Archive of Our Own

There was a bright and modern looking cafe on the corner of Beaver and Broad Street.

Eddie passed it daily on his way to work, and even though he never slowed down, he’d sometimes imagine himself inside: ordering, paying, sitting under the warm lights and sipping a hot cup of Joe. Maybe looking out at the world framed between the long legs of ever-present Manhattan scaffolding.

Then he’d remember he was pushing forty and was neither modern nor warm and he’d walk right past it, just like he had every other weekday for the past ten years, to sit at his computer at his wall-facing desk and sip whatever herbal concoction Myra had prepared in his thermos.

It was kind of funny how throwing that thermos in the trash was what made the divorce feel final.

***

Eddie still walked right past that cafe and he still felt like he’d blend in about as well as a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest, but the vision was more feasible somehow. He wasn’t about to stand in line with the blue-haired, tattooed youth, there were levels of humiliation Eddie would endure and then there was this, but the fact remained: he could.

He could potentially be the kind of man who might go into a cafe and just sit and enjoy his coffee.

Sitting down to watch a movie was the same; there was potential. The opportunity to pause it and go do something else for a while whenever he wanted. The chance to watch something over a couple of days if he felt like it, without hearing anyone else’s opinion on the matter. The ability to snack while he was watching the movie. Getting to watch whatever the hell he wanted in the first place.

It was all so mundane and so unexpectedly great. He hadn’t even realized he wanted to watch The Lord of the Rings, and yet here he was, marathoning - for the second time! - a whole collection of movies that seemed to consist of a hell of a lot of walking on mountain tops. And Viggo Mortensen.

After all, why shouldn’t he?

Eddie was happy to discover that watching whatever he wanted included the ability to use the internet for evil by looking up interesting factoids and behind-the-scenes trivia, just because. This freedom hadn’t even occurred to him before, in the days when his too-hard basket was overflowing with hills he wasn’t willing to die on. It was like he was waking up from deep hibernation, the life he’d lived before now clinging to his eyelashes like old sleep.

On screen, Aragorn kicked an Uruk-Hai helmet again, and Eddie, morbidly delighted at knowing what he knew, sucked air through his teeth in sympathy. Which was exactly the moment someone knocked on his apartment door, and then knocked louder, and then started banging before he could even get there.

“Hold your…dog,” Eddie said to the woman in the doorway, eyeing the big, shaggy shepherd at her side. Her fist was raised as if ready to bang some more, the end of a leash wrapped around it. With the other hand she clutched a phone and tucked a lock of red hair behind her ear.

“I was actually hoping you could hold her,” the woman said, smiling so hard she looked deranged.

“What,” Eddie said, and she had the grace to wince a little.

“I’m your neighbor two doors down the hall and I was really hoping you could help dogsit this good girl for a couple of hours, I just need to duck out real quick, it’s a bit of an emergency and I need to go right now but she hasn’t been for her walk yet and please won’t you take her just around the block so she can-”

“Lady, I don’t know anything about dogs,” Eddie interrupted, and her hopeful smile slipped. Eddie crossed his arms to ward off the abject disappointment on her face.

“Look, I’m sorry. I would normally ask someone else but he’s not home and I’m desperate. I’ll pay you. How much can I pay you to take my dog for a walk around the block and pick up her poop so I can-”

“What the fuck,” Eddie said.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry, she just needs to go outside, okay, and I have to rush into work to drop something off and then come right back before you even know I’m gone. She’s a real sweetheart, she won’t be any trouble, just take her around the block for me. I know it’s a lot. Please.”

Eddie blinked, then looked down at the dog, smiling her panting, shaggy smile. Saliva dripped from one corner of her mouth onto Eddie’s doormat.

“Fine,” he said, and if someone held a gun to his head, he wouldn’t be able to tell them why but the woman didn’t care, her shoulders dropping from where they’d climbed towards her ears.

“Holy shit, thank you, thank you so much,” she said, pushing the end of the leash into Eddie’s hand and crouching down to pet at the dog’s furry face, the big brown eyes loving and happy, a pink tongue lolling out with dumb love.

“I won’t be long sweetheart, please be a good girl for…” she looked up.

“Eddie. Eddie Kaspbrak.”

“I owe you big time, Eddie K!”, she said, and then she was up and off, running down the hallway towards the elevators, smashing the call button which dinged conveniently right away. Eddie gasped. The elevator was never right there when he smashed the button!

“Please be a good girl for Eddie K and do a nice neat poop that won’t be a son of a bitch to pick up, okay?”

She ducked straight into the elevator, leaving Eddie to ponder the visual of a son of a bitch poop that was neither nice nor neat to pick up, because of who he was as a person who was also in a mild state of shock.

“Fuck. Hey! What’s her name? Wait, what’s your name?” Eddie called out as the lift doors began to close, and he caught the end of her yelling as the doors slid shut.

“Well, fuck. Fuck, fucking fuck,” Eddie said, tightening his hold on the leash, but the dog hadn’t moved, and seemed content enough to sit in Eddie’s doorway even while her owner hightailed it out of the building. “Guess it’s just me and you, huh, Beverly?”

The dog’s tail thumped against the floor, and a little plastic bone shaped container swung off her leash. Eddie palmed it, eyeing the hole at the top, with the end of a plastic baggie poking out. Clever.

He sighed, calculating all the ways this could—and probably would—go wrong. “Well, you might as well come in so I can put my shoes on.”

***

They went around the block, and Eddie had visualized an ordeal of willpower and a test of leash grip integrity but it wasn’t long before he realized Beverly was walking him and not the other way around. She confidently followed a path and seemed comfortable and evenly paced, stopping to sniff here or there, tongue lolling out and tail swinging back and forth, a small gold tag jingling at her collar.

He’d never walked a dog before, they’d never had a pet when he was a kid, and he’d never even considered pets as an adult. It seemed that Myra hadn’t either; it had just never come up. Now, walking out into a big crowd, the responsibility of minding someone else’s dog made his breath stutter a little, but she never pulled ahead or yanked on the leash or got lost among all the legs so Eddie began to relax. He was still shitting bricks and wasn’t quite sure how any of this had happened but Beverly was clearly a professional, and if there was one thing Eddie respected, it was competence.

They came to an intersection; they could either follow Columbus Avenue home, or cut down 73rd to Central Park. Beverly looked back at him as if to say ‘I haven’t pooped yet’, and Eddie looked right back at her and frowned so hard a woman who’d reached out to pet Beverly recoiled, snatching her hand back. Eddie looked at her without blinking until she turned away.

At the park, there were other people with dogs, and Eddie noted the dog walkers scooping and discarding baggies in strategically placed containers, so when Beverly finally stopped and assumed the position, he was as ready as he’d ever be, bullying his way through his revulsion with the help of three layers of plastic food-prep gloves he’d grabbed from under the sink and some old cocktail tongs that had somehow ended up in his divorce suitcase. He held his breath until he saw spots while he disposed of everything, eyed the tongs and tossed them in the trash too, then doused his hands with sanitiser.

When it was done and Beverly was once again leading him along the path, Eddie realized that he was actually enjoying himself; sure, it wasn’t quiet time with Viggo, but he was outside in a sunny park, parallel-playing with other people doing the same thing who’d all brought their own toys but weren’t expected to share or interact with each other. It was kind of perfect.

There was a bench, and he sat, a little anxious that Beverly would be unhappy about it and if he didn’t know anything about handling dogs, he had absolutely no idea about handling unhappy dogs, but Beverly just went with it and stretched out alongside the bench, looking happy and relaxed. Maybe Eddie had never considered a pet before, but he could see it now, if it was a Beverly kind of pet: calm and easy and quietly companionable. Hesitating for only a moment, Eddie leaned over and scritched behind the dog’s ear, fingers sinking into silky soft black fur, which was nice, and unexpectedly easy once he started. He’d know soon enough if it would be a problem, but his skin didn’t tingle, and he hadn’t sneezed, not once, so it was probably fine. Another box ticked in his growing cache of Allergens That Weren’t Actually.

They sat quietly for a while, and there was such a profound pleasure in just sitting in the dappled sunlight with nowhere else to be except right here with his borrowed dog. And then Beverly startled up with a scuff of paws on the path and Eddie saw a new side of her, tail wagging madly at someone coming their way, paws stamping the ground, a whine building in her throat.

“Hey there, Peaches, got yourself a new walker?”

Eddie looked up into a friendly, open face, a tall man with a crossbody bag and a hand held open for Eddie to shake. Eddie did, and then the man was kneeling next to them, patting the dog with confident, firm strokes she seemed to love if whining and licking the man’s face like a long-lost roast chicken leg were any indication. Eddie replayed the statement in his mind. Peaches.

“Eddie Kaspbrak,” he said, in his business voice, “how are you doing?”

“Nice to meet you, Ben Hanscom,” said Ben Hanscom, sounding like he really meant it, like it was nice to meet a stranger in the park. “Any friend of Peaches is a friend of mine. What are you two up to today?”

“Her owner had to rush off for a work emergency, she lives down the hall. Asked me to walk her, so here we are,” Eddie said, quietly congratulating himself on the avoidance of names.

“Oh, she did? That must be what she was calling about earlier,” Ben said, already lifting his phone to his ear. “Bev? Everything okay? Sorry I missed your call, I was in a meeting.”

He listened for a while, with a sympathetic hum here and there. “Yep. Yeah. I just ran into them at the park. Oh, they’re fine. Peaches looks content so I guess that’s her exercise done for the day,” Ben said, and Eddie couldn’t hear what Beverly was saying except that her voice dropped a little lower and Ben coloured from the collar up. He rubbed the back of his neck, throwing Eddie a look, and Eddie grinned, understanding dawning on him.

“Oh. Sure. Uh. I’d like that. Seven? Great. See you then,” Ben said, and hung up, a smile shying at the corner of his mouth.

“You must be the person she usually asks,” Eddie said, “Are you on our floor, too?”

Ben shook his head. “I’m a couple floors up,” he said, and Eddie tried not to react beyond an impressed nod as Ben bent down to take Peaches’ face in his hands, scratching behind her ears and cooing at her. A couple floors up was probably the penthouse. Eddie made good money but not penthouse good, and now with the divorce settlement behind him, his small but comfortable Manhattan apartment was his biggest splurge.

“Bev said she’ll be home in an hour or so. Do you want me to take Peaches home with me so you can get back to your day?” Ben continued, and Eddie felt suddenly very possessive of Peaches and their afternoon together. The rest of Eddie’s day flashed before his eyes: finishing the movie, eating alone on his couch, dishes, bed, alone, alone, alone. He shook his head sharply.

