There were, Max decided as he blinked furiously against sprays of blood, entirely too many fluids happening tonight.
WHAT: Battling monsters! WHERE: Outside of Galahd, then to Skyhold. WHEN: Tonight~ WARNINGS: Gore. Richie hitting a Revenant with his car. Smooching. STATUS:Complete!
Max Trevelyan wasn’t part of the DOA, and he hadn’t been in combat for more than a month, but that didn’t mean that a solid three years of fighting and warfare and trauma had vanished from the recesses of his brain. No, sadly, it was practically instinct - he heard screaming down the street, and his cup of mocha-caramel-something-or-other went flying into the nearby rubbish bin and off he want, staff out and ready to party (and not a fun kind of party, unless you were creepy). It wasn’t difficult to see what the issue was - monsters like nothing he’d seen were prowling the edges of town, like floating eyes and stinking undead and other unidentifiable creatures, all of which looked irritated and none of which looked like anything that would appreciate attempts with diplomacy.
Someone coming out of the Galahd pub was just about to get eaten before Max tossed a Disruption Field near them, slowing down the creature hovering just above. It wasn’t enough to save them, but it was enough for them to duck and roll, a suggestion Max handily made at maximum volume: “Duck.”
And in a flash, he was in the center of combat, shooting off the spells that he had enough focus for. Most mages stuck to the far end of the battlefield where he was from, but Knight-Enchanters were different - they baited attacks from middle and close-range that gave them enough magical focus to utilize a magical Spirit Blade. Max, who had never seen a problem that he didn’t want to take responsibility for and add to his shoulders, was a natural for the training. It was only now that he was close enough that he realized that he had leapt in to save none other than his new friend Richie Tozier, and the thought was enough to make him exclaim cheerily, “oh, hello!” before dissolving into a Fade Cloak and disappearing into invulnerability.
Holy shit.
Richie was just getting off a shift, really - he’d been slinging drinks all night, studying the clientele, asking perpetual questions like ‘who the fuck asked for Sex on the Beach at a bar?’ Because ordering a deceptively sweet drink like that screamed 'I only just became old enough to do this and I'm really scared.' It may not have been as bad as ordering a Blue Hawaiian - that one contained pineapple juice, which wasn't on regular rotation at a bar so the idea of teeny, tiny cans of juice kept in the basement, going into the stomach, wasn't great - but it was still eeeeugh.
So yeah, it was a lot of that and chatting up customers and it helped, because he was a people person anyway - he liked talking, and he liked not thinking about the loneliness within him (he was the only planet in a universe full of stars), and a job at a bar helped with all of that. Performing did too, but he wasn’t on for that tonight.
Instead he was on for - walking outside, jangling his car keys, only to hear someone yell at him to duck. Which he did, covering his head, and he looked up enough to see - actually, he wasn’t sure what he was seeing, but a bunch of eyes attached to horrorshow tendrils and he was just not in the mood; all he had on him in the way of something to use as a weapon was his phone, which he chucked at the creature with a resounding ‘fuck off!’
And now he also had a smashed phone, so that was cool.
Wait. “Max??” He blinked bright blue eyes, pushing his glasses up to ensure he was seeing this correctly. “...what.”
Max, who in the time that Richie had destroyed his phone had emerged behind the monster for a solid lightning strike at the back of its head, gave an explanation: “We’re under attack,” he said in a pleasant voice despite everything (Max was good at keeping a conciliatory tone even under the direst of circumstances). “Don’t know what by - don’t much like them - oh, look out.”
A horrifying floating monster that looked just like an eye and dangling optic nerve was hovering nearby, clearly checking for an opening in the attack. Max tossed a spell upwards, but he had his hands full with the revenant. He was a great fighter, without a doubt, but he was used to fighting on a team with a warrior or perhaps a rogue or even another mage…
“Everything’s awful!” he concluded, followed rather nonsensically by: “I’d back up if you don’t like guts.” He drew another Fade Cloak around him, stepped forward directly inside the revenant, and then took it off. The revenant half-exploded with the force of the sudden intrusion, the remainder of it flying through the air and painting a nearby sale sign that had been positioned on the sidewalk.
