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dollarstoreartsupplies · 2 years ago

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Fic Masterpost!

This is mostly for me I’m not going to lie to you guys

Non-It Fics:

25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee:

another moment of perfect syzygy (or… something sorta like that)

A very vauge Leaf Coneybear character study through the lense of him trying to find schwartzy so he can congratulate her after the bee

One Shot

Stranger Things:

A Complex Analysis on Why Robin Buckley and Steve Harrington Are Not a Couple: A Study by Dustin Henderson

Fem Dustin walks in on Ronance making out

One shot

Dungeons and Daddies:

strange and unusual

Beetlejuice au where Scary is Lydia and Willy is Beetlejuice

One shot

StarKid:

(i swear) i will die trying

Ted Spankoffski POV during the plot of Nerdy Prudes Must Die

2 Chapters

Locked and Loaded (oh so devoted)

Steph shoots Pete at the end of NPMD, but she misses (...sorta)

TW gun shot injuries

3 Chapters

it's like hearing a ticking sound coming from unmarked packages (something isn't right here)

Basically a what if for if Tinky was Pete's 'imaginary friend' the way Webby is Hannah's

One Shot

slurpees are a love language (prove me wrong)

Fluffy lautski drabble

Date Idea: sharing slurpees so ur boyfriend doesn't pass out

One Shot for Lautski Week 2023 (prompt: blue)

unfortunately, it's not quite a fairy tale (at least, not the one you were expecting)

Lautski cinderella au (Cinderella Pete/Prince Charming Steph)

HEED THE TAGS PLEASE PLEASE FUCKING PLEASE

In Progress

butterfly effect in reverse

Lautski personality swap au.... kinda, in which Steph is basically a honor student golden child (but still the popular one) and Pete is a stoner (but still unpopular)

One Shot

hot new christmas gift on the market: doing the bare fucking minimum

Ted realizes Pete kinda has youngest-sibling-trauma and tries to do something nice about it (he's, unfortunately, still ted though)

One Shot

all that you feel is only real (if you decide it inside)

Ted gets Truman Show-ed by Tinky, and then decides to just go with it

Heed the tags

One Shot

Don’t Worry, It Was Just A Dream! (so then why are you screaming?)

Post yellow jackets au where Charles goes after Ethan to get to the Fosters

Becuase why WOULDN'T HE?

Four Chapters

the witch with the broom

Hannah finds out about Santa, so Ethan teaches her about la befana to make it better

baby lexthan

the MOST Italian American Ethan green

One Shot

accidental horizon lines

selkie!Lex/swan!Ethan accidentally get married on both sides and don't tell the other one

miscommunication ABOUND

One Shot

meet me in (time and space) the in-between

lab rat pete au where steph finds him in the woods right after he ran away

baby lautski!!!!

In Progress

i oughta put them in two separate canoes (with room between 'em for jesus)

post abby camp lautski fluff/miscommunication (that immediately gets cleared up)

canoe dates babEY

one shot

It Fics:

Unfinished:

Forgotten Familiarity

Richie and Eddie find each other as adults without their memories of each other, fall in love, and get married. And then Mike calls.

It’s unfinished and always will be sorry, like the story is pretty much complete I just got overly optimistic where I should have ended it

Note to Self: Don't be Gay in Derry, Maine

Fem Reddie The Prom au

She’s also probably terminally unfinished

(like) Silence (but not really silence) is Infinity

Loose Matilda Ben au

Ben Centric

Optimistically in progress but who knows

we got the keys (the kingdom's ours)

Descendants au

In Progress (optimistically but like y'know-)

whats found in the palace gardens, as seen through silver-framed eyeglasses

Richie Cinderella au (reddie)

In Progress

the real world is where the monsters are

Camp Halfblood au

In Progress

Completed Works:

I Know Your Secret. Your Furry Little Secret.

Werewolf Richie au

3 chapters

Life (even infinite) Still Must Have Life In It

Time Traveler Stan and Eddie and Immortal Richie au (Streddie)

1 chapter but it’s LONG

so we took it in turns, and to my surprise, we found my words

Richie loose little mermaid au but like only the losing her voice part

Another fic with 1 very very long chapter

Family Road Trip

Eddie and the Neibolt Kids road trip from Derry to California so she can kiss Richie

4 chapters

One Shots:

Living on the Dance Floor

Stan and Richie were on dance moms as children au

i'm sorry. iloveyou.

