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Whatever Stan might say, however eyewitness accounts may paint him in the history books, Richie will go to his grave swearing the whole thing was Bev’s fault. If she hadn’t complained that she was bored, tossing her empty glass Coke bottle back and forth idly and sprawled sideways in an armchair in Richie’s living room, Richie never would have blurted out, “Well if you toss that bottle this way, I could show you a good time.”
Bev laughs, rolling her eyes, but she sits up, legs still thrown over one of the chair’s arms.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, come on. I mean, I can’t vouch for the rest of these virgins, of course, but I at least know my way around a mouth.”
“Gross,” Eddie says emphatically. Bev laughs.
“Yeah, we all know you’re good at that, Richie.” She climbs out of the chair and sets the bottle in the center of the carpet. Kneeling behind it, she looks up at the others. “Well? Who’s in?”
They all look around at one another uncertainly. Richie can tell they’re doing the math, calculating the odds, coming up with 6 to 1. Richie’s run the numbers too.
He sits across from Bev.
“Well, if you’re all going to be chickenshit, I guess I’ll just have Beverly alllllllll to myself,” he teases, knowing that at least Bill will join at this point, and the others will probably follow him. And he’s right; Bill gets up and joins the game almost embarrassingly quickly, Ben following suit after a moment. The boys sit on either side of Richie—on either side of Bev, really. Mike is looking from person to person, confused, like he has no clue which side he’s supposed to be taking here.
“Richie, this is stupid,” Stan says. He hasn’t moved from his spot next to Mike on the sofa, looking perfectly comfortable and uninterested in moving.
“Aww are you scared Stan?” Richie teases. “You don’t need to be embarrassed that we’re all going to watch your first kiss, you’re surrounded by friends.”
“Beep beep Richie,” Stan mutters. He doesn’t move, but Mike does, getting up from the couch to sit with the others on the carpet.
“Ayyyy atta boy Mikey, welcome to the party. Promise you won’t fall in love with me if the bottle lands on me, okay?” Mike snorts. Richie tries not to be offended, and mostly succeeds.
Stan is watching them. He looks annoyed, like Richie has corrupted their latest and greatest and has disappointed him. Yeah. He looks disappointed. Richie sticks his tongue out at him.
“What about you, Eds? You’re not gonna be a sad sack like Stan are you?”
“Stan’s right, this is dumb, Richie. Do you know how many germs get passed around at kissing parties?”
Richie bursts out laughing, laughing so hard he can actually feel tears in his eyes. “‘Kissing parties’ holy shit,” he gasps. “Eds, were you born in 1945? You’re fucking adorable.”
“Shut up,” Eddie grumbles. His brows knit together, concern and annoyance apparent on his face. “All I’m saying is if even one of us is sick, we’re all screwed.” Even as he says it, though, he’s stomping over to their circle, sitting down at last with a huff.
“Stanley you are killing me here,” Richie whines, gesturing to the rest of them. The others are talking amongst themselves, looking a bit uneasy but staying in place on the carpet.
“Leave him alone,” Ben says. Richie has no intention of doing so, but he appreciates how sweet a friend Ben is all the same.
“One spin, Stanley, come on.”
“Why do you want to kiss Stan so bad?” Eddie asks, smirking at him. Richie’s face goes hot.
“Fuck off, gross,” Richie says back. “I’m just tired of Stan being a bummer all the time.”
“Hey—” Mike starts, but Stan holds up a hand to stop him, getting up off the couch at last.
“Fine,” Stan says, sitting between Richie and Bill.
“Are we ser-iously doing this?” Bill stammers out, an eyebrow raised. He looks between them all, like he’s waiting for someone to crack a smile or say ‘Gotcha!’
“Who wants to start?” Bev asks instead. Richie throws up a hand.
“I’ll go. Wouldn’t want to keep you all waiting for the main event.” He reaches for the bottle in front of him, uncomfortably aware that his hands are shaking and trying to play it off. He grabs the widest part of the glass and gives it a twist, pretending like he totally didn’t try to calculate how much spin it needed to wind up on that space between Ben and Beverly. Apparently, though, he’d overshot the runway a bit, because it slides (so, so achingly slowly) past knobby knees and freshly trimmed fingernails, coming to a halt at rings and overalls instead.
The room is silent for a moment, Bev looking up at him with a soft, amused expression. She smiles, and Richie tamps down on any stupid disappointment, because there will be other rounds. Besides, Bev is a good sport. He whoops, making Bev laugh into the kiss. She pecks him on the lips without a hint of nerves. She’s relaxed, he realizes, a little surge of pride filling him at the revelation that Bev trusts him even as he pulls away, mouth still closed. Opening his eyes again, he grins at her, blowing her another kiss so she snorts another laugh.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have gone first,” Richie muses. “I’ve ruined you for all other men.” Bev shoves his chest, making him fall back on his elbows, but they’re both laughing again. Bill is decidedly not. No one is, though Mike at least doesn’t look like he wants Richie to drop dead. Eddie isn’t even looking at them, scratching his neck and glancing around the room in disinterest. He seems annoyed. Stan just seems kind of sad. “Cheer up everyone, jesus, you all look like I pissed on your birthday cake.”
“That’s not even a saying,” Eddie says, always spoiling for a fight. Richie opens his mouth to reply, but Stan cuts him off.
“Will someone else go?”
Ben is sitting to Richie’s left, so he nods, quickly wiping off a sweaty hand on the leg of his jeans before giving the bottle a spin. It’s calculated. In fact, Richie’s willing to bet it was calculated approximately on how Richie had spun it before him, not that he’d say anything and throw the poor kid off.
Ben’s calculations are apparently off too, though, coming up a bit short where Richie’s had gone too far. His heart thuds uncomfortably. Someone laughs nervously.
“Okay,” Ben says, always a team player. He moves across the circle to Eddie, who is still staring at the bottle like he can’t process the opening pointing back at him. He visibly swallows, brown eyes flicking back up to Ben at last. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Ben adds sweetly. Richie could kiss Ben himself for it.
Eddie shakes his head and seems to snap himself out of whatever weird trance he’d been in.
“No, no, that’s...it’s cool. Come here.” Eddie scoots forward a tiny bit. Ben smiles back at him, all kind eyes and comforting presence and Richie wants to tackle him to the ground. Ben leans forward and cups Eddie’s cheeks with his hands, bringing him in to press their lips together. Eddie makes a nervous squeaking noise, even though Ben gave him plenty of time to brace himself for the kiss. He yelps again, and Richie realizes with a sinking feeling that they’re probably kissing with tongues and everything, god, fuck, fuck everything. They pull away after ten minutes or maybe an hour, or whatever, Richie doesn’t know or care. Ben moves back to his place in the circle, Bev watching him with wide blue eyes. Bill coughs.
“Uh, I guess I’ll go next,” Mike says, next in the circle. He reaches forward and spins the bottle, his hands careful and sure as he grabs it. Mike’s mouth twists into a little frown as the bottle hurtles past Stan, Richie, Ben, loops around a second time, a third, slowly petering out in front of—
“Eddie,” Mike says with a laugh. “Okay.”
Eddie looks surprised, but not especially upset, which Richie thinks is pretty fucking hypocritical since Eddie was the one complaining about swapping spit in the first place. He’s way more likely to get sick from kissing multiple people.
“Weird,” Eddie says, but he moves into the center of the circle, meeting Mike halfway. Mike reaches up and brushes a loose, curly strand of Eddie’s hair off his face, tucks it behind Eddie’s ear. He looks like he’s studying Eddie’s face, and it’s skeeving Richie out.
“You have pretty eyes,” Mike tells Eddie, and Bev coos. Traitor.
“It’s a stupid game, Mike, you don’t have to woo me,” Eddie says, looking a little twitchy and flushed under Mike’s attention. “Let’s just do this.”
Mike leans in, one hand still resting at Eddie’s jaw, thumb rubbing slow circles against Eddie’s cheek. He kisses him. Richie looks away. He’s already seen one of their friends kiss Eddie, he doesn’t need an encore.
When he looks up again, Eddie is smiling at Mike. Richie doesn’t look up again until everyone starts laughing.
“What?” he asks, then sees it. Bev had taken her turn, landing right on the boy sitting beside her. “Come on, seriously?”
“Jealous, trashmouth?” Eddie says. It’s a challenge, Richie can see it for what it is, but he’ll rise to it, he doesn’t care.
“Not hardly, I just think it’s unfair that this bottle is clearly rigged and everyone’s getting stuck kissing you.” Eddie rolls his eyes.
“You can get another bottle if you’re so upset about it,” Eddie says, pulling a plastic bottle of something out of his bag and scrubbing his hands with it.
“The fuck is that?” Richie asks, wrinkling his nose, the affront to his pride momentarily forgotten.
“Hand sanitizer, dickhead,” Eddie snaps back as he snaps the cap back on. “Minimizing the risks.”
“Hey, doesn’t hand sanitizer have alcohol in it?” Richie asks.
“You’re not drinking my hand sanitizer, it would probably kill you,” Eddie says automatically, then considers. “Actually, go ahead, let’s see if you get drunk.”
“Keep it, it smells like a hospital,” Richie says, getting up and going to the kitchen. “I’m going to go get an uncursed bottle. Keep kissing if you must, but she’s already kissed me, Eds, you’re only going to disappoint her now.”
