Archive of Our Own

“You should come to my parents’ place with me for Christmas.”

Richie had stopped opening phone conversations with any kind of standard greeting barely three weeks after they all left Derry.

“What the fuck, I’m not getting within three hundred miles of Derry ever again.”

“Fuck no, Maine can sink into the Atlanic. They moved to Arizona five years ago, like good little New England retirees. C’mon, it’ll be like when we were kids.”

“We never actually spent Christmas together as kids.”

Richie rolled his eyes, wishing there was a way to convey that through the phone. “Well if you really want to, you can spend the actual day hidden and only come out on the 26th as per tradition, but I figured you might want to eat fresh turkey for once.”

Richie could hear the tap of a keyboard on the other end of the line, but he was pretty sure Eddie was just stalling.

“Can I get back to you? My team hasn’t sorted out holiday coverage yet.”

Richie let himself mentally fist-pump. Eddie had no problem saying No to Richie if he really didn’t want to do something, so any level of drawn-out decision was basically a yes.

“You have twenty-four hours,” Richie said in his best approximation of a classic Bond villain. “After that, I’m booking us both flights and you’ll just have to deal with it.”

“Okay Blofeld,” Eddie scoffed, and Richie fist-pumped again.

Richie’s flight had him in Phoenix two hours before Eddie’s arrived from New York, so he holed up in the arrivals Starbucks to wait. Since he’d booked the flights he’d gone back and forth multiple times over whether it was better to get to his parent’s house first so he could lay the groundwork to stop any of them being weird, but that would have meant subjecting Eddie to finding his way from the airport to their house by himself, and he didn’t think it’d be an auspicious start to the trip to have Eddie steaming mad right from the jump.

Two teenage boys a few tables away kept shooting him glances over the tops of their giant coffee milkshakes, but Richie couldn't tell if they actually knew who he was or just vaguely recognised him. He got actively noticed more lately but it still skewed towards people asking him if he knew where they knew him from.

He usually responded "probably porn."

Whether they recognised him or not, neither of the boys approached him, so Richie pulled up twitter to kill a few minutes.

Apparently 11am Mountain Time on the 23rd of December was a fallow time for shitposting though, because twitter was dead. Richie called his mom instead.

“Hi honey. You’re not calling from the car, are you?”

“No Mom, I’m still in the airport. Eddie’s flight doesn’t get in for a bit, I’m waiting for him, we’ll drive over in about an hour and a half.”

“Oh. You didn’t fly in together?”

“No, mom. Eddie lives in New York.”

“I thought you said he moved?”

Richie pressed his iced coffee against his forehead. “No, mom. I said he might move once his divorce is finalised and he doesn’t even know where he might go.”

“Oh. Well, LA is nice.”

“You hate LA. Anyone who doesn’t live there already hates LA.”

His mom sighed. “I’m sure Eddie would like LA.”

Richie had been studiously avoiding the idea of how Eddie might feel about LA for several months, and wasn’t going to start thinking about it now. “Eddie likes New York.”

She didn't sound convinced but she let it go, and the rest of the conversation was filling Richie in on random gossip about random Phoenix neighbours he'd never met, and various relatives he had but couldn't remember. Richie drank two more iced coffees, and by the time she finally hung up and he went over to meet Eddie at arrivals, he was just a little wired.

He should have made a sign, he thought just as Eddie emerged through the doors. He'd have to do that next time, a sign with something Eddie would hate on it. Did it even count as hanging out with Eddie if Eddie wasn’t secretly trying to kill him with his mind?

The suitcase Eddie was dragging was pretty modestly-sized, for Eddie, which Richie pointed out immediately.

"Just because you're going to wear the same clothes for four days straight doesn't mean other people can't pack a reasonable amount."

"Oh Eds, I've missed you."

He raised his arms to give Eddie a hug, but Eddie flinched for a second.

"Did you wash your hands after getting off the plane?"

"What the fuck Eds, I'm not a child."

"Do you know how many fucking diseases there are are airplanes? They're a fucking petri dish."

"Yes Eds, I washed my hands, but you've ruined the moment anyway so-"

Eddie cut him off with a tight hug, wrapping his arms around Richie's torso. He lowered his arms around Eddie's shoulders and squeezed back.

"It's good to see you, Richie."

"You too."

"Now lets see if we can make it to your parent's place without you killing us both."

Richie ruffled Eddie's hair until he squawked. "No promises."

Every time Richie visited his parents, it took him way too long to figure out which of the identical houses on the quiet suburban street was theirs. This time, Eddie hadn’t trusted him to find his own way anywhere and insisted on google maps, which lead them directly to the right driveway.

“I would have found it eventually,” Richie insisted.

“‘Eventually’ isn’t fast enough. I’m too hungry for you to accidentally drive us to Scottsdale.”

“Fuck off, I can follow road signs.”

“I’m just waiting until you’re declared legally blind and I never have to be driven anywhere by you again.”

“Aww Eds, are you going to move to LA to be my personal chauffeur? I can pay you in beer and whichever of my possessions you want to steal and sell on ebay.”

“Ha ha, Fuckface. I’m fucking starving, can we please go inside now? Your mom is literally standing on the porch waiting for us.”

Richie glanced up at the house, where his mom was indeed waiting for them, one eyebrow raised. He sent up a quick prayer to whichever God would take him that this hadn’t been a terrible mistake, and got out of the car.

His mom gave him a brief but tight hug before pushing him aside to get a better look at Eddie.

“Eddie Kaspbrak!” She wrapped him in a giant hug. “You got so big!”

“Not that big.”

“Fuck you. Sorry, Mrs Tozier.”

“Call me Maggie.” She patted him on the cheek. “And do you think I’d have survived forty years with this one if a little blue language upset me? Just so long as you have it all out of your systems before Stephanie gets here with the kids.”

“Of course, Mrs- Maggie.”

“You were always such a nice boy. C’mon, I’ll show you upstairs.”

His mom pointed out the bathrooms and the kitchen as they walked through the house, before stopping in front of a row of doors upstairs.

“Now, normally we’d just leave the kids to camp out downstairs for a night or two, but obviously Santa can’t come if they’re in the same room -”

“Obviously,” Richie agreed.

“And since Stephanie and Robert will be in the main guest room, I’m afraid that just leaves the office. Unless one of you wants to share with Mia and Chloe.”

“We’ll be fine,” Eddie said.

“Yeah, no problem,” Richie agreed. “Eddie can fit in the child-sized trundle bed, no problem.”

“Fuck you, I’m perfectly normal sized!”

“Don’t be mean, Richie. It’s obviously a regular adult-sized trundle bed.”

Eddie flipped Richie off when Maggie turned to leave the room.

“You boys get settled in, Stephanie and everyone will be here in a few hours. The girls are very excited to see you, Richie.”

“Well that sounds threatening.”

Maggie just shrugged, “maybe.”

Eddie’s version of ‘settling in’ was to take everything out of his suitcase that he didn’t want to get further creased and put pyjamas under the pillow of his trundle bed. Richie’s version was to toss his suitcase at the end of his bed and flop face-down on the comforter to stop himself from staring at Eddie while he changed from his airplane t-shirt into an almost identical t-shirt.

Eddie took the old shirt off before even pulling the new one out of his suitcase, and for the first time, Richie wondered if he’d made a grave error in judgement. Eddie fully clothed on the other end of a phone line was sometimes hard enough to deal with, a shirtless Eddie absent-mindedly poking through a suitcase to find his preferred plain grey t-shirt was possibly more than he could be expected to bear.

He covered his face with his pillow until he was pretty sure Eddie was fully covered again, and when he moved it back, Eddie was staring at him.

“You’re not even going to change your shirt?”

Richie looked down at his chest. He looked pretty clean, he thought. He pulled the neck of the shirt over his face to make sure he didn’t smell awful.

“...No? Do I have to? Will you refuse to be seen with me if I’m wearing a t-shirt I put on five hours ago?”

“You don’t feel gross?”

“It literally never occured to me. But for you, Eduardo-”

“Can we not-”

“For you, Eduardo, I will change my shirt.”

It only took Richie a minute to swap shirts, because he just shoved his hand into his suitcase and felt around til he was able to grab one. He pulled it on quickly and turned to face Eddie with jazz hands.

“Ta-da! Do I pass muster now?”

Eddie rolled his eyes. “You’ll do.”

Richie wiped a fake tear from his face. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

He gestured to the door so Eddie could leave before him. “After you, my liege.”

Eddie punched him lightly in the ribs as he walked by, but Richie could only grin.

