Archive of Our Own

When Richie invited his boyfriend over, the first words out of said boyfriend’s mouth should have been take off all your clothes, not, “I want to break up.”

But no, Richie lives in a fucked up society where it’s okay to just come over to someone’s house and completely stomp on their heart. No, seriously, what the fuck? He thinks, then two seconds later, because he has always been incapable of biting his tongue, he says. “What the fuck, no, seriously, what the fuck, Eds—Eddie?”

And his boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend now, just looks at him with those big brown eyes, lips pursed together. “Is it because I banged your mom?” Richie says, because honestly, if he says quite literally anything else, he might start crying. Ugly crying, by the way, not the type of crying that you see in the movies where they cry but they still look like they just stepped off a magazine cover. There’d be snot, spit, tears (of course), and he doesn’t really want to show Eddie that side of him, at least not under this circumstance.

But then Eddie doesn’t say anything, so Richie clears his throat, trying again. “Please tell me you’re joking—please—I won’t even get mad, even though you’re going to make me cry.”

He’s quiet for a minute, waiting for Eddie to start giggling. The type of giggle that starts in the base of his throat and makes its way up to form some weird ass noise Richie has only ever heard come from Eddie. Of course, this doesn’t happen, Eddie just stares up at him with those beautiful eyes.

His eyes were part of the reason Richie had fallen in love with him. Well, Richie would have fallen in love no matter what Eddie's eyes looked like—hell, he was gone the second Eddie had stepped into that goddamned auditorium that blessed day in third grade. But apparently, he was completely alone in that feeling of adoration because Eddie was breaking? up? with? him?

He looks away, needing to take a breath from everything to do with this fucking conversation.

“I’m sorry, Rich,” Eddie finally says, drawing his eyes down from the ceiling. “I just, I don’t think this is working out, I mean, we’re going to college in a couple months.”

“We’re going to the same fucking college Eddie—we’re going to be fucking roommates—What do you mean this isn’t working out?” He hisses through the burn making its way through his nose, up to the corner of his eyes. “Is this the part where you tell me you committed to Toronto? I said I would do long distance, Eddie, I said it, and I’m not taking it back, I mean I don’t—it doesn’t matter how far you are, I—no, baby, please don’t cry.”

Richie cuts off his rambling, reaching a hand up to cup the side of Eddie’s face, running his thumb underneath his eye, wiping away the tears. For one amazing, blissful second, Eddie leans into the touch, eyes closing, shoulders relaxing, then he seems to compose himself, pulling away. “I just don’t think this is working out, Richie, but we can still be—“

“Don’t you dare say friends,” Richie seethes, bunching his hands at his side. “Last night you tried to climb me like a fucking tree—don’t you dare say we can be anything but this.”

It’s not a lie, unfortunately, but despite his less than eloquent words, Richie doesn’t even want to think about it, doesn’t want to think about anything regarding Eddie anymore. Which is very hard seeing as Eddie is still standing in front of him, big, beautiful fucking brown eyes still staring up a him. For a moment, they just look at each other.

His eyes are bloodshot, tears clinging to the tips of his lashes, lips pressed together in a way that looks almost painful. They’d been a similar position last night.

Granted, they’d been lying sideways on Eddie’s bed, hands conjoined in between them. It had been one of the rare moments Richie was able to keep his mouth shut for more than ten seconds, and it had been because he was so busy just looking. He’d let his eyes trace the soft curves of Eddie’s face, let his eyes linger on the slight pout of his lips, the slope of his nose, the slant of his eyes. It had felt like they’d laid there for hours like that, just looking at each other. It was one of those things where he just knew he’d remember it for the rest of his life.

He’d remember the soft shine of the moonlight bleeding through Eddie’s curtains, he’d remember the faint sound of whatever weird soap Sonia was watching downstairs drifting through the door, the feel of Eddie’s hand in his, the way his skin felt beneath Richie’s. He’d remember the look in Eddie’s eyes.

His pupils were dilated, so large Richie only see a faint ring of brown around them. Richie could practically feel the pool of emotions swimming in them. He could feel the anxiety pulling at his gut, the sharp pound of an inflated hear rate. The subtle tingle of joy gathering in the center of his heart, adoration lining the edges. And when Richie smiled at Eddie, one last emotion had warped its way into his eyes. But it was gone too quick for Richie to place it, so he had wrapped the hand not in Eddie’s around the back of his neck, pulling Eddie close, until their foreheads touched.

“I love you,” he’d whispered. It wan’t the first time he’d said it, but he still relished in the way Eddie’s breath would hitch upon hearing it. Eddie’s mouth had opened, a breathless word slipping out, too quiet for Richie to hear, and then he’d pulled Richie into a kiss, all soft, warm and gentle, saying everything Eddie had never voiced.

“—chie, should I go?”

Right, right, bloodshot eyes, splotchy red skin, breaking up. Richie wipes away the rest of the tears that had formed in the corner of his eyes, waves a hand toward his door, tries to smile. “Please, yes, go as yew puhleese.”

Eddie sniffles, unashamed by the way tears run down his cheek. Richie wants to reach out his hand and wipe them all away—and he would have, but Eddie steps past him, towards the door. “I still want to be your friend, Rich. I—you’re my best friend.”

“Get out of my house,” Richie mutters, before he can stop himself, even though he wants to say, okay, I’ll be your friend, I’ll be anything so long as I can have you.

He doesn’t watch Eddie close the door—can’t bear to see him leave—but he does hear the shallow intakes of his breaths, the low whimpers as he clicks the door shut behind him.

Then he falls to the floor and cries.

—

The first week post breakup, Richie goes through a sort of mourning period. The first day, his mom brings him up some breakfast, asking him if he wants to talk about it, he shake his head no, but then proceeds to spend an hour crying about it, letting her rub his back and offer him toilet paper disguised as tissues. It’s a repeat cycle when she comes in with lunch and dinner.

Post breakup day two, Richie spends his day staring at the ceiling, locking his door and blasting sad music from his speaker. Of course, he realizes after the first song that the speaker was a birthday gift from Eddie a year ago, so he throws it under his bed and creates his own sad music via wailing and warbling Eddie’s favorite songs instead.