He leans against the counter for a second once he’s out of view from the others, just to try and clear his head. It’s stupid, he’s being so so stupid, doesn’t know why he’s letting such a dumb situation get to him like this. He presses the heel of his hand against his eye, rubs at it if only to try and refocus. Giving his cheek a few quick slaps, he gets himself back in the zone. Normal. He can be normal. Time to take stock of his options and stop being weird. The short, squat, glass Gatorade bottles in the fridge are too odd a shape for spinning purposes, but there’s an empty Sam Adams on the table, which will work just fine. Richie grabs it and walks back into the living room just in time to see Bev and Eddie break apart with a loud wet smacking noise.
“Oh my god were you eating her face?” Richie asks as he rejoins the group.
Eddie’s nose is crinkled in the aftermath of that particularly physical kiss. “That was all her,” he says. Bev grins.
“I couldn’t resist planting a good one on you, Eds, everyone else was being so serious,” she says. The twitch of her fingers tells Richie she’s itching for a smoke, and god, Richie wouldn’t mind one himself.
“Well, I hope you enjoyed the suction cup treatment, because I have a new bottle that isn’t desperately attracted to nerds with cashew sensitivities.” Eddie frowns at that, looking more confused than anything, and Richie plows along before anyone can read into that at all. Not that there’s anything to read into anyway. But if there were. “Here we go,” Richie says, not even sure what voice that was trying to be. “You get the inaugural spin, Eddie. Maybe I shouldn’t switch them out yet, it would probably be best for everyone if you kept those lips to themselves.”
“Fuck you, dude,” Eddie says, looking genuinely hurt, and it’s all Richie can do to keep himself from apologizing immediately.
“Whatever,” he says instead, the most he’s willing to acquiesce right now. “Just, uh, just take your turn.” He sees Stan turn to look at him with concern in the periphery, and he steadfastly looks ahead to avoid having to meet his eyes. He hates the way Stan always manages to see through him.
Eddie spins the bottle, and Richie holds his breath.
“Wow, guess I’m the new Eddie,” Mike says as the bottle stutters to a halt in front of him. Eddie giggles, moving across the circle again to kiss Mike a second time which is even more ridiculous than Eddie kissing multiple people. They must have gotten comfortable with each other last time, because they don’t hesitate this round, Mike placing a hand under Eddie’s chin to tilt his face up towards him with so much tenderness Richie can’t fucking breathe. He wonders, inexplicably, if Eddie would let him borrow his inhaler. Stan’s not paying attention to him anymore, at least. Eddie and Mike kiss for a fucking eternity, and then it’s over.
Richie feels like he shouldn’t even be surprised when Bill takes his turn and the bottle lands on Eddie again.
“The curse continues,” Richie sighs, not sure whether to laugh or cry. Bill and Eddie are side-eyeing each other, Bill glancing nervously at Beverly before sighing and moving closer to Eddie, swooping in blink-and-you’ll-miss-it quick to kiss Eddie. There’s an audible, almost cartoonish kiss sound as they separate almost as quickly as they’d come together, Eddie swiping the back of his hand over his mouth.
“Hey! What the hell Eddie, you didn’t wipe your mouth off after kissing anyone else,” Bill says, frowning. His eyes keep darting back to Bev. It’s kind of tragic to watch.
“There’s only one you, Billy,” Richie says with a shit-eating grin. Not that he wants to examine it closely, but Eddie’s lack of enthusiasm kissing Bill has cheered Richie considerably. “Alright, last call, Stan the man, let’s go.” The end is in sight, which is nothing short of a relief. Although Richie is incredibly tempted to take a second spin, just to see if the bottle curse or whatever holds, he knows opening the game up to a second go-around is just asking for trouble. He doesn’t need to see Mike and Eddie making out for a third and fourth round. He’d kind of rather he hadn’t seen it at all.
Stan takes a breath, holds it a moment, exhales through the nose. Richie wonders if this is one of those breathing exercises he’s always going on about. Then Stan reaches out and grabs the bottle, giving it its final spin.
If he closes his eyes while the bottle’s still spinning, then it doesn’t have to be real. If he doesn’t see any of it, Richie can let himself believe Stan kissed anyone else in the group, Bill or Bev or Ben, anyone. It’s not real he tells himself, even as he hears someone directly across the circle from him come forward into Stanley’s space. It’s not real as Stan doesn’t even inch forward, makes the person come to him, gives only what he absolutely has to while Richie sits beside him and burns. It’s not real it’s not real it’s not real until Bill mutters, “Unbelievable,” and Schrödinger’s fucking cat comes yowling out of the box as Richie’s eyes open unbidden. Eddie’s brown eyes meet his for just a moment before they flutter closed, his lips meeting Stan’s. It’s mercifully brief, Stan sitting upright again quickly, but Richie still feels sick to his stomach.
“Well. That was fucking ridiculous,” Eddie laughs. “What the hell.” Bev giggles too, Mike and Ben offering up smiles.
“Well hey, you’ve got a full sample now. In your scientific opinion, who’s the best kisser?” Bev asks.
“Your science is flawed, Beverly,” Richie hears himself saying before he can scoop the words up and put them back. “He never got a piece of this action, so the data is inherently skewed.”
“That doesn’t even make sense,” Bill says, at the same time as Eddie says, “Mike.”
Everyone turns to look at him.
“What?”
“We were the only ones who kissed twice, that’s probably skewing your data,” Mike says diplomatically, but he looks pleased all the same, glancing Richie and Stan’s way and smiling. Well, fuck him too.
“Well I hope you two will be very happy together,” Richie says, pretty sure he’s failing at being calm cool collected but so far past the point of caring. He can’t even hear himself talk over the pulse pounding in his ears. He stands up, barely restraining himself from stomping like a child as he goes up to his room. “I’m over this, I’m gonna go take a leak.” Someone says something downstairs, maybe, probably, but Richie doesn’t hear it, running up to the safety of his room as fast as humanly possible.
He’s barely had the time to flop onto his back on the bedspread when his door swings open.
“What the f—oh, get out Stan,” Richie says. He’s suddenly way too tired to put up the fight he knows he needs to.
“I thought you said you were going to the bathroom.”
Richie raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, and it’s fucking weird that you still followed me, dude.”
Stan sighs. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asks gently. Richie scoffs.
“There’s not anything to talk about, it was just stupid. I mean, it’s the most action Eddie’s ever going to see, I guess, so good for him, I guess it’s hard to begrudge him that.”
“Richie, you’re being unkind,” Stan says. Patient, always patient, steady old Stan, never fucking bothered even when everything is shit.
“You’re being unkind. If you thought I was so upset, why’d you keep playing, huh?” Why did you kiss him you’re supposed to be my best friend he doesn’t say.
Stan frowns. “You were the one who wanted to play. You basically begged me to join the game, Richie.”
“Fuck off, I was just trying to help you guys out. Like I said, I know you’re all having a 15 year dry spell, so—”
“God, do you ever just stop talking?” Stan asks. “I care about you, can’t you just appreciate that?” He’s still standing by the door, just looking at Richie like he feels sorry for him, and something inside Richie breaks.
“You’re not my fucking mom, Stanley, I don’t have to tell you shit just because you need to feel important. There’s nothing going on I’m just, I can’t believe Eddie would do that after he whined all about ‘germs’ and ‘kissing parties’ and blah blah, it was all just bullshit, he acts like he doesn’t want to be the center of attention but he probably would have gone another round. Maybe he is right now,” and jesus, does that scare the shit out of Richie. Startles him momentarily speechless. “Well, go on, Stan, god knows you need to work on your technique, judging by that kiss...”
"Do you think I had a fun time watching him kiss someone else either?" Stan asks. Explodes, really, and Richie looks up at him at last to see hot, angry tears in his eyes. The fury bubbling inside him suddenly fizzles, replaced by cold, confused fear at the way Stan’s voice cracks. "Stan, what—" "Do you think I was having a great time hearing about how Mike is the best kisser in the group from fucking Eddie, after watching them look at each other like, like they actually wanted to be there, unlike the rest of us?" Stan swipes the back of his arm across his eyes harshly, scrubbing away any evidence that he's been crying. Richie opens his mouth to say something, anything, make a crack at Stan or apologize or anything at all, but he can’t make words come out. “Well, it fucking sucked, and I can’t even talk to you about how shitty it was because you are so fucking selfish, Richie, you think you’re the only person in the room that has feelings.”
“What the fuck, Stan?” he manages at last. Because that’s not fair. Richie is never the person in the room with feelings. He’s made sure of it. “I don’t even...what are you saying?”
“I like him, okay?” Stan spits out. He’s holding his jaw in that self-deprecating way Richie fucking hates, like even as he’s talking he knows how stupid he’s being.
“How was I supposed to know that?” Richie asks weakly. He’s only about 85% sure he even understands what Stan is saying, and the other 15% of his brain is torn between You can’t like him that’s my job and Run run run run run before he knows too much.
Stan laughs. Normally, making Stan laugh is nothing short of a miracle. It’s one of Richie’s favorite pastimes, cracking that serious expression and getting Stan to just let go for a moment. Now, though, it sounds miserable. He’s laughing at Richie, and sure, he’s laughed at Richie’s expense plenty of times before, but usually because Richie’s doing something dumb to get a reaction.
“I don’t know, Richie. How were you supposed to know when you can’t look outside your own head long enough to see how anyone else is feeling?”
That makes Richie feel hot and uncomfortable and weird. “I’m not...I don’t...”
“You don’t think, Richie. You don’t ever think, and that’s...it’s fine, I’m used to it, but jesus, how do you expect me to help you if you won't talk to me?”
