#they go to whatever gig eddie gets tickets for. they go on their first trip abroad. they host Christmas.

[corrodedcoughin]

Thinking about steddie future where they're both just average guys. No rockstars, no basketball players just two Normal men living a normal life because honestly? they deserve it. They deserve soft domesticity and happiness.

They both have jobs they like but don't love and they're happy with that. Eddie maybe becomes an electrician, working for someone else's company. His coworkers are chill, he gets to get out and work with his hands and that's more than he could have asked for. Steve is a physical therapist, or a manager in some business. He likes his team and the steady hours. He's not working for his dad which is a plus.

They buy a house together, that's not a mansion but it's not a trailer either. Steve does a lot of the dishes because Eddie hates it, hates the feeling of old food on the plates and cutlery. So Eddie will kiss Steve on the cheek and does the laundry because Steve fucking hates laundry. And sitting on the floor watching TV while he folds clothes is honestly sort of relaxing?? Love is doing the chores your partner hates.

Steve and Robin go out for brunch at least once a month, where they catch up and gossip for hours and hours and Steve comes home lighter with updates on Robin and Vickie. Eddie will have nightly phone calls with Wayne, where they talk and laugh and Eddie will eventually hand the phone over to Steve so he and Wayne can talk sports together. When he's in town Dustin will come over and stay in their spare room and they laugh and joke so much it's just like old times. They go over to Jeff's house for dinner on a semi regular basis, and it's nice having normal friends.

They adopt a very annoying cat who will climb all over them in bed and meow in their faces when they don't wake up to feed it breakfast in time. Steve will go for jogs on a Saturday morning, coming home to Eddie reading in bed. Some old western book Wayne recommended to him. There's a steaming cup of coffee waiting on their bedside tables that Eddie's prepared.

They take time off of work and go on a week long vacation because they can do that now. They do dorky touristy things and Eddie buys a mug to send to Wayne. Steve takes a lot of dorky photos of the two of them.

Idk they deserve to be normal and alive and happy with no upside down anymore <3

Oh I love this! I had actually been thinking about tradesman Eddie for a little bit I am so, so glad you’ve come up with this!

I can so completely see him learning a trade and just getting employed and put through his time by a small local employer! He has to go through his exams and that part of it worries him when he first gets the job but his team end up being really supportive and Steve stays up late with him, practicing circuits and wiring and quizzing him on currents and volts. Eddie returning the favour, letting Steve mark up his muscles and be a living anatomy dummy. Sure it gets a little sexy from time to time but more often than not it’s just them testing each other as Steve identifies bones and Eddie talks about parallel circuits.

The monthly brunches mentally and physically revive Steve after working extended hours with patients that he really does want the best for but a jobs a job and it can get pretty tiring. They joke that they rebalance each others chakras but they really do feel realigned after their meet ups. Eddie can see it to, sometimes he’ll come pick them up when it’s been a boozy brunch and delights in seeing them happy and light, clambering over each other to tell Eddie something about one of the waiters or an especially good dish they ordered. When he drops Robin home Steve sits in the front and looks at peace and Eddie feels the same way.

Their weekends are for them, sometimes that means staying home and cleaning the whole place between ordering food in and sometimes that means going on a day trip and taking Wayne around all the antique spots around the county and seeing what horrors they can uncover. Top spot currently sits with Wayne’s find of a doll whose limbs had been replaced with horse legs and had the head of a fish. Of course they bought it.

Every time they go on a holiday they make sure to send postcards to everyone, including themselves, seeing if they’ll get home before the postcard does. Steve keeps them in a photo album, each with a Polaroid of them next to it. Sometimes taken by a stranger, sometimes just a close up of their faces squashed together. It’s Eddie’s favourite thing to go through on their anniversary, or any day really, just loves being reminded that this is the life they get to have.

It’s mundane, dare say even normal, but they love it. Steve comes home every night, happy to put his scrubs in the washing machine next to Eddie’s uniform, happy to be where he feels loved.

[atinylittlepain]

Chapter One

90s!steve harrington x f!oc

series masterlist

series playlist

He got out, hopped one state over, and planned on continuing an anonymous existence of cold beds and numbers scribbled on forearms. One small problem in that plan, or maybe one big problem.

warnings | 18+ smut, angst, columbus OH deserves a TW in and of itself (i love it so)

a/n | I am so excited to be sharing the first chapter of this series. A very special thanks must be given to @pr0ximamidnight who lets me scream about these characters all the time, and who also made the absolutely amazing artwork for this fic! As always, I'd love to hear what you think of this one, drop me a line :)

......................................

“You coming tonight?”

“Who’s playing?”

“Up and coming, you haven’t heard of them.” 

“Oh, so they’re shit then?” 

“Don’t be a snob, Steven. Even your beloved Elliott Smith started out as a nobody. Hell, he still is a nobody.”

“You told Art that I’d cover the front tonight, didn’t you?” The silence is enough of an answer. Steve sighs.

“Eddie.” 

“Come on, Steve. Money is money, I don’t see why you’re complaining when I was gracious enough to get you a little more of it.” His so very gracious roommate is already halfway out the door, a grin and shrug that tells Steve there will be no squirming out of this. Great. 

It’s not that he doesn’t enjoy a trip to the Newport Club, especially not when it’s free and all he has to do is check tickets and let girls feel him up a little on the way into the music hall. But it’s  Wednesday, and he has work tomorrow, and he’s feeling a little more pitiful than usual since their AC unit busted out and has yet to be fixed. Their landlord told them he would be getting to it about two weeks ago, and Steve is starting to wilt around the edges in the close grip of the heat and humidity. So no, he’s not really feeling a gig at the moment. But yes, money is money, and he doesn’t have much time to whine to himself about it when he’s already running late to his shift at Katzinger’s. 

Columbus has been good to him, something he is reminded of every morning when he bikes across town to get to the deli. Urban enough to be anonymous, but still cheap enough for him to pay rent with the patchwork jobs he does. And not Hawkins, so it’s already miles ahead just because of that. 

“I got lox no schmear for Tiffany. There you go, sweetheart, have a nice day.” Tiffany left her phone number at the bottom of her receipt for him, a little heart too. Yet another way Columbus has treated him well, the bevy of OSU students that seem to like what Steve has going on. Eddie calls it his “soft-prozac look,” whatever the hell that means. Certainly different from his polo shirts and varsity jacket days, but a whole lot else has changed since then.

Things are easy, simple, and he likes it that way. Making sandwiches and smiling at coeds until three, a new Tiffany every week, no strings, no stress. And the music scene at the fringes of campus. While his roommate prefers a sound with a little more edge, Steve prefers the softer, sadder stuff, and there’s plenty of it getting passed around on burned CDs and in the dim, dank bars downtown. That’s how he first started picking up gigs at the Newport Club. Art took one look at him, the remnant strength from the days of the king, and stuck him out front with a scowl and a folded wad of cash. Not to mention the perk that once the crowd is packed in, he gets to lean in the doorway and turn his good ear to the music.