The eye, deciding temporarily that it wanted none of that, gave a strange chittering noise and flew away. Max, who had certainly looked more elegant before being covered with guts, managed a little wave. “Hi. Let’s run.”
Well, if this wasn’t the most awkward boner Richie ever experienced - and, actually, no. This was officially the most awkward boner of his life. He had no idea what Max was doing, what with all the razzle dazzle, the showy things with his hand (that Richie presumed was magic), just that it looked like he was conducting the great gore orchestra - blood and body parts and braaaaaaains splattered everywhere. Despite his best efforts to back up, some did get on Richie but he’d been covered in worse, so it wasn’t like he minded. Much.
Max seemed to have received the brunt of the macabre painting anyway. Richie was not going to throw up, he was not -
“Hiiiiii,” he drawled, caught between being impressed and feeling his stomach churn like a dozen monkeys on speed were caught in a washing machine. “Running, yeah. Let’s - I have a car? We can run to my car because maybe we need a getaway vehicle?”
What the shit even were these things? He didn’t know. They were ugly and annoying, that was all. “This way - “ Running he was very familiar with. “Like - um. I don’t know how to do the explodey thing you did but that was really hot??” #yolo, they were gonna die, may as well let the truth bombs fly.
Max, who had been watching their three o’clock and their nine o’clock and--- he was trying to watch all the clocks, okay; not that he doubted Richie’s ability to figure out a way to survive a fight given his past, but he couldn’t imagine sarcasm being an adequate weapon against some of these beasts -- nearly tripped at Richie’s positive assessment of his own magical abilities. That would have been embarrassing. Luckily, he managed a strangled-sounding chuckle in response as they turned the corner toward the parking lot behind the pub where Richie kept his car.
“Don’t make me swoon. I think that’s the first time I’ve been hit on while having actual innards in my hair.” Oh no, a thought occurred to him now - “...I’ll pay for your car to be cleaned after this is through. Do you know the way to Skyhold? It’ll be fortified against these creatures.” He’d feel better when Richie was safe, and he very much doubted that the local apartments were as thick with enchantments as the castle.
The sleek, cherry-red Mustang had just shown up, very recently, in Vallo - it was Richie’s car from home and one of those frivolous purchases (his only frivolous purchase, really, unless you counted the million-dollar condo in LA that was artfully done up by a paid interior designer and yet sat sadly empty while he was touring), something he’d gifted himself with after he ‘made it big.’ The fact that it was about to be defiled by monster guts was kind of like ‘RIP’ but he’d deal with it.
“It’s cool,” he said hastily, climbing into the driver’s seat and turning the key in the ignition to let this baby purr. For two seconds, before he hit the gas and peeled the fuck out of the parking lot. “Shit happens - oh, and buckle up, okay?” Hey, safety first. Seatbelts were important. “To Skyhold. I know the way.”
There were roads that snaked this way and that, through the forest, connecting to the city - roads that laid over the earth, hugging the land beneath. Tree branches that looked black this time of night spiked into the sky, and he was pretty damn grateful for car headlights - he slowed up a little once those roads became less city asphalt and more naked dirt, since things were twisty. “Also like, I totally wasn’t hitting on you.” Don’t lie, Richie, it was unbecoming. “Unless you were into it, then I was hitting on you. But only if - Jesus!”
His nervous ramblings were halted when a thing seemingly materialized right in the path of the ‘Stang, nearly causing Richie to rip out of his skin - it was like what happened when a deer jumped in front of the car, you just had to roll with it because if you braked suddenly you would fuck up not only your car but your life. So he just sped up and plowed right into that sucker and thUmpThuMP there it went, probably denting his hood, the bones on its back definitely doing damage to the beautiful red paint job. “Is it dead??”
