Chapter Text
Sunday is awesome, according to the Bible
‘Finally,’ is the first thought to enter Richie’s brain as he wakes up. ‘It’s Sunday’.
Richie has been excited about his birthday more than any other year this past week. This year, it means that he’ll finally see all of his lovers at the same time. He’s glad for the dates, which have all been incredibly fun and well-tailored to his interests, but spending time all together is what the Loser’s Club does best.
He gets up from the empty bed - he guesses Eddie wanted to regroup with the others before he himself got up - and takes a long, hot shower; it’s his day, dammit, and he’s going to enjoy himself as best as he can. The hot water leaves his skin tingling, and he washes his hair until it is squeaky clean. He uses Stan’s preferred brand of soap, and the smell of anise and dill makes him feel like summer barbecues are just around the corner.
He gets out of the shower, shaves, and picks a casual but still good-looking outfit. He doesn’t plan on leaving the house today, nor does he think the others would want to, Sunday being their usual ‘lazy day’, but he still wants to look good.
There’s no one in the kitchen or living room when he gets down, which Richie interprets as odd. It’s close to 9:30 AM, peak ‘having breakfast together’ time, and they generally make the most of that.
He grabs the cup of coffee he’s just brewed, and sets to find the others. He checks the upstairs room first, because Stan loves to snooze on the weekend, but there’s no one in any bedrooms, bathrooms or in the upstairs study.
He goes back downstairs, and makes a thorough investigation, to no avail. Before he can start to get actually worried, he hears the backdoor opening, and sees Mike and Stan coming in, the first with a large bakery box in his hand, the latter carrying a smaller and thinner one. They both smile at the sight of Richie, who himself is grinning, happy to see them again after a few days without them.
They greet each other, and Richie kisses them both enthusiastically, first Mike, who uses his free hand to caress his back while rolling Richie’s bottom lip with his teeth; then Stan, who had the foresight of putting down his load before pulling Richie flush to him, hands roaming freely while Richie’s sucking on his tongue.
They separate, all a little breathless, and Mike murmurs in Richie’s ear: “Happy birthday baby.”
“Happy birthday, Richard,” says Stan, who looks like he wants to get back to the festivities yesterday.
“And a happy non-birthday to you,” Richie says solemnly, to his sole amusement. Being a genius comedian sometimes meant having a sense of humour too advanced for the average person, and Richie had learnt to deal with it.
They put away the baked goods, all the while chatting about their day so far,
Stan explaining, clearly still sad not to have been able to sleep his fill, that Bill had been on a warpath this morning, and had gotten everyone to form pairs and get what they needed for today; Stan and Mike had been in charge of choosing the birthday treats, Bev and Eddie were tasked with bringing as much alcohol as their tiny bodies could carry home, and Bill had taken Ben with him to get him his present.
They settle into the living room, talking about their respective week - Stan and Mike, that is. Richie is waiting for everyone to get here before relating the events that have taken place with everyone.
Mike is in the middle of recounting an anecdote his stoner teacher decided to share with the class - something about trying to catch a fish in his mouth using pineapple as bait - when Eddie and Bev come through the backdoor. A few seconds later, Ben and Bill open the front door, both trying their hardest to hide the package they’ve got with them. Naturally, Richie has to be an asshole about it.
“Hello hot people. It’s an honour you’ve decided to come to my birthday party. Please, allow me to take your coats and this mysterious bag you’re holding so close to your chest.”
“Fuck off, Richie,” says Bill, while Ben hides the bag behind himself and looks at Richie in a menacing fashion. “We won’t hesitate to nuh-noogie you if you come closer, right Ben?”
“Let them in Tozier, before I sell your ass on Ebay,” interjects Stan, getting up from his seat in the living room. Richie turns to him.
“Only my ass? Make sure to put in ‘very used’ in the description, we don’t want false advertising for this baby,” Richie says, then slaps his own behind.
“Gross,” Eddie pipes up from the kitchen.
“Oh, don’t be disgusting, I was talking about sex.” A concert of groans answers him, the sweetest sound in the world. Right now, he can’t think of anything better to do for his birthday than making his lovers beg him to stop making jokes.
“Alright Richie!” Bev says as she comes into the hallway, a little too loudly for it not to be an attempt at covering up any bickering back and forth. “It’s your birthday, you pick what we’ll do today. What’ll be?”
