The losers sat in a circle,each with a gift in their lap. Richie held a wrapped jersey, with the name andnumber of Mike’s favorite professional football player printed on it. Theystarted with Richie, some kind of karma for being “such a buzzkill”before, so he handed the gift to Mike, who grinned widely.

“Ah, nice to know I’mresponsible for Trashmouth’s Scrooge outburst,” he laughed. Richie huffed andtold him to just open it already, geez, and when he did Mike’s eyeswidened. “Oh, seriously? You must’ve had to go all the way to Bangor toget this!”

Richie shrugged. Mike thankedhim a few more times before giving the gift in his lap to Beverly. Beverlypassed hers to Ben, who blushed scarlet and stammered through his thanks likehe was Stuttering Bill. Then he handed a neatly wrapped present to Eddie, whoopened it and grinned at the handmade decorated box inside, watching carefullyas Ben showed him how to open it, a perfect place to hide small things from hismom in plain sight.

Eddie passed his gift to Bill, who stuttered through a thanks forthe assortment of his favorite candies. Bill’s gift unsurprisingly went toStan, who laughed at the scribbled Happy Hanukkah! on the wrapping paper. 

Richie knew Stan’s gift had tobe for himself, so he held his hands out for the gift bag. He tossed tissue paperover his shoulder and pulled out a small pencil case. He looked up at Stanley,confused.

“So you know where your pencils are and you can stop asking toborrow mine.”

Richie laughed.

“Dude, open it, come on,” Stanley said, trying to sound agitatedbut mostly seeming impatient. Richie opened the case and whooped at a carton ofhis favorite cigarettes, two packs of gum, and a roll of tokens for the arcade.

“You’re encouraging his habit?” Eddie said shrilly.

Stan rolled his eyes. “It’s Christmas.”

“A-a-and Hanukkah,” Bill said helpfully. Stan snorted.

“Just because it’s Christmas and Hanukkah does not mean thosestupid sticks aren’t still full of cancer!”

The argument devolved quickly into shouting things that weren’treally responses to anything, and within a minute the group was yelling aboutan entirely unrelated topic. Richie watched the scene with a smile on his face, stillfeeling a little down that he wouldn’t get to give Eddie the best Christmasgift ever.

-

December 26th had never been a day that Richieparticularly enjoyed. He tended to overeat and overextend himself the daybefore, leaving him sleepy and with a stomachache, lounging around the houseuselessly moaning to his parents, asking how they could let him do this to himselfagain.

“Dear,” his mom said, calling up the stairs. He didn’t bother tostand from his bed. “Make yourself presentable, and preferably less whiny; Eddie’s here.”

He sat up with a groan, using his fingers to comb his hair backand rub the sleep out of his eyes. He listened to Eddie’s steps on the stairsand was grinning the moment the other boy stepped into the room.

“Dude, it’s 3 in the afternoon.” Eddie had his hands behind hisback. “You’re still in pajamas.”

“Yes,” Richie agreed, eyeing him warily. “What are you hidingbehind your back?”

Eddie huffed, clearly not in the mood to take the bit any farther.He held up a video game, one that Richie had been after for Christmas but thathis parents had regretfully told him they hadn’t been able to get because ithad been sold out.

“Dude, you got it?” Richie asked, excited. “We talked about it onthe phone yesterday, why didn’t you say –“

“I didn’t get it,” Eddie said, sitting on the bed and looking atthe wall across from them. “I needed to make sure your parents hadn’t gotten itfor you before I brought it over.”

Richie’s brows furrowed. “Uh, you clearly got it, like, it’s inyour hand right now…”

“I got it for you, dumbass,” Eddie said with a put-upon sigh. “Butit’s not a Christmas gift. It’s simply a friend giving a thing to anotherfriend on the day after Christmas, so it doesn’t break Secret Santa rules.”

Richie couldn’t fight the smile creeping across his face.”You gotme a contraband Christmas present, Eds.”

Eddie rolled his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest. “I justsaid it’s not a Christmas present! But seriously, you can’t tell the others. Isaved up like, six weeks of allowance for this thing and I definitely spentmore on that than I did on Bill’s candy, so.”

Richie’s heart pounded in his chest at the idea of Eddie savinghis allowance, putting his money away week by week and then getting to thestore in time to make the purchase before it sold out. He knew his cheeks werered, and he looked at the game in his hands to avoid looking at Eddie, becausehe knew he’d probably look like a lost puppy ready to follow him to the ends ofthe earth.

“I got you a secret contraband Christmas present, too,” he saidfinally, when he was sure that when he spoke his voice wouldn’t crack withemotion.

“You don’t have to –“

“No, no, remember how pissy I was about Secret Santa?”

“I don’t think anyone’s gonna forget that anytime soon, Rich,” Eddiesaid with a smirk.

“Well,” Richie continued, “I was pissed because I already had theperfect gift for you.”

He went to his closet and pulled the backpack out.

“Uh, it has, like, look,” he put the backpack on the bed next toEddie, demonstrating how the straps connected in front. “It’s like, dorky orwhatever, but no worse than your fanny pack. But like, you were complainingthat sometimes everything you needed didn’t fit in your fanny pack, and this islike, a small backpack so it’s the perfect in between size, like a purse for agirl except, like, you know…” he trailed off awkwardly, wishing the floor wouldswallow him whole.

“It’s really nice,” Eddie said, snapping and unsnapping the strapswith a satisfied smile. “And it’s red!”

“Well yeah, I know your favorite color.”

“Yeah,” Eddie said softly.

“And there’s more, like, inside,” Richie said, when it becameclear Eddie wasn’t going to open the backpack himself. He unzipped the bag andgasped as he caught sight of the comic sitting inside.

“Dude!” He yelled, looking up at Richie in excitement. “Dude!”

“I know!” He said, ignoring the swooping in his stomach. “Andthere’s…”

Eddie reached into the bag and pulled the mixtape out, with its coverdecorated in red and green with blue snowflakes, with the words “yule lovethese songs!” written in small print at the bottom. Eddie snorted at the badpun.

“I took a lot of time curating this one, Eds,” Richie saidseriously. “But wait til you get home and don’t peek at the track listingbefore you listen. It’s a full effect type thing.”

“Okay,” Eddie said with a laugh. Richie grinned, laughing a littlehimself. He felt giddy, like he was floating a little. Eddie had given him a secretgift, explicitly against the rules of Secret Santa, behind the backs of theirfriends…

Almost like they weren’t quite the same… Like their relationshipwas different from the ones they had with their friends.