Downstairs, his dad handed him a giant ball of Christmas lights to untangle, and his mom handed Eddie a cup of tea.

“I knew they liked you better than me.”

“Everybody does.”

Richie was putting the star on the top of the tree when his sister and her family arrived.

"Were you guys just going to leave the tree naked if I didn't come?"

"Your mother usually puts it up," said his dad. "We just wanted you to feel useful."

Eddie was sitting on the couch with a cup of coffee and a plate of cookies, because Richie's mom had told him he was a guest and didn't need to do anything, and Richie couldn't even go tell him to go fuck himself when he laughed because suddenly the room was full of children.

Richie hadn't seen any of them since right after Derry, when he spent two weeks in his parent's spare room staving off a complete breakdown. At one point, his parents decided he needed more fresh air and made them all meet at the Grand Canyon, where Richie got vertigo for the first time ever and ended up throwing up into a bush. Mia had slept through the whole thing.

Stephanie wrapped her arms around him and ruffled his hair. "Have you shrunk?"

She played basketball in college, and her husband was a good three inches shorter than her. He had never seemed to mind, which boded extremely well for the rest of their lives. Of the two kids, Mia took after him the most, short and sturdy with round cheeks and a mass of curly white-blonde hair. Chloe though, was pure Tozier: probably already taller than most of her classmates and 90% elbows and messy dark hair. Every time Richie saw them, he realised it'd been too long since the last time. He needed to drag that whole family to Disneyland soon. Nothing said 'I miss you' like over-stimulated grade-schoolers.

"Holy sh-sugar, it’s Eddie Kaspbrak!"

"Yep. Hi, Steph."

Stephanie dragged him to his feet to hug him hello, and Richie was delighted to see he barely cleared her chin.

"Hey kids, come say hey."

"Hey guys."

Richie waved for what felt like too long before awkwardly dropping his hands back to his sides. He never entirely knew what to do around children, even ones he liked.

"You remember your Uncle Richie, even if he isn't throwing up every ten minutes like last time -"

"Is that really necessary?"

"It's absolutely necessary, yes. And this is his friend Eddie, who's also from Derry."

There was a slight pause before 'friend' that Richie really hoped Eddie wasn't paying enough attention to notice.

"These are my kids," Steph told Eddie. "The small one is Mia, she doesn't talk much."

Mia stared back at them with unblinking eyes.

"And that's Chloe. Chloe, baby, please stop chewing your hair. It can be my Christmas present."

Chloe spat out a mouthful of hair and waved a single finger. "Hi."

"My pride and joy," said Stephanie, only half-sarcastically.

Richie’d had nightmares for as long as he can remember, even if for most of his life he couldn’t remember any details other than being terrified. Now they were pretty predictable, though no less terrifying. At least twice a week, he didn’t move fast enough and Its claw skewers Eddie, and Richie wakes up gasping and has to text Eddie immediately to remind himself that outside of the Deadlights, they both made it back.

This time, he woke up to Eddie’s face above his, and immediately shoved his hands under Eddie’s t-shirt to press his palms against his sternum and reassure himself it was in one piece.

It took a few breaths to bring himself down, but Richie collapsed back into his pillows, pulling his hands back to settle awkwardly on his own stomach.

Eddie didn’t lean back. “Clown shit?”

“Clown shit.” Richie nodded.

“Still alive.”

Richie rolled his eyes. “I can see that.”

“Just thought I’d save you the text.”

“What time is it?”

Eddie glanced at his phone. “Like four am.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Yep.” He patted Richie on the chest, his sleep-slowed hand dragging a little. “I’m going back to sleep. Try not to scream so loud you wake the kids.”

Richie pulled a pillow over his face to muffle his groan.

Breakfast was cereal and toast and all of the adults being assigned tasks from a bullet-point list while Mia and Chloe watched cartoons in the living room.

Richie leaned over the kitchen island to pull Eddie’s phone out of his hands. “I didn’t bring you all the way to Arizona to email your boss about the Callaghan account.”

“It’s the CallaNan account, and I’m texting Ben, actually.”

“No cell phones during meals! Right Mom??”

“I can’t believe it’s taken you less than twenty-four hours to revert to a complete child,” Eddie grumbled, shoving his phone back into his pocket.

Richie grinned and patted him on the shoulder. “So what have you got for us, Mom? Heavy lifting? Intricate construction? Eddie’s great at scrubbing potatoes, and I’m great at supervising people who are scrubbing potatoes.”

“I’m not going to make Eddie scrub potatoes. You’re on babysitting duty. You’d know that, if you read the list.” Maggie waved the sheet at him. “Tomorrow, you’re prepping green beans.”

“Babysitting? We just need to stop them killing themselves for a few hours? Are you doubting my ability to contribute meaningfully?”

“She’s doubting your ability to not drive her up the fu-freaking wall for a whole afternoon.” Eddie said.

Stephanie laughed through a mouthful of cereal. “We need them out of the house for like, six hours, right up until bedtime. You can take them to a movie or whatever, I don’t care. Just wear them out so much they sleep through the night.”

Richie cracked his knuckles. “If there’s anything I’m qualified to do, it’s keep kids out past their bedtimes.”

Richie had lived in LA for longer than he ever lived in Maine, but there was still something deeply weird about warm Decembers.

“This is weird,” Eddie said next to him. “Christmas should have snow.”

They were standing in the driveway, waiting for Stephanie to reassure herself that Mia and Chloe were properly attired for a day at the local mall.

“I know you think they gave us the easy job,” Richie said, “But have you ever spent Christmas Eve at a mall? We should probably just make our peace with only making it back with half our shoes.”

“I don’t know what you usually do at malls, but I’m not planning on taking off any of my clothes.”

At the door, Mia had her face buried in Stephanie’s neck while Chloe had her hands shoved in her pockets and a bored look on her face. Finally, Stephanie set Mia down and took her hand to walk her over to the car.

“You’re going to be a good girl for your Uncle Richie and his friend, right baby?”

Mia looked up at both of them and nodded shakily.

“Atta girl.” Richie held up his hand for a high five, but she just stared back at him. Eddie laughed.

“Okay then, too cool for that. I see how it is.”

Stephanie settled Mia into the car seat she’d transferred over and kissed her on the cheek.

“Can I sit in the front seat?” Chloe asked.

“I don’t know, are you thirteen yet?”

“Do you not even know how old I am?”

“Of course I know how old you are, and I know you’re not thirteen.”

Over Chloe’s head, Eddie shot Richie a look that definitely implied he didn’t think Richie actually knew how old she was.

They asked the girls what they wanted to do at the mall, and Chloe said she wanted Cheesecake Factory while Mia just blinked at them silently, so Cheesecake Factory it was.

The line was predictably gargantuan.

"Are you sure this is what you want?" Richie asked her.

"You promised," Chloe insisted. "Aren't you famous? Can't you make them give us a seat?"

Richie sighed. "Do you want people to roast me on twitter until April?"

"I want cheesecake."

She folded her arms over her chest and Richie sighed again.

"I'll go put our names down, you can decide if the wait will be too long and you'd rather we eat literally anything else in the mall."

The wait was going to be over an hour, but Chloe still insisted that was what she wanted, so Eddie took the buzzer and promised to stay in the vicinity with his work emails while Richie took Mia and Chloe to wander the rest of the stores.

They went to a record store so Chloe could look at t-shirts for bands her parents didn't let her listen to and Richie could exercise his uncle duty by buying her a Ramones sweatshirt that was two sizes too large (at her insistence). Mia trailed along behind them with one hand clutched in Richie's, forcing him to lean over so as not to make her uncomfortable.

The sweatshirt earned Richie his first smile of the visit though, so he considered it twenty dollars well spent. Afterwards, Chloe consented to Build-a-Bear, where Mia took a really long time stroking every single available empty animal.

Richie wasn't allowed too near the various soft fabrics with his iced coffee, so he and Chloe stood back while an incredibly cheerful teen lead Mia through the various stations.

Chloe sipped her gigantic hot chocolate and chewed on the end of her hair. Which was disgusting, but that was beyond uncle duties, so Richie let it slide.

"So is Eddie your boyfriend or what?"

Richie choked on his coffee.

"Is that a yes?" She spat out her hair. "You can tell me, I'm not gonna like, tweet about it."

"He's not my boyfriend."

"Oh. Okay. Do you have a boyfriend?"

Richie narrowed his eyes. "Is this whole outing an elaborate plan your mom came up with for you to grill me on this?"