Richie grins. “Well, first of all, I didn’t get to say hello to everyone here.” He goes to kiss Bill, Ben (he tries to steal the bag during their embrace, but Eddie grabs it and takes it upstairs), Bev, and Eddie once he comes back down.
“Secondly,” he continues, a little while later, “it’s still the middle of the morning, so how about a round of Cards Against Humanity to sharpen our minds?”
With no objections, they all gather in the living room, Richie ending up squeezed between Mike and Stan, who’s got Beverly on his lap. Eddie is at Mike’s left, and Bill and Ben are seated on the ground. Richie both admires their commitment to behaving like they’re still in their twenties, and dreads the sounds their knees will make when they get up.
Stan wins the first game, which is not a surprise, as he is the reigning champion of the household. Mike takes the second one home, and from then on the others desperately try their best to not fall behind.
Richie is trying to choose between ‘Getting your dick stuck inside a Chinese finger trap with another dick’ or ‘Warm, velvety muppet sex’ to answer the card ‘A romantic, candlelit dinner is incomplete without _’ when the doorbell rings, and Bill springs up - his knees making a terrible sound that makes Eddie and Richie wince - and goes to answer it. Richie can hear him talk to someone, and close the door after thanking them.
“Alright everyone, lunch’s hu-here!” shouts Bill from the kitchen.
They all pause their play. ‘No matter’, thinks Richie heading to the sink to wash his hands, ‘I'll win the next round anyway.’
“What are we having? I noticed you didn’t ask me for my opinion this time.”
Bill rolls his eyes. “Sushi. We didn’t hu-have to ask you, we know you.”
Richie laughs incredulously “How did you guess?” He’s had a craving for sushi for a couple of days now, and was planning on asking for it today.
Bill replies with a smile, “We had fish at the restaurant Friday night, and you always want sushi after eating cooked seafood.”
“I do?!” Richie says incredulously. Various sounds of confirmation follow, emitted by all of his partners. It’s endearing, really, to know that they’ve noticed something he hadn’t even known about himself; it happens often, but always warms his heart.
They eat their sushi (except for Eddie, who eats a cabbage salad instead) with great appetite, everyone laughing and talking at the same time. Bev is antagonising Bill, the worst cook of the house, about hers and Richie’s skill behind a kitchen counter, and Bill reminds her of that time she tried to cook a couscous and used polenta, making her splutter and blush.
After lunch, they finish their game of cards against humanity - Richie does win that one, thank you very much - and once again, Richie gets to choose their next activity. He picks monopoly, and immediately Mike, Ben and Eddie start calling bullshit and calling him old, while the rest of them - also known as the perpetual winners - look at each other, grinning, ready to become the worst board game players ever.
They spend the first part of the afternoon like that, playing board games together. If his partners are surprised by Richie’s choice in activities, they don’t show it, and gamely participate in all of them (even an arrowing game of Battle, in which Bev and Richie cheated so egregiously they both ended up with a full set of cards).
At around 4 PM, Bill gets up once again. Richie wonders why he’s the one taking care of everything, and figures it has to do with the fact that Bill’s feeling pretty bad lately, and that he’s always felt better when he was making a nice gesture for someone he loves.
Bill summons everyone to the kitchen, where they find the baked goods arranged on the island counter, and a wrapped gift Richie assumes was either wrapped by the business they bought it from or by Eddie earlier, because it’s way too neat to be Bill or Ben’s handiwork.
They start by the cake, as is tradition. Two candles, one representing a ‘4’ and the other a ‘9’ are stuck in it, already lit up. Richie stares forlornly at the numbers. His age doesn’t bother him usually, as his late forties have been very kind to him, but sometimes he is hit by a wave of regret for not having had his friends with him during his whole life.
He shakes that thought out. Their lives have been incredibly complicated and full of loss and pain, but they have each other now. No need to think of the what-ifs, he’s right where he’s supposed to be right now.
The others begin chanting the happy birthday song, and once they’re done, Richie blows out the candle.
“Did you make a wish?” asks Ben immediately. He loves little traditions like that, finds them endearing and fascinating.
“Yeah,” Richie says, smiling. It’s not true; he doesn’t believe in or put any weight in these traditions, and voicing a wish in his head freaks him out; but he wants Ben to be happy, and he doesn’t even have to pretend that much to do it.
They eat a slice of cake each (carrot cake, Richie’s favourite), then a slice of the rhubarb pie that was in the other box. They toast to his last year in his forties with some champagne, and after they're all done eating, Bill claps his hands together and says, “Alright, puh-puh-present time!”, and thrusts the wrapped box in Richie’s hands.