…

She’s running late. Actually, she was running late twenty minutes ago. Now it’s just laughable. And somewhere in the slow slump of afternoon into evening, it has started raining. So there’s that, the hem of her skirt sticking and sweating around her ankles, skin turned tacky in the humid air. But she’s a little too focused on digging her ticket out of the bottom of her bag as she does a sort of jump-walk toward the club.

Who was it again? A friend of a friend’s boyfriend who had an extra ticket to this new band’s gig. She can’t even remember the name. Probably something precious and pretentious like toaster aneurysm. 

Shit, not good, not even the remnants of a crowd still waiting outside the venue, just some guy with his arms folded over his chest, leaning in the doorway with one doc marten crossed over the other. His eyebrow cocks, a crack of his gum rolled with his jaw when she approaches. She can hear the dull thrum of a bass coming from inside, already started.

“Hi, I’m here for the show, here’s my–”

“The show started fifteen minutes ago, sweetheart.” It’s a little stunning, not snappy, but entirely bored in the way he says it, sighing and slumping back against the wall, a flick of his chin to toss his thick flop of hair out of his eyes. 

“Okay, so? Just take my ticket and let me in.” Not in the mood, not that she ever is, for this bullshit tough guy act. Said tough guy squints at her, tongue poking in his cheek like really, this is a grave inconvenience to him, when he could have already taken her ticket and let her in and gotten back to his brooding hunch. 

“What’s your name?”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

“I’m Steve.”

“Good for you, Steve.” Great, he thought that was funny, a huff of a laugh and half a smile, perfect teeth and frustratingly perfect dimple. She was going for bitchy, actually. When he finally uncrosses his arms from over his chest, hooking his knuckles into the pockets of his pants, she gets a better look at his t-shirt. He must have shrunk it in the wash, or maybe it’s intentional, the way it fits so snug that the muscles in his arms bulge over the sleeves, the I heart metal  logo stretched to burst across his chest. Elliott Smith fan, so at least he’s got that going for him. 

“Are you really not gonna let me in?” 

“Are you really not gonna tell me your name?”

“It’s Ruth, okay?

“That’s an old-fashioned name.”

“So is Steve.” By now, the band has already gotten through two more songs since she got here, and she’s starting to think she’s going to have to resign herself to listening to scraps through the propped open door. For his part, Steve seems perfectly content with the situation, his chin tilted toward the sound as he pulls a menthol out of his back pocket and lights it up. For her part, Ruth is just annoyed enough to reach out and swipe the cigarette from his fingers before it makes it to his mouth, taking a smug inhale as he lets out a petulant whine of hey.

“If you’re gonna keep me out here, the least you can do is offer some refreshments.” To be fair, the more she hears of the music dripping out from the club, the less interested she is in joining the crowd, some kind of post-punk shoegaze dirge-fest from the sound of it. And no, it definitely doesn’t have anything to do with the long line of his throat when he lets smoke seep out in a hiss, head tilted back to keep his exhale from washing over her face. No, nothing to do with that, and nothing to do with the way the tendons in his forearms jump, all spilled shadow when he offers her back the cigarette. No, definitely nothing to do with that either. 

“Are you a student?” 

“No, are you?”

“No, so what do you do then?”

“I work at the library.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Hmm. What about you?”

“I work at Katz, you know? Over in german village?”

“Yeah, everyone knows Katz. I like Brown Bag better though, they’ve got that tofu cream cheese.”

“Who the hell likes tofu cream cheese? Are you vegan or something?” Rapid fire, somewhere in the volley she has mirrored his posture, her shoulder brushing against his as she rests back against the wall, fingers flickering back and forth, trying to sip down the last few drags of their shared cigarette. 

“No, I just like the taste better. Regular cream cheese gives me the heebies.” He hums, the dip and bob of his throat catching the warm shock of the streetlights. She lets herself watch him for a beat, the quick flit of her eyes away from his when he looks right back at her. Back and forth like that, she collects up every freckle she can find, the two on the side of his neck, on his cheek. Pretty boy at rest. The music is mere afterthought.

…

He’s glad he decided to be difficult tonight. The truth is, he really isn’t supposed to let people in after the set starts, something about code violations and fire hazards. But usually, he’ll nod along a few stragglers hurrying into the club, no big deal. Chalk it up to the heat, to no AC, to whatever, Steve was not feeling so generous tonight, and he’s never been so grateful for his snappy streak as he is right now.

“What size shoe did you say you are?” He’s not entirely sure how things unraveled to this. Him, with his shoeless, socked foot hovering just above the sidewalk, and her, holding her sneaker in one hand, with his doc marten on her foot, giving a few experimental shuffles in it, the hem of her skirt swirling around her shins with it. 

“Men’s twelve, probably too big for you, honey.” Her nose scrunches, mouth screwing to the side like she can’t possibly stand being called that. He tucks that away in his mind through the constant din of the concert going on inside.

“Hmm, I think I could make it work if I doubled up my socks.” 

“You gonna steal my shoes, is that your angle?”

“Well, I do need a refund for my ticket since someone wouldn’t let me in.” He scoffs, dipping his chin to hide behind his hair, just a little, buying time to think of something clever to say back to her. 

“Judging by that noise, I think I did you a favor actually.” Ruth grins, and as if on cue, a particularly discordant warble of guitar whines through the door, both of them wincing at it.

“Maybe you’re right. How much longer you think they got?” She wobbles to the side as she toes out of his boot, and Steve moves before he can think, one hand to her waist, one cupping her elbow. Up close like this, he can see the way her eyeliner has smudged at the edges, a stray speck of it on the arc of her cheek. But it’s catch and release, a laugh light in her chest as she pulls away to put her own shoe back on. 

“I’d say they’re wrapping up. We could, you know, get out of here if you wanted to.” Fun, right? That’s what this is. The flirt and flair of it, a game they both seem to be intent on. 

“Where are we going, Steve?” She tilts her head, sing-songing his name.

Steve is good at this, the logistics of it all. Hers or his. His, they decide, because hers is further away. And mercy, Eddie has been shacking up with the produce stocker from the natural grocery store over in Bexley, so they don’t have to worry about being quiet when they stumble through the door to his apartment. 

Graceless, groaning into her mouth when his hip hits the corner of the kitchen counter, and then a different noise entirely skittering up the back of his throat when Ruth’s palm finds the hurt and rubs it out with quick heat up under the hem of his t-shirt.

Here’s the thing, most of the time, he prefers to keep his shirt on. It’s not that anyone has been rude or repulsed by the scars that splay over his skin. Something much worse. A pitying thing, a pitiful thing. The drop of their brow and a pulled frown and oh my gosh, what happened to you? Yeah, he’d prefer to keep his shirt on most of the time. But right now, he wants a little more. A little more sense, a little more touch, a little more of her palms on bare skin. So it’s more feel than thought when he tugs his shirt off over his head, shivering down with it when she noses down his neck to drop her lips to the top of his shoulder. Bruise-colored kisses, he doesn’t resist the urge to thumb away the smear of her dark lipstick in the corner of her mouth. She chases after his touch, a kiss to the pad of his thumb before her grin turns sharp with the nick of her teeth. 

