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He should have known to be suspicious when Richie asked him what his shoe size was, “for no particular reason whatsoever”. And then two days later, when he asked him whether he owned a helmet, and then what size helmet he may potentially wear. And then tonight, when he threw open Eddie’s door just after midnight, bag in hand, barely a second after the clock on the wall had stopped singing. It was as if he’d been standing outside the door listening for his cue. Knowing Richie, he probably was.
“You do know,” said Eddie, not looking up from his textbook. “I gave you my spare key for emergencies, right?”
“This is an emergency.” Richie grinned. “Well, sort of. You know what day it is?”
“Saturday?” He glanced at the clock. “No, Sunday now.”
“ No . Well, yes, actually, but that’s not what I meant.” He gestured at the calendar hanging on Eddie’s wall. “It’s the sixth of December.”
“And?”
“ And ,” Richie said, with the air of a game show host about to announce the prize. “That’s exactly one year to the day we met. Remember?”
Eddie looked up from his textbook then.
He remembered. Of course he remembered. He remembered the little note slid under his door; the weeks of anxiety, watching Richie wait for him and trying to gather the courage to go meet him; the sudden, impulsive decision to run out the door that night, his feet propelling him down the stairwell so fast his brain and his anxiety didn’t have a chance to catch up.
Richie was smiling at him now, just like he had that night. Richie was always smiling at him.
“Remember?” he repeated, softer this time.
Eddie smiled. “I remember.”
“So,” said Richie, collapsing onto the couch beside Eddie and flipping his textbook closed.
“Hey! My page -”
“ So ,” he repeated emphatically. “We’re doing something fun. Get up.”
Eddie made a face. “Why can’t we stay here? We can have fun in my apartment.”
“We can ,” Richie said with a suggestive raise of his eyebrow. “And we will. Later. In bed -”
“Beep beep, Richie.”
He laughed. “Okay, okay. But seriously, come on. I have an idea and I’ve been planning it for months and you’re not getting out of it.”
Eddie squinted suspiciously. “This wouldn’t happen to be another instance of you forcing me to do something I’ve never done before, would it?”
“I prefer to call it encouraging you to step out of your comfort zone ,” Richie said. “But yes. Now, are you coming, or do I have to pick you up and carry you out the door? You know I’ll do it.”
He would. He had , on more than one occasion, because he was Richie and he was stubborn and he would never take no for an answer.
Eddie heaved as dramatic a sigh as he could manage, throwing his head back in exasperation for good measure. He knew Richie was grinning, just like he knew that there had never been any doubt in either of their minds that Eddie would go along with whatever ridiculous plan he had in mind for tonight.
Because he went along. He always went along.
“If you get us arrested again, I’ll never forgive you.”
“Nearly arrested, Eds. Nearly arrested. And it was only once!”
Eddie was going to kill Richie with his bare hands.
He shook his head, taking a full step backwards, away from Richie. “I am - and I cannot stress this enough - not doing this.”
Richie laughed. “Oh, c’mon, Eds. It’ll be fun.”
“No, it won’t be. It’ll be dangerous, and it’ll be stupid, and it’ll result in serious injury. Broken bones at the very least .”
“You’ll be fine. I’m a great skater, Spaghetti. I won’t let you fall.” He held out the skates, shaking them gently as if that would convince Eddie that this wasn’t the worst god damn idea he’d ever had in his life .
“Richie," he said, as calmly as he could. "I have let you convince me to do so many things in the last year. I’ve risked getting hit by cars, getting arrested - on multiple occasions! - getting chlamydia -”
“Eds, we’ve been over this. You can’t get chlamydia from a public swimming pool.”
Eddie shook his head. “You’re going to get me killed one day.”
“But today won’t be that day.” He smiled. “C’mon, Eds. Every time you don’t want to do something, you end up having fun. Have I ever led you astray?”
“No,” he admitted, grudgingly. “But this is different. This is - Richie, skating on a frozen pond? In the dark ? Do you have any idea how dangerous that is? How are we supposed to see the spots where the ice is too thin to skate?”
“I’ve been on this pond a million times. I know where it’s safe.”
“What about bumps in the ice?”
“We won’t be skating fast enough to fall very hard.”
