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Richie Tozier, his childhood best friend and crush, was absolutely the last person he expected to see at his boss’s new years eve party. Eddie would have thought after almost ten years of no contact, his feelings for the Trashmouth would have gone away. But no, the mere sight of his lanky frame and curly black hair made his heart sprint uncontrollably.
He was undoubtedly Richie Tozier, but he looked different, more Hollywood, Eddie supposed. His crooked, buck teeth had been fixed, and his coke-bottle glasses were gone, instead replaced by a trendier pair, that attractively framed his face. His shirts no longer encompassed his thin frame, and his pants actually reached his ankles. In fact, he looked like a well-dressed mannequin from a high fashion urban department store.
In comparison, Eddie hadn’t really changed much. Yeah, he finished his business degree, managed to drop all contact with his mother and had a well-paying job driving around celebrities for Patrick. But, he still wore the same pastel polo shirts, and had the same haircut he had since he was 13 and never quite felt at home in the big city.
Throughout the night, he talked to his co-workers, finished a few glasses of champagne and tried his best not to stare at Richie openly.
He definitely wasn’t the only one, almost everyone else at the party would sneak glances at the semi-famous comedian. People were practically lining up to get a chance to speak to him.
It was almost midnight when Eddie sneaked off one more glance at the dark-haired man when Richie turned his head and looked straight at him before Eddie looked away immediately. It was one thing to know Richie was in the same room; it was certainly something else to have Richie’s attention, even if it was for a brief second.
A flood of childhood memories hit him with a massive force leaving Eddie nauseous at the sudden impact. He excused himself from the conversation and made his way over to the balcony to get some air and calm himself down.
Eddie leaned against the balcony railing and enjoyed the beautiful view of LA night sky. There weren’t any stars in the sky at least nothing that could be seen with all the light pollution from the city. As much as he hated Derry, he sometimes missed its simplicity; he missed the memories, the dreams of escaping. He missed the stars that would splatter across the night sky.
The balcony door opened suddenly, and Richie Tozier was on the other side of the balcony about to light a cigarette.
“Those things give you cancer, you know?” Eddie said his voice slightly quivered at the end; hopefully, Richie would blame that on the cold air rather than his nervousness.
“Really?” Richie said, taking the cigarette out of his mouth. “Well, a wise old man once told me the reason there is so much cancer in the world is that no matter how much you shake off your wiener, the last two drops always end up in your pants.”
“Beep Beep Richie, that was never funny.”
“Eds! My love, I knew it was you, how have you been? How has life been treating you?” Richie said as he crossed balcony to where Eddie was standing.
“I’m good Richie,”
“Bullshit, tell me more, it’s been so long since I’ve heard from you Eds.”
“Don’t call me Eds,” Eddie retorted immediately, “but um… I work currently work for Patrick, but you probably knew that. I’m starting my own business, and my loan got accepted so uh we’ll see where we go.”
“That’s amazing, how’s your mother, has she been asking for me? I knew the nights we had were probably the best I’ve ever had.”
“I uh, I don’t really keep in contact with her anymore, not since I found out since she’s been feeding me sugar pills for instead of all the medication was fake, I didn’t even have asthma.”
“Oh Eddie, I’m so sorry, sometimes my mouth runs so much faster than my mind can think. I don’t even know how I hid my gigantic crush on y-.” Richie suddenly cut himself off, his cheeks pinkened with embarrassment.
“You had a crush on me?” Eddie asked softly.
“I uh, yeah.” Richie looked
“So did I.”
“I knew you couldn’t get enough of all of this,” Richie said, pointing towards his slender form, eliciting a soft giggle from Eddie.
“Sure, but I never thought you had any feelings for me.”
“Really? Not even with my regular visits to Nurse Kaspbrak?”
“Wait. What?”
“Come on, I know I was clumsy, but did you really believe all my injuries were from tripping over my own two feet?”
“You moved like a new-born baby giraffe, and you never tied your shoelaces, it was a believable lie.”
