Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s May 21st, 1994, Richie Tozier is eighteen years old, and it’s the greatest fucking day of his life.

“Eddie!” he shouts, and Eddie spins, catches his eye and grins, waving. His other hand is holding his graduation cap in place, and, fuck, Richie is so fucking in love with him.

“Took you long enough!” Eddie shouts. Richie hops out of his car and slams the door shut behind himself. When he gets around to Eddie’s front lawn, he does a spin, showing off his own gown. “Where the fuck is your cap, Richie? I swear to God, if you already lost it, I’m not going to help you look—”

“It’s in my fucking car, Eds, chill,” Richie says. Eddie stops and lets Richie catch up to him on his front steps. Richie crowds into his personal space, grinning, but all Eddie does is roll his eyes and grin right back.

“How would it look if the valedictorian didn’t wear his cap?” Eddie asks. Richie groans loudly, looping his arm around Eddie’s neck and yanking him down the steps.

“Don’t fucking remind me, I’ll throw up,” Richie says. Eddie shoves him off, but Richie grabs him again anyways, throwing his arm across his shoulders.

“Eddie!” his mother calls from the doorway, and Eddie comes to a dead halt. Richie nearly clotheslines him by not stopping fast enough, but Eddie just ducks under his arm to jog back to the house.

“Sorry, Mom,” Eddie says, and at least he doesn’t call her Mommy anymore, even if he’d still called her that until he was sixteen.

“Let me take a picture of you,” Sonia tells him.

“Richie,” Eddie calls, and Richie looks back to the house. Eddie beckons to him. Richie doesn’t hesitate before jogging back to Eddie’s side. “Take pictures with me.”

“Eddie—”

“Richie’s the valedictorian, Mom, what the fuck could you possibly complain about?” Eddie snaps, and Richie’s in love with him. Eddie’s only gotten braver with time, bolder and stronger and confident in his own skin. He doesn’t take medication he doesn’t need, he’s the best runner on the fucking entire varsity track team, and he’s the love of Richie’s life.

“Smile,” Sonia says, and Richie gives her the biggest grin he’s ever given her, shit-eating and proud, his arm around Eddie’s shoulders. “Now one of just Eddie-bear.”

“Of course, my bad, Eddie-bear, sorry,” Richie says. Eddie punches him on the arm and shoves him off the stone pathway.

“Eddie, behave, you’ll wrinkle your gown and—” Sonia starts to say.

“Just take the picture, Mom, we’re going to be late,” Eddie interrupts, and Sonia takes the picture once Eddie’s smiling again. Richie wishes he had a camera, too.

“Send me a copy of those, Mrs. K?” Richie says, as Eddie hugs her goodbye and heads off for Richie’s shitty car. Sonia starts to reply, but Richie just shouts, “Thanks, love you!” and sprints for the car.

“You fucking suck, Richie,” Eddie spits, the second they’re both in the car with the doors closed. “Why the fuck do you have to antagonize her?”

“Because it turns you on and you know it,” Richie says, throwing his car on and cranking the radio up. The top 40 are still playing, and they’re blasted with “Baby, I Love Your Way,” which makes Richie cheer. “Roll your windows down, Eddie, baby, or I’ll hurt your eardrums!”

“No, no!” Eddie exclaims, because Richie sings top-volume on a normal day, and today is not a normal day. Today, they’re graduating from Derry High School, and beginning their last summer in this shithole of a town before they get to escape. Richie’s going to the west coast, and Eddie’s going to New York, but Richie’s trying not to think about that, not yet. He just wants to enjoy the freedom of graduation and the rush of summer one last time first.

They pull up hard to Bill’s house, where Beverly and her aunt are already standing on the lawn with Bill and his parents, Stan and his parents, and Mike, who waves when they park. He doesn’t have a gown, obviously, but he promised to come anyways, even if it wasn’t his graduation.

“Where’s Haystack?” Richie shouts, the second they’re out of the car and his car radio is finally off. Ben’s car whips up the Denbroughs’ driveway in the next moment, and Eddie’s already jogging at his car, banging on the driver’s side window and shouting safety statistics at him. Ben’s mom is doing the same thing in the passenger seat, which just makes Richie laugh harder at it.

Richie actually remembers his cap this time, and he grabs his camera out of the trunk. He wishes he could’ve convinced his sister to come, but they’d had another fight the week before and he hadn’t seen her since. Instead, he passes the camera off to Bill’s mom on his way to hugging Bill tightly, nearly knocking him over.

“We did it,” Richie shouts in Bill’s ear, but Bill just laughs, hugging him back.

“We d-did it,” Bill echoes, even louder, and Richie whoops.

“Get together, kids, come on,” Bill’s dad calls to them, and Richie yanks Eddie into his side. Ben slides in from the side, standing right next to Beverly, and she grins up at him before taking his hand. Richie wishes, in a hard stab of want, that he could do the same with Eddie. Because he can’t, he slings his arm around Eddie’s shoulders instead and fucks up his hair, just so Eddie will shout at him.

“Richie, stand still for once, for the love of God,” Bill’s mom says, and everybody laughs as she takes a picture with his camera for him. Once they’re allowed to move, Richie sprints towards her, taking the Polaroid out of her hand and snapping it out.

“Thanks, Mom,” he says. She kisses him on the cheek.

“Richie, honey, come here,” Arlene Hanscom calls, and Richie bows to Sharon Denbrough before jogging over to Arlene. Ben’s standing at her side, looking flushed and shy, eyes down on the ground. Richie raises an eyebrow at him, then looks to Arlene.

“What happened to him?” Richie asks. Arlene takes one of Richie’s hands in hers, and his heart skips a beat. He laughs nervously. “Nobody’s dead, right?”

“No, Richie,” she assures him, then laughs herself, letting go of Richie with one hand to wipe at her eyes. “No, I just— I’m sorry your parents didn’t come, honey.”

“Oh.” Richie looks to Ben, and they actually make eye contact this time. Ben frowns, brow furrowing, and mouths, “Sorry.”

“I was really— I was hoping they would,” she says, “and I— I’m really sorry they didn’t, sweetie. I wish they had.”

“Oh, no, that’s okay,” Richie says. “It’s better that they don’t, they were an absolute mess at my sister’s graduation and I was only, like, thirteen that time, so this is way easier, probably.”

Arlene squeezes his hand, then says, “I have something for you.”

“You didn’t need to do that—” Richie starts to say, but she gives him a look, and he stops talking. She digs through her purse and pulls a box out, handing it over to him. He takes it, trying valiantly not to cry; his voice still cracks when he says, “You really shouldn’t have.”

“I wanted to,” she says. “It’s okay, Richie.”

Richie shakes his head, feeling his face get hot. He wipes at his face, then makes himself laugh as he opens the box up, just to lighten the mood a little bit. There’s a watch inside, like the one Ben wears, and Richie starts really crying, hand over his eyes and ugly sniffling and everything. Ben puts his arm around Richie’s shoulders and hugs him.

“Thank you,” Richie says, and he means it. For the watch, but also for the mornings she gave him breakfast and put bandaids on his face, and for the rides she gave him to work before he saved up enough for his car, and for apologizing for his parents when who they are has nothing at all to do with her.

“You don’t need to thank me,” Arlene says, “I’m happy to do it.”

“We love you, Richie,” Ben tells him softly. Richie hugs him again, burying his face in Ben’s hair.

“I hope I’m just like you when I’m a mom,” Richie says, when he pulls away and looks to Arlene again, and she laughs at him, thumbing his tears away from under his eyes. Richie lets her do it, lets her fuss with his glasses, lets her smooth his hair into place, because nobody else ever has, so it’s nice to have it this one last time before he graduates and starts feeling like he’s too old for something like that.

Eddie slides in under Richie’s arm, squeezing his hand. “What’s up, waterworks? You done? Can we go?”

Richie ruffles Eddie’s hair and kisses him on the forehead, ignoring Eddie’s groan and the shove he plants against his chest. He just sniffs again, getting himself back under control.

“You’re the king of empathy,” Richie says. “Remind me why you’re not gonna study therapy? You could’ve been a doctor, Eds!”

“But I don’t want to be a doctor,” Eddie says, “I want to run a business so I never have to work for a fuckhead like you who got promoted too far.”

“I’m glad you work fuckheads like me into your lifeplan at some point,” Richie tells him. It’s a sore point between them, that they’re not going to school together, but Eddie, to his credit, doesn’t take the bait. He just rolls his eyes up at Richie before sliding out from under his arm, catching his hand instead. Richie’s heart hurts.

“You’ll come see me, right?” Eddie asks.

“First weekend I can come back, Eddie, you know I am,” Richie says, as Ben’s car blows past him with Beverly in the passenger seat this time. Ben’s mom waves goodbye to Richie as she gets in Beverly’s aunt’s car to catch a ride to graduation with her.

“See you there!” Bill calls to them, as he, Stan, and Mike get into Mike’s car. Richie waves, and Eddie turns back to Richie, crossing his arms across the red of his graduation robe. Richie grins down at him.

“Promise?” Eddie asks. The Denbroughs pull out of their driveway, too, and leave Richie and Eddie behind. Richie tosses his graduation cap through his open back window into the backseat.

“I promise, Eds,” he says. He dumps his camera in the backseat, too, and pins the picture up under the visor. Eddie’s hand catches his wrist, then, yanks him around. “Whoa, hey, what’s up?”

“Stop acting like nothing’s happening,” Eddie snaps. Richie’s bewildered, feeling like he missed a step going down a set of stairs as he takes in Eddie’s red face and wet eyes. “We’re never going to see each other again—”

“Whoa, Eddie, what the fuck, of course we’re going to see each other again,” Richie insists. “What the fuck are you talking about? We’re going to see each other tomorrow. Eddie, I’m going to fly out to New York my first weekend at college just so I can see you. We’re going to see each other again, don’t fucking say that.”

