Archive of Our Own

This whole thing, Richie has decided, is fucking bullshit. And he says that, out loud, just to himself, as he pulls his car into the parking lot of the goddamn Derry Townhouse.

“Fuckin’ bullshit, man. Bullshit!”

First of all, he thinks bitterly as he kills the engine and allows himself one good thunk of his head against the top of the steering wheel, he didn't even remember he grew up in this shitstain of a town until he got that fucking phone call and blew chunks all over the fire escape. Why the fuck would he come back here? He doesn’t even come to Maine when he tours!

Second of all, he muses, unhooking his seat belt and stepping out of the too-expensive-but-fuck-you mustang he picked up at the stupid Hertz at the stupid Bangor International Airport that he flew into like six fucking hours ago, he did come back. Like a fucking idiot, he came back! He doesn’t know why, can’t come up with a reason that’s even in the same zip code as logical, but he did it anyway.

Well, alright, to be fair, they all did, they all came back, and, from what Richie witnessed in the Jade parking lot during their seven-way panic attack after that shit in the restaurant’s party room, everyone, barring maybe Mikey, is feeling exactly how he feels about it. He doesn’t know if that makes him feel better, but he’s not feeling very charitable at the moment, so he decides, fuck you, it actually makes him feel worse!

And third of all, he notices, with a sense of abject horror akin to what he felt when the fucking fortune cookies started, like, exploding into Lovecraftian nightmares less than thirty minutes ago, there's a bright red NO in front of the green VACANCY sign in the front townhouse window.

Fourth of all, why the fuck would he call ahead to book a room at the Derry Townhouse? He wouldn’t do that, and he didn’t do that.

Fucking bullshit.

He grabs his duffle bag from the backseat, slinging the beat-up, ratty bastard that's literally been with him since college over one shoulder, slams the door, and he doesn't know what his next move is until a car swings into the spot next to where he’d parked, stopping him from moving.

It's Eddie, of course, in a sleek SUV that he probably also picked up from the stupid Hertz at the stupid Bangor International Airport, since he let it slip at dinner that he crashed his own car the day before. His face looks pinchy and pale, the same expression still etched onto it that he was wearing when they all split up in the Jade parking lot so they could drive across town.

Richie feels relieved to see him, but it’s a distant relief, equal parts subconscious and genuine. If he was in a better headspace, he’d probably, maybe be able to handle that feeling, or at least allow himself to feel it, but, then again, if fuzzy, barely-returning memory serves, Richie has never exactly been stellar at dealing with any emotion that exists adjacent to Eddie Kaspbrak.

"You could've fucking hit me!" Richie bellows, loud enough for Eddie to hopefully hear him even with all the car windows rolled up.

Eddie either does hear him, or, if he doesn't, he gets the gist of what Richie says enough to be able to respond: he flips Richie off, a smooth, practiced gesture, middle finger rising up while his thumb juts out to the side. He holds his hand up for the whole time it takes him to get out of the car.

Fuckin’ fifth of all , Richie's helpful brain supplies in a Voice that sounds like he now vaguely remembers his own used to sound back when he was in the throes of puberty, you're still in love with him, aren't you? Pathetic.

It is a little pathetic, he supposes, as he stands there like a dumb dog waiting for Eddie to give him footsteps to follow behind, but pathetic is a remarkably comfortable space for Richie to sink into. Being pathetic, feeling pathetic is such a warm, safe place that it might as well be a hug.

He knew, of course, with startling clarity that hit him the moment they locked eyes in the restaurant, that even if he didn't remember his name until Mike called, didn‘t remember his face until he saw it then, he was still balls deep in love with Eddie Kaspbrak, cutest boy in the world. The only difference now, his brain had helpfully offered mid-meal, is that Eddie isn't a scrawny, gangly teenager anymore. That's good, though, since Richie isn't, either, so that would be weird. 

Well. Weirder.

"There are, like, fifteen other spaces you could have taken," Richie gripes, and he doesn't care, really, because it doesn't fucking matter, actually, but he's keyed up and he keeps thinking about that fucking eyeball in the fortune cookie, and if he doesn't pick at something he's going to explode. "What would you have done if you fucking smashed me like a bug on your windshield?"

"I would'a scraped you off with my fuckin' snow brush and flung you into grass," Eddie snaps back, and he's clearly in a state similar to Richie's. “I wouldn’t have fucking hit you, jackass, what, you don’t think I know how’da drive?”

“You literally crashed your car, like, twenty-four hours ago,” Richie points out, and he wants to stay angry, likes being able to filter his emotions through that lens, but he doesn’t sound all that mad anymore. He just sounds fucking tired.

Eddie huffs and sniffs and doesn’t say anything, and Richie is reminded of a time, hundreds of times, maybe thousands of times this little two-man show played out in their youth. If he were still fourteen, Richie would point out the similarities between Eddie’s irritated huffs and the behavior of the mama hippos at the Haven Zoo. If Eddie were still fourteen, he’d probably punch Richie in the nuts for a crack like that, then fuss over Richie and refuse to leave his side when he inevitably puked from the pain.

“Are you fucking coming or not?” Eddie barks, shoving the rental car key into the pocket of his hoodie. He isn’t walking, though; he’s clearly waiting for Richie so they can walk together.

“Yeah, yeah,” Richie grumbles, and he tries to pretend that he doesn’t feel just a little better about his whole thing once he falls into step beside Eddie, but it’s hard, and his brain feels like mashed potatoes, so he doesn’t fight the lifting thundercloud too much.

They walk about twenty feet without saying anything, their footsteps and their breathing eerily in sync, and it’s starting to freak Richie out a little, so he jerks his chin up at the sign they’re passing by.

“Popular spot,” Richie tries to joke, but it falls flat, and then he swallows hard, twisting his nose to the side, “I, ah, should’a prob’ly booked a room, eh?”

Eddie stops dead, which makes Richie skid to a stop, too, and that’s embarrassing, but not quite as embarrassing as it is to be a forty-year-old man on the receiving end of a lecture about responsibility, which is the next slice of heaven Richie finds himself tripping into.

“What do you mean you should’ve booked a room?” Eddie asks, and Richie is briefly impressed by the fact that unlike all his comedy friends–friends? He doesn’t know anymore–Eddie doesn’t do a dumb impression of his voice back at him, “You didn’t book a room? Where’s your shit? Did you leave your shit in your car?”

Richie, who feels about six-years-old at the moment, feels like he’s being given one of those Went Tozier Talks, a firm and maybe annoyed but still reasonably gentle admonition for doing something objectively a little shortsighted, is overcome with the sudden urge to break out into a sprint and keep running until his legs give out. He doesn’t do that, though, because he has a feeling his body would last a remarkably short amount of time before he crumpled to the ground like a dirty shirt.

In lieu of that, he hikes the duffle bag on his shoulder further up, smacking his hand against the faded black polyester.

“I got my shit right here,” Richie says, hoping, foolishly, that Eddie will let him go now.

“That’s it?” Eddie asks instead, tipping his head at Richie like a dog who doesn’t understand the trick he’s being asked to perform. “What, did you pack, like, a single outfit?”

“I didn’t know how long we’d fuckin’ be here, man!” Richie responds, and he sounds both defensive and, unfortunately, very fucking whiny, even to his own ears, “I bombed my fucking set and went home and collapsed for, like, six hours, then I shoved some shit in here and got on a plane. I didn’t even take a fucking shower, dude.”

Eddie is rubbing his hand over his face like he can’t believe what he’s being told, and Richie has a feeling it’s shockingly similar to what Eddie does when he finds out his local grocery store isn’t carrying his favorite, like, kale chips or whatever anymore. Richie is kind of waiting to be asked to go get a manager.

“So, you didn’t pack,” Eddie says, bringing a second hand up to pull at his stupidly handsome– not fucking right now, holy shit –face, his palms massaging slow circles around his orbital bones, “and you didn’t shower–which, by the way, gross , I can’t believe you fucking hugged people after a plane ride and a stage performance without taking a shower –and you didn’t book a room?”

That about sums it up, yeah , Richie thinks, and he hunches his shoulders, folding in on himself like a wounded animal.

“Three strikes, guess I’m out,” Richie says, and he wants it to be funny, or maybe mad, but it’s just defeated, “I’ll just pack it in and go home.”

“Pack what in, you didn’t bring anything!” Eddie explodes, tossing his arms up in the air like he’s completely, totally given up, and then he screws his eyes shut and takes a deep breath in through his nose, lets it back out through his barely-parted lips, which Richie is now looking at, shit, that’s not going to fucking help , “Let’s just go.”

“I don’t have a room,” Richie blurts out, shoulders still hunched, “I don’t have a go to go to, Eds, so–”

“Don’t call me Eds–!”

And Richie just. Snaps.

“Shut the fuck up, oh my God!” Richie yells, and he feels like a spool of thread coming unraveled, and he’s thinking about that eyeball fortune cookie again, and, and, and, “Just shut up! Shut up ! For like a second , man, God!”

Part of Richie hopes to whatever deity can hear him that Eddie will continue the shouting match just so he has an excuse to feel something. Another part of Richie is grateful that Eddie doesn’t. 

A third part of Richie hates the fucking silence he just tossed them both into.

A moment passes, and then another, and another, and it feels like a contest, feels like whoever dares to say something first will either win for having the balls to do it or lose for being a prick. Richie opens his eyes, not having realized he’d closed them as he was shouting, and they just look at each other, and there’s barely any light, and everything is shadowed and almost scary in a way that makes Richie’s pulse jump, and the urge to turn tail and run is stronger than he’s felt it since he was a kid.

“Sorry,” Richie’s mouth says without his permission, because apparently it’s going rogue, which is great and cool, since Richie’s mouth leading the charge has certainly never, ever ended with him getting his goddamn clock cleaned. He tries to stop it, considers physically slapping a hand over his lips to shut himself up, but he has no control. “I’m sorry, fuck, I’m just…”

“Hey, no,” Eddie cuts in, and his voice is too fucking kind, sweeter than Richie has heard it all night, definitely sweeter than Richie deserves after being a grade-A dickhead, and Richie sees the way Eddie’s hand jerks like he might reach out and touch Richie’s arm, but then he just flexes his fingers and leaves his palm where it is, “no, dude, it’s-it’s alright. I’m sorry, too.”

This is unfamiliar territory. The handful of genuine apologies shared by the two of them as kids were because of much more egregious shit than this–Richie’s got a misty, out-of-focus memory of one of them apologizing to the other for letting an arm get broken, and he’s hit with such a wave of genuine guilt that he almost vomits–so this feels weird, new.

We’re grownups, Richie thinks, shutting his eyes again, we’re not fucking kids anymore, we’re grownups .

To temper the spike of Feeling he gets at that thought, Richie opens his eyes again, trying for a smile that he can feel stretches across his face like a grimace instead.

“You really think I stink too bad to give people hugs?” he asks.

And it’s dumb, easily one of his worst attempts at a joke of the night–which is saying something, considering the quip he made about Bev’s husband looking like the kind of guy he’d see on an episode of Dateline for killing his wife–but Eddie still lets out this little chuckle, more of a sharp exhale than a laugh. It’s not much, but it’s more than enough.

“If you smelled that bad, I wouldnt’a hugged you,” Eddie points out proudly, bobbing his head, “I’ve got a sensitive nose, I would’a known as soon as you walked in the room.”

Richie laughs, too, his more of a barking, half-hysterical thing that maybe reveals how unhinged he’s feeling. “Well,” he says, shrugging a shoulder up, “thank God for the whore’s bath I took in the airport bathroom.”

“Ew, dude, please tell me you didn’t?”

“ Jeezums , Eds, I don’t bathe, you crucify me, I do bathe, you–”

“Don’t,” Eddie insists, and he pokes his index finger square into Richie’s chest, “call me Eds.”

Richie snaps his mouth shut, and while he contemplates whether or not feeling his dick come online over just the tip of Eddie’s finger touching him through two goddamn layers of fabric is something that would happen to him normally or only happen to him because he’s actively falling off his rocker, Eddie starts walking again. So, of course, Richie follows.

When they get inside, the other five are already there, having a little meeting of the minds in the cozy room off the townhouse main lobby. There’s a bar, and there are seven glasses on it, five already with red-brown liquor in them, but Richie doesn’t see a single worker, not in there or in the lobby itself.

“What t-took you so l-long?” Bill asks, hands on his hips, and it’s nice, kind of, that he’s fallen back into his role. Nice in an annoying way.