Richie scowls, suddenly angry all over again. “Oh, like you talked to me about Mike?” he throws back, and yeah, turns out that 85% accurate stab in the dark hit the nail on the head, or some other mixed metaphor, because Stan turns bright red.
“Maybe you’d know if you actually cared enough to ask me what was going on, but you don’t, you don’t even notice...this isn’t even about Mike, this isn’t about me, it’s about you being an asshole that doesn’t know how to ask for help and won’t take it when I’m trying anyway!”
“I never asked you to do that,” he yells back, aware that the others are still in the house and have definitely figured out he and Stan are fighting at this point. And they are, that’s exactly what’s happening, they’re fighting. They annoy each other and bicker all the time, but he and Stan don’t fight. Not like this. “Why would I need your help, Stanley, what the hell do you think you can help me with?”
“I know, Richie,” Stan says. His voice is careful, and god, Stan would go out of his way to make sure Richie doesn't take it as a threat when Stan tells him it's the end of the goddamn world.
Heart in his throat, Richie tries, “What the fuck do you think you know?”
Stan doesn't even look angry anymore. He looks tired. “Richie.” There's no reason Stan simply saying his name should make Richie cry, but it does, somehow.
“Fuck you, Stan. You think—you think you get me? That you understand?” Richie’s blood is fucking boiling, his heart is pounding so loudly he knows the others can hear it downstairs. “Well you don't. You don't get it just because you have some stupid crush on Mike Hanlon, which, what the fuck is that about? Do you even know him? At least I fucking talk to—”
He cuts himself off, inhaling sharply, but it doesn't matter, because Stan snaps “Shut the fuck up,” before he'd have been able to go there anyway. Stan looks angrier than Richie’s seen him in ages. Maybe ever. “I tried to talk to you. I've tried to talk to you so many times, and you either didn't notice or you didn't care. So you know what? I'm done worrying about you and listening to you talk about absolutely nothing hoping one day you’ll grow up and turn out to be a good friend. You don't get to act all wounded when this was your idea in the first place, Richie. You get to deal with that, and you can do it without me.”
With that, he storms out of Richie’s room, not slamming the door, never slamming the door because nice proper Stanley Uris would never, but the soft click of the door shutting behind him might as well be a cannon. And Richie is alone at last.
He hears the others try to talk to Stan when he gets back downstairs, and then the front door a moment later. Stan had really left him behind entirely. Well, whatever, Richie doesn’t need him anyway if he’s going to fall apart every time Richie doesn’t want to talk about feelings. He lies back on the bedspread and stares up at the ceiling of his bedroom, not thinking about Stan or Eddie or bottles or anything in particular, instead zoning out on every crack and dip in the plaster above him.
“Hey, Richie?” comes a voice accompanied by a soft knock on the door. Richie sighs. He considers not responding at all, but it feels a little too melodramatic, and Ben probably won’t be deterred anyway. He’s not a quitter.
“What’s up, Ben?”
“I just wanted to check up on you. Stanley seemed pretty upset.”
“Yeah, he freaked out on me, I don’t know what that was all about.”
“Mike went after him to make sure he was okay,” Ben offers, and Richie feels his stomach swoop at the words. He wants to snap Well good for Stan, I’ll keep an eye out for the Save the Date, but his heart isn’t in it. It’s not his to say, anyway.
Ben would probably be cool about it, though. The thought comes to him without warning, with no conscious work to get there. He just knows suddenly that Ben wouldn’t call Stan a freak (or worse) and stop hanging out with them. There’s comfort in Ben’s dependable kindness.
I could tell him everything right now he thinks. The voice in his head sounds like Stan. It sucks.
“Richie?” Ben calls through the door again.
“Yeah, still here.” Something in the moment breaks; Richie’s not going to tell Ben anything, he doesn’t know where that shit came from. He probably could, and Ben wouldn’t make a big deal out of it, but he would have said it. And then he’s made it real. No. Not today.
“Okay,” Ben says. “Just...well, if you need someone to talk to, I’m always around.”
Richie’s blood feels cold. “What would I need to talk about with you?”
For a second, he thinks Ben is going to echo Stan back at him—I know, I get it, when he doesn’t, he doesn’t fucking get it, he doesn’t understand why Richie feels like a house on fire—but he doesn’t. He just says again, “Okay,” and walks away.
Richie’s being a baby, he realizes. Sitting up abruptly, he takes off his glasses and wipes his eyes in as casual a gesture as he can manage. He’s causing drama. He’s being silly and drawing attention to himself, and they’re all down there without him, they’re talking about him and wondering about him and it makes Richie’s skin crawl. He gets up from the bed at last, replacing his glasses and hoping he doesn’t look how he feels as he walks back downstairs. Time to act like nothing happened.
Eddie is pacing. That’s the first thing Richie sees when he rejoins the group. Eddie’s worked himself up into a lather like he always does, inhaler in hand as he moves frantically around the room because he doesn’t know what else to do with the energy coursing through him. Bev is still on the carpet, Bill beside her, Ben on the couch watching them all worry.
“Why the long faces?” Richie asks. “Eds, you’re gonna wear a hole through the floor and my folks are bound to notice something’s different about the living room.”
“What did you say to Stan?” Eddie asks instead of spitting back some retort. It throws Richie completely off balance.
“I don’t know,” he says with a shrug, recovering as gracefully as he possibly can. “I think he was just jealous of my mad smooching skills.” And it’s not that he means to hit as close to the mark as he does, and it’s not like he’d given away anything for the group to use to parse out exactly where Stan’s jealousy lies, but Richie still feels wrong when he says it. None of his jokes are landing, he’s way off the mark, but he can’t make himself stop. Doesn’t know what else he’s supposed to do here.
“Can you be serious for two seconds, Richie?” Bill scolds, only tripping over the words a little. God, Richie hates when Bill pulls the Fearless Leader card. It always makes him feel like a kid. Small. He’s never enjoyed getting chastised. Not when the person means it, anyway.
“It’s getting late, we should probably go,” Bev says. There’s a warning in her voice.
“Yeah, let’s go,” Bill agrees. He stands, offering Bev a hand to help her up. They miss the way Ben watches, but Richie doesn’t. He looks at Eddie, who has stopped pacing at last, instead curled in on himself in the corner of the room, small and nervous and unsure. “Eddie, are you coming?”
Eddie is looking at him. Richie can’t figure out the look on his face, but Eddie is looking at him. He wants to say something, make Eddie roll his eyes or tell him off, or smile. Making Eddie smile is no easy feat, but it makes the quest all the more worthwhile. He’d smiled when he kissed Mike, the second time. Richie looks away.
“Yeah, sure. Screw this,” Eddie says at last. Richie barely looks up to watch them gather their things and shuffle out the door. He doesn’t think he can look Bev in the eye right now, not when he can still feel her lips on his even after seeing them pressed against Eddie’s.
He’s used to how big and empty the house feels when he’s the only one in it, but even so, the door shutting has never sounded worse. Rather than spend any amount of time dwelling on all of his friends walking out on him (that way lies madness), Richie flops onto the couch and flips on the television. He clicks from channel to channel idly, not particularly caring what program he lands on so long as it can quiet the steady buzz building behind his eyes. He can just zone out. Let it all fade to nothing.
It’s embarrassing how long it takes Richie to fully process the evening’s events, and when his brain finally sticks on Stan has a crush on Mike he sits bolt upright. If he...if Stan...fuck.
“Fuck,” he says aloud. “Oh fuck.” He jumps up from the couch, tv a dull roar in the background of this sudden new swirl of thoughts and feelings. Jesus, this day has turned him upside down so many times that he’s pacing like Eddie, jumpy and frantic and desperately needing to let it all out.
He could probably stand to go for a bike ride.
Stan’s dad is predictably unenthused to see Richie when he opens the front door, but he returns Richie’s polite smile and tells him Stan is in his room, so Richie’s counting it a win. He likes Stan’s parents, mostly, when they aren’t responsible for Stan being quiet and bitter and too fucking put together. They have a relationship Richie imagines is similar to that of a National Geographic photographer and a lion—we can all get along and do our jobs if you mind your own business.
Weirdly, Richie feels slightly nervous on his way through the house to Stan’s room. Even on the days he feels most out of place, when Stan’s mom has just cleaned the living room and the air still smells of chemical carpet cleaner and supposedly-lemon-scented furniture polish, Richie has never felt like a trespasser. Now, though, remembering how Stan had looked at him before he’d walked out...now Richie doesn’t know. And he’s honestly slightly surprised Stan is home, even if he’s glad he is. Ben had mentioned Mike running after him. He’d have assumed Stan would spend as much time as possible with Mike, if he. Well.
Richie swallows. He gets it. He really does.
“Stan?” he calls, approaching Stan’s door. Rarely does he take Stan’s closed door seriously, preferring to barge through, or at least bang on it until the harried boy on the other side opens it, exasperated. Richie just...it’s been a long time since he felt unsure of where he and Stan stand with each other, and he’d rather play it a little safe if it means he gets to keep his best friend. “Hey Stan, it’s me.”
“What are you doing here?” Stan asks. The doorknob does not turn. Ah. So Stubborn Stan is out to play.
“Can you let me in and we can get this conversation about feelings and crap out of the way so we can get back to having fun, asshole?” he asks. It would probably be more convincing if his voice didn’t crack. He winces.
Apparently this works for Stan, though, because the door opens a crack and Stan peers out from the doorway.