…

Pretty boy is pretty all over. Freckles all over, she maps them with her mouth, a slow sneak down his stomach to the waist band of his briefs. And he’s got a bedframe too, bonus. Yeah, pretty all over, flushed-pink tip when she slides his briefs down his thighs, just enough for the thick weight of him to smear pearling pleasure over the coarse hair trailing down his clenched stomach. She’s no better though, thighs clenching together in useless friction where she’s kneeling between his legs, cotton underwear that used to say Wednesday on the front and a bra that’s just as old. She really hadn’t been expecting something like this, though Steve doesn’t seem to mind, lips parted in a ghost of a swollen smile, eyes hazy with want.

“Can I?”

“You can do whatever you want, honey, fuck.” She has to temper her grin when she takes him into her mouth, pleasant pain and pressure in the hinge of her jaw because Steve certainly has something to brag about. Impossible to take all of him, she settles for laving her tongue over the vein running the underside of his cock, spit-slick palm curling around the rest. Pretty boy pretty all over making pretty sounds too. Huffs of breath that turn into groans when she swallows around him, muscle jumping under her palm that’s pressed over his stomach, her nails grazing in an implicit command. Take what you are given, pretty boy. And he does, perfectly, preening under her touch, little pants of fuck, s’good, really good that shiver straight down her spine and into her pelvis. She only realizes that her hand that isn’t working the base of him has dipped down into her panties when Steve lets out a ragged shit, that’s hot, lashes dropped down to his cheeks with the way he’s staring at her. And then it’s all quiet c’mere, c’mere, honey, insistent hand at her jaw coaxing her up, clashing teeth when they both misjudge the first kiss, and then a sigh when they get the second one right.

“You have condoms, right?” 

“Yeah, I got it, just let me–” She doesn’t exactly make it easy, mouthing at his neck as he leans over to rifle through his nightstand, jostling her in his lap with a frustrated huff that she doesn’t like the sound of.

“Fuck.”

“Are you, like, out?” He settles back against his headboard with a sigh, an answer in and of itself. 

“I bet my roommate has some though. Gimme a sec, I’ll be right back.” Quite the show, his bare ass shuffling out of his room. She lays back on the mattress, maybe wishful thinking in taking off the rest of her clothes, though Steve is quick to return with a grin and a foil packet pinched between two fingers. 

“You sitting pretty like that for me, honey?” A little wolfish, animal and annoying in how smug he smiles as he climbs onto the end of the bed, catching her knee before she can close her legs, palm smoothing down the inside of her thigh. 

“Don’t look so pleased with yourself, Steven.” 

“Steven, huh?” He tilts his head, almost absent-minded, his eyes hooded and heavy, dropped to the crux of her hips. She can’t help her quiet gasp when he drags his thumb through her swollen cunt, pad of his finger notching at her entrance, teasing, testing, before smearing back up to her clit in a lazy arc. 

“Fuck, that’s pretty. Are you ready for me?” Cocky, but also clear care. She leans up on an elbow, puling him down by his nape before her stupid heart can kick up too much at the sentiment. His hair tickles against her sternum, forehead pressed there so he can look down at his fumbling with the condom wrapper, clearly distracted, maybe by the way she’s trailing her foot up and down the back of his leg, dark nail polish against tan skin. 

It’s a stretch, of course. Perfect ache in her hips, all she can manage is an uh-huh high in her throat when he asks her if she’s alright. And then deeper, taking more of him, all of him until it’s Steve letting out the pathetic sounds, something like a whimper that she laps up, tongue flickering behind his teeth. 

The rest is a slow, spiraling, slump. It’s obscenely warm in his room, humid too, so pretty soon sweat starts to pearl and pool. In clavicles, in dips and bend of muscle, skin sticking to skin with salt and sighs, almost smothering with how Steve drapes over her. He moves good, smooth and strong like he knows what he’s doing, though it eventually devolves into a deep grind more than anything else, both of them chasing down pleasure. He smells like that clove gum he was chewing, the menthol too, and like he spent the day out sweltering in the  midsummer heat. She can’t help but dip her nose down into the center of his sternum, breathing him in as her nails dig and slip against his shoulder blades. Though soon he’s coaxing her, lemme see, honey, there you are, pretty eyes. 

Embarrassing really, that’s what snaps and snarls her into and over the edge. His eyes, blown out black, steady and certain on her. She comes so hard that she starts to shiver in the heat.

…

“Mmf.” It isn’t enough to rouse him, still slumped on his stomach with his face pressed into his pillow. But it does feel good, light scratches across his shoulder blades, then trailing up the nape of his neck and into his hair. He sighs, content in his tangle of sheets.

“I know you’re awake.” He can’t help it, smile spreading, one eye squinting open to find Ruth looking right at him, kneeling alongside the bed.

“Why’re you dressed?” 

“I need to go home before my shift. I smell like a swamp.” 

“Sorry, AC is busted.”

“Yeah, I guessed as much.” He squints sitting up, washed down in the early morning light, already missing the feel of her hand tangled in his hair.

“Can I get your number?” For once, he’d like to do this again. Ruth smiles, settling into her hip as she looks down at him.

“You got a pen?” He does, tucked into a notebook that he keeps in the bottom drawer of his nightstand, not even worried about how uncool he looks fumbling for it and a scrap of paper to give to her. Purple nail polish, he notes, so dark the color is only a suggestion. He watches the flicker of it as she passes back the pen and paper to him.

“Thanks for a nice night, pretty boy.” Still sleep-shaken, but with it enough for her words to send a flush of heat up his neck.

“Yeah, Ruth, I had a good time too. So I’ll call you?” Already halfway out his bedroom door, she still smiles over her shoulder.

“Uh-huh, you do that.” 

It’s early enough that he can linger in the scent of her in his sheets, pressing his face hard into the mattress before finally willing himself to get up. By the time he shuffles out into the living room with one and a half boots on, Eddie is back and crunching through a burnt piece of toast in front of the microwave. 

“Hey, who was that spooky-looking chick that slinked– slunk? Whatever, left earlier this morning?” 

“Her name is Ruth.” All that he offers up, pointedly focusing on pouring himself a cup of coffee. Eddie scoffs, crumbs scattering.

“Okay, and? Flavor of the week, or what?” 

“Mmm.”

“No, you’re telling me Morticia is gonna turn an honest man out of you?” Steve’s turn to scoff this time, choosing to take a long pull of coffee rather than indulging Eddie with a real answer. 

“You get her number?”

“Yeah.”

“You gonna call her?”

“Jesus, Ed, yes, lay off.”

“Oh, now I know you really like this one. You’re only bitchy about the ones you really like.” 

“Fuck off. How’s Herb, or whatever his name is.”

“Don’t be so gauche, Steven, and for the record, his name is Leif.”

