"Eddie, can you just say something?" Richie pleads, his bottom lip quivering. "Please."

Eddie knows that Richie is about to cry. Hell, he's about to cry himself. Richie wasn't ever supposed to say anything. They were supposed to laugh and share intimate glances and have inside jokes. They were supposed to pretend that they didn't know it was weird for them to sit together in the hammock at seventeen years old. They were supposed to pretend like it was still okay to go to the clubhouse, just the two of them. They were supposed to tiptoe around each other and grin and blush and sometimes maybe Eddie would dare to lean his head on Richie's shoulder.

Richie was not supposed to ruin it by speaking out loud what they both have been too scared to admit. Because now Eddie knows and he kind of wants to throw up at the horrifying realization that things are changing.

He doesn't really like change. He didn't like going into high school and he didn't like turning seventeen and he didn't like the fact that most of the Losers stopped coming to the clubhouse.

But Richie was a constant; Eddie's lighthouse in the darkest of storms.

Richie was the best part of his day, everyday. He was...he...

Eddie's eyes snap up from the ground, where they had been fixed since his friend's confession, at the sound of Richie's breath catching. Tears have begun making their way down his face. Eddie can tell that this frustrates Richie by the way he furiously wipes under his glasses.

He squeezes his eyes shut tight to prevent himself from crying, too.

"You weren't supposed to say anything." He mumbles.

"What?"

"Dammit." Eddie groans and buries his face in his hands. "Richie, I..." He trails off, not knowing what to say or even what he wants to say. "What did you expect me to say back to that?" He asks, suddenly angry. "Tell you that I have a big gay crush on you too and that I want to marry you or something?" He regrets the words as they leave his mouth, but he can't seem to regret it enough to stop.

"What do you mean?" Richie asks, voice barely above a whisper. Eddie could die. "We...we do things, different from everyone else. I thought-"

"No." Eddie interrupts. "I mean, yeah, we do. But we don't talk about it. We just don't."

Richie stands up, still crying in spite of himself. "So what, then? The things we do, you just think of it as a guilty pleasure? Like you're sick for liking me?"

"I never said I liked you."

"You just lay down with all your friends then, right? I can go ask Bill when the last time you held his hand was and he'll tell me that it was yesterday without batting an eye?"

"Shut up!" Eddie stands, too. "Just shut up, Richie! Stop being weird. I don't like boys. I don't."

But he liked Richie. He liked cuddling with Richie and he like holding hands with him and being close. But he knew the rules. He knew he wasn't supposed to ever admit any of that out loud.

Richie recoils from Eddie's words as though he's been physically hit by them. "Okay." He whispers. "Please don't tell anybody, Eddie. I can't...I won't..." He takes a sharp breath. "Please don't tell anyone."

Fuck, Eddie feels like his heart just dropped into his stomach. Guilt floods through his veins and the tears that are streaming down Richie's face burn into Eddie's mind as a sight he both will never forget and never wants to see again. His brain screams for him to begin damage control. To make a joke or hug his friend or do anything to cheer him up. "Richie," he takes a step towards him and raises his hand to touch his shoulder, but stops midway through the motion.

He can't touch Richie. Not now that he's said it out loud. It makes the touches intentional. He can't feign ignorance anymore. He tries to remember that the Losers are a tactile group anyway, and that anyone of them wouldn't hesitate to hug Eddie if he was upset.

By the time Eddie remembers this, though, Richie has scrambled up the clubhouse ladder and disappeared.

-

It becomes abundantly clear in the following days that Beverly is aware of what all has happened, and that she is on Richie's side. She's been nothing but short with Eddie and refuses even the smallest bits of eye contact.

Eddie doesn't think that this is fair considering she doesn't know his side of the story.

Richie hasn't been around since their fight. Not around the group at least. He supposes that he's at least seen Bev, and Stan mentioned that he looked sad in third period. They're all worried about him.

"It's not like Rich to ignore us like this. I went by his house yesterday and his mom told me he wasn't feeling well." Ben laments to the group as they all sit around Bill's front porch.

"If Richie 'wasn't feeling well,' then he would be high-tailing it to Eddie's house so that his Dr. Kaspbrak could cure him, and generally just annoying the shit out of us until he felt better." Stan says, worrying at his lip.

Eddie does his best to ignore the glare that he knows Bev is giving him.

"H-has he t-talked to you at all, Eddie?" Bill asks, and suddenly all eyes are on him.

"Ah, no. No, he hasn't." Is all he says, keeping his head low.

"Something is definitely wrong if he's keeping his distance from even you." Mike frowns.

"Why? What makes you say that?" Eddie asks, too quickly.

They all give him a funny look. "It's not exactly a secret that you two are best friends." Ben says, like it's obvious.

