#and my gross motor skills are pretty awful too. even if I could run I can't do it well because I'm so uncoordinated

[some-other-number]

I've been thinking about how frustrating it is having a coordination disorder but it being completely invisible because I avoid most things that it affects

[gra-sonas]

The Kissing Booth | Malex [R]

This is a happy Malex highschool AU. There are no hammers or homophobic dads in this one, just two boys kissing for the first time (and then some). I may have borrowed a few lines of dialogue from 1x06, just not quite in the way you’d expect.

Author’s note I: Eternal thanks to @Insidious-Intent for the quick beta, you rock!

Author’s note II: This fic is rated R for a reason, Alex and Michael are both 17 (i.e. at the age of consent in New Mexico, and holy shit, do they both consent).

on AO3

        This is for all my lovelies who had a rough night. ♥

                                                           ･ﾟ✧

“Oh my god, Michael, what are you even wearing?”

Isobel is standing in front of Michael, arms akimbo and fury emanating from her every pore.

Michael looks down at himself.

“That’s my best flannel, Iz. There’s only one little stain on it that just won’t come out. These laundromat washing machines don’t do well with motor oil. But you can’t really see it when I’m in the booth.”

Michael is embarrassed. She knows that his budget doesn’t allow for him to buy fancy clothes, why is she so mad at him? Isobel closes her eyes for a second and takes a deep, steadying breath.

“I didn’t even notice the stain. But your shirt is missing buttons, Michael. Pretty much every button to be precise. And you’re not wearing a shirt underneath. I can almost see your belly button!”

Michael snickers, he’s quick to school his face into a mask of friendly indifference though. Iz doesn’t handle well being laughed at.

“I know, the one near my belly button came off when I put the shirt on this morning. I didn’t have time to fix it. And I didn’t have a clean shirt either. Sorry, Iz.”

Her face does a complicated thing where she looks furious one moment, then like she pities him the next (which he hates, he doesn’t want or need anyone’s pity, least of all hers), and then it’s back to her determined ‘I get shit done’ face. Michael almost gets whiplash from looking at her going through all these expressions.

“OK, I’m going to find a shirt for you, you cannot run the kissing booth with half your shirt off.”

“But why not, Iz? Don’t you think my sweaty, almost shirtless torso is gonna bring all the people to the yard?”

Isobel crunches her face in disgust.

“Ew, Michael. This is a school Carnival in case you forgot. Keep it PG and don’t be gross.”

“Gross is my middle name,” he mumbles under his breath.

“What did you just say?”

“Nothing, Iz, nothing.”

She looks around and spots a dark clad student with spiked hair walking up the steps to the school’s main entrance.

“Hey, you!”

The guy stops and turns around.

It’s Alex Manes, local emo/goth/whatever and avid skateboarder. He’s also the guy Michael’s had his bisexual awakening over. They’d been paired for a project in their computer science class last fall and Michael had liked spending time with Alex. A lot. They even got an A for their essay, thanks to Alex being an actual wizard when he had a keyboard in front of him. Michael is still in awe of Alex’s coding skills.

He’s also still hopelessly in crush with Alex. The dark eyeliner, the hair, the bling, not to forget the sinfully tight skinny jeans that do wonders to show off Alex’s strong legs and amazing ass. Yeah, ever since Michael realized that he’s also into dicks, Alex has played a vivid role in most of Michael’s fantasies, sexual and non-sexual. Not that he ever did anything about it though.

He knows Alex is gay, not a day's going by without Valenti and his ilk bullying Alex in some way because of it, but Michael’s been careful not to get any ideas. Alex might be gay, that doesn’t mean he’d necessarily be attracted to someone like Michael. He’s not exactly a catch with his big nose, unruly hair and hand-me-down clothes.

Michael’s trying to play it cool when Alex walks the steps back down and comes over to where they are standing in front of the Kissing Booth.

“You yelled, Miss Evans?”

Michael admires Alex for having the balls to address Isobel with a voice that’s dripping with sarcasm. She doesn’t seem affected by Alex’s somewhat insolent reply though.

“Do you have an extra shirt?”

Michael is stunned, apparently Iz is willing to let Alex’s behavior slide, if only she gets a shirt for him out of it. She must be really desperate to cover his chest.

“I do.”

