Work Text:
Apparently, even cheap desks weigh quite a bit.
Bev blows a sweaty strand of hair away from her eyes, closing the door to her apartment and sitting on the fucking ground to stare at the huge box she's just hauled up three flights of stairs. It's about as tall as she is, and appears to have a goddamn tree inside it instead of a cheap desk from Wayfair that she has to put together herself. The literal only bad thing about leaving Tom is now she doesn't have anyone else around to help her do this kind of thing, and it's even worse that her building has no elevator. She's beginning to think her original plan to get drunk and build the thing in an evening on her own is never gonna fucking happen. With a grunt, she nudges the thick box the rest of the way through the entryway and into the living room with her foot (even that takes some effort), before pulling out her phone and dialing.
"Yellow?"
"Oh, I hate that," Bev says dryly. "Try again."
Richie snickers down the line, making the corner of her mouth tug upward. "What's up, Hot Top?"
"I require your large arms."
"Bevs, hate to tell you this, but I'm engaged and also extremely homosexual."
"You are the worst person," Bev snorts. "I'm trying to build furniture. A desk, actually. And my insides almost came out my eyes and mouth hauling the box up the stairs, so I need help."
Richie hums as if he's thinking about it. "One condition."
"Hit me."
"We get hammered while we're doing it."
"Oh, I've got two bottles of cab already. We're set."
"Kickass. Okay, sure. You want me to bring Eds, too?"
Bev raises an eyebrow even though he can't see her. "You sure you wanna offer that? After the Entertainment Center Incident?"
"...okay, yeah. Nevermind. I'll be there in twenty."
In typical Richie fashion, twenty really meant about forty five, which Bev expected and made herself ramen for dinner in the meantime. By the time Richie arrives, she's two glasses of wine in and thrusting an empty one into his chest.
"Catch up, Tozier, we've got shit to do."
Richie laughs, taking the glass from her obediently and going to fill it up to the brim. He eyes the unopened box sitting in the middle of her living room, a threatening presence.
"Jesus, what'd you get?"
"Told you. It's a desk. It's one of those L-shaped ones, so it's bigger and more complicated."
"This should be fun."
Bev hums, sitting on the floor and setting her glass of wine on the coffee table before dragging her tool box toward her. She digs around inside for the box cutter as Richie sits opposite her, pulling his hair up into a bun. She brandishes the tool triumphantly, sliding out the blade and starting to painstakingly cut the box open.
"Jesus," she hisses, yanking the blade through the layers of packing tape and staples. "It's a fucking hundred and fifty dollar desk, how tight does the security need to be?!"
"You are making me so nervous right now," Richie frets, his wide eyes trained on the boxcutter. "Please don't cut yourself, I don't wanna go to the emergency room."
"I'm not gonna- ow."
"Ow?!"
"I just scraped my knuckle on a staple, Rich," she laughs, sucking on it briefly. "You're so antsy. Meanwhile you juggle knives in the kitchen just to piss off Eddie."
Richie shrugs innocently. "Okay, but consider...he's fun to piss off."
Bev giggles, yanking open the box like an animal and tearing the cardboard halfway down the length of it. Richie reaches to grab the flap she made and pulls it the rest of the way . Bev blinks at him as he also opens the other end like it's nothing so the cardboard will lay flat, taking a long drink of her wine.
"NIce."
"Thanks. I've been working out."
"No, you literally have not."
Richie grins, waggling his eyebrows like a worm as he takes his own long drink. His glass is so full it looks like it's gonna spill, but to his credit he is very careful. Bev takes the white pamphlet of instructions off of the top of the stack of boards that would apparently be a desk and begins to flip through it, catching Richie's look and raising her eyebrows at him.
"What?"
"You like, read the directions?"
Bev stares, blinking hard. "...do you not?"
"I mean, can't you just look at the picture and figure out how it goes?" Richie asks.
"Oh. Oh, I might kill you. How does Eddie live?"
Richie cackles, throwing his head back with it. "We don't building fucking furniture together, that's how!"
"Good God."
Bev decides, then, that she is taking charge and lets Richie know as much, declaring him the muscle while she is the brains for the rest of the evening. She may be two drinks ahead of him, but she thinks the point still stands. She tears off the first page of the pamphlet and sets it on the table, perusing the list of pieces and their corresponding letters. She puts them both to work taking parts out of the pile in the floor and organizing them, ignoring Richie as he groans at the anal retention of it all. Richie gets about two steps holding the bag of screws and plugs before Bev grabs the back of his shirt and yanks him to a stop.
"Owww, what?"
Bev holds out her hand with a stern look. "Gimme."
