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Richie isn’t sure what exactly he’s supposed to do. He knows Eddie’s married.
Even if Eddie doesn’t say anything about his wife - even if he clutches to Richie’s side the whole way back to the Townhouse and follows Richie up the stairs and asks, voice soft and quiet and full of exhaustion, ‘is it okay for me to use your shower?’ - it doesn’t mean she doesn’t exist, that they don’t have a life together, that he won’t have to go back to it, no matter what happens after that.
How Richie feels doesn’t matter - not when held up against a fucking marriage. And it definitely doesn’t matter when held up against the most precious friendship Richie’s ever had, or how badly he wants to keep it forever, now. How he feels can’t matter, not if it means Eddie being his best friend again. Richie thinks he’d be okay with it, actually: loving Eddie forever and going home to separate beds at the end of the day. So long as he got to see Eddie, be in his life, go to baseball games together and maybe the movies. If he got to send Eddie links to articles and if he got to hear Eddie talk smack on his coworkers and if he got to phone his mom and say, “You remember Eddie, don’t you, Ma?” If Richie got to have that, it would be okay to love him forever and be in love with him forever and want him forever, even if Eddie never loved him back. Richie is realizing he’s already felt that way his entire life - he just didn’t understand that was what he was feeling. Being Eddie’s friend is already so much better than not remembering him at all. It isn’t a consolation.
And Eddie deserves to be loved - he deserves it so much more than so many people and he didn’t have enough of it, and if Richie could shoot starbursts of love out of his mouth and his eyes and fill Eddie’s life up with affection and trust and laughter, even if it wasn’t romantic, Richie would be very happy with that life. He thinks that loving Eddie his whole life is something worth being really proud of. He’ll do it for free, and he’ll do it until he’s dead. And it’ll be beautiful, even if it means one thing to Richie and something else entirely to Eddie. All things considered, it seems pretty special, actually, to get the chance at that.
So Richie doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do, standing in the doorway between the bathroom and the rest of his hotel room, in his boxers and a t-shirt with Eddie sitting on the foot of Richie’s bed in a pair of pyjama bottoms and a hoodie that Richie is pretty sure is actually his. He doesn't know what to do when Eddie says, “Rich, can I stay here?” other than nod, and so he does. He turns off the light in the bathroom and climbs into the other side of the bed because there isn't anything else to do. And after a few minutes of staring at the ceiling, when Eddie shuffles so their arms are pressed together, he doesn’t know what to do and so he stays still and breathes deep and thinks about how lucky they are to be alive at all.
When Eddie says, “Rich,” Richie does the only thing he’s ever known how to do, which is to say, “Eddie,” back to him. When Eddie turns onto his side to look at Richie, Richie copies him. They used to do this as kids, he remembers. Start by holding comic books over their heads on Richie’s twin-sized bed, and eventually they would end up curled up, facing each other. The beginning and the end of a million hidden moments in their lives, parentheses that kept whatever was between them safe from the rest of the world. It was a safety that Richie had been trying to cultivate in every single aspect of his life since leaving Derry, and he had never been able to figure out how. What a mess he’s been, without Eddie.
And if their bodies were just brackets around their weird, childhood intimacy, then the rest of Richie’s love for Eddie was the complete clause, subject and verb. A life sentence.
Eddie says, “I thought I was going to die.” Richie shakes his head.
“I wouldn’t let you.” Eddie reaches across the space between them to settle his hand on Richie’s elbow. He doesn’t even really grip it, doesn’t squeeze or move his hand at all - just settles it there, rests the cup of his palm and fingers over Richie’s skin.
“I feel like I haven’t been alive,” Eddie says, and Richie has an immediate urge to close his eyes.
He keeps them open. “You’re alive.”
Eddie smiles, so Richie smiles back.
“So are you,” he says and exhales a big breath out through his nose. Richie feels his chest move with it. Eddie closes his eyes. His eyelashes are so long. Then, Eddie says, “Tell me I’m not making it up,” in a voice so quiet it’s barely a whisper and more like a breath with legs.
Eddie opens his eyes, and Richie wishes his glasses weren’t cracked and folded on the bedside table. He can see Eddie’s face, but there’s a blur to it, wishes he knew what the pool of his eyes looked like down to the freckles. He doesn’t know what to do, and he might be a professional liar but he doesn’t like to lie to Eddie, and so he says, slow, “You’re not making it up.”