Michael feels his face heat up. Any second now Iz is going to explode and yell at Alex. And he’ll associate Michael with the incident and never look at him again. Great.

To his surprise, Isobel’s voice is especially sweet when she speaks again.

“I’m sorry, I should explain why I asked you about the shirt. You see, Michael here is going to run the kissing booth at the Carnival today, and look at his flannel. It’s missing a number of buttons. You can almost see his belly button!”

Faster than Michael has any chance to react, Iz pulls his flannel apart to show the expanse of his naked chest to Alex, who looks rather flabbergasted. Then his eyebrows draw together in a thoughtful frown.

“Wouldn’t that be a selling point though? I’m pretty sure most of the girls lining up to kiss Guerin will be more than happy to get an eyeful of that.”

He gestures at the general direction of Michael’s left nipple. Which hardens immediately. Fuck his life, Michael is not sure whether to laugh or cry. He goes for flirty sarcasm instead. If he’s going to die of embarrassment today, he’s gonna go out with a bang.

“Why just girls, Manes? I’m an equal opportunity kind of guy, don’t you think my manly chest could be of interest to anyone else?”

Alex’s eyes are wide, looking at Michael, but he snorts.

“I don’t see a single chest hair growing on that manly chest of yours.”

Iz waves her hand in front of Alex’s face.

“Sorry to interrupt your banter, but I have other things to take care of. Shirt?”

She holds up her flat hand and for a change, Alex complies. He takes off his backpack, opens it and pulls out a black shirt. The cover of Depeche Mode’s Music for the Masses album is printed on the front.

“It’s a bit frail around the collar, hope your manly chest won’t catch a cold through the holes. I want this back by the way, no need to wash it. I’ll do that myself.”

With that Alex hands the shirt over to Michael, zips his backpack, then turns around and leaves.

Michael is stunned. He clutches the shirt to his chest as if to comfort himself.

Iz puts a hand on his chin and turns his head around to look at him.

“Are you freaking out because you just outed yourself to the local gay guy?”

“What? No, of course not. It’s not a secret. I mean, I’ve never told anyone except you, but I’m not ashamed of it. I’m still stunned that you forced him to hand over a spare shirt so I won’t be such a kissing magnet.”

He yelps when Isobel’s fist makes contact with his bicep.

“Go into the booth and put the shirt on, wear the flannel over it, don’t make a scandal. This is all for a good cause and I don’t want to hear any complaints about your behavior. There are wet wipes in the booth, use them between kisses, there’s also mouth wash, use that too. I’ll come by in about two hours and I swear to god, your chest will never get a chance to grow a single hair, if you don’t behave. Understood?”

Michael nods. Isobel turns on her heel and heads over to the area where Max supervises the setup of a huge bouncy castle that looks like a flying saucer. Being as alien as possible in plain sight is Isobel’s thing, but then Roswell is the perfect town to host an alien themed Carnival.

Michael enters the kissing booth, unbuttons the remaining buttons of his favorite flannel and picks up Alex’s shirt. No one’s around, so he allows himself to hold it close to his nose and sniff. The shirt is freshly laundered, but it still smells like Alex somehow. It’s comforting.

Michael’s overcome with sudden longing, and he keeps breathing in the soothing scent for another moment. When he hears a noise from outside the booth, he quickly pulls the shirt over his head and exits the booth while he puts the flannel back on. He doesn’t bother with the buttons though.

                                                        ･ﾟ✧

Three hours into the Carnival, Michael is tired. He’s chewed through a pack of gum, the first bottle of mouthwash is almost empty, and the trash can is filled with used wet wipes.

He’d thought kissing so many people in one day would be fun, but it’s not.  

The number of people with bad breath is staggering (smokers being the worst), and more than one girl has tried to slip him their tongue. Michael loves kissing, but as it turns out, he has to like the person he kisses, or else it’s a somewhat boring and at times humiliating task.

Iz has allowed him to take a ten-minute break every hour and he’s relieved when the line in front of the booth dwindles down. Time to take his break. He’s about to close the window, when he sees Alex Manes approaching. It feels like his heart is doing a somersault in his chest.

Alex stops in front of the booth. He seems nervous, and he takes a deep breath before he speaks.

“Hey. Can we talk?”

Michael’s hands are sweaty and cold all of a sudden.

“Uh, yeah, I guess?”

Alex leans closer to the open window, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Somewhere private, maybe?”