“Oh, no thank you, it’s been nice to get out in the fresh air. I don’t mind.”

“Okay, well, great to meet you, Eddie, maybe we’ll run into each other again sometime. I’ll see you later, pretty girl,” he said with a final pet of the dog’s head and then he was gone, walking briskly away into the sunny afternoon.

Eddie flipped the gold tag that hung from the dog’s collar, wondering why he hadn’t thought to do it earlier, and huffed a laugh. “Peaches, huh? That was close,” he said, and smoothed his hands over her face and scratched through the fur at her chest the way Ben had done it. “Good dog,” he told her quietly, and she looked up at him with her shaggy dog face, smiling her wide, pink-tongued conspirator smile.

***

They ate dinner together after a little googling; it turned out Kraft Mac & Cheese wasn’t good for dogs but chicken breast was just fine, and Peaches made very short work of it while Eddie watched, face contorted with unfamiliar fondness. She was such a lady, picking up individual pieces and flicking them back into her mouth, then making up for it by slobbering all over his floor and refilling the water bowl with drool.

“You’re so disgusting,” he told her in a voice he’d never heard himself use before, and she managed to get a lick of his unsuspecting face. He fell back on his butt, laughing, outraged and grossed out and a little bit in love with her.

By the time the knock on the door came, he’d been so absorbed with her, he’d almost forgotten she was only a guest. Beverly - Beverly! - stepped inside, took one look around and started laughing.

“Baby!” She cried, letting Peaches bound over to nose happily at her neck and face. “Did Eddie K give you something to eat out of his own human person bowls? Did he groom you with his own hairbrush?”

Peaches panted and danced and Eddie hid his red face into his collar while he eyed the scene: the bowls and the brush and the little clump of black dog hair he’d made where he and Peaches had been sitting, watching Viggo be hot and competent.

“It was my ex-wife's,” he said, holding up the brush. “I don’t know how I ended up with it but it’s like, poetic justice or whatever. And I just gave Peaches some chicken, I hope that’s okay,” he said, and Beverly looked so exasperated and happy, he didn’t quite know what to do with his own face.

“Poetic justice for what?”

“For some of the things she said to me when I had my midlife gay epiphany. Which I don’t want to repeat in front of polite company,” he said, heat rising to his cheeks from saying it out loud. He’d not really had the chance to say it much to himself, let alone other people, and it still choked him up a little, this sense of owning the word and owning who he was.

“I’m not very polite,” Beverly said, taking him by the shoulders.

“I meant Peaches,” Eddie grinned, and Beverly shook him a little bit, like he was an oblivious genius who’d inadvertently solved a top tier science problem before lunch on a Tuesday.

“You’re an absolute life saver, Eddie K,” she said, “Above and beyond. And I’m gonna make it up to you.”

“That’s not necessary,” he said, still reeling from the familiarity, the casual touch, and knelt to break the earnest eye contact and give Peaches a parting hug and scritch. He accepted a lick on the hand in return, reining in the need to immediately wipe it off without ruining his cool exterior. It was Peaches’ spit, but it was still spit.

“Don’t even front. You’re gonna get the best barber cut of your life on me, whether you like it or not,” Beverly said, gathering Peaches’ lead and the dog herself, hustling towards the door, slapping a business card down on his kitchen counter.

Eddie scoffed. “I’ve been to a barbershop before, you know.”

“Not this barber, you haven’t,” Beverly sing-songed, “That’s my place. Well, half my place. I promise you won’t regret it!”

Eddie managed one more pet of Peaches’ soft ears before they were both gone, and his apartment was quiet again, and smaller somehow.

On his television, the hobbits were being taken to Isengard. Eddie gathered up the bowls, which were now forever designated dog bowls, and took them to the sink. He tidied up and watched the rest of the movie, wondering how it was possible for the same silence in the same apartment to sound different.

Beverly’s business card glared at him from the countertop, and his thoughts chimed, why not?

After all, why not?

But then there was work, and more work, and he never seemed to be in the exact perfect place and frame of mind. In the end, he ran into Beverly a couple more times before he finally cracked. It had nothing to do with Peaches’ tail wagging happily while she sniffed his hand in the stairwell.

“Oh my god, fine, I’ll text you a few dates, and you can let me know what works. And I won’t even shave so you’ll have something to do,” he groused and she laughed at him. Eddie tucked his mail into his laptop bag so he could pet Peaches better and ducked down to give her the attention she deserved before Beverly led her away.

“Oh, it won’t be me doing it, but great idea, don’t shave! It’ll feel even more amazing after,” she said over her shoulder, voice echoing up the hallway, which led to a regrettable couple of weeks of itchiness as his beard grew out in its usual lame scruffy patches. He ignored the staring and whispering at work and a memorable doubletake in the staff kitchen which satisfyingly resulted in a scalded hand for Terence-call-me-Terry from Marketing.

All of which led to Eddie standing outside Beverly’s converted brownstone salon on a Saturday evening, the awning above the doorway proclaiming it TOZIER & MARSH STYLES. Through the front window it looked nicely kept. There were stickers and posters on the walls but the equipment and chairs were modern and clean. There was a tiny round rainbow sticker on the vintage cash register.

Eddie’s neck itched. He’d been looking forward to getting rid of the scruff for days; the early growing out stages were the worst, constantly reminding him why he’d never kept a beard.

“All right,” he sighed. This better be worth it.

***

Eddie pushed the door open and was met by a wall of warm, fragrant air.

“Excuse me, I have an appointment,” Eddie said, and the man who had been rummaging in a drawer stood to full height. So much height.

“Hell yeah, you do,” the man said, and brushed off a barber seat with a dramatic towel flourish.

Eddie frowned, wrongfooted and still not over all the height. And the breadth. Something like deja vu settled over him but it wasn’t exactly like he’d lived this moment before. He didn’t know what it was but it was something and he was angry about it. “I could be lying. You don’t even know me. I could have just walked in off the street without an appointment.”

“You did walk in off the street,” the man said, affecting a casual lean against the tall chair. His baby blue shirt suffered across his chest in desperate folds and groaning buttons. “But I still know you have an appointment.” And then, responding to whatever look was on Eddie’s face, “You’re here at eight, but we closed at six. Bev said to expect an appointment at eight. I used my powers of critical thinking to deduce that one.” He grinned, crinkly-eyed and warm, and Eddie fought the urge to wipe his mouth.

“Oh,” Eddie said, “Well. I didn’t mean to put you out, if you’re closed I can come back another time.”

“Ain’t no putting this out, baby,” the man deadpanned, pretend-flicking some hair, and Eddie could only blink away the cartoon stars dancing over the man’s stubbly neck, his broad shoulders, his entire person. “But for real, we’re only closed for everyone else. I have perceived your time has now come,” he said, slipping into some sort of foreboding tenor. The words sounded familiar.

“Was that an impression?”

“Oh yes, and what an impression it was!” said the man, turning away and busying himself setting up towels and bottles and tubes on a bench alongside the barber chair. Eddie felt warm around the collar, and wondered if they were talking about the same thing at all. He still couldn’t shake the feeling like he’d walked into something.

“Look, have we met? I feel like we’ve met,” he said, because maybe that’s what it was. Something was knocking and Eddie had worked too hard on acknowledging his own instincts to ignore it.

“I think I’d remember,” the man said, grinning crookedly. “But you might have seen me around.”

“I don’t get around,” Eddie said, warmed by the answering laugh. This guy seemed like he smiled a lot, and his face wore it well. “I’m Eddie,” said Eddie, and the man turned, grinning.

“Oh, I know. Nice to meet you Eddie K, you’ll be glad to know you come Peaches Approved! Welcome to Tozier and Marsh, I’m Richie Tozier and I’ll be your barber and stylist this evening. Please take a seat and get ready to be pampered like you’ve never been pampered before.”

Eddie slipped off his jacket and went to sit down. Tozier. It did sound familiar, but not enough that it shook the feeling free; it dangled above him, out of reach. “I’m only here for a shave,” he said, watching Richie move confidently around his space. His shirt sleeves were neatly rolled up to his elbows. Why was that such a thing? Eddie didn’t know. But it was definitely a thing. Richie picked up three product vials in one large hand and a shiver built up Eddie’s spine. He felt out of control and had no idea how he’d gotten there in a few minutes.

“Oh, that’s what you thought? Sweet summer child. Is that why you come into my house on the day my daughter is to be married, with product already in your hair.”

Eddie touched his hair self-consciously, silently impressed at the dead-on Brando. “It’s not that much product.”

“Beverly specifically said,” and Richie slipped into the right cadence, channeling Beverly flawlessly, what the hell, “give that man the sexiest haircut and straight shave of his life! So get ready Eddie, ‘cause that’s what I’m gonna do.”

“I literally had a haircut a few weeks ago. I’m not gonna have another one so soon just for the hell of it,” he said.

“Well, not with that attitude you’re not. But you should. Peaches wants you to let me cut it.”

“Peaches is a dog, she doesn’t care about haircuts,” Eddie said, willing his face to stop trying to smile. It would only encourage Richie and this ridiculous conversation.

“Shows what you know. Don’t tell her I told you but Peaches only pretends not to care because she’s too cool to show emotion.”

“Peaches’ tail wags so hard that she nearly dislocates her butt. She could take off like a helicopter purely out of emotion.”

“That’s just the worms.”

“How dare you,” Eddie choked back a laugh.

“How dare you. Peaches personally organized for you to see the best stylist and barber in town and you’re turning your nose up at her gift, you ungrateful swine,” Richie said, grinning with all his teeth like a shark sensing blood.

“Oh my god, fine. Fine! Best barber in town, sure. We’ll see. There. Are you happy? Give me the sexiest damn haircut and straight shave of my life.”

“Oh ho ho, I sense a challenge! Well all right, get ready for the Tozier Experience, specially formulated to turn you to goo in my hands,” Richie said, sorting his selection of products next to the chair as Eddie sat down. He adjusted the headrest and pumped the seat up higher, making Eddle bounce with a flex of his thick thigh, then threw a cape over him, smoothing it over Eddie’s shoulders. A towel went around on top of the cape and Richie tucked it in under the edge, fingers grazing Eddie’s neck. God. What the fuck was even happening. Eddie hadn’t been so aware of another person’s entire deal since. Well, since ever. His heart was racing.

“May I?” Richie said, holding his hand out and Eddie’s eyes bounced from Richie’s long, blunt fingers to his smiling eyes.

“May you what?”

“May I touch your face? I need to make sure the products we select are suitable for your skin.”

Richie’s hands looked strong. His nails were neat and well shaped, and dark hair swept softly over his bulging forearms down to his wrists. He wanted to select products suitable for Eddie’s skin, because he was a competent professional. Eddie jerked a nod.