"What? No. I just heard her telling dad she was happy Eddie was here because she thinks you're lonely."

Richie cringed. Great.

"But then you didn't say anything so I just wondered if you didn't want to tell us. But I wouldn't tell anyone, I promise."

"I know you wouldn't, kiddo." Richie pulled her close and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "If I had one, I'd tell you. Eddie's just... Eddie's just an old friend."

"Hmm." She looked up at him and Richie had a brief flashback to the looks Stan used to give him when they were kids. "Okay."

Richie was saved from any more questions by Mia toddling over with a floppy bunny in a red sequin dress. He'd never been happier to pay for anything in his life. Luckily, it wasn’t much longer before Eddie called them back for their table.

Richie loved his nieces, but there was only so much conversation to be had between two young children and two forty-year-old men with no children of their own. Richie somehow found himself deep in a conversation about My Chemical Romance with Chloe, despite the fact that he was fairly sure she was in like, second grade when they broke up.

Across the table, Mia had given up on trying to kneel on the booth's bench to reach her plate, and had climbed instead into Eddie's lap. He kept one eye on the two of them while Chloe painstaking ranked every MCR video, just in case he needed to swoop in and rescue Eddie, but Eddie didn't seem to mind.

Eddie had an arm wrapped around her waist to keep her from wriggling away, and he was trying to get her to eat any of the spaghetti marinara on her plate, which she was ignoring in favour of plucking olives out of Eddie's salad and stuffing them into her mouth along with most of her fingers. Eddie was never going to eat that salad now. Every third or fourth try, she'd accidentally pick up a different ingredient and frown at it, offering it to Eddie instead. He gently shook his head each time and she returned whatever it was to the bowl, picking up another olive instead.

Every single time, Richie's heart went through the exact same complicated dance and he wanted to stab himself in the thigh with his fork. He realised after about the third time that'd he'd stopped paying attention to whatever Chloe'd been saying for the last ten minutes. He turned his head back towards her so he can't even watch out of the corner of his eye and drops the fork he's been clutching on the bench seat next to him.

"That's a ridiculous choice," he said.

He didn't know what she'd listed most recently, but felt fairly confident he would disagree with whatever her ranking was. She hadn't even been alive for the first two albums, what could she possibly know?

Chloe huffed, paying him even less attention than he was paying her.

By the end of the meal, Eddie had eaten about four fork-fulls of salad, Mia had eaten every olive and chewed half of three pieces of lettuce, Richie had eaten half of some ridiculously creamy pasta dish, and Chloe had eaten an entire pizza and a slice of peanut butter cup cheesecake.

"I'm too full to walk," she announced as they were leaving. "You'll have to leave me here."

"I'm not above carrying you," Richie warned, and she groaned and pulled herself to her feet, looking genuinely a little uncomfortably full.

"Is she okay?" Eddie asked from where he was carefully buttoning Mia into her coat.

"She's fine." Richie ruffled Chloe's hair and she half-heartedly batted his hand away. "Eating so much you feel nearly sick is the whole point of Cheesecake Factory. I wouldn't expect you to understand."

Eddie rolled his eyes and wiped the last of the stray dressing off Mia's face with one of the wet wipes he apparently carried around with him. Richie bent down to offer Mia his hand to walk back to the car, but she blinked at him and took Eddie's hand instead. Eddie barely had to bend down to hold it. Richie still wanted to stab himself with a fork.

For the first time in a long time, Richie woke up early without a nightmare. The sun was barely up and even Eddie was still face-down in his pillow, snoring just a little. Richie lay in bed for a few minutes just soaking in the feeling of a full house, quiet but anticipating, filled with his favourite people.

This was probably the last time they'd ever all be under the same roof, because by next year Eddie would have hopefully finished his divorce and moved on to a newer, better, less like his mother wife who would love him despite what an asshole he was and jovially accept Richie and the rest of the Losers just like Audra does, without ever one hundred percent understanding their whole thing.

Maybe after that, Richie could move on too.

He really wanted to just lie in bed and stare at Eddie's stupid sleep-rumpled face and quietly despair, but it was Christmas, and even he couldn’t do that to himself. Instead, he dragged himself to his feet and pulled a sweater on over his threadbare t-shirt to head downstairs.

The kitchen was empty, so he started the coffee maker and pulled out mugs from the dishwasher and wandered around the kitchen until coffee was ready. He wasn't really used to being alone in his parent's house, where someone was always ready to sidle up behind him and demand attention or try and drag conversation out of him, even this early in the morning.

He didn't have to wait long though. He was barely finished with his first cup of coffee when his mother appeared, her sleeves already rolled up to her elbows in preparation.

"Oh good, you made coffee."

He slid a cup over to her. "Can I help with anything?"

She looked at him for a second, sizing up his sincerity. "You can prep vegetables while I start breakfast."

Richie tossed off a lazy salute. "Aye-aye."

Prepping vegetables was the kind of low-skill monotonous task that was Richie's main use in any kitchen. He absolutely could not tell you if your sauce needed a hint more whatever, but he could peel an unreasonable amount of potatoes, even if he'd tried to farm that job off on Eddie yesterday. How badly could he fuck up peeling potatoes anyway?

It was a little after eight am when the rest of the house woke up, seemingly as one, and trailed into the kitchen.

"Can I have coffee?" Chloe asked.

"You're not going to like it," Steph said.

"Pleaaaaaase."

"Ugh, fine. But no spitting it out, that's disgusting."

Richie poured Chloe about a third of a mug of coffee and added a lot of cream and enough sugar it probably wouldn't all dissolve, exactly the way he drank coffee until well into his twenties. It was fine, he knew the whole Tozier family were very diligent teeth brushers.

Eddie was the last person to come down, his eyes lighting up when Richie handed him a cup of coffee he'd saved him before everyone else emptied the pot. Half a sugar and just enough cream to turn the coffee a shade lighter than black.

"You're my favourite," Eddie mumbled, leaning against the countertop so their arms were pressed together. "I don't think you've ever gotten up earlier than me in the entire time we've known each other."

"Turning over a new leaf," Richie declared. "Going to become a morning person and make smoothies out of old salad."

Eddie ignored him. "I thought you might have had another nightmare, but you didn't wake me up."

"No, I slept great, actually."

"That's good. You've looked a little tired, lately."

"Thanks?"

"I - We all worry, sometimes."

Too much sincerity for Richie before breakfast. He wrapped an arm around Eddie's shoulders and jostled him a little. "Thanks for caring, Spaghetti-"

"Not my name."

"You keep saying that, but we all-"

They were interrupted by Mia, trailing her new stuffed bunny and tugging on Eddie's shirt. Eddie immediately dropped to a crouch so she could whisper in his ear, and Richie's stomach dropped along with him. Across the kitchen, Steph gave him a look and he waited until Chloe was looking the other way before discreetly flipping her off.

Breakfast was over by 10:15, and everyone moved to the living room for presents, and even with every effort to slow down the whole process, it took less than half an hour for everything to be handed around and stripped from it’s wrapping.

As soon as all the wrapping was cleared away, Richie was immediately recruited to help Chloe tune her new guitar while Mia sat in Eddie's lap and made him help her brush a doll's hair. Steph and Robert both looked delighted to not be doing either of these tasks, and Robert went to help in the kitchen while Steph painstakingly explained to Went how the new Roku worked.

Chloe's guitar felt tiny in his hands while he tried his best to tune it as she vibrated with excitement next to him. She'd apparently been watching YouTube tutorials about chords ever since she wrote her Christmas list, which was significantly easier than when Richie learned the guitar in college mostly from a girl in the drama club. Learning from YouTube promised less chance of friendship-ruining awkward crushes, anyway.

He finally got it tuned and handed it over, accepting her unexpected hug, leaving her to her own devices in the corner and going to join Eddie and Mia by the sofa.

"What's going on here?"

Mia stared at him silently (at least she was smiling this time) and held up the Barbie for him to look at.

"Mia's teaching me how to braid," Eddie explained.

"An important life skill."

Mia nodded in agreement and went back to her doll, seemingly content to let Eddie divide his attention for the moment. Richie handed him a cookie from the plate on the table. It was a heart-shaped sugar cookie with wobbly snowflake icing, Eddie popped the whole thing into his mouth in one go.

"What?" He glared back at Richie's raised eyebrow. "It's Christmas."

Richie grinned and handed him another cookie.

Dinner was delicious, and more food than Richie had eaten in one sitting for as long as he could remember. Even Eddie, usually the most diligent of recommended-daily-allowance followers, had second helpings of most things.