Day three starts the same as day two, then after his sixth rendition of Stayin’ alive, he starts going through his things. First, he goes through his closet, throwing every- thing that reminds him of Eddie on the floor, once he’s done with that, he rips down every picture of Eddie in his room and throws them away. Of course, this leads to him digging through his trashcan and recollecting all of the photos to look through them longingly.

On day four, Bev shows up with ice cream and her computer, Netflix already loaded. They don’t talk about it, actually, they don’t talk about anything. She just clicks on a shitty romcom and hands him a spoon. They spend the rest of the day like that, sitting next to each other, gorging on ice cream, watching dumbass TV. But then she leaves, and Richie lies in his bed and thinks about all the stupid romcoms and all their happy fucking endings.

He cries himself to sleep that night, but that’s sort of become his norm over the past couple days.

On day five, Bill, Stan, Ben, and Mike show up outside his house, trying to lure him out to the bowling alley for a game of laser tag. It works, of course, because Richie has never, and will never turn down a game of laser tag, but halfway through the first game, Richie’s vest flashes red, and it reminds him too much of the fucking atrocious shorts Eddie wears sometimes. So he starts crying in the middle of the fucking laser tag arena, his friends awkwardly huddled around him, offering him shitty attempts at comfort.

Day six starts just like the rest of the other days. He wakes up, eyes so swollen he can barely open them, snot and spit staining his pillow. His mom, who has spent the last week hovering over him uncertainly, barges into his room. “Richie, you need to shower.”

“I’m not fucking five years old,” he snarls, not even able to focus on her since, apparently, his glasses fell off at some point last night and he never bothered to find them.

If it were any other day, he’d probably get a twenty minute lecture for even using the word fuck, nonetheless directing it at her, but apparently, today is not any other day, so she just sighs. He can make out her blurry figure becoming a fuzzy blob on his floor, then getting closer, reaching towards his face and, oh, it’s his glasses. “Rich, honey—you can't carry on like this.”

Realistically, he knows she's right, but he also doesn't really care, so he just buries his head into his pillows, trying to drown out her and her stupid ideas of getting? over? it? 

He feels his bed dip, and a second later her hand rubs over his back in small soothing circles. "How about you just shower, okay? Small steps." 

Her voice is honey saccharine, falling over his skin like one of those Nickelodeon celebrities getting slimed compilations he used to watch when he was younger. He doesn't really want to, like, he already had a public outing yesterday, shouldn't that be enough? But in the back of his mind he knows his mom is right, so, he stomps over to his bathroom, turns on the light, looks in the mirror and….yikes.

Look, Richie’s not the most concerned about his appearance—if he was, he would have gotten a different pair of glasses, like, years ago—but he looks bad. Like so bad

he kinda hates his friends for letting his ass go to the bowling alley yesterday. Deep purple circles line his red-veined, honestly frightening, swollen eyes. His hair falls in greasy half-curls over his forehead, and oh god, he has a stubble. It starts at the base of his ears, running down his jawline and onto his chin, almost touching his lips. Normally, he keeps it shaved because Eddie hates the feel of—nope. He focuses his train of thought on the smell coming from his armpits. Briefly, he wonders if everyone in his life hates him, seriously, ‘cuz who let him go out like this?

Once he’s done taking the longest shower of his life, he tromps back to his room, towel wrapped around his waist. There’s two things different about his room when he enters. One: it’s been completely cleaned. All the trash that had been accumulating, the excess clothes on the floor, the dirty dishes—even the photos of Eddie he’d left lying around—are gone. Even his bed has been stripped. Second: Beverly Marsh is sitting on his floor, fidgeting with his Rubik’s cube.

He honest to God almost drops his towel on the floor, but right before the ball he's bunched the upper part of the towel into completely lets go, the nerves in his fingers regain feeling and he squeezes it back into place. “Did you clean my fucking room, big Red?”

In the back of his mind, he knows that he shouldn’t be embarrassed—hell, she’d been in his room a couple days ago, back when he was in his peak mourn stage. But he can’t help the faint twinge he was incapable of feeling the last time she visited. He feels a little better when she shakes her head. “Hell no, your mom was almost done with it when I came in.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Oh. Okay,” she mocks, then gestures toward his closet. “Are you going to put on any clothes, dumbass?”

He feel’s his face heat up, and he feels a little exposed when he turns to the closet, trifling through his options. In an effort to make himself feel better, he throws her a teasing look. “I didn’t know you were capable of being away from your sweet, baby, angel Ben for so long.”

“I could say the same for you,” she shoots back, realizing her mistake just a second too late. “Shit, Rich, I’m sorry.”

He’s basically hiding inside his closet to change, so he takes advantage of her not being able to see him. “It’s alright, et’s the troof ain’t et.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” She asks, completely ignoring his accented deflection.

He’s prepared to say no, come up with some stupid joke and move on, but he makes the mistake of stepping out from his closet. Bev’s eyes are concerned, sympathetic, earnest in a way that he’s not really used to. So when he goes to say no, what comes out instead is, “I guess I just didn’t see it coming.”

Her eyes widen, as though she wasn’t actually expecting him to respond. “Well what did he say?”

Richie flops down next to her with a sigh. “A bunch of bullshit,” she lifts a brow at him, and he reconsiders his answer. “He said it just wasn’t working out, but we’ve been dating for almost two years, why is he just figuring this out now? I mean, we were planning to be fucking roommates, I just—I don’t know.”

“I don’t think anyone understands why Eddie does anything,” she jokes, putting her palm against his cheek, wiping away a tear he hadn’t even noticed forming. “But if it makes you feel better, he seems really beat up over it.”

A small part of him doesn’t really care since Eddie’s the one who broke with him, but the larger, more Eddie-centric part of him wants to go to him immediately. Instead, he just lays back against his floor. “Whatever—what are the rest of the losers doing today?”

—

Richie sees Eddie for the first time since their relationship ended on day nine Post Breakup (P.B). He’s headed to the clubhouse with a comic book in hand, ready to spend his day in the hammock pretending to read, but really watching the ladder and hoping that maybe a certain someone will climb down it. He’s decided to be nostalgic and take his bike, so despite biking for twenty minutes, he’s only half way there when things go to shit.

And by that he means he see’s Eddie, in all his glory, standing in front of the pharmacy, likely on a medicine run for his mom. And to put it nicely, he looks like fucking shit. His hair, which normally has the perfect amount of gel to not make his hair look oily (“I just want enough to give me structure, not look like I just came out of my mom’s fucking vagina.”), is pushed back in a greasy mess. His shirt is wrinkly, and untucked from his pants, which look like they might be on backwards.

