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Eddie gets divorced on a Friday.
He's not expecting it to feel like a big deal. Everything's been fought over and agreed too, this is just the final crossing of t's and dotting of i's, but when it's finally done, he feels a weight lift off his shoulders and has to stop himself from laughing.
Myra looks less happy, but that's not surprising and more importantly, he never has to worry about Myra ever again. He wants to tell her that it's not really her fault and that maybe she should think about getting therapy, but he's not as big an idiot as that, so he just shakes his lawyer's hand and heads to LaGuardia.
Eddie hates airplanes, which is not something that anyone has ever been surprised about. They’re full of recycled air and people coughing and small children wiping their sticky fingers over every single surface, and Eddie can only carry so much hand sanitizer with him.
He travels a lot for work and he has more miles then he knows what to do with, so he upgrades to business class because there’s probably less small hands and less people sharing the bathroom, and if the person next to him is sick at least they won’t be coughing directly into his face.
Eddie fires off a quick text to the rest of the Losers right before take-off, then dutifully turns his phone off and sticks in his headphones. He’s not listening to anything, but hopefully this means that the person next to him won’t try and talk to him. He’s never been a huge fan of enclosed spaces (at least he understands why now), and the flight to Vegas is one of the longer ones he’s willing to subject himself too.
He’s prepared to white-knuckle it the whole way and just calm down with a drink at the other end, but it’s the smoothest plane ride he’s ever taken and he’s barely rattled when they set down. When he turns his phone back on, it takes a full three minutes before it stops buzzing from all the delayed text notifications.
Eddie: Okay, I’m about to take off. I’ll see you guys soon.
Ben: See you soon! We’ll probably all be in the hotel when you arrive, I’ll let you know the room number.
Bev: See you soon Eddie!
Richie: Eddie
Richie: Eddie
Richie: Eddie
Richie: Eddie
Bill: He’s on a plane Richie
Bill: He can’t respond
Richie: Eddie
Bev: Who’s the moderator here
Bev: Can we like, temporarily remove him from the group
Richie: Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-HA
Richie: I AM THE MODERATOR
Mike: What the hell Richie, no you’re not.
Mike: I’m the moderator
Mike: Don’t make me remove you.
Richie: No dont do that
Richie: I’ll be good mom i swear
Bill: I’m not even touching that one
Eddie: Hey guys, flight’s in. I’ll see you all at the hotel.
Richie: EDDIE
Richie: hey Eddie
Richie: hey Eddie
Richie: hey Eddie
Bill: Godammit
*****
The suite Ben has booked them is gigantic, with a huge view of the strip. Eddie has barely put his bag down before Bev is on him, hugging him so hard you’d think it’d been longer than a couple of months since he’d seen her. She drags him towards the bedrooms so he can ditch his bag, then drags him back to the lounge where everyone is gathered in a conversation pit with a giant bottle of champagne.
He takes the glass Mike hands him. “Did we get this much champagne to celebrate Richie? Does he need the ego boost?”
“Hey, fuck you. I deserve celebration. Celebrate me.”
“Fuck you man-”
“Wow,” Mike checks his watch. “Seventeen seconds. A new record.”
“Okay, fuck all of you.” Richie scowls and pours more champagne into his glass. “And for your information, Eds, we are celebrating me, but it turns out Big Bill here can’t resist stealing my thunder -”
“It wasn’t intentional, Richie -”
“Big Bill here told us he’s just signed off on final proofs for his next book, so now we’re celebrating that too, so unless you also want to steal some of my thunder-”
“Oh yeah, about that,” Eddie cuts him off, “my divorce got finalised this morning.”
The champagne bottle slips a little in Richie’s hand, “what, for real?”
Eddie shrugs, trying to look more chill about it then he feels. “As of 10:49 this morning, I am a legally single man, so…”
He raises his glass and knocks back a mouthful so he doesn’t have to see the looks on their faces, which are probably a little more than he can handle right now.
It’s a fair calculation, because he barely has the glass back down before he’s surrounded by five sets of arms all fighting to get close enough to hug him. When they let go, Richie is now next to him, one of his arms draped across Eddie’s shoulder while he refills Eddie’s glass from the stupid giant champagne bottle he’s easily holding in his stupid giant hand. He leans in close to Eddie’s ear while the rest of them are distracted refilling their own glasses.