"Right." He sighs, anxiously, assuring himself that they don't suspect anything.

But there's nothing to suspect. He reminds himself.

"I'm gonna go try to check on him." Beverly says, suddenly, her first words of the conversation. "Eddie, why don't you go with me?" She's not asking, and Eddie knows there's no getting out of it.

"Yeah, okay." He mumbles and follows her off the porch.

They walk their bikes, rather than ride them. Bev waits until they're well out of earshot from the rest of the Losers before she starts speaking. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"I can't help that I don't like him, Bev." Eddie begins, having rehearsed his defense over and over in his head for a few days.

"We're losers, Eddie. You know what that means? We don't judge people. We don't call them weird for things they can't help."

"I know." He says, quietly. "I was just..."

"Scared." Bev finishes for him.

"I guess." He looks up at her quickly. "I don't like him, like that." He forces out, though lying to Beverly usually feels pointless. She's smart and observant and Eddie knows that if anyone in the group would pick up on something between the two of them, it would be her.

"Listen, Eds," Eddie bites back the urge to snap at her that only Richie can call him that. "I can't even begin to imagine the type of feelings you're having and what you're going through. Even if you don't like him--" She adds, just as Eddie is about to say it. "Your best friend just confessed something like that to you and I am sure it's hard. Because of all this, I'm not gonna be bitter about what you said to Richie, as long as you make it right."

Eddie knows what she means. He knows why they're walking to Richie's house. He's kind of dreading it.

"And also, I just want to say that even if you did like Richie the way he liked you," She gives him a knowing look that makes him want to crawl into a hole and die. "Not a single one of us would judge you. We love you both and just want to see both of you happy."

Eddie stops in his tracks, his hands tightening around the handlebars of his bike so hard that this knuckles turn white. "Bev..." He manages before letting out a sob. He doesn't want to think of this. He doesn't want to like Richie. He doesn't want to be anything other than normal and here Bev is telling him that he's okay. That she loves him and doesn't care how different he is. "I didn't mean to hurt him so bad." He mumbles, miserably. "I was just scared and I just didn't want to change anything because the gang has been so happy lately."

He thinks of how it was weird for weeks after Bill and Bev broke up. And how it was strange once Bev and Ben got together. He thinks about their last fight when they all didn't see each other together for nearly two weeks.

Things were good now. He didn't want anything to be weird again. And if he thought it was bad when other people were the reason for the group dynamic being skewed then he could only imagine being the cause.

"What would it change?"

"Everything. It would feel like a huge fucking cloud of tension every time Rich and I were in the same room and I wouldn't be able to take that. And then the guys would start questioning all of my motives with them and-"

"No, Eddie, they wouldn't."

He continues walking, despite being upset and not wanting to go where his feet are taking him. Beverly walks with him, staying silent and letting him cry. "Bev?" He says, after a minute.

"Yeah?"

"I like Richie."

She gives him a sympathetic look and stops walking again. When Eddie stops as well, she reaches out and takes his hand. "I know."

This makes Eddie cry harder and he feels so stupid for it. They're standing in the middle of a street with bikes they've outgrown and he's crying and gosh he feels like he's thirteen again. He feels the same sick anxiety he felt the first time his hand brushed against Richie's and it made him feel like fire instead of nothing. "Do the others know?" He asks.

"I don't know." Bev answers, honestly. "But I can tell you that we all just want to see you two happy. And everyone knows that you two idiots are never happier than when you're arguing." She laughs and reaches her hand out, wiping off Eddie's cheek. "You need to apologize to him."

Eddie nods, because he knows he's fucked up majorly with Richie. "I will."

"And you have to understand and be okay if he doesn't want to try anything with you after what happened."

The idea stings but if he's honest with himself it's what he deserves.

Bev walks with him the rest of the way to Richie's house and gives him one final, encouraging smile before biking away. Eddie lets his bike drop to the ground and nervously walks up the steps to the front door.

He knocks on the door, waiting for one of his parents to open up. To his surprise, though, it's Richie that answers the door.

Shock is evident on his face. "What are you doing here?"

"Um, I..." He kicks himself for not spending any of his and Bev's walk preparing. "I wanted to talk to you. Please."

Richie's eyes look sad. "Oh. Okay, I guess." They stare at each other. "Um, do you want to come in?"

Eddie hates that they're at a point like this. Usually he is welcome to come and go at the Tozier's place as if he lived there himself. He steps inside, tentatively, automatically making his way to Richie's room.

He feels so weird. It's only been three days since they had last seen each other, but it felt more like three weeks. He's anxious and he see's that Richie is too by the way he keeps pushing his glasses up even though they're not falling down. Eddie's known that to be nervous tick of Richie's since they were just little kids.

