His parents wanted him to go to college. Wentworth was specifically interested - seemed to think that Richie was similar enough to him that dentistry was on the table as a potential career option for his son.

Dentistry was NOT on the table - or in the kitchen, or even in the basement of Richie’s mind. No career was, really. All he wanted to do was tell jokes and listen to the radio. There wasn’t a major for that, or even a school, in spite of the fact that his grades were pretty uniformly excellent.

I’m not like that.

Even shittier than Went’s dentistry bid was the fact that because he was decent at school, his teachers kept trying to nominate him for stuff, or pull him aside and lecture him on his potential. Mrs. Campanella, his English language and literature teacher, told him that his essays were good enough to submit for scholarships or other prizes, and Mr. Browne, his chemistry teacher, wanted him to join the track team to get him to, quote unquote, let some excess energy out instead of bringing it all to class. Richie had thanked Mr. Browne, given him two middle fingers, and then skipped his class for the next week and a half. He still had a 96 average for the quarter, and a 98 for the year.

I’m not like that.

Finally, and maybe most importantly, there was the tiny, miniscule, all-encompassing matter of his love-life.

Well, actually, it was more of a “lack thereof” situation. Richie hadn’t had a crush on a girl since the middle of ninth-grade, and it was freaking him the fuck out.

For the first four months of his high school existence, he’d been completely, utterly, and irrevocably in love with Brenda Arrowsmith. She was the sun, the moon, the stars, and most notably, the girl in their grade whose tits had developed first. It was only natural that Richie’s feelings would follow.

After the six-thousandth time that Brenda rejected his attempts to talk to her in the hallways before school (or at lunch, or in study hall), though, he figured that the tits weren’t worth it. He didn’t really know her anyway, he reasoned. She was probably a bitch, or she didn’t brush her teeth…or both, or some other gross thing, who was to say. It took him a couple of months, but by February, he was good and over Brenda - and if he still stopped to check her out every once in a while, it was out of artistic appreciation, nothing more.

After that, he’d elected to spend most of his time with his friends, because he knew them, he loved them, and they were more than enough to occupy his interest until (he figured) the next girl came along.

He hadn’t banked on the next girl taking so long. It was more than two years later now, and the fabled next girl still had yet to show. It was enough to make any man a little desperate, and Richie was no exception to that rule - his poor hormones were being neglected entirely.

It stood to reason, then, that the current confusion was probably hormonal payback for the last two years of dry spell. (That was what Richie was adamantly trying to tell himself, anyway.)

It was late June, and junior year had just wrapped up. The Losers had long since completed their second-to-last school supply dumping, complete with a run-in with Belch Huggins, and had moved on to their usual summer routines: either crashing at the Hanscoms’, cruising through downtown Derry and complaining about having nothing to do, or laying out in the sunshine at the quarry. Today had been a long day of quarry-ing, and Richie knew for a fact that he was sunburnt as shit. His body was already starting that hot-cold weirdness that happened whenever he forgot to reapply sunscreen at least eight times.

He’d been a little too distracted to care about his skin.

They’d all been swimming in their underwear for years - since they were kids, they’d foregone bathing suits in favor of whatever it was they had under their clothes at the time. It used to be a matter of not knowing when they were going to make the trek down to the quarry, but now it was a collective courtesy to Ben, whose mother couldn’t afford to get him a suit that fit. They never talked about it, they just dutifully peeled off their clothes whenever they were headed for the water.

Richie had looked idly down the row of his friends before they launched themselves over the cliff, expecting the same boring mix of solid colored boxers and briefs, but had instead been hit straight-on with a startling sight, which cued up a startling remembrance.

Eddie’s mom didn’t know what size he was anymore.