“Congratulations Eds.”
“Don’t call me Eds.”
Richie rolls his eyes. “Fine, congratulations baby.”
Eddie elbows him in the ribs before relaxing into the warmth of Richie’s arm over his. “Thanks.”
After the champagne, they all head to the restaurant Ben booked, which is an incredibly expensive steakhouse where Ben steals the wine list immediately on the basis that he doesn’t trust any of them to know enough about wine to make ordering expensive wine worth it.
Instead, he orders several bottles of dark red wine while the rest of them page through the menu before all ordering basically identical steaks. Eddie doesn’t even have to explain his long list of allergies to the server because apparently Ben had emailed it over when he made the reservation.
Eddie’s sitting between Richie and Mike, and Richie has his arm stretched out over the back of Eddie’s chair and every time he laughs - which he does constantly, mostly at himself - his hand brushes against Eddie’s shoulder and Eddie loses his train of thought for a second.
Everyone’s talking over each other anyway, so it doesn’t matter that Eddie keeps switching who he’s paying attention to. Bill is telling Ben and Mike about the book he’s just finished while Richie explains the whole process of filming a stand-up special to Bev and Eddie.
It’s nice.
Eddie’s seen most of them at some point since Derry, but this is the first time they’ve all been together again. They fall back so fast into the exact same patterns Eddie remembers, and it’s weirdly comforting, even if they’re all too old for this now.
Ben is this close to pulling out a notebook to explain some weird niche architecture term to Mike, who absolutely doesn’t care but is politely pretending otherwise. Bev and Richie are arguing about a recent album by an old band they both love, that Bev thinks is transcendent and Richie thinks is just okay; and Bill is complaining to Eddie about property taxes in between complaining that he’s now the kind of person who complains about property taxes.
Richie returns his arm to the back of Eddie’s chair whenever he’s not cutting his steak, and finishes his own fries too fast and starts stealing fork-fulls of Eddie’s mashed potatoes. Eddie is too mature to actively cause a scene, but he does contemplate gently stabbing Richie in the thigh with his fork, but decides against it when he catches Bill shooting him a knowing look.
Eddie loves them all so much.
*****
They’re all stuffed full of steak and desserts, but it’s barely after ten when Bill announces he has to throw in the towel. They all rib him about being old while he tries to press his credit card at Ben, but it doesn’t take much longer before Mike, and then Bev and Ben also cry off, and then it’s just Richie and Eddie left.
Richie’s arm is still slung across the back of Eddie’s chair even though he’s slid down a little in his chair. He looks over and nudges Eddie’s knee with his.
“What about you, Eddie Spaghetti? You gonna wimp out on me too?”
“Okay, just because the rest of us don’t have careers that leave us basically nocturnal.”
“Is that a yes? C’mon, Eds,” he nudged his knee again. “One more drink.”
Eddie stands up and holds out a hand to pull Richie out of his slouch. “Okay, fine. Hotel bar though, Ben’s already closed out the tab here.”
Richie slings his arm back around Eddie’s shoulder as they walk back to the hotel bar, and Eddie leaves it there. It’s a familiar feeling, so much of Eddie’s reclaimed memories of being a kid involve Richie hanging off him, a hand tangled in his shirtsleeve or a head resting on his stomach. He has memories of hanging out pressed up tight against all of them, but all the individual ones are about Richie, he doesn’t flash back to being hugged by Bev every time she touches him.
They’ve both had enough wine to take the edge off every movement, but Eddie’s still fully aware of everything going on around him. When they get back to the hotel bar, Richie pushes Eddie into a plush booth near the back and slides in next to him. He sits close, twisted with his back to the room and his leg folded up on the bench seat, knee resting on Eddie’s thigh.
The server appears instantly and Richie orders them both bourbon, barely taking his eyes off Eddie.
“You look good, Eddie.”
Eddie scrubs a hand through his hair and blushes, still not really used to compliments.
“Thanks, Richie. You look happy.”
“Oh, just ‘happy’ eh? I see how it is.”
Eddie smacks him gently on the chest. “Oh fuck off, Richie. You look fine.”
