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Chapter Text

Richie let out a tiny laugh at the meme on his phone and glanced up, hoping to find someone to share it with. Eddie liked tagging him in stupid teacher memes on Instagram, they never failed to make Richie laugh. Richie’s gaze landed on the only other teacher in the break room. He was one of the math teachers- Richie didn’t know his name off the top of his head. Richie crosses the room and plopped himself down in the chair next to his coworker and held out his phone. The math teacher glanced at the phone and the corner of his lips tugged up in a smile. 

“Yea,” he said in agreement. 

In a brilliant moment of association Richie opened his mouth to ask a question. 

“What’s your Instagram?”

“I don’t have one,”

“How do you get memes?” Richie asked incredulously. 

The math teacher shrugged. 

“My friend Bill sends some to me every once and a while,”

Richie blinked at him. 

“Ah Mr. Uris! There you are,”

Both teachers glanced up to see Miss Kay who worked the front desk. Richie pushed himself to his feet, shot his coworker one last bewildered expression, and headed out of the room. He had papers he needed to grade… or something. 

Instead of grading, however, he found himself trying to figure out a way to either get Mr. Uris an Instagram, or how to expose him to Good™️ memes. 

He needed to do some recon on the man. 

Recon took the form of Richie figuring out what room Mr. Uris was in (second floor of the main building, room 204- according to Miss Kay), and having a peek around the room. 

He figured he could get away with some math memes, but that was obvious. He wanted something better than obvious. 

Stan reached his room five minutes before the bell rang. He would have been earlier but traffic had been a nightmare, plus he had a hard time finding a parking spot. He already was tired of the day and wanted to go back home. 

He stepped into his classroom and immediately froze. 

“Can I help you?” Stan asked, catching sight of one of his coworkers meandering around his room.

Stan had had exactly one conversation with Mr. Tozier, and that had been the previous day over memes. It absolutely did not warrant a surprise visit to his room. 

“Just looking,”

“Mr. Tozier, what-”

“You like birds?” the Forensics teacher interrupted.

“Yes,” Stan stated, vaguely flustered about the relative stranger in his classroom. He really hated that he couldn’t remember Mr. Tozier’s first name, he was pretty sure it had been mentioned during in session. 

“Classes start soon,” Stan said.

The man glanced at him with a small smile on his face. He was tall, that was the first thing Stan really noticed, tall with wild brown curls and brown eyes behind a pair of thick glasses.

Before either man could say anything further, a few students started to trickle into the room. 

“Well thank you Mr. Uris,”

“Mr. Tozier,”

Stan watched him walk out of the room. He was still mildly concerned about the fact that he had been lurking around Stan’s room, but those worries had to take a backseat, it was time to teach.

By the end of the day Stan had all but forgotten about his very strange colleague.

Richie spent the evening finding math memes and bird memes. The papers he needed to grade could wait… for now at least. 

When he was satisfied with the amount of memes (about 27), he printed them out and put them in his work bag so he wouldn’t forget them. 

The next day he made sure to get to work extra early so he had time to tape the pictures to Mr. Uris’s door. 

When Stan got to his classroom, he found no less than 20 memes taped to his door, some about math and the rest about birds. Stan picked them off one by one, the smile on his face growing with each stupid meme. It was now glaringly obvious what Mr. Tozier had been doing in his room the day before. He hadn’t been subtle in his investigation. Stan plucked the last of the memes off his door and headed inside his classroom. He set the papers on his desk and got to work setting his lessons up for the day.

Stan didn’t get the chance to talk with Mr. Tozier about the memes until lunch. 

“Mr. Tozier,” Stan greeted.

“Mr. Uris,” the Forensics teacher greeted, still stirring the coffee in his mug.

“Those were very interesting memes you posted on my door,”

Mr. Tozier glanced up at him, small smile on his face.

“What memes?” he asked, and then for added effect he winked at Stan before walking out of the teachers lounge.

Stan watched him go with a small smile on his face. What the hell was that?

Chapter Text

Every morning when Stan reached his classroom, he found an abundance of memes taped to the door. He kept the ones he liked the most and stashed the least amusing ones in an envelope to return to Mr. Tozier at the end of the week. Just to be petty. The bird memes were always his favorites, he particularly like the style the birds were drawn in- and they were mild enough that he could pin them to the walls of his classroom. 

By the time Friday rolled around, Stan had a pretty sizable collection of less than satisfactory memes for his coworker. He traversed down to the office to leave his envelope in Mr. Tozier’s mail box. He noted that his coworkers first name started with an R, but that still didn’t help Stan remember what his full name was.

When Richie got to work on Monday morning, he stopped by his little mailbox and found an envelope. On one side in shockingly pristine writing that Richie was going to analyze the shit out of later, was:

I think you can do better.

“What?”

Richie opened the envelope to see some of the memes he had left on Mr. Uris’s door. He frowned and glanced at the words again.

“Oh,” he said intelligently.

Mr. Uris had given him back the memes he didn’t like. That meant Richie was going to have to step up his game. He flicked through the pile of rejects and noted that none of the bird memes were there, Mr. Uris liked them then. 

Richie got to his classroom and dropped all his things off in his room before heading up to Mr. Uris’s room- second floor of the main building. He didn’t have a lot of memes for that day, his weekend had been particularly busy with him grading all the stuff he’d been putting off for a few weeks. He taped the little pictures to the door and returned to his classroom before he got caught.

He didn’t get to analyze Mr. Uris’s handwriting until lunch. He completely tore open the envelope so he could properly see the backside of the writing. He could tell Mr. Uris didn’t use heavy pressure when writing, but without a better sample he couldn’t tell if his coworker used normal pressure or light pressure. Either way it indicated Mr. Uris prefered to be in calmer situations. Richie turned the paper over again to look at the writing, it was slanted slightly to the right- indicating confidence. Next, he pulled out a ruler to determine the baseline of the writing- it was an upward tilt which signified optimism. The letters themselves were small and close together which indicated Mr. Uris was more of an introvert.

Of course Richie knew a lot of handwriting analysis was up for interpretation but he felt pretty confident in his basic analysis of the writing. Maybe if he kept sending more bad memes he’d get more writing out his coworker. Before he could think too much on it the warning bell rang, signaling the final ten minutes of lunch. Richie tucked what was left of the envelope in a drawer and tossed the rejected memes in the trash.

The rest of the day slipped by quickly, Richie was out the door with his students. Monday’s, while awful, also played host to one of Richie’s favorite traditions.

Eddie and Richie almost always spent Monday evenings at the Clubhouse Bar, it was their own way to celebrate the worst day of the week being over. Eddie liked to vague about his patients and Richie liked to vague about his students’ parents. Parents were by far his least favorite part of teaching.

Their usual Monday night vauging session was interrupted by a voice over the loudspeaker announcing something about trivia. Loudspeaker or not it was still a little hard to hear.

“They do trivia?” Eddie asked excitedly.

“Calm down Eds, we need a group of four,” Richie said, straining to hear the instructions.

“Not my fucking name,” Eddie said dismissivley, looking around the bar.

“What about them?”

Richie craned his neck to see who Eddie was pointing to. He recognized them immediately from his work.

“I know them! Hey! Handsome!” Richie called out to his coworkers.

“Richie what the fuck?” Eddie hissed as the two walked over to them. The two reached their table, beers in hand.

“You know it’s Hanscom, right?”

“That’s what I said, Handsome,”

“Beep, fucking, beep,” Eddie hissed.

“Eddie these are my coworkers, Mike Hanlon from the library, and Ben Handsome- Hanscom- he teaches wood shop,” Richie introduced.

“Why’d you call us over?” Mike asked once they had all shaken hands.

“Eddie Spaghetti here wants to play trivia,” Richie said, clapping Eddie on the back.

“That’s not my name!”

“You want to team up?” Ben asked, a shy smile on his face.

“Hell yea!”

Mike and Ben pulled up chairs to the table and sat down with Richie and Eddie. 

“So, Eddie you don’t work at the school do you?” Mike asked.

“No, I’m a nurse, actually,” 

“How’d you meet?”

“Spaghetti and I have been friends since middle school,” Richie said.

“Spaghetti?”

Eddie shot Richie a fierce glare. Richie just cooed and pinched his friends’ cheek.

“Cute, cute, cute, Eds,”

“Stupid nicknames are part of the whole ‘friend’ thing,” Eddie said, swatting at Richie’s hands.

“My nicknames are amazing!” Richie exclaimed, faux hurt in his voice.

“Ignore him,” Eddie said to Mike and Ben.

Trivia took nearly an hour and a half. In that hour and a half the group learned a lot about each other. Mike, in addition to being a librarian, was very up to date with the state of the world, Ben had a degree in architecture and was good with music questions and history, Eddie had a damn near encyclopedic knowledge of germs, illnesses, vaccines, and cures- Eddie pretended it was because he was a very good nurse (he was) but he and Richie knew it was thanks to the late (and insane) Sonia Kaspbrak. Finally, Richie knew quite a lot about movie trivia, forensics, and comic books- of which Eddie liked to argue with him about.

