#Fun fact sitcom stands for situational comedy. They really were putting my boy in a situation

[the-halfling-prince]

Rewatched BMW episode Cult Fiction for the first time in like 6 years. Thoughts below

Ough

[ampabd-17-blog]

Let’s Get Married - Kim Mingyu Fic

Part 1

Total words: 1956

Type: Fluff? Marriage AU? 

Summary: Dating is all fun and games until your best friend suggests that you and him should make a pact. A pact to get married at the age of 30.

Creds/Inspired by WongFu, We Got Married, person who suggested the fic

Blind dates are basically the epitome of dread and anxiety. Who exactly trusts their best friend in setting you up with their friend?

"He's hot do not worry" or "Girls practically wait in line to date him", is actually not reassuring or truthful coming from a guy himself. Who actually knows if he's hot, or even a good personality, or even remotely okay to date? Surely, not me. Everything is so difficult, you could not even know the person's name or see their picture. Thanks Mingyu, thanks so damn much.

So many thoughts, pros and cons, and scenarios rush through my head as I wait at the small urban cafe Mingyu told me to go to. My hands tap at the light wooden table anxiously looking out the window to see if I could see anyone who was not on their phone, on a date, or a business filled person walk in or by.

"Calm down ___. It's okay Everything is going to be okay, because this mysterious guy is going to show up, he is going to be amazing, you're going to fall in love with him, and you're going to date him, you’re gonna thank your amazing best friend for putting you up this." I say to myself while I keep my hands busy by either tapping, moving the plant around on the table fixing its position every second, throwing my phone up in the air, clenching my fists.

"Hey," I looked up with huge anticipation, oh. He's really cute, "Would you stop rocking your feet? You're wearing heels and I forgot my earphones, it's been going on for about 5 minutes. It's getting annoying and quite distracting. "Just kidding, he's just a passerby.

10 minutes later

The same cute guy came up to me, hoping he would stay, "Hey stop tapping your phone against the table." Great. It’s not him.

30 minutes later

"Do you have earphones I could borrow if you will not be making noises?" I dug through my handbag and handed him a pair of extras. I found it in the taxi, that's what I get for being a jerk.

40 minutes later

Slowly, I'm giving up. What guy does not show up for a date for two hours? Absurd.

I stand up, grab my handbag and started to walk out the door. 

“Hey hey hey your earphones!” The guy chased after me but I ignored him, it was an extra just keep it dude.

Reaching for my phone in my back pocket I pull it out and start to dial Mingyu's number.

"Are you kidding me Kim Mingyu."

"Woah woah woah woah woah, calm down calm down. What happened? "I heard muffled laughter through the speaker

"You're not joking right? You are one hundred percent serious right now." Walking furiously towards the busy street I start to flag down at least one taxi to take me to go beat Mingyu's ass.

Silence filled the other end as mumbles of "What if she even talking about?" Erupted once in awhile, "OH! You mean the date with Kim KiHo? How'd that go ??" He sounded genuinely curious. This poor boy is going to die tonight,

"It went great you know! He was amazing! Aesthetically pleasing!" I roll my eyes at my sarcastic comment

"Tell me about it."

"Oh well first I arrived to the cafe you told me to go and sat in the table closest to the window without ordering anything you know because well, that'd be rude to order something without him being there. Secondly I waited for about 2 hours for this guy to show and throughout the whole time there was this obnoxious cute dude that was sitting near me who kept telling what to stop what I was doing. And lastly? HE DID NOT EVEN SHOW UP MINGYU. ALSO YOU DECIDED TO TELL ME THE NAME NOW? HOW WAS I EVEN SUPPOSED TO FIND HIM WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU." I pull the phone away from my ear and start yelling at full on

"___...  I'm so sorry. Holy crap I didn’t think he would ditch. "

"Well he did."

"Do you want me to call him? I can call him for you. We can set another date up ag- "

"Save it Mingyu. I'm not going on anymore blind dates that you set me up on. "

"I'm sorryyyyyyyyyyyyyy."

"Don’t drag out your words."

"___. I'm sorry."

"Well sorry isn’t enough,” I paused for a second, “I'm coming over."

"Okay front door will be unloc-, wait. Are you mad right now?"

I didn’t answer

"Okay... So you are. Are you coming over to fight me or beat me to death?"

I only smirked, he knew me so well.