Richie gentled Eddie to lie back against the headrest, then swept over his face with practiced motions.

“I use only topical moisturizers and natural agents to prevent transepidermal water loss, but it’s always good to check, you know? Richie said conversationally like he wasn’t pancake flipping Eddie’s whole world. He touched Eddie’s brow and skated a finger along his nose. “Do you get a little oily here, and maybe here?”

“Yeah,” Eddie croaked. He did. And sometimes, completely unfairly at his goddamn age, he would—

“Maybe have a little breakout now and again, like here?” Richie’s fingers swept over Eddie’s sparsely bearded chin and jaw.

“Uh-huh,” Eddie breathed trying not to interrupt Richie’s gentle petting and his mind-reading. Although Eddie hoped Richie wasn’t reading too deeply.

“Well, Teddy Eddie, you’re about to get a haircut and shave that will change your life,” Richie said, pushing his fingers through Eddie’s product-crisp hair. Eddie thought it might have changed his life already, at least a little bit. The unexpected roll of banter, his immediate appreciation of this man–who wasn't classically beautiful, no, but woke a visceral attraction in Eddie that drove home the truth of who he was in a way he couldn't help but truly accept, and it felt so good.

“Teddy- don’t call me that, what the hell.” Then it hit. “Wait, I’m only here for a shave,” he repeated, and then mentally kicked himself right in the ass. Had he really suggested less of Richie touching his face and hair? What a fucking idiot.

Luckily Richie wasn’t aware of his new status as First Hot Man To Caress Eddie’s Face. Unluckily, he wasn’t taking no for an answer, and grinned. “I can see I’ve got my work cut out for me trying to get you to relax, Yeti Eddie,” he said, and Eddie aborted a laugh in the nick of time. Richie grinned anyway, scratching Eddie’s scraggly two-week-old beard and revealing a heretofore unknown sweet spot. “You helped out my bestie and business partner in a time of great need, and Princess Peaches likes you, so you deserve this, and you’re gonna get it. But don’t worry. We’ll start slow.”

Richie turned away, and his back was just as captivating as his front. Eddie didn’t really mean to stare, but there was just so much of Richie to see, what with all the messy loose curls brushing the back of his neck, and all the shoulders and the arms and all the everything else about him. Eddie couldn’t really see his ass, but the good jeans did him justice anyway and the height was mostly leg so it all came together in an eye-twitching display. Then Richie was facing him again, and he held a towel in one hand. The other was fisted on his cocked hip. Eddie blinked, jerked and looked up into a toothy grin and knowing eyes, and died a little inside.

“Now, I don’t mean to sound like a creep, but sit back, close your eyes, relax and think of Mom’s spaghetti,” Richie said, padding Eddie’s neck with the towel and pushing the chair backwards to nestle Eddie in the basin and Eddie thought, good, now I don’t have to look at you, even as he bit back a laugh.

“My mom never cooked spaghetti,” Eddie said, settling in, figuring this might as well happen. It was only a haircut and shave, how bad could it be.

“Sure she did, there’s some right here,” Richie said and—before Eddie could think of a snarky reply—went about the task of destroying Eddie one sure touch at a time.

If he thought things would be easier with his eyes closed to Richie’s appeal, Eddie had been mistaken. He had of course heard of the phenomenon of compensatory senses, where the loss of one sense meant the increase in others, but he’d assumed this was something that happened slowly and over time, not immediately, like a gunshot.

Having his eyes closed meant suddenly being able to smell Richie, to recognise the warm scent of his body. It meant sensing his nearness and, with his arm hair standing up, to anticipate Richie’s touch. It meant hearing each breath he took, and listening to him hum some disjointed melody as he prepared product to use on Eddie’s skin and hair.

The steady jet of warm water - just right! - was nice, and Eddie soon sank right back into the chair. The basin was horrible on his neck like they always were, but the extra towel helped, and Richie’s deft fingers soon had all his attention, shielding his ears from the running water, and scratching through the stiff hair gel, washing it away.

art by alyssamcdoodle (Instagram)

When he slowed down and began to massage Eddie’s scalp and temples, the sky could have opened and dropped Thor off the rainbow bridge at the next basin and Eddie wouldn’t have noticed. Richie’s hands were magic. The scent of the product reached Eddie in waves and he wanted to ask what it was, but he didn’t want to shatter the cone of silence that had descended over them while Richie rubbed and pressed and kneaded Eddie into putty, exactly as he’d said he would.

By the time he had rinsed off the conditioning treatment and began gently collecting hunks of Eddie’s hair in a towel to squeeze out the excess moisture, Eddie had descended into a trance made entirely of Richie’s hands and the snippet of whatever song he’d been humming all along. His whole body felt tingly. He didn’t even open his eyes as Richie gently pulled the chair away from the basin and pushed it upright, beginning to dab Eddie’s neck and ears with a towel.

“Someone’s enjoying their pampering against their will,” Richie murmured, teasing a comb through Eddie’s wet hair. Eddie aggressively ignored him and his soft laugh.

Richie began snip-snip-snipping and Eddie risked slitting one eye open. Unfortunately Richie was just as attractive as before, only now the hair on his forearms was dark and glistening with water. Focused entirely on his task, Richie’s face was serious with intent, his mouth relaxed but set in a way that had Eddie closing his eyes so hard he saw music.

After a while, the snipping and combing gave way to fingers pushing his hair this way and that, moving through it in firm pulls and grooves. Eddie had never considered hair-pulling as a possibly life-altering experience. Richie was figuring out how to style it, probably. He brushed over Eddie’s neck and throat and swept all the loose hair away. Eddie wasn’t going to risk another look, quite prepared at this point for tomorrow-Eddie to endure whatever the end result was going to look like if it meant today-Eddie soaking up all this manhandling.

He was just sinking back into oblivion when something cold flicked over his cheek. He flinched hard, hand catching on something and sending it flying.

Beside the chair, Richie stood with a wet shaving brush, the bowl he’d been holding clattering round and round on the floor, most of its contents soaking Richie’s shirt. They looked at each other for a long moment, and Eddie blew out a trembling breath.

“Hey man, you okay? Didn’t mean to startle you,” Richie said, and Eddie exhaled shakily.

“Sorry. I’m sorry. It’s not your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong,” Eddie said, absolutely mortified. “I don’t really. Touch many people, or get, you know. Get touched a lot, so. It’s me, not you. Sorry.” God. Why was everything so much all the time.

Richie held still, and Eddie stared off into the middle distance, feeling angry and small, the magic bubble Richie had cultivated in the last half hour popped in an instant. Richie bent and picked up the bowl and Eddie was resigned to knowing that in fact he was not too upset to enjoy the view because apparently he was a degenerate who was continually finding lower levels to stoop to.

“You didn’t do anything wrong either,” Richie said. “I talk a lot of shit but I’m not actually trying to make you do anything you don’t wanna do. I was going to treat you to a facial massage but if you don’t actually want me to touch you, I will totally respect that, man. You can just have a shave.”

“No, it’s. Uh. I want the other thing,” Eddie said, burning. A massage. “I want that.”

“You mean you do want me to touch you? You want the facial?”

Eddie nodded miserably. God, he wanted Richie to touch him, his whole body yearned for it. Richie’s face hadn’t moved, but now his eyes were dark and fond.

“I’m gonna take care of you, Eddie, you’re gonna be fine. You’re gonna be great,” Richie said, like it was all decided now, and Eddie would actually be fine and not a completely neurotic, touch-starved goblin, just like that. “But first, ‘scuse me a sec. I simply can’t work under these conditions,” Richie said, and started unbuttoning his sodden shirt.

He shrugged it from his shoulders, and underneath, he was wearing a t-shirt, if the definition of wearing meant lovingly shrink wrapping a nippled barrel. There was a gigantic turtle on the shirt, and the silhouette of a city being crushed beneath its feet. Helicopters hovered near its head and TORTZILLA sat in blocky font across Richie’s chest. The turtle seemed to be looking directly at Eddie. Eddie blinked. Richie’s magnificent barrel chest was covered in one less protective layer and Eddie had done this to himself and the turtle knew it.

“I can’t believe I’m actually saying this,” Richie muttered, “but please try not to spill anything else on me, all right? It’s not actually a wet t-shirt competition.” He snorted nervously, and for a brief moment Eddie saw past the rose-coloured glasses that had been showing him an image of a hot barber, to a cute guy who was maybe a little affected too, for some reason. Just a man asking another man not to spill shit all over him. “Not that I wouldn’t win that,” Richie continued. “But I don’t have any more layers under here so unless you want me to work with these big naturals all out in your face, keep those assassin reflexes pinned down, okay?”

He said it so flatly that Eddie looked up at him, suspicious. Richie had to know, right? Surely he had to know he was burning hot. He had to know Eddie was barely keeping a lid on himself and saying shit like that was like setting a match to powder, but Richie’s face remained even. “Yeah, that would be terrible,” Eddie deadpanned, and finally Richie’s mouth twitched. That little shit.

“First, a cleanser,” Richie murmured, “you know what they say Edward, clean body, clean mind,” and the wet brush was on Eddie’s hot face again, dabbing cool water all over. “Can’t do much about that mind, but this will make your skin zing, and not in a chemical peel kind of way. More like a…made of stardust kind of way. Close your eyes,” Richie reminded him quietly, and Eddie, miracle of miracles, gave in and did.

Richie worked a fragrant foam into his facial hair from sideburns to chin and it wasn’t exactly gentle. Eddie’s skin tingled and he was just getting used to the sensation when Richie put down the brush and put his hands on Eddie instead, and though he had been half expecting it, Eddie couldn’t contain the shudder.

“Is this okay?” Richie said, fingers skating over Eddie’s face, seeking out the hidden knots of tension and kneading over them, smoothing them away.

“Uh-huh,” Eddie lied. It was not okay. It was terrible and Eddie was suffering. He had to look comical the way Richie was pushing and pulling at his face, massaging in circles and then in long, slow drags of his fingers. He had to look ridiculous but it felt and smelled so nice. Richie rubbed the foamy lotion into his whole face, working over his cheeks in circular motions and occasionally moistening his fingers to keep them sliding along.

He’d rub his thumbs down Eddie’s nose, skate around his mouth and skitter over stubble on his chin, steepling his fingers at Eddie’s jaw and scratching over his throat. He’d gently slap his cheeks or under his jaw, and sometimes he’d use the flat of his hand like a press and Eddie’s body didn’t know whether it was relaxed or getting pent up, surfing the swells of all this undivided attention.