“So now you want to have a conversation?” he asks, unimpressed and skeptical and, god, fuck, Richie fucking loves him. He beams at him.
“I always knew you couldn’t resist me, baby,” Richie coos, and Stan rolls his eyes, but he can’t hide the quirk of a smile before Richie sees it.
“Shut up, fine, come in,” Stan says, opening the bedroom door wider and ushering Richie in before closing it again behind them. Richie sits on the edge of Stan’s perfectly made up bed, picking at the blanket nervously. “What did you want to talk about?”
“Are you gay?” Richie blurts out, almost swallowing his tongue in the effort to take the words back as quickly as he’d said them. His heart is racing, something like hope and something like terror at war in his stomach. He looks up at Stan to gauge his reaction, to see how badly he’s misjudged this, if Stan is totally freaked out that Richie would even think Stan could be like that, if Stan hates him or pities him, all of the above.
Stan glances at his bedroom door, then back at Richie, before shrugging with a noncommittal sound.
“I don’t really know,” he says. He’s so matter-of-fact about it that it makes Richie’s face go pink. “I...it feels more, I don’t know, complicated than that, but I...” he sets his jaw, determined to get through whatever he’s trying to say, focused on a spot just behind Richie. Grounding, Richie’s brain supplies. He’s doing that grounding thing he and Bill were on about the other day. “I like, Mike, so, that’s that.”
“That’s that?” Richie echoes. He can’t even look Stan in the eye, which is an absurd reaction to be having what the fucking hell. Is he homophobic? Maybe Richie’s been interpreting all his thoughts and feelings and reactions incorrectly this whole time. How can Stan just say shit like that? Like it doesn’t cost him absolutely everything? And if Stan can do that, and Richie really is that way too, then why can’t he?
“What do you want me to say, Richie?” Stan asks wearily, glancing at the bedroom door again before lowering his voice a bit. “I know I like guys, the end. I think I like girls too, but I’ll get to that when it’s important.”
“Oh.” Richie considers this. His hand stills on the blanket. “Is that...would that be better?” His throat feels thick, it hurts to swallow suddenly and Richie really really does not like where those symptoms are going.
“No,” Stan says. It’s almost a rebuke, so sharp that Richie’s suddenly a kid sitting in his older sister’s room and getting yelled at for touching her things all over again. “Richie, look at me.” He tries, he really does. He feels himself flushing even redder as he does it, but he’s eventually able to look back up at his friend. Stan’s expression is severe and kind all at once. Richie will never understand how he does that. “I need you to promise me you’re not going to freak out on me again,” Stan says, coming to sit beside Richie on the bed.
“Okay,” Richie says. It’s painful to talk, the strain of holding himself the hell together suddenly a Herculean task.
“If you like guys, and you only like guys, that’s okay,” Stan says firmly. He sounds so sure that Richie almost believes him. He laughs nervously, scanning his head desperately for something, anything he can joke about here. He’s coming up blank. “Richie. You promised. Don’t freak out on me.”
“Ha, no promises,” Richie laughs unsteadily, and just hearing how shaky his own voice is is enough to put him over the edge entirely. He gives Stan the warning of a single, gasping inhale before the fucking floodwater comes.
Stan doesn’t seem entirely prepared to deal with a suddenly sobbing Richie Tozier. He watches him for a moment before patting him on the shoulder and telling him, “You can cry if you need to, that’s okay.” Richie apparently hadn’t needed permission, but he takes it anyway, crying so hard he can barely breathe, so hard he knows Mr. and Mrs. Uris can hear him. He wonders what the fuck they think the two of them are doing in here. The thought makes him laugh. What the fucking hell. Stan likes Mike and Eddie kissed five people that weren’t him today and Richie is crying harder than he has in years, maybe ever, at least since he broke his leg falling off Sarah Flynn’s trampoline in 5th grade. Today is so dumb. He laughs again at the thought, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt.
“So,” he says, bumping his shoulder against Stan’s conspiratorially. “I heard Mikey ran after your diva walkout earlier. Get any action?” He waggles his eyebrows. Stan is staring at him, open-mouthed. “First kiss to third base all in an afternoon, god, they grow up quickly,” Richie says.
“You’re insane,” Stan says in disbelief, but he’s grinning now, laughing along with Richie, shaking his head. “Jesus, Richie, you scared me there for a minute.”
“You’re not denying it,” Richie says, all singsong now. He feels lighter than he has all day.
“No, Richie I did not get any action,” Stan says, so annoyed Richie’s heart is full to bursting. “He was being nice. We just talked for a little bit, then he had to go.”
“Oh you talked?” Richie says, eyebrows raised. Stan smacks his arm.
“Explaining that I got into a fight with you and then not telling him what about isn’t exactly the most romantic setting I can imagine.”
This actually does interest Richie. “You didn’t tell him about it?”
Stan frowns. “Of course not.”
“Oh.”
“Did you think I was just going to talk about what you’re going through with anyone who would listen?”
Richie shrugs. “I mean, I don’t know. You could have.”
“No I couldn’t have. Besides,” he adds. “It’s not like I could explain your...situation without explaining mine too.”
“Don’t be a coward, Stan, sweep that boy off his feet! You should write him a poem: ‘Roses are red, violets are blue, I have a super embarrassing crush on you.’” Richie chuckles, but Stan doesn’t. He scrunches up his face, smiling but in a rueful sort of way. He looks sad. Richie feels like he kicked a puppy.
“Yeah, I, I really don’t think he wants that from me,” he says lightly. He’s acting like it’s no big deal, like he hasn’t really thought about it, but Richie knows better. He knows Stan.
“Then he’s stupid. You’re the greatest.” It doesn’t fix anything, not even close, but Stan smiles for real at least. He watches Richie for a moment, biting his lip like he’s thinking something over. “What?” Richie wrinkles his nose. “Oh god, you’re not going to fall in love with me now, are you?”
Stan must decide to just let him have that one in recompense for what he’s about to do, because he doesn’t so much as roll his eyes before asking carefully, “Do you want to talk about Eddie?”
Richie sucks in a breath like he’d been struck. It’s such a genuinely stupid physical reaction that he wants to slap himself for it.
For once, he lets himself think before answering Stan. Does he want to talk about Eddie? What’s there to say? How much is he even willing to let himself put into words?
“Not yet,” he says at last. “I don’t...I can’t. I’m sorry.” He means it.
Stan takes it in stride though, nodding quickly. “Okay. Not right now. But you know you can, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And it’s...it’s okay, Richie. You can want that.”
Richie closes his eyes and nods. “Mmhmm.” Maybe one day he’ll be able to hear Eddie’s name without it burning.
Stan doesn’t push it, because Stan really is the greatest. Besides. They’ve both cried enough for one day. The conversation moves to the inane, and eventually Stan’s mom knocks and asks Richie if he’s staying for dinner. He does.
-----
It’s easier, after that. Richie calms down. He manages to hang out with his friends again without being awful to them for following the rules of Spin the Bottle. Even Mike. Maybe especially Mike, honestly, hating Mike is just not an option. Plus, now that he knows how Stan feels about him, watching the two of them interact is hilarious. It tugs at his heart a bit, though he’d never admit that. But he cares about Stan. He wants him to be happy, even if what he wants seems impossible.
They spend more time together, just the two of them, since Stan confessed his feelings and Richie didn’t but did cry like a baby. The others have noticed, but haven’t said much about it. Richie will go over to Stan’s in the evening, or Stan will stay at Richie’s when everyone else has already cleared out. It’s not really something they discuss. It’s just. Nice, to not feel like the only person in the world all the time.
Richie’s getting better at Talking About It too. He hasn’t talked about why he was crying or why he still can’t make himself say the words Stan seems to find so easily, but he’ll tease Stan for getting tongue tied when Mike asks him a direct question or agrees with him when the group bickers. And to his credit, Stan seems to have accepted this as their new normal.
He doesn’t bring up That Day until a week later. They’re lounging around in Stan’s room, Stan doing his summer reading and Richie reading the latest Uncanny X-Men. He’s restless, flipping the pages with a practiced neutrality as he tries to figure out how focused Stanley is and how annoyed he’ll be by Richie disturbing him. He abandons the comic and sets to drawing a skull and crossbones on his forearm with a ballpoint pen instead. It gives him something to concentrate on, at least, and maybe that’s why he’s able to start talking.
“It kind of sucks, you know?” he says, drawing a sad gaping mouth onto the skull. “That you got to finally kiss a boy, and you don’t even like him.” He sets the pen down and admires his work. “I should get this tattooed, it looks sick.”
“It does look sick,” Stan hums in agreement, only glancing over briefly from To Kill a Mockingbird before going back to it. “It looks infected.”
Richie smiles at the drawing, turning his arm over to make it move. He can practically hear Eddie lecturing him about ink poisoning.
“Have you?” Stan asks. He’s still looking at his book, but that’s the voice he uses when he thinks Richie’s a rabid animal he doesn’t want to spook. Richie looks over at him and frowns.
“What? You lost me.”
“Have you ever, you know. Kissed a boy.” Stan’s grip on the school-provided paperback looks painful.
“Oh.” Richie’s stomach drops. “I mean, your dad was making eyes at me over dinner the other—”
“Stop,” Stan groans, holding up a hand. “No.” Richie snickers.
“I mean, who am I gonna kiss?” he asks seriously. “Derry isn’t exactly crawling with, with guys like us.”
“Oh,” is all Stan says.