"I'm leaving the house." I heard shuffling in the back

"You, you better stay." I hung up the phone with a huff as I arrived in the busy streets of the city

I flagged down a taxi and gave the driver the address of my best friends apartment. Kim Mingyu is going down.

I kept ringing the doorbell, knocking on the door, banging on the windows, and still nothing.

"Mingyu I swear, if you do not open this door I'll force my way in." I yell hoping he would hear me

"Never!" His muffled yell shook my ears

I continued to bang on the door, why did his parents choose today to leave on a holiday? Still banging on the door his next door neighbor spoke up, "___."

I met his smug, laughing face, "What do you want." I glare at him

"You”, Laughter, "both", Laughter, "are ridiculous." Laughter.

"Shut up."

"Seriously the best romance comedy sitcom I have seen in my life."

"Romance? Comedy? Romance comedy? What kind of drugs are you taking? God I'd rather die then ever date him.” Disgusted that the thought of ever dating Mingyu had crossed my mind

"Hey, doesn’t erase the fact that I love you guys together."

"That's gross."

"Maybe you think soooo~ Also his family keeps a spare key under the tallest plant." He winks and waves goodbye

"Aw bro why'd you have to tell her that?" Mingyu whines as the window pops open next to his door

"If I didn’t, she would have done damage to that window, and even more damage on you."

Mingyu's eyes widen as I let myself in and step right in front of him

"Ohhoho. You're dead meat." The window slammed shut.

"You hit me and scratched me. I'm bruised and bleeding. I hate you.” I dab his injury lightly as he groans

"It wasn’t even that bad."

"This is an abusive relationship and you're the abuser. I need out. "He starts to stand up

"Shut up and let me help you." I push his chest to get him back down

"Why is the abuser also the nurse. You make no sense." His finger tapped the tip of my nose

“Don’t touch my nose. You’re going to rub off my highlight.” I pushed the rubbing alcohol infused cotton ball harshly onto the open wound which would hopefully get him to shut up as well as leave me alone and let me do my work

"OW. ___ GOD HELP, OW THAT HURTS. "

"You deserved it."

"No, you're just mean. I don’t deserve this abuse."

"Shut up. But over all that you love me for it. "

"As if." 

I pushed the cotton ball down harshly again

“IT HURTS WHEN YOU DO THAT! DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT THAT MEANS?”

"Movie night?" I've dropped 3 movies on the couch we were lounging at later in the day.

"Me Before You? Can you even understand it Gyu? "Scoffing into my bag of shark popsicles, boys are so dumb sometimes I swear

"There's different options ___." He plops down next to me and steals a bite of the bar I was currently starting, I stare at him. What kinda monster...

"Sad Movie and 200 Pound Beauty. What's up with you and romance? "

"They’re quality movies as well as classics. So which movie? "He shrugs off my question

"Me Before You. How do you have this anyways?”

"Wonwoo gave it to me, apparently he cried during it." Mingyu got up and collected all the disks and put the right one in the DVD player and sat back down next to me

An hour into the movie Mingyu and I somehow ended up cuddling. His arm was hugging my shoulder while my head was on his chest. We were just laying on the spacious couch peaceful and undisturbed. This is what best friends of all the time! Right..?

"Look at her dress Gyu, oh my god it's beautiful." I point at the lit up screen that was red whenever she twirled around, that was indeed a gorgeous dress

"Your color is red. I bet you would look great." His chest vibrated everytime he spoke

"You're right, but pulling off that dress? You’d have to be insanely gorgeous and have a good body. Which I don’t have. But I can never pull off red lipstick."

“Yeah you do. Don’t doubt yourself, my best friend is beautiful~ You look like a chili pepper when you wear red lipstick.” I smack his shoulder while he was laughing, “I’m sorry I’m sorry.”

Throughout the whole movie a question I loved to ponder about erupted in my mind, 'You read all these books, hear all these stories, and watch all these films about how a couple of people find each other to be their soulmate and they end Up in love. But what if I never get to experience that? ' What if I never cross paths with my supposed soulmate and I never find true love? What if all my dates are like the dates I experienced today? Am I going to-

"Die forever alone?" Mingyu was looking at me as the credits rolled onto the screen

"Uh ___ ...." He spoke up when he realized I was deep in thought

"What?" My head shot up to meet his gaze

"You have been unconsciously speaking for the past five minutes."