The scent turned warmer and sweeter the longer Richie worked, and the alternating pressure stopped it from becoming tedious. Richie would go from soft, firm sweeps over the same circuit of Eddie’s face: brows, temple, cheekbone, nose, chin, over and over, calm and quiet, only to wake Eddie up again by flicking and slapping his fingers over the same area with unerring precision.

Eddie’s face was soothed and tenderized in turns until his whole world narrowed down to this: letting Richie rub and soften him, then flick and rouse him, humming under his breath all the while and Eddie so close to figuring out the song. It was like a marriage of slapstick and ASMR. It was torture and he never, ever wanted it to end.

Finally the pressure eased, and there was only a light sweeping over Eddie’s mouth, Richie drawing the shape of his lips with his thumbs. Eddie didn’t have much experience with intimate touch, and this wasn’t meant to be erotic, only nobody had informed Eddie’s libido which was busily Thelma and Louise-ing off a cliff.

His mouth was tingling where Richie had dragged his thumbs over it, and his cock had started to fill at some point, lying heavy in his pants. Could Richie see that? Eddie tried a discreet scan down but couldn’t see any tell-tale hardon signs under the bulky cape. His face was wiped off with a warm towel and Eddie was left to sit and contemplate the alarming situation.

It sounded like Richie was pouring something into a bowl. Eddie cracked an eye open to peek. Richie held a bowl nestled in the fingers of one hand and the shaving brush in the other, and inside the bowl, another nice-smelling concoction was now being whipped into a foamy frenzy like the literal representation of Eddie’s insides. Eddie closed his eyes again and sent a wordless plea to the universe that he wouldn’t embarrass himself in front of this sweet, thoughtful dork of a man who was just doing his job and a favor for a friend, and who was wholly unprepared to be avalanched by Eddie’s decades-repressed lusts.

“Prepare to get moist..urised,” Richie murmured.

“I can’t believe I passed up the chance to turn around and walk out,” Eddie said, and Richie’s laughter was so bright it made Eddie’s breath catch.

Oblivious to Eddie’s internal meltdown, Richie worked his face over in rough circles, covering it with lotion and catching the stubble on his chin and cheeks. Eddie hadn’t realized his whole face was an erogenous zone when agitated like egg whites. Richie’s touch should have been nothing more than the means to a closely-shaved end, but it was going to be Eddie’s end, right here in this barber’s chair. Richie gently pinched Eddie’s septum so he could work the mixture into the stubble of his mustache, wiped a damp cloth over Eddie’s mouth and then his hands were gone, Eddie’s whole face tingling in their wake.

“I’m going to put a hot towel on you now so please try not to punch me in the balls,” Richie said, and Eddie laughed sharply, then quashed it in a moment of rising hysteria. Who even was this sweating, giggling moron?

He was glad for the warning though, because Richie seemed to flick that towel right off his wrist and onto Eddie’s face, somehow wrapping it perfectly around him in one motion like some kind of a towel-charmer. He pushed the towel open over Eddie’s nose and Eddie sank into the warm dark tunnel to chew on Richie’s competence, his senses narrowing down to listening as Richie moved around the room. The soft sounds from the street, and closer to him from the salon: Richie’s humming, gentle clinks, footsteps and water running all added up to make Eddie feel like he was outside of himself. By the time Richie came back to remove the towel and use it to wipe Eddie’s face, Eddie felt like a freshly peeled onion.

“Ready for your shave?” Richie asked, cocking a brow, and Eddie sent him the flattest of looks. Richie grinned harder. “I don’t want to jumpscare you and cut your throat.”

“I can’t believe I passed up the chance to punch you in the balls,” Eddie muttered. For some reason it was very important not to laugh along with Richie. He sat back and willed himself to just fucking relax, Jesus Christ, as Richie set to shaving him with a methodical competence clearly borne of years of practice.

Had Eddie been surrounded at all turns by idiots and hacks who had no idea what they were doing? Was there a dearth of competence in his life making Richie’s overwhelming? Was Richie an outlier or was there more to it? Eddie contemplated this as his face went where Richie’s hands directed it, pivoting like a sunflower. The blunt contours of his face felt Richie’s adjusting touches as gentle caresses. He didn’t want to read Richie touching the knot of his jaw as erotic, but his body couldn’t help it. Every hair on his arms stood to attention when Richie pulled his cheek taut to drag his blade over it. The scent of him was everywhere, now inextricably tied to Eddie’s visceral reaction. He’d never smell these products without remembering Richie’s thrilling touch. A tide of shivers raced up his spine.

He tried not to swallow as Richie lifted his chin, the blade rasping down over his throat. Richie cut his sideburns in with practiced strokes and the scrape sent shivers up Eddie’s spine.

art by alyssamcdoodle (Instagram)

Richie pulled down on his chin and Eddie’s lips parted. Richie touched the corner of his mouth, stroking against the grain to check on the closeness of the shave, and he was so close the air of his breath skittered over Eddie’s moistened skin. He couldn’t help the sound he made, and Richie had to have heard it. Eddie pressed his teeth together. Had Richie’s hands paused? Did his grip on Eddie’s chin get softer, gentler, or was Eddie imaging it?

He realized with dawning horror that he wasn’t just slightly aroused. He was hard.

Richie hadn’t turned him into goo, he’d made Eddie, who’d had trouble rising to the occasion at times even with meaningfully applied touch, thick in his pants over innocently professional service. Eddie went hot all over. He was afraid to open his eyes.

But Richie just kept going, shaving him and touching him, fingertips checking over him, smoothing under his nose and around his mouth, the flat of his chin, all with a methodical rhythm. He’d rub over Eddie’s face to check the closeness of the shave, and come back to scrape away a little more in precise movements that had Eddie floating. He did it again and again, until finally satisfied, Richie wrapped him in another warm towel, leaving Eddie’s hands to unclench on the armrests of the barber’s chair, willing himself to calm down.

Surely it was almost over. Eddie craved the end, already imagining himself acting on this surge of heat when he got home. He dreaded it too, wanting to soak up every last drop.

The sound of moist hands slipping together snuck in through the folds of the towel and Eddie was unwrapped, the towel discarded, cool air sweeping over his face, but there was no respite. Richie began to massage his face with what was probably a moisturizer, slippery hands moving in circles, fingers working right into his temples, finding all the muscles that powered Eddie’s frown and disarming them. Richie patted the lotion all over his face, circling his features like hills on a map he’d gotten to know, thumbs slipping over Eddie’s nose and smoothing his brows. Eddie felt it soaking in, the scent deliciously warm and rich. When his hands started to catch on the drying lotion, Richie brushed powder over him in broad strokes, and then the sound of the brush being set down heralded the end to the sweet torture.

God, had he really wanted it to be over? He was throbbing but it was a pleasant, distant sensation. His face felt tingly and sharp and clean. He didn’t want Richie to stop touching him. He blinked his eyes open slowly into a softly lit room. At some point while Eddie had been wrapped in a towel, Richie had dimmed the lights.

Richie put his hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “How are you doing, Eddie Spaghetti,” he said quietly, and Eddie tried to muster the energy to get mad about it. It was clearly just something Richie did. Maybe Eddie would yell at him about it later. For now, he just had an inexplicable urge to curl into Richie’s chest and maybe cry instead.

“Not my name,” Eddie said, but his heart wasn’t in it. It was in his throat, stuck over the way Richie studied him, loomed over him, those shoulders broad enough to build foundations on.

Richie’s eyes swept over him, and this time Eddie knew he’d been seen. The cape was still over him but there was no mistaking what was going on under it.

Richie chewed his lip and their eyes met for an excruciatingly long moment.

“I’m really sorry,” Eddie said, words tumbling out. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Don’t worry about it, there’s nothing wrong with you. Anyway, it happens all the time,” Richie said.

“Oh. Really?” Wait. Was that better, or worse? Eddie couldn’t decide.

“No, I was just trying to make you feel better.”

Eddie blanched. “It’s honestly never happened before,” he said, regretting the words the moment they left his mouth, but it was too late. Richie grinned with every single one of his teeth.

“Dude, if this is your first hardon we gotta celebrate,” he said, back in his element.

Eddie sputtered. “Of course it’s not my- what?”

“Yeah, it’s your coming of age, congratulations! Let’s go out for a celebratory boner beer,” Richie licked his lips and pushed his glasses up his nose. “And like, a pizza. Maybe a movie?”

“A movie. With you.” Eddie eyed him, incredulous. What the fuck was even happening. His brain hurt and his palms were suddenly sweaty.

Richie was still grinning, but now it was a little strained. “Naw, with Keanu Reeves, I’m not in the movies, man.”

“You could be,” Eddie muttered breathlessly.

Richie blinked. “What? Me?”

“Don’t pretend like you don’t know,” Eddie snapped, sweeping a hand over Richie’s whole deal, and then down over himself. His dick had definitely deflated since Richie had taken his hands off him, but there was still an undeniable bulge. They were both looking at it because Eddie had literally just pointed to it, like an asshole. Eddie was going to die, probably.

“Wait, you think I’m hot?” Richie said, eyebrows drawing together. “Like for real? This isn’t just like, an involuntary reaction to my amazing skills?” He looked at his hands like he’d never seen them before, and just before Eddie could process how cute that was, he mock-clawed Eddie with a growl.

“You know what, Austin Powers, I take it back, fuck off,” he said, unclenching his fingers from the armrests just so he could swat Richie’s claws away. Richie cackled, but there was something off about his posture. He turned away to start packing up, and Eddie was missing his chance. Worse: it looked like Richie was going to let him. He clicked his tongue.

“Okay, look. Yes, you have magic hands or whatever, but it’s not only that. Fuck.” Eddie cringed. Now he was the dope, but Richie in the mirror looked at him. His glasses had slid down his nose again, and the apples of his cheeks looked very pink. Eddie let his eyes sweep over him, from those shoulders, to the way the TORTZILLA t-shirt hugged him all over. Richie hadn’t taken his eyes off him either and Eddie felt a surge of indignant rage that this guy, this hot, funny guy, would be unsure of his own appeal. Had nobody in his life told him at every opportunity? Well, fuck that. “I’ve been to a barber before, all right? I’ve had plenty of haircuts and a shave or two but I’ve never wanted to kiss the guy who did it before, so yeah. Yeah, I think you’re hot. You’re stupid hot. So fuck you.”

Richie blinked, and continued not to say anything. It was making Eddie fucking crazy. He slapped his hands over the armrests and he knew what his face looked like when he did this: his lips disappeared into a thin line, his eyebrows sank to meet in the middle like the Unionport Bridge until he looked like lasers were about to shoot out of his eyes, but he couldn’t help it. It was just what his face did when his back was to the wall. “Are we on the same page, here? You said beer, pizza and a movie, that sounds like a fucking date to me. Or am I an idiot? Wait, don’t answer that. Okay, just answer the other bit.”