Richie’s dead, it’s Eddie’s fault, and she doesn’t know how to deal with it it.

Super Hero Losers Club with powerless tech guy Richie au

This ones.... sad y’all

Radio City Presents: Middle Aged Lesbians Learning to Love

Canon divergence where Eddie lives, Richie has chronic pain, and they love each other a whole lot.

Merry (Fucking) Christmas, 1992 (1995)

Christmas themed Reverse Reddie au

A universe where Georgie Denbrough forgets his rain boots

Canon divergence where Georgie lives and Bill raises her little brother, until she forgets she has one

this one is also! sad!

Eddie Kaspbrak Vs. The Olympic Level Asshole

Olympic figure skater Richie and ice hockey team manager Eddie au

Calculated Gambles

Richie takes the hit for Eddie, but she survives. Now Eddie’s waiting for her to wake up in her hospital room.

Something Is Wrong With Richie

Richie stops talking. The Losers want to know why.

Basically my hot take on how Fem Richie having ADHD affects her differently than a male Richie having ADHD

This one is not well written I'm ngl

Tumblr Only One Shots:

Cheerleader Richie au

But I'm A Cheerleader ficlet

Only BESTIES get tortured in a lab together (Platonic Stozier) (also like really really sad)

Dracula au (this one is sort of a glorified head canon post)

Sad Internalized Fatphobia Ben One Shot

Emotober One Shots:

Otherwise known as that once scene from Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over

Prompt: Collapse, "Why do you even care?"

Reddie

Otherwise known as kissing is gross and Queer Eye is a decent backing track to a breakdown

Prompt: Fears, “I know what you need”

Tumblr Only

Reddie

Otherwise known as Dear Miss Michelle Hanlon it is my sincerest pleasure to accept you into the Derry, Maine school of being miserable, graduating class of 2019

Prompt: History, “I quit.”

This ones a sad one y’all

Otherwise known as this anniversary dinner is sponsored by: a shady black market love potion

Prompt: Disaster Date, "I never had a choice."

Another sad one with very creepy Connor Bowers

Otherwise known as some conversations are worst had on a fire escape drunk at three in the morning

Prompt: Insecurity, “We are not having this conversation.”

Implied Poly Losers, mostly Ben/Stan

Otherwise known as Ben has a nightmare

Prompt: Nightmare, “It’s not enough anymore.”

Poly Losers and posted ten months after October lol

Otherwise known as this anniversary dinner has been interrupted to bring you: the angriest Eddie Kaspbrak the world has ever seen

Prompt: Aftermath, “So it was all a lie.”

Follow up to shady black market love potion

also posted like a year after the rest fhjkl

#fic #fem losers club #fem reddie #rev fem Reddie #rev reddie #long post #masterpost #this might not even be all of them idk man

21 notes · View notes

dollarstoreartsupplies · 3 years ago

Note

oooooo holiday gals mayhaps? Neibolt Kids Holiday Adventure like a straight to DVD spin off BSHDHF but then on the flip side devastating rev Reddie around the holidays oh my god

Here's some long and sad rev reddie for the soul!!! Merry Christmas!!!

(Context Post for rev gals here!)

(Ao3 Link)

Christmas Eve Eve

December 23rd, 1992

Derry High School- Basement Level

It’s the last period before winter break starts for Derry High School and the music coming out of Derry High School’s singular storage-room-turned-practice-room is angry.

This eventuality just so happens to be a complicated situation for a one Eddie Kaspbrak, as she stands outside the door of it and decides whether or not to wait for the song to end to go in. On one hand angry piano is good, because it means Richie is processing her emotions somewhat, which rarely happens even a little bit ever, but also it means Richie is experiencing the kind of bad, upset, angry emotions that need processing, and while thats distressingly common, Eddie fucking hates it. Richie Tozier deserves nothing but happiness until the fucking world implodes.

Behind the door Richie hits a wrong note somewhere in the song. Eddie isn’t really sure where, exactly, it didn’t sound wrong to her, but the music jolts quiet for just a second and she can just make out Richie’s voice enough to know she’s probably bit off some sort of Richie-level-bad swear word like ‘damnit’, and she decides, with an Eddie-level-not-that-bad swear word, ‘fuck it’.

