in the—“
He’s cut off with a kiss, Eddie lifting on the balls of his feet to wrap his arms around Richie’s neck. It’s not hurried or desperate. A little heated, but that’s just them. It might always be like that. But that doesn’t mean it’s not sweet.
“I left my wife,” Eddie whispers. He bites his lip as Richie wraps his arms tight around his waist, like he thought there was a world where Eddie might have gone back to her, and now he’s so relieved he’s never letting go. “I had to leave her, because there’s something I want to tell you.”
Richie kisses him soft and quick on the lips, like he can’t get enough. Drops one on the corner of his mouth. On his cheek. “What could you possibly have left to say? You already admitted that you’re gay and love my cock.”
Eddie flicks him on the back of the head, but he’s beaming. He tugs lightly at Richie’s hair. Kisses the tip of his nose. “I love you. I love you.”
“I-“ Richie’s jaw falls open. He grasps for words, eyes getting glassy and wet. “I love you, too.”
“Of course you do, Rich,” Eddie smirks like the little shit stirrer that he is. “I know that. I have eyes.”
Richie laughs loud and guileless, burying his face in the crook of Eddie’s neck. “I’m so fucked. The rest of my life is just going to be spent jumping through hoops for you.”
“Maybe,” Eddie hums happily. “But I’ll be doing the same. For my… We’re boyfriends now, right?”
“We’re whatever you want us to be.”
“Boyfriends,” Eddie asserts. “And I want everyone to know. I want to hold your hand on the street, and kiss you in restaurants, and tell all of my coworkers that I’m coming home to you.”
Richie leans in and kisses him, and his tongue flicks out, a little dirtier than the moment warrants. And then his phone sneaks out to snap a picture.
He grins like a mad man. “I’m going to post this on Twitter. My publicist will be so relieved it’s not another dick pic that he won’t even yell at me. He might even send me a fruit basket.”
“Stan will probably still yell,” Eddie laughs, tugging Richie over to collapse on the couch.
“Probably,” he agrees, tipping his head over on Eddie’s shoulder. “But I don’t mind that.”
“Me either.”
If someone had told Eddie twelve years ago that Richie Tozier would love him back one day, he would have told them they were even worse at telling jokes than the Trashmouth hack on tv. But look at him now.
Penny jumps up on the couch to curl up between them, perfectly happy for once.