In the end they didn’t win, but they didn’t completely bomb either. It had been a fun evening, especially when Ben had gotten very excited about an answer and almost yelled ‘haystack’ for the whole bar to hear.

“We should make this a weekly thing,” Mike said as they walked out of the bar.

“You got yourself a deal Mikey,”

“We’re going to have to think of a name,” Eddie said.

“We’ll spend the week brainstorming, Spaghetti, and hash it out next week. You coming back Haystack?” Richie asked.

Ben rolled his eyes.

“Tease me all you want, I got that question right. I’ll be there,” Ben told them.

“See you tomorrow!” Richie called with a wave as he and Eddie headed for Richie’s car.

Chapter Text

The week passed quickly for Richie. He had classes to teach, lessons to plan, students to email back, and all the while he kept up with taping stupid meme’s to his coworkers door. By the time the weekend arrived he didn’t want to do anything other than sleep, but he couldn’t even do that as he had to deal with parent emails. 

He really hated having to deal with parents. 

“What if I just didn’t respond to any more emails from parents?” Richie asked. 

“They’d email Steve and he’d bother you. Do you want Steve to bother you?” Eddie asked, not looking up from his phone. 

“No,”

“Answer the damn emails Rich,”

“Fine,” Richie said with a sigh.

“Not gonna make it polite though,” he added under his breath. 

“Rich,”

Richie pulled a face. 

“I can’t politely say ‘your child has a bad grade in my class because they don’t fucking turn in their homework’,”

Richie raised his voice to mimic the parent. 

“‘Well my child says they don’t remember being assigned any homework’,”

“Is that my fucking fault? No! I tell them at the beginning of each period to get their agenda out and write down the fucking homework, and before class ends I remind them that they have homework but god forbid this parents 17 year old ‘doesn’t remember’. Ok Karen,” Richie muttered, all the while typing up a polite response to the parents question.

“Whatever happened to parents who believed the teacher over the kid?” Richie muttered, squinting at his laptop to try and find any glaringly obvious errors in his email. 

Eddie shrugged. 

“If Maggie ever found out how much homework I didn’t turn in she would have killed me no matter what I said. But now? Parents who doubt teachers? It’s insane, Spagheds, fucking batshit,”

Richie sent off the email and promptly closed his laptop. Eddie had still not glanced up from his phone. 

“Fuck. I have to shower and go to bed,” Eddie said. 

“It’s 6,”

“I took the early shifts on Monday’s so I can make it to trivia,” Eddie replied. 

“Oh shit tomorrow is Monday,”

Richie leaned back against the couch, his head resting against the cushion. 

“Fuck!” he said loudly. 

“If you go to bed early then you’ll get more sleep,” Eddie told him. 

“Too logical. Fuck off,”

Eddie laughed. 

“See you tomorrow Rich,”

“Sweet dreams Eds,”

“Not my name!”

The next day Richie decided to go easy on his classes and show them an episode of CSI while he puttered around his classroom getting the rest of the week planned out. 

Before he knew it, it was time to go home and get ready for trivia night. Eddie was waiting for him when he go to their house. Richie was quick to change out of his teacher clothes and into his usual brand of Loud and obnoxious Hawaiian shirts. 

“Andale Eduardo! Let’s go!” Richie shouted as he all but ran out of the house. 

“Not my name,”

Richie drove them to the Clubhouse Bar, terrorizing Eddie with his driving skills and his taste in music. 

They reached the bar nearly 20 minutes before trivia was meant to start. 

“Do you see them- oh I forgot you’re five feet tall,” Richie joked, earning himself a solid punch to the arm. 

“I’m 5’8 you fucking asshole,”

“Oh! I see Haystack!”

Richie grabber Eddie’s arm and pulled him through the bar to get to the table where Ben and a woman with flaming red hair were seated. 

Richie and Eddie took two of the three available seats and before Ben could even begin introductions Richie was being an idiot. 

“Haystack! You brought Molly Ringwald!”

“What was that? Oscar the Grouch?” she shot back making Richie cackle. 

“Oh my god,” Eddie muttered as he dropped his head to his hands. 

“Rich, Eddie this is Beverly Marsh, my girlfriend. Hope it’s alright I invited her,”

“Are you good at trivia?” Richie asked. 

“The best,”

“We’ll see Miss Ringwald, we’ll see,” Richie said as he offered his hand out to her. 

“Richie Tozier. Mr. Oh-My-God over here is Eddie Spaghetti,”

“Eddie Kaspbrak,” Eddie managed, lifting his head from his hands. 

“Bev,” she said as she in turn shook Richie’s hand and then Eddie’s. 

“Where’s Mike?- I really need a nickname for him. I’ve got Haystack, Spaghetti, and now Molly Ringwald here and nothing for poor Mike,”

“Lucky him,”

Richie feigned hurt. 

“And what about you, Richie?” Bev asked. 

“Oscar the Grouch?” she teased. 

“Trashmouth,” Eddie said, causing the whole table to laugh. 

“Oh man it’s been a while since I’ve heard that one. I miss Big Bill. Where is he again?”

“England,”

“Bill is a writer friend of ours,” Eddie said. 

“What does he write?” Mike asked, appearing out of nowhere, expertly managing to carry five beers. 

Ben shot up to help him pass out the drinks. 

“How thoughtful Mikey,” Richie said. 

“Figured it was the least I could do considering I was late,” he said with a shrug. 

“Why don’t you buy me drinks, Spaghetti?” Richie asked. 

Eddie pointedly turned to Mike. 

“He writes horror,”

“His endings are shit though,” Richie added. 

Mike stared at them for a moment. 

“You know William Denbrough?”

“Unfortunately,” Richie said. 

Eddie jabbed him in the stomach with his elbow. 

“Next time he’s in town I’ll drag him out for trivia night,” Richie said. 

“Oh! I’m Mike Hanlon!”

“Bev Marsh,”

“The fashion designer?” Mike asked. 

“Yes,” Ben said proudly while Bev flushed. 

“Now that we’re all properly introduced, if we remember I gave us all some homework last week to think of a group name,” Richie started. 

“Anyone think of anything? No? No one? Alright-”

“Richie-”

“The Losers!” Richie announced, looking (and sounding) totally pleased with himself.

His idea was met with silence from the table.

“ Why would we call ourselves the Losers?” Mike asked.

“Because we didn’t win last time,”

“That doesn’t mean we’re fucking losers,” Eddie said.

Richie made a high pitched whine and shook his hand in a ‘so-so’ gesture.

“Doesn’t it though?” he asked.

“I like it,” Ben said.

Richie beamed at him.

“Hell yea Haystack!”

“Miss Ringwald?”

“Hell yea!”

Ben fondly rolled his eyes and shook his head. Eddie and Mike glanced at each other before Mike sighed in defeat.

“Fine, fine, we’re the Losers,”

Richie cackled.

“It’s too comic-book like. People will assume we’re just ripping it off from the comics,” Eddie said as he shook his head.

“Fine then spaghetti man, if not the Losers then what?” Richie demanded.

Eddie, who hated being put on the spot more than anything, glanced around the bar for something to help him.

“Club,” he said after a moment.

“What?”

“The Losers Club, a homage to the comic book idiots, and to this bar,” he said.

“I think that’s the first good idea you’ve ever had,” Richie said.

Eddie flipped him off.

“The Losers Club,” Mike agreed, a small smile playing on his lips.

The Losers Club (or just the Losers to shorten it) did not win that round of trivia, but they did come in third which was a nice step up from the previous week. Bev was a nice addition to their little group, she knew the most eclectic mix of facts. 

“Same time next week?” Mike asked. 

“It’s a date Mikey-Moo,”

“Please tell me that’s not my nickname,”

“Nah. Haven’t found the right one yet so I have’ta try things out,” Richie said with a goofy smile. 

“See you next week!” Eddie called as they all separated. 

Richie drove them home and immediately went to his laptop to start printing out memes to tape on his coworkers door.

Chapter Text

Stan launched into an explanation of the math term he was teaching, pride fluttering in his chest as he saw nearly every student either paying attention or taking notes. 

“... any questions?” he finished. 

One hand rose in the air. Stan nodded at the student. 

“Why do you have so many memes on the wall?”

The question threw Stan through a loop. 

“I… like them?” 

“Do you print them out yourself?”

Instantly Stan thought of Mr. Tozier who had so faithfully been taping said memes to his door. 

“No,” Stan said slowly. 

“How do you get them?” another student asked. 

“I arrive every morning to find them taped to my door,”

The students looked at each other, murmurs started to pick up. Silently, Stan held up his hand and started to count backwards from five, by the time he got to one the class was silent. 

