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Richie is always the life of the party. He’s the main attraction. The guy people line up for to see.
At least, that’s how he imagines it sometimes, when he’s lying in bed in just his boxers and wondering if there’s any milk left in the fridge.
Even if it is just a fantasy, Richie is still pretty good at parties. Yeah, occasionally he puts his foot in his mouth, but that’s basically his brand now, so he’s not too worried about irrevocably fucking up. He mingles, and he chats to people whose name he can’t remember – he’s absolutely awful at remembering names, so in his head the list of people he’s met goes something like this:
- The woman in the red dress with the high laugh who adores his joke about stingy porcupines
- The guy with the purple bow tie (but maybe there are two guys with purple bowties? Richie could swear one of them is very tall and the other doesn’t even reach his shoulder)
- The man with the belly laugh and absolutely no other discernable features, not even a silly moustache
- The woman in the long black gown who is currently speaking to Eddie and looking very serious while Eddie talks (mostly) with his hands
- The man who looks like he could be someone’s grandfather (and probably is)
There are plenty of other people, and Richie gets distracted easily, so he chats, and nods, and talks, and he caan’t remember if he told this or that guy the story of how he met his husband, but would he like to hear? As if Richie hasn’t told the story on stage approximately 437 times already.
“Somehow, it becomes funnier every time you tell it,” his manager, Steve, says when Richie’s done yet another dramatic rendition of the story. Eddie pretends he hates it, but Richie knows he finds it funny. He would never have let Richie talk about it on stage in the first place if he hadn’t been okay with it, and although Richie is a dick, he’s not the kind of dick who’d just sweep aside his spouse’s concerns.
Richie’s currently talking to a guy definitely not named John. (Well, probably, lots of guys are named John, Richie’s just pretty sure this one isn’t.) Steve had introduced them earlier, and they’d shook hands, and chatted for a minute or two until the guy’s phone rang and Richie was distracted by Eddie.
He knows not-John is an executive, or a producer, or at least some guy who knows important people who know even more important people, so Richie doesn’t mind feeling out where the guy’s at when it comes to his comedy. Richie likes money, but he’s in the position now where he can say no and be done with it. He can have standards now. It’s kind of odd.
Richie tunes back in to the conversation, because not-John hasn’t noticed Richie’s preoccupation with the deviled eggs somewhere on their left, because he hasn’t even had dinner. “—heard there was a record amount of viewings of your show, so I assume any new creative outlet—” He uses finger quotes, winking at Richie exaggeratedly, “—you choose to pursue will be good for our brand.”
And their wallets, Richie thinks.
“Any thoughts on that yet?” not-John asks.
“Not immediately, but ideas are always out there.” He has a private notebook he jots things down in for any future use, but at the moment it’s a mess of scribbles that only he can make sense of. “I’d like to do another show, similar to my last one.”
Not-John nods like he agrees with him. “Excellent idea, my boy. I must say, we were a bit worried about your viewership plummeting, but it seems the opposite has happened. The reinvention of Richie Tozier – if you could pull something like that off again, that would be wonderful.”
Richie had only planned on reinventing himself once, because digging up previously buried psychological trauma tends to be exhausting. “I’ve got plenty of material left,” Richie says instead, and the man laughs heartily. Richie smiles back, but instead thinks about his warm bed at home, and Eddie, and Eddie in his warm bed at home.
Speak of the devil.
Eddie has a penchant for finding and rescuing him at the best moments. He’s carrying two champagne glasses, handing one over to Richie who smiles at him. “Thanks.”
Eddie nods, lifts the champagne class, and not-John reaches out and plucks it out his hand, immediately taking a large sip. “Right when we needed it,” he says, only giving Eddie a cursory look. Richie sees Eddie raise his eyebrows, unimpressed. Instead of telling not-John off, though, he turns around and leaves again.
“Your manager and I had a good chat about future deals. We can pencil in a lunch together, see what happens, hm?” Richie assumes he means they will give Richie a ton of money in exchange for Richie giving them exclusive access to his new material. Five minutes ago, he might have considered it.
In seconds, Eddie is back at his side, a new champagne flute in hand. Not-John distractedly looks at him, and Eddie steps closer into Richie’s personal space, close enough for Richie to (hypothetically) put an arm around his waist. Richie knows what he’s doing, and he finds it hilarious. “I’m trying to have a chat with Mr. Tozier here,” not-John says, sounding exasperated. “So, if you could…” He makes a shooing motion with his hand. “Continue to do your job. That’s what they’re paying you for.”
