Chapter Text
It was one in the afternoon on December 31st, and Bill and Stan had slipped away from the group to borderline-make out two times already.
The first was in the laundry room, when Bill was sitting on the dryer waiting for it to finish so he could get a warm hoodie and Stan had entered with a basket of laundry. Bill was idly scrolling his phone, and Stan had leaned forward to see what he was doing. It was some dumb meme, and right before he pulled away, Bill brushed his lips to Stan’s temple and then there they were, going at it in the laundry room while Richie and Mike and Eddie bickered, like, ten feet away.
The dryer dinged, they broke apart, and Stan transferred a load of laundry to the dryer while Bill wrapped himself in the warm, staticky hoodie.
The second time, they were at the store with Beverly shopping for New Year’s Dinner, and they were in the little back room where the soda was stocked, and Bill slipped his hands into the pockets of Stanley’s sweater from behind (because it really was kind of chilly) and Stan couldn't resist turning around to gently kiss Bill’s nose, and then-
“BOYS? WHERE ARE MY BOYS?” Bev called from the aisle over, and Bill turned red and Stan wordlessly shrugged off his sweater and gave it to Bill, grabbed the first case of root beer he saw and walked over to find her.
But now they were home, and Stan was reading at the dining room table while Richie, Ben, Eddie and Mike argued over their family tree.
“Okay, so Mike and I are the parents,” Richie said, pulling out yet another sheet of paper to illustrate on. “Eddie’s our prep son, and Stan’s the emo son-”
“Why am I the emo son?” Stan interrupted.
“Because you’re wearing Ben’s black hoodie and your hair is in your eyes,” Richie explained. “Eddie’s in a button-up and his hair is all combed neatly. Anyways, Bev’s our daughter…”
“No, Bev’s just some person that randomly came into our house and now she lives with us. Ben’s our son-in-law,” Eddie added, grabbing the paper to add those notes on.
“I’m married to Bev in this?”
“Yes, Benny, keep up!” Richie exclaimed. “I’m the dad-”
“No! I’m the dad!” Mike interjected. “I’m the dad, you’re the mom.”
“You can both be the dad,” Ben said.
“Oh, yeah. Gay rights,” Richie said absentmindedly. “And Bill’s my brother, like the weird uncle.”
“I wanna be the weird aunt!” Bev announced, entering the room. “I’ll be Mike’s sister.”
“No, Beverly, you’re the person that moved in with us and we don’t know where you came from!”
“What if we call Bev our aunt,” Eddie suggested. “That okay with you, Stan?”
“I- what? Yeah, sure, I guess?” Stan said.
“Wait, what am I?” Bill asked from the kitchen.
“You are... Richie’s brother who lives with us.”
“Cool.”
--
Richie was struggling to pick out a shirt for his first (possibly last) real kiss with Eddie, and Eddie was struggling to ignore Riche standing shirtless in the middle of their room, modeling every shirt he owned and asking the advice of him and Mike.
“Hmm. Go back to black with gold-ish flowers?” Mike asked seriously. Richie looked around for the shirt in question, which had landed on Eddie’s bed. He tossed it at Richie, who pulled it over his head.
“I think that one,” Mike said definitively. “Put on a black t-shirt under it, unbutton it a bit.”
“These jeans?” Richie asked. “Wait, how do they make my ass look?”
“What?” That was Bill, passing by.
“Bill, you’re gay-”
“Bisexual.”
“Yeah, whatever, how do these jeans make my ass look?”
Bill entered the room to inspect. “Hmm. You know what, pretty good.”
“Okay, these are the jeans!” Richie cheered, high-fiving Bill and Mike.
“I hate you all,” Eddie sighed, heading downstairs to the living room.
Stan was reading serenely, while Ben and Bev played MarioKart on Bev’s phone.
“Literally, fuck whoever’s controlling Toad,” Bev grumbled from her perch on the arm of Ben’s chair. “What’s up, Eddie?’
“Richie, Mike, and Bill are checking out Richie’s ass.”
“O- oh,” Stan said, looking up from his laptop. “Bill and Mike?”
“Yeah, he’s trying to pick a good outfit for tonight,” Eddie grumbled. “He wanted jeans that make his ass look good.”
“Maybe… he’s trying to impress someone?” Bev asked, grinning like a fox.
“Mm, well, he’s acting like he wants to impress Bill,” Eddie said, still in a mood.
“Really?” Stan asked, closing the laptop. “He’s trying to impress Bill?”
“Oh, my goddddd,” Ben and Bev sighed in unison. “Hey, jinx!”
“You owe me a kiss on the cheek!” Ben grinned, and Bev obliged. Eddie made gagging noises.
“Eddie, wanna go on a walk with me?” Bev asked calmly. “I want to talk to you.”
“And Stan, come with me,” Ben added. “We can go to the store, see if we need anything else.”