“Keep your shorts on, Bilbo, we’re here now,” Richie says quickly, not wanting to give Eddie a chance to spill about their… whatever-it-was in the parking lot, “what’re we drinking?”

Stanley, who had, at some point after their run-in with the fucking nightmare that was their collective childhood, taken his glasses off in favor of hooking them over the collar of his sweater, is closest to the bottle, and he picks it up to pour.

“Sipping whisky,” Stan says, looking at Richie like it’s a warning, and he flings the glass across the bar directly into Richie’s waiting hand.

Richie whistles a low note at the ease of the move. “That how you scored your wife?” he asks, closing his fingers around the glass and lifting it to his lips.

Unexpectedly, the corner of Stan’s mouth quirks up a little, like Richie just told an inside joke.

“I was her bar back,” Stan says, “worked my way up.”

“Ha!” Richie laughs, a single honk as he raises his glass, and he can very clearly see Stan in his mid-twenties, working his way through his MS by moonlighting at some Atlanta dive bar, “I fuckin’ bet you did, tiger.”

“I-if you two are done?” Bill snaps, and that’s reminiscent of childhood, too, but earlier childhood, back when it was the original four losers.

Because things never really change, even when they change a whole fucking lot, Richie rolls his eyes, and, for fun, slams his drink in one big, ugly gulp. 

Now, here’s a lesson: there’s a reason they call it a sipping whisky, since while it’s a pretty smooth experience when done right, the shit has a tendency to burn like a motherfucker if you go for it too fast, but, hey, Richie’s no pussy.

The way he immediately hacks a cough so hard he’s afraid he’s actually going to puke is entirely a coincidence.

“Jesus, Richie,” Ben says, somewhere between amused and lightly frustrated as he reaches out to pat Richie’s back just a little too hard.

“You owe me ten bucks,” Stan says, pointing at Bev.

“I never agreed to that bet, Stanley,” Bev insists, grabbing a cigarette out of her crumpled pack, “and you know that.”

That starts about three separate conversations–about the bet, about Bev smoking, about there being more important things to talk about right now, holy fuck–and Richie can’t follow any of them because his sinuses are burning pretty badly, actually, and he reminds himself that he’s getting too goddamn old to be showing off for chucks. No one even fucking laughed! Not worth it, not even slightly worth it.

“Alright, alright!” Mike’s smooth, clear voice sails over the rest of the yammering, and six heads snap in his direction. He’s smiling in that way that’s really just a step away from a neutral expression, his forehead crinkled up, and, fuck, they’re all getting too goddamn old, aren’t they? “Can we get back to it? Please?”

They talk for almost thirty minutes, making vague plans for the following morning amid getting smacked in the faces with bleary memories of the summer of 1989. There’s a ritual or some shit they gotta do, and Richie doesn’t really believe it’ll work, but he’s not about to be the only one to pussy out. With a plan to reconvene at the asscrack of dawn–actually, they’re gonna meet at 6:30 in the shitting morning, which Richie thinks might be before dawn, but whatever–they all start drifting towards the archway that leads to the lobby and staircase.

“Wait, wait,” Eddie says suddenly, and everyone stops in their tracks and turns to look at him. He’s still looking a little pinchy and a little stressed, but he fits right in with the rest of the pinchy, stressed group of them. He jerks an accusatory thumb in Richie’s direction. “Numbnuts didn’t book a room, so he’s got nowhere to sleep tonight.”

Richie’s face flushes hot so fast he gets dizzy, and he tries to really cooly lean against the bar, but his elbow slips a little and he almost busts his entire ass. Still, though, after resituating himself, he flashes the gang a cheesy smile.

“Oh, shit, it did say NO VACANCY outside, huh?” Ben asks, face twisting up in genuine concern, which is refreshing.

“You moron,” Stan says, shaking his head, which is less refreshing but more familiar, “what, too busy eating shit in front of a crowd to call ahead?”

“I don’t eat shit in front of crowds, Stanley, that’s just in front of your mother,” Richie snaps, and he sounds angrier than he means to, but that’s because he’s angrier than he wants to be right now. “It’s fine, I’ll go sleep in my car, not like I haven’t done that shit before. Thanks for the concern, though, pals !”

Everything goes uncomfortably silent, and Richie is tempted to try and joke his way out of this, but that feels like a bad idea. It might not be a worse idea than just sitting and stewing in the quiet, but, fuck, he’s tired, and he doesn’t know if he has it in him.

“Y-you’ll just have to d-do-double up,” Bill says after way too long, and he says it like it’s that simple, that easy, “it-it’s only gonna be, like, what, a d-day or two, right, Mikey?”

“Yeah, yeah, just a couple days, couple nights,” Mike assures him with a sincere smile that makes Richie’s insides feel inexplicably yucky, “I’d have you stay with me, but I don’t even have a functional couch right now, and I’m sleeping in a twin, so.”

And that’s so fucking goddamn sad that Richie almost doesn’t give a shit about his own predicament, but only almost.

“Right, well,” Richie says, tone painted bright and vibrant and fake as hell, and he claps his hands together and offers everyone what he’s come to refer to as his Interview Smile, “who wants to be the lucky son of a gun? Don’t all volunteer at once, now.”

There’s a beat of silence, and Richie is really, truly terrified they’ll play the ol’ Nose Goes game, and while that might seem like innocent fun, he knows he’ll be fucking hurt about it, just like he was when Bev loudly announced at dinner that there’s no way Richie’s married. It feels like he’s waiting for the dodgeball captains to decide who gets stuck with the four-eyed loser who can’t really throw or catch or dodge or do any of the fundamentals necessary for that dumb fucking gym class game, and if no one wants to pick him, he’ll do exactly what he used to do back then–he’ll ask to go to the bathroom and just fucking walk out of the building and go home. Fuck ‘em, anyway, let them play without him, see if he fucking cares.

“C’mon, jackass,” Eddie sighs finally, and the tension drains out of the room as he crosses his arms and scowls and starts moving to the stairs, “you better fuckin’ pray I can sleep through your snoring or I’m literally going to smother you in your sleep.”

***

The Townhouse room is, essentially, exactly what Richie expects it to be–shitty, but not half as shitty as the seedy ass motels he spent most of the late nineties inhabiting when he first started doing shows outside of an hour drive from his place. It’s got a king-size bed, which is a score, actually, but the duvet is ugly and polyester, and the pillows are limp and sad. There’s a decent-sized TV that’s got pride of place, sitting on a dresser that doubles as an entertainment center, and there’s a little desk and desk chair beside it. There’s a Mr. Coffee and a little wire basket of styrofoam cups and coffee packets and tea bags on the other side of the entertainment center, and there are two doors inside, one to a closet and one to an ensuite bathroom situated next to a window covered by curtains the same ugly brown-green as the comforter.

All in all, not too bad.

Eddie’s shit is already in the room when they walk up, since he dropped it off before going to the Jade, and he’s claimed one corner of the room for two bigass suitcases, a slightly-smaller suitcase, and a backpack.

“Jesus, Eds, you leave anything behind?” Richie asks as they close the door behind them. He immediately drops his duffle bag, toes off his Vans, and tosses his leather jacket in the direction of the desk chair, but he isn’t too pressed when it lands on the floor instead.

Eddie huffs, hands on his hips, and then he stoops to pick up Richie’s jacket, draping it properly over the back of the chair and smoothing his hands over the shoulders of it.

“Don’t call me that,” Eddie says, but it’s quiet, almost defeated.

“Yeah, yeah,” Richie nods, rolling his eyes. He reaches for the TV remote and flicks it on, moving to sit on the edge of the bed. “Whaddaya wanna wa–”

“No, nuh uh, no way,” Eddie interrupts suddenly, reaching out and grabbing Richie’s wrist. The touch shocks Richie, throws him off, and he nearly plonks onto the bed, but Eddie tugs against the fall, and Richie, wide-eyed, stays on his socked feet.

“What the fuck?”

“You’re not going anywhere near the bed until you shower,” Eddie insists, grabbing the remote out of Richie’s slack hand and physically nudging Richie in the direction of the bathroom with his shoulder.

“Aw, Eds, I–”

“Richie, I swear to Christ,” Eddie grunts, shaking his head and throwing the remote down onto the entertainment center, the TV still on, showing the TV guide channel. The plastic hits the wicker with a rattle that’s louder than Richie thinks it ought to be. “Go fucking shower, and don’t fucking call me Eds!”

Richie grumbles, but he does as he's told, mostly because he's developing the tell-tale pulses of a tension headache in both temples and arguing will just aggravate that. Besides, a shower doesn't sound like the worst idea in the world.

He takes his whole duffle bag with him into the bathroom and locks the door once it's clicked closed behind him. He turns the fan on, frowning at the mechanical, almost-grinding whirr it makes upon start-up, and reaches to turn on the water, tugging the little metal lever up so the stream comes out of the showerhead rather than the faucet, and he let's it warm up while he strips out of his clothes, sets his glasses on the sink, digs around his duffle until he finds his clear toiletries pouch to set on the lip of the tub. Typically, he'd just piss in the shower, but he feels like Eddie will somehow know if he does that, so he opts for the toilet instead, stepping into the shower as it's still flushing.

The water feels good, and he groans as it hits his body, mats his hair down against his scalp. The pressure isn't the greatest, but it's decently hot and, at least for the moment, doesn't seem to be turning to blood or whatever, so he won't complain. He makes quick work of raking shampoo through his hair and rinsing it, adds a little conditioner, since he's with polite company, and then he gets to work on lathering up one of the Townhouse's white, over-bleached washcloths with his little travel bar of Dove soap.

Richie scrubs himself all over, starting at his face and working his way down his neck, his arms, armpits, chest, and then down to his belly and below. He even washes his feet, works the cloth between his toes even though that shit tickles and he almost wiggles enough to fall over. It's maybe a little more thorough than he'd usually be, but he's not exactly in the business of sharing a bed with someone, at least not for an entire night, so, he figures he at least owes Eddie his best work.

And, shit, he'd allowed himself to dissociate a little since their parking lot tête-à-tête, but he rather suddenly crashes back into his body with the kind of shocking revelation that he, Richie Tozier, will be sharing a room with Eddie Kaspbrak.

And sharing a bed, too. 

There's a moment, a brief one, where Richie wonders if it would be possible to ninja his way past Eddie and get the hell out of dodge. Probably not, since he doesn't exactly have the agility of a ninja, but it could be worth a shot.

"Fuck," Richie mumbles to himself, finished with his showering but staying under the spray of hot water just to feel something. He jams his palms against his eyes and rubs hard enough to see stars, and he takes a deep breath in, holds it, and forces it back out, counting all the while. He does it again, and again, and after the fourth time, he reaches for the dial and slams the water off.

Shivering, he steps out of the shower, grateful that the housekeeper, or maybe Eddie, thought to lay down a little towel as a bath mat so he doesn't slip and bust his ass on the tile. He grabs a folded towel from the metal shelf of them and dries off, wincing at the scratchy, over-washed terrycloth, and forgoes cinching it around his waist, deciding he'd rather be fucking naked and cold than risk letting that shit touch his dick again. He goes through the motions of swiping on deodorant–because, again, he's sharing a fucking bed with Eddie goddamn Kaspbrak–and ponders the pros and cons of dabbing cologne on his neck for a good minute and a half before he decides against it. He wouldn't want Eddie to think he was trying to impress him or anything, despite the fact that every single stupid fucking cell of Richie's stupid fucking body is screaming for Eddie's attention.

Still naked, Richie brushes his teeth, making faces at himself in the mirror all the while to avoid scrutinizing every wrinkle and pore and whisker on his face. He spits and rinses and tucks his toothbrush back into its little travel bag, then starts rooting through his duffle bag for some clothes. 

Because of who he is as a person, Richie didn't make a packing list, and, therefore, didn't exactly do a stellar job of bringing everything he maybe should have. Sure, he remembered the important shit–like his meds and three books he won't have time or energy to read and two notebooks and a purple gel pen and a pack of gum with only two pieces left in it–but he also neglected some other stuff. Like pants to sleep in. 

"T'be fair," Richie mutters to himself, and he hopes Eddie can't hear him, but the fan is still on and it sounds like Eddie's got the television on, too, "I never wear pants to bed…" 

He considers just going for it, just tossing on a t-shirt and a pair of boxers, his usual bedtime attire, and calling it good. After all, he and Eddie spent, like, a lot of their youth together in soaking wet tighty-whities at the Quarry.