Michael nods and tilts his chin to indicate that Alex should come around to the door on the back of the booth. As soon as Alex is out of sight, Michael closes the window and turns the sign that will inform people he’s on a break. It’s red with a green flying saucer depicted in the middle, and it reads I’ve been abducted, BACK IN 10.  

Michael also closes the flimsy curtain to keep prying eyes from looking inside the booth before he opens the door.

Alex is fiddling with the hem of his black Danger! At the Picture Show shirt. When Michael tries to run his hand through his curls, he realizes he’s still wearing the green visor Isobel made him wear. The sticker on the bill depicts a little green Martian with pursed lips that says “Kiss me, I’m an alien". Michael takes the visor off and lets it dangle from one finger.

Alex enters the booth and closes the door behind him. All of a sudden, it’s dim inside, the only light coming from three strings of fairy lights Isobel put up to imitate starlight. Pictures of UFOs and cartoon aliens are lining the walls, some of them are even kissing. A UFO made from papier-mâché is hanging from the ceiling, the WE COME IN PEACE lettering sparkling in green glitter.

Michael looks at Alex with wide eyes. He has no idea what Alex wants.  

“Okay, talk?”

Michael feels like he’s about to vibrate out of his skin when Alex keeps quiet for what feels like at least another minute. All of a sudden Alex surges forward and puts his hands on the lapels of Michael’s flannel. He stumbles back until he hits the wall. Alex comes after him, taking small steps, then he pulls Michael closer ever so slowly. When Michael doesn’t give any indication of being afraid or wanting an out, Alex closes the final gap between them and kisses the living daylights out of him.

Michael is shell-shocked for all but two seconds before he also dives in and kisses back with everything he has, the visor dropping to the floor from his hands before he clings to Alex’s shirt.

When Alex pulls back eventually, Michael leans forward and tries to chase his lips. He lands one more peck before he opens his eyes and looks at Alex who’s taken a step back. His face is flushed and his eyes are so wide, Michael’s afraid they might pop out of his head any second. Michael wants to kiss the deer-in-the-headlights panic from Alex’s face, but he’s afraid that Alex might bolt when he follows that urge.

He’s careful to slow his motions when he reaches out for Alex and cups his face in his hands.

“Hey, you ok?”

Alex blinks.

“I’m not sure. I kissed you. And I didn’t even pay for the kiss. Isobel’s gonna kill me.”

Michael smiles at him.

“Do you have any idea how long I've wanted to do that? How often I dreamed about it?”

Alex looks stunned.

“You did? I never thought I’d have a shot with you, but then you said you’re also into guys earlier and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Then I thought about all those times we talked when we were working on that project and I - I thought maybe... I’ve been debating whether I should line up and kiss you for the good cause, but then I didn’t want our first and maybe only kiss witnessed by half the school.”

Michael’s smile grows and his eyes light up.

“Our first kiss? So there will be more?”

Alex looks into his eyes and carefully inches closer until their chests are almost touching.

“Would that be a bad idea?”

Michael shakes his head, his curls flying in every direction.

“It’s the best idea you’ve had so far, other than making the first move. You have no idea how glad I am you did th... mmmffff.”

Alex effectively shuts him up by kissing him again.

He’s not shy about it either. The kiss gets more intense and almost filthy with a twist of Alex’s tongue that makes Michael moan. He’s never been kissed like that. Alex is claiming him, and Michael is one hundred percent on board with the idea.  

When Alex cups Michael’s face and lets his hands wander to the back of his head to bury them in the long strands of his curls, Michael almost sobs with how good it feels. To be held like this. When Alex slightly pulls Michael’s hair a moment later, it goes straight to his cock.  

He’d been getting harder with every swipe of Alex’s tongue, but the hair-pulling triggers his cock to full hardness. Alex somehow seems to realize what he’s done, because he’s letting go of Michael’s head by dropping his right hand, which causes Michael to make a protesting sound that almost immediately turns into a whimper when Alex uses his hand to cup Michael’s dick.  

Michael cants his hips forward in an effort to get more pressure, and Alex, bless him, starts rubbing and squeezing his dick through the denim of his faded jeans. The friction is delicious but not near enough. If Michael had any control left over his limbs, he’d try to open his fly, but he’s clinging to Alex with both hands fisted in his shirt, holding on for dear life. If he lets go of Alex now, he might just drop to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut.