This was actually the first time Max had been inside an automobile. They were so foreign, and smelly, and sleek and strange, and no, he wasn’t intimidated by them, but he’d also managed to walk himself stupid all over Thedas. Old habits died hard. He barely took in the vehicle’s come-hither shade of red before stumbling inside, locating the ‘oh shit’ bar instantly (never let it be said that his instincts for survival were anything but air-tight). Gazing over the dashboard of the car, Max took a breath, let it out - he was really doing this, wasn’t he? Well, it was likely better than being eaten by monsters - when Richie’s admonishment to buckle up moved him to bat at the side of the door and find the seatbelt, mimicking Richie’s own gestures. Later, he’d question why he had trusted the other man so blindly, but for now, he did nothing but brace himself with his good arm, his legs straight out ahead of him.
The roar of the engine was really something. He could see why people liked cars, suddenly, as the vehicle tore ahead into a smooth jolt of tire-squealing speed. This was adrenaline of a different kind than he was used to, surely, but never let it be said that Max didn’t throw caution to the wind when the situation merited it. To Richie’s babbling about whether or not he’d been hitting on him, he managed a stray “mmhmm” and even a semi-questioning “mmm?” before the vision of skull and dried skin suddenly appeared, enrobed in moonlight and headlights, and he didn’t have much more time to shout anything at all before Richie was going faster, and then the creature was half-splattered across the front of the windshield and rolling up the top of the car, shards of cartilage and bone scissoring through the metal and upholstery. Max, who was a quietly religious man and rarely swore even when really shocked, would later refuse to acknowledge that he’d mange to let one spare “MAKER’S BALLS” fly as the thump of monster body rolled up over them and the world went silent, the sound of car revving the only thing that cut through the noise.
He turned to look at Richie with an expression that might have been either admiration or terror, depending upon one’s sense of optimism, his knuckles a stark white against the handlebar. “You’d better figure out if you were hitting on me fast, because if you were, you should know I have a terrible habit of winding up in bed with people I nearly die beside.”
“Oh - “
Sure, Richie maybe would have a cry about the fact that his car was two steps away from needing a replacement cardboard door (maybe not that bad, but the holes in the roof, the rips in the upholstery, and the dents on the hood weren’t exactly helping the aesthetic) but if there was a chance he could get super laid after this debacle, well.
Things were looking up?
He was definitely not doing proper 10 and 2 hand placement on the steering wheel, more like clutching for dear life as he drove, breathing harshly and attempting to calm himself so his heart quit doing this ‘stampeding buffalo’ sort of thing, beating against his ribcage. “In that case, I was definitely hitting on you. Because you’re like, the hottest guy I’ve ever seen.” Max was a ten, Richie was maybe a - uh. Richie was funny. He was really funny.
Skyhold loomed in the distance, and he’d have to leave the car up the road a ways, which meant probably running for dear life up to the entrance of the fortress. If he saw another one of those eyeball things he was going to pitch a bitch. “Okay, so I guess we just make a break for it?” he asked. “You’ve got...the explodey thing. I can arm myself.” He maybe had a tire iron in the back, or potentially an empty fast food bag. Hopefully the first.
Max was silently praying to whatever deity would listen that the drawbridge was down into the castle, or else things were likely to get even more exciting than they already were. Still, being in constant peril had left his ability to repartee intact even in the most upsetting situations, and he flashed Richie a fast grin as the car screeched to a halt, paved road became cobblestone became thin, perilous entryways into the heart of the ancient castle. “Thanks for the compliment; it’s all the guts.”
