Chapter Text
Richie rests on his hand, half asleep in his calculus class. The teacher is going over something he already knows and he knows it won't effect his grade if he has a nap. His eyes slip closed, breathing becoming the only thing his body focuses on the sound of.
Then a paper ball hits him in the arm. He startles awake - thankfully with no fanfare - and he stares at the crumpled up note. He looks over to Ruth, who's the most likely to do something like this, but she's just staring at the front with over exaggerated side eyes to him. Occasionally she looks at the paper and then him as well.
He rolls is eyes and then unfurls it. Richie reads what she's written in glittery blue pen.
"What's with the smiley face on your arm?"
Richie crumples up the paper again and drops it into his backpack. He is not going to explain to Ruth that the blue smiley face on his arm is from Max Jägerman.
It had started a month or so ago. Whenever Max came over - usually to stay the night - Richie would draw a small smiley face onto whatever skin was showing that only Max would see the next day. Once he had caught wind of this trend, he'd started doing it back to Richie. This was not the problem.
The problem was that their relationship was hidden. Well. Hidden wasn't the right word. More, they hadn't told anyone and weren't going to. If someone asked them if they were, then they weren't gonna lie. But they saw no point in stating outright that they were together. Mainly because despite Max's recent turn in behaviour, Richie's friends held well founded grudges, and that Max's friends didn't understand how Stephanie and Peter got together, they Definitely wouldn't understand how Richie and Max did.
All that to say, Richie was not going to be telling Ruth why he had a smiley face on the inside of his wrist.
But there's one thing Richie knows about Ruth Fleming. And that's that whenever she puts her mind to something, she won't stop until she gets an answer. So when the bell goes, Richie packs up his things faster than he ever has before and leaves as soon as possible. He doesn't hang back to catch Peter like he usually does to enter the cafeteria, he just speeds to get his food and sit down.
He manages to make it halfway through his meal before Ruth's hands make their way onto his shoulders, locking him in his seat. Pete sits opposite him, thoroughly unimpressed, but also disinterested.
"Richie." Ruth calls in a sing-song tone. She stretches out the 'i' in his name and it sounds like a call to death. Richie stills and sends a silent prayer that he's spared from his friend's torment. "You wanna explain now why you're hiding your smiley face?"
She lifts his arm and moves down his sleeve, exposing the smiley face and messy compliment below, saying he's handsome. Richie snatches his arm back, but not in time to stop Ruth reading it. Her gasp goes on long enough for him to mutter "I'm gonna kill him."
This does not help the situation.
Ruth grabs Richie by the shoulders and shakes him around a little bit. "Oh my god, it is a guy! Who? Do I know him? Have you been seeing him long? Have you fucked? How big is his dick? Does he have one? If he doesn't then how does his hole feel-" Richie slaps a hand on Ruth's mouth.
"Shh! Not so loud!" Richie says. Pete clears his throat.
"Yeah, calm down, Ruth. You're causing a scene." Pete looks around nervously as those who started looking at them turn back to their meals.
"Woah, what's going on here?" A hand places itself on Richie's shoulder and he starts to question what he did wrong in the universe to make this happen to him. He looks up at Max, who's smiling at them.
Ruth grins as Richie's hand falls from her face in defeat. "Richie's dating someone. He's not telling us who, though." She frowns at Richie, pointedly. Max hums, clearly smiling as his hand shakes Richie's hair, moving his head with it.
"Really now?" At Ruth's noise of affirmation, he continues. "That can't go on long, he's an awful liar."
Richie hums, unable to stop the smile as he tilts his head back. He feels the hand on his hair slip down to the side of his face and then his neck. "Maybe I wouldn't have to lie if he didn't draw a smiley face on my arm alongside a compliment."
He feels how the action could be interpreted and lifts his head up properly again, Max's hand falling to his shoulder. Richie looks around at his friend's faces and is almost shocked to find there's no surprise or even acknowledgement to what that just was. Pete is back to looking around the cafeteria for Stephanie and Ruth looks like she's deep in thought.
"Who could it even be, though?" She asks eventually. Richie balks.
"Really?" He can't help asking. Max lets out his own shocked snort behind him.
"What?!" Ruth asks. "If you're not gonna tell me, then I need to find out for myself!"
Richie blinks in genuine surprise. This has to be a bit, a joke, even. He looks to Pete, and even he seems to have no idea.
"Could be a nerd?" Ruth suggests. Pete shakes his head, given up on finding Steph.
"Nah. The only other nerds Richie talks to are PJ and Reese and they're both girls."
Richie can't believe what he's hearing. He looks up at Max who looks halfway to pissing himself with how hard he's trying not to laugh. Richie laughs a little in disbelief, himself. Max pats his shoulder.
"I'll- pfft- I'll see you later." He says. "Good luck."
Richie rolls his eyes, smiling. He speaks as Max walks away. "Yeah. Thanks for that. Leaving me to deal with this. I knew you never loved me." He places a melodramatic hand on his chest as Max turns back around to flip him off with a smile.
