Chapter Text
Eddie woke up when the sun was spilling around the edges of the blackout blinds in Richie’s room and wondered why the fuck Richie didn’t have blinds that fit properly, and then thought that there was maybe nothing more like Richie Tozier than having floor-to-ceiling blackout blinds that didn’t actually fit the windows. The light around the edges was bright and soft, and Eddie rolled over in bed to nuzzle into the back of Richie’s neck. Richie murmured in his sleep, moving a hand to grip Eddie’s thigh like it was a nervous animal and he was trying to provide support.
They’d arrived back at Richie’s apartment past midnight and immediately fallen into bed, Richie pulling him through the apartment to the bedroom like they had no time to waste at all, dropping clothes and Eddie’s luggage as they went like they were leaving a trail of breadcrumbs behind them. They had dropped into the bed, kissing as frantically and passionately as two men trying to make up for the last thirty years, and then almost immediately fallen asleep. It was the adrenaline crashing, Eddie reasoned.
Anyway, there was no rush. He didn’t have to make the best of two hours before he had to go home to a wife who didn’t love him. He could lie in bed with Richie for as long as he wanted; they had nothing to do and nowhere to go, they had no one to answer to and no one to apologise to. Eddie thought fuck , this is what it feels like to be happy . He was not sure how any of the pale imitations of happiness before had deluded him; as he leaned over to kiss Richie on the cheek and wake him up, he wasn’t sure how he had ever settled for less than this and thought it was fine.
“Hey,” Richie said, rubbing his eyes and smiling as he finally woke up.
“Hey yourself,” Eddie said.
He sat up and stretched until his back creaked. The scar on his back twinged a little, but the stitches were long gone. Richie run a thumb over it, the long thin sliver that ran just to the right of his spine, and Eddie shivered.
“This is so fucked up,” Richie said. “You’re already sexy as hell, and now you’ve got these huge fucking scars. You look so badass. No one’s really gonna believe you’re my boyfriend.”
“Shut up. You’re cute. Have you seen yourself?” Eddie said.
“Yeah, I look like a frog someone put a wig on.”
“You’re the handsome prince.”
“Fuck you.”
Eddie kissed him quickly on the lips and then rolled out of bed to throw the blinds open. Richie groaned theatrically when the light hit him, lying on his back and watching Eddie walk around the room with a sleepy smile on his face. Richie’s room was surprisingly tasteful, more than Eddie would have guessed from his memories of the childhood bomb-has-gone-off nightmare room that Richie’d had as a kid. Thankfully, forty was probably too old for Star Wars bedspreads. There was some kind of artsy Lost Boys poster in a frame on the wall, but it actually looked pretty sick, so Eddie thought it was fine. The room was soft blue with oak furniture that glowed when the sunlight hit it and Eddie found himself remembering the fantasy Richie had spun about going to the flea market, finding the right piece. Bringing a home together.
They had all the time in the world to make it happen.
“Is that your Emmy?” Eddie said, pointing to a gold figurine on the top shelf of the walk-in closet that was hanging open to show just about as many graphic tees and hawaiiwan shirts as Eddie had expected but also a lot more nicely cut suits than he would have guessed.
“Oh, yeah.” Richie cracked his back as he sat up, ruffling his hair with both hands to try and get his bedhead a little under control. “I don’t like having it out.”
“Why not ? It’s an Emmy .”
“It’s for that stupid show I did that I hated. And like, 99% of the time I’m on my own in my house, so the only one looking at it is me. Fuckin’ sitting alone in my apartment staring at my own awards? That sucks.”
“You hated the show?”
Richie shrugged, stepping out of bed and shuffling towards the attached bathroom.
“I didn’t like filming it. I was so hooked on stand-up and having all the audience right there… We’d be filming stuff for the show and I’d be doing bits in front of a camera crew just staring back at me and I could only see my own face in the lens… I got really in my own head about it.” Richie turned the tap on. “I needed like, the instant feedback, you know? It was like when I was a kid, I just wanted the attention.”
Eddie shoved the Emmy back onto the shelf and followed Richie to the bathroom, leaning on the doorframe as Richie washed his face.
“But you just made a second season,” Eddie said.
“Oh, I only did that so I could be in New York,” Richie said.
“What? To be with me?”
“Yeah, idiot. I’ve been in love with you forever. Are you gonna stand there and watch me piss or are you gonna make some coffee?”
Eddie sighed gutterly and left Richie in the bathroom to wander into the open-plan living room and kitchen area that took up the vast majority of the apartment. He stopped briefly to glance at the spare bedroom, which was an office space that looked like it had been hit by a tornado and that he was itching to clean out, before going to find a coffee machine. There was a large expensive-looking one sitting on the counter next to a stovetop that was suspiciously clean and it didn’t take Eddie long to find the coffee or the mugs. He picked up one that had the DSA logo on it and one that UNT and took him half a second of wondering what that stood for before he clocked the C handle. He made Richie a black coffee with two sugars and himself a soy latte, wondering if Richie had bought soy milk just for him, handing the UNT mug over to his dopy, bed-headed boyfriend when he padded into the living room.