As soon as he opened the door, any hopes of them getting into the castle promptly deflated and died - there were at least three revenants lurking, their interest drawn by the gleam of the car’s headlights. Max drew a barrier around both of them, and checked his focus - the Spirit Blade was ready to go, which gave him some belief that they could get into Skyhold unscathed. He wasted no time, sending a savage blast of lightning to engulf the group of revenants and clocked Richie with his hip, unable to grab him with his spare arm because he didn’t have a spare arm with his staff out. “Let’s go. Don’t look back.” Because oh, of course, now there were even more monsters, and all of them looked simply eager to make their intimate acquaintance.
He did, in fact, have a tire iron in the back - in the trunk, actually, and Richie was eternally grateful that he had a spare two seconds to grab it to use as a weapon because there were just so many. So many and so much bullshit, it was like - this was registering as one of the most stressful nights he’d had in awhile, and here he thought he’d get to relax a little after crawling down into Pennywise’s literal shithole lair to murder that Eldritch horror but apparently not.
“Keeping my eyes forward and on your ass, Maxwell, let’s do this thing,” he said, gripping the tire iron tighter - lo and behold, the drawbridge to Skyhold was down, so all they had to do was make it across and not die. Simple. Piece of cake.
Off Richie went, and the lightning Max sizzled those ugly-ass things with provided a flash of a decent path - it lit up the graphite sky, a rip in the ink, and in that illumination Richie also saw the sheer number of eye things. They were swarming, swooping in, and he didn’t have any particular technique in mind - he just swung. “Who sent you??” he demanded of the monster, and he heard more than one or two satisfying squishes when he punctured eyeballs with iron; they were quick though, most of the time was spent dodging their assault. “Tell that sloppy bitch I’ll see him in Hell!”
God, were they there yet?
There were not, in fact, there yet.
The lightning spell combined with Richie’s vigorous swiping with the tire iron had helped them from being surrounded, but the castle was an uphill run at this point and it was just far enough away for Max’s nerves to begin firing. All they needed was exactly what they got - a massive revenant, somehow bigger than the others - definite basketball star in the making, that one - and it was positioned perfectly to slow them down enough where the group behind them started to catch up.
“Don’t stop banging them with that thing!” yelled Max, who had somehow managed to be blissfully unaware of ‘that’s what she said’ jokes, and knowing that the next few seconds were crucial, he decided now was time: time for the Spirit Blade. And so with a frown of concentration, he allowed the enormous magical sword materialize, lighting the black night with a soft green flow, and darted forward, jamming it impressively into the revenant’s hulking gut until it swung out the other end. There were, Max decided as he blinked furiously against sprays of blood, entirely too many fluids happening tonight.
But fine - it had given them an opening, and he turned to make certain Richie hadn’t been beaten to death gelatinously by pissed-off eyeball things. “NOW.”
Don’t worry, Max, Richie got this. Case in point: “That’s what she said!” Trashmouth Tozier added, helpfully, as he followed instructions to the letter and did not stop banging them with that thing. He was pretty sure he almost slipped in eyeball guts, and was covered in more than his fair share of fluids as well, but he wasn’t going to go out this way - either by eyeball tendril asphyxiation or by slipping and falling off the drawbridge to his rocky doom. Nope. None of those options were viable.
He took the opening through, for the rest of that uphill climb - across that stretch, right into the heart of the structure’s stone walls with its towers and powerful size. The front entrance doors were as heavy as they looked and he guessed that made sense since this was like, a fortress. Meant to keep people out. But he really wanted to be inside, was the problem.
Whatever. “Is there a secret knock to get in or something?” he asked, though this was essentially Max’s place so he doubted it.
Apparently, there was: “This is the Inquisitor; OPEN UP,” Max roared in a truly impressive display of breath support, with ‘and do it the fuck now’ being implied but not outrated stated. And lo and behold, it worked - the massive doors slowly began to creak open, just enough so that Max jammed himself through them and tugged Richie along.
