"I'm gonna go now," you say as you enter the living room, putting in your second earring. Your boyfriend looks up from his game, frowning.
"You're wearing that?" he asks, his tone anything but nice.
"Uh..." You look down at your dress, confused. "Yeah? What's wrong with it?"
"It's way too short and it's practically see-through. I can see your nipples from here. Put on something else."
"Excuse me?" you ask, trying not to laugh in shock.
"You heard me. Go change into something else."
You scoff.
"No."
He pauses, glancing at you.
"What?"
"You heard me. I said 'no'."
He scoffs as well, pausing his game and taking off his headset. He stands, approaching you. Although he's got a good eight inches on you, your steely gaze doesn't falter. He almost glares at you.
"Go change. Now."
"Fix your tone," you snarl, putting your hands on your hips in defiance. He scoffs again.
"Don't be such a brat—"
"Excuse me—"
"—just put something modest on and quit making a fuss!"
"You," you say, jabbing your finger into his chest, "do not get to tell me what to do."
"Oh yeah? You seem to like when I tell you what to do in bed. So, why don't you be a good little girl and change your outfit instead of going out dressed like a whore—"
He feels the sting in his cheek before he even registers that your hand was raised. He hesitantly touches the cheek you slapped, eyes wide as he glances back at you. The look you're giving him can only be described as full of rage.
"Who the fuck do you think you're talking to?" You grab his shirt collar, pulling him down so he's face to face with you. "Listen here, buster: I don't give a fuck who you think you are. You may be my boyfriend, but I will not hesitate to throw your shit out on the street once I get home. You are lucky to be with a fine piece of ass like me and you better act like it. Don't you ever speak down to me like that ever again or I will cut off your dick and turn it into a dildo."
You take a deep breath, letting it out as a sigh.
"Now," you shove him, making him fall back onto the couch, "I am going to go out with my friends and have drinks and do whatever the fuck I want, and you are going to stay home. You're going to play your dumbass shooter games and do the dishes, and if you properly apologize when I get home, I might let you lick the sweat off my pussy. Got it?"
He nods and you click your tongue.
"You better say 'yes ma'am' like a gentleman or—"
"Y-Yes ma'am," he rushes to say. You huff, turning on your heel and going to the front door. You stop when you open it, looking back at him.
"And don't jerk off until I get back."
You go through the door and close it, leaving him in silence. He swallows thickly, clearing his throat as he looks down at his throbbing member straining against his shorts. He gets up a few minutes later to do the dishes.
The call of her name made her stop in her tracks, just a few paces beyond his open office door. Cautiously, she took the two steps backwards and arched her back to glance inside.
He sat at his desk, a soft scowl on his face as if she’d actively interrupted him. He’d probably looked up when he noticed her walk past. With a callous gesture of his hand he waved her in.
“What are you doing?”
“Just walking.” She stood rigid in front of his desk, forcing herself to make eye contact. As if she was trying to hide some form of guilt. Was she? Had she been caught doing something she shouldn’t? There was no rule for walking around this stupid house and if there was it was worth to pick a fight over. Maintaining eye contact, she silently dared him to start one.
A sly smirk started forming at his lips and he sat back, the leather chair creaking under his weight. “If you’re bored or otherwise unhappy with your time, I can think of some ways to spend it.”
“That’s not necessary. I’m not bored,” she said stone-faced, now knowing that there were 1185 bricks covering the bare walls of her room, 1054 tiles in the bathroom, and 86 ways to kill him in the cutlery drawer. 86 recipes for disaster. 86 ways for him to return the compliment. Whatever you wanted to call it.
He hummed and she could hear that he didn’t believe her.
Then, abruptly, he shoved his chair backwards and stood. “Come with me.”
She froze. “To the basement?”
“No,” he said, tone lightly exasperated and with a soft tsk.
To her surprise, his hand merely brushed over her elbow as he walked past, a soft incentive to follow, instead of his usual death grip while dragging her along. She turned and cautiously went after him.
“I’d rather not have you clawing up the walls out of boredom,” he said, feeling around in his pocket and pulling out a key.
“Funny, I’d rather claw up something else.”
“My point...” They didn’t walk far. He opened the door next to his office, led her inside, and flicked on the light.
She couldn’t help a small gasp.
And for once during her extended stay here, it wasn’t in fear or dread.
With a soft “Oh” her eyes roamed over the absolutely stacked walls. Rows and rows of bookshelves crossed over the walls, from floor to ceiling, all filled to their utmost capacity but still neatly packed without clutter or stacked up books on top of each other. There wasn’t a bare speck of wall left.
In the middle of the room stood a large table to work on, but near the window in a little niche was a nice comfy leather armchair.
Who knew he was hiding a personal little library inside this prison he called a mansion…
“Most are on psychology and psychiatry, some physiology,” he said, letting his fingers slide over the spines absentmindedly, “but I gather you have an interest in that...” He glanced over his shoulder, eyes following her as she roamed about, her lips still parted in pleasant surprise.