Eddie had never been allowed to shop for his own clothes, and wouldn’t, ever, so long as he lived in Sonia’s house. The poor boy had been pleading with Richie to consider going to college with him for almost the entirety of junior year, because he desperately needed to escape from under his mother’s thumb and he didn’t want to do it alone. “Please, Rich,” he’d begged, “she doesn’t even know that I’ve grown three inches up and one out this year, and now all my pants are too small…”

He was right about that, and Richie had spent the last few months teasing him about seeing his ankles…but now that it was evident that Eddie’s pants weren’t the only articles of clothing that were too small on him, Richie, for once in his life, had no joke for the situation. Eddie’s briefs were tight - the waistband was cinched almost uncomfortably around his stomach, and the rest left very little to the imagination. It was nothing Richie hadn’t seen before, but for some reason, he couldn’t tear his eyes from where the faded fabric was stretched taut against….against….

No. No way. He wasn’t LIKE that.

Before he had time to thoroughly beat himself up for the thoughts he was having, he’d been shoved into the water by the quick hands of Stanley Uris, who tacked on a “Think fast!” about thirty seconds too late. The cold water did nothing to shock Richie out of his dilemma, and when he surfaced, spluttering, he’d felt a little bit like he was still drowning…only, different.

The rest of the day had been full of similar little moments - Eddie in the sunshine, glowing in the light, Eddie laughing at something Mike said (why Mike and not ME, Richie’s traitorous brain screamed), the softness of Eddie’s voice when he gently reminded Richie to reapply sunscreen on his shoulders, the care that Eddie took with each of his friends.

I’m not like that, I’m not like that, I’m not LIKE that–

“Richie?” Ben was standing over him, frowning at his shoulders with obvious concern. “You okay? You’ve been quiet…and I don’t know if anyone told you, but you’re starting to–”

“Beyond starting to burn, Benny boy,” Richie confirmed miserably. “Gonna be a regular Maine steamed lobster for the next few days. I’ll be by in the morning to wrap myself in blankets and hide myself on your couch while the rest of you watch An Officer and a Gentleman a-fucking-gain…”

“Bev’s coming, you ass,” Ben reminded him, nudging him a little with his foot. “She hasn’t seen it yet - and it’s one of my favorites.”

Richie rolled his eyes. “Sap.”

“Don’t blame me for your lack of taste,” Ben tutted, shaking his head. “I asked if everything was okay.”

Ben punctuated his question by looking over at where Eddie was examining rocks with Bill, Mike, and Stan, and oh, fuck no. Sometimes Ben’s all-knowing attitude towards the relationship dynamics of their group was awesome…and sometimes it was actually the worst.

“I’m great,” Richie said loudly, glaring furiously up at Ben. “Hungry as fuck, though. I’ll kiss the next person that offers me a bite to eat, I swear to fucking–”

The corners of Ben’s mouth twisted up into a strange smile, and Richie was seized with cold fear. He had a feeling he knew what Ben was thinking about doing, and he almost couldn’t believe it. Such behavior was beneath Ben, surely - Stan or Bill would have done it without hesitation, but Ben wouldn’t betray him, right?

“Hey, Eddie,” Ben called, and Eddie looked up from his rocks, frowning over at Ben and Richie. “You packed snacks, right?”

“My mom shoved a bunch of Hostess food at me before I left the house, yeah,” Eddie confirmed. “Said she didn’t want it in the house any more. She’s all mad at herself because she binged a whole box of Ring Dings yesterday. Why, you hungry?”

Ben looked down at Richie, looking a little guilty, but mostly bemused, and Richie wasn’t sure if he’d ever felt so betrayed before in his life.

“I’ll kill you, Hanscom,” he whispered, eyes glued to Eddie as Eddie’s feet began to move in their direction.

“Not me,” Ben responded to Eddie, and then smiled and backed up a little bit. Eddie’s eyes flickered from Ben to Richie, and Richie could almost see the panic make its way across Eddie’s face like an ocean wave when he took in the condition of Richie’s chest and shoulders.

“Oh, Richie, you’re burnt! Here, I have lotion in my bag…and snacks, too, if you want. You like Twinkies, right?”

