“I don’t really get why we can’t just get everyone a gift,” Richiesaid, looking down at the small slip of paper in his hands that readMike. “What if we had things planned for certain people?”
Bill shrugged. “B-b-betterluck next year?”
He huffed, stuffing the paperin his pocket.
“Secret Santa is bullshit,” hemuttered, but no one seemed to be in agreement with him.
“I feel bad for whoever yougot, Richie,” Bev said with a snort. “You clearly don’t want to get them agift.”
“Oh, fuck off, it’s not that,”he said petulantly. He glanced at Eddie, who was putting his own slip of paperinto his fanny pack. “I just had something I was gonna give someone andnow we’ve got this stupid rule that we each get one gift for one person. Can’tI just give another gift privately?”
“That’s not fair,” Staninsisted. ”Then someone gets two gifts and everyone else only gets one.”
Richie rolled his eyes,thinking of the mixtape he’d been working on for months, the comic book thathad been almost impossible to find, both sitting inside a small red backpackthat snapped closed in the front so it wouldn’t fall off your back.
Nobody was going to get Eddieanything nearly as good.
The losers sat in a circle,each with a gift in their lap. Richie held a wrapped jersey, with the name andnumber of Mike’s favorite professional football player printed on it. Theystarted with Richie, some kind of karma for being “such a buzzkill”before, so he handed the gift to Mike, who grinned widely.
“Ah, nice to know I’mresponsible for Trashmouth’s Scrooge outburst,” he laughed. Richie huffed andtold him to just open it already, geez, and when he did Mike’s eyeswidened. “Oh, seriously? You must’ve had to go all the way to Bangor toget this!”
Richie shrugged. Mike thankedhim a few more times before giving the gift in his lap to Beverly. Beverlypassed hers to Ben, who blushed scarlet and stammered through his thanks likehe was Stuttering Bill. Then he handed a neatly wrapped present to Eddie, whoopened it and grinned at the handmade decorated box inside, watching carefullyas Ben showed him how to open it, a perfect place to hide small things from hismom in plain sight.
Eddie passed his gift to Bill, who stuttered through a thanks forthe assortment of his favorite candies. Bill’s gift unsurprisingly went toStan, who laughed at the scribbled Happy Hanukkah! on the wrapping paper.
Richie knew Stan’s gift had tobe for himself, so he held his hands out for the gift bag. He tossed tissue paperover his shoulder and pulled out a small pencil case. He looked up at Stanley,confused.
“So you know where your pencils are and you can stop asking toborrow mine.”
Richie laughed.
“Dude, open it, come on,” Stanley said, trying to sound agitatedbut mostly seeming impatient. Richie opened the case and whooped at a carton ofhis favorite cigarettes, two packs of gum, and a roll of tokens for the arcade.
“You’re encouraging his habit?” Eddie said shrilly.
Stan rolled his eyes. “It’s Christmas.”
“A-a-and Hanukkah,” Bill said helpfully. Stan snorted.
“Just because it’s Christmas and Hanukkah does not mean thosestupid sticks aren’t still full of cancer!”
The argument devolved quickly into shouting things that weren’treally responses to anything, and within a minute the group was yelling aboutan entirely unrelated topic. Richie watched the scene with a smile on his face, stillfeeling a little down that he wouldn’t get to give Eddie the best Christmasgift ever.
-
December 26th had never been a day that Richieparticularly enjoyed. He tended to overeat and overextend himself the daybefore, leaving him sleepy and with a stomachache, lounging around the houseuselessly moaning to his parents, asking how they could let him do this to himselfagain.
“Dear,” his mom said, calling up the stairs. He didn’t bother tostand from his bed. “Make yourself presentable, and preferably less whiny; Eddie’s here.”
He sat up with a groan, using his fingers to comb his hair backand rub the sleep out of his eyes. He listened to Eddie’s steps on the stairsand was grinning the moment the other boy stepped into the room.
“Dude, it’s 3 in the afternoon.” Eddie had his hands behind hisback. “You’re still in pajamas.”
“Yes,” Richie agreed, eyeing him warily. “What are you hidingbehind your back?”
Eddie huffed, clearly not in the mood to take the bit any farther.He held up a video game, one that Richie had been after for Christmas but thathis parents had regretfully told him they hadn’t been able to get because ithad been sold out.
“Dude, you got it?” Richie asked, excited. “We talked about it onthe phone yesterday, why didn’t you say –“
“I didn’t get it,” Eddie said, sitting on the bed and looking atthe wall across from them. “I needed to make sure your parents hadn’t gotten itfor you before I brought it over.”
Richie’s brows furrowed. “Uh, you clearly got it, like, it’s inyour hand right now…”
“I got it for you, dumbass,” Eddie said with a put-upon sigh. “Butit’s not a Christmas gift. It’s simply a friend giving a thing to anotherfriend on the day after Christmas, so it doesn’t break Secret Santa rules.”
Richie couldn’t fight the smile creeping across his face.”You gotme a contraband Christmas present, Eds.”