But, then again, they're a little older now, and he doesn't wanna freak Eddie out. So, he pulls on a black t-shirt, then he tugs on a clean pair of jeans over his boxers, tousles a hand through his wet hair for the hell of it, dons his glasses, and walks out of the bathroom before he can change his mind.

The sight that greets him is enough to make his pulse pick up. Eddie is sitting in the desk chair, but he's spun it away from the desk, and he's watching what sounds like some cooking show on the TV.

In another life , Richie begins to think, but he pulls the fucking e-brake on that one before it goes any further.

"You changed into jeans ?" Eddie asks the moment Richie walks through the door, his attention pulled away from the television and focused solely on Richie, and as much as Richie aches for that, it's hard to stomach, too, "What, are you going out?" 

"Out where?" Richie asks, and he pokes back into the bathroom for long enough to gather his dirty clothes and duffle bag, which he walks over to shove against the corner opposite Eddie's shit, "You think I wanna see what illustrious nightlife this town has? No thanks, man, I'll pass." 

Eddie lets out a noise, something that isn't a word or even an affirmative note, but Richie knows, somewhere deep in his hindbrain, that the sound is Eddie-speak for Gotcha, I agree .

"Then why the jeans?" Eddie asks as he stands, marching over to his gaggle of luggage. 

Richie, who is definitely not looking at Eddie's ass–and who is also, it should be noted, a dirty fucking liar and probably a perv–while Eddie’s attention is on whatever he's looking for in the biggest suitcase, shrugs, sheepish.

"I didn't bring, like, my flannel jammie set, dude," Richie answers, and he doesn't know why he's fucking embarrassed, who the fuck sleeps with pants on, anyway?

"You think I did?" Eddie asks, as he pulls out a pair of red, buffalo plaid sleep pants and a gray t-shirt and a pair of underwear that Richie does not, does not notice–they're a vibrant teal and look soft and expensive and they're definitely briefs and Richie hopes the fucking clown smashes through the door and shoots him with a gun–and a pair of black socks. 

"At least you brought pants," Richie replies with another shrug, then, physically turning his entire body so he's looking at the television and not at Eddie, he says, "I've slept in worse before, man, it's no big." 

Eddie, who had started toward the bathroom with his smallest suitcase, presumably to take a shower of his own, stops and turns back, shaking his head. 

"You're gonna be uncomfortable, and you aren't gonna sleep, and you're gonna be a bitch and a half about it tomorrow," Eddie spits, sounding somewhere between angry and resigned, and then he's crouching beside his suitcase again. "Here, I have a spare pair, you want pants or shorts?" 

Richie starts to laugh, but he knows it’s going to turn hysterical, so he chokes on it, shaking his head. Him, in Eddie's pants? He fights the blush he feels creeping over his cheeks at the double-meaning and shakes his head some more. 

"My thighs would tear your clothes to shreds," Richie says, and it sounds jokey and haha, but he's actually deeply, fiercely humiliated by how true it is. God, all his fucking friends are so beautiful and hot and there he is, a shlubby comedian with stretch marks. He feels like Frankenstein's extremely fucked up monster. "It would be like the Hulk, but, like, way less green six pack and way more, like… I dunno, the opposite of a six pack."

"Shut the fuck up," Eddie snaps, and his tone sounds angry, which is not unusual, but it's a different flavor of angry than his normal, "fuck off, I don't, like, wear doll clothes, Richie." 

That… hadn't been what Richie was getting at, not at all, but he feels like he's swallowing his tongue when he opens his mouth to refute it.

There's another unpleasant, uncomfortable silence–that makes at least ten of those this evening, which is probably some kind of record–and Richie knows he's gotta be the one to break it this time. 

"No, man, I just… I mean, like, look at me," he says, and he feels fucking stupid and weirdly small, but not in the way he'd like to be small, "It's not you, man, it's… it’s literally not about you, it’s me…" 

As Richie trails off, Eddie, who's got one fist clutching his own clothes and one fist around a pair of pants and a pair of black basketball shorts, makes a face like he understands, and then he pushes himself up from his crouch with just, like, his core, or whatever, and Richie wants to curl up like a potato bug and die.

"Don't worry," Eddie assures him, walking over to press the hand with the shorts and pants right into the center of Richie's chest, "I always go at least a size up for my loungewear. You'll be fine."

He waits for Richie to grab the clothes from him, and then, and then, he smiles, genuine and real and too much for Richie, actually, who feels dumbstruck and strange. Then, Eddie is turning on his heel and going into the bathroom, shutting and locking the door behind him.

Richie just stands there for an indiscernible amount of time, but it’s long enough for the shower to start up. He allows himself one brief, foggy thought along the lines of Eddie is showering, Eddie is naked, Eddie is naked and wet just through that door before he shakes his head so hard his glasses almost fly off his face.

“Fuck me,” Richie mutters, and he doesn’t think he’s felt this many emotions at the same time in at least twenty years, and he’s half-convinced he’s going to have to puke about it, but he breathes through the nausea burbling ominously through his gut. “Fuck, man…”

While Eddie showers–which seems to be a much longer ordeal than Richie’s was, but, then again, Richie is pointedly Not Thinking About Eddie Showering, so he can’t be sure–Richie takes his chances on the basketball shorts. They fit him okay, just a little more snug in the waist than he would usually go for, but he’s hopeful that he won’t stretch them out too much. He thinks about waiting for Eddie to get back in the room before he crawls into bed, but that feels weird in a way he can’t–won’t–be introspective about right now, so he goes for it, sliding under the covers on the right side of the bed. He hopes Eddie doesn’t mind sleeping on the left side.

Richie does his best to arrange the two sad pillows on his side of the bed into something reasonably comfy to lean against, and then he grabs his phone in the hopes of scrolling on reddit to quiet down the bees in his brain, but he actually winds up getting really invested in this dumb cooking competition show Eddie left on the TV. The teams are constructing cakes that are supposed to represent the theme of Totally 80s, which is so startlingly apt that Richie worries the clown will pop up at any second, but, instead, he’s treated to the delightful and cringe-worthy drama of people trying to work together towards a common goal.

By the time Eddie walks out of the bathroom, followed by a billow of steam, Richie has come up with some pretty good backstories for all the contestants.

"Okay, Eds, which one of the blue team do you think has a piss kink? Right off the bat, first thought!" Richie says, too loud, as he tries not to notice how fucking good Eddie looks all freshly-showered, his hair wet.

Eddie, who drops his suitcase into the corner and flicks on one of the bedside lamps before he goes for the main light switch, looks at the TV, squinting.

"Buzz cut guy," Eddie answers, turning off the overhead light. 

"That's what I thought, too!" Richie nods emphatically. "We gotta be right, I'd bet money on it." 

Richie catches Eddie up on what's happened in the show, since Eddie put it on, while Eddie putters around the room, vaguely tidying. It's familiar, this dynamic, Richie lounging and blabbing about shit on the TV while Eddie absently picks things up, not really cleaning so much as giving his hands something to do. They did this a lot as kids.

"I think the lesbians with the leg warmer cake are gonna win, easy," Richie says, still trying to keep his attention on the TV, which, honestly, is less difficult than it maybe should be. He's invested.

"The pink team? How do you know they're lesbians?" Eddie asks, and then, without an announcement or fanfare–though, does he need either of those things?–he's settling in on the left side of the bed, tugging the shared covers up over his chest as he slouches back against his pillows.

There's quite a bit of bed between them, which is definitely a good thing, but Richie swears he can still feel the heat of a body beside him. He probably can't, is probably just over-sensitive since he hasn't shared a bed in… well, long enough that he can't remember the last time he did it. Still, though, he feels the insane urge to reach out and touch Eddie, just to prove how much space there actually is between their prone bodies, or maybe to prove how little, but he tempers the desire by shoving his left hand under his hip, pushing his whole weight against it until it tingles with the lack of circulation. Better to let it go numb than risk allowing it to inch across the mattress. 

"They're married, they said so," Richie says, "and their cake is all lesbian flag colors." 

Richie wonders, idly, if there's any possible excuse he could conjure up for knowing that off the dome, but, thankfully, Eddie doesn't ask.

"Huh… well, I think they might choke," Eddie says, and his voice reminds Richie of what other men sound like when they talk about sports. 

Richie wonders if this show is something Eddie watches regularly. That would be a cute little Eddie fact, one that Richie would happily store away in the Eddie-sized chamber of his heart, but he has a feeling that asking outright might set Eddie off even worse than the clothes thing did, so he's gotta tiptoe around it instead. 

"What makes you say that?" Richie asks, and it's phrased in a way that doesn't sound like him, but he's hoping Eddie won't notice. 

"Those rice crispy loafers aren't strong enough to hold the legs up, I guaran-fuckin'-tee it," Eddie insists, jabbing a finger at the screen, "and their dowel rods don't go down far enough to bite into it, so it's liable to fall over when they move it. Besides, the stripes are uneven, anyway."

Richie turns to look at Eddie, whose face is lit by a combination of warm yellow lamp light and blue-white television glow, and he feels like his heart is being blown up like one of those party store balloons. He's afraid if he doesn't tie himself down, he'll float up and up and up and wind up stuck in a tree somewhere.

"What?" Eddie asks, irritated, when he notices Richie is staring at him.

And Richie, because he's only got two choices, pull the ripcord or double down, throws a hail Mary.

"You're just… I dunno, man, I missed you," Richie says, words coming out faster than he means for them to, and he hopes Eddie doesn't notice how red his face is getting. "You're… We were best friends, dude, and I just… It's cool to be, like, together again."

Eddie nods, turning back to the TV, a wry little smile on his lips. 

"Shitty reason for a reunion," he says. 

"Yeah, well, if we live, maybe it'll be worth it," Richie responds, and then he cringes so hard it literally kind of hurts. 

He hopes Eddie will say more, but Eddie doesn't, and then Richie has to decide whether or not that upsets him. It would have been nice to hear Eddie return the sentiment, but it would have also hurt if he said it and didn't mean it, so, whatever, Richie calls it a wash.

They watch the rest of the episode, chatting idly during commercials and the less exciting moments, but only about what they're watching. Turns out, Eddie was right about the lesbians' cake needing more stability, since it wobbled like a newborn giraffe when they moved it to the judging table, but it managed to stay in one piece. They ended up in second place, losing by, like, three points to the green team, who made a Ferris Bueller inspired cake that was, Richie admits, pretty rad.

Another episode of the show starts up, and Eddie glances at the alarm clock on the side table closest to him.

"It's ten, we should sleep," Eddie says.

If it's 10:00pm in Derry, it's only 7:00pm in LA, which is so goddamn early that in spite of the last fucking 36 hours or however long it’s been since Mike called, Richie isn't all that sleepy yet. 

"You go ahead, I might stay up a bit," Richie says, frowning and sagging against his pillows, "doubt I’ll sleep tonight anyway." 

"We have to be out of here in, like, eight and a half hours, Rich," Eddie says, reaching for the pull cord of the lap and plunging them into darkness, save for the light of the television casting wonky shadows. He settles down, pulling one of the two pillows out from under his head so he can wrap his arms around it in a move that makes Richie suddenly feel like crying. "You should try. At least, like, close your eyes, man." 

Richie wants to buck and refuse and maybe be shitty about it just for the fuck of it, but he doesn't have the bandwidth. So, he nods, folding his glasses and setting them on the side table.

"Can we leave the TV on?" Richie asks, a common request he'd make during sleepovers in the Tozier rec room, Eddie on the sofa and him curled up in the La-Z-Boy chair. Sometimes, if Eddie was in a good mood, he’d agree, and they’d wake up to the news the next morning.

"Mmm, not all night," Eddie says around a yawn, which is cute and endearing and Richie wants to fucking bite through the shitty pillows. Eddie reaches out to set the alarm clock, then grabs the remote. "Here, I'll set a timer. An hour?" 

Richie hums in response, rolling so he's mostly on his belly, one leg bent up, one arm wormed under his stack of two pillows. He smushes his face into the top one, nuzzles against the cool cotton.

Eddie sets the TV to turn off in an hour, cuts the volume by, like, half, and then he settles back down. They're facing away from each other, because that's the only way Richie is going to make it through the night, but Richie knows in his heart that Eddie is still cuddling that second pillow.

Richie is contemplating the best way to wish Eddie a pleasant sleep, wondering if it's too much to tell him to have sweet dreams, when Eddie's voice, so quiet it's hard to hear it even over the low television volume, rumbles up from the opposite side of the bed.

