Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Richie pushed his glasses to the side as he rubbed his eyes. He didn’t want to do data entry- he didn’t even know what the fuck kind of data he was entering.

The job, the sad, sad job he was working, was geared toward college kids- 20 hours max, flexible schedule, looked good on resumes and most importantly, it paid.

Richie just really didn’t know what he was doing. He knew he didn’t want to work in a fucking office job for the rest of his life, but for the four years he’d be in college? Yea he could manage it.

He had been goaded into applying by his three very best friends, Bill Denbrough, Stan Uris, and Beverly Marsh. Really it hadn’t taken much to convince him, he was a broke college student who needed money and the job catered specifically to broke college students. At first it seemed too good to be true and soon Richie figured out the catch, he didn’t work anywhere near Bill, Stan, or Beverly. Stan worked in IT, Beverly was the receptionist, and Richie couldn’t actually remember what it was that Bill did for the company. They only got to see each other in the dorm they shared.

Richie had his sights set on a degree in Film, probably something to do with horror movies, he wasn’t too sure yet. He also had no idea what he was supposed to do with a film degree. But what college kid knew what the fuck they were going to do with their degree?

With a groan he pushed himself out of his cubicle and headed for the water cooler. Maybe Bill or Stan was there- at the very least he could bother Beverly. The absolute fucking loser had snagged the receptionist job. She spent her day answering calls and sketching dresses. Richie had to input data for things he didn’t even understand.

“This is your third trip to the cooler,” Beverly reminded him, a shit-eating grin on her face.

“Counting how many times you’ve been blessed to see me today? I’m touched Ms. Ringwald,” Richie cooed as he filled up a paper cone with water.

“Please Trashmouth, you’re a plague on my house,”

Richie made a vague ‘what the fuck’ gesture and threw the paper cone away. Beverly grinned as he approached her counter, bracing his arms on the wood so he could peer over the counter and catch a glimpse of her latest piece.

“Shouldn’t you be working?” she asked.

“What is that? Blood orange?” he shot back, a grin on his face.

“Shut up. It’s fucking red,”

Richie snorted.

“Thanks for the entertainment Red, but I better go back to putting numbers into small boxes and acting like I know what I’m doing,” Richie said.

“They did tell us during our training,” she said.

“You really think I paid attention to that?” he asked.

Beverly shook her head and waved him off. Richie headed back to his sad little cubicle and sat down in his chair and went back to data input.

“Richie,”

He glanced up to see Stanley, tall, dark curls, and one of the most handsome men on the planet.

“Staniel,”

Stan barely repressed an eye roll, but there was a tiny, fond smile on his face.

“It’s time to go. Bev wants Chinese for dinner,”

Richie saved his work for the day, logged off his computer, and followed Stan out to Beverly’s desk where she and Bill were waiting for them.

“J-jeez Richie. O-obs-sessed with y-your work?” Bill teased.

“Need the money to keep up with your moms’ rates,” Richie shot back.

“Beep beep,” his friends said in unison.

Richie beamed as he followed them out of the office.

Beverly and Bill were the ones to pick up the Chinese while Richie shuttled himself and Stan home.

Their dorm was a little small, but the four made it work. It came with a kitchen and a living room, two bathrooms and four rooms. Richie thanked whatever god that he’d managed to snag a scholarship to pay for on-campus housing.

“You have work tomorrow?” Stan asked.

“Just two hours after my 4:30 lets out,” Richie said as he walked into his room.

He was quick to shed his work clothes and pull on something way more comfortable, an old punk t-shirt and a pair of house pants.

“You’re still coming with me on Friday, right?”

“And cancel date night with your mom?”

“Beep, beep,”

“Yea yea Staniel, I’ll come to the meeting,” Richie said with a grin.

Stanley’s shoulders seemed to fall in relief at Richie’s assurance. Richie really wished he remembered what the fuck he had agreed to. It was some kind of club meeting. Richie didn’t have any strong religious views and Stanley certainly wasn’t one to shove his religion on his friends… maybe it was a math thing- like Richie didn’t deal with enough fucking numbers at work now he had to deal with them on Friday.

“Your savior has arrived!” Bev announced as she walked in with two bags of food, Bill trailed behind her with another two bags.

“She’s talking about the food, right?” Richie stage whispered to Stan. Bev flipped him off as she deposited the bags of food on the counter.

They piled food onto their plates, grabbed beers from the fridge, and huddled in the living room to watch something stupid on tv.

Richie was not in the best of moods when he got to work the next day. His last class had run late which meant he hadn’t gotten out of the fucking universities parking lot before it got clogged with the rest of his classmates trying to escape the hell- and that meant that he’d hit all the traffic lights to work, and finally that meant he was fucking late for his job. Which meant Beverly was going to tease him. And that was just about the last thing he needed in his life.

“Cutting it a little close here, Trashmouth,” Beverly commented the second he stepped through the doors.

“Can it Ringwald,”

She flipped him off as he rushed to his cubicle. Sure his boss was understanding but that didn’t mean Richie wanted to get in trouble.

He was elbow deep in numbers when a sliver of paper was shoved underneath the grey wall that separated his cubicle from the one next to him.

“The fuck?” he asked, instantly forgetting all the numbers in his head.

The paper was pushed more toward him. Richie frowned at it like he was expecting a piece of paper to explain itself to him.

There was enough paper on his desk that he could write on it- well maybe that was it. His cubicle neighbor could just be friendly!

Richie scrambled for the nearest black pen and wrote one simple word on the paper.

Hi, he had written in his terrible damn near illegible script.

The paper was yanked from his cubicle and he eagerly awaited the response. Finally he would have something to do with his time than put data into the fucking computer.

The paper was shoved back under the grey wall that separated their desks. Richie was delighted to discover that his neighbor had responded in neat, precise lettering.

Don’t write on my fucking paper : )

That fucking smiley face was going to haunt him.

Chapter Text

Friday came sooner than expected and Richie had to get up before noon on the first day he had off all week. He hoped whatever club Stanley wanted him to go to was worth getting up at 10:30 instead of sometime in the afternoon.

“Is now a bad time to admit that I forgot where the fuck we’re going?” Richie asked as he followed his roommates out of the room.

“The Spectrum club has its first meeting today, I wanted to go,” Stan said.

“The what?”

“They gay club, Richie,” Beverly said with an eyeroll.

Richie grinned at that. The town he’d grown up in had been full of small minded people and he had been too afraid to join the GSA at his school. Once he had gotten out of that town, and away from those people, he had felt an overwhelming sort of freedom and fully embraced every fucking piece of himself. They made it to the room, moved their seats around so they were sitting next to each other, and then the meeting started and people were introducing themselves.

“Richie, 21, uh… he/him. I’m a film major, I met Bill and Stan when we were in kindergarten and we just can’t seem to shake Bev,”

Next to him, Beverly snorted and rolled her eyes.

“Oh and I’m bi… take it away Bev,” 

Beverly beamed and smiled at the club, she introduced herself just as everyone else had, name, age, pronouns, and some fun facts. After Bev went Bill, and then three people whose name Richie instantly forgot, and then to a kid called Eddie who was so fucking cute Richie could have yelled. He had dark hair that looked like it could start to curl, dark eyes and one very expressive face.

“I’m ace…” his shoulders were tight, tense like he was ready to throw down with someone.

“Me too!” the vice president of the club said excitedly.

Eddie’s shoulders relaxed and the meeting continued on. There were nearly 20 members in the club, so it took nearly the full hour to get acquainted with each other. Then it was time for them to go with the promise that they’d get an email about the time and place of the next meeting.

“Are you going to come back with me?” Stan asked softly as they walked back to their dorm.

“H-hell yea!” Bill said excitedly.

“That Ben kid was fucking cute,” Beverly said.

“Who?”

Beverly rolled her eyes.

“Richie stopped listening as soon as Eddie spoke,” Stan teased.

“Fuck off Staniel,”

“Doesn’t even deny it,”

“Just because your mom-”

“Beep beep!” 

“Oh we should stop by the caf! I think they’re still serving brunch,” Bev said, tugging Bill in the direction of the caf.

“It’s past noon,” Stanley said as he too followed.

“So? It’s never too late for waffles,”

Richie nudged Stan with a grin.

“Good fuckin idea, going to the gay club,” 

Stan beamed at him.

After they wasted as much time as possible in the caf they headed home and spent their weekend working on school things like homework and projects and Stan decided to start studying for midterms even though they were two months away.

Then it was Monday and Richie went to his classes and then picked Stan up and drove to work. Richie was totally ready to spend four hours mindlessly inputting data, except there was a sliver of paper on his desk, shoved under the grey wall by his neighbor. Richie really shouldn’t be considering writing on the paper, not after that stupid fucking passive agressive smiley face from the week before, but his neighbor really needed to stop pushing his papers underneath the cubicle wall like that. Richie grabbed the closest pen and threw caution to the wind.

If you don’t want me writing on ur paper then don’t push it to my desk

Richie waited all of five minutes with no response. He grabbed an old data sheet, scribbled a frowny face on a corner and slowly pushed it under the crevice and wiggled it around so his neighbor would notice it. Before Richie realized what was happening, his neighbor snatched the whole paper from his hands and under the wall. He huffed out a small laugh and waited for a response, his neighbor was being prickly today. He pulled another sheet of paper to jot down yet another message.

That wasn’t nice : ( I could have gotten a paper cut

Once more the paper was snatched out of his grasp. Richie pulled a face that his neighbor couldn’t see. Before he could return his attention to his work, the paper was slid back under the crack.

It’s such a shame you didn’t

There was an angry little line underneath the word ‘shame’, and in Richie’s opinion it was pretty fucking cute. Then another piece of paper was pushed onto Richie’s desk, it was the first data sheet, but his neighbor had turned his frowny face into an angry face. Super fucking cute. Richie sent back the piece a paper with a ton of happy faces on it and not so patiently waited for the response. The paper was shoved back under.

Why the fuck are you using data sheets to send me notes? Don’t you need these?

Richie beamed. It was the longest thing his neighbor had sent him that didn’t involve telling Richie to fuck off.

Worried I’ll get fired? Didn’t realize u cared so much I’m touched

Richie managed to get some work done while he waited for his neighbor to respond. As much as he loved slacking off he still wanted to keep up on all the fucking data bullshit he had to deal with.

The paper slid back under the wall, effectively breaking Richie’s concentration.

I don’t fucking care about that! I don’t want to get in trouble for writing all over this shit!

Richie’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline as he contemplated his response.

Well first of all u should probably watch your mouth… or… hand haha *winky face*

His neighbors response was much quicker than the previous one.

Did you seriously just hand write out winky face what the fuck

The paper was quickly yanked back and then shoved back to Richie, something else written in his neighbors shockingly nice penmanship. 

And shut the fuck up!

Richie snorted. He liked his foul mouthed neighbor. Richie, of course, would like nothing else but to peer over the wall that separated them but the damn thing was too tall and neither the desk nor his chair were stable enough to support him long enough to figure out who the hell his neighbor was. The one time he tried his chair had creaked ominously and Stan had called him an idiot. He could, however, make an attempt to find his neighbors cubicle, but the office was set up like a maze and Richie only knew how to find his own desk. He didn’t want to risk it and have to be rescued by Stan who no doubt would call him an idiot.

Richie glanced down at the latest note and grinned, he turned his attention back to his computer and resumed his work. He already couldn’t wait for his next shift.

Chapter Text

Richie glared at the movies in front of him, one of his professors had given him a very large list of movies at the start of the semester and told the class that they had to watch ten of the movies and write about the script, what worked, what didn’t, and their general analysis of the script. Richie, shockingly enough, actually liked screenwriting. He gravitated toward the horror movies on the list, horror movies had always been a soft spot for him and he wanted to figure out what made a horror movie script work, and what made it flop. He should start with Cabin in the Woods, just for fun. That movie was a fucking trip. 

He glanced up as someone walked into the aisle he was in, not many people visited the movie section of the library. It was the guy from club, the cute one who looked ready to throw down.

“Hey! You’re um… Eds-”

“That’s not my name,” Eddie snapped. 

Richie grinned, fucking cute. 

“That’s my bad Eds, cute nickname for a cute guy,” Richie said. 

Eddie went pink but was still glaring up at Richie. 

“I just told you that’s not my fucking name,”

“So I can call you cute but not Eds?”

Eddie opened his mouth to respond but his jaw clicked shut and he turned on his heel and walked away from Richie. Richie let out a surprise laugh and followed. 

“Aw Eds, my love, spaghetti man-”

“Do you ever listen to the fucking words that come out of your mouth?” Eddie demanded. 

“No. My brain to mouth filter goes caput around cute guys,” Richie said. 

Eddie sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, his cheeks still pink. 

“You’re fucking ridiculous,”

“Spagheds! You wound me!” Richie placed his hands over his heart in mock exaggeration. 

“And yet you’re still talking,”

Richie grinned. Eddie was a fucking firecracker, Richie loved it. 

“What were you looking for? They don’t keep pornos here y’know Eds- that was a bad joke. Was that a bad joke?” Richie asked as they returned to the movie aisle.

“Because I’m ace?”

“Yes?”

Eddie glared up at him. 

“Me being ace has nothing to do with enjoying porn,” he snapped. 

Richie nodded slowly before a smile tugged at his lips, a joke forming in his head and on its way to his mouth before he could stop himself. 

“So what’s your poison?”

“You’re fucking disgusting,” Eddie snapped. 

Richie beamed. 

“Listen, Eds Spagheds-”

“Not my name,”

“My friends have this… way of getting me to shut the fuck up. Just uh… ‘beep beep’ me if I cross a line,” Richie said. 

“Beep beep,” Eddie stated, brows furrowing. He was entirely too fucking cute Richie really couldn’t handle it. 

“Real simple,” Richie added. 

Eddie hummed gently, turning his attention back to the movie selection. 

“That's it? I am trusting you with privileged information here!” Richie exclaimed. 

“Right yes, the great honor of shutting Richie...?”

“Tozier,”

“Thank you. Of shutting Richie Tozier up. How have I not fallen to my knees in thanks?” Eddie muttered, his words dripping in sarcasm. 

Richie opened his mouth, another joke at the ready. 

“Beep beep,” Eddie warned. 

Richie laughed. It was much too loud for the library but he didn’t give a shit. Eddie was fucking hilarious. 

“I didn’t even say anything!” he protested. 

“But you were going to,”

“You got me there Eddie Spaghetti. You never did answer my question! What movie are you looking for? Not to toot my own horn but I know a thing or two about movies,” Richie said.

“Certainly not like you to toot your own horn,” Eddie mused.

Nonetheless he pointed to a movie that seemed interesting and Richie went into a spiel about the movie. Eddie assumed that Richie would give him a basic rundown of the plot- which he did- and then he was talking about the screenplay and whatever movie that Eddie pointed to, Richie had something to say about it, even if he hadn’t watched it before. Eddie spent more time than he cared to admit watching Richie’s face, his expressions, and the way his hands moved instead of what exactly Richie was saying. 

“So have I swayed your opinion yet Spagheds?” 

“Yea,” Eddie said quietly.

An alarm sounded. Richie blinked in surprise and looked at his own phone.

“Shit, I have class in 15,”

Eddie watched as he grabbed three dvd’s.

“Catch ya later Eds!” he said with a shit eating grin.

“Not my name!” Eddie called after him, a smile growing on his face.

Chapter Text

The lights flickered and Richie all but heard the office pull in a collective breath. If the power went out they only had to stay for 30 more minutes. It was company policy, Richie thought it was stupid as hell, like the ‘if the teacher doesn’t show up after 15 minutes then you can legally leave’ rule. 

Absentmindedly Richie saved his work again. He had been saving his progress every five minutes since the lights began to flicker. Last storm they had, Richie forgot to save periodically and lost nearly an hour worth of input. He had been fucking pissed. 

The lights flickered and the office plunged into darkness. 

“Fuck!” someone said. 

Richie snorted and leaned back in his chair. Half an hour, that’s all he had to wait. Then he and his friends could go back to their dorm and hopefully the blackout hadn’t reached the school. 

A piece of paper was shoved underneath the cubicle wall, sliding across Richie’s desk. He took a moment to stare at it. It wasn’t a data sheet or anything from the company… it was a fucking lined piece of paper from a notebook, it was folded neatly. He grabbed it and opened it up to see his neighbors writing. 

It’s been exactly one minute since the lights went out and I’m ready to die

Richie grinned. He grabbed a pen and wrote back his own response. 

i’ve always wanted to use an ouija board

He folded the note up and shoved it back under the crack and waited for a response. Before he could get the response, however, Bill appeared at the entrance to his cubicle. 

“Big Bill!”

It was then that Richie realized he could hear the murmurs of his coworkers, no one really got to talk to each other much during their shifts. Now the lights were out and there was nothing to do but talk and wait out the next 27 minutes. 

Bill leaned against his desk, not bothering to say anything. Richie knew that Bill didn’t like storms and was a little flattered that Bill came to him instead of Stan. 

The note was shoved back under the crack. It caught Bill’s attention. 

“What?” Bill asked as Richie unfolded the note. 

That’s how you get haunted you dumbass!!

Richie huffed out a laugh. 

if it’s u haunting me I don’t mind *winky face*

The note was shoved back under the crack. 

“Earth to Trashmouth,” Bill called. 

