#I still can't get over Beverly's death :(

[stone-stars]

happy 6 years of naddpod everyone <3 (alt title: the dragon pussy podcast making me cry for 6 minutes straight)

Transcript:

Mee Maw: That's true, but… there's also somethin' else. Murph: And you see she pushes her cloak to the side, and you see she has black scabs-- Caldwell and Jake: Oh, no! No no no! Moonshine: Oh, Melora! Murph: --and deep crick rot all over her chest and neck.

Marabelle, weakly: Jolene? I-- I didn't realize I was gonna get to-- say I was sorry. Moonshine (pretending to be Jolene): Thank you, of-- of course you're forgiven! I love you so much! You're my big sister!

Melora: You're not cursed. You were born like this.

Hardwon: (desperately) Gemma? Gemma? Gemma wake up. Gemma baby. Hey. Murph: You see she's-- she's-- she's cold and dead. Hardwon: Fuck!

Balnor: I couldn't help them. I can barely swing a sword. Alanis: There's a war coming, and everyone needs to fight. Even old men who don't know how.

Beverly, crying: No, he's-- he's my light. He's my Pelor! He always was! I strayed!

Bev Sr: You tell her the truth, Bev. You tell your mom that I died in the Feywild. Beverly: (crying) You know I'm bad at lying. Bev Sr: It's not a lie, Bev.

Deadeye: Yeah, I know I'm down a hand. And an eye. And a life. But I got a soul, and a family. And I finally know which is worth more.

Deadeye: I hate to think about what woulda happened to me, but maybe more I hate to think about who I still would've been if I had never met you.

Rosa: JV, I can't-- I can't find my lantern. JV: Aw, well look at that? There's a lantern right here. Rosa: Are you sure that's mine? JV: Yeah. Yeah, I'll-- I-- I'm gonna go look for mine.

Hardwon: --interpretation. I-- I-- Moonshine: Hardwon, I really don't want you to want to die, because I want you to live so much and I don't want to be alone in that feeling.

Lydia: Elias, is that you? Hardwon: It's uh-- It's still little Elias. You saved the child, ma.

Lydia: I don't know what I've been these past few years, I don't know what I've been these past few decades. But I want you to know that when I was your mother that... you were wanted.

Murph: Somebody who felt they could never have a child… um, is holding their child. Moonshine: I-- I didn't want to need you, dad, but… now that you're here… it-- it's kinda nice.

Murph: Your father has given you... a strategy guide on how to beat him. Caldwell: I have to look away so that the tears don't ruin the pages.

Beverly: (tearful) I don't want to go. I don't want to go. But I have to. It's my duty. I have to do this. Moonshine: Okay, youngin, I want you to know. I will love you whatever you choose to do. But, here's my two cents: A child has a duty to his father, but a hero has a duty to the world. Now, I've got my opinion of which you are. But it's time for you to decide.

Bev Sr: Thanks, Bev. I always-- I knew I could make the deal, because I knew you'd stop me.

Moonshine: (tearful) I-- I've been wanting to tell you about this for so long, and I just didn't get a chance to. And I don't know if I will, so I just wanted to make sure I told you.

Moonshine, crying harder as she goes on: Paw Paw. You are… You are my best friend. And you are the best part of me. (sobs) And I am so grateful. For-- (sobs) the fact that so much of our lives have been braided together. But… where I'm going, next-- after we beat Thiala, which we will-- you can't come, mmkay? So I just need to make sure that you are taken care of, and I need to make sure that you take care of some people, okay?

Pendergreens: This time, you picked me up. And you were nice to me for no reason.

Pendergreens: If when you come back... if I'm different? Moonshine: Mhm? Pendergreens: Just, remember me as I am now. 'Cause I like who I am when I'm around you.

Death: I will take everything from you-- Hardwon: Quit pointing at people! Death: --until you come with me. Hardwon: Ok-- I'll go! I'll go. Beverly: Hardwon, no! Hardwon: Bring her back, and I'll come. Bring her back.

Lydia: All my life, people told me what I had to be. You don't have to be anything other than what you are.

Lydia: I think you should talk to your friends. Not because you owe them an explanation, but because you deserve to be heard.

Melora: Beverly. Beverly: Yes? Melora: I wish you could grow up in a normal world, but the Gods have not blessed you with a normal life. You are… afflicted with duty. Things thrust upon you far beyond your years.

Melora: The world should have protected you, but you have been asked to protect it. What an honor, what an injustice.

Moonshine: How long do Half-Elves live? Mee Maw: You talkin' bout Hardwon? Moonshine: I mean-- It's on my mind.

Moonshine: I guess, if I'm being honest, I don't know what it's gonna be like to know Bahumia without Hardwon Surefoot. (tearful) And there's a part of me that doesn't want to find out what that feels like.

Moonshine: There is something sour I probably need to swallow, though. It is-- There's people you meet that are once in a timeless body lifetime kinda people, right? Mee Maw: Oh, yeah. Moonshine: Okay. Mee Maw: And you keep 'em with ya. Moonshine: Okay.

Moonshine: (crying) It's okay, Balnor. Like all the most powerful things in this world, I knew I was only borrowing you.

Hardwon: Moonshine, when-- When I left Irondeep, I-- I didn't know where I fit in. And then I met you, and you didn't just let me in. You brought me in, and you thought I was good.

Balnor: I hope that you all get to leave this world with the same comfort that I had: knowing that it's in good hands. I love you. Murph: "Your knight, Balnor."

[pumpkinfreak]

Watching Hannibal for the first time S2E1-4

Before I recap anything I need to rant. Will is in an asylum. At his lowest point, fighting for his life. Okay, Beverly Kats a pathologist from Jack's team. Comes to him and needs his help solving a murder. They found a body downstream, and Will, with his big brain wisdom, tells her to go upstream to find the killer... I am beginning to understand how these people could drive you to serial killing. HOW IS THAT NOT YOUR FIRST INSTINCT. It's a rural area, there's not a WAWA on every corner to search.

Apparently any rat bastard can get into the FBI, they all rely upon one guy using basic laws of nature to solve crimes. Like, this was not 4D chess, it was Connect Four. Instead of connecting four, you threw up on yourself and went crying to Will to fix it.

...rant over.

First scene Episode 1. Gives me more Mads fighting in a suit (I need psychological help) always love that. Lecter and Jack are trying to kill each other and then the plot insults me by jumping back twelve weeks. When Jack and Lecter are still friends. They're both bummed about Will being a serial killer and blaming Hannibal for the murders.

During this, we got to see the inside of a sea urchin (I desire the yellow spike ball meat) and it implied the Tuna meat Hannibal was sclicing up was a person. Like I don't know what fish meat looks like.

The whole event was very upsetting.

However, back at FBI headquarters, I was pleased to see Miranda! She's the internal Investigation lady.

Granted it's not the same character, but the vibes were there, now I need a Hannibal/Sex and the City crossover. Carrie and Lecter can go shopping and then eat Big. THE PLOT WRITES ITSELF. Anyway, Miranda, wants Jack to essentially throw Will to the wolves so the FBI doesn't have to take accountability for destroying his brain.

Also, there's like a guy sewing people together, so they form a giant eye to look at GOD, so GOD can look back at them. It looked really neat. Did not like watching a victim rip his own skin apart to escape. Loved the sequence of him running from the killer. Hannibal kills the guy, steals his leg, and sews him into his own body painting.

It's made abundantly clear that Hannibal believes himself to be god in this scene, and then he goes home and eats some tasty leg meat.

Episodes two and three focus on Will's trial, and everyone has opinions. Alana thinks Will did kill those people, but he did it in an unconscious state, and would not have done so otherwise. Jack is torn and can't decide if he pushed Will too hard and broke his brain, or if he's a highly intelligent psychopath who used the FBI as a cover. Will is in the trenches, trying to prove it's Hannibal. My opinion is that the hat Freddie wore to the trial is a sin against god and man. This woman wore the hat your Southern Baptist grandma wears.

In the smack-dab middle of this trial, another ear is delivered to the court. The ear belongs to the bailiff, who is found super dead. Jack is thrilled because this means someone may have done the killings, and he can avoid any responsibility for Will's mental state. I think I want Jack to get eaten. They try to work in this new murder as proof that Will is innocent, and the judge is not having it...that judge is then artfully murdered...

...but at least Will got a mistrial

Episode 4.

While all of this is going on, Will is at the same hospital Chilten runs. Chilten is somehow alive, after being turned into a slaughterhouse gift basket. He did lose a kidney but retained his brass balls because this man just keeps on being a massive douch nozzle. His new mission in life is to prove Will is a psychopath.

Will wants Beverly to look further into Hannibal, and she begrudgingly agrees.

Jack's wife confides in Hannibal that she wants to kill herself, due to the pain from her cancer. To which he agrees, and when she comes back later on the brink of death from a morphine overdose, HE FLIPS A COIN AND REVIVES HER. First of all, I thought he was gonna feed Jack his own wife. You know, for funsies.

Then Beverly finds human kidneys in Hannibal's fridge. Wait, there is more. THERE IS ALWAYS MORE ON THIS HIKE THROUGH SATAN'S LOWER INTESTINE. Beverly discovers a bunker under Hammibal's house. That she explores alone, I'm not surprised she had to be told to go upstream. We don't see what's in the bunker, but imagine it's not a Beanie Baby collection. Hannibal finds her and then cuts to black.

Im going to throw myself into an oven. I loved almost all of this, until next time. Stay safe, and do not eat the Tuna.

[ponett]

it's been a bit, so here's another roundup of some slarpg-related questions from my retrospring! some about the cast, some about worldbuilding and lore, others about the process of making the game

since holly floated the idea in her own stream: Did Jodie forge her own grill?

you know what? sure. this is canon now

very important question did catherine just pop out of the cauldron fully grown like that or did she actually experience childhood. need this answer for a debate

like most people catherine was born a baby

Given that it's the day of the Big Game: How do each of the Novas (+ Faith/Beverly) feel about sports?

jodie likes sports and follows the brightport teams actively, but she's also too good of a sport to really hate their rival teams

allison's always liked the act of playing sports way more than watching them (although she was never good enough at following orders to play on a team as a kid). she'll watch the big games with jodie, though

beverly is a casual fan who will at least root for local teams but doesn't really pay that close attention

melody and faith don't follow sports but can be convinced to show up for a super bowl party type get together

claire can only get invested in a sport or team if there's a jon bois type documentary that gets deep into the nerd shit

Were there ever any other names other than SLARPG in the running? Or was it always gonna be slarpg all the way.

i always considered changing the name. i have a list of 75 different names i considered over the years in my notes, ranging from more generic fantasy titles to sillier ones to more unique ones. early on most involved melody's name. many later ones include "Reverie." i may share the full list someday (possibly good fodder for a patreon post), but the "serious" title i've mentioned considering before was Power Couple (or Power Couples). i still like that one

i debated over the title a lot for many reasons. mainly, people are weird about the title, either treating the whole game as a joke or assuming it's porn or whatever. some also assume that you just cannot play the game if you aren't a lesbian, a thing that people don't do with other fantasy things that happen to feature sapphic relationships without putting it in the title

the problem, of course, is that changing your title is often a death sentence. half the struggle with marketing a game is even getting people to remember it in the first place in an era where a million things are constantly fighting for your attention. people need to have seen it a few times before they create that mental connection of "oh, THAT game, i've heard of that." so changing your title massively undercuts that

in that regard, Super Lesbian Animal RPG is just way more unique and memorable of a title than the alternatives i was considering. it's direct and unambiguous about the content of the game, and it grabs your attention in a way that something like "Guardians of Reverie," for instance, doesn't. (that's not a title i was considering too seriously, just an example.) also it abbreviates to a unique hashtag, which i find convenient. also i can say that rock paper shotgun once referred to it as "brilliantly named," so like, of course i can't change it now

several of the names i considered are now in the running for an overall franchise name, though, since i have zero intention of naming a game Super Lesbian Animal Platformer or Super Lesbian Animal Visual Novel or whatever

Do werewolves exist in slarpg

yes, werewolves exist on reverie. i briefly considered including a werewolf character somewhere as a gag because i think it's really funny to imagine someone being extremely melodramatic about being cursed and turning into a wolfman in a world that has furries all over the place

what order would you rank The Novas (+ Beverly/Faith) from most to least internet/irony poisoned

claire

allison

melody

faith

jodie

beverly

hey! sorry if this is a dumb question, but a friend asked me if there were any canonically straight characters in slarpg as a joke and now i’m genuinely curious. are there?

catherine, probably? i mean really, the orientations and love lives of characters outside of the main cast just don't get commented on at all. is vicky straight? is sean? are amelia, fanta, jack, or senna? who knows. i don't

i do think it's extremely funny to be in a situation where any character being confirmed straight would be an after-the-fact word of god thing though. i didn't even do this on purpose

Are there any characters that are straight edge

beth and mary ena, canonically

Are Dragon's Beastfolk?

the ancestry of dragons on reverie is unknown. some believe them to be related to reptilian beast folk, but they're usually considered their own thing due to their unique abilities

Did melody get Brent enlargement surgery? Or is she just lucky

who is Brent and why does he need to be enlarged surgically

are class names standardized across reverie, or are adventurers largely free to call themselves whatever class name they'd like?

they'll have certain commonalities that are widely understood. you can tell someone "i'm a witch" and they'll get that means you're primarily a magic user with a curiosity in the supernatural. but there are no strict regulations about what you can call yourself, no. like allison's class is just "punk," and that isn't A Thing that you can formally train to be recognized as. that's just her vibe. some titles may come with more specific expectations - for example, paladins are supposed to derive their power from faith - but a lot of the time it just comes down to semantics. what's the difference between a witch, a mage, and a sorcerer? who fuckin cares

was the secondhand staff's bent design conceived before or after holly's creation?

before. the origin story for the bend is that when drawing melody for the first time i realized it was going to block her face, so i literally just bent it out of the way. (and also it makes the design more memorable and fits with them being undergeared first-time adventurers making do with what they've got)

is 1 gold equivalent to 1 uk pound or something like that? or is 1 gold worth a lot more than our silly paper money

1 gold on reverie is more like a penny. it would be a bit less cheery in greenridge if food cost so much that a carrot was $95

whats melody's cup size!

you know what? i have to admire your moxie for asking me this

Does fortnite exist in the slarpg universe or are they free of such silly things such as video games

allison is always cranking 90s

is melody a fan of kirby : )

i don't think melody plays a ton of video games but i think she would enjoy kirby

Which of the cast would be most likely to play a game called Super Lesbian Animal RPG?

claire

really loved the game :] which somic character do you think would blend in the most into the SLARPG world

blaze as sir percival in sonic and the black knight

do you know where the vocal samples in "B.A.D." came from? one of the best parts of those really fun bosses

i do, but i think bee might still be keeping it a secret to see if anyone ever figures it out

I love seeing all the casual outfits the main cast has in the Prologue comic but I also realized we only ever see Claire in her adventuring gear and work clothes. Do you picture her having any casual outfits or is she just always wearing her witch clothes?

claire has other outfits, but these days she's wearing her witch gear and guild tabard as much as possible because that's how she wants to be seen

How would you feel about someone making nice body pillows of the main cast

it's preferable to mean body pillows

Yoshi P signed a fan's FFXIV body pillow, are you as based as him?

i am also capable of signing an ffxiv body pillow, sure

PLEASE TELL ME FAITH AND THE PALADIN BRIGADE ARE NOT COPS

this is all but outright said in optional dialogue lol. they're not cops. they aren't allowed to arrest or kill people. they're the emergency response for magical emergencies

I've just been wondering this but are there weapon regulation laws in the SLARPG world? Just curious if only registered guilds can have them or can just anyone carry a weapon around anywhere they want? lol

this isn't something i've really explored. my immediate thought would be that it probably depends on the weapon. wielding (or selling) an Ancient Cursed Obsidian Blade of Death is probably heavily regulated, but in a world where you can get jumped by monsters while traveling there's probably less concern over people carrying around regular old swords

I'm curious, was there ever any cut plans to expand on other locations in this universe such as Brightport? Was curious about that one since several characters mentioned it in game

if you mean "were there ever plans to visit brightport in slarpg," then no

the scope of the game was always confined exclusively to the sapphire islands from the start. one of my goals with slarpg was to have a small setting compared to other globe-trotting RPGs, but to explore that setting and its cast of characters more intimately. (mother 3's nowhere islands were a big influence.) but i also generally think it's good for worldbuilding when there's more to the world than what you see within the confines of the story. it stokes the imagination and makes it feel more real. if anything, i would've liked to reference even more locations elsewhere on reverie and things happening there, but i focused on brightport since it's claire and jodie's hometown and also the nearest major city

brightport is a big, big city, and if i ever explore it i want to do it right. had i found a plot excuse to make it appear later in slarpg, it probably would've needed to be smaller than greenridge with fewer buildings to enter, due to greenridge already being over scope. (notice how the other two settlements have simple outdoor marketplaces while greenridge has four separate shops you can enter, all with their own bespoke interior art and music. that was not a thing we could keep doing if we wanted to finish the game.) at that point it's not doing the idea of a big modern fantasy city justice, so why even bother?

it also would've felt very, very weird if you could visit brightport but you didn't get to meet claire and jodie's families, not to mention other characters since it can't JUST be them, and there needs to be some kind of transportation infrastructure connecting the sapphire islands to the mainland, and on and on and on. you can see how the workload quickly spirals out of control. so it was just never a thing i even considered for the game

[simesthetick]

Checking back in quick with the Landgraabs...

