June 19th.

                   he  nodded     …     not  saying  anything  at  first.  braxton  wasn’t  great  with  people,  but  he  had  a  feeling  eddie  had  more  than  he  wanted  to  say.  he  didn’t  want  to  get  in  the  way  of  that.  plus,  it  may  help  braxton  think  of  the  right  thing  to  say  as  well.  he  looked  at  him  out  of  the  corner  of  his  eye  until  eddie  was  done  talking.  then  he  looked  right  at  him,  finding  that  words  were  still  hard  to  form.  eddie  was  bad  with  his  feelings,  but  braxton  had  a  feeling  he  was  worse  in  some  ways.  so  he  just  shifted  until  his  thigh  pressed  against  the  other  males.  then  he  used  his  hand  to  make  eddie  look  a  him,  tilting  his  chin  an  pressing  a  kiss  to  his  lips.

                    yeah,  he  was  more  of  an  actions  guy.  not  words.

——-  Had Eddie any real sense, he would know that kissing a boy on his front steps was a horrible idea. If his mother were to see, she would surely raise hell, and so would any other person in Derry. But Eddie didn’t have any real sense to him, not now at least. Not when his heart was racing faster than his mind could think, and so he kissed back. A hand delicately curling at the base of his boyfriend’s neck.       Boyfriend, yes, that sounded right.

     He pulled away after a moment when the sound of a passing car drew his mind away and reminded him he needed air, Eddie’s pale skin showing off his blush clearly. He laughed softly, nervous, something Eddie wasn’t often.          ❝ That. . .That I like. . . ❞ he said with a great deal of confidence, looking at Braxton, ❝ Hopefully we can do a lot more of that. ❞

    Richie hadn’t really realized he was almost mimicking Eddie’s movements until he had both feet already resting on the coffee table. He hated when he found himself mimicking others–especially the ones he wanted so badly to like him. But Eddie’s known him long enough that this probably wasn’t new to him. Richie had found himself doing the same thing when they were in high school. 

       There was a small smile on his face when Eddie started to cough. He wasn’t going to make fun of him his time, but the jokes were sitting right at the tip of his tongue, ready at any moment just in case he decided to change his mind. Instead he just shrugged, “I’m not sure who it is, so I can’t ruin the surprise for you.” He leaned slightly so he could nudge Eddie with his elbow and had half a mind to stay leaning against him. Maybe another time… or in a few minutes when he was too high to care about keeping his distance. He took a long drag of the joint this time, wanting to get to that state faster and held the smoke in his lungs as long as he could before exhaling it somewhat in Eddie’s direction as he passed it back to him. 

Richie gave a sniffle and another sip of his drink, thinking over Eddie’s answer and the multitudes it contained. Eddie maybe lucked out, considering. Even having to report missing children and deaths or whatever he wrote about (and Richie felt a little guilty for not having picked up a paper to read before agreeing to meet with Eddie for drinks) he seemed… maybe not happy but comfortable. But moving away, even getting rich and famous, Richie wouldn’t say he was happy either. None of them had been. Maybe that was just growing up, too.

“I don’t mean to be an asshole about it. I mean my parents moved a half hour down the road to Bangor, so it wasn’t like I made the choice either, to leave, but… I wanted to. You can be a writer just about anywhere, but there’s like four places in the US to get into the comic scene…”

——- ❝ Yeah, the comedy thing. How’s that going ? ❞ Eddie asked, already knowing the answer. It wasn’t like Derry was cut off, he saw the videos online, might have even subscribed just to stay up to date. He sipped at his drink, elbows resting against the table,         ❝ Ya’know, I wrote a thing about you when you had your first special or whatever. It wasn’t big news, but big enough that it made it into the paper. Just one of them segments about ‘Derry local making it big in Hollywood’ kinda news. ‘Course, all the people who remembered you only remembered how annoying you were. . . ❞ 

       Eddie grinned, elbowing Richie, ❝ Kidding. ❞ he said, sipping at his drink again, ❝ It’s kinda funny, I kept my ear out about those who left Derry, seems they all got the glitz and glamor of success. Or well. . .most did. ❞ He couldn’t for the life of him remember what it was Kaspbrak did, never did hear any fancy news about him.

ɪ’ʟʟ ᴍᴀᴋᴇ ɪᴛ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ʟɪɢʜᴛ, ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜᴀᴛ’ꜱ ᴀʟʟ ʀɪɢʜᴛ. ɪ’ʟʟ ᴍᴀᴋᴇ ɪᴛ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ʟɪɢʜᴛ, ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜᴀᴛ’ꜱ ᴀʟʟ ʀɪɢʜᴛ. ʙʀɪɢʜᴛ ʟɪɢʜᴛ,              ɴᴏ ᴍᴏʀᴇ ꜰʀɪɢʜᴛ, ᴜᴘ ᴀʟʟ ɴɪɢʜᴛ, ᴡʜᴀᴛ ᴀ ꜱɪɢʜᴛ—

“Eh, I’m sure there’s something. The usual,” Richie lifted his glass to clink it to Eddie’s then leaned heavily back in his seat, folding one arm across his stomach, taking a good sip. “Self loathing, impostor syndrome, self doubt, attention seeking, disappointing Mom, etc.”

Richie’s mother had been dead for years and Richie knew, god did he know, how lucky he had it in the parent department. Especially compared to the step-father Eddie Cochran ended up with. Richie had thought Bill’s situation was the ultimate nightmare, loosing a little brother, your parents ignoring you. Richie hated disappointing his parents, he hated Dad giving him lectures, he hated Mom crying and how guilty he felt, but being a child and unaware of how to change his disruptive behavior. He couldn’t imagine them just ignoring them.