“But what about -”
“Eddie,” he laughed. “Darling. Stop worrying. We’ll be perfectly fine, okay? You just have to trust me.”
Eddie looked at him for a long moment. He... he wanted to. He did. But this wasn't like the swimming pool, or the fireworks, or any of the stupid crazy things Richie had had him do. This was really, genuinely dangerous in so many ways and for so many reasons. They could fall and crack their heads open - even with helmets it was a possibility! Or they could fall through the ice and drown, or die of hypothermia, or - if they survived that - catch any number of diseases from the dirty pond water. There were about a million and six reasons why this was a bad idea.
But he looked at Richie, smiling at him so hopefully, and his resolve wavered. He thought of the outdoor skating rink back home, and of watching all the other kids and parents skate together. The way they glided along and laughed when they stumbled. The way the hockey players would race each other around rink, and the figure skaters would practice their leaps and twirls, and how desperately he'd wanted to be one of them.
It's far too dangerous, Eddi e Bear. You'll break your arm again -- or worse.
He shut his eyes tightly and shook his head, as if that would chase his mother's voice from his mind.
“Fine," he said. "But if you let go of me for even one second, I’m going to kill you. Got it?”
He saluted. “Roger that, Captain Eddie Spaghetti. Worry not, my dear, for you’re completely safe with me.”
Eddie didn’t doubt it. That was what scared him. When had he started trusting Richie this much? He would walk with him through hell and back, so long as Richie told him it was a good idea.
He held his heart in the palm of his hand, and somehow Eddie believed that he wouldn’t crush it. It was trust, to the highest degree. It was total vulnerability.
Could there be anything scarier than that?
***
Eddie needed help tying his skates. He would never say so, of course - Richie knew him too well to expect that of him - but he was frowning at the odds and tugging the wrong ends and altogether making a mess of things.
It was adorable, really, the way he pretended he could do it himself. Richie let him struggle for a minute, biting back his laugh.
“Need help?” he asked finally.
Even in the dark, he could see Eddie’s cheeks redden. “ No ,” he said. “I can do it. I just - I just need -”
“Help?”
“ Time ,” he snapped. “I need a minute to figure it out.”
Richie leaned back, kicking his own, already skate-clad feet out in the air. “Okay, Spaghetti. If you say so.”
“Don’t call me that.”
He laughed. “Ever notice you only tell me not to call you that when you’re grumpy at me? I think maybe you secretly like my nicknames for you.”
His blush deepened. “Shut up.”
Richie’s laugh filled the night air as it always did. He knew it was no good offering to help again; Eddie wouldn’t let him. He just had to let him keep fighting with the skates and wait for him to concede defeat.
Sure enough, he did. He dropped his hands to his sides with a frustrated noise, and then shoved his foot in Richie’s direction.
Richie grinned and pulled his foot into his lap. It took him a moment to sort through the mess Eddie had made - he had really done a number on those laces; Richie hadn’t known it was possible to fuck up tying skates that badly - but within minutes he was finishing the bow on his second skate.
“There,” he said, patting Eddie’s shin triumphantly. “Good to go? Are they tight enough? Too tight? Too big? Too small? Too wide? Too narrow? Feel free to stop me; I’m not running out of adjectives any time soon. Too cold? Too old? Too -”
“They’re fine,” Eddie laughed, swatting Richie’s shoulder.
“You only think so because you’ve never worn skates before,” Richie said. He stood. “You have nothing to compare it to.”
“Maybe.” He took the hand Richie was offering him, allowing himself to be pulled to his feet. He wobbled on the skates, unused to balancing on such a narrow platform, his grip tightening painfully on Richie’s hand.
“Trying to break my fingers?” he asked in an over dramatically offended tone. “And here I thought you loved me.”
“You thought wrong,” he said dryly, but there was a smile threatening the corners of his mouth.
“You cut me deep, Eddie Spaghetti.”
“Shut up and get us on the frozen death trap before I change my mind and go home.”
“Good luck getting those skates off without my help.”
“Jerk.”
“Nerd.”
“Asshole.”
“Dweeb.”
“Trashmouth.”
Richie laughed. “I love you too.”
***
Skating was hard.