“Okay,” Eddie says, and Richie expects the world to split open but of course it doesn’t. This entire weekend has been a learning in one lesson: impossible things happen all the time.
“Yeah?” Richie asks, not really knowing what he’s asking, or what he wants Eddie to say, or how to move on from something that is still happening and will maybe be happening for the rest of his life.
Eddie scoots closer to Richie, enough for their knees to knock under the comforter, enough for Richie to need to cross his eyes a bit to see Eddie’s face. “Yeah,” Eddie says. Richie watches Eddie look down at Richie’s mouth and then back. Richie holds his breath. Eddie’s hand on Richie’s elbow flexes, and his grip finally tightens. “Will you-” he starts, then scrunches his eyes shut like it hurts. Tries again. “Please, I want to feel-”
“Okay,” Richie says, and while he isn’t sure what exactly he’s meant to do, he understands what Eddie wants. Eddie wants to feel alive; he wants to feel like he’s here, like Richie’s here with him and that they’re both okay. He wants to feel something good, maybe for the first time in a while. He doesn’t want to feel alone.
Richie understands that. He knows it’s not love. Of course it’s not love, but giving someone something they need simply because you can - that might be a kind of love. And Richie would bleed himself dry for Eddie over less. Richie can touch him. He considers himself lucky that Eddie is even asking.
Richie cups a hand around Eddie’s cheek, careful of the bandage over his stitches, and slides his hand so his thumb presses into Eddie’s jaw, his fingers behind his ears. “You have to tell me what you want.”
“I don’t know. Anything. Everything. Can you touch me?”
“Sure, Eds. Of course,” he says, and closes the space between them. He kisses Eddie softly - if Eddie changes his mind, Richie will back off. Richie will do anything Eddie wants, including stop, and it won’t be an agony in the way he would have thought. Of course, if having Eddie like this once is possible, Richie will take it. It doesn’t need to be love to be precious to him. It’s enough that Eddie is asking. Enough that Eddie trusts him. He keeps his lips closed, presses their mouths together as gently as he thinks he ever has with anyone, ever. Their noses knock, and Richie smiles. Eddie rubs their noses together, a different kind of kissing, and then huffs a breath out through his nose. Richie feels it; when he moves to pull back, Eddie chases him. When their mouths meet again, Eddie adds more pressure, parts his lips just enough to take Richie’s bottom lip between them.
Richie kisses him back. He licks along Eddie’s bottom lip, the hand in Eddie’s hair pulling their faces together. Richie tries to focus, wants it to be good for Eddie no matter how overcome Richie is feeling himself. Presses his fingers to Eddie’s scalp and nips at his lip before pressing his tongue into Eddie’s mouth. Eddie does a bad job at suppressing a shiver, but recovers enough to snake his hand from Richie’s arm to his back, and pulls their bodies together until they’re pressed against each other, chest against chest, legs intertwined.
Eddie smells like Richie’s body wash and his hair is still damp and he’s gripping at the back of Richie’s t-shirt with a vice-grip. Richie can feel where he’s starting to get hard against his thigh. Richie’s detachment wavers when he presses his hips to Eddie’s, making Eddie let out a very quiet whine. Quick and breathy, he barely hears it, but knows it happened and makes it his mission to make it happen again. Because that’s the point, isn’t it? For Eddie to feel good?
Richie’s isn’t sure who moves first, who makes it happens, who pushes and who pulls, but they shift and press against each other until Eddie is rolling onto his back, pulling Richie with him and on top of him until he settles above him, one hand still in Eddie’s hair, the other hand propping himself up above Eddie, holding his weight. Richie settles between Eddie’s spread legs, which feels obscene on its own. Richie knows he’s big - tall and broad and filled out in a way he never thought he would be, considering how lanky he’d been growing up. And looking down at Eddie, he feels broad. Grown. Eddie’s grown too - he was a cute kid and there was no wonder Richie was obsessed with him, but looking at him now is disarming. He’s so handsome. He’s so funny. He’s so strange and so different and so warm. It’s no wonder Richie’s obsessed with him again. Or maybe: obsessed with him still.
Richie bites Eddie’s lower lip between his teeth and tugs. Eddie whimpers into Richie’s mouth again, and Richie tries to memorize everything about the way it sounds. Richie pulls back and lifts himself up so he can look down at Eddie, their mouths coming apart slowly, like Eddie’s chasing it. He blinks his eyes open slowly, like they’re fluttering. He’s so pretty, Richie might die from it.