Mirror Richie’s eyes got steadily bigger behind his glasses as Eddie ranted. He turned, and folded his arms. It was awful. Eddie should have been looking at his face because his eyes were up there, but there were biceps making a frame around Richie’s chest and Eddie was powerless. Richie stepped a little closer and unfastened the cape but left it draped over Eddie. He unwound the towel and kicked down on the pedal of the chair to swing it upright. He stepped back and Eddie’s chest warmed, knowing he left the cape in place until Eddie was ready.

“A date? Between a service provider and his client?” Richie said. A wave of sickly heat flared up Eddie’s neck. “Some people might think that would be unethical. Some people might want to report something like that to some kinda authority, I don’t know.”

Eddie looked up into smiling eyes and thought, oh hell. Oh no. But Richie just grinned and said, “Luckily I’m not one of them.” He paused, and his face went on a journey before settling on wary, but his eyes were still smiling, and Eddie’s heart gave a powerful thump. “Do you want to come to mine and order a pizza? I’ve got beer in the fridge.”

Eddie sucked on his lip. How would this go? What would they do? Could he really do this? “Better not be Bud Light, dude, I’m not some college kid. And I haven’t paid you yet,” he said, pulling out his wallet, but Richie waved it away, laughing.

“If you don’t pay me, you’re not really my client, so. It’s not like, unethical or whatever. If you care about that. I feel like you’d care about that.”

It was actually genius, and Eddie felt lighter about everything right away. Richie, oblivious to having solved the only problem that might have stopped Eddie, cupped the back of his neck, then thought better of it and folded his arms across his chest again. Eddie stared helplessly. Richie had absolutely no idea. That damn turtle did though, and Eddie blinked away from its knowing shiteating little turtle face.

“All right, but I’m buying the pizza, and no pineapple,” he said, and stood to shrug his jacket on. He caught himself in the mirror and lightly touched his face and hair, quietly pleased. His hair felt lighter without all the product in it. Eddie in the mirror was looking pretty sharp. Richie really had given him the sexiest haircut and straight shave of his life.

“Of course not, I’m not a savage,” Richie said, running around in a way that flattered Eddie’s ego, closing up shop, turning off appliances and flicking off lights. Then he opened a back door, a stairway lighting up beyond, and swept his arm over, inviting Eddie in.

“I thought we were going to yours.” Eddie pointed out towards the street.

“We are. My apartment’s upstairs,” Richie said, and started up. Eddie took a deep breath.

“So you could have changed out of your wet shirt anytime.”

“Why would I want to do that?” Richie said, and winked, grinning with his entire face. Eddie bit the inside of his cheek.

“Should I text Beverly that I’m here in case you’re gonna ax murder me?”

“She might be in on it, but sure,” Richie said, and Eddie was becoming a little addicted to making him smile so he could study that endearing overbite. He couldn’t believe this was working. They were going upstairs. Upstairs! To Richie’s apartment!

“No way she’s in on it, she’s too classy for that. She’s the five finger death punch type.”

“Oh, she’s gonna love that, man,” Richie said around a laugh, and patted himself all over. “No ax, I swear. How about you, you seem like a long distance weapon kinda guy. Any spears? Bow and arrow? A fence post?”

Eddie held out his arms. “Only thing I’m packing is my razor sharp wit.”

Richie gave Eddie a considering once over. “Not the only thing you’re packing,” Richie said, and crouched a little with his big hands fanned out over his crotch, and just like that, Eddie’s panic was gone, replaced by rage. He flattened his mouth and followed Richie and his cackle through the door and up the stairs, feeling as light as a kid following his best friend into a mud pit.

***

Richie’s apartment was much like his shop in that it smelled nice, there was warmth in every corner, and Richie walked around like he owned the place, which Eddie supposed he did.

They’d left their shoes at the door and Richie padded off in his sock feet, leaving Eddie to hang up his coat and go on through.

There were pieces of art on the walls, and he hadn’t expected that; Richie struck him as someone who could answer all the pop culture questions at a bar trivia, not like someone who had original paintings displayed on his walls. Who knew, maybe he was both of those things. Eddie really wanted to find out.

The paintings were beautiful, but one in particular was striking: a small red bird hiding amongst foliage that looked so lush and peaceful, Eddie wanted to touch it.

“My friend’s an artist,” Richie said before Eddie could even ask, coming up behind him, close enough to make the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He wished Richie would crowd into him, but maybe they weren’t there yet. “He’s an accountant during the day and in his spare time he paints to, like, exorcize the demon in this really ugly painting that used to hang in his dad’s study when we were kids. I think it scarred him for life or something.” Richie turned to walk away, then paused. “Actually, don’t tell him I told you that, he probably wants to keep his origin story a secret.”

Eddie bit down on the thought on the tip of his tongue: how could I tell him, I don’t even know him! But Eddie knew well enough; the idea that whatever this was might be leading to him knowing Richie’s friends one day made his belly flutter with excited apprehension. They’d just met! It was ridiculous! Eddie’s feverish body didn’t care.

It was a really nice apartment, and Eddie would have taken the time to be a little envious, if Richie hadn’t walked right into the kitchen, opened the fridge, and bent to reach in, forking his fingers around a couple of bottles. Those big hands had been on Eddie just a short while ago and he wanted them back and his brain was overheating, trying to come up with ways to make it happen. “There’s a couple of places we can order from,” Richie said, bringing the bottles out, glass clinking as they were set onto the counter, before he noticed Eddie staring at him.

“This is a date-date, right?” Eddie said, heat rising to his face. Fuck it. If he was coming up to a man’s home and hoping to get kissed, he was going all in and there wouldn’t be any dumb misunderstandings. “Like, I’m not reading this wrong? I would say I’m out of practice but I never had any practice and I really don’t want to fuck this up.”

Richie’s glasses slid down his nose, and he pinked up, smiling like Eddie had said something amazing. “You don’t mess around, huh. Honestly I was really hoping you meant date-date because I’m so into your whole neat, compact little thing you’ve got going—oh.” He blinked owlishly as Eddie stepped into the kitchen and right into his space until Richie backed up against the fridge, arms out as though he didn’t know if he was about to get kissed or punched.

Eddie got his face close enough to catch the tantalizing scent along Richie’s throat.

“Oh shit, hello,” Richie said, and finally his hands were on Eddie’s shoulders, light and shaking.

“I’m not a compact little anything, you’re just…huge,” he said, and Richie shivered as Eddie’s lips skipped along over his Adam’s apple.

“I’m starting to think you like that,” Richie teased, but he was breathless, hands skimming along Eddie’s shoulders.

The power would definitely go to Eddie’s head as soon as his head was capable of brain activity again. “I really want to kiss you,” he said, nosing along Richie’s stubbled jaw, wound on a spring so tight his head was spinning. “Richie.”

“Uh-huh?”

“Is it okay if I- ”

“Uh-huh,” Richie whispered, and then Eddie’s turned-up face met his, and they tilted together into what was very nearly a kiss. Oh hell. Oh fuck. Richie’s breath puffed along Eddie’s ear and the bottom fell out of his stomach, letting a thousand fluttering wings out - it was like everything he’d read you’re supposed to feel but never had. He’d assumed it was just one of those intangible things that didn’t realistically happen for everyone, like enjoying your job or getting restful sleep. But it was here. It was his, and Richie was giving it to him.

“Please hug me,” Eddie said, suddenly desperate to be held in those arms, to rest his head on Richie’s chest and hear his heart beating. Richie’s hands slid from his shoulders and wound around him in the most satisfying hug of his life, still gentle, like Richie was still holding back, but firm and warm and so very good.

“I feel like I’m attacking you,” Eddie said, breathing Richie in, absolutely feral for the way Richie’s back muscles shifted beneath his touch.

“I’m just waiting for you to either get super hungry, or come to your senses,” Richie muttered, hands flexing along Eddie’s shoulder blades.

“I’m hungry right now,” Eddie said, and clutched at Richie’s back when he felt him shifting away. “Not for pizza, dude, just please get a clue and don’t stop touching me.”

“Okay, dude,” Richie said, flustered, laughing, but he did as Eddie asked, giving him a squeeze and lifting him until his feet dangled off the ground and Eddie yelped and pinched him until he was set down again.

“Seriously though,” Eddie said once he’d caught his breath a little and took a mental step back to reassess the situation while his brain was still online. Physically, he was mashing his face into Richie’s chest. “I know it’s a lot, probably, well, I don’t know, actually. I’m totally winging this but if you just want to eat and watch a movie instead of being mauled, that’s fine, I can behave.” But Richie just cupped the back of his head and nosed along his temple, breathing Eddie in.

“Eddie Spaghetti, I’ve never wanted to be mauled so much in my life,” Richie said, and the nosing turned into a soft kiss on Eddie’s brow. “But you keep saying you don’t know, and you’ve never this and that, so I don’t want you to rush into something you’re gonna regret. Or you know what actually, fuck that, I really don’t care if you rush ‘cause if I had my way I’d already have your dick in my mouth. I just don’t want to be the thing you regret.”

“I’m not rushing, I just know what I want,” Eddie said, and then his brain stalled, tripping over an image of Richie on his knees for him, looking up at him. “Wait. You’d do that?” he said, awed.

“I would start with that. And then I’d do so much more,” Richie murmured and gathered Eddie in again until they were close enough for Eddie’s breath to fog Richie’s glasses.

Richie kissed his brow, then the apple of his cheek, and there was a quiet moment where they simply breathed one another in, suspended in the most delicious anticipation until Richie tipped Eddie’s chin up and kissed him on the mouth. Eddie gasped, and then finally, finally! they were kissing each other, soft and slow like there was all the time in the world to figure out how they fit together. Eddie closed his eyes and tried to understand the intense new signals his body was sending.

Richie’s stubble grazed his chin, and being held close to his big body made Eddie feel cherished and safe. The scent of him was so masculine and real, bringing home that Eddie was kissing a man. Eddie was being kissed by a man and they were good, firm but gentle kisses and then Richie licked the seam of his mouth and all those wild signals converged until everything inside him finally tuned into the right frequency, the discordance of his life evened out into a clear chime. Eddie did it back, and the sound that came out of Richie made Eddie’s guts tense with wanting.

“You’d start with that?” Eddie gasped after they’d kissed for a while, and Richie gave up his mouth to kiss along Eddie’s jaw.

“Okay maybe I’d actually start by asking if you wanted to go to bed with me, you know, just to be polite,” Richie murmured into his neck.