Richie glanced up at him, trying to school an expression of innocence on his face. He knew he failed miserably. 

“Wh-who are you passing notes with? W-we’re in fucking college!”

Richie felt his cheeks heat up. He really hadn’t been meaning to let Bill- or any of his friends- know about his cubicle neighbor. They already teased him enough about Eddie. 

“I thought you’d be happy that I’m moving on from your mother!” Richie said instead of giving a straight answer. 

Bill rolled his eyes. 

“Beep, beep dickbag,”

The note was pushed back under and Bill snorted. Richie snatched up the note. 

You’re unbelievable. Stop spelling out winky face like that it’s embarrassing. Besides, why would I haunt you???

“You’re ridiculous,” Bill muttered. 

Richie flipped him off before responding. 

you just can’t get enough of me I mean u wrote me first here Mr Neighbor man what else am I supposed to think other than u can’t get enough of me?

The note slid under the crack. 

“Did you come all this way just to make fun of me?” Richie asked. 

“Yes,” Bill said in all honesty. 

“Two can play at that game Big Bill! Why didn’t you go bother your little crush? Whatshisface Hanlon?”

Bill flushed scarlet at the implication. 

“Beep, beep,” he hissed. 

Richie grinned. 

“I don’t think Stan the Man would mind-”

If possible, Bill turned more red. 

“I’m g-going to see Bev,” he said and pushed himself off Richie’s desk. 

“I love you!” Richie called after his retreating back. Bill flipped him off in response. 

Richie laughed and pushed himself back to his desk. The note was back. 

Shut the fuck up!!

Cute, Richie thought, cute, cute, cute. He glanced at his phone and was delighted to find that it had been 29 minutes since the lights went out. That meant it was quitting time. 

Eddie was still red in the face when Ben approached his cubicle. 

“It’s been half an hour,” Ben told him. 

“I’ll be right out,” Eddie said, was he really hoping that his annoying fucking cubicle neighbor would respond? Is that what his life was coming to? Passing notes like he was in middle school?

Ben smiled at him, beautiful and dimpled and walked away from Eddie’s cubicle. 

The note slid under the wall just as Eddie was packing up. He opened it up and tried to fight off a smile. 

HALF AN HOUR BYEEEEE XOXO

It was surrounded by happy faces. Eddie stopped trying to fight the smile on his face and finished packing up. He almost left the note on his desk but instead he grabbed it and slid it into his back pocket. 

He stepped out of his cubicle and made his way to the lobby. Ben and Mike were there, as well as Beverly, the receptionist, Richie, and two other members from the gay club. 

“Spaghetti!” Richie boomed. 

“That’s not my name,” Eddie said, the corner of his lips twitching up. 

Behind Richie, the others were talking among themselves. 

“You know, spagheds, you never did tell me what kind of… movies you were into,”

Eddie thought back to that day in the library, with Richie teasing him about- Jesus Christ. 

“Beep, beep,” Eddie said with a grin and a roll of his eyes. 

“Excuse me?” Beverly asked, Eddie balked at the tone of her voice. The easy smile on her face had been replaced by a rather pissed off expression.

“Whoa, Bevvy baby. I told him about it. It’s all good,” Richie said, holding Beverly around her waist. 

Instantly she relaxed. Eddie even noticed Bill and Stan seemed to relax at Richie’s explanation. 

“My bad,” Bev added, sending Eddie a shy smile. 

“The diner on 18th street has power. You guys wanna go?” Mike asked, aiming for casual and missing by a mile. He was mostly looking at Bill and Stan. Eddie officially had no idea what was going on. 

“Hell yea!”

Then they were all shuffling toward the door. Eddie glanced back at Richie to find him with an arm around her waist, pressing a kiss to the side of her head. He didn’t know what the weird feeling in his stomach was, and he wasn’t sure if he liked it at all either.

“I can’t believe you told him about the ‘beep beep’,” Stan said once they were in Richie’s car. 

“I really thought Bev was going to kill him,” he added.

Richie snorted.

“He responds to my jokes, Staniel. I don’t wanna push too far and lose a fun new friend,” Richie told him. 

“And don’t think I didn’t see you ready to defend my honor, I’m touched Stan,” he added. 

Stan rolled his eyes. 

“Aaaaaand,” Richie drew out, a smirk on his face. 

“Oh shit,” Stan muttered.

“I saw that cute little blush on your face when Mike looked at you. And the way you looked at Bill-”

“Nope,” Stan said. 

“Stan the Man-”

“I’m not fucking talking about this Richie,” Stan said as they pulled into a parking spot. 

“Oh look! We’re here,” Stan scrambled out of the car. 

Richie laughed loudly and followed him. It was still raining which meant he had to half jog to keep up with Stan’s freakishly quick pace. 

“Your secrets safe with me,” Richie announced, planting a kiss on Stan’s cheek. 

“I fucking hate you,” Stan said as they walked into the diner.

Chapter Text

Eddie sat down at the massive booth next to Richie. Richie slung his arm over the back of the booth, fingers brushing against Eddie’s shoulder. On Richie’s other side it was Ben, then Bev, then Stan, then Mike, and then Bill.

For about 30 seconds Eddie really thought that they were going to have a nice dinner, and then someone (Ben) mentioned something about the moon landing and someone else (Richie) just had to say something stupid.

“So you believe in the moon, then?” Richie asked, full well knowing what was about to happen at the table.

“What the fuck,”

“Richie, what the fuck,” Eddie sounded like he was three seconds from losing his shit.

“How the fuck do you not believe in the moon? It’s right fucking up there Richie. What the fuck kind of bullshit are you on anyway?” Eddie snapped.

“It was just a simple question Eddie spaghetti,” Richie said, a smile splitting his face.

“It’s a real fucking stupid question that’s what it is,” Eddie said hotly.

“And that’s not my name!”

“Spagheds believes in the moon, you hear that Big Bill?” Richie said to Bill.

Bill, who had shockingly not been paying attention, had the gall to look surprised at Richie’s question, then his cheeks turned red, and then he deflated.

“Georgie sent me one a-article,” he groaned.

“And that’s why he’s my favorite,”

“Big Bill?” Mike asked, quizzical smile on his face.

“Oh Bill has the biggest-”

“Beep, beep!” Bev, Stan, and Eddie said as Bill sank lower in his seat, his cheeks burning red.

“I was going to praise Bill’s bravery and sense of leadership, but fuck you guys,” Richie said, indignant but grinning like an idiot.

“This is ridiculous,” Eddie groaned.

“Even more ridiculous than not believing in the moon?” Richie asked.

“Oh my god Richie,”

Eddie couldn’t get a word in as that exact moment the waitress stopped by to take their orders. He was going to kill Richie, that was it, Richie had written his own death sentence the second he had talked about the moon being fake. Richie’s fingertips brushed against Eddie’s shoulder. Eddie liked the gentle brush of his fingers.

“Water, please,” Eddie said to the waitress, Richie’s thumb was rubbing gentle circles on his shoulder. It was almost enough to keep Eddie distracted-

“What do you have against the moon Richie?” Eddie demanded.

“Nothing! You sure are stuck on the moon thing,”

“You’re a pain in the ass,”

“That’s not what your mom said last night,”

There was a beat of silence before Eddie whacked Richie across the stomach.

“That’s fucking disgusting! Richie what the fuck!”

“Oh my god you’re disgusting,” he groaned.

Richie laughed, his smile wide and beautiful. 

“Richie stop tormenting Eddie,” Stan called.

“Thank you Stan,”

“I am a delight!” Richie protested.

The waitress was back with their drinks, Eddie ripped the paper off the straw and stuck the straw in his drink. He would rather die than let his lips touch a restaurant glass. Richie, however, seemed to be one of the heathens that didn’t care about that.

“That’s gross,” Eddie said quietly enough so he didn’t talk over whatever it was Mike was saying.

“What?” Richie asked, bewildered.

“Do you have any idea how many germs are on these cups?” Eddie demanded.

Richie raised an eyebrow and looked at the straw in Eddie’s cup.

“You’re killing turtles there Eds,”

“That’s not my name!” Eddie hissed, cheeks heating up.

“And they wash these spaghetti man,” Richie said, loudly slurping own drink.

“So? You think that kills all the bacteria? Do you know how many mouths have been on that cup? It’s disgusting. You could get a cold sore, or like… herpes,” Eddie said.

Richie almost spit out his drink.

“Zero to 100 there Eds,”

Eddie flipped him off.

“I g-gotta take this. B-be right back,” Bill said flashing them his phone as he slid out of the booth.

“Tell Sharon we say hi!” Richie called to his retreating back. Bill waved in confirmation and stepped out of the diner.

“Sharon’s his mom,” Richie said, glancing at Mike as he spoke.

Mike pointedly did not meet Richie’s eyes. Stan, however, was glaring daggers at Richie.

“Fun facts,” Richie added, a shit eating grin on his face.

Eddie and Ben met each other’s eyes for a few moments, both of them knowing exactly why Richie had said something to Mike, and why Mike refused to look at any of them.

Richie backed down from heckling Mike and glanced outside where Bill was still on the phone. Bill was leaning against the awning post, his free hand covering his eyes. Richie was willing to bet everything in his pockets that Sharon hadn’t called with good news.

“Eds,” he said quietly.

“Not my name,” Eddie snapped back.

“Scoot out for a hot second, Unless you’d rather I climb over you,”

Eddie slid out of the booth and Richie slipped past him and headed right for Bill. Stanley and Bev shared one concerned glance but didn’t make a move to follow Richie. Bill didn’t like feeling ganged up on, and if Bev and Stan followed Richie then Bill would just get more upset than he already was.

“Can I take y’alls order?” the waitress asked.

One by one they ordered and Bev even ordered for Bill and Richie, she knew exactly what they wanted. Then they were talking about the weirdest professor they had had at the University, Mike won hands down when he mentioned the legendary Creed who had lived on a commune, nearly gotten arrested in India when a cop tried to plant drugs on him, and had once rode his bike through no mans land at a protest.

Eddie glanced outside. Bill wasn’t on the phone anymore, Richie’s hand was on his shoulder and then Richie turned and locked eyes with Eddie for a few moments before he turned back to Bill. Eddie took another sip of his water.

Richie plastered a fake smile on his face and headed back into the diner. Eddie vacated his seat so Richie could slide in and then Eddie was sitting next to him again.

“Everything ok?” Mike asked.

“He’s not feeling very well,” Richie said.

There was a moment of silence between them.

“I ordered for you both!” Beverly said.

“Bev, a woman after my own heart,” Richie said dramatically, and it seemed to ease the weird silence that had settled over the table.

Eddie listened absently as Bev drew the table into a conversation. He leaned forward a little bit to take a sip of his water. Richie’s arm fell from the back of the booth to Eddie’s shoulder, fingers still working his shoulder. Eddie tried not to let the delight show on his face. He loved gentle touches. Eddie took another sip of his water and eyed Richie out of the corner of his eyes, his glasses were perched on the bridge of his nose there were freckles scattered across his cheeks and they shifted when he smiled and laughed and Eddie looked away, he could feel his cheeks heating up, a smile threatened to over take his face.

It wasn’t that he was attracted to Richie, Eddie was never attracted to people like that, but Richie was… pretty- or something along those lines. Richie was good looking and that was a fucking fact.

The waitress stopped by with their food and from there it was a game of who could steal the most fries from the other without getting caught. Shockingly it was Stan who won, but it was also not shocking as the fries he stole had been Mike’s and Mike couldn’t stop his staring at Stan.

At the end of dinner they all exchanged numbers, snapchats, instagram handles, and even twitter handles. Richie promised to create a groupchat so they could bother each other as often as they wanted.

“What about Bill?” Mike asked curiously.

“I’ll call, ask him if he’d be ok with it,” Richie said.

There was a weird smile on his face again, Eddie didn’t like it. Then they said their goodbyes and headed to cars. 

Bev followed Stan and Richie to the car and slid into the backseat. She knew the front seat in Richie’s car was reserved for Stan and Stan alone.

“Alright Rich, what happened with Bill?” Stan asked, cutting right to the chase.

Bev scooted forward as much as she could to look at Richie. His face looked a little pale, his lips pressed tightly together.

“Georgie’s missing,” Richie said at last, his voice wavering, on the verge of breaking.

“Bill went home for the weekend. I got him to email Mr. P before he left so someone can cover his shifts,” he added.

“Shit,” Stan whispered.

“Do you know what happened?”

“Sharon said that Georgie left for school this morning and a few hours later she got a call saying he never showed up to his classes, um… his phone is turned off… or broken. I already tried to call him,” 

“Is there anything we should do?” Bev asked.

“When Bill comes back we have to be there for him,” Stan said decidedly. 

“For Big Bill,” Richie murmured in agreement.

Eddie was in the car with Mike and Ben when he noticed the snapchat from Stan, it showed up as a little blue square which meant it was either a picture from his camera roll, or a simple message. Eddie wasn’t sure which one he feared most. Either way, he wasn’t going to open it up near Mike and Ben.

It didn’t take long for them to get back to school, from there it was an even shorter walk to their dorm. Eddie flopped onto his bed and finally opened the snap from Stan. It was Richie and Eddie crammed entirely too close together with Richcie’s arm around his shoulders, long fingers pressed against Eddie’s shoulder and Eddie’s cheeks were pink, a content smile on his face. There was a caption near the bottom of the picture.

You construct intricate rituals which allow you to touch the

skin of other men ;)

Stan was dead to him. Eddie saved the picture anyway, a blush on his cheeks. Stan was so dead to him.

“Hey Mike?” he called.

“Yea?” Mike called back from somewhere in the dorm.

“Do I like Richie?” he felt fucking stupid as he asked, 

The only thing he heard was Mike and Ben’s laughter and Eddie figured that was answer enough.

Chapter Text

Bill returned to the dorm on Sunday evening. Georgie was still missing. Bill and his parents had spent the weekend putting up fliers and asked everyone they saw if they had seen the 10 year old. 

Richie had spent most of his time texting Eddie because he was fucking cute, cute, cute and he was always fun to talk to and it helped keep Richie from spiraling into his thoughts. He talked a little in the group chat but for the most part it was him and Eddie. Richie really liked it.

“I told Bev and Stan- not anyone else though,” Richie said quietly, hovering at Bill’s doorway. 

“Thanks,” Bill said, his voice weak. 

“We created a bunch of group chats. I can add you in, if you’re ready for it,” he offered. 

“Sure,”

Richie pulled out his phone and added him to their group chat and their snap group. He slipped his phone in his pocket and sat next to Bill on his bed. 

“They’re going to find him,” Richie said quietly. 

Bill let out a shuddering breath. Richie grabbed at him and hauled him into a hug. Bill collapsed against him, crying into his shirt. Richie let himself cry with Bill. He, Bill, Stan, and Bev had known each other before Georgie was born, by extent they all considered Georgie to be their little brother. And now that little brother was missing, and no one knew a damn thing. 

Bev peered into Bill’s room and a small pout pulled at her lips. Bill and Richie were tangled together and even asleep Bill managed to look tortured. She stepped into the room and brushed the hair from Bill’s forehead. He shifted slowly, a frown pulling at his face. 

“Hey honey,” she said gently. 

Richie stirred at the sound of her voice. 

“Bev?”

“Stan and I are going to the caf, you wanna join us?” she asked. 

“They have that sandwich you like,” she added. 

“S-sure,”

Bev stepped out of the room and texted Stan to let him know Richie and Bill were coming with her and he needed to get a big enough table. 

Stan waited patiently at a table for four for his roommates to show up. He hadn’t heard from Bill since the diner. Stan had sent Bill a few memes in hopes that they might make Bill smile. 

Richie was the first to join him, he had a plate full of Chinese food. 

“Any news?” Stan asked. 

Richie shook his head. 

“Not yet,”

“Shit,”

Bill was the next to join them, he had his favorite sandwich from the other side of the cafe and a ton of fries. He sat down next to Stan. 

“Bev coming?” Richie asked.

“B-Ben’s talking to her,” Bill said with a nod to something across the cafeteria.

Richie turned instantly. Bev was talking with a strikingly good looking man. Richie would go as far to say he was one of the best looking guys he’d ever seen, behind Stan and Eddie, of course.

“ That’s Ben?” he asked.

“Ju-just because you were too e-engrossed with E-Eddie,” Bill muttered.

“He is the cutest fucking person I’ve ever seen,” Richie snapped back as he turned to face Bill. 

Stan had the audacity to look offended.

“I thought I was the cutest fucking person you’ve ever seen?” Stan asked.

“Have you seen Eddie?”

Before Stan could say anything else, Bill started laughing, his shoulders shaking as a wheezy laugh escaped him.

“Y-you guys are s-s-so fu-fucking stupid,” he said at last, tears on his cheeks.

“Stan, Bill just called me stupid,” Richie whined, sounding like a four year old.

“Good,”

Bill started laughing again. Richie pouted, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Called you stupid too,” he muttered.

Stan leaned back in his chair, throwing his arm around the back of Bill’s chair and jerked his head to the side so his curls weren’t in his eyes.

“Don’t recall,” 

Richie finally broke and started to laugh.

“Ok I don’t know what’s happening here but it’s stopping now. It’s time to pay attention to me now!” Bev announced as she sat down next to Richie.