Ruth draws his attention back again as she gasps, clicking her fingers into a point to the ceiling. "I've got it! It's one of the jocks, right? You're the mascot, you've got to talk to one of them. I bet it's Jason or Kyle."
"Can't be Kyle, he's dating Brenda." Pete points out, taking a sip of water.
This is gonna be a long day.
---
Max leaves Richie to go and sit with Jason and Kyle. His face, he knows, still has a smile on it, so when Kyle gives him an odd look, he doesn't question it all too much.
"What was that?" He asks, smile working through the words. His arm is over Brenda's shoulders and she's leaning into him.
"What was what?" He asks, leaning against the edge of the table and the wall it's pushed up against.
"You talking to the nerds, now?" Kyle asks, smiling still. "Why? You interested in one?"
Max pushes out a laugh. That's one way to describe it. He can't help the fact that being this close to potentially saying it is causing a surge of adrenaline to run through him. He doesn't look at Kyle. Thankfully, Brenda steps in.
"I think it's a little more than being interested in one, babe." Oh god she knows. "I think he has a crush on one." What?
Max looks at her, eyes narrowing in what he knows is confusion, but must read as anger as they flinch away slightly. He smooths out his face as best he can. "What the fuck are you saying?"
Brenda smiles across the table at him. "Well you have a crush on that nerd with the headgear, right? That's why you were laughing so much." Max actually snorts as he laughs at that implication.
"What? Ruth? Absolutely not. God no." He realizes how mean that sounds and adds on, hastily, "she's definitely not my type."
"Oh?" Brenda leans across the table, slightly. Kyle's hand falls to her side. Her voice is sweet but luring, Max feels like he's accidentally let a single drop of blood fall into shark infested water. "You have a type of woman now?"
"Yeah, man. You have a type? And don't say it's repressed chicks again, we both know what happened last time." Kyle snorts. Jason shakes his head out of the corner of Max's vision, seemingly content to stay out of this discussion.
"Okay, okay, jeez." Max holds his hands up placating. "And no, it's not repressed chicks. Besides, I didn't even-" He bites his tongue, far too desperate to point out that he didn't even say it was a girl. But the drop of blood turns to a steady ooze and the looks on Kyle and Brenda's faces are dangerous in their interest.
Max stands up, far too fast to be normal, and rushes out of the cafeteria. He suddenly considers himself lucky to be failing most of his classes. He's alone in all of his remedial studies so he has until practice until he has a chance at running into any of his friends again.
He manages to get outside, walking to a spot he knows isn't going to be found and sitting down in it.
He breaks, laughing quietly to himself at what just happened. There is no way that his friends and Richie's are both as oblivious about this as each other. Absolutely none. He places his hands to his eyes and pushes them in. Disbelief fuels the laughter as he thinks again about how fucking obvious they were about it, how the only thing more obvious would have been to kiss Richie then and there, and yet his friends - the smartest group of people in school - still didn't think they were together.
And then to find out that Kyle and Brenda had been watching the whole time, only for them to think he had a crush on Ruth?! He'd literally spent most of his time by those nerds staring at Richie!
More laughter bubbles out of his throat and he takes deep breaths to stop himself from getting too loud.
"Holy fuck." He mutters to himself, once he's calmed down.
Footsteps approach him and Richie sits down next to him. He looks concerned until he sees the smile on Max's face and he seems to connect some dots.
"My friends are so dumb." Max laughs again, leaning against Richie.
"You're telling me?" He adds. "They're on the same level as Kyle and Brenda." He feels his cheeks start to ache as his face shifts to account for the unusually long-lasting smile. He slips and falls onto Richie's lap, staring up at him. Richie seems equally as amused by this new information, holding in his own laughter.
"Really? Fuck-" a small laugh cuts off his sentence. "I thought we were being too obvious with all the physical contact. But apparently not." Richie's brain seems to come up with something funny enough for him to pull an amused face at the thought. "Maybe the only thing that could have tipped them off is us having sex on the table."
Max hums, low, smiling as his hands hold Richie's waist. "I like that thought." Richie playfully hits his shoulder, rolling his eyes.
"No you don't. That means everyone would see and it would no longer be an us thing." He smiles. Max hums.
"What if I want them to know?" He watches Richie's face change with the tone.
"What?"
"What if I want them to know?" He repeats. Richie hums, a smile and a furrow of the brows causing creases in his skin.
"I'm gonna be honest, Max. I think the only people who don't know are our friends. And that's only because they think they know us so they rule us out as even an option." Richie runs a hand through Max's hair. "But maybe we could just tell them."
Max smiles. "Not right now though. You're comfortable." He shifts so he's laying down properly, using Richie's legs as a pillow. "And neither of us have class for another like. Ten minutes. So. You're staying here."
Richie doesn't even argue, he just wraps Max's hair around one of his fingers and smiles contently.