Eddie nods aggressively, looking away. He exhales harshly, then unfolds his arms to reach inside his gown and dig through his pants pockets underneath. He comes up with a keychain with two identical keys on it. He jerks one of the keys off the keychain and holds it out.

“What’s this?” Richie asks. Eddie sighs. He takes Richie’s hand and puts the key in it himself.

“It’s the spare key to my dorm room,” Eddie says. “It’s supposed to be in case I lose the first one.”

Richie closes his fingers around the key. He swallows and looks down at Eddie. His glasses almost slip off his face, but Eddie catches them and pushes them back up his nose. He keeps his hand there for a moment, then moves it to cup Richie’s face. Richie exhales raggedly.

“Promise me you’ll use it,” Eddie says. Richie nods, but only slightly; he doesn’t want to dislodge Eddie or drive him away. Eddie’s hand slides to the back of Richie’s neck instead, and there’s a split second where Richie’s heart leaps thinking they’re going to kiss, but then Eddie pulls him in to hug. He’s frozen for a moment, but then he moves, because it’s just Eddie and they’ve hugged a million times.

“I promise,” Richie says, and he means it. He wraps his arms around Eddie and just holds him for a long minute, letting the silence settle around them before he actually moves, and then it’s just to pick Eddie up and swing him around. Eddie shrieks at him, but catches his arms around Richie’s neck; Richie can’t put him down after that, just hauls him up onto the hood of the car.

“We’re going to be late,” Eddie admonishes him. “You’re the fucking valedictorian, Richie.”

“Don’t insult me,” Richie says. He sprawls on the hood, too, and pulls Eddie in against his side. “Just— Let’s hang out for another second before we have to go.”

Eddie’s quiet, his fingertips drifting over the watch Ben’s mother gave Richie. After a moment, he rolls over so he can prop his chin on Richie’s chest and look up at him. Richie’s heart still speeds up when Eddie looks at him, even though it’s been years.

“You’re not going to forget me,” Eddie asks, softly, “right?”

Richie runs his hand through Eddie’s hair, then presses their foreheads together. “How the fuck could I forget you, Eddie Spaghetti?” He laughs, pulls Eddie in to hug him again, and repeats, “How the fuck could I forget you?”

Chapter Text

It’s May 9th, 1999, Richie Tozier is twenty-three years old, and he wakes up hungover as fuck.

A glance at his bedside clock tells him it’s only eleven o’clock in the morning, which explains the slant of the sun through the window and the pounding headache behind his eyes. He shoves his glasses on.

“What the fuck?” he groans, when he sees the vomit next to his bed. He climbs out of bed and steps over it, making his way to the kitchen to start his coffeepot before doing anything else. He hears a clattering sound from his hallway, and he yelps.

“It’s just the fucking mail!” someone calls from the other side of the door, which nearly sends Richie’s heart out of his chest. He flips off the door as he grabs his mail off the ground under his mail slot.

“Go terrorize the fucking dickhead next door,” Richie mutters, leafing through his mail. There’s a couple of bills that he ignores, tossing them on his tiny kitchen table. There’s a letter from his mom, which, yikes, and an oversized envelope addressed to him from some school or something.

He almost throws that one out, then frowns, looking at the envelope again. It says the school is in Maine. Richie’s head pounds, and he rubs at his temples.

“Motherfucker,” Richie spits. He tosses all the other mail down and tears open the weird envelope. There’s a huge invitation inside with fake confetti all over the front. Richie opens it, brow furrowed, bewildered and hungover and— kind of nauseous, now, actually.

Inside the invitation, there’s a collage. It’s all different smiling teenaged faces, but Richie doesn’t know any of them. Well, he doesn’t until he does, because his eyes catch on his own face, after a moment. It’s a photocopy of a Polaroid, he realizes, and he’s— maybe it’s him, but he’s— he’s in it. He frowns, then holds the invitation up closer to his face, confused, but— Yeah, that’s fucking him, with his arm around some guy he doesn’t recognize—

Richie’s stomach turns, and he drops the invitation and the envelope to sprint for his back balcony, the closest place he could think of where it was acceptable enough to throw up that wasn’t his kitchen floor. He catches himself on the railing as he vomits two stories down. He presses his face to the cold metal of the railing, trying to breathe, when somebody starts screaming up at him. Shivering, confused, he heads back inside, slamming the door shut behind himself.

“What the fuck,” he grumbles. His whole fucking head is throbbing now, so he abandons his coffee and the invitation in favor of climbing in the shower and trying to scrub himself back to life. It doesn’t work great, but he feels marginally better after brushing his teeth and rinsing his mouth, too. He forces himself into clean clothes before dragging himself, wet hair still dripping down his shoulders, back to the kitchen.

The coffee’s mostly burnt, but Richie drinks it anyways, right out of the cooling pot. He digs through his fridge for food, but there’s not much. He tries to think back to the last time he bought groceries, but he’s not entirely sure. The thought bums him out.

Richie grabs his phone off the wall and hooks it between his head and his shoulder, dialing quickly while he pours himself cereal.

“Who the fuck is this?” Bryan snaps on the other end.

“Hey, man, it’s Richie,” Rich answers. He realizes his milk’s gone bad, briefly contemplates drinking it anyways, then sticks it back in the fridge in favor of eating the cereal dry.

“What the fuck do you want, Richie?” Bryan asks. Richie sits down at his table, sticks his feet up on the counter. He wonders if giants feel in human houses like he does in his apartment.

“I was wondering if you had a gig for me tonight,” Richie says. “Far fucking be it from me to ask, considering you’re supposed to be my fucking manager or something—”

“I help you out, don’t label it,” Bryan says. Richie’s stomach turns again, but he makes himself eat another bite of cereal. “You want a gig tonight? How’d last night’s go?”

“Fine, I think,” Richie answers. He gets up again, nearly snaps the phone cord stretching it to his bedroom, but he manages to reach his pants and pull his wallet out. He digs through it, then says, “I got… forty in tips.”

“That’s it?” Bryan asks. “Richie, man, you gotta stop pissing people off during your sets. That’s why they don’t want to fucking talk to you afterwards.”

“People have to stop being pissed off by my sets,” Richie says indignantly, around a mouthful of cereal. He pushes his glasses back up his nose when they start to slide.

“What was last night’s set about?” Bryan asks. Richie doesn’t answer, deciding whether or not he should lie. “Richie.”

“Reagan,” Richie says, and Bryan groans. “The guy fucking—”

“Richie, he’s not even the fucking president anymore,” Bryan snaps. “People like Reagan. What the fuck did you say?”

“I said he’s responsible for the fucking AIDS shit—”

“Richie—”

“Well, he fucking is,” Richie explodes. “Plus, if the guy didn’t want people to fucking make fun of him in shitty stand-up sets on fucking Thursday nights, he wouldn’t have been president. Isn’t it in the fucking Constititution or some shit that people are allowed to make fun of the president?”

“What the fuck are you talking about, Richie?” Bryan demands. Richie sighs.

“I don’t fucking know, Bryan,” Richie says, because it’s just easier. Bryan doesn’t really get him. Nobody really does, but, then again, nobody really ever has before. Why start now? “Do you have a gig tonight or don’t you?”

“Can you get to San Fran by five?” Bryan asks, and Richie’s already shoving the last of his cereal in his mouth.

“Yup,” Richie tells him. Bryan gives him an address, and Richie scribbles it on his arm in marker before hanging up and running to put on more presentable clothes. He grabs his notebook off the kitchen table, then looks down at the invitation again, still on the floor. He picks it up and flips it open.

“Who the fuck are you?” Richie mutters, looking at the kid he’s got his arm around. They look like they like each other, and he almost even looks vaguely familiar, the longer Richie looks. He frowns, then squints again. Underneath the copy of his picture, scribbled on the bottom of the photocopied Polaroid, it says Richie T. and Eddie K. before grad, use for all future DHS events in his own handwriting.

There’s a phone number on the invitation, so Richie calls. The phone rings three times before a woman’s voice says, “This is the Anderson household, may I ask who’s calling?”

“Hey, it’s, uhh, Richie Tozier?” Richie says, hesitantly.

“Oh, Richie!” the woman’s voice says. “It’s Rebecca Anderson— Well, Rebecca Stone, when we were still in school. Remember me?”

“Oh, yeah, of course,” Richie lies. “Listen, Rebecca Stone, I was just wondering— Who’s Eddie K.?”

There’s a beat of silence, then a laugh. “You’re kidding, right, Richie?”

“What? No,” Richie says, heart pounding for some reason. He’s starting to feel sick again. “Why?”

“Because he’s your best friend,” Rebecca says. “Do you really not remember Eddie?”

“No,” Richie snaps. “I’m— I’m sorry, I just— I have a headache. What’s Eddie’s last name?”

“Eddie Kaspbrak,” Rebecca tells him, bewildered. “Richie, are you okay?”

“Thanks,” Richie says, hanging up the phone. He’s looking down at the invitation, heart pounding, the name Eddie Kaspbrak echoing in his head on a loop. He’s looking down at the kid’s face, thinking Eddie Kaspbrak, Eddie Kaspbrak, Eddie Kaspbrak, but it’s not clicking. He’s just feeling nauseous, and sweaty, and he has to make himself put the invitation down again.

“Fuck,” he spits. He takes a deep breath, then another. After he’s sure he’s gonna be okay, he takes one step, and then he’s hurtling for his sink and vomiting down the drain.

