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Richie Tozier is Eddie Kaspbrak’s best friend. It’s the one thing that Eddie knows to be true. They’ve been through hell and back together. Eddie has been holding Richie’s ice cream during Richie’s shenanigans since they were thirteen. When they were fourteen, Richie took a punch to the face for him. Freshmen year, Richie loomed over most of the people at Derry High School, so he trailed behind the much shorter Eddie as if to say i dare you to lay a hand on him. Richie and Eddie tell each other everything, or at least Eddie thought that was the case until his sixteenth year.
He’s walking to the arcade to find him, him being Richie, who still inhabited the place like it was a second home. Eddie idly wonders how many dollars worth of quarters he’s spent there. He kicks a rock when he hears it, sees something move out of the corner of his eye.
It sounds like skin against brick and Eddie thinks of the scrape the rough stones leave, but then he hears a grunt. Maybe he should investigate. If it was some bully beating up another kid, it’s not like he could do anything. His paranoia gets the best of him and he follows the noise into the alley behind the arcade.
It’s disgusting back here. There’s trash on the uneven ground and he’s pretty sure that was a mouse that just skittered past one of the meta trash cans. And it smells, like bad. Eddie has always had a sensitive nose.
As he approaches the arcade’s dumpster, he stops in his tracks. It’s not some scuffle like originally thought. There’s no punches being thrown or words being yelled, but there are two people.
Richie Tozier was kissing a boy behind a dumpster.
A dumpster.
“Oh my god.” He says out loud. He covers his mouth, as if it will catch the words that have already fallen out. Richie jumps about ten feet in the air, head snapping towards Eddie. He backs away from the boy he had been kissing ( Kurt Calloway from Comp , Eddie notes). His mind is still a mantra of Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god .
Kurt is hiding his face and Richie backs away from him like a kid who’s just touched a hot stove top. Eddie doesn’t miss the way his best friends face crumples when he realizes who’s caught him.
He tries not to gag, really. Because this is one of the most disgusting things he has ever witnessed.
He hears Richie calling for him as he’s running back down the alley. “Eds! Eddie, wait!” Eddie leaves the alley, turns away from the arcade to head home. Richie must have no been trying to catch up because his legs are twice as long as Eddie’s.
Who kisses anyone behind a dumpster? That’s disgusting. There could be about a thousand disease, a billion germs. Richie could catch a parasite or some STD. What if Kurt isn’t thorough with dental hygiene? Eddie guesses that doesn’t matter since Richie isn’t that diligent either.
Was this a first time thing, Eddie wonders as he makes his way back home, passing the Neiboldt house along the way. Because if it wasn’t, that makes this whole thing catastrophic. Richie touches him, grabs his face. Oh god, is that why he had broken out last week? Dumpster germs making their way into his pores?
He’s sick to his stomach. Richie jokingly smacked his lips against Eddie’s cheek last week. Of course, Eddie scrubbed his face with three different soaps afterwards...but still. Just the thought makes Eddie pull a wet wipe out of his fanny pack, which Richie had convinced him to get rid of for a while. Stan and Bill agreed, throwing his first one into the Quarry, but his second one had made a reappearance only a month later due to the fact that Eddie was starting to think he could feel the germs.
After wiping his face once more, he walks up to his front door and opens it quietly. His mother is sleeping in her chair like normal. He climbs the steps to go to his room. Guilt starts to riddle at him, the look on Richie’s face when he realized Eddie had caught him.
Eddie will apologize tomorrow, he thinks, flopping on his bed. Maybe he’ll gift him some hand sanitizer, or a list of other places he can make out with people that aren’t behind a dumpster. Both seemed to be pretty thoughtful gifts.
-----
“--who would do something like that?”
Eddie hears Richie’s voice raise as he heads toward the bike rack. He had practically ran towards the meetup spot as soon as the bell rang. He only sees Richie in the halls, but today had been weird.
“Who did what now?” Eddie wheezes as he approaches the group. They all fall silent. Stan looks more uncomfortable, which Eddie is pretty sure is his default setting. Bill’s lips are set in a thin line as if he’s trying to hold something back. Ben’s eyes just dart between everyone as if trying to assess the situation. The air is tense. Eddie wants to know what they’re hiding.
It’s when Richie takes a long drag of his cigarette that Eddie realizes they were talking about him. “Well, I did your mom last night, but you probably knew that by now. Your rooms only like what, two doors dow-”
“Are we st-still heading to my house?” Bill interrupts Richie, who has gotten far more descriptive with the mom jokes over the past few years. Everyone seems to nod except-
“I’m just gonna head on home.” Richie puts out his cigarette on one of his school books, but he might as well have put it right out on Eddie’s forehead. Richie never goes straight home, there’s nothing there for him. He avoids it at all costs, going straight to bed when he gets there these days. He lights another cigarette before mounting his bike. “Hasta fucking la vista, suckers.”
Bill’s lips twitch up into a smile, albeit it a small one, as Richie rides away on his bike, his voice belting out Home, Home on the raaaaange in a southern drawl. Eddie notes how he’s going the opposite direction of the Tozier household, but doesn’t say anything as the rest of them climb on their bikes to go to Bill’s.