“Fine,” Eddie grumbled, while Stan wordlessly pulled shoes on.
They headed out the door together, but Bev pulled Eddie one way- towards the local Starbucks- while Ben and Stan walked to the store.
“Eddie, I’m going to go out on a limb here, and say that the only person Richie wants to impress is you.”
“Bev- I- I don’t know! He’s up there, asking Bill how his ass looks in jeans, having Mike pick out every aspect of his outfit,” Eddie grumbled.
“Eddie, please think about this logically? First of all, Mike may be pan, but he’s always said he leans mostly towards girls. And he was telling Ben and me about a girl he’s been talking with in one of his classes, so you really shouldn't worry about him. And Richie and Bill are both bi, yeah, but they’ve never been anything more than friends.”
Eddie was not convinced. “But- Richie and Bill? They’re always cuddling, and holding hands, and Bill sits in his lap, and stuff?”
“Richie and Bill have always felt so comfortable with each other, Eddie. I mean, when we first became friends, I asked if they were dating? Remember? I asked you and Stan and he just laughed and said that they were just extremely emotionally involved. Thank you.” That last part was directed at a young woman who had held the door for them.
Eddie started to argue again, but his phone buzzed in his pocket.
Losers Club
Richie > hey where the fuck did everyone go
Eddie > Bev and I are at Starbucks
Richie > get me an iced coffee
Bill> Its december you useless gay
Richie > i know u are but what am i
Eddie > Holy shit are you twelve?
Bev > I’ll get your coffee, Rich.
Richie > love u bevvie
Meanwhile, at the store, Ben and Stan didn’t need to buy anything. Ben just needed to talk to Stan without the aggravating presence of Richie and Bill and Eddie.
“Richie doesn’t like Bill. And Bill doesn’t like him.”
“I know Richie doesn’t like him! But… how do you know Bill doesn’t like him?”
“I saw you and Bill making out in the laundry room,” Ben said simply, grabbing two chocolate bars.
“Oh.” Stan was temporarily speechless.
“Yeah, so you have nothing to worry about. They’re just close. Also, congrats-”
“Can we not discuss the… incident until tomorrow? Not that I don't want to talk about it with you,” Stan explained. “It’s just…”
“Yeah, of course.” Ben smiled, paid for the chocolate, and gave one to Stan to eat on the short walk home.
--
It was later now- Richie was dressed in the outfit Mike and Bill had chosen, and Bev was finishing the alterations to her shiny, sequined skirt. Bill and Stan were not looking at each other and simultaneously trying to look at each other without the other person realizing they were looking at them, which was awkward for them and quality entertainment for Richie and Eddie, who were sharing a chair and building themselves in The Sims.
“No, Ben and Bev have to enter a romantic relationship,” Richie was saying.
“Well, if we’re mimicking real life, we gotta make Bill. Then he and Bev can enter a romantic relationship, break up, and she and Ben can get together.”
“Let’s take a poll,” Richie suggested. “BILL! STANLEY! MIKE! SHOULD OUR SIMS GO THROUGH ALL OF OUR HISTORY OR NOT?”
“Hmm,” Stan considered. “I think you should skip ahead to right now, and then follow real life from here on out.”
“Yes, because I don’t want to be in a romantic relationship with Bev. Sims or otherwise,” Bill added.
“Speaking of Bev!” Ben grinned, coming down the staircase. “The final skirt!”
“Bev came down the stairs, dressed in a t-shirt, her skirt, and her one pair of heels. Richie wolf-whistled, Eddie clapped, and Bill and Stan both took several photos.
“Let’s get this party started!” Bev cheered, throwing up both of her hands.
Mike ran up the stairs, and they heard him rummage around before he emerged with a box.
“Okay, my aunt sent me a Polaroid camera for an early Christmas gift,” he explained, opening the box at the coffee table. “I want to document our whole 2020, starting with tonight. Beverly Marsh, strike a pose!”
Bev obliged, Mike loaded up some film, and the moment was documented.
“Now, I believe it’s time for Bill and me to totally destroy you all at Monopoly,” she laughed.
It was a Losers Club tradition- Monopoly, Clue, and Scrabble on New Year’s Eve. The teams consisted of Bill/Bev, Mike/Ben, and Richie/Eddie (Stan was the banker, as the only person who didn’t try to cheat), and had been that way since the seventh grade when Bill and Bev thought they had crushes on each other, Mike and Ben were still semi-awkward new kids, and Richie and Eddie were an unstoppable force of friendship telepathy. Nowadays Bill and Bev were just friends, of course, and Mike and ben would have felt completely fine playing with someone else (Richie and Eddie would have stayed together even if they were given the chance to split up), but the tradition was tradition.
Bill grabbed the game board, Eddie grabbed the soda and chips, and the rest of the Losers arranged themselves around the coffee table.