“Maybe I don’t want you to be polite,” Eddie said, tilting his head, stretching his throat against Richie’s roaming mouth. He felt completely unhinged. “Maybe I just want you to- oh fuck,” he gasped as Richie lifted him off the ground and started walking them back through the kitchen and into the hall.

“You may be little and compact but you’re fucken heavy, Jesus Christ,” Richie said and nearly tripped them into the bedroom trying to get through the door. He made a show of it, groaning exaggeratedly until they were both laughing and tripping together onto Richie’s roughly made bed, still in each other’s arms.

Eddie, thoroughly charmed, pressed Richie down into the mattress and climbed on top of him. “I’m average size, dipshit, you’re just- ”

“Yeah, you said,” Richie said, grinning.

“Go to bed with me,” Eddie whispered, overwhelmed. Did people laugh in bed? Did people want to eat their bed partner whole just out of wanting them so much?

“Hey, that’s my line,” Richie said, laughing with that charming, crinkled smile.

Eddie could only mutter, “Shut up, shut the fuck up,” and kiss him breathless and claw fingers into his chest. “Can you take this off? I really want to see you.” He yanked impatiently at the hem of the Totrzilla t-shirt, and Richie’s mouth fell open, daze in his eyes. He eased off, embarrassment tugging at his insides. “I mean you don’t have to, I just- ”

“No, it’s not that, I just. I’m. Really?” He blinked, but couldn’t seem to finish the thought, and if Eddie reflected for one more moment on why he looked so stunned, he’d start yelling.

“Just take it off so this fucking turtle stops looking at me,” Eddie muttered, muffling Richie’s startled laugh in his t-shirt as he dragged it over his head, and then finally, finally, he could really look his fill and try to ignore the way Richie eyed him right back in wonder.

Richie had hair on his chest. Eddie could curl his fingers in it. Not like the sparse little tufts Eddie had, but a real soft-looking carpet over his whole chest. It curled up towards his clavicles and drew a neat arrow path down his stomach. Eddie licked his lips and scritched between Richie’s pecs, pulling a little, testing. God. Good fucking God.

“You little sadist,” Richie said, but he was breathless and the joke fell flat. Eddie couldn’t stop touching him, hands roaming all over Richie’s chest, those brickhouse shoulders and their own tufty hair, fuck it was so sexy, Eddie didn’t even know what his idea of masculinity had been, but Richie’s solid body with its soft cushion of fat over muscle was so right. He couldn’t take his eyes off it, thumbing the dip at the base of his throat where hair became light and wispy. With a small sigh he sank down, tucking his cheek against Richie’s warm chest. Richie’s arms came up around him, holding him close, heart beat drumming strong beneath Eddie’s ear.

Richie sank his fingers into Eddie’s hair and he already knew how good that could feel, only now Richie’s thick arms were tight around him, Richie’s scent filled his nose, and there was a soft pink nipple within reach. He nosed his way over and closed his mouth on it, glowing at Richie’s punched-out curse and full body shudder. He hissed when Eddie accidentally scraped him with his teeth, but seemed to melt when Eddie gentled it with suckles and licks to apologize. Eddie noted it distantly, obsessed with the novelty of soft hair he could part with his fingers or lick down flat around Richie’s nipple, delirious with that broad body writhing under him. Maybe he’d come back to that later, though, because Richie was glassy-eyed and breathing hard and Eddie needed Richie’s pants off, like, yesterday.

Fair was fair though, so he sat up a little astride Richie’s thighs and began to pull off his own shirt. He got it over his head and looked at it in his hand, suddenly frozen with knowing he ought to fold it neatly, but Richie was swearing under his breath and his hands were sliding up to rest at Eddie’s waist, thumbs warm over his stomach. Eddie looked down at Richie’s dazed face and tossed his shirt aside.

“Okay?” he said, rising up on his knees, working Richie’s belt through the loops and yanking at his zipper before Richie caught up with the program, lifting up so Eddie could tug his jeans over his hips.

“Uh-huh,” Richie said, and then seemed to rally from wherever his head was at. “No, wait,” he said, and Eddie ground to a halt with his fingers halfway into Richie’s boxers.

“I’m good with where this is going. Great actually,” Richie hurriedly added when Eddie narrowed his eyes. “No, it’s okay, it’s nothing bad. I’m just gonna say a couple of things, it’s better just to be upfront, you know? So. Firstly, I get tested regularly, and I’m clean. And I’m also gonna go right ahead and assume you are too…are you?”

Eddie nodded dumbly.

“Okay, great, so now we both know that. Before we do anything else. And the second thing,” Richie’s eyes turned a little vulnerable then, and Eddie couldn’t even blink, still processing that he, Edward Kaspbrak—an avid disinfector of surfaces and proponent of upholding personal space boundaries at any cost—had come up to a strange dude’s bedroom to have sex and had given zero shits about safety. “I just thought seeing as you haven’t done this before, like, with a guy, you’d want me to just…do the work. And I’m okay with that! You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. I really just want to make you feel good,” he said softly.

Eddie sat up a little straighter and really looked at Richie then, the guarded slant of his mouth, the hint of worry over his brow. But Eddie was on a mission and had already bulldozed all his own boundaries just to get to this point. Eddie didn’t have time for Richie to feel bad about a single goddamn thing.

“Richie. Richie, listen. I’ve had penetrative sex that didn’t feel this good,” Eddie said, basking in Richie’s startled laughter, using the moment of distraction to slide and tug Richie’s jeans all the way off along with his socks, and then quickly shuck his own, coming back to kneel between Richie’s legs, both of them down to their underwear. “When I walked in tonight and I saw you, do you know what I thought to myself? I thought: him. This guy. I didn’t even know what the fuck I was supposed to do about realising I was gay until I saw you. And then I knew what I wanted, okay?” He was talking too fast, babbling, trying to get it all out so Richie would just understand, and Richie was blinking at him, listening, his eyes soft but his fingers digging in harder.

He sat up, manhandling Eddie into his lap and kissed him, pressing their lips hard against Eddie’s teeth, making Eddie gasp at the shock of the sting. He sank bonelessly into Richie, kissing back deeply, more wetly, feeling inexperienced and new and sensitized with desire. Richie pulled back, eyes glinting, knowing. He gripped Eddie’s waist and pulled him down to settle over the cradle of his hips and rolled up into him, watching intently as Eddie’s eyes fluttered shut and his jaw dropped.

“Okay,” Richie said lowly. “I’m all yours. Do what you want to do, Eds.”

“Not my name,” Eddie said, but he was already pushing Richie to lie back, sliding down Richie’s body, any hesitation long gone and replaced with a bone-deep need and a rush to fulfill it.

There were tiny, smiling Mike Wazowskis on Richie’s boxers. Eddie gave him a flat look, basking in Richie’s grin. “No,” he preempted, pointing at Richie’s face before Richie could open his mouth about it. Richie laughed, clearly delighted, so Eddie followed his heart and bent down to press his face to Richie’s soft stomach, and because that wasn’t enough to release the pressure that wanted to starburst out of him, he opened his mouth and let the animal grunt rumble out, bullying his way in between Richie’s thick thighs and resting his weight there, pushing Richie’s legs apart with his shoulders. The fly of the boxers had pulled open, revealing a flash of pink skin and wiry dark hair, and between one breath and the next Eddie was nudging face first into the slit of Richie’s horrible boxers, mouthing over the thickening girth of his cock.

“Oh my god,” Richie muttered and Eddie looked up to find his eyes on him, dark spots high on his cheeks, and his lips bitten red.

Fleeting shadows moved over his body and Eddie was startled to realize it had begun to rain, water pattering on the window and painting reflections across Richie’s body. The tantalizing glimpses of his private skin were hotter than any graphic porn he’d seen, and he’d seen a bit lately, bodies moving together, sweaty and slapping. This, though, this was the kind of thing that stayed with you, this small peek of Richie through the protective veil of clothing and Eddie was ravenous for him, absolutely desperate to know these hidden parts of him, the two of them safe from the weather inside Richie’s warm bed.

He licked his lips and reached in to pull Richie’s cock free through the slit and took a long moment to look at him, the fattening heft of him nestled in the crease of his thigh. The dark head pulsed and peeked a little further out from the fold of Richie’s foreskin, and Eddie had never seen another man’s cock up close before, let alone an uncut one. It was big, the same way the rest of Richie was so satisfyingly big, and he circled as much as he could reach with the ring of his fingers and worked the foreskin up over the head, absolutely fascinated with it. The urge to lick it came to him and he gave into it, tasting Richie, lightheaded and hot, belly tense with wanting.

Richie had gone pliant and tender when Eddie had nosed and suckled his nipple, and Eddie was a very fast learner so he did the same with the head of Richie’s cock, licking it into his mouth and holding the plush head in the soft cradle of his tongue.

A sense of calm came over him, a sense of glorious, warm victory, Richie’s cock pulsing and hardening in his mouth. Eddie caressed the bones of his hips and did whatever the animal inside him wanted, just like Richie had told him he could, pulling the sock of Richie’s foreskin up over the fat head of his cock and licking his way under it, the slurping sounds of his hungry mouth softened by the rain but still so good and real and loud in Richie’s dark bedroom.

He took his time exploring Richie’s cock, tucking the blunt head into his cheek and sucking him, pulling off to press open-mouthed kisses along the shaft. He left tacky wet smears all over him and spread the wet with his hand. He groaned at the scent, warm cotton and fragrant skin in the crease of Richie’s thigh, following his instincts to nose and tongue at Richie’s sac still nestled inside his boxers, its nest of pubic hair curling and dark, scratching over his chin.

Eddie pulled away to breathe, overwhelmed, his whole body singing like a struck bell, and Richie’s hand snuck back into his hair, gently cradling him. Eddie held his gaze and licked the bead of fluid that had pearled from Richie’s slit, ravenous for every gasp and groan and sign of pleasure on Richie’s open face. Richie looked absolutely destroyed, and Eddie felt ten feet tall.

He was certain Richie would let him keep going like this, taking whatever he wanted, but he wanted nothing more than to be soft and kind to him, to be the sort of person to make him feel like this all the time, to put that awed look on his face. He climbed up over Richie and set his body over him, laying his weight on Richie and sinking into his embrace, kissing him deeply. Richie’s arms tightened around him and Eddie’s insides twisted with wanting him even more now that he had him.

“What do you want, Eddie, I’ll do whatever you want,” Richie muttered into the dip of his throat, and Eddie couldn’t help the panting, desperate whine that came out of him.

