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Stan has seen this show before.

“We need to—Richie, get off of me! We need—Dude, fuck off!”

Richie’s loud laughter echoes through the room, bouncing off the walls and only getting louder as Eddie elbows, shoulders, and shoves Richie down the couch, fruitlessly.

It’s eerie, really. They really are exactly like they were when they were kids.

Unfortunately for them, Stan hasn’t changed much either.

“Rich, if you want to sit in Eddie’s lap so badly, at least buy him dinner first.”

Richie chokes at that, finally flinging himself to the other end of the couch and snapping his attention to Stan, betrayed, his eyes wide and his cheeks pink.

Stan nods in satisfaction. “There. Eddie, now you can moon at Richie properly, and we all don’t have to deal with both of your annoying flirting. Everybody wins.”

He knows he only has about three seconds before all hell breaks loose, but he soaks in the calm before the storm happily.

Some things never change.

Eddie is a horrible, awful, absolutely despicable human being.

But in his defense, tele-therepy should be illegal for anyone as loud as Richie Tozier.

Eddie wasn’t trying to overhear Richie’s session, honest! But the laundry room is right next to Richie’s office, and when Richie wears his headphones, he has an even harder time controlling the volume of his voice than normal, allowing Eddie to hear just about everything said on Richie’s side of the conversation.

Eddie was in the process of switching over his whites from the washer to dryer when he hears him, muffled but unmistakable, in the next room.

“I mean, I can’t just tell him,” Richie says. And after a beat, totally scandalized and kind of bitchy, answers, “Uh, he could hear me?”

Eddie snorts to himself at that, tossing a pair of briefs into the dryer.

“He doesn’t,” Richie says now, matter-of-factly. “He won’t.”

Eddie tries to hurry along the process a little, beginning to feel guilty about ease-dropping, but the next thing he hears gives him pause, despite himself.

“I don’t want to ruin what we have with my stupid feelings. I just got him back, the last thing I want to do is push him away again.”

Methodically, Eddie shakes out a dress shirt, slower and quieter than usual. For….no reason.

“I’m not ‘using negative self-talk’,” Richie gasps, offended, “I’m being honest with myself, which is something you told me I need to practice in my day-to-day, Julie.”

Eddie rolls his eyes, absolutely siding with Julie on this one. Richie has the worst habit of going down doom spirals, concocting ridiculous and unfounded hypothetical scenarios to talk himself out of believing anything that could make him feel joy.

It’s infuriating, especially because Eddie knows he does the same.

“You’d understand if you met him,” Richie continues, sounding sad and almost…wistful? “There’s no way Eddie could love me back.”

Eddie immediately slams the dryer door shut and bolts from the room, not even turning the dryer on in his haste to get as far away as quickly as possible, overcome in a mixture of guilt, shock, panic, and, he flushes, excitement.

Holy shit.

(Part 2 of this)

“Wait, back?!”

Eddie’s head shoots up, his eyes wide. “Then!” he cries. “You liked me back then, is what I was saying!”

“You liar!” Richie laughs, clearly delighted. “You fucking liked me too!”

“I never said that!” Eddie tries to deny, but it sounds weak to even himself.

The thing is, and god, it’s embarrassing to admit, but Eddie had always had a bit of a thing when it came to Richie.

He didnt think it was exactly romantic, and definitely not anything sexual, when he was a kid; little-him would have been positively scandalized at the mere thought of it. But he was drawn to Richie, wanted his approval, his respect, needed Richie to include him in his inside jokes and think he was just as funny as Eddie found him.

Hell, maybe that was Eddie’s version of love. Not that he would know.

“I hate you,” he tells Richie, whose grin stretches even wider across his face. It’s basically an admission and they both know it. “You’re one to talk, anyway.” He gestures to the carving. “I wasn’t the one carving our initials into make-out spots.”

“Yeah, but you were cute. Liking you made sense,” Richie replies. “You remember me as a kid? You were into that gangly, bug-eyed, buck-toothed little dork? Embarrassing.”

“You were so cute!” Eddie cries, throwing away the act, offended on young-Eddie’s behalf to have his taste questioned. “Plus, you were cool.”

Richie bit back a snort. “I was not cool.”