“What’s up Bevvy? Something happen with Haystack?” Richie asked as he managed to contain himself.

Bev blushed.

“He asked me on a date!” she was positively beaming at them.

She basked in their congratulations and immediately launched into telling them that they’d been texting almost all weekend, and he was so sweet, and she liked him so much and Richie really couldn’t be happier for her. He stole a glance across the table where Bill was leaning toward Stan to whisper something in his ear. Richie grabbed his phone and snapped a picture just as Stan turned red.

fellas is it gay?

He only sent it to Stan. 

One the table Stan’s phone lit up. Richie watched as Stan’s gaze flicked to his phone and then up at Richie, murder in his eyes.

Richie just winked at him.

Before any of them knew it, it was Monday and it was back to the daily grind of classes and work.

Richie barely paid attention to the paper that slid onto his desk. The numbers kept his mind off of what was happening in his life. He really didn’t want to think about Georgie while he was working because that meant he was going to cry about Georgie at work, and there was no fucking way he needed any of his coworkers to see him cry.

A flurry of moment out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. Richie turned to the disruption to see his cubicle neighbor was shaking a piece of paper up and down Richie’s desk. He placed his hand on it to see a small frowny face. The paper was yanked back under the wall and Richie finally opened up the note.

I’m bored : (

Richie smiled softly. He grabbed his pen and tapped the end against the desk as he tried to figure out how to respond to his neighbor.

have u tried working

Richie sent the note under the wall. He tried to go back to his work but he was completely distracted by his neighbor. He glanced at the clock on his computer to find he still had an hour left on his shift. He had no doubt he was going to spend the rest of that hour paying more attention to the little white note that just slid back under the wall than his actual work.

Are you fucking shitting me asshole? The one (1) time I come to you because I’m bored and you throw that shit back at me?

Richie snorted.

aw I didnt realize u cared so much <3

Richie was still grinning when he shoved the note back under the wall. His cheeks were starting to hurt, an uncomfortable reminder of how little Richie had grinned since he found out about Georgie. He really hoped someone found the kid soon.

The note slid back to Richie’s desk.

I’m breaking up with you

Richie tapped his pen on his desk again, the grin on his face was so big it was painful. His cubicle neighbor sure was something.

if u wanted to be my boyfriend all u had to do was ask *winky face*

Richie sent the note back without thinking too much about it and tried very hard to concentrate on his work. By the time the note was slid back onto his desk Richie had gotten into a nice groove. He glanced at the clock on his computer to find that there were only 10 minutes left, his cubicle neighbor had had the note for nearly half an hour. Richie grabbed the note and opened it up.

It was a drawing of Chowder, the weird cartoon cat thing, Richie was thrown for a moment, it was a fucking cute drawing. Underneath the character his neighbor had written something in all caps.

I’M NOT YOUR BOYFRIEND!

And Richie was laughing far too loudly to be professional but it was fucking funny. He carefully tore around the drawing, shuffled around his drawers for a tack, and pinned the drawing to the wall of his cubicle. He grabbed his pen to write back.

that was the cutest fucking thing ive ever seen wtf

He saved his work and shuffled through all the papers on his desk until they were in a neat pile and then placed that pile on the rest of his ‘done’ pile.

The note was back on his desk.

Did you save that? That’s fucking weird

Richie beamed.

it’s my most prized possession now

on that note it’s quitting time xoxo hope i distracted u enough

He pushed the note back under, logged out of his computer, packed up his things and walked out of his cubicle.

Chapter Text

Bev dragged them out to a thrift store so they could help her pick out something nice for her date. Richie lost interest approximately 3 seconds after they stepped into the store. Bev made a beeline for the clothes, Stan and Bill followed, Richie went for all the other weird shit at thrift stores. He made sure to check in on Bev every few minutes, offering his input if she was showing off a new shirt, but mostly he was looking for cool new things to buy. When he didn’t immediately stumble upon something cool he headed for the clothes and grabbed a few gaudy Hawaiian shirts and random, one of them had flamingos on it. He bought the shirts and returned to Bev, she was still trying things on.

“Those are awful,” Stan said the second Richie sat down.

“I know isn’t it awesome?” Richie asked excitedly.

Stan just shook his head. Bev stepped out in a floral sundress, her curls fell to her chin and she was still beaming like she’d won the lottery. 

“Aw,” Richie cooed.

“P-pretty Bev,” Bill said.

“You should wear the locket Rich gave you,” Stan said.

“Good idea,” Bev said, twisting around in the dress.

“This one for sure,” she said decidedly.

She disappeared into the changing room and emerged in her own clothes, the floral dress and a few other items thrown over her arm.

“Ready?” she asked, her gaze fell to the shirts in Richie’s arm and her expression twisted.

“Oh Richie they’re awful,”

“Thank you,”

Richie caught sight of a bowl of pins and immediately started rifling through them, usually there wasn’t anything good but he stumbled upon one with the moon on it, it was colored black, grey, white, and purple. It reminded Richie of a pride flag but he couldn’t put his finger on which one.

“Stan which flag is this?” Richie called.

Stan meandered over to him and peered over his shoulder.

“Ace,”

Eddie was ace. Eddie would probably love the pin. That was really the only notion Richie needed to buy the pin. He just wasn’t sure when to give it to Eddie… or how. But Eddie would like it and that’s all Richie needed.

The next day Richie ventured to the library to pick out another horror movie for his class. He decided on the classic Nightmare on Elm Street. Before he could leave the library, however, he caught sight of one Eddie Spaghetti and all thoughts of watching the movie fell right out of his head.

“Spagheds!”

“That’s not my name,” Eddie said, not looking away from his laptop.

Richie beamed at sat down next to him.

“What are you working on?” Richie asked.

“School work,” Eddie replied, there was a tiny smile pulling at the corner of his lips.

Cute, cute, cute , Richie thought.

“Eds,”

Eddie sat back in his chair, finally letting a smile dominate his face. Richie had a smile on his face when Eddie looked at him.

“Again, that’s not my name,”

“But it’s so cute!”

“Did you need something Richie?” Eddie asked,

“I needed to check out a movie,” Richie told him, flashing him the cover of Nightmare on Elm Street.

“That’s… the knife finger one right?” Eddie asked.

Richie gasped, hand over his heart like Eddie had actually done something offensive other than ask about a movie villain.

“Eddie are you telling me you’ve never seen Nightmare on Elm Street?” Richie asked.

“I don’t really like horror-”

“Pack up your things we’re watching it in my room,” Richie announced, bouncing to his feet as he spoke.

“I’m trying to write a paper!”

“It can wait!”

Eddie sighed softly and saved his work. He turned his laptop off, pushed it into his backpack and followed Richie out of the library. He’d never tell Richie but he was glad for the distraction. He had to take a few classes that weren’t related to his major so he had decided upon a simple english course. He fucking hated it, it was all reading and essays and it was exhausting.

Next to him, Richie was chattering happily about the movie they were going to watch and Eddie really liked looking at Richie. He had a very expressive face, expressing hand movements and gestures. Yea, Eddie liked looking at Richie.

“Eddie! What are you doing here?” Stan asked as Eddie and Richie walked into the dorm.

“I told Richie I hadn’t seen a movie,” Eddie said with a shrug.

Stan shot him a sympathetic glace before his expression morphed into a sly smile. 

“Have fun,”

Oh no , Eddie thought.

Richie was a flurry of motion as he pushed the pillows on his bed up against the wall so they had something to relax against, then he turned on his tv, put in the DVD and they settled on his bed. Eddie was distinctly aware that their legs were pressed together- there was no earthly reason why they needed to sit so close together but Eddie wasn’t going to move an inch. 

“Ready spaghetti?” Richie asked.

“Play the movie. And don’t call me that,”

Richie pressed play. A sense of dread immediately filled Eddie, he really didn’t like horror movies.

“The acting is really superb,” Eddie whispered, the sarcasm in his voice was thick. 

“Can I quote you on that?” Richie asked, pen poised on his notebook. 

“Make sure you use proper citations,” Eddie replied, a smile growing on his face. 

Next to him, Richie scoffed.

“What kind of fool do you take me for?” he asked. 

Eddie leveled Richie with a deadpan stare. 

“Touché,” Richie agreed. 

It took two weeks for the essay to be graded. Richie spent those two weeks bothering Eddie, talking to the Losers, going to work, watching movies with Eddie, bothering his cubicle neighbor, enjoying the gay club (during one of which, Eddie mentioned Asexual Awareness Week and Richie figured that was a perfect time to give him the pin), waiting to hear news on Georgie, spending time with Bill (he was really fucked up about enjoying things while Georgie was still missing) and if he had time, bothering Eddie a little more. 

“Spagheds!” Richie called. 

“Not my name,” Eddie replied automatically. 

“I received a warning,” Richie said. 

Eddie frowned at that, his face pinching up. 

“I tell you not to call me that like every day how is it just now a warning?” he asked. 

“Not that! On my Nightmare On Elm Street paper!” Richie said dramatically. 

“What? Why?”

“Improper sources,”

“Improper what?”

Eddie had been with Richie when he’d written the paper, the only possible thing he could have included was-

“Oh my god you’re an idiot,” Eddie said. 

“But I’m your idiot, right Spaghetti?”

Eddie rolled his eyes and hoped Richie didn’t notice the blush on his cheeks. 

“I’d never claim you,” he said, biting back a smile. 

“God you’re brutal,”

“Only for you, Rich,”

Richie beamed.

“What movie do you have today?” Eddie asked, trying not to focus on Richie’s smile.

“Cabin in the Woods,”

Eddie packed away his things and followed Richie to his dorm. As always, Richie talked about the movie. He had seen it a lot based on what Eddie heard and Eddie couldn’t help but wonder if a horror movie could really be that good. 

“Movie night?” Stan asked the second they walked in.

“As always Stan the Man,” Richie shot back.

Eddie caught one last look of the smirk on Stan’s face before he followed Richie into his room.

It took approximately 12 minutes for Eddie to get fed up with Richie’s constant note taking.

“Haven’t you seen this movie enough? The sound is distracting and honestly so is your handwriting,” Eddie stated, barely glancing at Richie’s handwriting. 

“You wound me Eds,”

“Then perish. And that’s not my name. Just watch the fucking movie asshole,” 

Richie shook his head and shut his notebook.

“Alright Spaghetti, I’m all yours,” he said as he adjusted his position against the mass of pillows they were leaning against.

The jump scare that immediately followed gave Eddie the perfect excuse to hide his face so Richie wouldn’t see how red his cheeks were. Richie wrapped his arm around Eddie, their position shifting just enough so Eddie’s face was now buried in Riche’s chest. Eddie was going to die.

The second half of the movie didn’t have nearly as many jump scares, and it definitely was one helluva twist.

“That was weird,” Eddie stated, his nose wrinkling once the giant hand broke through the earth.

“No, you can’t quote me,” he added before Richie could say anything.

“It’s like you want me to fail,”

“You already got warned for using me as a source, Rich, I don’t need you getting into actual trouble,” Eddie said.

“Aw, Eds, I didn’t know you cared,”

“Don’t call me that,” he said, sometimes Richie reminded him of his cubicle neighbor at work. 

Eddie’s phone lit up, effectively banishing his thoughts of his cubicle neighbor. There were two notifications, a message from Ben, asking when he would be back and if he wanted pizza, the next was a snapchat from… Stan. That didn’t bode well. Stan had a history of catching Richie and Eddie in frankly ridiculous situations.

“I should head out,” Eddie said.

“Eds,” Richie whined.

“It’s pizza night,”

“Save me some?” Richie asked hopefully.

“No,”

“So mean, Eddie,”

Eddie flashed him a cheeky grin before he gathered up his things.

“Later Richie!”

“Later Eds my love,”

“Don’t call me that!”

“Call you what? Eds or my love?”

Eddie flipped him off on his way out of the room, too flustered to properly respond to the taunt.

Eddie was halfway to his dorm when he finally opened Stan’s snapchat. It was a video of Eddie huddled against Richie, hiding his face in Richie’s chest. The video zoomed in further and further till the quality was too grainy to see properly. Then the video replayed automatically and Eddie found himself looking at Richie’s content face. Stan had typed exactly two words for the caption. 

InTrIcAtE rItUaLs

Eddie dropped his head to his hands as he grinned, he knew his cheeks were beet red. Stan’s fucking snaps were going to be the death of him. 

Bill tapped his finger against his desk, he still had half an hour until the class let out and he wanted to try and get to the caf before it closed for the night. He should have never taken such a late class. On his desk, his phone started to ring. He glanced at it to see his mom was trying to FaceTime him. Instantly his heart was in his throat. He grabbed his phone and stepped out of the classroom to answer the call. 

“Mom?” he asked to black screen, he hated how long it took for video calls to load. 

The screen flickered to life and Bill was looking at a young boy, face split in a wide grin. 

“Hi Billy!”

Bill sat down on the floor and promptly burst into tears.

Chapter Text

It took Bill a few moments to calm him down. On screen, Georgie was vocalizing his worry that he had done something to make Bill cry. 

“G-Georgie give me a second. I-I gotta grab m-my stuff,” Bill said. 

He turned the volume down low, walked into the classroom, gathered his things, and walked right back out. 

“B-back,” he said as he turned the volume back up. 

“Mommy only let me call to say hi. The doctors still have to run some tests,” Georgie informed him glumly. 

“Oh,”

“Will you come home soon?” Georgie asked. 

“This weekend,” Bill promised. 

Georgie beamed again. 

“Bye Billy! I love you!”

Bill blinked back tears. 

“Love you too, Georgie,” he choked. 

There was some shuffling, the sound of a door closing and then Bill was looking at his mother. 

“So?” he asked, desperate for news on what the fuck happened to his little brother. 

“He’s fine. He um…” she let out a broken sob. 

“He’s missing his right arm,”

Bill sat down on the nearest bench, gaping at his phone. 

“The doctors said whoever did it knew what they were doing. Whatever the fuck that means,”

Bill tried to swallow around the lump in his throat. 

“Does he remember anything?”

“Not a thing,” she said with a weak laugh. 

“Is that good?”

“For now. The doctors say he needs to be in therapy so if he remembers he has ways to cope. Your father is already searching for one- and the doctors here are trying to fit him for a prosthetic. He’s really excited but I think he’s expecting something like that um… god what’s that movie with the metal arm man?”

“The Winter Soldier,” Bill said softly. 

“Yes! Him,”

For a few moments they were silent. 

“I’ll be home this weekend,” Bill told her. 

She nodded at his words. 

“Alright honey. I’ll let you go. I’ll keep you updated on Georgie,” she promised. 

“Thanks mom,”

“Love you honey,”

“Love you too,”

The call ended and for a while Bill sat there, tears streaming down his cheeks. Georgie was alive and he was safe. Bill felt like he could breathe again. He pushed himself to his feet and continued on to his dorm. 

Stan was the first to notice he’d been crying. 

“You’ve been crying,” Stan stated. 

“Did something happen?”

“Is it Georgie?” Richie asked. 

“He’s alive- in the hospital and missing an arm, but he’s back,” Bill said, and for the third time that night he burst into tears. 

He was soon pulled into a tight hug by his friends- who at this point were also crying at the news that Georgie was alive. 

Bill left for home on Thursday after promising his friends that he would FaceTime them when he was with Georgie so they could see him. 

Then it was Friday and Richie was absolutely not prepared in the slightest. It was Asexual Awareness Week, aka the week he promised himself he would give Eddie the pin. Logically, he knew he shouldn’t be freaking out. He knew that Eddie was proud to be ace and that he loved the moon and the pin was both things at once, and still he was a little terrified Eddie would hate it. 

“Richie lets go!” Bev yelled. 

Richie snagged the pin and shoved it into his pocket. He followed his friends out of the dorm and toward the club meeting. 

“He’s going to think it’s cheesy I should put it back-”

“Oh my god,”

Bev grabbed his arm and pulled him along. 

“Eddie’s is going to love the pin, Rich- tell him Stan!”

“Eddie would like anything if it came from Richie,” Stan said. 

“Stan!”

He glanced back at them, a sly smile on his face. 

The three stepped into the classroom. The club members were scattered around the room. Before he could second guess himself more than he already had, Richie zeroed in on Eddie and sat down in the seat next to him. 

“Eds!”

“Not my name,” Eddie responded with a smile. 

“Maybe ‘not my name’ will be our always,” Richie said dramatically, pretending to wipe a tear from his eye. 

Eddie just sighed deeply. Richie took that brief moment to look at Eddie. His hair was fluffy and it looked so soft Richie would sell his soul for the opportunity to run his fingers through it, there were freckles on his face that shifted with every single expression he had, his lips looked so soft and- moving on- he was wearing a grey shirt that said Space Ace- kind of in the NASA style which was adorable- which brought Richie back to one of the reasons he wanted to sit next to Eddie. The first reason was the pin, the second reason was that Eddie was so fucking cute it hurt. 

“I got you something,” Richie said quietly. There were still a few minutes before the meeting technically started so everyone was still talking amongst themselves. 

“What?” Eddie asked. 

Richie pulled out the pin and placed it on Eddie’s desk. Eddie pushed his sleeves up to pick up the pin, a grin breaking out on his face. The pin was a planet with the colors of the ace flag on it. 

“Richie,” Eddie said quietly. 

