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Nothing. All he could see was nothing. He could hear the loud screams. But from who? He felt cold. Who was screaming? He felt empty. He heard the screams again but louder. Why was it so cold? Why was it so dark? WHAT’S GOING ON?!
Richie woke up with a cold sweat running down his body. He was breathing heavily. He grabbed his glasses from his nightstand and looked at his alarm clock that was blaring at him. It read eight o’clock. He sighed and let out a curse. It was that damned dream again. He had the same dream repeatedly after the final battle between It. He felt a sob rack his body.
The final battle was something that would forever haunt all the Losers. They all barely made it out with their lives. Especially Eddie who they rushed to the hospital. Of course, after a long month, the doctor’s cleared Eddie and he went back home to his wife. In New York. Leaving Richie behind.
“What’s wrong with you Trashmouth… He’s married. What did you expect?” He grumbled and rubbed his eyes. “It’s been two years. Get over it.”
He grabbed his phone and sighed. He needed to calm down. Richie got out of bed and started getting ready. It was his best friends’ wedding after all and Bev made the sad mistake of making Richie her Man of Honor and god dammit he was going to not be a sad sack of shit today. He walked into his kitchen and quickly ate breakfast before getting dressed and out the door to the venue.
When Richie arrived, he took a lot of deep breaths trying to mentally prepare himself. He hasn’t exactly talked to Eddie in two years. I mean he was in the same group chat with him with the rest of the Losers but they didn’t really talk beside from that. It wasn’t exactly fair to Eddie for Richie to completely ignore him and he knew that. But, every time he tried to talk to him all he felt was the dread. He nearly lost him to It and after all that, he never told Eddie how he felt. No matter what, he was always going to be terrified.
“How pathetic..” He sighed then plastered on his best fake comedian smile. Silently praying that no one would notice. Thankfully Beverly was too busy panicking over her wedding to fully notice.
When Richie walked in, it was chaos. Bev was pacing back and forth, hair curlers still in, dress not on, and Stan was standing trying to calm her down. After the final battle, Patty, Stan’s wife had called Bev and explained that while his heart had stopped for seven minutes, he miraculously pulled through and was able to fully recover from his incident.
“Beverly. It’s going to be okay. Ben is so in love with you.”
“But what if he regrets this. What if he sees me and realizes this was a mistake.” She sits down trying to compose herself.
Richie sees this as the perfect opportunity to step in. “Hey! Bev. Beverly. We all know that is not true. He’s always been head over heals for you. You two lovebirds even adopted a dog together. Of course he will never regret this.” He walks behind her and rubs her shoulder.
She sighs and smiles at him through the mirror. “Thanks Richie.”
He squeezes her shoulder. ”Listen, you’re going to look beautiful, Ben is going to see how lucky he is as you walk down that aisle and then he will whisk you away into the sunset.”
Bev laughs and Stan walks over to the two. “Richie perfect timing. Only 20 minutes late this time.” He pats his back.
“Hey! No fair! I’m on time jackass! Not everyone can show up an hour early like you do.”
Stan huffs out a laugh. “Well at least you missed most of this meltdown.”
Richie starts to help Bev take out her curlers. “Thank god for that!” She elbows him in the stomach. “Kidding! Jeez Bev. Lighten up a little you’re getting married! To the literal embodiment of Adonis might I add. With a heart of gold.”
She rolls her eyes at him. “Well, I’m allowed this okay! We all know how well the first time went.” They all looked down for a moment. Her ex-husband was awful. She ended up basically marrying her dad. Which means a lot of bruises she had to hide and a lot of nights living in fear. Thankfully she divorced his ass as soon as Ben and her went back to Ben’s home. It took a long year but she agreed to most of his demands and somehow managing to get her fashion company all under her name and her name alone.
“Okay! No more glum faces people! Now let’s get this woman married!” Richie got her hair and makeup artist back into the room. Then Stan and him left her alone to finish getting ready.
“You weren’t kidding when you said there was an emergency Stan the Man.”
“When do I kid?” Stan frowned. But after a minute smiled again.
Richie gave him a big hug. “Seriously, how did I go so long without you guys in my life.”
Stan returned the hug. “It still amazes me that you somehow managed to have a barely successful career Trashmouth.”
“Same. But hey! Being barely successful is still successful!”
“Have you talked to him yet?”
Richie frowned and sighed. “You know I would have told you if I did,” He slid down the wall and sat down on the ground.
“Richie, when are you going to just bite your pride and talk! He’s your best friend!” He sat down next to him.