“Thimble for Mike and Ben! Dog for Richie, Eddie, and Ben! And for Bev and I, the racing car!” Bill announced, handing out the pieces. Stan was already counting out money as Eddie leaned his head on Richie’s shoulder, Bev and Bill sat up in excitement, and Mike and Ben whispered a plan for winning.
“Okay, I get to go first because I’m adorable,” Richie said, grabbing the dice from Stan.
“No- that’s-” he stammered. “Fine, Richie.”
“Six, let’s goooo,” Richie narrated. Eddie, shall we purchase Oriental? For a hundred?”
“Hmm. Yes, we should.”
Thirty minutes later, Bill and Bev owned three hotels and forty percent of the board.
“Beverly Marsh, I’m going broke,” Richie sighed, falling backward into Eddie’s lap.
“Good.”
“Bill, my roommate, why must you forsake me?” Mike asked.
“Bev, my roommate, why must you forsake me?” Ben added.
Richie, meanwhile, was trying to seduce Stanley into giving him more money. Stan was laughing.
“C’mon, look at my adorable face!” Richie pleaded.
“No!” Stan said, shoving him away.
“You guys forfeiting yet?” Bill asked.
Mike looked at Ben, Ben looked at Eddie, Eddie looked at Richie and Richie looked at Mike.
“Yes. We forfeit the game to you and Beverly,” Mike sighed. Bill slapped hands with Bev, cheering. Mike shot a photo.
Eddie was already up as Richie cleared away Monopoly. The next game- Clue- was their favorite, and Stanley usually joined their team.
“Professor Plum for us!” Richie yelled, grabbing the card, as the rest of the club repositioned- Bill lay on his stomach, Richie managed to position himself to curl up on Stan’s lap, Eddie sat against the couch with their paper and book, and Mike rested his chin on Ben’s shoulder.
Richie’s strategy for the game was simple- go down the list. Their cards were Peacock, the lead pipe, and the library, and he caught a glimpse of Ben showing Mike Plum’s card. So that was another one down.
Stan texted him You can’t cheat! And Richie replied watch me, staniel with a smirk.
“What are you boys texting about?” Bev asked.
“Nothing, Bev,” the three of them replied in unison (Eddie had been watching over Stan’s shoulder).
When Eddie reasoned that it was Miss Scarlett with the revolver in the study, he won the game for them, and Ben scowled as Mike pulled out the game of Scrabble. This was their time to shine- while Bill was good with words, Bev wasn’t. Richie, Eddie, and Stan were also good at writing, but they could never find good words in their letters. Mike and Ben were both frequent readers and they were excellent at knowing obscure words (the Derry library had had a Scrabble club that met once a month on Sundays, and that didn’t hurt either).
“Hook,” Richie spelled out.
“Shock,” Bill added.
“Rats,” Ben placed down.
“Hmm, lost your touch?” Richie taunted. “The mighty has fallen-”
“Shut up,” Mike said, placing the word squeeze on the board. “We’re doing fine, thanks.”
Stan “got off a good one” with the word jezebel, and Bev and Bill played bounce, and the game was going pretty well by 10 pm (they had had a few interruptions in the form of their pizza arriving, and having to assemble an apple pie) when Ben and Mike played the word “beziques”.
“That’s not fair! Eddie, the dictionary!” Richie yelled, and Eddie hopped up to grab Merriam-Webster from the bookshelf.
“Not in our edition,” he said smugly.
“Go to the website! Bill!” Mike argued. “Do it!”
Bill obliged and reported that it was valid.
Once Richie had played “spin”, the game was over, and to the surprise of absolutely nobody, Ben and Mike won by a lot.
Richie took a bit of pizza from the boxes sitting on the coffee table. “Movie?”
“What should our last movie of the decade be?” Ben asked.
“GREAT GATSBY!” Bev, Bill, and Richie yelled in unison. “C’mon! Roaring Twenties!”
“I thought we could watch Romeo + Juliet,” Ben said. “It’s such a good movie.”
“Let’s do a Luhrmann marathon, then. We can also watch Moulin Rouge,” Mike said.
“I love it!”
So, at eleven pm on December 31, they were curled up on the couch, eating apple pie and vanilla ice cream, and yelling at Leo DiCaprio on-screen.
Richie was sharing the chair with Eddie again, and keeping up a running commentary on the entire film, which was keeping Bill and Mike in stitched, making Stan smile quietly, and making Eddie chuckle lightly every now and then (which made Richie feel like he’d just killed at a sold-out show at Radio City).
“Hey, anyone else noticing that this film is kind of gay?” he asked, taking a huge bit of pie and ice cream. “Like, Tobey Maguire is in love with Gatsby?”
“Yeah, no shit,” Bev giggled from her seat on the couch. “Isn’t that the whole point of the movie?”