Eddie grips Richie’s bicep tightly, but his other hand gently brushes through Richie’s hair. He says, “You,” and it comes out raspy enough that he has to clear his throat. “You’re a good kisser.”
That makes Richie’s stomach feel like it’s full of butterflies, and he has to bite his lip to hold back a too-big smile.
Eddie says, “Better than I thought you’d be, even,” because he’s an asshole.
Richie laughs. “You’re a dick,” he says, meaning it but not bothered by it in the slightest. Eddie can be an asshole, but so can Richie, and Richie likes that about Eddie. Always did. He wonders what Eddie’s like to Starbucks baristas. He’ll have to test it out. “I’m good at other things.”
Richie holds his breath. Eddie smiles, sly. “Prove it.”
Richie kisses him again, hard and fierce, grinds his hips down against Eddie’s. Eddie’s hands scramble across Richie’s shoulders, and just when Eddie starts to rutt up against Richie, Richie breaks the kiss and pulls away.
“Can I take your clothes off?” Richie asks, hovering above Eddie. His heart is pounding in his chest. He wants to press his face to the skin of Eddie’s throat, lick him and kiss him and bite him there, feel Eddie’s pulse jump and skip because of Richie. He wants to swallow Eddie whole. Wants to be swallowed whole, too.
Eddie nods. “You too?”
Richie’s only in boxers and a t-shirt, but he nods anyway. “Sure.”
He sits up on his heels and decides: like a band-aid. If he watches Eddie undress slowly, he’ll lose his shit. If he undresses Eddie himself, he’ll lose his shit. He tugs his t-shirt over his head and pretends to get stuck there for a count of three. Collects himself as fast as he can. Tugs free and finds Eddie out of Richie’s sweatshirt and already lifting his hips to get his pajama pants down. Richie’s still between Eddie’s spread legs, so he scoots down, then helps Eddie tug them down until he can kick them off the side of the bed.
Eddie’s dick is hard, harder than Richie would have thought considering he hasn’t touched it. But it’s nice, as far as dicks go. The nicest. Richie has to pull his eyes away to look at the rest of Eddie’s body, scope it out, the line of hair running from the centre of his chest to his abdomen, down to his dick.
When Richie meets his eye, he looks shy. His cheeks tinged pink. Richie blinks at him, and Eddie says, “What?”
“Nothing,” he says. “Tell me if you don’t want me to do something.”
“Okay?” Eddie asks like he doesn’t understand.
“I’m sucking your dick.” Richie elaborates.
“Kiss me again first,” Eddie says, which makes Richie’s heartbreak, just a bit.
But Richie does it. What else is he meant to do? He settles back over Eddie, both hands planted on either side of his head on the mattress. He lowers himself slowly, until they’re nose to nose. Eddie huffs a breath and looks like he’s about to get a little feisty about it, so before he can roll his eyes, Richie kisses him. He thinks about the one good movie kiss he’s always wanted, spent his whole adolescence waiting for and never gotten; he thinks about how badly he wants to feel wanted, and how much he wants Eddie. Eddie deserves to feel wanted, too. Richie puts everything he has into it.
Eddie’s hands make their way back into Richie’s hair, and eventually Richie has to break away from Eddie, has to catch his breath. He presses his face into Eddie’s neck, scatters kisses along the side of his neck, and breathes deep. He moves up to the shell of his ear, the spot behind it. Eddie thrusts up into Richie, grinding up against his thigh with more desperation than Richie would have anticipated from him. He bites along Eddie’s throat, at his Adam’s apple, then along the other side of his throat.
“Jesus, Richie,” he says, and Richie grinds down to meet him halfway.
They rut against each other a few times, Eddie’s bare dick against Richie’s boxers. Richie can feel where they’re getting damp at the head of his dick. “Okay,” Richie says, then shifts down Eddie’s body to kiss along his clavicle. Down his sternum. Drums his fingers against Eddie’s ribs as he drags his teeth across Eddie’s navel.
He grips Eddie’s hips in both his hands, his thumbs pressing into the crease of his psoas. Eddie’s hip flexors are tight. Richie presses his mouth to the soft skin under his belly button, then down and too the left, beside his thumb and then past it, down his thigh. Drags his hand down to grip at Eddie’s left knee. Kisses the inside of it before moving back up, small quick presses of his lips and tongue and a barely-there graze of his teeth against Eddie’s pale skin.