“I mean, you kissed Eddie, but that doesn’t count,” Richie goes on, defensive out of thin air. But it didn’t count. It didn’t, because then it doesn’t matter. It makes more sense and hurts less.
“I’ve kissed guys that aren’t Eddie,” Stan says. He turns around in his desk chair, looking at Richie at last.
“What.”
“Do you remember when I went to camp last summer?” he asks.
“Okay?”
“Well, I. There was a guy. There.” Stan looks embarrassed. Richie has no idea why he’s telling him this, why he’s still talking at all. Maybe it’s one of those things where you open your mouth and words just sort of happen whether you like it or not. Richie gets that.
“You had a gay summer romance and you didn’t tell me?” Richie asks, because he can focus on that. If he’s in indignant friend mode, the rest doesn’t matter. Then he won’t say you got to kiss other boys and you got to kiss Eddie and I didn’t? because it doesn’t matter and it isn’t Stan’s fault anyway.
“How was I supposed to tell you about that? For all I knew you would have punched me in the face.”
Richie swallows. “I wouldn’t have.”
“Well I know that now.” Stan sighs. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t...I wouldn’t have said anything.”
God, Richie fucking hates Pity Stan.
“Don’t be a baby,” he tells him crossly.
“Are you mad?” Stan asks.
“No.”
“You sound pretty mad.”
“Well I’m not.”
“Why are you mad at me?” Stan sounds so sad that Richie is instantly guilty. It hits Richie, in that moment, that maybe Stan needs him as much as Richie needs him.
“I’m not mad at you,” he insists. “I just, I don’t know, I thought we were on the same playing field and we aren’t and that’s weird. It’s fine.”
Stan is quiet.
“I could kiss you. If you wanted.” He says it so softly Richie thinks he imagined it, that he misinterpreted the sound of the fucking wind in the trees or something. “Never mind.” Stan turns back to his homework so abruptly he knocks over the pencil cup on his desk. Utensils roll across the surface and onto the floor, Stan cursing as he tries to gather them back up.
“No, it’s. It’s okay.” He can’t see Stan’s face, but his back and shoulders look as tense as Richie’s ever seen him.
“I just thought maybe you’d want to get it out of the way, try it once to see...it was stupid. Don’t worry about it.”
“Stanny, if you wanted to kiss me you could have just asked,” he says, smacking his lips at Stan instead of panicking, because it’s easier than confessing that he’s terrified that he won’t like it. That he will.
“Okay, don’t be a dick,” Stan scolds. Richie kisses him.
It’s quick. He just presses their lips together long enough to feel it before pulling away again. He feels the bizarre compulsion to check over his shoulder.
“I like Eddie,” he blurts out. His hands are still hovering in the space between himself and Stan, unsure of where to land. Stan blinks at him, shakes off the whiplash of Richie having an internal crisis. Then he smiles at him.
“I know.”
“Okay.” Richie takes a deep breath, holds it, exhales shakily, a crude imitation of Stan centering himself. “Cool.” The empty eyes of his ballpoint skull and crossbones stare up at him blankly. Richie flips them off.
“That was weird, right?” Stan asks.
It would be stupid for Richie to be hurt by that, but apparently Richie is stupid. “It wasn’t that weird.”
“No, I just meant...I mean it’s not going to become a regular thing.”
“Oh. No. definitely not.” Richie grins at him. “I wouldn’t steal you away from your farmboy. I think he could probably bench press me.”
“He’s not my anything,” Stan says primly.
“Still. I couldn’t break your dad’s heart if anything were to happen to me—”
Stan throws an eraser at him and Richie cackles.
He lets Richie leave the conversation at that, and he’s grateful for it. They go back to their respective reading, and Richie contemplates the fact that he kissed a boy and the world didn’t collapse on him.
-----
They have a group sleepover for Mike’s birthday that weekend. Bill hosts them all in his living room, and Richie, Eddie, Mike, and Stan go to the Family Video to rent movies for the night. They’ve got a stack of seven tapes. They’ll have to whittle it down before they leave, but every time Mike admits he hasn’t seen something the other boys are talking about, Richie can’t help but immediately add it to their collection, shaking his head in disbelief. Stan is playing Good Cop, insisting that Mike should be picking what they watch because it’s Mike’s birthday. Eddie is Annoying Cop. He’s running his mouth a mile a minute as always, fretting over what the MPAA thinks of each movie Richie grabs and insisting they buy seven bags of popcorn in turn, like they’re made of money.
“It’s a racket, Eds, you’re getting ripped off. Everyone knows they overcharge concessions at the rental places,” Richie tells him. “We’ll go to the store across the street and it’ll be a third of the price.” Stan nods his approval at this, which makes Richie roll his eyes.
“Whatever. Just don’t get the kind with that fake butter shit,” Eddie says.
“What’s the point of movie popcorn without movie theater butter?”
“That shit isn’t even real butter, it’s all chemicals, that’s why it’s so yellow. It sticks to your lungs and gives you irreversible scarring in your bronchioles and then you can’t breathe and you die of lung disease,” Eddie lectures. Richie stomps down the urge to kiss his scrunched up angry little forehead.
“If a bowl of popcorn at Mike’s birthday party is the thing that kills your lungs, I will personally give you CPR, okay?” He crisscrosses a finger over his heart. “Scout’s honor.”
“The scouts don’t want your honor,” Stan grumbles.
“That’s not even how lung disease—you can’t just breathe someone’s lungs clear again,” Eddie yells.
“I think we should get Ghostbusters,” Mike says politely. Richie grins at him.
“Mikey, you’re a man of taste,” Richie tells him. He’s not totally sure what his voice is doing, but it’s aiming for something in the Maltese Falcon ballpark. “And you’re with me on the buttery popcorn, right?”
Mike glances at Stan before saying, “I’m okay with whatever everyone wants. It’s all popcorn.”
Richie throws his hands up in frustration as Eddie crows his triumph. Stan looks about ready to abandon all of them, claim he’s never seen them before in his life to any curious patrons.
“Staaaannnnnn, you’re corrupting him, you’re making him boring like you,” Richie whines.
“Beep beep,” Stan hisses, looking at Mike quickly and swallowing. “Shut up.”
Richie blinks in surprise; he really didn’t think he’d said anything that bad.
“Sorry,” he stammers. Eddie’s jaw drops.
“Stan how do you do that?! Can you teach me?” he asks.
“No.”
Eddie sighs, but he’s running off to criticize the safety hazard that the gumball machine in the corner poses about thirty seconds later, so he can’t have taken the rejection too hard. Richie watches Stan to make sure he isn’t lastingly upset, but he seems fine, if stressed. Which is nothing new. Then Mike puts a hand on Stan’s arm, gentle, and Stan visibly melts under the touch. And that...is new. Or maybe it isn’t? Maybe Richie just hadn’t noticed.
Oh Stan he thinks. Be a little braver. You could have everything.
After some serious debate and a few threats from the bored teenagers behind the counter, they’re able to narrow the remaining six movies in their pile to two. Stan sets the three agreed upon films on the counter and checks them out while Eddie gives the popcorn one last longing look, Richie charitably not mentioning that all of it has butter. They probably won’t get through all three movies, they’d reasoned, but this way at least Mike gets cultured for his birthday no matter what they watch.
As promised, they swing by the grocery store and Richie buys popcorn (four bags, not seven, because it may be a birthday but Richie’s hardly the Monopoly man). Stan breaks from the group on some mysterious mission which Richie is fairly certain is a cake, which, oh buddy.
Richie throws in a box of Milk Duds before they hit checkout because Eddie hates them and the way they stick to his teeth. Eddie whines, and Richie threatens to pour them into the popcorn bowl, mix them in so Eddie can’t avoid them. He insists that’s how he always ate popcorn at the movies as a kid, even though his dad never would have allowed it, telling Richie just because it’s tempting doesn’t mean it’s good for him. His dad hates Milk Duds too. Richie wonders what he’d think of Eddie.
Eventually, they make their way to Bill’s. Georgie throws open the door when they knock, immediately zeroing in on Eddie to tell him all about his battle with Bronchitis, which Eddie seems overwhelmed by.
“Gee Eds,” Richie says when Mrs. Denbrough calls him away to help her with something. “Looks like you’re going to have to kiss Georgie next.”
“Fuck off, he’s a kid,” Eddie says back irritably. In the background, Bill is hollering something about how NO ONE is kissing his BABY BROTHER.
“He’s eleven,” Richie says to be a pest. “He’s in middle school. I’m just saying, he’s totally obsessed with you, which is weird because you’re like, Bill’s least cool friend. Even Bill is cooler than you. Stan is giving you a run for your money, but at least he said ‘fuck’ in temple that one time.” He grins at Stan, proud of his charity. Stan just shakes his head disapprovingly.
“I’m not kissing anyone,” Eddie says, final. “Let’s make this goddamn popcorn, I’m starving.” The others follow him to the kitchen. Richie moves to do the same, but Stan stops him with a hand to the chest.
“Dude,” Stan says. “You have to calm down. I cannot begin to tell you how ridiculous you are for being jealous of a sixth grader.”
“Okay, okay,” Richie says, flushed and uncomfortable. He swats Stan’s hand away. “I’ll go easy on the kid.” Stan looks him over like he doesn’t trust him or something, and Richie resists scoffing at him indignantly.
“Just...be nice. Please? It’s Mike’s birthday,” Stan pleads. Richie softens.