“Do you know who does it?” 

“Yes- and with that please open your books to page 78 and do the practice problems,” Stan said. 

That bought him about 15 minutes of silence before a student raised her hand. 

“Done?”

She shook her head. 

“Who does it? Is it another teacher? And why?” she asked. 

Stan could feel every single student pause their work and look at him. 

“Is that relevant to math?”

The student stared at him for a moment. 

“It’s like an equation we have to solve!” a different student said. 

“Yea!”

Shit , Stan thought eloquently. The students, for the most part, looked excited and interested in the concept. 

“If you think it’s an equation then solve it,” Stan said. 

“Draft up some kind of proof and email it to me,”

“And if you go around asking faculty or staff then that’s just like looking in the back of the book for answers which is generally frowned upon,” he added. 

“Now get back to work,”

Stan figured his students would forget about the little challenge after a few days at most. He was completely wrong. His students were still invested after two fucking weeks. High schoolers were so weird. He supposed he should be thankful that it was only the one period that knew about the challenge, but after two weeks he was a little tired of telling them how many memes were on his door that morning. He was also surprised that no one had given him a guess as to who was taping the little pictures to his door. He wondered if any of them would figure it out at all.

The period after his special little Challenge class was his free period. He intended to spend his free period with some kind of lesson prep. It was disrupted, however, by a rogue student making too much damn noise in the hallway. 

“Where are you supposed to be?” Stan demanded.

The student froze. Stan held out his hand and the student offered out his hall pass. The kid was supposed to be in biology, in the science building, not in the main building.

“You’re a long way from the science building,” Stan commented.

“Would you believe I got lost?”

Stan sighed.

“Let’s get you back,”

“Mr. Uris I can get back on my own,”

“Don’t want you to get lost again,” Stan said dryly.

Richie peeked into the communal science teacher area- right smack dab in the middle of the science building and easily accessible to all the science teachers- and caught sight of Mr. Uris. Richie glanced back at his class and determined they would be fine if he left the room for three seconds.

“Mr. Uris!”

The math teacher turned to him, looking surprised.

“Mr. Tozier- don’t you have a class?” he asked.

“They’re fine,” Richie said, waving away his colleagues concerns.

“What brings you down here?”

“Well a student-”

“Excellent! I could use your help,”

“My help?” Mr. Uris repeated.

“On Thursday, my students are doing handwriting analysis. I’m going to have them copy some bullshirt paragraph down in their normal handwriting, with me so far?”

“Yes- did you just say ‘bullshirt’?”

“How else am I supposed to say bad words? Anyway! Then I’m going to collect the original and have them rewrite the same words in a vastly different handwriting style, then I’m going to collect those,”

“I don’t see how you need my help,” Mr. Uris stated.

“I want to trick them. I’m going to randomly hand out the originals, and set out the different ones along the back table, what I would like you to do is write the words in your own handwriting so I can try and confuse at least one student who will be wondering why they can’t find the match,”

“But with different handwriting styles, how will-”

“Certain things will always remain the same. Students will almost constantly write certain letters the same way no matter how hard they try not to, this is how the students will determine which handwriting styles belong to one person,” Richie explained.

Mr. Uris stared at him for a moment before Richie saw a small smile light his face.

“Do you have a copy of the paragraph?” he asked.

Richie beamed.

“Be right back,”

He headed back into his classroom and was not surprised to see his students were still dutifully watching CSI. Richie liked to show episodes of the most ridiculous forensic tv show on earth every once and a while, to give himself and his students a well deserved break. Richie snagged a copy of the paragraph he was going to have his students write and returned to the communal space.

“Here,” he said, offering it to Mr. Uris.

“Thank you. I’ll have my paragraph ready by Thursday,” he said.

Richie grinned at him.

“Thank you mightily, Mr. Uris,” Richie said, slipping into his best Southern Belle Voice.

“What?” Mr. Uris asked, quizzical smile on his face.

Holy shit, he’s beautiful.

“I should get back to my class,” 

Richie shot him one last smile before he returned to his classroom. He sat down just in time for his students to groan at whatever stupid pun had been used for the end of the episode.

Chapter Text

Richie glanced up from the papers on his desk as the door to his classroom opened. It was too early for a student to be wandering into his room. 

“Mr. Uris,” he said softly, not able to think of a single reason why the math teacher would make the journey down to his classroom. 

Maybe he had hated one of the memes so much he had to come yell at Richie about it. Richie had put a few ridiculous ones about birds on his door, including one about birds controlling time. 

“My handwriting,” Mr. Uris said, for the first time Richie noticed the white paper in his hand. 

“Oh shirt,”

Mr. Uris looked down at his shirt, a confused expression on his face. 

“Excuse me?”

“It’s… from the Good Place,” Richie said lamely, he could feel his cheeks heating up. 

Mr. Uris just nodded and approached Richie’s desk. 

“Do you think birds control time?” he asked, setting the paper down. 

Richie bit back a smile. 

“That’s an outlandish theory. Pray tell, where did you hear it?”

Mr. Uris shot him a quizzical smile. Richie was really starting to like the sight of it. 

“Let me know how it goes,” Mr. Uris said, long fingers tapping the paper. 

“I’ll send you a list of students that were fooled by my brilliant plan,” Richie assured him. 

There was that fucking smile again. Richie couldn’t help but grin back. 

“I look forward to it,”

Then Mr. Uris was walking out of his room. Richie felt like a complete fucking idiot but he couldn’t stop smiling. 

The handwriting analysis trick went over pretty well. For the most part the student without a handwriting match was fairly quick to figure out that they had been tricked. It filled Richie’s heart with pride. 

When the day was over Richie stopped by Mr. Uris’s to let him know how the day went. 

Richie definitely had a tiny bit of a crush on Mr. Uris. 

The days continued to slip past and before Richie knew it, it was Sunday evening and he still had to print out some fucking memes for Mr. Uris’s door. 

“Richie why the fuck are you printing out memes?” Eddie asked, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“I have a friend at work who doesn’t have instagram, so I have to resort to desperate measures,” Richie replied.

“You can’t just text these to them?” Eddie demanded.

Richie blinked a few times.

“No,” he said at last.

“Unbelievable. You don’t even have their number do you?”

“Well that’s neither here nor there, Spaghetti-”

“Not my name. Why are half of these those bird memes? You know there’s a book for these, right?” 

“There’s a book?” Richie asked.

“You’re so fucking stupid,” Eddie hissed, once more pinching his nose.

Richie sat back on the couch, a thoughtful expression on his face.

“He does like the bird memes the best,”

“He?” Eddie egged.

Richie groaned and slunk further down in his seat.

“I’ve already given too much away,” he said dramatically.

“You’re lucky I have to go to work or I would press you about this,” Eddie warned, vanishing into his room to grab something.

“You can press me-”

“Beep, beep!” Eddie yelled causing Richie to descend into laughter.

Richie continued to print out memes, he was starting to add in some ridiculous ones about birds. His favorite was one about how birds controlled time because they were assholes. He hoped Mr. Uris would find it just as funny.

When he was finished with the meme work he moved onto actually inputting grades into his gradebook. 

Once had had updated the grades he put the memes in an envelope and put that envelope into his teacher bag. He really hoped Eddie wouldn’t give him too much shit over the meme things and having a crush. 

By the time Monday evening arrived, Richie had forgotten all about telling Eddie about his crush. Eddie, however, hadn’t forgotten at all.

“Richie’s got a crush,” Eddie announced the second he and Richie sat down at their usual table in the Clubhouse.

“On Eddie’s mom,”

The table collectively ignored Richie.

“Finally, some good gossip,” Bev said dramatically, turning her attention from Ben to Richie.

“Molly Ringwald I am appalled you think my affair with Mrs. K is more important than Ben Handsome,” Richie stated.

“She’s dead you fuckwad,” Eddie snapped, kicking Richie in his shins. The pain made Richie’s eyes water.

“Fuck Eddie what happened to ‘beep, beep’?” Richie whined.

“Gotta keep you on your toes, Rich,” Eddie said sweetly.

“All that condensed teenage rage made him strong,” Richie said to the table. It earned him a few laughs and a well placed punch from Eddie.

“So tell us about this crush,” Mike said, eyes alight.

“I was really hoping the Mrs. K thing was enough distraction,” Richie muttered.

“Not on your life!” Bev replied.

“So tell us about this crush,” she pressed.

Richie felt a familiar rush of panic as he tried to decide on how truthful he wanted to be. He definitely wasn’t going to mention the crush was on a colleague of his- he didn’t need Mike or Ben figuring it out- but maybe it was alright to admit his crush was on a guy. Mike, Ben, and Bev seemed nice enough, they didn’t give off any homophobic vibes.

Richie looked at Eddie for a second and he could easily see that Eddie was getting ready to butt in on Richie’s behalf.