"I missed your dumb ass, too, you know," Eddie says, voice gentle and tired, all soft around the edges, "and I'm… It's good to, y'know, be… I'm glad you're here. Goodnight, Rich, sleep well." 

Richie squeezes his eyes shut, waiting, waiting for something awful to happen, waiting for Eddie to turn into the clown beside him, but nothing happens. Then, after too much time has definitely passed, he mumbles a response. 

"Yeah… 'night, Eds."

***

Richie is still painfully awake when the TV clicks off. He hasn't moved more than the occasional wiggle when he feels some part of his body protesting about the way he's laying, and he's kept his eyes closed as he listened to the episode. When the timer runs out and the television fizzles as it turns off, he takes a deep breath, squeezing his eyes shut even tighter, then opening them to find that the room is pitch black.

He contemplates grabbing his phone, just for something to do, but he didn't unpack his charger, and he doesn't wanna kill the battery before the morning. He thinks about getting up and searching for one of the books in his duffle bag, but he doesn't want to disturb Eddie.

Speaking of Eddie, he's been moving around just about as much as Richie, occasionally sighing as he twists and shifts under the blankets. He lets out a particularly frustrated sigh just when Richie decides he's gotta get up and get something to fucking do, so Richie takes a chance.

"Eds?" he whispers, and Eddie doesn’t respond, but Richie can barely hear himself, so he clears his throat and tries again with a slightly louder, "hey, Eds?" 

There's a beat, then a sigh, then Eddie asks, "What?" His voice is a little muffled from the way he's laying on the pillow, but it's definitely awake.

"Are you asleep?" Richie whispers, which is dumb, but whatever, he’s not exactly firing cylinders right now.

Eddie snorts, the sound ugly and phlegmy in the back of his throat, and he coughs once. He's still facing away from Richie, and Richie is still facing away from him.

"Do I sound asleep?" Eddie asks, lifting his head a little so he isn't speaking into the pillow so much anymore.

Richie smiles, feeling ooey and gooey and hopelessly in love in a way he hasn’t felt since the last time he and Eddie were up too late together. He relishes the feeling. He also can’t fucking stand it.

Eddie sighs again, and Richie feels the bed move, then Eddie’s bedside lamp turns on. It doesn’t have the brightest bulb in the world, but it’s more than enough to limn the room in its yellowish warmth. Richie is still turned away from Eddie, but he senses that Eddie has rolled onto his back, so he follows suit, ignoring the twinge he feels in his hipbone at the movement. Fuck, he’s so goddamn old, much too old for this crap.

“I can’t sleep,” Eddie says, not looking at Richie, but, instead, squinting pensively up at the ceiling. He’s still got his arms wound tight around one of the pillows, holding it to his chest.

“Me neither,” Richie says, shifting so he’s laying on his side instead, head resting on his hand, elbow bent and digging into his pillows. He takes a deep breath in, pushes it back out through his teeth, and shakes his head a little. “I feel like I got ants in my pants, man, I can’t turn my brain off.”

Eddie hums his assent, a low, smooth note that Richie thinks could probably lull him to sleep if he could record it and play it like white noise. That would be a weird thing to ask, though.

They lay there, silent, the television buffer they previously had turned off, an unknown space of mattress separating them. It could be inches or miles. Richie doesn’t know. It feels like both.

Then, after what could be a whole extra hour but is likely less than a few minutes, Eddie finally turns his head enough to meet Richie’s eyes. Richie almost jumps, feeling strangely caught, but he doesn’t think it shows on his face. He fucking hopes it doesn’t, anyway.

“I have Sleepytime tea,” Eddie says, and his eyes are so big and brown and fucking beautiful that Richie swears his heart rate picks up just looking at them. That used to happen a million years ago, when they were kids, and he figured he grew out of it, but his recent life seems to be chock full of surprises. Unlike some of the others, like having to suddenly drag his ass back to fucking Maine, this surprise doesn’t necessarily seem all bad. “It’s in my bag. I’m gonna make a cup, you want one?”

Tea sounds fucking delightful right now, and Richie doesn’t know if that’s because he actually wants tea or just wants an excuse to do something other than sleep.

“I can make it,” Richie offers, nodding as he pushes himself up to sitting, trying to temper the wince his face twists into when his back offers one big, pitiful throb. He grabs his glasses and slides them on.

“You good?” Eddie asks, because Eddie has always been so keenly observant, especially when others seem to be feeling some kind of discomfort, “Your back?”

Richie nods, and he balls one hand into a fist so he can knead his knuckles against his hip as he swings his legs off the mattress and stands. He groans, the sound pulled from deep in his belly, and he sounds just like his dad. He can’t decide if that’s comforting or actually humiliating.

“Which bag?” he asks, feeling, and hearing, his knees and ankles and big toes pop as he walks over to Eddie’s luggage corner.

“The backpack,” Eddie directs, sitting up more and grabbing the remote, “middle zipper compartment, there’s an old Altoids container I cleaned out and put tea bags in.”

That’s adorable, and Richie very nearly says so as he fishes the little tin out, but he bites his tongue. Sure enough, he opens the tin, which smells far less like mint than any Altoids container, empty or not, he’s ever opened, and finds it stuffed with tea bags. There are several types, most of them Celestial Seasonings, and he fishes out two of the Sleepytime bags before he tucks the container back where he found it.

As Richie gets water going–using the coffee maker to do it isn’t ideal, but he’s sure as fuck not going to take his happy ass down to the lobby and see if they have a kettle he can use, especially at this hour, and double-especially since he still isn’t sure if anyone is fucking working at this place–and sets up their tea bags in the provided styrofoam cups, Eddie turns the TV on, scrolling idly until he stumbles upon an episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.

“This cool?” Eddie asks, upping the volume as the detectives are questioning some guy hauling big pallets of lettuce into the bed of a pickup truck.

“Huh?” Richie asks, tearing open two sugar packets to dump into his cup, “Oh, yeah, dude, I love this show.”

“Me, too,” Eddie says, and he smiles just a little. He’s still holding the pillow, but his grip has relaxed.

“You want anything in your tea?” Richie asks as the water from the reservoir starts pissing into the carafe. “They got sugar and Sweet ‘n Low, and some of those little creamer thingies.”

“Just plain is fine,” Eddie says, “thanks.”

Richie carefully pours the water into their cups, only splashing a couple drops onto the entertainment center in the process. He dunks a coffee stirrer in each cup, then tips one of the little creamers into his cup, stirring it around. Once he’s satisfied, he grabs the cups and turns around, extending Eddie’s out towards him.

“You want an extra cup to flick the bag in after it’s done steeping?” Richie asks as he hands the tea over, trying hard not to fixate on the way their fingers brush as the cup changes hands.

“Nah, I keep the bag in,” Eddie says, pulling the cup to his mouth so he can blow over the top of it, inhaling the steam, “heh, I did that as a kid, too, and it made my mom so fuckin’ mad. She used to tell me it’d turn into–”

“–tar.”

They say the word at the same time as Richie is crawling back into bed, his own cup of tea resting safely on his bedside table. They lock eyes and they grin, and this moment feels Important, feels almost electric. 

Richie remembers Eddie’s mom bitching about the both of them leaving their tea bags in their mugs when they were kids. Tea was one of the only caffeinated things Sonia allowed Eddie to drink without a lot of fussing, so they drank it often when Richie was over there, especially when the winter chill really rattled the old Kaspbrak house and its shoddy insulation. They’d leave the tea bags in their mugs and use them to make second mugs, sometimes thirds. Sonia would piss and moan about how it wasn’t the proper way to drink tea, Eddiebear, really, I’ve taught you better, haven’t I? but that never stopped them.

To this day, Richie stills leaves his tea bags in. He rarely uses them to make second cups, but when he does, he gets a funny feeling in his stomach that he’s never been able to place. He knows what it is now.

The two of them sit, settled reasonably comfortably in the bed, and drink their tea as they watch the episode. Richie has seen it before, and Eddie has, too, but they still speculate about the killer as they watch. They get through about half the episode, and they both finish their cups of tea, and, during a commercial for some antidepressant that Richie is pretty sure he was on briefly in the early 2000s, Eddie sighs, dragging the pillow he’d been holding back to his chest.

“Hey, Rich?” Eddie asks, quiet, even quieter than he had been when he was explaining why he thought the neighbor was a reasonable suspect, even though they both knew he was a red herring. “Can I… ask you something?”

“What?” Richie asks, squinting at the commercial, trying to remember if he ever felt like frolicking in a field while he was taking that particular SSRI, then Eddie’s question registers and he immediately turns his attention away from the TV screen in favor of looking at Eddie instead. “Yeah, man, sure, what’s up?”

Richie worries, like he always does when someone, anyone asks if they can ask him a question, that Eddie has somehow found out just how deeply and tragically closeted he is. Being so knowledgeable about the colors of the lesbian flag probably fucked him, damn it, and what if Eddie freaks the fuck out and kicks him out of the room? Where will he go? He could go to Stan’s room, maybe, he reasons, but what if Eddie texts Stan and tells him why he kicked Richie out and then Stan kicks him out, too? God, where’s that fucking goddamn piece of shit clown when he needs him, he could really go for being fucking eaten right now, holy–

“Are you… are you, like, scared, man?”

For a second, or maybe longer, Richie doesn’t understand what Eddie is asking. Scared? Him? Yeah, fucking of course he is, but he doesn’t understand the context of why Eddie is asking until he suddenly remembers where he is and who he’s with and why they’re fucking there, sharing a bed, waiting for the sun to rise so they can go kill a demon with the power of friendship or whatever the shit. When he remembers all that, the question makes more sense.

“Scared? Moi?” Richie asks, turning a shocked expression to Eddie, but then he relaxes his face and lets his shoulders, which had crept up to his ears, deflate against the wicker headboard and his pillows. “Yeah, dude, I’m fuckin’ scared, ‘course I’m scared. I’ve been in, like, shit my fuckin’ britches territory since Mikey called, are you kidding?”

Eddie nods, and he lets out a relieved breath, but he doesn’t say anything, looking away from Richie and back at the TV, the commercial break over.

Richie wants to wait for another commercial, but he can’t. He feels like the words are clawing their way up his throat, and if he doesn’t let them jump out of his mouth, he’s going to choke on them and probably barf all over the duvet, and then Eddie will kick his sorry ass out guaranteed.

“Are you scared?” Richie asks, and his voice is too loud, makes Eddie jump, and he immediately feels fucking terrible. “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t… sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Eddie says, but his voice is tight, tense, and Richie can hear the air moving through his throat as he swallows with a gulp, which is kind of gross, but that’s alright. Eddie, rather pointedly, doesn’t answer the question.

Richie should leave it alone, but he can't. And maybe he shouldn't?

"Are you scared, Eds?" Richie asks again, softer this time, tone bordering on gentle in a way that Richie worries might sound more pandering than he intends. "It's… we're all, like, pissing ourselves, dude, it's-it's normal, I think?"

Eddie nods, and he takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, exhales, and opens his eyes again, looking at Richie properly once more. Their locked gazes make Richie shiver, but Eddie either doesn't notice or doesn't care.

"I… I don't know," Eddie admits, and he cuts his eyes over to his luggage, then to the TV, then back to Richie's face, "I've… I've been in, like, crisis-mode since Mike called, but, like… it feels more like a midlife crisis than a fuckin' clown bastard crisis. Isn't that nuts?" 

Eddie huffs out a half-laugh, but it isn't joyful, and Richie watches the way he clenches his jaw and screws his eyes shut before he relaxes and continues. 

"I'm scared," Eddie says, but then qualifies it with, "but… maybe less about, like, this stuff than I should be? Maybe? I… Really, what I'm scared of is what happens, like… After. After this." 

Richie nods, and he feels like he kind of understands, but also feels like he's missing some pretty key pieces of what Eddie is trying to tell him. He doesn't know if he's supposed to push or back off, and that's not something he can ask, so he tries not to think, tries to just feel, tries to follow his gut. His gut wants him to push.

"I… I mean, I'm worried about after, too, man," Richie starts, and he can hear the tone of his voice, knows damn well he sounds like he's hedging, which he is, but he's trying really hard not to, which should hopefully count for something. "I mean, everything is, uh… well, different. It will be, I mean. Which is good, probably, but also it's, uh… Yeah."

Eddie nods solemnly, which is wild because that probably means Richie accidentally stumbled upon something in spite of the fact that he's still absolutely clueless as to what the fuck Eddie is actually worrying about.