Even if they were on bricklaying or motorbikes, this still beat sitting in a room staring at the wall and waiting for the next bout of pain. But yes, she had to admit, they had a common interest here.
“All these books,” she couldn’t help herself, “and you still haven’t found the one that explains what’s wrong with you.”
His lips tugged in a smile. He stepped forward and pulled out a book, casually handing it to her. “I thought we’d agreed on sadism.”
She accepted the book – Freud – turning it over and scanning the blurb. “Maybe I can find out by myself...”
“You’re welcome to spend your time in here. Just don’t make a mess, put everything back where it belongs. You can do that?”
She’d noticed everything was in alphabetic order and nodded absentmindedly, head tilted as her eyes roaming over the titles. “I can count to K.” She pulled out a book on physiology (always convenient to learn about some weak spots) and stacked it on the book he gave her.
“Know that this is a privilege,” he droned on. “It can be taken away again.”
"Yes, yes…” She didn’t ask what she’d done to deserve this. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Probably there was something in it for him – her not clawing his eyes out due to boredom, for example. Or maybe it was a good leverage point if she just refused to do as he said (again). Violence didn’t work (yet), but taking away something she loved… Well, she’d cross that bridge when they got there…
“And when I call for you, you will answer. I have a schedule to keep, after all.”
“What, you have a schedule for your torture times?”
“It’s more when the mood strikes. And I’m starting to get in the mood,” he finished in a dark tone.
She got the hint and remained silent, walking away from him and putting her stack of books down on the table with a heavy satisfying thud.
“No 'thank you'?” he murmured, but she ignored him, keeping her eyes and focus on the pages in front of her. “Well, I can always wring one out later…”
Eddie shoved past Richie, storming into his living room, throwing his cane onto the armchair, and practically flinging himself down onto the couch.
Richie blinked before slowly closing the door and leaning back against it. Waiting. Trying not to internally freak out and failing miserably.
“And in the backseat of your shitty Sedan at 26.”
Richie took a deep breath and stared at the ceiling.
“Oh, so we are talking about it then,” he nodded vigorously to himself, his veins alight with nerves.
“And in that sketchy apartment in Brooklyn at 28,” Eddie continued as if Richie hadn’t spoken, burying his face in his hands.
Richie cleared his throat before mumbling to the floor.
“And in that lodge in Aspen when we were 31.”
Eddie’s head snapped up, gaping into the air in front of him.
“God, my work retreat,” he gasped, muttering rapidly to himself before getting up and beginning to limp back and forth in front of the TV.
Richie watched him wearily, standing as stiff as a board so as not to spook him.
“And…” Eddie rubbed a hand down his face, “and that last time in San Antonio—”
“When we were 34,” Richie finished, trying and failing to ignore the tantalizing images (memories, fuck) flooding his brain. “Yeah.”
Their eyes locked.
Eddie swallowed roughly in a way that somehow felt both foreign and achingly familiar and had Richie’s already far-too-reminiscent dick twitching in his sweatpants.
“And we...forgot.”
He sounded lost. Aghast. And something else Richie was afraid to name.
“Yeah,” he sighed. “Every single time.”
Fuck. Don’t ask him, don’t ask him, don’t ask—
“And, when did you meet Myra?”
Eddie’s dark eyes, (the same ones that had managed to haunt Richie’s dreams for the last twenty-seven years even without him remembering who they belonged to,) bulged at that before darting away.
“When I was 34. We...it was a few weeks after San Antonio, I think.”
Richie hummed, folding his arms across his chest and rationalizing to himself that the spike of possessive jealousy surging through him was both ridiculous and unfair. The green-eyed monster reared its ugly head anyway.
“How…” Eddie ran a hand through his hair, blowing out an exasperated breath, “how did we forget and keep being...drawn back to each other?”
I was always drawn to you.
Richie bit the inside of his cheek to stop those words from tumbling out.
“Don’t know,” he shrugged, “but Ben told me that he and Bev recently remembered they had sat beside one another on a train once. He gave her his newspaper.”
Eddie let out a noise between a scoff and a snort.
“That’s hardly the same as—”
“Surreptitiously fucking each other on and off for twelve years?”
Eddie let out a pained whine at that before sinking slowly down into the armchair, clutching his cane in his hands.
“My divorce was finalized today.”
Richie nodded even though Eddie wasn’t looking at him.
“I saw the group chat blowing up. Uh, congrats, Eds.”
Richie had been in New York for three weeks now, finalizing some stuff of his own. His manager, Steve, had set him up in an impressive penthouse on the Upper East Side that was, (unbeknownst to Richie,) merely a stone’s throw away from where Eddie worked. Accidentally bumping into him yesterday on the street had been...something. Especially considering the last time he had laid eyes on his childhood friend he had been recuperating in a hospital bed after being shiskabobbed by an evil alien space clown in their hometown of Derry, Maine.
