Chapter Text
Richie had to kind of tell Eddie that he had a crush on someone from school after Eddie overheard a conversation that Ben and Richie had in between fourth and fifth period.
"Have you actually tried to confess?"
"Shh! Lower your voice! Yeah, I think so"
“You just said you think so? I've never seen you doubt so much about getting a "punchline" right"
"Listen,— and then Richie started doing a British impression— Ladies and gentlemen, the punchline got too old."
"What does that even mean?" Ben said to himself and started laughing.
Eddie had been following them on the halls for a while because he wanted to scare Richie. Richie had scared him in the morning before class and that had made Eddie pee a little in his pants. Richie, after laughing for five minutes straight, felt bad and gave Eddie his gym pants, which fitted baggy and made Eddie's clean cut polo shirt look weird on him and now he wanted revenge, but never thought he would be overhearing... stuff.
Richie just smiled and rolled his eyes at Ben. Eddie distanced himself from them then, not wanting to pry more on whatever Ben and Richie were discussing, before rushing towards them, landing his hands on Richie’s shoulder and screaming “AHH!”
"WHAT THE FUCK MAN?!” Richie yelped, only to turn and see that it was no one else than Eddie. He straightened his shoulders and gulped nervously as he stared at the boy in front of him. His eyes widened as he came to realize Eddie could have overheard the conversation.
What if Eddie heard the conversation and knew exactly who were talking about?, Richie thought.
As Ben turned around as well, his eyes widened, before relaxing as he saw it was only Eddie.
Eddie got concerned as he saw Richie's facial expression shifting,
"Did I make you pee too?"
Richie raised his hand to put his glasses back in place,"What is wrong with you, Edward, what the actual fuck."
"You played the same prank on me earlier!"
Ben looked at Richie with a raised brow when Eddie mentioned the prank, before slowly starting to move away from them, "I should get going, see you later guys." Eddie and Richie ignored whatever Ben had said to them.
"It's not the same Eddie, it's not the same. Where you listening?"
"Why are you being so weird about this, Richie, it was just a darn prank" Eddie said this with a quieter tone.
Richie looked around, everyone had already started going into the classrooms, even if the bell hadn't even rang.
"I asked if you were listening, shit head."
"What if I was?"
"Just fucking answer the fucking question, Eddie."
"Oh, so this is what you are being weird about? Your weird crush?"
Richie sighed and pinches the bridge of his nose.
"Whatever you heard, please don't bring it up ever again and don't ever dare to bring it up with the losers. I don't trust any of you."
"You trust Ben."
"Ben doesn't count." Richie grumbled.
The bell rang.
"I’m sorry, Rich, I didn’t mean to overhear , I was just trying to get you."
"I know" Richie replied, he knew Eddie wasn't a snitch, he knew that Eds would never do that to him on purpose.
"We should get going to class dumbass, I'm not getting detention again because of you."
"Because of me? I didn't know I was so distracting Eds"
"Shut up already before—” Eddie wanted to say before the ‘Hall Witch,(Mrs. Smith's, the teacher who checked the halls for kids that weren't inside classrooms and gave everyone detentions, co over and gives us time out.’
But it was too late.
"Hello, Tozier, Kapsbrak, what a surprise! you boys are both getting a—"
"A pass for hell, detention for being on the halls in class time."
Mrs. Smith looked surprised, she walked towards them and said "If you boys are so smart, I don't get why you where waiting for me. To my office N O W."
Richie rolled his eyes and pulled Eddie's wrist, and so, they started walking towards her office building,
"I will be in there in twenty minutes after my break. You boys better behave." the Hall Witch called.
He knew the office, he knew all the places where you could get called for trouble. He wasn't a punk or a bad student, he just made his classmates laugh constantly and teachers weren't having it. He would also, if he was caught, get detention for cursing many times during class, or whenever Richie managed to make Eddie crack up with one of his jokes at the wrong time during one of the classes they shared, whether they sat close or together for an assignment.
Richie would always feel guilty because of this. So he always took part of the responsibility for his misfortunes, "I actually made him laugh, teacher.","It's my fault", and that way, they would get detention together and Richie would get to share quiet moments with his very very best friend Eddie, both of them whispering or writing on Richie's dirty notebook.
"I can't believe you made me get shitty ass detention again this week, My mom is not gonna allow me to sleep at your place today after she gets a call." Eddie groaned.
Richie stopped walking and Eddie bumped right into him. Richie shot him a mischievous smile. Eddie noticed this once he took a glance at his friend's face.
"What are you even thinking? You know I can't lie."
"Let's just tell the Hall Witch that you were helping me because I got fucking broken up or some shit and that my ex girlfriend was Betty Finn from our History class, she will try to connect the dots and have a talk with me. That's it, don't worry Eds, I got it."
