Archive of Our Own

Richie’s head hits the blacktop so hard that it feels like his brain gets rocked around inside of his skull. He doesn’t really get a chance to process the pain that shoots throughout his entire body when he falls, though, because the Bowers Gang are now directing brisk kicks towards his ribs.

“Hey! Stop that!” A voice shouts, just as one particularly miserable lands kick right on his stomach.

“What the fuck do you want, Fagsbrak?” Henry Bowers sneers. Neither he nor his lackeys stop kicking Richie. “You want a piece of this? Was yesterday not enough for your candy ass?”

“I already told Coach Black that you guys were over here beating someone up, so get lost, you— you asswipes!” The same voice from before yells out, which is mighty helpful, ‘cause Richie’s ears are still ringing something awful, and he probably wouldn’t have been able to hear his guardian angel speak otherwise.

Mercifully, those words are enough to stop the assault. Richie chances opening his eyes, although it’s not like he can see much — one of the lenses of his glasses had broken when he’d been pushed over.

His guardian angel is standing about ten feet away, which, smart. Richie can really only see him through Henry’s legs, and even then, all he can see is a blob made up of several different colors and shapes that all come together to form a humanoid. His eyes start to hurt when he tries to squint to see more detail than that, so he squeezes them shut once more as he waits for something more to happen.

There’s a long pause. Henry is the one to break it. “You’re such a snitch, Kaspbrak. You’ll pay for that later, you fucking fairy.”

He kicks Richie in the stomach one last time, and all Richie can hear over the combined sounds of his ears ringing and his lungs wheezing breath in and out is the sound of feet pounding against pavement, overwhelmingly loud at first but growing quieter and quieter with every second.

It’s quiet then, other than the incessant buzzing sound of cicadas that seems to rise up to meet the sudden absence of sound, until Richie can make out the sound of softer footsteps approaching him. It stops right in front of him, and Richie hears someone coughing into their arm above him.

He peels open an eye and looks upwards. Sneakers meet too tall tube socks meet too big shorts. Before Richie can look up any further, though, a blurry and fuzzy peach-colored blob is thrust out in front of him. When he stays still, it starts waving around, and it occurs to Richie that it’s most likely a hand.

“Are you okay?” Richie’s guardian angel asks. Now that they’re this close, the guy’s voice hits him like an arrow straight through the heart. It’s soft now, a stark contrast to earlier.

Richie opens his mouth to respond, and, in a horrible sequence of events that lasts no longer than five seconds, coughs on something that clogs his throat out of nowhere, retches, and then promptly throws up on the other boy’s shoes.

It happens without any warning, in the same way most things tend to when Richie Tozier is your best friend.

Eddie is splayed out on his stomach on Richie’s bed, reading one of Richie’s Iron Man comics while the other boy fucks around with the AM radio that he’d gotten for Christmas a few months ago. He’s been in a real ‘taking things apart to see how they work and trying to put them back together again even though I have zero idea how to do so’ kick over the past month or so.

He’s sitting in the middle of the circular rug that covers most of his bedroom floor, legs criss cross apple sauce with a bunch of radio parts placed meticulously out in front of him. He’s completely in the zone, has been for the past hour or so.

It’s really interesting to see him like this. In any other situation, it would be almost eerie to see Richie in anything but constant motion, blurred around the edges as he bounces this way and that, mouth going a million miles a minute and brain jumping from topic to topic with a speed that is jarring to most people.

(Not to Eddie, though.)

Now, Richie is unhurried, intentional in a way that is alien to the Richie that the world sees. Concentration furrows his brow, makes Eddie’s cheeks warm and his throat tighten every time he dares to peek over the top of his comic book. This time around, his throat starts feeling gunky, so he clears it quietly. It doesn’t seem to do anything for whatever’s lodged in his esophagus, and he frowns a little bit, but focuses back in on the comic.

When he finishes it, he chances another look at Richie. The other boy is still hard at work; now, he seems to be attempting to put the radio back together. Instead of bothering him and risking breaking his concentration, Eddie grabs another comic book.

Right as Iron Man is pummeling this issue’s villain into the ground, Richie lets out a whoop of excitement. Eddie doesn’t startle, but it’s a very near thing. He looks up, and his breath catches in his throat at the million kilowatt smile that Richie is sending his way. “Fuck yes! Eds, look! Got it to work!”

It takes a lot to look down at the newly reassembled radio in Richie’s hands. Eddie tries to swallow the sudden cough that builds in his throat out of nowhere as he does, but to no avail. He pushes himself up to sit on the side of the bed as he clutches the fabric of his shirt over his chest with one hand and shoves the crook of the elbow of the other against his mouth.

“Woah, you okay, dude?” Richie asks, face falling as the coughing goes on. And then he coughs too, although he doesn’t bother covering his own mouth; he looks like a fucking toddler, Eddie thinks even as coughs wrack his own body, scowling all the while.

Eventually, Eddie seems to be able to cough up whatever had crawled down his throat and died. It sits carefully on top of his tongue, salty and viscous, and the thought only makes his grimace grow worse. He digs into his right pants pocket and pulls out the monogrammed handkerchief that lives there, spits the muck into it carefully. Eddie almost doesn’t look at it, because fucking gross, but as he’s folding the handkerchief in on itself so that it’ll be easier to throw away, he jolts with the realization that it’s not just phlegm, and there are also flower petals mixed into the gunk.

Fuck, Eddie thinks, heart skipping a beat at the sight. Shit, is that— is he—

Richie stands, completely oblivious to the way that Eddie’s world has just tilted onto its side. Eddie watches as he frowns, mouth clicking shut even as he continues coughing. He makes a fist shaking gesture at Eddie, one that Eddie interprets as either ‘I’ll be right back’ or ‘I'm gonna go jerk off’, and exits the room, still coughing into his closed mouth.

Eddie stares at the folded handkerchief for a long moment before tossing it across the room and into Richie’s wastebasket. Richie appears in the doorway a few seconds later, banging his shoulder on the side of it and cursing. He’s carrying two glasses of water, the contents of one sloshing onto his sleeve and pants, but he pays it no mind as he crosses the room and offers one to Eddie.

“So, Doctor K, what’s the prognosis? Will I ever be able to sing at the grand ol’ oprey again?”

Eddie snorts, and just like that, all of the anxiety swirling like a whirlpool in his mind threatening to drag him down dissipates. “You say that like you were ever actually able to sing in the first place.”

“Didja see S-S-Sarah throw up those v-violets in Biology today?” Bill asks. He doesn’t wait for an answer before he speaks again. “Stan, four of clubs?”

Richie tenses up where he’s sitting in the hammock just out of their sight. His grip tightens around the edges of the X-Men comic he’s reading, and when he notices he loosens his hold.

Stan makes a retching noise, says, “I was across the room and I could still smell it. It was awful.”

“Howd’ya think I feel? I was sitting right next to her. It was so fucking gross,” Bev complains. “I mean, I’ve heard about it before, but seeing it in action like that was so different. I mean, she threw up flowers.”

Richie feels his heart rate pick up. He turns the glossy page of his comic over, running his pointer finger down the side of the book in a motion that’s as much about self-soothing as it is about making sure that his earlier panic hadn’t ruined the book’s integrity.