Savannah is very sad over the death of a friend (not sure who), and somehow has become an alcoholic??

Beverly is still living at home, and a good big sister to science baby Destiny. (I never realized how much the exterior of this building looks like a high school)

Broderick has been talking with Brittany a lot.

It also happens to be Destiny's birthday! Good thing it's a Sunday and we can throw a quick party while everyone's home

Broderick took the chance to invite Britt over again.

(I've been really wanting to re-wallpaper this kitchen in just a solid grey but I can't find something that matches the cabinets as well)

I wasn't sure how Chasity would take seeing Broderick again, but she seems to be over it, lol

Event goal: everyone dance

Shout out to the caterer watching TV, thanks a bunch

Destiny and Fern got to make friends just in time for them to not be the same age anymore, haha

She gets a CAS portrait because she aged up into a hair/makeup/headwear combination that was absolutely atrocious. She is 100% Landgraab.

[diesoonandsuffer]

my thoughts on star trek: nemesis

SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT

:(

i knew data was going to die but i still wasn't happy about seeing it. it's funny i was thinking to myself "how can they kill him in a permanent way? he'll probably have to explode" and. well he surely did.

let's put that to the side for the moment. in terms of the movie itself, it definitely had high stakes, it didn't feel like an episode of tng the way the 1st and 3rd movies did. obviously destroying all of earth vs one colony of people are higher stakes but i also mean in terms of the pacing, the music, the mood, etc. i found tom hardy.......sort of interesting? i had to adjust to both his voice and looks since i've never seen him look like a bald twink and speak with anything other than a gruff voice so that took a lot of adjusting lol. but his character would interest me at times and bore me at others. i liked his line "you won't live to see the echo defeat the voice" and at the end when he purposefully pulled the sword or whatever further through his body so he could look picard in the eye as he died. but then he would do boring villain stuff or sexually assault troi and i would be like ok what are we doing here.

also really? fucking sexually assaulting troi AGAIN?! tng writers get a job stay away from her. literally any time a non-cast member man is near her i feel fear. and i know they tried to do the whole her taking back her power thing with the mind connection to the viceroy but girl it is not the serve you thought it was. however i can't deny i loved seeing her in the classic trek/noir "light over the eyes" i'm shocked they haven't done it for her sooner since she has the black betazoid eyes. but anyway that shit pissed me off.

other than that troi scene pretty much anyone who isn't picard or data is irrelevant to this movie. you could replace worf with a regular security agent and almost nothing would change, beverly could just be any doctor and riker is mostly relevant to the few scenes with troi, which as we've discussed i don't like. i did enjoy seeing their wedding at the beginning and i liked picard's speech, but seeing them get married reminded me of how quickly they got back together in insurrection and then i got mad again lol. society if i had the time to rewrite their plot in insurrection for a fic. but that's besides the point.

i can't really think of anything else to talk about other than data's death. like i mentioned i knew he was going to die in this but i didn't know how or why, however early on in the film it was easy to figure out that he was going to sacrifice himself. it's a little odd that the movie was like here have his stupider younger brother as a glimmer of hope or something even though data himself is like yeah that guy isn't me even if he has my memories. so what was the point of that?

i think the part of data's death that made me the saddest was when riker comes back to the bridge and troi runs over and embraces him. you see geordi look at them with this smile but it's full of sadness, and then his face falls and he looks back at the explosion debris. why did they linger on that. i could literally feel geordi thinking that the person he wanted to be with forever just got fucking exploded. it was so clearly that emotion and i don't know what they were trying to convey otherwise but they failed. literally they should have filmed geordi kissing the android just once like they deserved it!

also side note so funny how they finally completely gave up on the emotion chip. no mention of it and data makes a comment on having no emotions. they could have said oh he left it behind so b-4 can have it but they didn't even do that. goes to show how stupid of an idea it was.

[edit: oh my god who is going to take care of spot. i just thought of that and got so sad. i guess b-4 could and spot might not be able to tell the difference but that android is not equipped to take care of an animal i don't think. WHO TAKES CARE OF SPOT. if this is ever answered please let me know.]

but that's that i suppose! overall i think i like the tos movies more than the tng ones, at least the first four compared to these four. the tng movies are definitely better than the last two tos movies. they might be better movies overall just from a technical standpoint but i think the tos movies are more rewatchable. i think the only tng movie i would rewatch is first contact, and even then i have no active desire to at the moment. however not every trek movie can be the search for spock so i have to be realistic. it is crazy to think there are no trek movies left for me to watch since i've seen the aos movies already. i liked having them for me at the end of the show, so it'll be sad whenever i finish ds9 and there will be no movies for me to watch. they added a gravitas to their original shows that made everything feel fuller and dynamic, and elevated it beyond what the tv format ever could. i think the first tng movie is the best example of this, i loved seeing the tng set through a movie. but, that's that!

[lamelycool]

Complex Conclusions

Data Soong & Geordi La Forge

Summary: (a fic HEAVILY inspired of the episode Eye of the Beholder) Data contemplates suicide and the reasoning behind it. Geordi does his best to explain.

Tw: talk of suicide and suicidal thoughts

"Geordi, may I ask you a possibly triggering question?"

"Oh um, sure you can Data. What's on your mind?" Geordi glances over his shoulder as he continues to do calibrations.

"Have you ever contemplated suicide? "

Geordi pauses and turns to Data. "Oh, wow okay. One of those heavy talks..." Geordi huffs out a breathy chuckle then continues, "Well um no, I've never... at least not seriously. Life gets hard sometimes. Especially growing up blind. But I have too much to live for. I could never can't even think about it. Why do you ask? Is everything alright?" Geordi asks with concern.

"I am simply trying to understand the subject better. Specifically, why would someone choose to willing terminate their life?"

Geordi pauses and thinks carefully of his to respond. How to explain in a way Data would understand? And how to explain it at all really? Why couldn't Data ask someone like Deanna or Beverly, someone more experienced... Just the duties of a best friend to a curious android though he supposed.

"Well uh Data, I don't really know. I mean there are many reasons someone might choose to. But I suppose it is overall to 'fix' something they believe is wrong or a problem? The best conclusion they see? I- I don't know Data it's complicated..."

"A conclusion? The conclusion being that death is the best solution?" Data tilts his head then nods. "Ah, I believe that I understand. I have been in a similar situation myself."

This grabs Geordi's full attention and he quickly turns to face Data and asks in shock, "Really?"

"Yes. My first months after being activated were a difficult time. And there were many problems that occurred with me becoming more sentient."

"Because of your nural nets forming? " Geordi offers.

"Yes, as I learned and acquired more skills my newly developed nural pathways took over less complex pathways. The process was very dissorienting. "

"I'd bet... "

"And as my systems grew in complexity, it became increasingly difficult to integrate new pathways into my neural net... I came to the conclusion it would be safer and easier to shut myself down and start again. In a way it would've been suicide. "

"Oh Data... What did you decide to do?"

"I decided against doing so and gained a new outlook. I decided to face my problems as challenges to be overcome. Not as 'road blocks' that stop me."

"That's a good way to look at it Data. Was that... was that the only time? The only time you thought of...committing?" Geordi inquiries cautiously.

"I have on three other occasions. That being when I first lost someone to death, when encounterimg a being that altered my thoughts, and during academy."

"Academy? Starfleet Academy? Why?"

"Yes Starfleet Academy. In academy I was learning how to interact with others properly. But my fellow students did not tend to like me because of my android nature. And the few who were kind tended to view me simply as an intricate piece of machinery that they wished to study. Not as a person or friend. It was overall a... confusing and isolating experience. Because while I cannot feel lonely or hurt, it is still not a situation I would wish to be in."

"That's terrible Data I'm sorry. You don't deserve that you are as much a person as anyone else is. Hell you're the kindest person I know!" Geordi exclaims angry that anyone could treat Data so poorly. It always makes him upset when people treat Data like he is not a person, just a computer, like he's less than.

"If I may ask... Did you contemplate then because of any particular event during Academy or? "

"Indeed. I was uncomfortable yes, but not enough to contemplate suicide. I did so after being in a situation which conflicted with my code. I was in a way ordered to do so. In fact it was the event that caused me to be able to choose to disobey. That if following a order is harmful or goes against my moral code I will not follow said order not matter from who. "

"That's terrible! Did you tell someone? Did you report it? How could someone say something so... so... so cruel?! Who said that? Never mind I don't wanna know. I'd have to have a word or two with the jerk...telling my friend to off himself... What a dick. " Gerodi rants angrily trailing off into murmuring.

"It is alright Geordi. And no I did not. I did not wish to risk their career simply because of their views. Aswell as in the end they did teach me a lesson which caused me to develope further. They taught me further free thought, that not all people are kind, and that not all think the same way I do morally."

"Yah... But still no has the right to talk you in such a way okay? You are no less a person than anyone else. Hell, you're one of the best people I know! Kind, loyal, helpful, and hardworking. Not to mention a great friend."

"Thank you Geordi... You are a great friend to me aswell. I'm sorry Geordi, I must pologize. "

"Apologize? What for?"

"I do not believe that I have expressed how grateful I am for you Geordi. You are in a lot of ways my first friend. And you have become more than that. You are very dear to me. My closest friend. My best friend. "

"Data... ", tears begin pool in Geordi's eyes and he out stretches his arms, "come here buddy!"

Data leans forward into Geordi's embrace and they hug tightly. Their hug is as tight as their bond with one another. They are the best of friends, brothers, and much more. Their bond is just too complex to explain with words. So simply they are more.

[octoberobserver]

Losers of the Rectangular Table

(Read on ao3)

"Damn, I wish I had a gong. It was so cool last time."

"You've never been cool a day in your life, Trashmouth."

Richie Tozier blinks, surveying his friend from where she sits diagonally across from him at the long, dining room table, a glint in her jade eyes. It really is a sight to behold, ten grown people sitting pretty at the glossy mahogany structure, Richie and Bill at each end like twin-kings of their weird, little kingdom.

Upon arrival, they each had silently acknowledged that a circular table would have facilitated their large group a little better. But, after last time...Richie is glad for the change. He had already made the obligatory ‘Last Supper’ joke more than once, of course. He blames the cold for his lack of creativity. Eddie blames his now-fired ghost-writers.

"Words hurt, Beverly. I thought engaged life had changed you, but alas," he places a wounded hand to his chest, "you have marred the first annual Clown Club meet—"

"We're not calling it that," Stanley cuts across Richie’s dramatic speech, with a withering look from his right.

"Well, you already vetoed Dead Losers’ Society, Staniel—”

"That's because out of the ten people present, only three of us have actually died, so that name doesn't hold up, genius," Eddie sighs from his left, picking up his glass.

"Okay fine, Mr Pedantic Pants,” Richie shrugs down at Eddie before addressing the table at large, “how about - welcome to the first annual 'Pennywise fucked us up and we can't talk about it to professionals lest we get thrown in the nut house' meeting. That satisfy everyone?"

Various murmurs echo throughout the room and Richie takes that as his cue to sit back down, drink in hand.

"I never thought I'd hear you use the word 'lest' in a sentence," Eddie snorts, taking a large sip from his long island iced tea, his third of the night.

Three-drink-Eddie is where his lips really loosen, to Richie’s endless delight.

Richie studies his mouth around the purple crazy straw for a second, eyes lingering on said thin, pursed, snarky lips before he shoots back, unthinkingly, "Watch your tongue, Kaspbrak. Lest I put it to better use."

Shit. Rein it in,Tozier.

Three-drink-Richie is an idiot.

Well, an even bigger idiot than sober Richie, anyway.

He knows that he has gotten a little too...comfortable these last few months where Eddie and his carefully constructed line is concerned. They have been living together in Richie’s L.A. apartment for over six months now, after Eddie landed on his doorstep, announcing his divorce following his after-death crisis. Being roommates had come remarkably easy, with only minor hiccups, especially considering their type A and type B personalities, (the vegetable crisper is not a candy-drawer, Richie!) and it brought out a brazenness in Richie that he had thought was long-buried.

It’s just too fun fucking with Eddie (and have him give as good as he got), always had been.

Trouble is, subty isn’t exactly Richie’s strong suit the best of times, and when it comes to his oldest, deepest secret, he really can’t afford to test that. And yet, he does, almost unbeknownst himself, constantly.

Stan has always said I’m a masochist.

Richie has officially been out of the closet (complete with Twitter hashtag and upcoming Netflix special) for almost a year, while Eddie is too, albeit on a much quieter scale, for almost eight months. And not much has changed in their dynamic, really. They are still RichieandEddie, EddieandRichie, EdsandTrashmouth. They are, still at their core, those thirteen year old bickering boys, poking and prodding at each other, literally and figuratively, only they both now acknowledge that they had always been boys who liked boys, too.

And that...that made things interesting.

Kinda heartbreaking too.

‘Cause at least when Richie had thought Eddie was straight, he had that as an excuse, something to nurse his wounded, fragile heart. It was just never to be. Will never be.

But now…

Now he has to face the fact that Eddie is into dudes. He just isn’t into Richie. Will never be.

But that doesn’t stop Richie from riling him up at any given opportunity.

He’s only human.

If a little obvious, sometimes.

Though he’s certain Eddie hasn’t caught on as surely he would have run for the Hollywood hills if he had.

A flush of crimson rises steadily up Eddie's neck that Richie hungrily follows with his gaze like a man starved, heat pooling in his treacherous stomach. Eddie opens his mouth, no doubt to squawk an indignant retort when Bill leans forward, catching their attention.

"Richie, behave. We have company," he admonishes like a weary schoolteacher, gesturing first to Stan’s wife, Patty, and then to Adrian Mellon and his fiancé, Don Hagarty, as if they had all somehow forgotten their esteemed guests of honour.

“Oh don’t mind us,” Adrian waves dismissively, “we’re used to Richie’s latent flirting,” he leans forward in his chair to catch Richie’s eye, a smirk lining his face, “right, Tozier?”

“What can I say, Mellon?” Richie smirks right back, thinking, you smug little shit, “I’m an equal opportunity tease.”

Patty gives an amused snort as Richie turns to wink at her, ignoring Stan’s patented eyeroll.

Eddie shifts in his seat, clearing his throat.

“Alright so, uh...how do we start this?”

The Losers all look to their old leader, who is taking a sip from his piss/battery acid hybrid (according to Richie) craft beer.

Bill looks to his right, catching Mike’s eye and slowly lowering his glass.

“Well, uh...I’m no shrink but, I-I guess we could start with any uh...any pressing issues?”