"You're kidding." He only shook his head, "So you heard everything I said?" I nodded, "Well it's true I'm going to die alone, sad, and lonely."

"Ayy, thats not true."

"It is true.”

"Not true." He bickers back, he never knows when to give up.

"True."

"Not true."

"Look I know you're my best friend, you don’t have to spare my feelings."

"I know, you're a strong independent woman and I'm being truthful.” I tried to hide his laughter before I grabbed a pillow and started to hit him, “Hey hey hey, I'll stop, I'll stop.” He managed to get out during his fit of laughter

"You're still wrong."

Mingyu only shook his head and proceeded to grab both of my shoulders to face him, face looking deadly seriously, no sorts of jokes written on his face. Whenever I've been placed in this situation, I know exactly what’s going to go down. I know what he's doing, and when he’s like this, he's dead serious.

"If you think so, then let's make a pact ___."

"Depends." Not breaking the deep eye we were giving each other

“If you really think you’re going to die alone and you’re never going to find your soulmate, and I’m not interested in dating right now but if my relationships fail one by one. By the time we’re 29, let’s go on 17 dates and do romantic stuff that couples do, and if we think that we are right for each other and that we fell in love, that we are each other’s soulmates. At the age of 30,-” My breath hitched and no words would roll off my tongue, “Lets get married.”

[gillianfoster]

hey @basinhounds help me out here

Sometimes Eddie felt like whoever assigned roommates in his dorm had a real fucking sense of humor - or at least they must have thought they did. Assigning him to live with Richie Tozier was practically halfway to a sitcom just by the nature of it all. Richie left his shit everywhere, and Eddie got too anxious to function if he let his clothes get that wrinkled or his things get that... Everywhere. It practically looked like there was a tape line divider down the middle of their room, just because Richie knew better than to let his mess cross into Eddie’s section of the room. They bickered like an old married couple over everything from pizza toppings to attractive actors. By all accounts, they should have hated each other.

Except it turned out they liked a lot the same music, and mostly the same movies, and that they actually liked each other, a lot, under all the arguing. Richie had ended up being Eddie’s best friend, really - which only added to how ridiculous it all was from Eddie’s perspective.

Part of this was the fact that Eddie was, frankly, too gay to function, and Richie fit Eddie’s list of ideal boyfriend characteristics pretty much to a T. He was tall and funny (not that Eddie would ever tell him that to his face), he had dark curly hair and big thick-rimmed glasses, and he was sort of an amateur musician. Every time Eddie found out something else about him, caught him painting his nails for fun or wearing some ridiculous vintage t-shirt with a shitty pun, he was overwhelmed again by how unbelievably stereotypically hard he’d fallen for his shitty college roommate. It wasn’t even like Richie was necessarily straight - Eddie was pretty sure he was bi - it was just that he was also pretty sure Richie would never even consider dating him.

The real problem was that Richie should have been an asshole, by all accounts - but he wasn’t. Eddie had seen him bend down to pet any dog that crossed his path. He saw the twitch of insecurity in Richie’s smile whenever he told a joke and waited for someone to laugh, or when he played a song on his guitar for the first time.

Richie Tozier was, in all his imperfections, practically perfect.

These were the sorts of things Eddie groaned into the phone at Stan whenever he could be alone in the room, certain that Richie was somewhere else was on campus.

“And he’s nice! And hot! That’s the worst part!”

“Why do I have to suffer through this again? Isn’t it someone else’s turn?”

“Stan, I need you to understand.”

“All I understand is that it sounds like he’d annoy the hell out of me. I’m sure if you like him, he’s great, and we’d get along, but from a distance I just kind of want to punch him.”

“How could you say that?”

Stan sighed. “Again. Why aren’t you talking to Bev about this?”

“Bev knows him! They went to high school together or something. They probably used to make out under the bleachers. And that’s not like, a comment, I’m just saying, they probably did.”

“I think you just like to torture yourself, Eddie. And you’re being ridiculous. This guy is the farthest thing from cool-”

“I never said he was cool! I have not stooped that low.”

Stan sighed again - this time really seeming to go for an Olympic medal in exasperation. “Eddie. Either request a roommate change or do something about the situation, I’m always going to give you the same advice.”

“I don’t need advice, I just want someone to listen to me. I can’t talk to Richie, Bill’s always busy with Mike and in another time zone, I can’t talk to Bev, and Ben never answers his phone in the library, so you’re what I’ve got here, Stan.”