“He’s um… he likes birds, and he’s got kind of a dry sarcastic humor,” Richie said.

“He?” Mike asked, his voice curious and gentle.

Richie gave a sharp nod.

“Can I ask what you identify as?”

“Bi,”

Mike grinned at that, broad and beautiful.

“Me too man,” he said.

All the tension immediately bled out of Richie, out of the corner of his eyes he could see it bleed out of Eddie as well.

“Me three!” Bev announced, a massive smile on her face. 

Out of sheer curiosity, Richie’s gaze drifted to Ben, the only one who hadn’t spontaneously outed himself. 

“Oh I’m straight,” Ben said with a small smile.

“Just like-”

Eddie slapped his hand over Richie’s mouth before he could finish his sentence.

“Don’t you dare ,” Eddie warned, removing his hand before Richie could do something disgusting like lick it.

“Eds!”

“No! You’re gonna make the joke then I’m gonna retaliate that that’s not going to look good,”

“Right I forgot you’re biphobic,” Richie agreed.

“I fucking hate you,” Eddie hissed, his cheeks going red.

“See?” Richie asked the table.

“Biphobia at it’s finest,”

Bev snickered.

“I’m going to assume you’re not really biphobic?” Mike asked, confused expression on his face.

“I’m ace. Richie and I like to make phobic jokes at each other but we both deeply respect each other’s orientations,” Eddie said.

Richie beamed and threw his arm over the back of Eddie’s chair.

“This little feral asshole needs to be physically restrained from going after biphobes,” he said.

Eddie ducked his head a little to hide the pink flush on his cheeks at the praise. 

“I’m not feral,” he said after a moment. 

Richie laughed loudly. 

“Oh Spagheds, you’re a little feral,”

“Excuse-”

“Eddie please, trivia is about to start,”

Eddie glared at him for a second before trivia started up. The Losers did as well as they could, with Mike pulling out some truly obscure book knowledge near the end, which prompted the following conversation:

(“Micycle why do you know that?”

“Oh well I was homeschooled-“

“You were what ?!”)

That conversation led Mike to get saddled with the nickname, Homeschool. Richie was very proud of it.

Chapter Text

Stan stared at his door skeptically, as he expected there was a mess of bird, math, and miscellaneous memes there as put by Mr. Tozier. The only difference was this time there was a QR code mixed in with the memes. Stan glanced down the hallway before pulling out his phone and downloading an app that would allow him to scan the QR code and figure out what the hell Mr. Tozier put on his door. While the app downloaded Stan pulled the other memes from his door, he really liked the obscure bird memes, particularly the ones about birds being government drones. Stan glanced down at his phone to find the app had finished downloading and installing so he tapped on it and held it up to the code on his door. A loading pinwheel appeared on his screen and a page popped up. Stan dropped his head to his hands the second he figured out what the code went to and laughed far too loudly for 7 am.

Richie was having a good day. His classes had all been very well behaved, he had given fantastic lectures about blood spatter analysis and he was really looking forward to spattering some red paint on poster paper for them to analyze next week. It was one of his favorite activities, mostly because it gave him the perfect excuse to teach outside. 

The more he thought about it, he’d had a nice couple of weeks. Trivia was going well with the other Losers, Ben and Mike were still blissfully unaware that Richie was harboring a ridiculous crush on one of their coworkers, and Thanksgiving break was coming up. He was looking forward to the rest and relaxation of having a whole fucking week off.

Of course after Thanksgiving break meant it was almost time for midterms and that meant he had to make sure he covered everything he was supposed to teach. He was fairly confident he had done that. It also meant he was going to get more emails from parents wondering why their students' grades was so low and if there was any extra credit. Richie really didn’t like that part.

Richie glanced at his phone and cussed. He had to meet Ben and Mike at the library so they could get to Richie’s before it was trivia time. He shoved papers into his bag and bolted out of his classroom, barely remembering to lock up his classroom.

“Mr. Tozier!”

Richie pulled his keys from the lock and turned to see Mr. Uris approaching him.

“Mr. Uris! To what do I owe this pleasure?” Richie asked.

“Did you Rick Roll me?” 

Richie stared at him for a moment before bursting out laughing. He had completely forgotten about the QR code.

“You always come at me with the strangest accusations, Mr. Uris. First it’s memes at your door, then asking if I believe birds control time, and now you’re accusing me of Rick Rolling you?” Richie teased, unable to keep a smile off his face.

“Unbelievable,” Mr. Uris said, but there was a stunning smile on his face.

Richie, who could have stayed in that moment for another hour, was jolted out his own fantasy by his phone buzzing in his pocket.

“As much as I love being falsely accused here, I have to head home,” Richie said.

“I just wanted to make sure I got the chance to falsely accuse you before you left,”

A surprised laugh tore out of Richie at that. In his pocket, his phone buzzed again. It wouldn’t be long until Ben or Mike called Eddie and then Richie would have to deal with Eddie blowing up his phone.

“I should get back to my room,”

“What’s your opinion on the moon?” Richie asked suddenly.

“It’s… up there?”

Richie just nodded. He could work in some fake moon memes, he’d been seeing a lot of those recently.

“You’re not going to start putting up memes about the moon landing being faked, are you?” Mr. Uris asked.

“Still slandering my good name I see- shirt my phone is blowing up. I really have to go. I’ll see you around Mr. Uris,”

Richie shot him one last smile before heading in the direction of the library. Mike and Ben were waiting for him.

“I thought we were going to have to call Eddie,” Mike teased.

“I don’t need Mr. Spaghetti blowing up my phone,” Richie replied.

“Anyway are you two ready to go?” he asked, causing both of them to roll their eyes.

“Let’s go Trashmouth,” Ben said fondly.

Richie drove them back to the house he shared with Eddie. They had started carpooling on Monday’s as Richie and Eddie lived closest to both the school and the Clubhouse Bar. Richie dropped his bag on the couch and headed into his room to change. He emerged minutes later in a loud Hawaiian shirt just as Eddie got home.

“Spagheds!”

Eddie smiled at Ben and Mike before flipped Richie off.

“He’s so rude,” Richie said as Eddie headed to his room to change.

“Stop calling me Spagheds and maybe I wouldn’t be so rude!” Eddie called back.

“He’s got you there,” Mike said.

Richie cackled in response.

“Bev got us a table,” Ben announced, tucking his phone into his pocket.

“Spaghetti let’s go! Miss Ringwald is waiting on us!”

“Fuck off Richie! I’m coming!”

Richie opened his mouth.

“BEEP BEEP!” Ben, Mike, and Eddie yelled.

“Fair,”

Eddie emerged from his room in a dark shirt and a well worn pair of jeans.

“Well, Eds-” Richie was cut off by a knock on the front door. 

All four of them turned to stare at the door before looking at each other, visible confusion on their faces.

“Bill isn’t back is he?” Eddie asked.

“No, he won’t be back until next year,” Richie said as he walked over to the door. He yanked it open and was unable to keep a shout of delight from escaping him.

“Georgie!”

He pulled his favorite young adult into a tight hug before ushering him into the house.

“Eddie it’s Georgie!”

“I can see that, Rich,” Eddie said before he hugged Georgie.

“Georgie this is Mike and Ben, they’re my coworkers, Homeschool, Haystack, this is Georgie Denbrough,” Richie introduced.

“Rich we’re going to be late,” Eddie said.

“Right. Georgie you’re coming with us to trivia,”

The five of them hurried out of the house. Ben and Mike headed to their respective cars while Eddie, Georgie, and Richie took Eddie’s car.

“What the fuck are you doing home? It’s not Thanksgiving yet,”

“There’s a lot of fires in the area, so a lot of classes got canceled for the week,” Georgie said with a shrug. 

“Oh shirt,”

Georgie shot him a look.

“I said what I said,”

“He can’t cuss at work so he’s using phrases from the Good Place to fix that,” Eddie said.

“Sounds like Richie,” Georgie agreed.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“It’s trivia night at a bar we like so Spaghetti and I formed ourselves a team and we’re pretty ok at it,” Richie told him.

Eddie pulled to a stop in the parking lot of the bar and the three got out of the car. They made their way into the bar and promptly found Ben, Mike, and Bev. 

“Georgie I’d like to formally introduce you to Molly Ringwald-” he was cut off by a swift kick to his shin by Miss Ringwald herself.

“I’m Bev,”

“Georgie is Bill’s little brother, we grew up with him,” Eddie said.

“Bill Denbrough? The author?”

“Tragically,” Georgie muttered, sending Richie into an absolute fit of laughter.

“I’ll go grab us some beers,” Richie said.

He was incredibly surprised when Georgie joined him at the bar.

“What are you doing?”

“You’re going to need help carrying all of them, plus I want one,” Georgie said with a grin.

“Are you 21?” Richie asked, trying to remember what year Georgie had been born in.