“We’ve more issues than The Walking Dead, Big Bill,” Richie chuckles, not caring that he is ripping a line straight from his new special, “you gotta be a bit more specific.”

It had been a nice weekend, so far. Ben’s ‘cabin’ (actual giant wooden mansion) in Montana, had been the perfect backdrop for this little get-together, just over 18 months after everything that had gone down in Derry 2: Electric Boogaloo.

They were so far away from their real lives. A four hour flight from Los Angeles. Three from Georgia. Six from New York. Each pairing, (Richie did not allow himself to think ‘couple’) - Patty and Stan, Adrian and Don, Bill and Mike, and Richie and Eddie, had waved goodbye to their jobs, their responsibilities, their everyday worries, for an entire weekend to live it up with Ben and Bev in their vacation home.

And live it up, they did. Their first night had been spent settling in, acclimating themselves after their travels, followed by a quiet dinner and earlyish to bed like the near-middle-aged people they were. (Don and Adrian notwithstanding.) But tonight, after spending the day sight-seeing and catching up, tonight held a purpose.

“I’m still having nightmares.”

It’s Ben who speaks first.

Bev reaches out to squeeze his hand, lacing their fingers together.

“I’m being buried alive.”

Richie watches as Bev’s hand tightens over the planes of Ben’s knuckles, her own ghostly white.

“I’m suffocating to death, alone, the clown’s laughter all around me.”

A short silence follows those words.

“My deadlight dreams come back sometimes,” Bev pipes up quietly, running her free hand through her hair and blowing out a breath, “I thought they’d...stop, after. But they haven’t. Not completely.”

Richie swallows down the bile rising in his throat, dread forming in the pit of his stomach.

“Deadlights?” Don asks gently, surveying the table.

“Goodness gracious great balls of light,” Richie deadpans, gesturing with his drink, “big-ass orbs. The clown’s...energy, I guess? I dunno, man. Bev stared them straight on when she was a kid and...went into a trance or something. All white-eyed and floaty, like doing Molly at Burning Man. Except she didn’t achieve enlightenment or whatever the fuck. She saw us all die horribly in a freaky premonition.”

Bev’s gaze is heavy and knowing, no doubt hearing the strain in his voice as he tried to joke.

“You saw them too, Rich.”

Richie suppresses a shudder just as Eddie reaches out and clasps his forearm. The weight feels nice. Solid. Comforting. Everything Eddie has been for him for the last year. Or thirty years, depending how you look at it.

When it’s clear Richie isn’t going to say anything, Mike rests his palms against the table, staring at nothing.

“I think about Henry Bowers sometimes.”

Richie practically feels Eddie still in his seat, his grip on his arm tightening.

“Me too,” he admits, “hard not to think about the guy I axe-murdered.”

“You didn’t murder him, Richie,” Mike murmurs, trying to catch his eye, “you were defending me. You saved my life.”

The bile rises higher in his throat as he avoids Mike’s stare.

“Henry Bowers was Derry’s favourite bully,” he addresses Adrian, Don and Patty respectively, instead of even attempting to broach the subject of his ‘heroism’. “A real winner. Racist, sexist, homophobic. The true trifecta.”

“Anti-semitic too,” Stan adds, swirling the slice of lime around in his glass.

“Shit, yeah,” Richie agrees, “what’s after trifecta? Four-fecta?”

“Quadfecta,” Eddie corrects with a pat to his arm before letting his hand fall away.

Richie tries and fails not to miss its warmth.

“Yeah, I met a few of Derry’s bullies myself,” Adrian chuckles humorlessly, hand coming up to rest on his chest where they all knew an impossibly large, mouth-shaped scar lay directly over his heart.

Don leans into him, knocking their temples gently together, his arm winding around his shoulders and pulling him close.

Richie watches their casual intimacy, the ever-present ache flaring within him. He doesn’t look at Eddie. But it’s a near thing.

“They’re...they’re being prosecuted, right?” Patty asks, voice gentle but gaze fiery, “for what they did to you?”

Adrian nods, “Yeah, I mean, as much as they can be. Murder is off the table ‘cause, well,” he gestures up and down at himself, “but they’re up for assault, grievous bodily harm, attempted murder too. My lawyer says with that, and the Hate Crime angle, it’s looking good for fifteen to life.”

“Too good for those assholes,” Eddie growls, angrily gulping down the last dregs of his cocktail, slamming the glass back onto the table.

Adrian smiles, “Aww, Kaspy. I’m touched you care.”

Eddie blinks at him, “Of course I care, man. You...without you I—” he breaks off with a wave of his hand, the table filling in the rest. It’s still hard for Eddie to talk about what happened...after. Just as hard as it is for Richie to hear, if he’s being honest.

Adrian tilts, clapping Eddie on the shoulder.

“I wouldn’t have made it back without you, my afterlife-wife.”

Eddie glares at him.

“I hate that nickname.”

“Aw, Kasp—”

“That one too.”

Richie leans into the two of them, whispering conspiratorially, “Take it from me, Mellon-head. Spagheds is not a fan of any nicknames. I’ve been trying and failing since before you were just a twinkle in your dad's dick."

The whole table lets out some low chuckles at that. After a beat, Patty pipes up, smiling softly.

“I just...I can’t believe everything you all went through, now, but also, back when you were kids,” she marvels, glancing around at the Losers, her eyes settling on her husband, “you were all so brave.”

Don and Adrian hum in agreement before Bill heaves a sigh.

“If we had have just figured out how to kill IT back then—”

“That way madness lies, Bill,” Mike cuts across his friend, resting a hand on his shoulder, “trust me.”

Bill and Mike hold each others’ gaze for a weighted moment. It gives Richie pause. As does most interactions between Big Bill and Mikey these days. There’s something comfortable, familiar laced between them that Richie can almost put a name to.

It takes one to know one…

“You wouldn’t have died.”

Bill says it directly to Mike, but he means it for Stan, Adrian and Eddie.

“G-Georgie...he still would have, I know that. But...you three, those kids...they wouldn't have had to go through that. Dying and coming back.”

They all let that sink in.

“You think, ten years down the line we'll have Dean and Victoria knocking on our doors?” Eddie asks, clearly wanting to put an end to that train of thought, sounding both intrigued and horrified by the idea.

“Maybe,” Stan shrugs, “I mean, we get it, right? What they went through. Well. You guys do anyway.”

Richie can feel Eddie’s frown wafting from him across the table at their friend.

“You get it too, Stan. You...died and came back too.”

Stan nods, eyes lowered to his half-empty glass.

“Yeah. But you and Adrian were murdered. I took a bath.”

Patty’s sharp intake of breath is the only sound that follows that.

Stan reaches out for his wife’s hand, squeezing it apologetically.

“That’s bullshit, Stan,” Eddie practically spits, throwing up his hands, “I’m sorry, man, but it is. You...you sacrificed yourself for us. You ‘took yourself off the board’ to try and save us from that bastard. It may not have been directly him that physically did the job, but he did fucking kill you.”

Eddie is vibrating in his seat, his knee bouncing up and down as if independent from his body. Richie’s hand lands heavily on it, stilling it with a gentle squeeze. Their eyes meet, a little of the tension draining from Eddie’s shoulders at whatever he sees on Richie’s face.

Richie has an idea what it could be, but tries not to think too hard about it.

“I should’ve been able to warn you,” Bev breaks through whatever spell has befallen them, snapping both of their attention back across the table.

Richie goes to take his hand away, only to have Eddie’s fall atop it, their fingers brushing.

Heart hammering in his chest, Richie tries not to think too hard about that either.

That way madness lies…

“What?”

Bev glances over towards Stan.

“I—back then, back in the Barrens...I told you that I saw all of us, as we are now. Fighting IT. But I...I didn’t see you, Stan.”

Her voice is thick with emotion, her eyes wide and glistening.

“I’m sorry I—”

“Bev, it’s not your fault,” Stan interrupts gently, reaching over his wife to pat her hand where it still lay atop of Ben’s, “you were just a kid. You didn’t know what any of it meant. Didn’t...didn’t you say you saw all of us, die? Not just me and Eddie?”

She nods, her amber hair catching on the soft light.

“Well,” Stan gives a half-shrug, “then how could you know what would come true and what wouldn’t? Until it happened?”

Something ugly squirmed in Richie’s gut at that. He tried to shove it down, tried not to think of how, in those impossibly hard weeks after Eddie—after what happened, he had blamed Bev, was furious at her for not warning them that Eddie would be impaled.

It’s not her fault, it’s not her fault, it’s not her—

“What did you see in the Deadlights, Richie?”

It’s Bill who asks this time, his tone tinged with a determination that Richie had not missed from childhood.

Thing is, Richie had avoided outright telling them exactly what he had seen every time anyone dared to broach the subject, but now, with nine pairs of eyes levelled at him, even he, trash-talking Trashmouth that he is, knows he can’t evade the question any more.

So, he does the next best thing.

He lies.

Or rather, tells a half-truth.

“Oh, you know,” he shrugs, keeping his voice as light as he can, “the usual showreel of horror - Bev drowning in a sea of blood, Ben being buried alive, a spectre of Georgie drowning you in your basement, Mike being beheaded, and Eds—”

His voice catches in his throat as he gently slips his hand out from under Eddie’s, eyes glued to the table.

“Eds being skewered like the world’s biggest shishkabob,” he rasps, “I uh...I didn't know the last one would actually happen either.”

He had been too slow. Too dazed. Too horrified to do anything but watch as the love of his life—

“You couldn’t have done anything either, Rich,” Eddie murmurs, his eyes burning a hole into the side of his face, “you know that, right?”

Richie swallows around the lump in his throat, nodding vigorously before leaping up out of his seat, waving his now empty glass in the air, “I’m raiding your booze, Benny boy. I’m tapped out.”

He can feel several concerned glances follow him across the room to the liquor cabinet. His hand shakes as he reaches out for the bourbon, shakes even harder as the liquid splashes into the glass, filling it higher than it probably should.

Why the fuck did I agree to this little therapy session?

He knows it’s been a long time coming. This little trauma talk of theirs. Had known it pretty much from the moment Eddie had called him from Derry General, no longer dead and wondering, ‘Where the fuck are you, dickwad? I woke up in the Barrens and you assholes were gone. What gives?!’ not realising that it had been him who had been…gone for over a month and most of the Losers had headed home. But not Richie. Oh, no. Richie had ignored all 79 missed calls from his manager, exchanged his flashy rental for an inconspicuous Volvo and been hauled up in a shitty motel in Bangor, brainstorming ways to excavate the whole of Neibolt to get Eddie’s body the fuck out from under that hellhole. ‘Cause there was no fucking way Richie was leaving him down there.

Turns out, there was no fucking way Eddie was staying down there either way.

“...and he actually said, ‘chicks dig scars.’”

Richie tunes back into the conversation going on behind him, (having heard the story of Adrian’s pigheaded brother-in-law before), putting the lid back on the bourbon and snatching up the pitcher of Long Island iced tea. With a deep breath, he forces himself to turn and walk back to his seat as normally as possible.

He’s about 69% successful.

“Shame you bat for the other team, Mellon,” he snorts as he lowers himself into his chair, ignoring the dark eyes he adores as he deposits the pitcher to his left, focussing on the younger man, “that would’ve been one hell of a scar to show off to the ladies.”

He gestures with his glass towards Adrian’s chest.

“You could’ve said it was a shark bite or like a Wendigo or some shit. You woulda been swimming in puss—”

“Nope! No, thank you,” Adrian interjects over Richie’s chortling, grimace marring his face, “I thought you were the ‘new and improved’ Trashmouth? No more pussy references when you waved the rainbow flag?”

Richie wiggles his eyebrows, “Guess some habits are hard to break.”

Like being in love with your best friend. You haven’t managed to break that one in thirty years.

Something glints in Adrian’s eye that Richie decidedly does not like.

“You know, dudes dig scars too. But I’m happily engaged,” he smiles sweetly at Don before tilting his head, turning to his right, “but you’re single, Eddie. You ever think of showing yours off in your Grindr profile?”

That little shit.

Installing Grindr had been an impulse decision of Eddie’s. An impulse that Richie had hated with every fibre of his being. But, Richie is a good friend. Eddie’s best friend. So of course he had helped him with it. Helped him craft a witty tagline (that nobody actually reads) and leaf through his very few selfies for an appropriate profile pic (that nobody really cares about unless it shows he's either jacked as shit or hung like a horse.)

But still, Richie helps. Because he’s a good friend.

And a fucking coward.

“Ugh, no thanks,” Eddie curls up his nose in disgust at Adrian’s suggestion, causing Richie’s stomach to swoop with relief, “Grindr is weird enough without bringing out the like...body gore freaks or whatever. I don’t want some Freddy-Krueger-fanboy perving on me.”

Adrian nods, humming in thought.

Richie doesn’t like that either.

“So what do you like then, Kasp? Anyone catch your eye?”

Richie can feel the heavy gaze of every other Loser (Adrian, Don and Patty included) at the goddamn banquet table (seriously, Ben, who the fuck needs a table this big?!) deeply regretting his conspicuous seating choice, as their looks alternate from him, to Eddie, and back again.

Subtly isn’t the Losers’ strength either.

Because here’s the thing - Richie knows he showed his hand back at Neibolt street. Back when he had to be dragged, literally kicking and screaming, out of the dilapidated well-house as his whole world crumbled down around him. And his whole world? Well, everybody figured out pretty quickly that that was Eddie.

Had always been Eddie since as far back as he could remember (now that he was allowed to.) He had spent those three days, over that terrible, horrible, no good, very bad weekend that was Derry 2: Judgment Day, remembering just how much Eddie had meant to him. And still means to him, despite their twenty-three-year-forced-separation.

Only to have it all snatched away with a claw through the back.

Hey, Richie listen, I think I got it, man! I think I killed it, I did! I think I killed it for rea—

“Aren’t we meant to be talkin’ about how fucked up we all are? Not critiquing my dating life?” Eddie’s indignant tone snaps Richie from his haunting reverie, his eyes darting up and meeting Bev’s.

She smiles gently at him. Her lips tinged with something like sadness, as if she can read his mind.

Richie takes a drink.

“Sometimes,” Stan speaks up, saving an embarrassed Eddie from the turn in conversation, “I wonder why we were brought back.”

“W-What do you mean, Stan?” Bill asks in a careful tone, fiddling with the coaster in front of him.

Richie watches as Stan shifts in his seat, brushing his thumb across the back of Patty’s hand.

“I mean...why us? Eddie, Adrian, the kids...me. Why did we get a second chance and nobody else?”

A sharp inhale of breath sounds from Richie’s left. Reaching out, he claps a hand down on Eddie’s shoulder, squeezing tight.

Slowly, Eddie lets out the breath.

Their eyes lock.

“I’ve thought that too,” Eddie admits, still looking at Richie, “I keep asking myself, over and over - what makes us different? Why did whatever...force...reverse what happened to us and not—not…” he falters, his eyes falling away to rest down at Bill.

“Georgie.”

The name seems to ring throughout the room.

After a beat, Bill leans his elbows up on the table, hanging his head.

“I think it’s been too long. He—he’s been gone for nearly thirty years. I don’t think even Derry magic can reverse that,” he speaks solemnly, “but you guys, you all died recently, were the clown’s newest...victims. Maybe whatever it was could only reverse the last cycle. Maybe it wanted to reward us for getting rid of Penny—”

“But I didn't fight the clown,” Stan cuts across him, voice hollow, “I was in a bathtub in Georgia. Eddie is the real hero. He figured out how to kill IT. His resurrection I get.”

Richie’s grip on Eddie’s shoulder tightens as he sits up straighter in his seat, stare boring into their friend.

“I’m...no, I’m not—we all did it, Stan. You too. You fought IT as a kid and you sacrificed yourself to try and help us this time around. That...that must have been why you were brought back despite being a thousand miles away.”

Stan nods, but doesn’t seem too convinced.

“Stan is right, though,” Richie pipes up, the words slipping from his mouth before he can stop them, “you are a hero, Eds. We—we wouldn’t have figured out what to do without you. We wouldn’t have beaten it, without you.”