“Thank you!” Richie says while examining the gift. It’s pretty big, about 30 cm in width and 60 cm in height. He doesn’t know what it could be; he’d forgotten that his birthday was this close, and didn’t have time to drop subtle hints about a trip to Seattle. He starts ripping the paper apart, throwing it everywhere, curious to see what’s inside.
Hidden under the wrapping paper, he finds a very professional looking microphone set containing two microphones, which is a complete surprise to him. He turns to the others, hoping for an explanation.
“Thank you guys, this looks to be high quality stuff. Can I ask why though?”
Bill clears his throat, Ben and Bev touching his arms and shoulders seemingly for comfort.
“I thought that, guh-given both our rough passes with our work, we cuh-could unite our forces and work on a puh-puh-podcast together.” He produces a flock of paper from inside the cardigan he’s wearing with nervous looking hands. “I muh-made a project outline for you to look at. We both wu-work in the story-making buh-buh-business after all.”
Richie is completely flabbergasted. Bill hates speaking in public, has always avoided it when possible; this sounds like an enormous step for him. In addition, Richie is pretty surprised to hear his job as a comedian being compared to that of an actual published author.
“You want to make a podcast with me? This is the end then. I’m getting booted off of the mainstream channels. I’m following the footsteps of every conservative fuckwad who said something too stupid and had to take their business to the internet.”
“Come on Rich, that’s not the reason we offered you this,” interjects Beverly. “We just thought that, if you and Bill can’t manage to get pleasure out of your work, why not try something new?” She levels her calm eyes with Richie. “I don’t think either of you guys are going to get fired. This is just to find new inspiration, right Bill?”
Bill nods. “What she s-said.”
Richie looks down at the mic set again. This does sound like something he’d want to try. A low stake, easy going show could be a good way to try his chops on some scripted comedy again, with the help of Bill.
His spirits lifted, he grins. “That sounds super great. I can’t wait to see what kind of audience a podcast featuring a short-fused has-been and a stuttering horror author will bring in.”
“That sounds like something I’d wanna know more about,” says Stan, smiling.
“Yeah, but you're a freaky guy,” says Richie. No one contradicts him, which in his opinion says a lot about Stan.
“Alright,” says Eddie, clapping in his hands. Let’s put those bad boys and the project outline in the upstairs workshop, and we’ll deal with that later. For now, how about we celebrate your birthday properly?” He goes to the alcohol cabinet and pulls out two bottles, one of gin and one of vodka. “Let’s get this show on the road!”
After having carefully put away his present, Richie returns to the living-room and finds his glass already full. He downs it, and exclaims: “Let’s do some bottle truth or dare!”
“Woah, you are full of ideas today,” sniggers Bev.
“Nothing like those types of games to get to spend time with one another.”
“You sap!” teases Beverly, clearly still touched.
They drink and play for the rest of the afternoon, getting sloppier and sloppier, having an increasing amount of fun as the bottles’ levels decrease.
They end up, like often, in a big pile on the couch. The game has reverted to only truths, with the last person asked choosing the next participant. They share jokes and stuff they already know, not really trying to learn something new, just rehash old favourite anecdotes.
It’s not long until they’re hungry again, and Bev prepares her famous spaghetti, which they only eat when they get sloshed; the flavour is one that can only be appreciated when one is inebriated. They devour their servings, and finish the cake and pie, before experiencing a tiredness that means that the celebrations won’t continue into the night - which was the end goal, since most of them have work Monday morning.
They decide to use the big bed once again; when they’re drunk, adjusting their limbs is a challenge, and soon the whole thing devolves into an impromptu tickle fight.
They tire themselves out, Richie feeling like he’s floating and sinking into the ground at the same time, and find a way to position themselves to be able to fall asleep.
Richie knows that the alcohol is mostly responsible, but he’s feeling good about his future. Here he is, 49 years old, surrounded by the most incredible people that currently exist on planet Earth, and now he has projects for his future. No matter what happens at the studio tomorrow, he has this, and nothing in his life could ever compare.
His last thought as he falls asleep, driven to slumber by his lovers’ smell and body heat, is that love is what saved the day two times in their lives, when facing an actual creature from outer space that fed on suffering and disguised itself as their greatest fears; he’ll be damned if love can’t get him out of a simple misunderstanding at his job.
The room is silent, everyone is asleep; the Losers are exactly where they’re supposed to be.