“Fucking shit,” he says, and actually spits before going to brush his teeth again.

He has to leave after that, because he’ll be late to the venue Bryan’s directed him to if he doesn’t, but he gets there while the sun’s still pretty high up, and he’s all in one piece, which he counts as a win. He’s still vaguely woozy, but he pushes it down when he’s handed a beer as soon as he walks in.

“Richie Tozier, get the fuck over here,” Frankie says. Richie goes to him, lets him throw an arm around his shoulders and yank him down to his level. He drinks half the beer at once. “You sure you’re okay to go on? You look kinda pale, man.”

“Shut up, I’m good,” Richie says. Frankie claps him on the back.

“Good fucking luck,” Frankie tells him. Richie finishes the rest of his beer.

“What do you mean?” he asks, reaching behind the bar to grab another beer while the bartender’s not looking. He snaps it open on the edge of the bartop and drinks until he needs to breathe again.

“They’re not fucking laughing at anything,” Frankie says. Richie looks out over the crowd closer to the little stage and, sure enough, nobody’s emoting at all. There’s some poor fuckhead dying on the stage, and nobody’s making a peep. Richie laughs dryly, looking back down his beer bottle, one eye closed.

“Well, I could always use a good ego check,” Richie says. “Does this count as lunch?”

“It’s almost six o’clock,” Frankie says, “eat a fucking— Eat this, Richie, Jesus.” He shoves a half-eaten basket of fries in his hands, and Richie takes it and stands. Frankie grabs him by the belt loop and reels him back in. “Are you coming over tonight, Rich?”

“No,” Richie says, because he doesn’t want to go anywhere Frankie takes him, typically. The places he goes are fucking overwhelming and full of shitty people and they make Richie dizzy, but he also doesn’t know that many people who invite him to things, so. Catch-22.

“Why not?” Frankie asks. His hand slides around to Richie’s back, and Richie slaps him away, backing away from him.

“Because I don’t fucking want to,” he says, and leaves, abandoning the basket of fries. His brain is still stuck on Eddie Kaspbrak, Eddie Kaspbrak, Eddie Kaspbrak, but it’s starting to not even feel like words anymore. He doesn’t know who the fuck that kid is. It was probably just some random kid he forgot taking a picture with and Rebecca misunderstood, that’s all.

Richie goes up on stage after three shots, another beer, and a margarita, and, predictably, bombs. He gets a few laughs at a couple of jokes he’s workshopped all to hell, and that feels good, to know the jokes are finally probably good enough to keep in a permanent set, but he’s feeling pretty shitty beyond that.

Shitty enough that he finds Frankie anyways, lets him drag him to a bar two blocks down that just gives Richie a headache and gets him drunker than he was the night before. Frankie kisses him in the bathroom, then asks Richie to blow him, so he does. Frankie leaves after that, so Richie does, too, and drives himself home, which is stupid and reckless and a voice he doesn’t recognize is shouting at him in the back of his head to stop, but he doesn’t.

He makes it home in one piece and wishes he hadn’t, vaguely. As he drags himself back to his bed, he passes the beat-up box of a computer on his desk, the one item he has of any value. He hesitates, then goes to it, nearly knocking the chair over in his efforts.

Richie’s not entirely sure what he’s doing. He sends an email to [email protected], which, he’ll realize the next morning, is not an actual email address. He considers what to type for a long, long time before he writes:

eddie kaspbrak,

you make me hurt

i don’t know who you are but i miss you

richie tozier

and hits send. He stares at the computer until it gives him an error message. That’s his prompting to get up and abandon his path in favor of finding his bed again and crawling between his sheets. The computer pings with a returned email, but Richie doesn’t hear it, already asleep.

In the morning, confused, he deletes the confusing email that never got to an address and throws away the invitation that makes him feel sick. He doesn’t remember why those things were stressing him out, but it’s not worth it, he decides.

Chapter Text

It’s May 14th, 2004, Richie Tozier is twenty-eight years old, and he hasn’t slept in the last twenty-four hours.

He’s a guest writer on, like, several fucking comedy shows now, which is amazing, and still trying to get the ball really rolling on his stand-up, but he’s not starving anymore, and that’s just the fucking best. He just had to move again, for the aforementioned guest writing gigs, so he doesn’t really know anyone in his new area just yet, but he’s— He’s trying. He’s getting there.

Richie Tozier gets to write jokes all day, which is awesome. He then gets to go out with the other writers and the lingering cast members and crew guys and set interns and get fucked up afterwards, which is pretty much what everyone does most days, so he goes, too. It’s not like he’s got a wife and kids to go home to, like the guys who turn down their invitations.

Richie goes. One of the other guest writers is a guy named John, and he’s handsome and always sits next to Richie around the table, and he’s going, so Richie sort of feels like he has to go. John walks next to him the whole way there, too, and Richie shoves his hands in his pockets to keep them to himself.

John’s got big fucking brown eyes, doe eyes that take up half his fucking face, it seems, sometimes. He’s short— Or, he’s shorter than Richie, but he insists he’s an average height, but Richie can ruffle his (brown, curling, short) hair easily, and he does. Often. Something about stirring John up into a tizzy is enticing to Richie. He does it as much as he can.

John sits next to Richie at the bar, too, around the table they’re all splitting, and he leans up and into Richie’s space more than once. The more they drink, the more it seems like he means something by it. They match each other, shot for shot. John’s hand lingers on the inside of Richie’s arm. Richie makes a split-second decision and gets up.

“Wanna play pool?” Richie asks, shouting over the loud music. John nods, and Richie drags him over to the pool table at the far corner of the bar. It’s sticky and missing a couple of balls, but Richie lines them up anyways. John takes a cue stick off the wall.

“You or me?” John asks. Richie can’t figure out what he means for a second.

“What?” he asks, and John laughs, passing the cue to Richie before taking one for himself.

“I’ll go first,” John says. He lines up his shot, then makes it, sending the balls skittering. They make Richie dizzy and, when he looks at Richie, his face is swimming. “Rich?”

“Yeah, sorry,” Richie says, lining up his shot, too. He almost falls when he makes it, but then John’s arms are around him.

“Careful, there,” John says. He helps Richie realign himself, then helps him make the shot, his body a hot line against Richie’s back. Richie turns in his hands.

“I’m going out for a smoke,” Richie blurts out, even though they’re two shots into the game. He probably looks like a fuckwad, but he can’t make himself care. “If you want to come, too.”

John evaluates his face for a second, then nods. “Let me grab something from the table.”

Richie agrees and abandons the pool table to head outside. The late-night breeze is nice against his face, and he does pull out a cigarette, just for something to do with his shaking hands. John joins him after a minute, face twisting up at the smoke.

“You’re just gonna give yourself a trash mouth,” John scolds him. Richie’s vision swims again, and he puts his hands against his face, dropping his cigarette. “Hey, Richie, what the fuck? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, man, I’m just— fucking dizzy, I don’t know,” Richie says. John grips his shoulder, squeezes. Richie looks up at him and feels almost like he likes John, which is weird, because he doesn’t really like many people, and many people don’t like him. He feels like he knows him, too, which is doubly weird, because he really doesn’t. He seems deeply familiar in a way he’s not.

Richie shoves past the creeping fog in his limbs and his head to focus on John instead. John grins at him, and Richie makes himself smile back.

“You’re looking pale,” John tells him. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out an eight ball. Richie shuts his eyes. “If you don’t want to, you don’t have to. I just thought you were the type.”

Richie sighs. He figures, maybe he is the type. He’s not sure what fucking type he is, so maybe it’s this.

And so, Richie Tozier tries cocaine for the first time with a guest writer for a show that will get cancelled in four months behind a shitty bar that anybody only ever goes to because it’s close by. He doesn’t love it, but it makes him buzz and it fucks with the fog and it’s easier to slip into than anything else he’s tried before.

He tries to kiss John, after that, and John laughs at him.

“What the fuck?” John says. “No, man, I just— Sorry, my buddies tell me I’m too touchy. I’m not like that.”

It rings in Richie’s ears. “I’m not like that.” He wonders what “that” is to other people. To Richie, “that” is pretty fucking all-encompassing.

After John rejects him, Richie grabs his jacket and fucks off. He grabs a cab back to his apartment and finds it as empty and dark as he left it. He’s feeling flush, hot and twitching and fast, so he almost slips on the mail running inside. He picks it up and tosses it aside, but one of the envelopes is bigger than a normal envelope and catches his eye. He frowns, grabbing it.

He all but shreds the envelope opening it but, inside, there’s a familiar invitation. He feels like he’s seen it before. The front of the huge thing says TEN YEAR REUNION!, but Richie doesn’t recognize the school in the picture on the card. Inside, there’s a collage of students, and Richie sees his own name.

Richie T. and Eddie K. before grad, use for all future DHS events, it says, in his own handwriting, below a photocopy of a picture of him and some dude he doesn’t remember. The guy kind of looks like John, actually, but thinking of John makes Richie feel sick, so he puts the thing away. He wonders who the fuck Eddie K. was, if he was Richie’s type or not. He doesn’t remember him, but he’s giving Richie’s a headache, so he goes to his computer and turns it on.

It takes a minute to boot up but, once it has, Richie logs onto myspace. He’s not on it all that often, but he uses it now and then, and he tries to keep his profile updated in case someone happens to look him up on here after seeing his name somewhere. Stranger things have happened, he supposes.

Eddie K, he types into the search bar. There’s so many results, because Eddie K really isn’t an uncommon name, Richie’s sure. He looks at the return address on the envelope, then types in, Eddie K Maine. Still too many, and none of them look like the guy.