“I figured you’d like it, believing in the moon and what not,”

“Oh my god,”

“I mean really, Eds, believing in the moon, and asexuality? What’s next? Believing in North Korea?” Richie joked. 

“That’s bold coming from a guy who can’t decide whether he’s gay or not,” Eddie shot back. 

There was a beat of silence between them before they both started laughing. 

“Happy ace week,” Richie said once they had gotten over themselves. 

Eddie beamed at him. 

“Thanks Richie, I love it,”

Richie felt himself flush. He ducked his head and rubbed the back of his neck. 

“Anything for my Eddie spaghetti,” he said. 

He stood up and shuffled over to Stan and Bev and sat between them. Stan leaned over his desk as far as he could to Richie. 

“I could fry an egg on your face,”

Richie groaned. 

“Leave me alone and go bother your boyfriends,”

It was Stan’s turn to go bright red. He quickly settled back in his seat. 

The meeting started up and was essentially run by the members that identified as ace- because, as Richie was learning, there were a lot of different ways to be ace. 

Eddie, for instance, was sex-repulsed and he stopped dating because he had a hard time finding a partner that accepted that part of him. 

“Eventually it got easier to… not date instead of being with someone who didn’t understand,” Eddie said with a shrug. 

I could understand , Richie thought petulantly.

He wasn’t going to say that out loud because that would basically be admitting he wanted to date Eddie- which he did- and that would be embarrassing. Besides, Eddie literally just said he didn’t date, Richie would have to be some kind of moron- which he was- to say he’d date Eddie to Eddie’s face in a room full of gays.

So he kept his fucking mouth shut.

Unfortunately it was Stan who picked up on Richie’s silence. Beautiful, handsome, and cursed Stan. 

“So would you date if you found someone who was ok with not having sex?” Stan asked, blunt as ever and Richie wanted to melt into his seat and die. 

He glanced over at Eddie who looked thoughtful. 

“Yea,” he said at last. 

Richie pointedly did not look at either Stan nor Bev. He didn’t need to see the Looks on their faces. 

After club let out they headed to the caf, then back to their dorm. Bill FaceTimed them that evening so they could all talk with Georgie. It was damn good to see the kid again. Georgie was very excited about getting a prosthetic arm. 

“M-maybe if you ask nice, Bev can paint it for you,” Bill said quietly. 

Bev lit up at the suggestion. 

“Can you?” Georgie asked. 

“Iron Man or Winter Soldier?” she asked. 

Georgie looked thoughtful for a few moments. 

“Iron Man,” he said at last. 

Bev beamed. 

“You got it Georgie. When we’re home for winter break I can paint it,” she said. 

“Thanks Bevvy! Love you!”

“Love you too,” she said, her voice fragile. 

It wasn’t long after that they had to say goodbye to Georgie. 

Bill returned to the dorm that Sunday and suddenly they found themselves a week away from midterms. It didn’t take long for the panic to set in. That was when Bill suggested they go birdwatching on Saturday morning and the excitement on Stan’s face made everyone agree instantly. 

And that was how Richie found himself awake at the ass crack of dawn on a Saturday. The four were going to the coffee shop in the library first, and then off to whatever field Stan wanted to. 

The instant they stepped into the cafe, Richie zeroed in on Eddie and his roommates.

“Spagheds!”

“There he goes,” Bev muttered as Richie headed for Eddie. 

Richie flipped her off. Bill, Stan, and Bev shot each other the same look but none the less followed Richie over to Eddie’s table. 

“What are you doing up at the ass crack of dawn?” Eddie asked upon seeing Richie, Bev, Bill, and Stan. 

“Birdwatching!” Stan said, absolutely beaming despite the fact that it was six in the morning. 

“Do you guys want to come?” Stan asked. 

“Stan has a van,” Richie informed them. 

“So I can fit all my friends,”

Eddie knew without looking that Mike was melting into a puddle at Stan’s words. Richie wrapped his arm around Stan’s shoulder and pulled him close to plant a loud kiss to the side of his head. 

“What are you guys doing up?” Bev asked as the other three started to stand. 

“Midterms,” they droned. 

“Pulled an all-nighter to study,”

“This is going to ruin my sleep schedule, so you know how hard it’s going to be to get back on that?” Eddie asked. 

They got coffee first and then headed to the van. The seven managed to cram into Stan’s van and they were off. It was a short drive to the field that Stan liked, and an even shorter walk to his favorite watching spot. The Losers spread out across a stones throw distance from Stan, with Mike and Bill sitting closest to him. 

Eddie sat down next to Richie and tilted his head up toward the sky. 

“What’cha doin’ Eds?” Richie asked, his voice quiet as to not disturb Stan or any birds. 

“Looking at the stars,” Eddie replied. 

Richie craned his neck to look up. There were still a few stars visible in the lightening sky. 

“You mean the holes poked in the container so we can breathe,” he said. 

“That fits in so well with the fake moon theory,” he whispered. 

Eddie closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. He wasn’t going to lose his shit, not while Stan had asked them all so nicely to be quiet so the birds wouldn’t get spooked. 

“I’m going to address that later,” he said. 

“I’ll hold you to that,”

Eddie could hear the smile in Richie’s voice. It astounded him that Richie was able to get him riled up so fast, just a few choice words out of Richie’s dumbass mouth and Eddie was ready to go down swinging. As much as he complained about it, he kind of loved it. 

“You guys don’t seem stressed about midterms,” he commented as he looked at the rest of the Losers. 

A smile quirked at Richie’s mouth. 

“Just because we’re not pulling all nighters at the library doesn’t mean we’re not stressed Eddie-spaghetti. Birdwatching is a time honored Losers tradition,” he said. Eddie raised an eyebrow, silently calling bullshit. 

“It really helps Stan relax,” Richie explained.

“One of his math classes is harder than he thought it would be so here we are,” Richie said with an easy shrug. 

“Oh,” Eddie said eloquently. 

“Not like it takes all day either. Just an hour out of our morning. After this we’ll go to the diner for breakfast, and then spend all day studying,” Richie said. 

He tilted his head up toward the sky, watching clouds now as the stars were no longer visible. Without thinking too much Eddie leaned against him, a yawn escaping him. 

Stan packed up his things slowly, he had seen as many birds as he was going to for that morning. It was time for them to get to the diner for some breakfast. He turned to survey the other Losers. Ben and Bev were lying on Ben’s jacket, cloud watching and Eddie and Richie-

Stan took a picture of Eddie sleeping on Richie, head tucked against his neck. Richie looked soft and happy and vaguely disbelieving, like he couldn’t believe that Eddie had chosen him to sleep on. Stan first saved the picture, and then tapped it, fully intending to write something stupid but instead he found himself writing something soft 

Not to be soft on main but Richie looks so beautiful when he’s happy

Instead of sending it to Richie and Eddie to tease them, he sent it to the other four Losers. Within the next five minutes every single one of them had screenshotted it. 

Chapter Text

“Eds,” Richie murmured, giving him a gentle shake.

Eddie mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like ‘ fuck off Richie ’. 

“C’mon we gotta go eat breakfast,”

Eddie shifted against him and tilted his head up to glare at Richie. He still looked so sleepy, Richie was going to combust. 

“Hey there sleepy beauty,” Richie teased. 

Eddie rubbed his eyes, his nose scrunching up as he did so. 

“Cute, cute, cute,” Richie murmured, tapping Eddie’s nose. 

Eddie dropped his hands, his glare returning at full force. 

“I thought we were supposed to be getting breakfast,”

“I couldn’t just wake someone as cute as you up! My Eddie spaghetti needed his nap!” Richie said as he pushed himself to his feet. 

“I’m not cute. Puppies are cute,” Eddie shot back as he stood. 

“Puppies and my Eddie spaghetti,” Richie affirmed as he slung his arm over Eddie’s shoulders. 

“Jesus Christ can we go now?” Bev demanded. 

Both Richie and Eddie flipped her off. 

It didn’t take long for the Losers to get to the diner, they crammed into the same booth they had the first time, and ordered themselves too much breakfast food.

Eddie ordered coffee, and Richie watched fascinated as Eddie took a sip of it, right out of the mug.

“Eds…”

Eddie set his mug down, his cheeks looking a little pink.

“The coffee is so hot it burns away the germs,”

Richie gaped for a second before a grin tugged at his lips, Eddie looked beyond ready to throw down if Richie made fun of him.

“Cute,” Richie said at last.

“Cute, cute, cute,” he said.

Eddie flipped him off and took another sip of his coffee. Richie threw his arm over the back of the booth and almost instantly his fingers brushed against Eddie’s shoulder.

Conversation flowed easily between the seven Losers. They teased each other, stole each others food, and generally acted like sleep deprived idiots. Once they were finished with their breakfast they returned to Stan’s van and he drove them back to school.

“So what are you guys doing today?” Ben asked, trying and failing to look anywhere else but at Bev.

“We were going to head to the library,” Bev said.

“Y-you pulled an all n-nighter, you don’t h-have to join us,” Bill told them.

“I need to do a little more studying,” Mike said with a shrug, shooting Bill and Stan a shy smile.

“There are pads in the library, I can nap on one of those if I need to,” Ben said.

“I could go back to the library,” Eddie said slowly.

“Spagheds! You fell asleep on me in a field, you should go back to your dorm,” Richie said.

Eddie’s expression twisted, Richie could physically see the stubbornness settle in his bones.

“That’s not my fucking name. And I need to study asshole,” Eddie said, all spitfire and hell.

“Well fine then Eds my love, but if you fall asleep again I’m not going to coddle you,” Richie warned.

“Fuck off,” Eddie said, turning around before Richie could see the blush on his cheeks.

The Losers secured a big table in the library. They started off studious, but after who knows how long, Eddie set his textbook and notebook to the side and laid his head down, using his arms as pillows. Absentmindedly, Richie raised his free hand and slowly started to rub small circles on Eddie’s upper back. 

“I can’t believe I’ve been replaced,” Stan said. 

Next to him, Bev sighed. 

“No longer Richie’s favorite,” he lamented. 

“You were n-never Richie’s f-favorite so just jot that down,” Bill muttered with an eye roll. 

Bev nodded in agreement. 

“I used to be the prettiest guy he’s ever known,” Stan added, absolutely ignoring his friends in favor of his own woes- and also in favor of taking snaps of Richie and Eddie because as much as he teased them they were fucking cute.

“You’re the prettiest guy  I’ve ever known,” Mike said.

Then Mike looked at Bill and winked.

Silence reigned at the table. Even Richie had stopped paying attention to his work to watch the scene unfold, his thumb still drawing circles on Eddie’s back. 

“Coffee?” he asked.

Mike let his gaze linger on Stan and Bill before he stood and walked away from the table, his walk was the confident stride of a man who knew exactly what kind of effect he had on the table.

Stan sent Richie a panicked look. Richie, like the good friend he was, took a snap of the expression to tease Stan about it. 

gay panic

He saved the picture, and then sent it to Stan.

“W-what the fuck?” Bill whispered.

“Was he hitting on us?”

“He has been for the past few weeks but now’s a great time to notice I guess,” Ben muttered.

Richie managed to choke down the vaguely hysterical laugh that threatened to leap out of his chest. Bev looked like she was going to burst.

“We sh-should help him with the cof-coffee,” Bill said, his eyes trained on Stan. Stan flushed.

“We should,” Stan agreed softly.

The two of them stood and headed the direction that Mike had gone.

“What the fuck?” Richie asked.

Bev cackled, clapping her hand over her mouth the second she saw Eddie start to shift. Richie continued to rub circles on his back, soothing Eddie back into a deep sleep.

“Ben what the hell?” she wheezed.

“I don’t regret what I said,” 

“God damn Haystack! Who knew you had it in you?” Richie asked with a grin.

Ben’s cheeks were starting to look a little red.

“Spagheds here is going to be pissed he missed it,” Richie added.

“You could… wake him up?”

Richie gasped, throwing his free hand over his heart like Ben had just suggested something scandalous.

“My Eddie spaghetti needs his sleep,”

A knowing smile crept over Bev’s face. Richie didn’t like it one bit, so to keep her from saying whatever she wanted to say, Richie changed the subject.

“I hope they figure their shit out, I’m tired of only teasing them one at at time when I could be teasing them all at once,” he said.

“You act like you’re not going to tease Stan the most,” Bev muttered, allowing him to change the subject.

“He is… as the poets say… my favorite Stan the Man to tease,”

Bev snorted. Richie settled back in his chair, he started to run his fingers up and down Eddie’s back, having grown tired of the small circles. They were all silent for a while, their focus back on studying for midterms.

Mike, Bill, and Stan sat back down with coffees in their hands, and blushes on their cheeks. Ben, Bev, and Richie waited for someone to say something- to say anything about what had conspired between the three men while they were getting coffees.

“We have a date this weekend,” Mike said at last, seemingly unable to keep the grin off his face.

“Fucking finally,” Richie said as Bev fist pumped.

“Rich-” Stan started, but Richie cut him off by leaning toward Bev, a conspiratorial grin on his face.

“Don’t tell Stan but he still ranks in my Top 3 Most Handsome list,” Richie stage whispered.

“I shouldn’t have to be assured I still rank in your top 3 because I should always be number 1,” Stan shot back, only the slight upturn of his lips let Richie know that he was pleased about still being in the top 3.

Richie reached forward and pressed ‘play’ on his laptop and the movie resumed. He completely tuned his friends out and focused on the movie, writing notes, and rubbing Eddie’s back. He only stopped when he noticed Bev’s unwavering gaze was on him. He paused the movie and met her gaze, a questioning expression on his face. Bev watched him for a few moments, an all knowing smile on her face.

Oh no , he thought.

“You really like him, don’t you?”

Richie’s gaze jumped to Eddie’s face, checking to make sure he was still asleep. Eddie looked peaceful. Richie kept rubbing small circles on his back as he took a second to think about Bev’s question. 

“Yea,”

He liked teasing Eddie, he liked the way Eddie glared at him when he said something stupid, he liked Eddie’s facial expressions, he liked the rants Eddie went on, he liked that Eddie was all spitfire and rage, he liked that Eddie would watch horror movies with him even though Eddie didn’t like horror movies, and- god Richie really liked Eddie.

He liked Eddie.

Richie looked up at his friends, suddenly feeling all too vulnerable. He didn’t like confessing his emotions, so instead of saying anything else he resumed his movie and tried like hell to ignore the grins on his friends’ faces.

Chapter Text

Richie settled into his desk chair and logged in. He had had quite the fun weekend with all his friends, even if Bev got him to admit his feelings toward Eddie. He wasn’t going to think about that part, he was going to focus on putting numbers into his computer and- a note slid across his desk.

Richie picked it up and unfolded it and couldn’t help but grin at the sight of his cubicle neighbor’s writing.

If I die at work and never get the chance to clock out, do they just pay me indefinitely?

Richie laughed.

no but mr boss man will send a condescending email about how much we need u here in the office

The note slid back under the wall. For the next hour Richie spent his time doing his work and responding to his cubicle neighbor. It certainly made time move faster. 

Richie grinned at the latest doodle, It was a very accurate depiction of Mr. P- their boss- standing over a casket asking why the employee didn’t come to work. Richie tore the doodle out before he wrote his response.

u should draw me like one of ur french girls *winky face*

He sent the note back over and tried to pretend like he was being productive. 

“Richie,”

Richie had never been more grateful that his neighbor wasn’t responding. He wouldn’t be able to live it down if Stan knew he was passing notes at work.

“Staniel,”

“I’m going out with Mike and Bill tonight so I don’t need a ride home-”

“Stan-!”

“Mike, however,” Stan plowed on, completely ignoring Richie’s words.

“Mike brought Eddie to work, I think you two get off at the same time so you can drive him back to school,” Stan said with a smug aura like he had done Richie a huge favor.

“What if I have a hot date later?” Richie asked.

Stan didn’t look impressed.

“Then you wouldn’t have driven me to work,” he said.

Richie clicked his tongue, Stan never played into his little games.

“So, Mike and Bill, huh?” Richie asked.

“We went on a date on Sunday,” Stan reminded him.

“But this is the second date, Stanny, you can put out now,” Richie said, a shit eating grin on his face.

“Can’t. Saving myself for your mom,”

Richie howled with laughter and pushed himself to his feet to cup Stan’s face.

“You are just… the best Stan,” he said.

Stan beamed at him.

“I know,”

Richie let him go and sat back in his chair.

“So you’re fine to take Eddie home?” Stan asked.

Richie immediately averted his gaze to something behind Stan, he missed the note that slid onto his desk, and he missed Stan’s sharp gaze linger on it for a moment.

“Course I’m fine to take my Eddie Spaghetti home,” Richie muttered, feeling his cheeks heat up.

“Are… are you passing notes , Richard?” Stan asked, his voice rasping slightly.

Richie’s gaze jumped to the note on the desk and he snagged it before Stan could make a move.

“No,”

“Right,”

“Shouldn’t you be panicking about your date?” Richie asked.

Stan flushed, flipped Richie off, and walked away from his cubicle. 

The thing was, Richie liked his cubicle neighbor. He would absolutely love to know who his neighbor was, but at the same time the thought of learning who it was made him feel… apprehensive. His cubicle neighbor was funny as hell, quick witted, and generally didn’t seem truly bothered by the fact that Richie had one helluva trashmouth. 

