This is my secret santa fic for @stansbooty for the @stoziersecretsanta.  I hope you like it!!

But I swear I thought I dreamed her…

The song was playing through a shitty speaker in the 1950s style diner.  Richie was tapping his fingers impatiently on the table while playing Angry Birds with one hand.  He had been waiting for more than thirty minutes for his friends to show up.  It was Christmas Eve and he could feel his stomach grumbling for some nourishment.  He hadn’t eaten since breakfast.  His mom and Stan had sternly warned him that he would feel this way after not eating for several hours.  He didn’t want to listen.  Though, he never listened to anyone.  

Bev had put a peanut butter and banana sandwich into his backpack (she was as sneaky as hell) and he had eaten it two bites.  Ordering a strawberry milkshake, he began tapping his foot on the ground and huffed when he ran out of lives in his game.  The doorbell chimed but it was a couple that Richie knew from school.  They laughed almost too loudly when they saw him sitting all alone in a huge booth meant for seven.  They never do this to me.  Is this a trick?  He bit his lip hard and felt tears pricking at his eyes.  God, what a fucking loser he was.  Here he was waiting for his friends like a fucking idiot.  

It had been snowing nonstop for the past few days and Derry had become even more unbearable since that fateful summer four years ago.  Maybe that’s why none of them wanted to see him.  They were all starting to pair off.  Bev and Ben.  Bill and Mike.  Stan and Eddie.  He was all fucking alone.  He had his parents and they would never let him forget them.  

Maggie and Wentworth Tozier were particularly smothering when they could they be.  His mom would always smudge his glasses whenever she kissed him on the cheek when he was leaving to meet his friends.  His dad always gave him a long hug whenever Richie was feeling upset about something.  His parents always knew even if he didn’t.  Sometimes, his friends would come over to his house and his mom would bake some of her famous chicken alfredo but left two plates aside for Stan and Eddie because she knew all of their reasons and never questioned them.  She treated them like her own kids.  All of them.  Though, she was a little more fond of Stan because of how long he and Richie had been friends.  Twelve years and Richie still hasn’t told him how he feels.  His parents know all about his hopeless crush and it always aches worse around the holidays.  Especially Christmas.  

Stan doesn’t pull away from Richie because he wants to because he has to. Celebrating Hanukkah is endlessly important to Stan and his family.  And their religion.  He’s seen his best friend picked on because of it.  Henry Bowers was just one of the several assholes who thought picking on someone for their religion made them bold and intimidating.  It just made them cowards, Richie sourly thought.  

Speaking of sour, his strawberry milkshake is starting to taste like sour cherries that have been bad for weeks.  He made a face and moved it far away from him on the other side of the booth.  He huffed out a frustrated sigh while blinking and gulping down a few years.  The doorbell chimed again and he looked up again, hopefully.  Golden curls and a stoic face.  A fanny pack with a perpetually stuck grimace on the face.  

Where are the rest of his friends?  Stan and Eddie were walking through the door and Richie’s pulse was picking up tenfold.  No, a hundredfold.  He was going batshit crazy.  His hands were shaking and tears were starting to come down his face.  Oh, shit, Rich, stop being a fucking baby, he told himself.  A small but determined voice squawked, “Why the fuck is only Rich here?  Bill told us that the rest of them would be here.”  Scratch that, he needed to fucking throw up.  Especially when he saw the worried frown on Stan’s face.  Their eyes met and his insides twisted.  Eddie took one glance at Stan and within a millisecond looked at Richie too.  He asked, “Did our friends set the three of us up on a fucking date?”  Other patrons were starting to look at them and the snooty couple from minutes before were laughing hysterically at the situation.  Fucking assholes.  Now, Richie was biting the inside of his mouth, working himself into a nervous wreck.  This was a fucking date, wasn’t it?

I’ll crawl home to her…

This song was mocking him like a mistletoe hanging in the doorway of his house.  He wants to kiss him them both so much that he’s on fire.  They still hadn’t made it to their way to the booth.  Richie could feel a string attached to his two loves but he could feel them pushing against it.  Eddie was still scowling in his direction, his nose red and cheeks burnt, most likely due to the rage seething underneath and the cold Maine weather.  Stan’s face was unreadable as ever but his lips were pursed slightly into consideration.  He whispered something in Eddie’s ear and Richie’s insides were twisting all over again.  Richie began fiddling with the rings on his fingers and noticed that he had bitten his nails down to the nubs.  Anxiety is a bitch.  He looked over to see that Stan and Eddie had their pinkies intertwined and the hot chocolate Richie had drunken earlier was starting to come up as his throat.  He loved seeing them happy but without him in the middle, to touch Stan’s cheek and mess with Eddie’s hair, it made him hopeless all over again.  