He hadn’t expected it to be easy , of course, but… it was so much harder than he could have ever imagined. It was like sliding around on tiny stilts that only went one way and didn’t have a braking system. It felt like one wrong move would cause his feet to snap right off like Legos. His legs were trembling like a baby giraffe's. He could feel his feet growing further and further apart, but had no way of stopping it. He stumbled so much it was a miracle he hadn’t fallen yet, even with Richie’s support.
True to his word, Richie hadn’t let go of Eddie’s hands, skating slowly backwards and tugging Eddie along with him. It did , admittedly, make it easier. Eddie didn’t have to do much, aside from keeping his toes pointing forward - which was much harder than one might expect.
But it was still really fucking hard .
His hands tightened on Richie’s. “Wait. Wait, Richie, slow down.”
“Why? I’m not going that fast.”
“No, I’m serious, Richie, slow -- don’t fucking speed up, asshole .”
“You mean like this?” He increased his speed further. “You don’t want me to do this ?” Faster yet.
Eddie tried to plant his feet, but they just continued to glide. His legs were wobbling dangerously now, and he tightened his grip even further. Panic rose in his chest. He was going to fall. Oh god, he was going to fall, and he was going to break his arm again, and this was exactly why his mom had never let him skate --
“ Richard fucking Tozier I swear to god-- ”
“Okay, okay,” he laughed. He stopped moving his feet, allowing them to slow once more to a gentle glide. “Better?”
Eddie’s heart rate began to settle and he tried to catch his breath. “Fuck you,” he spat.
“I’m sorry.” He smiled sheepishly, swinging their intertwined hands between them. “But it was kind of fun, wasn’t it?”
“No,” Eddie snapped.
“Not even a little bit?”
“ No .”
“Teeny bit?”
Richie was looking at him with his big eyes, and his dopey smile, and Eddie couldn’t fight the twitch of his lips. “No,” he said again, but his voice had lost its heat. “And if you ever do that again, I really will murder you. Don’t think I won’t.”
“I know you will,” he said fondly.
Eddie wrinkled his nose. “Don’t look at me like that when I’m threatening you.”
He laughed. “Like what?”
“Like that .” He waved his hands vaguely, still linked with Richie’s. “All fondly and like… like -”
His smile softened. “Like I love you?”
Eddie’s face flushed. “Yeah,” he said weakly.
Richie looked down at their hands, still smiling. Then, without warning, he gave a great pull, making Eddie glide closer to him until they were chest to chest. Eddie gave a squeak of surprise. Richie grinned down at him.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” Eddie whispered back.
“I meant what I said before, you know.”
He blinked. “What did you say?”
“That I love you.”
He said it with a shrug, casual as anything, as if he hadn’t just dropped the biggest emotional bombshell on him since they first kissed all those months ago. As if he hadn’t just said the three words Eddie had never heard before, from anyone but his mother. The words he never thought he would hear. As if the heart he held in the palm of his hand hadn’t swelled with emotion, full to bursting, and pounding like the bass at a rock concert.
Richie had never said it before. Neither of them had - not like that, at least. Not like they really meant it.
Eddie had never wanted to kiss him so badly.
He couldn’t stand on his toes - not in these stupid knife shoes - so he did the next best thing. He pulled a hand free from Richie’s grasp to tangle it in the front of his hoodie, and dragged him down for a bruising kiss. He could feel Richie smile against his lips; was aware of his hand coming to rest on his lower back and his own palm flattening against Richie’s chest. He slid his other hand from Richie’s and wrapped his arm around his neck, pulling him closer. Richie’s other arm came around his waist, nearly lifting him off his feet.
When they finally broke apart, still clutching each other like their lives depended on it, they were both smiling. Richie was framed by a backdrop of a million stars, glittering like diamonds up above. His hair was so dark that it nearly blended in with the night sky, as if he himself was a part of it. A celestial body, just like the stars above.
He was beautiful.
Eddie wanted to paint this image into the walls of his mind and frame it in gilded gold. He wanted to burn it into his memory, and to look at it every day for the rest of his life. He never wanted to forget it; never wanted to lose it.
He never wanted to lose Richie.
“I love you too,” Eddie whispered. “So much.”
Richie’s grin was brighter than any of the stars.