Eddie’s hands are still in Richie’s hair, but not they’re not moving. Just hovering above his scalp, like he doesn’t want to spook him. As if Richie wouldn’t let Eddie tear him clean in half if that’s what he wanted to do, let alone tug at his hair a bit.
He’s breathing heavily, muttering, “Fuck,” and “Richie,” as Richie moves over him. He’s so sensitive. Another thing Richie might die from - Eddie’s nerves are so frayed that Richie can feel how worked up he’s getting, and Richie hasn’t even gotten near his dick.
With his mouth pressed to the inside of Eddie’s right thigh, Richie says, “You can pull my hair, if you want to.” Eddie groans, long and probably loud enough that someone could hear.
“Holy fuck, Richie.”
Richie nips at Eddie’s thin skin, a little harder than before. Not a graze so much as a pinch. Eddie’s grip in Richie’s hair finally tightens. Richie does it again and Eddie moans again, his breath catching halfway through. It almost sounds like a sob. A sharp inhale and wavering exhale.
When Richie looks up, Eddie’s cock is starting to leak at the head. Richie decides, then, to indulge himself just the once. He sucks Eddie’s skin between his teeth, licks at it. He’s never had a thing about hickeys - not the way other people seemed to, at least. He always chalked that up to having been a late bloomer - he didn’t fool around with anyone as a teenager, so it was never a priority. And then he was in show-business and couldn’t.
But he could do this now. Just this once. Richie has carpe’d worse diems. Eddie would see it later. Maybe press his fingers into his tender, marked-up skin. And he’d remember: they were here. They did this. They did it together. They were alive and they were going to be okay.
Eddie gasps, and Richie hums against him, and he only pulls off when Eddie starts to squirm in earnest. He blinks. He can see his teeth marks in Eddie’s skin. His red skin is covered in Richie’s spit. Richie kisses the same spot gently, just once and with closed lips.
“Please,” Eddie says, and he sounds absolutely strung out. Destroyed already. “Please, holy fuck, why’re you so-”
Richie takes the head of Eddie’s dick into his mouth and sucks, hollows his cheeks out and swirls his tongue around him and Eddie shuts up for all of two seconds - doesn’t finish his sentence but does let out what Richie would call a whimper. Richie’s hands return to grip at Eddie’s hips, holding him down.
Richie doesn’t actually mind getting his face fucked, not categorically, but that’s not what this is. This might not be love, but it’s not nothing, either. It is because they love each other, and trust each other, and have each other back and want to hold on to that - Eddie doesn’t need to be in love with Richie for that to be true. Richie isn’t just here for Eddie to fuck up into his face and be finished with it. Eddie wants to know that Richie is here, that they’re here together. It’s about the time they lost; about all the versions of themselves they didn’t get to be because of everything that got stolen from them.
Maybe, Richie thinks: maybe if things had been different.
So Richie holds him down. Takes his time. If he only gets to do this once, he’s going to make it last. He’s going to make it so good for Eddie that he never forgets it.
Richie licks at Eddie, tastes his precome and inhales through his nose and focuses on the feel of Eddie’s dick in his mouth, against his tongue. He doesn’t taste like anything, really - fresh from the shower, it’s just skin and heat and salt. There’s nothing inherently magic about Eddie’s cock in Richie’s mouth, but it feels like it anyway. Precious and bright and undeniable. Richie takes him further into his mouth, feels him hit the back of his throat. Eddie’s hands in his hair drag against his scalp, tucks a longer piece of hair behind his ear.
“Richie,” Eddie moans. Richie hums around him and his dick twitches with it. “Feels good.”
Richie moans again, wants Eddie to keep going but won’t stop to ask for it, never could. Just takes him down and breathes around him and tries to set a rhythm that works for Eddie. He presses his thumbs into his hip hard before moving his right hand to squeeze hard at Eddie’s thigh, just once, fingers wrapped around his muscle. He traces over the hickey he left on Eddie’s thigh in a gentle back and forth.
Eddie isn’t saying much, but he’s making breathy, punched out sounds, and he can’t seem to keep his hands in one place, scratching against Richie’s scalp, tugging his hair, moving from the crown of his head to his neck and then shoulders. Richie wishes, suddenly, that Eddie had eight arms like an octopus, which is such a batshit crazy thing to think he almost laughs to himself. But that doesn’t make it any less true - he wishes Eddie could touch him everywhere at once. That his body could be absorbed into Eddie’s via osmosis.