"It better work because I bought snacks for tonight with my allowance and I'm not eating those by myself. It's too much sugar."
"Don't worry, Spagheds, I'll make it up to you, sorry I got so weird earlier." Richie’s grip had loosened around Eddie's wrist after Eddie bumped into him, so he started walking on his own, leaving Eddie behind, feeling quite a little embarrassed by the instinctive emotional reaction from earlier.
"Stop calling me that. Also, is Betty Finn your crush?" Eddie giggled as he tried to catch up and keep up with Richie's pace
"You gotta be dumb as fuck if you think that, Eddie, you know she is not my type at all."
"Then what's your type Richie, you literally never talk about this with me." Eddie replied with a quizzical look.
"What? I'm always talking about my type, your mom is my kind of woman."
"Shut up dick, you know what I meant."
Richie grew quiet after that. They were close to the office. When they finally sat down in silence in front of the office's door, Richie blurted out, "I like freckles."
"What?" Eddie said squinting his eyes, forming wrinkles in his nose.
"You asked about my type, i'm answering your fucking dumb question." Richie reasoned as he gulped, feeling his hands starting to get clammy.
"Oh." Was all Eddie could just say then, he knew that if he said anything else Richie would change the subject of their conversation.
"It's not like a type, but shorts do it for me. More like legs." Richie continued on, looking away from Eddie, staring at the wall in front of him,.
Eddie just nodded like he had idea about what Richie was talking about. But he didn't.
"Is that why you stared at Bev when she jumped on the lake?" He asked.
Richie looked at Eddie like he was crazy, "You know I don't like Molly Ringwald."
"It doesn't stop you from getting a boner."
"The only boners I got that day where from your whities." Richie tried to pull off as a joke, he hoped his humongous glasses would help hide away the fact that he was blushing as he said that. Eddie wasn't looking at him either way.
"Ew ew ew. I fucking hate you. At least mine didn't have poopy stains."
"Dude! I told you already, that was DIRT."
"Whatever, Richie, dirt or shit, those were filthy as fuck."
"Wait– I think Bill's my type."
"Isn't he like everyone's type?"
"That's why I said it. Didn't you have a crush on him when we were little? Before we knew what fag meant."
"I'm not sure that counted, I was 5 and I didn't know what a crush actually meant."
They both grew quiet once again. Richie turned to look at Eddie's wrist watch, then to the clock on the wall, they still had 10 minutes before the Hall Witch would arrive.
"Did you tell the losers about tonight?" Richie asked trying to fill in the silence between. Changing the subject, like you always do, Eddie thought, "Only to Stan. He asked if I wanted to watch movies today, I said I couldn't because I already had plans and he said ‘Ah, Richie's.’ "
"Ok, I can trust Stan. I think. Ben knows too."
"You know they know that we always hang out like this, right?"
"I don't want them to feel left out."
"I don't think they feel that way. Bill and Mike hang out without us and I don't feel left out."
Eddie looked at the pants and sighed, he pulled them up to see his sneakers. He had rolled the pants up to his ankles so they wouldn’t look that long on him, but even then, they still did and were baggy as well. "By the way, Eds, those look great on you!"
Eddie slapped him in the arm softly.
"You know I look awful with these. Your legs are too long."
"I hope we don't get detention so we can go home early. We can wash your peed caquis at my house."
"Wait, do you still have my shorts inside your locker?"
Riche had put them on a 7eleven bag and thrown them into his locker before Eddie had gone crazy about having them in his locker. Eddie could handle a little pee in his trousers, but not on his actual pants! If Bowers saw that, he would never stop mocking him about it.
"I do. By the way, what do you want to do today? I got the new Forever People issues. We can also go out and rent a movie. I got money last week and believe it or not, I saved some." Richie started listing things as he arranged his glasses and looked attentively at Eddie, but what Richie had actually meant to ask Eddie was if he wanted to cuddle today since the whole week had been horrible at home, and today his parents weren't home.
"Can we get Ice cream? and also can we just rent a Star Wars movie? Maybe play some cards." Eddie felt Richie's nervous gaze. Eddie kind of knew what Richie needed today. Richie had been a little moody this week and it's been a long time since Richie had invited Eddie over to his house. His parents had gotten worse the last two months, drinking and fighting. So they would only hang out at the cinema or Richie would go to Eddie's whenever his mom allowed it.
"Dude, let's get the one where Princess Leia wears a tiny ass bikini."
"I don't want you getting wet anywhere near me. Or any body fluids in between, it's unsanitary."
"You know what was unsanitary? Your mom and I—"