Richie doesn’t notice her when she comes in, she didn’t expect her to, because even though she’s upset right now and she’s making mistakes that literally no one else on the planet could hear, she’s actually playing, and when that happens she tends to get lost.

Eddie doesn’t mind, though, because she doesn’t think she’ll ever really get tired of watching Richie play piano. Really play, not practice until her hands shake too hard to keep going because her parents made her or plunk out notes for the DHS choir concert, but really just let herself go and play piano. Eyes closed, fingers flying so quickly over the keys Eddie can never follow them, just letting herself go and move her whole body with the music; it’s so incredibly beautiful that it feels like she wouldn’t be able to drag her eyes away, so she doesn’t try to, she just locks the door behind her, leans against it, and listens.

“Nice.” She offers, once Richie takes her hands off the keys, a little more shit-eating than she probably should be.

“Jesus Christ.” Richie jolts halfway off the bench, flipping her off over her shoulder. She doesn’t turn around to look at her and something twists even more worried in Eddie’s sternum.

“Hi, Angel.” She hooks her chin on top of her head, reveling in the momentary height advantage, “Sounded great.”

“Sounded like shit.” She leans hard back into Eddie’s chest, so she can feel the way her breath is rising and falling unsteadily through her collar bone, “I kept messing it up.”

“It sounded fucking fantastic, dipshit, stop being mean to my girlfriend.” Richie tilts her head back and blows a raspberry into the underside of Eddie’s chin, “I’m serious, I’ll square up.”

“I’d win.” She retaliates, but her voice is shrinking small again. Eddie shoves a kiss into her hair.

“Sure you would.” She stretches over her shoulder to plunk the lowest note she can on the piano, Richie half snorts and presses down on the highest one, spidering her long ass fingers across the keys until they land on top of Eddie’s, “What's wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong, I’m fine.” But her voice is tiny and tight at the edges, shoulders squared tense together against Eddie’s chest.

“Bullshit.” She presses another kiss into the top of her head again, hip checking against her arm until she makes room for her on the bench, and then, when she realizes that probably isn’t the best method for comforting your upset girlfriend, guiding her head onto her shoulder.

Her sweater is red today, probably her mom’s attempt to make her look like she’s from a family that celebrates Christmas like normal people. Though, it’s a far less festive brownish-maroon than the bright red of her knees above her socks, still wind chapped from this morning, because going out in Maine on December 23rd without a minimum of eight pairs of snow pants is ill advised, and knee socks and a longer skirt that usual isn’t going to cut it.

(Not that Eddie went out in Maine on December 23rd in a jacket today or jeans without holes in the knees, but that's different. She’s making a statement.)

She presses one of her hands over Richie’s kneecap, less cold than it looks like it should be, but the skin still goes all goose-bumpy under her palm at the extra warmth. Richie’s always run cold.

“I don’t wanna talk about it.” She whispers, which means she does.

“Okay. You don’t need to.” Eddie says anyway, pressing her cheek into the top of her head, “Wanna keep playing?”

“No.” She says, which also means she does.

“Wanna try and teach me what you were just playing?”

“It would eat you alive,” she snorts, tilting her nose into her shoulder, “Absolutely I do.”

It does. Eddie is thoroughly chewed and spit out almost instantly. It’s incredibly complicated and fast as fuck and Eddie’s got her mom’s stubby little fingers, which she resents the fuck out of, eff you very much, but she hadn’t offered to do it to unearth her future as a concert pianist, she did it because by the time she’s managed to plunk her way through half a page almost half an hour later Richie’s laughing hard enough it’s actually making noise, and her hands don’t shake when they gently shift her wrists to the right section of the keys, and when she presses a kiss to Eddie’s cheek and fondly declares her ‘hopeless’ she’s smiling.

She likes Richie’s smile a helluva lot more than she hates embarrassing herself on piano, and she likes kissing Richie’s smiles a helluva lot more than that.

“I think I might be coming for your profession, Tozier.”

“Sure thing, I’ll give you my plane ticket for Friday.” She words it like a joke but her eyes are turned down to her lap, hands twisting together around the cuffs of the button up layered neatly under her sweater, a little Richie Tozier cheat code for Eddie to know what's wrong.

“What.” Unfortunately Eddie is stupid and requires far more context.