"Is… Is there, like…" Richie starts, sliding further down on the bed until he's lounging against his pillows, hoping that establishing some physical comfort will help in the emotional comfort department, too, "Is there something you're like… worrying about? Specifically?" 

For a couple long moments, it seems like Eddie isn't going to answer him. That would be okay, Richie would understand, but he's definitely relieved when Eddie sighs and nods and meets his eyes again. 

"I… I need you to not judge me right now, okay?" Eddie says, and he sounds serious, much more serious than Richie is ready for. "Just, like… Please?" 

And fuck, he sounds so raw and exposed, a nerve at risk of being poked and smarting like the Dickens. Richie couldn't deny him anything ever, but he definitely can't deny him anything when he sounds like that. 

"Of course, Eddie," Richie says, and he sounds serious and raw, too, which surprises him but doesn't seem to shock Eddie, "I… Yeah, man, no, of course I won't judge you, dude. You can tell me anything." 

Richie has no idea what Eddie might tell him. Is he battling a horrifying, terminal illness? Is he a serial killer? Is he considering abandoning his weird math job so he can become a cage dancer at some upscale club in Chelsea that Richie probably isn't hot enough to get into?

"I…" Eddie starts to say, trails off, clears his throat, swallows, "I haven't, ah, said this out loud, so, uh… I-I'm… I'm leaving. My wife. I'm leaving my wife. I'm leaving her."

Of all the possibilities worming through Richie's brain, that one never crossed his mind. So, he's a little flummoxed for a second, but he snaps back into himself pretty quickly.

"Oh… oh, fuck, dude, shit," Richie says, and he isn't actually sure how he's supposed to respond. The handful of dudes he's known over the years who have gotten divorced have been, without fail, cheating bastards who were always on the other end of divorce papers. 

"Yeah… Fuck, yeah, man, I'm… I…" Eddie tries, shaking his head, and he sighs so heavily it wheezes out of his lungs, which concerns Richie, but Eddie doesn’t appear to be bothered, "don't fucking laugh, okay, but she… She's… God, fuck, she's just like my fucking mother, and-and she's so controlling, and I need… I fucking need to go, man, I can't… I can't anymore." 

Richie nods, taking the information in, and he finds that he doesn't want to laugh at Eddie. He finds that he actually feels, like, blindingly angry on Eddie's behalf. Richie struggles with anger, always has, never knows where to put it or how to show it, and the way the rage turns sour in his gut makes him wish he knew better.

"She controls you?" Richie asks, and he hears how pissed he sounds but he can't fucking help it. 

"Dude, she fucking… My God, you'd hate her," Eddie chuckles ruefully, maybe not realizing that Richie already does fucking hate her, hates her fucking guts, "Did you know dinner tonight was the first time in… goddamn motherfucking years that I haven't logged my calories in this tracking app she has me use?" 

"What the fuck ?" 

"Yeah! Yeah, man, it's… I thought she was just, y'know… I thought she just cared a lot," Eddie says, and he sounds sad and angry and hurt and upset, fuck, "but… Fuck, man, I had to leave a fuckin' note with my boss in case she filed a missing fucking person's report over me leaving to come here, which is goddamn insane. I… I wasn't gonna, like, leave leave, not right away, but then I… couldn't stop packing. I packed all my shit to come here, and I kept going and going and–"

Eddie pulls a rattling breath into his lungs, and this time, that seems to make him raise his hackles a little, his shoulders bunching up. Richie immediately recognizes where this is headed, wonders idly where Eddie's inhaler may be. He used to carry a spare for Eddie when they were kids, and remembering that really seals the deal on the fact that Richie has been ass-over-tits in love with Eddie for more than thirty years.

"I just… Fuck, Richie, I'm a fucking shithead asshole, I think?" Eddie says, his eyes flashing with genuine fear, "I just packed my shit and I told her I was leaving and I blocked her number and I left, dude. I told my boss in case she went, like, nuclear, but-but I just… I had to get out of there, and I left, and now I'm here, and-and-and–" 

"Woah, hey," Richie cuts in, and he scoots closer to Eddie before he can stop himself, one hand coming up to rest on Eddie's shoulder, "breathe, man, breathe, take a second, breathe." 

Surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly, Eddie does what Richie tells him to, their gazes still locked as Eddie takes deep, measured breaths. It takes a few minutes, but he manages to calm himself down. 

"Thanks…" Eddie says, shaking his head, "fuck, dude, I… I'm sorry, there's, like, literally life or death shit we should be, like, worried about, and I'm just…" 

"No, hey, shut the fuck up," Richie says quickly, tightening the grip he still has on Eddie's shoulder, "this is fucking important, Eddie, it is, okay? It's just as important as… as-as whatever with the clown or whatever, okay? I… Thank you for telling me, man, I don't know what to say, I just… I-I'm glad you, uh… Got out." 

Eddie nods, and he sighs, and then he's hugging Richie so tight that Richie feels like his ribs might be bruising.

Richie, of course, hugs Eddie back, and he expects Eddie will pull away, but Eddie doesn't, and he doesn't, either, so then they just loosen the grips they have on each other minutely but keep holding on. It's objectively uncomfortable and awkward, since they're lounging in bed and they haven't fucking hugged each other seriously–that hug in the Jade doesn't count–in easily over twenty years, but Richie feels the tension bleed out of both of their bodies. He feels looser and, honestly, better the longer they stay wrapped up in each other’s arms.

Eventually, though, Eddie sniffs and shifts and pulls back. They're still sitting really close to one another on the bed, much closer than they had been earlier, close enough that Richie can definitely feel Eddie next to him now. It doesn't feel uncomfortable, though. Richie wishes he could feel it more.

"Thanks, Rich," Eddie mumbles, and then he yawns so big that it takes him by surprise. He blinks, a little confused, and then huffs another little chuckle. "Fuck, I'm tired." 

"Yeah… Yeah, ha, me, too," Richie nods, and he is tired, but he also kind of feels like he could run a marathon, "and… And, uh, yeah, man, you're… You don't have to thank me." 

Eddie nods, and he smiles a little, settling back down against his pillow, hugging the spare, and he yawns again. 

"Mmm… I might actually be able to sleep," Eddie says, tone hopeful, "what about you, dude?" 

Richie knows that his brain is going to replay the events of the last… however long it's been, and that's going to make sleeping hard, but for Eddie, he'll give it the ol' college. 

“Yeah… yeah, it’s, ah, worth a shot.”

So, Eddie turns off the lamp, and he turns the TV volume down, but he doesn't set a timer, content to drift off and just leave the television on. Once he lays down properly, Richie notices how close they still are, both of them having shifted towards the middle of the mattress rather than staying stubbornly on the edges of the bed, and when Richie turns over to lay on his belly again, his arm brushes Eddie's. 

"Sorry," Richie whispers, throwing his glasses back onto the nightstand. 

"S'okay… Goodnight, Richie. I… I know I don't have to say it, but thanks. Again."

Richie feels like he's maybe actually, really going insane as he buries his face in his pillow, brain finally slowing down a little as he yawns, jaw clicking. 

"Goodnight, Eds. And… And yeah, man, you're welcome. Goodnight."

***

“You sure you’re alright? You want me to hang out with you for a bit?” Ben asks, tipping his head at Richie. His hand is on the doorknob, but his expression says he’ll do whatever Richie wants or needs. “I can just sit with you. If you want? I don’t have to. Obviously.”

“Nah, man, I’m good,” Richie says, sighing as he sits down on the right side of the bed. He rubs his hands over his face, smudging his glasses with his fingertips and feeling the rasp of his whiskers against his palms. It grounds him a little.

“Not gonna leave?” Ben asks.

Richie sighs again, clenching his jaw and shutting his eyes tight. 

He wants to fucking bolt so bad, holy shit. That fucking clown and that fucking statue and that fucking memory from the arcade all hit him like trucks. He didn’t know, or maybe knew but didn’t remember, to expect something like that, but he feels fucking stupid for not realizing that of course the evil, interdimensional space clown knows he’s gayer than a goddamn picnic basket, and of goddamn course the evil, interdimensional space clown also knows he’s closeted and embarrassed and freaked the fuck out about it, has been since the last time they squared off in the fucking center of town. 

So. Yeah, he wants to just call it quits and leave, and yeah, that’s a guaranteed ticket straight to death, probably for all of them, but at this point, he’d almost rather take his fucking chances if he can get back out of this shitty town. With any luck, he’ll forget it all over again and fucking move on and drink himself to death in peace.

Except… except he doesn’t want to forget all of it, actually. Forgetting about all his buddies again would be hell, and forgetting about Eddie? Fuck that. If anything would kill him, that would probably be it.

“Rich?” Ben presses when Richie opens his eyes. Ben bites his lip, and he suddenly looks so much like the kid Richie remembers–soft around the edges in so many ways, all of which got him relentlessly bullied, but also stronger and smarter and tougher than a motherfucker, actually. Forgetting Ben would fucking suck.

“I’m staying,” Richie says, ignoring how nasty and bitter those words taste on his tongue. He closes his eyes again, squeezing them shut hard enough to feel a thump of discomfort echo through his entire skull, and he swallows as he nods. “I’m staying, man, don’t worry.”

“Okay, okay, yeah, good,” Ben says. He opens the door, but before he steps out into the Townhouse hallway, he lets out a soft breath, not a sigh but close to one. “I’m gonna go, okay, but-but I'll be downstairs, and Bev is downstairs, and Stan is in his room, and-and the others will be back soon, probably…”

“Yeah, man, I’ll see you later,” Richie nods, taking his glasses off so he can push his palms against his eyes and rub them in circles, seeing starbursts of yellow and blue and red behind his closed lids. “Thanks, Haystack.”

Ben shuts the door on his way out, and Richie turns to flop heavily onto the bed, laying on his stomach. His back immediately seizes up with pain, so he brings one hand back to thump against his lower back, the entire expanse of muscle and bone there tender and sore. His sciatic nerve feels like it’s fucking on fire, streaking a line of hot, angry agony from his hip all the way across his asscheek and down his leg. Even his goddamn ankle hurts. He knows what did it, knows he spun around too fucking fast to get away from the clown, but he didn’t exactly have a choice, and dealing with a flare up like this is better than being eaten alive in front of that godforsaken Paul Bunyan statue. Marginally.

Face squashed against a pillow–it smells like expensive shampoo, so it’s definitely one of Eddie’s and not his, but he allows himself this small comfort even though it’s probably gross and definitely weird–and throbbing leg bent up a little against the mattress to help ease the pain radiating from it, Richie fumbles for his phone. He opens up his browser and navigates to Ranker, hoping some mindless scrolling will soothe him until he feels ready to get up and dig through his bag for the Advil Liqui-Gels he knows he’s got in there somewhere. 

He gets through a list that recounts some of the most famous unsolved mysteries, and he’s thinking very critically about the Axeman of New Orleans–Would it be in poor taste to call his next special Jazz It Out? Or maybe Jizz It Out, if the censors don’t kill him? He’ll have to talk to Steve.–when the door to the room swings open rather suddenly.

“Fuck this fucking town!” Eddie bellows as he steps inside, and then he slams the door hard enough that it feels like the walls might shake. “Fuck!”

With a groan of pain, Richie manages to roll himself over, which is definitely not attractive and he hopes Eddie is too fucking in his head to watch. Luckily, Eddie is already full-tilt stomping angrily to the bathroom. He’s also, Richie notices, covered in some sticky-looking brown gunk that Richie can smell all the way from the bed. Richie hopes it isn’t what he thinks it might be, since the smell of leper vomit is famously hard to air out of a room. It lingers.

“The fuck happened to you?” Richie asks, and he goes to sit up, but that hurts Literally So Much, so he just lies there instead, watching Eddie stalk into the bathroom. He starts the sink up, but doesn’t close the door, so Richie gets a lovely view of Eddie’s back as he starts scrubbing his hands.

Eddie tells Richie all about the pharmacy and old Mr. Keene–”he’s gotta be, like, a million and twelve years old!”–and who he thinks might have been everyone’s favorite blonde-haired bitch, Greta Keene herself. He then proceeds to tell Richie about feeling compelled to go into the pharmacy’s basement and coming head-to-head with the fucking leper that used to scare the piss out of him when he was a kid.

“I had to fucking fistfight a leper,” Eddie says, violently scrubbing at his face with the water coming out of the sink faucet, “again! And he tried to-to fuckin’ French me! Oh! And then that leper, he threw up all over me. ‘Hey, it’s Mike Hanlon, why dont’cha come back to Maine?’”