The deeper Richie goes into trying to find this guy on myspace, the worse his head hurts, until it’s a whole-skull throb and his skin is crawling. He gives it all up as a bad job, in the end. He’s not even sure why he got so fixated on it, and blames it, belatedly, on the cocaine before he crashes in his bed, head buried under the pillows, and sleeps, finally.

The next morning, he wakes up to a notification on his computer. Even though his head feels like it’s been crushed like a tin can, he vaguely remembers that the computer had been important to him the night before. Or, rather, whatever he’d been doing, even if he wasn’t entirely sure what he’d been doing.

He drags himself to the computer and opens the pinging notification. It’s from myspace, and Richie frowns, clicking it.

There’s a sent message from him to some guy he vaguely recognizes, whose name says Edward Kaspbrak. The name sends a cold shiver down Richie’s spine, even though he’s not entirely sure why. The message he’d sent reads, hey is this eddie k who knew richie t?

The notification was for a reply. It says, Why were you awake so late?

Richie frowns, then types, late night. are you eddie k?

There’s a pause, then another message. I mean, I am technically Eddie K. I don’t know if I know any Richie T’s. Why do you ask?

Richie’s not entirely sure why he asked, actually. It’s all giving him a splitting headache. He replies, idon’t know. i got an invite with a picture of me with some kid on it. sorry, and goes to close the window, but then he gets another reply.

I got an invitation, too, the reply reads. To Maine?

Richie writes, yeah, do you remember going to school there?, his heart pounding as he does.

No, Edward Kaspbrak replies. Then, I have to go to work. I’ll message again when I get home tonight.

Richie types, see you tonight, eddie k, and closes the chat. He clicks on Eddie's profile picture and starts scrolling through his pictures. Him on a beach, him with some woman, him at what Richie assumes is his own wedding, based on where he's standing in proximity to the bride. He doesn't look happy, which kind of makes Richie sad, and he looks weirdly familiar, which definitely makes Richie dizzy, so he signs off. He closes myspace and gets himself ready to go back into work, which mostly consists of trying to get himself back to some semblance of normal. He’s not sure he achieves it, but he tries, and he thinks that should count for something.

When he gets home, he doesn’t have any messages. He sees a chat history with someone named Edward Kaspbrak, and he frowns, because he doesn’t know anyone by that name. He marks the chat as spam without opening it, in case it’s a virus, and it deletes itself from Richie’s archives.

Chapter Text

It’s May 10th, 2008, Richie Tozier is thirty-three years old, and he’s fucking late for work.

“Work” is actually Saturday Night fucking Live, because Richie Tozier’s dream is also his waking fucking nightmare, and he managed to oversleep and get himself stuck in traffic on the way into the studio.

“Sorry, sorry, excuse me!” he exclaims, weaving in between slow walkers on the sidewalk and nearly face-planting into the street when he slips in a puddle. He catches himself on a stranger’s sleeve, and the guy shoves him off. “Go fuck yourself, too, man.”

“What’d you say?” the guy demands, and Richie opens his mouth to reply just as the guy knocks him on his ass with a fist to the cheek. Richie groans, curling up on the pavement for a second while the guy walks away. Someone else helps him up, and they ask if he’s okay, but Richie’s off again, sprinting towards Rockefeller Center.

He’s only thirty minutes late, but he’s also got a nasty split on his cheekbone, and he’s dragged by an exasperated page to first aid before he can go into makeup to get it covered up. He apologizes to everyone he sees, and most people assure him that it’s fine, but some people are just cold enough that Richie’s skin starts to crawl.

The thing is, he knows he’s got a thing about people’s approval. He always has, ever since he could remember. Back in college, it was pretty much the only thing that got him through the day, sometimes, was making people laugh in his classes or pleasing his professors with his grades. That’s about as far back as he remembers, anyways.

Long story short, he knows he’s got a problem. He’s pretty sure he’s going to get fired at any second, and he keeps being told that that’s just imposter syndrome, but he thinks it’s deeper than that. He thinks he’s due to get kicked off at any second. It gives him a hard time sleeping, a hard time eating; sometimes, it fucks up his fucking acting, and that infuriates him more than anything else. It gives him headaches, stomachaches, panic attacks, nightmares.

It’s everything he’s ever dreamed of, and he’s pretty sure it’s killing him, and he doesn’t even care. He saw someone with a tattoo once that said “Find what you love and let it kill you,” and the tattoo was cheap, but the sentiment rattles around in his head now and then. It’s pretty similar to “The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long,” which he’s more familiar with because, obviously, Blade Runner.

“I’m so fucking sorry,” Richie gasps to costuming when he gets there. They shove him into his clothes for the cold open.

“You got mail delivered here,” a different page tells him. Richie looks over his shoulder at her; she has a big envelope in one hand. “Do you want it?”

“Can you leave it in my room?” Richie asks, and she shrugs before leaving the room with it. Richie’s not entirely sure what that means, but he doesn’t have time to ask before he’s being shoved towards the studio and taped into his microphone pack.

Shia LaBeouf is hosting, which is still weird no matter how many famous people Richie meets (and he vaguely wonders if he’s a famous person, now, then dismisses the thought before it can give him hives). Richie had been too old for Even Stevens, but he remembers seeing the kid’s face everywhere, and it’s strange to see people in person when you’ve only ever seen them in magazines or on screens for years and years. My Morning Jacket is the musical guest, and Richie’s sure he’ll make a fool of himself, but it’s fine, because why the fuck else do a job like this if he doesn’t reap the benefits?

He doesn’t fuck up the show colosally. He’s a bit of a space cadet, even he can tell that much, but he doesn’t shut anything down and he doesn’t swear on screen and he only breaks once. Plus, he gets more laughs than he has the past few weeks, and that makes him nearly vibrate out of his skin when he gets back to his dressing room after the show’s over and strips out of his clothes. The sign on his door says RICHIE “TRASHMOUTH” TOZIER in block letters, and seeing it settles him, for a moment.

The envelope the page had waved at him earlier is on his counter, and he hesitates, half-dressed. After a beat, he decides to just open it. It’s giving him a weird feeling, but he’s not entirely sure why, and he’s not about to let some fucking envelope beat him in a staring contest.

He rips the thing open with his teeth and dumps the contents into his palm. There’s an invitation inside that says You’re invited to your fifteen-year reunion, Derry High Schoolers!, and it makes Richie’s splitting headache worse.

Inside, there’s a picture of him and another kid. The picture says Richie T. and Eddie K. before grad, use for all future DHS events. The writing is Richie’s old handwriting, from when he was still a kid.

Richie frowns at it.

Then, he pulls out his phone and opens up the Facebook app.

“Eddie K.,” he says out loud as he types, and hits the little magnifying glass search button. A fuckton of people pop up. Richie scrolls through their pictures, hyper-focused on finding one that looks like the kid in the picture. While he’s searching, he gets a chat notification.

Richie Tozier? the chat asks. It’s from someone named Edward Kaspbrak, and the name seems distantly familiar.

that’s me, he says, just as it strikes him. Eddie K. Edward Kaspbrak. He grabs the invitation and opens the profile picture on the chat and, sure as shit, the guy looks pretty much exactly like a grown-up version of the kid in the picture.

I think you sent me a message five years ago, Edward Kaspbrak writes out. About an invitation to a reunion at a high school you didn’t remember going to.

right, Richie replies. do you remember anymore?

Still no, Edward replies. Eddie. Eddie K., but somehow, Richie knows he’s just Eddie. Maybe we got put on the wrong list? Could happen.

did u see the picture of us? Richie asks.

Type normally, Eddie scolds him. Richie laughs out loud. I did. That’s how I found you. Then, Are you really the same Richie Tozier on SNL?

the 1 & only, Richie types, just to push Eddie’s buttons a little bit. 

The Richie Tozier I just watched on television? Eddie asks.

the very same, eds!!, Richie replies, then grabs his shirt and tugs it on over his head. He grabs his jacket and shoves his shoes on one-handed while he waits for Eddie’s response.

You were funny tonight, Eddie eventually replies. I’ve always liked watching your skits.

they’re called sketches, Richie tells him, and thank you. what do u mean, always?

There’s a minute where Eddie’s viewed his message, but doesn’t type a reply. Then, as Richie’s catching up with Seth and Andy to go out to their usual post-show bar spot, he gets another message. Maybe I remembered your name from the last time we talked. You just seemed familiar, so I stayed up to watch one night when my wife went to bed, and now I just watch it.

how romantic, Richie replies, before he can overthink it as a response. and here i thought we were strangers, eds.

Do not call me that, Eddie tells him. I have to go to bed, it’s very late.

suit urself, Richie replies. txt me tomorrow, eddie k. ok?

Okay, Eddie sends. His little green bubble vanishes, signalling him as offline. He sends a friend request to Eddie, but it doesn’t get accepted. It doesn’t get rejected, either, but having it just sitting out there in the ether is vexing to Richie, so he pockets his phone and drinks until he can’t see.

He never gets an acceptance to the friend request, but he also completely forgets about it the next day. The invitation gets swept into the trash by a late-night janitor, and the chat gets pushed down in Richie’s chat history until it all but vanishes, and he forgets about Eddie K. all over again.

Chapter Text

It’s May 22nd, 2014, Richie Tozier is thirty-eight years old, and he’s headlining his own stand-up comedy tour for the first time.

Every day, he wakes up in a different city, and it’s cool as fuck. He always thought it would be awesome to travel, had an itch to move around. Sometimes, it felt like running away, but there was really nothing he was running away from.

He embraces the feeling, chases it from state to state, and wakes up on May 22nd in Boston, Massachusetts. He’s pretty sure, at least, and a check of the location settings on his phone confirms it for him. Rubbing at his face, Richie drags himself out of bed and over to the minifridge in his hotel room. There’s still a bunch of tiny wine bottles in there, so he downs one of them like a shot before his shower.