“Friday.”

“Yeah, I heard you, but Friday is Christmas.”

“Astute.” She keeps her eyes on her lap, bringing one hand up to half heartedly play something soft and careful on the keys. Her hands are shaking again and Eddie sort of wants to punch something.

“You don’t go with your parents on Christmas.”

Tozier family Christmases are fucked as shit, but they’ve always been consistent, at the very least. Richie’s extended family, of whom there aren’t many her parents are still willing to talk to, meet for very formal, very fancy dinners on Christmas Eve where, from what Eddie’s heard, for the most part Richie is expected to be quiet and very polite and play for the whole of the night, other than when she’s expected to help in the kitchen, as, essentially, visual reminder to her aunts and uncles that her parents have created the perfect child.

But after that her parents always leave, drop her off out front of their house and drive to the airport or train station and go on vacation somewhere warm for a few days. She usually shows up at Eddie’s after they’ve driven off, still in her stupid, itchy dresses and stupid, frizzy-straightened hair, and Eddie takes her to the diner just outside of Derry, because on the rare occasion she’s allowed to stop playing while her family eats she’s certainly not allowed to eat much of anything on the table, and then they go to Stan’s.

Sometimes Eddie sticks around, because there’s no fucking way in hell she’s waking up in her house Christmas morning and Richie wants to be sandwiched between her two favorite people, but a lot of the time she won’t. She’s always got the okay to sleep at Bill’s and Stan and Richie’s friendship is something important enough that she knows not to fuck around with it. Sometimes Richie just needs a weird, quiet sort of comfort Eddie can’t provide and Stan Uris has all three, weirdness, quiet, and comfort, in spades.

Enough of the Losers Club have much better Christmases when they aren’t celebrating Christmas at all, so she knows she’ll see her later anyway, piled up in Stan’s bedroom becuase the Uris household is one of the few places in Derry where there isn’t even the slightest sign of tinsel to remind you how fucked up your life was.

It’s sad, and Richie usually cries a lot, because it’s fucked to just leave your perfect goddamn golden child alone on Christmas, but even she’s admitted, just with a lot more self-loathing, that it’s so much better when they’re gone.

(There was never a Santa Claus coming down the Tozier’s chimney, but her parents hadn’t left their toddler alone on Christmas, and, well, she’d always worn long sleeves to school the next few weeks.)

“I got invited to a competition out of state.”

“On Christmas?”

“It’s a really big deal, it’s, um, it’s supposed to be for professionals but every year they invite a prodigy kid to like, I don’t know, show that there’s hope for the future or something? And this year that prodigy kid is me. My dad pinned the letter up in his office so every person in Derry with teeth has to know about it.” She spits that last part, sounding angry for Richie, sounding tired for anyone else. She slams the lid down over the piano keys, folding herself over her arms on top of it.

“Christ.” That’s so much worse than the usual child abandonment or the family vacation from hell Eddie had been anticipating.

‘Out of state piano competitions’ were terrifying. Admittedly, probably more so for Richie, considering she was the one actually dealing with them, but for Eddie they meant that her girlfriend was too far to reach or rescue, with her shitty parents already absurd expectations elevated to the next level now that there is something for Richie to win, and worse, now that there is something for Richie to lose.

“Eds, I- I think they’re genuinely expecting me to win this thing.” She whispers, small and scared into her arms, and Eddie suddenly gets the ice-water-down-her-back feeling that she won’t be seeing her girlfriend again until school starts back up in January.

“Hey- I- fuck.” She hovers her hand over her shoulder, hesitating before setting it down. It feels violently insufficient.

“I hate Christmas.”

“I know.”

Richie goes quiet, the kind of tight-lipped silence that rarely swallows her when it’s just the two of them, not heard and doing everything in her power not to be seen.

“Let's run away together.” She says before she thinks it through, but it works enough to half-drag Richie out of her arm cave, tilting her head toward her, eyebrows furrowed and glasses bent out of alignment, “Yeah, come on, let's just pack up and run away together. California or Canada or, or- I don’t care, wherever you want.”

Richie huffs a laugh, muted but there, almost-smile squished up against her sweater sleeve.

“We could get our own apartment and we could wear shoes inside and have a dog and no one is allowed to mention pianos or we kill ‘em-”

“Cat.” Richie whispers, soft enough Eddie can barely hear her.

