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"Richie," Eddie whispers, under-cover of the conversations in the restaurant, "did we get gay married at the courthouse when we were eighteen?"
"Well fuck," Richie moans, less quietly. "I was hoping I'd made that up!"
"We want to know if we're married," Richie says, slapping his ID on the desk.
"Civil union, civil union," Eddie mutters, sliding his ID next to Eddie's. "Back in the nineties."
"Civil unioned, then," Richie snaps. "Edward Kaspbrak, Richard Tozier. 1993."
"O-kay," the courthouse receptionist says, clearly repressing confused laughter, "let me just look that up for you."
Richie taps his foot. Eddie rubs his upper arms. Neither of them look at each other.
"If this is real," Eddie says, staring intently at a dead pot plant re-animated as a door-prop, "it must've been some dumb high school thing. Right?"
"You know what most dumb kids do in high school?" Richie whisper-hisses. "They get high and they cheat on each other. This is not a dumb high school thing. We would've had to plan this."
"I'm relatively confident I never did either of those things in high school," Eddie says, "so the likelihood of us having done this is, I think, low."
"Great," Richie says. "That'd be ideal."
"But if we were - civil unioned," Eddie says, still fixated on the crusty plant, "objectively, that obviously wouldn't change anything between us. Firstly because we can't even remember it, ha! Ha! Ha. And secondly because even if we did have those feelings in high school, we must've both changed by now. And grown out of them."
"Uh-huh. Sure. Us being "civil unioned" changes nothing," Richie says. "Not like that would mess up my entire teenage years, right? And your entire teenage years? Our relationship with the, uh, Losers? Myra?"
"I mean, we could get over it," Eddie says desperately. "We could forget about it again."
"This is not a thing I'd forget about, Eddie! This is a life-kaputting, mind-distorting, brain-exploding - "
"I either have some real good news or some real bad news," the receptionist says slowly. "You two are civil partners."
"Fuck," Richie says.
"And we both agreed to that?" Eddie asks, verging on hysteria.
"I wouldn't have dragged you in here at gunpoint if that's what you mean, Eds."
"And we wouldn't have dispensed the license if you had," the receptionist says deadpan. "Congratulations! Or - not?"
"I guess this is why I kept putting off marrying Myra," Eddie says, sitting carefully beside Richie on the courthouse steps. "A mystery solved."
"Oh shit," Richie says, clutching the printed documentary evidence to his chest. "Shit, shit, shit."
"Is it really so terrible," Eddie says quietly, "to be - civil unioned? To me?"
"What are you talking about?"
"It's just," Eddie says, "that I can't think of anyone else I'd rather be gay married to. If I had to."
"You should be - how are you not losing your mind right now? We got married and we forgot about it! Pennywise fucked up our little gay married brains!"
"It does suck," Eddie says consideringly, "that we forgot. I mean. I. I wouldn't have minded. Back then. You know, I used to get so lonely in New York? I felt like there was this great, terrible, ferocious missing-ness all through my heart. And I guess this. Uh. Explains. All that."
"What," Richie says flatly.
"I guess we know which one of us pressured the other into getting gay married!" Eddie says. "Obviously it was - you were just going along with it to be - you know what? I'm gonna leave. I think that would be best. I'll leave now."
Richie grabs his wrist. "Sit your butt down on this step," he says, "and tell me exactly how you feel about me or I swear to God, I am gonna run up to Pennywise and call him a sloppy, creepy little bitch."
"I don't want your murder on my conscience!" Eddie says. "Fine. I feel - not unhappy that we got gay married. Okay? How do you feel about it?"
"Also," Richie says, "not unhappy."
"So you're - happy? Too?"
"Since when could you pressure me into anything I didn't want?" Richie sighs. "I - I think I must've wanted you. To marry you. And, you know, fundamentally I am still an insecure man-child so really, my feelings can't have changed that much."
"I missed you a lot," Eddie says. "And I like seeing you laugh, even though your laugh is really dumb. And in the interests of full disclosure, I feel like I should say that I've watched your whole Netflix series like, at least ten times. So much that Myra began asking me pointed questions at two am about auditory-instigated obsessions. Which I'm relatively sure is not a real thing but it freaked me out at the time."
"But my Netflix series got slated," Richie says.
"People weren't watching it in the right way! They weren't properly appreciating the tone of the whole programme. They were just hyperfixating on individual scenes when they actually come together to form a subtly brilliant - and you're laughing at me. Fuck you."
"Only you could admire that shitty Netflix series," Richie snickers. "And, also in the interests of full disclosure, I should tell you that I have your firm on speed-dial. Just in case I have an accident or something. And I may have stalked you on Facebook. A couple of times."
"So you did know I'd been dating Myra! I could see you were lying, your eyes went all squinty. I know your tells."
"Stop looking so smug, it makes you seem stupid."
"But you don't really think I'm stupid," Eddie says, smirking.
"Stupid, stupid face," Richie chants, "stupid mouth, probably a really stupid kisser - "
"Wait. If we were getting married," Eddie says, freezing an inch from Richie's mouth and shooting back, "who did we have as our witnesses?"
"I have four missed calls from Bev," Richie says, stroking Eddie's cheek, "which might mean Pennywise is throttling Bill through a sewer grate, or - "
"Mike's been calling me every five minutes for the last hour," Eddie says. "Which probably means - okay, I'm just gonna take a deep breath and - yeah - hi, it's me. Hey, Mike. What's going on?"
"Is Richie with you?" Mike says, sounding strangely ecstatic. "Of course he is. Put me on speaker. Listen. Both of you! Be honest with me. When you were eighteen, did you guys get married at the courthouse?"