Eddie rolled his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest. “I justsaid it’s not a Christmas present! But seriously, you can’t tell the others. Isaved up like, six weeks of allowance for this thing and I definitely spentmore on that than I did on Bill’s candy, so.”
Richie’s heart pounded in his chest at the idea of Eddie savinghis allowance, putting his money away week by week and then getting to thestore in time to make the purchase before it sold out. He knew his cheeks werered, and he looked at the game in his hands to avoid looking at Eddie, becausehe knew he’d probably look like a lost puppy ready to follow him to the ends ofthe earth.
“I got you a secret contraband Christmas present, too,” he saidfinally, when he was sure that when he spoke his voice wouldn’t crack withemotion.
“You don’t have to –“
“No, no, remember how pissy I was about Secret Santa?”
“I don’t think anyone’s gonna forget that anytime soon, Rich,” Eddiesaid with a smirk.
“Well,” Richie continued, “I was pissed because I already had theperfect gift for you.”
He went to his closet and pulled the backpack out.
“Uh, it has, like, look,” he put the backpack on the bed next toEddie, demonstrating how the straps connected in front. “It’s like, dorky orwhatever, but no worse than your fanny pack. But like, you were complainingthat sometimes everything you needed didn’t fit in your fanny pack, and this islike, a small backpack so it’s the perfect in between size, like a purse for agirl except, like, you know…” he trailed off awkwardly, wishing the floor wouldswallow him whole.
“It’s really nice,” Eddie said, snapping and unsnapping the strapswith a satisfied smile. “And it’s red!”
“Well yeah, I know your favorite color.”
“Yeah,” Eddie said softly.
“And there’s more, like, inside,” Richie said, when it becameclear Eddie wasn’t going to open the backpack himself. He unzipped the bag andgasped as he caught sight of the comic sitting inside.
“Dude!” He yelled, looking up at Richie in excitement. “Dude!”
“I know!” He said, ignoring the swooping in his stomach. “Andthere’s…”
Eddie reached into the bag and pulled the mixtape out, with its coverdecorated in red and green with blue snowflakes, with the words “yule lovethese songs!” written in small print at the bottom. Eddie snorted at the badpun.
“I took a lot of time curating this one, Eds,” Richie saidseriously. “But wait til you get home and don’t peek at the track listingbefore you listen. It’s a full effect type thing.”
“Okay,” Eddie said with a laugh. Richie grinned, laughing a littlehimself. He felt giddy, like he was floating a little. Eddie had given him a secretgift, explicitly against the rules of Secret Santa, behind the backs of theirfriends…
Almost like they weren’t quite the same… Like their relationshipwas different from the ones they had with their friends.
He didn’t let himself think on it too much, instead offering around of the new game Eddie had given him. Eddie agreed and Richie begansetting up the console, shaking his head at himself when the butterflies in hisstomach wouldn’t go away. He tossed a controller to Eddie who caught it andsmiled widely. He sat back next to him, aware of all the places they touched(their thighs pressed together, elbows knocking when they so much as breathed),and breathed in deep. As they got into the game, the secret contraband Christmasgift Eddie had gotten him, yelling and shoving at each other in their usualfashion, Richie thought that maybe Secret Santa wasn’t so bad after all.
Hello my love I am sick and I believe it is love sickness from missing you 😞💖🌹
oh honey, i’m so sorry you’re sick! i’m sad to have been absent recently, life got a lil bit crazy there :( but i’m coming BACK and i’m gonna remind you how loved you are!! 🥺💞
that the worst part about writing is you never get to really see yourself progress until later down the line. When I write now, I’m like, “oh this is absolute dog shite,” but it’s not. I’ve improved, it’s just hard to see how far you’ve come when you’re on that daily grind. Pls go look at your work from like three years or even three months ago and you’ll be surprised.
24.) favorite fic you read this year
OK I have three.
Angels in Outfields by @reddie-for-anything like obviously, you can’t come to me and ask me this and not expect to see this fic like okayyyyy. This club has everything: Stan/Bev/Richie friendship, slow burn, SPORT, yearning, Mike, good OCs that help the story, DETAIL, like it’s about the PRECISION, y’all. This fic has range; they don’t make ‘em like this anymore.
The kind I like to meet by @tinyarmedtrex PRETTY WOMAN AU PRETTY WOMAN AU PRETTY WOMAN AU DO I *NEED* TO SAY MORE? RICHIE’S A SEX WORKER AND BEV IS HIS BESTIE AND EDDIE IS AN UPTIGHT BUSINESS MAN, IT’S THE MAKINGS OF A PERFECT STORY
richie tozier’s all dead rock show by @richietoizer i cannot believe it’s still so slept on like this is the hill i die on bc i enjoyed this one so much, like… y’all……………….. the taste, get some.
27.) favorite fanfic author of the year
immediately, @reddie-for-anything comes to mind, and I think that’s the honest answer cos she’s made a fic that stuck with me, and I’m consistently following it, and it’s been a long time since I’ve felt that way about a story
28.) longest fic you read this year
see also: Angels in Outfields - it’s still going strong!