“Right.”

“Anyways, Harrington Doctrine, yeah?”

“Yeah, man, exactly.” 

Now normally, according to the Harrington Doctrine, Steve should wait a full forty-eight hours, minimum, before even thinking about calling her. He does not follow the Harrington Doctrine. In fact, he barely makes it through the rest of the day without picking up a phone. When he gets home from his shift at the deli, however, he paces himself. Takes a shower first, checks the answering machine, willing away a little more time, anything to temper his apparent want. But when he does finally dial up the number on the scrap of paper he kept tucked in his notebook, he is sorely disappointed by the answer he gets on the other end.

“Brown Bag deli, how may I help you?” First, shock, reasoning to himself that he must have punched it in wrong. He tries again, careful in each button pressed.

“Brown Bag deli, how may I help–” He slams the phone back into its receiver this time, just as Eddie walks through the front door, home from his shift at the tattoo shop where he apprentices.

“Damn, tell that phone how you really feel.” 

“She gave me a fake number.”

“What? Who?”

“Mort– Ruth. I can’t believe this, she seriously gave me a fake number.” With all the tact that he usually has, Eddie plucks the scrap of paper from Steve’s hand, a grumbled lemme see as he dials the number. At first, a lift off of hope in his chest when Eddie stays on the line, brow furrowed.

“Hi, yeah, do you guys still do that portobello melt thing? Can I get that without tomatoes? Yeah, to– hey.” Steve only half pays attention to Eddie’s protest when he takes the phone and clicks it back in the receiver, something heavy settling sick in his stomach.

“She really gave me a fake number. What the fuck?” 

“Sorry, man, I guess no Addam’s Family Values for you.” 

…

He doesn’t usually get like this. Lord knows, Steve has taken his fair share of rejection. So why this one is stinging harder, lingering longer, especially when he barely knew the girl, is beyond him. 

Maybe the boldness of her rejection. A brazen, brash no. The humiliation of unassuming hope, small flames are so quick to be smothered. Or maybe the way he feels like a fool, plain and simple, for thinking there was something more happening when there so apparently wasn’t. Fun, he tells himself. She had been in it for fun. And she got her fun, and got out. And is that not one of his favorite moves in the book? Plenty of fun of his own, after all. 

But what is maybe the worst part, he can’t stop thinking about it, about her. Nearly filled up the rest of his notebook with what he can remember, nearly a whole month’s worth of remembering now. Piecemeal, by this point, the line of her nose, the curve of her brow, half a smile. What he can always recall clearly, the patterned print of flowers that was on her skirt. He scribbles it everywhere, in the margins of old receipts, in sharpie on parchment paper, slow days at the deli getting passed somewhere hazy in his mind. 

He has a headache by the time he gets back to his apartment most afternoons, opting for a few advil and closed blinds over any of the phone numbers that continue to get tucked into his hands.

“How much longer are you gonna do this?”

“Mmm.”

“Steve.”

“What?” He doesn’t have to  look to know exactly how Eddie is standing right now. In the doorway to his bedroom with his arms crossed and his hip cocked to the side, his version of concern.

“It’s been a fucking month, man. Greener pastures, fish in the sea, et cetera et cetera. You haven’t even gone to any shows since the double-M, for Christ’s sake.”

“Double-M?”

“Morticia meltdown.” Steve sighs, more interested in another swatch of flowers that he’s filling a blank page in his notebook with. Mercy, before Eddie can continue to needle him, the phone rings. He only catches scraps of what is said, but his ears prick when he hears Eddie let out a quiet oh.

“Steven, my liege, my lad, it’s  for you!” Great, probably Art calling to find out where the hell he’s been. Still, he gets up, only paying an ounce of attention to Eddie’s shit-eating grin when he takes the phone from him.

“Hello?”

“Hi, is this Steve?” Still only half-way paying attention, snapping his fingers in Eddie’s direction when he starts rifling through a box of cereal that Steve bought, looking for the dinky plastic toy inside, no doubt. 

“Uh, yeah, who is this?” He snaps his fingers again when Eddie keeps digging through the cereal box, mouthing the words stop it when his roommate still persists in his hunt. Steve’s going to have to buy new cereal. 

“It’s— it’s Ruth? Um, from the Newport, remember?” It’s a strange feeling, first his stomach sinking, a tight fist in his throat too, and most embarrassingly of all, that flip in his chest, that kick of hope, even now, stupid.

“Oh, oh, yeah, I remember. How did– how’d you get this number?” 

“I asked Art for it, figured he’d have your info. Listen, Steve, I need to apologize for what I did. That was just– fucking childish of me, and I hope you know that it had way more to do with my own fucked-upness than it did with anything about you.” 

“Yeah, it’s okay, you know, but it was pretty fucked up.” Stupid, how that hope floats to the top of his throat, because maybe apology means trying again. Maybe he’d like to try again. 

“There’s something else I have to tell you.” 

“Okay?” She sighs, a crackled sound over the line that makes his brow pinch.

“Look, there’s no nice way to say this, so I’m just gonna spit it out.” At this point, Eddie has crept closer, hand still buried in the cereal box, eyes wide and rapt at what is probably a stricken expression on Steve’s face.

“I’m pregnant, Steve.” What does hope turn into? A dizzying feeling, dumb and dull and done. His ears ring with it.

“I– you’re– you– what?” 

“I’m pregnant. And before you do that guy thing of asking if it’s yours, I’m pretty damn sure that it is.” Somewhere in the slow unraveling of this, he has pressed one palm to the wall, whole body slumping toward it, head dropped between his shoulder blades to try to make as much of everything else quiet so he can focus on this.

“Okay, um, okay. Do you wanna– you know– because it’s your body and if you wanna— you should–”

“I’ve decided I’m keeping it.” The way his heart seizes, stops for a beat, and then trips back over itself into rhythm scares him, palm finding his chest like he could rub that feeling out and away. 

“Right, that’s– yeah. Do you, like, need help, or–”

“No, I don’t need your help. I just– it seemed like the right thing to do to tell you, so that’s what I’m doing. But, yeah, I don’t, like, expect anything from you.” Steve scrunches his eyes shut, hard, trying to tamp down the heat starting to rise behind them, a foreign feeling, a falling feeling.

“Yeah, okay, thank you for telling me, Ruth.” Because what else could he say? It’s like he hears the words coming out of his mouth from somewhere just over his shoulder. And there’s more that he’d like to say, the right things to say, but Ruth is already beating him to it.

“So, yeah, I guess that’s all. Take care of yourself, Steve.” Already hanging up, and that sounds permanent. That sounds like no intention of ever seeing him again. The phone hangs by its chord, swinging limp a few inches above the ground.

“Steve, what the fuck was that?” One long exhale for him, shitshitshitshit. Eddie sets down the cereal box and takes him by the shoulders, squared off and trying to catch his vacant, glazed stare.

“I– we– she–”

“Did you use protection?” He blinks, nods, relieved that Eddie has already gotten explanation enough from eavesdropping on the call.

