Opposite But Identical

Chapter 1: The TV War

Richie Wheeler and Eddie Kaspbrak were sitting on the basement couch of the Wheeler house, watching MacGyver. Richie's lanky arm was draped around Eddie's shoulders while Eddie leaned into the taller boy.
Eddie looked up at him and said, "Hey, do you want to come over tomorrow?"
"Depends. Will your mom be home?"
"... no?"
Richie feigned disappointment. "Then no can do. I'll only come over if my lover, Mrs. K, is there."
Eddie rolled his eyes. "You're a real dumbass, you know that?"
"Yeah, but I'm your dumbass."
Eddie blushed and mumbled, "... yeah."

     He grinned at him before Richie's brother, Mike, ran down the stairs with his girlfriend El. Richie frowned at him. "Mikey, get out! We're watching MacGyver!"
      Mike gave a a frown identical to Richie's. "First of all, don't call me Mikey, and second of all, I need the TV. El wants to watch soap operas."
       "Eddie and I were here first! Just use the TV upstairs, dipshit."
        "But Mom and Dad are upstairs."
        "Exactly! Eds and I aren't moving just so you can do the dirty with El in the basement." Mike blushed, and El just looked confused.
          "That's not why I want to use the basement, pervert. Just GET OUT!" He picked up the remote and switched it to Days of Our Lives. Richie jumped up and tackled him, trying to get the remote out of his hands. Eddie looked at El and rolled his eyes goofily, which caused her to giggle. They were used to Richie and Mike fighting constantly, and had actually become friends through dealing with their antics.
           Eddie knew exactly what to say to get them to stop. "Richie, I'm just gonna head home. I'll see you later."
            Richie jumped up off of Mike. "No, no, no, Eddie Spaghetti," Eddie rolled his eyes at the nickname, "Don't go! Do you really want to leave me here with this dickwad?" He gestured towards Mike, who replied,
             "I can hear you, you know.
             He glanced at him. "Believe me, I know." He looked back at Eddie. "See what I mean?"
             Karen Wheeler came downstairs. "What's going on?"
             Mike and Richie both started yelling at the same time.
              "Eds and I were here first -"
             "-El wanted to watch Days of Our Lives-"
             "-He just wants to DO THE DIRTY WITH HER-"
             "Shut up, Richie!"
             "No, you shut up, Mike!"
     Mrs. Wheeler sighed and rubbed her temples. Despite looking so similar, the boys were completely different. Mike was quiet and wore basic polo shirts and khaki shorts, and Richie was the opposite of Mike: loud and obnoxious. Like Mike, his clothes reflected his personality. He wore loud Hawaiian shirts that made him look like a middle aged man on a cruise, with thick glasses that sat on his nose.
      Mrs. Wheeler said, "Okay, if you can't agree, then no one will use it." Oldest trick in the mom book. Believe it or not, this wasn't well received by the twins.
"Eddie and I were here first, Mom-!"
"We just wanted to watch soaps-"
"-I can't go over to Eddie's, Mrs. K hates me!"
        Mrs. Wheeler yelled, "Woah, woah, woah, stop yelling! First of all, Richard, I'm sure that Mrs. Kaspbrak doesn't hate you."
         Richie pondered for a second on this. "Yeah, she actually hates how much she loves me. She just gives me those looks of pure lust-"
          Eddie elbowed his boyfriend in the ribs and whispered, "You're not making your case any better, you know."
           Mike rolled his eyes. "Mom, they can just watch it upstairs."
          Richie lost his temper. "Shut the fuck up, Mike!"
          Karen Wheeler seemed to have made her decision. "That's it. Out, Richie. We don't use language like that in this house."
          "Hypocrite," Richie muttered before grabbing Eddie's wrist and running up the stairs. The two boys went into Richie's room instead, where Richie started to think up ways to get his twin back.
           "Okay, Eds, what if we sneak in through the basement window-?"
           "What do you mean 'we'? Why can't we just do normal couple things, like go to the movies or go on walks? Actually, no, not the movies. Those places are like Petrie dishes. A literal germ fest," he shuddered.
          Richie pushes his glasses up on his nose. "We were until Mike and El came in! Don't you want to get them back?"
           Eddie knit his eyebrows together. "Not El, she's nice."
          "Whatever. I'm going to annoy them."
          Eddie flopped back on Richie's bed. "Why can't you pay attention to me?"