“It’s like an STD, isn’t it?” Bill says, voice somehow hushed and pitched high at the same time, the kind of stage whisper that seems to be the quietest volume he can manage when he’s gossiping with another Loser like this. “Does that mean she had s-s-sex with someone?”

Richie’s shoulders draw up to his ears at that, but Stan just makes a noncommittal hhmmmh noise. “I don’t know. I’m pretty sure you don’t catch it like that. I thought the whole point was that it’s only for unrequited love. If she had sex, wouldn’t that mean it was requited?”

“You know, I heard that if you catch hanahaki, it’s like getting pregnant with a flower.” And Richie can hear Bev’s shit-eating grin as she speaks.

She, Bill, and Stan all erupt into laughter like a pack of fucking hyenas, completely unaware of the Chernobyl-level meltdown Richie is having less than fifteen feet away from them.

Fuck, as if coughing up fucking flower petals wasn’t bad enough, now Richie’s going to get pregnant? He’s going to be a fucking teen mom? For fucking what, just because he thinks that Eddie is really cute, just because his skin goes all tingly when Eddie brushes up against him, just because the sound of Eddie’s voice makes his brain skip like a scratched up record, Richie’s got a fucking — love STD?

Predictably, Eddie messes up.

God, he’s so fucking stupid. He’d been so careful about making sure that no one sees the flower petals that he coughs up every so often, and up until now he’s been successful, but it was always just a matter of time, wasn’t it? Eddie’s a fucking idiot, after all, can’t do anything right, least of all hiding something from his mother.

He’d been doing so well, too, and that’s what makes the hand around his heart squeeze even tighter, because he could have hidden it, almost did, and fuck, it feels like his throat is closing up, where’s his inhaler, he’s going to fucking die, fuck—

“Eddie bear?” She’s saying now, standing in front of him with the handkerchief clutched in one trembling hand. Even though she’s only about five inches taller than him, her presence is always looming, the shadow she casts inescapable. Eddie fumbles desperately for his inhaler, tries to remember which pocket he’d put it in, hands sweating enough to make it hard to find traction. “What’s this?”

She takes a step closer to him as he presses the inhaler to his lips, and Eddie’s hit with the sudden memory of a book Bill had lent him once. It was one of the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books, although he can’t remember which one now. In it, there was a story about a woman who is plagued by nightmares. In the nightmares, she's being chased by a pale lady with jet black hair, through an endless maze of hospital hallways, bathed in flashing red lights.

This is an evil place. Flee while you can, the pale lady says, and no matter how far away she is, the woman hears it like a whisper in her ear. The woman can run and run and run, but whenever she turns to look, the pale lady will always be there, just far enough away to make it feel like there's still hope even as she takes lumbering steps closer and closer.

The nightmare continues endlessly until the woman finally stumbles in her stride. Before she can regain her bearings, the pale lady is upon her, hauling the woman up even as she struggles uselessly against the iron grip. The pale lady pulls her to standing, and then, before the woman can fight back, the pale lady had hugs her to her chest, and the hug is so tight, so suffocating, that eventually, the pale lady absorbs the woman entirely.

Eddie had read that one under the covers with a flashlight. Most of the other stories hadn’t so much as fazed him; this one had made him absolutely tremble in fear, sweat pouring down his body and soaking his pajamas.

As he stares up at his mom now, he feels the same dread of inevitability he’d had when he’d read that story. The handkerchief that she’s holding is full of petals, and some slip free occasionally, twisting in the air before falling to the ground. Eddie had been stupid enough to think that she would still be asleep in the recliner when he got home, and so he’d set the handkerchief loosely on the table in the entryway to untie his shoes. She had come into the hallway to greet him and had picked it up before he could even react.

It had felt like that a lot as a kid; like no matter what, there was no way to hide from his mom, nothing that she wouldn’t find out about eventually. Sometimes it had felt like there was no him without her, like she had already absorbed him before he had even been born, and all he was ever meant to be was just another extension of her, a cross between a ventriloquist’s dummy and one of those baby dolls that you could feed.

He’s not a kid anymore, though. He’s fourteen, and he shouldn’t be afraid of her, not really, not of angering her or upsetting her or even scaring her, not in any way that matters. Not anymore. He knows that the way she treats him is wrong now, and he’s old enough to know that it’s not normal. Her emotions shouldn’t affect him. They’re two separate people.

And yet— as her eyes pool with tears, as her lips tremble, as her hands shake as she holds the handkerchief thrust out between them accusatorily, petals falling quicker now as her trembling gets worse, Eddie feels his heart leap into his throat, his own eyes and nose beginning to sting.

“Mommy,” he manages, sounding to himself more like a ghost rather than a real, living, breathing human being, “I— it’s not what you think.”

“Not what I think?” She sobs out, and a hand wraps around his heart and squeezes, makes him choke a little, “Eddie, do you think that your mother is stupid? I know what this means. I just can’t believe that you’d,” a hitch of her breath here that to Eddie’s trained ear sounds put on and plastic, “You’re just— you’re such a sick little boy, Eddie bear, you know that, don’t you? You’ve always been so sickly, and you were born with such a weak immune system, I just worry about you. You’re so helpless, and you trust too easily, you know that, don’t you? That’s why I need to protect you from the other kids, because they’ll touch you, and they’ll infect you.”

“Mommy, I didn’t— I would never—” and he’s spluttering now, grasping at straws, doesn’t even recognize his own voice, much less the words spilling out of his mouth. She interrupts him before he can complete a single thought.

“Please just promise your mother that you’ll stay away from the other kids from now on, Eddie. I can’t stand the thought of you— being taken away from me by some disease.” She shakes the handkerchief at him now, and he trembles under her gaze. “See? I was right about those other children, wasn’t I? You are sick, and it is their fault.”

Eddie can’t sleep that night. Her words play on repeat in his mind, close to his ear as if she’s whispering them to him.

“Do it, you won’t. Pussy.”

“Fuck off and die.”

Richie doesn’t bother trying to hide the dumb smile that breaks out on his face at Eddie’s words. Eddie’s sporting a particularly exhilarating scowl now, corners of his lips practically dragged all the way down to his jawline and brows so furrowed that his eyes are as thin as Woodstock the bird’s. His shoulders are pulled up practically to his ears, and his chin juts out right towards Richie as if daring him to escalate the situation even further.

They’re crouched on the edge of the roof right outside of Bill’s bedroom, in their swim trunks. Everyone else has long jumped in before them; they’re all shouting and fucking around in the far end of the pool, leaving plenty of space for Richie and Eddie to jump.

“What are you, chicken?” Richie asks, grinning so wide that his cheeks ache with it.

“I will suffocate you with your own fucking tighty whities.” Eddie deadpans.

Richie just grins even wider. “Bawk bawk bawk.”

“Oh, fuck you. Watch this, dickhead.”

With that, Eddie stands, one hand braced against the sill of Bill’s window. He bends his knees ever so slightly, pulls in a deep breath, and then he jumps. He hits the water seconds later with a huge splash, and the rest of the Losers break out into a cheer. Richie would join them, but he can’t, because all of a sudden, he’s overcome with a coughing fit, one that doesn’t abate even as he feels like he’s halfway to hacking up a lung. He brings his hand up to cover his mouth as he wheezes.