“Yeah, fuck, yes. I took a condom from your stash, it was a brand new box.” Something strange passes over Eddie’s expression, blanching and jaw slackening. 

“Steve, which box of condoms did you open?”

“What do you mean which box? The one in your closet, on the top shelf.” Eddie’s hands drop from his shoulders, brows shot straight up his forehead.

“Oh jesus christ.”

“Jesus christ? What– Ed, what the fuck does that mean?” Steve gets no reply, Eddie already scuttling into his room, followed by the distant sound of rummaging, and then a low curse. 

“So here’s the thing, Stevie, these condoms–” Eddie comes back out of his room brandishing said box of condoms, the box that Steve had opened that night with Ruth. He has a smile that slants sheepish on his face, and Steve is already starting to feel sick.

“Yeah, these condoms are from eighty-nine.” 

“As in– as in nineteen-eighty-nine?” 

“That would be correct, yes.” Eddie has already taken a few tentative steps backward, putting the kitchen counter between him and Steve. But Steve is too struck dumb to even consider anything like vengeance on his roommate, dragging both his hands through his hair and tugging hard until it hurts.

“Who– why– what the fuck are you doing with five-year-old condoms?”

“Ha, well, you see, I figured after a decade or two maybe they’d be worth something, you know? Like a collector’s item.” Wordless, Steve shuffles over to Eddie and takes the box of condoms from his hands, something like a laugh that sounds so sharp Eddie winces at the sound.

“Ed, a signed poster is a collector’s item. This is a box of condoms– this is– this is junk.” 

“Well it’s junk now, Steven, since someone opened it.”

“Oh no, uh-uh, you don’t get to be pissy about this, not when there’s literally a girl who’s pregnant because you’re such a fucking hoarder.” 

“Uh, excuse me, I’m not the one who didn’t check the expiration date when they went fumbling around for a condom.”

“I didn’t think I needed to worry about five-year-old condoms, fuck!” The volume of his voice surprises even him, silence falling heavy and hard in the echo of it. Steve rests his hands on the counter, letting his shoulders shrug up to his ears, slumping down into his bones. Eddie rests a cautious hand on his arm.

“What’re you gonna do?”

“I don’t know, Ed. I really don’t know.”

[reddie-set-nope]

“Richie Tozier to Emcee Rocky Horror Show”

So that’s where he was at. Headlining a small theatre in LA for October. His manager had begged him to do it, saying it would be good publicity, maybe overshadow some of the questionable shit he’d said in the past. He still hadn’t come out to Steve. It wasn’t because Steve would be angry, he was gay himself, it was that Richie was pretty sure that the pure shock would give him a heart attack. 

So instead he did gigs at Pride Events and Fundraisers- and now- Rocky Horror. He was still staring down at the headline on his phone, Bev had sent a photo of the newspaper she found while out for brunch with Ben. Their group chat was erupting with excitement, Bill was going to take a flight down to see the Halloween show, Mike was figuring out how to get back to LA from Michigan on his nationwide road trip, Stan and Patty had already bought their tickets and were seeing both the first and last shows, and Eddie was too busy moving to check his phone to see whatever nonsense they were chatting about. 

Richie sent off a quick text telling everyone to buy their tickets soon before they sold out. He had saved at least three seats at the last showing, perks of being the Emcee, but everyone else would have to buy ahead of time. 

Richie spent the entire day before the first show getting ready, running through lines and pacing back and forth. He’d been to showings before, but that was years ago, things had to have changed since then. When he arrived at the theatre a very eager stage manager was there to walk him through their rules and show him around. He only had to run through a couple of pre-made games and crack jokes while doing so. After the show he’d greet people in the hall with all of the performers. Easy as that. Steve was out of town on personal business, so Richie was alone in the venue for about an hour before anyone showed up. He scrolled through the group chat, looking over Eddie’s obsessive moving texts. Eddie sent photos upon photos of his new apartment asking for advice on decorating and furniture and the like. Richie knew that Eddie and Bev must call or FaceTime on the side from the way that they talked in the chat. He missed them. None of them had really met up since their reunion. Sure, he went to dinner with Stan and Patty once a month and called everyone at least once a week, but it felt so lacking. He still felt out of his element in comedy, even writing his own material, and finally realizing he was gay wasn’t helping. It only opened up a whole new can of worms that he was definitely not ready to face. 

Soon enough he was being ushered on stage, a microphone in hand and a smile on his face. The crowd only quieted slightly. Looking out at all of the faces in the crowd, he saw kids in costumes, teenagers dragging their friends along and smudging makeup all over their faces, rows and rows of dyed hair and wigs, smiles that were ground so deeply into the faces that stared back at him. And it felt oddly familiar. These people were just like all of them. Losers. Catching his eye on Stan and Patty, Richie took a deep breath and waved out to the theatre. The lights were up and it felt a lot more intimate than his comedy shows ever did.

“What is UP? It’s nice to see all of you here tonight, I’m Richie, I’ll be your Emcee tonight. Just a quick reminder that there are exits on both sides of the aircraft and lavatories in the back. In case of an emergency, your seat can be used as a flotation device. And, unfortunately, I am required to go over some rules with you guys.” The crowd booed and whooped, egging Richie on. 

“I know, I know, rules.” He took the mic off the stand and began to pace the stage. As he listed out the rules the crowd continued on with their screaming, interrupting and adding their own one liners. Richie had to stop twice to bite back laughter because of a woman in the second row who kept yelling out Pokemon names every time he gestured his hand to the side. A couple of kids in the back row kept chatting the entire time. People came and went from the bathrooms and bar. But it wasn’t malicious. It felt nice to not have everyone’s attention. 

And then the games began. The first was a moaning competition. This wasn’t something the venue had set up for him, but he had cleared it by the stage manager when he arrived. At Richie’s first ever Rocky Horror in a small run down theatre outside of Derry they had the grisliest, grossest, moaning competition. And he was determined to make everyone else suffer through what he had to. 

A couple of the crew members came out from the wings to sit with their legs dangling over the edge of the stage. Richie announced the game and sent them out for volunteers. A woman with suspenders and wide rimmed glasses came sprawling onto the stage, followed closely by another woman in a light pink dress holding her hand. Richie leaned down to one of the crew members and pointed to Stan, who was whispering something to Patty. A young man dressed up as Rocky was the next one on stage, walking awkwardly in his small costume. And finally, Stanley Uris waltzed onto the stage. Richie explained the rules to them and started coaching them, finally he had them release their ungodly moans into the microphone, wiping it between each person. Stan, bless his soul, let out a heart wrenching scream. To cap off the game, the audience cheered to decide who would win and Stan got to take home a pack of starbursts. 

The rest of the night went by surprisingly well. They ran through the rest of the games and started the movie. Richie watched from his seat on the balcony, screaming out obscenities and watching as everyone else did the same. He got doused with water by someone behind him who had brought a super soaker. After the show, he made his way out to the little booth they had set up in the lobby and signed merch. He got to talk to a lot of long-time fans of his. A couple of women asked him to sign various parts of their body, he had to turn down a young woman who asked him to sign her tits. The stage manager had drawn the line at that. 

