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“What the FUCK!”
Somewhere from deep within, a sigh pushes its way out of Eddie Kaspbrak. His headache is thrumming away, a persistent thump-thump-thump at the middle of his forehead, sitting heavily onto him with a smug and steady rhythm. He would gladly take a pill to aid his pain, open his fanny pack and down the medicine with some water - except that’s what Richie’s been doing for the past ten minutes now. Trying to open his fanny pack, that is.
“How the hell is it so stuck?!” Richie exclaims. “It cut my finger open!”
“You didn’t manage to open it but it somehow cut your finger?” Eddie answers in a tone that is strictly reserved for Richie and his bullshit. “What are you- wait what are you even doing?”
“We have to cut it up,” Richie explains, already halfway to the kitchen in search of something sharp. “You’ll have to buy a new one or maybe your mom can fix it after-”
Eddie is about to tear his face off. “No fucking way! Don’t you touch it!”
He stomps over to where Richie is stood and tears his (beloved) fanny pack out of his hands. “Give that to me.”
Richie doesn’t let go and Eddie is somewhat stronger than he looks, so he yanks on it anyway, the movement resulting in Richie tipping over. His obnoxious friend yelps and tries to keep his balance but their weight shifts and they’re falling over. Before he can even register what happened his back is against the floor with Richie’s weight on top of him and something wet bumps against his lips. What the fuck-
“Ew! Dude!” Richie jumps off of him in a heartbeat. “You kissed me!”
Eddie can’t believe what he’s hearing. “What the fuck do you mean I kissed you, you literally fell on top of me!” he retorts with just as much passion. “With your mouth!”
“I can’t believe my first kiss was you!” Richie shouts and okay, first of all, rude.
“I can’t believe my first kiss was you!” Eddie shouts back and then they’re just standing there looking at each other. Richie looks mortified for approximately three more seconds but cannot keep his composure anymore and crumbles to the floor wheezing. There is a moment of panic at first where Eddie thinks his friend is having problems breathing, but as soon as he realizes Richie is laughing, small chuckles bloom into laughter in his chest as well. Then he looks down beside him.
“Look! It’s open now!” he exclaims, snatching the fanny pack from the floor.
“How in the—” Richie mutters but Eddie takes him by the wrist and pulls him until he’s seated on the couch.
“Shut up Richie. Let me see your finger,” he starts to apply antiseptic and band aids to Richie’s cut, and with that everything is normal again.
*
Well, seemingly normal.
Eddie would like to forget the incident, he really would but he just can’t seem to get over it. Not only the fact that Richie handles it much better than him, ignoring what happened, but also the knowledge that Richie Tozier stole his first kiss. Not only is he fucking fed up with Richie’s shit every day but he also rid Eddie of the kiss he was saving for Marie Glattfelder (who is four years older than him and never even spoke to him, but hey, let a boy dream).
But other than that, everything seems to be okay. They don’t talk about it and Eddie slowly also comes to terms with the fact that it was just an accident, nothing more and nothing less. Because that’s what it was. It’s not like he and Richie would ever kiss willingly.
That’s why it almost gives him a heart attack when Richie brings the topic up some weeks later. They’ve cycled out to where the town ends and the woods begin with the group, except everyone else went home already. Eddie has almost twenty more minutes until he has to hop onto his bike and go home so his mother doesn’t send the police looking for her “lost child”. He’s sitting on a log picking at the grass between his feet; Richie is seated across from him indian-style. There’s a comfortable silence between them – or at least that’s what it is for Eddie. If he were to look up at his friend, he would see that Richie is not at all comfortable, fidgeting and frowning in worry. And then he says it.
“I’ve been thinking of kissing you again, you know.”
Eddie is glad he is sitting, because if he was standing he would be falling over right about now. What did Richie just say?
The other boy looks away when Eddie raises his eyes to him. He is chewing on his lip. Eddie doesn’t like to see Richie so stern and worried, he likes the Richie who laughs obnoxiously and always has a “your mom” joke right under his tongue. He wouldn’t want to be the one to rid him of his carefree attitude.