“What was that?”

“We’re getting a cat, not a dog.” She giggles quietly at the way Eddie’s nose wrinkles up and it manages to smooth out her disgust a little over the concept of a cat versus a dog.

“Fine. Both.” Richie hums, at least momentarily sated, and Eddie leans over, pressing a kiss to her shoulder, not sure if she feels safe enough behind the locked door for it, and even less sure if that lack of safety is why she did it.

“You eat?” Richie’s last two periods of the day are her lunch and free period her parents don’t know she has, and depending on the day that means the last two periods of Richie’s day are her hiding out in the practice room. She huffs a sigh, and nods to a granola bar wrapper crumpled up on top of her backpack.

“That's abso-fucking-lutely not a lunch.”

“Not hungry.”

“Come on, wanna go to the diner?” She perks up a little at that, shifting closer into her side, before crumpling back onto the key cover.

“Can’t.”

“Why the fuck not. I’m offering to buy you a milkshake here, this is a limited time offer.” It’s really not, she keeps a five in her backpack for buying Richie treats purposes and buying Richie treats purposes alone.

“I gotta go home right after school, my mom is making me go dress shopping for the competition this afternoon.” She says ‘dress shopping’ like her mother is going to make her wade through a dumpster full of shit to get to Macy's (though, Eddie’s experienced second hand recreations of what shopping with Margret Tozier is like, and doesn’t think that's a particularly far off comparison).

“There is still an hour left of the period, no one gives a shit where you go, and I would fucking love a call home, I think I’m one away from Sonia giving herself a fucking hernia.”

“I can’t skip. If I get caught or they call my mom-”

“Beep beep, whatever,” She presses a hand down over the top of Richie’s head in an attempt to physically mold the down spiral out of her brain, “I could go. Pick you up something and come back?”

“Are you- I don’t wanna-”

“I’ll be back in like ten minutes.” Richie doesn’t confirm it or deny it, at least not verbally, but she leans up to press her nose into the crook of Eddie’s neck when she stands up from the bench and recurls herself on the floor, starting to dig through her backpack for her homework folder.

She holds her hand out for Eddie’s backpack and looks put out when she won’t hand it over. She’s not at the point in the year where she’s failing badly enough that she needs Richie to help with her make-up assignments so she doesn’t have to repeat the grade, and honestly it’s always pretty exciting to see how long her teachers hold out hope for her. It's a fun little game each and every one of her friends hates with the whole of their being. (Except Beverly. She thinks it’s really funny, which is exactly the amount of approval Eddie needs to keep it up.)

She doesn’t end up going to their diner, it’s not like they go because the food is good, and even with her unhealthy disregard for the speed limit it would take her too long to get there and back. It’s fine, Richie is more than happy with her Burger King fries and an extra forty five minutes of Eddie-compression therapy to prepare for her mother dragging her through the entirety of Bangor mall once the bell rings and Eddie ends up getting that next call home anyway when the janitor finds the water bottle full of New Amsterdam in her locker.

(No hernia yet, just an apparent ‘collapse’ she wasn’t home for anyway, so she’s not certain she believes it. She’s considering getting arrested next.)

Christmas Day

December 25th, 1992

New York City- Weill Recital Hall

Richie hates Christmas. A lot.

It’s not that she distinctly dislikes the concept, it’s nice in theory, she supposes. Christmas trees and snowball fights and presents, all incredibly nice things. In theory. But in practice, all of those things, for lack of a better term, fucking blow.

The Christmas tree in their front window is only there to keep up appearances, so people walk past their house and go ‘Oh, Margret your tree is just as lovely as always this year’, but really it’s an artificial tree, plastic-perfect like the rest of their lives, and she’s not allowed to have snowball fights because they’re unladylike, and she doesn’t get presents.

All in all, Christmas sucks, she hates it, and she would do anything right now to be celebrating ‘absolutley not fucking Christmas, just a normal day’ at Stan’s right now.

But she’s not. Instead she’s sat on a plastic folding chair in one of the back hallways of a concert hall in New York City with the waistline of her tights digging into her stomach, she hasn’t eaten all day and it’s finally starting to hit her, and, to top it all off she looks like a freaking elementary schooler with her painfully-tight down her back braids and the dress her mom got for her in an attempt to hide the apparent disappointment that she’s the oldest prodigy the competition has ever had.