They were all sitting around the table, not wanting to keep eating but also not wanting to admit that dinner was over and it was time for clean-up to begin. So instead they picked at slices of pie and yawned heavily.

"Alright!" Maggie clapped her hands and stood up. "Eddie, you take the girls back to the living room and pick a movie. Richie and Steph, put all the leftovers away. Robert, clear the table."

"How come Eddie doesn't have to help clean?"

"Eddie's a guest."

In the doorway, Eddie flashed Richie a triumphant grin, and this time Richie couldn't even flip him off. Richie sighed and went to the cupboard to dig out the various tupperwares.

It didn't actually take that long to clear the table, fill the dishwasher, and set the bigger dishes to soak. Fifteen minutes later, they were all back in the living room and Richie'd decided he did actually want another slice of pie.

Watching movies with children always meant defaulting to their choices, so instead of It's a Wonderful Life (his mom's favourite Christmas movie) or Die Hard (his own) they're watching Elf, which is the best available choice. Chloe was on the ground in front of the sofa, still clutching her guitar even if she wasn't playing anything, and on the sofa, Mia was sprawled across Steph and Eddie's laps, her face pillowed adorably on her hands.

Richie loved Will Ferrell like every comedian who watched too much Saturday Night Live in the late nineties, and he'd seen this movie multiple times, so he just relaxed into its rhythms and dozed lightly on the sofa, trying to make sure he didn't spill pie everywhere. Somehow, his head ended up on Eddie's shoulder, and Eddie didn't movie. On screen, Will Ferrell traversed the field of swirly twirly gumdrops, and Richie fell asleep.

Richie was rudely shuffled awake at the end of the movie when everyone got up to stretch. Chloe dragged her guitar back to the corner to practice, while Robert picked up a dead-to-the-world Mia and brought her up to bed. Richie picked up the various plates that were spread across the coffee table and floor to swap out with the now-clean dishes and contemplate if he felt emotionally ready to tackle the casserole dishes in the sink.

Eddie followed him into the kitchen. "Hey, I'm gonna head out for a short walk, okay?"

"Oh, okay. Yeah. You want company?"

"No, it's cool."

Eddie's hands were balled up in his pockets, but he didn't really look much more stressed out than usual.

"Everything okay?"

"What? Yeah, I'm fine, don't worry about it."

"Sure? Okay, take your phone."

"Just in case I'm kidnapped on Christmas, walking around the block, in suburban Phoenix."

"Exactly."

Richie wasn’t hungover when he woke up, but he had the familiar delicate heaviness that told him he stopped just in time.

Eddie moved a lot in his sleep. Richie could tell because he always went to sleep on his side and woke up sprawled on his back, his limbs hanging off the edges of the trundle bed, the covers rucked down and tangled between his knees. Somehow in the night, his pyjama pants had twisted so low on his hips they were in danger of falling off, and when he moved around again, subconsciously chasing the beam of sun leaking through the blinds, Richie couldn’t help but notice his morning wood and smacked his head against the headboard jerking away from the realisation.

Eddie was close enough to waking that the noise obviously jarred him, but he just stretched a little and settled back down, his own hand squeezed between his knees.

Richie pulled a pillow over his face and counted to ten very carefully, willing his body back under control. This shouldn't be happening, he was an old man now, it usually took him a few minutes to get hard even when actively trying, but the tiny glimpse of Eddie's stomach and his hard dick in his stupid old plaid pyjama pants had done him in in less than ten seconds. How was he supposed to go have a wholesome family breakfast now?

"Richie?"

He glanced over. Eddie had rolled over on his stomach (thank god) and was now propped up on one elbow.

"Morning!" Oh god, he sounded demented. "I'm just gonna... go. And help with breakfast. You're fine. Sleep in. I'm fine. We're all fine."

Richie grabbed a pile of clothes as he ran out the door. Luckily no one was in the upstairs bathroom so he locked himself inside and sat down heavily on the edge of the bath. Even if he felt like he could jerk off about his straight best friend in his parents' bathroom, he felt like he had roughly five minutes before someone else wanted to use the bathroom or decided they desperately needed him for something. Instead, he stared at himself in the mirror while diligently brushing his teeth and just didn’t let himself think about it. The other benefit to being over forty: erections no longer felt like they needed to stick around for ages if he didn’t tend to them. He could just ignore them in to going away. If this had ever happened when they were kids - and fuck, maybe it had, he still couldn't remember all that clearly - he'd have had no choice but to spend the rest of the day with his backpack in his lap. Instead, by the time he'd fully brushed and flossed, the situation was as taken care of as it was going to get.

Downstairs, Steph was poking at the coffee maker while Robbie pulled flour out of the cupboard.

"We thought we'd let mom sleep in."

"Good plan."

Richie helped Robbie with the pancakes, doing whatever he was told and avoiding getting in the way. It wasn't long before Chloe and Mia appeared, still in their Christmas pyjamas.

Richie mixes Chloe a cup of coffee exactly like he'd made yesterday, then fixes his own and a cup for Eddie too. It won't get cold before he's down, as Eddie was physically incapable of lying in bed all morning, especially if there were other people in the house. Mia, thankfully, ignored the coffee in favour of shoving whole handfuls of blueberries into her mouth while Chloe tried to roll her sleeves up for her.

"How come we're having pancakes?" Chloe asked. "Usually we just have toast the morning after Christmas."

"It's tradition," Sarah explained.

"How can it be tradition if we've never done it before?"

"From when we were your age." Richie explained.

"When we were kids, Eddie would always come over the day after Christmas. We'd have pancakes for breakfast and then he and Richie would sit in his room for the entire day, reading comics and ignoring me."

"And occasionally re-appearing for leftover turkey," Richie added.

"Yes, and occasionally re-appearing for leftover turkey, and leaving old gravy all over the kitchen."

"We were busy."

"Why wasn't Eddie at home?"

"He just wanted to come over," said Sarah.

"But-"

"It's not really important."

"My mom didn't really like Christmas." Eddie said from the doorway.

"You don't have to explain," Richie said, handing him his coffee.

"It's fine."

Eddie sat at the table, putting his coffee down just in time for Mia to clamber into his lap.

"My mom didn't really like Christmas, and it was just the two of us, so we never really did much. She used to go and visit her sister the day after, and sending me to stay with Richie narrowly won over leaving me in the house by myself all day."

"She would have preferred literally any other friend," Richie offered. "But I was closest."

"Well yeah, but I would have gone to you anyway."

Richie didn’t know how to cope with that this early in the morning, but luckily Robbie handed him a bowl and told him to keep mixing until he's told to stop. When he finally looked back up, Mia had discovered Eddie's scars.

The scar on Eddie's face was almost invisible by now, but the ones on his shoulders from where It's claw had nearly impaled him were still the shiny pink of new skin. Richie didn’t see them very often, but today Eddie was wearing a sweater with a stretched-out neck and a few inches of one was visible where it twisted from his shoulder blade around to his clavicle. While Richie watched, a little lost in his own head, Mia stood up on Eddie's lap and pressed a gentle, messy kiss to the part of the scar that she could see.

"Thank you," Eddie whispered, reaching up to wipe half a chewed-up blueberry from her chin with some paper towel. "It feels better now."

Eddie was in the living room colouring with Mia and Richie was biting his nails to the quick to avoid any kind of incriminating facial expressions. He didn’t think it was working because Chloe had her eyes narrowed at him over the rim of her giant mug of hot chocolate, but at least it wasn’t Stephanie. He and Chloe had an understanding.

At the coffee table, Eddie was obediently taking whatever crayon Mia handed him to colour in whatever spot she told him too, even though Mia’s colour-matching skills were, at best, underdeveloped. Richie couldn’t wait to see what Lisa Frank monstrosity they’d end up with. Finally, Mia wrote a shaky ‘m’ on the corner of her colouring and presented it to Eddie, who thanked her sincerely. Richie bit his cuticle so hard he drew blood, and Chloe choked on a mini marshmallow.

“What’s so funny?” Eddie asked.

“Nothing,” said Chloe. “I just remembered something funny from last week.”

Eddie didn’t believe her, which was to be expected, but Stephanie arrived to put Mia to bed before he could ask anymore questions. Chloe left to get more marshmallows, leaving Richie alone to watch Eddie put all sixty-four crayons back in their box in meticulous rainbow order. He peered into the box and switched two blues around and Richie felt his resolve weakening even more than usual.

“Did you ever want kids?”