From across the street, Richie can’t get a good look at his face, but he thinks maybe that’s for the better, then he thinks that really it doesn’t matter because his heart’s still in his fucking throat.

Then he bikes into a fucking trashcan.

In a matter of seconds, someone is by his side, offering a hand to pull him up. Richie, whose glasses must have fallen off, can only see the blob of a person, but his body recognizes his presence, even when his eyes cannot. Tingles wrack through his body, starting at the palm of his hand, which is currently wrapped in Eddie’s, and rushing through his legs to his feet, and to the top of his head.

“Sorry,” Richie mutters, then rips his hand away because why is Eddie still holding onto it?

A second later, his glasses are placed over his nose, Eddie’s hand brushing against Richie cheek for a second, sending a flurry of sparks through his skin. When his eyes focus, Richie is able to see his ex-boyfriend in perfect detail.

Up close, Eddie’s eyes are bloodshot, red around the edges, swollen in a way that suggests he’s been crying for a while. Pain stabs Richie in the gut, and he wants to reach out, pull Eddie in, tell him everything’s going to be okay. But he also doesn’t want to get slapped, and he knows the longer he’s around Eddie the more likely he is to start crying.

So instead, he just gets back on his bike and awkwardly bikes away, acutely aware of Eddie’s gaze on his back. And when he gets to the clubhouse, he sits on the ground and cries.

—

The first time Richie said I love you was three weeks after they started dating.

Look, he knows it’s bad, but at least he didn’t say it before. And it wasn’t really that weird, he’d spent his whole life loving Eddie, three weeks wasn’t really that bad. It was on their first date—official date because they’d gone out a couple times before, but Richie refused to call it a date until he could deliver the real deal (aka drive Eddie to and fro).

”’Ello good sir!” Richie said, bowing from his hips with a dramatic flourish, then handing him a bouquet of flowers he’d meticulously made from pipe stems, lest he have to hear Eddie complain about allergies. “Welcome to your steed of the evening.”

Eddie stared at him, taking in the scene in front of him, probably. “Shut the fuck

up.”

But he was blushing, a smile peeking from the corner of his lips, and his hands were twitching that way they did when he was excited. Richie grinned, opening the car door and gesturing him in.

Richie wasn’t the most organized person in the world, he was probably the messiest, and his car reflected that. Except for the passenger seat, which he always kept pristine (somehow), so Eddie wouldn’t complain.

”Are you sure this thing won’t break down again?” Eddie asked skeptically as the engine clicked a couple times before sputtering to life.

“Ehhhh,” Richie shrugged. “Not really, but it will get us to our destination today good sir!”

Eddie didn’t respond, but Richie felt the heat of his gaze on the side of his face. Their first (and only) stop was the school, weirdly enough, but Richie was a romantic at heart, and that was where his heart led him.

“What the fuck are we doing here, jackass?” Eddie questioned the second his gaze landed on the Derry High School sign. “I don’t know if you remember, but today is a fucking Saturday?”

“Shut up, I have a plan,” Richie grumbled, pulling the car to a jerky stop. He was planning to jump over the hood and open the door for Eddie, but by the time he closed his own door, Eddie was already heading towards the entrance. He ran up behind him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. 

“Don’t fucking touch me!” Eddie shouted, but didn't shove him off. 

“That’s not what you were saying last night,” Richie snarks, even though it wasn’t true.

“You’re so gross, man.”

“Don’t call me man when we’re on a fucking date, dude.”

“Well don’t call me dude, then.”

“Fine, man.”

Eddie groaned, throwing his arms up in annoyance, pushing Richie away. Richie just laughed, speeding up his pace and hoping that the fucking janitor pulled through and left the door unlocked like he said he would. Thankfully, the door opened with an easy tug, and Richie led him inside.

Once inside, Richie guided Eddie toward the auditorium, and he’d never admit it, but his heart was fucking pounding in his chest. He was surprised Eddie couldn’t hear it.

The auditorium wasn’t crazy big, and there were no lights on, so it was fucking dark. Shit. He forgot that there would be no lights. He whipped out his phone, turning on the flashlight.

”You look like a fucking psychopath.”

”Shut up, asshole,” Richie retorted, but he grabbed Eddie’s hand, and shockingly, Eddie didn’t swat it away. “Do you remember when we came here for the Beauty and the Beast?”

”In, like, third grade?”

”Yeah,” Richie shuffled, hand fidgeting with his zipper. “Do you?”

”I mean yeah, kind of,” Eddie shrugged, “but also not really, I mean I was like fucking four.”

”You were not four in third fucking grade, Eduardo,” Richie rolls his eyes, then reins in his face. “Anyway, this is where we met, well, kind of—this is where I saw you for the first time.”

He didn’t mask the fondness as he said it, and he knew it took Eddie aback. Their relationship was still new, and they weren’t quite used to being honest about their feelings, yet.

Richie powered on, pulling Eddie toward the middle of the division between the top and bottom section of the seats. “You were standing right here with your class. You had a disgusted look on your face, and your fanny pack was unzipped—gauze was falling out—but I remember looking at you and just knowing. I couldn’t put it into words, and I mean, I hadn’t even fucking met you yet, but even then, I knew.”

It was darker where they were, the flashlight barely giving Eddie’s face any light.

But Richie could still see the small smile gracing his lips, so he took that as a good sign—that and the fact that Eddie hadn’t given any sarcastic comments.

“Anyway, I brought you here, because this is where ‘we’ began, I guess, well from my side at least,” he shrugged sheepishly, “I tried to get us into Mrs. E’s classroom, but she wouldn’t let me.”

Eddie smiled, then his face twisted. “Did you bring me all the way here, just for that?”

”No,” Richie said gently, pulling his computer from his bag. “I have a movie for us to watch.”

"It better not be fucking Beauty and the Beast, man," Eddie groaned. "You know I hate Disney shit." 

Richie rolled his eyes. It was the one thing he never understood about Eddie, like, who could hate Disney movies? 

