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“That’s so unfair.”
“Get outta the kitchen if you can’t take the heat, Eds.”
Ah, summer.
Endless days swimming in the quarry, countless quarters exchanged for tokens down at the Aladdin’s arcade, and best of all, no fucking school.
It wasn’t that Richie didn’t do well in school; it was quite the opposite, in fact. Ten years of school—eleven if you count pre-school, which he didn’t—and the only complaints teachers had about him was his ‘eccentric personality’, ‘colorful language’, and ‘desperate need for some ADHD medication’. Academically, however, he consistently cruised above average, to the point that Richie was actually considered for skipping a grade. His parents respectfully declined, though, since he was already struggling enough with fitting in with his own age group.
That ended up working immensely in his favor. Had he skipped a grade, the chances of him making friends with Bill, Stan, and Eddie, followed by Mike, Ben, and Bev, would’ve been laughably low. And by God, Richie didn’t even want to try imagining life without the Losers Club.
Summers, now that Richie had an excess of best friends, were never boring. Well, sure, every so often it’d happen that everyone but him had something going on, but it happened once in a blue moon. They hung out in different groups, as well, since it was much more common for a couple of them to have something going on than all of them. All the ones who were dating—Ben and Bev, and Stan, Mike, and Bill—tended to branch off a bit more than Eddie and Richie did. He certainly wasn’t complaining, since all it did was give him more alone time with his best-friend-slash-crush-of-three-years.
It was one of those days when everyone had split off in their respective subgroups (they’d all gone down to the theatre in Bangor to watch a film the Aladdin wasn’t showing the day prior, so no one quite minded being a bit more seperate), and Eddie and Richie ended up down at the arcade. As per usual, Richie was kicking Eddie’s ass, leading to him getting (insincerely) pissed. The teasing comments were in no way helping.
Eddie’s face scrunched up in that cute way it always did when he got annoyed by someone’s antics, and Richie steeled himself for the inevitable outburst spurred on by the nickname.
To his surprise, no such outburst came. There was still a huff of annoyance, but nothing specifically against the nickname. “We’re in an arcade, dumbass, not a kitchen. That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It was a taunt, Eds.” In typical Richie fashion, he decided to test the waters, “They aren’t supposed to make sense.”
That one got an eye-roll, which still wasn’t the usual reaction. Richie doubted that anything was wrong, per se, but something was certainly off in how Eddie was responding. The fleeting thought that his mom had tried to pull some of her old shit again passed through his mind. As soon as he lingered on it, though, it was disproved by some of his observations; if anything, Eddie seemed happier than usual—more willing to go along with Richie’s jokes, although he certainly wasn’t complying.
“Whatever,” Eddie paused a moment, as if he was planning on saying something more. It was one of those minor mannerisms that you could really only pick up on if you’d known someone for years. The slight lift of his chin, his right hand beginning some sort of gesture, his stance being adjusted—everything was a sign that he was going to speak, but he didn’t. At least, not until after he reset all the aforementioned and began again.
Eddie pointed to the screen in front of them, displaying the main menu of Street Fighter, “Do y’have any more tokens? I used all mine.”
“Uh,” he fumbled around his front pockets, staring up at the popcorn ceiling. Wallet, a penny, the pencil that’s been stabbing his leg for the past fifteen goddamn minutes, all there. No token, though. “Nope. Guess I win by default, huh?”
“Screw you, Richie.”
“Put an ‘I wanna’ in front of that and you’ve got a direct quote from Ms. Kasprak last night.”
“You’re- ugh,” Eddie huffed, though it was done though the slightest smile, “What are we gonna do now? I don’t feel like going back home yet, but I’m kinda over the games.”
Richie glanced around, seeing if there was anything that piqued his interest, or at least gave him an idea.
“Hey, let’s do the photo booth.” It’d been a fairly long time since they’d gotten their photos done—a bit after they’d all become friends in ‘89, so about three years ago—and it’d always been something Richie liked to do, for some reason unbeknownst to him.