He chances a glance to see Eddie already looking back at him.

His heart ricochets against his ribcage.

“I told you you’re braver than you think.”

Something passes across Eddie’s face, then. Something soft and indecipherable. He gets like this, sometimes. Still wholly Eddie, something knowable to Richie, shadows of his past-self always present, while sometimes shrouded in the enigma of their missing years. But no matter what, he was still something Richie wanted to figure out, like the best kinda puzzle, for the rest of his life.

Careful, Trashmouth. That sounds like a vow...

“Always happy to help you bully a demonic space clown to death,” Eddie replies, a smile in his voice even if his face remains a little crinkled in that way that made him seem fourteen and forty all at once.

He blinks, breaking their eye contact.

Richie forces his gaze away only to land on Stan who is fixing him with his own knowing stare.

Drop it, Stanley. Just 'cause Eds admitted he likes dick, doesn't mean he likes this Dick.

“Guys uh…” Eddie takes a breath, addressing the table and from Richie’s side-view of his face, seems pained as he searches for words.

“I just wanna say, I...I'm sorry I died on you like that. I...I really tried to hang on. That must have been pretty traumatic for you all. To...to find me like that.”

Richie lets his hand fall from Eddie’s shoulder as his own body tenses like a coiled wire, blood rushing in his ears as his heart leaps into his throat, nausea rising from the pit of his stomach.

Richie honey, he’s dead.

Let him go, man. Let him go!

We can still help him, guys, we can still help him! EDDIE!

“...and I remember holding his jacket,” Eddie is saying as Richie forces himself to shove down the memory, feeling the weight of his gaze fall on him.

Be normal. Act normal. Don’t let him see—

“And I remember thinking to myself, ‘shit, I made Trashmouth cry.’ I knew it had to be bad if I couldn’t get Richie to laugh at a stellar ‘your mom’ joke.”

That got a murmur of laughs from the table.

Richie shoved down the urge to spew chunks all over Ben’s mahogany finish.

“And then I just...slipped away, I guess? Last thing I remember was hearing some lame playground insults being yelled by five grown adults,” he gives a small chuckle before sombering, “but yeah, I’m sorry I put you through that. I’m sorry I couldn’t hang on and you had to leave me down—”

“I didn’t want to.”

Richie blinks, realising too late that those words had come from his mouth. He stares ahead at nothing, his pulse jack-hammering in his ears.

“What?” he barely hears Eddie ask, sounding far away as if underwater and in another room all at once.

“I didn’t wanna leave you,” he continues, his mouth on autopilot as his eyes trace the dark wood, “these assholes made me.”

Silence rings throughout the room as Richie’s jaw tightens, something raw and ugly rising within the depths of him. Something that he has been repressing for longer than he’d like to admit.

The loud screeching of a chair sliding across hardwood floor is the only indicator to Richie that he had stood up.

“We could have got you out,” he growls, clenching his fists at his sides as he fights the urge to slam them down and test just how strong Ben’s carpentry skills are.

“We could have taken you with us,” he continues, eyes flashing down at every Loser but Eddie and Stan, “but they wouldn’t let me even try. We—”

“Richie, we couldn’t—”

“Bullshit!” Richie snarls across the expansive table at their fearless leader who looks about ready to stand himself.

What’s the matter, Big Bill? Gonna hit me again?

“That’s bullshit and you know it!” Richie spits, his words tasting like battery acid, “I know you’re a shortass, Denbrough, but between me, Mike and Haystack who are built like two brick shithouses?! You’re really telling me we couldn’t have carried him out?”

“Richie,” Ben pipes up placatingly, trying to catch his eye, “the place wasn’t structurally sound. It was coming down. We barely got out in single-file, there’s no way—”

“Then you should have left me!”

The words rip from his throat like the breath of a wounded animal. He would have barely registered having said them, if it isn’t for the deafening silence that follows.

Suddenly, there is a wave of colour in the corner of his eye and a heavy presence at his side.

“Richie…” Eddie murmurs, his puff of breath brushing Richie’s jaw, “you would've died.”

He sounds...broken. As if it had been Richie who had actually died and he couldn’t bear the thought.

Slowly, Richie tilts his head down, eyes catching on that dark gaze he loves with every atom in his being.

“So...?”

A gasp punches out of Eddie’s chest.

“Rich, I…” were it any other circumstance, Richie would have revelled in striking his frenetic friend speechless, but now, it just adds more guilt into his potent, swirling mix of emotions.

He stares doggedly at the pattern on the mahogany table.

“I wouldn’t have wanted that for you,” Eddie says so quietly that Richie is convinced the words are only for his ears.

A humourless chuckle rips from his throat.

“You were fucking dead, Eddie. You couldn’t want anything.”

Suddenly Eddie is directly opposite him, wedging himself between Richie and the table, glaring up at him, eyes flashing bright.

“What good would it have done, huh? You dying along with me? What the fuck, Rich? Why would you—”

“I DIDN'T WANT YOU TO BE ALONE!”

He doesn’t mean to yell, he really doesn’t, but the words explode from him anyway, as if finally breaking free from the cage he had kept them in for the last eighteen months.

Eddie startles but doesn’t step back as Richie continues to rant, the words escaping him quicker than he could catch them.

“You were stuck down there in that dark, disgusting, shithole. Grey water fucking everywhere and what? I was just supposed to leave your germaphobe-ass down there? To let you spend eternity in your worst fucking nightmare after—”

“YES!” Eddie erupts, all hands and frantic movements, “I was gone, Richie, fuck! I wouldn’t have wanted you to die too! I—”

“You died saving me.”

All of the fight drains from Richie, his shoulders slumping as he mutters barely above a whisper.

“You sacrificed yourself to save my shitty life. An ex-coke-head-closet-case who made a living talking shit that wasn’t even his own. I was the one dumb enough to taunt the clown, I was the one that got caught in the deadlights. It should have been me who was stabbed through the fucking back. It was my fault that my best friend that I only had back for three fucking days, died. And...I couldn’t fucking live with that.”

Richie turns on his heel and stalks out of the room as fast as his legs can carry him.

Out. He needs to get out now.

Fuck this fucking maze of a house!

His eyes bounce around, desperately searching for somewhere, anywhere to take a fucking breath when they land on the balcony.

That'll do, pig. That'll do.

Scrambling forward, legs akimbo in his tipsy haste like some overgrown, bespectacled Bambi, Richie wrenches the sliding glass door open and steps out into the night air.

It's moments like these where he regrets having given up smoking back in the early 2000s. The bite of the Montana cold, coupled with the impressive view of glowing lights down below and twinkling stars up above, really made a man wanna spark one up for the hell of it.

He leans his elbows on the railing, letting his head hang low as he forces himself to breathe.

In and out. In and out. Just like a pregnant lady, Rich, you got this.

If he were an even bigger masochist than Stan thinks he is, Richie might torture himself with thoughts of those lonely, desperate weeks after Derry 2: Bigger, Longer and Uncut, hauled up alone in his room in Bangor, pouring over topographical maps of his shitty hometown and guzzling down more booze than air to keep the sound of Eddie’s dying voice from rattling around in his skull.

He would think of how a depression, deeper and sharper than anything he had ever felt even in his most closeted, isolated years, had wrapped around him like a vice as he avoided the Loser groupchat, his agent, his mom and his weed dealer, all while Facebook-stalking Myra Kaspbrak like a jealous ex-boyfriend.

His writers would have had a fucking field day with that one.

‘I cried over my dead best friends’ wife’s profile pic ‘cause her husband still had that dimple in his cheek that I always wanted to poke as a kid, and that’s not a euphemism, folks…’

But instead, as he stands there on Ben’s admittedly impressive balcony, shivering his ass off being not-so-subtly reminded just how fucking close to Canada he is right now in the month of November, all he can think of is how nice Eddie’s hand, warm and so, so alive, had felt on his arm.

“You left your jacket.”

The voice shouldn’t startle him, but it does. His grip tightens on the railing as his jacket is draped over his shoulders, a soft pressure against his biceps as Eddie slides his hands down his arms.

Richie can’t blame Canada’s proximity for the shiver that racks his body at that.

“Thanks.”

His voice sounds like he has spent the last hour swallowing glass, which, considering their topic of discussion, he would have preferred doing.

Eddie steps back, taking his warm touch with him as he settles next to Richie (who makes quick work of slipping on the coat), also leaning on the rail and looking out at the view.

A beat passes.

Two.

“When I was 27, I tried to kill myself.”

Richie tenses, jaw slackening. He isn’t sure exactly what he had expected Eddie to open with, but it sure as shit wasn’t that.

“I took an overdose of prescription meds in a hotel in Jersey after convincing my mom I was on a work retreat.”

Richie holds his breath, not moving a muscle as he surreptitiously surveys Eddie from the corner of his eye. He looks...not calm, but resigned, almost. Richie isn’t sure if that’s a good thing or not.

“I woke up in the hospital three days later,” he shuffles his weight, blowing out a breath that they can both see in the night air.

“A maid found me. Called an ambulance. Saved my life.”

Richie’s stomach lurches, an ominous feeling overcoming him.

“That maid was Myra.”

“Fuck.”

Richie hadn’t meant to say that out loud, but Eddie nods all the same.

“Yeah. To this day, I’ve managed to convince her that the overdose was accidental. I—I think that's partly why she was so fucking militant about me taking my pills over the years. Something mom definitely passed down to her,” he sighs, running a hand through his hair, before turning to face Richie.

Even as every atom in his body screams not to, Richie turns to face him back.

Their eyes lock.

“I had nobody, Richie. No one. I had never been in a relationship, had never been in love or had someone be in love with me. I had no best friend, or a casual friend to meet for coffee, or even a work friend to bitch about nosy Brian in accounting to. I was lonely. So, fucking lonely.”

Richie’s heart pangs painfully in his chest. He can see him, a late-twenties Eddie Kaspbrak, much like he is now except younger, all buttoned up and reserved until you piss him off and then he’s wildfire, all karate chop hands and acid tongue, hiding a soft, gooey center that only a lucky few ever get to see…

“And marrying Myra, my ‘saviour’, someone that my mother approved of, didn’t help, either,” Eddie sighs again, “sure, she came with ‘couple-friends’ and brunches at the weekends and Lance my ‘workout bro,’ but I was still fucking miserable. Still had no one I could call a genuine close friend or even a decent acquaintance. Nobody knew much more about me other than I liked my coffee black and my small talk non-existent. For a whole fucking decade, I went through life like that. Like a guest star in my own depressing show.”

He pauses, tilting his head, something unreadable swimming in his gaze.

“And then, thirteen years later, I got a phone call from Derry,” he smiles gently, “and suddenly, I remembered The Losers. I remembered I had friends. The best group of friends on the planet. I had felt love before. I had loved and been loved. I had people who knew me, inside and out. Every little piece of me had been accepted, not rejected, ever.”

His smile twists.

“Until I forgot.”

Richie blinks, not entirely shocked to feel the wet trail of a tear slipping down his face.

Eddie steps closer, hand reaching out to rest on the one Richie still had leaning on the railing.

“Remembering the Losers, even just for those three days, made me feel more alive than I had in twenty-three years,” he half-whispers, gaze boring a hole into Richie.

“Remembering you…”

He trails off, a little line forming in between his eyebrows as he chooses his next words.

“Remembering the last time I saw you, saying goodbye to you on The Kissing Bridge, crying my eyes out—Richie, I’ve never felt pain like that since. And I’ve been impaled.”

A surprised laugh escapes Richie’s chest, then, bubbling up his throat.

Eddie joins in, tickled by his joke landing. Richie always did say he was funnier than he had ever been. And he still is.

It’s between one breath and the next, that Eddie slides his hand down Richie’s arm to rest on his hand, squeezing gently.

“The Deadlights would have killed you,” he continued, quiet but firm, “and there’s no way in hell I would ever let that happen to you, Rich. You were my best friend. Still are my best friend, even after all those years apart. You said I’m braver than I think, and I believed you because you said it. So, yeah. I died saving you...and I’d do it again.”

Richie goes to pull away, a noise of disagreement clawing up his throat.

“No, no, Richie, listen to me,” Eddie tightened his grip on his hand, “I—you may not think you deserved to be saved at my expense. But you’re wrong. And what’s done is done. I died. I came back. And I’d do it all over again if it meant that you got to live. Okay? Once that goofy kid with glasses who did bad voices and made up dumb nicknames for me that I fucking loved with everything in me got to stay alive, then it was all worth it. And nothing you say will ever change my mind."

I'm in love with you. Have been for thirty years. Would that change your mind, Eds?

After a pause where it becomes obvious Richie isn't going to say anything, Eddie tilts his head, eyes narrowing a little.

"You were in Bangor the day I called you," he says lightly, but Richie hears the heavy implication all the same.

"Over a month after I died and you still hadn't left Maine."

It's not a question, more of an observation, really. But Richie knows Eddie has been itching to discuss it ever since they reunited back on the land of the living the very same day Eddie called from the hospital, scarred but freshly breathing.

Another beat passes where Eddie, in a show of patience he is not well known for, waits Richie out.

“I couldn’t…” Richie rasps when the silence becomes too much, “I couldn’t just leave you, Eds.”

Eddie’s hand on his tightens.

"You really would have done anything to get me out, huh?"

His voice is low, his eyes shining against the night stars.

Richie feels like he’s in some sort of Nicholas Sparks novel. Except with 50% less death, 100% gayer and 150% more cursing.

He nods.

"And you…” Eddie swallows as if struggling to get the words out, “you would have stayed with me if you couldn't?"

He nods again.

Suddenly, Eddie is lunging and pulling him down into a tight, all-encompassing hug that knocks Richie’s breath from his lungs.

“I’d do the same,” Eddie mumbles into Richie’s shoulder, his mouth pressing against his jacket’s collar, “you know that, right?”

Richie nods yet again, feeling like he’s slowly turning into one of those drinking-bird-toy-things that boring people have on their desks in corporate offices. He doesn’t need to see Eddie’s office to know he doesn’t have one. He’s far too interesting.

Eddie mustn’t be satisfied with his nodding bird routine however as he soon breaks the hug and steps back slightly, clasping Richie’s biceps in his hands, his stare unwavering up at him.

“Richie, I mean it. You’re my best friend in the whole world. I may not have remembered you, not fully, just bits and pieces, but I...I carried the pain of losing you for over twenty years. I’d...I’d do anything for you.”

Emotion wells up Richie’s chest, unshed tears stinging his eyes.

“You know why I brought you to the Kissing Bridge that day I was leaving?”

What the fuck are you doing, Trashmouth?!

Eddie’s eyebrows slowly rise up his forehead as he thinks back to one of the worst days in Richie’s life.

“Uh, you...you said you had something to tell me,” he murmurs in confusion.

Richie stares down at him, at those dark brown, bush-baby eyes he never fully forgot, his heart in his throat.

'That I fucking loved with everything in me,' rings in Richie's ears as he forces out:

“Do you remember what I told you?”

Eddie frowns that adorable frown of his, “Yeah, man. You told me you fucked my mom, then got snot all over my sweater pretending you weren’t crying.”

Richie lets out a huff of a laugh at his transparent sixteen year old self, even as his brain continues going all Kill-Bill-sirens on him.

“That wasmy very own version of ‘As you wish’, Eds. What can I say? It’s a—"

“From The Princess Bride?”

Fuck. Kinda showed your hand there, Trashmouth.

“Uh...yeah.”

Something passes over Eddie’s face that Richie has seen many times before, both as kids and as recently as this very night. His heart lurches as Eddie leans even closer to him, his hands brushing up and down Richie’s arms, leaving a path of heat.

“What did you really wanna tell me?”

This is it. This is your do or die moment, asshole.

I know your secret. Your dirty, little—

“I fucked your dad too.”

Something shutters down over Eddie’s eyes, dimming them as Richie cringes, cursing himself and his cowardice, nausea swirling in his gut as he watches him step away, dropping his arms from Richie and huffing out a laugh that sounded anything but amused.

He takes a step back towards the door, face unreadable.