“Are you done now, then? Can I be free?”

“...Yes, fine. For now.”

“Thank you.” Eddie’s only response was a dial tone, then, and he put his phone down and rolled over, groaning into his pillows.

The real problem with living with the boy you were in love with was the constant need to look at least presentable. It was only about five minutes of stressing out over Richie’s general existence before Eddie felt the need to go neaten up in a mirror again, making sure he didn’t look as ridiculous as he felt.

Richie wasn’t even supposed to get back until later that night - he had some kind of rehearsal for a show or the comedy club he was a part of - but Eddie felt like he could never be too careful.

Eddie had found a distraction in his homework by the time he got the text from his mother.

I need to speak to you. Call me when you can.

Texts like that, from Sonia Kaspbrak, were never good news. Literally never. Eddie was still shocked that he’d managed to escape all the way to New York for college and that his mom hadn’t come chasing after him - every time she called or tried to talk to him, he was terrified that she’d tell him she was going to stop supporting him at all (not that her pittance of an allowance for him did much more than cover some meals), or that she’d really figured out something that would make her disown him entirely. Then again, maybe either of those things would be a relief at this point.

Since Richie still wasn’t back, and Eddie knew the longer he put off the phone call, the worse things would get and the more stressed out he would feel, so he picked up the phone to call his mom back.

“Hey, mom.”

“Eddie. I have some news. You may want to sit down.”

Eddie looked at his desk, furrowed his brow. “Yes, I’m sitting down. What is it?”

“Your great aunt Joyce is getting married.”

“Oh, I’m-” Eddie was fully prepared to give his condolences because he was fully prepared for his mother to tell him his great aunt had died. Instead, he suddenly found he had to hold back laughter. He paused. “Right. I mean. Good for her?”

“She should hardly be getting married at her age! It’ll be the death of her.”

Eddie had to hold the phone away, then, just to laugh. He brought it back to his ear. “Right. Well. I can send her a present or something, right? Maybe some heart medication.”

“Edward Kaspbrak!” Eddie winced at his mother’s use of his full name. “You’ve got to come home for the wedding. And don’t talk about your great aunt that way. You’ll bring her something in person. Something nice.”

“Okay. Right. Of course. Maybe a... Blender?”

There was a long pause, and Eddie held his breath, waiting to be scolded again. “...That’ll be fine. There’s one on the registry. You’ll have to drive home next weekend. There’s been hardly any planning at all. It’s all some kind of whirlwind romance.”

Eddie had trouble imagining his great aunt getting into a whirlwind anything without breaking a bone, but apparently she’d managed. For a moment he felt a little pathetic that his 84 year old great aunt could get a boyfriend and he couldn’t, but then he pulled it together. “Right. Next weekend. Well I can do that, I don’t have class on Friday, so. I can come home for the weekend. I’ll drive down. Should I... Bring someone?”

“Would you bring a nice girl?”

Another wince. Eddie’s mother had known he was gay since before he left for college - but she never seemed to give up hope that he’d get over it. “Not really, mommy. I could bring a nice boy?”

“Try not to shock the whole family, will you? And make sure they’re clean.”

With that, apparently Eddie had ended the conversation, because his mother had hung up on him. Eddie sighed and rubbed at his forehead.

Eddie would rather stick himself with a needle than go home on his own - and he used testosterone patches for a reason. Still, his options for boys to take were limited. Stan would have had to fly up, and so would Bill or Mike. Ben went to the same college, but he probably had work that weekend, since he took as many shifts at the library as he could. Bev could be funny, just because Eddie had a feeling his mother would hate her more than any boy Eddie could have brought - well. Except maybe Richie. And that’s the thing, right, was that Richie would probably say yes. He’d be funny and keep Eddie company and they’d both have a good time. Except for that to happen, Eddie would actually have to muster up the courage to ask, which was never going to happen.

He was still dividing his time between his crisis and his homework when the door flew open and Richie finally came back.

“Eds! What a day.” He came over and kissed Eddie on the cheek, leaning over his chair, and Eddie swatted him off, smiling.

“What was so exciting about your day?”

“Mm, nothing, just long. Glad to be back again in home sweet dorm room. What about you? Did you go out and have thrilling adventures while I was gone before you came back to your homework?” Richie went over to his own bed and kicked off his Converse to lay down. He propped himself up on an elbow to keep looking at Eddie while they talked.