"I was just gonna-"
"Nope. You're gonna lose one and then I'll pop a blood vessel. Gimme."
Richie pouts, putting the bag in her outstretched palm. "Fine, here. You want a refill?"
"Yes, please."
A quick break for Richie to top them both up, leaving the bottle on the coffee table for easy access, before they finally start on part one of the assembly. Bev reads the written part, then again, then compares that to the weird hyroglyphic visual aid on the left, then snorts.
"We're fucked."
"See! Directions don't even help!" Richie cries, throwing his hands up.
"Shut up, let me think," says Bev, holding the paper closer to her face as if that will make the words make sense or her less tipsy. "...okay, here. Hand me one of those. No, not that one. Yeah, that. Here, look at this-"
***
"I l-literally look like I've been fucking swimming. Why is th...this shit so heavy?!"
Bev snickers along with Richie's breathless giggles, the two of them way past hammered and about three quarters of the way through the assembly of the demon desk. The thing apparently has to be put together upside down first, which she supposes makes sense but also makes her worry about their ability to turn it over later without breaking it. Or themselves.
"Stop laughing!" she cries, bowing her head as she misses the mark with her screwdriver for the tenth time. "I need steady hands!"
"Not my fault you fucking pregamed, Marsh!"
"Shut up, shut up, I"m concentrating," Bev says, taking a deep breath and forcing her face to straighten. She can't help the smirk as she fights laughter, hearing Richie wheezing and seeing his shoulders shaking in her periphery as she finally manages to hit the screw and get it secured. "I said stop it, you giggly bitch."
"Can't. I'm gonna die."
Bev snickers helplessly, sitting back on her heels and wiping sweat from her forehead with her arm. "Okay. Now we just need to attach the two parts, and then flip it over. Get that end and I'll get this end."
"'kay."
Bev reaches for the right-hand piece, the one with the cute little shelves that she can't wait to stack books and maybe a couple plants on, dragging it toward her. They pushs the two sides together, lining up the slots (after a few tries). Richie pulls the screw driver toward him with his foot, and gets the screws secured with his eyes squinted and his tongue sticking out between his teeth. They both scream in celebration once it's done, then shush each other in unison through laughter. After a bit Bev forces her face straight again, leveling Richie with a very stern finger point. He blinks in surprise.
"Alright, you drunk bitch," she says, ignoring her own slurring. "You need to sober up. It's flipping time."
Richie nods slowly, his brows furrowed in a comical attempt at being sober. "Okay. Yes. This is serious."
"This is serious time."
"Serious business."
"Right."
Bev gets to her feet as gracefully as she can (in other words, only stumbling a little) and rolls her shoulders as she and Richie stand on opposite ends of the completed desk. They lock eyes, nodding, and only realize they have no plan of action until they're halfway through flipping the thing over. After a lot of grunting and swearing, and a couple less-than-masculine yelps from Richie, they've got the thing sitting upright with absolutely no damage. Well, at least none that anyone will be able to see.
"Fuck yeah!" Richie cheers, pumping the air with a fist and then holdng out a hand for a high five. "Killed it!"
Bev grins, shaking out her sore fingers after gripping the sharp wooden edges before high fiving him so hard it echoes. "Okay, let's get this thing in the- ...wait."
"What?"
Bev's smile falls, and she stares at him in horror, slowly points at the shelves...which are level, installed neatly, as well as non-painted side up.
"...are they upside down?"
"MotherFUCKER!"
Richie bursts into a peal of laughter so hard that it's mostly silence and gasping, sinking onto the couch on his back and pulling off his glasses to reveal he's literally crying.
"I'm gonna piss!"
"Oh my fucking godddddd," Bev groans, putting her face in her hands but unable to help cackling through her misery. "Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god."
Richie sits up, actually sobbing a little with laughter and wiping his cheeks with the heels of his palms. "We can't, we can't take it apart again. We'll just break it," he says, sniffling between words.
Bev shakes her head slowly, looking at the upside down shelves with dismay. "...you probably won't even notice once I put stuff on it, right?"
"Right. Yes. Or just tell people it's on purpose."
"Sure. Fuck it. Okay, help me get this in the corner so I can never look at it again."
The last of their strength is used hauling the desk into the corner of her studio, nestling it into the corner in front of the window. All things considered, it looks pretty cute. Bev smiles proudly, before sinking to sit on the floor again and stretching out on her back. Richie does the same, laying opposite so that their heads are side by side.
"Thanks for the assist, Richie."
"Sure. Now I have to call my fiancee and tell him I'm too hammered to come home."
"Probably smart. Love you."
"Love you most, Hot Top."