Then again, neither did Eddie, and Eddie was a real human being that Richie knew in real life. Eddie, who Richie liked so much it fucking hurt, was all spitfire and could keep up with Richie and volley insults back like it was a game. So yea, Richie really liked Eddie. But getting the notes from his neighbor… sometimes made Richie’s stomach swoop the same way it did when Eddie texted him, or when he saw Eddie, or when Eddie looked at him- and basically Richie was fucked. 

It would be ideal- hell it would be beyond ideal if Eddie was the person on the other side of the cubicle wall. Honestly it would be pretty fucking perfect if Eddie was the one that was sending him notes. It meant his stupid little crush on the cubicle neighbor wouldn’t ruin him.

He didn’t want to be torn, but he couldn’t cut either of them out of his life so he was just going to have to be fucked for the time being and maybe… maybe things would work out in his favor.

The note slid back across his desk and Richie grinned, his worries floating out of his head.

Eddie tapped his pen on his desk as he stared at his computer screen. He hated answering emails from his incompetent coworkers. All they had to do was read the fucking emails he sent them and look at the attachment but they were fucking incapable of doing that so half of Eddie’s shift was filled with him typing out emails with the words ‘as per my last email’ somewhere in the body.

The only reprieve was his fucking cubicle neighbor. For some reason that Eddie didn’t want to think about, he always pictured his neighbor being Richie, it made things less complicated. Eddie liked the stupid witty repitoir he had with his neighbor, it reminded him of him and Richie and he liked it so much.

The note slid back to his desk and Eddie fought back a smile.

u should draw me like one of ur french girls *winky face*

Eddie rolled his eyes.

Fuck off! I’m sure people would pay me to not do that

He sent the paper back over and sat back in his chair. He wondered what Richie was up to. If he could persuade Mike to hurry home then maybe he could stop by Richie’s dorm for a movie night. He hadn’t seen Richie since Saturday in the library, sure it was only Monday but Eddie missed his friend.

The note was back on his desk.

damn that’s harsh

Eddie smiled softly and started to doodle a truly terrible stick figure rendition of that scene in Titanic- maybe he could convince Richie to watch Titanic. When Eddie was finished with his little doodle he sent the note back to his neighbor.

There was a new email in his inbox. This one was from Bev, the subject line was a typical Bev keysmash, the body consisted of less than three sentences.

Just overheard Mike, Bill, and Stan talking. They’re going on a date tonight. Richie is driving you home ; )

“Oh,” Eddie said aloud.

Why the fuck didn’t Mike come to tell him that?

“Eddie!”

Mike appeared at his cubicle.

“Date night?” Eddie asked.

Mike squinted at his computer.

“What a fucking snoop!” he said.

“You’re alright with it, right?” Mike asked before Eddie could say anything.

“Go have fun with your boys,” Eddie said.

There was a soft smile on Mike’s face.

“Thanks Eddie!”

With that Mike was gone. Eddie returned his attention back to his computer, a slip of white caught his attention. The note was on his desk again. Eddie opened it and noticed that his drawing had been torn out. A fond smile pulled at his lips.

u captured my likeness perfectly

next time sign it for me xoxox

Eddie snorted. He glanced at the clock on his computer and was delighted to find out that it was pretty much quitting time. 

It’s quitting time xoxoxo or whatever bullshit you put on this

He sent it over and started packing his things up. It didn’t take long for the note to return to his desk.

fuck u that’s my line

xoxoxo and all that bullshit

dick 

Eddie laughed and tucked the note into his pocket. He turned his computer off and headed to the lobby. Richie was waiting for him near Bev’s desk.

“Spagheds!”

Eddie loved the way Richie’s face lit up when he saw him.

“Not my fucking name,” Eddie said, if he didn’t say that he would say something stupid, like accidently admitting that he liked the stupid nicknames that Richie called him.

“Ready to head home?”

“Yep,”

“Tragic. We’re going to eat instead,” Richie said.

“Rich-”

But Richie was already on his way out of the building.

“Eduardo! Andale! Let’s go!” he called over his shoulder.

Behind him he heard Bev’s soft laughter.

“Not my name!” Eddie snapped as he followed Richie out of the building.

Chapter Text

They ate dinner at the usual diner. Except instead of seven Losers it was just Eddie and Richie. It was just Eddie and Richie. It was one of the only things either of them could think about.

Richie kept heckling Eddie because it was the only thing he knew how to do, and Eddie always rose to the bait. It was one of his favorite things about Eddie, Richie could always get a reaction out of him.

Once they were finished with their dinner Richie drove them back to school.

“Alright Eddie Spaghetti, I’ve made good on my promise to drive you home. Should I walk you back to your dorm?” Richie asked.

“Well-”

“Great! My dorm it is,” Richie announced.

Eddie followed Richie because really what else was Eddie going to do but follow Richie.

“Horror movie?” Eddie asked.

“Not tonight spaghetti man,” Richie said

“That’s… that’s not my name,” Eddie told him.

Richie beamed and threw his arm over Eddie’s shoulder. Eddie loved the feeling, he loved how casually Richie touched him. They reached Richie’s dorm and saw Bev seated on the couch.

“Hello,” she drawled.

Her lips quirked into a dangerously Stan-like smile when she saw Eddie. Eddie didn’t like that one bit, he didn’t need another Loser sending him embarrassing snaps of him and Richie.

“Well hello there gorgeous lady,” Richie greeted.

“Movie night?”

“Looks that way, shall we Eds my love?”

“Richie don’t call me that,” Eddie said with a soft sigh.

“Don’t call you what-”

“Nope,”

Eddie pushed him toward his dorm. Richie laughed and threw his backpack on the floor. Eddie followed suit. He liked being in Richie’s dorm, even if it was messy. It was Richie’s space, where Richie felt the most comfortable and it was all… Richie. Eddie liked it. He liked that he was the only Loser that Richie had movie nights with, he liked that Richie never asked anyone else to join them.

“What are we watching?” Eddie asked as he sat on Richie’s bed, shoving all the pillows to the corner so he and Richie could watch the movie comfortably. 

“Ten Things I Hate About You,” 

“Is this for class?” Eddie asked.

Richie didn’t respond immediately. Eddie glanced up at him, waiting for an answer to his question.

“Rich?” he egged.

“Not for class,” Richie said before he settled on the bed next to Eddie. 

“Oh then-”

“Movies starting spagheds! Why are you talking through it?”

Eddie elbowed him. Richie grinned and adjusted his position slightly. Eddie rolled his eyes but also adjusted his position so he was leaning more on Richie than the pillows. He liked Richie way more than the pillows.

They started watching in silence, but soon Richie started up his usual stream of chatter about the movie. Eddie let himself relax, it was so easy to relax around Richie. Eddie found himself slowly drifting to sleep.

Bev poked her head into Richie’s room. It took a few moments for eyes to adjust to the dim light but what she saw made her smile. Eddie and Richie were curled up together, fast asleep. Bev pulled out her phone to take a picture of them. It was a little grainy but unmistakably Eddie and Richie. She sent the photo to Stan because she knew Stan would love to get the opportunity to tease Eddie and Richie even when he wasn’t in the dorm. After she sent the photo she sent a separate chat.

they’re so cute stan :’) please tease them

In the darkness she saw both of their phones light up. Stan was quick in his game of teasing them. She turned from the door and headed to her room, a grin on her face.

There was sunlight streaming into the room when Eddie woke. He was pressed against something warm and something too uncomfortable to be one of Richie’s pillows. He pried his eyes open and found he was nestled half on top of Richie, face tucked and in his neck. Richie’s arms were around his waist and Richie was so warm. Eddie wondered if he should be more panicked but Richie was so fucking warm and comfortable that it was so easy for Eddie to sink back into a light sleep.

Eddie woke next when Richie’s big hands drifted up and down his back.

“Up ‘n at ‘em Spaghetti man,” Richie cooed.

“Not my name,” Eddie croaked.

Eddie pulled away from him, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. When he looked back at Richie he found him staring. Richie’s eyes were locked on his, his lips pulled into a small smile. Then Eddie felt his fingers on his cheek and something exploded in the pit of Eddie’s stomach.

“Cute,” Richie said softly, but it felt like he was trying to say something else. Before Eddie could read too much into it, Richie pinched his cheek.

“Cute, cute, cute,”

The moment was ruined. Eddie swatted at Richie’s hand.

“Fuck you,” Eddie said without any heat.

“Wanna go get breakfast?” Richie asked.

“Sure,”

They both struggled out of bed and for a moment hovered in each other’s orbits.

“I should swing by my dorm first,” Eddie said, he needed to get out of his old clothes, wash his face, and brush his teeth at least twice. He couldn’t believe he had just fallen asleep like that, absolute disregard for his night time routine.

“Should I invite my dorm?” Eddie asked.

Richie blinked a few times.

“Yea. I wanna tease Stan in front of his boyfriends,” Richie said.

Instinctively Eddie grabbed his phone and saw he had a snapchat from Stan, it had been sent the previous night. How in the name of hell was Stan able to tease him when he wasn’t even in the dorm last night?

“Caf in twenty?” Eddie asked, more than a little afraid of Stan’s power.

“Sounds good, Eds,”

“Not my name,”

“Ok,”

The words sent a jolt down Eddie’s spine. It took him a moment to work through why the words made him feel like that, then he recalled ‘ maybe not my name will be our always ’. Eddie flipped him off as he left the dorm.

Richie watched him go, his heart felt funny, so did his stomach. God Eddie made him feel all sorts of ways. Richie shook his head and grabbed his phone to flick through notifications. He had a snapchat from Stan… from last night. How did he have a snapchat from Stan from last night? Stan had been out! There’s no way he caught a picture of Richie and Eddie. Richie swiped at the notification and tapped Stan’s name to see a picture from last night. The picture was a little grainy but it was clearly Eddie asleep on Richie’s chest.

“Stan what the fuck?” Richie asked.

He walked out of his room and found Stan in the kitchen, smugly sipping coffee with a smug smile on his face with a smug aura around him in a way only Stan could manage.

“How the fuck did you get that picture?”

“I have my ways,”

“This is fucking weird,” he said.

Stan shrugged.

“Anyway! Breakfast at the caf in 20?”

“So you can tease me in front of Bill and Mike?” Stan asked.

“Staniel I would never ,”

Richie’s phone buzzed in his hand and he looked at it. A text from Eddie, the sight made his stomach do that funny thing.

Mike isn’t here????????????

Richie’s eyes jumped to Stan, an all too wide smile took over his face. It didn’t seem to take Stan long to figure out why Richie was grinning like an idiot.

“Richie,”

Richie darted to Bill’s room only to find it empty, and his mattress was missing. Richie darted back to Stan’s room and shoved the door open. There were two mattresses on the floor, one was Bill’s, the other was Stan’s. Bill and Mike were still on the mattresses, cuddled together while looking at something on Mike’s phone. They both looked up at Richie, unimpressed expressions on their faces.

“Good morning to you too, Richie,”

Richie raised his phone to take a picture of them.

stanlonbrough sleepover in stans dorm??????????????

He sent it to Bev, Ben, and Eddie, then he sent it to Stan.

“Breakfast in the caf?” Richie asked once he had sent to picture.

“Sure,”

“Richie what the fuck is stanlonbrough?” Stan asked, appearing behind Richie.

“Stan, Hanlon, and Denbrough mashed together,” Richie said like it was obvious.

“Disgusting,”

Richie almost choked on his laugh.

Twenty minutes later the Losers were at the caf. They each had their plates full of breakfast food. Stan found himself paying close attention to Richie, every joke Richie would make, every stupid thing Richie would do and he always looked at Eddie first. Stan thought it was disgustingly endearing. Though Stan would never admit it out loud (to anyone other than Richie) he fucking loved Richie, he loved every stupid thing about his trashmouth friend. Stan spent a lot of his breakfast time just paying attention to Richie, and the way Richie lit up around Eddie. Stan smiled softly and took a sip of his coffee. He pulled out his phone and took a picture of Richie as he smiled at Eddie.

Really love my best friend

He sent it to all the Losers and watched as they all screenshotted it.

Chapter Text

Stan slammed the door to Richie’s door open causing Richie to almost leap out of bed.

“Stan what the fuck?” he wheezed.

Instead of answering like any normal person, Stan stepped into Richie’s room and promptly collapsed next to him on the bed.

“Are you free today?”

“Yes,” Richie said slowly.

“You’re taking me out on a friend date,” Stan announced.

Richie stared at him for a moment before a smile broke out over his face.

“Stozier frate day?” Richie asked excitedly.

“I hate that I understood that perfectly,” Stan muttered.

Richie beamed and threw his arms around Stan and pulled him in for a crushing hug.

“I love our friend dates,” Richie said.

“Let go of me you lump, we need to get ready,” Stan muttered. Richie held him a little tighter before he let go. Stan rolled off Richie’s bed and left the room. 

Stan pulled on a black t-shirt and a pair of jeans. He knew that Richie would dress in something outlandish and he didn’t want to outshine Richie. Besides, Richie loved it when he didn’t “dress like an old man”. Stan fixed his curls, adjusted his kippah, and continued with his morning routine.

“Stan the Man! You ready?”

Richie was wearing a heinous hawaiian shirt, a band t-shirt under it, and a pair of well worn, ripped jeans. His hair was styled in a messy way and he was absolutely beaming.

“Oh… Stan you look your age! You’re really trying for that number 1 spot, aren’t you,”

Stan rolled his eyes, a smile pulling at his lips.

“Richie we all know I’m always going to be your number 1,” he said.

Richie shook his head but didn’t say anything. Stan followed Richie out of the dorm and to Richie’s car.

“So, where are you taking me?” Stan asked.

“You’re so demanding, Staniel- but since you asked so nicely we’re going to the Aquarium and then the beach where we’re gonna get drunk on pina coladas,” Richie said in a rush.

“That sounds like a great idea Rich,” Stan said.

Richie beamed at that. Stan followed Richie to his car and Richie drove them to the aquarium. They sang along a little too loudly to the songs on Richie’s phone and Stan insisted on a coffee run before they reached the aquarium.

Richie took a snap of Stan as he ordered their coffee.

get u a man who buys u coffee < 3

He sent the picture to the Losers. He had a fleeting worry about Mike’s reaction to their frate day but it was gone in an instant, Mike was level headed, besides, he had Big Bill to explain the Stozier Frate Day thing.

“I already got me two men to buy me coffee,” Stan said as he glanced at his phone.

Richie cackled. 

“Here,” Stan handed Richie one of the coffee’s.

“A man after my own heart,” 

“You have Eddie for that,” Stan deadpanned.

Richie almost spat out his coffee.

“Stan-!”

“Let’s get going! You owe me a date here Tozier,” Stan said.

Richie glared at him, his cheeks pink. Stan beamed at him and headed out of the coffee shop, Richie was hot on his heels. From the coffee shop it was a five minute drive to the aquarium.

Stan watched Richie approach the ticket booth and pulled out his own phone, he wasn’t going to let Richie be the only one gush about their frate.

Get you a man who pays for your aquarium trip

“Aw Stanny,” Richie cooed.

“Ready to go?” Stan asked.

Richie brandished a ticket in Stan’s face, Stan snatched it away from him and tucked it into his pocket.

Their time in the aquarium was mostly spent with them pointing out the most ridiculous looking sea creatures and saying it looked like the other. 

They spent longer than necessary in the jellyfish exhibit because Richie loved jellyfish and Stan liked the way the pink jellies looked against the deep blue of their tank. 

“Open ocean next?” Richie asked. 

Stan nodded in agreement and after a few turns they found themselves in a room with a massive tank filled with fish and kelp  and other sea creatures. They stood there for a moment, admiring the tank before Richie spotted a stingray pressed against the glass. It’s face was pinched up in the way Stan’s did when Richie was doing something stupid. 

“Stan,” he said as he elbowed his friends side. 

“What?”

“That stingray looks just like you,”

“No it doesn’t,”

“Yes it does! That’s your ‘Richie is doing something stupid face’,” Richie insisted. 

Stan arched an eyebrow. 

“My face doesn’t always look like that,” he said. 

“Words hurt, Staniel,”

Stan laughed at that and Richie gave him a pointed shove. 

“Go stand next to it!”

Richie was laughing his ass off as Stan stood next to the stingray. Stan had a frown on his face, trying his damndest to mimic the stingray’s face. Richie managed to get a picture of it and sent it to the Losers. He had been gushing about Stan on his snapchat all day and he had no intention of stopping. He was really enjoying his time with Stan.

When they finished with the aquarium they headed to the beach and hunted around for a shack that sold alcohol. They found one, bought themselves a drink, and headed down to the beach to relax. 

“So,” Stan started.

Richie took a sip of his drink, not ready for whatever conversation he and Stan were about to have.

“So,” Richie echoed.

“You really like Eddie, don’t you?”

“Yea,” Richie said quietly. 

He took a sip of his drink and looked out across the water. 

“I really fucking like him,”

There was a smile on Stan’s face, quiet and soft but with a hint of smugness that let Richie know that Stan knew how he felt about Eddie for quite some time. 

“What are you going to do about it?” Stan asked. 

Richie shrugged and took a sip of his drink. 

“He doesn’t date, Stan,”

“He said he would if his partner was on without sex,” Stan said pointedly. 