He couldn’t imagine his own dad killing his own hypothetical little brother. Or Janet dealing with Dad killing him. After George died, and after news of Dorsey’s death, Janet wasn’t so snotty to Richie. She’d find stuff for them to do, things he liked, ask about stuff he was interested in and act like it was cool even if he could tell she didn’t like it at all. She tried. And Richie knew, compared to Eddie C. and Eddie K. and Ben who had no dad, and Mike who had no parents and watched them die, and Bev who they all knew her dad hurt her enough to bruise, and Bill whose brother was dead and parents were distance, and even Stan whose parents expected so much from him and were never satisfied even when he made straight A’s… Richie was the luckiest son of a bitch around.

“Why are you still here, man?” Richie asked after a moment of long contemplation. Eddie C was smart and Eddie C was a good writer and Richie loved that his last name made him sound like Eddie Cochran and had genuinely forgotten that wasn’t his name for a bit coming back.

——- Eddie nodded along to Richie’s list of mistakes and bitter disappointments. He had all of those and more tucked away in his own metaphorical back pocket, so he understood everything that Richie had to drink for. Eddie however, didn’t drink as much as he had used to by now, afraid it would make him mean like his step-father. Even if it wasn’t genetic, it could certainly be situationally carried on, couldn’t it? He could have sworn he read that in a book somewhere, or maybe he had written it himself.

        The question came as a surprise, and Eddie was sort of at a loss for how to answer. No one had ever asked Eddie Corcoran why he stayed in Derry, no one had ever cared. He took another sip of his drink, wracking his brain for any sort of answer that might shed light.              ❝ Hard to say. ❞ He replied, thinking about it a moment, ❝ Supposed. . .I’ve been here so long, felt wrong to leave it all behind. ❞ He shrugged, not knowing what else to say besides that, ❝ I got a job I like, and I’m good at it. I guess I had always planned to leave, just out of high school though I had no money, so saving and trying to make a plan for myself, one thing after the other yadda, yadda, so much time had passed and I got comfortable. So, guess I'm stuck, ya'know? ❞ he leaned back in his seat, not sure if that was the answer someone might wanna hear or not.

     Richie’s eyes quickly darted away from Eddie when the looked in his direction. Not exactly his smoothest moment, but he couldn’t bring himself to care much. He was going to relax and not think about his feelings for his roommate. He took the joint back, his mouth hung open for a moment as he searched his mind for the answer to the question, “Uhh, I think it’s Jon Lovitz tonight?”

        After smoking some more and handing it back, he reached for the remote and scooted down some so he could lean his head back on the couch. He told himself he wasn’t going to be weird and watch Eddie again and instead focused on flipping through the channels to get them to the correct one before the episode came on. 

     Richie took the lighter from Eddie with a, “Thanks,” and put the joint in his mouth so he could light it. He was glad that Eddie was actually chill enough about this and would actually smoke with him. In his last roommate situation, he would have to do it when nobody was home and with his window open. And his old roommate was almost always home. After taking a hit, he passed the joint to the other and leaned back against the couch. 

       His head was turned toward Eddie so he could watch him smoke. He knew he should just focus on the television instead since watching him probably made it a bit too obvious that he found the other attractive. Or maybe he was just overthinking everything and Eddie didn’t have a single thought about the fact that he was watching him. 

——- Eddie was, by no means, stupid. In fact, he has always passed his classes with high honors. A soon to be front-page journalist, Eddie was great at picking up clues and details.           But it didn’t take an award-winning detective to recognize that Richie Tozier had a crush. It was written all over his face, over everything he did. Eddie had known for some time now but didn’t think he should really be the one to make the first move. Something about forcing a person to face their fears to get what they want, or something. But it seems Richie is more of a coward than Eddie originally thought.

Richie knew it was a bad idea to room with someone you have had the hots for, but when his old roommate bailed he somehow ended up asking Eddie to live with him anyway. He asked in a moment of clouded judgement and knowing that he actually enjoyed being around Eddie.  It would be fine he told himself over and over again. 

It was fine when Richie plopped down on the couch next to him and let their knees touch for a moment. He wiggled the joint he had between two of his fingers in Eddie’s direction and asked, “Do you wanna tonight?”

It was Saturday night meaning instead of going out on the town or to some party, Richie had his ass in front of the TV because SNL would be on soon. It wasn’t necessarily a dream of his to be on the show because standup seemed to be more his thing than sketch comedy, but he still admired the people who were on it. // @creaturechased plotted starter

——- Being a poor college student who moved far from home with no contact to his folks, Eddie didn’t necessarily have the luxury of being picky with who it is he shared house with. Sure, Richie Tozier wouldn’t have been his first choice, nor second or even third. But life is full of surprises that don’t meet expectations.          A typical Saturday night was spent at home, neither of them cool enough to spend their time at some party anyway. Not like they needed an invite though, both of them stupid enough to just walk in and crash the place.

[ embrace ] for your muse to pull my muse into a tight embrace. -Richie @beguilcd​

——- Eddie had never been the best with consoling. He always said the wrong things, or made a joke when it wasn’t appropriate. He was uncomfortable, itchy in his own skin from the awkwardness that was someone else’s emotions.       However, he liked Richie. Always had. He considered the two of them friends. So when he saw greiving, he didn’t want to make a joke or just leave it alone. He didn’t know what to say, but maybe that’s the key. There’s nothing to say.

      He reached out, pulling Richie close into a tight embrace. It was the best he could do without fucking it up and making the other feel worse, at least, that’s what Eddie was thinking.