“Your turn now, asshole!” Eddie’s shouts up.

Richie straightens up from where he’s doubled in on himself, coughing particularly hard in an effort to dislodge whatever hairball had suddenly formed in his throat. Flower petals explode out of his mouth and into his waiting hand. He can only stare at them in disbelief.

“C’mon, don’t pussy out, Rich,” Eddie calls out after a long moment. Richie’s heart thuds to a halt as he realizes that everyone’s been staring up at him.

He clears his throat one last time, wipes the flower petals off of his hand onto his swim trunks. “Yeah, yeah, don’t get your panties in a bunch, Eddie Money, I’m comin’.”

Richie shuts his eyes, inhales a long breath through his nose, exhales too. He braces himself, and then he jumps.

Eddie’s not as surreptitious as he’d like to be, but neither is Mike.

They catch each other’s eyes, occasionally. Sometimes, when Richie is telling a joke that’s really fucking stupid but that Eddie can’t help but laugh at, Eddie, I know you are, I can see it in your eyes, don’t hold out on me, man, Mike will catch Eddie’s eyes as they wander around, landing on everything but Richie’s face as he tries his best not to seem too obvious. Or maybe, when Bill is jabbering on about his latest story, because this is going to be the one he finally finishes, Mikey, for real this time, I just know it, Eddie will raise his eyebrows pointedly just to watch the way Mike blanches.

When Eddie sees Mike coughing up flowers, he passes him his handkerchief without a second thought. When Eddie’s coughing gets so bad that he has to rush off to the bathroom to throw up, Mike plays it off for him easily so that the other Losers don’t suspect a thing. They settle into a sort of… mutual understanding about it, even if they never talk about it.

That is, until they do.

Eddie’s aunt, his mom’s sister, who lives in Syracuse, all the way in fucking New York, is sick, needs round the clock care, can’t afford a nurse, needs Sonia to be there for her. His mom had only told him last week, but already half of the house is packed up. The moving truck will arrive Friday morning, and then he and his mom will leave Derry and everything in it behind, not just the bad stuff, but all of the good stuff, too.

Eddie is doing what could best be described as angrily but carefully packing his items into boxes late on a Tuesday afternoon when the doorbell rings. His mom’s not home, for once; in fact, she’s in Syracuse at the moment, getting everything ready for them. She’ll be back tomorrow afternoon, so he’s just trying to savor the last vestiges of freedom while he can. This means that it falls on Eddie to climb down the stairs and accept the mail, or to tell a neighbor where she is or whatever.

It’s not the mailman, though, nor is it Mrs. Roberts from two doors down.

It’s Mike, who beams sunnily at Eddie when the front door opens. “Hey! You busy?”

Eddie stares back at him with no small amount of wonder in his eyes. “Yeah, kinda? I’m packing.”

He’d told the Losers that he hadn’t felt like hanging out today, and that much had been true. He’d reasoned to himself that having them there would only make it hurt more.

And yet — Mike had come.

“Well, you want some help?”

Eddie is speechless for a long moment. He swallows, replies, “Sure.”

They spend the rest of the afternoon packing up Eddie’s stuff, chattering about everything and nothing, only stopping when it hits six and their stomachs start growling. They make dinner together — nothing fancy, just spaghetti and meatballs, ‘cause it’s all that’s left in the house, but it’s the best meal that Eddie has had in months anyways. It only takes an hour after that to finish packing up Eddie’s room. The realization that they’re done gives Eddie a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach up until Mike turns to him, claps his hands together to rub them vigorously, and asks if he’s ever stargazed before.

“No?” He replies.

The look of absolute shock that takes over Mike’s face is almost funny in how exaggerated it is. “We have to, then! I can’t let you leave Derry without stargazing even once. C’mon, I know a place.”

The drive doesn’t take more than ten minutes, and then they’re in a field on the outskirts of town. Even with as late as it is, it’s still pleasantly warm outside. They climb out of the cabin and up into the back of the truck, wasting no time getting comfortable on their backs. When they’ve settled, they both stare up at the sky wordlessly for a long while, neither daring to break the cozy quiet that has settled over them.

“So,” Eddie starts eventually, “When’re you gonna confess to Bill?”

Mike chokes on air so hard that he has to sit up. “I— you —” he splutters at first, before sighing. “He’s still got that crush on Bev. You know that. When are you gonna confess to Richie?”

It’s Eddie’s turn to practically swallow his own tongue. He rolls over onto his side and coughs up the saliva that had gotten stuck in his throat, rolling back over to face Mike once he’s done. “Low blow, man. Low blow.”

“And asking about Bill out of nowhere like that wasn’t?” Mike snarks right back.

Eddie rolls his eyes. “Come on. At least you’ll still be here in a week. I won’t ever get a chance to tell him how I feel. I — I won’t ever even get to see you guys ever again.”

His throat starts to ache at the end of that sentence. All he can do is hope that Mike doesn’t expect him to say any more for a while.

"Come on, Eddie," Mike just smiles easily down at him. “D’you really think you’ll be able to get rid of us that easily?”

Eddie doesn’t know why, but he thinks Mike might be right. At least, he hopes so.

1999

“Richie. Richie. Rich, wake up.”

Richie is about halfway to consciousness, but he feels so comfortable that he would rather die than wake up. There’s a long pause, during which he’s almost able to drift back off to sleep, but then—

“Dude, seriously.”

And suddenly, there’s the sound of plastic crinkling uncomfortably close to his ears, right before cold water hits his face. He sits up immediately, spluttering and gasping as his brain tries to catch up. “Dude! Fuck you, what the fuck?”

Harry just snickers down at him. “You weren’t waking up, and it’s your turn to pay for gas, man. C’mon, hurry up. Tell ‘em to put twenty bucks on pump three. Oh, and grab me some gummy worms, will you? I deserve it for putting up with your sorry ass for so long.”

Richie groans at him and pulls the collar of his t-shirt up to dry his face. “You’re such an asshole, I swear.”

Harry smiles serenely back at him. “Yeah, I know. Get a move on, Rich, I wanna get to Phoenix before it gets too dark.”

Richie huffs out a breath and climbs out the backseat of Harry’s beat up Honda Civic. They’re on their second ever cross country standup tour, and the shine of it has worn off by now.

The gas station door makes a ching sound as he pushes it open. The attendant behind the counter only shoots him a single cursory, uninterested glance before going back to the magazine she’s leaning over with elbows propped up on the counter. Richie meanders down the first aisle, letting out a yawn so severe that his jaw pops with it. He grabs a bottle of coke from one of the fridges before turning to survey the dry goods. His eyes land first on the bags of potato chips, and after a moment’s careful consideration, he grabs one, maneuvering the bottle of coke to sit in between his elbow and ribs so that he still has a hand free. He doesn’t see any gummy worms here, so he heads to the next aisle.

(The beef jerky on the end of the aisle is very tempting, but Richie’s only got like fifty bucks to his name right now, and he needs it to last him for at least another couple days. Oh well. Such is the life of an aspiring comic, he supposes.)