“Fine, okay, I won’t ruin your—”
“Stop,” Stan groans. He turns and leaves to join the others in the kitchen, saying “Sometimes I think I never should have said anything to you at all,” as he goes. It’s not mean, though, Stan isn’t mad, so Richie bounds after him.
Eddie is eyeing the doorway when Stan and Richie enter the kitchen. Richie’s entirely unprepared for it, stopping short when he and Eddie make eye contact, swallowing hard as he tries to remember how to not be weird. He looks away quickly.
“What were you and Stan doing?” Eddie asks, slotting into his usual spot beside Richie. Bill and the others are fussing over the microwave, and Richie knows for a fact that Eddie isn’t allowed to stand near microwaves. That’s why he’s so close to Richie right now. Doesn’t want to get radiation poisoning or electrocuted or something. God. Richie’s embarrassingly fond of him for finding that cute. His mind goes blank, and he’s just looking at Eddie, Eddie looking back at him with increasing concern.
“Sorry, what?” Richie asks finally. Eddie frowns.
“You and Stan are together all the time now.”
It sounds...pointed. Richie’s heart clenches, this time more from panic than just being a sappy idiot. His face feels hot. What is Eddie saying? Has he somehow figured it all out? Richie isn’t even sure he has it all figured out. Fuck fuck fuck.
Richie tries to signal an SOS message to Stan with his eyes, but the other boy is too busy smiling at something Mike is saying to notice.
“It’s not a big deal,” he answers Eddie at last, realizing he’s probably being more weird b not responding. “We’ve just both been bored.”
“I’m bored too,” Eddie says, almost petulant. Then he seems to catch himself, straightening up. “Whatever.” It’s a lame finish, and Eddie himself doesn’t seem to think that was a winning conversation closer either as he walks back over to the others to check their snack progress. Richie watches him in confusion as he grabs the first bowl of popcorn and scurries away with it before anyone else can make him put it back.
“Eddie!” Bill yells after him. Bev is cracking up. She’s not allowed to spend the night, which Richie thinks is totally bullshit but whatever. At least she’s allowed to hang out until late.
Inspired by Eddie’s bold thievery, Richie grabs the package of Milk Duds still in his pocket and tears it open. Eddie shrieks, darting out of the kitchen, Richie hot on his heels. A few popped kernels spill out of the bowl as Eddie runs, always faster than Richie expects him to be. The weirdness of minutes ago is entirely forgotten, and Richie belly laughs as he feels himself slip on the hall rug and go down with a thunderous thud. He laughs harder when the shock of the fall passes, the others quickly running in to see what happened.
“Richie,” Stan groans when he sees him on the floor. Ben and Mike look worried beside him.
“Oh my god are you okay?” Bill asks frantically. “My parents will kill me if anyone ends up in the hospital, I barely convinced them to host everyone in the first place.”
“Aw shucks, Billy, your concern is making me blush,” Richie says dryly.
“He’s fine,” Stan confirms.
“It’s Eddie’s fault anyway,” Richie says as he gets back up. “If he’d have just taken these Milk Duds like a man...”
“Oh shut up Richie, you could have cracked your head open and died,” Eddie yells back. Richie feels warm, comfortably so this time.
“Didn’t realize you cared so much, Eds,” he says, batting his eyelashes for effect.
“I don’t, I just don’t need your blood on my hands.”
“Okay, that’s enough,” Stan says, crabby again. He turns to Mike. “Sorry about that. What do you want to watch first?”
“Oh,” Mike says, thinking a minute. “I don’t know, what does everyone else want to start with?”
“No, come on, it’s your birthday,” Ben insists as Eddie bellows “GREASED LIGHTNING.”
This leads to a discussion almost as intense as the one they’d had making decisions at the video store, but eventually the group agrees on starting with Grease, then progressing to Ghostbusters, finishing with Poltergeist. Ben, Stan, and Eddie seem less enthused about ending with the scary movie, but Richie reasons they’ll probably all fall asleep early anyway and then the rest of them can have fun.
Mrs. Denbrough comes into the living room as they’re getting set up. It’s an ordeal, everyone negotiating space and who they’re going to set their sleeping bag up next to. Richie unceremoniously thunks his down between Eddie and Mike, because like hell are they going to cuddle up on the floor together on Richie’s watch, birthday or no.
“What are you kids watching?” Mrs. Denbrough asks, setting down a veggie tray, bless her heart. Georgie pokes his head around her and Richie sighs.
“Grease,” they chorus. She purses her lips. Her thoughts on the music and the smoking and the John Travolta of it all are hardly a secret, but it’s easily the least objectionable thing they’ve picked for the evening. That had been half the strategy in picking it for when Bill’s parents would still be awake.
“Can Georgie watch with you?” she asks. Bill groans and Bev smacks his shoulder, the others snickering.
“Okay,” he says. Georgie immediately settles near Eddie. Richie tamps down the snarl building in his throat. He’s sure Stan is watching him, unimpressed and haughty, from the couch. Well. Richie hasn’t given him anything to scold, so take that.
Mike has never seen Grease, and it turns out to be a much weirder movie than any of them remembered when seen with fresh eyes. They’d learned, after watching Back to the Future with Mike for the first time, that Mike is a very polite movie viewer. Which is nice, but unnecessary with the rest of them. They all talk through movies, adding commentary or yelling at the characters or just having entirely separate conversations over the boring parts. Poor Mike had only caught about a third of the film’s dialogue and was completely lost as far as the plot went. And to be fair, the plot is hard enough to follow without Richie and Eddie screaming about whether or not it would be ethical to use time travel to fuck Hitler’s mom and prevent his birth over it. Since that debacle, they’ve trained Mike to ask questions, or at least say something when he’s confused.
He’s confused a lot during Grease.
“Is that...Elvis?” he asks. Four of them rush to answer him at once, providing no clarity at all. When they all quiet down again, Stan explains what’s actually going on in a low voice, and Mike turns to smile at him gratefully.
“Who is she?” Mike asks a bit later, when the inexplicable school dance competition breaks out. Georgie, meanwhile, is enthusiastically learning how to handjive, which is making Eddie laugh. A kid Richie reminds himself. Calm down.
“Here,” Stan says, scooting over on the couch to make space. It’s cramped, thanks to Ben and Bev sitting on the other end, but Mike takes the spot anyway. Stan is sitting with his arms around his knees, curled up against the arm of the couch, but he curls into Mike instead and quietly gives him an update on the plot rundown. Richie’s heart is hammering for reasons he can’t even begin to decipher. He feels like they’re on a train heading towards something. He doesn’t know if it’s good or bad, he’d honestly prefer to just get off the ride, but Stan and Mike are still whispering to each other behind him and it’s making the hair on the back of Richie’s neck stand up.
Eddie corrects the order Georgie is doing the hand motions in, demonstrating them sloppily. Richie could fucking cry.
“Wait,” Mike says when Sandy comes out all dolled-up in her leather jumpsuit. “What?”
“No, it’s stupid, you can’t explain it away,” Bev says over the boys. “Just appreciate the funhouse choreography and try not to be depressed.”
She means it, clearly, because she and Ben are singing along passionately seconds later, Richie and Georgie chiming in with an enthusiastic, “Wah-oooh, yeah!”
“They’re not even saying words,” Mike says, but he’s smiling. Stan laughs at him.
“It’s fun!” he replies.
“Okay, let’s hear your singalong, Stan the man. Solo round, please,” Richie says sweetly, because okay, he’s kind of an asshole. It’s his job. They’d all go to pieces in a day if he wasn’t. Stan just snorts and chucks a piece of popcorn at his face. It bounces off his glasses.
“Jesus,” Eddie mutters. Richie’s confused by this, but then everyone is laughing at the look on Mike’s face when the car takes off for the sky as the film wraps up, and he doesn’t think about it again.
“Final thoughts, Mr. Hanlon?” Richie asks in his best tv presenter voice, holding Eddie’s shoe to him like a microphone.
“Richie, give it back!” Eddie complains.
“Uhh...I think I liked it,” Mike says honestly. “They lost me a bit at the end there, but it was fun to see you all getting into it.”
Bev coos. “Mike, you’re so sweet.”
“Speaking of sweet,” Bill says, jumping up and nodding at Stan. Stan gets up too, beckoning to Georgie to follow him as he goes back into the kitchen.
“What’s going on?” Mike asks. Richie springs up and flips the lights off, and a moment later, Stan and Georgie are re-entering with the cake Stan had procured, seventeen candles now lit on top.
“Do we have to sing?” Bill asks, just as the others take a breath and start half-singing, half-screaming “HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!”
Mike is beaming at them all, his face illuminated by the glow of the candles as Stan holds it carefully in front of him. He looks up at Stan, almost shy in spite of his grin, then blows out all the candles in one go. Everyone cheers, and Stan disappears back into the kitchen once again with the cake, presumably to pull the candles back out before the wax starts dripping onto the frosting.
“What did you wish for?” Georgie asks happily.
“Well, if I tell you, it won’t come true,” Mike says, but he might as well have said everything, the way his eyes are still watching the door back into the kitchen. It makes Richie’s breath catch in his throat. Shit. Okay.
“As long as it’s not anymore kissing,” Eddie says darkly, and Bev laughs, ruffling his hair.
“Who’s kissing?” Stan asks as he re-enters the room. “Cake’s in the kitchen,” he adds.
“Bring it back here, what the hell,” Richie says.
“I’m not getting frosting on Bill’s carpet. Get a plate.”