“Yes,”

Well that checked out.

“Alright,” Richie said with a shrug.

Richie ordered his friends their prefered beers and then Georgie ordered his and handed over his ID. The bartender seemed to accept it and handed it back to Georgie. Richie didn’t remember how old Georgie had turned on his last birthday, had he really missed his honorary little brother’s 21st birthday? Richie shook his head and paid for the beers. Georgie helped him carry them back to the table and pass them out.

“He’s 21?” Eddie asked quietly.

“I guess,” Richie said with a shrug.

Eddie frowned, scrunching up his nose as he sat back in his chair. Richie took a sip of his drink and pulled out his phone. He had a snapchat from Bill, he tapped on it and grinned at the sight of Bill’s tired face with the caption that read:

defeated writers block but it’s one am and I’m not done yet

Richie took a snap of Georgie mid drink and sent it off to Bill.

drinking with the boy since u cant haha loser

He set his phone down and less than three seconds later he got a reply from Bill. Richie grinned and opened it up to see a blurry photo.

RICHIE HE’S 20?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Richie almost spat out the beer in his mouth.

“Rich?”

“You little shit!” Richie coughed, swiping the beer from Georgie.

“Bill ratted me out didn’t he?”

“Of course he did, have you met your brother?”

“Unfortunately,” 

“Valiant attempt kid, I’ll give you that,” Richie said.

“Oh my god don’t praise him,”

“I have a brand to maintain, Eddie Spaghetti. I can’t just abandon it,” Richie replied.

“Brand?” Mike asked, clearly amused.

“I’m the cool older brother, Bill can scold him when he gets back to the states,” Richie said.

“You’ve never been cool a day in your life, Trashmouth,” Eddie said sweetly which sent the whole table into a fit of laughter.

Chapter Text

“Eddie! I need you to swing by the school after work,” Richie said the second Eddie answered.

“Why?”

“It’s blood spatter week! Need you to spatter some paint!”

On the other end of the line he heard Eddie sigh softly, but Richie could hear the smile in that sigh.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,”  Eddie said.

Richie beamed at that.

“I’ll ask Mike and Ben to help as well,” he said.

“Is that a good idea?”

“Probably,”

“Alright, see you later, Rich,”

“See ya soon spagheds,”

Richie ended the call and checked the time. He had just enough time to swing by the library and Ben’s classroom. He walked out of his classroom and headed for the library. Mike, unsurprisingly, was behind the librarian’s desk. 

“Mikey-boy!” Richie mock-whispered as he leaned over the desk.

“Yes Richie?”

“I need your help with something for my class,”

“Ok?”

“We’re doing blood spatter analysis and I need you to spatter red paint on some poster paper,” Richie said.

“I can do that, when do you need my help?”

“After school today would be best, I already got Eddie to agree,” Richie said.

“Alright, yea I’ll be there,”

“Great! I’ll ask Ben too,”

Mike nodded.

“I’ll swing by your room once I’m done,”

“Thanks Mikey, I owe you,” Richie said with a big grin, he pushed away from the desk and headed out of the library to walk to Ben’s classroom. The woodshop classroom was in the arts building which was across the quad from the library. He waved at the students who greeted him and finally reached Ben’s classroom.

“Haystack!” Richie yelled as he stepped into the room.

Ben glanced up from his computer, a small smile on his face.

“Hey Rich,”

“I need your help after school, can you swing by my classroom and spatter paint with me, Eddie, and Mike?” Richie asked.

“Sure! Sounds fun!”

Richie loved his friends.

“Thanks Haystack!”

Richie grinned as he headed back to his own room. He thought about inviting Mr. Uris to the paint spatter party, but there was the chance that Eddie, Mike, and Ben would figure out that Richie had a crush on a colleague and he would never hear the end of it. Maybe he could enlist Mr. Uris’s help in a few days, it might be fun, just the two of them and some paint.

The rest of the day passed quickly and before Richie knew it, Mike and Ben were walking into his room, ready to spatter some paint. While they waited for Eddie to arrive, Richie enlisted their help to get large sheets of poster paper and then talked them through the process of blood spatter, how high the paper should be, the arc of the curve, and how his students were supposed to calculate their height based on the spatter. 

“People can actually figure out height based on this?” Ben asked.

“He texts me every time his kids figure out my height,” Eddie said as he reached them. He was wearing his usual paint clothes, which included a pair of old paint stained jeans, and one of Richie’s sleep shirts. 

“Before we start I need to jot down your heights,” Richie said.

“6’4,” Mike said.

Richie wrote that down and glanced up at Ben.

“6’1,”

Richie was also 6’1 and Eddie was 5’8, after a quick consultation with his phone he wrote down their heights in meters. 1.9304 meters for Mike, 1.8542 for Ben and Richie, and 1.7272 for little Eddie Spaghetti.

“Why meters?” Mike asked.

“Longer than yard sticks,” Richie said with a shrug.

“I have the heights, the papers are set, I have them all numbered… Mike you’ll take one, Ben two, I’ll take three, and spagheds you have four,” Richie said, having them numbered by height would make things easier for him.

“Alright! Grab your paint brushes!”

The fact that the endeavor didn’t end in a paint fight was something that Richie was very proud of. He ended up with eight different paint spatter posters that he could use for his classes. It was more than Richie needed which meant he probably wouldn’t have to ask Mr. Uris for help.

“When are you going to do this?” Ben asked.

“Thursday. It’ll be a nice easy lesson before Thanksgiving break,” Richie said.

“Make sure you let us know how it goes,” 

Richie grinned at that.

“I will. Thanks for your help, I’ll buy the first round on Monday,” he said.

Ben and Mike were the first to leave, Eddie stayed long enough to help Richie clean the paint brushes off, then he too was gone with the promise to bring some take out home. Richie closed up the paint, and hauled it back to his little storage closet, he hoped it would last until the next time he needed to do some blood spatter. Once the paint was settled he carefully brought the large poster sheets in and set them on the back tables so they could dry. Once he was finished with that he locked up and headed home.

Chapter Text

Blood spatter analysis was always a good day for Richie. He had all his classes outside, and he barely had to teach at all. He just let the students do their work. Occasionally he was summoned to a group to tell them if they had the right height or not. He was able to spend the day outside, giving advice when needed, confirming heights, and texting his friends when a group managed to nail one of their heights. 

Once the last class of the day had left Richie was left with the task of cleaning up the papers and disposing of them properly. He knew it was probably a smarter idea to just reuse the paper for next year, but that meant finding space for it and Richie wasn’t about that life. Besides, helping Richie with the blood spatter was one of Eddie’s favorite activities.

“How’d it go?”

Richie almost jumped out of his skin at the sudden voice. He straightened and turned to see Mr. Uris.

“Mr. Uris! What brings you down to the science building?” Richie asked, a wide grin forming on his face.

Mr. Uris gestured to the paint splattered paper on the ground. 

“It looked fun,” 

“Were you watching?”

Mr. Uris seemed to go a little pink but he gestured up to the main building.

“I can see you from my window. I kept catching glimpses of you and your students throughout the day,” Mr. Uris explained.

Richie grinned at that.

“Blood spatter analysis,” Richie explained.

Mr. Uris helped him pick up the last of the papers while Richie explained to him what the students had done that day.

“Where are you doing with these?” Mr. Uris asked.

“Throwing them away?”

“Really?”

“I don’t want to make room for them and my friend likes helping me make them,” Richie told him.

“That’s nice,”

“Do you need help taking these to the dumpster?” Mr. Uris asked.

“Hm? Oh no. I’m going to drop these off on my way out,” Richie said without thinking. He mentally slapped himself in the face as he accepted the papers from his coworker.

“But thank you,” he added.

Mr. Uris smiled softly.

“I won’t keep you then,”

Richie wanted to say something smooth to get Mr. Uris to smile or maybe laugh, but of all things that Richie was, he certainly wasn’t smooth.

“Mr. Uris,” Richie said suddenly as the math teacher started to turn away.

“If I don’t see you tomorrow, I hope you have a good Thanksgiving break,” Richie said softly.

Mr. Uris had that soft, beautiful smile on his face as he nodded at Richie’s words.

“You too Mr. Tozier,”

Richie watched him go for just a moment before shaking his head, a painful smile on his face. He headed back to his room and set the blood spatter papers on his desk so he could gather up his things and shove them in his bag. He shouldered his bag, grabbed the blood spatter papers, and left his room. He managed to lock up without dropping anything and headed for the dumpsters so he could get rid of the papers. Once he’d finished that task he was on his way home to bother Eddie- and to do other things like eat dinner, print memes out for Mr. Uris, and grade papers. 

The next day Richie just showed a CSI episode for his classes, it was the last day before Thanksgiving break and he didn’t want to teach, he had a strong feeling his students didn’t want to learn either. By the end of the day he was more than ready to go home and enjoy his one week away from the school.