“Yea,”

“Is that not something you’d do?” Stan asked. 

Richie scrunched up his nose. 

“I could do that… he wouldn’t go for me Stan I’m a mess,” Richie said with a wave of his hand.

“Rich-”

“Don’t worry about it Stan,”

Stan’s face pinched and Richie could tell he was trying to figure out if he should press the subject or change it. 

“Fine. What’s with the letter on your desk?”

Richie flushed.

“Oh shit! Look I need a new drink! I’ll get you one too!”

“Richie!” he heard Stan laugh after him.

Stan, thankfully, dropped the subject of Eddie and the cubicle neighbor by the time Richie got back with the drinks.

“This was a good frate,” Stan said, staring out at the sunset. 

“Glad you enjoyed it Stanny,” Richie said as he pulled out his phone. 

“To commemorate the moment,” Richie said as he raised it to snap a photo of them.

Eddie stared at the photo for longer than he needed to. He had been getting Richie’s snaps all day and for the most part every single photo or video was Stan, but this photo… Richie and Stan were on the beach, both of them sipping pina coladas, the light of the fading sun made everything look golden and they looked so carefree and happy that Eddie kind of wanted to cry. He couldn’t stop staring at Richie, he was so fucking beautiful. Eddie took a screenshot of the photo.

“That’s a really good photo,” Mike said softly, there was a soft smile on his face.

“They look really happy,” Ben added.

Eddie looked at the photo again, they both really did look happy. Eddie felt a pang hit his gut. He knew it was stupid and Richie and Stan were just friends- and Stan was dating Bill and Mike- but Eddie kind of wanted Richie to do something like for him.

Do I want to date Richie?

Chapter Text

Eddie was only half paying attention to the movie Richie picked. It was nearly Thanksgiving Break which meant Eddie had to go home soon and Eddie really didn’t want to go home. Unfortunately, his mother would pitch a fit if he stayed at school for break. He had no idea how he was going to survive Christmas break when they had a whole month off.

“I don’t think it’s unrealistic,” Richie said suddenly.

Eddie looked from Richie to the tv where two teens were going at it like it was the only thing they knew how to do. How much of the movie had Eddie missed?

“Teens having sex?” Eddie asked, bewildered.

Richie shot him a look.

“Not having sex in a relationship,”

Eddie stilled, his thoughts racing back to the club meeting where he had discussed his troubles with dating. Had Richie really been thinking about that for this long? It had been nearly a month since AAW.

“I’ve been thinking,” Richie started.

“Call the press,”

“Ouch, spagheds,”

“That’s not my-”

“Anyway I’ve been thinking! Sex isn’t that important in the grand scheme of things. Probably it would be strange at first, but if the person meant a lot to me then what the fuck is the big deal? My partners comfort means way more than me getting my dick wet,” Richie said, gesturing wildly.

Eddie felt his heart thump wildly in his chest.

“Could you be happy in a relationship like that?” Eddie whispered. 

“With the right person? Yea,” Richie said. 

Eddie stared at him for a moment, brow slightly furrowed, eyes dark and intense. 

“And who’s the right person?”

Richie held his gaze. You , he wanted to say. Instead he held Eddie’s gaze for longer than the societal norm, hoping just this once Eddie understood what he was trying to tell him. 

On screen the Final Girl screamed, causing Eddie and Richie to jump. 

“Movies still playing,” Eddie said quietly, like he was awed that the world spun on while they were having their moment. 

“Yea- shit I need to rewind,”

Eddie moved away from Richie so Richie could lean forward and rewind the video. When Richie moved back against the pillows Eddie leaned back against him and maybe, just maybe, he understood something Richie was trying to tell him.

They watched the rest of the movie in silence.

“Hey spaghetti,” Richie said once the movie ended.

“Not my name,”

“When are you going home for break?”

Eddie felt a frown try to take over his features. He really didn’t want to go home.

“Wednesday,” he said at last.

“Yikes,”

“What?”

“That’s like a four day break!”

“That’s the point Richie,” Eddie said.

“Oh,”

There was a beat of silence before understanding dawned on Richie’s face.

“Oh,” he said again.

“When are you leaving?” Eddie asked.

“We leave tomorrow,” Richie said, perking up instantly.

“Tomorrow?”

Richie was beaming as he nodded. He pushed himself off his bed and shut his laptop.

“Stan the Man!” he yelled.

“What?”

“What time are we leaving tomorrow?”

“Nine!”

Richie winced at that.

“You’re all leaving together?” Eddie asked as he clambered off the bed.

“Yea, we’re-”

“Richie! The rest of the guys are coming over for dinner,” Bev announced as she appeared in the doorway.

“Dinner?” Eddie asked.

Bev’s sharp gaze focused on him and she grinned like she had the answer to every question he wanted to ask.

“Chinese. Ben is going to pick it up,” she said.

“Eddie spaghetti why don’t you pick up food for me?” Richie lamented as they walked out of his room.

“Because you insist on calling me spaghetti,” Eddie muttered, aiming a kick at the back of Richie’s leg.

“Biphobia,”

Eddie snorted and sat on the couch. He watched Richie for a moment, something odd fluttered in the pit of his stomach. Eddie barely managed not to roll his eyes at his own emotions. Butterflies in his stomach?- really?- was he just going to go through all the cliche’s with his fucking crush on Richie?

“Rich have you finished packing?” Stan asked as he walked out of his room.

“I’m packing tomorrow,”

“We’re leaving tomorrow,”

“Obviously I’m going to pack before we leave, Staniel,” Richie said, putting on his very best ‘I know what I’m doing’ Voice.

“If you and your shit aren’t at my van at 9 am then I’m leaving you behind,” Stan warned.

“Staniel I love it when you order me around!” Richie called as Stan went back to his room.

“Shut the fuck up!” Stan yelled back.

Richie settled down on the couch next to Eddie with a grin on his face.

“What a man,” Richie crooned.

Bill and Mike stepped into the apartment, they were laughing quietly about something. 

“Wha- what’d we miss?” Bill asked as he caught sight of the unholy smile on Richie’s face.

“Stan’s going to kill Richie,” Bev told them.

“So n-nothing new then,” Bill stated as Mike laughed.

It wasn’t long before Ben was at their door with four bulging bags of Chinese food. After some pushing and shoving and Richie stealing food directly off of Eddie’s plate, the Losers took full plates back to the living room.

“So what are you guys doing for break?” Ben asked.

“We’re pretty much spending break at Big Bill’s house,” Richie said, glancing at Bev and Stan.

“My mom e-expects nothing less,” Bill said.

“God bless Sharon,” Bev murmured.

“Why Bill’s?” Mike asked.

“Well Georgie-” Richie stopped suddenly. His face went through a number of expressions before he pushed himself to his feet and walked right out of the dorm.

“You can tell them,” Bill murmured to Bev before he followed Richie out of the dorm. 

“Bill’s little brother, Georgie, went missing a few weeks ago. He found out during the blackout. And um- Richie, Bill, and Stan have been friends since kindergarten, and I met them during middle school so we were all pretty much around for Georgie’s whole life. We all consider him our little brother, he’s such a great kid,” she said softly. 

She felt Stan’s gentle hand on her back, giving it a soothing rub.

“Richie and Bill have always been close, if I didn’t know any better I would be convinced they were actually related. Richie spent more time at the Denbrough house than at his own- hell by the end of high school we all did,” 

“When Georgie went missing…” Bev’s jaw worked like she was trying to figure out what to say next. 

“Richie was always there to get us out of trouble- which I know he acts like he’s the one to get us into trouble, but when it came down to it, it was always Richie coming to the rescue, taking the blame for anything. He got his ass handed to him more than once for it. And I think that not being there for Georgie when he needed us really messed Richie up,” Bev said. 

It was another few minutes before Richie and Bill returned to the room. Both of their faces were splotchy and it was clear they had both been crying.

“Rich-”

“I’m fine. Met my crying quota for the year,” Richie said, managing to shove a smile on his face.

“Sharon’s been sending me photos of Georgie. Here look at my son,” Richie said, shoving his phone to Eddie.

On screen was a young boy with a wide grin. With every picture of Georgie there was a story to go with it, and within 15 minutes Richie had them all laughing about the first time Bill ever heard Georgie cuss.

“It was all y-your f-fault, Trashmouth,” Bill wheezed.

“You’re right but you shouldn’t say it,” Richie said with a grin.

“Bill, turn on the tv. Jeopardy’s on,” Stan instructed.

Bill did as he was told and for the next half hour the Losers stuffed themselves with Chinese food and yelled out wildly incorrect (or wildly correct if you were Stan, Ben, and Mike) answers.

After Jeopardy came another game show that Richie didn’t really care about but still watched. He got to the first commercial break before he realized that he and Eddie were the only two still in the living room.

“What the hell?”

Richie pushed himself to his feet and peeked into the hallway that led to Bill and Bev’s rooms. Both doors were shut.

“Figures,”

Richie headed for the kitchen to find that Eddie was starting to wash the dishes the rest of the Losers left at the sink. For a while they worked in silence, Richie scraped the food off the plates and into the trash and handed them to Eddie who scrubbed them within an inch of their ceramic lives.

“How did we get stuck with dishes detail?” Richie asked.

“Because the rest of our friends are in relationships with each other and you guys are leaving for a week,” Eddie replied.

“You mean you don’t want to drag me to my room and give me my own private send off?” Richie asked in faux shock.

“Beep, beep,” Eddie said with a  laugh and flicked soap in Richie’s general direction.

“I can’t believe you haven’t packed yet,” he said before Richie could retaliate in any way, shape, or form.

“I’m going home for a week, besides if I forget anything I can just swing by my parents place,” Richie said with a shrug.

“How come you’re not staying with them?” Eddie asked.

Richie seemed to chew on that question so Eddie kept quiet to give Richie adequate time to get his answer together.

“I don’t like being there for long. If it’s not Big Bill’s place then it’s Bev and her aunt. Or if it’s a very special occasion I stay with Stan- his mom loves me,” Richie said.

Eddie nodded and Richie started babbling about the different times he had stayed at Stan’s. Eddie didn’t mind in the slightest, it made the dishes go by quicker and Eddie just really loved listening to Richie talk.

“Rich you’re going to talk his ear off,” Stan commented.

Eddie had no idea when they had emerged from their rooms to rejoin him and Richie.

“Eds- unlike the rest of you traitors- enjoys my company,” Richie said.

“Not my name,” Eddie said as he wiped his hands with a paper towel.

“Yet he doesn’t deny he enjoys my company,” Richie teased.

Eddie shoved passed Richie to throw the paper towel away and to keep Richie from seeing the blush on his cheeks. He glanced at his roommates to find that they were gathering up their things.

“You’re heading back to the dorm?” Eddie asked.

“Yea,”

“You coming?” Mike asked.

“Let me grab my things,”

“You’re leaving so soon?” Richie asked, following Eddie into his room where Eddi had left his backpack.

“Yes,”

“But it’s so early!” Richie whined.

“Well some of us have club tomorrow,” Eddie said.

“Club starts in the afternoon,” Richie said, clearly fighting a smile.

“I just like my sleep, Richard! Fuck off!”

Richie laughed and Eddie couldn’t help but beam. He liked making Richie laugh like that.

“I’ll see you when you get back,” Eddie said.

“I’ll come right over to my Eddie spaghetti’s dorm,” Richie promised.

“Suddenly I don’t have a dorm, and that’s not my name,”

“You’re gonna miss me Eds,” Richie announced as he pulled Eddie into a hug.

Eddie just sighed and melted into the hug.

“Yea, yea,” he muttered.

After far too long they pulled away from each other.

“Let me know when you get back to your dorm,” Richie said softly.

“Let me know when you get to Bill’s,” Eddie replied.

Chapter Text

Eddie, as it turned out, did not like going to club when Richie wasn’t there to bother him- sure club was nice and he liked being around the gays, but he missed Richie. He knew Mike and Ben were in the same boat he was, club just wasn’t the same without the entirety of the Losers.

After club, Eddie had to go to work for a few hours. Work, shockingly, did nothing to improve his mood. His cubicle neighbor wasn’t responding to him which meant either he was irritated with Eddie, or that he was one of the many, many students that had gone home for Thanksgiving early. 

He was on his way to his car when his phone buzzed, a text from Richie. Eddie grinned and hurried to his car. Once he was seated and buckled up, he checked the message

made it to big bill’s safe and sound miss u spaghetti man

Eddie beamed, his heart stuttering at the last four words.

Not my name dumbass.

Miss you too

Eddie locked his phone, set it in the cupholder, and headed home. It was going to be a long week without Richie to bother him. He heard his phone buzz a few times on his way home and didn’t bother to look until he was back in his dorm. It was the Losers groupchat, Bev, Bill, and Stan had all sent something. Eddie opened up snapchat and immediately felt his cheeks explode in a blush. They had all sent nearly the same picture with the same caption, Richie seated before a steaming pile of spaghetti with a pout on his face.

Not the kind of spaghetti Richie was expecting

“Oh my god,” he whispered.

He screenshotted only one of the photos. He never wanted to forget that pouty face.

The week passed agonizingly slow. Eddie went to work, went to his classes, did his homework, texted Richie, and texted the Losers- not in that particular order. Tuesday afternoon Mike and Ben headed home, leaving Eddie alone in the dorm till he left the following afternoon. Eddie tried to keep himself busy with packing but he finished that within thirty minutes and he had absolutely nothing else to do but bother Richie. He switched between bothering Richie and trying to find a movie he could watch to keep himself occupied.

I just feel weird trying to watch a movie on my own now

Eddie set his phone down at stared blankly at his laptop. Tuesday’s were the worst when Richie wasn’t there to drag him to a movie night. His phone chimed and he glanced down at it.

u have rabbt?

Eddie stared at the message for a moment, trying to recall what the fuck his rabbt username was. It took a few minutes for them to get everything working properly. Eddie’s phone started to ring and he looked down at it, Richie was calling him. He answered the call and held his phone to his ear.

“Hey Rich,”

“Spaghetti,”

“I’m sorry, who is this?”

Richie laughed. Eddie smiled at the sound.

“So what are we going to watch?” Richie asked.

“Rich we don’t have-”

“It’s movie night Spaghetti! Can’t fuck with tradition!” Richie said, his voice so earnest that Eddie would have agreed to anything.

“So, what are we going to watch?” he asked.

“Oh!” 

He watched Richie type away on screen, a small smile lit his face as he realized what they were watching.

“Jurassic Park?” he asked. 

“It’s a classic spaghetti man,”

“Not my name,”

Eddie settled against his bed as the movie started. It took all of five minutes for Richie to start talking. It wasn’t his usual commentary of jokes, he immediately launched into an explanation as to the differences between the movie and the book. Eddie was more than happy to listen to Richie talk, the movie was mere background noise, the real entertainment was everything that came out of Richie’s mouth. It made Eddie wish that he wasn’t alone in his dark room, he wanted nothing more than to be wherever Richie was.

“You talked through the whole movie, Richie,” Eddie informed him as the credits started to roll. 

“I have a lot of thoughts about the book, Eds,”

“Oh do you? I couldn’t tell,”

“Ye-ouch spagheds! And here I was trying to impart some of my vast, vast knowledge on you,”

Eddie could practically see Richie placing his hand over his heart if faux offense. God Eddie missed him.

“So what’s happening on your end, Eds?” Richie asked.

“Nothing. Mike and Ben left earlier,” he said.

“You’re alone?” Richie asked.

“Yea. I leave tomorrow after my class,”

“Aw, spagheds,” Richie cooed.

“You know that’s not my name, right?”

“What was that? Suddenly I can’t hear,”

Eddie laughed. He heard a voice on Eddie’s end of the line.

“Hang on, Eds, Prince Georgie needs me,” Richie said to him.

Eddie waited patiently, he could only hear Richie’s half of the conversation and for the most part it sounded like Richie was agreeing to something.

“Alright spagheds, Georgie wants to play Monopoly and who am I to say no to my favorite 10 year old,”

“Yea, I should get to sleep. Got a long day tomorrow,” Eddie said.

“Let me know when you get home safe! And Eds…”

Richie cleared his throat.

“If it gets too much at home… you can always call me,”

Eddie tried and failed to bite back a smile.

“Thanks Rich,” he said softly.

“Anytime spaghetti,”

“Not my name,” Eddie said before he ended the call.

He set his phone down, a grin plastered to his face. He shut off his laptop and headed to bed. The next day he went to his one and only class of the day, packed up his car, and headed home. He tried to take as long as possible, frequent stops to stretch and for snacks but inevitably he found his way to his mom’s house and parked in the driveway.

Made it home

He sent the text to Richie before he bothered getting out of the car. Richie’s response was almost instantaneous.

i know ur not looking forward to being home, but ur braver than u think spagheds! i’ll see u on monday!

Eddie blinked a few times, his eyes stinging. It was only until Sunday, he could manage three full days at the house- Wednesday and Sunday didn’t count as they were half days. Richie was right.

Thanks 'Chee <3

Eddie got out of the car and headed inside the house.

Chapter Text

Eddie returned to his dorm early Sunday afternoon. He had lied to his mother and said he had a shift at work, the truth was that he just wanted to get the fuck out of the house and get back to his dorm. He grabbed his bags and hauled them up to the dorm, Ben and Mike weren’t there. Eddie was a little bit relieved, he wasn’t in the mood to hear about their vacations or to discuss his is anyway. He wanted to destress, preferably in his bed and through a series of 12 different naps. He unpacked his bags and fell face first on his bed.

