Chapter Text
Eddie Spaghetti, you little fucker.
Not only has Richie been actively keeping an eye out for a guy who might resemble the Vague Blob That Is Eddie, but Tuesday rolls around and Richie gets up early just to stand outside his door and play Pokemon Crystal on his Game Boy until Eddie inevitably emerges for the class he had skipped last week on behalf of Richie.
Which, he doesn’t, and while Richie gets in a good chunk of gaming time before his morning class, he’s also totally motherfuckingly perplexed.
Is that gremlin avoiding him, Richie wonders as he crosses campus in the perpetual drizzle of the day, totally forgetting to pull his hoodie up as he purposely jumps in a puddle, scuffed plaid Docs saving him from wet feet. He isn’t that off putting, is he?
They’d had fun. Eddie had even laughed - twice! Well, half-laughed both times, which equates to one full good laugh.
These things mattered.
Of course, Eddie isn’t the only person Richie has met or gotten along with in this first week. He’d attended the Commons Area party last Saturday night, a joining between the guys and girls wing of their residence. Eddie’s MSN and AIM is stockpiled with screen names and friends and whatever else. He is rolling in attention.
So why is he being avoided by this one guy? Richie has to wonder if Eddie actually feels that guilty about his glasses and is hiding from him out of embarrassment. Eddie does have the one-up on Richie in that he can spot him coming and run in the opposite direction. Richie won’t know Eddie until he hears him talk, probably.
Also, Richie really wants to see Eddie’s face when he realizes that Richie had an extra pair of glasses all along.
Snickering to himself, Richie automatically holds the door open for a guy walking toward the same entrance. He’s busy thinking of Eddie, but not enough that he doesn’t give pause, eyebrows raising to admire the ass of a guy in unreasonably tight jeans with purposeful rips from thigh to knee.
Said guy actually whips his head around like The fucking Exorcist, dark eyes narrowed like molten murder and Richie quickly averts his gaze and looks as innocent as possible, saying nothing.
ANYWAY.
Saturday rolls around and it’s another party in the Commons, and this time Richie decidedly puts Eddie the forever mystery out of his head. They’d had fun that morning, but it isn’t the end of the world. Life moves on and Richie doesn’t yet feel like he’s sinking beneath the stress of college, or at least how everyone hypes it up to be. He’s going to have fun and fuck everyone’s mom if they tell him otherwise.
Every couch and table is shoved to the periphery, crunching together a sweaty clench of pulsing, writhing bodies both laughing and singing along with Get Ur Freak On. The kegs are free-flowing and the solo cups are spilling over peoples’ heads as they raise them up to dance. The Commons feels smaller like this, with the lights out but for some deliciously tacky black lights ala Spencer’s making the herd of bleach blondes glow and white sneakers dizzy Richie’s vision.
Last time Richie saw Bev, she’d crawled up Ben like a spider monkey and sat on his strong shoulders to lead the party in a rousing - or, arousing, let’s be real, it’s Bev - rendition of Teenage Dirtbag. Mike is trying to harass DJ into playing Usher, and Bill has found some longtime pal, Stan, who is apparently his friend through their parents. Turns out, Stan grew up just outside of Derry, so he’s basically family, anyway.
Richie, though - Richie has a mission. And he’s currently unabashedly sweating buckets as he challenges asshole after asshole at DDR. Some blessed nerd has hooked his PS2 up to the big screen in the lounge and it feels just like being at the arcade. This is one of the many reasons why nerds will always be top of Richie’s list in life. They get shit done.
He’s stripping off his flame-printed bowler shirt and twirling it in the air with a battle scream as another loser drops and literally crawls away, legs unable to withstand the power that is DDR on Maniac Mode and Richie’s shitty sportsmanship.
“Suck my asshole, Brad or Chad or whatever the fuck your name is. The art of Dance Dance Revolution is about unwavering unhealthy obsession and stamina , and Richie Big Dick Tozier can go all night l-“
“This is really your best friend, Bill?” Richie whirls around to grin at that guy, Stan, staring at him sourly with folded arms.