The room was also pretty nice. It was off-white and had a large set of double doors that opened onto a small balcony, just enough space for a table and chairs but with a view to kill for. There was a huge TV and an ugly sofa that he was definitely going to replace, a large shelf on the wall that was a tangle of books, films and random merchandise crap. A very expensive-looking RoboCop figurine glowered down from near the top; Funko Pops of completely unidentifiable origins were scattered around. A very unhappy-looking plant had leaves and vines tumbling down the side of the shelves, and Eddie wondered if it was at all salvageable. They’d never had live plants in the house, only fabric flowers; Myra was scared of bugs, and dirt. It would be a new project for him. There was a glossy tour poster of Richie’s first world-wide tour on the wall, but he was represented in that only in abstract. Other than that, there were no photos, few posters, nothing to put a face to the belongings. It was all oddly ownerless; though there was a definite sense of what the owner’s taste was, it all still felt like so much show, and not all that much like a home.
“I could get used to this,” Richie said, sipping the coffee.
“You better. I’m not leaving.”
Richie collapsed onto the couch with the grace of a horse hitting a hurdle in a race, Eddie slumping on the seat next to him. The sun was high in the sky; it was 11:30, well into the morning, and they had nothing to do. It felt like the first day of summer.
“I can’t believe I never asked if you were happy,” Eddie said.
“I’m pretty fuckin’ good,” Richie said, smiling like a golden retriever.
“No. Like, before. When we met.”
“Why are you even worrying about that now?”
Richie looked more amused than annoyed, but there was a spark of something concerned in his eyes. He let his head loll back against the couch, watching Eddie closely, his feet up on the coffee table. Eddie leaned his head against a hand, elbow propped up on the back of the couch, coffee mug cradled in his lap, hot on his bare skin.
“If you hadn’t asked me if I was happy back before we broke up,” Eddie said, “I don’t know if I ever would have even thought about it. But I didn’t ask you, the whole time we were back home.”
“I don’t think any of us were happy. Not really. We were all hung up on shit and didn’t even know it,” Richie said. “Especially not poor fuckin’ Mike or Bev. And Ben, all alone in his giant fortress house. Even Bill had like, bad book reviews to cry over, or whatever.”
“And you?”
Richie sighed, and Eddie could feel the reluctance to speak.
“No,” he said eventually. “You remember when we were kids, and I’d spend all my time making stupid jokes about fucking girls and you bring virgins or whatever? My life was like I was still playing that joke every day, with everyone. And that felt like I was killing myself everyday. It really felt like I was waking up every morning and making the decision to die all over again. So no, I wasn't happy."
"I wish I'd been there. That we'd never been split up."
Richie made a noncommittal noise. "Maybe things wouldn't have worked out then. This is just how things are."
"That's so zen of you. Is this your new thing? Radical acceptance?"
"No, I'm going for groovy man acceptance."
Eddie snorted with laughter. He nudged his way up to Richie, leaning heavily on him. Richie rubbed a thumb over his shoulder casually.
“It was good being with all the others last night,” Eddie said.
“It really was,” Richie said.
Hearing Richie say it was kind of a relief; the relative radio silence on Richie’s end towards the rest of the group had been worrying. After what the others had said, Eddie had been worried that the fraction was going to be something they couldn’t overcome. It had been silly of him to worry, he figured. Real friendship could survive breaks.
“Are you feeling better about everything? Mike and Bill said…” Eddie trailed off.
“Yeah. I…” Richie rubbed a hand through his hair, somehow making it even messier than it already was. “I dunno. It felt kind of crazy to stay mad when you were alive and doing so well. And I kept thinking about this thing Bill said… About Stan… Losing him too… At the time I felt like either I’d save you or we’d both die but now… I don’t feel like you would have wanted that. Not really.”
“Yeah, fuck no I wouldn’t have wanted you to die for me. I would have said you had to stay in mourning for like, thirty years, had a big oil painting of me to cry at… Normal, little things.” Eddie tried to laugh but his sympathy for Richie was too intense and he reached out to grab Richie’s free hand. “No, I wouldn’t have wanted that.”
“I fucking hope not. I like this new you, though,” Richie said.
“New me?”
“Talking about your feelings.”
Eddie pulled a face and took a long sip of coffee. “I’m working on it. I’ve been thinking about therapy.”
“There’s enough shrinks in LA. Not today though, today you’re mine.” Richie lifted up the hand he was holding and kissed Eddie’s knuckles.
“I’m yours every day,” Eddie said. “For the rest of our stupid fucking lives.”