A distant knock woke Eddie from his light slumber. It took Eddie a few moments to realize that someone was knocking on the dorm door. With a string of cuss words Eddie got out of bed, left his room and opened the door. All of his anger melted away at the sight of Richie. He was holding a bag of fast food and his backpack was slung over one of his shoulders.

“Eds,”

“Not my name,” Eddie said instinctively.

“I brought cheeseburgers and movies- not horror,” he said.

Eddie didn’t move from his spot in front of the door. Richie shifted, his expression faltering.

“I just figured that you probably didn’t have the best break and I thought burgers from our favorite diner and an eclectic bunch of movies might help you feel better. Or… I can just leave all this with you and see you later this week or something,” Richie said, his eyes roaming Eddie’s face.

Eddie blinked a few times and stepped aside to let Richie in.

“How’d you know I was back?” he asked as he shut the door.

“My Eddie senses were tingling,”

Eddie shot him a look.

“Stan sent me a picture of you getting out of your car,”

“And he didn’t come say hi?”

“He was on his way to the store,” Richie informed him.

“Besides, you looked like the world was ending around you in the photo he sent so I had to go grab some things,”

Eddie watched as Richie made his way to his bedroom.

“What are you doing?” Eddie asked.

“We’re watching a movie,”

“What about the food?”

“Eddie spaghetti you really don’t eat in bed?” Richie asked.

“No! It’s disgusting! Crumbs could get on the bed sheets!”

There was a tiny smile resting on Richie’s face.

“We’ll put down some napkins,” Richie said and continued on his way to Eddies room.

“Oh my god Richie,”

But Richie was already in his room, shoving all the blankets down to the end of the bed and laying down the napkins.

“Come on spagheds,”

Against his better judgment, and everything his mom ever told him- which was actually fuel for him to agree to Richie’s plan- he joined Richie on the bed. Richie passed out the food.

“How was your break?” Eddie asked.

Richie lit up and started talking about how much fun he’d had at Bill’s place.

“What about you?” Richie asked tentatively.

Eddie shrugged.

“It was alright,”

“Just alright?”

Eddie studied the cheeseburger in his hands, trying to figure out how much to tell Richie, or how even to explain Sonia Kaspbrak. Eventually he settled on telling Richie about the placebos.

“She still likes to claim I’m… fragile,” Eddie said, his mouth twisting as he spoke.

“But you’re not,” Richie said, his brows furrowing.

Eddie smiled softly.

“Every time I go back… she’s always trying to get me to take my meds, it’s frustrating,” Eddie said.

“Eds-”

“And she just… she’s always asking me when I’m going to settle down with a nice girl. She wants me to get married and have kids despite the fact that I’ve told her that I don’t want kids and I don’t want to have sex and she always makes me feel-” he stopped talking sharply, a lump forming in his throat. He sighed and pushed a hand through his hair.

“She makes me feel like I’m wrong,”

Richie set his cheeseburger down on the bedside table next to them and proceeded to do the same with Eddie’s cheeseburger. Before Eddie could do so much as protest the loss of his cheeseburger, Richie was hauling him into a tight hug.

“But you’re not,” Richie said, his voice sounded thick.

“I know,” Eddie said as he curled into the embrace.

Eddie stayed in the embrace for only a few moments before he pulled away from Richie to grab his cheeseburger. 

“Is that why you looked ready to throw down when you told the club you’re ace?” Richie asked softly as he grabbed his own cheeseburger.

Eddie nodded.

“I’m sorry Eds,”

Eddie just took a bite of his burger. He didn’t know how to respond to that.

“So what movies did you bring?” Eddie asked once he had chewed and swallowed.

Thankfully Richie understood that the subject was dropped and excitedly reached for his bag.

“We have a lot of options spagheds,” he said before placing his cheeseburger in his mouth so he could use both of his hands to pull out a sizable stack of movies. Once he had pulled them out he took the burger out of his mouth.

“Disgusting,” Eddie said fondly.

Richie didn’t respond to that.

“We have absolute classics such as School of Rock, Zoolander, Psycho, Daddy Day Care, Coraline, Men in Black-”

“You weren’t kidding when you said it was eclectic,” Eddie said.

Richie beamed at him. Eddie wanted to both take a picture of him and stare at him forever. He looked… beautiful, with the smile on his face, one hand holding a stack of movies, and the other holding a burger. His eyes were so soft, crinkled at the edges. 

“School of Rock,” he said, finding it hard to speak around the tightness of his chest.

There was brief moment of panic- did he actually have asthma?- but he squashed that down. Not asthma. Just some new… frankly weird emotion.

“School of Rock it is!”

Richie got the movie all set up as Eddie finished off the last of his food. He vigorously swiped at his bedsheets to make sure that there weren’t any crumbs on his bed. He really shouldn’t have let Richie talk him into eating on his bed.

“Alright spaghetti man, you ready to rock?” Richie asked, a ridiculous smile on his face.

Eddie rolled his eyes and shoved all the pillows on his bed behind them so they could relax against them.

“Are you going to talk through the whole movie?” Eddie asked.

“Yikes really channeling your inner Chip Mulaney huh?”

“Hello I’m Chip Mulaney, I’m your father,”

Richie laughed and tugged Eddie into another hug. Eddie settled into it with ease, his head on Richie’s chest.

“I missed you Eds,”

“Not my name,”

“Missed you too,” he added quietly as the movie started to play.

Eddie made no attempt to move away from Richie and Richie didn’t remove his arms from around Eddie. Eddie hadn’t seen School of Rock in nearly a decade and the movie was just as fun as he remembered- plus Richie kept making little jokes which only made the experience better. They didn’t move from that position until the movie was over when Richie had to lean forward to swap DVDs out.

“So what's next?” Richie asked.

“Zoolander,”

Richie nodded slowly.

“Why male models?” he asked in an eerily perfect imitation of Zoolander.

“To paraphrase, because their heads are empty and they're easily controllable,” Eddie said, not remembering the quote for the life of him.

Richie nodded again, he was clearly fighting a smile.

“But why male models?” he asked again.

Eddie's hand reached up to cup his face.

“Idiot,” he said fondly.

He realized then it would be so easy to lean forward and kiss Richie- what shocked him more than that realization was that he really wanted to lean forward and kiss Richie.

“I don’t think that’s the quote verbatim,” Richie said.

“Not all of us have every movie ever memorized,” Eddie shot back as he dropped his hand.

“I think you’re putting too much faith in my memory skills,” Richie said.

“I probably am,” Eddie agreed.

Richie feigned hurt as Eddie laughed. Eddie curled back up against Richie as the movie started to play. He made it through about 20 minutes of the movie before his eyes started to droop.

It wasn’t until Eddie was half asleep that he realized what the tightness in his chest meant. Love.

Chapter Text

“Christmas!” Mike yelled as he threw the door to the dorm open.

“The snow’s coming down!” Ben echoed.

“Christmas!”

Eddie peeked out of his room, still half asleep and very confused as to why his roommates were singing so loudly.

Ben and Mike held their closed fists out to Eddie like a microphone.

“I’m watching it fall?” Eddie croaked out.

“CHRISTMAS!” Richie yelled from inside Eddie’s room.

There was a loud bang and then he stumbled out of Eddie’s room, a massive grin on his face.

“We already decorated for Christmas and Hanukkah in our room,” Richie said.

“When’d you get back?”

“Yesterday,”

“Well now that you’re here you can help us set up!” Mike said with a grin.

Richie didn’t glance up from his phone.

“The others are on their way! Bev is bringing spiked eggnog,” he announced.

“Is that a good idea?”

“No,”

“Yes,” Richie said, shooting a grin in Eddie’s direction.

It didn’t take long for Bev, Stan, and Bill to join them. Then Christmas music was playing, they all had glasses full of spiked eggnog, and they were debating where the best place to put a Christmas tree was.

A familiar note played out of the speaker and the Losers froze. Richie instantly swept Stan into a frankly ridiculous waltz.

“I don’t want a lot for Christmas,” Richie crooned, Stan was too busy laughing to sing with Richie.

That dance eventually morphed into Bill and Stan kept butting in to dance ridiculously with Mike to see who could get him to laugh harder, Ben and Bev seemed to be swing dancing, and Eddie was dancing with Richie- a waltz of some sort. Whatever dance it was Richie used it as an excuse to spin and dip Eddie as much as humanly possible. 

Then the song was over and they were back to decorating the dorm and all Eddie could think about was how many opportunities he could have had to kiss Richie. He was in deep.

In fact Richie ended up dominating Eddie’s thoughts for the next few weeks. Eddie just wanted to be around Richie all the time. He had never felt anything like what he felt for Richie for anyone else. It was all just Richie. He noted, with an overwhelming sense of relief, that even though he was probably in love with Richie that he still didn’t experience any form of sexual attraction to the man. For as much shit as he went through with being ace he loved being ace, and he was glad that being absolutely gone for Richie didn’t change that part of him. His mother always tried to say that being in love would “fix” him (as if he needed to be fixed), but Eddie was definitely in love and definitely still ace and that made him feel amazing. It felt right.

The week before finals found the Losers in the library, holed up in a big study room and doing more talking than studying- but that wasn’t anything new.

“How are we supposed to survive a whole month without each other?” Bev whined.

“It’s simple! We don’t!” Richie said excitedly.

“Rich-”

“We stay home up till Christmas, and then we all go to Ben’s murder cabin in the woods and hide there until break is over!”

“Richie I told you it’s not a murder cabin!” Ben protested.

“It’s a cabin in the woods I think we all know what that means,” Richie shot back.

“Wait what? Are you serious?” Mike asked, looking very interested in the idea.

“I know that some of us don’t want to be home for two weeks. We can’t come back here any earlier than the 9th,  and that’s a long time for us to be at the Denbroughs,” Richie said with a shrug.

Eddie did not miss the way Richie’s eyes flickered to his.

“So?” Richie asked, tearing his eyes away from Eddie and clapping his hands.

“First thoughts?”

“So basically you’re proposing that the seven of us hole up in a cabin in the woods for two weeks,”

“With games and booze but yea,” Richie nodded his head as he spoke.

“That’s a horrible idea, I’m in,” Stan said with a grin.

“Hell yea!” Bev cheered.

“Mike?” Bill asked, a small smile on his face.

Mike just shot him a look.

“We’re in,” Bill said.

“Spaghetti?” Richie asked.

“My mom will freak,” he said.

“Eddie spaghetti I will pick you up in the middle of the night if I have to,” Richie promised.

“Wow Richie, what if I wanted to ride with you?” Stan asked, a shit eating grin on his face.

“Stan we all know you’re the love of my life but go ride with your boyfriends,” Richie responded.

Stan grinned.

“Ben’s cabin is in Maine, it’ll be fine spaghetti. I’ll be outside your house Christmas night, preferably after Mrs. K goes to bed,” Richie said.

Eddie found himself nodding in agreement, a smile threatening to overtake his face. He could survive three days with his mother if it meant getting to spend a whole two weeks with the Losers.

“Yea, ok fine. But it has to be late at night or else she’ll throw a fit,” Eddie said.

“You got it Spaghetti Man,”

The Losers spent all of dead week studying with each other, then it was time to suffer through finals. Eddie’s first final of the week started on Tuesday, which meant he spent most of Monday working so he wouldn’t have to put in as many hours throughout the rest of the week.

“Hey, Eddie,” Ben said as he appeared at the entry to Eddie’s cubicle.

“It’s not quitting time, is it?” Eddie asked, glancing at the clock on the computer.

“No, tragically. I wanted to talk to you about break. The cabin has 3 bedrooms, Stan, Bill, and Mike are getting the one with the biggest bed, and Bev and I are sharing a room and I was just wondering if you were alright with sharing with Richie? If not there’s a sofa bed in the living room, but the heater heats the room first and it can get pretty cold at night,” Ben said in a rush.

Eddie’s brain short-circuited at that thought of sharing a bed with Richie for two weeks. But it wasn’t like he’d never shared a bed with Richie before, they had fallen asleep next to each other during movie nights countless times.

“I don’t mind sharing with Richie,” he said, hoping that he sounded more nonchalant that he felt.

“Ok great,”

“You’re really ok with us using your family cabin for two weeks?” Eddie asked, wanting to triple check that Ben really was fine with it.

“Why wouldn’t I be? Spending New Years with my favorite people doesn’t sound too bad,” Ben said with a grin.

“Plus Richie looked so excited about it,” he added.

“Was it all Richie’s idea?” Eddie asked curiously.

“Yep,”

Eddie smiled softly.

“I can’t believe he did all that,”

Ben was silent for a moment, obviously chewing over his words.

“I think we all know why Richie did this,” Ben said evenly.

Eddie felt his cheeks heat up. Ben, however, just smiled at him like he was some kind of angel.

“I’ll let my parents know. They’re heading up to the cabin tomorrow to make sure we’re going to have everything we need,” Ben said.

Of course Ben’s parents were just as kind and considerate as he was.

“Thanks Ben,”

Ben nodded and headed back to his own cubicle. Eddie sat at his desk, cheeks still burning from Ben’s comment. He really needed to talk with Richie. Eddie pushed away from his desk and made his way to reception.

“Well hey there Eddie,” Bev drawled from her desk.

“Is Richie working today?” Eddie asked.

“Yes,”

“Do you know where his cubicle is?”

“Nope, but let me make a call,” she said as she picked up the phone. She punched in a few numbers and glanced up at Eddie with a tiny smirk on her face.

“Don’t you dare call-”

“Hey Stan! Can you swing by my desk for a second?” she asked, her voice sugary sweet.

“Ok, see you,”

She hung up the phone and batted her eyes at Eddie.

“Don’t call who?” she asked.

“He’s going to get that look on his face,” Eddie whined.

“What face?”

“The smug one like he knows everything,”

“That’s because I do in fact know everything,” Stan said, appearing out of nowhere.

“Stan! Eddie here wants to know where Richie’s cubicle is,” Bev announced with a grin on his face.

Stan grinned. It was the same grin Stan always wore when he was going to tease Eddie about Richie on snapchat.

“It’s so nice that you called me when you could have shown him yourself,” Stan said.

Eddie’s jaw dropped.

“You said-!”

“Shall we?”

Bev waved cheekily as Stan led Eddie through the maze of cubicles. At last Stan stopped at a nondescript cubicle.

“Stan the Man! To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“Bev happens to think I’m an errand boy and needed me to drop something off,” Stan replied.

“ Something ?” Eddie repeated as he pushed past Stan.

“Spaghetti!”

Richie’s cubicle looked like Eddie’s, sad and grey with a few personal touches- except on the wall behind Richie’s head there were small pieces of lined paper with doodles on them. Eddie recognized them immediately. They were his drawings, his stupid little drawings were strewn up in Richie’s cubicle. They were strewn up in Richie’s cubicle because Richie was his cubicle neighbor.

Richie was his cubicle neighbor.

Chapter Text

“Eds?” Richie asked.

Eddie blinked a few times, unable to recall what exactly he had needed to talk with Richie about. Richie was his fucking cubicle neighbor.

“Oh,”

The tone in Stan’s voice made Eddie jerk his head to look at him. He was looking at Eddie with wide eyes before that damned smirk settled on his face. 

“Well I have to get back to my desk,” Stan said.

The smirk was still on his face as he walked away.

“Eds,” Richie said again.

“Not my name,”

Eddie looked back at Richie, trying very hard not to stare at his drawings pinned to Richie’s cubicle.

“What brings you by my humble cube?”

“I… I don’t remember,” he lied.

“Is it about the movie we’re going to tonight?” Richie asked.

“We’re going to a movie tonight?”

“I need to write one more paper, and there’s a new movie out that I’ve been dying to see,” Richie said excitedly.

“Horror?”

“What else are we gonna watch?” 

Eddie rolled his eyes, tiny smile on his face.

“Sure Rich, I’ll go to the movie with you,” he agreed.

Richie beamed at him.

“I’ll see you after work,” 

Eddie nodded and managed to find his way back to reception. Stan was there. Of course Stan was there.

“So Eddie,” he started.

“Oh no,”

“Richie’s been pretty tight lipped about the notes I’ve seen slide across his desk,” he said.

“Notes?” Eddie asked, his voice strained.

Stan cocked his head to the side. Eddie wished Stan was still smirking at him, it was better than the piercing stare he was being fixed with. Stan knew, how the hell did Stan know?

“I’m going back to my cubicle,” Eddie said before Stan could say anything. 

He turned on his heel and headed back to his cubicle. There was a note on his desk. The note was from Richie. Because Richie was his cubicle neighbor. 

do penguins have knees

And jesus fuck how had Eddie not realized it sooner? It was Richie. Everything was so Richie. 

I’m not doing this with you

Eddie sent the note back to Richie with a grin. Richie was on the other side of the wall. All that worrying that it was some new person was for nothing. It was always Richie. He spent the rest of his shift bantering with his cubicle neighbor (Richie!!) and then it was time to clock out. He packed up his things, clocked out and headed for reception where Stan and Bev were. Why was is always Stan? Why did Stan of all fucking people have to figure it out?

“Eds!”