The showings kept getting better and better the more he did. The people that came up to him after the show shared amazing stories of self discovery and growth with him and he got to meet a large portion of the queer community. They were all surprisingly nice to him, which he hadn’t expected after years of misogynistic ghost writers and your-mom jokes. 

Finally, the last show rolled around. Halloween night. Richie got there at the same time per usual and the stage manager greeted him with a hug. She was dressed up as a vampire, full cape and all. Richie smiled and gawked as she spun around, “Well shit, am I supposed to be in costume?” She laughed and explained their tradition to him. Everyone at the theatre dressed up on Halloween, even if it made the crew more noticeable than their usual black outfits. Looking around at the scattering crew, each of which was colorful and bobbing from behind masks and makeup, he felt completely underdressed. 

He sent a text to Bev quickly, asking her to bring along a costume. She sent back a winky face and he sighed deeply. Apparently all of the losers had driven together, as they walked in one giant bubbling heap. Richie dipped down from behind the stage and out the side door into the crowd, meeting Bev at her seat. She pulled him down to kiss his cheek gently and pull him into a crushing hug before sending him on his way with a plastic bag. Backstage Richie pulled out a bright red cape lined in faux fur and a small plastic crown. He texted Bev an obscenity and wrapped the cape around his shoulders. 

Walking out onto stage, everyone was dressed up. Rows and rows of characters he couldn’t even begin to guess. There were so many smiling faces all aimed at him. It was like basking in the sun of a beautiful tropic beach. He did his spiel about the rules, groaning and quieting the audience the entire time. 

At the end of it all he called the crew out to grab audience members, pointing out where the losers where seated. Mike was the first one dragged on stage, then Ben followed closely by Bev, then a very sheepish Bill, Stan was spared from the game only because he had already been subjected to this shit, and finally, Eddie was pulled up on stage. Richie explained the game and had them huddle together. 

“Fuck you man.” Eddie said exasperated but fond. 

“This is the shittiest thing you’ve done yet.” Mike laughed. 

“You are a complete and utter dumbass.” Bev whined lovingly.

Richie sighed happily, pulling everyone closer. “Just know that our friendship hinges on who wins.”

“Oh it’s on.” Bill side-eyed Richie and pulled back from the huddle. 

Richie started with Mike, who gave it his best shot. He actually tried to moan in a pretty deranged and wild sort of way. Richie glanced wide-eyed into the audience, which caused an uproar. Then it was Ben, who had to take a minute to completely compose himself. When he was ready, he let out a sigh-like sound that was completely guttural. Bev doubled over laughing and Richie shook his head disapprovingly. Bev was next and she put her soul into it. She pulled her dress upper leg, rolling her eyes back and pulling the mic up to her lips as she gave a very low, very fake, moan to the audience. This was met with applause from the back row. Bill, ever the competitive type, tried to parody Bev’s attempt by pulling him pant leg up and practically swallowing the mic. Richie spent almost five whole minutes wiping the mic on his cape. Then it was Eddie, who outright refused. They went back and forth, making a show out of their bickering for the audience. 

“C’mon Eds, it’s just a little-”

“Don’t call me that.” Eddie pointed with his entire hand, “And it’s gross. I hate you.”

After some coaxing from a tipsy Bev, Eddie finally gave in. He took the mic and breathed out a couple of times before giving an honest to god moan. Richie took the mic back and tapped his shoe on the stage for a second, staring at the floor. 

“You know Eds, that sounded awfully familiar.”

“Oh real mature dude.”

“Your mom used to-” He didn’t get to finish as Eddie wrestled the mic out of his hands and the crowd started cheering. Half were rooting for Eddie and the other half for Richie. When Richie finally got the mic back, he did the obligatory cheer voting, and Bev won, though Eddie had a cult following of teens on the balcony. He sent them back down and threw some starbursts at Bev. The rest of the games went by, he only tripped over his cape once. And as soon as it was over he took to his seat besides Bev, Ben, and Eddie. Bev had scribbled a ‘V’ on Ben and Eddie’s cheeks with her red lipstick. They both looked equally flustered by it and Eddie sat with his arms crossed. 

“So, first time, huh?” Richie sat down and threw his cape over the back of Eddie’s seat. 

Eddie huffed, shifting in his seat. “Shut up.”

“Starburst?” Bev offered. 

“I’m okay.” Richie smiled, waving her off. 

Eddie seemed get into the movie as it went on. They all got up and did the Time Warp, Richie guiding Eddie along the way. Ben leaned over to tell them all about Meatloaf when cousin Eddie appeared on screen. Eddie complained when he was killed off, and complained even more when he realized that they were eating him. Cannibalism was on his long list of gross things he knew way too much about. Ben was visibly spooked by the sex scenes, Bev had to reach over and hold his hand to keep him from combusting from embarrassment. Richie was expecting a similar reaction from Eddie, but instead he got a hard glare the entire time. Eddie completely ignored what was happening on screen and fixated his judgmental little eyes on Richie until it was over. 

Eddie gestured to the screen as the scene drew to a close. “You didn’t say anything about-”

“Well I didn't know you were a virgin.” Richie countered, smiling viciously and scarfing down a starburst. 

“Fuck you, actually, fuck you man.”

The excitement of the night was getting to Richie and he was feeling especially alive. “Buy me dinner first.” He muttered to Eddie, leaning down to say it directly into his ear. 

Read more on AO3 here!

[tozierpunks]

Richie, Bev, and Eddie being the wild child(s) (Eddie the tamer of the three) of the losers club. Maybe they’ve got piercings, tattoos, they’ll listen to music and smoke (Eddie occasionally tries but it’s not his thing, he’s vibing to the music tho) Richie’s nails are painted black, Bev’s got her combat boots, Eddie in his ripped dungarees. Taking road trips in Richie’s beat up truck.

I have this hc that there’s a payphone outside Bev’s apartment, and since she couldn’t be caught dead on the phone in her house without some flack from her shithead dad, she uses that one (it’s faced away from her apartment, he couldn’t see her unless he came out). So she gives Eddie the number and tells him to call at least three times, cause she’s bound to hear it one of those times, and that’s how they chat on the phone. She’ll call Eddie, and if Sonia answers, she pretends to be a telemarketer.

They’ll make plans to sneak out and spend the night in the clubhouse if either of their houses are too bad. Eddie brings Sonia’s sugary snacks, Bev will bring magazines or comic books, and sometimes she brings one of her dad’s beers. Both of them hate the taste, but drinking it and gagging at the taste and exchanging that UGH look... is almost like a silent promise that they’ll never talk about this to anyone else.

Because no one else will get it.

No one else understands what it’s like to love someone you hate and fear SO MUCH. No one else knows how it feels to be stuck in a box, and completely at the mercy of someone who was supposed to love you. It’s a betrayal they hope their friends never know.