Anyway, he was nervous about this part. He’d gotten help from his friends to make it—and his mother, which was honestly one of the more awkward conversations of his life. Then he’d spent hours meticulously curating the photos and videos to his liking, until they said what he could never quite voice loud. His back had been sore for days—staring at a computer screen at least a foot below your eyesight would do that to you—but it was worth it, even as his heart went on fucking turbo mode. It wasn’t the most romantic thing in the world, probably, but Richie was a sixteen year old boy, so for him, it was enough.

He could hear the faint sounds of it as he rushed to turn off his phone. When he sat back down, wrapping an arm around Eddie’s shoulders, he was kind of shocked to see that Eddie was fucking crying.

It wasn’t super noticeable, but Richie noticed everything about Eddie, even the little tears that sat in the very corner of his eyes.

After the video, they made their way back out to Richie’s car, arms brushing with each step.

”Thank you,” Eddie murmured again, because all he’d fucking said since the video/movie-thing finished was something along the lines of ‘thank you’.

Richie bumped his arm, “Anything for you, Eds.”

”Don’t fucking call me that.”

You know you like it,” Richie said mockingly, leaning over to press a kiss against Eddie’s temple as he buckled his seatbelt.

Eddie groaned, but Richie didn’t see him wipe it off, so how much did he really hate it?

The drive back was quiet, Eddie seemed to be in a sort of trance. Occasionally, he’d look over and Eddie would be staring at him, eyes a little wide, as though he couldn’t believe that Richie was in front of him.

Richie stopped his car a couple houses down from Eddie’s, just in case Sonia had decided to watch from the fucking window. He didn’t want her to see anything….wink, wink.

He opened the door for Eddie, pushing it closed and trailing a couple steps behind his date. “How would you rate it?”

”Rate what?”

”This dick,” Richie said, mouth moving faster than his head.

”I fucking hate you.”

What Richie meant to say was, no you don’t, all flirty and then he was going to kiss the shit out of him. What came out instead was: “Well that sucks, because I fucking love you.”

Eddie froze in his step, and Richie’s mind became a flurry of shitshitfuckballsshitfuckfuckingfuck for all of two seconds before he realized that he had two choices. He could try and backtrack, or he could own it.

”Fuck,” is what he ended up saying. “I was saving that for the third date.”

Eddie just stared at him.

In an effort to trying and elicit a sound out of his wonderful lover, Richie started rambling. “I mean it, though, I love you. Like, in love with you. Kind of like, I want to have our impossible children and have matching tombstones in love with you—you feel? Cuz I meant what I said, y’know, even when I was younger, I knew. I knew it from the moment I saw you, Eds, it’s you. It’ll always be you, for me at least. I love you—“

And then Eddie had reached up, hands circling around the back of Richie’s neck and pulled him down, crashing their lips together. It was messy, kind of a lot of teeth because they were both smiling so hard, but to Richie, it was perfect. He pulled back, when he felt like his chest was going to explode. “I fucking love you, Eddie.”

Then he brought his lips back to Eddie’s and kissed the shit out of him.

Richie noticed, obviously, that Eddie didn’t say it back. But at first, he didn’t mind because even though Richie had spent his whole life loving everything that had to do with Eddie, he knew that he couldn’t expect the same out of him. But then they dated for three months, then six, then a year, and a year and a half, a year and eight months, and Eddie never fucking said it back.

But in the weeks after they break up, Richie starts to understand that that’s probably the reason Eddie broke up with him. He was too smothering, he forced his emotions on Eddie and he just wasn’t comfortable with that. It sort of made it easier, if he blamed it on that.

It made the most sense, they dated for almost two years, and had an extensive background, but Eddie had just never loved Richie—not like he loves Eddie.

He just has to accept it.

—

After their awkward encounter downtown, they begin a dance around each other.

They both inhabit the same spaces, with the same people, so they can’t just not be around each other, as much as Richie would prefer that. So, they participate in different conversations, sit on opposite sides of the room, or seats in the car. They don’t address each other, only indirectly through conversation, and never by name. It’s exhausting, but Richie can’t think of any other option, besides actually having a mature conversation, which neither of them are up for.

Unfortunately, it comes to head on evening at the clubhouse. Richie’s sitting on the floor in the corner, watching people interact whilst pretending to be reading whatever comic book he has in his hands. Eddie’s talking to Bev and Stan in the other corner of the room, hands flying all over the place even though he’s probably talking about only talking about his morning wizz.

Ben, Mike and Bill are in an intense game of monopoly, yelling at each other every two seconds. It’s Eddie’s turn to be social, according to their routine, which is the only reason he’s sitting in this fucking corner. He can’t even sit in their hammock without tears springing into his eyes. It’s bullshit.

Despite his whole revelation, he still struggles being around Eddie. As though reading his mind, Stan glances over towards him. “Rich, wanna play a game of uno?”

He says it in the way that sounds innocent, but Richie knows means if you say anything but yes I will beat your ass. And Richie should say no anyway, since y'know, saying yes would break pretty much all of his and Eddie’s unofficial rules, but the more he thinks about it, the more he realizes that that in itself is all the more reason to go play.

Realistically, him and Eddie can’t keep up this charade for the rest of eternity. And Richie knows that one day he’s just going to have to accept that he and Eddie can never be more than friends, because Eddie doesn’t love him like that, and if that’s all he can get of Eddie, he’s going to have to get used to it. So he nods, pushes himself to his feet, and walks over.

Dropping down in-between Stan and Bev, he keeps his eyes on the cards. “Alrighty mate, let’s go!”

The room seems to hold a breath, waiting to see what Eddie will do—if he’ll do anything. He just grabs the cards and starts to deal.

Exhale.

The tension rising teeters back down to a low buzz in the background. Always on his mind, but not completely taking over Richie’s thoughts. He tries not to glance towards Eddie as the game progresses, but it proves hard. Richie has gotten so used to his eyes automatically following him—even now, when he and Eddie are nothing. 

There a little moments, when he can be certain Eddie’s not looking, and he takes advantage of those, tracking his ex-boyfriend’s movements.

All good things come to an end, though, and it happens when Eddie places down a skip, skipping over Bev, who is on her last card.

Richie whoops, overcome by excitement, and reaches over Bev to slap his hand against Eddie’s shoulder. “Hell yeah! That's my boyfriend, bitches!”

Oh shit.

The room goes silent, like so quiet Richie could drop a fucking feather and they’d be able to hear it fall through the air. Everyone’s looking at Richie, who’s looking at Eddie in horror.