He spent most of the weekend doing nothing but catching up on tv, as there was little else to do while Eddie was working.

“Spagheds! Where have you been?” Richie asked when Eddie walked into the house. He was holding two bags and he wasn’t in his scrubs which was Richie’s first indicator that Eddie hadn’t been at work like Richie thought he was.

“Christmas shopping,” Eddie replied.

“Eddie it’s November,”

Eddie shot him a dry look.

“I like to be prepared, Richard,”

Richie eyed the bags in Eddie’s hand, his eyes lighting up.

“None of these are for you, calm down,” Eddie said.

Richie instantly deflated, a pout forming on his lips. Eddie just rolled his eyes and disappeared into his room to hide his gifts. Richie still had no idea where Eddie hid anything in his room. While Eddie was busy hiding things Richie let himself think about Christmas and who he was going to buy gifts for. The Losers were obvious, plus Bill and Georgie. Maybe he should get something for Mr. Uris- but that would have to be a Hanukkah gift. 

“Should I get-” Richie cut himself off, suddenly realizing that he couldn’t name Mr. Uris at all or Eddie would figure out he was a coworker and then he’d tell Mike and Ben.

“Should you get what, Rich?” Eddie called from the bowels of his room.

“That guy a present?” Richie finished, wincing as he referred to Mr. Uris as ‘that guy’. 

“The meme guy you like?”

“Yes,”

“Do you want to get him a gift?”

“Yes,”

“Then get him a fucking gift, why are you asking me about it?” Eddie demanded.

“Because I don’t know what to get him,” Richie whined.

“That’s not my problem,”

Richie groaned loudly, but dropped the issue. Or at least he did until Monday night trivia where he could enlist the help of the Losers.

“Alright lads I need your help,” Richie announced as he sat down at the table.

Eddie, already aware of what Richie wanted, just shook his head.

“What’s up Rich?” Ben asked.

“I would like to get… him… a gift,”

“You mean the guy you have a crush on,” Mike stated.

“I’m a grown ass adult Micycle! I don’t get crushes,” Richie said.

“Says the man with a crush,” Bev said.

“I refuse to be bullied,” Richie stated, causing Bev and Mike to laugh.

“Why do you want to give him a gift, Rich?”

“The holidays are coming up, I thought it’d be nice,” Richie said, hoping he didn’t look as flustered as he felt.

“He’s so cute,” Bev cooed.

Richie flipped her off.

“The last- and only- time you mentioned this crush-”

“Will you stop calling it that?” Richie pleaded.

“You said he liked birds-”

“Oh my god,” Bev said suddenly and snatched up her phone and swiped at it a few times, her nails making a cute little tapping noise on the screen.

“Birds?” she asked.

“Yea?”

“How does he feel about conspiracy theories?”

Richie hadn’t received any conspiracy theory memes back from Mr. Uris. 

“Favorably?”

She smirked and slid her phone across the table. Richie picked it up to see an instagram page called birdsarentreal. He scrolled through the pictures of wearable merchandise, a grin forming on his face.

“Bev I could kiss you,” he said as he handed the phone back to her.

“I’ll pay you money to not do that,” she responded.

Richie placed his hand over his heart in faux offense. Bev just smiled, batting her eyelashes at him as she did so.

There was some kind of garbled announcement and Richie set his phone in the middle of the table with a grin on his face. It was trivia time.

Chapter Text

Eddie watched as Richie wrapped the present. He was being uncharacteristically careful with it. The wrapping paper was white and it had little blue menorahs on it.

“So he’s Jewish,” Eddie stated.

“Clearly,”

That struck Eddie as odd. As far as he knew, no one in their circle was Jewish- not that they had a big circle. Originally it was just him, Richie, and Bill, and now they added Bev, Ben, and Mike. Eddie was fairly confident that Richie didn’t have a crush on any of them.

Come to think of it, Richie didn’t really do much besides go to work and go to trivia nights- although to be fair neither did Eddie. Considering that Eddie never saw Richie talk to anyone but the Losers at trivia, he was willing to bet that Richie met his crush at work.

That meant that Mike and Ben probably knew him. It would be all too easy to just text either of them about a Jewish bird-loving colleague- because honestly, how many of those could there be in a high school? But Eddie didn’t want to make it easy, he wanted to figure it out for himself, which meant he was going to have to alter his routine and stop by Richie’s work once he was done at the hospital. He couldn’t very well just show up out of the blue… but if he knew when Richie was going to deliver the gift he could simply roll up to Richie’s classroom and catch him in the act.

“So, when are you going to give that to him?” Eddie asked.

“Probably next Monday,” Richie said, his brow furrowing as he taped the wrapping down.

Trivia night, that was perfect. Eddie could show up and give Richie shit about staying at work too late on trivia night, it would give him the perfect excuse.

“Why?”

“To make sure you don’t procrastinate on this like you always do, Trashmouth,”

Richie just flipped him off. Eddie’s smart ass remark was cut off by a knock at the door.

“Eddie, the door,” Richie said.

“You’re closer,”

“I am in the middle of gifting, Spagheds, please,”

Eddie rolled his eyes and made his way to the door. He pulled it open to find Bill Denbrough on his front porch.

“You’re over a month early,” Eddie stated.

Bill grinned at him.

“Real fucking rude of you,” Eddie added as he hugged Bill tightly.

“Who’s at the door?” Richie yelled.

“Just some stray!”

“Is he cute?”

“No,”

Bill rolled his eyes and pushed past Eddie to walk into the house. As he closed the door he heard Richie’s loud ass voice.

“Big Bill! What the fuck are you doing here? I thought you fucked off to England till January!”

Richie and Bill were still hugging when Eddie reached the living room. 

“G-got bored,” Bill explained as they parted.

“Well you picked a great time to come back,” Eddie said with a sly grin.

“Spagheds,” Richie whined.

“What’d I m-m-miss?”

“Richie has a crush on some dude,”

Bill lit up like Christmas had come early.

“Oh?”

Richie grumbled and went back to the present he had oh so carefully been wrapping.

“He won’t tell us anything about him, just that he likes birds, and is Jewish apparently,” Eddie added, nodding at the present.

“Either that or he as the same stupid ass sense of humor that Richie does,”

“Is it roast Richie day or something?” Richie asked as he picked up a spool of blue ribbon.

“Isn’t it always?” Bill asked.

Richie glared up at him.

“Anyway, you d-deserve one for letting my b-brother d-rink,” Bill said.

“He was very convincing!” Richie defended.

Bill shot him a look. 

“The bartender didn’t notice it was a fake! Why the hell would I?”

“Maybe because you’ve been alive for Georgie’s entire life?” Eddie offered.

“Shut up spaghetti, you didn’t notice anything either,”

“Well I wasn’t the one buying him a beer,” 

Bill watched them bicker back and forth with a small smile on his face. He had been gone for nearly a whole year and absolutely nothing had changed between the two. He had no idea how they had gone so long without killing each other.

“So when d-do we g-get to meet him?” Bill asked, interrupting their little fight.

“Hm?” Richie asked as if he hadn’t heard Bill’s question.

“Richie won’t tell us anything,” Eddie said.

“Us? S-since when d-do you have other friends?” Bill demanded.

“Since Eds here wanted to start a trivia team at the Clubhouse bar, we now have a team consisting of two of my coworkers, Ben and Mike, and Ben’s girlfriend Bev,” Richie said.

He sat back on his knees to look at the present. 

“Now that you’re home you should join us. Mike is a librarian and he knows your work,” Richie added, eyeing the present critically.

“We go every Monday,” Eddie added.

“Maybe next week time, I s-still have some last m-minute ed-editing to take care of,” Bill said.

“We’re going to have the most kick ass team,” Richie said wistfully as he finally looked away from the present.

“A Forensics teacher, a nurse, a librarian, a woodshop teacher, a fashion designer, and now an author,”

“We’re like the breakfast club,” he added gleefully.

Eddie rolled his eyes.

“Next week is probably better anyway. It’s the first week of break and I’ll be able to get fucked up,”

“You’re not going to get fucked up at trivia, Richie,” Eddie said with a sigh.

“Is that a challenge?”

Bill grinned as once more the pair started to bicker.

Chapter Text

The weeks leading up to winter break were always just a little bit chaotic. Stan had to make sure he taught his classes everything they needed to know for the final, and his students had figured out that Mr. Tozier had been the one to put memes on his door. Stan didn’t know how they figured it out and frankly he didn’t want to know. He had just rolled up to class one morning and found five notes on his desk written by various students, and each note had Mr. Tozier’s name on it. Now that particular class brought Mr. Tozier up as often as they could, just to tease him. It was- quite frankly- ridiculous. 

Then, of course, Stan walked into his classroom on the last Monday before break, and saw a white and blue present on his desk. It plagued Stan’s entire day. 