The doors shut on one of the somethings, not that Max cared. He gave it a cursory glance riddled with “you fucked around and found out” energy before turning to Richie, gore and fluids shimmering wetly in the lantern-light making it all but impossible to tell the state of his cohort’s health.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, leaning forward to pat down his companion - they both looked a fright, he could hear a commotion brewing from somewhere within Skyhold as the castle’s inhabitants began to realize that something was yet again amiss in Vallo.
The tire iron hit the floor with a clank, and Richie was breathing like he’d just outrun a hoard of monsters and - oh. That was pretty much what happened, wasn’t it? He was still kind feeling the cartoon birds circling his head, processing what the fuck just happened - because one second he’d been walking to his car after a shift at the bar and the next there were monsters.
His eyes were a little wide behind the thick, smudged lenses of his glasses - though he leaned in too, hand grasping Max’s and it was like a ship doing a wreck on rocks. They just crashed together, everything splintering all at once (at least on Richie’s end) and he closed the distance between them, going for the WE’RE ALIVE kiss that he was sure would feel like eating fire -
But then he kind of jerked back suddenly (maybe he looked like he’d been electrocuted and their teeth clacked together, that was about as far as he got) because it was so dick move to kiss someone without asking if they wanted to do that, at least the first time? Wasn’t it?
“Uh - can I...” Can we smash our faces together, good sir? “....no, I’m not hurt.” Like he was probably going to die of embarrassment, but that was fine.
Max was more focused on making sure Richie wasn’t going to shake apart than he was on anything else, damn the creeping shadows and damn the slithering torchlight, but Richie rambling in his usual way went a long way toward reassuring him that they had managed to escape unscathed (save the car. Oh, the car. Max had no idea what the car had cost but he had a feeling it was the kind of car that deserved a solemn warrior’s funeral, judging by the noise Richie had made when it was gored).
Dimly he was aware of the sound of people approaching, of questions being shouted and the restless whinnies of the horses in the stables. It was only a matter of moments before they were here and surrounded by friends with good intentions and likely horror at the state of their blood-splattered clothing. Max was generally good at reading people - came with his old job - but he didn’t know Richie well enough to know if his sudden recoil was due to fear or rejection or something else.
But he didn’t yell ‘over here’ yet either, enjoying the moment of darkness and silence before gulping explanation would need to take over. Because while he didn’t know Richie well, he knew him well enough to hear him qualify and second-guess and self-deprecate nearly every impulse or observation that came out of his mouth - and so with his hand intertwined with Richie’s, Max leaned forward to place a kiss that was no less charged for its care on the only corner of Richie’s mouth that wasn’t plastered with… goo, because fuck it and also they’d survived.
Richie honestly couldn't remember the last time he kissed someone he - weirdly, actually liked. He second guessed himself with a lot of things, buried other aspects so deeply - he was a little lost, a little lonely, and plenty sad. Maybe a lot of comedians were, maybe he just fit the mold (though given everything he’d been through, he thought he had good reason). But when Max kissed him, it was just a little bit more of something that fed his stupid heart and soul, a healing jolt to the parts of him he'd always known were broken. He pressed his lips to the other man's, going for soft and sweet like red candy apples at the fair, a brand of wholesome sweet. It was maple sugar making shapes in the snow sort of sweet, that kind of heartwarming thing that had his stomach doing weird flip-flops, as he touched Max's cheek with his free hand (thumb stroking though more goo, but that was - who cared, really).
Then he swore he heard the sound of velcro ripping and a record scratching when they were, naturally, interrupted. By a fabulously dressed mage with grey eyes, staff slung across his back.
"Well, don't you two look like you just crawled out of the ass-end of a demon?" Dorian's nose wrinkled. "Maker, the smell."
Richie was kind of nose blind to it at this moment, but he - supposed that wasn't a wrong assessment. He definitely could use a shower (or a hose down, at the very least) and a change of clothes.