“Not my name,”Eddie said instinctively.

“You ready? Or do you wanna keep staring at the wall all day?” Richie asked.

“Thought I was going to die of old age waiting for you to clock out,” Eddie shot back, turning his attention to Richie.

“I swung by your moms on the way back,”

“That’s fucking gross Rich,” Eddie said. 

Richie grinned and glanced at his watch. 

“And now we’re waiting on you Eddie Spaghetti! Twenty minutes till the movie starts and you’re standing here talking about me fu-”

“Beep beep,” Eddie said, pushing past Richie. 

Richie drove them to the theater and they took their seats just as the previews started to play. 

Eddie loved the previews. They were his favorite part, he didn’t get to watch tv much since there wasn’t a tv in his dorm and he was in college, so seeing previews at the movies was the only way he knew what was coming out. 

After every preview, Richie gave his opinion even though Eddie didn’t ask for it. Eddie loved it. Eddie loved… him. 

I’m your cubicle neighbor , he wanted to say. 

Why couldn’t he fucking say it? Why did it matter so much? Richie wouldn’t have saved all those drawings if he didn’t like them. As far as Eddie was concerned, Richie would probably be delighted to know who his neighbor was. 

But what if it changed everything? Eddie certainly wasn’t nice to Richie during those first few notes. 

Then the movie was starting, some horror movie that Richie begged him to see and Eddie just… didn’t say no. He didn’t like horror movies but Richie had been so excited, talking about essays and the screenplay and how terrifying it looked during the whole car ride and Eddie really couldn’t think of a single excuse to not join Richie. 

At the first hint of unsettling music Eddie’s hand darted out, closing around Richie’s. Richie squeezes his hand gently, lacing his fingers with Eddie’s. 

I can do this , Eddie thought.

He was going to tell Richie after the movie. The movie was entirely too long and entirely too scary. Richie held his had through the entire movie. When the movie was over Eddie expected Richie to let go of his hand but Richie didn’t and they walked out of the theater hand in hand.

“Shall I take you home Spagheds?” Richie asked.

“Can we go for a walk?” Eddie asked, completely ignoring the stupid nickname.

Richie grinned and tugged him to the park across the street from the theater, their hands swinging between them.

“I can’t believe you have my drawings pinned to your cubicle,” Eddie said, unable to think of any other way to start the conversation.

“Well, they’re fucking cute Eds! I mean- wait… your drawings?” Richie asked quietly.

“I’m your cubicle neighbor, dumbass,”

Richie let out an honest to god whoop and pulled Eddie into a hug. Eddie wrapped his arms around Richie, head pressed against his shoulder. Richie eventually let go and Eddie missed the warmth and security.

“In hindsight it’s fucking obvious,”

Eddie raised an eyebrow.

“It was all so fucking cute, cute, cute,”

Eddie flushed. Richie took his hand again and they kept walking.

“Stan knows,” Eddie added. 

“Of course he does. Stan knows everything. It’s why his hair is so big, full of secrets,”

Eddie couldn’t help but laugh, his shoulders shaking because Richie was so ridiculous and Eddie loved him so much.

“Alright Spagheds, my cubicle neighbor, my-”

“Rich,”

“We should get back to school,”

“Yea,” Eddie agreed. 

Richie held his hand all the way back to the car.

Chapter Text

A note slid across Eddie’s desk. A note from Richie, because even though it had been two weeks since Eddie had found out that Richie was his cubicle neighbor (and since Eddie had told Richie they were cubicle neighbors), they still sent notes back and forth to each other like they were in middle school or some shit.

merry crisis!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Eddie rolled his eyes.

Merry Chrysler

He sent the note back over, a smile still playing at his lips. It was the last day before Richie went home for break. Eddie was going to wait until Sunday, so he only had to spend a few days with his mother before Richie would be coming to rescue him.

He really couldn’t wait to spend two weeks at Ben’s. He couldn’t imagine a better way to spend break than with the Losers.

And the note was back on his desk.

miss u eds :/

Eddie wished those three words didn’t make his cheeks heat up, but they did because he fucking adored Richie.

Not my name Trashmouth, get back to work

Eddie glanced at the clock. Not much time left on his shift. He hoped Richie got off the same time as him- and the rest of the Losers. He hoped that Richie and the rest of the Losers all got off at the same time. Maybe they could go to the diner before break started.

The note slid back on his desk. Eddie opened it to find Richie had scribbled a ton of frowny faces. 

Cute, cute cute

Eddie sent the note back to Richie knowing damn well Richie would find offense that Eddie had stolen his phrase. 

what are u tryin to do here eds? stealing my clocking out message and now my catchphrase? this is biphobia at it’s finest

Eddie laughed out loud at the message. It was unfathomable at this point to try and wonder why it had taken him so long to realize that it was Richie on the other side of the cubicle.

Sad .

Eddie started to close out of the programs on his computers, then he logged out of his computer and shut it down. The note slid back onto his desk.

xoxo spaghetti man! diner time?

Eddie slipped the note into his pocket and headed for reception. Bill, Bev, Stan, and Mike were already there.

“Spaghetti!”

Eddie turned to see Richie and Ben.

“I was promised food?” Eddie asked.

“Does my spaghetti want some spaghetti?” Richie teased.

“Fuck off,”

“As much as I love these intricate rituals, can we fucking eat?” Stan asked.

Eddie felt himself turn bright red.

“Aw Staniel, is someone feeling neglected?”

“Rich-” there was a small smile climbing over Stan’s face.

“You are in fact my favorite Stan,” Richie added, throwing his arms around Stan and placing a wet kiss to Stan’s cheek.

“You’re disgusting,” Stan muttered, shoving Richie away.

Richie just beamed at him and the group made their way to the parking lot. They ate dinner at their diner and stole fries from each other. Then it was time to head back to the dorm and even sooner it was time for Richie to head back home for winter break.

“It’s going to be alright Spaghetti man,” Richie said, his hand on Eddie’s shoulder.

“I know,” Eddie said petulantly. 

“I’m only going to be there for three days,” he added for his own benefit.

“Three days, you got this,” Richie said.

“It’ll be Christmas night before you know it,”

“Thanks Rich,” Eddie said with a small smile.

Eddie followed him to the other side of the car, not quite ready to say goodbye just yet.

“See you Wednesday night,” Richie said.

“Wednesday,” Eddie confirmed.

Richie cupped his face with one hand, his thumb brushed against Eddie’s cheek. All Eddie had to do was pull Richie down and kiss him, it would be so easy- but then Richie’s hand was off his face and he was opening the car door.

“Wednesday,” Richie said again, a massive smile on his face.

“See you soon, ‘Chee. Xoxo or whatever bullshit,”

Richie laughed at that, his voice loud and his cheeks red.

“Cute, cute, cute, Eds,” he said as he ruffled Eddie’s hair.

Eddie swatted at his hands and watched Richie get into his car and take off. Eddie stood there until he couldn’t see Richie’s car, and then he headed inside his dorm. 

Eddie headed home on Sunday and counted down the hours until Richie came to get him. Sonia Kaspbrak asked all the usual bullshit questions, when was he going to settle down with a girl, have kids, as if she didn’t know he was still in college and had absolutely no time (or interest) in doing either of those. 

He tried to tell her that he would be leaving after Christmas to spend time with his friends, but Sonia lost her mind and started crying about Eddie not loving her. Eddie didn’t know how to respond to that one, so he didn’t.

He didn’t bother unpacking any of his things, he knew he was going to need to make a quick getaway.

20 minutes out!!! Be ready Spaghetti!!!!!!!

Richie’s text came nearly an hour after Sonia went to bed. Eddie carefully carried his things downstairs and set them outside on the porch. Once he was finished with that he crept back inside and left Sonia a note and taped it to the fridge. He headed back outside, closed the door behind him, and sat on the porch steps. If Richie’s text had been correct, then there was only a few more minutes to go before he would be at Eddie’s house.

Eddie couldn’t wait to see Richie. He couldn’t wait to see Richie’s smile, to hear Richie’s voice, to be the recipient of all of Richie’s casual touches and stupid spaghetti jokes. Maybe… maybe Eddie should just tell him, like he had told Richie that they were cubicle neighbors, just admit his feelings. How scary could it be?

A car slid to a stop in front of Eddie’s house. In the dark he could make out the color of the car and knew instantly it was Richie. Eddie pushed himself to his feet, grabbed his bags, and made his way to the car.

“Get in Loser! We’re going camping!” Richie hissed out the window as Eddie approached his car.

Eddie rolled his eyes and he pulled the back door open to shove his bags into the back seat. He glanced back at the house as he shut the door, praying that his mom wouldn’t wake up. He knew there was nothing she could say to stop him, but he really didn’t need Richie seeing how awful Sonia Kaspbrak could be first hand. Eddie slipped into the passenger seat and shut the car door.

“We’re not camping,” he said as he buckled in.

“I couldn’t think of a different word,” Richie said with a shrug.

Eddie plugged the aux cord into his phone and flicked through his music as Richie navigated the streets of Derry. Eddie couldn’t fucking wait to get out of Derry for the next two weeks.

“How’d your mom react?” Richie asked.

“I’m sneaking out in the middle of the night, how do you think it went?” Eddie asked, settling on a more mellow playlist for the drive to Ben’s cabin.

“Touche,” Richie said.

“Thanks for picking me up,”

“Anything for you Eds,”

Eddie was thankful that it was dark so Richie couldn’t see the blush on his cheeks.

“That’s not my name,” he said as he nudged Richie’s arm.

“Don’t distract the driver, Eds!” Richie said with a grin.

Eddie rolled his eyes.

“How long till we get to the cabin?”

“Hour and a half,” Richie said, his eyes flicking to the directions on his phone.

“Everyone else already there?”

“I think so,”

Eddie watched the Now leaving Derry sign whiz past them and smiled softly. It would be an hour and a half of darkness till they reached the cabin, but he had Richie to bother, and wasn’t that just the dream?

Chapter Text

Ben’s cabin was a literal light in the darkness- rural Maine was ungodly dark at night. 

“Murder cabin,” Eddie said, peering at it through the windshield. 

In front of them, the garage door opened and Richie pulled the car into the available spot. Eddie let out a low whistle at the size of the garage. 

“A very nice murder cabin,” Eddie amended. 

Richie laughed. 

“C’mon Spagheds, lets get inside,”

“Not my name,” Eddie responded as they grabbed their bags. 

“Oh shit!” 

Richie’s head popped up over the car. Eddie raised an eyebrow expectantly. 

“Merry Christmas Eds,”

Eddie felt himself go bright red. 

“Merry Christmas Rich,”

Eddie followed Richie into the house. They followed the sound of their friends laughter to the living room. There was a fire in the fireplace and each of the Losers has a drink in hand. 

“Merry Christmas bitches!” Richie shouted. 

There was an answering cheer from the Losers as they pushed to their feet to hug Richie and Eddie. 

They all stayed up for an hour more before they called it a night, allowing Ben to show them to their rooms. Mike, Stan, and Bill took the master bedroom as it has the biggest bed and they needed to fit three grown ass men together. 

“And last but not least, Richie and Eddie,” 

The room was small, with the bed taking up much of the room. There was a door in the far corner that Richie really opened led to a closet and not a murder room. 

“Bathroom is at the end of the hall, there are towels in the closet,” Ben said, nodding to the not-murder-room door. 

“Thanks Ben,”

Ben grinned at them. 

“Night guys. See ya tomorrow morning,”

With that Ben left them to their own devices. Richie tossed his bag on the bed and immediately started to rifle through it. 

Eddie hauled his bag to the bathroom. Vacation or not he still had a nighttime routine to adhere to. By the time he returned to his room, Richie was sitting on the bed, already in his pajamas. 

“There’s a fucking heated mattres pad!” Richie said excitedly, pushing himself to his feet. 

“They make those?” Eddie asked. 

“I guess. This is so fucking cool- be right back Eds,”

Richie slipped past him and headed towards the bathroom. Eddie set his bag down at the foot of the bed and started to peel back the covers. He could do this, he could share a bed with Richie. They had done it before.

It wasn’t until much later that night, well after Richie returned to bed and they fought over what setting to put the mattress pad on, that Eddie committed to a plan. New Years. He’d tell Richie on New Years. 

Eddie did not last till New Years. He lasted five spectacular days. Days spent playing in the snow, no less than 6 snowball fights, building snowmen, and going sledding. Days filled with hot cocoa and movies and more than one kind of alcoholic beverage. 

He lasted five days before he physically couldn’t keep the secret anymore. 

“Eds,”

Eddie looked up as Richie stepped onto the porch. Eddie noted that he had on a thick pair of socks and the comforter from their bed was wrapped around his body.

“Not my name,”

“The fuck are you doing out there?” Richie asked.

“Couldn’t sleep,”

“So you came out here?”

Eddie glanced out across the darkened yard. The snow on the ground made everything eerily silent except for the occasional sharp crack of ice splintering- or from what Eddie sincerely hoped was the sharp crack of ice splintering. 

“I see your point,”

“Honestly spaghetti, everyone knows not to go outside at night in winter,” Richie muttered, opening the door so they both could slip back inside. Richie shut the door behind them and locked it, shooting one last distrusting look to the darkness outside.

“Everything good Spagheds?”

“I hate going home. I really do, Rich. I was only home for three days and the whole time she wanted to know when I was going to settle down with a nice girl and have kids. Three days!” he threw his hands up in exasperation.

Richie was watching him with such a soft expression, Richie who had orchestrated the whole fucking cabin trip to keep Eddie away from his mom, Richie who had done everything he could to make sure Eddie felt comfortable.

“It’s why I like you so much,” Eddie found himself saying.

Richie’s tongue darted out to wet his lips.

“Eds?” his voice was raw and achingly hopeful.

“You don’t make me feel wrong. You make me feel… like I’m not broken, like I belong here,” Eddie finished.

There was a second where neither of them said anything, and before Eddie could even think about some kind of excuse to get him out of the situation Richie was kissing him and usually he didn’t care for kissing but kissing Richie felt right. And then Richie tore away from him, running his fingers through his already messy hair. The damn blanket was still around his shoulders and he was beautiful.

“I’m sorry!”

“What?”

“I should have asked! Are you ok with kissing?”

Eddie stared at Richie for a moment, a small smile taking over his face, Richie who was so fucking dumb, and so fucking observant and kind and annoying and everything Eddie ever wanted.

“You’re not saying anything- oh shit I’m sorry Eds. I didn’t mean to- well I’ve been thinking about kissing you since I saw you in club but if you’re not comfortable with it then I could take a step back-”

Eddie cut him off with a kiss.

“You talk too much,” he murmured against Richie’s lips.

“Also, that’s not my fucking name,” Eddie added, pulling away from Richie.

“Oh and I talk too much? Do you listen to yourself spaghetti?-”

“That’s also not my name,”

“-we were having such a great time kissing and you had to go ruin it,”

“Oh did I?” Eddie teased, smiling at the grin on Richie’s face.

He pushed himself up on the balls of his feet to kiss Richie again, a simple chaste peck but when he pulled back Richie’s whole face was red. 

“Cute,” Eddie teased.

Richie flushed even further. 

“Aw ‘Chee-”

Richie ducked his head to try and hide how hard he was blushing.

“‘Chee, huh?” Eddie teased, eyes alight. 

“You’re gonna kill me spaghetti man,” Richie mumbled. 

“Oh death by affection poor trashmouth,”

Richie snorted. 

“So are we dating now?” Eddie asked curiously. 

Richie turned bright red (again) at the question. 

“I was thinking… boyfriends?” he asked, his voice uncharacteristically soft and quiet, a tell tale sign of how nervous he was. 

“That’s crazy I don’t hear a question in there,” Eddie stated, struggling not to smile.

“Eds,” Richie’s gaze was steady, his cheeks still red. 

“Will you be my boyfriend?”

“Course I will, stupid,” Eddie said fondly. 

“We’re sharing a bed,” Eddie stated as if it wasn’t obvious. Would it be weird now that they were together?

“Yep. You ready to spoon it up?” Richie asked. 

“Spoon it up?” Eddie echoed, trying to remember where he had heard that phrase before.

“Hell yea! Half moon style?” Richie offered. 

Eddie rolled his eyes, finally getting the reference. 

“Stop trying to fucking be Shawn Spencer,” he muttered as he headed back towards their room. 

“Eds! Don’t be this crease in my elbow,”

“I can’t stand you,”

“That’s not what you were saying earlier,”

Eddie turned on his heel and grabbed Richie by his shirt to kiss him- because Richie was his boyfriend, and his best friend, and his fucking cubicle neighbor, and Eddie’s favorite god damn person on earth, and Richie, and Richie, and Richie . 

Richie pulled away from him to press a kiss to his forehead. 

“We should get to bed,” his voice was soft and shaky. 

Eddie hummed in agreement, not wanting to leave the warmth of Richie’s embrace. 

“We gotta be well rested for tomorrow. It’s New Years Eve,” Richie said, stepping away from Eddie and toward their room. 

“What do you need to be well rested for? You got plans?” Eddie teased. 

Richie smiled at him, soft and sweet. 

“Yea. Ringing in the New Year with my boyfriend,”

“Dork,” Eddie said fondly but he was unable to keep the smile off his face.

Eddie fell asleep with a smile on his face and in Richie’s arms, right where he belonged.