“Ohh and the constant muscle pain, Eddie my back hurts,”
‘To be fair, you had the worst posture,”
“Yeah, yeah you would give me an endless rant about how I will get scoliosis if I don’t sit up straight, which I still don’t believe, by the way. But you’ll still give me a massage.”
Normally, he would have been embarrassed by being called out but seeing his old friend gave him a sense of confidence that he hadn’t felt for a long time. “I guess I took whatever excuse to touch you,” Eddie said slightly slyly.
Richie looked almost taken aback by Eddie’s sudden confession. His face went through a range of emotions before softening.
“We were such idiots back then,” Richie said, looking at Eddie through his long eyelashes.
“We really were.”
They fell into a comfortable silence as they looked over the balcony. Eddie was painfully aware of the contrast between the chilly breeze and the warmth radiating from the other man.
“Are you um, are you seeing someone?” Richie asked, finally breaking the silence. He looked almost blase, but Eddie noticed him fiddling ever so slightly with his jacket, something that he did whenever he was preparing himself to be disappointed.
Eddie’s love life was never that interesting, he had dated around, even tried his hand at a relationship a handful of times, but they’ve never worked out in the end.
“No, not currently, are you?”
“Not right now.”
“How’s it like being famous?” Eddie asked, trying to release the slightly uncomfortable silent tension that was starting to form.
“Honestly, it’s really fucking lonely.” Richie laughed darkly, his smile not reaching his eyes.
Eddie could see it now, the man and the mask. Two separate entities that to the untrained eye were near indistinguishable, but Eddie’s known Richie since he was a child, and he could finally see through the facade.
When he was younger, he saw Richie as an unpredictable enigma, that would never fail to surprise Eddie. But soon enough Eddie came to realise that he was just a guarded individual that had just as many insecurities as the rest of the losers.
Without his larger than life persona, Richie looked like the lost child that Eddie had found once tapping his glass window in the middle of the night. Who came through the window and without explanation, would get Eddie to sit on the window sill together looking at the Derry night sky until they were both tired. The boy who would lie on the right side of Eddie’s bed breathing erratically, until Eddie held out his hand.
They never talked about it, but from then on Eddie left his window unlocked, and he never questioned Richie whenever he woke Eddie up in the middle of the night, to sit silently at the window sill.
As they say, old habits die hard, and without thinking, Eddie grabbed Richie’s hand and squeezed it. Richie breath hitched as he looked from his own hand to Eddie and smiled, his eyes sparkling with joy and raw adoration.
Eddie didn’t even realise how close they had gotten until he could feel Richie’s warm breath on his cold skin. From this distance, he could make out the constellation of freckles on Richie’s face. They were scattered all around his face, some darker than the others, but they were near infinite. One night, when he couldn’t sleep, Eddie had tried to count how many he had before, he couldn’t remember what number he was up to before he had fallen asleep from pure exhaustion.
“I missed you Eds,” Richie finally said, leaning his forehead against Eddie’s.
“Don’t call me Eds, you know that I-,” At the stroke of 12, Richie crashed his lips onto Eddie’s silencing him before he finished the sentence. The world exploded into colour, as Eddie tasted Richie’s slightly chapped lip. Richie tasted as sweet as chocolate, as bitter as wine but his lips were addictive as nicotine. All his senses were overwhelmed, as Eddie pulled Richie’s jacket closer, their bodies flushed against one another. The fireworks escaped coloured the dark night sky as Richie put his arms around Eddie’s waist deepening the kiss. It was everything, and nothing like Eddie had imagined, but it was perfect.
“Happy New Year,” Richie said, pulling away slightly.
“Trashmouth that better not have been a one-time thing,”
“I’m not letting you get away this time, Eds.”
“For the millionth time, I hate it when you call me that,”
“No, you don’t,” Richie smiled adoringly.
“No I don’t,” Eddie said softly leaning in again, this time for a softer kiss. In Richie’s embrace, he finally felt like he was home.