Bingo. This aisle is entirely candy, god bless America. His eyes scan the array of items before locking onto the packets of gummy worms, located roughly in the middle of the aisle on the left. He comes to a stop in front of them. But before he can lean forward and grab one of the packets, his brain is hit with what he can only describe as something that is the mental equivalent of the colors and sounds of a test card at the end of regularly scheduled programming, a high pitched and unceasing BEEEEEEEP while all of the colors of the rainbow flash behind his eyelids one after the other in a rapid pace.

Richie hunches over and throws up all over the linoleum flooring.

Except it’s not just regular vomit. Sure, it’s all green and yellow, but mixed in with the puke is a handful of lionsheart bells, light pinks that stick out like a beacon against the other dull and disgusting colors that now paint the floor.

“Dude, what the fuck?” The attendant calls out from across the store.

Richie can only grimace weakly at her, wiping the back of his hand against his mouth roughly. “Twenty bucks on pump three, please.”

(Across the country, Eddie Kaspbrak has to excuse himself from the table at a date to run to the bathroom. Thankfully, he doesn’t throw up like he thought he might; instead, he just coughs up flower petals. He stares at the long, thin petals for a long while. He shoves them into his pocket and returns to his date after swishing some tap water around in his mouth.)

2004

The next time Richie horks up a buncha flower petals, he’s almost forgotten what the hell it even means.

He’s at a bar with people from work, celebrating someone’s birthday. Try as he might, he can’t quite bring himself to laugh at their jokes or engage in their conversation. Somehow, it feels like there’s a four foot moat between him and everyone else at this table.

Richie has managed to sink pretty far into both his drink and this particular brand of self loathing when he hears it.

It’s not like it’s anything out of ordinary for a crowded bar on a Friday night, far from it. It’s not even like he should really be able to hear it so clearly, considering how loud the bar is, with the music and the sound of so many people talking amongst themselves.

He hears it anyways.

A laugh. A real one. A good one, even, if there ever was such a thing. It cuts through the din in the crowded bar like a hot knife through butter, makes Richie’s heart skip several beats, his ears start to ring. He whips his head around desperately, trying to locate the source of the laughter, but he can’t see anything, it’s too dark, too hazy from all of the cigarette smoke clouding the air and suffocating him, filling his lungs and stomach with every breath he desperately pulls in, makes him feel all of a sudden like he’s been hit with a cannonball straight through the chest.

He feels sick. Dizzy with the desperation of it all. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t locate the source of the sound, and it makes his heart palpitate, makes something ugly rise in his throat, and now he’s coughing, choking, and it feels like something has crawled into his throat and died, and saliva is filling his mouth. With a rush of clarity, Richie realizes that he’s about to throw up.

He stands up so quickly that he stumbles a little, and he bumps into way too many people on his rush toward the bathroom. Luckily, no one gives him too much of a hard time; maybe they can tell what’s about to happen by the panicked look on his face.

Whatever’s making its way up his esophagus and into his mouth is thankfully patient enough to wait until he’s stumbled his way into one of the bathroom stalls. When he’s done throwing up, the stall smells like sickly candy. In the water, floating serenely in stark contrast to the violent way he’d expelled them from his body, is a handful of flower petals.

Richie stares at them for a long moment, alcohol-addled brain slowly connecting the dots. When they do, he sucks in a hurried breath. The appearance of these flower petals means that the love of his life, someone he’s never even met but is somehow in love with, is out there in the bar, doesn’t it? Oh god, he’s going to meet them while drunk off his ass? What a fucking nightmare.

Fuck, and he’s a fucking mess right now, isn’t he? Shit, he needs to, to clean up, and rinse his mouth out, and just — just go out and find them. Decision made, he quickly flushes the toilet and practically bursts out of the stall.

Richie rushes over to the sink, where he rinses his mouth out and washes his hands. He even splashes some water on his face, snagging a paper towel to pat at it perfunctorily. When that’s done, he takes a second to stare at himself in the mirror, inhaling leveled, measured breath after level, measured breath until his heart rate finally slows down. While he waits, he begins to anxiously touch at his hair and at the stubborn acne that still sits in between his eyebrows and on the upper corners of his lips. It makes him deflate a little. He presses his fingers into his eyes.

After a minute or two of feeling sorry for himself, he decides, fuck it, I’m as ready as I ever could be.

Except…

Richie drops his hands and blinks at his reflection. What exactly was he so anxious about again? He tries to think back, to retrace his steps, but… all he can remember is the sudden and overwhelming nausea that had made him rush to the bathroom in the first place. When he tries to remember more than that, it’s like — the answer is right there, just beyond his grasp. Like a memory of something from long ago knocking on his mind. It’s frustrating. The more he tries to think about it, the more it fades.

He sighs, shakes his head back and forth. He drank too much, he decides, and he should probably call it a night and head home. Doesn’t want to be a downer, especially not on such a happy day. He turns and leaves the bathroom, but not without a final grimace at his reflection.

(In one of the booths at that same bar, Eddie Kaspbrak pulls his gin and tonic away from his lips and begins coughing harshly. It feels like a buildup of phlegm in his throat, he thinks, scowling at his drink. Just more proof that he shouldn’t be drinking, really, should’ve just stayed at home. It’s his birthday today, and he’d been dragged out to this bar to celebrate by his so-called work friends — who clearly don’t even deserve that generous of a title, considering the fact that they’ve forced him out for his birthday instead of just leaving him alone like he would’ve preferred. He brings the crook of his elbow up to his mouth to cough into, and when it comes away, there’re flower petals covering his white dress shirt. He stares at them wide-eyed for a long moment before his hands go to his messenger bag to grab his journal and a pen. That’s interesting, isn’t it? It hasn’t happened like this before.)

2009

Eddie Kaspbrak hates airports. Even if you don’t know anything else about him, you should know that.

So should his fucking boss, he thinks to himself as he sits down in one of the chairs at the end of the TSA security check to pull his loafers back onto his feet. He grimaces all the while, trying his best to not think about how many germs he’s sure cover every inch of the seat and failing spectacularly.

Airports are just too busy, really; that’s the biggest issue he has with all of it. Too many people, and all of them are just as loud and selfish and uncaring about anyone else as the next. It brings out the worst in people, he thinks. They shout right next to your ear, and they bump into you with their full weight behind it, and they rarely, if ever, apologize for either. Not to mention just how fucking gross airports are, what with how little everything gets cleaned, or the fact that everything is marked up to an insane point. And that’s not even touching on the actual flying aspect, where you’re stuck next to some random sweaty and smelly stranger for hours.

In other words, it’s absolutely fucking miserable. Eddie’s fucking miserable, he thinks to himself as he makes his way further into the terminal. He’s gotten used to flying for work by now, but that doesn’t mean he has to like it. The one silver lining is that this trip is only a couple of days long.

He’s not allowed even a moment’s peace, because as he’s trying to look on the bright side, someone bumps into his shoulder so hard that Eddie nearly loses his grip on his briefcase. Eddie scowls at the back of the man’s head; the man doesn’t even turn around. He huffs annoyedly and steps closer to the wall before looking up at the departures board, trying to locate his flight to Los Angeles. And then, out of the corner of his eye, he sees it.

Or rather, him.

The Hawaiian shirt is what catches his eye initially, makes him look over to confirm what he’s seeing. But once his attention is caught, Eddie can’t stop staring at the man. He can only see the back of him, but even just that is so compelling somehow.