Eddie didn’t seem all that convinced. “Those things are disgusting, Richie. They’re like a germ box with how close quarters they are. I bet standing in there for two seconds gives you fifteen different diseases,” he paused a moment, looking over to the booth, “I guess it’s fine, though.”
When they’d done it before—with seven goddamn people in a two-by-two booth, mind you—it had been fairly soon after Eddie decided to forgo all the placebo pills and stopped being so anal about germs, which Richie figured was the only reason he agreed to be in such close quarters. That was before Eddie caught the flu from Vic Crumly in their freshman year, an event that established a slightly less obsessive and slightly more healthy relationship with germs.
“Spare a dollah fur a poor boy, sur?” Richie slipped into one of the Voices he’d been working on for a week or so, hunching his shoulders slightly and holding his hand out as if pleading for change. Victorian street beggar was surprisingly difficult, he’d found, significantly more so than Irish Cop—he did have a bit more of a reference for the latter with Officer Nell always running around with a stick up his ass, which definitely helped him get it down.
Surprising absolutely no one, Eddie’s exasperated expression only grew with the Voice. What was surprising, though, was the way he seemed just a little flustered, as if he’d seen some pretty girl walk past. Richie was half ready to scour the room for whoever was raising the blush on Eddie’s cheeks (a quiet voice in the depths of his mind whispered that maybe he’s like that because of you, a thought be quickly shut down), but he began to speak not long after. “Jesus,” he muttered, pulling a small wallet out of his fanny pack, “This was your goddamn idea, can’t you pay for it?”
“Nah, I spent all my money on getting tokens so you could go from best two out of three to six out of ten and still bombed.”
“Fuck you.”
“Not my fault you suck at video games, Eds,” he took the dollar in quarters from Eddie’s hand, allowing his hand to linger atop his friend’s for a beat too long, before slinging his arm over Eddie’s shoulder and walking over to the booth.
“I don’t suck-“
“Not what your mom told me.”
“-you’re the fuckin’ worst,” Eddie pulled back the curtain of the booth, sitting on the small bench as he waited for Richie to pay, “ Anyway , I don’t suck, you just spend way too long playing these dumbass games.”
Inserting coins into arcade machines or anything similar was one of those oddly satisfying things to Richie, especially when they went in one after the other with no fumbling. It was not one of those smooth days, since he managed to drop two of the quarters on separate occasions and had difficulty with the two he didn’t drop.
After finally getting the quarters in the slot, Richie slipped in beside Eddie and flicked the curtain shut. It was only then that he was acutely aware that, wow, there was really no damn room in this booth. Maybe it was because he was expecting to be crammed the time prior, what with about half a dozen kids stuffed in like sardines, but it seemed almost too small with him and Eddie in it.
“I like to hone my skills, Eds, an’ the buck fifty I got from the competition last January tells me that it’s totally worth it,” Richie made a last ditch attempt to not make full side contact with Eddie, because he knew his face would betray the hell out of him and get that blotchy red flush just because he was touching shoulders with a cute boy.
Ah, the joys of homosexuality.
“I’m sure that made up for the fortune you spent on tokens,” he shot back, pushing Richie with as little force as possible. That bit of increased contact was not helping by any means, no sir no way, but he let himself revel the slightest bit in the touch. And, had Richie not known that Eddie was certainly not queer and certainly not queer for him, he would’ve thought Eddie seemed to feel about the same way, with how he paused a moment before pulling away.
“Uh, yeah. It didn’t.”
“No surprises there.”
Richie knew it was his fault, but he couldn’t help from thinking about how their conversation—hell, the whole interaction—felt off. Not in a bad way, necessarily, but in a something-is-changing-for-better-or-for-worse way. It’d been like that for a bit now; their dynamic had just shifted, in a way. They’d always been a much more physically affectionate than any teenage boys should be, at least in the eyes of society and Eddie’s mother, and they’d only gotten more so as time went on. Richie would be lying if he said it didn’t give him the slightest hope, but there wasn’t much time for hope in a town like Derry.
God, it’d hardly been a second and Richie already felt like he’d been contemplating for an hour. Internally shaking off that train of thought, he leaned forward to touch the button to start the photos and-
“Wait.”
Well, that didn’t seem too good.