Eddie pauses and huffs a heavy sigh, and then another voice echoes out of the bathroom.

"It's your time, Eddie!" 

And then Richie thinks his eyes are playing fucking tricks on him, but it turns out they aren't. Henry Bowers, who he recognizes by ugly mullet alone, has fucking jammed a goddamn knife into Eddie's cheek, holy fuck, what the shit? 

It takes Richie longer than he wishes it would to get up off the bed. His back screams at him, but he ignores it because holy fucking shitting Christ, Eddie just got stabbed! 

When he gets to the bathroom, Henry looks at him, his eyes wide and confused. He looks worse for wear, which, like, makes sense, considering Richie is pretty sure he’s been locked away since ‘89, and Richie would maybe feel bad for him if he wasn’t the worst fucking person Richie has ever had the displeasure of knowing.

Meanwhile, Eddie has stumbled into the shower. He’s shaking like a leaf and bleeding, blood dripping down his face, blood on the fucking floor. There's still a knife in his fucking face. 

"What the fuck?" Bowers blinks, and it's like he's in a fog, but then he shakes his head and it seems to clear a little, "Richie fuckin' Tozier, huh? I always knew you two were boning! Little fucking fairies all grown up."

Richie, who feels about three seconds away from puking his guts out, looks at Eddie, who looks back at him, his face bleeding, his eyes massive and terrified, and Richie feels his face twist up. 

"It's Eddie's turn to die," Henry says, and his tone is fucking gleeful and giddy and, Richie thinks, maybe clinically insane, "but maybe you can be next, huh, Trashmouth? Betchu he’d like that, y’know." 

This is nuts, and Richie knows, he knows that he can't weigh the pros and cons before he acts, not that he's great at doing that anyway, so he doesn't think, shuts his brain off entirely. 

"You're fucking forgetting something, Bowers," Richie says, and his voice is surprisingly even considering his topsy-turvy he’s feeling.

Bowers focuses all his cloudy attention on Richie, which gives Eddie the chance to, Richie sees in nauseating clarity, pull the fucking knife out of his face and aim it towards Henry. His face is ashen, blood spurting from the wound, dark eyes a little glazed, and Richie is for sure gonna barf.

"What?" Bowers asks, genuinely confused and curious, effectively pretty disarmed without the knife and with something he doesn’t understand for his brain to latch onto, "what'm I forgetting?" 

Richie closes his eyes, reels back, and decks Bowers across the jaw, knuckles smarting upon impact. It’s a solid punch, and Henry stumbles, shocked, letting out a wounded sound. 

"I'm fuckin' bigger than you now, you asshole!" Richie screams, eyes flashing open, and he's suddenly, like, fully shaking with rage and adrenaline and maybe terror as he punches Henry again and again. 

Bowers doesn't hit the floor, but he's struggling to keep his balance, and that's at least tripled when Eddie slams the knife into his chest through the shower curtain.

“You-you should cut that fuckin’ mullet, it’s been, like, thirty years, man” Eddie stutters, tripping his way out of the shower.

“Fuck you,” Bowers spits, wrapping his hand around the knife in his chest, face all pinched up with pain.

"Fuck you!" Richie yells in Henry's face as he throws another punch, this one off-kilter but still making contact with Henry’s cheekbone, and there's a second, a split second where Richie thinks I could kill him, I could beat him to death right here , but then he feels Eddie's shaking hands grabbing at his, and they're stumbling out of the bathroom, together. They land, together, on the mattress in their effort to scramble away from Bowers.

It doesn’t matter, though, since Bowers, now bleeding and dazed, winds up ambling past them, dragging the shower curtain with him as he wobbles out of the room, mumbling incoherently as he goes. He leaves the door open.

"Fucking Bowers is in here!" Richie screams as loud as he can, voice cracking off, and he's shaking and Eddie is shaking and bleeding, holy shit, Eddie is bleeding so much, "Watch the fuck out!"

There's a commotion from outside of the room, but Richie can’t really hear it with how loudly his ears are ringing. Eddie is saying something to him, but he's choking on the blood in his mouth and Richie can't understand him. Richie tries to swallow down the bile rising in his throat, but it burns like a motherfucker and it tastes even worse and then he's turning his head and puking on the carpet. He gags and throws up again and again, and he's so hot and sweaty and dizzy, and he might pass out briefly, but he doesn't know if he fully conks or just kind of loses his shoddy grip on reality for a second. When he blinks hard and comes back to himself, Eddie is holding him tight and still bleeding profusely from his face and mouth and there's a whole fuckin' disgusting pile of puke on the floor. 

Richie hears loud, pained sobs, and it takes him a second to realize they’re coming from him.

Everything goes sort of syrupy and slow for a little while. Richie is confused and out of it, feeling almost shocky now that the adrenaline has tapered off a little. He winds up sitting on the floor not far from his puddle of barf, staring straight ahead. Bev and Ben and Stan all run in and jump into action. Bev and Ben take Eddie back to the bathroom, after Ben goes in to make sure there's no one else fucking waiting with a knife, and start to clean him, and the room, up. Stan sits next to Richie on the floor, slings his arm around Richie's shoulders, and he lets Richie just keep on crying for… well, Richie doesn't know how long, but he knows that by the time he's done crying, everything fucking hurts.

"Hey…" Stan whispers, noticing, apparently, that Richie is a little more with him, "hey, Rich, you here, bud?" 

Richie nods, looking around, and he hears Bev and Ben and Eddie in the bathroom, and then he's struggling to his feet. 

"Hey, woah, hold on," Stan tries, taking the brunt of Richie's weight when it seems that Richie's legs don't wanna work, “hold on, Richie, wait a second–”

"No, no, I need–" Richie gasps, shaking his head, and his legs tingle with pins and needles, and his back hurts, and he’s never felt this level of sciatica before, and he needs to see Eddie right now, right away, immediately, "I need to, I need to!"

So, still shaky, Richie stumbles to the bathroom, slamming his whole body into the open door as he goes, and his presence startles the three inhabitants. He feels Stan come up behind him as his eyes cloud with tears again.

Eddie is sitting on the closed lid of the toilet, and there's still leper puke on him, and his face is so gray. There's blood on his neck and his shirt, and he's visibly shaking, tears rolling down his cheeks as Bev works to clean the fucking stab wound in his face. Ben has dragged Eddie's smallest suitcase, which houses his extensive first aid kit, into the room, and now he’s wiping up the splatters of blood on the tile with a wet washcloth that only seems to be sort of dragging the blood around rather than cleaning it up.

"Richie," Eddie says once Richie meets his eyes, the wounded side of his face moving strangely, and his eyes squeeze shut, "Richie, Richie…" 

And then Richie shoves himself off of the doorframe and collapses in a heap at Eddie's feet. It hits him that he could have died, Eddie literally could have died in front of him, and while that doesn't seem like the furthest thing from possible on this fun little vacation, the thought of it hurts so bad Richie doesn't know what to do with himself. If Bowers had… fuck, fuck, fuck!

Richie's head winds up against Eddie's knee, and Eddie's got a hand in his hair, holding him where he is. Richie knows he's crying, and he thinks Eddie is crying, too. He doesn't know about the others, but they seem relatively calm, which helps and is also infuriating because holy fucking shit, Eddie could have died and they haven’t even done the real heavy-duty clown hunting yet! Fuck!

Bev and Ben, with some help from Stan's boy scout brain, manage to get Eddie reasonably cleaned up and bandaged. Ben cleans the floor and bathtub enough that there’s no visible trace of blood, but Richie swears he can still smell it, and it makes his queasy stomach flip so aggressively he has to bury a gag in the palm of his hand, nothing left to barf up.

Ben and Bev and Stan aren’t exactly keen on leaving the room, Stan insisting that they all oughta go down and just wait in the lobby, but Eddie convinces them to get out eventually, promising that he and Richie will be downstairs soon, that they just need a second. While they leave, Bev saying at least three times that she'll be back if she doesn't see them in exactly ten minutes, Eddie grabs a towel from the closet and tosses it on top of the puddle of vomit slowly sinking its way into the carpet.

Once the other three are gone, the door closed behind them, Eddie turns to Richie, who has sat back on the edge of the bed. Eddie makes a face, or as much of one as he can make in his current situation, and he grabs another towel from the closet to spread out and protect the duvet before he sits next to Richie, close enough for their thighs to touch.

They're quiet, absolutely silent, for several long moments. Richie thinks his body is going to try to throw up again in spite of there being nothing but bile left. As he swallows another gag, Eddie finally speaks up. 

"I… you saved my life," Eddie says, and his voice is so quiet and still so scared. 

Richie shakes his head. God, everything hurts so fucking bad, and they haven't even gone after the goddamn clown yet!

"You did," Eddie insists, and then he puts a hand on Richie's face, his chilly palm and fingers gently grabbing Richie's jaw and turning Richie's head so Richie will look at him. "You saved my ass. He could've… Richie… Richie, he could've–" 

Before Eddie can voice the words, because Richie knows he will absolutely lose it if Eddie does, Richie shakes his head and brings his arms up to pull Eddie close. He's mindful of the fucking stab wound, or he tries to be at least, as he tugs Eddie against his chest. Eddie settles there, breathing shakily, his arms slung around Richie's back and holding on tight, and Richie rests his forehead against the crown of Eddie's head.

"Thank you," Eddie mumbles into Richie's chest, and fuck, Richie can hear that he's crying again. 

Richie shakes his head, and, because he can't stop himself, won't stop himself, he kisses the top of Eddie's head, tears streaking down his own face, too. He doesn't say anything back.

***

Richie necks an entire bottle of orange Gatorade as he swallows down two more Advil Liqui-Gels. The shower helped some of the deeper, more achy pains in his back and neck, but he’s hoping the sting from some of the cuts and bruises eases up with this painkiller dose. He tosses the bottle back into his duffle, rolling his neck a little as he turns back around and crawls under the covers of the bed.

His phone, which he’s using to scroll through reddit while this episode of SVU is on commercial, says it’s not even eight o’clock yet. In fact, the sun is still out, a sliver of the outside world visible through the gap between the curtains drawn over the window. Still, he’s so tired , tired all the way in his bones, that he thinks if he fell asleep now, he wouldn’t wake up until at least noon tomorrow.

A text from Stan comes through across the top of the screen–💬 do you have ibuprofen my bottle is empty –and Richie flicks it down to text back–💬 cum 2 me my son and i shall give u advil liquid gels –and even though Stan doesn’t answer, there’s a knock on the door less than a minute later.

“It’s open,” Richie yells, because he’s not fucking getting out of bed again, not for at least six hours.

Stan comes in, and he looks like he’s fresh out of the shower, curls wet and flopping against his forehead, dressed in dark green sleep pants and a gray t-shirt.

“Gimme the drugs,” he says, leaning heavily, and sleepily, against the open door. He tries to glare at Richie, but his glasses slide down his nose a little and he’s got to push them back up, and that takes the edge off.

“In my bag,” Richie directs, pointing at his open duffle, “should be right on top."

Stan finds the bottle and tips two capsules into his palm. He swallows them dry, gulping as they slide down his throat, and then he nods to Richie. 

"I thank you, and my joints thank you," Stan says, and he even smiles a little, then he looks at the TV, "oh, shit, I've seen this one, I think." 

Richie nods and looks back at the TV, watching one of the detectives interrogate a teenage boy with a rat tail.

"Yeah, me too," Richie says, and then he yawns, big and obnoxious, "Eddie put it on." 

Stan nods, squinting a little, and he tips his head toward the closed bathroom door. The fan is on, and so is the shower, and both can be heard from the main room.

"Oh, yeah, he showering?" Stan asks. 

"Yeah," Richie responds, grabbing the remote to turn the TV volume up a notch or two, "he let me go first 'cause he knew I wouldn't have the, like, self-restraint to not lay the fuck down while my clothes were still nasty. I was still dripping with Quarry water when we got back."

Stan hums, and he just kind of looks at Richie, and Richie refuses to speculate about what that look might mean because he's too tired from helping to kill a demon space clown, so fuck off. Stan only looks away when the sound of the shower disappears with a squeak of the pipes.

"I should go," Stan says, and his tone is very deliberate. He pushes himself off the door and shoots Richie another look, this one accompanied by a grin that makes him look exactly like he did at thirteen.

"What?" Richie asks, squinting. 

" What what?" Stan parrots back.