Eddie froze and Richie wanted to punch himself in the face. What a fucking stupid question.

“I never really thought about it,” Eddie said finally. “Myra hated kids, and even if she didn’t, I don’t think…”

He was fiddling with the crayon box, so Richie carefully pulled it out of his hands and sat down next to him. He nudged his knee gently with his own.

“Hey, it’s not too late,” Richie said, with as much cheer as he could muster. “You see all these celebrities and millionaires having kids into their 80s, that could be you.”

Eddie laughed a little. “I’ll consider it.”

“And hey, if not, I will happily agree to cede godfather rights to you for all future Loser offspring.”

Eddie didn’t get a chance to answer before Stephanie came back.

“Hey Eddie, I’m really sorry but Mia’s being super difficult and she wants you to read her a story or she won’t even get under the covers. Would you mind?

Eddie smiled “Oh sure, no problem.”

He squeezed Richie’s knee when he pushed himself up and Richie collapsed back into the sofa. He very deliberately didn’t watch Eddie leave the room and walk upstairs. When he looked up, Stephanie was giving him the exact same look Chloe had earlier.

“For fuck’s sake Richie, when are you going to wife that boy up?”

Richie’s head whipped around to make sure Eddie was nowhere in hearing distance. “What the fuck, Steph.”

She rolled her eyes and poked his shoulder. “Calm down. Now go get me a beer and meet me on the porch.”

He got them both beers and himself a slice of pie (with a second fork) and found her on the porch chairs, a blanket tucked around her legs. She took the pie and handed him the second fork.

“Okay, spill.”

Richie gulped down half his beer in one go. “Nothing to spill.”

“Richie.”

“It’s nothing.”

“I know you guys only reconnected recently and you’re having lots of ‘oh the times we’ve missed’ feelings, but flying two thousand miles to spend Christmas with your platonic friend’s family is a lot, even for your co-dependent band of weirdos.”

“Eddie’s been coming over the day after Christmas since we were kids, nothing’s changed.”

Stephanie pursed her lips. “You’re right, nothing’s changed. You were in love with him back then too.”

“Jesus Steph.”

The look she gave him didn’t really need words.

“He’s my best friend.”

“Robert’s my bes-”

Richie rolled his eyes. “Oh fuck off with that bullshit.”

“It’s true though.” She nudged his shoe with the tip of her shoe

“Good for you, I guess.” Richie sighed and pulled his legs up to balance on the edge of his chair, settling his beer between his feet and worrying the edge of the label with his thumbnail.

“Could be you too.”

“No it couldn’t.”

“Richie…”

“Don’t you think I’ve thought about it?” he asked. “Do you really think I haven’t spent way too much of my life wondering what if, what if I were a little less something and a little more something else.”

“You’re enough.”

“No, I’m not. But it’s fine.”

“Richie, you don’t -”

“He married a woman, Steph. Before that, he dated other women. He’s never even mentioned men.”

“That doesn’t mean-”

“It does though! That’s exactly what it means.”

“I still think you should ask him.”

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t have enough friendships to just torch one of them.”

“You’re being so fucking melodramatic -”

“Gee, thanks.”

“You’re welcome!”

“Why is everyone so hung up on this?”

“We just want you to be happy!”

“Then stop telling me to ask out Eddie! Then I’ll be happy!”

“But-”

“It’s not going to happen,” Richie snapped, “and I really need everyone to stop bugging me about it or I’m going to scream.”

Steph scowled and burrowed into her blanket.

The silence between them had grown tight and uncomfortable enough that Richie was about to cave, when Eddie reappeared.

“Hey, she’s asleep.”

Stephanie startled slightly. “That was fast.”

“Yeah, I think she was just being stubborn. We didn’t even make it to the end of Green Eggs and Ham before she was out cold.”

“Awesome. I’ll give her a few minutes before I look in on her, make sure I don’t accidentally rouse her. Thanks Eddie.”

Eddie smiled. “No problem.”

“C’mon, sit down. I’ll grab you a beer.”

Richie was halfway out of his seat before Eddie shook his head.

“I’m actually probably going to head to bed, but thanks.”

“What? It’s still early.”

“I’ll probably read for a bit, but yeah. I’m just gonna -” He gestured vaguely towards the bedrooms. “I’ll see you later.”

Richie wanted to pull him back to sit down next to him, but resisted.

“Are you okay?”

Eddie blinked. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just a little tired. You know how it is, long day, lots of… colouring.”

“Oh yeah. Colouring. Really takes it out of you.”

For a second, it seemed like Eddie wanted to say something else, but he just blinked again and taps the door with his knuckles.

“Night, Richie.”

“Night, Eds.”

Once Eddie was gone, Richie thunked his head back on the cushion. Stephanie nudged him with the tip of her toe.

“Yeah, I know.” Richie sighed. “I know.”

Richie stayed up late with Steph and Robert on the porch, eating too much pie and more than a couple of beers, and when he finally made it up to bed, Eddie was already asleep, still carefully tucked in on one side.

Eddie always goes to sleep on his right side, so when Richie finally crawled into bed they were still facing each other, and Richie spent way too long just watching Eddie's face until he finally drifted off himself.

He woke up later than the last few days, and when he did, Eddie was already up and dressed in loose jeans and a worn t-shirt. He had already stripped all the bedding from the trundle bed and was carefully re-checking he'd packed everything correctly, his back to Richie. Richie glanced at his phone, it was 9.23am.

"You're so efficient."

Eddie started at the words before looking over his shoulder. "I don't want to pay apple eighty bucks just because i left my charger under the bed. We don't all make Netflix money.

Richie barely had Netflix money right now, and even when he did, he was fairly certain he didn’t actually make much more than Eddie did, and way less reliably.

He pushed himself upright. "Give me a minute, I'll go make coffee."

"You don't have to get up yet, I can figure out coffee myself."

"No it's fine, I'm good."

He didn't even bother changing out of his sleep sweatpants, just pulled on some socks and wandered down to the kitchen, leaving Eddie to do another re-check on his already perfectly packed suitcase. By the time Eddie came downstairs and dropped his suitcase by the front door, coffee was ready and Richie had already poured out two cups and left the remainder to stay warm for everyone else.

Eddie took the coffee with a quiet 'thanks' and leaned against the counter to drink it. He left a good six or seven inches of space between them, which was more than any other morning this week, but Richie guessed there wasn’t anyone else in the kitchen to force them closer together right now.

"What time's your flight?"

"12:40. I called a cab for 10."

That was ridiculously early, in Richie's opinion. Especially because he knew Eddie had pre-check, and the airport wasn’t going to be busy. But ridiculously over-cautious was Eddie typical, so he didn’t even mention it.

Everyone else drifted down while they were drinking coffee, all in a mostly-silent daze until Eddie's phone alerted him that his cab was almost there. Everyone followed him to the driveway, even as he protested that they could all stay inside where it was comfortable.

The cab wasn't quite there yet, but they could see it making its way through the subdivision. Richie pulled Eddie in to a good-bye hug as it approached.

Eddie's shoulders were stiff under Richie's arms, so Richie pulled back quicker than he wanted to.

"See you in Chicago?" He couldn't help making it sound like a question.

"Yeah, of course."

Chloe smiled and nodded at Eddie, which was the best that could be expected, but Mia wrapped her arms around him and snuffled wet tears into his neck. He pulled back to whisper something in her ear and she nodded and gasped back a few sobs. Eddie wiped the tears from her cheeks with the cuff of his sweater and kissed her gently on the forehead and handed her back to Steph.

"You're an honorary uncle now," she said quietly enough that Richie wasn't sure he was supposed to hear. "You'll have to come back."

"Wouldn't miss it," Eddie replied, equally quiet.

Maggie pressed a large sandwich into Eddie's hands before he got in the taxi, 'just in case', and then he was gone.

Richie was shoving his spare phone charger into the side pocket of his carry-on when Steph knocked on the door behind him.

"Wow, packing already? I guess Eddie's rubbing off on you."

Richie sighed and zipped up his bag a little too forcefully, "Steph, please."

"Okay. C'mon, I made lunch."

Downstairs, Steph had made soup and prepped more grilled cheeses than they really needed with the rest of the house empty. Richie sat on the table to watch as she swirled butter in the bottom of a skillet and carefully laid the first sandwich down.

"Do you remember when you taught me how to make these?" she asked.

It took him a second to pull the memory out of the depths, but he did. "You had a home ec recipe project and mom was away visiting her sister. You wanted to make cupcakes but I made you pick the easiest thing I could think of."