Over the last six months, they had fervently talked and texted in the group chat that Bev insisted they set up, much to the fake chagrin of an also recuperating Stanley Uris. They made plans for another Loser Reunion with added Stan the Man and his wife, and sans interdimensional nightmare-fuel and fortune cookies.
But that was still a month away.
In that time in between, they had hardly ever communicated one-on-one apart from some dumb memes and Eddie refusing to acknowledge said memes.
So Richie had been more than a little caught off guard when he suddenly, (while sipping his venti latte and minding his own business,) collided with a short, brunet whirlwind who growled, “Watch it, asshole!” only to realize that same whirlwind was his childhood best friend.
And the love of his life.
And the guy he had unknowingly railed like there was no tomorrow half a dozen times since 1997.
“I started to remember back in the Townhouse.”
That finally got Richie to unglue himself from the door. He unfolded his arms and trudged across the room to sit on the couch, keeping his eyes firmly on a safe spot at Eddie’s shoulder.
“Me too.”
Eddie’s head shot up.
“Then why didn’t you say anything?!”
“Why didn’t you?!” Richie shot back before speaking to the floor.
“Look, I figured you didn’t wanna talk about it. You were married and you know, we had scarier shit goin’ on. But then…” he took a shaky breath, forcing himself not to close his eyes.
“Then you died and we couldn’t talk about it. Then you un-died and we...things were so good, having you—the Losers back in my life, I—I didn’t wanna fuck that up. And now, here you are.”
“Fucking things up.”
Their eyes met.
“No, Eds,” Richie said more sincerely than he could ever remember being, “you’re not fucking things up. I...I don’t regret any of it.”
He finally let his eyes roam over Eddie’s face, which was crumbling, getting wearier and wearier by the second.
Ice trickled down his spine.
“But you know,” he cleared his throat and gave a half-shrug, trying and failing for nonchalant, “it’s okay if you do. Uh, regret it. I mean, I get it. It’s—”
“I don’t regret any of it either.”
Richie’s stomach lurched and shot into his chest, doing the mambo with his heart.
Don’t get ahead of yourself, Tozier.
“Oh. Okay. Cool.”
You’re a fuckin’ wordsmith, Trashmouth.
Eddie blinked at Richie’s lackluster response before heaving himself up out of the chair, wincing only a little as he began his frantic pacing again.
“I mean, it’s not like we knew what we were doing. Who...who we really were to each other,” he rambled more so to himself. “So it’s not like a...a breach of friendship or something, right?”
The only thing getting breached was your assho—
“Right,” Richie forced out, even though he knew it was more of a rhetorical question.
He stared at his hands. From the corner of his eye, he saw Eddie halt in his tracks.
“You didn’t mention the first time,” Richie mumbled, a knot tightening in his gut as he felt Eddie’s stare boring down on him.
“That’s because we were 17 and still in Derry,” he sighed. “We remembered each other then. But you couldn’t even look at me after. And that had just been a drunken kiss.”
He let out a humorless laugh.
“And by the time I plucked up the courage to talk to you about it, you were telling me you were moving. Brought me out to The Kissing Bridge of all places and got snot all over my shirt collar from crying so hard. So I let it go. I...let you go.”
He felt rather than saw him take a seat next to him on the couch.
“You were my first and only kiss until I met you again as a stranger at 22.”
His stomach fluttered like a 12 year old girl sitting next to her crush.
You're not that far off, asshole.
“You were the first guy I ever blew,” Richie chuckled softly, “almost threw up in your lap, if I remember correctly.”
He didn’t have to see Eddie’s face to know that the disgusted wrinkle between his eyebrows was there.
“I don’t know what came over me,” he practically whispered, shifting a little and seemingly unbothered by the pressing of their shoulders, “I had never done anything like that. I...a one-night stand isn’t really my thing.”
Richie nodded, the feeling of déjà vu seeping into his veins.
“You said that every time.”
“Fuck, I did, didn’t I?”
They sat with that for a beat.
Two.
Three.
“Nobody has ever blown me like you did. Before or since.”
Richie's treasonous dick twitched again.
"Yeah?"
“Yeah,” Eddie rubbed the back of his neck.
“Cool,” he replied, fighting a full-bodied cringe.
No wonder you needed ghostwriters for years, Tozier. Jesus.
Eddie didn’t seem to notice his complete inability to form full sentences, however, busy tapping a jittery hand on the end of his cane and staring at his shoes.
“But...that’s in the past. We—we can move on from it. It’s not like we’re still into each other in that way and want a repeat performance now or anything. Right?”
“Right.”
“Right.”
Tick, tock. Tick, tock.
Richie hadn't noticed how loud the clock in his living room was until that very moment.
"Wait..." he frowned, something Eddie had said finally settling in the back of his mind. "You said I was your first and only kiss until we met again at 22."
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Eddie shift on the couch, deftly avoiding his gaze.
"Eds, does that—does that mean I—did I take your virginity?"