Bill is one too many drinks to the wind, so to Richie’s benefit he just kind of grins and says, “Yup. He’s ours.”
“He’s not a dog, Bill.” Stan eyes Richie, who lifts the hem of his Weezer tee to wipe the damp from his face. “Even so, you should probably have trained him better.”
“I’ll have you know I’m house broken and everything. Might hump your leg, though, no promises.”
“No one beat you yet, huh?” Bill asks, totally ignoring him.
“Nah.” Richie waves it off and snatches Bills cup to drain it.
“Actually,” Stan says, and for a moment his eyes light up in ways that make Richie think of satan and suddenly Richie knows he’s going to love this man. “I may have a challenger for you, if you think you can go another round without going into cardiac arrest. You look like you’re dying.”
“Listen.” Richie uses Bill as a leaning post, emphatically jamming a finger in Stan’s face. “My dedication for living in my basement to solely practice DDR in preparation for moments like these is unmatched. Bring it on, Stanley.”
Stan coolly eyes Richie’s finger.
“Whatever you say. I’ll be right back.”
With that, he disappears into the crowd, leaving Richie and Bill grinning at each other like the idiots they are.
“Having fun?” Bill asks.
“Dude, like, the most fun. I couldn’t be having more fun than I am in this very -“
“Stan, no way -“ a familiar voice giggles - giggles - “ Stop, I’ll fall on my fucking face and -“
The crowd parts like the guy approaching is Jesus or was that David or Moses, FUCK, this is why his parents stopped taking him to church. That and how he’d sneak off to the bathroom to play Legend of Zelda.
The person who steps into the small circle encompassing the two DDR mats is, well, Eddie.
He’s smiling at Stan in a self-conscious, shy kind of way, his tan face flushed, teeth perfectly ungodly perfect, dark hair with a fray of curl from the humidity and heat of the party. He’s wearing a red polo, but he doesn’t pop the collar like all those fucking douchebags, and when Richie’s attention drops from the sliver of bronzed skin between shirt and belt, he notices the jeans. Way too distressed and ripped ragged across the thighs, exposing skin and more skin. The spotlessly white Adidas.
Richie’s mouth is catching flies when he looks up, and at the same moment Eddie seems to realize what’s going on.
“You!” Richie points accusingly. “I held the door open for you and you didn’t say anything!”
“Oh, now you recognize me?” Eddie’s hands fist on slim hips and holy moly ravioli, is his angry face delightful . “You were more interested in my ass it was no surprise you didn’t see my face.”
“First of all, I was appreciating. Second, I didn’t know what you look like, so if you’d have just said something -”
“And get swindled into hanging out with you again?” Eddie scoffs and, instead of turning around and leaving like Richie expects normal people to do, stomps into Richie’s space and digs a finger into his chest. “I saw you later on that same day on Tuesday and you damn well had those ugly-ass glasses on! You had an extra pair all along, didn’t you? I had to skip my first class of the semester because I felt bad for you, but mark my words that pity will be the last thing I ever aim your way again.”
“Pity tends to be the first emotion I evoke in people,” Richie says, grinning and looming over Eddie, who doesn’t seem to given a flying fuck that Richie’s nearly a head taller. “That, or awe. Pure, raw inspiration. Oooh, raw is a good word, isn’t -”
“So is vile, which you are.”
“So,” Stan says. “Clearly you know each other. Introductions are not necessary.”
“Is this the guy who broke your glasses?” Bill asks, frowning.
“You broke his glasses?” Stan says, turning to an Eddie with a face rising the color of his shirt.
“It was an accident!”
“Well, no one is implying you went up to him and slugged him,” Stan says, eyebrows raised. “Not that it wouldn’t be totally justified, considering.”
“Awww.” Richie dives in and throws an arm over Eddie’s shoulders, to which Eddie hisses like a feral cat and unearths himself. “Don’t worry, Eds -”
“Eddie.”
“All is forgiven. Hatchet under the bridge. Burying the water.”