Richie squints harder, and he contemplates busting out the way he used to make Stan spill shit when they were kids, but he doesn't know if he could move fast enough to grab Stan and threaten a nasty wedgie. Throwing his back out probably isn't worth trying it.

"What're you smiling about?" Richie tries. 

"Smiling? I'm not smiling," Stan says, and he's grinning so wide his eyes are all wrinkled up in the corners, "Goodnight, Richie. 'Night, Eddie!" 

After calling the last bit loud enough for Eddie to hear, Stan waggles his eyebrows at Richie and leaves the room. Richie texts him immediately–💬WHATS UR DEAL URINE????–and huffs when Stan leaves him on read.

A few minutes later, while Richie's exhausted brain is still trying to figure out Stan's problem, Eddie walks out of the bathroom, scrubbing a hand through his wet hair.

"Do you know how hard it is to get leper puke out of your hair?" Eddie asks, running his fingers through the strands that are clumping into gentle waves without gel to glue them down. There’s a fresh white square of gauze taped over the stab wound on his cheek.

"I've never been happier to say that I have no idea, actually," Richie says, smiling cheerfully at Eddie. God, Eddie is so goddamn cute, and the immediate threats are all gone, and Richie is so tired that he doesn't care how gooey-eyed he probably is. "Worse than jizz, would you say?" 

"You've gotten jizz in your hair ?" Eddie asks, eyebrows flying up to his hairline, "Jesus, Rich, how'd you manage that?" 

And Richie's mouth opens to answer, but then it just kind of hangs instead as a hot flush slaps Richie across the face. Fuck, he hasn't totally been playing close to the chest, but that was quite a slip in the other direction.

Thankfully, Eddie doesn't press the issue. Instead, he yawns, scratches a spot on his belly through his t-shirt, and flicks off the overhead light. He looks to the alarm clock and then locks the door, which makes Richie's pulse suddenly race until Eddie yawns again and he realizes that oh, yeah, they're going to bed.

"We should really try and stay up," Eddie warns as he yawns a third time, crawling into the bed next to Richie, "if we don't wanna, like, royally fuck up our sleep schedules." 

"It's way too late for that and you know it," Richie says, and he catches the yawn and mirrors it back, which sets Eddie off again. Richie reaches a hand out to lightly tap the uninjured side of Eddie's face, talking through another yawn, "Knock it off! Fuck!" 

Eddie laughs, coughing a little as it runs into his yawn. He smacks at Richie's hand. "I'm sorry!" 

Once they stop trading the yawn back and forth, Richie's jaw aching from all the stretching, Richie flops heavier against his pillows and gestures towards the TV with one hand.

"You want to watch this or the cake show?" Richie asks. 

"The cake show isn't on, it's Diner's, Drive-Ins, and Dives right now," Eddie answers, grabbing his cuddle pillow to wrap in his arms as he, too, settles back against the headboard.

"Nerd," Richie snorts.

"Fuck off," Eddie grumbles back, no heat behind the words, "and leave this on." 

Richie nods, setting the remote back down on his side table, and they quiet down, just watching a few minutes of the episode before a scene cuts to a commercial.

"So," Eddie says, clearing his throat, and when Richie turns his head to look at him, Eddie is, seemingly purposefully, still looking at the TV, "Bev offered to give one of us her room for tonight, since she, uh, will be with Ben, but I told her we were good here." 

Richie, quite literally, hears a record scratch in his brain. He replays what Eddie just said over and over until none of the words make any sense or even sound like words anymore, and he jumps a little when Eddie fixes him with a direct look that says he’s taken too long to respond.

“Are you…” Eddie starts, and his expression is infuriatingly inscrutable, “are you not good here?”

Richie immediately shakes his head so hard he knows he looks insane and like he’s lost control of his body. When he stills, he traps his lower lip between his teeth and shrugs against the headboard, trying so hard for Chill And Cool that he winds up closer to Call An Ambulance instead.

“No!” Richie insists when Eddie squints at him, then he shakes his head again, “No, I mean, yeah! Yeah. No, yeah, I’m-I’m all good, man. I’m good. Are you good? I mean, it’s your room, so-so like, you know, but. I’m good. Are you good?”

Eddie blinks at him like Richie has maybe grown a second and third head, which, hey, stranger things have fucking happened, and he doesn’t smile, but his expression shifts a little closer to neutral.

“I’m good,” Eddie says.

“Good!” Richie echoes, too loud, brain reeling as he tries to piece together what fucking feels like some kind of secret that several people know but he hasn’t been told about, “Good. That’s good. That you’re good.”

While Eddie nods and then focuses his attention on the SVU episode, Richie feigns doing the same, but lets his mind keep on buzzing. If Bev offered up her room, and if she was serious, which she probably was, why the fuck wouldn’t Eddie have at least brought it up to Richie before he said no? This was Eddie’s room, anyway, and Richie was the one fucking crashing, so, really, if anyone was gonna take Bev’s room, it would have been Richie, so why was Eddie the one to put the kibosh on it? Not that Richie minds, of course, since he’s found that he really likes sharing space with Eddie, likes it enough that he’s thinking about maybe, possibly bringing that up tomorrow, since Eddie mentioned not exactly wanting to go back to New York. Maybe Eddie likes sharing space with him, too? That would be cool. But, then again, there’s a very real difference between, like, sharing a whole house and sharing a bed, and Richie doesn’t know where that line is, but it’s definitely somewhere, definitely exists and is something that they’ve crossed already, kind of, but to what end? Plus–

“Rich, am…” Eddie speaks up suddenly, so suddenly that it makes Richie flinch, which he hopes Eddie doesn’t notice, “You’d… Am I, like, reading this wrong?”

Somewhere, way in the back of Richie’s brain, there’s the faint sound of screaming. What the fuck is Eddie talking about? Reading what wrong? Holy shit, why is everyone so against explicit communication? Like, yeah, Richie is also against explicit communication, but when he does it it can’t possibly be this annoying, can it?

“Rich?”

“Huh?” Richie asks, snapping his head in Eddie’s direction, and that kind of hurts, actually, considering the state of his neck, but he bites his tongue about it, “Oh, uh. What? What do you mean?”

And Eddie looks at him, just Looks at him in a way that Richie feels like he should fucking understand, but he doesn’t, because there’s no way, there’s no way –

“Forget it,” Eddie says, and it’s clear that he’s trying to keep his tone even, but he sounds disappointed.

“No!” Richie practically shouts, and he’s feeling nauseated and warm and maybe a little lightheaded, and he wants to toss the covers off, but he also kind of feels frozen in place, “No, man, I… forgive me, ha, I’m tired, what… what do you mean?”

There’s a long, long moment that passes, one that Richie feels might be uncomfortable but also feels familiar and nice, in a way that’s hard to fully wrap his head around, and then something about Eddie’s face changes, his eyes softening the slightest bit, and he slowly, slowly brings a hand up to Richie’s jaw, moving as though he’s afraid he’s going to get it slapped away. Richie doesn’t do that, would never fucking do that, and instead Richie’s eyes close automatically when Eddie’s cool fingertips graze the hinge of his jaw, palm pressed against Richie’s cheek.

That record that scratched earlier in Richie’s brain kicks back on, playing a loop of oh. oh. oh. over and over and over again.

“Oh,” Richie breathes, and he opens his eyes, gaze locked on Eddie’s, and it feels like there’s some cosmic force or a magnet or something that’s pulling him into Eddie’s orbit, making him lean closer and closer and closer and–

“ Oh ,” Eddie whispers back, and then he closes the small gap between them by kissing Richie on the mouth.

Richie has never experienced, and never believed in, the whole fireworks thing that’s supposed to happen when you kiss the right person, and he doesn’t experience that now, either, which makes him pretty sure it’s bullshit. What he does experience, though, with Eddie’s lips pressed gently to his, Eddie’s hand still holding his face like he’s something precious and delicate, is a distinct feeling of oh. rattling around in his brain, slowed by the gooey, lovey, syrupy mush that’s clouding over him in the nicest sort of way.

When they break the kiss, Richie’s pulled a hand up to rest on top of Eddie’s on his face, holding Eddie close to him, and when they pull back a little, Richie can feel himself smiling, sees the expression mirrored on Eddie’s face.

“Holy fuck,” Richie says, and he grins wider when Eddie just laughs.

“Do you wanna…?” Eddie asks, and it’s a clear question even without him finishing it.

“Yeah, yeah,” Richie nods, wiggling around to face Eddie head-on, “please, yeah.”

And Eddie grins, too, maybe at how eager Richie is, but he doesn’t tease him for it. In fact, he rewards Richie with another kiss, this one fizzling against their lips with this indescribable More that feels really fucking good.

The thing is, Richie is kind of out of practice when it comes to… well, all of this. His sex life has been pretty much nonexistent for longer than he wants to think about right now, and it’s been even longer since he’s kissed someone like he’s fucking meant it, but he finds that it’s like riding a bike. His lips seem to know what to do, and Eddie doesn’t freak out and bite it off when Richie’s tongue slips into his mouth. In fact, Eddie just lets out this delightful little hum as he drags his tongue right over Richie’s, not so much fighting for who gets to run the kiss as much as just letting it happen however it happens. They kiss and kiss and make little noises into each other’s mouths and by the time they pull apart for a breather, they’ve kicked the duvet and sheets to the end of the bed and they’re laying on their sides, one of Richie’s hands cupping the back of Eddie’s neck while Eddie trails his fingers up and down Richie’s arm, playing with the sleeve of his t-shirt.

“I…” Richie murmurs, quiet, his nose close enough to brush against Eddie’s, Eddie’s breath warm and wonderful against his lips. “I-I didn’t… I’ve…”

“Yeah, yeah, me, too,” Eddie says, and while Richie knows it’s impossible for Eddie to know what he was going to say, he believes that Eddie fucking does know, actually, “for… God, Rich, how could I forget about you? You… You meant, like, everything to me. You mean everything to me.”

And then, because this is a lot of emotions to deal with, maybe even more emotions than he’s had to deal with this entire trip back to Derry, Richie’s got tears in his eyes.

“Aw, hey,” Eddie says quickly, his free hand coming up so he can swipe his thumb over a tear that leaks out of the corner of Richie’s right eye, “I-I’m sorry, that was–”

“No, no, shut up,” Richie blubbers, his voice all wet and water-logged, and he presses another kiss to Eddie’s lips, and then another, and another, “don’t fuckin’... I-I… Eds, I…”

“I love you,” Eddie says into the kisses, sighing and kissing back, and it sounds like he’s on the verge of tears, too, but that’s okay, that’s more than okay, “I love you, I’m sorry, I love you.”

“You love me?” Richie asks, pulling back enough to look into Eddie’s eyes, his own definitely full of the childlike wonder that he sees pooling in Eddie’s dark brown irises, “You love me? I love you. I love you! Fuck me, I love you so much, Eddie, shit.”

And then they’re kissing again, and Eddie is laughing against his lips, and Richie is caught somewhere between laughing and crying, and he feels insane, insane and in love in a way he’s never felt before, that nasty black hole he used to picture his heart as softer, less all-encompassing now.

When they pull back again, still so close that Richie is sure Eddie can see every single pore and wrinkle and patch of dry skin on his face, but surprisingly okay with that, Eddie’s smile turns a little more playful.

“You know…” Eddie starts, and his tone betrays him, but Richie really, really tries not to get his hopes up anyway, “I don’t, ah, feel much like sleeping, all of a sudden…”

Richie barks a laugh, boisterous and overfilling with unbridled glee. He bites his lip, trying hard to look coy even though he knows he’s missing that mark by a country mile.

“Is that so?” Richie asks, and he takes a chance by dragging his leg up to push between Eddie’s, tangling them together, “Is there something else you feel like doing instead?”

Eddie’s eyes flash with something hot and thrilling, and then they’re kissing again, this one filled with more deliberate intention, and Richie feels that warm, satisfying tugging low in his belly when Eddie’s hands start roaming all over him, encouraging Richie to do the same. They kiss and pet and hold each other, and it’s like they’re horny teenagers, like they’re making up for time lost, maybe. Richie feels the way his cock starts to thicken in his borrowed basketball shorts, hopes to whatever the fuck part of the universe cares about him that he might get to feel Eddie’s do the same.