Richie sits on his bed once they enter his room. "Are you looking for an inhaler?" He asks.

Eddie realizes that, while lost in his thoughts, he's unconsciously opened up Richie's bedside drawer and is rifling through it, looking for an inhaler that he knows isn't in there. He made Richie throw out the spare he kept in there the day that he decided he was done taking the fake medicine his mom gave him.

He closes the drawer quick, cheeks heating up. "Sorry. I don't know why I did that."

"It's okay. Not like I've got anything in there you haven't seen." Richie says because he's so nice to Eddie, even when he doesn't deserve it. They're both quiet. Eddie can't think of how to begin. Eventually, Richie's sighs. "I'm sorry." He says, his voice breaking even though he's trying to be strong.

"No," Eddie shakes his head and moves to sit next to him on the bed. "Don't be. I'm the one that's sorry. When you told me that, I was just..." He searches for the right word. He wasn't surprised, because deep down he knew that their relationship was more than platonic. "I guess I was just scared."

"Of me?" Richie asks.

"No! Fuck, Rich, not you. I don't-"

"I hate who I am." Richie interrupts, staring at the ground.

Eddie wants to fucking kill himself. "Richie..."

"I hate being so different." He glances up and makes eye contact for just a second. "I've known I was like this since the day I became your friend. The first time you called me an asshole I was just like, 'Yep I need this kid to love me.'" Richie takes a shaky breath before continuing. "All these years I've felt like it was so obvious. All the bathroom graffiti I've had to cover up about myself. All of the stupid ass mom jokes and the 'womanizer' persona I put on. It was so easy to see right through me. Right through my whole straight facade. You know the clown knew?"

Eddie feels a lump form in his throat as he shakes his head, thinking about how long Richie probably buried that fucked up secret.

"It like, teased me and shit. Brought up my irrational fear of truth or dare because I was scared someone would find out my secret."

Eddie thinks about Richie proudly picking dare throughout all their childhood games. How he would do the worst dares imaginable. He feels sick.

"I hate being this way, if I could change myself I would. Honest." He pushes his glasses up again. "I don't hate that it was you that I fell in love with, though."

Eddie exhales sharply. "Richie-"

"I know, it's weird, I'm sorry."

"No, I,"

"I've tried to stop. But I guess I really had myself fooled because I actually thought that maybe you liked me. We'd just been getting so close and Eddie I'm so fucking sorry I took advantage of that. I don't want to lose you as a friend."

Eddie bites his lip. "Richie, I like you too."

Richie snaps his head up at him, staring in surprise. "What?"

"I like you too." He repeats. "You weren't imagining anything. I really like you."

"Then...why would you..?"

Eddie could start crying all over again at how lost his voice sounds. "I liked how we are. You said you've known since we met but I really didn't even get a hint that I liked you until I was like, thirteen. And even then I tried to bury those feelings and only recently began coming to terms with them again. I was like, working through my feelings by making new moves with you and..." He falters. "Holy shit, I'm realizing how fucked up that sounds."

"It's okay."

"It's not. Not yet. My point is that I'm a fucking wimp. I'm scared and have been hiding from myself for years and you're so much braver than me. You always have been. You were just, ready to move on, and I...wasn't."

Richie continues staring, eyebrows furrowed.

"But I want to be. I like you. I'm sorry I called you weird. I mean, you are weird, but not because of this."

Richie laughs, a smile appearing on his lips for the first time. Eddie carefully threads their fingers together, eyeing Richie to ask, is this okay?

He nods, squeezing his hand.

"I was a major asshole."

"Kind of." Richie offers a half smile. "But I forgive you."

Of course he does. He's sweet like that.

"You know, I always felt like people saw through me, too." He thinks of the many hateful names he's been called. "I think my mom clocked in on me feeling...different, years before I did. She called me this name. I didn't know what it meant at the time. Then she arranged a play date with some little girl. Whenever she'd get mad at me or I'd spend too much time with the gang she'd tell me that I was the reason my dad didn't stay. That he knew I was a..." He can't say it, but he knows Richie knows. "I tried really hard to be normal." He looks over and smiles. "You don't make that easy, though. I saw right through me when I was around you."

"I never knew that, about your mom."

"What does she know?" Eddie mumbles. He managed to unlearn the trauma of the fake pills. He could unlearn the homophobia too.

"I love you, Eddie." Richie says, earnestly.

Eddie's heart swells. He doesn't want to say it back because he has never been sure what love is. He's not there yet, but he know's he will be one day. He wants to mean it when he says it.

He leans his head on Richie's shoulder, scooting closer. "I'm really sorry for everything I said."

"I know."

"You shouldn't hate who you are."

"Neither should you."

Neither of them believe the other. But Eddie supposes they will one day.