“Okay, Rich. Alright. It’s cold, I’m just gonna—”

Richie’s hand shoots out to grab his wrist gently, stopping him in his tracks.

“No, Eds wait—I’m sorry. I’m sorry, okay? I...I’m bad at this. I talk trash, remember? I’m not...not good with serious shit. I don’t know how—”

“I deleted my Grindr profile.”

If Richie had the life of Ferris Bueller, now would be the time that a loud record-scratch would sound to alert the audience of his sheer astonishment.

“...What?”

Eddie isn’t looking at him anymore, but rather down at Richie’s fingers around his wrist.

“I said I deleted Grindr. I...I realised that I didn’t wanna find someone on a dumb hook-up app.”

Richie blinks, his brain fried by the turn in conversation.

Eddie tilts his head, heaving in a breath, “Especially ‘cause…I already have someone I wanna spend all my time with.”

Slowly, he twists his wrist so that Richie’s hand falls open and he takes the opportunity to brush their fingers together.

Richie stops breathing.

Holy shit. Is he…?

“Rich.”

He lets Eddie’s voice coax his gaze up, biting his bottom lip to try and compose himself as he shakily admits:

“I carved initials into the Kissing Bridge that Summer.”

He can practically feel Eddie opening his mouth to say something, so he rushes on, lest he lose his nerve.

“We weren’t talking. Me and Bill had had our fight, I said some shitty things, Bill punched me in the face, and you were practically on house arrest after breaking your arm so Mrs K had banned me from seeing you. I had never felt so alone as I did those few weeks. I...I kept going to the arcade and thought I’d maybe made a new friend, but...” he blew out a breath, running his free hand through his hair, “Bowers showed up, did his whole homophobic bully schtick, you know. So I fled, ended up at the Paul Bunyan statue. Then the clown showed up and it was really a party.”

I know your secret...your dirty, little—

“Bringing the statue to life, singing his little songs, taunting me with truth or dare...but none of it worked. I still did it. I stole Went’s pocket-knife from his toolkit and I booked it over to the Kissing Bridge anyway. Because it—I had to let it out. I had to say it somehow. And if it couldn’t be out loud, then it would sure as shit be right up there with every other lovesick asshole in our crappy hometown.”

He takes a steadying breath, surprised at how the words keep flowing from him, as if the dam that he had carefully constructed around his heart all those years ago, had finally broken. He stares directly down into Eddie’s eyes, those wide eyes that he had recurring dreams about even when his childhood was a foggy haze, his heartbeat a crescendo in his chest.

“I carved our initials, Eds. R plus E. Richie and Eddie.”

Eddie’s mouth drops open, ever so slightly. Richie probably wouldn’t have even noticed if it wasn't for the fact that his gaze had been alternating between Eddie’s eyes and lips for the last few minutes.

A beat passes.

Two.

Three.

The sirens in Richie’s head are blaring.

Well, you’ve done it now, asshole. You’ve ruined everything with your stupid—

“I carved a heart,” Eddie whispers finally, lacing their fingers together and squeezing, “a shitty, misshapen heart around the letter ‘R.’ For ‘Richie.’”

Oh.

“Ed—”

Richie is cut off when he's abruptly yanked down by his jacket as Eddie surges up, their lips crashing together in a desperate kiss. His heart soars as Eddie’s free hand slides up his chest to cup the back of his neck. He gasps as he feels the faintest brush of Eddie’s tongue along his bottom lip.

With a broken moan that he will one hundred percent deny later, Richie opens his mouth, deepening the kiss, Eddie licking in behind his teeth and causing a flood of warmth to spread in his abdomen as he reaches out to clasp Eddie’s hip tightly, pulling him flush against his chest.

Richie winds his arm around Eddie’s lower back as he nips playfully at his lower lip, just like he always daydreamed about doing when he was a hormonal, pining teenager.

“Shit, Rich,” Eddie gasps against his lips as they break for air, tilting up on his tip-toes (cute, cute, cute!) to bring their foreheads together.

“I—I…” Richie swallows around the lump in his throat, overwhelmed as he opens his eyes, “I saw us. In the deadlights.”

It’s not what he intended to say. In fact, he had wanted to say something else entirely. Something sexy, or flirty, or god help him sincere, anything but downright traumatic, but such is his life.

Eddie leans back a little to blink at him. Waiting.

Generally, Richie doesn’t like thinking about it. About any of what he had seen in the godforsaken hellscape that was Pennywise’s...mouth? Whatever. And he hadn’t lied, he really did see all the Losers’ gruesome deaths. But it was what he saw after, in the sparse few moments before he woke up to Eddie Kaspbrak, love of his pitiful life, leaning over him, smile elated just before things took a turn for the absolute worst.

“I saw...us,” he murmurs, letting himself cast his mind back to the memory that had been too painful for him to entertain in those following weeks, months, over a year since. Even with Eddie alive again. Perhaps because of Eddie being alive again, even. So close and yet so far from that vision he had seen.

“We were…” he closes his eyes, lets the image come to the forefront of his mind. “We were standing like this. Close. Smiling. Our arms around each other. Kissing at the kitchen table at home.”

He keeps his eyes closed as he feels Eddie’s fingers rake through his hair.

“You were making pancakes, and I was putting too much sugar in my coffee like I always do. And...and then you just leaned in, put your arm around my waist and kissed me. Like it was the most natural thing in the world. And I kissed back. Like I’d done it a million times before. It seemed to last forever...and then I woke up.”

“Oh, Richie,” Eddie mumbles, sounding bereft, no doubt realising what Richie had awoken to.

“I’m so sorr—”

“Don’t.”

Richie’s eyes fly open, desperate for Eddie’s gaze again.

“Don’t apologise, Eddie. Please. It wasn't your fault. You were a hero, you saved my life. And I know I have conflicting thoughts on it but...but I never want you to feel bad. Never.”

Eddie nods, still looking pained.

“So you stayed.”

Richie’s not sure if he means in Neibolt, or Maine in general, but nods all the same.

“I stayed.”

Eddie blows out a breath, it tickling Richie’s cheek.

“Fuck. I love you so much. I always have.”

Richie’s breath punches out of his chest, the surge of emotion overwhelming him. He squeezes his hand and tips his head down, resting their foreheads together.

“E-Eds, oh my god,” he rasps, cursing his voice that’s noticeably thick and at least an octave higher, “I’ve been in love with you for practically my whole life. Back when we shared hammocks and comics and I called you dumb names in dumber voices just to get you to look at me. I’ve never loved anyone else. Even...even when I couldn’t remember you, I could in a way. Feel...feel the gap in my life where you used to be. Feel the pain of missing you. Ever since I set foot in that haunted fucking restarant, I can’t remember how it feels to not love you.”

He tilts his head back to meet Eddie’s gaze, surprised to see tears gathering at the corner of his eyes.

God, we’re saps.

“Aww, Eds…” he teases gently, unable to stop himself, “did Trashmouth make you—”

It’s another kiss, not a ‘beep beep’ like he expects that cuts him off. This one is more chaste, just a pressing of smiles really, but still makes his toes curl and his blood sing and his entire body feel like it’s a fireworks display on the 4th of July.

“Hmmmm,” he grins as Eddie breaks the kiss, “now that’s the kinda ‘beep beep Richie’ I could get used to.”

He can practically feel him roll his eyes.

“Beep, beep, asshole.”

It’s somewhat lessened by the fact that it’s immediately followed by another peck to the cheek and a snappy retort of “Just putting my tongue to better use,” into his collarbone.

Richie chuckles into the slope of Eddie’s neck, “‘Better use’ is right, Eds. Now, is this where we take our shirts off and kiss, or...?”

Eddie groans, forehead falling to Richie’s shoulder, no doubt remembering his little drunken slip when they arm-wrestled back in the Jade.

“In this weather? Fuck no. Maybe later though. Under one of those huge fucking afghan blankets that Ben has draped in every guest room.”

Richie is hit by the very confusing duel-feeling of potent sexual arousal and childlike excitement at that suggestion, and even has to physically stop himself from bouncing on the balls of his feet.

“Oh my god, Eds. Can we push our twin beds together to make a double? I always wanted to do that when we were kids.”

Eddie snorts, shaking his head.

“Sure, Rich. We can make a fort while we’re at it. Really relive the glory days.”

Richie gives him a playful squeeze to the hip.

“Hey! Our forts were the shit. We had the best sleepovers.”

Something glints in Eddie’s eye, then.

“Yeah we did. I have a feeling they’ll get even better now.”

Molten heat tugs low in Richie’s gut.

“Fuck yeah they will.”

They share a grin before Eddie’s eyes drop to something over Richie’s shoulder.

Richie chuckles.

“They’re watching us, aren’t they?”

Eddie keeps looking, tilting his head.

“Yep.”

“ENJOYING THE SHOW, YOU PERVERTS?” Richie yells behind him, cackling as Eddie shoves him, shushing him with a “shut up, you animal! Ben has fucking neighbours!”

A flurry of muted noise can be heard as eight fully-grown adults, clearly caught snooping, scramble back into the living room.

Richie turns just in time to see Bev’s fiery hair disappear around the corner. He smiles softly at the sight. He has some apologies to make.

“Come on, Eds. Back to the Losers of the Rectangular Table we go,” he throws an arm around Eddie’s shoulder, leaning down to kiss his temple.

“Losers of the Rectangular Table?” Eddie asks, miraculously allowing himself to be steered back into the house.

“Yeah, you know,” Richie gives a half-shrug as they slide the door closed and creep through the kitchen, “like Knights of the Round Table. Except with less swords and more psychological trauma.”

He feels Eddie’s chuckle rumble against his chest as they enter the living room still wrapped around one another, to find the Losers (Patty, Adrian and Don all considered new members now) playing what looked like a game of poker.

Nobody acknowledges them as they sit back down, their arms pressed against one another, Stan merely dealing them in and Bev sliding fresh drinks in their direction, a soft, knowing smile on her face.

“You gonna be my good luck charm, Spagheds? You are way cuter than a rabbit’s foot,” Richie wiggles his eyebrows as he squeezes Eddie’s knee under the table.

“Stop flirting with me and pick up your hand, dumbass,” Eddie faux-grouses, trying and failing to hide his grin.

“Aww, Eds! I’ve been flirting with you since 1986. Thanks for finally noticing.”

Eddie splutters, knocking their elbows as he whips around to gape at him.

“You have not!”

“Yep.” “He has too.” “He definitely has.” “Yeah he has.” “He has 100%.” The O.G. Losers all reply in unison, still looking at their cards.

Richie glances fondly around the table at all his favourite people in the world, eyes falling on Eddie Kaspbrak last, and laughs.

(More Reddie fics)

[justsomerandomfanfic]

Show Me That You Love Me Too - Eddie Kaspbrak X Richie Tozier

Title: Show Me That You Love Me Too

Eddie Kaspbrak X Richie Tozier

Additional Characters: IT, Bill, Stanley, Mike, Ben, Beverly, and Eddie's Mom (Mentioned)

WC: 1,598

Warnings: Mentions of death, mentions of killing, emotions

Eddie and Richie sat together on the grassy ground, eating ice cream. Everyone else in their friend group was talking nearby the quarry. Richie didn't want to talk about It. He wanted to find some sort of piece in his crazy life. Eddie wanted the same, so the two boys went for some ice cream before heading over, and for once in their lives, they felt at peace. Until Bill came running over to them.

"Hey, guys!" He asked excitedly as he approached. 

"You're not going to believe what I just found out!"

"What's that?" Eddie asked with a grin. 

Eddie was glad that his life had somewhat turned around. He still had to deal with crappy bullies and his overbearing mother, but It was gone. Eddie could finally live out his life without having to look over his shoulder when he was alone. He wasn't ever alone. He had his friends. 

Billy opened his palm to show a perfectly circular rock, dark tan in color, no bigger than a quarter. 

"Wow, that's cool!" Eddie spoke, as Richie just looked on and continued to lick his ice cream. 

Richie had his worries, sure. Almost the same as Eddie's. But, high school was growing closer and fast. The impending doom of longer school hours, waking up at almost dawn and more homework worried him. But, in the back of his mind, he knew he would be okay, somewhat. He and his friends beat a child-eating alien from space after all. 

"Rich," Eddie called out, grabbing Richie's attention.

Richie turned to look at Eddie, confused.

"What's up, Eddie Spaghetti?" He asked with a joking smirk. 

Eddie's eyes immediately narrowed as he gently punched Richie's arm.

"Don't call me that, I was talking to you," Eddie spoke, finishing his cone.

"Oh, sorry, man." Richie apologized, quickly eating the rest of his ice cream cone and looking into Eddie's eyes.

"No, it's fine. You know, sometimes we have to talk about stuff like this, right?" Eddie asked and Richie wiped his hands on his Hawaiian shirt, pretending not to know what Eddie was talking about. 

"We should talk about this, Richie. It's important." Bill spoke up, as Beverly, Ben, Stanley, and Mike walked over to join them. 

Richie stayed silent, knowing that they were going to drag him into talking about it eventually.

"We're going to high school in three months," Ben spoke, running his hands through his sandy brown hair. 

The group was silent, taking the information in. 

It felt like only yesterday when the Losers Club defeated It. They were just kids, living in a world where they shouldn't have to deal with all the real-life crap until they were older. Even before It they were dealing with it. They all were.

"It felt like summer just started," Bev spoke and Stan nodded, as the five joined Eddie and Richie in the grass. "Soon we'll hardly have time altogether," Stan added.

"No more jumping in the quarry or random bike rides to and from each other's houses. No more arcade or ice cream..." Stan finished but Ben shook his head.

"We can still do all those things. We still have the weekends." 

Bev nodded, plucking the grass and letting them flow in the soft breeze. 

"But we all know that we aren't staying here forever." Richie spoke up, Eddie immediately turning to him.

"What do you mean?" Eddie asked him, only for Richie to shrug in response.

"I can't stay here forever. Once I'm done with high school, I'm out of here." 

"I don't want to stay in this town more than I need to." Ben spoke, as he began braiding some stray dandelions. 

"I bet we're all going to leave sooner or later. Go to college, get jobs, get a life." Mike spoke, with Stan agreeing.

Soon the group of five began talking about the spooky old house, Eddie turned back to Richie.

"Why didn't you come to me? Why with all of the others?" Eddie asked him, his voice quiet.

"Because I know you're leaving too." Richie answered.

"Yeah, we all are. But that's not the point. Why didn't you tell me earlier?" Eddie asked, but Richie shrugged again.

"I didn't think it was a big deal. After high school, we're all leaving and probably won't see each other. We'll be way too busy with our own lives." 

Richie explained, "Why? You worried about me or something, Eds?" Richie teased and Eddie groaned, growing annoyed.

"We're not going to be gone for too long. It will be back, and we will have to kill it." Eddie muttered. 

"I'm going to ignore what you just said and go back to you being worried for me." Richie joked and Eddie sighed, turning to look at their friends.

"That's not it, Richie. I'm just...I am worried about you. You're my best friend, I don't want anything bad to happen to you. To any of us." Eddie confessed.

"I'm scared. I don't know what to do. It feels like I can't go back to a 'normal' life. After high school, I don't know what to do." 

Richie wrapped an arm around Eddie's shoulders, pulling him close. "Me too, Eds. But, for now, we have each other." Richie tried to reassure him. 

❤❤❤

Eddie sat on his bed, his algebra homework in front of him. Four months into high school and he's only passing with B's. He wanted all A's. It was late into the night, the sun had gone down a long time ago. The birds stopped singing, owls replacing their calls. His mother went to bed ages ago after finishing her game show. Yawning, Eddie rubbed his eyes, growing tired and his mind becoming blurry. It was hard to think, but he had to get his work done before tomorrow. 

Stretching his arms in the arm and rolling his shoulders, Eddie tried to sit up straight when a pebble hit his bedroom window. Pausing, waiting in the silence, Eddie listened. He couldn't hear anything but the wind and chirping crickets. Then came another pebble, then another. Eddie sighed and got up from his bed, heading to his window. Opening his window, Eddie peered down below. There, Richie stood, giving a wave and smile, fixing his thick-rimmed glasses. 