Eddie quickly grabbed his bag from off of his towel and began rifling through it, and Richie tried and failed to keep his eyes away from the flex of Eddie’s thighs as he bent over. Ben had disappeared, presumably while Richie’s eyes and mind were occupied by Eddie’s fussing, and Richie found himself kind of impressed with the whole situation in spite of himself. Ben was a lot more crafty than Richie had given him credit for, it seemed.

“Here.” Eddie finally located what he was looking for and tossed it at Richie’s feet. Richie picked up Eddie’s tub of aloe tenuously and opened it, swiping his fingers through the slimy substance and quietly smearing it along his collarbones. He ignored the Twinkies that Eddie had also tossed over entirely, even though his stomach was practically screaming for them.

“Thanks,” Richie said quietly, not looking at Eddie. He couldn’t look at Eddie any more today, because if he did, admissions would have to be made, and there was no fucking way that was going to happen. He wasn’t like that.

“Richie!” Stan and Bill were making their way back over, with Mike and Ben in tow. Richie had literally no idea what magic Ben had performed to teleport himself back there, but it didn’t matter now, because Richie had bigger things to contend with - namely, a very smug Stanley Uris, whose voice was dripping with glee as he asked, “Is it true that you told Ben you’d kiss the next person that fed you?”

Eddie’s sharp inhale was almost painfully audible, and Richie winced when he saw Eddie’s face turn an embarrassed red out of the corner of his eye.

“I couldn’t do that to Eds,” Richie said quickly, trying to sound more lighthearted than he was actually feeling. “He’d probably catch something from me, given that he tells me every day that I’m filthy and disease-riddled. Also, this mouth is the property of Sonia K., and I really couldn’t betray her like this - not with her own son…”

Eddie, surprisingly, didn’t try and stop Richie’s tirade or chastise Richie for being vulgar. Instead, he crossed his arms over his chest slowly, taking a deep breath like he was trying to stabilize himself without his inhaler. Richie chanced a glance at Eddie’s face, and felt his heart stutter at the sight - the poor boy was clearly trying to bury a response, but his eyes betrayed him. They were glassy and squinted, almost as if….as if….

No. Eddie wasn’t like that either. Was he…?

“It’s time to go home, right?” Eddie asked suddenly, voice disarmingly shaky. “We should go? Stan, do you have–”

“Already on it,” Stan said quickly, looking surprisingly remorseful. He gave Mike a meaningful look, and Mike shook his head, raised his eyebrows at Richie, and then turned his attention back towards Stan.

“You get the bag, I’ll get the towels?”

“Sounds great,” said Stan, and the two of them went to collect belongings, with Eddie anxiously scuttling along after them.

Richie was left to be stared down by Bill and Ben, who were both looking at him like he’d embarrassed them. He’d been on the receiving end of this look a zillion times, but for whatever reason, this time felt different, and Richie found himself wanting to look away.

Bill seemed to speak for both of them when he said, “Grow up, Ruh-Richie.”

Richie didn’t respond, because he couldn’t. He couldn’t grow up. Growing up meant accepting responsibility for things, and there were certain things that he had absolutely no intention of coming to terms with.

“It’s okay,” Ben told him kindly.

It wasn’t okay. He wasn’t like that.

That said, the less they knew, the better things would be for him…so….

“Let’s go get dinner,” he said, effectively closing the conversation.

–

27 years later, Richie still had yet to take Bill’s advice.

Six out of seven of them were back in Derry for the Losers Club reunion that none of them actually wanted to attend. It was a different six than it had been that day in the quarry - they had Beverly, this time, and Stan had been lost along the wayside (Richie didn’t want to call it what it was yet; he wasn’t ready), but the energy was not at all dissimilar to that particular summer day in June.

Well, actually, the interdimensional demon part was putting something of a damper on things, but that being what it was, the vibe was close enough.

In fact, if Richie closed his eyes and let his imagination take over, it was all too easy to slip back into being sixteen again. The wind against the tall grass of the Barrens made a very specific sound, and that partnered with the bossy tirade that Bill was currently on gave the whole scenario an early 1990s vibe that was making Richie feel…nervous, for some reason.