“Mr. Uris?” one of his students asked.

Stan tore his gaze away from the present on his desk. The wrapping had little  menorahs on it and there was a blue bow on top. It had been there all day and Stan still couldn’t stop staring at it.

“So today we’re going to review last weeks lesson on derivatives,”

His eyes flashed to the present on the desk. He knew it was from Mr. Tozier, he was the only one who left Stan little surprises. 

“Sir, are we really going to talk about derivatives? It’s the last week before break,”

“Yea are derivatives going to be on the midterm?”

“Yes,”

There was a grumble from the class and Stan couldn’t help but grin. 

“Why don’t we review today, tomorrow, and take the midterm on Wednesday, and then we do absolutely nothing for Thursday and Friday?”

Stan closed his eyes and made a show out of pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“You know that’s what Mr. Tozier is going to do,”

His eyes popped open at the wave of giggles that followed that statement. They always found a way to bring up the Forensics teacher. 

“I heard Mr. Tozier is planning a party for Friday,” another student egged.

There it was again.

“Are we doing this? Is this happening right now?”

“I think it’s a really good idea,”

Stan sighed heavily.

“Fine. Fine. Elisa pass out the study guides. And now instead of my very generous original plan of giving you four days to study for our midterm, you now get two days to review a semester's worth of material,” Stan warned. 

The students (shockingly) didn’t seem all that bummed about the lack of study time. Stan offered the same thing to all his other classes, and unsurprisingly they all took the same deal, less study time for two days of nothing. 

The second the final bell rang, Stan collapsed in his chair and fingered the present on his desk. He had gone the whole day trying to not think about it. He carefully pulled off the bow and neatly unwrapped the present. It was a clothing box. Stan pulled the top off to see what looked like a nondescript white shirt. Odd for Mr. Tozier. He pulled the shirt out and immediately started laughing. On the chest there were the words Birds Aren’t Real in a black circle, and on the back was a large picture of a pigeon, and underneath were the words I Am A Lie . 

Stan shook his head and pushed himself to his feet and headed off to Mr. Tozier’s classroom. It was about a three minute walk from Stan’s classroom- second floor of the main building- to the Forensics classroom- first floor of the science building. 

He reached the class and pushed the door open to find Mr. Tozier himself talking with some of the senior students. 

“Ah! Mr. Uris, how nice of you to swing by,”

The students nudged each other, identical smirks on their faces. Stan didn’t like that at all. 

“Thanks Mr. Tozier,” one said. 

“Bye Mr. Uris,” the other said as they walked out of the room. Stan watched them go before he returned his attention back to the Forensics teacher. 

“That was a very interesting gift you left me,” he said. A smile lit Mr. Tozier’s face. 

“No idea what you’re talking about,”

“Right,” Stan agreed mockingly.

That earned him another grin. Stan watched him start to push papers into his bag. 

“Walk me out Mr. Uris?”

“Leaving so soon?” Stan asked.

“Well it’s game night- kind of. There’s a trivia thing at a bar and-“

“Richie! Let’s go! We don’t have time to fucking wait for you!”

A man in green scrubs stormed past Stan, pointing an accusatory finger at Mr. Tozier- Richie. 

“Eddie spaghetti as I live and breathe,” Richie said, notes of surprise coloring his voice. 

“Don’t call me that,”

“Eddie have you met my colleague?” Richie said, gesturing to Stan. 

The man, Eddie, turned around, surprise coloring his features. 

“I’m Eddie Kaspbrak,” he said, offering his hand out. 

“Stan Uris,” Stan replied as he shook Eddie’s hand. 

“Eddie, why don’t you gather Mike and Ben?” Richie said.

Eddie’s gaze was locked on the white shirt in Stan’s hand. 

“Nice shirt,” he said. 

“Eddie-“

“I’ll get Mike and Ben. Hurry the fuck up Trashmouth,” 

“Spaghetti could you not say bad words in my place of work? Do I come to the hospital and make a mess of things for you?” Richie asked. 

“All the time, Richie, what the fuck,” Eddie said and then promptly left the room. 

Richie just laughed and shook his head. 

“I don’t think I’ve heard anyone use your first name before,” Stan commented. 

Richie glanced up and beamed at him. 

“Penalty of working in a school, Staniel,”

“That’s definitely not my name,” Stan said. 

Richie winked at him. 

“Walk me out Stan the Man,”

Stan followed Richie out of the room. Richie was quick to lock up and pushed his keys in his pocket. 

“So my kids told me about your little party plan,” Stan commented as they started walking toward the front gate. 

Richie shot him a sly smile. 

“Did they?”

“And now, instead of having four whole days to study, they all want to have a party too,” he added. 

“Well I’m just stumped here Staniel, who woulda thunk?”

Stan rolled his eyes.

“Who all is on this trivia team?” Stan asked curiously because he knew Richie wouldn’t admit to sabotaging whatever plan Stan had for his classes. 

“Me, Eddie spaghetti, Mike Hanlon, Ben Hanscom and his girlfriend Bev Marsh,” Richie listed off. 

“She doesn’t work here, does she?” Stan asked, not being able to pinpoint why the name sounded so familiar. 

“Nah. She’s a fashion designer,” Richie said. 

“So your trivia team consists of a forensics teacher, a nurse, a librarian, a woodshop teacher, and a fashion designer?”

“Eclectic, right?” Richie asked with a grin. 

“Very,”

“We could use a math teacher if you’re interested,” Richie offered, brown gaze bright behind his thick glasses. 

“I have papers…”

Richie shrugged. 

“Open invite Stan the Man. We meet up every Monday at about six in the Clubhouse Bar,”

Richie caught sight of something past Stan and lit up. Stan turned around to see Eddie, Mike, and Ben. 

“Stan, right?” Mike asked with a wide smile. 

“Hi, yea,”

“Are you joining us for trivia night?” Ben asked, his gaze lingering on the shirt in Stan’s arms. What was up with that? What was so fascinating with the shirt?

“Oh I can’t,” Stan said apologetically.

“Maybe next time then?”

“Maybe,” Stan agreed. 

“Well I’ll see you tomorrow then Mr. Uris,” 

Stan just gave a small wave and watched the four of them walk away. He glanced down at the shirt in his hand and smiled softly. He returned back to his classroom and packed up his things so he could go home and grade papers.

Chapter Text

“So that was him, huh?” Eddie asked, a mischievous smile on his face. 

“I’m sorry who?” Richie asked. 

“Stan’s nice, Rich,” Ben said, nudging him gently.

“Is he? I only met him today,”

“He was holding the shirt Rich,” Mike said, clapping him on the shoulder.

“Well look at that! We have just enough time to get to the house, drop off our stuff and let spagheds here change before we go to the bar!” Richie announced.

Thankfully his friends dropped the subject of Stan- or at least they did up until they got to the bar and found Bev waiting for them. 

“Richie’s crush is on a colleague!” Mike said gleefully. 

“Micycle,” Richie whined as Bev cackled. 

“Who?”

“Math teacher named Stan,”

“How did you find out?” she asked. 

“He was holding the shirt we helped Richie find,”

“What does he look like?” she asked. 

“He’s… he’s hot, Bev,” Mike said honestly as he fished his phone out of his pocket. 

Bev looked at Eddie and Ben who both nodded in confirmation. 

“Damn,” she said quietly. 

“Here,”

Mike offered her his phone and she took it, a low whistle escaping her. 

“Damn Richie,” she said. 

“Why do you have a picture of Stan on your phone?” Ben asked. 

“He wanted to check out a book about birds and the system was down, so I took a picture of him holding the book so I wouldn’t forget he had it,”

Fuck that was so cute.

“I guess that’s why you never told us his name,” Bev commented.

Richie did not mention that up until that afternoon he didn’t know Mr. Uris’s first name. He was just smart enough to know that his friends would never let him live it down. 

“Eds,” Richie said slowly, his brow furrowing. 

“You knew he was a colleague,” he said before Eddie could say something stupid like “not my name”. 

“Yes,” Eddie agreed. 

“You didn’t say anything!”

“I wanted to try and figure it out by myself! I saw him put the present in his bag this morning so I stopped by the school,” Eddie said with a shrug.

“Wait, Eddie you went to his work?” Bev asked.

“Under the guise that he didn’t want me to make us late for trivia,” Richie said.

“Sneaky, Eddie,”

“I can’t wait to tell Bill when we see him next,”

“Fuck,”

“Is he in town?” Mike asked curiously.

“He came back yesterday, said he’d join us for trivia next week,” Richie said.

“And what about your crush?” Bev asked. 

“Will you stop-?”

“He had papers to grade, but we got a ‘maybe’ for next week,” Mike said. 

“Oh I can’t wait,”

Richie rubbed his forehead. They were going to be so embarrassing. Maybe he should get new friends, normal ones that wouldn’t make fun of him. 

He could totally do that in a week. 