Max, who had been caught at kissing on several different occasions and once with the unimpressed mage in question, couldn’t disagree with Dorian’s assessment of their olfactory ambience. At this point, any shame he might’ve felt was long since gone. He pulled apart from Richie only technically, shooting him a small smile as warm as a hearth burning strong in a four-am homefire, before turning to Dorian, back to business.
“There are monsters,” he explained, “undead. And some strange… floating eye things.. They’re all about town. I think we’re in for another Vallo speciality, unfortunately.”
His stoic Inquisitor voice was somewhat ruined by his followup question: “Now for the love of Andraste please tell me you didn’t use up all the hot water again.”
“Lucky for you, I did not,” Dorian huffed - and what, he liked his long, luxurious baths perfumed with fragrant oils, who could blame him. But alright, what was this? More monsters? What a delight. Those creatures from Atreus’ homeworkd were still afoot, and Dorian wouldn’t get to spend the night reading in bed and feeding himself grapes. “Suppose I ought to check on those castle wards, then.” He turned to go. “Don’t get into too much trouble, Trevelyan.” Then, to Richie, he added, “...be careful, he tends to fall into bed with people he’s nearly died beside.”
Oh, yes. Super careful stuff going on over here.
Richie exhaled a puff of air that could have been a laugh, maybe a nervous one. “Do you mind if I stay over? Uh, ‘cause like. The thought of going back out there right now is sort of awful, but I mean. I can stay in the stables or...whatever.” Please don’t make him stay in the stables, Max.
Max gave Dorian a half-hearted glare of protest - really, what was the point, Dorian had known him as a lover and knew him better as a friend - before turning back to Richie, one eyebrow raised in confusion.
“What did you think I’d just turn you back out?” Max asked with a huff of laughter, and shook his head. “Absolutely not. You can stay inside the castle and eat off a plate like anyone else until it’s safe enough to venture out again. Unless feeding troughs are more your style,” he added, and linked his arm through Richie’s. “Now, come on. Let’s get cleaned up and I’ll show off my exhaustive collection of extremely fancy tapestries.”
Richie made his best attempt at a horse whinny, but it wasn’t all that great because a grin broke through a second later, one that crinkled his eyes at the corners and just made him squint with delight. “Tapestries,” he repeated. “Sounds cool. You really know how to show a guy a good time.”
The ‘cleaning up’ part was admittedly paramount, and once he was no longer doused with monster blood he’d ask to borrow someone’s phone or medieval writing journal to send a message to Enola and let her know he was okay and to stay put - the last thing he wanted was for her to leave the apartment, coming after him, if she didn’t know where he was.
Their arms were linked until Richie scooted his hand down, brushing over Max’s hand, fingers interlacing with his. Maybe holding hands was very teenage prom but he never got to really do it with anyone and it gave him more of those stomach flip-flops that were pure giddiness. “Thanks,” he added. “For like, saving my ass.” Getting eaten outside of the bar would probably have sucked. A lot.
Max, who had thrown himself in dire situations to defend any manner of people, up to and including lone druffalos who had accidentally wandered onto a field of battle, smiled. “It’s a good ass to save,” he said, because Richie had honestly set that one up perfectly, and he gave the other man’s fingers a squeeze. “I’m just glad I was nearby, and life provided you with some new fodder for your routine, rather than a burial plot.” He supposed it was a bit of a line, being all modest in the face of gratitude, but Max had never really figured out the tone he was supposed to take when it happened, and so he moved past it rather than linger:
“Now come on then. The washroom’s this way, thank you modern conveniences, and then let’s head to the kitchens for a ‘Thank the Maker; we didn’t die’ desperately unhealthy snack.”
A good ass to save, huh? Maybe Max said that to all the girls, but still, Richie blushed. “Oh, so it’s like - actually a shower?” he asked, sort of pleased over the thought of real running water and indoor plumbing - he’d been to Skyhold for the wedding but hadn’t really wandered around to check out what was what. “But yeah, following you. I’m up for cleanliness and for unhealthy snacks too.” When wasn’t he up for unhealthy snacks? You only lived once (probably) so there was no point in not celebrating those instances when you managed to avoid the swing of Death’s scythe by the skin of your teeth.