          "In a minute." Eddie grumbled at this. Richie tiptoed down to the basement where Mike and El were sitting, sucked into the TV. Well, El was. Mike was just looking at her contently.
           Richie army crawled across the floor where they couldn't see him, then made a mad dash for the remote. Mike saw him and yelled before Richie changed the channel and sprinted upstairs, remote in hand. Mike was screaming at him while chasing him.
           Richie got in his room and locked the door. Eddie sat up on his bed. "What the fuck did you do?"
           Richie laughed and shook the remote in his hand as Mike swore at him from in the hallway. He panted, "I changed the channel and took the remote."
           "They can't change it with the buttons on the actual TV?"
            "It doesn't work!" Richie laughed, "You can only change it with the remote."
            Eddie nodded and then made a realization. "So, you got us locked in here, dipshit. How are we going to get out?"
          Richie hadn't thought of this. "Uh, we don't. You're the one who said you wanted to spend some quality time together..." He wrapped his arms around Eddie's torso and leaned in.
        Eddie put his hand on Richie's face. "I'm not kissing you with your brother outside the door," he whispered.
         "Why not?" The taller boy whispered back.
         "It feels weird knowing he's right there."
          "Ugh okay. Mike," Richie said, "GO AWAY!"
          "Not until you give me the remote back! And I heard everything you said, by the way!"
          Eddie turned red and Richie responded with the ever intelligent, "Uh........ no you didn't!"
          "Yeah, I did!"
          Richie and Eddie sat in that room for a solid half hour before Eddie said, "'Chee, he's probably not even there anymore. Richie laid down next to him and said, "Believe me, he is. That little bitch can hold a grudge."
          And he was right. Mike was still sitting outside the door. El had gotten bored and went to watch her soaps on the living room TV, but even this wouldn't budge Mike from his post. He was sick of Richie pulling this shit.
          Richie said, "I'm gonna go look," as he slid off of the bed and looked through the keyhole in his door, and sure enough, his brother was still sitting there. Richie sighed and flopped down on the bed next to Eddie.
         "He's still there," he whispered.
         "Seriously? Richie, we've been in here for forty minutes," he checked his watch, "It's two o'clock, and I'm starving! I didn't eat breakfast."
           Richie pulled a bag of gummy bears out of his "candy drawer" as he liked to call it. "Sweet, like you," he said before sneaking in a quick kiss on Eddie's lips.
           Eddie sat straight up and said, "Your brother's still outside, you know."
           "Oh, calm down. You liked it." Eddie rolled his eyes, shoving a gummy bear into his mouth. Richie wasn't wrong.
          After another twenty minutes, Eddie stood up. "This is getting ridiculous," he looked through the keyhole, turned around to Richie, and whispered, "He's gone!"
          Richie sat up, putting down his magazine. "What?"
           "He's gone," his boyfriend whispered again. Richie got up and looked through the keyhole. Eddie was right, he was gone. Richie went to open the door.
           "Wait," Eddie said. He stood on his toes and kissed him gently. Richie wrapped his arms around the smaller boy and kissed him
back.
           Mike rummaged through the drawers in the kitchen. Finally, he found the master key. It opened almost every door in the house. He passed El, who was still on the couch, as he tiptoed up to Richie's room. He slowly inserted the key in the keyhole and clicked the lock open quietly.
             Richie and Eddie were sitting on the bed, kissing. All of the sudden, the door flung open. Mike yelled, "GIVE ME THE REMOTE, RICH-"
             Unfortunately, Richie and Eddie couldn't break apart fast enough for Mike not to see what they were doing. Mike yelled, "Aaaaaah, ew! You know what," he picked the remote up off of the dresser, "I'm gonna go wash out my eyes, let's forget this ever happened." He shuddered as he left the room. Eddie, who was a bright shade of red, asked quietly, "How- how did he...?"
             His boyfriend nodded quietly. "I forgot about the fucking master key." Eddie shook his head in disbelief and they both chuckled nervously. Let's just say, no one would bring up that day for a long time.