“Shut up, you were!” Eddie looks him over, pouting just a little. “You’re still cool.”

“Cooler than you, Mr. Risk Analysis, but that isn’t saying much.” Eddie throws his arms up, ready to lay into him with the fury of a thousand suns, when Richie speaks again, quieter, “You’re still cute, ya know.”

Eddie flushes, glances at Richie briefly to catch him flushing as well, and bends down to pick up a stick from the side of the road. He gestures to the carving, shyly. “Wanna give this a bit of a facelift?” he asks. “We could grab a beer, after.”

Richie, looking like Christmas has come early, grabs a stick and pops back up, beaming and blushing adorably. “It’s a date.”

“Tah-dah.”

The combination of the deadpan tone and the perky little spirit finger wiggles is enough to make Eddie roll his eyes and scoff at Richie’s antics, so he opens his mouth and starts to call him a fucking idiot.

That is, until he actually gets a look at what it is Richie is showing him.

There, carved into the old wood of The Kissing Bridge, are the letters R+E.

He blinks down at them in something like surprise. “The fuck is this?” he asks. Richie frowns, irritated.

“It’s our fucking initials. What the fuck does it look like?”

“Well, why are our initials carved here?” Eddie asks, not meanly or anything, but definitely bewildered. “Who the fuck wrote our initials here?” He steps closer and bends down to get a better look. “This looks old. Is this from when we were kids? I never noticed this before. Did someone do this to make fun of us or something? Why wouldn’t they tell us? Did they tell you? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Richie waits for Eddie to finish the worst game of twenty-questions in history, exuding the kind of patience he didn’t even know he was capable of as Eddie goes on for what feels like forty fucking minutes.

“Dude,” he finally bursts out, unable to take it anymore, “I carved those. Me. Jesus Christ.”

Eddie blinks up at him, all eyes and freckles, confused. “You did this?”

“Yes.”

“When we were kids?”

“Yes.”

“So…” Eddie looks at the wood and then back at Richie again, and Richie tries not to burst into a million pieces as he sees the cogs slowly turning in Eddie’s head.

“Oh my god, get there faster!” he finally snaps, and Eddie shoots him a glare.

“Shut the fuck up, dude! You had thirty years to know about this shit, I’ve had thirty fucking seconds, I’m fucking processing!” Richie throws his arms into the air and does a weird, exasperated little circle as Eddie continues to inspect the carving, his brows furrowed. “You carved our initials into the kissing bridge when we were kids,” he states again, just to hear the whole thing put together, and gingerly runs his index finger over the plus-sign. “Why?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Richie asks, cringing.

“Obviously not, if I’m fucking asking.”

Richie’s heaves a sigh. “I liked you,” he finally admits. Somehow, the world doesn’t end. He briefly thinks teenage-Richie would have been surprised by that.

Eddie traces his finger along the E now, slowly. “You liked me back?” he says, so quietly it takes Richie a moment too long before he realizes what Eddie said.

“Wait, back?!”

(Part 2 here)

My federal student loans have been forgiven, you guys!!! 😭

“Rich, she was t-totally flirting with you.”

Richie scrunched up his nose and shrugged his shoulders, trying his best not to let on just how much he didn’t really care to Bill. “Cool.”

Bill’s brows furrowed. “‘Cool’? That’s it?” he asked. Richie shrugged. Now or never.

“Yeah, man,” he mumbled. “I mean, I’m gay, so I’m not really interested.”

“You’re gay?!” Bill cried, making Richie wince.

“Yes, William,” he hissed, motioning for him to keep it the fuck down. “I’m gay. Let’s say it louder so the entire state hears it, huh?”

Bill shook his head, looking sheepish. “Sorry, sorry, I’m j-just surprised, is all. I mean first Eddie and now you? Wow. I appreciate you tell—”

“Wait, what?” Richie interrupted what he was sure was going to be coming sappy and corny. “What about Eddie?”

Bill blinked in surprise. “Eddie came out to me like, two weeks ago,” he explained. “Did he not tell you?”

“No, he didn’t fucking tell me! What the fuck!” Richie cried, looking just a hair away from maniacal and tearing down the sidewalk, back toward his car.

“Rich!” Bill called, sprinting to catch up.

Geeze. What the hell was up with him?