“I’m sorry?” His voice is meek, higher than he would like but.
“Yeah, I know. It’s crazy. It’s not like I’m gay or anything, at least I didn’t think I was, you know? But I just, I can’t stop thinking about it. Tell me if I’m freaking you out.” He’s rambling, something he does when he’s nervous.
To Eddie’s biggest surprise, he doesn’t find it weird, or repelling, or strange. To his own biggest surprise, all he thinks is that somehow it would be okay to kiss Richie right now, even if it’s just to calm him down, even if Eddie wouldn’t like it at all. It’s just Richie. Richie’s always been there, funny, loud Richie who can somehow make Eddie feel extremely annoyed, infuriated and fond at the same time.
So Eddie kisses him. No words, he just drops to his knees where Richie is and touches his cheek and kisses him. It’s very soft; Eddie has never thought about how soft and warm a kiss would actually feel. It’s nice. His mind is at a good place during it, albeit a little confused. The thing that freaks him out the most is the fact that he isn’t freaking out.
“Why does this make so much sense?” He asks and cringes at how sappy and ridiculous he sounds.
“What?” They’re still very close.
“To be kissing you.”
Richie has this dopey fucking look on his face like kissing Eddie is the best thing he could be doing. Weirdo. “I don’t know.”
They kiss again. It’s clumsy, they don’t know what they’re doing. Eddie has heard about tongues involved in kissing but he’s not sure he’s quite ready for that yet. So they press their lips against each other’s awkwardly like two high schoolers would until Eddie realizes he’s going to be late and his mom is going to kill him.
He keeps smiling all the way through the evening because what Richie and he did, well, it was very nice. He never would’ve thought he would like it that much, but now Richie and Richie’s lips seem to be taking up the most of his mind. He has trouble falling asleep , but even after the realm of dreams claims him, the soft feeling of Richie’s lips linger.
*
It becomes their thing.
They find more and more occasions and excuses to be together, just the two of them without raising suspicion in the group; study sessions, sleepovers, non-existent science projects. That is, if you don’t count the private biology project they have going on behind closed doors, mostly in Eddie’s room when his mom is watching tv downstairs or is out with her book club. Eddie doesn’t know why they call it book club since all they do is gossip about the neighbors.
Which is nice sometimes, you know. For example, when Richie starts littering small kisses all over Eddie’s neck, having to tilt up his head because the smaller boy is sitting on his lap. Eddie is not ready for the sensation of it at all – come on. He’s sixteen. He doesn’t know things like that about his body yet, and that’s why he has Richie. So as he lets out an embarrassing moan against Richie’s temple, he thanks all forces of the universe that his mom isn’t home that afternoon.
Richie just laughs against his neck like it’s a funny thing. It’s not. Eddie is getting hard in his shorts just from having Richie’s mouth on his skin – he doesn’t know a lot about it, but even he knows that’s fucking embarrassing. He does it to Richie later though, and the boy basically goes pliant against him so they’re kind of even. That’s a lesson for today, Eddie guesses.
*
Richie can be surprisingly hot sometimes, if he really gets into it. He has the passion, and once he’s in the right mindset it only takes one look from him and Eddie’s gone. But he’s also a fucking brat, many times almost killing the mood mostly with comments about Eddie’s mom or immature jokes. Seriously, one more and Eddie is going to start talking about Richie’s grandmother’s saggy old boobs just to get back at him.
*
But it’s not a relationship, Eddie thinks bitterly. It’s not – anything serious, really.
*
Well, that’s what he thinks, apparently. Then comes Richie’s side of it. They’re out with a friend group at a diner where not everyone knows everyone and Richie just goes,
“Hello, I’m Richie, this is my boyfriend Eddie.” while shaking hands with some guys from another town’s high school.
Eddie stops. All of them stop. “What?” Richie asks with a shrug.
“What?!” Bev’s eyes are like two small plates. All hell breaks loose between their tight-knit group but Eddie just smiles and melts into Richie’s side and lets him handle it.
He’s the one who got them into this shit, anyways.