When he realizes that somehow Alex managed to open his fly with one hand, his knees almost give out under him. Alex fumbles with the waistband of his boxers for a second, but then his hand is finding its way inside and Michael hisses when Alex’s long, guitar-calloused fingers wrap around his cock and apply the perfect amount of pressure and friction. It only takes a few pulls of Alex’s hand until Michael comes, helplessly gasping into Alex’s mouth while the ripples of the most intense orgasm he’s ever experienced run through his body.

He’s afraid he won’t be able to keep himself up any longer, but Alex is holding him through the full-body-shudders, whispering sweet nothings into Michael’s ear. He feels like a hot air balloon, ready to fly away with just a gust of wind, but Alex won’t let him. He’s holding Michael, grounding him, and slowly caressing him back to coherence.

He’s not sure if he should be embarrassed that he came all over Alex’s hand or what to do next. But apparently Alex is not only a coding wizard, he’s also a sex wizard who slowly coaxes Michael backwards until his knees hit the seat of the nearby chair. Alex helps him lower down until he sits after he’s pulled his hand out of Michael’s pants.

Alex looks around and notices the wet wipes. He picks them up and cleans his hand, then he kneels down in front of Michael and pulls down the waistband of his boxers. He dabs the remaining spots of come away, but instead of letting the waistband snap back against Michael’s stomach, Alex bends forward and places a soft kiss just slightly left of Michael’s happy trail, then another one a little lower, then another one on the smooth foreskin of his spent cock.

Michael is overcome with a wave of affection that makes his heart squeeze in his chest.

He buries his hands in the spiky strands of Alex’s hair and strokes against the grain. Alex makes a sound that sounds an awful lot like a purr. Michael files the information away for later. Because there has to be a later, a later where they are alone, where they have time to explore. And a horizontal surface to lie down.

Michael’s voice is raspy when he tries to speak again.

“This was... uhm, yeah.”

Alex looks up at him. His eyeliner is slightly smudged, and his pupils are blown. He smiles.

“Yeah, pretty damn uhm.”

Michael chuckles. Then he remembers that he has no idea whether Alex came. How very rude of him.

“Oh shit, you’ve been doing all the work here and gave me the most amazing orgasm of my life, and I - so um, should I now or...?”

Alex smiles and shakes his head.  

“You don’t need to worry, Guerin. You did plenty. Seeing you like this, knowing that it was me who did this to you got me off just fine. I might have to use another of these wet wipes though, nothing worse than come drying in your underwear.”

Michael bursts out laughing. This whole situation is absolutely amazing and utterly ridiculous in equal measure. He wouldn’t want to change anything about it though. Apart from shutting down this damn kissing booth and taking off with Alex. Even the thought of kissing anyone but Alex after what just happened makes his skin crawl.

“You know what? Why don’t you clean up while I fire off a text to tell Iz I caught herpes from someone’s kiss. I’ll let her know that I found someone who offered to take me to the nurse’s office. Max is scheduled to take over the booth in an hour anyway. I doubt anyone will notice it’ll be  closed for an hour because it’s lunch time.”

Alex nods along to Michael’s word vomit. He grabs the packet of wet wipes, unzips his pants and Michael has a hard time not to stare. How Alex will manage to clean up while his very tight jeans are basically glued to his skin is beyond Michael’s comprehension. He doesn’t dwell on the thought though, instead he pulls out his phone and texts Isobel.

He knows she’s going to be mad as hell at him. It’s impossible for him to catch herpes, he’s immune to human diseases (as far as they know), meaning she’ll know he’s bailing, but he doesn’t care.

He’s going to drive himself and Alex out into the desert where they will be alone and can continue where things left off. The makeshift bed in the back of his truck is the perfect playground.

When Alex is done, Michael gets up from the chair, buttons his pants and slowly moves into Alex’s personal space again.

“Ready to go?”

Alex smiles and presses a soft kiss to Michael’s lips.

“I’ve never been more ready for anything in my life.”

FIN

[yallreddieforthis]

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Richie

Fandom: It (2017)

Pairing: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier

Rating: T (for language)

Words: 2.7k

Pre-relationship. Movie canon-compliant but not book. Also posted on AO3

The Greater Fool Series: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 4.5 (NSFW) | Part 5

It seems impossible that a person can be both that shitty and the shit at the same time but like...it’s Richie. And since Richie doesn’t give a single fuck about following any kind of rules, Eddie guesses the ones that govern Eddie’s emotions don’t apply to him either. Greaaaat.