“Can I tell you something, Richie? Something really personal. Please.”
“Aw, don’t worry, Eds. I won’t tell a soul about your herpes.”
Eddie frowned, which was about the first real negative response he’d had all day. “I’m not kidding about this, okay? I’m not gonna tell you if you’re just gonna make jokes about it.”
Okay, great. This was actually serious, something that was probably going to change some shit.
“Sorry,” Richie said, sincerely. Even he knew there was a time and place to joke, and that no matter how much humor helped him cope, it tended to only upset Eddie further, “I won’t make any jokes, I promise.”
“Okay, thanks.” There wasn’t much relief in his shaking voice, however, and his leg was bouncing fast enough to make Richie’s bounce right along with it.
A beat of silence, then Eddie whispered something, much too quiet for anyone to hear, even at such close quarters.
“What?”
Eddie rose his voice just loud enough to reach his ears, “I’m gay, Richie.”
“What about Leslie?”
“I never actually liked her, or any girls, really.”
“Oh.”
“And I like you. Romantically.”
“ Oh .”
A beat.
“God, this was a fuckin’ mistake.” The metaphorical floodgates opened, a flurry of emotions coming out in the water. Eddie looked frantic as all hell, messing his hair up by running his hand through it every which way, his voice cracking about twice a sentence, and about fifty other things that pointed a neon sign down at him that read ‘Look at this kid! He’s having a mental breakdown!’ “Jesus, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t’ve said shit, this was so fuckin’ dumb. Why the hell di-“
“Woah, calm down, ‘kay?” Richie snapped out of the mild shock that had set in, just enough for him to pull his senses together and reply, “I’m not mad, or- or upset, nothin’. I, uh- well, you already know I’m gay, ‘cause I told you an’ shit, but what you probably don’t know is, uh, that I feel the same. Y’know, like, I have feelings and shit for you.”
“You do?”
“Yep.”
“Huh.”
It was then Eddie’s turn to stare blankly ahead, letting that new information settle in. “Really?”
“It that much of a surprise?”
“I guess? I spent, like, a week psyching myself up for this, and I was kinda more prepared for a bad reaction. Not, uh, you know. This.”
“Is this bad, or somethin’?” Richie felt his stomach drop a bit, as if it made any sense that Eddie would tell him he has feelings for him then do a one-eighty as soon as it was reciprocated.
“No, no! It’s good, yeah. Really good.”
That sinking feeling in his stomach was replaced with something more fluttery, and the phrase ‘butterflies in his stomach’ mad a hell of a lot more sense. “Cool. So, uh, what’s this mean?”
“Huh?”
“Like, are we gonna, y’know, date? I mean, we don’t gotta, but it kinda seems like-“
“Yeah, let’s date.”
Eddie seemed more sure of himself than he had in years, and like hell did that not make Richie’s heart swell. “We’re boyfriends now, huh Eds?”
“I guess we are,” Eddie grinned, looking about as giddy as Richie felt.
“God, do y’know how goddamn long I’ve felt this way? Three years, Eds. It’s been three damn years since I looked at you and my brain decided it wanted to kiss you.”
“Then do it.”
“Do what?”
“Kiss me.”
If this went on any longer, Richie was sure he’d spontaneously combust. It already felt like his heart was beating out of his chest, and his hands were clammier than they’d ever been, and having fucking Eddie Kaspbrak say to kiss him was about all he could take.
“Okay. Thank God for that curtain, huh?” Richie’s heart pounded faster with the roll of the eyes and fond smile that followed his statement, the feeling only further amplified by Eddie putting his hands on Richie’s shoulders and twisting their bodies to face each other as much as they could in the two-by-two booth.
“Is it gonna take this long normally?”
Holy shit, there was going to be a normally. It was going to be normal for him to kiss Eddie, and hold his hand, and take him out places that were inconspicuous enough for people to think they’re friends but they know that they’re together.
“What can I say, I like a little conversation.”
“Shut up for once, Trashmouth.”
Richie grinned, bringing his own hands up to cradle Eddie’s flushed face. “Make me, Eds.”
And, by god, did Richie shut up.