At first Eddie doesn’t react, his hands still from where they were finicking with his cards. Then, his face loses color and he looks toward the ground. If Richie were a better person, he’d probably say something like oh shit sorry dude and make his way to the ladder in shame. But he doesn’t, he feels frozen to the ground, unable to tear his eyes from Eddie’s increasingly ghastly face.

Until of course Eddie’s hand is digging into his fanny pack frantically, only coming out when his fingers are wrapped around his inhaler. After a couple quick breaths, he sets it back into his fanny pack, eyes glassy. Then he rises in one quick motion and practically lunges for the ladder, feet tripping over themselves in his haste.

“Nice going,” Bev says the second Eddie’s feet are out of the clubhouse. Richie shrugs, staring up at the ceiling and trying to ignore the burn in the back of his eyes.

“Dude, you guys have to figure your shit out.”

“Yeah,” Bill says, wringing his hands. “It’s a-all Eddie will tuh-talk about.”

“Why are you guys shoving a stick up my ass,” Richie asks defensively. “Eddie’s the one who broke up with me!”

His friends are silent, if it were any group of people, he’d almost say thoughtful.

But he knows they’re totally just trying to think of ways to turn this on him. Finally, Mike sighs, “Do you know why he broke up with you?”

“No!” Richie exclaims, throwing his hands up in the air. “Well, I guess he said that it just working out, especially with us leaving for college in a couple months.”

“Aren’t you guys going tuh-to be roommates?” Bill asks.

“That’s what I fucking thought, but I guess I’m chopped fucking liver now and Eddie doesn’t want to touch me with a goddamned six foot fuckass pole.”

Ben clears his throat and all eyes jerk toward him. He flushes, looking toward the ground. “That’s not true.”

“What do you mean?” Bev, who somehow manages to speak before Richie, asks. It’s probably better anyway, since Ben has never been able to say not the Bev, but he has no problem saying it to Richie. “Has he said something to you?”

“…maybe.”

All at once, everyone’s talking. Stan and Mike are yelling something about camaraderie and fake friends, Bill is rolling his eyes, and Bev is looking at Ben with a sense of betrayal. Richie tries to mask his emotions, but he knows his curiosity wins over his expression when Ben looks at him apologetically, waiting a second for the rest of their friends to stop talking. “I can’t tell you what he said, I won’t go behind his back,” he glances at Bev. “I wanted to tell you, it’s just not my place.”

“Okay,” Richie starts slowly, “then why are you bringing this up?”

Ben rolls his shoulders back, looking nervous. “I—I don’t know, you know Eddie can get in his head about things.”

“Yeah.”

“Y’know like the summer he broke his arm and would only talk to Richie because he was scared the rest of us thought he was weak,” Ben looks around the circle they’d formed, as though hoping his words would spark an idea into the other loser’s heads.

“Yeah, well usually I’m the exception,” Richie rolls his eyes. “Y’know, as you just pointed out.”

“But this time it’s about yuh-you, Richie,” Bill cuts in, eyes lighting up in understanding. “It’s a re-reversed version, I guess.”

“And yer point, Sergeant Denbrough?”

“Well, maybe you have to let him know that you’re still there for him,” Stan tries, completely disregarding the dirty look Bill directs toward him. “Like we did, y’know?”

It kind of makes sense, but Richie’s a petty bitch and he wants to know why he’s the one who has to do all the chasing when Eddie’s the one who broke up with him.

Ben seems to sense his skepticism because he shrugs. “I think you still have a chance, Rich.”

Okay. Hook, line, sinker. 

“Well sir! Why didn’t ‘ya just start with that?” Richie says in a British voice, hoping it covers the excitement lacing through it.

If it’s possible, his friends all roll their eyes in perfect sync. They probably practiced it, he thinks absentmindedly.

Then Ben clears his throat, and they’re back to business. He spends the rest of the day plotting, and by the time they finally come up with a plan, it’s dark out, bugs buzzing around them and their dim flashlights. When he gets home that night, he feels warm in a way he hasn’t since Eddie broke up with him.

He falls asleep with a smile on his face.

—

Look, Richie knows the plan was to wait. The losers had the whole thing planned, a whole fucking recreation of their first date (actual first date, when Richie snuck into Eddie out of his room and they biked around the town in the dark, not their official one) or what-fucking-ever. But it didn’t feel right. And as he bikes towards Eddies house, despite the pouring rain that had delayed Richie’s grand idea a whole twenty four hours, he thinks it feels right.

Even with the cold droplets of water cascading down his his back, fogging up his glasses, he thinks that he would much rather be here, freezing as shit, trying to bike away from all the bugs swarming him, than back in his room, anxiety turning in his stomach as he goes over the plan over and over.

It’s why he doesn’t even feel nervous when he pulls to a stop in front of Eddie’s house—okay wait, he’s lying. He is nervous, but not in a bad way, more of a this might change the trajectory of my entire life in five minutes way. He knows it sounds bad, but he just has a feeling, no matter what happens tonight, it’s happening tonight. Even if it doesn’t work out (the thought of that happening almost causes Richie to retract his knuckle from where it was almost going to rapt across the hard wood of the Kaspbrack’s door) at least he’ll know he did everything he possibly could have.

And as Ben has been saying: just because it’s over now, doesn’t mean it’s over forever.

He slams his fist into the door (perhaps a little more aggressively than he should have) with those thoughts in mind, propelling his muscles to move. He hears something fall inside, a feminine voice shout something that sounds suspiciously like Sonia telling her son not to open the door. But the door swings open anyway, and almost too soon, Eddie is standing in front of Richie, eyes narrowed, brows pinched together, hands clutching a fire poker (that honestly, Richie is surprised Sonia lets him hold) poised above his shoulders, ready to swing.

“What the fuck would you even do with that, dumbass?” Richie says, his mouth, of course, moving quicker than his brain can comprehend.

At the sound of his voice, Eddie’s eyes clear of the fog Richie hadn’t even really noticed. His face twitches, like the neurons in his brain were trying to compute Richie’s presence at his door. Of course, this all happened in a matter of seconds, and because Eddie has always been good at recovering quickly, he scoffs. “Probably hit you, dickwad.”

“Yeah, you could try.”

Eddie lets out what seems to be a stabilizing breath, eyes closing, nostrils flaring.