No one wants an old prodigy, her dad had said on the plane ride last night, an old prodigy is just a perfectly normal person who's barely good at the piano.

And an old prodigy who doesn’t even win, well, that’s less than nothing.

And that's what Richie is, an even less than less than nothing. Not even a runner up. Because Richie didn’t even place. She has never, not in her ten years of piano competitions, not placed. She knows what happens when she wins, the calm waters and quiet dinners and the generally pleased understanding that this is what is to be expected, and she knows what happens when she doesn’t win, the varying degrees of freezing out and withheld meals and well-earned punishments from second place to fourth.

But she’s never not placed. She’s never been this much of a loser before.

Rachel Tozier is not supposed to be a fucking loser. Not this way, in the very least. Not when she’s not safe underground with her friends, warm and comfortable and herself in a hammock with her girlfriend.

She’s never been a lower case l loser before.

Everything feels wrong, too loud and too much and her ankle itches beneath her tights and her stomach is twisted so tight it burns but she's not going to cry.

Because she didn’t even place.

Didn’t.

Even.

Place.

“Hey, Rachel, right?”

Hand.

In front of her.

Smile, polite, shake the hand like a good little girl; it happens almost mechanically, a well trained series of reactions before she registers the (winner) smile aimed at her and (perfect for piano, long fingers, fast, perfect) hand in her own.

“Oh. Yes. Hi.” And then when she realizes that's not nearly sufficient enough, only illiterate drop out druggies don’t use full sentences, Rachel, “You did an incredible job today.”

“Thanks! You too!” The first place, actually talented, winner of the competition lies, before nodding to the seat next to her and falling back into it with her legs splayed out in front of her when Richie scoots over.

“Hey, if you don’t mind me asking, how old are you?” The woman asks, after a long, awkwardly quiet moment because Richie can’t just make conversation like a normal person.

“Fifteen.”

“Ah, Christ, thank God.”

She apparently doesn’t hide her confusion the way she means to, because she can’t do anything right, because the winner’s eyes go slightly wide and she sits up a little so she can elaborate (she can’t remember her name, they’d said it when she won, but Richie’s brain shut down, defaulted to smiling and not crying when it wasn’t Rachel, because she’s awful, she’s so fucking impolite and shitty and bad).

“Oh, sorry, I competed last year too and the ‘prodigy’ kid was seven, this is, like, an insane thing to do to a seven year old.”

Richie feels desperately like she’s going to throw up all over again.

This woman seems perfectly nice, so Richie is certain she hadn’t meant to twist the ‘barely prodigy level’ prodigy knife directly where she didn’t want it go, but she had.

God, why couldn’t Richie just be seven.

“Did they win?”

“What?”

“The, um, the seven year old? Did they win?” The woman tilts her head at her like Richie’s some particularly confusing little puppy of a person she’s trying to make sense of, and Richie doesn’t know how she messed up, but she’s certain she did. Of course she did. She always does.

“Prodigies aren’t eligible to place. You guys aren’t actually competing… you… know that right?”

“Oh. ‘course I did.” But she didn’t. She didn’t. Did her dad? Did her mom? Had they known this whole time that she was just here to perform and she wasn’t actually competing?

“You okay?”

No. No no no she’s not.

“I’m great!”

“You’re great at piano too, by the way. That’s what I came over here to say in the first place-”

“What?” She snaps her head up so fast she feels dizzy.

“You’re really talented! I was not that good at fifteen.”

She wants to let her know that she knows she’s lying. Because she has to be lying, just trying to spare her feelings because Richie is pathetic and sad and pitiable and a loser.

Because even if she had been eligible to compete she was in no way as good as the other competitors, she would have still lost.

“Thanks.” She says instead.

“Where are you from again? They said it before you played, but honestly I cannot pay attention to all those speeches.”

“Maine.”

“Ah, New York must seem tropical, huh?” That manages half a laugh out of Richie, that the woman seems a little bit too proud of, “First time in the city?”

“Yeah.”

“Nice, you gonna go to the tree after this? Do all the fun big city Christmas things?”

“We, uh, went this morning. To the tree and stuff.” Articulate, Rachel.