"You'd had a fight with your friends and were being a complete bitch about it, and dad said you had to help me or you'd be grounded."

It had been the semester right after that summer. They'd already lost Bev to Portland and everything else had been tight and fractured; Richie had spent weeks alternating between desperately craving Eddie's attention and lashing out at anyone who even looked at him, until even Stan had had enough, and yelled at him in the middle of the hallway between classes. Richie had tried to shove him into a locker but Bill got in between them and he'd stormed out, telling them all to go fuck themselves.

He should have been suspended for skipping the rest of the day. The only reason he wasn't was that Eddie had told all their teachers he'd gone home sick, and no one had bothered to check.

"You were fucking miserable," Steph said, flipping the sandwich. "Even I felt bad for you, despite how annoying you were."

"I didn't know what I was doing," Richie said. "Nothing in the entire world was more important than him looking at me, but every time he did, I wanted to peel my own skin off."

"And you couldn't tell anyone."

Richie snorted. "God no. Can you imagine?"

Steph nodded sadly. "I wish I -"

"Wishing's pointless." Richie cut her off. "You would have freaked out, anyway. You're good now, everything's good, pretty much."

Steph slid her sandwich on to a plate and left his a minute longer to get browner. "Go find napkins."

He set the table like when they were kids, paper napkins instead of real ones, and teaspoons for soup to make it last longer. Steph cut the sandwiches into triangles.

"Sorry if I made it awkward while he was here," she said. "You've just never been as weird about anyone as you are about him, and I thought..."

"It's fine." Richie nudged her with his elbow. "You're not even wrong, fundamentally speaking."

"Just practically."

"Yeah."

"I just want you to be happy."

"Who's happy these days?"

"Richie."

"Sorry, sorry, I know. I'm working on it."

"Good." She nudged him back. "I love you."

Richie wrinkled his nose. "Gross. Kidding. I love you too."

"Good talk bro." Steph held her hand up for a fist bump. "It's your turn to make the next sandwiches."

"You only love me for my skills in the kitchen."

"Well it's certainly not your skills anywhere else."

Richie flipped her off with a grin and turned back to the stove.

Richie’s flight to Chicago was hidiously delayed, but Bev was still waiting for him at the airport when he shuffled through arrivals.

“Here alone? You finally throwing over that hunk and running away with me?”

Bev laughed brightly and patted him on the cheek. “You couldn’t handle me, Trashmouth.”

“You’re probably right. Plus, I could never do that to Ben, he’d probably apologise to me over it.”

“Maybe, yeah.” Bev smiled again and Richie grimaced.

“You’re so happy. It’s disgusting.”

“Aww, did Christmas at home get you all maudlin? You’ll find love one of these days.”

“I’d settle for benign acceptance at this point.”

“Benignly accepting and great in bed?”

“Sure, why not shoot for the fucking moon.”

“No self-deprecation ‘til January, Richie.”

“I didn’t agree to that!”

Bev grinned and dragged him toward the parking deck. “House rule. You’ll live.”

“Ugh.” Richie let himself be dragged. “There’s still liquor though, right?”

Bev gave him a look. “Richard.”

Richie shuddered. “You’re right, I’ll never doubt you again.”

“You’d better fucking not.”

Bev was as good as her word and had a glass of wine in his hand before he’d even put his suitcase down.

Ben already had dinner ready, a gigantic pot of some kind of stew that was one of the best things Richie had eaten in months.

“Ben, you’re amazing. Want to run away together? We can disappear into the night, Bev will never know.”

Across the table, Bev had her feet in Ben’s lap while he lazily rubbed her shins. “I think she might figure something out.”

“I can’t believe you both turned me down. What does a humble homo have to do to break up a beautiful hetero coupling these days, I’m out of fucking options.”

“I think fucking options might be your main issue there, to be honest,” Ben offered.

Bev cackled. “You’ve never been humble a day in your life, Trashmouth.”

Richie threw a bread roll at her, but she caught it easily.

After dinner, they took more wine to the couch and spread out.

“How was Christmas, Richie?” Bev asked.

He smiled. “I was good. My family all dragged me relentlessly, even my niece -”

“Well that is your love language.”

He flipped her off. “It was nice.

“Stephanie and her family were there right?”

“Yeah, her and Robert and their kids. Chloe, who’s far too cool for me -”

“Everyone’s too cool for you.”

“Thanks Haystack, I love you too. And Mia, who decided that Eddie was her new favourite person in the world, and she normally hates people.”

“Definitely your niece then.”

“Fuck off Marsh. Do you want to see an adorable child dressed like a snowflake or not?”

“Gimme.” Bev snatched his phone out of his hand and started scrolling through his camera roll.

Richie hadn’t deleted any of the photos he’d taken in Arizona, and mentally crossed his fingers there wasn’t a more than reasonable number of pictures of Eddie in there. Or at least, that he mostly showed up as Mia’s plus-one, ably managing not to grimace at her sticky fingers wrapped around his.

By the look on Bev’s face, he was going to have to do some editing before he showed the pictures to anyone else.

“This is a lot of pictures of Eddie.”

Richie shrugged and bit his thumbnail. “Like I said, Mia wouldn’t leave him alone. It was photos of him or no photos of her, so I made the sacrifice.

Bev raised an eyebrow but kept scrolling. “Oh, this one’s cute.”

She twisted around to show Ben, and Richie couldn’t help but smile.

She had landed on his favourite shot out of the whole lot. Eddie was framed in front of the tree, holding Mia like he’d held small children every day of his life. She has one tiny chubby hand on each of his cheeks, and whatever she’s saying to him he’s taking deadly seriously. Richie didn’t even know what it was, Mia still barely spoke above a whisper if she spoke at all, but Eddie had a tiny smile on his face and he looked more relaxed then Richie had seen in a long time.

“Did Eddie have a good time?

Bev’s face was more knowing then Richie really wanted to deal with.

“Yeah, I think so.”

Later, Ben was gently carding his fingers through Bev’s hair while she slept on his lap, and Richie felt something tug in his chest.

“Can I ask you something?”

Ben looked back up and smiled. “You can ask me anything, Rich.”

Richie looked down at his drink for a second. “Do you think… Do you think you’d have gotten over her? Like, if you hadn’t forgotten, she’s just some girl who signed your yearbook in seventh grade.”

Ben’s hand stilled in Bev’s hair, then started up again immediately when Bev grunted in displeasure in her sleep.

“I don’t know. Maybe? It’s a long time to keep going for nothing, but who knows. Maybe they’d fade, maybe not. Feelings are terrible that way.”

“Yeah, feelings suck.” Richie agreed.

“I don’t know, they have their moments.” Ben smiled down at Bev again. “When I saw her outside the restaurant though… It didn’t feel like I was remembering feelings from a long time ago, it felt like I was right back in it. Like I’d seen her three hours ago and could still remember the exact smudges of dirt on her hands. I know we were just kids but I’d never felt that way about anyone else.”

“It’s fucked up. You just spend your whole life thinking one thing and then, bam, turns out you’re not incapable of real feelings, you just forgot the only ones you ever had.”

Ben tilted his head to the side and smiled gently. “Are we still talking about Bev?”

Richie gulped down the end of his drink. “Who else would we be talking about?”

“No one.”

Richie stood up, missing the table the first time he tried to put his glass down.

“Oh hey is that the time? I should probably go to bed if I don’t want to sleep through everyone arriving tomorrow. You’re good here right? Yeah okay, I’m just gonna-”

“Richie,” Ben grabbed his hand as he walked behind the couch, “You’ll figure it out.”

“Nothing to figure out, man. I’m good.”

“Okay. Goodnight, Richie.”

“Night, Ben.”

Richie had every intention of getting up early (earlyish) and seeing Bill, Mike, and Eddie as they arrived, but it wasn’t the New Year yet, so his good intentions took a back seat to the far-too-much wine swirling around inside him, and by the time he finally made it out, it was nearly noon and everyone was in the kitchen.

A loud, mocking cheer went up when he finally joined them, but it’s not the loudest or the most mocking cheer that Richie’d ever been greeted by, so he held up his hands to accept their adulation and slid into the seat next to Eddie.

“Did I miss pancakes? Please tell me I didn’t miss pancakes.”

Ben handed him a plate with pancakes and a bacon smiley face on it.

“I know you’re mocking me, but I’m choosing to ignore it.”

He poured syrup over most of the plate. Eddie gagged.

“Be honest, have you eaten a single vegetable since I left you?”

“Mia shared her applesauce with me on Tuesday.”