Despite the situation, Richie finds his lips tilting upward. He shakes his hair, knowing that the second he draws attention to his current state (absolutely fucking soaked), Eddie will grab onto his arm and yank him inside the house, muttering about all the sicknesses he could pick up.

“Holy shit, dude, you’re going to get fucking pneumonia,” Eddie says approximately two seconds later when a couple fat droplets of water land on his forehead. He grabs onto the sleeve of his shirt, and Richie can feel the warmth drifting through the fabric. His heart thumpsthumpsthumps because he’s almost forgotten what it’s like to be so close to him.

The first thing he sees when his eyes readjust to the lights is Sonia, who’s sitting on her chair, glaring daggers at him. He waves at her, blows a kiss in her direction.

“Evening, Mrs. K.”

Instead of responding, her eyes move toward Eddie, “Eddiebear, I thought you said you were done talking to him.”

Okay, wow, rude.

But Eddie doesn’t say anything in defense, he just gestures for Richie to follow him back outside (what the fuck?). The second the door closes, he pivots around, waving his hands around. “Hey, where’d your weapon go, Eddiebear?”

“Shut up, dickweed, why are you here?” His hands are still waving around frantically, kind of circling around in the space between then like he’s about to touch Richie (shove him, more like), then changes his mind last second and loops back to his own chest.

“Well I wanted to talk to you,” Richie mumbles, and suddenly the nervousness comes back full force, almost knocking him back a step. He clears his throat, “I think we need to talk.”

“Okay,” Eddie shrugs. “It’s probably best to stay outside—hey did you bike here?”

“Yeah,” the way Eddie says it makes Richie a little defensive.

But Eddie is the image of nonchalance, so Richie’s defensive tone rolls off him. “Alright, so talk.”

Richie, who always knows what to say in any given situation, is rendered speechless. His mouth dries up, words unable to pass through his throat. Eddie, not giving him any grace, raises an eyebrow impertinently, taking a step backward, toward the door.

“I think you made a mistake,” Richie scrambles, words falling out before he can run them through his filter. “Like, a mistake almost as big as your mom.”

“Okay,” Eddie snaps, spinning around and pushing into the door. “If you want to fucking talk, come back when you can be fucking serious, dipshit.”

But Richie has been waiting for this, waiting for an opportunity to win Eddie back.

He grabs onto Eddie’s wrist, twisting him back around and pulling him away from the door. “I’m sorry.”

Shockingly, Eddie doesn’t say anything. His eyes are locked on Richie’s hand, which is still wrapped around his wrist, and his cheeks are flushed in a way Richie has missed so fucking much.

“Eddie,” Richie continues, pushing past the part of him that wants to crawl into a hole and die because serious and Richie are never used in the same sentence. “I love you.”

The words hang in the air between them, heavy and unrelenting. Richie watches the way Eddie’s eyes close, open, the way his jaw works as though trying to feel his next words on his tongue before he says them.

“I’m not getting back together with you, Richie,” he says finally, too collected for Richie to really believe it.

“Why?”

“I already fucking told you,” Eddie sputters out, ripping his wrist away from Richie to throw his hands in the air incredulously. “It wasn’t working out.”

“Bull-fucking-shit.”

“No! Not bullshit, Richie,” Eddie shouts incredulously. “I don’t want to be with you anymore, it’s as fucking easy as that!”

“Fuck you, bitch,” Richie mumbles through the burn forming in his throat. He swallows, pushing the tips of his nails into his palms. Be mature, he thinks after, as though anything he says now can take back his words.

“What’s bullshit,” Eddie continues, nostrils flaring, glaring up at Richie, acting as if Richie hadn’t said anything, “is that you can’t comprehend that—I mean, you show up at my fucking house, fucking soaked,“—you could get me soaked, Richie’s mind mutters, and he then wants to scream— “what are you thinking?”

He’s silent, now, looking up at Richie, eyes wide. Richie pinches the skin in between his brows, pushing his wet hair out of the way, forcing the words out because for once in his goddamn life, he knows exactly what he's going to say before he says it. “I’m thinking that you like me, Eddie—no, I think you fucking love me. And that makes you scared, and what do you do when you’re scared, you fucking run like a coward!”

It’s not exactly true. Back in seventh grade, when Bowers was still on the prowl, Eddie had been the first to chuck a fucking rock at his head. And when Bill had dragged them down into the sewers on some wild goose chase, Eddie hadn’t left Richie behind when his glasses slipped into the fucking gray water. No, Eddie had shoved his hand in with the shitty water and dug around until he could find Richie’s glasses whilst hyperventilating from all the germs he was surely inhaling.

So it’s kind of a low blow, since the only time Richie has ever seen Eddie run from something is when they had a fucking circus clown chasing them with a knife (long story, don’t ask).

He waits for Eddie to yell at him, tell him how fucking stupid he sounds, but for the first time since Richie showed up on his doorstep, Eddie seems at a loss for words, well, for about two fucking seconds since it’s fucking Eddie. Then he shakes his head violently, eyes squeezing together harshly. “You’re wrong. Get off my fucking porch, Richie.”

And then he just spins around, hand flying toward the door, head still shaking viciously, legs shaking—

“Did you ever love me?”

His head jerks back around, eyes narrow, jaw slack.

“Did you ever love me?” Richie repeats, desperate now in a way he’s never been.

“Wha-What?”

Eddie’s whole body is facing him, now, eyes wide and looking anywhere but Richie’s face.

“Did. You. Ever. Love. Me?” Richie shouts, and he thinks he hears something akin to a chair being put down from inside the house, but his voice drowns it out. “Did you?”

“Richie,” he starts, pauses, mouth poised with the start of a sentence, but last second he pussies out and the shape of his lip curves into a frown, words slipping out from the corners. “I dated you for almost two years.”

“That doesn’t answer my fucking question,” Richie hisses, letting some anger bleed into his words, except as he hears his voice rebound off Eddie and back into his own ears, he realizes that he doesn’t sound angry, just sad, dejected in a way he hasn’t heard himself sound literally ever. This isn't quite the direction he saw this conversation going, and he's half talking out of his ass, now, but the words keep coming out, crawling out of the part of his mind he tries to ignore.