“You flatter me, sir.” Richie’s voices have gotten better, but they’re still annoying. “I am, I think.”
“Happy?”
“Yeah. Or getting there, anyway. At least I know what happy even is now, even if I’m still working on it.”
“That’s good.” Eddie holds eye contact for what feels like a beat too long, then takes a drink before he blushes again.
Richie takes a gulp of his drink and coughs. “So, how was the divorce?”
Eddie laughs. “I don’t want to talk about my divorce, Richie.”
“Okay, um.” Richie swirls his bourbon around his glass, “How was your -”
“Richie.”
“What?”
“I’m going to kiss you now. So this is like your ten second warning to dramatically throw yourself out of the booth if that’s not something you’re into.”
Richie doesn’t move, and Eddie closes the gap between them with a hand on his jaw, and kisses him.
Richie surges into him as soon he makes contact, grabbing the lapels of Eddie’s blazer. Richie bites his lip and Eddie gasps into his mouth and Richie slips his tongue into Eddie’s mouth and Eddie fists his hand in Richie’s hair and Eddie can barely breathe but he also can’t let go.
He’s practically in Richie’s lap before he remembers that they’re two fully grown (and one famous) men, in a high-end hotel bar, making out like teenagers. He pulls back, Richie’s hands still on his shoulders, and he can’t stop himself from kissing the back of Richie’s hand.
“We should get married.”
Eddie can’t have heard that right. “What?”
“We should get married. Right now.”
“Are you serious?”
“I’m so fucking serious baby. Look,” Richie let go of Eddie’s shoulders to grab his hands, “I’ve been in love with you since before I knew what love was. Even when I couldn’t remember you, I was in love with you. So I want to marry you, as soon as fucking possible.”
“I love you, this isn’t about me not loving you. We’ve got plenty of time.”
“Who says we’ve got time, we don’t have time. We could get hit by a car! Or die in our sleep! Eds, you al-”
He cuts himself off before he says anything else, but Eddie hears it anyway. He’s already good as died once, Richie’s already had to think about a life without Eddie in it.
It’s absolutely crazy, objectively. But on the scale of things Eddie has done in his life, it barely registers.
“Yeah, okay. Let’s do it.”
Richie tosses a crumpled fifty down on the table and pulls Eddie to his feet. “Let's go. There must be someone nearby who knows how to do this.”
In the lobby of the hotel, Eddie pulls Richie back in and kisses him again.
“You’re sure about this?”
Richie rubs his thumb over Eddie’s cheek scar. “Baby, I carved us into the kissing bridge when I was thirteen. I’ve never not been sure about this.”
Eddie swallows, and nods, and drags Richie over to the concierge’s desk.
“Hey,” Richie says to the night concierge. “We want to get married, like, right now. How do we… do that?”
The concierge doesn’t even blink, just smiles brightly back like this is something she hears every day. Which, Eddie supposes, she probably does.
“Congratulations! I can arrange a car for the rest of the evening, they can bring you to the marriage license bureau and then on to whatever location you want to get married in. Have you picked a chapel already?”
“Nope.”
“Okay, well the driver is fully knowledgeable about all the various options, he can help you with any questions you may have.”
Richie slides his credit card over the desk and less than a minute later, they’re heading out again, with Eddie calling out ‘thank you very much’ over his shoulder.
The car is already waiting for them, because everything in Vegas runs like a well oiled machine, and Richie groans when Eddie insists on them both actually buckling their seat belts so Richie can’t wrap himself around him the whole way there.
Richie grabs his hand and runs his thumb across his knuckles.
“Hey, you’re good, right? I can -”
Eddie kissed the back of his hand. “I’m great.”
*****
Their seats are all in the first row of the balcony, which means they get the best view of the stage possible while being far enough back that Richie can’t see any of them.
“Makes sense,” Ben says. “If Richie could see your face, he’d ruin the whole show trying to make you laugh whilst you absolutely refuse to laugh.”
“If Richie wants me to laugh,” Eddie says, “He needs to be funny.”
Eddie is only ever willing to acknowledge Richie is funny when there are no witnesses.
Once they’re seated, Eddie finds himself dead center, sandwiched between Ben and Mike.