“That’s a fruit, not a vegetable, and Mia would never.”

“You’re right, Mia spent the rest of the trip deeply resenting me for not being you, and I have not eaten a single vegetable.”

"That's my girl." Eddie smiled and dumped a pile of chopped fruit on the side of Richie's plate, drowning his bacon. "Don't get scurvy."

Richie poured more syrup on top of the fruit. "What's everyone doing today? Has someone carefully scheduled out the entire weekend? Am I going to need to put on pants?"

"You need to put on pants," said Mike.

"Let me clarify," Richie shoved what felt like half a melon in his mouth, "Are we leaving the house?"

"Mike, Eddie, and I are going downtown." Bev said, "And I think Ben has a few work things he needs to get done, so he's working from home."

"And Bill?"

"I'm planning on hanging out around here, I've got a few work things to sort out."

"Hmm." Richie tapped his chin exaggeratedly. He'd been to Chicago a bunch of times, it was a regular stop on basically any stand-up tour, so he wouldn’t be missing anything if it didn’t hang out with Mike and Bev and Eddie, and lazing around all day promised to be a way less stressful afternoon than whatever efficiently-planned day out Eddie had planned. And he could probably convince Bill to start day-drinking pretty early if no-one else was around to act like a grown-up.

"I'm going to work on a few edits, answer a few of the emails my manager sent that I refused to answer from my parents place, on principle."

Eddie snorted, but Richie didn't dignify it with a response.

"I can't believe Steve still talks to you."

"Hey, if Steve didn't ditch me after I disappeared mid-show for two weeks and then immediately came out in someone else's instagram live, I doubt ignoring him for four days over Christmas is going to drive him away. Besides, the tour starts in like four weeks, he can't leave me now."

"If Richie wants to spend the entire day in bed, that's fine," Bev interrupted. "All rules are off til New Year's. Up is down, left is right, etc."

"Thank you for your support." Richie clinked his coffee cup against hers, even though she was still drinking out of it. "And I'm not going to spend the whole day in bed. Just most of the day."

"We don't believe you," said Mike, which was honestly fair.

Richie did actually have a few emails from Steve to respond to, but they were mostly tiny things he could wrap up in less than fifteen minutes, and that left him most of the afternoon to laze about. He'd never been good at entertaining himself though, so after a few hours he gave up on minor tinkering with his new tour script and went to find Bill.

Bill was sitting at the dining room table, technically working on his laptop, but Richie could tell he wasn’t really doing much anymore. Richie went to lean against the table next to him and held out one of the cups of coffee he was holding.

"Want to blow off work for the rest of the day?"

Bill sighed, "Depends, is that coffee Irish?"

"Jamaican, actually."

Bill looked at him for a second before reaching out for the cup he offered. He took a sip and nearly choked.

"How Jamaican is this?"

Richie shrugged, "Like 30%? C'mon, it's New Years. We're just starting a little earlier than everyone else, they'll all catch up."

Bill took a second, more delicate sip. "You didn't want to head downtown with everyone else?"

"I did actually have work to do. Besides, I think Eddie got over-exposed to me in Arizona, have to give him a chance to detox, can't have him developing an allergy."

Bill laughed. "If Eddie was going to get an exposure allergy to you, it would have happened when we were twelve and you kept stealing his sweaters because you never bothered to bring your own no matter how cold it was."

Eddie's mother had been convinced (correctly it seemed, but hey, stopped clocks) that scented detergents could cause allergies, so while Stan and Bill's clothes had always smelled like an artificial meadow, Eddie's had only ever smelled like Eddie. Richie'd never left his own at home on purpose, but he also never really bothered to remember, not when Eddie's mom always made him bring an extra one everywhere, just in case.

"You never know, maybe I'm like shrimp. Sudden and deadly."

He took a sip from his own cup to avoid eye-contact with Bill, but Bill was on to him. He swung around a little in his chair and nudged Richie's foot with his own.

"You doing okay, Rich?"

"I'm fine."

Bill didn't say anything. Bill had known him since kindergarten, and knew that all you had to do was give him a long enough silence and he'll crack.

"I'm fine. It's just, y'know, family shit. They're all married and happy, the kids aren't old enough to butt into their love lives yet, so it's just a constant stream of helpful observations."

"You're family wants you to be happy, such a tragedy."

"Well they all think I should marry Edd-"

Richie cut himself off before he finished, but it was too late. Bill tilted his head to the side before nodding. "Huh."

"Oh fuck Bill, not you too. Every single Tozier in Phoenix was enough."

"You could do worse."

Richie scoffed. "Obviously I could do worse, that's not the question. I maybe even will do worse, eventually."

"Rich..."

"No, it's fine, really." Richie knocked back the rest of his coffee. "This is a gay right of passage, I just forgot and have to do it all over again when I should be old enough to know better. I'm good. Let's go find Ben, how much work does architecture really need."

"Buildings basically hold themselves up, it's true."

"See, you get it." Richie clapped Bill on the shoulder and ducked out of the room before Bill could reply.

Ben tried to be responsible, but it didn’t take Richie and Bill long to convince him that whatever he was working on could wait until tomorrow, and they broke out the good whiskey.

"So where's Audra? She's not mad about you abandoning her for New Year's"?

"She's at a yoga retreat with Nikki Reed and Teresa Palmer. They go every year, she's probably just happy I'm not sitting around moping by myself, it means the chances of me getting drunk and trying to call her at midnight are significantly lower."

"Wow, married life sounds great. You sure you want to jump on that, Haystack?" Richie asked.

"I'm not engaged, Richie."

"Please Ben, you were basically born married, you ooze it from every pore."

Ben laughed. "Why are you trying to marry me off?"

"I just need you guys and then Mike, then I'm expecting a prize as the last unmarried one standing." Richie said.

"Eddie's divorced."

"Not yet, and still counts."

"I don't know Rich, maybe you'll surprise all of us, you'll fall deeply in love before any of the rest of us make it down the aisle."

"Not likely." Richie knocked back the rest of his whiskey and poured another. "I'm famously terrible."

"You're non-famously terrible as well."

"Thanks Big Bill, knew you had my back."

"I'm serious though," Ben started.

"Please don't be," said Richie.

"You do deserve love." Ben laid a hand on his shoulder. "I know you act like you've given up-"

"I swear to god Ben, I will get on the next plane home."

"He's right though, you should try and meet someone. Do you need help with that? I know people."

"Bill, no offense, but I bet you have terrible taste in dudes. Besides, not to be crude about it-"

"That's a first."

"I'm white and tall and vaguely famous, I can get dick if I want dick, that's not an issue."

"It's not about d- sex," said Ben. "It's about everything."

Richie covered his face with one hand. "Look, I'm going to be sincere for like fifteen seconds and that's it, okay? I love you both, and I appreciate that you mean well, but it's not happening right now, and I need everyone to accept that."

When he put his hand down, Ben and Bill were both looking at him with better concealed pity than he'd expected.

"Sure Richie."

"We just want you to be happy, so whatever you -"

"Sincerity over!" Richie cut Ben off. "When's everyone else back, we can't get crunk without them, that's just sad."

"Bev said they'd be back by seven, I'm going to start dinner. Want to help?"

"No, but I'll watch you and offer bad advice."

"About what I expected."

Ben cooked pasta for dinner, with some elaborate sauce he made from scratch with enough components Richie didn’t have room to sprawl over the counter and get in the way. Ben didn’t even trust him to put garlic bread in the oven, so Bill got to do that. Richie was entrusted to stir the pot of sauce whenever Ben told him too. The three of them were still in the kitchen when everyone else got back.

"Richie, are you cooking?

"Ben's trying to house-break me," Richie said, "So I only drive men away with my personality, and not my lack of adult skills."

"Your personality isn't that bad," said Eddie.

"Aw, that's sweet of you to say Spaghetti, but the complete lack of men kind of proves you wrong."

"Maybe if you actual-"

Richie cut him off with a mimed shot to the heart. "You wound me baby. We all know I'm dying alone."

"Richie-"

"This is all just a part of my elaborate plot to come off as so good a house guest that all of you still invite me over when you're all happily married, and I'm just some guy who's not even famous enough for meaningless groupie sex anymore."

He slung an arm over Eddie's shoulder, but Eddie immediately ducked out from underneath it.

"Fine, Eds, I'll put you last on the list for my elderly convalescence. Everyone else can fight over first place."

Bev threw Richie a pepper grinder; he barely caught it. "Hey Trashmouth, go set the table."