“I can’t okay! Whenever I just looked at him or heard his voice all I could think about are the what ifs. I hadn’t seen him or even remembered him for so long and it kills me every time. Now he’s married and happy! I don’t think I can get over him Stan. I know that it’s selfish, but I want to be selfish.”
Stan nudges his shoulder. “Well a little birdie told me that he got a divorce.”
Richie looked at him. “What?! When did this happen?!”
Stan rolled his eyes. “Well if you’d bother to talk to him you would have known that the divorce was finalized about six months ago.”
“Six months?! Wait. Why didn’t he say anything in the group chat?”
“He did.”
Richie groaned and put his head in his knees. “I’ve been very stupid, haven’t I?”
Stan smiled gently at him and nudged his knees with his. “Hey. You said it, not me. Now get up, we kind of have to be apart of a wedding that going to start in thirty minutes. So, haul your ass up and let’s go make sure Bev isn’t trying to jump out the window.” He stood up and held out his hand for Richie to grab.
Richie dusted off his pants after he stood up. “God, I hope there’s alcohol at this wedding or it’s going to be a long night.”
“Come on Trashmouth. That’s no way to talk about your friends’ wedding.” Stan opened the door to Beverly’s changing room.
“Just kidding of course.” Richie walked inside and thankfully Beverly seemed to be a lot calmer and is starting to get into her dress which she designed herself.
When she sees them, she smiles. “Hey boys, mind helping a girl out here?” Richie and Stan look at each other and laugh then both help her get into her dress. After that whole ordeal, Beverly places her veil in her hair and turns to face the two men. “How do I look?”
Richie whistles. “Ben is one lucky man Bev. He better be careful or I might be tempted to run off with you.”
She laughs and hits him lightly in the chest. “Beep beep Richie.”
Stan looks at his watch. “Okay. It’s show time people. You ready Bev??”
Beverly grabs her bouquet and nods. “I think so. Thank you both so much for helping me.”
They both nod and smile and help her walk down the hallway to the entrance of the church. As they walk over they see the other Losers minus Ben whose already inside. Richie’s heart almost stops when he sees Eddie. He looks so much more radiant and dare he say happy than when he first saw him in the Chinese restaurant. All he knew when he saw him was how absolutely fucked he was.
Eddie looked at him and gave him a weird look. “What? Do I have something on my face?”
Richie shakes his head quickly. “No.. Uh. Still not used to that wicked scar.” He chuckles. “Makes you look like a hitman or something.”
Eddie rolls his eyes. “Great. Just what I wanted to hear.”
Beverly cleared her throat. “Not that I don’t enjoy your usual bantering, I’m sort of trying to get married at the moment so can you two ignore the sexual tension for once. Thank you!”
They both blushed and looked down. Everyone quickly got into places with Richie and Bill standing next to each other. Bill was Ben’s best man. Eddie and Stan stood behind them. Stan frowning with the basket of flowers. The two pulled straws and Stan got the short end of the stick. Patty and Audra were kindly invited by Beverly to join her bridal party. Bev didn’t have any female friends and once they all met, they instantly clicked. Eddie was holding Bev and Ben’s dog on the leash, their wedding bands on the dog’s collar. Mike was walking Beverly down the aisle since her aunt sadly passed away a long time ago. She had walked Beverly down on her first marriage.
All eyes were on Bev as she walked down the aisle, Ben’s eyes locked on her as soon as she started. He started tearing up. She was absolutely gorgeous, her dress was a beautiful white ballgown with a lacey bodice, Her hair was up and curled and the veil laid underneath the updo. Bill passed him a handkerchief which Ben gladly accepted.
Beverly grinned and passed her bouquet to Richie when she got up to Ben. She then held tightly onto Ben’s hands. The ceremony was so beautiful, Ben being the hopeless romantic made her a proper haiku as his vows. Definitely an improvement to January embers. There wasn’t a dry eye in the church.
After pictures, Richie did his best to stay as far away from Eddie as possible during them, they headed to the reception. The building looked like a fairy tale leaving Richie wondering how much they paid for it. The ballroom was just as fairy tale like and they all went to the tables looking for their name cards. Richie cursed Bev silently when he saw that Eddie was seated right next to him.
Eddie looked over at him after glancing at the dinner choices. “So, you going to ignore me the whole day or are we going to talk like adults so you can explain why the fuck you’ve been ghosting me since we got back to our lives.”
Richie gulped and stared at the words on the menu. “Just been busy. You know that lavish life. Always traveling. Getting swarmed by all the ladies.”
Eddie just stared blankly. “Yeah, which explains why everyone has been in contact with you except me.”