Sometimes Eddie can't believe it's Richie.

Maybe even most of the time, like when everything out of his mouth is your mom and my wang and it's just words, it's not even funny, and Eddie can only tune him out or try to talk over him. Richie cannot shut the fuck up for one goddamn second. And it's not even like Eddie can pin it to anything specific—like, oh, Richie talks more when he's angry or nervous or excited—because he does it when he's every one of those things and any other thing besides. The tone may change—the subject matter even—but the talking. Never. Stops.

Eddie doesn’t really consider himself a beacon of cultural knowledge, but he does own a TV. So he at least has a vague idea of what a British person might sound like, which is more than he can say for Richie. Richie also owns a TV, and yet his British Guy impression is so god-awful that Eddie has to assume he’s basing it on someone’s description of a fever dream they once had about a London street urchin from the eighteen hundreds. This only applies to the actual words though, not the pronunciation—which is pretty much indistinguishable from just Richie being Richie—and that’s across the board for all the voices, not just the British Guy. For someone who loves imitating other people as much as Richie does, it’s unbelievable how remarkably all his Guys sound like they’re from Derry, Maine. Because shouting out mangled phrases he half-remembers from the time he watched Mary Poppins six years ago—in the most American voice imaginable—is still somehow Richie’s interpretation of a British accent.

That isn’t even the worst part of The Voices though. The worst part is that Richie seems to have a sixth sense that alerts him to the exact moment at which it would most infuriate Eddie for him to do one, and invariably it’s as if a little light goes off in the least-developed part of his brain that says Time To Be Italian! (or Southern, or German—he has a constantly expanding, but not noticeably improving, repertoire) and it’s like he just has to do it right then. Sometimes it makes Eddie want to scream at him. Sometimes Eddie does scream at him. But screaming makes no difference; Eddie knows perfectly well that Richie will absolutely do it again the second the urge strikes him, no matter how inappropriate the timing or what Eddie does in reaction.

He's fucking gross too. Not necessarily grosser than the rest of them, but he certainly subscribes to the teenage boy brand of hygiene that dictates that he only really has to shower when Eddie finally shoves him away with a you smell like a sweaty nutsack. Of course then Richie inches closer and it's all how would you know, huh? and Eddie has to be like because I have nuts too, dipshit, and if you never wash them you'll—

And then all his warnings about bacteria and fungal infections are drowned out in the your mom and my wang and vague, half-heard rumors Richie repeats about people from school that Eddie knows aren't true, and he's pretty sure Richie doesn't even believe himself. Fuck him and his terrible, nasty-ass jokes.

Some days he thinks Richie purposely doesn't shower specifically so that he can torment Eddie with his unbearable boy stank. Or how he'll like, step in dog shit and just sort of shrug and wipe the sole of his shoe in the grass and then keep going with whatever he was doing like he's not literally tracking shit everywhere. If Eddie were to step in dog shit—which he wouldn't because he watches where he's going like a sane person—it would bring his entire day to a screeching halt. He gets that he's in the minority when it comes to these kinds of things, but he doesn't get why.

And then Richie has the audacity to suggest that Eddie's just as bad as the rest of them—when he says things like you’re convinced your shit doesn't stink, or it’s the smell of your own breath wafting back in your face—like he thinks Eddie is kind of gross too. Which shouldn't bother him, but it does. Somewhere very, very deep down in his gut he has a nagging suspicion as to why that might possibly be, but he's hell-bent on ignoring it at least until the inevitable destruction of the planet Earth, if not even longer. And that’s going like...pretty well for him. Reasonably well. Maybe a little less well than it used to be, but he's almost fourteen now and he thinks he should probably have a solid handle on the whole thing within the next couple of years.