“Not really. I talked to Stan.” And my mom told me I had to come home for a wedding and I would pretty much do anything if you would come with me, he thought but didn’t say.

“Right. He’s the one in... Atlanta?”

Eddie smiled. “That’s the one.”

“See the effort I put in for you, Eds? And you don’t even appreciate it.”

“You’re such a loser,” Eddie muttered in response - but he couldn’t wipe the smile from his face either.

If Richie was home, it was starting to get late - and a look at Eddie’s phone told him that was true. He could finish his homework in the morning. He picked up his pajamas and went into the bathroom to change. Richie didn’t seem to have any issue changing in their room standing by the closet if he needed to, but Eddie still felt strange about it.

When he came back to their room, he kept his binder carefully tucked in with the rest of his clothes - not because he didn’t want Richie to see it, but because with Richie’s things being the way they were, they’d gotten their binders confused more than once, and found that they very much did not wear the same size.

Eddie did wonder sometimes if that was why he and Richie had been assigned to room together - out of some strange initiative or concern that they’d both be bullied - but if that was the case, he couldn’t even really stay mad about it. He was too glad to have met Richie.

After putting his clothes away, he turned off his desk lamp and laid down, then turned to Richie in the dim light of Richie’s side of the room. “You said you and Bev went to high school together, right? So how did you two like. Meet?”

Richie laughs. “Shit. It sounds a lot, like. Cooler than it was. We used to smoke together behind the bleachers. Cause, you know, everyone knows it’s fucking terrible for you now, so no one really does it as much anymore except like art students in college, but she used to steal her dad’s cigarettes, and I would bum off my mom, and we would skip classes to smoke together. We also both had pretty shitty parents, I’m sure that helped. So we’d talk and smoke and I’d try and be her wingman with all the girls she had a thing for - not that she needed my help, mostly I just made an asshole out of myself but she still likes me anyways, so.”

Eddie hums, but then blushes, because of course Stan was right, and he’s an idiot. “She seems cool.”

“Bev? She is cool. Way cooler than me, but I’m a fucking loser. She just used to get shit where we went to school because we grew up in the middle of fucking nowhere. Assholes couldn’t decide if she was a slut or a lesbian - which, neither, she dated like one boy and two girls. And not like it was any of their business either way.”

“Yeah. Me and Stan and our other friends were so in the middle of nowhere our biggest bully still had a fucking mullet in the 2010s, so.”

Richie laughed, the sound loud in the otherwise quiet room, and Eddie smiled into the darkness. “Wow. Yeah, that’s pretty incredible.”

Eddie yawned and snuggled further into his blankets. Every night living with Richie felt like a sleepover sometimes - more often than not they stayed up later than they should have, just talking. “I should probably get some sleep. You going out early tomorrow?”

“Nope. Thursday, remember? You, me, Ben and Bev can get breakfast tomorrow if you want.”

“Oh, yeah. Sounds good.”

It was surprisingly easy to fall asleep after talking to Richie as long as he turned to face the wall and didn’t think too much about Richie being able to watch him.

He woke in the morning, like he always did, a little before Richie and twenty times less awake. Neither he nor Richie were morning people, but Eddie was particularly murderous before he had coffee and food, while Richie was mostly just quieter and sort of bleary in the mornings.

While Eddie was still in the bathroom, brushing his teeth, Richie joined him at the next sink. Richie’s left elbow brushed Eddie’s right, and they glanced at each other in companionable and sleepy silence.

Richie came back to the room dressed, and they both got ready and went down to the dining hall to meet Ben and Bev after exchanging some texts.

Once in the dining hall, they both went straight for the waffle makers - fortunately there were two. Richie seemed to only ever eat desert-based foods for breakfast, because he said it was all he could do to get himself to eat breakfast. Eddie just enjoyed the opportunity to finally eat whatever he wanted for breakfast without his mom being a complete weirdo about it. When their trays were filled with food, they both paid for their food and found a table. Bev and Ben joined them only shortly after - Eddie had fortunately already finished his first coffee by then.

“Hey, guys!” Ben said, smiling at them. Bev waved at them after she set down her tray, but already had a cinnamon roll in her mouth that she’d taken a bite out of.

“Hey. How are you guys?” Eddie asked.

“Tired as ever,” Bev responded, sitting down.