“Where is my drink?” Eddie squawks, spinning around to snatch the one Stan is holding. He downs it in one, his adam’s apple working hard, and Richie’s smile only notches wider at the sight.
“Drinking does often help with the whole -” Bill gestures to Richie’s curly mop to his trusty tartan Docs, “thing.”
“Thing is a good word for it,” Eddie mumbles into his cup.
“Like John Carpenter’s The Thing?” Richie muses with lips pursed. “I dunno, Eds. I kinda like it. That Thing was unkillable.”
“Congratulations,” Eddie says as he sets the cup inside a tower of finished cups precariously balanced in the middle of the floor, “You’re a virus and an alien. It all makes sense, now.”
“Does that make you Kurt Russell?” Richie says, pocketing his hands and ducking his head far down to catch Eddie’s eyes with a toothy smile.
Eddie doesn’t flinch. He’s a goddamn pro. I fucking master of taming the heckler.
“Unfortunately, I lent my sombrero to your mom and she never gave it back. Maybe ask her for it next time you see her.”
Richie blinks. Feels his chest swell and burn in an entirely unfamiliar way as the party sharpens, folds in on itself, and focuses to a pinprick on Eddie alone.
“Oh boy,” Bill’s voice drifts in faintly. “This is going to be a problem.”
“Hey,” Eddie barks, snapping Richie out of whatever that was. “Did you already leave Earth? Fuck it, I think I do need to battle you. You’re the one, right? Stan told me some douche was bragging and I needed to take his rights away.”
“You can have all my rights,” Richie says dumbly before he realizes his mouth has betrayed him. “Wait, you? You’re the guy? Oh, this is gonna be hilarious. I hope you enjoy losing, Spaghetti Man. This is one thing I won’t let you have.”
“Oh no,” Stan barely has time to say before Eddie is shoulder-checking Richie on his way to the DDR mat.
“Lose?” Eddie looks over his shoulder with a cocksure grin that just about has Richie begging on his knees. “That’s the only funny joke you’ve told so far, dumbass.”
“Methinks those britches are too big for such a wee chap,” Richie says in one of his Voices as he makes a show of stretching his arms and hamstrings. He notices Bev, Ben, and Mike pull up for the show, confusion on every face as Bill leans in to explain.
“And your head’s too big for your body, but no one’s pointing that out,” Eddie fires back, then mutters as he uses his pristine sneakers to tap through the menu through the mat, “Lollipop on legs.”
“You could lick me like a l-”
“Are we playing on Maniac or what?” Eddie snaps, his dark, dramatic brows all scrunched as he flicks through the songs.
“Obviously. You can handle that?”
“Maniacs are my specialty,” Eddie says flatly, pausing through his song scroll. “Let’s do Dead End.”
“Sure, fine, whatever, let’s do it, do me, do me,” Richie responds without thinking, because he’s lubed up with beer and the competitive fire in Eddie’s eyes is revving his engines like nobody’s business.
When the song information flashes before them, Richie nearly swallows his tongue when he realizes his is a level nine. He hadn’t been playing anyone at a nine because, well, bitches just can’t handle that. Richie barely can at his best - and a little liquored up? Goddamn.
When literal red alert sirens begin whooping and screaming with the song’s introduction and Eddie actually laughs, like he’s fucking excited now, Richie starts to sweat for other reasons than his general lack of good health.
What follows is the longest ninety seconds of Richie’s life, next to the time his mom caught him jacking off the Abercrombie & Fitch catalog. The pace is ruthless, relentless, and Richie has to concentrate harder than playing the drums or stats class or not looking at what Eddie is doing right now. Because he can fucking see the cut screen beside him and Eddie’s perfect scores are shooting higher than Richie’s load.
At some point in the dance there are gasps and a literal whoop of glee that may or may not have been Mike, of all people. The sirens are shrieking again and Richie is jumping like a goddamn baboon, sweat trickling down his back as races toward the end. Heavy bass is thundering, dropping hard as Richie and Eddie finish their final jumps, Richie’s lungs burning for air as he heaves forward, hands on his knees to look between the screen and Eddie.