Fuck. Richie nervously laughed. “Listen Eddie. I-I..” He was lost for words for once in his life. Why is it whenever it’s something important he can’t think of anything. “Look, they have some great alcohol choices.” He stands up. “I’m going to the bar.” Richie briskly walks away and towards the bar. “Fuck. This is a lot harder than I thought.” He flags down the bar tender. “Hey man, can I get the strongest whiskey you have?” He hands him a twenty. “Keep the change.”
The young man smiled and quickly gave him his drink. Richie smiled and downed it. He bought another glass before heading back to the table. He sits back down when one of the catering employees comes over to take their orders. Richie orders his meal along with another glass of whiskey.
Eddie whistles at him. “Slow down their Rich, you’re not going to remember the night at this rate.”
Richie laughs. “Where’s the fun in that Eduardo.”
Stan rolls his eyes at the two then asks Patty to the dance floor. Bill follows his lead and asks Audra to come with him as well. Mike awkwardly gets up and looks around. “I’m going to go mingle.”
Richie gave them all a pained puppy looks. He knows what their playing at. “I think they want us to talk.”
“No. Really? What ever would give you that idea.” Eddie sarcastically grumbles as he looks down at his wine glass. “Look. I don’t know what I did wrong to get you to hate me but just tell me instead of just ignoring me. I’m an adult. Not some wounded bird. I can handle it.”
Richie sighs. “I guess there’s no way out of this then.” He takes a swig of his drink to give him more liquid courage. “I don’t hate you Eddie.”
Eddie rolls his eyes. “Then why the fuck have you never even tried to acknowledge me dickhead. You’ve still been ignoring me during this entire wedding!”
“I was jealous okay?! You left without another word to me when you got out of the hospital! To your wife. Look I know that it was stupid and petty. You’re fucking straight for gods sake! Fuck!” He groans. “Oh! By the way! I’m gay!” He downs the rest of his fourth glass of whiskey. “I’ve had this huge gay ass crush on you for so fucking long! I know it’s disgusting and weird since we’ve been friends since fucking diapers. But that’s why. Happy?!”
Eddie frowns. “Okay, listen here jackass! I’m sorry I lived my life! Yeah! I was married! But guess what shithead! We got divorced. You want to know why?! I never truly loved her! I mean fuck! We never even consummated our marriage using every excuse in the book. When I got back, I instantly filed for a divorce.” He takes a gulp of his wine. “I mean fuck! She was exactly like my mother. She could have been her god damn sister! But guess what! I realized I still had feelings for you when I saw you in that stupid restaurant. If you fucking tried to talk to me I was going to tell you.” He bit his lip.
Richie was a lost for words. “Eddie. I-“
“No!” He cuts him off. “No more stupid fucking excuses.” He stands up and walks out of the room.
Richie slumped in his chair. “Fuck.. What have I done..” He looks down at his phone which had a text. From Eddie.
Eddie:
Meet me in the bathroom down the hall on the right.
Okay. That was weird. But he got up anyways and looked around. Of course his friends were all starring at him. He gave them a brilliantly bright and fake smile and walked out and over to the bathroom.
Eddie was standing there looking around making sure no one else was there. “I just didn’t want to disturb anyone. We are at a wedding after all.” He smirks at Richie and grabs his collar and clumsily crashes his lips against the other man. It wasn’t a great kiss but it was everything Richie wanted and so he kissed him back making the kiss soft and tender.
“Wow Kaspbrak. I.. Just wow.” He didn’t know what else to say so he just leaned in and started kissing him again this time a lot more passion. After a few minutes of clumsily making out there was a knock on the door and Stan popped his head in. He coughed and the two men pulled away instantly their faces bright red.
“Thank fuck! I thought we were going to have two more years of this bullshit!” He grinned at them. “Be safe kids but please wait until after the reception. For Bev and Ben’s sake.”
Richie and Eddie nodded and got themselves situated before walking back into the ballroom. The two ended up dancing most of the night. When Bev and Ben came in that’s when the festivities really got started. After a lot of fun games on the dance floor and cake, Bev did not hold back spread the cake all over Ben’s face, the two started their first dance. While watching the newly wed couple, Richie grabbed a hold of Eddie’s hand and squeezed it. Eddie then looked up at him and smiled. At that moment, Richie knew that things would actually be okay between the two and maybe he’ll finally be happy now that he has Eddie by his side once again. Nothing will ever tear them apart.
Four years later, they were all back together again but this time for Richie and Eddie’s wedding and everything was right again in the world as the two shared their first kiss as husbands.