Why then did the rest of his friends decide to trick him into having a date with his two crushes? Oh, yeah, because the universe was fucking cruel.  Stan and Eddie had finally made their way over to him but they hadn’t taken a seat yet.  Typical.  Their pinkies were still locked together.  Richie’s eyes probably looked like saucers behind his thick-ass glasses.  Stan softly spoke up, “Rich, your glasses are always smudged.  Do you even see anything out of these?”

Richie smartly replied, “Of course, I can see, Stanley.  It’s impossible not to see that handsome face.”  Technically, without his glasses, he could only see blobs in front of his face but the blush on Stan’s face was worth it.  Of course, Eddie scoffed before Stan could speak again, “Richie, stop flirting with Stan, you know you fucking suck at it.” Richie put a hand on his heart in mock offense, “Eds, you’ve wounded my pride.”  He flopped over dramatically on the cushioned booth.  He could feel Eddie’s eye roll and then they both plopped themselves right across from him and Richie was burning again.  Burnin’ up like a fever, burnin’ up like a fever...damn, hot chocolate coming up his throat again.  Insides twisting up like a million knots. 

Before he could raise his hand up to call the waitress, Stan reached for his hand that was still on the table and Richie froze in his tracks.  He saw for the first time that Stan’s nose was tinged rose-red on the top and he had his favorite blue scarf on because his body temperature always ran a little lower than everybody else’s.  His matching knit cap was hiding his gold curls but there were very much visible still.  But his hands were free from his mittens and he was holding on to Richie’s hand like a lifeline.  Eddie was eyeing them with an expression that Richie couldn’t quite read.  He could always see what Eddie was feeling.  He made it clear on every occasion.  Richie dumbly said, “I just wanted a hot chocolate, Stan.  What’s wrong?”  He and Eddie were giving each other looks again.  They were speaking a language entirely unknown to Richie.

The snow outside was glistening underneath the sky.  He forgot he had been here for a few hours.  It was now dark and inching closer to Christmas.  He remembered Mike had made him chocolate chip cookies to give to Richie’s parents and his heart was all warm again because he could be at least looking forward to something tonight.  Wallowing in his self-pity, watching shitty Christmas movies, and eating a dozen cookies, while complaining about it in the morning.  After a while felt like months, Stan asked him, “Do you want to have dinner with me and Eddie?”

Richie breathed out, “Tonight?  I thought this was already a date.”

Eddie quipped, “It’s not a fucking date, Tozier.”  Richie’s heart dropped again and he plastered on a fake smile and replied, “Of course, it is, Eds. Why else would you have to come here?  You wanted to see me.”  Eddie wrapped his arms around himself and his pink sweatshirt rid up a little bit and Richie gulped while he could still feel Stan’s eyes on him when his voice clearly hummed out, “Rich, it’s just one dinner.  It’s not going to hurt anybody.” Of course, it’s going to hurt somebody, Stanley.  He’s been alone in this diner for two hours before anybody showed up to see him.  Eddie told him, “Stan brought dinner.  He knows how much you love that pizza place a few blocks over.  And those goddamn cheese fries.”  Richie’s eyes were starting to water again and he mumbled, “What about their peppermint hot chocolate?”  Stan’s stupid little nose was still a rose red and he handed over the food and hot chocolate to Richie and Richie said, “So, it is a date.”  Eddie grumbled again but he softly smiled when Stan wrapped their pinkies together while Richie shoved cheese fries into his mouth before speaking with his mouth, half-full, “I’m such a sad bitch.”

Eddie snorted in disgust and Stan raised an eyebrow before telling them, “This  whole thing was actually my idea.”  Richie froze all over again but for a totally different reason this time while Eddie spluttered in frustration though the blush on his face was evident when he quietly let out, “Stan, I told you to keep that a secret.” “Well, we both like him, Eddie, so what’s the point of hiding it from him anymore?” 

“Because it’s Richie!  I shouldn’t like Richie!” Richie cut in, “Wow, thank you, Eddie Spaghetti.  I feel really fucking great about myself right now.”

Stan was grabbing onto his hand again and then a second later, interlocked their fingers together and Richie could have melted right then and there.  Wow, this day was a rollercoaster.  

He was shoving cheese fries into his mouth again and Stan was staring at him with the fondest expression on his face even Eddie had a slight smile on his face while watching Richie.  This date was the weirdest and the best fucking thing that’s ever happened to him.  He put his feet up on the table to display his mismatching socks and sipped his peppermint hot chocolate and it burned but Stan’s smile burned brighter.  Wow, all of them together was going to be something spectacularly brilliant, right?  Eddie was listing off reasons that what Richie was doing was unsanitary but Richie could feel the affection creeping into his voice even though he was talking a million miles a minute.