He had a show last night at The Wilbur, and he’s got another one tonight, and a third show tomorrow. After that, he’s supposed to go up to Portland, but he feels like he might be getting sick. The closer they get to needing to go to Maine, the dizzier Richie feels. On his last tour, when he had just been an opening act, he’d actually fucked off the Portland shows, claiming a family emergency. He wonders if the people involved in this tour are new enough to him to not catch him in the lie if he uses it a second time.

There’s a pounding on his door. He frowns, midway through brushing his teeth, and remembers to grab a towel to wrap around his waist at the last second.

“Yeah, what’s up?” Richie asks around his toothbrush. Glen looks at him with one raised eyebrow, then hands over a stack of mail. Richie takes it with his free hand. “Fan mail?”

“Some of it,” Glen tells him. “Some of it’s forwarded from your home address, things we thought you’d want.”

“Thanks, man,” Richie says.

“Get dressed, Rich,” Glen tells him. He’s no-nonsense, which is why Richie hired him, but it also makes him boring as fuck. “You’ve got to make an appearance with the Harvard Book Store before the show.”

“Why the fuck am I doing a meet and greet at a bookstore?” Richie asks. He leaves Glen in the doorway to go spit his toothpaste into the sink. Glen follows, hovering outside the bathroom door instead of the front hotel room door.

“It’s not at the bookstore,” Glen reminds him. Richie’s definitely sure he’s heard this before, but also doesn’t remember it fully. He drops the mail on his bathroom counter and sets to yanking a comb through his hair. “It’s hosted by the bookstore. It’s at the Brattle Theater, but that’s in Cambridge, so get yourself dressed so we can go.”

“Alright,” Richie says. He’s mostly playfully ignorant of Glen’s plans for him, but this one he’s not really sure how to tackle, because he’s not sure how many insightful things he has to say to a bunch of people in Cambridge, of all fucking places.

It turns out the thing’s a breeze, because it’s mostly a Q&A session and then people bring stuff up that they want him to sign while they tell him how funny they think he is, which is Richie’s definition of a solid afternoon. They make him stop chatting casually with strangers and fans (“Friends I haven’t met yet,” Richie corrects, and the girl he’s talking to blushes) because they’re on a schedule, and he does have a show tonight.

Sometimes, it’s good that Richie’s put on a schedule by other people. He’s not really great at staying on schedules himself, sort of absent-minded and drifting. He wonders if this is what he really wants, sometimes. He knows he wants to be doing it, but it feels like something’s missing, and he’s not really sure what.

The one and only time he expressed this to Glen, Glen had just said, “Yeah, Rich, you’re lonely as shit, it’s sad,” and then kept reading him his itinerary for the day. It stuck in Richie’s head, playing on a loop sometimes: Rich, you’re lonely, it’s sad, over and over. It just, it sticks.

The show’s easy. He tells his standard fare, rehearsed to the ends of the fucking Earth, and feels empty as he does it. The people in the audience, but they’re not laughing at him.

Yeah, he’s lonely, and, yeah, he’s headlining his first tour, but none of the jokes are his fucking jokes. Glen hires fucking writers, and makes Richie memorize their stuff, and tells Richie, “It’s nothing personal, man, it’s just that your stuff is kind of… niche. But your delivery is great! We just gotta get some good jokes in you.”

Richie thoughts his jokes were good, which was also why he’d hired Glen, to help him manage his career, but he hasn’t really helped all that much. He’s just some balding fifty-something dude, but Richie wants to please him, for some reason. He doesn’t know.

He lets Glen hire writers, and he repeats the jokes they write. He feels hollow, and weird, and, yeah, lonely and sad as shit, like Glen so thoughtfully pointed out. He’s a headliner, but what the fuck’s it matter, if he’s just someone else’s megaphone?

Richie gets existential, sometimes. Well, he says he’s being existential; Glen says he’s being a dickhead. Boston brings out a little bit of existential crisis in him, before and after the show, so he lingers after the show at a bar down the street from the venue. It’s better than going back to his hotel room alone.

The reason he brings a condom and a little ketchup-packet-looking-pack of lube in his back pocket to these places is because he’s hollow and lonely and sad. He’ll catch some guy’s eye, and he’ll do a double-take when he recognizes Richie. This is Boston, and it’s 2014, so when whichever guy it is smiles at him, Richie lets himself smile back. He’ll evaluate whoever it is, to see if they’re close to his type. He has a thing for short brunette guys with big brown eyes, and there’s one looking him over in the dive bar off Washington Street, and so he brings that guy back to the hotel room with him instead. Less lonely that way, he figures.

When the guy’s asleep and Richie’s spent almost fifteen minutes just looking at his face, trying to remember something he’s not even aware he’s forgotten, he gets up and goes to his bathroom. He scrubs himself raw in the shower. He combs out his hair until it’s completely free of knots, then pulls it back. His mail’s still sitting on the counter, so he thumbs through it sitting on the bathroom floor, just so he doesn’t have to go back to bed with the stranger just yet.

There’s an oversized envelope in the mix that’s addressed to him in a fairly formal hand, whereas most of the fan mail is handwritten or scribbled. It’s forwarded from his home address in California — though “home” is kind of an inaccurate term for the place that holds all his shit while he’s on the road lying to everyone in America for money — and it piques his interest, so he opens it.

There’s a huge invitation inside, and just looking at all the fucking colors splashed across the front of it gives him a headache. It says “It’s time for the big 2-0! 20th Reunion of Derry High School Class of 1994!” and Richie thinks, Oh, yeah, this fucking thing again.

He vaguely remembers getting these things before, and so he knows before he opens the card that he’ll see himself inside, even though he didn’t even graduate from Derry High School. He doesn’t even know where Derry High School is. He should probably just call the fucking number on the RSVP section of the card and tell them they’ve got the wrong Richard Wentworth Tozier, weird as it may seem, but then he actually looks at his picture again.

He sees Eddie K.

Again.

“Eddie Kaspbrak,” Richie murmurs, even though he hadn’t consciously thought the name. He just… said it, it just came out of his mouth, and then his skin breaks out in goosebumps. He looks at the kid, Eddie Kaspbrak. He wonders what he’s like now, if he remembers Richie or if he forgot about their friendship, too, just like Richie apparently had.

Richie sneaks out of the bathroom and grabs his laptop out of his backpack, then slips back into the bathroom and sets himself on the bathmat on the floor. He opens up Google and types in Eddie Kaspbrak.

There’s not a lot of hits. There’s a LinkedIn page for a guy named Edward Kaspbrak, and the picture preview sort of looks like the kid in the picture with Richie. They definitely have the same eyes, at least, and the same general face shape, but the guy in the LinkedIn picture looks old and depressed as fuck, bored out of his mind. The kid in the picture with Richie is laughing and happy and free. It’s sad to look at them side-by-side.

Rich, you’re lonely, it’s sad, Glen’s words echo again in his head. Richie copies the picture file onto Google and reverse image searches it to find the guy’s other pages. He sees his Facebook, then sees he has an unanswered friend request sent to him. He hesitates, then decides not to remind him. He must’ve ignored Richie’s request for a reason.

He finds the guy’s Twitter account, too, and an Instagram page that’s kind of bare. There’s a few selfies on it, though, and there’s a woman present in a couple of them. He’s tagged the woman, and the name on her (significantly more populated) Instagram account says Myra Kaspbrak, which is also a total bummer. The dude looks like exactly Richie’s type. Fucking sucks if he’s married, since it seems like fate wants to yank them together or something else stupid like that.

There’s not much, after that. His social media is pretty threadbare, few and far between. He doesn’t post much. Richie wants to message him, but he stops himself, at the last moment. This guy’s clearly married and has an important job, if not an interesting one, according to his LinkedIn. He’s living in New York City, and he’s obviously married, and there’s a woman in all his pictures, and Eddie Kaspbrak has apparently moved on from whatever happened the day he took that Polaroid picture with Richie.

Richie wonders why he isn’t, idly, as he scrolls through Myra’s Instagram, looking for shots of Eddie. There’s a few candids where he has a real smile, or he’s laughing, and Richie finds himself staring at those ones for no reason.

“You’re such a fucking creep,” he whispers to himself. It’s two in the fucking morning in Boston, Massachusetts, and he’s bitterly stalking the wife of some old acquaintance he doesn’t even remember on Instagram.

He closes his laptop and shoves it under the sink next to the scale that’s already under there. He vaguely hopes that he remembers where it is in the morning before he goes back out to the hotel room. He plugs his phone in, climbs into bed, and shuts his eyes.

He can’t sleep.

After a long moment, he rolls over and grabs his phone again. Holding it close to his face so he doesn’t have to get his glasses again, he scrolls back through Myra’s Instagram before he finds one of the candids of Eddie laughing again. In a fit of madness, he takes a screenshot of it, then turns off his phone and goes to bed.

The next day, he doesn’t remember who the screenshot is of, but he thinks the guy’s hot. He wonders if it was some guy he wanted to look up on Instagram or something, but the Instagram handle is cropped out and reverse image searches won’t work, so he gives it up as a bad job. He doesn’t delete the picture, but it doesn’t get transferred to his next phone, either, and he forgets about Eddie Kaspbrak all over again.

Chapter Text

It’s May 18th, 2019, Richie Tozier is forty-three years old, and he’s trying to figure out how two people can successfully bring three children to one event and still end up with the same three children at the end of the night.