“Good evening Vegas! Great to see you all here. My name is Richie Tozier, and I got married last night. No follow-up questions.
Okay, some follow up questions: Yes, it was at one am; No, we weren't drunk; Yes, he is here tonight; No, I will not be saying anything else, not unless I want my impulsive Las Vegas marriage to be even shorter than Britney's. Too soon?"
In his peripheral vision, Eddie can see the rest of the Losers laugh initially, before all craning turning to stare at Eddie when Richie doesn’t laugh it off after the first sentence. Eddie can barely pay attention to the rest of the show because he’s concentrating so hard on staring straight ahead so he doesn’t accidentally catch anyone’s eye.
He’s just happy he’s sitting between Ben and Mike, because there’s no way Bill or Bev wouldn’t be frantically elbowing him in the side to try and provoke more details out of him.
The show probably goes well. Richie’s evidently in a good mood, and Richie’s shows are always better when he’s able to relax into it and stop worrying about if anyone finds him funny or not. The audience are laughing, the rest of the Losers are all laughing, Richie is laughing, but Eddie is only taking in about one word out of every seven and is actively quelling his fight-or-flight response so he doesn’t try and jump off the balcony just to avoid an awkward conversation with his best friends.
******
Richie is barely off the stage before Eddie is on his feet, but he can’t go anywhere because his asshole friends are all stretching their legs out to block his path. He contemplates just climbing over his seat and escaping that way, but that’s pretty undignified, and also he doesn’t really trust that Ben wouldn’t just grab him now that the lights are up and he wouldn’t be causing as much of a scene.
Eddie slid down in his seat and carefully folded his hands in his lap.
“So that was fun, yeah?” Eddie checked his watch. “We should probably give Richie a few minutes before we head back to see him, right?”
The rest of the Losers all exchange a look.
“Eddie,” Bev started, but Eddie cut her off, checking his watch again.
“Okay, I think we’ve given him enough time, let’s go.”
Eddie takes his chances that Mike and Bill are less likely to try and trip him up, so he darts past them and manages to be on the stairs before any of them react.
Unfortunately, they’re all taller than him, and by the time he makes it to the door for back of house, they’ve all caught up and they barely make it to the green room because they’re too rowdy for the backstage manager.
When they finally get there, Richie’s already waiting. He’s standing in the middle of the room crinkling a cheap water bottle, and his face lights up the second they all pour into the room.
“Eddie!”
Eddie puts up one hand against Richie’s chest to stop him wrapping his arms around him.
“Absolutely not, fuckface. We EXPLICITLY talked about this.”
“We did?” Richie’s eyes widen. “Fuck, we did.”
He turns Eddie around to face the rest of the Losers and drapes his arm over Eddie’s shoulder while Eddie crosses his arms over his chest and absolutely refuses to lean into the contact.
“So,” starts Richie, in what Eddie can only assume is supposed to be some kind of British Detective voice, “I suppose you’re all wondering why I’ve gathered you here today.”
The Losers all open their mouths at once, before seeming to instinctively deciding to cede the floor to Bill, who crosses his arms over his chest.
“What the fuck.”
Richie doesn’t even fully lift his arm off Eddie’s shoulder to do jazzhands, before Eddie elbows him in the ribs to cut off his too-bright “surprise?”
Eddie does understand, on some level, why they’re mad. If Bev and Ben got married without telling any of them, he’d probably be mad.
“We kind of got carried away,” he admits.
“So what,” Bev asks, “We all went to bed and you just turned to each other and were like ‘we should get married’?”
“Basically, yeah.” Richie says.
Eddie elbows him in the ribs again. “It wasn’t immediately after you went to bed. We had another drink. And then he asked me about the divorce.”
“I’m smooth like that,” Richie interrupts, twisting his torso away to prevent Eddie from elbowing him again.
“I said I didn’t want to talk about my divorce, and instead I kissed him.”
“He kissed me, and then I said we should get married.”
Ben and Mike are clearly reluctantly charmed, but Bev and Bill are still pretty stoney faced.
“Just like that? You couldn’t wait like, fifteen hours?” Bill asks.
For a second, Richie’s silent and still, then he squeezes Eddie’s shoulder. “Nope. Couldn’t wait. Already waited long enough.”