No. Not just some reason. His heart wasn’t hammering outrageously against his chest for just some reason.

When he opened his eyes, Eddie Kaspbrak was looking back at him, and the familiar gaze was like an electric shock to Richie’s system.

Fuck. He’d spent his entire adult life trying to convince himself he was a certain way, and all it had taken Eddie to undo years and years’ worth of progress was a single glance.

I’m not like that.

No, no, no. He knew better than that now - knew better than to deny what was unmistakably there, at least to himself.

Out loud, however…well, the possibilities for what he could say out loud were endless.

“–split up,” Bill was saying, voice firmer and more confident than it had ever been in his youth. The stutter was mostly gone, now, and Bill claimed that it was completely gone outside of Derry. Richie looked forward to testing whether or not that was true after everything they had to do in Derry was said and done…if there was an after, anyway. (Again, Richie wasn’t much for dwelling on the nasty parts of things. He’d think about it later. Only actions in the now.) “Me and Mike, Ben and B-Bev, Richie and Eddie? Just to see. Report b-back in an hour.”

“Can do, boss,” Ben said, looking not-so-secretly thrilled to have a moment with Beverly, who was smiling over at him with undisguised fondness.

“Richie? Eddie?” Bill looked between the two of them, seemingly trying to assess the situation he’d created. “All right?”

Richie looked at Eddie in the sunlight - his hair was haloed in it to the point where it almost looked angelically blonde - and swallowed his fear as best he could.

“We’ll be good,” Richie promised, avoiding everyone’s eyes and stuffing his hands in his pockets.

“Yeah,” Eddie said softly, “that’ll probably work out just fine. What time do you want us back?”

“Two,” Bill repeated. “Good luck.” He turned on his heel and walked off after Mike, and Richie and Eddie were left alone together.

This was going to be absolutely unbearable. Richie was struck by a sudden memory - a conversation he’d had with Bill and Ben about growing up - and wished in that moment that he never had. He had been right - adulthood had provided him with realizations he didn’t want and accompanying responsibilities, and he wished he’d had the option to opt out of the whole thing. It didn’t seem worth it.

Better, he thought as Eddie walked towards him, all nerves and sharp angles and sweetness, to remain in that childhood denial than to face the reality of what lay thick in the air between the two of them.

“You ready to go, Spaghetti?” Richie asked, feeling the old name slip though his lips before he’d even really remembered it.

Eddie stared back at him, lips drawn into a tight line. “No nicknames.”

“No promises on that,” Richie said, not trusting himself to keep ‘Eds’ and ‘Spaghetti’ out of his mouth. “Any place in particular that you think is worth exploring?”

Eddie thought for a moment. “The quarry.”

That hadn’t been what Richie was expecting. He cocked an eyebrow in surprise. “You saw the demon thing at the quarry?”

“No, never,” Eddie said, finally allowing his face to relax - and was that the ghost of a smile threatening to make its way across his face? “That’s why I want to go.”

Richie’s loud laughter was surprising even to himself, but he found himself grateful for it as it overtook him. All of the nerves and craziness that had built up over the past few days were pouring out of him, and Eddie could feel it, too - after a moment, he joined Richie in laughing, and then neither of them could stop. It was the end of everything, and they were locked in hysterical laughter, too paralyzed by it to move.

Finally, Richie took a deep breath and collected himself. “I don’t know if I can go to the quarry. I don’t have sunscreen.”

“Yeah, you’ll burn in no time,” Eddie agreed, voice still wobbly from laughter. “Granted, it helps that you’re not in your underwear.”

“That can change,” Richie said, mouth too far ahead of his mind for him to come to terms with the implications of his taunt. In fact, he didn’t really realize exactly what he’d said until Eddie flushed crimson, and then the mood was back to the pre-laugh tension and fuck, he usually had a better handle on himself, didn’t he? What was it about Derry, Maine that broke all his filters?

Before he could apologize, though, Eddie pressed on. “Remember the summer before senior year?” he asked, threading his fingers together in a way that Richie vaguely remembered meant that he was nervous.