“If you don’t stop trying to run off the sidewalk, I’ll take you back to the hotel and we’ll stay there tonight,” Eddie says firmly to Riley, as she tries to escape his hold yet again and dart into the street. She scowls up at him, and Eddie looks to Richie with a look that just screams Fucking help me, but Richie’s got a bad back and two children strapped onto himself, so he doesn’t feel pity.

“Let me go,” Riley insists. Eddie scoops her up, and she bursts into tears.

“Swap with me,” Richie says, as he sees Eddie’s face start going red. Eddie helps Richie slip out of the double-baby carrier, then Richie helps Eddie slip into it. It’s a fucking magic act, trying to do it without pissing off Audrey or Nora, and while still holding onto Riley so she doesn’t escape into the road while they swap. Richie thinks he should get nominated for a fucking Emmy for this. Not the Netflix special or the SNL guest host gig, fucking this.

They pull it off, miracle of miracles, and Richie scoops Riley up into his arms.

“What’s up, short stack?” Richie asks, once she’s settled on his hip. Riley huffs at him, turning away with her arms folded. “Whoa, excuse me. What’s going on here?”

Riley doesn’t answer. Richie leans his head down, presses his cheek to hers. She turns away again, but she’s trying not to smile. Richie’s not sure what he’ll do when she’s much older than almost-two-years-old and will take much more maneuvering to convince, but he’ll just have to cross that bridge when he comes to it.

“Riley?” Richie asks. Eddie’s calming down now, he can tell, walking behind him and seeing the line of his shoulders relax as Audrey babbles to him on his back and Nora sleeps against his front. Riley still doesn’t respond to Richie, so he says, “Riiiiiley,” drawing it out and kissing her on the cheek when he’s done. She laughs, turning back to him.

“Daddy, stop,” she insists.

“I will if you tell me what’s wrong,” he tells her. She glances at Eddie, then back to Richie. He leans in a little closer and whispers, “It’s our secret.”

She laughs again, but sobers up pretty quickly. She looks to Eddie again, and this time it’s not as light-hearted. She sighs, then says to Richie, “Daddy doesn’t wanna go.”

“What makes you say that, pipsqueak?” Richie asks.

“He said so,” Riley says. “On the phone.”

“On the phone with who?” Richie asks, and he sees Eddie’s spine straighten again as he catches his words.

“Auntie Bev,” Riley tells him.

“Aha,” Richie says. “Well, I can tell you, Daddy doesn’t do anything he doesn’t want to do, so we’re okay to go to this reunion, kid, I promise you.”

“Promise?” Riley demands. He kisses her on the nose, then the cheek again; she squeals, grabbing at his face with her hands.

“I promise,” he tells her. “If anyone’s mean to you or Daddy, you let me know. I’ll be very stern with them.”

“Daddy,” she admonishes. “Let Daddy do it.”

“Yeah, let me handle the fuckheads tonight,” Eddie says. It had taken a fuckload of convincing from Bill and Stan, but they were able to get all the Losers to agree to go back to Derry for their twenty-fifth high school reunion. None of them had been to any of the reunions for the past twenty-four years, because they had no idea they’d even gone to Derry High School, and Bill thinks it’s a good idea to show up. Stan thinks it’ll be good for them to show up. Richie just doesn’t fucking want to go, but he is, because he won’t be the only one not going.

He knows Eddie would rather be literally anywhere else, too, and it’s making him short-tempered and snappish (or, moreso than usual). It’s probably best if he holds onto the kids that can’t snap back at him if it comes to that.

“There won’t be any fuckheads tonight,” Richie says, “because everyone’s going to be really nice to us and nothing’s going to go wrong. Right?”

Eddie’s doesn’t answer for a second, but then he says, “Right.” It’s strained, but he says it. After another moment, he says, “And, Riley, don’t say fuckhead.”

“Fuckhead,” Riley says, defiant, and Eddie turns around to raise his eyebrows at her. Riley’s whole face flushes red, and she hides it in Richie’s shoulder.

“Don’t dish it if you can’t take it, short stack,” Richie murmurs, as Eddie turns back around and keeps walking towards the Derry High School gymnasium. “You know, you remind me of someone else who ran their mouth too often for their own good—”

“Richie, if this story is about me and not about you, I’m going to bury you in an unmarked grave,” Eddie snaps at him. “They will never fucking find you.”

“You’re right, you don’t have a short fuse at all,” Richie comments. Eddie glares back at him, then speeds up the last few minutes up to the gymnasium. They’re staying in the Derry Townhouse again, rather than take up space with two adult men and three children crammed into Bill’s parents’ basement, and it’s only a short walk from the Townhouse to Derry High School, and the weather was nice, so they figured it’d be a fine walk.

Watching Eddie yank the gymnasium door open and usher them all inside, he wonders if the drive would’ve gotten some of Eddie’s steam out before the reunion actually started.

Eddie strides right past Richie to the front table, scaring the two women sitting behind it, organizing the name tags strewn across the tabletop.

“Sorry,” Eddie says, not sounding even a little apologetic. “I’m Eddie Kaspbrak, that’s Richie Kaspbrak.”

“Might be under Richie Tozier, maybe?” Richie suggests, when they only find one name under Kaspbrak. They both look up at Richie when he says that.

“Oh, Richie!” one of them exclaims. “It’s Rebecca Stone. Remember?”

“Oh, yeah, right,” Richie says, because he vaguely remembers that name. “Oh— Rebecca Anderson now, right? I called you the first time.”

“Rebecca Stone again, thank God,” Rebecca says. She motions to Eddie, then says, “I see you found each other again.”

“What?” Richie asks. Eddie looks up at Richie, alarmed, before he looks back to Rebecca.

“What do you mean?” Eddie demands. Richie’s heart is racing, and he’s instantly on high alert, trying to figure out how this could possibly be a trap set by Pennywise, how It could possibly still be alive, how to get Eddie and the girls out of the gymnasium immediately—

“When you called for the five-year reunion, you said you didn’t remember him,” Rebecca explains defensively. “You asked me who Eddie K. was. I said he was your best friend, and you were acting all weird. Kind of like you are right now.”

Richie exhales, then says, “Sorry, we’ve had a— weird few years, I guess.”

“Yeah, I read BuzzFeed,” Rebecca says. “Congrats on you two for finding each other agai— Oh, wait, actually, stay here, I have something for you.”

“Okay?” Richie says, as Rebecca gets up and darts off down the hallway. Richie looks to the other woman sitting down.

“Louise Warren,” she reminds him, and he snaps his fingers.

“Right,” he says. “Richie Tozier.”

“Yeah, we just—” she says, then motions at the table at large. “I was there.”

“Right,” he says again.

“Dumbass,” Eddie mutters under his breath.

“Dumbass,” Riley repeats loudly, and Eddie’s about to scold her when Rebecca comes wheeling around the corner again.

“Here you go,” she says, handing a Polaroid picture off to Richie over the table. Richie takes it, frowning down at it. Riley leans over it to look at it, too.

“Daddy,” she says, pointing at Eddie.

“Yeah, that’s both of us, short stack,” Richie tells her. He points to himself. “That’s me.”

Underneath the picture, in Richie’s handwriting, it says Richie T. and Eddie K. before grad, use for all future DHS events. With a jolt, Richie remembers not only taking the picture, but the intervening years, the countless times he almost remembered Eddie when he saw him in the invitation every five years.

“I sent you a message on myspace,” Richie says abruptly. He turns to Eddie and hands him the picture. Eddie takes it, brow furrowed, and it takes him a moment before he actually looks at the photograph. Once he does, though, his whole expression opens into one of shock.

“Fuck, I remember this,” Eddie tells him. He huffs a laugh, then says, “I thought you were going to kiss me that day. Do you remember? At Bill’s house?”

Richie turns to him, pulls him in so he can hold the back of his head in his hand and kiss him hard on the forehead. Eddie laughs again.

“I remember,” Richie tells him. “I thought you were gonna kiss me, actually.”

“You two didn’t fuck in high school?” Louise Warren asks. “Could’ve fooled me.”

“Yeah, thanks, Louise,” Eddie snaps. He grabs up his and Richie’s name tags and hauls them out into the auditorium to find the other Losers.

“Do you remember myspace?” Richie insists, as Eddie peels his name tag for him and sticks it over his heart. Riley picks at it. “No, bucko, leave it, I need that.”

“I remember this random guy sending me a message on myspace,” Eddie says, “fifteen years ago, about a reunion at a school neither of us went to.”

“That was me!” Richie exclaims.

“No fucking shit,” Eddie replies drily. “And then I messaged the same random guy ten years ago on Facebook when I saw a picture of us in another invitation to a reunion for a school I didn’t go to.”

“Oh, yeah, you did,” Richie says, and then he remembers. “Hey, dickhead, I sent you a friend request and you never accepted!”

“I fucking married you, I think you’ll live,” Eddie snaps. He puts his own name tag on his shoulder, so people can see it past Nora’s head.

“I stalked you and Myra on Instagram when I got the twenty-year invite,” Richie confesses. Eddie raises an eyebrow up at him as he crinkles the name tag wrappers in his hand and tosses them in the nearest trash bin. “I thought you were hot and I was pissed you were married to a woman. I had just fucked a dude who looked just like you, actually—”

“Jesus Christ, Richie, I know we said we’d be open around them, but fucking shit,” Eddie spits, as Riley looks up at Richie with a furrowed brow.

“Daddy is hot?” she asks.

“That’s the best question she could’ve asked,” Richie says to Eddie defensively, “in fairness to me.”

“Do you still stalk me on Instagram?” Eddie asks dismissively, but his face is flushed a pleased pink, so Richie leans in and kisses him softly.

“I would if you ever fucking posted anything,” Richie says quietly. Eddie pinches his arm.