The Hawaiian shirt is nothing special. White hibiscuses against a bright red background, in a soft-looking fabric. Unruly curls just barely brush the shirt’s collar. The man’s shoulders are broad, sloped downwards in a way that speaks to an ease Eddie could never even hope to achieve in an airport. The man, who Eddie can’t seem to tear his eyes away from, is wearing cargo shorts of all things.

As Eddie stares at the man, all he can think to himself is, shit, am I seriously into the kind of guy who wears fucking Hawaiian shirts?

And yet, for some reason, the sight of the man’s back is like a stake through his heart. It almost feels like the world has skidded to a halt, like seeing the man has made time itself freeze in place.

Someone else bumps into Eddie. It’s just as well, because at the same time it happens, he realizes that he really, really needs to throw up. He turns tail and rushes toward the nearest bathroom.

Once the stall door is closed and locked behind him and his briefcase is carefully hung on the hook on the back of the door, it’s like a switch is flipped, and he throws up the salad he’d had for lunch.

Except it’s not salad in the toilet bowl when he’s finished retching. Instead, it’s a smattering of flower petals. They’re scraggly and a light but effervescent pink. Familiar, even if the reason for them is already fading from his mind no matter how hard he tries to grasp it, like sand slipping through an hourglass. Eddie frowns down at them for a minute or two before turning to open his briefcase and grab his notebook and a pen.

And yet — when he tries to write down as many details as possible, all he can manage to include is that he’s at the airport and that it’s the same flower as the last few times. But — he tries to think of more, tries to think of what exactly he’d seen that had made him cough up the flowers, and he comes up completely empty. The more he tries to search for anything to say about this incident, the less he can remember of any of it. Really, it should be impossible for this to happen to him in the first place. After all, he’s not in love with anyone, is he?

(In that same terminal, Richie is overcome with a sudden coughing fit. He practically hacks up a lung by the time his throat stops itching, but the relief that it’s over is dampened by the sight of the flower petals that cover the hand he’d been using to cover his mouth. The blood drains from his face, and he looks around desperately, but he can’t see anyone else coughing. He frowns down at his hand and sighs. Maybe it’s just him. Maybe he’s in love with someone who doesn’t exist.)

2013

Eddie lets out all of his breath in one long go as the hotel room door shuts behind him. He sets his briefcase on the small desk opposite the bed and does the same with the paper bag holding his food.

He rolls his shoulders a couple of times in a bid to dispel the stiffness that'd built up there over the course of his day at the conference. He’d been in meetings practically since he stepped foot on the conference floor. Hell, it’s already ten P.M. and he hasn’t eaten since he had a caesar salad during his lunch break at noon. His stomach is grumbling at him miserably now, so he quickly undresses down to just his undershirt, boxers, and socks before stretching his arms out over his head cursorily.

Eddie grabs the paper bag again and walks over to sit on the bed, reaching over to grab the TV remote from its spot on the nightstand. He gets comfortable on the bed first, legs criss crossed so that his elbows can rest on them, before turning on the TV and flipping through channels aimlessly. Comedy Central is the first channel that he actually recognizes, and he figures that’s good enough, so he drops the remote on the bedspread and pulls the burger he’d purchased earlier out of the paper bag, unwrapping it quickly.

The burger is a thing of beauty, really. It’s definitely packed with cholesterol and grease and all manner of unhealthy shit, but at this point, Eddie is so far from caring about any of that that it’s almost kind of funny. He goes to town on the burger, like it’s his first meal in days instead of mere hours. It’s probably the singular best meal he’s had in months.

His fervor for the burger means that he’s only just barely paying attention to the noise coming from the TV, although he does register when the announcer says to make some noise for the next comedian. Eddie’s never heard of him, but to be fair, he’s not really into standup comedy anyways.

The comedian walks out on stage and starts telling his jokes. They’re not funny at all, or at least, that’s what Eddie thinks, up until the man starts in on his next joke.

“Did any of you guys have those friends growing up, y’know the ones, that just believed anything, and it’s like, man, did you just sit in an empty room all day before you met me? They were the funniest to fuck with, though. My favorite was always convincing them tht strawberry cows made strawberry milk. That’s a greaet trick. Try it on an adult today, it still works.”

And Eddie stops chewing, and it feels like his heart is slowing down, oh God, is he having a fucking stroke, and he’s breathing quick now, and he feels like he’s underwater until he realizes, with a start, that he’s dropped his burger in his lap.

Eddie curses and rushes to pick up the pieces — thankfully, most of the toppings hadn’t come dislodged, and the burger is still mostly in one piece. He sets it back on the wrapper before staring at the man on his TV screen, completely dumbfounded, mind racing as he tries to figure out what it is about this man that makes his brain itch inside of his skull.

The man is tall and spindly, awkward in a way that clashes with his apparent age. He’s wearing a dark red zip-up hoodie with some kind of graphic tee underneath, his long legs stuffed into skinny jeans. To Eddie, it’s as if the man looked at a cover of a teen magazine and said, ‘yeah, that’s perfect, that’s exactly how I’ll dress forever’, but without any regard to any actual concept of style. For the life of him, Eddie can’t figure out why he feels so drawn to him — there’s nothing particularly unique about this man, so why him?

And then, the man says something else, and Eddie doesn’t even understand the words. All he can comprehend is the way his stomach roils out of nowhere, and then he’s stumbling out of bed and into the bathroom to retch into the toilet.

When Eddie’s finished vomiting up the bites of burger he had only just taken, he’s shocked by the sight of the flower petals that also float in the water. He rushes out of the bathroom and beelines for his briefcase, unzipping it quickly and pulling out his journal. He pulls the desk chair out but hesitates. He quickly walks over to the bed and turns the TV off before returning to the desk and sitting down and starting to write.

Except — Eddie has no idea where to begin. For the life of him, he can’t think of a single thing about that comedy special that could’ve triggered his condition. It must have been the jokes, he decides, because he’d never seen the comedian before in his life. Maybe his estranged love is some kind of — cow farmer? Fuck, he knows he’s grasping at straws here, but what else is he supposed to think?

After much consideration, Eddie writes bad jokes under his list of triggers, and then rubs his palm against his forehead as he tries to remember the joke. It’s leaving him already, somehow, and he huffs in frustrtion. God, he’s really never gonna figure this out, is he?

(Roughly two thousand miles away, Richie wakes up in the dead of night, rolls over to the edge of the bed, and promptly throws up on the floor. His eyes barely even open, and he’s so drunk that he immediately writes it off as booze-induced. He falls back asleep quickly, all thoughts of what had just transpired wiped from his mind. That is, until the next morning, when he gets out of bed and steps right into a puddle of cold, half-dried vomit. He curses and hops away. When he finally looks at the puddle, he feels the blood drain from his face at the sight of the now-crushed, all too familiar lionsheart petals.)

Throwing up right before a show really isn’t the best omen, but to be fair, Richie’s done much worse in his life.

Hell, it’s not even like this is his first time throwing up before going on stage— there had been a period of time in his life, right after he’d gotten picked up by his agent, where he’d throw up before every single performance.