Eddie’s mouth parts, a breathless word slipping past, so close to what Richie wants—needs—to hear, and yet he still craves more. He clears his throat, “I don’t want to do that to you.”

It’s quiet, almost falling through the cracks of the porch, but Richie always hears Eddie, so he catches it. “What? Dude, what does that even mean?”

“You know, Rich, I know you know,” he murmurs, suddenly much closer than Richie realized. He can feel the warmth of his breath brushing against his chest, even through his rain jacket. “Please, Richie.”

Richie wracks through his mind, but honestly he can't think of anything other than the smell of mint on Eddie's fucking breath, and the disbelief on what the fuck is happening. 

"Please," Eddie whispers again, and the words are barely past his lips when the door slams open, hinges creaking, knob banging against the wall, Sonia standing in the middle, chest heaving, eyes narrow. “Eddiebear! Why don’t you come inside, we wouldn’t want you to catch a cold!”

Eddie jerks away, body swiveling around robotically to face Sonia. His footsteps thunk against the wood, hard and uneven, as though each step is debated, as though he might turn around and walk back to Richie, as though—

“You’d better get home, don’t you think Mr. Tozier?” Sonia barks through a smile that pulls at the corner of her lips awkwardly, tugging on static eyes. 

It takes a moment for his feet to unglue, for the neurons in his head to connect and allow his feet to lift up and down. He feels trapped in place, tied to a memory of something that happened less than two fucking minutes ago. His body itches to go back, to uncover the meaning, to understand.

But Sonia’s foot is tapping against the welcome mat (placed inside the house, not outside, of course), eyes locked onto him, and without really meaning to, he walks off the porch, back into the freezing rain.

I don’t want to do that to you.

He bikes home.

I don’t want to do that to you.

He hugs his dad goodnight, kisses his mother’s forehead.

I don’t want to do that to you.

He pulls the blankets over his head to drown out the patter of the rain.

I don’t want to do that to you.

“I don’t want to do that to you?” Bev repeats, eyes locked on the fidget spinner she must have found in one of the drawers of his nightstand. “What the fuck is he talking about?”

Richie sighs, throwing his hands in the air. “I don’t know, Red, it was so fucking random.”

“Tell me the story again.”

“I went to his house, I asked him why he broke up with me, he told me an answer I didn’t want to hear, so I called him a pussy for breaking up with me, and then if he even liked me that much, and he wouldn’t answer, so I kept bitching, and then he said that.”

Okay. So, Richie knows it’s not the full truth, not even a half truth—maybe a generous one fourth of the truth, but look, he doesn’t think context would help. It’s been three days and he’s still fucking confused. It’s why he enlisted Beverly to help him—though she’s mostly trifled through his pantry and picked through his closet for sleep shirts.

“Are you lying to me, Richard?”

Fuck.

“Not lying, more like withholding information?” Richie tries, even though he knows she’ll be pissed regardless.

“Dude,” she locks him in with a look so foul he debates going to church.

The real story falls out before he has the sense to filter it. By the end of it she’s nodding her head, hair flying through the air. “Have there been any instances where he didn’t want to say ‘I love you’ to someone because of his mom?”

“I mean—no? Like he has no problem saying it to you guys.”

“Well we’re his friends,” she shrugs. “That’s different.”

“How?”

She shrugs again, as though that answers literally anything.

“Eddie was fucking obsessed with you, man,” she relents when he starts to make a grab for his dirty laundry bin. “I think he liked—no, loved—you more than anything in the entire fucking universe.”

It clicks for Richie, then. He feels stupid, like monkey throwing it’s shit stupid for not figuring it sooner. Something in his chest lifts, and his world—which has been slightly off-axis since the break up—straightens back to its center. He’s on his feet quicker than he can comprehend, blood rushing to his head, making his vision twist, but he pays it no mind, lunging for the door. "Thank you Bev, you fucking genius!" 

"I-what? Richie!" She shouts after him, but he pays her no mind, practically tripping down the stairs. 

His mom is making some sort of pie in the kitchen, and she yells something to him as he leaves, but his mind is elsewhere. He realizes that he left his car keys in the house, but decides there’s no time to go back, and practically leaps onto his bike, pedaling frantically.

He understands now.

—

”Would you eat me if we were in the apocalypse and I was dead and you needed food?

”What the fuck, Richie?”

Richie sighed, “No, Eduardo, I’m serious. Like, I would eat you.”

Eddie pulled his wrist away from Richie’s face. “Get the fuck away from me, fucking freak—and don't fucking call me that.”

Richie pouted, shoving his head forward and licking up the side of Eddie’s cheek, laughing at the way his boyfriend pulled back, face twisted in disgust, even as a smile twitched on his lips. “I’d want you to eat me, you feel?”

“No I don’t, dickwad.”

“If you had no other options, I’d want you to survive, and if eating me was the only way….” Richie trailed off, grinning when Eddie pushed his forehead back.

“I think if you died, I’d kill myself.”

“What if I impregnanted you before I died?”

“Then I’d kill myself first.”

A laugh bubbled up Richie’s throat, dancing around the room loudly. He nuzzled his face into the crook of Eddie’s neck, kissing his pulse. “No, we’d pull a K and P—Katniss and Peeta,” he elaborates when Eddie’s eyebrows quirk down.

“Oh,” he nodded approvingly. “Okay.”

“What? You wouldn’t try to save yourself? Get rid of the Trashmouth?”

“I think I’d be the bad luck charm, dumbass,” Eddie mumbled, face unnaturally shy.

“What does that mean, Spaghetti?”

“Don’t call me that, fuckface,” he wrapped an arm around Richie’s back, hand reaching up to lace through Richie’s hair. “I’m a bad luck charm, like, the people I care about the most usually end up leaving, one way or another, so I’d leave first, probably, to protect you.”

Woah. This was so not the direction Richie thought the conversation would go. He didn’t mind, though. He knew what date was coming up, and he knew how Eddie got in the days before and after.

“It’s not your fault, Eds,” he whispered, words too fragile to be said any louder. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“I know,” he uttered, not meeting Richie’s gaze. “But sometimes I think if I’d liked my mom more, maybe she would have left instead.”

Boy, Richie wished. He would love a Sonia-free life. But, “You can’t drive people away by caring about them, Eds. Your dad was going to leave either way, whether you hated him or not,”—he had to make room for your new daddy, bursted through Richie’s mind intrusively, and he sort of wished he could slam his head into a wall because it was so not the time—“it’s not your fault, okay?”