“Me and Mike,” Eddie sighs. And it’s...Richie thinks he sounds like he’s telling a joke, which is weird, it’s so not Eddie’s normal brand of humor. “Everyone else is pairing off, obviously Mike’s wish was for a reprise of the best kiss of his life.”
“You sound like Richie,” Bill says, sounding tired.
“Who’s pairing off?” Ben asks in confusion, glancing at Bev beside him.
Stan is absolutely silent. He’s so silent it’s loud, actually, after he’d loosened up so much in the 110 minute fever dream that was their Grease rewatch. He’d been relaxed, happy even, and now Richie can see him walling himself back up and it’s not fair, it’s not fair because Stan didn’t see the look on Mike’s face when he came back into the room.
“What the fuck, Eddie?” The chatter dies down, and jesus, everyone is looking at him now. He realizes he said the f word in front of Georgie, that’s a shame.
“What?” Eddie snaps back. Richie looks around at the others, watching them with concern, confusion. Stan’s eyes are practically begging Richie to drop it, to not make this into a thing.
“You guys go get cake,” Richie says tightly. “It’s fine.”
They listen, thank god, since when have they ever listened to Richie. He thinks maybe Bill shepherds them off. Good. They’ll listen to Bill.
“Dude, that sucked,” he says in a low voice when they’ve finally all left. He can only hope Stan and Bill have the good sense to make them eat in the dining room instead of letting them come back in. Their time here to talk is limited as is, but fuck, Richie doesn’t know where to start. He doesn’t even totally understand why he’s so upset, whether it’s on Stan’s behalf or his own or both, but it doesn’t matter. He’s sad and angry and it’s Mike’s birthday and he can’t believe things had to reach a boiling point tonight of all nights.
Eddie’s frown deepens. “What the fuck, why do you care?”
And there’s an easy out. If things were different, he could tell Eddie how much it killed Stan to watch him and Mike kissing. That reminding him of it even to make a joke is being a shit friend. But, of course, telling Eddie any of that is being a way shittier friend. He can’t do that to Stan, not after everything he’s done for him since Eddie’s fucking kissing party. He squares his shoulders, raises his chin a little.
“I don’t want to hear about you kissing Mike anymore. I was there, I watched you kiss everyone else.”
“You’re...are you upset that I got to kiss more people than you?” Eddie asks dubiously.
“It’s just ridiculous that literally everyone else had a turn,” Richie says. He’s not even sure if that’s what he meant to say or not, he already knows he’s going to be waving the white flag on this one and doesn’t know why he’s insisting on digging this hole even deeper into the ground. Maybe because he knows if he’s here with Eddie then they’re not around Stan.
“So you’re...are you actually mad that you didn’t have to kiss me?” Eddie snorts, blushing red to the tips of his ears. “What, you heard everyone else’s complaints and wanted some new material?”
That makes Richie so sad and so furious that maybe it’s inevitable that he blurts out, “I wouldn’t have made fun of you! Or, maybe I would have, I don’t know, but I would have liked it too because I wanted to kiss you you fucking asshole. None of them cared, they didn’t care at all that they got to kiss you, they were all doing it because they had to for the game. They got to kiss you and it didn’t matter to any of them and it’s not fucking fair.”
Eddie is watching him with wide, wide eyes.
“Richie?” he asks softly. He sounds so small. “What are you saying?”
Richie doesn’t know whether to laugh or scream at Eddie’s willful obtuseness. He knows, he has to know by now what words are hiding in the spaces between Richie’s sentences. Why is he dragging this out? God, has he really known the whole time? He must have, must have figured Richie out when he was acting like a weirdo after the Spin the Bottle game and been biding his time trying to figure out just how to let Richie know he’s not interested. And why would he be, how could he be. He thinks kissing Mike Hanlon is a joke when Stan would have killed to be him. When Richie would have given anything to hear Eddie say he’s his favorite.
“I’m sorry,” he chokes out.
“Richie, you’re freaking me out,” Eddie says. He looks scared, dark eyes watching Richie carefully, looking him over for god knows what symptoms. “Are you sick or something?”
YES a pathetic part of Richie wants to scream. Yes I’m sick I’m lovesick I’m sick to death of your fucking face!
“I’m fine,” he says. It hurts to swallow.
Eddie is very quiet. When Richie dares to look up at him, he doesn’t look how Richie pictured him. He looks like he’s debating with himself.
“Can I...am I allowed to ask about Stan?” Eddie asks at last.
“Uh...” is Richie’s incredibly intelligent answer.
“You don’t have to tell me anything, I’m not going to be weird about it, I just. When were you going to tell us?”
Richie’s frowning now. He wonders if he blacked out for part of this conversation and is just coming back in now.
“Tell you what?”
Eddie closes his eyes. “Please don’t make me say it,” he says weakly. “I know you think I’m brave, sometimes, but I’m not that brave.”
“Eds,” Richie says, heart pounding. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You and Stan are, you’re hanging out together alone all the time and you got all weird after I, I kissed him and, and,” Eddie sounds miserable, searching frantically for the words to convey what he’s asking. Which.
“Wait, do you think...me and Stan?”
Eddie won’t look at him.
“Yeah.”
Richie laughs. He laughs because what else can he possibly do? They’ve both gotten this so unbelievably wrong, and sure, it sucks that Eddie’s probably freaked out by the concept of Richie dating guys, but it’s also absolutely hilarious right now.
“It’s not funny,” Eddie says, fire back in his voice at the drop of a hat.
“Me and Stan aren’t anything,” Richie gasps out, his laughter verging on hysterical.
“Wait, really?”
“No!”
“Oh.” Eddie is flushing bright red. “Okay. Um. I’m sorry.”
Richie shrugs. There’s something incredibly calming about almost experiencing the worst moment of your natural life only for it to be a misunderstanding.
“So—” Eddie starts, clearly still thinking through his sentence. Richie’s heart falls back into the pit of his stomach. God. Eddie really is going to be the death of him. “So, wait. You said...”
“I say a lot of things,” Richie says quickly.
“You’re not dating anybody.”
Richie doesn’t answer this, but Eddie apparently takes his silence as confirmation. Rude. He could totally have a secret lover in France or California or somewhere.
“And you said that you. You wanted to kiss me.”
“I say a lot of things,” Richie repeats.
“I didn’t want to kiss any of them,” Eddie blurts out. “It was stressful and weird and I didn’t...it landed on Mike.” Richie can barely follow what Eddie’s saying. This must have been how Mike felt watching Back to the Future. “I didn’t want it to land on Mike.”
“Eds—” he tries weakly.
“I wanted it to land on you.”
Richie thinks his vision must whiteout, or maybe that’s just his brain exploding, or maybe he just can’t hear anymore over the blood pounding in his ears. Something has to be wrong because no way on earth is he processing anything about this correctly.
Eddie doesn’t back down. He doesn’t look confused or scared or angry anymore, he’s just looking at Richie.
“Why?” Richie hears himself ask.
“You know why,” Eddie says. His voice is small again, like he’s curling in on himself to protect against Richie, and god, he hates it. Well. If Eddie is afraid, then Richie can be brave for him.
“I wanted to kiss you. Not because everyone else was, or to make fun of you. I wanted to kiss you because I want to kiss you.”
“Are you sure?” Eddie asks. Richie takes a deep breath and considers. He knows the answer. He’s always known the answer. But he could deny it, he could laugh this off, he could go eat cake with their friends and pretend like this conversation isn’t a physical ache in his chest. If he says the right thing, they both leave and nothing changes.
Somehow, that doesn’t seem like enough this time.
“Yeah,” he says. “I’m sure.”
Eddie seems to take a minute to process this, but when he does, a tentative smile blooms.
“Cool,” he says. Then he frowns and quickly adds, “Uh, me too. I mean, I’m sure. Too.” He trails off awkwardly. Richie loves him. He moves in a bit closer to Eddie, not totally sure what he’s even doing, half convinced in the back of his mind that this is still somehow a misunderstanding. And maybe he’s right to worry, because Eddie holds up a hand between them and says, “Not right now?” He looks at Richie nervously, those dark eyes Richie has always been so so stupid for uncharacteristically somber. “It’s not you. It’s not your fault...shit.” Eddie looks down. He’s embarrassed, Richie realizes. “Everyone’s here, this is a party, technically, and I...I don’t want that. Not with you.”
“Oh,” Richie says. That much makes sense, and it makes Richie’s heart hammer wildly. “Okay, yeah, no, for sure. That's totally fine.”
“Are you rambling?” Eddie asks incredulously, his smile returning slowly. “Are you at a loss for words?”
“Shut up,” Richie says, flushing hot and red under Eddie’s scrutiny. “Of course not, I just needed to dumb my replies down for you so you’d be able to understand them.”
“You want to kiss me and I made you speechless holy shit Richie, you do like me,” Eddie says with a laugh. And god, god, Richie has heard Eddie say those words to him a thousand times in his head, but Eddie never sounded so fucking happy saying them. He feels like his heart is going to explode. Which, it better not, he hasn’t even gotten to kiss Eddie yet.
Yet.
“Guys?”
Richie cringes a bit at the way he automatically steps back from Eddie, but Eddie doesn’t seem bothered. Georgie is standing in the doorway, looking worried.
“What’s up dude?” Richie asks. He’s feeling significantly fonder of Georgie than he had earlier.
“We saved you both cake,” he says, biting his lip. “Do you want to come back?”
Richie looks at Eddie to confirm, and he nods.