But of course, this time is not like any of those times. This time, he hadn’t thrown up because of nerves. No, instead he’d thrown up right after hanging up on Mike. Right over a balcony. Into an alleyway that was, mercifully, deserted. God, Mike from Derry, he hasn’t thought about Derry since — fuck, Richie’ll throw up all over again if he thinks about it.

Throwing up had been expected, what with the way even reading the area code had immediately split his head with a migraine. What hadn’t been expected was the way that flower petals, of all things, stuck to his lips, his tongue, and even in between his teeth. He picks one of them out of his teeth now and stares at it in complete disbelief. Sure enough, it’s the same flower he’s been coughing up on and off as long as he can remember, or at least since the nineties; he grimaces now at the memory of throwing up on the linoleum flooring of that gas station in Arizona.

The petal itself is striking; a pale pink bell with daintily scalloped edges, the ends of which are dotted with pinks so dark they’re almost purple. Lionsheart, Physostegia virginiana, Richie knows, he has Google. The petal is currently dampened with alcohol and bile and spit and phlegm and what have you, but it somehow manages to look no less beautiful. Richie strokes at the surface of it lightly as he tries to regulate his breathing, inhale one two three, exhale one two three four. He’s doing his best not to lose his fucking mind a minute before he’s due on stage, and not succeeding much at that.

Richie tries his best to organize his thoughts, to think of anything that could have possibly happened to trigger this — this attack, this incident, this whatever the fuck, but he comes up with nothing. Less than nothing, when Steve sticks his head out of the side door to bitch at him about the show starting shortly.

Richie sighs out all of the breath in his lungs in one big whoosh and wishes, not for the first time, that he hadn’t given up smoking. He stands up straight, nudges his glasses up from where they’ve slipped down his nose, grits his teeth hard for a long moment. He turns around to face Steve, who still stands there half leaned out of the building, eyebrows raised expectantly and lips pressed into that signature I’m-not-mad-I’m-just-disappointed look that only he and Richie’s parents can pull off this well.

“Alright,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else there is to say. He runs a heavy palm against his face before speaking again. “Get me a bottle of water first though, will you?”

The urge to cough first tickles Eddie’s throat while he’s handing his ticket over to the flight attendant at the gate. It’s felt like something has been stuck in his lungs since he got the call from Mike, but up until now, he’s been able to ignore it.

He clears his throat against it, rolls his shoulder and adjusts the strap of his messenger bag where it digs into the muscle there uncomfortably, flexes his fingers around the handle of his carryon suitcase. The last thing Eddie wants right now is to be one of those assholes who coughs in a public place like a fucking toddler. Instead of going away, though, the tickle in his throat only graduates into an itch as he walks down the jet bridge. It makes his lips twist reproachfully, and he clears his throat again in vain.

Eddie manages to hold the cough back all the way until he’s sat in his business class seat. It's creeping up his throat as he stuffs his carryon bag in the overhead compartment and his messenger bag underneath the seat in front of him. He makes a horrible noise as he tightens his seatbelt carefully buckles it, pulling his handkerchief out from his pants pocket to try and cough discretely into it.

It works only somewhat. Once Eddie’s started coughing, he can’t stop, and worse than that, the coughs are phlegm-covered and wet-sounding. It makes him cringe even as his chest burns with the coughs; he can’t imagine what the people sitting near him are thinking.

Eventually though, whatever crawled down his throat and died is expelled into the handkerchief. Eddie shoots a quick glance around. No one is looking his way, thank god. He looks down at his handkerchief out of morbid curiosity more than anything else, only to see the last possible thing he would’ve expected.

Instead of phlegm, Eddie’s greeted by the sight of flower petals that he would know anywhere. Long and spindly, with two points at the end of each that are almost jagged in shape, in a light, mild purple that Eddie has always thought of as deeply calming, like a color someone might paint the walls of a therapist’s office. The petals are from a ragged robin flower, silence flos-cuculi, the very same flower that Eddie has been coughing up intermittently for the past twenty years, give or take, with no fucking idea as to why all along.

He curses under his breath. This is really starting to piss him off. It’s been twenty years of throwing up this fucking flower, and twenty years since he left Derry. He knows that those two things are connected somehow now, but he can’t quite put his finger on it yet.

It takes fifteen full minutes for Richie to work up the courage to get out of the car and walk into the Jade Orient.

Well, okay, it had taken five minutes for him to psych himself up about it, and he’d gotten as far as opening the car door and planting one foot on the pavement before he’d watched a man, who looked an awful lot like Bill Denbrough, the famous author, stroll into the restaurant. So he’d pulled the car door closed once more, and had spent the next ten minutes after that with his forehead pressed against the steering wheel, trying to ignore the dread that just seemed to grow and grow inside of him.

Eventually, though, Richie can no longer justify sitting in his car and feeling sorry for himself. He adjusts the rear-view mirror so that he can give himself a once over, sighing at what he sees — exhaustion, plain and simple, and all of the horrible crap that comes hand in hand; dark purple bruises under both eyes, wrinkles that have never seemed so eye-catching as they do now, and even a couple of pimples scattered along his cheeks and forehead, because of fucking course Richie still gets acne at forty fucking years old, why wouldn’t he — before sitting straight up in the seat, rolling his head around a couple of times in an attempt to dispel the ache building in his neck. He inhales so much air that it almost feels like he might pop like an overfilled balloon, blows it all out through his mouth, smacks a palm against his forehead, and pushes the car door open before he can rethink it.

When Richie walks through the doors of the restaurant, he doesn’t have to be escorted; he just follows the loudest voices he can pick out of the noise. He has a quip queued up and everything — Jeez, and you guys call me loud — but before he can so much as open his mouth, he spots Eddie. He can’t even see the other man in his entirety, just his side profile, but —

Richie turns tail and rushes right back the way he came, out of the restaurant and down the side of it. He doesn’t stop until he’s far away enough from the parking lot that he’s swallowed by the shadows cast by the setting sun. Once he deems it private enough, he braces one palm against the side of the building, leans over onto it heavily, and throws his guts up on the concrete.

It’s not pretty. His throat burns with it, and the discomfort and pain only worsens as he practically chokes on something solid as it bullies its way up his esophagus and out of his mouth. Richie stares down at what had just come out of his mouth in disbelief.

Instead of the disparate petals he's been coughing up as long as he can remember, there are full blossoms now, bell-shaped and heavy, a whole clump of them.

The sight hits Richie like a fucking truck. Shit. He should have known, though, shouldn’t he? Even if he let himself off the hook for the past twenty-seven years, because it’s not like he’d just forgotten the love of his life, he’d forgotten everyone else too, not to mention everything about his childhood, well. It’s never been anyone other than Eddie, has it? Even when Richie couldn’t remember him, it had still been him.

Richie expects the realization to make him panic, and sure, yeah, he does, to some extent, but — more than anything, it grounds him. More than anything, the realization just feels like another fact of life, another fact of his life. The sky is blue. Grass is green. Richie Tozier has been in love with Eddie Kaspbrak since he was eleven years old, and sometimes, when he feels that love a little too much, he throws up flowers about it.

He wipes the back of his hand against his lips roughly, grimacing at the wetness that he leaves there. Without looking at it, he rubs his hand against his jeans and straightens up, clearing his throat forcefully. Thankfully, there’s nothing else stuck in it other than leftover phlegm. He clenches his eyes shut as hard as he can, pulls in a carefully controlled inhale, and turns to head back into the restaurant.