“Hey, Kaspbraks!” Stan shouts to them across the gymnasium. Riley almost launches herself to the floor spinning around as fast as she does. Stan waves them over to the table the rest of the Losers have commandeered at the front corner of the gym, near the stage. Riley tries to hurl herself to the ground; luckily, Richie knows her, and keeps a good grip on her so she doesn’t slip to the ground.

“Keep your cool, baby girl, you’ll look silly with your head smashed in,” Richie comments. Eddie scowls at him for the comment while Riley laughs, so Richie counts it as a massive win.

Audrey makes a pissed-off sound when Eddie starts walking again to bring her to the table, so he passes her off to Bev once they actually get there. She goes to Bev happily, grabbing at her hair. Bev laughs, burying her face in Audrey’s hair.

“How long have you got left?” Richie asks, leaning into Patty’s space to hug her.

“About a month,” Patty tells him. He knows that, but she always grins when she tells him, so he always asks.

“And you?” he asks Bev. She flushes a little bit.

“Still got six months to go, Rich,” she tells him. “It’s only been two weeks since I told you.”

“And yet,” he says, kissing her on the forehead three times in a row. “Ugh, Bev, you’re glowing. You make me think I should get pregnant. Well—”

“No,” Eddie says. “No spells.”

“How about—”

“I won’t do it, either,” Eddie tells him, as Patty hugs him, too. Richie kisses Stan on the top of his head.

“I’m surprised you got him here,” Mike comments, pointing his drink at Eddie. “I’ve never seen his face as purple as it was when he found out about the invite.”

“I said I’d come, so I came, and I’m here, so you’re welcome,” Eddie snaps.

“You’re here l-late,” Bill murmurs into his drink.

“I would’ve been here earlier but someone decided it was the height of injustice that I wouldn’t let her get flattened by a fucking truck,” Eddie says. Riley grins up at Richie smugly before hiding her face from Eddie when he glanced back at her.

“I’m personally really excited to be a dad now,” Ben comments, and Richie laughs. It’s probably the most genuine laugh he’s ever had in this gymnasium. Now that he’s back here, after all the intervening years, he’s remembering all the times he get beat into the gym floor, or punched under the bleachers, or tripped up running laps. Derry High School fucking sucked in a lot of ways, but he also had some friends and aquaintances, and, of course, he had the Losers. He was in the drama club, and he hung out at all of Eddie’s track practices, so he knew everyone and everyone knew him. For better or for worse, sometimes, but he did.

People have been looking at him and whispering all night, which Richie was afraid of. He’d been bullied in this town for eighteen fucking years, and a lot of that was because he was gay. The last time he came back to Derry, a bunch of guys beat the shit out of Adrian Mellon and Don Hagarty. They fucking killed Adrian Mellon, even if Richie brought him back, and that was just a few years ago. He figured people would fucking have something to say about him and Eddie showing up married to each other.

The lights go down in the gymnasium, and Eddie jumps.

“Calm down, Bambi,” Richie murmurs. Eddie flicks him in the forehead.

“What’re they doing? The night’s just starting,” Eddie asks.

“The night started an hour ago,” Stan whispers. “Again, you showed up late.”

“Sorry,” Riley says softly.

“You’re fine, sweetheart,” Eddie tells her. She turns her face down, so he reaches out to pull her face in and kiss her on the cheek. “It’s okay, I’m just teasing you.”

Rebecca Stone comes out on the stage and taps on the microphone, smiles. Richie doesn’t really remember her from school at all, but she must’ve been pretty fucking organized if she’s been organizing these things every five years for the last twenty-five years.

“A quarter of a century!” she shouts into the microphone, and Eddie flinches. Richie throws his arm around him and kisses him on the temple. Bill whoops. “So let’s do our quarter-century superlatives!”

Richie glances nervously over to Bill, who makes frightened eye contact with him in return. Sure enough, she steps back so a projector can be directed at the pull-down screen behind her, and huge block text says Class of 1994!

“First is Most Successful,” Rebecca says. “Usually, Most Successful has gone to Jimmy Garber, which isn’t surprising, since he was voted Most Likely to Succeed.”

“You suck, Jimmy!” someone shouts in the crowd, and some people laugh, Richie included. Jimmy Garber fucking sucked, that twerpy little snitch.

“Not this year, though,” Rebecca continues. “This year, our unanimous vote for Most Successful was actually the same student who won Class Clown—”

“Motherfucker,” Richie curses under his breath. Eddie looks up at him with panic written all over his face.

“—Richie Tozier,” Rebecca says, “who has also just informed me that his name is now Richie Kaspbrak.”

There’s a beat of silence. Then, Bill starts clapping, but Mike puts his hands over Bill’s to stop him. Richie sighs and heads for the stage.

“You don’t have to go,” Eddie whispers urgently.

“It’s fine,” Richie says. He looks to Riley. “Wanna stay or come with me?”

“Come with you,” Riley answers without hesitation. He’s glad; she feels like a talisman against him. He picks his way through the crowd with her until he gets to the stage steps, and climbs on, squinting against the projection light. He protects Riley’s eyes with his hands until he gets to the microphone.

“Uhh, hi?” he says, and then people clap. He can see who’s out there better now that he’s out of the light, and there’s plenty of people he liked mixed with plenty of people he didn’t. “Wow. Most Successful. Voted up here by the same kids who would shit into my backpack and pound my face into the bleachers in this very fucking gym. Astonishing.”

The gymnasium goes quiet again. Richie glances to Eddie, who’s shaking his head rapidly, but Richie just looks away so he won’t lose his nerve.

“Some of you were cool,” Richie says. “I got along with some of you. Like, Jessie Scott? You were cool as shit. And Jay Randall, you were awesome, I loved being in Grease with you junior year. Like, some of you? Totally awesome, happy to know you. Some of you fuckheads? You know who you fucking are,” Richie says, and points around the crowd. “You guys fucking suck. I haven’t come to one of these things for the last twenty-five years because I totally forgot about this place, and that was one of the coolest things about my twenties and thirties, was totally fucking forgetting this place. You shitheads wrote that I fucking suck flamer cock on the bathroom wall and called me a faggot every day, and now you’re gonna vote me Most Successful? Nice.”

Someone in the crowd whistles, and someone else shouts, “Fuck yeah, Trashmouth!”

“Thanks,” Richie says. “Like I said, some of you were great. A lot of you weren’t. I guess we’re all still the class of 1994 regardless. I just want you fuckers to know that I’m the Most Successful in spite of you, not because of you. The only good fucking thing this town ever gave me is that guy right there—” And he points at Eddie, whose eyes widen when they look at each other. “—and if he told me he wanted to walk out and never come back, I’d do it.”

“I want to walk out and never come back!” Eddie shouts. A bunch of people laugh this time.

“You heard the man,” Richie says. He looks to Rebecca Stone, who seems shell-shocked. “Do I get a trophy or something?”

Rebecca actually hands him a little trophy with a business man on top and a gift card for Dunkin’ Donuts.

“Thanks,” Richie says. “Like, for real, thanks. I love their Vanilla Chai.” He lifts the trophy, then shouts, “Fuck you!” into the microphone.

“Fuck you!” Riley echoes gleefully. Richie laughs, the happiest he’s ever been in this fucking school, and heads for the stairs off the stage. He jogs back to the Losers amidst scattered but intense applause, some whistling, some heckling, and a little bit of booing.

“You fucking suck, faggot,” someone spits at him as he gets closer to Eddie. Richie slows, then stops, turning back. It’s Marvin Atkins, who Richie vividly remembers breaking his nose once outside the arcade. “You think you’re fucking better than us?”

Richie doesn’t know what’s good for him, so he says, “No, I fucking know I’m better than you, you fucking troglodyte.”

Marvin starts to move towards him, even though Richie’s holding Riley, and he starts to turn to protect her with his body just as Eddie comes flying out of nowhere, sans baby carrier, and punches Marvin so hard across the jaw that he goes sprawling across the gym floor. Eddie stands over him, breathing hard. Richie’s incredibly fucking turned on, while also being incredibly fucking angry.

“Let’s get out of here,” Stan says, close to them both, and ushers them out past Marvin Atkins. Once they’re all outside, Richie realizes Mike has Nora, and he’s able to account for everyone, and he starts shaking apart, laughing hysterically.

“Oh, God,” Bill says. “He’s freaking out.”

“No, no, I,” Richie says, then gasps, laughing. Riley laughs, too, and he hugs her close, burying his face in her hair once they’re both on the sidewalk. “Fuck, that was awesome. I think that was the coolest fucking thing I’ve ever done.”

“You’re fucking insane,” Eddie spits. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

“It just came out,” Richie says, “I’m really sorry if you didn’t want me to mention you—”

“Not that, you dumbass, I’m so fucking proud of you,” Eddie tells him. He grabs him and kisses him. Riley smacks at their faces. “I meant antagonizing Marvin while you had Riley, you dipshit.”

“Oh, he talked to me first,” Richie says. Eddie looks to Riley.

“He did,” she confirms. Eddie’s face goes all red. “He was mean, Daddy.”

“He was mean,” Eddie says. “Riley— Sweetheart, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have hit that man in front of you. Don’t hit people, it’s not nice.”

“It’s fine when people are being jackasses to you, I think,” Richie adds. Eddie glares at him.

“We’ll discuss it later,” he says hotly, still simmering, and Richie remembers him standing over Marvin Atkins after having just punched him defending Richie’s honor, and he gets all fucked up over it again.

“Hey,” Richie says to Bev, as they’re heading out to the parking lot. She and Ben were staying at the Townhouse, too, but they drove over. “Will you take the girls for a little bit back at the Townhouse so I can talk to Eddie?”