“Actually, babe,” Ben started, ignoring Richie and Eddie’s snickers at the pet name, “F. Scott Fitzgerald was trying to prove that Nick is an unreliable narrator with his attitude towards Gatsby.”
“Says here on the Wikipedia page for him, his wife accused him of being gay and doing it with Ernest Hemingway!” Richie added, phone out.
“Please, can we watch the movie?” Stan asked, and they all quieted down. In the semi-dark of the living room, Bill curled up with his head in Stan’s lap, and Stan curled his fingers into Bill’s hair.
Eddie leaned backward, and Richie wordlessly looped his arms around him. Eddie hummed, lay his head back on Richie’s chest, and they sat like that wordlessly until Mike stood up, paused the movie, and announced that it was eleven forty-five.
The Losers bounced up from their spots, and Berv grabbed the champagne while ben passed out plastic champagne glasses. Mike readied the camera, Richie turned on a playlist, and Stan and Bill linked hands.
“Okay,” Richie said once he had a glass in his hand. “Let’s all say our favorite moment of the decade and the year. Me first- best moment of the decade, meeting you all, hands down. Best moment of the year… um, there are a lot, but remember when we all got really sick at the same time in February! We all stayed home, watched shitty TV, and ate broth? And while we felt like shit, we all got to be together, and it was a nice time.”
“Hmm. For my favorite moment of the decade, meeting you all, but when we left Derry is a close second,” Bev mused. “Best moment of the year? I liked our spring break this year, when we cleaned the house top-to-bottom for three days straight and then we all got to just relax, and we did a lot of baking. It was so refreshing to live in a house where we didn’t have to worry about tripping over something every fifteen seconds.”
“I mean, you all saving me from getting cut up on a bridge was pretty cool,” Ben laughed. “And this year was pretty fun overall. Bev, remember when we drove to Coney Island one afternoon in June? We just decided to go one day, and everyone was either working or at school? That was pretty nice.”
“Oh my gosh, yes! That’s my favorite moment of the year,” Bev smiled, kissing Ben on the nose.
“I wanna say the best moment of the decade was when we got out of Neibolt with Georgie,” Eddie said. “Just, like, we’re okay now. And this year- um, tonight’s been pretty good. I’m going to say tonight because I don’t want to have to pick a number-one moment.”
“I’m going to go with finding Georgie as the best decade moment, and- um, the last few days have been pretty good. I mean, in the last month I went from a slightly too enthusiastic ally to coming out to my closest friends, so that’s been something,” Bill said.
“I also think that finding Georgie alive and getting out of Neibolt alive was the best decade moment. And this year, um, the last week’s been pretty nice. Also when I passed my first year of college, that felt super good,” Stan said.
“Am I last?” Mike asked. “Decade moment, when I was getting rocks thrown at me by the local racist gang and some skinny nerd called a rock war and saved me. That was kind of cool, I guess. And this year? The whole year’s been great, I don’t wanna pick a moment.”
“Aww, Mike, you love us!” Richie cooed.
“Yeah, Richie he tells us at least once a day,” Stan said.
“Seven minutes to midnight!” Ben called.
“Ha, before the decade ends, anyone wanna admit they’ve got a crush on me?” Richie joked, and Bev noticed Eddie swallow. But before he could say anything, Richie barreled on. “But, legit though, it’s been a top-tier year for the Losers. To the Losers!” he cheered, holding up his glass. They all clinked them and took small sips, and Mike pulled up the live stream of the ball drop in Times Square.
“Why aren’t we there, again?” Bill asked.
“Oh, yeah Bill, you know how much we all love crowds and creepy drunks and loud noises!” Eddie said sarcastically.
“Fair.”
“Ten!” Bev yelped.
“Nine!”
“Eight!”
“Seven!”
“Six!”
“Five!” Richie set his glass down on the table and faced Eddie.
“Four!” Bill faced Stanley and looked him in the eyes.
“Three!” Mike got his camera ready, getting everyone in the frame.
“Two!” Ben leaned down to press his forehead to Bev’s, and she giggled.
“ONE! HAPPY NEW YEAR!” The Losers Club cheered. Mike snapped a photo, and he managed to capture the following things:
Richie, one hand on Eddie’s cheek and the other flat on the table behind him, kissing Eddie softly. Eddie, eyes wide open in shock, one hand automatically finding it’s way to Richie’s waist, surprised but clearly kissing him back. Bill, hand in Stan’s hair, holding the champagne high, while Stan’s hand rested on his shoulder and he smiled into the kiss. And Bev and Ben in the second after the first kiss of the decade, smiling at each other, glasses held loosely at their sides.
It was an absolutely fantastic way to start the new year.
Richie broke away from Eddie first. "Um, I'd like to change my best moment of the year, please."