He pressed himself into Richie’s body, legs tangled together and arms around each other, and thought he could probably come like this, rutting lazily into Richie’s hairy belly with Richie’s voice rumbling in his ear, filling up his senses. Eddie let his hands slip down Richie’s broad back, slabs of padded muscle shifting and rolling with Richie’s every move. He dipped his hand beneath the waistband of Richie’s boxers and followed the elastic around to his belly, slipping down, palming the fleshy head of his cock and kissing away the hitch in Richie’s breath.

“Anything,” he said, too worked up to think or to downplay. He pressed his hot face into the crook of Richie’s neck and hoped Richie would understand, that he would know what Eddie needed. He licked the salt from Richie’s neck and tried not to lose his nerve, Richie’s cock jumping in his hand. “Everything.”

Richie’s hand felt enormous cupping his neck, slipping down his back, palming his ass. His kisses became hungrier, sharper, and Eddie’s blood sang, wanting more and more, wanting all of Richie, wanting so much to lay eyes all over him without the pressure of worked-up desire or the constraints of time, just to see all of him. He pushed his ass back into Richie’s hand and tried to telegraph his need directly into Richie’s mind so he wouldn’t have to beg and Richie rumbled deep in his chest.

“Like this?” he said, pulling Eddie’s earlobe between his teeth, that big hand pushing into Eddie’s underwear, slipping down the crack of his ass to rest thick fingers against Eddie’s hole.

“Fuck, yes,” Eddie said, and he didn’t recognise the gravel in his own voice when Richie tapped him there, his whole body clenching around the sensation, wondering what it would look like: this most private part of him opening under Richie’s patient attention, relaxing around Richie’s thick fingers, maybe one day around his big cock. “No, wait,” he said, and Richie stilled and looked at him steadily and Eddie liked him so, so much. “I didn’t expect for any of this to happen tonight. I’m not-, I haven’t-”

“Hey,” Richie said, “I know, it’s okay. I’m actually really glad you’re letting me know how you’re doing. Remember how I said I didn’t wanna be the thing you regret?”

Eddie nodded, breathing out in a gust. “Yeah. You’re not. I won’t.”

Richie’s eyes were fond, which was an interesting dichotomy with how hard his cock was in Eddie’s hand, and how he hadn’t stopped rubbing light circles around Eddie’s asshole. “Will you trust me?”

“Yeah,” Eddie breathed, and it was what he’d been waiting for, for Richie to take over, to show him what they could do, to reveal all the things his own body wanted and didn’t know how, or how to even start.

Richie turned him over and spooned up to him, holding Eddie’s back close to his chest. He’d wrapped both arms around him and Eddie had never felt enveloped so completely by another person. Richie was everywhere, over him and around him, hips grinding into him, their scent rising. Even their feet were entwined and arching against each other.

“Get these off,” Richie murmured into his neck, hot breath cooling on Eddie’s sweaty skin, pushing at the waistband of Eddie’s underwear. He’d started to push off his own boxers, cursing, wriggling as he held onto Eddie with one arm across his chest, wrestling his dick back in through the slit of his boxers one-handed so he could skim out of them and Eddie couldn’t help laughing, charmed somehow instead of turned off.

He watched the gymnastics over his shoulder until Richie was free of Mike Wazowski and then there was nothing to laugh at. Eddie swallowed roughly. Fuck, that was some cock all right, heavy and dark, nestled in a thick bush. He’d had it in his mouth but it looked even bigger now, and nakedly real. Richie’s balls lay softly over his corded thigh and Eddie liked everything he saw. Everything about Richie was infinitely fascinating, the little paunch of his stomach, his wide hips, his good, long legs. Eddie wanted him so much.

“Fuck, look at you,” Richie said quietly, like he’d been cataloguing Eddie the same way. He pulled Eddie under him, laying him out on the bed face down and flattening himself to Eddie’s back. His hand felt so big over Eddie’s flank, feeling him up, feeling him everywhere, pushing him down. Eddie stretched out under him, moaning, loving that weight, loving being held still like this. “Oh, wow,” Richie whispered hotly into the nape of his neck and then both of Eddie’s wrists were gathered up and held tight in Richie’s big hand, arms stretched up above his head while Eddie lay deliciously pinned beneath the weight of Richie’s body, unable to do anything more than arch and pant and curl his toes.

With his free hand, Richie reached over to the bedside table and for a glorious moment, he rested fully across Eddie’s back, still holding his wrists, though it was perfunctory now; Eddie wasn’t about to move them. If there had been a bedhead to grab, he’d have grabbed it; as it was, he bunched Richie’s sheets in his fists and hung on. There was the snick of a plastic catch and then Richie’s hand was back between Eddie’s legs, fingers sliding easily now, silky slick.

Blood rushed in Eddie’s ears, his heart was pounding. It was so easy to spread his legs and let Richie have at him, to pet and rub his hole. He imagined Richie slipping a finger inside him and his whole body bucked for it. But Richie just pumped more lube into his hand and coated the inside of Eddie’s thighs with it, rubbing the heel of his wet palm into Eddie’s taint, long fingers scooping up his sac, rolling Eddie’s balls in the gentle cage of his fingers, pulling Eddie right out of the constraints of his straight-postured, stiff-necked body and into malleable taffy, warm and weak-kneed in Richie’s grip. Eddie hadn’t even touched himself with so much knowing care and determination, let alone anyone else. He hadn’t even pictured it, until Richie had laid his magic hands on him downstairs at the Salon.

He whined when Richie’s hand went away, but the slick sounds of him fisting his own cock had Eddie leaking all over Richie’s tangled sheets.

“I'm gonna mess up your bed,” he muttered.

“Don’t care. C’mere,” Richie whispered, and turned Eddie so he was on his side again, and when he went to open his legs Richie held him still and pushed them closed. “Like this,” he said, nibbling Eddie’s neck, snuggling in right up behind, his fist bumping into Eddie’s ass as he worked himself a little more before guiding the head of his cock to settle between Eddie’s slicked thighs.

“Oh, fuck,” Eddie said, panting against his own bicep.

“Yeah,” Richie’s voice skittered like hot gravel down his neck. He thrust in between Eddie’s thighs, shallow nudges that had Eddie whining through gritted teeth. “You want it?”

“Don’t make me hurt you,” Eddie ground out.

Richie laughed quietly against Eddie’s temple and then pushed deep into the channel Eddie had made of his thighs, the head of his cock nudging the back of Eddie’s balls. “That better?”

Eddie could only nod, the slide of Richie’s cock massaging that fleshy, sensitive part of him over and over, bumping into his swollen sac. He turned his head to tell Richie to go faster, or slower, or just never stop, but Richie groaned and covered Eddie’s mouth with his in a messy, awkward kiss that had the both of them grazing teeth against each other and Richie’s glasses slipping sideways, sharing their breath while Richie fucked him, Eddie clenching against the sheets to push his ass back to get it harder, to get more.

Their kiss became a slide of lips against stubbled cheeks, and it seemed as though Richie couldn’t help talking as soon as his mouth was free. “This is how I’d fuck you for real, I’d get you really worked up, use my fingers at first, would you like that?” Richie was breathing hard against Eddie’s cheek. Tightening his hold around Eddie’s chest, he reached down to cup Eddie’s cock and buried his face in Eddie’s neck with a shocked groan that went straight to Eddie’s clenching asshole. “Oh my god, you’re so wet, Eds, Eddie, what the fuck.”

Eddie was shaking apart. “You ever shut up?”

“No,” Richie said, and then, awed, cupping Eddie’s cockhead with a milking pull, “You always leak like that?”

“No,” Eddie moaned, watching Richie raise his hand to his mouth, tasting the mess Eddie had left there. “Holy shit. That’s.” He wanted to say gross, but it wasn’t. Any other person, any other situation, but not now. Not Richie, who was mouthing at the pad of his thumb and whose eyes looked sex-hurt and raw and huge behind his glasses. Eddie must have had some kinda look on his face too because when Richie’s hand returned to his dick, every movement had more purpose. Richie stripped him in time with the drive of his hips, burying himself deeply in the hollow between Eddie’s slick thighs.

“Next time I’m gonna go down on you, lick it all up, how’s that sound? Maybe I won’t just use my fingers to soften you up, huh? Maybe I’ll eat you out. Will you let me, Eddie? Will you let me get my mouth on you?”

“Yes, fuck you, yes,” Eddie babbled, jostled with Richie’s huffed laugh, rocked between Richie’s thick thighs slapping into him and his grip on Eddie’s cock, wringing out that sweet build inside him. He thought of the way Richie melted for him when Eddie touched him with gentle discovery, and thought about Richie saying ‘next time’, the promise of it thrumming inside him as his orgasm came galloping on. “I’m gonna let you do whatever you want, and you’re gonna let me do whatever I want, I want you to fuck me, I’m gonna call you baby, gonna kiss you and tell you how sweet you are.”

“What the fuck”, Richie whispered brokenly, and Eddie thought, jackpot, and started to come, jerking into Richie’s hand, grabbing onto his forearm and fucking up into his fist so he could savour it the way he liked, the way he wanted it to go a little too long sometimes until he was breathless and sensitive, something he’d discovered about himself; that, and making it last, drawing it out before letting himself come at all. Maybe he could tell Richie about that sometime, but Richie was still, now, panting into Eddie’s shoulder, his glasses digging in, holding tight as a drum. His cock was twitching, wedged thick and hard between Eddie’s thighs, snug up against Eddie’s spent balls. Eddie rolled his hips back a little, just to hear Richie’s desperate, shivering breath. He held Eddie close to his chest and clutched his face, turning Eddie to be kissed, the roughness of his cheek scraping Eddie perfectly to amplify the fluttering residue of his orgasm.

“You gonna come, Rich?” he said, and something like a sob washed over Eddie’s shoulder and Richie wound both arms around him, driving jerkily into the wet space Eddie held tight for him, tensing and rolling in time with Richie’s frantic fucking. Everywhere Richie touched him felt alive and real, skin over muscle, down to his marrow. Eddie reached back and wound his fingers in the tangle of Richie’s sweaty hair and held him, wanting Richie to feel as wanted and good and sweet as he’d made Eddie feel.

“Come on, sweetheart,” Eddie whispered, kind of shocked himself at the words, but it seemed the right thing to say because Richie cried out like Eddie had shocked him, burying his cock deep, the release of hot come pulsing into the clutch of Eddie’s thighs, coating the back of his sac. Richie seemed to ride it out for a long time, and he hadn’t let go of Eddie so Eddie melted against him, rubbing his forearm, feeling cherished and wanted.

They breathed together for what seemed like ages, and Eddie watched the rain on the window while his heart calmed down. Richie rolled away after a while but Eddie was still floating and couldn’t think of moving except for flexing his legs a little to feel the sticky evidence of what they’d done, which he knew on some level was so completely unlike himself it was practically an X-File. A faraway need to clean up was nudging at him but he was so very tired, and so very warm. He could barely open his eyes to watch Richie stumble out of bed, buck naked, and head for the ensuite, flicking on the light.