He bowed exaggeratedly and flipped the dish towel he was holding over his shoulder, grabbing the piles of cutlery out of the drawer.

He spent longer setting the table than he probably needed to, but Ben and Bev had an actual dining room, like actual grown-ups. Bill and Eddie probably had dining rooms too. Richie didn’t even have a kitchen table, because the only person ever eating in his apartment was himself.

When everyone else came in, Eddie took the seat at the far corner from Richie, and barely looked at him. But Richie was used to the feeling of having pushed Eddie too far, even if he didn’t know what he did, and he was equally used to the fact that Eddie was never able to keep it up for long.

Dinner was delicious, because Ben was obviously perfect at everything he turned his hand to, and they all told each other again about their Christmasses. Richie even pulled out his phone so show off pictures of his nieces again, and luckily no one saw enough of them to comment on how many photos included Eddie. Eddie didn’t talk much, but Richie didn’t really notice, because it turned out Bill had equally terrible music opinions as Chloe’s, and Richie needed to fix that.

After pasta, and bread, and dessert, and wine, a few hours had passed by the time they all made it into the living room, where there was an actual champagne bucket and Ben said they'd be able to see the fireworks later.

"Can we ban Ben and Bev from kissing at midnight because the rest of us are single and pathetic. Or in Bill's case, just pathetic."

"You can't ban other people from kissing just because no one loves you," said Mike.

"Fine, but I'm taking that as you volunteering to step up to kiss me at midnight, so-"

"Absolutely not."

"Okay then, Bill, where are you at?"

"Gonna have to pass on that one too."

"Fine," Richie rolled his eyes and turned to Eddie, throwing his arm back over his shoulder. "Eddie, baby, light of my life, how-"

"Fuck off Richie."

Eddie shoved out from under Richie's arm and pushed between Mike and Bill, disappearing out the door. Richie stared after him.

"Does anyone know what the hell that was?"

"Should someone-" Bev started, but Richie cut her off.

"I'll go. No use in him getting pissed at all of us."

Eddie hadn't had time to go far. Richie found him in the kitchen, angrily re-filling the Brita pitcher.

"Okay, what the fuck was that?"

Eddie was still staring at the tap. "Can we not do this right now?"

"I don't even know what we're not doing! Everything was normal and then you just stormed off, so -"

"Look, I heard, okay? I heard you talking to Steph about me when you thought I was still reading Mia a bedtime story. I was coming back downstairs, and I heard. So. Yeah."

It took Richie less than a second to remember exactly what he and Steph had been talking about that night, and all the blood drained from his face in an instant.

"Look, Eds-"

"It's Eddie."

"Sorry, Jesus. Eddie. This doesn't have to be a thing, okay? We don't have to let it get weird."

"Sure, yeah. We don't want to be weird. Right. Wouldn't want that."

This conversation had rapidly leapt off whatever rails Richie thought it could, or would, have stayed on, but he was absolutely sure the only thing he needed was for Eddie to be okay with it.

"Nothing has to change, okay? I promise, I'll be chill. Everything can just keep going on the same as always, it's fine."

Eddie folded his arms tightly across his chest and glared back.

Richie sighed. "It's not fine, right? I'm sensing that it's not fine."

"Of course it's not fine." Eddie snapped. "Look, I get that this is all like fifteen different jokes to you, but it's not for me, okay? Maybe I can't just act like it's nothing."

Richie felt like his knees were going to buckle. This was it, the one thing he'd been terrified of since the moment they pulled each other out of the wreckage of the house on Neibolt. Since longer even, since he was twelve years old and didn't see what the big deal about Cindy Crawford was and wanted to be as close to Eddie as humanly possible instead.

"Look I'm sorry, okay? This was never supposed to get awkward. I've been trying to fix it, it's my fault. I will fix it."

"I know it's not your fault, it's nobody's fault." Eddie sighed, pressing the palms of his hands against his eyes. "I know you don't actually mean to be an asshole most of the time, but just like... I can't stand here and listen to you making jokes about kissing me as a last-choice back-up option less than three days after I hear you telling your sister that the idea of dating me is so awful that it's enraging."

Wait.

"I get it, okay." Eddie was still talking, "No one wants to still be dealing with stupid crushes when they're fucking forty, but I need you to work something out, because I can't keep acting like it's nothing, not now. I-"

"Eddie-" Richie cut him off, "Sorry, I just - what did you hear me say to Steph?"

The look Eddie gave him couldn't be any more 'are you fucking kidding me' if it tried, but Richie couldn't let it go. "Please."

"Fine." Eddie scowled. "She said she just wanted you to be happy, and you said she needed to stop asking you about me or you were going to scream."

"So you didn't hear the first part."

"What? No, what first part?"

Richie choked back an awkward laugh and dug his fingers into his hair to give his hands something to do. "The first part of the conversation. When she asked me when I was going to marry you because I've been in love with you since we were thirteen and everyone can tell."

In front of him, Eddie dropped his hands from his face.

"And I told her to stop because you were straight and it sucked to constantly have to remind myself how unavailable you were."

Eddie swallowed. "I'm not."

"Unavailable?"

"Straight. Unavailable. Either. Anything."

Richie didn't even realise he'd started walking until he was right in front of Eddie, cupping his jaw in one hand.

"I'm just gonna-"

"Yeah-"

Eddie's lips tasted like plain chapstick and Richie barely moved at first because he still couldn't quite believe this was actually happening. He got with the program pretty quickly though, when Eddie grabbed his sides and pulled him in closer, and he had to put one hand on the counter behind him for balance, boxing Eddie into the corner. Eddie's jaw flexed under his hand, and Richie pulled him closer, his thumb drifting over the tiny scar on his cheek. He didn’t even know how long it was before Eddie pulled away, pressing a kiss to Richie's neck before pushing him back just far enough that Richie couldn’t kiss him again.

"We have like, five minutes before someone comes looking for us."

"You're crazy if you don't think they've already been and gone."

"I don't trust any of them to be that discreet. Well, maybe Mike." Eddie took his hand. "C'mon. It's nearly midnight."

"Oh, so now you want to kiss me at midnight."

"Yeah. But you should probably shut the fuck up if you don't want that to change."

In the living room, the other four did a really good job of pretending they hadn’t just stopped talking about them.

"Yeah yeah, you're all subtle as hell." Richie said. "Now someone give me champagne, clock's ticking."

Ben poured them all glasses of what even Richie could tell is a very expensive bottle of champagne, and Richie took his in his left hand because his right arm was slung around Eddie's waist. He wasn’t letting himself overthink it, because Eddie wouldn't have kissed him in their friends' kitchen if he didn't want their friends to know, and overthinking everything had caused enough problems already.

They didn’t have a tv on, so when it got close, Ben counted them all down to midnight on his smart watch, and they drank champagne and Richie kissed Eddie again, his hand curled into the small of Eddie's back.

It wasn’t even one am when they broke up for the night. Eddie followed Richie to the guest room and they brushed their teeth and changed out of their clothes, already moving in an easy concurrent rhythm. Richie finally pulled Eddie onto the bed and kissed him again, pressing Eddie's whole body into the duvet. Eddie arched under him for just a moment before pulling away.

"I'm not having sex in Bev and Ben's guest room."

"I'm shocked."

Richie yawned, and Eddie rolled his eyes. "Even if I was, you'd pass out."

"I think you underestimate how long I've been thinking about this. I'd power through."

Eddie blushed, just a little. "Sometime. Soon. In a bed that one of us owns. But until then, sleep."

He moved them both up the bed and pushed them both around until they were lying close together, Eddie's back against Richie's chest

"Are you ceding big spoon rights to me without a fight?" Richie grinned.

"I never understood that expression," Eddie said, pulling Richie's arm around his waist. "Who throws big and little spoons into the same place? They don't nestle together properly, only equally-sized spoons do."

"Eddie," Richie kissed the back of his neck. "You would not believe the state of my cutlery drawer."

"I'm already scared."

Eddie clearly had something more to say, so Richie waited, rubbing his thumb over Eddie's thin t-shirt.

"My divorce should be finalised by February."

"That's good."

"So I don't have to stay in New York anymore. I was thinking I'd like LA."

"You'll hate LA. Everyone hates LA."

"Richie," Eddie pinched the back of his hand.

"You should come to LA. I would like that."

"Good."

Eddie relaxed a little more in his arms, his shirt shifting a little. Richie can see the scar that crosses his shoulder, and presses a kiss to the patch on his trapezius.

"Goodnight, Eds."

"Goodnight."