"Oh, Edpunzel, Edpunzel, let down your hair!" Richie yelled from down below, using a terrible British accent.

Eddie quickled shushed him, bringing a finger to his lips in haste. 

"Shut up, idiot! My mom is sleeping! You'll wake her up." He whisper-yelled down at him, only for Richie to laugh.

Eddie waited as Richie climbed his way up the trilles on the side of the house, kicking one leg over the window ledge and then the other. Shutting the window, Eddie turned around to Richie and glared, crossing his arms. 

"You almost woke up the whole neighborhood with your yelling." Eddie reprimanded, Richie just brushing it off.

"You're fine, Eds. No one woke up." He spoke, flopping on Eddie's bed and picking up his algebra book.

Eddie walked over and grumply snatched the book out of Richie's hands. "You would have woken my mom, and then we both would've been in huge trouble." He scolded him, sitting down beside him.

"So, you've been up doing homework this whole time?" Richie completely changing the subject.

Edie nodded, "I want to bring my grade up." 

To that, Richie gave a small laugh, wrapping his arm around to give Eddie a noogie. "You're such a nerd, Eds. You're already passing. I know, I copied you in Science." Richie spoke, as Eddie pushed his arms away.

"I want to make sure I can get into a good college. What about you, like you said, you copy me. We only have two shared classes. You must be failing the others." Eddie remarked, as Richie turned to him in mock offense. 

"I'll have you know, Ed, I have Cs. That is still passing." 

Eddie shook his head with a small smile, as the two went into a short silence, though it felt like it dragged on for hours. 

"What are we going to do?" Eddie whispered, voice cracking.

Richie sighed, bringing his arm around Eddie's shoulder, bringing the shorter boy closer to him. Eddie sighed and snuggled in closer to his side. 

"We just go with it. I'll try and keep in contact, and I know you will. You just can't get enough of me." Richie spoke, trying to be serious.

Eddie smiled, but it faded quickly, "You're going to leave, aren't you?" He asked, as Richie nodded, Eddie's heart racing.

"Yeah, I am."

Even though he had said he was going to leave before, Eddie couldn't process it. Now, Eddie could. Richie was going to leave. Just like he was. They were going to go their separate ways. He would leave and live his life in Beverly Hills as a comedian or something. Eddie's smile slowly graced his face as he thought of that. Richie continued to hold Eddie close, as he thought where Eddie would go. Looking at the algebra book in front of them, Richie smiled, Eddie would probably become an accountant or something. Looking all cute wearing a suit, working in an office cubicle everyday. He would come home after a long work day as Richie would be working on writing his next sketch. Perfectly domestic. 

Eddie looked up, noticing Richie's smile. "What's got you smiling like that?" 

Richie's smile widened, eyes looking off with a content look in his eyes. "Your mom."

“Ugh, I hate you.”

“Oh, you love me.”

“Yeah, yeah I do.”

[scifihobbit]

Yuletide Letter 2022

I’ve been participating in Yuletide incredibly sporadically since 2009. I love it here! And am always delighted when I remember to jump back in. So, here's to a great year! I'm scifihobbit over on AO3 as well. I should have it set so that I can receive treats. Thanks for reading my letter! And, of course, we all know the mantra, optional details are entirely optional.

Things I'm a sucker for in general

Character studies

“There was only one bed”

Found families

Angst with a happy ending

Hurt/Comfort

Broken characters finding ways to heal each other in general

Using smarm to hide wildly low self-esteem

World-building

Queers and queerness and queering

DNWs:

PWP

Modern AU

1st person narration (unless it’s epistolary or something like that.)

2nd person narration

Major character death (that isn’t canonical)

Babel – R. F. Kuang, Robin Swift, Ramiz Rafi Mirza

I loved this book so much. The world-building is incredible. I’m obsessed with the magic system. I’m always a sucker for footnotes. I loved the way this book made me think and the way it made all its characters understandable even if they were completely reprehensible. Robin and Ramy quickly stole my heart. (From that first night they spent together getting to know Oxford and I was sitting there like.... is this going to happen? Please? And then the book tortured me with so many subtle teases that I kept hoping, and, well, we know what happened next.) Anything about the two of them would be incredible. If you want to ship them, that's more than welcome! But I also really, truly adore their friendship, so I would be delighted with something not shippy, too. I'm fascinated by the dynamic among the whole quartet, so feel free to bring Victoire and Letty, too. I delighted in the scenes where they were all just being excited academic nerds together. I usually avoid AUs, but given how things ended, in this case I would make an exception. Or if you've got some brilliant idea for a fix-it fic, I would love to see it!

Prompts if you are looking for them:

- Some late night shenanigans/adventures during their first year when Oxford is still shiny and wonderful to them

- Robin and Ramy in Canton doing some more exploring of the city.

- Something that gets Robin and Ramy together. Either Robin finally realizing that Ramy's attracted to him and either acting on it or panicking about it. Or Ramy finally making a move. Or a drunken evening. (I'm always a sucker for a drunken evening leading to revelations.)

- Some alternative beautiful world where they both make it out of Oxford and visit Calcutta together

- Just the two of them nerding out about language or a new matchpair or something. Finding some interesting translations between the languages they grew up with.

A League of Their Own (TV 2022), Jess McCready, Lupe García, Beverly/Sarge

I was obsessed with this show before the first episode was over. (Honestly, probably, before the first episode even started, but the fact that it lived up to my queer heart’s expectations is pretty astounding.) I love just about everyone in the show, so whoever else wants to pop in the fic and say hello is great! (I'm desperately curious about Maybelle.) I'm happy for a fic with any and/or all of my requested characters. They're all amazing! (I'd really prefer for these three characters to be pretty firmly butch-identified and not gender queer in a more modern sensibility.) I still can't decide if I ship Lupe/Jess honestly—I do and I don't simultaneously—so feel free to go whatever direction you want with that.

Prompts if you are looking for them:

- Post-season, now that Beverly's let Jess know that they're "family" do they hang out more? What do they get up to? What sort of wisdom does Beverly have to impart?

- What is Beverly's life outside of being a chaperone?? Does she have a wife back home somewhere? Is she happily single? Does she have a community from her days serving in the military?

- Anything and everything about Jess and Lupe being buds. During the season. After the season. Next season.

- How did Jess and Lupe discover the gay bar? Separately or together? Who told who?

- When the team went on tour, what did Jess and Lupe get up to in the new towns?

- What's Beverly's relationship to the other chaperones like? It seems like they all mostly have some sort of understanding and I'd love to know how they work together to support their teams.

Star Trek: Lower Decks (Cartoon), Samanthan “Sam” Rutherford, Andy Billups

This show makes me so incredibly happy. I have been a trekkie more-or-less from birth. (A quick scroll through my tumblr will show you where my Trekkie heart lies: with the crew of DS9) Lower Decks somehow manages to tug on my heart strings, make my years of suffering through Enterprise feel worth it just so I can get the jokes about the Suliban, and be wildly irreverent while also honoring the core of what makes Trek Trek. (Not to be one of those fans, but whatever, I am.) Clearly, I could wax poetic at length about this show, but if you’ve offered to write it, you know how great it is. I love all the characters, so feel free to bring in whoever you want. (I’m sad I missed nominations and didn’t get a chance to stick Dr. T’Ana in the list. And I’m fascinated by Kayshon, so if either of them want to drop in for a cameo I won’t say no!) (I don’t ship Mariner/Boimler or Rutherford/Tendi)

For my fic, I just want Rutherford and Billups to hang out! I want them to be upbeat, awkward, engineering dorks together. (If you want to ship them in a way that doesn't ignore Billups's asexuality I'm all for it.) Usually I’m a no AU kind of person, but in the canon that literally invented AUs I’m obviously a bit more flexible.

Prompts if you are looking for them:

- Rutherford and Billups get stranded in a broken down ship somewhere and have to jerryrig it back together to get home to the Cerritos

- Billups's mom makes another uninvited appearance and Rutherford has to help Billups out of the situation through sheer engineering genius

- They meet in the holodeck to work on engineering puzzles together. Something does or does not go wrong?

- Billups has some sort of cursed interaction with Badgey?

- Did Rutherford take a class from Miles O'Brien at the academy?? Is Billups impressed by Miles's engineering know-how or has he never even heard of the guy?

Moon (2009)

I think this is a close to perfect movie. I’ve loved Sam Rockwell since back when he played Guy in Galaxy Quest. This movie tells its story so efficiently and in such a small, quiet way while still managing to reach in your chest and grab you by the heart. It’s one of those movies that leaves me with a sort of aching hope at the end, like, yes, that was exactly what it needed to be, but I want more. So, here I am, requesting it for Yuletide once again, because I can never get enough of the Sam Bells.

For a fic I want the Sam Bells to be sad and broken together and maybe inspire the tiniest bit of hope in each other after some long-term resentment and anger. Basically, I want the movie but MORE. I love Sam Rockwell. I love the concept the movie is built on. If you want to ship them I'd eat it up, (I have an unexplainable thing for self!cest in a sci-fi context) but I'm perfectly happy with these two broken angry guys trying to figure out their shit in a platonic way as well.

Prompts if you are looking for them:

- Which buildings mean what to them in the model they're making? What stories do they tell themselves and each other about the town?

- What if the memory copy in each clone isn't perfect and there are some things they realize they remember differently? How does that impact their relationship and senses of self?

[fucking-bi-panic]

A Day at the Beach (P2)

My thumb grazed over Rowan's face. Her lips attached to a man's face. The words "Look who I saw at the mall today" ring over and over in my head. How could she do this to me? My heart had been broken and watching her stab herself shattered it. Even after what she's done I still love her and I can't live without her. I saw a nurse walk up to Issac.

"Rowan has lost a lot of blood-" she began.

"What about Everett?" Issac interrupted her.

"Everett is getting bandaged and should be out in about 10 minutes. Rowan-" the nurse said.

"Everett is fine. He will be out soon," Issac said.

"What about Rowan?" I asked quietly. 

"Why do you care about her? After what she did do you…and she attacked Everett," Issac stated.

"She didn't attack him," Liam said. "She was stabbing herself and Everett got in her way trying to stop her."

"So you're saying it's Everett's fault?" Issac said, raising his voice.

"I'm saying it was an accident."

"Rowan didn't make it!" the nurse yelled.

Everyone went silent.

"She died of blood loss a few minutes ago. I'm sorry."

My already shattered heart couldn't take any more pain. A loud wrenching sob fell from my lips and I fell to the floor.

"No! No!" I screamed clenching my chest.

--------

The coffin was lowered into the dark, muddy hole. Andrea, Rowan's older sister reached down and threw a handful of dirt into the grave. Soon after, the dirt was shoveled and the coffin was buried.

I couldn't cry. I was numb. I spent the last week crying. I knew she would want us to move on. Not to dwell over her death. I took a deep breath and turned away from her grave. I walked over to everyone and saw the regret in their eyes. We had ended on bad terms with her.

Andrea walked up to us. Her eyes were red and I assumed she, like everyone else, had been crying. There were bags under her eyes from lack of sleep. I engulfed her in a hug. We had always been close and I would cherish our friendship forever.

"Hey Andrea, I know it's a bad time to ask, but do you know anything of Rowan cheating on Beverly?" Liam asked.

She looked at him in shock.

"Rowan loved Beverly with all her heart. She's had past relationships but I've never seen her this happy with anyone else. Beverly was her world," she defended.

"What's this then?" Lain asked, showing her the picture.

"That's Ethan. They had a summer fling back in our hometown before we left."

Dread filled my chest. I had overreacted. She killed herself because she hurt me and thought she deserved it. I knew she was dealing with depression. She told me she made several suicidal attempts throughout her early years of high school. I remembered something she had told me a while back.

"I met you though. I met you and my world changed," Rowan said placing a hand on my cheek. "And I decided to live for you." 

"It's all my fault," I said, tears streaming down my face.

"Hey, no. Listen to me. We all overreacted. This isn't your fault. We all had a part in this," Issac said pulling me into his arms.

"Shit, we led her to this, didn't we?" Liam asked quietly.

Everyone's expression turned to guilt. We all put thoughts into her head. She thought she lost us, so she gave up on herself. She was living for us and once we left her she gave up on herself.

[stormclawponyrises]

My partner and I finished Star Trek: Picard Season 3 last night.

I thoroughly enjoyed it. There were definitely things I felt less happy with, and I've usually got some kind of gripe with the writing in the modern shows (even if it's more well done than the old shows, I'm just not a fan of the action focus of modern television I suppose?)

I probably annoyed bf constantly trying to explain context to him which he probably didn't care much about. He's only seen the modern shows and TOS so I kept getting worried that all the references and callbacks would fly over his head, but he probably didn't care much about them.

Spoilers under the cut for the entirety of Season 3 (and a bit of the previous seasons).

I felt weird at first about Jack Crusher being Picard's son. That man doesn't fuck, I'm sorry. Even if the Risa episodes of TNG imply that he does I just can't accept it. His whole arc in season 2 kind of touched on that after all. Also Jack's accent set me off but I think it was just a bit more exaggerated than I expected? To my Australian ears at least. It got pretty sad to think that Beverly could end up losing both of her sons as well as her former husband, with Jack Crusher Sr. having died, Wesley being a traveller and Jack Crusher Jr. being chased by Changelings and then becoming a Borg drone. I do think referring to the old relationship that Beverly and Picard had in TNG was nice, though my partner did point out that it made Laris and Picard getting together at the end of season 2 a bit weird, with Laris just not being referenced again once all the season 3 stuff started.

It was nice seeing the old TNG bridge crew all together again, and exciting to see them return to the bridge of the Enterprise-D. I never watched Nemesis, but I think the Borg Queen was the one from that movie? Which is awesome she looked so fucked up!!!

I don't like how the whole Changeling invasion plotline quickly turned into a Borg one. I can understand them using the Borg to fuck up humanity out of revenge, but it felt pushed aside so heavily. They should have had more of an influence over the ending of the season, instead of disappearing after Vadic died. Who was FACE? Like, was that the queen? How is she using the Great Link? Has the Great Link been assimilated in some way? Some questions going unanswered is fine, but it didn't feel particularly fulfilling in that way. I really thought this season would basically be The Dominion War II.

Worf flirting with Troi in front of Riker was hilarious and uncomfortable, and a good call back to their relationships at the end of TNG, but dude. Riker is right there

I feel bad that Data came back again, even if it was mostly for the whole bridge crew coming back. He finally got the death he wanted in season 1 and even if they explained it I still feel like it was unfair to have him come back.

Seven was characterized well. She's always been a very well put together character, even in the Voyager days and I've enjoyed watching her throughout all seasons of Picard.

Captain Shaw was a fascinating character. He was a total dickhead when they introduced him, but he was written in a way that by the end of the season I really understood him. I do think he deserved better (not storywise, I think killing him made sense, but in-universe). He was just a very scared man and that fear was reflected onto all the crew beneath him. It was wrong of him to use Seven's old name, but he did it because it was by-the-book and when you're scared shitless all the time, by-the-book is the way to go (speaking from experience).

[blondiexbiites]

" i can't see a damn thing in this storm; keep holding on to me, okay? last thing we want is to get separated! "

Oh, this was a mess.

The air had been relatively calm when she’d been outside, but now, barely ten or fifteen minutes later, it was blowing hard. The wind made the tree limbs and power lines come down faster, besides sapping the body heat of every poor fool who was outside or who was being led away to safety by some bad-tempered redhead with a snotty attitude who was as likely to tell her to go to hell as he was to be called a piglet.

It wasn’t even an insult! Humans were pigs with shoes! It was common knowledge among vampires! Even though she’d spent the last hour—two hours? She had no idea how much time had passed—with the red piglet, expecting to freeze to death, somehow the first explosive crack of lightening still caught Madison by surprise; her entire body lurched, and the cold, dead lump that was her heart jumped so hard (as hard as a giant piece of coal could jump) it felt as if it would come out of her chest. Shrieking, Madison stumbled, lost her balance in the snow, and went down like a sack of bricks. “Oh, no!” she whined over the howl of the wind. “My outfit’s all ruined!” She’d gone through so much trouble to look her best, and now even that was moot!