Then there’s one night Richie comes by the clubhouse after dark, and he’s surprised to find them there. He honestly just wanted a place to read his cousin’s Playboy, and he was shocked to find Bev and Eddie. They jumped up just as a reflex, and it seemed like they were caught doing something.

Of course, he’s a little heartbroken because he feels like he’s on the outside looking in, and he jokes, “Wow Eds, I didn’t know you had it in you. Bev, I always thought your type was... Bill. But this is cool. My best friends... boinking.” and Eddie looks horrified and Beverly flips him off and points out his magazine.

“Were you gonna beat the meat in here? You don’t do it on the hammock do you? Try not to tear it off, Trashmouth.”

Only her one liners are good enough to match his.

They don’t tell him exactly why they’re there, but they swear nothing weird is going on. Bev isn’t ready for all that teenage junk, and neither is Eddie. He’s not really interested in girls at all. (”Er- yet, I guess,” he adds, almost as an afterthought).

Bev offers Eddie a cigarette to give Richie, “five minutes alone with Miss January” and that’s his first time smoking. He choked of course, but he does try it a couple more times before deciding he hates it. The nicotine gives him a headache, anyways. So Richie comes out and invites them to his house, and Maggie catches them sneaking in. She sees how dirty and frightened Richie’s friends are, and she always KNEW something was wrong with that Alvin Marsh, and everyone knows Sonia Kaspbrak is a bigoted, holier-than-thou nutcase...

and let’s just say Maggie Tozier was kind of a bad girl in high school. She remembers what it’s like. Sneaking out, picking locks, stealing a beer or two. Of course she’s still Richie’s mother, so he’s “in big trouble, mister.”

But his friends? While she “doesn’t approve,” they always have room here for Eddie and Bev. She makes them up little beds, offers them a drink, and is the mother neither of them had the pleasure of knowing. And that’s when they start gravitating towards Richie’s house.

Not too long later, he asks what they were doing in the clubhouse alone, at THAT hour. It’s hard, because Eddie and Bev haven’t even said it to each other. They just knew.

Then Eddie does something weird. He starts crying.

He hates crying.

It makes him uncomfortable, because it’s what his mother uses to guilt trip him. Crying never means someone’s sad. It means you did something wrong, and the only way you can make it right is by doing what they want, even if you hate it. Even if it’s bad for you.

Even if it makes you cry too.

So he hates crying, he never lets himself, because he doesn’t want anyone to feel as bad as he does. Especially not his friends.

Richie and Bev FULLY do not care though. They’re immediately there to comfort him, and it feels entirely different from what he’s used to with his mother. Strangely enough, it’s his crying that makes Beverly blurt out the truth. All the horrible things her father has done and said, all the ways he’s made her feel disgusting. All the ways he used to make her happy, because he was still her father. She talks about the anger, and the guilt, and the hate, and all the other ugly feelings trapped inside. Eddie wipes his nose and nods, because it’s the same for him.

Richie doesn’t cry about it until later. After he walks them home. More than anything, he doesn’t wanna leave them. Not in those houses. Not where they’re alone and unprotected. He gets home and Maggie greets him, but he runs into her arms and sobs. He really does love her and Went; they’re the best parents in this whole damn town - next to Mike’s.

After that though, Richie makes sure to always have room for Eddie and Bev at his place. He cleans up the spare room the Tozier’s have been using for storage, and he asks if they can get bunk beds. Or at least a big guest bed for him and Eddie to share, and Bev can have his room. Maggie and Went are proud of him; their boy has the biggest heart, and only a handful of close friends will really know.

That’s the beginning of it all though. Bev starts leaving nail polishes in the guest room, because really it’s not a guest room as much as it is Bev and Eddie’s shared room. Maggie and Went suddenly have another son, and a daughter. Bev always wanted a mother, and Maggie always wanted a daughter. Richie’s a little baffled when she takes Bev out shopping, but he has no complaints. As long as they bring back something for dinner.

Maggie inherits a sewing machine from her grandmother when Gran Tozier passes, and she lets Beverly use it in the guest room. She even starts buying spare fabrics she thinks Beverly might like.

Went meanwhile is teaching Eddie about how to fix a car, because he bought Richie a beaten up truck for his birthday. Richie knows how to change the tires, but he’s not interested enough to REALLY learn everything. Eddie however, watches Went in awe. He asks questions, gets his hands dirty, and he LOVES it. He starts to care less and less when Sonia talks at him about filth and potential dangers. He’s very, “whatever, Ma.”

Richie’s happy to see them both thriving in his house. It’s not like he’s given the shaft; he has his parents 24/7 and they’re constantly there for every talent show, every small bowling alley gig, and they’re taking pictures at every “first day on the job” even if he’s had 20.

All of them get little jobs to start saving up - they want an apartment somewhere far from Derry once they graduate. Of course, their funds are often spent elsewhere. Sneaking a twenty to the already graduated and legal Victor Criss so he can buy them booze, snagging scalped tickets to a Nirvana concert in Boston, getting the truck back when it’s ultimately towed.

And of course they’re still incredibly close with the other losers, but there’s something special about the three of them together. Bev does both of their nails, Eddie helps to perfect her eyeliner, because he can draw wings the best, and Richie makes himself the protector. He loves them both so much, and he’s finally able to believe that they both love and need him.

[chiseler]

Puttin’ on the Ritz

No fame is more fleeting than the showbiz kind. Some entertainers are just too much in and of a particular time. In the 1920s Harry Richman was a big star, billed as the Greatest Entertainer In America. He could sing and play piano, dance and act a little; he ran a hugely successful nightclub, was the toast of Broadway and, very briefly, a star in Hollywood; he wrote or introduced several songs that are still sung. But most of all he just personified the Roaring Twenties. He was the sleek, rakish, vaguely smarmy bon vivant in top hat and tails who was enjoying the decade's non-stop party as much as you were. It's been said that he was to the 1920s what the Rat Pack were to their era. Harry's career peaked just as the party crashed to a halt at the end of the decade, and he faded out in the 1930s. If his name comes up at all today, it's probably less often as an entertainer than as a footnote in aviation history.

He was born Harry Reichman in Cincinnati in 1895. His dad, a Russian Jewish immigrant, started out peddling eyeglasses door to door, carrying all his equipment on his back. He worked his way up to a prosperous wholesale business and real estate empire, and developed a taste for the high life. It killed him by the time Harry was an adolescent. In his thoroughly entertaining (sometimes suspiciously so) 1966 autobiography A Hell of a Life, Harry paints himself as a fecklessly scheming kid who grew up quick. At nine, he writes, he was a weekend ticket taker at an amusement park, shortchanging every customer he could because he was saving up to marry his childhood sweetheart. One night he showed off his ill-gotten riches by taking the girl out on the town. They stayed out too late to go home, so Harry got them a hotel room. When the cops burst through the door in the wee hours they found the kids sleeping fully clothed on separate beds. A doctor confirmed that the girl's honor was intact. Her dad put the kibosh to their romance anyway.