But even if Richie wasn't either of those things—annoying, disgusting—there's nothing really exceptional that he is. It's not like he's a genius; the gigantic, goofy glasses make him look smarter than he actually is, and he gives as few shits about school as he does about anything else. Eddie is sure that Mrs. Tozier has never been to a parent-teacher conference where she didn’t hear the phrase if he only applied himself, and he’s equally sure that every one of the teachers who said it knew that they were wasting their breath. If Mrs. Tozier—or anyone else—stood even the slightest chance of motivating Richie to care about pre-algebra, there would have been upward mobility in his GPA long before now. Eddie has to assume he does at least some homework—if for no other reason than because he hasn’t been held back yet—but as far as he can tell, Richie bent over a textbook at home is a sight as yet unwitnessed by mankind.

Richie’s not athletic either—by any definition of the word—at least not until they decide to make Competitive Talking an Olympic sport. He’s really good on his bike, but that’s a skill he developed out of practicality because the alternative is being stuck walking all over Derry, and it’s not like being able to ride a bike is something to brag about because even Eddie can do that. But Richie’s not a fast runner. He can’t do a push-up unless it’s the kind that only count as push-ups when girls do them, knees on the ground. He can’t even throw a spitball into a trash can from three feet away (his performance in the Rock War against Bowers and his goons was a crazy, adrenaline-fueled exception)—and like, okay, the bad aim can probably be chalked up to his horrendous eyesight, but even beyond that there’s this general, overall lack of coordination. Eddie has what amounts to a universal pass that effectively excuses him from participating in PE for his entire school career, so he’s never been physically present for what goes down on the yard, but he can pretty much piece it together from the scrapes and bruises all over Richie’s arms and legs. It doesn’t matter what unit they’re on—dodgeball, baseball, soccer, tetherball—Richie plays only one position: target.

He doesn’t fare any better in the kind of extracurriculars that teachers and parents care about, like music. Richie is an aggressively bad singer—a fact Eddie is forcibly reminded of every time anyone has a birthday because Richie always makes a point of sandwiching Eddie between himself and someone who won’t run away (usually the birthday kid’s mom) while he belts out an eardrum-shattering rendition of Happy Birthday at the top of his lungs. Richie seems to interpret birthday party invitations as personal challenges for him to sing louder and worse, challenges he has so far risen to spectacularly on every occasion. The song gets longer each time too, because he never forgets to include Frankenstein on channel nine and the big fat lady on channel eighty and whatever new, ruder verses he’s scrounged up out of nowhere between the last birthday party and this one. Richie’s singing is actually one of the most obnoxious things about him, in Eddie’s opinion, which is really saying something.

He is so unrestrainedly, deliberately awful that Eddie could honestly imagine some idiot adult who doesn’t know Richie listening to him screech the chorus of Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go over and over in Eddie’s ear (the newest sabotage tactic he’s been deploying at the arcade to try to make Eddie lose at Street Fighter) and thinking wow, maybe that kid actually has a beautiful singing voice but doesn’t want anyone to know because he’s worried people will make fun of him. They would be wrong, of course, because even when he’s not actively trying to suck, Richie can’t sing for shit. Eddie doesn’t have to know anything about music to be able to tell that Richie’s real singing voice—the one he almost never uses—is flat and off-key. And forget about instruments because whenever someone makes the mistake of letting him get his hands on one, he immediately tries to shove it down his pants—or worse, Eddie’s pants—and pretend it’s a wang.

There’s art—and Eddie has noticed that being a really good artist can absolve someone of the sin of sucking at everything else. Bill, for example, is talented enough with watercolor pencils that if he drew people’s attention to his sketches, he could probably get away with not knowing how to write a half-decent thesis statement or multiply fractions (even though Bill does know how to do those things) because people would just affix the tortured artist label to him and stop giving him shit about the stutter. And Richie actually draws a lot—probably as much as Bill if it’s purely a question of quantity over quality—it’s just that the only things he seems to be interested in drawing are dicks, and the places he chooses to draw them are all technically the property of the Derry Public School District. Also, his fine motor skills are at least as bad as his gross ones, because his handwriting looks the way his singing voice sounds, and the dicks he draws make Eddie question if Richie has ever even looked in his own pants before.

And yet, despite all of the incontrovertible evidence that Richie is actually a walking disaster, there are other times that Eddie can't believe it’s not Richie to everyone else. Or even like anyone else.