-----
It’s school the next week and everything is wrong, wrong wrong. That night at Bill’s had been the most awkward night of his life. Stan had kept giving him that squint-almost-glare look, which he was aware of whether Stan knew or not. He left early that night and Ben would normally ask why he was heading out early, but he didn’t look the least bit worried as Eddie walked out the door.
The gang pretends they aren’t hanging out. Ben says he has too much homework and Stan says he has to help his dad, Bill claims to be working on his portfolio. Richie says he’s gotta beat his own high score on Street Fighter, the lucky score that had been sitting there for two years at the top of the screen.
Eddie knows they’re all lying. He’s not sure exactly what he had done, but he hears them laugh and talk about the things they had done the night before everyday when he approaches.
His hopeless attempts at talking to Richie had been more pathetic than anything else. It’s right before seventh period, the last hour of the day, when he manages to catch Richie in the hall. He sticks out above everyone else. Black shaggy hair and lanky limbs, a too large flannel hanging off his frame.
“Richie!” Eddie yells. “Wait up!” Richie doesn’t even turn around. Actually, Eddie thinks the other boy speeds up significantly. Eddie knows how to weave between a crowd though, and catches up before latching onto Richie’s hand.
“Wow, I know you’re like, obsessed with me Eds, but give a man some space.” He snatches his hand out of Eddie’s grasp, who just takes it again.
“I’ve been,” Eddie wheezes. “Trying to catch you all week. Where’ve you been at lunch?”
“Library.” Richie answers shortly, for once in his life.
Eddie raises his eyebrows as they approach the gym, which he knows Richie has this hour. Afterall, his gym bag is slung over his shoulder. He idly wonders when the last time Richie had washed the clothes in it. He holds back a shudder.
“I just wanted to ask if you’d help with my paper for Government. I’m really bad the opinion part, you know?” And Eddie really was. He was jolted by a different boy pushing his way between pair.
“Hey fags, stop holding hands and get out of the damn way.”
Eddie’s ears go red when he realizes that his small hand is still wrapped around Richie wrist, barely able to grasp it all the way around. Richie face goes mad with anger, his teeth are grinding, his eyes are narrowing, but his mouth remains shut. Eddie wonders why this isn’t a battle he wants to fight.
“I’ll be late for gym. See you later.” Richie pushes past him without another word and Eddie knows damn well that he won’t be ‘seeing him later’. He heads to AP US History , dragging his feet the whole way.
He’s not even surprised when Mr. Hulsey gives him a tardy. The class goes by quickly and when the bell rings, he gathers up his books just like any other day. Except today he decides he’s not going to meet the Loser’s Club by the bike rack.
Despite his lungs, he heads for the gym in a dead sprint. He makes it to the door while the first stream of people are making their way out, obviously being the fastest to change. Richie was usually with this crowd, Eddie assumes, since he’s always the first to the bike rack.
He doesn’t come out. At all. The stream of people leaving the gym has thinned out significantly. There’s no way Eddie would have missed him. He peers through the propped open doors to see if there’s any other people hanging in the bleacher. Nada.
Eddie’s sneakers squeak as he heads across the gym floor, making his way to the boy’s locker room. It feels scandalous in a way, he hasn’t been in this glass since sophomore year.
“Let...Me...Go!”
Oh no, that’s not good. The voice is distinctly Richie’s. He’s trying to think of the last time anyone fucked with him, but he’s drawing up blank. Richie wasn’t the scrawny little nerd he used to be, Henry Bowers was gone, and they’ve been breezing through high school like it was no problem.
Eddie peers around the corner, hiding in the shadows, to get a look at the scene before him. Richie standing on one of the metal benches that sit smack dab in the middle of the locker room, two boys holding him in places so he can’t jump down and run away. The boy that called them fags earlier was standing up on the bench in front of Richie, jump rope in hand with another around his neck.
“Heard you’ve been getting pretty bold, Bucky Beaver.” Eddie watches as Richie cringes at the name, one he hasn’t been called in years. “Kissing pretty boys behind the arcade? Calloway couldn’t keep his mouth shut after he found you and twinkle toes.” Eddie notices how Richie’s whole body goes tense at that.
The boy begins to tie makeshift shackles to secure Richie’s arms in front of his body. “Don’t talk about him like that!” Richie grunts, pulls at his new restraints. Eddie tries to figure out who he’s talking about when he realizes, oh, oh, Richie is defending him. He is twinkle toes.
The boy is fumbling with the second jump rope. “This would all be easier if you would just fit in a damn locker.” He slings it over the shoddy pipes that cover the ceiling, beginning to tie it around Richie’s rope handcuffs. “You know who probably would though?” Richie thrashes some more, only egging the boy on. “Good ole twinkle toes. Think he’s waiting around here somewhere?”
Eddie’s blood runs cold. He should go get Bill. Or Stan. Or a teacher or the police officer that stands outside. He’s frozen in place, oh god, he’s the worst friend ever. He repeats it in his head like a mantra.