After everything with the clown is said and done, the Losers return to their respective lives. Eddie had almost expected nothing to change from before — they’re all grown adults, after all, with their own lives. At the very least, he’d expected things to be somewhat awkward or at least stilted.

Instead, these six people who Eddie had gone twenty-seven years not knowing he missed end up slotting perfectly into his life, like they’d never left in the first place.

The Losers as a whole have a group video call at least twice a month, and one or two of them will call Eddie out of the blue at least once or twice a week, just to chat about whatever’s popped into their mind. Eddie’s still trying to get used to the concept of people enjoying talking to him as much as his friends seem to.

Eddie and Richie don’t really call, for whatever reason, but they do text constantly, and they’re always in the middle of talking about something or another. So when his coworker really pisses him off in the last meeting of the day on a Wednesday afternoon, Eddie’s already bitching to Richie about it before the meeting is even officially adjourned. Richie doesn’t respond right away, but that’s fine; Eddie relishes the extra time to brood as he gets in his car and heads to the grocery store after clocking out.

Richie finally messages back when Eddie’s in the frozen foods aisle.

Richie

ohhhh my godddd that sounds so annoyinggg lmfao

you should kill him

wait and this is robert? the same guy you were telling me about last week? the one who was kinda shittalking you in front of your manager?

man i mean ill kill him myself if you want me to you just gotta pay for my ticket to ny

Eddie snorts, probably way too loudly. The elderly lady standing a couple of feet away from him gives him a weird look. He ignores her.

You

I’m not killing him. And you’re not either

The response comes back rapid fire, like most of Richie’s do.

Richie

spoilsport

Eddie smiles down at his phone before tucking it back into his pocket. It buzzes as he continues shopping, but he doesn’t check it again until he’s already put all of his groceries in the back of his car and is sitting in the driver’s seat.

Richie

wait and isnt this the guy who stole your pen and never returned it??? what happened w that anyways

You

No that was Paula

Fuck why did you remind me about that just now

I gotta drive home

Give me ten minutes

Eddie stuffs his phone back into his pocket and drives home, stewing the entire time. He rushes up to his apartment and puts his groceries away with a never before seen speed before grabbing his phone and opening his text messages again.

You

Ugh okay so

She asked for my pen during a meeting and then never gave it back. And then LIED ABOUT IT TO MY FACE the next day

After sending that message, he types out ‘and another thing’ before pausing, frowning at his phone.

You

Actually can I just call you? I have too much to say and I want to start making dinner anyways

The three gray dots make an appearance. They stay there for much longer than Eddie is expecting, but before he can think of why that might be, Richie sends his response.

Richie

sure why not lol im not doing anything

With that, Eddie taps on the video camera icon to start a call. Richie picks up almost immediately. Eddie’s already ranting again, even as he sets the phone up against the knife block so that he can both rant hands free and get started on dinner.

Eddie rants all the way through chopping up all of the chicken and vegetables for his stir fry. He gets so incensed while detailing the way Carl from accounting had fucked up one of the company-wide spreadsheets that he makes a chopping gesture through the air with the knife and sends a piece of cucumber flying through the air.

Richie barks out a laugh that makes Eddie scowl even as he turns away from the phone screen to hunt for where the slice of cucumber had landed. Suddenly, though, Richie’s laughter is cut short by a horrible sounding cough.

“You alright?” Eddie calls over his shoulder, crouching down to pick up the cucumber slice. Richie doesn’t respond, though, and instead, the coughing continues. Eddie stands back up, worried, and makes his way back over to his phone. “Rich?”

“Yup, yup, fine, I’m fine,” Richie gasps, voice gravelly now in a way that makes a fire start up in Eddie’s stomach, makes him want to bang his head against a wall. “I think I’m probably just getting a little sick.”

Eddie frowns at the miniature Richie on his screen. “Make sure you’re taking care of yourself, you idiot. If you get sick, I'll kill you.”

That’s when it hits Eddie. He’s on the phone. With Richie. And they’re talking, or rather, Eddie is talking Richie’s ear off. Fuck. His heart drops belatedly, and he freezes up a little. “Sorry if I’m boring you to death.”

Richie just shakes his head at that, though. “Nah, don’t apologize. I love it. Every single you tell me about your coworkers I am so insanely thankful that I managed to luck into a career in comedy. I don’t know if I could survive the corporate world. You’re stronger than both me and the marines for putting up with all of this, Eds.”

Something about the way Richie says it makes all of the tension leave his body. The ice that had formed in his veins melts in an instant. It’s yet another reminder of how amazing Richie is, how much Eddie loves him. He’s had some time to come to terms with it, and now, it’s a comforting thought more than anything, this knowledge that, even if Richie doesn’t love him back, that’s okay. Eddie can live with this love. It’s enough, he thinks, to just be so close to Richie, to be able to talk to him and to think about him.

Richie’s problem has gotten so much worse now that he sees Eddie’s face all the time. He feels like he’s pretty much constantly sick at this point, but it’s honestly worth it, just to talk to Eddie as much as he gets to.

Eddie picks up on the first ring. The sight of him makes every muscle in Richie’s body relax.

“Hey Rich, how’s it going?” Eddie asks. He’s got this little genuine half-smile on his face, like he’s just as happy to see Richie as Richie is to see him, and it kind of makes Richie want to bash his own brains out with a brick.

And Richie had thought about how he was going to do this, really, he had, but now that Eddie’s in front of him, looking so happy and at ease, he can’t wait any longer. Through a grin so wide it probably makes him look like the Cheshire cat, he says, “Well, SNL asked me on to do the last show before Christmas, and I don’t have anything booked in until like, January. Ergo, this muppet is going to take Manhattan!”

Eddie’s smile graduates right into a full blown toothy grin that makes Richie feel like someone has ripped his heart right out of his chest and stomped on it right in front of him. “Richie, that’s great! When d’you think—” before Eddie can finish his sentence though, his face contorts into something uncomfortable and he starts coughing, elbow flying up to his face as he pulls away from the screen a little.

The coughs are awful gunky things, and it makes the smile drop off of Richie’s face. He frowns at the screen as he leans in a little closer, like it’ll mean being closer to Eddie too. “Eds? You alright over there? Not dying on me again, are you?”

Eddie lets out one last big horrible-sounding cough before almost gagging like a cat, but at least he finally seems okay. He clears his throat before speaking. “Sorry about that. I — it’s allergy season. No big deal, ‘s just really gross. So, when d’you think you’ll fly out?”

“Probably like two weeks before the show, so I’ll be in New York for a while, if, uh, you have time to hang. I know you’re a busy business man and all. I’d understand if you don't… have time.” Richie responds, and he's mostly joking, but there's a real twinge of anxiety too.

Eddie makes a face that Richie would most closely compare to a baby’s first reaction to eating lemon. “Of course I can spare the time. What the fuck do you think of me, dickhead? I’ll book the time off first thing tomorrow morning, and we can hang out for as long as you want.”

Richie tries not to let his relief show on his face. “Cool, cool. Hey, that reminds me, would you maybe wanna go to ComicCon next year? I mean, if you think you’ll be able to put up with me for two whole weeks, what’s a long weekend?”