Eddie lifts his champagne glass to his mouth and takes a sip. He’s clearly both amused (by the sparkle in his eyes), and unimpressed (by the downturn of his mouth), but the former has the upper hand. “I wish,” he says, turning his head slightly to look up at Richie. “You hear that, Tozier? You ought to be paying me.” Eddie ever so slowly smiles.
Not-John is clearly not impressed with that. “You should be fired,” he tells Eddie, clearly not getting the memo that Eddie does not work here. “Drinking on the job.” He shakes his head. “I can’t believe the riffraff they hire these days.”
Richie chokes on his champagne, spilling over his hand. Describing Eddie as riffraff is the funniest thing he’s heard all day. Even on Eddie’s bad days he looks miles better than Richie, who still can’t tie a tie to save his life. “You hear that,” he says, looking down at Eddie, who rolls his eyes dramatically. “Your mom will be so unimpressed, Eds. Tsk.”
“She’s dead, you know she won’t care,” Eddie drily says.
“She’s rolling in her grave!”
“Yeah, well, that’s your fault, probably.”
Richie presses a kiss to Eddie’s temple, and finally puts his arm around his waist. “You think our wedding made her do a full 360?”
Eddie groans. “Stop talking about my dead mother.”
“Sure thing, you filthy commoner,” Richie cheerfully says, turning back to not-John. “Have I introduced my husband yet? This is Eddie.”
“Right,” not-John says, downing the remaining bit of his champagne in one go. “Of course. Lovely to meet you. Ah, Charles!” He walks away, and Richie can’t hide his grin anymore.
“That was awkward,” he brightly says.
“Can you believe it,” Eddie grumbles, “just straight up grabbed my glass. Ugh. I hate rich people.”
“I’m rich,” Richie says, “and Rich.”
“You’re not fucking annoying about it,” Eddie retorts, drinking from his champagne again. “That joke wasn’t funny the first time you used it, by the way.” He puts his glass on the bar beside Richie’s. “You’re not doing business with him, right?”
“Obviously not,” Richie says. The most common denominator to find awful people is how they treat people lesser than them. Servers. Waiters. Cashiers. Richie had been in that position once upon a time, so he tries not to be a pain in the ass. At least, not unless people are being a pain in his ass. “Might miss out on a million bucks, but, eh. There’s greener pastures.”
Richie knows how lucky he is, to be able to turn someone like that down and not be (much) worse off. Eddie’s mouth curves into a smile. “Did you see his face, though?”
“It’s not my fault he wasn’t paying attention when I was introducing you earlier,” Richie grumbles. And, okay, he’s been calling the guy not-John in his head for the past fifteen minutes, but this party is about him, the least the guy could’ve done is remember that Richie’s spouse was there and what he looked like. Eddie even has a very memorable (and sexy!) facial scar.
Steve catches up with them while they’re putting their coats on so they can go home. “How did the chat with Roberts go?” he asks. Richie frowns at him. “You were talking to him at the bar earlier.”
“Oh,” Richie says. “Was that his name? What an asshole.”
“That asshole could’ve paid your salary for the next two years,” Steve says, exasperated.
Richie shrugs. “I know I say dicks make the world go round, but I don’t really need this one.”
“Don’t make dick jokes when I can’t hear if they’re about mine or not,” Eddie says when he returns to Richie’s side, buttoning up his coat.
“Your dick is nothing to laugh about,” Richie says, and Eddie groans, turns to Steve and apologizes.
“I’ve heard it all before,” Steve says. “Alright. Roberts off the list then?”
“Who?” Eddie asks
“Mr. Champagne Robber.” Eddie’s mouth makes an O shape. “He’s off. And don’t invite him to any after-parties anymore, he’s an awful conversational partner.”
“So are you,” Eddie says, “you have the attention span of a squirrel high on walnuts.” .
Steve raises an eyebrow. “I’ll leave you two to it.”
“Get home safely!” Eddie calls after him, and Steve gives him a thumbs up.
“What was that about squirrels and nuts?” Richie asks, and Eddie sighs loudly.
“I can’t take you anywhere.”
“So how about we stay home, and have breakfast in bed tomorrow… with champagne.”
“As long as you bring it to me. I’m done waiting on you.”
Richie presses a kiss to the top of Eddie’s head before opening the door for him, one of the last to leave. “I’ll always wait on you, Eds.”