They had, technically, gone this morning, for exactly ten minutes so her mom could take a series of pictures of her looking like she was having a perfectly picturesque time in the city to show her book club once they got back, and then she’d started crying because her dad was upset it was taking so long and her mom was angry that she wasn’t looking ‘happy’ enough, which had just made the whole thing even worse.

“Awesome, dude.”

“I- uh, I like your sweater.” She says in an attempt to change the subject, she’s done so much wrong today.

“Oh, thanks! Almost got me kicked out, but it doesn’t technically break any of the rules,” She taps the side of her nose, winking in Richie’s direction, and her whole stomach suddenly feels incredibly warm, the way it sometimes gets around Eddie. She decides it’s the fact that they both have short hair and ignores it entirely, “That's how you get ‘em. My- roommate made it for me. Wedding gift.”

“It’s, uh, Star Trek, right?” She asks a little too quickly over the end of her sentence, even though she knows it is and even though she knows that it’s rude.

It’s a tacky sweater, split into quarters with a bow in the middle like a wrapped up present, two of the squares are normal and generally festive, a holly wreath and tree, respectively, but the one over the left side of her chest is gold colored with a Starfleet Communicator knitted into the pattern, and the one catty cornered at the bottom is a the Starship Enterprise, decked out in lights.

It is, in Richie’s humble opinion, glorious.

“Yes! Thank you, everyone keeps calling it Star Wars.”

“Really? It literally has the Enterprise on it.”

“Exactly!” She claps Richie hard on the shoulder, pulling her hand away even quicker when she flinches, “Sorry, gotta little worked up there. Heh, um, so you’re a Star Trek fan? Next Gen or original series?”

“Next Gen.” Richie informs her, like it’s a stupid question. Because it absolutely is, “My best friend thinks original series but the original series doesn’t have Data.”

“Ah, a woman of taste, I would have expected nothing less. I’m personally partial to Dr. Crusher myself.”

“Oh, who isn’t.” The words explode out of her before she can stop them, and the woman raises an eyebrow, before choking out a laugh.

“Who isn’t indeed. Hey, I know you’re a next gen gal, but wanna know something funny?” Richie nods hard enough her glasses slip down her nose, “The episode of the original series where Spock knows how to play piano is why I started taking lessons.”

“Spock plays piano?”

“Yeah, you didn’t know that?”

“No!” Questions start raring up where her manners are supposed to be, she wants to know what episode, and what he played, and does she have the sheet music-

“Rachel, your father is waiting in the cab- oh. Hello.” Her mother is, very suddenly, so close.

Richie is half on her knees, sort of bouncing, far too close into a stranger’s personal space, being loud, and now she’s been caught by her mother who is so very close.

So very close and so very angry. Richie can tell, based on how tightly she’s gripping her program, don’t need to worry about creasing over your daughter’s name when she’s a disappointment. She does not want to get in the cab.

She should probably tell her mom she wasn’t going to win from the very beginning.

She really wants to watch Spock play piano.

She really, really doesn’t want to get in the cab.

“You should be very proud of your girl here, Mrs. Tozier.” Winner lady grins to her mother, nudging Richie’s arm with her own lightly.

“Oh,” Her mom says through a Perfect-Margaret-Tozier smile that’s been trained to cover up gritted teeth, “Don’t worry. We are. Congratulations on today, you sounded lovely. Rachel, come.”

Her mom yanks her up from her seat, the pads of her fingers digging hard into her upper arm enough to bruise as she drags her down the hall, she doesn’t get a chance to say goodbye to the woman, or ask her name. She doesn’t want to get in the cab.

“Mom,” She tries, once they’re out the door and heading down the sidewalk where the car is idling, “Did, um-”

“Stop stuttering, Rachel, it makes you sound stupid.”

“Sorry. Did you know I wasn’t eligible to win?” She tries again, quietly, carefully.

“Well why not? What did you do?” The grip on her arm tightens, she said the wrong thing.

“No! Nothing, I just, I’m too young. I was just there to perform.”

“Oh, so now it’s my fault you didn’t place?” Her voice has dropped low, dangerous, and Richie can’t figure out where she went wrong. She wonders if the woman is still in the hallway. She wants to go back and talk to her. Stuff made sense back in the hallway with her.

“What? Mom-”

“Just because I didn’t have you as some teenage slut so you could be older it’s all my fault you didn’t win?”