“I-I,” Eddie says into the kiss as he unceremoniously shoves his hands up the hem of Richie’s shirt, his hands pressing warm and reverent to Richie’s lower back, skin touching skin, “I, uh… I’ve never…”

“Hey, hey, that’s okay,” Richie assures him, twisting just enough to break his lips away from Eddie’s in favor of kissing Eddie’s chin, his jaw, a stamping line down his neck, “we can… we can go slow…”

“Fuck that,” Eddie hisses when Richie drags his tongue in a wet kiss over Eddie’s Adam’s apple, and Richie files that away to remember as a sensitive spot, “don’t wanna go slow, just…”

Eddie’s hands slide into Richie’s hair, which feels so fucking goddamn good that Richie is dangerously close to coming in his pants, and when he keens, Eddie, either because he’s surprised or because he wants to hear it again, grips his hair just this side of too hard.

“Shit, Eddie,” Richie whines, fucking whines against Eddie’s throat, and he gasps when Eddie, firmly but gently, tips his head back so they can look at each other.

“You gotta lead the way,” Eddie says, and he looks so good, flushed and a little sweaty, and one side of his face is fucking bandaged still, of course, but Richie doesn’t worry about it, can’t worry about it right now. “Can you do that? For me?”

And Richie, who feels like he might actually be dead and in his own personal heaven, nods, eyes rolling back when that makes him feel prickles of sweet pain in his scalp since Eddie still has his hair woven between his fingers.

“What do you want?” Richie asks, and he’s eager to please, will do whatever Eddie wants, “I-I can lead, I can, I will, b-but what… what do you want? How can I…”

Richie, who feels bold and maybe stupid, drags one hand up Eddie’s thigh, dangerously close to the heat he feels between Eddie’s legs, and he inches closer and closer. He’s a little worried he’s moving too fast, but Eddie did say he didn’t want to go slow, so it’s probably okay.

“Oh, fuck,” Eddie grunts, shifting his hips so that the hard outline of his dick knocks against Richie’s fingers, and that’s so fucking hot that Richie lets out an embarrassing, wounded little sound, “fuck, whatever you want, do whatever you fucking want, Richie, please…”

Richie nods again, relishing the way Eddie’s grip tightens minutely, and he lets himself cup Eddie’s dick through his sleep pants, rocking his palm against it in quick, sure little bursts.

“I… Can I suck it?” Richie asks, and his face immediately flushes hot, and he feels a little crazy, this all feels a little crazy, “Would you let me suck it, Eds?”

And then Eddie whimpers, pushing his hips forward, pressing into Richie’s hand, and he nods.

“Yeah, yeah, yes, Richie, please,” Eddie says, and his tone isn’t quite beseeching, but he’s not far from it, either, “God, I-I haven’t had… no one has sucked me off s-since college…”

Richie stares at Eddie, dumbstruck because, like, he’s fucking married , and he clearly likes getting his dick sucked since he’s so goddamn close to begging for it, but it’s definitely not the time to discuss that right now. So, instead, Richie gets to work removing Eddie’s pants and his underwear–these ones are a red-orange version of the teal ones Richie snuck a peek at, and they’re just as soft as Richie expected them to be–in one easy, practiced motion. Richie moves back just a little, staring hungrily at the way Eddie’s dick strains up against his stomach, hard and red and a little wet at the tip already. He’s absolutely fucking gorgeous, he’s got the prettiest cock Richie has ever seen, and Richie’s mouth starts to water for it.

“Fuck, Eds, you’re…” Richie babbles, scooting further down the bed and wiggling until he can rest easily between Eddie’s spread legs, “you’re so hot, your dick is fuckin’ beautiful, holy hell.” He looks up at Eddie, who looks back down at him like he hung the moon, and then Richie can’t help himself, he leans down and laves his wet tongue all over Eddie’s shaft before taking Eddie properly into his mouth.

“Shit, Richie!” Eddie squawks, his hands slamming back down on Richie’s head and holding him by the hair, and when Richie moans around the dick in his mouth, Eddie’s hips move in restless, aborted little twitches, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, Richie, I-I’m not gonna fuckin’ last long, shit…”

Already feeling sex-drunk and so stupidly, ridiculously in love that he really has no idea what to do with himself, Richie gives Eddie his best, which, not to brag, is pretty fucking good, he thinks. It’s been a while, but he’s got a lot of practice under his belt. He bobs his head up and down and hollows his cheeks and drags his tongue over the sensitive spot on the underside of the head, then, rather unceremoniously, he starts gagging happily as he loosens his jaw enough to start deepthroating Eddie. With the hand he isn’t using to caress Eddie’s balls and squeeze around the base of his cock, Richie shoves past the waistband of his shorts and underwear to wrap his fingers around his cock so he can jack himself off with lazy, sloppy pumps that get him embarrassingly close to the edge in almost no time at all.

“Holy shit, holy shit,” Eddie whines, high-pitched and off-kilter, his fingers flexing against their hold on Richie’s hair, “Richie, Richie, Richie, fuck, Richie, I-I’m close, I’m close…”

Eddie, it seems, thinks that Richie will pull off at his warning, but Richie just opens his teary eyes, looks up at Eddie the best he can, and doubles down, letting out an ugly, nasty gag as he continues to jam Eddie’s cock down his throat. He realizes blearily that he’d maybe like to taste Eddie’s come a little, because he’d like to get acquainted with a taste he hopes to experience again and again, preferably forever, so he pops off just enough to breathe, jerking Eddie off with fast, tight strokes, his mouth hanging open.

“C’mon, Eds, c’mon,” Richie pleads, and his voice is wrecked, which makes Eddie keen high in his throat, which makes Richie tighten the grip he’s got on Eddie’s cock and tighten the grip he’s got on his own, “I want it, Eddie, please, please?”

Eddie gasps in a breath that almost sounds painful and his whole body, which had been moving restlessly, goes still and rigid as his dick jerks, a shot of milky white come painting itself across Richie’s lips. Richie takes the head back between his lips and laps at each additional spurt that drools out, rolling the bitter-but-clean taste around in his mouth, feeling it stick to the insides of his cheeks.

“Fuck!” Eddie groans as he shoots his last, a pitiful little dribble that Richie eagerly licks up before he pulls back, Eddie squirming at the overstimulation and heaving, “oh, fuck… ”

Richie feels Eddie’s hands patting all over his face, and he’s buzzing, still painfully hard, the taste of Eddie’s come in his mouth, and it takes him a couple seconds to realize Eddie is trying to pull him up. When he understands, he goes easily, clumsily pushing himself up the bed until he can slump next to Eddie again.

Eddie, who looks sated and gorgeous, is smiling so wide his bad cheek has to be smarting, but, again, Richie doesn’t worry about it, can’t worry about it right now, especially since Eddie is kissing him and pushing his tongue into Richie’s mouth, moaning when he can taste himself there.

“ Mffgn ,” Richie grunts into the kiss, and he’d slowed his hand on his dick, but he’s still holding it as he leans heavily against Eddie. He hasn’t even come yet and he already feels so thoroughly fucked that he doesn’t even know if he’s gotta come for this to be worth it. He still wants to, though, even just as a nice cherry on top.

“Fuck,” Eddie says back, kissing Richie’s sticky lips once more before he pulls away just enough to look into Richie’s eyes, one of his hands scrabbling for Richie’s lap, “here, here, let me…”

Richie doesn’t argue, because that would be fucking insane, and instead he shifts to get a little more comfortable against the headboard as Eddie’s hand worms under his waistband, shoving Riche’s own hand out of the way so his curious fingers can wrap around Richie’s dick instead.

“Holy fuck, how big are you?” Eddie asks, stroking all the way up to the tip, swiping a thumb over it, then pulling back down again.

Richie, who is in no state to answer any questions, especially those that deal in numbers, just sort of gasps and gapes like a fish and pushes his cock up into the circle of Eddie’s warm fist.

“Hold on,” Eddie mutters, letting Richie go for a second, and then he’s tugging at Richie’s shorts, trying to free his dick, “help me out here, huh?”

Richie lifts his ass off the bed for just long enough for the shorts and his boxers to come down, his cock slapping up against his hairy stomach and leaving a wet kiss of precome in its wake.

“Je sus ,” Eddie breathes, and Richie knows he’s looking at it, which makes Richie want to turn away and also makes him want to preen and show off, and then Eddie licks a dirty strip up his palm and over his fingers and takes Richie back into his grip, the slide of his strokes eased by the spit. “I can barely get my fuckin’ hand around this thing, Richie, what gives?”

“Fuck, fuck,” Richie whines, face hot, neck hot, balls so fucking heavy, holy shit, he’s gotta fucking come, and he rolls his hips along with Eddie’s pulls, fucking up into Eddie’s fist, “fuck me, Eddie, Eds, fuck… ”

“Mmm, you’ll have to give me a minute, but we’ve got time,” Eddie says, and holy fuck, he’s serious , tone dark and a devilish grin on his face as he twists his hand just so, “but I kinda thought you’d wanna get at my ass first?”

That’s it, that’s what shoves Richie over the edge, and he can’t shut himself the hell up as he whines, low and agonized, jaw clenching and eyes rolling back. His dick gets harder still in Eddie’s grip, and then he’s coming all over Eddie’s hand and his own stomach, splattering stripes up so high he feels one land over his left nipple through his shirt.

Eddie praises him through it, but Richie doesn’t know what he says. Richie feels his ears pop. He sags against the bed, Eddie’s hand still gently holding him until it feels like too much and he grunts, wriggling his hips until Eddie lets him go.

They lay there, flopped against the pillows, both spent and panting hard, since they’re fucking old men who just got done killing a demon, like, right before having pretty mind-blowing sex. Richie feels like he could easily sleep for a week.

“Holy shit,” Richie sighs, shaking his fuzzy head to clear some of the gunk.

Speaking of gunk, Eddie wipes his gross, jizz-covered hand on Richie’s shorts, realizing, belatedly, that they’re his shorts, and his face scrunches up.

“Hold on,” Eddie grumbles, getting to his feet, and he only wobbles a little as he walks to the bathroom. He’s still got his shirt on, so he’s fuckin’ Donald Duck-ing it around the room, giving Richie an unobstructed view of what’s gotta be the hottest ass Richie has ever laid his eyes on. Richie’s gaze is unabashedly zeroed in on those toned cheeks, wistful about what he’s certain will be fucking heavenly between them, as Eddie wets a washcloth at the bathroom sink, then Richie is treated to the equally-gorgeous sight of Eddie’s soft, come-sticky cock, red where it hangs between his thighs. “Here.”

Eddie tosses Richie the rag, but he’s back in bed and grabbing it to wipe Richie off before Richie can do it himself. Once he deems Richie clean, he swipes the wet rag over his own dick, which is intimate in a way that makes Richie want to cry even more than the fucking rest of this whole thing does, and then Eddie throws it down close to where that towel is still resting over where Richie puked however long ago.

“Can I…” Eddie asks, looking at Richie, and Richie nods, opening his arms and smiling wide when Eddie grins and snuggles up to him. Eddie pulls away, though, to strip out of his t-shirt, exposing his tight, muscular torso, and while Richie would normally politely decline Eddie’s request for him to do the same, he throws caution to the wind and takes his shirt off, too, leaving them both stark naked as Eddie settles back against him, leaning his head on Richie’s chest and sighing like he’s never felt more comfortable.

They lay there, saying nothing, for several minutes, just holding each other, Richie consciously making the effort to not suck anything in, not worry about his stomach or his scratchy body hair or whatever the fuck else he could fret about now, and Eddie only shifts to grab the forgotten covers, tucking them around their bodies, warm and snug and safe.

“So…” Richie says, feeling close to sleep.

“So,” Eddie says back with a sigh, nuzzling into Richie’s neck, which, holy shit.

“You really love me, huh?” Richie asks, grinning because he knows the answer.

Eddie, of course, huffs a laugh and, of course, uses the hand he’s got tucked up by Richie’s hip to pinch the pudge of Richie’s belly, twisting the skin between his thumb and index finger.

“Ow!”

“Yeah, bitch, I love you, so what,” Eddie says, petting the pinched spot gently with his fingertips.

“You’re such a little shit,” Richie coos, stretching his neck to kiss the top of Eddie’s head, “I love you so goddamn much.”

And then they’re nodding off, and Richie’s still got his glasses on, but like fuck is he gonna move, fuck the glasses, fuck everything that isn’t softly snoring against Richie’s chest. The last semi-conscious thought Richie has, as the SVU theme plays as another episode starts up on the TV, is that maybe the goddamn Derry Townhouse isn’t the worst place in the world, especially when there isn’t a room for him to rent.