Cold immediately seared her legs. Her pink shawl somewhat protected her, but from mid-thigh down, her pink skirt was wet. After all the effort she’d made to stay dry and cute, what did she do but fall in the wet snow the very first thing. Furious, she scrambled up, grabbed Gene’s (she might as well call him Gene. Seriously, what kind of name was Genesis anyway?) hand, and followed him into the storm. Despite the warmth of her fluffy pink ponch, before long, the cold cut through all the layers of clothing she wore. Madison’s leggings and skirt were wet from falling in the snow, and the wind went through her skin. Madison would have liked nothing better than to stop and hunker down so the poncho draped around her and blocked the wind, but if she stopped moving, she was afraid she would be turned into a block of ice, forever encased, unable to die and eternally cold until Spring came to thaw her out. Ewww!

Knowing the possibility of warm shelter laid before her spurred her to keep up. She would even push aside her pride and humiliation to allow this human to lead her safely through the storm. Outrageous! Relying on a pig was humiliating, revolting, and shameful! 'But you don't have a choice now, do you?' Her conscience sneered in a tone that sounded annoyingly similar to her older sister, Beverly. 'Look at you! You're weak from hunger, and until you feed on a living being, you're useless! You need him!'

Enough! Thinking about her weakened state occupied her mind only so long before her physical misery began to push its way to the forefront. The snow was coming down harder now, coating the trees, the underbrush, even them. Madison couldn’t see it, but she could feel the weight of it, crusting her wet skirt and glittery pink snow boots. At least her feet didn’t seem as wet as her legs, thanks to the quality of her boots … either that or they were so cold she couldn’t feel the moisture. The wind soughed through the tree limbs, making them rattle like creaky bones in their coffins. The sound was eerie and ghostly, and Madison was glad for the firm hand that gripped hers. “How much longer until we find shelter?” she shouted over the howls and shrieks of the wind. “This is cold even by vampire standards, and I can’t smell anything ahead for miles except ice!”

@poeticphoenix

[raggedy-dxctor]

goodbye, for now | monsignor pruitt

reuqested by @milfodyssey (i hope it's ok! i tweaked the request slightly, but kept the basics :] )

(content warnings for spoilers, death of reader, angst and heavy mentions of gore/violence)

he told himself he would keep you safe. told himself that he would but enough, but... he could've never known.

upon arriving back in crockett island, you were instantly greeted with an island unfamiliar to the place you called home, in fact, the island that greeted you was one of disaster. bloody handprints were smeared over every wall in sight, buildings were aflame and it was eerily quiet. instantly, you caught john's eye, the same name flashed through both of your minds. bev keane.

"what on earth did that bitch do now?" you sighed, clutching onto his hand a little harder. "i'm... not sure, it looks like she turned everyone into monsters" he joked nervously, but then it clicked. the blood.

"shit. y/n, love, you need to get out of here" he panicked, running his free hand through his hair as he bit his lip in fear. you shook your head and looked into his eyes, a determined look painted across your features. before you could even refuse, he let go of your hand and placed his hands on your shoulders. "y/n, i've lost everything else, i can't loose you too" he frowned, tears forming in his eyes at the thought. you placed your hands on his cheeks and shook your head. "you won't loose me john, i promise" you reassured him, offering him a small smile. he signed and nodded, leaning into your hand. "just. promise me you won't loose control?" his request with met with a small nod, it wasn't something you could promise for definite, but you did anyway, it was worth it to see the relief on his face.

after a few hours, you had successfully taken down the operation and stopped bev, but something still didn't feel right. the hairs on your neck stood up and you shivered slightly. turned out that you were exactly right, a mere few minutes later you spun around to see John in a headlock, sturge's arms tightly locked around his neck. panic set in instantly and you could feel your heart beat speeding up. john instantly noticed this and started shouting to you, but it was too late, his words were drowned out as you lost control, the other side overpowering you instantly as the urge to protect john took over.

seconds after you lost control, it was given back as you felt a strong stabbing sensation in your side. letting out a cry of pain, the wolf side retreated, leaving you crumbling to the ground under bev keane's feet as she clutched the bloody knife in her already blood soaked hands.

as you lay on the floor, drifting between consciousness, you heard john scream, breaking out of sturge's grasp to rush to your side. "what the fuck have you done, you monster!" he screamed, clutching onto your hand as he glared at her, hatred in his eyes as the love of his life suffered beside him.

as beverly tried to justify herself, shouts of anger and protest arose from the crowd gathered behind her, all of them against her now for what she had done. "you're dead to me beverly keane, now get out of here, crawl back to whatever hole you escaped hell from" he spat with a venemous tone, causing her to shrink a little, but ultimately gain her composure and growl, stomping off with a scowl on her face. as beverly stomped off, the mayor threw john a look off pity and ushered everyone away.

as everyone was dispersing john turned back to you, carressing your cheek with a sob. suddenly he saw the knife and reached for it desperately, preparing himself to draw blood for you, but before je could your hand shot up to his arm. he glanced down, to see you shaking your head, a weak frown of pity on your face.

"it won't work with me, i don't want you wasting it, darling" you smiled again, leaving a kiss on his palm, before intertwining your fingers. he let out a small sob before shaking his head rapidly. "no no no i can't loose you too love, i just can't, there has to be a way" he panicked, tears staining his cheeks as he rapidly shook his head. "john, i love you and I'd love to be by your side forever, but... what's happened has happened, i don't think it's something we can prevent, i think.. you're gonna have to loose me"

there was a moment of silence where he just stared into your eyes, tears still streaming as a look of sad realisation dawned on his face. acceptance. "im so sorry i let this happen, im so sorry, i wish i could've been better for you, i tried, i really did-" the rambling was cut off by a kiss from you, to reassure him that ne was good enough, perfect even.

as the minutes went by, the pain worsened causing you to wince and the colour to drain from your face. "guess this is goodbye, for now" you croaked out, a sad smile invading your features. "no no no i... i want more time" the tears started to fall again as he stroked the side of your cheek, desperately clinging to the fleeting seconds. "me too, love, me too, but the world works how the world works..."

he brought your knuckles up to his lips and kissed them, his whole body shaking as he moved your hand towards his heart. he let go of your hand and reached up to his collar, ripping it off and throwing it away. "you'll always be in here dear, you'll always have the only spot" he promised, gesturing to his heart as he placed his hand back ontop of yours. you offered him a grateful smile and let out a sigh of content.

"i love you John, take your time dear, i'll see you again someday" you wheezed out, seconds before your body slowly fell still and your breathing stopped, the light leaving your eyes.

"i'll see you again someday..." he echoed, fresh tears pouring from his eyes as he stared up at the night sky.

[questionablygourmet]

Would love your opinion on this. This bothered me a lot when I watched TWOTL, that Will said to Hannibal that he was going to watch Dolarhyde kill and rape Hannibal, and then later he tries to kill himself because he can't live with the horror of enjoying killing with Hannibal. He wasn't able to, but that he was planning to watch something terrible happen to the man he loves was so much more evil imo than killing a serial killer so the heroism of his actions don't go through, at least to me

For starters, I’ll say that I don’t think there’s any heroism intended, at all.  Heroism has not been in the room, or for that matter even the zip code, since oh, ‘round about Beverly’s death.  

I’m seeing a trend in Hannibal discussion in recent months of people trying to come up with what amounts to some kind of tally sheet of good and evil for the characters (particularly but not exclusively Will), and I don’t think that’s a very useful way to look at the story, because the story itself for the most part isn’t interested in categorizing its characters as good or evil or heroic or villainous.  The story is interested in the emotional arcs of those characters, whether they’re trying to make the world a better place, just trying to survive, or being the living embodiment of “fuck around and find out.”  (One exception: Mason Verger.  Despite him being a major character in s2-3, the story isn’t especially interested in his inner reality and he exists solely to be horrible and hilarious and for everyone to be delighted when he finally, finally dies.)  That established, the following is not remotely intended to somehow absolve Will of doing massively fucked-up things, because 1. he does massively fucked up things and 2. I’m aggressively disinterested in assigning Good and Evil labels to the main cast of this show.  

Let’s start with the bird’s eye view, I guess.  I love TWOTL, because to me it is a note-perfect culmination of Will and Hannibal’s mutual fuckery.  The whole show, we’ve been watching these two characters obviously get on like a house on fire (except for the tiny detail of Hannibal starting them off on a train of betrayals by gaslighting the fuck out of Will and then framing him for multiple murders!) s2!Will is about reclaiming his agency and asserting a place on the game board.  s2!Hannibal is largely about continuing to be attracted to someone/something he knows is a danger to him, and kind of trying to figure that out?  But mostly not.  Mostly he’s still in fuck around and find out mode because hey, it’s always served him well before.  But then we get to Mizumono, and oh shit, he has feelings.  A lot of feelings.  And Hannibal Lecter processes his feelings via music and murder.  s3a!Will is trying to process his Hannibal-related feelings, and then s3b!Will is trying to avoid his Hannibal-related feelings (even while actively courting their return).  

They’re both absolute goddamn idiots about their feelings, is what I’m getting at. 

Anyway, I view Will’s “yes, I’m going to watch the Dragon ‘change’ you” as one more in his chronic string of “yup, definitely going to kill Hannibal (or otherwise be party to his death)” cases.  He didn’t do it when he had a gun on him in his kitchen.  He didn’t do it when he had a gun and HANNIBAL WAS STABBING HIM IN THE GUT several episodes later.  We don’t know if he’d have actually stabbed Hannibal in Dolce because he didn’t get the chance, but my money’s on probably not.  

Is it okay that that’s his intent (even if he doesn’t go through with letting the Dragon kill Hannibal)?  Not at all, but the question of goodness isn’t what the show’s interested in, nor what I’m interested in.  And it’s not what Hannibal, himself, is interested in.  He makes it clear that he’s willing to star in this final act and play out his own death scene.  It’s “a glorious and rather discomfiting idea.” To reach back to the previous season (paraphrased because I can’t for the life of me remember which episode this is from to look it up), “The thought that my life might end at any moment is freeing to me.”  Hannibal’s main concern is, and always has been, aesthetics over ethics.  Will’s struggle between his aesthetics (where he most strongly connects to Hannibal) and his ethics is one of, or depending on how you cast it, THE major conflict of the show.  

Zooming in a bit on a couple of specifics in your ask:

What, exactly, is going through Will’s head when he decides to throw them off a cliff is entirely open to debate.  I don’t think it’s unequivocally because he can’t live with what they just did.  I could write a whole separate essay about this decision, but in a nutshell my take on it is that 1. Will is as impulsive as Hannibal is, but in a less studied way 2. in the moment it looked like a solution to all of the problems.  

I don’t think Will’s even a little bit conscious of Hannibal as “the man he loves” throughout most of s3b (even if various other characters are).  He definitely loves him, but he’s spent nearly three years trying to be another person and put his former life (and Hannibal’s part in it) behind him.  And Will Graham, despite being stellar at other people’s emotions, is, again, a certifiable idiot with respect to his own.

Ultimately, though, I’m not here to tell you how you “should” feel about anything that happens in the show.  How you feel is how you feel, and maybe other perspectives you read change that, or maybe they don’t.  But this is an attempt to explain the mindset I personally have when considering TWOTL, or really, the whole Will/Hannibal relationship.  

[mermaidsirennikita]

My personal enjoyment in HR (as a poc, but I’m not south Asian), kind of demands ignoring where all the $$ for the balls and stately homes etc is coming from…so Bridgerton bringing India to the forefront and constantly reminding you where the nobility got the money to fund their lifestyles is so dumb?? It’s no longer escapism and it is potentially very distracting from the romance. It could have a particular unfortunate coloring of Anthony/Kate since he’s literally in parliament!

Right, I think that HR is in the midst of attempting to reconcile where all that money comes from... And yes, you can have self-made and lower class heroes and heroines, who are not connected to the aristocracy. But it's almost impossible for them to become self-made without crossing paths with the aristocracy. For example, Derek Craven in Dreaming of You came from nothing but made his money running a gambling house, which was most definitely frequented by aristocrats, so like... Yeah, he benefited from the system still.

Then you have the aristocrats who get into business, like Sebastian St. Vincent. Most of them still have some element of family money, or land, or whatever.

As a white woman who wants to write historical romance, the only conclusion I can come to is that white writers need to stick to what they know, and focus more on promoting diversity by uplifting and promoting writers of color. There are historical settings in which people of color can have a more dominant role--see Jeannie Lin's Tang Dynasty series, Beverly Jenkins's books, Alyssa Cole's novels. But like... Beverly and Alyssa still have to confront racism in their books. And I think they're a fuckton more qualified to handle that, and every other aspect of writing people of color, than we as white writers are.

This doesn't mean that white authors can't or shouldn't have people of color in their books... I just think that it needs to be done with much more deftness than it typically is. Even authors who write supporting characters who are poc in historical romance usually do so with like a vague allusion ("the darkskinned man who works at the club the hero owns", "the black woman who's friends with the white heroine") and there's like... Idk, to me there's this vibe that you can tell that they're scared of it and they don't know what to do. And it's like, if you're so fucking worried that you're going to fuck it up with every sentence you write, you probably are going to fuck it up. If you're going to do it, you need to really, really fucking educate yourself beforehand and accept that you may very well get called out later, rightfully.

And ultimately, I do think a lot of readers of color want to see themselves in historical romance, but a lot of them are also okay with reading pure escapism about white people who would probably be horrible if they existed irl. (And y'all should be allowed to have both, ffs.) The ideal world would make both equally available--historical romances written by white people about white people, and historical romances written by poc about poc. To me, the biggest, most pressing issure right now is that historical romance does not have enough marginalized people writing in the subgenre. Not just poc, but disabled authors, queer authors... That's where the diversity is needed--not so much in people who aren't marginalized writing characters that are, and fucking up horrendously.

The reality is that historical romance is pretty much a fantasy in every way. The idea of love matches, of people of similar ages getting married often, the hot sex, the good hygiene, the lack of death in childbirth--it's a fucking fantasy. It's not representative of the real world, but it does model itself after a real history. I think writers are usually better off working with the fantasy. Let the fucking "wallflower historical" stigma go away, because nobody wants to read the more "accurate" Georgette Heyer books anymore and get bashed over the head with racism, antisemitism, etc.

I think you CAN tackle serious issues like racism, sexism, pregnancy loss, homophobia, ableism, mental illness in historical romance. I think it can be done, and it is done, and it's done well by some. But when you're someone like the people in the Bridgerton writers' room, who are largely people who have nothing to do with the Indian experience writing about the Indian experience... Dude, it's just not great. Like. I've gotta think that if those writers' room was less dominated by white writers, someone would've been like "isn't Anthony in parliament?" So easy to avoid.

[richiefuckfacetozier]

Why Can't This Be Love

Chapter 1: Here It Comes

Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

Click to read on Archive 

Pairing: Richie Tozier x Eddie Kaspbrak

Title - Why Can't This Be Love by Van Halen

Dedicated to @slashpalooza and @sam-i-am2468

___

Eddie’s Tuesday started out as it normally did. Half a grapefruit for breakfast, thoroughly shower, text his best friend, Richie, a stupid meme, call Mike to confirm lunch for tomorrow, work from 8am to 6pm, and come home to pour himself a glass of wine. 

Right now he was pouring 4 glasses because around 3:00pm, Beverly called asking if her and Ben could come by to tell him something exciting and that Richie had to be there too. He was not sure what they could possibly want to talk about with the two of them. Eddie tried to push down the anxiety that they might be angry about something. He was pretty sure he didn’t do anything horrible recently, but he couldn’t be sure.

“Richie! Can you help me?” Eddie shouted from the kitchen of his apartment. “I don’t have enough hands to carry everything!”

“Coming, my love!” Richie joked annoyingly. Although Eddie didn’t find it entirely annoying, it’s just Richie being ridiculous. 