“Mood,” Richie said, and Eddie snorted at him.

They mostly ate quietly, and eventually Richie excused himself to go and get some more syrup for his waffle, to add to the already ungodly amount.

“Hey, Bev,” Eddie said quietly.

“Mm?”

“Could I, um. Ask you something?”

“I guess, sure.”

“Right, well, my mom told me I have to come home for this wedding next weekend and I was kind of wondering-”

“She hates weddings, Eddie,” Ben said, and Bev gave him a look. “Well you do.”

Bev rolled her eyes. “Go ahead, Eddie.”

“Well I did think of asking you, it’s just that I would rather take a guy, right, so I was wondering if you like... thought that Richie would say yes to going with me.”

“If I’d say yes to what, Eds?”

Shit. Eddie froze, and turned to look up at Richie. He could see Bev’s grin from the corner of his eye, and Ben looked ready to laugh, too.

I hate you both, he mouthed to them, and then he turned fully to Richie, who was standing behind his chair. “Right. Well. My great aunt is getting married, and my mom is making me go home for the wedding, but she said I should bring someone, so I. Thought maybe I’d ask you to come.”

Richie grinned. “You’re really asking me to come to a wedding with you?” Eddie nodded. “Well of course I will, Eddie Spaghetti!”

Leaning down, Richie ruffled Eddie’s hair, and Eddie swatted him away. “It is way too early in the morning for any of that, asshole.”

“I can’t help myself, I’m too excited. Getting asked to a wedding! By my very own Eds. It’s more than I ever dreamed.” Richie swooned and ended up sticking his elbow in Eddie’s leftover syrup, and Ben, Bev, and Eddie all laughed at him.

Eddie still grabbed Richie’s arm and wiped the syrup off with a wet napkin. “You’re such a dumbass.”

“Only for you,” Richie said with a wink.

Eddie rolled his eyes, and ignored the looks Ben and Bev were giving him.

They got all the details settled later that night - that the wedding was not this weekend but next, that Eddie would drive, that they would both need suits.

That weekend, the week before the wedding, found them tooling around the discount rack at a men’s store, looking for something for either of them that wouldn’t leave them totally broke.

“Do I have to wear a tie? Because I’ll do it for you, Eds, but I won’t like it.”

Eddie looked over to see Richie holding up a couple of tie options. “Let’s just get ties at a thrift store. And you can get one with some ridiculous pattern to make yourself feel better and keep up your pattern of generally tragic outfits.”

“Says the man that wears rainbow short-shorts,” Richie replied with raised eyebrows.

“I know you like my shorts, you can’t shame me for them in this store, I know better than that.”

Richie laughed, but he looked down, and Eddie knew he was right.

“Anyways. We’re here for suits. We can coordinate ties and shit once we actually have the suits.”

Nodding, Richie slung an arm around Eddie and pulled him back to the discount suit rack.

They did actually manage to find suits. Eddie ended up with one that was a nice, dark, fall red. Richie’s was a nice deep blue that looked good next to Eddie’s shade of red. They could also easily get ties to match the other’s suit, and they could both wear black shoes, all of which Eddie relayed to Richie as they left the store.

Neither of their suits fit perfectly, but they fit well enough, and neither of them really had the money for alterations.

They were at the thrift store, with Richie holding up a Space Jam tie and waggling his eyebrows at Eddie, when Eddie’s mom called again.

“Mom? Hi.”

“Eddie, you’re going to dress up for the wedding, aren’t you? And make sure you bring that gift. Have you got everything settled? It’s so bad for your health to let all this go to the last minute, you know that, don’t you?”

“Mommy, I’ve already got a suit, and I know who I’m bringing, I just have to buy the gift.”

“Is that your mom?” Richie asks. “Tell her I said hi.”

Eddie shakes his head, but his mom already asks, “Oh, Eddie, who’s that?”

Here’s the thing. When Sonia let Eddie go to college, her one requirement was that Eddie not room with another boy - for several reasons. She has no idea that Eddie agreed to room with anyone, let alone Richie. They’ve only ever talked when Richie was out of the room.

“Oh, that’s my uh. Boyfriend?”

He realized what he’d done as soon as the words were out of his mouth, but it was too late, then. Richie’s eyebrows shot up, and Eddie closed his eyes to try and block out the expression.

“Oh. You are bringing a boy, then.”