“You won’t find him outside.” Richie spits, and Eddie wonders why he’s defending him if he has been so cross with him lately. “He’s got better things to do than hang around and see your ugly mugs.” The boy jerks the rope a little tighter at that and Richie’s face contorts in pain, his coke bottle glasses sliding down his nose.
The boy jumps down then, admiring his rope handy work. “Almost as kinky as taking it up the ass, huh boys?” The other boys snicker, and Eddie’s stomach does a little flip. “Let ‘im drop.”
The other boys grab both ends of the bench and Eddie runs, runs so fast he think he might need his inhaler that sitting in the landfill. The howl of pain that comes from the locker room makes Eddie’s own shoulders hurt, imagining the fall that Richie had to take and the rope tugging harshly on his wrists.
Eddie can’t just leave. No, he refuses. He heads under the bleachers, effectively hiding himself as the goons leave Richie behind to...die probably. Eddie feels like he has read that if a person is suspended it makes it harder to breathe, and it can fuck up the nerves in someone’s hands.
Once the squeak of their sneakers leave the gym, his short legs are carrying him straight back to the locker room.
He’s not exactly sure what he expects. Richie is hanging there, looking as if he’s already given up on thrashing about. His arms have never looked so long, and his feet were desperately reaching for the floor. “God fucking dammit,” He’s muttering. He leans back his head, getting ready to shout when he realizes Eddie is there.
“Oh my god. Thank fuck.” Richie is obviously trying to pull himself together. “Never thought you’d be this late for a date, Eddie Spaghetti. Will you be a gentleman and help me down?”
Eddie notices how there are tears pricking in the corners of the other boy’s eyes, which are only visible due to his lenses. “Yeah, yeah, I ju-just--let me-uh.” He stutters out, trying to quickly shuffle around the bench to set it upright. After that, he wraps his arms around Richie’s legs, eyes level with his knees, and lifts him back up onto the bench to alleviate the pressure.
“Ooooh!” Richie sings. “My knight in shining armor.”
Eddie tries not to think about how this is the most Richie has said around him in weeks. “Why were you mad at me?” He says bluntly, making an attempt to untie the jump ropes.
“I know you don’t wanna be friends with a homo.” The other boy’s expression is surprisingly soft, as if he’s aged a few years. “That’s okay though, I get it or whatever. If I’m not invited to any future sleep overs, just remember that Robert and his cronies just beat all the gay right out of me.”
Eddie notices how bitter his laugh is. “I don’t care that you kiss boys.” He says, perplexed. On his tiptoes, he can actually reach the knot. Richie is surprisngly not complaining. “I don’t know where you would’ve-”
“You never ever have looked so disgusted in your whole life.” Richie’s warm breath fans his face. The tension is radiating off of him.
“Richie.” He says in all seriousness. “You were kissing someone behind a dumpster .”
Realization dawns on Richie’s face. “Wait...so you don’t hate me because I kissed Calloway?” His face slowly lights up and Eddie can feel how his heartbeat is racing. Richie is fucking elated, relieved, and overall surprised.
“Do you know that I saw a rat right before I realize it was you? You could’ve gotten rat bite fever or..or tetanus from the dumpster.” He sounds like his mom, he notes dully, as he sets Richie’s hand’s free. “There are tons of other places to kiss.”
“So I was mad at you all week, fucking heartbroken,” Richie laughs. “Because you were worried that I was gonna get tetanus from the arcade dumpster? Lil ole Eddie Kaspbrak is worried about me?”
Eddie teeters on the bench and Richie’s hands instinctively go to his hips to steady him. Eddie is hyper aware of the other boy looking down on him, and Richie smells like cigarettes and cherry lollipops. “I-I might’ve been.” He grasps Richie’s biceps to hold himself in place.
“They think you’re my boyfriend.” Richie says amusedly. “If I had known you were I would’ve been kissing you behind the dumpster.”
“I will not be kissing you behind some dirty dumpster. Not in this universe, not now, not ever.” Eddie doesn’t have to say it loud. They’re standing face to face, practically holding each other. That’s when it happens. Richie swoops down and softly presses his lips to Eddie’s. It’s a quick thing, chapped and dry, and Eddie doesn’t think that the cigarette and cherry combo could taste any better.
When Richie pulls back, he looks into Eddie’s eyes. “You’re a way better kisser than Kurt Calloway.” He deadpans.
Eddie laughs, because those two kisses were not even of the same caliber. Richie’s kiss with Kurt was wet, messy, fast, and hot. The sweet little peck he just recieved (oh my god, his first kiss) from Richie was innocent, something a middle schooler probably gave their crush.
“You are absolutely disgusting, Richie Tozier. Disgusting.”
It’s said with so much fondness and adoration that Richie thinks he deserves another chaste kiss. Eddie hears Bill, Stan, and Ben calling for them in the gym, obviously concerned that they hadn’t shown up to the bike rack.
“It’s disgusting how much I love ya, Eds.” Richie says before hopping off the bench to go catch their friends. Eddie climbs down far more carefully and takes in the crooked benches, jump ropes, slightly buckled piping, and the locker contents that were emptied to make room for Richie.
“Not as disgusting as how much I love you, Richie Tozier.” Eddie says to no one, the sound bouncing off the walls.