Richie hates himself for the way he feels about Eddie - for the juxtaposition of it all. He feels like he could never get enough of Eddie. That he could never give him enough to make him understand the immensity of it. And also: he will be okay to never have this again, to spend the rest of his days orbiting Eddie, sucked into his field of gravity but never actually getting to be this close again. He would survive it, of course he would. He’s already survived worse.
It’s a weird way to feel. So contrary. So full of love he could burst. And trying so hard to avoid mourning this before it’s even over.
Having his affection be so clearly defined by two lines that could never meet is hard to deal with, and so Richie decides to not deal with it. Now isn’t the time, anyway.
He refocuses on Eddie, listens to the desperate sounds he’s making. All because of the way Richie is touching him. Richie sucks at the head of Eddie’s cock once more, hard, before letting it fall from his mouth. He moves to lick at Eddie’s balls, wrapping a hand around Eddie’s shaft. Eddie’s breath shudders. “You’re insane,” he chokes, and Richie laughs with his whole chest.
“Feel like we knew that already,” Richie says, presses his lips to Eddie’s hip. Richie runs his thumb over Eddie’s slit, and precum beads there. Eddie gasps, his grip on Richie’s neck tightening. Richie watches his face for a minute, leans his cheek against Eddie’s thigh as he jerks him off. He’s watching Richie’s hand move, his eyes dark and his heavy-lidded. “You’re hot,” Richie says, and for the first time since they started this, he feels shy.
Eddie shakes his head once, and it’s such a small movement but it makes Richie’s chest feel tight anyway. “You,” Eddie chokes, his hips jerking up into Richie’s grip as Richie flicks his wrist over him. “I don’t-”
“You are,” Richie says. “Fuck, Eddie, look at you. You’re so wet. Your dick is amazing.”
“Jesus Christ,” Eddie says, and shuts his eyes. “Please, Richie, I can’t.”
“You can,” Richie says, and fits his mouth over the head of Eddie’s dick again. Licks around him as he moves his hand over his shaft. Eddie moans, and his thighs start to tense around Richie. Richie uses his free hand to pin Eddie’s leg to the bed, bowed open, and Eddie groans. Richie hollows his cheeks around Eddie, and Eddie’s hips lift and stutter as he starts to come. Richie swallows around him, can feel spit and some of Eddie’s come on his chin. He doesn’t care, keeps Eddie in his mouth and his grip around him tight as Eddie shakes and shakes with it, groaning into the quiet dark of Richie’s hotel room.
“Fuck,” Eddie says, and Richie hums around his cock, which is softening but certainly not soft yet. “Holt shit, Richie.” He tugs on Richie’s hair as if to lift Richie, to pull him off him, but Richie stays where he is. Swirls his tongue around Eddie, who whines with it but doesn’t try to get out of it.
“‘t’s sensitive,” Eddie rasps, and Richie hums and, giving him one last hard suck, pulls off.
“Sorry,” Richie says. He wipes the back of his hand over his mouth and chin before he settles his cheek back against Eddie’s thigh. Richie looks up at Eddie as he catches his breath. He looks kind of dopey, honestly, but Richie finds it extremely charming.
Eddie shakes his head. “Feels good. Weird, but.”
Richie rubs his fingers against the grain of the coarse hair lining Eddie’s thigh. “But?” He asks, feeling brave.
“I think I could probably go again, if you kept at it.”
Richie thinks he looks goofy without his glasses already, but he can imagine how he must look, the way his eyes must bug out a bit at that. “Really?” He asks, his voice catching. Another way to die.
Eddie nods. “But you too,” he says, pulling at Richie’s shoulder. Richie raises himself up and shuffles so he’s hovering above Eddie again, face to face.
“Whatever you want,” Richie says, and means it. Whatever Eddie wants, he’ll do it.
Eddie smiles. “That feels…” he shakes his head, traces his hand down Richie’s face and cups his cheek. Richie, in spite of himself, leans into it. “Like an impossible choice.” He traces his finger over Richie’s lip, light enough that it tickles, and Richie’s eye’s fall closed.
Eddie presses his thumb into Richie’s mouth and Richie’s breath shutters. If Eddie doesn’t stop being so delicate with him, he’s going to end up showing his cards. Eddie will be able to read it all over his face. I love you, Richie thinks, which is crazy and a very uncool thing to think after sucking a guy’s dick one time, especially when that guy is your friend that you forgot existed for twenty-five years, and even more so when that guy is married. But he thinks it anyway: I love you, I hope you’ll let me do it forever.