“Yeah, Rich, of course, no problem,” Bev tells him. She takes his hand, squeezes it, and Richie squeezes back, grateful.

By the time they’re actually back at the Townhouse, with the girls successfully playing games (Riley), rediscovering their own hands (Audrey), and sleeping (Nora) in Ben and Bev’s rooms, Richie finds he and Eddie don’t have that much to talk about.

“I’m sorry,” Richie tells him, once they’re alone.

“Don’t be,” Eddie says, stripping off his nice shirt. He rips the name tag sticker off it slowly, trying to minimize the residue left behind. Richie knows because he’d asked him why he did it so slowly once. He loves getting to know the tiny little atoms that make up who Eddie is as a person. “I’m not upset with you. I’m upset with them.”

“Are you sure?” Richie asks, because he wants to be positive before he starts anything. Eddie nods, folding his shirt and setting it aside. “Okay. So, it’s alright if I tell you how fucking hot that was?”

Eddie’s head snaps up to look at him. “What? Your speech? Richie, you’re such a—”

“No, I’m not that fucking self-centered, relax,” Richie laughs. “No, you fucking knocking Marvin Atkins’ lights out because he was gonna hit me.”

Eddie flushes again, looking away. “He called you a faggot,” he spits, “and he was going to hit you. Or Riley, I don’t know, I just— I got so angry, I don’t even remember moving, I just gave Nora to Mike and started running. I fucking lost it, Rich, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Richie tells him. He can tell his voice has shifted, and Eddie can tell, too, glancing up at him. “Eds, I— Thank you. That was hot as fuck and also really sweet, and I love you. I’m glad I got to marry you eventually. Even if you made me message you on myspace in between.”

“I cannot fucking believe we talked in the fucking time we were apart and still didn’t get together,” Eddie says, face twisting.

“That’s not your fault,” Richie says. He knows he’ll be saying it for a long, long time, but so will Eddie to him, countless times.

“It’s not yours, either,” Eddie says, because Richie knows him way too well, down to those little tiny atoms.

“It made us forget,” Richie reminds him. Eddie comes over to him, smoothes down the front of Richie’s shirt. “That’s not on us.”

“No,” Eddie says. He reaches up to cup the back of Richie’s head in his hand and pulls him in to kiss slowly, a hard, close-mouthed press of his lips against Richie’s. He pulls back and says, “Richie, I— Your fucking. Your speech. Improv speech, whatever, but it was— You were amazing up there, I just…”

Richie feels Eddie’s cock getting hard where’s he pressed up against his thigh. He grins down at him. “You turned on by that? You got a justice boner for me, Eds, baby?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Eddie spits, “and take your dick out so I can ride you before we have to put our kids to bed.”

“Such sweet words,” Richie says, as Eddie tackles him to the bed and all but rips his shirt off over his head. “Were you Shakespeare in a past life, Eddie Kaspbrak?”

“Shut up, shut up,” Eddie insists, kissing Richie hard again. He opens his mouth this time, licking into his mouth, behind his teeth, rolling his hips into Richie’s. Richie grabs his hips, rolls up into him in return, whimpers.

“Get my pants off, get us naked,” Richie whispers. Eddie scrambles to do as he says, stripping their pants and boxer briefs off to get them both bare, skin-on-skin. Eddie leans over the bed and digs through the stuff he’d unpacked into their bedside drawer before coming up with lube. He tosses it to Richie.

“Finger me,” he orders.

“Sir, yes, sir,” Richie says. Eddie smacks his chest and leans down to bite a mark into Richie’s chest, near his burnt adoption marks. He slicks his fingers up with lube and reaches back, slips one finger into Eddie until he finds his prostate. Eddie wriggles against him, panting, open-mouthed, trying to get more touch, so Richie gives it to him. He scissors him open on two fingers, then adds a third, and Richie can’t help but watch Eddie’s face like he’s the prettiest fucking picture, because he is.

“Richie, come on,” Eddie hisses, and Richie adds a fourth finger, because he knows them. Eddie moans against his chest. “Come on, Richie, let’s go, come on—”

Richie pulls his fingers out, and Eddie groans loudly, climbing up over Richie and taking Richie’s cock in his hand so he can guide it into his own ass. Richie just watches, hands on his hips, grounding Eddie as he bottoms out.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Eddie gasps. Richie feels exactly the same, and thrusts upwards experimentally. Eddie frowns down at him, brow furrowing. “You’re not fucking in charge here, babe. Let me work.”

Richie starts laughing so hard it dislodges them, and Eddie moans, pressing harder onto him and catching Richie’s face in his hands. He kisses him, then slides up and back down, finding himself a rhythm that he can use to steadily fuck himself on Richie’s cock. Richie holds him tight, lets him do his thing, and remembers him standing over Marvin Atkins again. Now, Eddie’s knelt over him, speared on his cock, panting his name, and Richie fucking loves him with everything he’s got.

“I wish I could’ve fucked you at the school,” Richie says. Eddie huffs.

“What the fuck?” he demands. “Why?”

“Because I thought about fucking you there literally every day I went to school there,” Richie says, “in literally every fucking room I went into.”

“Richie,” Eddie murmurs, biting into Richie’s neck to quiet himself.

“I was a horny high schooler, Eds,” Richie tells him, breath hitching when Eddie shoves himself down so hard he jostles Richie up into the pillows. “I thought about sex all the time, and I really only wanted to have sex with you, most of the time, so. Missed opportunities.”

“Maybe at the thirty year reunion,” Eddie allows, “which we’ll only go to so you can yell at more people and I can maybe punch somebody else.”

“I’m glad your anger management is working,” Richie says, as Eddie kisses him again.

“Fucking focus,” Eddie whispers. “I’m literally sitting on your dick right now and you’re taunting me. If you didn’t have such a huge fucking cock, I’d walk out right now.”

“Thank fuck I’m packing heat, then,” Richie says, as Eddie finds his own prostate with Richie’s dick and comes hard all over their chests. Some of it hits Richie in the chin and his mouth, so he licks his lips.

“Gross,” Eddie comments.

“Don’t stop now, Eds, I’m dying here,” Richie says, half-kidding, breathless. Eddie pulls off of him and wraps his hand around him instead.

“God, you’re huge,” Eddie says, looking down at Richie’s dick slipping through his hand. Richie looks, too, because he’s tempted by the way Eddie’s looking at him. Eddie’s hands look small, around Richie’s cock, and he knows Eddie’s hands aren’t that small, and he fucking moans.

“Eddie, fuck,” Richie whimpers. Eddie ducks his head down and licks a long stripe up Richie’s dick, and that’s the last straw, Richie’s gone. Eddie catches some of it in the face before he pulls back, and the rest gets him in the stomach and the chest. He drags his hands down Richie’s chest, digs his nails into his flesh and yawns. “What are you, a cat? I knew you were a fucking furry—”

“Shut up,” Eddie cuts him off. He kisses the bruise on Richie’s chest, then slides down to kiss over his soft belly. “Fucking love you, Rich.”

“Fucking love you, too, Eddie Spaghetti,” Richie tells him. Eddie climbs off of him, after a long moment, and gets washcloths from the bathroom to clean them both off. When they’re presentable, they head down the hall to get the girls, and Richie’s thrilled to find them all already asleep. They haul them back to their rooms, Riley in Eddie’s arms and Audrey and Nora pressed into Richie’s, and it’s suspiciously easy to lay them in their travel cots, still sleeping.

“I’m almost worried,” Richie whispers, as they climb into bed together. Eddie curls up behind him, nuzzling his nose into the back of Richie’s neck. “They’re weirdly quiet.”

“Just let them sleep,” Eddie says. “Small blessings.”

“Alright,” Richie murmurs. He yawns and lets himself drift in Eddie’s hold, his back to Eddie’s chest, and he’s almost asleep when he hears Eddie inhale like he’s going to speak.

“Where did they get that Polaroid?” Eddie asks softly, into the quiet. “I thought you kept it.”

“I did,” Richie says. “I gave it to them before I left and told them to use it on all the invitations so it would make you laugh. I figured I’d see it on the invitations, and they could just give it back at the first reunion, and then I didn’t go to the first reunion.”

“Ah,” Eddie says. He’s quiet for a moment. Then, he says, “Do you still have my dorm room key?”

“Fucking believe it or not, I think I do,” Richie tells him. “I think it’s in that box that I had my journal in, my special shit box, you remember?”

“Yeah, Rich,” Eddie says. He sounds almost softened, almost touched. Richie turns around in his hands and kisses Eddie on the chin. “Rich.”

“Love you,” Richie tells him happily. Eddie smiles at him without missing a beat.

“Love you, fuckhead,” Eddie whispers back. “Go to sleep.”

“And have wet dreams about you punching bullies for me?” Richie says softly. “Can do.”

“You fucking—” Eddie snaps, a little too loud, and Nora starts to fuss.

“You fucked us over,” Richie hisses. Eddie shoves his pillow over Richie’s face before leaving the bed to scoop Nora up and calm her down before she wakes up the others. Richie watches him bouncing her, watches their matching eyes looking at each other, hers wide and teary and his comforting and gentle as he speaks quietly to her, and he’s glad he got this now, even if he had a fucked up time getting here.

“C’mere,” Richie says, touched. Eddie comes and sits beside him, scooting up into his hold. Richie draps his arm around him and kisses Nora on the forehead once she’s close enough. “Thank you.”

“For what?” Eddie asks, stroking a tear off of Nora’s cheek. Richie turns his face into Eddie’s hair and shuts his eyes.

“All of it,” he says. Eddie cups his face in his hand for a moment before releasing him, and Richie rests in the moment.