Richie swallowed hard. “I mean, not very well, what with the supernatural amnesia and all.”

“You’ll remember this day,” Eddie said, and Richie immediately knew the day that he was referring to - he’d been thinking about it ever since Mike had led them down towards this part of town. “It was a weird day for you. You were all in your own head, and you ignored all the times I told you to put sunscreen on so you got stupid burnt and had to stay inside for a week afterwards.”

Adolescent guilt and shame came flooding through Richie like a monsoon - all of the stupid feelings, all of the frantic denial was right there at the surface of his consciousness. Eddie had to be able to sense it - but he was showing no signs of being cued-in to Richie’s tangle of feelings. He just stood, tired and nervous and beautiful, and waited for Richie to respond.

“You gave me a Twinkie,” Richie finally offered, because it was all he could think of to say.

“You owe me a kiss,” Eddie replied quickly, as if afraid the words would dry up in his mouth if he didn’t get them out fast enough.

They stared at each other in terror for a few seconds, and it was enough to make Richie wonder if maybe this version of Eddie in front of him was actually the fucking clown, taking Eddie’s form to make Richie remember all of the ways that he was secretly weak.

“I didn’t think you wanted one,” he said carefully, watching Eddie’s face to gauge his reaction and hoping he wasn’t playing Russian roulette with his own life.

“I…” Eddie tried, screwing his eyes shut to try and put his thoughts together. “It’s not about what I want.” He pointed to his head, tapping at his temple. “It’s about what I want.” He then moved his hand down to rest right over his heart, and Richie felt that sunburn feeling again - hot and cold, all at once.

Richie stepped forward, staring down at the new lines of Eddie’s face and wanting desperately to memorize them all - to not forget that he was like this, that he was capable of this kind of love.

If this was the clown’s way of trapping him, then so be it. Richie would happily die for this.

“Are you ready?” Richie asked, and Eddie blinked once, twice, three times back up at him. He’d obviously not been sure as to whether or not Richie would seriously consider his offer.

“No,” Eddie said honestly. “But please do it anyway.”

Before he could change his mind, Richie closed the distance between himself and Eddie, took Eddie’s face in his hands, and captured his lips in a gentle kiss.

He understood now, 27 fucking years later, why he hadn’t crushed on girls in high school.

How could he have spared so much as a glance at anyone else when he’d had this right in front of him? Eddie’s soft lips, careful hands, fierce looks, and unwavering devotion were all that his brain had ever been tuned-in to. Brenda Arrowsmith and all the big-breasted women that followed had been nice to look at, of course, but this…

Eddie kissed him back after a quick moment, and Richie couldn’t help the soft noise that he made as Eddie’s hands slid up and into his hair.

“Your hair’s shorter, now,” Eddie murmured against Richie’s mouth, combing his fingers through the curly, salt-and-pepper ringlets around Richie’s ears. “That summer…I used to fantasize about having my hands in it, especially when it was wet down at the quarry–”

“Your underwear was too tight that summer,” Richie responded, pure relief flooding his system as the confession spilled out. “How was a boy supposed to think about anything else when Sonia K. was unknowingly providing him with wet dream material for the rest of his–”

“Wanted to rub that after-sun lotion all over your shoulders,” Eddie continued, punctuating his thoughts with kisses. “Your face, your chest, your legs…and I hated myself for it, because you were such an idiot, but I also kind of liked it, too, because…because–”

“I didn’t want to be….I didn’t want people to find out–”

“Me either! If my mother had known–”

“Didn’t want to be like that, to have another reason for people to be on my ass all the time–”

“Another reason that I was sick–”

“I’m sorry.”

Eddie pulled back a little further upon hearing Richie’s apology. He studied Richie’s face, eyes sweeping over the freckles on Richie’s cheeks and ears, and then smiled - the first genuine smile Richie had seen him give since 1994.

“It doesn’t matter,” Eddie said thoughtfully, hands still occupied with Richie’s curls. “We’re here.”