“Yeah, totally. Those slices better be big, too, I’m not eating something wimpy that Stan sliced because I wasn’t there to tell him off,” Richie says, following Georgie back to the dining room with Eddie. He would have liked more time to talk, but he’s realizing that he has time now. They’ll talk eventually. They have time.
He’d managed to forget how they left things with the others in light of the absolutely surreal revelations that had followed, but it comes back when he enters the Denbrough’s dining room and sees Stan.
Stan’s sitting alone, at the opposite end of the room from Mike. It’s obvious that he’s deep in thought (probably beating himself up for absolutely no reason, if Richie knows him) and making himself miserable. If anyone deserves to be happy and appreciated, it’s Stanley Uris. This is ridiculous.
Everyone else in the room seems to agree, because everyone is shooting Stan concerned glances and exchanging silent, tense looks.
“So, Ghostbusters?” Richie asks as he grabs the plate of cake that had been left for him, because screw all of this. Stan isn’t allowed to be sad on Mike’s birthday.
“Is everything okay?” Ben asks carefully. He’s always had the most tact of any of them. Which maybe isn’t saying a lot, but he’s grateful for it now.
“Verily, good sir,” he says with over-the-top dignity.
“That’s not really how you use that word,” Ben says, but he backs off, seeming content with Richie’s answer. Apparently Richie’s ability to be funny is a weather vane amongst their friends. He’s alright with that.
“Hey Stan,” Bev says, voice soft and sweet. “You never finished your story about you and Richie becoming ghost hunters after you saw the movie for the first time.”
“I was just trying to show Richie that ghosts aren’t real,” Stan say stiffly.
“Well you can show me all over again, our dear birthday boy has never had the pleasure of the Ghost Talk,” Richie says, as pointed as he dares. He tries to soften the blow by letting his voice drift up into spooky-stories-territory, high and warbling, waggling his fingers ominously to make his point. Stan still looks cross with him, glaring across the table, but he gets up from his seat.
“Fine,” he says shortly. “Let’s watch.”
There’s still a bit of tension in the group as they re-settle in the living room (Georgie claims the couch beside Stan this time, which pulls at Richie’s heart.) but it subsides as the movie starts up. The charm of Ghostbusters is undeniable, and it’s mostly only as weird as you expect it to be, with a few exceptional sequences. Mike seems to be enjoying it. He’s quieter this time around though. And Richie’s sure he has questions, how could he not? But Stan has his eyes glued to the screen, looking at the movie and only the movie, not letting himself fall back into the easy rhythm they’d settled into before.
“Okay, if you all couldn’t handle those evil spirits you’re going to want to clear out,” Richie says as the credits roll, clapping his hands to get everyone’s attention. “This is your last chance before we venture somewhere even scarier than Eddie’s mom’s—”
“Oh shove it, dickbreath,” Eddie yells, and Richie beams at him. Hopefully, some things never have to change. Some things do, though, and Richie is learning (gradually) that that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.
“We will reconvene in twenty minutes. If you aren’t hidden away in Bill’s room, you have to promise your nightmares won’t make you piss yourself later.” He has a plan, kind of. It’s haphazard and last minute, but that’s how he does his best work.
The others disperse to either refill snacks (Bill, Georgie, Ben, Bev) or brush their teeth (Eddie).
“Hey, Mike?” Richie calls.
“Yeah?”
“How’d you like the movie?”
“Oh! It was good. I didn’t totally understand the stuff with, um, Ripley?”
Richie groans melodramatically, clutching his chest. “That’s Alien, she’s a totally different character in this one...Stan, please. You’ve gotta give him the rundown before we move on.” He catches Stan’s eye and tries desperately to convey TALK TO HIM PLEASE YOU ARE KILLING ME while still being subtle. Stan looks wary, but not upset, so he just hopes it worked. He shoos them off to Bill’s unoccupied bedroom and prays Bill will understand that this is an act of love and not an act of war.
And maybe he’s feeling just a bit more confident than usual thanks to his earlier conversation with Eddie, so he’s reckless enough to add, “Hey Mike? If that birthday wish is burning a hole in your pocket, Stan’s good with secrets.”
Stan furrows his brow, but Mike’s eyes go wide. He gets it. More or less.
“What was that about?” Eddie asks, coming up behind him and watching Mike carefully shut the door behind him and Stan.
“I’ll tell you when you’re older,” Richie says absently. He can’t help but smile; they’re good for each other. He hadn’t totally understood when Stan had first told him how he felt, but he gets it now.
Richie’s anticipating Eddie’s usual pushback against him, maybe for him to insist on being in on things. Instead, Eddie says, “Hey, will you come outside with me for a minute?”
“Okay?”
Eddie looks around, appears satisfied that all their friends are elsewhere, and steps out onto the Denbrough’s covered porch. Richie follows.
It’s dark out by now, crickets chirping up a storm, stars still mostly visible despite the streetlights.
“Is this the part where you finally murder me?” Richie jokes. “What finally made you snap, the Bill Murray impression?”
“We’re not inside the party anymore,” Eddie says, surging forward and kissing Richie so hard that he stumbles back and hits the side of the house. For a moment, Richie is entirely blindsided. Then, his instincts kick in and he kisses back, lifting a hand to cup Eddie’s cheek. Eddie kisses him and Richie kisses back, takes everything Eddie gives, scared that at any moment he’s going to want it too much and ruin it. He tries to take in everything while they’re kissing so he’ll have it to hang onto when they aren’t anymore: Eddie’s hand on the back of his neck, the way the house’s siding digs into his body where Eddie has him pressed against the wall, Eddie tentatively nipping at his bottom lip, the taste of Eddie’s toothpaste when he finally licks into Richie’s mouth, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie.
He doesn’t realize how hard he’s breathing until Eddie pulls back a step and asks, “Are you okay?”
His immediate reaction is to just honestly answer I like you so much, but he can’t make the words come out. He just stares back at Eddie, mouth hanging open stupidly.
“Fuck, okay,” and now Eddie is the one struggling to breathe, and something about the familiar sound kicks Richie back into gear. “Can we just pretend like this didn’t happen?”
“No,” Richie says, the most honest thing he can say, and he pulls Eddie back in for another kiss.
He’d never admit it for so, so many reasons, but Richie has finally found something good to come out of all of his friends kissing the boy he’s wanted to kiss for years: after the repeated practice, Eddie is a good kisser. Not that Richie has such a wide variety of kisses to compare him to, but kissing Eddie feels better than he’d ever imagined. They kiss until Richie forgets the countdown he’d given everyone for the movie, until Eddie is breathless in a non-anxious capacity, until they hear Bill’s voice through the front window asking, “Where are Richie and Eddie?”
“We should go,” Richie says, swooping in for another brief kiss even as he says it. God, he really is screwed if he’s already this addicted to kissing Eddie from such a small sample.
“Yeah,” Eddie agrees. “Maybe next time we shouldn’t do this on Bill’s fucking porch.”
“Next time?” Richie echoes.
He looks at Eddie when he doesn’t reply right away. Eddie’s worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. It’s mesmerizing. “This wasn’t...you’re not just settling the Spin the Bottle score here, right?”
Maybe it’s how genuinely scared Eddie sounds, or maybe it’s the fact that he’s had Eddie’s tongue in his mouth for the past however long they’ve been outside, or maybe it’s just that he finally realizes he can trust people, but it comes out after all.
“I like you so much,” he hears himself say. He doesn’t even have time to be mortified, because Eddie looks instantly relieved, and how could Richie regret something that made Eddie happier?
“Good,” Eddie says, smiling so suddenly and so brightly that Richie’s blinded. “Me too.”
“Did they go outside?” Bev’s voice coming through the window is all the warning they have before the doorknob is turning. They shift apart again in time for their friends to find them on the porch, making some excuse about Richie trying to scare Eddie in the dark before going back inside to join the others.
Georgie gets called to bed, which he sulks about until they promise to tell him all the best parts of the movie over breakfast in the morning. Bev has to go too, hugging them each goodbye in turn and insisting they rent Poltergeist again soon so she can watch it with them.
By the time they start the movie, it’s truly late, and they’ve all more or less shuffled back into their sleeping bags. Eddie is still sprawled out beside him, which makes his heart do a backflip. Only when looking around at where the others have settled does Richie realize Stan and Mike are back on the couch together, Stan passed out with his head resting on Mike’s shoulder. Richie smiles at Mike, and he smiles back, looking like he can’t believe how lucky he is to have Stan snoring in his ear.
Richie’s the last one awake at the sleepover more often than not, and tonight is no exception. Most of them don’t make it more than halfway through the film even if it is terrifying. Richie’s going to privately award one point in favor of adults who think sugar is a menace, based on the way everyone crashes. He gets up and goes into the kitchen as quietly as he can once he’s positive the others are asleep. He knows where the good snacks are, and he thinks he’s more than earned a little unrestrained access to them, even if it’s approaching 2am. Downing a Coke and a pack of Fruit Gushers, Richie goes back into the living room, suddenly struck by an idea at the sight of everyone gathered around on the floor once again. Setting the now-empty Coke bottle on the floor, Richie takes a deep breath and gives it a spin.
It jerks unsteadily from his shaky hands, completing three or four full turns before even slowing down. Eventually, it wobbles to a stop. The mouth of the bottle is pointing straight to the boy asleep beside Richie’s own sleeping bag.
Grinning, Richie returns the glass bottle to where it belongs in the kitchen. He’ll collect on that one later.