He hadn’t closed the door, and Eddie watched him at the sink through slitted lids; it felt like intruding upon a private moment to see Richie wet a towel and wipe the still thick swell of his cock. Eddie wondered how it would fill his mouth now, mostly soft, the head hiding in its hood. Wondered how it would taste now. Would Richie let him put it in his mouth again and just take his time with him, play with him until he could taste Richie’s come? Eddie felt shivery and raw all over thinking about it.

Richie scrubbed the towel over the thick bush between his legs, rougher than Eddie would have been, and Eddie’s heart clenched, wanting to wrap Richie up in a blanket. Eddie had always trimmed his, it was the need to be neat and tidy rather than anything cosmetic, but Richie—at odds with his profession—looked like a natural Nineteen Seventies porn star, unmanicured and unselfconscious about it. Eddie didn’t want to miss a thing about him and every small detail made his toes curl and his mouth water.

Richie looked at him and grinned, grabbing another towel and wetting it.

“You eyeballing my ass?” he said, and came back to slide into bed beside him.

“You don’t have an ass,” Eddie mumbled mostly into the sheets and let Richie laugh and roll him over a little to dab and wipe away the mess of come and lube between his legs. Eddie hid his face and endured it and didn’t think about how tender and considerate Richie was being while getting an uninterrupted view of Eddie’s asshole.

“Speaking of eyeballing asses though, nice to finally meet my calendar favorite, Mr Glutes 2016,” Richie said, “You work out to get a bumper like that?”

Eddie bit his lip just in time to stop the laugh from escaping and thought about how intimate this was, the two of them naked in Richie’s bed. The song came to him then, the one Richie had been humming earlier in the night: I guess that this must be the place, I can't tell one from another. Did I find you, or you find me? Content at having solved the puzzle, Eddie stretched a little into the pillow, exhilarated and exhausted at the same time. Richie was right there, touchable and available, and Eddie wanted him again as soon as they’d finished, but he couldn’t remember ever feeling so heavy, sinking into the bed. In the bed, part of the bed, his brain chimed, but Richie had asked him something, hadn’t he?

Eddie closed his eyes, thinking how to answer, and while he was still thinking it over he fell asleep.

***

He was sitting on the stony bank of a creek. Sun reflected on the trickling water, and beneath him the stony bank moved with a groan Eddie felt with his whole body, ancient bedrock shifting and settling, older than time. He spread his hands over the stone and traced the fissures in it, like the plates on a turtle’s shell.

In the creek, kids were building a dam made of stones and sticks, and he watched them for a while, content in their purpose. He blinked, and the creek was a lake, and a different bunch of kids splashed and yelled in it, playing some sort of game. Another blink and it was himself as a child, playing in the mud on the bank with another boy wearing glasses too big for his face. He turned his head to watch them run past and he wanted to warn them because his mother was running towards the boys, about to yank little Eddie away by his arm, but as he turned his head yet another bunch of kids were running through the shallow water, and he knew they were all the same, but not the same at all, voices and faces echoes of each other that had been poured and hammered into different shapes by circumstance.

Beside him at the bank, a man who looked just like him was also watching the scene in the water. There was blood on his shirt and a hole inside him that was shaped like a house with a spire and something about him made Eddie think of how his life might have gone if his mother hadn’t moved them away from Derry when his father had died—Eddie had been five years old then, and nine when she herself had died, leaving Eddie to be raised by his aunt—and had stayed in Derry instead, raising this Eddie who looked like he would scope the exit in every room as soon as he entered it.

There was another man whom Eddie knew to be Eddie, too: an Eddie who wore glasses and suspenders and who’d never left his mother at all except once, and it was the last time. Yet another man looked like Eddie if Eddie had started to go bald. Eddie touched his own head to check his hair was still where he’d left it, like a set of keys he could misplace.

He looked back to the water, and the children were adults; one of them looked like Richie, though he wasn’t wearing his glasses, and he was upset. There was a hole inside him too, even though Eddie couldn’t see it. It made him feel real bad to see Richie like that, surrounded by people but alone, like a Richie who didn’t have his friend’s dog to pet or their paintings on the walls of his apartment.

There was blood between them all, strings of it spinning out like a spider’s web, and further on the web other Eddies were snagged, and Richies, too, as many as the hexagons on a turtle shell that spanned the universe. There were other faces, too, the same people over and over, people he’d never met and maybe never would. Some of them weren’t people at all but voids Eddie couldn’t look at directly, eyes sliding over them without seeing, but all of them were stops on the boundless web with infinite possibility. There was even a Richie who had a Beverly by the hands so they could lindy-hop together, both of them laughing, laughing, the red web, or string, or sinew, or fabric of the universe bonding them all to each other. In the web, part of the web.

The stony bank he sat on was moving again, with thunderous tremors like the flapping wings of a butterfly that could be felt across the other side of the world. Eddie closed his eyes and breathed in, and when he opened his eyes, it was morning, and he was alone. Thunder rolled very far away, already passing.

***

Eddie took stock, blinking against the dim light filtering in through the blinds of an unfamiliar window.

Sounds drifted up to the bedroom, a tap running, a door closing somewhere. Eddie stretched, and the crinkly pull of leftover stickiness immediately helped him make up his mind about whether to go looking for Richie or step into the shower. He needed a moment to think, anyway.

The storm had passed but it was still raining outside when he was done, and he helped himself to Richie’s toiletries and swirled a handful of mouthwash in place of brushing; it would have to do for now, for the lack of a toothbrush.

Could he really walk out into Richie’s apartment with just a towel on? He didn’t want to put on yesterday’s clothes which were likely to itch with the leftovers of his haircut, but last night’s bravado had left him and he didn’t know how to be seductive at the best of times, let alone in the cold unforgiving light of a rainy morning.

He tied the towel securely around his waist and opened a chest of drawers to hunt down a t-shirt, first off the top. There was a coconut with a face on it, and underneath it: “MILKY JOE”. Eddie sighed.

His own thin shoulders didn’t have the breadth of Richie’s and the shirt hung off him, sloping towards one side or the other no matter how he adjusted it. He didn’t really want to upend Richie’s drawers to find another one and he had a bad feeling they were all weird or horrible as well as too big.

Borrowing a pair of pants was probably going too far, but what did Eddie know about the morning after etiquette? Not a goddamn thing, that’s what. Richie’s sweatpants ballooned around his ankles gathering above the cuff but this would just have to do. Maybe Richie wouldn’t notice it too much.

The microwave dinged and its door opened and closed. Eddie stopped in the doorway to watch Richie standing by the kitchen window in a t-shirt and cut-off sweats, lifting a mug to his lips. Was that microwaved coffee? Was the man insane?

“You’re not gonna drink that.”

Richie jumped, cursing at the liquid sloshing over the rim of the mug, eyes wide on Eddie, unblinking. “I’m not not gonna drink it.” He had definitely noticed the clothes.

Eddie crossed his arms but it just made the shirt slide down more on one side so he thought, well, fuck it, and dropped his arms. This was either gonna work or not, but how he was dressed was unlikely to sway things either way. “Is there any for me that’s not microwaved?”

“Oh. Yeah, sorry. I didn’t realize I was almost out so I didn’t want to waste it and make a fresh pot until you were up, so. I’ll just go ahead and. Make that now,” Richie said and turned away, the tips of his ears turning red.

Eddie sat down slowly at the kitchen island and let that sink in a little bit. Richie made coffee, and Eddie looked at Richie’s bare feet on the floor, and then his angular ankles, and then his pale, hairy calves. He blinked up to the ceiling. Jesus fuck, he was being ridiculous.

“Look, I don’t want to fuck this up,” he said, just as Richie was lowering himself into his seat, gripping both their mugs.

“Oh, no,” Richie said, “You really couldn’t. I mean, unless you moonlight as a clown in which case get out of my apartment and never come back. Wait. Do you? Because I was just kidding, I can probably still work with that. I just had a really dumb dream last night and I’m trying not to freak out about it.”

“Who the fuck moonlights as a clown. Do not answer that. Aaand that’s the end of that conversation, work with me here.”

Richie grinned and pushed Eddie’s mug over to him - it had a bird on it, and a caption that read ‘I Am A Goddamned Delight’. Eddie’s mouth thinned to hide his grin and he ignored the cream and sugar to sip it black.

“What, no Milk in your Joe- ”

“Nope,” Eddie yelled over him, and pushed away from the island, muttering under his breath, Richie laughing in his wake. He should have found another damn t-shirt, surely they couldn’t all be stupid.

Richie got up too, and followed Eddie to the sofa where they sat, pretending not to grin at each other. Well, Eddie was pretending. Richie was just smiling dopily like a big dope.

They settled in, and Richie clicked on the TV so they could watch something while they drank their coffee, and for a while they just sat in companionable silence while David Attenborough talked about turtle hatchlings. He thought he felt Richie’s gaze, but when he looked up, Richie was still focused on the TV.

“So listen, I had a really good time last night,” Richie said quietly, still looking at the screen.

“Me too,” Eddie said quickly, suddenly anxious. Was Richie about to ask him to leave? But Richie looked nervous, not bored. He pushed his glasses up his nose and looked at Eddie, seemingly wrestling with something before opening his mouth.

“You wanna do it again sometime?”

Eddie nodded and bit his lip before he said something truly sappy. Richie’s eyes were wandering all over him now, and Eddie felt his gaze like a wave of goosebumps. Richie had been brave, and Eddie wanted to be, too. “Are you busy today?”

Richie shook his head. “We’re closed on Sundays, I’ve got nowhere else I have to be.”

“Oh. Good. Because I do want to do it again sometime,” he said, and Richie smiled a pleased little smile that Eddie hadn’t seen before, and would probably kill a man to see again. “But I’m not really done doing it this time.”

“You’re not?” Richie said, fixed on where his t-shirt was sliding off Eddie’s shoulder. He bit his lip, and Eddie thought, oh. Well. He resisted the overwhelming urge to adjust it.

“No way. You still owe me,” Eddie said, “And I’m not going anywhere until you pay up.”

“That’s right,” Richie said with a lopsided grin, then ruined it by wagging his eyebrows. “I said I’d get my mouth on your spaghetti and meatballs.”

Eddie gave him the flattest look he could muster. “That’s not what I’m talking about, asshole. A beer, a pizza, and a movie, you said. After that, we’ll see.”

Richie’s eyes were big and round behind his glasses for a long moment, and then he smiled with all his teeth and handed Eddie the TV remote. “Better get started.”

*Fin*