“Quiet over there, Trashmouth,”

“Thinking about how I’m going to get some new friends who won’t embarrass me,” 

They snorted. 

Trivia ended with the Losers in fourth place which truly was a devastating blow for the Loser’s. 

“We’ll get them next time,” Ben said. 

“Hell yea, Haystack,”

The rest of the week before winter break found Richie spending the days going over a semester's worth of material with his classes, giving them a midterm, and on that last day he wore a Santa hat and read all his classes How the Grinch Stole Christmas . 

The only homework he gave his classes was for the students to send him a picture of their favorite Pokémon.

He gave the assignment every year and still some students sent pictures of digimons and on one memorable occasion, a neopet. 

There was a knock on his door and Richie looked up to see Stan. 

“What brings you all the way down to my humble classroom?” Richie asked with a grin. 

The math teacher held up a small gift bag. 

“Merry Christmas,”

He set the red and green bag on the table and Richie eagerly tore out the tissue paper and pulled out a white coffee mug. He turned it around in his hands to read the words. 

“Ya basic-“ he snorted. 

“It’s a human insult. It’s devastating. You are devastated right now,”

He held the mug tightly and grinned at the math teacher. 

“That’s the right show?”

“The Good Place, yea. I love it. Thank you,” Richie said softly. 

Stan beamed at him. 

Richie gently set the mug back in the bag and slung his teacher bag over his shoulder. 

“Walk me out?”

“Sure,”

Richie grabbed the bag and the two walked out of his classroom. They talked quietly about their classes as they headed to the teacher parking lot. 

“Um, listen. If you’re not doing anything on Monday, you should come to trivia,” Richie offered as they slowed to a stop at the curb. 

“I’ll think about it,” Stan said. 

“We’ll save a seat for you,” Richie murmured, a grin on his face. 

Stan just nodded and waved goodbye to them. Maybe he should join them at trivia. He didn’t really have anything to do that night. Bill was in town but he was with other friends. By the time he got home he officially made up his mind to go to trivia. The weekend was admittedly a little too long in his opinion, but before he knew it, it was Monday and time to go to trivia. He pulled on a nice pair of jeans and the bird shirt Richie got him. 

It seemed to take him no time at all to get to the bar. From there he headed to the bar to order himself a water. 

At the Loser’s table, Bev was the first to notice Stan. She didn’t recognize him by face, but by the shirt he was wearing. 

“Ben,”

She nudged her boyfriend and nodded in the direction of Stan. Ben lit up immediately. He stood and wove through the crowd to get to Stan. 

“Where’d Haystack go?” Richie asked. 

“Bar,” Bev said. 

She glanced at their table, there was an empty seat between her and Eddie, then it was Richie, Bill, Mike, and then Ben. 

“Eddie,” she hissed, careful not to disturb the table. She didn’t want Richie figuring anything out. 

“What?”

Bev beconned him to her. He shook his head as he moved from his seat to the empty one next to her. 

“Stan’s here,” she said quietly. 

Eddie completely lit up. 

“I’m gonna tease him so hard,” he said as he pulled his beer toward himself. 

“Cute,” Bev said. 

“Hey! Look who I found at the bar!” Ben said, a huge smile on his face as Stan appeared. 

“Stan!” Richie sounded delighted. 

“Stan?” Bill asked. 

“Bill?”

“W-hat are you d-doing here?” Bill asked as he stood to hug Stan. 

“I thought I’d take Richie up on his open invite for trivia night,” Stan explained. 

Richie actually seemed to go a little pink but he recovered quickly. 

“Well then take a seat Stan the Man,” he said, throwing his arm over the chair Eddie had just vacated. 

Stan picked his way around the table and sat in the seat next to Richie. 

“So how do you and Bill know each other?” Mike asked. 

“We had an English class together in college,” Stan explained. 

“Were his endings always terrible?” Richie asked. 

“R-rich,” Bill muttered. 

Stan shrugged and waved his hand in a ‘so-so’ gesture. 

“Since no one else is going to do it- I’m Beverly Marsh,” Bev said, offering her hand out to Stan. 

“Oh! Stanley Uris,” Stan said as he shook her hand. 

“Sorry Ms. Ringwald, he knew everyone else I just assumed he met you too,” Richie said. 

Bev stuck her tongue out at him like the mature adult she was. Richie, who was also a mature adult, stuck his tongue out right back at her. 

“Children,” Eddie muttered.

“What time does trivia start?” Stan asked curiously. 

“Ten minutes?”

“I’m going to get a drink. Can I get anyone anything?”

His kind offer was met with a chorus of ‘no thank you’s’ and then he was off. 

“Eddie why don’t you offer to buy me things?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Eddie said without missing a beat. 

“Biphobia,”

Eddie ignored him. 

“Bill,” Eddie said in a way that spelt trouble for poor Big Bill. 

“Y-yea?”

“When we fucking mentioned that Richie’s crush loved birds and was Jewish why the fuck did you not mention Stan?”

Bill stared at him with big blue eyes that nearly always got him out of trouble. 

“I thought R-richie was t-talking about a different b-bird loving Jewish man,”

“Holy shit,” 

And then. 

“W-wait. You l-like Stan?”

Bev cackled which in turn caused the rest of the table to laugh. 

“Oh Big Bill,” Richie said fondly as he tugged his friend down to kiss the top of his head. 

“Never change,”

Stan returned to the table with a full pint of beer and all too soon trivia started. 

The Losers placed second.

Chapter Text

Richie was hoping against hope that his friends wouldn’t tease him about Stan. He was wrong. Hilariously and immediately wrong. 

“Richie, he’s so sweet!” Bev cooed. 

Richie was thankful that Stan was already driving away in his car and therefore couldn’t possibly be privy to the teasing. 

“Who?” he asked, feigning ignorance. 

Bev just rolled her eyes, a small smile on her face. 

“Same time next week?” Richie asked as he meandered toward his car. 

“Yea, yea, trashmouth,” 

Goodbyes were exchanged and Richie and Eddie climbed into Richie’s car. For the first minute the ride was silent. 

“So-“ Eddie started. 

“I don’t even know if he likes guys,” Richie blurted out, anxiety forming a pit in his stomach as he thought about the mere idea of his damnable crush being unrequited. 

“I don’t even know how to ask. I mean I probably should have checked- and I told you all about him. I’ll never recover if he isn’t- fuck Mike and Ben know. I’ll never live down the mortification of having a crush on a straight man-“

“Richie,” Eddie interrupted. 

“I got my hopes up too high-“

“Rich,”

Richie fell silent, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. 

“I don’t think he would have come tonight, wearing the shirt you bought him, if he didn’t maybe like you too,”

Maybe.

“Maybe,” Richie echoed. 

“And,” Eddie added, his voice intense, like he really wanted to drive his point home. 

“He got you that Good Place mug,”

Aaaand Richie had no idea where Eddie was going with his point. 

“… and?”

“And, I doubt you spend your whole day talking about that show, which means he remembered you like it,”

That… maybe- maybe Eddie had a point there. 

“Ok,” he said quietly. 

“Thanks Eds,”

“Not my name,”

The first week of break seemed to fly by. Christmas Day found Eddie and Richie with Bill and Georgie, opening gifts and watching as many Christmas movies as they physically could. 

In what seemed like no time at all it was trivia once again. A highlight of break, and definitely not because Stan showed up and voluntarily took the seat next to Richie and not the one next to Bill. Richie tried very hard not to read too much into his seating choice. 

“Ready for next week?” Stan asked quietly as the rest of their table chatted amongst themselves. 

“I’ve got a CSI episode all ready to go,” Richie said with a grin. 

“Is that all your class is?”

Richie huffed out a laugh. 

“Of course it is. Just don’t tell admin,” he stage whispered. 

“Oh of course not,” Stan agreed with a wink. 

Richie’s brain short circuited. 

“You uh- going to show a video as well? Give the poor kids a break for their first day back?”

“Yea, because I have so many options for videos,” Stan replied, sarcasm thick in his voice. 

“Bill Nye,” Richie said. 

“… I teach math…?”

“Doesn’t matter. They fucking love Bill Nye,”

“Language,” Stan warned, a beautiful teasing smile on his face. 

Oh Richie was so fucked. 

“You’re right, Staniel. They forking love Bill Nye,”

Stan laughed. 

“Wait, are you guys doing Bill Nye too?” Ben asked from the other side of the table. 

“Nah. He’s not my type,” Richie said without thinking. 

Bev choked on her beer and Stan only laughed harder. Richie rubbed the back of his neck and took a sip of his beer, feeling very flustered. He had sort of come out- but also sort of hadn’t. Stan didn’t say anything phobic- but that could just mean he was an ally. 

Before anything further could be said, the announcer started up the trivia contest, and from then the only thing discussed at the table were potential answers as they tried like hell to win. 

They did not.