Bev groans and rolls her eyes and steps forwards to wrap the two of them in a hug.
“This doesn’t mean I’m not mad,” she says, “This just means I get it.”
Richie smiles and hugs her back with the arm that isn’t still around Eddie. “Angry but begrudging acceptance is the best we hoped for, so.”
The rest of the Losers crowd around, hugging them both a little harder then Eddie thinks is strictly necessary, but it’s nice. When they all pull part Eddie finally allows Richie to pull him in as closely as he’s been trying all evening. Richie’s eyes are shining when Eddie glances back at him, and he wraps his own arm around Richie’s waist and squeezes his hip.
When he looks back at the rest of the Losers, they’re all grinning.
“You guys are going to become one of those couples that say “we love that movie” now, aren’t you?” say Bill.
“Okay, that’s insulting,” says Richie. “Both to us, and to Ben, who has already earned the ‘we love that’ crown. How dare you try and take that away from him?”
Ben glaces at Bev and shrugs ‘guilty as charged’ before everyone turns back to Richie and Eddie.
“We are sorry, guys. It just felt…”
“Imperative.”
Eddie hopes the look he’s giving Richie comes across as fondly confused Richie knows what ‘imperative’ means and not as stupidly pathetically in love as he thinks it does.
“I hope you don’t think this is getting you guys out of having a real wedding at some point though,” says Mike.
“That is exactly what we thought actually, Mike.”
“That’s not going to fly, Richie,” says Bill. ‘I will call your mom, and I was always her favourite.”
“Fuck, he’s right.” Richie says to Eddie. “My mom will absolutely kill me.”
“I think right now you should be worrying less about what your mom is going to say and more about what your agent is going to say.”
“Right,” says Richie, kissing Eddie on the temple and looking at the rest of the group. “Well, that’s Tomorrow Richie’s problem. Tonight Richie is going to take his new husband, and all his best friends, and find a bar to drink more expensive champagne then is strictly advisable for a man of his advanced age. Sound good?”
“Sounds good.” They all agree, heading for the door.
*****
Someone offered Eddie a seat in the audience, but he was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to sit in a crowd of people and not immediately reveal himself, so he stays in the green room. Richie is weirdly nervous, fiddling with the buttons on the cuffs of the shirt Bev had picked out for him after Eddie insisted he had to dress like a grown-up if he was going to be sitting across from Stephen Colbert. Richie usually isn't nervous before going on stage, he never would have stuck with comedy as long as he had if he had an issue with being in front of an audience, but he's never been the biggest fan of answering questions, so he fidgets.
Eddie mostly ignores him and plays monument valley on his phone, letting Richie dispel all his nervous energy on his own rather than try and take it from him. He takes a picture of Richie in the make-up chair and sends it to the rest of the Losers, all of whom send back some variety of benign roast combined with good luck wishes, which Eddie doesn't pass on because Richie doesn't need to be reminded people he actually cares about are going to be watching, not if Eddie actually wants him to get out there.
Richie can talk for literally ever about himself if you let him, but not if he thinks people are actually listening that closely.
Finally, a PA comes to take Richie to the stage, and he barely has time to squeeze Eddie's hand before he's whisked out of the room. Eddie just rolls his eyes.
After that, Eddie's the one left fidgeting in the green room. He's never been great at waiting for things to happen, especially when he has no idea how long they're actually going to take. The only other person left in the room is the assistant of whatever barely legal pop star is performing at the end of the show, and everyone in the group chat has stopped responding to his messages, probably because they're all watching the show.
Finally, the screen in the corner of the room switches back from the ad break, and Stephen Colbert is welcoming Richie to the stage.
"Welcome to the show."
"Thanks, it's good to be here."
"So, you just got married?"
Richie laughed. "Oh wow, we're just diving right in, yeah?"
Colbert shrugged, "Felt like the right moment."
"Well then. Yeah, I did. A week ago."
There's an obligatory cheer from the audience which Eddie can tell is deeply paining Richie not to roll his eyes about.
"Kind of spur of the moment?"
"You could say that, yes." Richie agreed. "Buy y'know, when the time is right."
"Of course, of course. Some of your fans were just a little surprised, because in your current tour - which I saw when you were in New York -"
"Thank you."