He opens his eyes, and Eddie blinks at him, slow and lazy, and gives him a tight-lipped smile. “What do you want?” Eddie asks.
Richie wants to shrug but can’t risk it, will do anything to avoid ruining whatever the fuck is going on right now. He’s not done yet; he’s not ready to let it go yet. Even if he’ll only have it for a few more minutes, he needs those minutes. “I don’t know.”
Eddie’s smile cracks wide across his face. “You don’t know?” He asks, teasing. He cards his fingers through Richie’s hair.
Richie doesn’t want to say the wrong thing. “Can I kiss you again?” He asks.
“Yeah, Rich, of course.”
“You don’t mind? That I just-?”
Eddie shakes his head. “I feel like you’re being super formal,” he says. “I don’t mind. It’s fine, dude. Relax, okay?”
“Relax,” Richie says, dragging it out, incredulous. “You gonna help me?”
Eddie tugs Richie’s hair once, sharp. “I’m trying.” His smile splits his face wide open. “Dumbass.”
Richie kisses him again. Richie thought Eddie would be shy about it - his dick was just in Richie’s mouth; he came in Richie’s mouth. No condom. Richie probably should have asked. But Eddie isn’t shy about it at all - he licks into Richie’s mouth, behind his teeth. He holds Richie’s face between his hands as he does it, and while the kiss itself is pretty filthy, needy and consuming, Eddie's grip is gentle in a way that makes Richie feel like the entire thing might not actually be rooted in desperation, but rather in tenderness.
Eddie’s left hand moves to the side of Richie’s neck, down his shoulder to his arm. He moves slowly until he reaches the waistband of Richie’s underwear. Then, because he’s always been a bit of a pest and Richie would be remiss to expect anything else from him now, he snaps the elastic against Richie’s skin.
“Let’s get these off,” he says against Richie’s mouth, and Richie, dumb, just nods.
He tries to shimmy out of his boxers while still sucking Eddie’s tongue into his mouth, which doesn’t work very well but is still really nice, and when Eddie starts laughing against Richie’s lips, Richie feels incredibly close to him. Richie has had men inside him and not felt the way he feels with Eddie right now, giggling at their lack of coordination, their lack of desire to separate for long enough to get Richie’s underwear off.
They do end up separating, and Eddie bites his bottom lip between his teeth and smiles as Richie shucks out of his underwear. “Don’t fuckin’ laugh at me,” he says, crawling back into the bed and settling above Eddie again. Eddie reaches out for him, wraps his arms around Richie’s middle and presses his nose to Richie’s jaw.
“I’m not laughing,” Eddie says, muffled.
“You’re thinking about it,” Richie says. He adjusts until he can nudge at Eddie’s nose with his own.
Against his mouth, Eddie says, “I’m just smiling. What’s the punishment for that crime?”
“Uh.” Richie’s brain stalls. Eddie keeps grazing his fingers up and down Richie’s spine. He feels like how he imagines the bottom tray of his dishwasher feels with the wheels come off the track. Useless, but probably fixable.
“Not like - that’s a little advanced, dude.”
Richie kisses him, a hard press of teeth. “Don’t call me dude in bed, Eds, c’mon.”
“Sorry,” Eddie says, still smiling.
“It’s okay,” Richie says, and smiles down at him.
“Can I jerk you off?” Eddie asks. Richie nods. “Like this?” Eddie asks.
“Sure,” Richie says. “Doesn’t, uh. Doesn’t matter to me.”
“Sit up a bit.”
They shuffle, and Richie ends up settling back on his heels, Eddie propped up on his left elbow. His right hand traces up Richie’s thigh, and Richie’s heart starts to hammer.
Richie likes sex - but it’s not usually like this. It’s not slow, not really, but it feels like they’re moving through molasses. Everything feels important. Everything feels like it costs something. Like Eddie running his fingers against the grain of Richie’s hairy legs is worth something to him.
When he wraps his hand around Richie, Richie’s breath shudders out of him and his eyes fall shut. He pumps his hand up Richie once, slow and a little looser than Richie would usually be with himself, but it’s still -
It’s still Eddie. He’s still luckier than he ever thought he would get.
Eddie rubs his hand over the head of Richie’s cock and says, “You gotta tell me what you want.”