Eddie nodded his head, and Richie graciously pretended to miss the tear that escaped from the corner of his eye.

They moved on from the topic, but he couldn’t forget the unsure quiver in his voice, or the uncertainty that lingered in his eyes.

—

The Kaspbrack house looks less light a big shadow of doom and misery in the daylight. In fact, it almost looks welcoming—almost. He tip toes his way up the steps, careful to dodge the creak-prone boards. The door is cool against his hear, sending a shiver down his spine, but he can’t hear any television blaring, so that’s a good sign.

He thinks about texting Eddie, just in case Sonia is home, but realizes as he digs through his pockets, that he left his phone on his nightstand. He debates his options approximately two seconds before he decides to risk it and bangs his fist against the door.

In a severe moment of deja vu, Eddie opens it. Except this time he has no fire poker in his hands, and this time the sight of Richie doesn’t immediately make his face lift in disgust. A win is a win.

“Eddie,” Richie starts, which is promising because he wasn’t entirely sure he was going to be able to talk. And to be fair, he is kind of breathless, but he blames it on the bike ride over and not the nerves that are also causing the tremor throughout his body. “I’m in love with you.”

This time, instead of practically spitting in Richie’s face, Eddie just sighs. It doesn’t actually matter that much—Eddie could have started singing in fucking German and Richie wouldn’t have stopped talking.

“I know you’re scared, and I know you think that if you admit you love me, I’ll go away, one way or another,” he runs a frantic hand through his hair. “But I’m not going anywhere. I guess, actually if you tell me you really don’t want me, I’ll go, but I think you’re just scared.”

Eddie’s face darkens, and Richie is remembers the last time he brought up Eddie and being scared.

“Which is okay! It’s okay to be scared! But what happened with your dad was not because you loved him. I mean, maybe it was because he loved you, and you can’t control that, can you….?” Richie loses the point for a second, he smiles sheepishly.

“Anyway, I love you, Eddie. I love you and I’m right here. I’m not going to stop loving you, or go away just because you love me too, okay? I’m here for the long haul, you know that—”

Did he mention that somewhere along the way he’s started crying. Well, he’s mentioning it now, because a sob so violent rises in his throat that he can’t finish his whole speech. It rips out of him, bursting into the air uncomfortably. Eddie fidgets at the door, fingers wrung together.

Richie moves onward, clearing his throat. “I obviously can’t, like, stop myself from dying, or whatever, but I’m taking a chance on you, too! I luh-love you so fucking much, and what if you fucking die? It’s a—it’s a gamble, Eds. But you’re so worth it—dude, you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I don’t know I you feel that about me, b-but I feel it about you, and I know you’re scared—I’m scared, but don’t let it take you away from me, puh-ple….”

His words get swallowed in a full body sob that wreck through him. He wraps an arm around himself, trying to get ahold of himself. But now that he’s crying, and Eddie is here, all the weeks of built up anger and sadness are too strong. They flood past every barrier he’s set, setting on full display.

Maybe it’s worth it, though, since within seconds, Eddie’s hands are on him, cup-=ping his face, thumbs tracing the underneath of his eyes, pushing the tears away.

Something akin to sparks flood through Richie, heart inflating the way it only does when Ed- die’s involved.

Eddie’s hands sweep away from his face lacing together behind his neck and pulling him down. His forehead is cool against Richie’s, breath tickling his lips. “I’m sorry,” he mutters, words only half there. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

“It’s okay-“

“No, no,” Eddie pulls his head away, stealing away his heat. Richie wants to reach out, just to see if it’s palpable. “I pushed you away. It was getting too,”—his voice breaks and he squeezes his eyes shut, tears clinging to the ends of his lashes—“I-I couldn’t hide it anymore, Rich. My mom was, she started to realize. She told me I drive you away, just like she did with my dad, because we’re the same.”

“You are not like your fuckass mom, Eds,” Richie places his hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “You know that.”

“But I am,” he drops his head against Richie’s chest. “I’m smothering, I worry too much, I lash out at you, I micromanage, Richie, I’m just like her, we all fucking know it.”

“I know exactly who you are,” Richie manages to say against his hair. “And you are not your mother, and I don't care if you micromanage, or lash out, or fucking smother me. I know exactly who you are, Eds, and I love you for all of it.”

“Don’t call me that,” Eddie mouths weakly, and honestly Richie more feels it being said against the fabric of his shirt than hears it. Then, so small Richie cannot hear it, and can only feel it, he murmurs something else.

Richie takes a step back, finally able to see the splotchy red skin of Eddie’s face, his beautiful brown eyes, his perfect little nose, his lips, which right now are a little chapped. IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou.

“I love you, Richie,” Eddie repeats, still soft, barely more than a breath, but still everything.

—

A couple weeks l8r

The apartment is smaller than Richie thought. By smaller he means shorter. And by shorter, he means he has to duck his head before walking through any of the doors. It’s no problem for Eddie, who hasn’t stopped smiling since they got in the car, leaving a sobbing Sonia behind.

“Should we put padding on the doorways?” He asks between snickers, and Richie can't tell if he's being entirely serious.

“Your green is showing,” he bites back, no real heat behind it.

As expected, Eddie rolls his eyes. “Shut up, asswipe. Come move all your shit into your room, it’s cluttering the hall.”

“We got here legit ten minutes ago, Spagheds, let a man take a rest.”

“Don’t call me that,” Eddie grumbles, but he’s smiling still, eyes crinkled in the corners. Then, a second later, “I love you.”

He’s been saying that a lot, too. Practically every other sentence. It sends a thrill through Richie’s body every time, and he doesn’t think he’ll ever get sick of the way Eddie’s voice wraps around the words. The way his voice drops at the end into something more hushed, intimate. 

“You and all the ladies” he jokes, then dodges the empty box Eddie throws at him. A couple seconds later, when he’s sure Eddie won’t throw anything else at him, he pops his head out from behind the door. “I love you, too.”

A flush rises up Eddie’s neck, soaking into his cheeks, giving him a delightful red hue. The sun beams down through one of the windows, accentuating the dips and curves of his face. He looks almost angelic.

I love you, Richie thinks when Eddie finally looks away, smile still glued onto his face.

IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou.