Work Text:
The house is warm, bursting with voices and sounds, people shouting over each other as they bump shoulders, swerving their controllers like they’re in a high-speed car chase down a long stretch of highway and not playing Mario Kart, high as fuck, on an Wednesday night. The living room is full, already scattered with beer and champagne bottles, discarded glasses, and partially-devoured pizzas just awaiting the next wave of hunger.
Richie insisted on making everyone their own individual pizza, so there are eight wayward pizzas ranging from meat lovers to Patty’s vegan (but decked-out) pizza scattered across the living room. Eddie’s plate rests precariously on his right knee, mostly devoured. He wonders absently if Richie is really that good at cooking or if food tastes better high. It could be both.
Eddie’s other leg is draped over Richie’s right thigh, encroaching on his personal space, ankle dangling off the couch. It’s comfortable, the warmth of their thighs pressing together, the closeness of their bodies. Eddie slings one hand over Richie’s shoulders every time a round ends, and Richie smiles at him.
Eddie knows he’s being obvious, veering on the edge of too friendly as he presses their sides together and edges himself further and further onto Richie. He is not sure what else to be, now that he has tried being oblivious, then subtle, and then a tease.
Richie looks almost ethereal in the low light of the living room, shrouded in smoke from when they all remembered to go outside but forgot to close the door. Most of them have since given up and are smoking inside, blowing puffy clouds at each other and laughing. It doesn’t seem to bother Richie. He smiles fondly at Stan and Patty, sitting together on the floor, wrapped around each other, but viciously fighting for dominance in a race that Eddie is too distracted to win (although he doubts he could if he tried).
His attention is briefly snapped from Richie as Bill announces he’s tired of losing and that they should play Mario Party instead, something he can actually succeed at. Bev yells at him, too loud for the small room in which every sound is already an explosion, insisting that she alone will claim the stars. Whatever that means.
Richie places a hand down on Eddie’s knee, where it bends over his own leg. For a minute Eddie wonders if he will remove it. Instead, he starts rubbing tiny circles into his knee. Eddie wishes he had worn the shorts, but he was worried it might have been pushing his luck.
He leans into the gentle touch, reclining more on the couch until he is leaning lazily against the armrest. It’s easier to watch Richie this way. Bill and Bev stand up, leaning against each other precariously for support, announcing the rules of the game solely for Eddie’s benefit, even as a small red mushroom creature explains them on-screen. Eddie struggles to pay attention, mind instead focussed on the places where his body touches Richie’s.
Richie has been quiet tonight. After serenading Eddie, crooning I give you all a boy could give you, take my tears and that’s not nearly all! into a hairbrush in a singing voice so bad it had to be fake, Richie had given a truly rousing and embarrassing speech.
Eddie spent the entire time wanting to kiss him, even when he yelled “ And another toast, to Sonia Kaspbrak, for kicking the bucket!” Bev and Mike looked at him immediately, concerned, but he was too busy laughing and raising his champagne glass to care. The speech dragged on too long and bordered on a roast, as Richie topped up everyone’s champagne glasses like the perfect host. When Eddie had declined, Richie had simply reached for an empty champagne bottle to mime topping up his glass. It was ridiculous. Eddie could not stop smiling.
Since the speech, Richie appears to have settled in, limbs loose on the couch, occasionally taking another puff of whatever is being passed around and always offering it to Eddie. Eddie takes it each time, coughing miserably with each drag and getting smoke in Richie’s face, the pleasurable pressure in his brain increasing. Richie just laughs his beautiful laugh, eyes crinkled and mouth open wide.
If Myra knew that Eddie was here, slowly inching into Richie’s lap, smoking weed and eating chips and pizza and champagne while his best friends fall in love across the room from him, she would have a conniption. Eddie thinks it might be the best day of his life. He gives a nod, for no one’s benefit but his own, to his framed divorce papers, which are acting as strange centrepiece on the coffee table.
“How do you feel?” Bev asks from next to him, where she has returned to lean against the couch on the floor, both legs resting on Ben’s legs.
He leans down awkwardly, twisting against Richie and making him retract his hand, to press a kiss to Bev’s cheek. Her eyes soften and she smiles brightly at him, returning a sloppy kiss to his forehead. Bev and Mike have always been affectionate people. It made Myra even angrier when he would spend time with them. He’s finally able to reciprocate.
“I can feel my entire body,” he finally says, and Bev laughs with her whole chest.
Eddie closes his eyes for a moment and remembers outside on the porch, the orange-hued light illuminating their faces and the sun low in the sky, nearly setting. Richie pulling a joint between his lips, terribly rolled like he hadn’t been doing this since high school ( of course I have, that’s why they call it high school , he insisted). Eddie never thought smoking could be sexy before, always thought about lung damage and carcinogens and the unpleasant smell of smoke. But then Richie curled a hand around to protect the end of the joint, struggling with the lighter, and sucked in a long breath until the tip glowed red, closing his eyes a little as the smoke hit him. Eddie didn’t think there was any other way to describe it.
Then Richie had looked at him, not expectantly but open, questioning, holding the joint aloft like he was ready to pass it to someone else. A second joint was circling already, starting with Bev, but Eddie just stared at the smoke still curling around Richie’s head. Well, come on then, Eddie said, bossy, rude, and Richie’s eyes lit up. He stepped closer to him, free hand brushing against Eddie’s before coming up to curl around his neck. Eddie shivered, full-body, and Richie sucked another long, deep drag of the joint into his mouth. He leaned close, so close their noses bumped and Eddie’s eyes crossed and maybe just maybe their lips brushed, the slightest touch that made something molten slide down Eddie’s spine. Eddie almost forgot to inhale when Richie breathed the smoke out, slipping past his lips, excess floating up between their faces. Eddie breathed, long and deep, and stayed close to Richie as long as he could before he finally had to cough, smoke breaking past his lips, friends laughing pleasantly as he did. It went straight to his head, a light, floating feeling, fingers tingling, and when he looked back up at Richie he was smiling.
Eddie had taken two more hits like that before concluding that if he kept doing that, he would kiss Richie outside in front of all their friends and that maybe that was not quite how he wanted it to go. Richie somehow looked more pleased when Eddie plucked the joint out of his hand to take a long, slow drag for himself.
He forgets he’s in the living room now, still leaning off the couch, still smiling at Bev. He thinks he always was able to feel his limbs and his head, but never quite so acutely. He can feel every single touch, hear every sound in the room. He hears Stan laugh softly as Patty presses a kiss to his neck. He hears Mike gently asking Bill if he wants more champagne and topping up his glass as Bill yells at Ben for picking his favourite character. Eddie pushes buttons absently on his controller, getting a character that Stan insists is the second best, after the one he chose, which earns another round of yelling. He hears Ben softly asking Bev if Eddie’s having a good time and he pretends he can’t hear, pretends he did not nearly cry when Ben called him their friend earlier that day.
Eddie settles back onto the couch, dropping his pizza plate onto his stomach and adding a second leg onto Richie’s lap. He nearly misses, and Richie reaches out to catch his leg before it falls off the couch, pulling both of Eddie’s legs onto his lap.
Eddie stares at Richie again, wondering if he notices from his peripherals. If he does, he doesn’t react. Eddie doesn’t think he can look away now that he has started again. Richie is flushed, has been since his speech, and a light sheen of sweat clings to his forehead and the back of his neck. His messy curls—made messier by a moment outside where Bev asked if she could touch them, and fuck if Eddie didn’t want to have the courage to ask so casually—have yielded to the warmth of the room, curling damp on his forehead.
He hasn’t shaved today, not like Friday when Eddie kissed him in the Neibolt bathroom, hands reaching up to cradle his smooth jaw, on his toes as he pressed their lips together. If they kissed today, Eddie thinks mildly, he would learn what beard burn is like. He would like that. His eyes narrow in on the edge of Richie’s mouth, where pizza sauce has dried in the crease.
If he could stay suspended in this moment, Eddie thinks he would be the happiest person on Earth. Friends laughing together, too loud for a Wednesday night, everyone a little drunk or high or both, good champagne flowing, his body pressed against Richie’s, with Richie’s hand now resting on his thigh, gently, as if waiting for Eddie to pull away. Eddie barely notices as he rolls his dice and advances spaces in the game, brief interludes marking the passage of time, as he otherwise stares at Richie’s face.
Eddie thinks, quite honestly, that he has never known what it was to want someone. To desire. It coils low in his belly, flaring when Richie laughs at something he says, or smiles at him, or talks to Eddie’s friends like they’re his friends, like they are all one big group of misfits from Derry who never met before, but maybe met at the perfect time in the end. Ever since they kissed in the bathroom at the Neibolt—and god, if Eddie doesn’t hate a little that their first kiss was drunk in a bathroom with only a 839/1000 cleanliness rating—it has been all Eddie could think of. That, and why Richie is so scared to kiss him again.
He takes his turn in Mario Party again and pulls out his phone before he loses his nerve. He has never been this close to Richie while texting him, but he wants to do it more. Richie picks up his phone, face twisting in annoyance first, before he bites the inside of his cheek like he’s trying not to smile. He looks over at Eddie before replying.
Richie looks up at him abruptly after his next few texts, forehead scrunched, eyes narrowing. “Eddie, what—“
Eddie shakes his head and nods down towards his phone. He doesn’t know if he can say this aloud and he certainly cannot say it aloud in a room full of all of their friends. Stan has already been throwing him strange looks all evening, squinting and tilting his head, like trying to get a better angle on a difficult section of a puzzle.
Eddie doesn’t look up from his phone until he sends those words, I’m not wrong, am I? Richie looks up from his phone quickly, eyes fixed straight ahead, flush climbing up his neck. He nods, bobbing his head too much, but it looks like he’s just nodding at Patty claiming the first star, making the room collectively groan.
Eddie relaxes, body sliding further on the couch, shifting his legs along Richie’s lap, higher up his thighs. He doesn’t know what he is doing, not really, but the world is warm and Richie wants him and everything feels amazing.
Promise you won’t fall in love with me , Richie types, and Eddie rolls his eyes. Eddie doubts he would know what it feels like to fall in love until he was too far in. In the meantime, he is happy to have Richie clutching his legs now, hand skirting slowly up Eddie’s thigh, making his head spin.
After this quiet confession, they relax, bodies intertwined and Richie sitting slack again. He accepts another drag from the joint going around and this time when he offers it to Eddie, he shakes his head. He wants something tonight, even if it is a chance at a second first kiss, one where they both know what they want. He wants Richie to believe he wants it.
The air in the room is thick and smokey, tinged orange with the glow from the screen and the brightly coloured hallway light. Eddie knows he is losing miserably at Mario Party, rolling his dice again and making what Bev calls a patently stupid decision about the direction to go. He just laughs and shrugs, insisting that her and Bill gave poor instructions.
Mike and Bill are squeezed onto a loveseat, only squeezing because Bill insisted that Mike sit directly in the middle so he could lie across him. Eddie had rolled his eyes at it, but now with his legs on Richie’s lap, Richie’s hand stilled halfway up his thigh, he thinks he understands why you would want to spend the night splayed across someone like that.
There was an intimacy, he thinks, in saying those words over text, in a room with the people he loves the most, with friends new and old. No one in the world knew what they were thinking except the two of them, bodies pressed together on this little couch that must have come from the thrift store. It would have once disgusted him, to sit on a couch that others had owned. Today in the haze of Richie’s living room, with soft music playing on his old family record player, he thinks it’s a little romantic, that other people maybe said what they were thinking while sitting here on this couch, over the years.
Eddie barely lasts twenty minutes before he texts Richie again, wanting to hear that he is wanted, wanting to know for sure that Richie feels like this, wanting to see it on his screen where maybe, just maybe, he can look at it again and again. And Richie, fucking Richie, tells him he always has.
When Eddie replies, sending the most explicit text message he has ever sent in his life (although he has a feeling there will be more to come), for a moment he feels his legs brush against Richie’s groin, feels that he is hard right there because of Eddie. Then Richie carefully disentangles their legs and bolts from the room.
Alarmed, Eddie sits up. No one else appears to have noticed, except Stan and Patty, eyes following him until Richie disappears down the hallway. Eddie hears a door close softly in the distance. He texts a quick apology, distressed for only the briefest of moments before Richie tells him that wearing those shorts felt like fucking planets aligned .
He takes his turn in the game before he returns to his phone, but the turns have gotten longer as people have had more to drink, have settled lower in their seats, have started talking amongst each other. Ben is asking Mike about unsolved Derry crime, while Bill dramatically and terribly reenacts the murders. Bev has started leaning against Patty, and the two of them and Stan are laughing at some video on Bev’s phone.
Then Richie texts come here , and he is on his feet, too fast and unsteady, slowly climbing over Ben and following Richie down the hallway. He looks behind him as he leaves, not even Stan raising his head from Bev’s phone. Possibly no one notices. Possibly they all just saw it coming.
He wanders down the hallway of the house, what Ben called a prairie-style bungalow . It’s the longest walk of his life to reach the only closed door, light streaming out from the gap. He places a fist against the door gently, feeling the light tan wood under his knuckles for a moment, before knocking once. The door opens so quick that Richie’s hand must have been on the knob, waiting.
He stands there under the too-bright light of the bathroom, sweatier than he was earlier, curls now pressed all along his forehead. Eddie doesn’t think before brushing them out of his face, fluffing the curls up, touching his soft hair. Richie reaches up to grab his hand, pulling him into the bathroom and closing the door behind him.
Richie always looks so confident, talking with swagger (deserved or not), capturing the attention of every person in the room. Here he has Eddie’s full attention and he looks almost shy, one lip pulled between his teeth, the hand not still holding Eddie’s hand balled loosely at his side.
“Hi,” Eddie says finally, meeting his eyes. Richie appears to relax, smile spreading across his face.
“We seem to meet a lot in bathrooms,” Richie says, gesturing around the room. Eddie doesn’t look away. He has already decided it’s cleanliness rating is at least as good as the Neibolt’s.
“Seems that way,” Eddie says, bringing his free hand up to Richie’s jaw. “I would apologize for kissing you but I really am not all that sorry.”
Richie chuckles, laugh still a little tense. “Irresistible, am I?”
Eddie just smiles, hoping Richie already knows the answer to that, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of saying it aloud, wanting to spend less time talking and more time with their mouths pressed together and their bodies close.
Eddie briefly glances around the small bathroom, eyes latching on an empty spot on the counter. He grins, dropping his hand from Richie’s face as he guides them both over. He hops up onto the counter, uncoordinated and failing the first attempt. The second time, Richie’s hands grip his hips, easing him onto the counter, steadying him. Eddie hardens at the gentle touch and wonders how good he will feel when they finally kiss.
Richie is still standing too far away, hands lingering on Eddie’s hips. Eddie rolls his eyes, grabbing Richie’s elbows to tug him. “Come here.”
“Are you sure, Eds?” Richie says. Eddie has never heard his voice sound so small, so gentle. He meets Eddie’s eyes, looking for something. Eddie wonders if he finds it. He wants to laugh, wants to tease, self-proclaimed sex god Richie Tozier afraid to kiss a man who wants nothing more in the world right now.
“Yeah, Rich,” Eddie says, voice matching Richie’s soft tone. “I’m sure. Is this what you want?”
Richie smiles a little, then finally steps between Eddie’s legs, hands dropping from his hips to run along Eddie’s thighs, squeezing as he makes his way down. Eddie lets out a soft sound beyond his control when Richie presses his legs further apart. Richie bites back another smile at the sound, eyes still fixed on Eddie’s face.
Richie stops, their faces only inches apart. He can feel Richie’s breath on his, and it’s mostly gross—weed, pepperoni, tomato sauce, champagne. Eddie knows his is the same. Richie’s gaze falls between them, eyes raking down Eddie’s body and catching on his pants, where Eddie is already visibly hard through the dark denim. Richie smiles, large hands trailing back up his thighs, lingering dangerously close to Eddie’s cock. He continues, hands sliding a little up Eddie’s back, slipping under his shirt. Eddie gasps as their skin touches.
“Is this okay?” Richie asks, voice low.
“It won’t be if you don’t fucking kiss me,” Eddie growls. Richie laughs one more time, tossing his head back, Adam’s apple bobbing, and then he does.
Eddie thinks for a moment that maybe he didn’t kiss Richie before, because he swears he would have remembered this. Their mouths slip together, first chaste, but Richie quickly kisses him like he’s been waiting for this, and Eddie’s hands fly up to Richie’s neck to pull him closer. His back hits the edge of the mirror and fuck it hurts but Richie pulls their bodies back together.
Richie pulls away for a moment. His pupils are blown, his eyes still red, his lips curling into a smile. He opens his mouth, and Eddie can already see the words forming on his lips, checking in on him again, and Eddie isn’t sure whether it is sweet or infuriating, or both.
“If you stop again I’m fucking leaving,” Eddie says, and Richie just shakes his head, laughs, and kisses him again.
This time Richie kisses him deeper, hands inching further under Eddie’s shirt, lifting it a little, pressing them closer. When Richie’s tongue licks at his lips Eddie opens up immediately, yielding to him at first. His skin is like fire everywhere they touch, their mouths like the surface of the sun as they move against each other. Eddie wonders if it’s too sloppy or too fast, if he’s using too much teeth, if Richie is even enjoying himself, but when he licks back into Richie’s mouth and he moans around his tongue, Eddie stops worrying.
Eddie moves one hand higher along Richie’s neck, sliding up to his jaw, fingers catching on the few-day stubble. As they kiss, Richie’s grizzled chin brushes his own, and he thinks faintly that he loves this, every part of it. He buries his fingers between the curls in Richie’s hair, making him moan into his mouth.
He pulls Richie down closer to him. He had hoped sitting on the high counter would make them the same height, but even here Richie towers over him. Eddie thought he would hate kissing someone taller than him, but he feels safe, encased in Richie’s arms, his head bowed down to keep their lips together. The kiss is hungry, and Eddie has never felt like someone wanted him like this. Myra never wanted him like this. He never wanted her like this. He wants Richie in every way he can possibly have him, but for now this—right here in Richie’s bathroom, their friends’ voices still loud and raucous through the closed door—is perfect.
Eddie pulls away this time, gasping for air, like he had forgotten how to breathe when Richie was kissing him, like he had not wanted to. Richie lets out a soft laugh, eyes wide. “I didn’t stop us this time!”
Richie’s lips are red and plump, swollen from the kiss, spit-slick and glistening in the bright light of the bathroom. His hands are still flat against Eddie’s back, his shirt fully riding up his body, skin damp with sweat where Richie holds him but does not pull away.
Eddie trails his eyes down Richie’s body, taking a moment to stare like he has wanted to, like he has been all night. His neck is long, thick, making Eddie’s hands look smaller as they grasp him. He’s wearing another stupid shirt—this time, reading Enjoy Cock in the Coca-Cola font—with a bright orange Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned over top. Eddie’s gaze finally lands between their legs, where Richie’s cock strains against his jeans, so close to Eddie’s own clothed erection.
“My eyes are up here,” Richie jokes, shuffling a little under Eddie’s gaze. Eddie ignores him for a moment, letting his hands slide down from Richie’s neck, spreading his palms over his chest and lower, down over his stomach. He hesitates before he reaches Richie’s jeans, and that’s all it takes for Richie to redirect his hands.
“Now, now, we had a deal,” he says, voice gentle but eyes piercing, pulling Eddie’s hands to rest on his waist instead.
“Feels like a bit of a silly deal,” Eddie suggests, thumbing under the hem of Richie’s shirt until he meets skin, dragging his fingertips across Richie’s waist and belly, feeling the hair there. It’s different. It’s good. He wants to see more of Richie, especially when just barely tickling his stomach makes Richie gasp pleasantly.
“Maybe,” Richie says, “but it was still a deal. Besides, our friends are going to notice soon, if they haven’t already.”
“I don’t care,” Eddie says, pouting a little.
“What if I promise that we can do whatever you want tomorrow?” Richie asks, eyes lingering on where Eddie is straining against his own jeans.
Before Eddie can answer, Richie trails hot, open-mouthed kisses along Eddie’s jawline, and Eddie is embarrassed by the sound he lets out. It only encourages Richie, who ducks his head further to kiss down Eddie’s neck, stopping to gently suck skin into his mouth, before moving onto the next spot. Eddie feels like he’s falling apart, moaning louder than he ever would normally, sparks shooting down his spine with each new spot Richie reaches.
“Fuck, Richie,” Eddie gasps, the words leaving his lips before he can think of them. Richie groans against his neck, a deep, husky sound that Eddie wants to hear over and over and over.
Instead of stopping, Richie patiently kisses his way back up, following his trail again until his lips hover over Eddie’s and then just when Eddie leans up to kiss him, he continues down the other side of his jaw. Eddie thinks he hears himself breathe out tease , laughing a little, and Richie whispers maybe against his neck, his breath making his spine tingle. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands so he leaves them, palms spread, on Richie’s stomach, pushing his shirt up as far as he can get it.
When he gets to the crook of his neck, Richie leans close enough that they are completely pressed together, Eddie’s head falling back against the mirror, cocks together through their clothes. Eddie grinds up against Richie almost involuntarily, desperate for the friction and pressure. When he does, Richie drops his head onto his shoulder, hands slipping on Eddie’s back, and he gasps, grinding back down against him. They sit there for a moment, bodies pressed close. Eddie does not know what he’s doing but he knows it feels good for both of them when he grinds up against Richie, so he snakes his hands around Richie’s back to get more leverage, before rolling his hips up against him again. Richie bites down on his neck and Eddie gasps, shuddering with his whole body against Richie.
Richie, Richie, Richie he thinks, or says—he is not sure, but he doesn’t think it matters. Richie grinds back down against him, sucking the spot on Eddie’s neck that he bit, before trailing delicate kisses back up Eddie’s neck and jawline.
When he gets to his mouth this time, he doesn’t tease. He presses their lips together again, slipping his hands out from Eddie’s shirt. Eddie starts to protest, but then those same hands are cradling his face. He doesn’t complain when Richie starts to lean away, although he misses the friction on his cock, because the kiss is no longer hot and desperate, but tender, exploring, questioning. Eddie doesn’t know the question but the answer is yes .
When Richie finally pulls away, he doesn’t go far, pressing their foreheads together as he tries to catch his breath. Eddie opens his eyes, and Richie is staring right at him, a smile on his lips. Eddie wants to kiss him again but instead he stares at Richie’s swollen lips and wide pupils, his beautiful blue irises only barely peeking out. His hair is completely flat now, damp with sweat. Eddie knows his own hair is the same, feels it curling a little around his ears.
“Hi,” Eddie says again. It’s different this time. He thinks maybe they have met again for the first time, that this was an introduction. He thinks maybe they will meet again, like this.
“Hi,” Richie laughs, almost against his lips, before pulling slowly away. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Eddie breathes out, voice high. “You?”
“Yeah,” Richie says. Eddie didn’t realize his legs had curled around Richie’s, trapping him close, until Richie’s large hands pried them away from him. “You almost made me break our deal. Too bad for you I’m a man of my word.”
Eddie shrugged, sliding off the counter. Richie caught him when he wobbled, legs weak, and held him for a moment by the waist. Eddie didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want to go back to his party. He thinks he could have kissed Richie, here, all night.
“Well, I’ll remember your promise about tomorrow. If that’s okay.”
Richie laughs from above him and shakes his head. He leans down to press a kiss to Eddie’s lips again. This time the kiss is slow, sucking Eddie’s bottom lip between his own, one hand cupping Eddie’s jaw. It feels like a sentence, or another question, or maybe a promise. It feels good.
Richie doesn’t pull away this time before he speaks, instead mumbling right against Eddie’s lips, “Yeah. That’s okay.”