Harry's mother bought him piano lessons, dreaming he'd be a concert pianist, but like most kids at the time he was more interested in ragtime and jazz. He left home at around fourteen and headed to Indianapolis. There he and a kid who played fiddle went door to door in the kind of neighborhoods where an upright in the parlor wasn't uncommon. They'd bang out a few popular tunes for spare change. As Remington & Reichman they were soon touring the very small-time Webster circuit of vaudeville theaters in the Dakotas and Canada, known to vaudevillians as the Death Trail. Harry kept working his way around the west, singing at the piano in saloons and whorehouses, working as a singing waiter in restaurants, as part of a "Hawaiian" hula act in a circus sideshow. At the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exhibition in San Francisco he was in a musical act that opened for Harry Houdini, fifteen shows a day. Playing in Los Angeles clubs favored by the movie crowd he got to be pals with Charlie Chaplin and Al Jolson, whom he idolized. Jolson got him a shot at Ziegfeld's Midnight Frolic, the late-night club revue that gave Eddie Cantor his big break. Harry raced to New York, but flopped and was canned after only one night. He was so despondent he ran off and joined the Navy.

He arrived back in New York in 1920, just when Prohibition did too. Now he and the city were ready for each other. On vaudeville stages he found work as an accompanist for headliners like the singer Nora Bayes and the beautiful twin Dolly Sisters, and for a while was Mae West's on-stage pianist and straight man. He was reluctant to speak lines at first because he had a lisp that he could hide more easily when singing. West convinced him it was a distinguishing feature. He soon got top billing on his own on the Keith-Albee circuit. He also played at ritzy speakeasies like the Beaux Arts, where, he claims, Prohibition's hostess with the mostest Texas Guinan stole her signature line "Give the little girls a big hand" from him.

Nils T. Granlund, known as NTG, was both a radio pioneer and the publicist for Marcus Loew's movie theater empire. He hired Harry to headline live radio shows from Loew's State Theatre, the movie palace in Times Square. Harry plugged new songs on air, like Billy Rose's "Does the Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor on the Bedpost Overnight?" With NTG's help he opened his own Club Richman just behind Carnegie Hall. Harry made it one of the most opulent and exclusive nightclub/speakeasies in town. A lot of Broadway and movie stars became regulars, as of course did Mayor Jimmy Walker, and the Vanderbilts and Whitneys, and foreign royalty -- you saw everybody who was anybody there.

Or wanted to be somebody, like the chorus girl Lucille Le Seur. Accounts vary as to how Lucille got into the swank club. In one version, she convinced NTG, her sugar daddy at the time, to get her a spot in the club dancing the Charleston. NTG introduced her to Loew, who arranged a screen test at MGM, where she'd get her first tiny roles in 1925. Studio chief Louis B. Mayer decided her name sounded like Le Sewer, so the studio ran a publicity campaign in which the fans got to give her a new name: Joan Crawford. She never liked it.

For his part, Harry claimed that he discovered Crawford. He did have an eye for the beauties. He was one of the first to spot Jean Harlow, Sally Rand and Maureen O'Sullivan. Harry was an infamous ladies' man, bedding a long line of beauties from chorus girls to socialites to Harlow, maybe Rand, and Clara Bow. According to Harry, his office at the club had a secret door for sneaking them in and out while their husbands or dates drummed their fingers at their tables thinking they were just taking a long time powdering their noses. He says that the Hollywood Bowl couldn't hold all the women he had, and classes himself "a specialist in man's favorite sport."

Between the club and his other gigs Harry minted money and became the playboy nonpareil. He wore the finest bespoke suits and carried a gold cigarette case with his initials on it in diamonds. He commuted in a Rolls from Manhattan to his big house out on the water in Beechhurst, Queens, where he had a yacht and threw Gatsby-like parties for celebrities, beauties and millionaires. He learned to fly and kept a growing fleet of planes at nearby Flushing Airport. Harry worked hard, played hard, drank oceans of booze and smoked whole fields of tobacco. Everyone marveled at his stamina and joie de vivre even in that over-the-top decade.

In 1926, while still playing the host at his club, Harry got a featured role on Broadway in George White's Scandals, one of several knockoffs of the Ziegfeld Follies. After a boffo year it toured other cities, including Cincinnati, where, he notes ruefully, it tanked. In 1930 he headlined Lew Leslie's International Revue, where he introduced "On the Sunny Side of the Street." And in 1931 he made it, finally, into the Follies as well. He got his choice of songs to perform, including "Lullaby of Broadway." He was at the top of his career in those shows, the king of Broadway; his friend Eddie Cantor memorably said he wore Broadway like a boutonniere.

He didn't do so well in Hollywood. He starred, playing himself as "Harry Raymond," in the 1930 musical Puttin' on the Ritz, in which he introduced the song by his pal Irving Berlin. The movie did mediocre business then and is barely watchable now except for that number, Harry gliding around in front of an army of dancers with his top hat tilted over one eye. His recording of the song, which some consider the best, was a hit. (Among his other records are Berlin's "Blue Skies," his own "Muddy Waters" and a pretty wonderful Jolson-ish rendition of "Ain't She Sweet.") While in Hollywood to make the film he met Clara Bow. Teamed up at first for publicity purposes only, they became a hot item and got engaged. Then she suddenly married someone else. Hearing the news, he says, was the only time in his life that he fainted.

He'd make only two more feature films and one short. He sums them up this way: "All were forgettable. It became clear to me that whatever I had was best projected in person, either on the stage or in a night club." By the time he made the last film, released in 1938, he was well past his prime. When the Depression hit and then Prohibition ended, guys like Harry, icons of the Roaring Twenties, just didn't fit the new reality. To his credit, he didn't hang around like some other ghosts of the 1920s did. He left New York and settled in Miami, which was booming and lousy with new nightclubs where he could coast for a few years on his dazzling past. He went fishing with Hemingway and played with his airplanes.

His real fame in the 1930s came in fact as a flyer. In the mid-1930s he'd set altitude and speed records. Then in 1935 he and the pilot Dick Merrill made the world's first round-trip transatlantic flight in a single-engine plane. They filled the plane with tens of thousands of ping-pong balls as flotation devices should they land in the soup. Harry being Harry, after reaching Wales on the outward leg of the trip, they flew on to Paris to party all night with Maurice Chevalier before making the return flight. They landed upside-down in a Newfoundland bog, but they made it. It wasn't as big a deal as Lindbergh's one-way crossing in 1927, but Harry calls it the high point of his life.

Harry didn't make much news after that. He played some clubs through the 1940s, his looks and voice rough from all that carousing and smoking. He still had lots of friends in the show business who tried to engineer comebacks for him, but the public had long since forgotten him. By the time A Hell of a Life came out in 1966 he'd spent the millions he'd made in his heyday and was living alone, quietly and frugally, in Burbank, an old guy who'd gone full-tilt as long as he could, had a hell of a lot of memories and not too many regrets. He died in 1972.

by John Strasbaugh