Richie can feel his chest going red, his cheeks. He feels like he’s going to be covered in sweat in ten seconds flat. “Anything,” he says, raspy, then clears his throat.
Eddie makes a humming noise in the back of his throat. Then, surprisingly soft, he says, “You really mean that, don’t you?”
Richie opens his eyes and catches the look on Eddie’s face. It seems familiar, even if he can’t place it. Reminds Richie of being a kid, of the thousands of times he would turn to look at Eddie as Eddie looked away.
In the here and now, Eddie doesn’t look away. Just roams Richie’s face - Richie doesn’t know what he looks like to Eddie, can’t imagine what Eddie is looking for or what Eddie sees. It feels scary, but he doesn’t feel scared, and he doesn’t know how those things exist in the same space, the same split second of time. Doesn’t know how the two feelings are different, just that they are.
He nods, slowly, just a small duck of his chin. “I -” He stops. What’s he supposed to say?
Richie’s mom used to get so annoyed when he’d come home covered in scrapes, grass-stained clothes and muddy shoes. She didn’t understand what it was like. Maybe no one in the world had ever felt the way Richie felt around Eddie; about Eddie. She’d raise her voice, “If Eddie jumped off a cliff, you’d follow him!” and Richie would say, “Well, yeah, if he was jumping off a cliff, he would have a good reason to!” What else was he meant to do for his friends? Let them go alone?
Plus, they had been jumping into the Quarry a long time.
And more than that, Eddie had been jumping off cliffs for Richie since the day they met. Metaphorically, at least. You do something scary for someone because you love them, and you don’t want them to be scared alone.
“Yeah,” he says eventually, and shrugs. “It’s you.”
Eddie presses his thumb against Richie’s slit, and Richie’s dick twitches in Eddie’s hand. “I’d do anything with you too. You know that, right?”
Richie bites his lip. He feels like he’s back at the Quarry, at the very edge where the bits of rock sometimes splinter, break off and plummet into the water below. If you push on the wrong spots, even the earth can fall apart.
Richie would rather jump than fall. “Not just, uh. Sex stuff?”
Eddie shakes his head. “No, not just sex stuff.” He smiles up at Richie. “It’s you.”
Without grace and without suave, Richie presses down to kiss Eddie, hard. Eddie lets a little whelping sound out against his mouth before he kisses Richie back with just as much fervor. It feels bigger and better than anything he’s ever felt. He doesn’t know what to say or what to do: how could the immensity of the feeling ever fit inside one human person?
Richie pulls back. “I think I’m crazy about you, Eds.”
“Maybe we can be crazy together,” Eddie says. He shifts against Richie, and Richie can feel him getting hard again. “Are you gonna let me get you off, or what?”
Richie shakes his head. “It won’t take much,” he says. “But I probably won’t be able to go again. You, on the other hand…” He wiggles his eyebrows up and down.
“I - really?” Eddie’s voice pitches up. Richie kisses along Eddie’s chin, back to the shell of his ear and down his neck.
Richie nods. “If you want.”
“If I want,” Eddie repeats under his breath. “Sorry, is there a version of this where I don’t want to come again with you? In your mind, is that a real possibility?”
Richie's mind skids - he forgot that Eddie always knew what Richie meant, even if Richie didn’t. His cards were all face-up on the table already. There was a joke in there somewhere. Queen of hearts. Although it’s possible she’s not smiling anymore.
“Umh. No? I don’t know.”
“Well, I know.” He traces a hand along Richie’s arm, up to his shoulder and settles his fingers against Richie’s cheek. “I’m trying really hard to not get too far ahead of myself and, like, rearrange my schedule so I’m free for the next fifty-odd years.”
A weird laugh punches out of Richie against his will. “Fifty years?”
Eddie smiles. “Give or take. I’ll try to be free for as many orgasms with you as possible. One of us will still need to work, but, you know. Relatively.”
Richie’s eyes well with tears. “Dude.”
“What? Was that the wrong thing to say?”
“My emotions are yo-yoing.” He heaves a breath. “But the yo-yo has a very frayed string and it's about to snap.” Eddie’s thumb brushes back and forth across Richie’s chin. “Can we just. Can we deal with it later? Talk about it later?”
Eddie nods. “Okay,” he says.
“Okay,” Richie parrots. “Now, excuse me, I have some business to do with your boner.”
Richie gets his hand wrapped around Eddie and Eddie hisses through his teeth. “Sorry,” he says.
