Stan | Richie
Richie had never worried about spiders, had never really had a moment in his life where any kind of bug had bested him, and after It-- well. He'd been a pretty ballsy kid when it came to some shit. And maybe he'd wanted to be cool, to impress his friends even in the face of rejecting Stan's well meaning gift.
His token.
Richie wrapped his arm a little more tightly around Stan, having zero intention of letting go. Because he'd been a dumb kid, and there was a lot to be scared of, even if it wasn't a monster. Loss hadn't meant anything quite as real back then, even with the missing kids. Bill's dead little brother. It did now.
"We shouldn't encourage that," he said, "he'll close up all the one restaurant and the one coffee shop bakery and we'll all starve to death because I never learned how to adult and cook." Stan probably knew how to cook. It seemed like something he'd do.
Talking was hard sometimes, but he'd just admitted a hell of a lot more to a pretty redheaded stranger. Maybe it was getting easier, in some ways. And Stan -- Stan always would have been the first of the Losers that Richie told anyway. Stan watched. Stan was patient. Stan knew shit without anyone telling him because he was observant. "I love you too," he said. Maybe not the same as Eddie, love didn't always have to mean the same thing. And Richie was just on a roll. Probably because this town didn't have any fucking mood stabilizers available.