“FUCK YEAH.” Eddie is taking a running leap at a horrified Stan, jumping on him and hooting with the win, his face barely even red. The hair at his temples is damp but otherwise he’s a fucking picture of adorable as he launches toward Richie now, smile a mile wide and sharper than his cute face should be able to pull off. “Whatcha think, Tozier? Do you enjoy losing?”
“Okay, one , you are clearly more sober than I am -”
“That wouldn’t change a damn th-”
“Someone get this kid shots! SHOTS, I DEMAND THEM. Yes, bring the entire bottle Bev, you manic pixie dream-”
“Fuck you, I could drink ‘til I’m half blind and my feet would still be faster than your giant clown shoes.”
“I could make a dick joke right now -”
“That’s your name isn’t it, so you’re the entire joke -”
“- but I’m fired up, Eds, I really fuckin’ am, you -
“Where are those shots? Right, yes, gimme two, I’ll double fist the bitches, watch -”
“You really are a gremlin! I mean, I had a feeling you were, but you look so fucking vanilla boy band I wasn’t sure if you had it in you. No more alcohol for Eds, everyone, he’s a Gremlin, it’s official -”
“Do you or do you not want me to drink, fuckhead? I’m two shots in now and you’re talking a hell of a lot for someone who -”
“Fine, let’s do this! AGAIN.”
“FINE.”
Richie and Eddie spin in tandem to address the screen, neither of them smiling now. Oh yeah, Richie was going to fuck this guy sideways.
From behind, Ben speaks in awe.
“I kinda feel like I’m watching history in the making.”
“Oh, we definitely are,” says Bev. “I just can’t tell if this is a mating dance or -”
“Murder,” Stan says. “Knowing Eddie, it’s probably murder. That guy takes no prisoners once he’s pushed too far.”
“Hot Limit!” Richie declares, and at this point there are a dozen or more people surrounding them. “Long version, like my dick.”
“Must run in the family,” Eddie says as he chooses the song with a violent stamp of a foot. “‘Cause your dad’s dick was huge when I fucked him, too.”
And everyone is fucking screaming at the burn, and Richie is smiling like a true maniac because he can’t help himself, and neither of them can really hear the music when it starts up because it’s so damn loud and someone is playing Fat Lip in the background, but Richie’s eyes are all for those arrows, and they GO.
He and Eddie are moving in tandem, the sounds of their feet like drums in perfect sync, a sound like heaven to Richie’s ears. His heart is banging in time to Eddie’s movements, and even though the song lasts double the time of an average one, the further Richie matches Eddie, the more he feels like he’s flying.
They tie.
Richie takes no shame in dropping back on his ass in the middle of the mat and using his shirt to wipe at his sweaty face. His chest is heaving, and when Richie looks to Eddie, the guy is glowing from the inside out, staring right at him, and smiling with pure joy.
And fuck if he doesn’t have the cutest dimple Richie has ever seen.
“Hey,” Eddie walks over and drops to a crouch before him. Their faces have to get close to hear over the shouting and cheering, the singing-along to What’s My Age Again in the back, Richie’s friends riotously talking over each other. This close up, Eddie’s aren’t brown but hazel with flecks of grey, pretty. Richie’s chest burns again, weird. “Wanna go again?”
Richie pauses but can’t help the smile.
“Fuck yeah, I do.”
They go. And they go. The student-acting-as-DJ takes his shit and someone is playing stacks of CDs on the boombox as groups of students fade, while others start to push the couches and chairs back together in smaller clusters to lounge and talk over the music. Jack White is singing, I can tell that we are gonna be friends , and Eddie finally collapses with bright, loud laugh, spread out like a star on the floor.
“Eds, Eddie, Eduardo,” Richie groans, literally crawling on all fours from his mat to where Eddie lays out, smiling at the ceiling, both of them more than a little drunk and stinking of sweat and Captain Morgan. “I’m so tired. I’m so tired, man, you win. You are the king, my king, and I am your peasant, your - your, what are they even - surfs. I’m totally surfing for you.”