His tall friend padded into the kitchen wearing his worn out leather jacket that he thought made him look cool, a print shirt with a meme on it that Eddie didn’t get, and jeans, “I know what they are going to tell us.” Richie stated confidently with a little bounce in his step. 

“Did they tell you already? That’s not fair!” Eddie said in frustration. “They couldn’t wait two more damn minutes?”

“No, I have a guess, Eds.” 

“Don’t call me Eds.”

“I think Ben finally got the courage to propose to Beverly.” Richie went on with a smile. “Or she grabbed him by the balls and told him to do it.”

Eddie snorted at the imagery and wouldn’t put it past Bev to be that aggressive but probably wouldn’t to the love of her life. “That’s wonderful if it’s the news.” 

“I bet you 50 bucks it is,” Richie challenged, “Ben was looking mighty anxious at Bill’s wedding a year ago.” 

Eddie rubbed the back of his neck, “I barely remember Bill’s wedding. I was so blackedout.” 

Richie rolled his eyes dramatically, “You were stupidly mourning the loss of Myra the hydra.” Eddie cringed at the mention of his ex-girlfriend. 

“Be nice, Rich.” Eddie frowned. He pulled out a packet of thin mint girl scout cookies for all of them to snack on.  

Richie rolled his eyes as he sipped quickly from the glass of wine, clearly not finished speaking, “I don’t know why either. She was a carbon copy of your mother. Her leaving was the best thing to ever happen to you.” 

“Yes, being extremely single has done wonders for my self-esteem.” Eddie mumbled.

Richie leaned over and flicked Eddie’s nose, “You’re a catch, dummy.” 

He yelped, rubbing his nose and getting goosebumps from their intensely close position. Eddie grabbed the other two glasses, thin mints and turned on his heel to walk out of the kitchen. “Fine, 50 bucks it isn’t an engagement.” 

“Sweet! Also, those pants look good on you.” Richie pointed out following from behind him. 

Eddie’s cheeks heated up a little, he purposely wore these dark navy blue jeans because Richie always compliments them. He wondered if Richie remembered that he did this every time. Eddie doubted it. When it was just the two of them, Richie constantly tried to make Eddie feel special and wanted. Eddie suspected Richie did it because he felt sorry for him, but he couldn’t be sure. Despite knowing his best friend pretty well, he was also a huge enigma. Constantly says whatever is on his mind, does the most spontaneous - borderline suicidal - things, and keeps a smile on his face no matter what he may be feeling. 

They plop down on the couch in Eddie’s living room. His place was what Richie called a ‘clean mess’, probably the best description of Eddie ever said. He had the habit of hoarding things he didn’t really need. Piles of books on every table that he had already read, knick-knacks from trips, more candles than any one person needed on all open surfaces. He had really nice furniture that matched well in a blend of warm colors. Beverly and Ben sat in two mahogany chairs across from them, holding hands. 

Eddie placed the wine glasses on monster movie poster coasters that Richie gifted him years ago when they were teens. They grew up together and remained close throughout the years, regardless of college or moving around. In fact, Eddie had six very close friends from childhood. The group called themselves the Losers Club, a title courtesy of Richie. 

“Thanks, Eddie!” Beverly said nicely. Ben thanked him too. Richie sat beside Eddie, the side of their thighs touching as he scooted closer to hand him wine. Eddie always felt so comfortable around all his friends, they were the only ones he let be touchy with him. He used to hate germs and be easily disgusted by everything, but when the people he was closest with shared food, drinks, and beds with him, that feeling went away gradually. 

“Alright, lads,” Richie started up with a newsies kid accent. “What’s the scoop? Striking Pulitzer again?” 

“Well,” Ben’s round cheeks turned pink as he said, “We’ve got pretty big news.” Eddie observed Ben take both Beverly’s hands into his own big ones. 

Beverly was practically jumping in her seat, her flamming red short curls bouncing against the sides of her face. She shared a big smile with Ben as she blurted out, “WE ARE GETTING MARRIED!”

“FUCK YES!” Richie shouted. He flew off the couch tackling Beverly in a huge hug. 

“Please, don’t hurt my girlfrie-I mean fiancé.” Ben said softly, clearly surprised how much he enjoyed calling her that. 

Eddie got up to hug Ben tightly, saying congratulations. Beverly kissed both men before they sat back down. Eddie raised his glass. “Cheers, to two people who’s friendship, romance, and love are unparalleled.” 

They clinked glasses and drank. Richie bumped Eddie lightly, “Cheers to owing me $50.” 

“Yeah, yeah.” Eddie nodded toward the counter. “You can grab it from my wallet before you go home.” 

“You can just buy me dinner this weekend.” Richie waved his hand.

“So Rich, you know what me getting married also means?” Beverly’s eyes shined brightly at him. He looked between her and Ben, thinking. Then dawning flashed on his face. He put his glass down and stood on the couch. 

“Richie, no!” Eddie pleaded desperately. “You are going to fall! Idiot!” 

He jumped up and down like a child discovering Christmas came early. “I AM GOING TO BE DUDE OF HONOR!” 

They all laughed at his excitement. One of the things the losers club decided in their 20’s, after a particularly ugly fight about who would be who’s best man or ‘dude of honor’ in this case, was that each of them would take turns. 

So far, Bill and Stanley had gotten married. To two incredible women, Audra and Patty. Eddie was Bill’s and Bill was Stan’s best man. The rest of the sequence goes: Mike is Richie’s, Richie is Bev’s, Bev is Eddie’s, Stan is Ben’s, and Ben is Mike’s. Mike is fairly confident he won’t get married and neither will Richie, which he says is for the best as he is far too stressed as a person to get married or be a best man. 

Eddie recalled that a huge fight he had with Myra was over Beverly being his Best Woman. She shouted at him for hours that there was no reason a woman should be when he had all these guy friends. Explaining the losers club deal to her did nothing but place fuel on the fire. ‘Sometimes I think you love them more than me!’ Looking back, he most certainly did. Eddie was fairly certain he would always love the losers most in this world. Which furthered the cycle of being horribly single. Sometimes he thought he was in a polyamorous asexual relationship with 6 other people. They were too close.

Richie finished up his jumping and landed on the couch half on Eddie. “OW!” Eddie yelled. “That fucking hurt. You aren’t light enough to plop all your weight on me.” 

Richie slung an arm over Eddie’s shoulders and kissed the side of his face. “Sorry, Eds.”

Eddie wiped his face that got kissed on Richie’s shoulder, pretending to get the germs off. “Have you told everyone else?” 

“We have…” Ben begun slowly. Eddie didn’t like the tone he was using. “Stanley’s already started his best man duties.”

“Why wouldn’t you just tell us you’re getting married altogether like Bill and Stan did?” Richie said, seeming to also realize this was odd. 

“Because we have to ask a favor of you.” Ben brought his hand up to start biting his nails the way he did when he was about to deliver bad news. 

“Favor is too nice, babe. This is not a favor or a request. It is a requirement if you both want to be at this wedding.” Beverly let go of Ben’s hand to place it on her knee. She rubbed her thighs once, gearing up to tell them. Eddie had a couple guesses about what she may want to say but nothing prepared him for what it actually was, “You have to bring a date.” 

Eddie leaned back in confusion, realizing Richie’s arm was still around him so it brought them both laying back against the couch. Richie removed his arm and started fidgeting with his fingers. Eddie worried his bottom lip before saying quietly, “Why?” 

Beverly looked to Eddie with sympathy. “I’m sorry, Eddie, but we don’t want a repeat of Stan and Bill’s weddings.”

Eddie’s face immediately turned red with embarrassment. Three years ago, Stanley got married and that was around when he left his mother’s place for the third time. A year later, Bill got married and he had his break up with Myra. On both occasions, Eddie took a bad combination of too many pills and drinking more than he ever had in his life. Resulting in major blackouts and behavior he cannot remember but knows second hand from everyone what happened.

“Why do we both have to have dates?” Richie said, voice a little strained and weird.

Beverly rounded on him with no sympathy. “Because, Richard, when YOU go to weddings you fuck everyone and break shit. A date will keep you focused on that person and not be a chaotic monster with a death wish.”

Richie laughed, “If I want to be fucked by all your bridesmaids at the same time then I should be allowed to do that!”

Beverly’s voice rose higher, “That’s literally not possible, asshole! And the only bridesmaid is Kay McCall.” 

“Damn. Kay’s beautiful but I don’t screw married women.” Richie’s face scrunched up. “Does that make her a bride’s matron?”

“High morals there Richie,” Ben said trying to lighten the mood.

“You know it Ben Handsome.” He winked. 

Eddie sat there trying to word what he wanted to say carefully. As Richie continued to dig himself a deeper hole, “We are getting off-topic. I’m saying if I want to have sex with someone and have a little fun or if Eddie wants to get so drunk he mistakes your grandma for a urinal, then we should have that right.” 

This brings Eddie back, “Richie!” 

“What? Nana Denbrough thought she was at a waterpark. You’re fine.” 

He put his hands on his face and folded forward. Richie scratched his back soothingly but didn’t stop trying to defend himself. Beverly eventually got so fed up that she pulled out her phone and played a video from YouTube. 

“Exhibit A, Bill and Audra’s wedding.” She said viciously. 

Eddie groaned as he raised his head to watch the screen. Bill’s younger brother Georgie had filmed people talking about Bill and Audra. He put the most unfortunate video, starring Eddie and Richie, on the internet for the world to see. 

Video Eddie looked miserable and spaced out. Georgie had to say his name three times before Eddie looked up and hiccuped. “Oh hey, Georgie!” Video Eddie said enthusiastically. “Having fun kiddo?” 

“I’m 21, Eddie. Not really a kid anymore.” Georgie’s voice said laughing. 

“Stay a kid forever,” Eddie begged him.

“Ok, Eddie. What do you want to say to Bill and Audra?” 

“Bill...I want you to know that you are the bravest man alive and I would die for you. Audra, you better be good to him.” Video Eddie points at the camera and almost falls forward. Suddenly, video Richie appears, catching him. He giggles bopping video Richie on the nose and keeping his face precariously close to video Richie’s face. 

Video Eddie frowns suddenly and looks back at the camera, “But don’t fall too too in love. You might get your heart broken like me. Love is dumb. Women are dumb. They don’t really care about you.” 

Video Richie had his hair slicked back and was laughing at video Eddie’s truths, “Eds! This day isn’t about you. It’s about Bill and Audra. We should be telling stories about them!”

“Oh god,” Eddie said as his stomach turned reliving the next part again. 

“So Audra, let me tell you about Bill’s first time. He had a girlfriend in high school, blonde and pretty, much like yourself and they were dating for about…” 

Video Eddie hiccups, “4 months.” Then smashes his face into video Richie’s neck. “You smell like whiskey.” He winces.

Video Richie laughed, cheeks reddening from drunkenness, “Thank you, Eds. When they decided to fuck for the first time, he got everything all set and she came over that evening. As he was eating her out.” 

“Richie, kids could see this.” Video Georgie warned through obvious laughter.

“As Bill was going downtown on her hoo-hoo she got a little too excited and shat the bed.” All three men were shrieking with laughter. Video Eddie wrapped his arms around video Richie, shaking uncontrollably with glee. Despite the horribleness of the situation, Eddie smiled a little. “Now it’s unclear where all the crap ended up but we can guess that…”

Beverly stopped the video glaring at Richie intently. Eddie looked at him and he only smiled. “We won’t even get into the nuclear mess that was Stanley and Patti Uris’s wedding right now. But we want you both to have a date so there is no chance of you completely embarrassing me, Ben, and yourselves.” 

Eddie scoffed, “Richie embarrasses himself on every date he goes on. What makes you think one brought to the wedding will be any better?” 

“Oh yeah?” Richie gazed at him steadily. Eddie braced himself for the incoming insult. As much as he could dish it, he rarely could take it. Especially against Richie’s quick tongue, “And when was the last time you even fucking went on a date to embarrass yourself?” 

“I can get dates!” 

“A night alone with your right hand isn’t a date.”

“Shut the fuck up, Trashmouth!” 

Suddenly, two armchair pillows smacked the side of Eddie and Richie’s heads. They both rounded on Beverly and Ben but the stare of death Beverly was giving stopped their prepared protests. 

“If you assholes want to come to my wedding,”

“Our wedding…” Ben whispered.

She turned her ever reddening face, almost the color of her hair, at her financé, “Not if you correct me, Benjamin! Don’t make me marry myself!” She focused back on Eddie and Richie, pointing a bitten nail at them menacingly. “...you will have dates and BEHAVE at the reception or so help me, I’ll castrate you!” 

There was a pregnant pause broken by the one who can never stay quiet long. “What about the ceremony?” Richie responded, “Can I at least ruin that?”

She stared at him, everyone ready for more yelling but instead she broke into a gorgeous smile and laughed. It lightened the moment but Eddie didn’t find he felt any less anxious. He fully contemplated this enormous request from his friends. Finding a good wedding date took time, he only ever had committed relationships. Well, the one with Myra. As much as Richie’s words hurt, he was right. Eddie didn’t go on dates. People didn’t tend to find him datable. “Too short, too high maintenance, too weird” were just a few of the flaws that consumed him. He had no clue how he was expected to get someone to go to this wedding with him. 

The four of them started discussing wedding details, Beverly and Richie talking a mile a minute about everything that had to get done. He was especially excited to plan a bachelorette party. With how much money Ben and Bev make, it sounded like they would get their dream wedding easily. 

Eddie was thrilled for them but that pang of being single and now having to find a date was eating him alive for the two more hours they stayed. When they finally called it a night, Beverly and Ben hugged them promising to talk tomorrow. 

Richie did not follow them out which meant he wanted to drink and talk more, probably spend the night there. Eddie had a guest room that was essentially Richie’s room since he spent the most time there. 

“You want ice cream?” Richie shouted from the kitchen where he was most likely opening another bottle of wine. 

“With chocolate syrup!” Eddie yelled back. 

“Oh, chocolate syrup night means major troubles.” Richie laughed. 

“What are we gonna do Rich?” Eddie whined miserably. “Or rather, what the fuck am I going to do?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“About the fucking dates!” Eddie laid sideways on the couch, grabbing the cushion pillow and placing it over his face to scream into. 

“Don’t be a drama queen.” Richie said. The couch shifted as he sat down by Eddie’s legs. 

“That’s easy for you to say.” Eddie mumbled into the pillow. 

Two hands extracted the pillow from his face. Eddie kept his eyes scrunched closed. “I can’t speak pillow.” 

Eddie huffed out, “It’s easy for you to not be worried. You are a serial dater.” 

“Open your eyes, Eds.” Richie chuckled. Eddie opened them to pout childishly at him.

He had his smirky smile on, which could only mean he had a terrible idea. “I have a great idea to get us out of getting actual dates.”

Eddie stared at him from his laid down position, probably giving Richie an unattractive double chin, “There is no loophole in this agreement, Rich. Beverly was really fucking clear. We have to have dates.” 

“And we will.” Richie poured wine into both their glasses. He handed it to Eddie, forcing him to sit up in order to drink it. While Eddie drank normally, Richie downed his quickly then licked his lips. 

“Who am I gonna have to take to Ben and Beverly’s wedding?”

Richie watched him carefully, opened his mouth and said, “You’ll take me. I will be your wedding date. And by default, you will be mine” Eddie’s mouth dropped and Richie clinked his empty glass with Eddie’s full one.

______________________

In honor of IT: Chapter 2 coming out soon, I have begun writing this fake dating idea! I hope you enjoyed the first chapter, comment here or on archive and let me know your thoughts and feels! The title is thanks to Slashpalooza on tumblr who asked me a million years ago to write something with this title!

Tag List (Starting a new tag list since I don’t know who is still around in the fandom. Let me know if you want to be tagged):

@sarah011 @pan-ini @frankeeenstein @sam-i-am2468 @eds-kas @jem-carstairs-is-perfection @roobarrtrashmouth @hypnoidvoid @imeddie @slashpalooza @reddieforlove