“Yes, mommy.”

“...Make sure he dresses up, too. I won’t have you bringing some mess into the wedding.”

His mother hung up, and Eddie noted in passing that she never seemed to say goodbye anymore. Then he opened his eyes.

“So did I miss something?” Richie asked. He was grinning.

Eddie exhaled in one long breath, and felt like his soul also left his body. “My mom doesn’t know I live with you, and I’m bringing you to the wedding anyways, so I was thinking date? But then that just sort of came out. I’m sorry.”

“I did think you’d have taken me to dinner first, Eds,” Richie said with a wink. Then, almost like it didn’t matter at all, he picked up a tie and held it in front of Eddie’s face. “I feel like if you don’t let me get this pineapple tie, I’m actually going to die.”

“Was that supposed to rhyme?” Eddie said, managing to joke back, somehow.

“No, actually, now I feel like a dipshit. Can I get the tie anyways?”

“I mean, you can get it, but you’re not wearing it to the wedding. Here.” Eddie picked up a red paisley tie, and kept digging until he found a blue paisley one that didn’t clash horribly. “I get the blue paisley and I match you, you get the red paisley, you get a pattern and I get the peace of mind that we’re sort of coordinated. Compromise?”

“Alright, alright. I’m getting the Space Jam one, though, you can’t stop me.”

“I never thought I could, Rich.”

Eddie was grateful for the distraction Richie seemed glad to provide, and for the fact that they just seemed to have moved on.

It didn’t come up again until the night before they were supposed to leave, while they were both lying in their beds, the moonlight from the window the only light left.

“Okay so, genuine question, I’m not trying to be an asshole,” Richie began.

Eddie turned over in bed to look at him. He could only see parts of Richie’s face, his eyes shining in the slats of light that their blinds allowed. “Okay. What is it?”

“Am I actually supposed to pretend we’re boyfriends at this wedding?”

Caught off-guard, Eddie blushed a little, and was glad for the dark. “Oh. Uh. I hadn’t really thought about it. I guess my mom thinks we are now? On accident? So it depends on how you want to handle that.”

Richie shrugged. “I mean, you haven’t talked a lot about your mom.”

“...Right. Well. Yeah. Uh. She was sort of shitty, when I was a kid. Not about like. Me being trans, just about me being gay - I don’t know, maybe it’s some combination of the two? Mostly she just didn’t want me to go anywhere or be around anyone. It was like she thought I would. Get contaminated or something. My dad died when I was a kid, I guess it triggered something for her, and she was always afraid I was going to get sick - I sort of got afraid of it, too.” Eddie realized he’d started to overshare. “Uh. Just in the context of the wedding, she wanted me to bring a girl. I told her I wouldn’t. She told me to make sure that I at least brought someone like. Presentable, basically. She used the word clean. Because she always does.”

Richie laughed, then, and Eddie looked over in confusion. “You’ve got a hell of a way to pick ‘em, then, Eds. You realize your mom’s gonna hate me.”

“I mean, not necessarily.”

“Eddie, babe, be realistic. It sounds like she’s gonna hate me.”

“Well it’s not like she actually likes me that much either!”

There was a pause. “I just need to gauge here - do you actually want me to help you piss off your mom? Is that a goal?”

Eddie bit his lip. “I mean that’s not why I asked you. I asked you because I think you can. Make it fun. You know? I didn’t just ask you because my mom won’t like you. If that’s what you’re asking.”

“...I guess it was, a little. So I should be on the closest thing I’ve got to best behavior unless otherwise notified?”

“Yeah. We’ll go with that. And then we don’t have to play up the couple thing too much, like we don’t have to do a lot of PDA or anything, we can pretend we’re just toning it down.” Eddie turned onto his back again, trying to calm back down enough to sleep in the next week. “Sorry for dragging you into all this. You can stay here if you want.”

“And miss your 84-year-old great aunt’s wedding? Eds, it sounds like a fucking blast. Plus, I already bought that suit. No turning back now. And... You know, you’re right. We’ll have fun. Don’t worry so much.”

Eddie scoffed. “If only it were that easy.”

He heard Richie huff out a laugh, too. “Alright, fair. Try to worry as little as you can manage. I’ll do what I can to make that easy for you. Deal?”

“...Deal. Thanks, Rich.”

“Of course, Eds.”

Eventually, somehow, Eddie managed to fall asleep.