"In your current tour, you mention being single. A lot."
"I did, yes."
"Soooo..."
Richie propped his chin up on his fist. "Soooo..."
Colbert laughed. "So when did you have time to start dating someone in the middle of touring a show?"
"A show where I keep talking about undatable and decrepit I am?"
"Well, I didn't want to say that but... Yes."
"I didn't really."
"He just fell into your lap?"
"Pretty much, yeah."
"You know I'm going to have follow-up questions."
Richie laughed and shoved a hand through his hair. "I'm sure no one wants to hear about that. Don't you have questions about the show?"
"I mean, I could ask the audience which questions they'd rather I ask you, but I don't think you'll like the answer."
The audience cheers are loud enough the question doesn’t even need to be asked.
"Fine, fine. Five minutes, that's it."
"When did you start dating?"
"We starting dating... probably about twenty minutes before we got married."
Colbert's eyes are wide. "Twenty minutes?"
"Conservative estimate." Richie grinned. "I mean, we met when we were eight, but it was a long road."
"Childhood sweetheart?"
"I fucking wish. Shit, can I say fucking on here?"
"You cannot, but we'll make it work."
"Fuck, sorry. Shit, I did it again."
Colbert just waved his hand. "You were telling us how you married your childhood sweetheart."
"He wasn't my childhood sweetheart, unfortunately. I was obviously desperately in love with him the whole time, but this was a long time ago, fourteen year old gay kids didn't get to have childhood sweethearts when I was a kid."
"But he liked you back."
"I know that now, but back then? Too big a risk. Best case scenario was probably going to be like, a manly bicep punch and refusing to change next to me in gym class, worst case scenario, I don't know, a punch in the face? We were all homophobic back then, I know I fucking -sorry- was."
"So you never told him?"
"Absolutely not. I just embarrassed myself from afar, and then we went to different colleges and lost touch, we all lost touch with everyone. And then a year ago, we found each other again."
"And you told him then?"
"Fuck no. Sorry. Too much happening. Plus, he was already married."
Colbert is obviously struggling to keep a straight face. "Sooooo..."
"So I figured that was it and chalked it all up to friendship."
"And then?
"And then he shows up to my show, tells me he's divorced, and kissed me."
"And you just proposed on the spot?"
Richie shrugged. "Pretty much."
"Couldn't wait."
"Couldn't wait. In a perfect world, would we have gotten married at one am while all our friends were asleep? No. But in a perfect world we would have gone to prom together and gotten married fifteen years ago, so I'll take imperfect for now."
The entire audience 'awwws' in unison, and Richie grimaces.
"I know, I know. Sincerity is fucking - sorry - disgusting. If it makes you feel any better, my husband is definitely in the green room right now, googling 'can I divorce someone for embarrassing me'."
“You can’t,” Colbert says, and Richie fist-pumps.
After that, Colbert thankfully steers the conversation back around to stand-up, and Eddie can stop paying attention because as much as he loves Richie, he’s heard him talk about stand-up enough. It’s only a couple more minutes before he’s shaking Colbert’s hand and waving to the audience and then he’s back in the green room, clearly a little nervous.
Eddie pretends not to notice for a moment, until Richie wraps his arms around his back and starts whining ‘Eddiiiiiie’ in his ear. He shakes him off.
“Ugh, you did fine. Don’t get fucking stage make-up all over my shirt.”
Just to annoy him, Richie wipes his cheek across Eddie’s, leaving a streak of foundation Eddie is instantly itching to remove.
“I didn’t humiliate you into leaving me?
Eddie rolls his eyes. “Not yet, anyway.”
Richie grins. “The night is still young.”
Eddie thinks about leaning in to the bit, but instead he pulls Richie closer and presses a kiss to the underside of his jaw.
“You know I love you.”
Eddie has said it probably a hundred times by now. Eddie has married him, but Richie’s face still lights up with surprised joy every time he says it.
“I do, yeah.”
“We need to clean up,” Eddie says, pushing him back to the door. “I sat through this whole thing, you owe me dinner.”
“Aye aye, captain,” Richie tosses off a tiny salute before grabbing Eddie’s arm to pull him after him.
Eddie follows.