And more kissing. When they weren’t in danger of licking monster blood into the other person’s mouth, he was going for it. Because, God-Maker-Buddha help him, he had a crush and thought that maybe asking someone whom you wanted to make out with on a date was the proper thing to do and how did you date?
Well. Now was a good time to figure it out. “I mean, it kind of sounds like good date material but maybe like - also without the undercurrent of death and danger, if you want to...try one. After all this. I can come up with something.” Shit, was he supposed to say ‘courting’? What the fuck?
“From what I can tell, Hawke made several adjustments to Skyhold’s plumbing - which, thank the Maker she did. I can only assume some of them were made with magic.” Max certainly was not the sort to cling to the familiar; one lingering hot shower had been enough to make him go “yup, so much better than hauling water up the stairs to enchant”. It was a testament to how tired he was after casting the magic that he only half-heard Richie’s tip-toeing around asking him out on a date, and then when he did hear, it took him longer than was proper for him to realise that ‘date’ in this case meant something romantic and not a remark on the calendar, and then by the time he realised that they were already half up a stairwell lit by flaming torches and it had probably been a long enough silence to venture into uncomfortable territory.
He drew to a stop, because Skyhold’s private nooks, while plentiful, were rarely private for long, and Max wanted to do something he rarely did in his personal life and think something through. That lasted about 1.5 seconds - he’d managed to sort through adrenaline and fondness for just as long as it took for his gaze to land on the way that Richie’s glasses were smudged with blood and Maker-knew-what; he was squinting through them with an expression of intent and curiosity, and Max couldn’t help but respond in kind, wrinkling his nose as a very not-noble snort escaped his mouth. Was this ill-advised? Oh yeah. Did he particularly care? No. Richie had been one of the most fun parts of this whole Vallo adventure so far, and Max wanted to see how much more fun this tension could be with his full attention focused upon it. “I don’t know how you can see at all,” he remarked, indicating Richie’s glasses. “If you hadn’t just asked me out, I would’ve assumed you were holding my hand so that I could lead you.”
But he wasn’t cruel. Max leaned forward in the dim hallway, nodding against the side of the other man’s face. “But yes. Let’s see about this dating material.”
“They’ve been covered in grosser things, if you can believe it,” Richie snorted quietly, his free hand falling to rest on Max’s waist, holding him so neither of them went tumbling down the stairwell. But he was right about his glasses - dirt, muck, slime, Eddie’s blood. It had all been there.
Eddie’s blood was definitely the worst part, though. He thought about Eddie a lot, because he had meant so much to Richie. He'd been that first love, and the rush of it all was heady in a way that he struggled to put words to. And for years he lived not remembering Derry, looking for that missing thing that he'd had with Eddie (though he didn't know what it was, since he couldn't even remember Eddie himself, let alone how he'd felt). But it had been a childish love, a love bound up in friendship and them knowing everything about each other.
He - didn’t want that. He wanted something different. Wanted to actually know what it was like to go on a date with someone and not compare it to this thing he previously couldn’t remember.
“I’ve got plenty of dating material for you,” he added. “And now plenty of stand-up routine fodder too. How you blew up a monster is definitely going in there.” It was prime awkward boner reference material.
He grasped Max’s hand again. “But you’re tired and definitely need a snoozer after that shower, so let’s keep going.” Cleanliness and a sleep, that was going on the imaginary white board to-do list. The rest would fall into place.
It was a good line. A kind one, romantic in its restraint, and certainly truthful. Max smiled at Richie sweetly, and promptly ruined the moment:
“Just know that if you weren’t covered in fluids, I’d be on you like bells on a chantry.” He sighed, mourned the lost opportunity. “Let’s go.”