“Tha’s not how it works,” Eddie drawls, and the snippy-snap staccato of his usual speech has drifted and slurred, his eyes falling shut as Richie looks down on him. “‘N don’t sweat on me. Fucking disgusting.”
“I can think of worse fluids to get on you. Or better, depending on how you look at it.”
“Would rather be doused in lighter fluid,” Eddie murmurs, smiling all dreamy-like, his hair sticking up in all directions from running damp hands through it time and again.
“You talk arson so sexy.”
“Mmhmm .”
Richie stares at Eddie a little longer, lips twitching at the little cartilage hoop he has pierced in his upper ear and the faintest smatter of freckles beneath the natural tan. Eddie’s eyes roll around behind his closed lids, but he doesn’t open them, and when that burning in Richie’s chest returns, he promptly rolls and stands.
“Richie,” Mike calls from across the room where the Losers are gathered on couches. “We’re heading out, man. Need help getting him back to his room?”
“I’ll do it,” Stan says, groaning like an old man as he gets to his feet.
“I’m the scoundrel that tired out the poor boy,” Richie says proudly. “I’ll be the one to put him to bed!”
“Keep your hands to yourself,” Stan says, and even from across the room his satan eyes are back. “Don’t find out what happens if you don’t. We’re room 217.”
“Wait, he’s your roommate?” Richie asks, but nobody answers because they’re all getting their lives together and making their way to the stairwell.
It takes a bit of doing, but Richie convinces Eddie to lean on him, and Eddie only scratches him on the arm once for it. They made for the elevator, Eddie sighing and draping his weight against Richie’s body despite the fuss he’d made in the first place.
“You’re pretty strong for a little guy,” Richie says as he keeps a firm arm around Eddie’s slim waist. There’s no fat there, though, it just feels like solid man.
“Yeah, well -” Eddie waves a hand around, blithe and limp. “I’ve always been a fucking loser, so I needed to have something going for me. Started with gymnastics when I was a kid, but the fairy thing got old real fast and I dropped out. Did track for, like, ever.”
Before Richie can comment, Eddie looks up at him and smiles, wide and pristine, if not a little droopy in the eyes.
“Told’ja my feet are faster’n yours.”
“That you did, my good sir, that you did.”
They make it to Eddie’s room unscathed, minus the time Eddie steps on his foot - which, at this point, they are swollen and relatively numb from the sheer amount of dancing they’ve done tonight, so it doesn’t entirely matter. The door is wide open and Stan is nowhere to be seen, and so Richie helps Eddie topple onto the bed that he assumes is Eddie’s only because there are a surprising pair of dumbbells beside.
The guy was interesting, Richie would give him that. And a lot more.
“Wait!” Eddie shoots up, looking around wildly, his grasp sudden and tight around Richie’s arm.
“AH, what!” Richie all but shrieks, not expecting that at all.
“I’m disgusting,” Eddie wails, flopping back in bed. “I need to shower.”
“Dude.” Richie laughs and begins to shuck Eddie’s shoes and socks off. “You’re totally fucked up. Shower tomorrow.”
“I hate myself,” Eddie announces dramatically as he rolls in bed and shoves his face into a pillow. “I laid on the floor. Do you know how many germs are on the floor? How many people stepped in dog shit today and walked on that floor? How many times does the janitor even come to this hellhole? I mean, you’ve seen the shower drains, right? The balls of hair look like fucking rats, Richie - rats!”
Richie pointedly does not look at Eddie’s ass. That already got him in trouble once.
“Sounds like a problem for Future Eddie and not Current Eddie,” Richie says, braving it and sitting on Eddie’s bed, his hip pressing Eddie’s warm side. “Maybe get some sleep and pick up this particular tirade tomorrow. I’d be happy to listen. I’m in 237, anytime. Most of the time. I mean, that’s pretty much the only place I ever am. I don’t have a life.”
To Richie’s dawning joy, Eddie laughs into his pillow, his slim shoulders shaking with it.
And then he passes out cold.