“S’okay,” Richie says. “Sensitive?”
Eddie nods. Richie presses a chaste, close-lipped kiss to the side of Eddie’s mouth. “Roger that,” he says, and then shifts back down, settling between Eddie’s legs again. “Tell me if it’s too much.”
Eddie nods again, so Richie licks up Eddie’s length. He goes slowly, watches Eddie’s eyes fall shut. Watches his chest heave with each sharp inhale and shaky exhale. They’re so lucky to be alive, and even luckier to be together. Richie takes his time when he takes Eddie into his mouth, taking him in inch by inch slowly, backing off before taking him back down.
Eddie’s louder this time, tugging at Richie’s hair with one hand and fisting his hand in the sheets beside him with the other when Richie does something he really likes. Richie can’t wait to learn everything about him.
Richie pulls almost all the way off to suck gently at the tip of Eddie, and the muscles in Eddie’s legs start to tremble. “Rich,” he says, fast, and Richie pulls off quickly.
“Fuck,” Eddie says, breathing hard. “Fuck you.”
Richie laughs and kisses the crease of Eddie’s hip before he takes him back into his mouth. He finds Eddie’s left hand and moves it to settle against Richie’s cheek, angles so Eddie can feel himself in Richie’s mouth.
“Jesus,” Eddie says, and Richie hums around him. “Honey,” he says, and drags the fingers of his other hand across Richie’s scalp. “You’re so good.”
Richie makes a keening noise in his throat, and swallows down around Eddie again, hollowing his cheeks hard, settling into a rhythm that’s slower than before. He wishes he could live like this forever. Just on the precipice of his pleasure, of Eddie’s, in the warmth and goosebumped feeling of it all. Richie was so sure he had felt everything there was to feel, but he was so wrong, and with Eddie’s dick in his mouth and Eddie’s hands in his hard, with one hand wrapped around the base of Eddie and the other gripping Eddie’s thigh, he suspects he has actually felt very little of the spectrum of being alive. All he wants is for Eddie to feel even half of what Richie himself feels. That would surely be enough.
“Fuck,” Eddie says, his legs and abdomen going tight. “I don’t wanna - Rich.”
Richie stops moving and pulls his mouth most of the way off Eddie. Holds the tip of his dick in his mouth, but goes slack.
“Not without you,” Eddie says, tapping at Richie’s shoulder. Richie gives him one last, hard suck, hallowing his cheeks around him and then lets go of him. “Jesus,” Eddie says.
Eddie tugs at his shoulders and Richie settles above him. “Here,” Richie says. He takes Eddie’s dick in his hand, lines them up and gets his hand around them both.
“Holy shit,” Eddie says. Richie watches Eddie watch as Richie moves his hand over them. Eddie grips a hand around Richie’s forearm as he pumps over them.
“Eds,” Richie says, and Eddie’s eyes snap to meet Richie’s. Eddie bites his bottom lip between his teeth.
His cheeks are flushed, his neck and chest going molten with it. Richie knew it wouldn’t take much, but even looking down at Eddie feels like it could be enough. Having Eddie’s dick in his mouth would be enough, probably, if he had enough time.
“I know,” Eddie says.
“Are you-” Richie chokes, and Eddie nods.
“Yeah, honey, please, c’mon.”
Richie’s orgasm crashes over him with more force than he expected considering how little time it took. He groans, coming over his fist and over Eddie, and he forces his eyes open to watch as Eddie shakes apart beneath him only seconds later.
Richie jerks his hand over them both once, twice more until Eddie whimpers. He collapses beside Eddie on the bed and breathes heavily. Wipes his hand on the sheets beside him. They lay there in silence for a stretch, and Richie forces himself to think about absolutely nothing at all.
“I’m definitely free for the next fifty years,” Eddie says. Then he starts to laugh. “Holy shit.”
Richie turns to look at the side of his face. “What’s so fucking funny.”
Eddie shakes his head, turning to face Richie too. Settles on his side, a parenthesis. And also, Richie suspects: an invitation. Richie mirrors him. Eddie smiles. “Nothing,” he says. Then presses a quick peck of a kiss against Richie’s mouth. “That was just…”
He trails off. “Yeah,” Richie says.
“I promise I won’t always be so...such a pillow princess.”
Richie snorts. “Oh, don’t worry, I’ll let you hit me back.”
“Next time?” Eddie asks. Richie smiles.
“Plenty of next times,” he says.