Eddie’s eyes light up at that. Richie doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to get used to the way Eddie makes his heart race at the drop of a hat. God, he doesn’t know how he’ll survive two weeks with him when he can barely survive a phone call.

When Eddie picks Richie up from the airport, their first order of business is to grab some food. Richie doesn’t like eating before flights — apparently, he has a nervous stomach, even with all of his experience flying around the world. Luckily, there’s a retro diner only a couple blocks from Eddie’s place, so they head there.

The diner is surprisingly deserted for two in the afternoon. A tired looking waitress who can’t be more than half their age seats them in one of the booths. They're chatting as they parse through the menu, only pausing to put in their orders — a burger and fries for each of them, because Eddie’s hungry too — before jumping right back into their debate over who would win in a fight to the death, Professor X or Dr. Strange.

Eddie’s really enjoying himself, and Richie seems to be too, which is a huge relief. Eddie had still harbored some worries in the back of his mind over their reunion being awkward or stilted in some way. Now, though, he can’t remember why. If anything, the conversation is flowing even better than it had over the phone. Even better than when they were kids, if he’s really being honest, because at least now they’re two grown adults with fully developed brains and lives.

Richie’s gesturing wildly now, lips flapping animatedly like someone on hour twelve of a coke binge despite Eddie knowing for a fact that he’s sober — coke just makes me anxious, and weed makes me paranoid, Eds, I’m serious, I’m like a fuckin’ anti drug PSA the second you give me anything — and even though he’s jumping rapidly from topic to topic, Eddie keeps up without blinking an eye.

Eddie doesn’t have anything to say until Richie starts insulting Eddie’s fashion sense — you’re forty, Eds, not eighty, seriously, what’s with all the polos and khakis, what are you, an undercover cop? — and Eddie can’t help his next words, leaning back against the booth with hands placed comfortably on the cushion either side of his legs, fingers splayed out casually.

“Oh, and you’re some paragon of fashion? Don’t forget that I’ve known you since you were eleven years old, Richie. I remember you throwing up multicolored puke all over your shoes after I dared you to eat two bags of gummy worms in one go, and I’ll sell your ass out to TMZ in a heartbeat. So don’t try to get all uppity with me, jackass.”

Richie’s reaction is immediate. His eyes widen, and he splutters, jolting forward like someone’s just electrocuted him and planting his elbows on the table. “Hey, fuck you, man! I didn’t know that was you until now. I didn’t even remember that happening. I threw up once in a random gas station in my twenties just at the sight of a fucking bag of gummy worms and I didn’t even know why. They made me pay for all of them, too, even though I didn’t even fucking throw up on them! That was all of my money for the week, and I still couldn’t even eat the fucking things!”

Eddie barks out a laugh. That would happen to Richie, he’s such a fucking idiot. God, he loves him. The indignant way Richie stares at him when he does only makes him laugh harder, and it’s probably for that reason that Eddie doesn’t recognize the telltale signs that he needs to throw up until it’s almost too late.

The first cough that builds in his throat is small, just enough for Eddie to realize that oh, shit, this is happening right now, this is really happening. Then, something all too familiar begins to tickle at the back of his throat. He jumps, panic making his limbs lock up, and tries to stand, but he’s too fast, and he bangs his knees against the table hard. He hisses out a curse, or at least, he tries, but suddenly he’s out of time, and he feels the vomit rocketing its way up his esophagus and out of his mouth, and it’s all he can do to lean over before he’s throwing up all over the floor.

When he sees the flower petals, he screws his eyes shut so tight they burn with it, sparks of bright white shooting across his eyelids. He grits his teeth so hard that they creak in his mouth. All of this fucking effort, all of that time spent trying to hide all of this, and this is how it ends.

“Oh, shit!” Eddie hears Richie exclaim over the ringing in his ears. “Eds, shit, are you okay, man?”

“Oh god, I’m so sorry,” Eddie grits out the second he’s caught his breath, trying his best to fight back the tears that spring to his eyes. “I didn’t mean for you to find out this way, I didn’t want you to find out at all, god, this is so fucking gross. I know you don’t feel the same way about me. I understand if you don’t want to be friends anymore, but— I want to stay friends. And we could — we could just pretend that this never happened.”

“What?” Richie says, and it feels like Eddie’s fucking heart stops in his chest right then and there. “What are you even talking about? What— oh.”

Eddie holds his breath until he can’t anymore. He wills himself to open his eyes after a couple of long, silent moments, head turning slowly to look over at Richie. The other man is sat frozen, head tilted downwards and to the side, just enough that Eddie can tell that he’s looking down at the puddle of vomit on the floor. Eddie’s face burns.

Richie doesn’t speak. Eddie forces himself to sit back up in the seat properly, if only so that he doesn’t hurt his back.

Then, Richie does the last thing Eddie would have expected him to.

He sticks two of his fingers down his throat.

Eddie stares at him bug-eyed, mouth dropping open in shock. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Jus’ wai’ a secon’.”

“Don’t do that!” Eddie snaps, reaching across the table to yank at Richie’s forearm and dislodge his fingers before he can think about it. Richie lets him without fighting it; Eddie drops his grip the second his fingers have left his mouth because ew, wet fingers, gross.

“Hey, I was trying to make a big romantic gesture, alright?” Richie complains, wiping his fingers off on his jacket. Eddie grimaces.

And then he processes what Richie’s just said.

“What?”

“I— Jesus, Eddie, do you need me to spell it out for you? We have the exact same fucking — I love someone but they probably don’t love me back and my source for that information is my brain disease, how much clearer could I make it?”

Eddie feels like he’s having a fucking out of body experience. What the absolute fuck. “So you’re saying—”

“Christ, I’m saying that I’m in love with you, Eddie. I’ve loved you since the day I first met you, when I puked all over your shoes and you helped me to the nurse’s office anyways. What, d’you want me to get it tattooed somewhere or something? ‘Cause if so, I don’t have any objections, but I do have to call my publicist first so that he can sign off on it. I owe him that much.”

And Eddie can’t help but laugh at that, at the absurdity of this entire situation. “Who,” he manages to wheeze out in between chuffs, “the fuck confesses to someone like that?”

“What, not romantic enough for you?”

“Richie, I just threw up all over the floor of a diner and then you tried to stick your fingers down your throat to make yourself throw up too. What part of that is romantic?” Eddie deadpans.

Richie just cheeses at him, but it’s enough to make Eddie start laughing again, which sets Richie off too. Only this time, he can feel something catching in his throat, tickling the already sensitive skin there. Eddie coughs into his hand, and as he does, he hears Richie coughing too across the table. When he looks up, Richie is grinning even wider somehow and holding out his hand palm up to display the flower petals that sit there. They’re a little soggy, but they’re still the most beautiful thing Eddie’s ever seen. He returns the gesture and watches as Richie’s eyes light up.

“I love you too, by the way.” Eddie says, turning his hand over to drop the flowers as Richie does the same.

Richie’s hand snakes its way across the tabletop. Eddie finds it with his own without so much as glancing downwards.

Richie opens his mouth to respond, but before he can, the swinging door to the kitchen creaks open, and their waitress appears carrying two plates full of food. She takes one look at them, at the vomit on the floor next to their table, and says, very calmly, “What the fuck?”