It could be argued that it’s almost inevitable due to the sheer volume of jokes he tells, but every so often Richie will get one absolutely, unassailably right. His timing, his word choice—the heavens open, the planets align, and suddenly everybody around him is laughing so hard they can't breathe, Eddie included. His eyes usually end up watering when it happens, but he squints through them to look at Richie because in those moments, Richie glows like nothing else. He tries to act like it isn’t a big deal that everyone is pissing themselves from whateverthefuck he just blurted out of his incessantly flapping mouth hole, but Eddie can tell how thrilled he is when people actually find him funny. It's happening more and more often nowadays, enough so that Eddie sometimes wonders if maybe Richie is wasting his time at school after all. And who needs sports or music or art anyway?

And he could be a whole lot worse about Eddie’s germ thing if he wanted to be, like how some people give him hell about the pills and the inhaler and the hand washing. Richie doesn’t have detergent hands but he sure as shit will mouth off to anybody who gives Eddie a hard time about his. He can’t say Richie doesn’t at least try to look out for him, in his own weird way. Or Bill, or Stan, or Mike, or any of them. It causes more trouble than it’s worth more often than not, especially because Richie doesn’t have any discernable muscle with which to back up his shit-talking, so it probably would honestly be better if he would just like...not. But Eddie can’t really help appreciating it all the same.

But the hardest thing to ignore about Richie—and Eddie wouldn’t admit this to anyone, even under threat of death by clown—is that his memories of what Richie did for him over the summer have become a kind of personal, private shield against fear. They all try to avoid thinking about It as much as they reasonably can (which isn’t much; it’s not like you just go and forget about the time you and all your friends climbed down a haunted well so you could almost get eaten by a demon clown in the sewers), but Eddie’s positive he isn’t the only one who lies awake at night when the sound of his own pounding heartbeat is making him too nauseous to sleep.

The lights are off because it’s almost worse when they’re on. Maybe if he can’t see It coming, it’ll just eat him real fast and get it over with before he even knows what hit him. Still, he doesn’t want to die—instantly is preferable to slowly, but even better is not at all. So he’s developed a set of dozens of little rules for himself to follow—like no turning over, no breathing too deeply, no limbs outside the covers, no long, slow blinks (quick ones are okay; otherwise it’s eyes all the way closed or all the way open). Realistically he knows that not a single one of these rules means jack shit to anyone outside his own brain, but somehow no-ing himself into what amounts to a vegetative state eventually bores him to sleep. Okay, usually it does. More like occasionally. Actually it’s only worked like twice, but whatever. He’ll take what he can get at this point.

Sometimes Eddie thinks he has it worse than anyone else. Well, maybe not worse than Bill. But the rest of them—he isn’t sure if any of them can really understand exactly how fucking useless he felt down in that god-forsaken lair with his arm in a cast. Bill and Beverly were awesome, Mike was like a goddamn soldier, Stan was great after he’d finished crying and even Ben, who Eddie basically thinks of as the most inoffensive kid on the planet, was tough as balls. And Eddie felt like a worthless piece of shit. He hates his arm for being broken, and he hates his nightmares for always including the broken arm. It’s coming at him—just him—and his arm is hanging limply and there’s not a goddamn thing he can do—

And that’s where Richie comes in. Only when he thinks about Richie bitching Bill out for getting them all into this shit situation while inching toward the mountain of broken toys, Richie grabbing a baseball bat and saying now I’m going to have to kill this fucking clown...only then does the terror that surrounds him all through the night start to ease up.

And then he thinks a little further back about when he fell through the floor and broke his arm in the first place, about how all his friends were crowding him and freaking the fuck out, and Richie just looked at his arm and said he was going to set the break and snapped his bone back into place while Eddie shrieked at him to do not fucking touch me. Just like, grabbed his arm where it was dangling the wrong way and fucking did it.

Sometimes… Sometimes Eddie is positive that if It were to show up in his house on any given night, Richie would immediately come crashing through his bedroom window, swinging a baseball bat. Because somehow Richie would know if It returned, would know It was coming for Eddie, would show up in time. He’d show up and keep his shit together while Eddie couldn’t. He’d probably sometimes miss with the bat, but Eddie kind of suspects that it wouldn’t matter. Richie would stand between Eddie and It and just sort of suck all the scary out of the room with his endless, pointless trash-talking. And when Eddie thinks about it that way, it’s like you know what? Screw John McClane; Richie Tozier is Eddie’s hero.

And then Richie sticks his sweaty armpit in Eddie’s face and goddamn it Eddie can’t believe it’s Richie.