“No!”

“Stop making excuses for failure, Rachel, it’s unbecoming.” They’ve finally reached the taxi (she doesn’t wanna get in) but her mother doesn’t loosen her grip as she rips Richie’s door open, “Now get in the car.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

There is so much worse than bent programs and finger bruised arms in the car, and Richie really, really hates Christmas so much.

Christmas Day

December 25th, 1992

Derry, Maine- The Clubhouse

Eddie loves Christmas.

Just fucking loves how easy it is to tick her mom off on Christmas, and the adrenaline rush of speeding away from the cops her mom calls on her to bring her home this year in a car now that she finally has her liscence, and watching the Clubhouse walls spin because she knows it would genuinely kill her mom if she knew she was spending the Lord’s day getting fucking hammered underground.

She loves it.

Really.

The happiest of goddamn birthdays to Mr. JC.

But also it’s pretty cold, and everytime she tells herself she should probably head over to Stan’s she takes another drink instead, like a fun little game, and her girlfriend is alone in another state and there isn’t anything she can do to keep her safe.

But it’s fine. She’s got Bev’s Blue Raspberry Mad Dog, half a bottle of Malibu she stole from the Denbrough liquor cabinet, and three room temperature Smirnoff Ices she stole from Keene’s left. So, like, she’s super fine.

So fucking fine.

“What the fuck, Eddie.” Bill slams the hatch on the way down. She’s coming through kind of twisty, just like the posters on the clubhouse wall when she looks at them too long, it’s almost funny.

“What.”

“Were you even gonna tell us you weren’t coming?” She hops down from the ladder and makes her way over to the hammock, standing over it with her hands on her hips. She looks kinda angry, whoops, “What? Was the plan to OD in a place we wouldn’t be able to find you in time?”

“‘lchol poisioning. ODing is for drugs.” She can’t really remember why she knows that, probably her mom, because she skips all her health classes. Fuck her mom. She goes to take another sip from her Smirnoff before Bill yanks it out of her hands, “Hey!”

“Oh my fucking god.” Bill scoffs, examining Eddie and then the bottle in her hand, before letting it fall and spill across the floor. She pulls off her jacket, one of those stupid long bubble coats Eddie’s mom would probably love, fuck Eddie’s mom, and forces Eddie’s hands through the arms (she doesn’t remember when she started shivering, it is cold as fuck down here, though, and in her defense everything is pretty shaky), “Dude, what the fuck.”

“What? I’m having fun.” She whines, going floppy and unhelpful against Bill’s attempts to get her into the jacket.

“Are you? Becuase I think you’re being stupid becuase you’re upset about Richie. We’re all fucking worried about Richie, you’re just being selfish about it.”

“Am not.” She shoves her off, she doesn’t need or want her fucking help.

“I don’t know, I think getting drunk to cope about your girlfriend who hates it when you drink seems pretty fucking selfish.”

“Eff off, Bill, ‘don’t need a big sister ri’now.”

Bill goes very quiet and very still. Eddie knows she fucked up. Really fucking bad.

A bitter, liquor-soured part of her thinks ‘good’.

“Fuck you, Eddie.”

“Fuck you!” She clumsily tugs off Bill’s jacket and throws it at her hard, it doesn’t get far enough, just falls to the floor, half in the sticky of the spilled Smirnoff, between them.

Bill scoffs, hard enough it sounds painful, and grabs it off the floor, shaking it out before throwing it back over Eddie’s legs like a blanket.

“Come to Stan’s tonight when you’ve decided you’re done being an asshole so we know you didn’t fucking die.” She snaps, back turned to her and heading up the ladder.

She slams the hatch on her way out too, but this time the sound burrows it’s way into Eddie’s temples.

She rolls the concept of it over her tongue, considering. What a final fuck you to her mom, huh? Freezing to death before she can die of alcohol poisoning in a hole underground, all the things she was fucking so scared of, all because of her.

(Christ, she’s cold.)

But she wouldn’t. She’s not going to do something like that to the Losers.

Not to Richie.

And anyway, Bill’s being fucking stupid, anyway.

It’s just a couple of drinks and she’s fine. Everything is fucking fine.

“Merry fucking Christmas, jackass!” She screams after Bill, but she’s gone.

And Eddie is alone.

Christmas Day

December 25th, 1995

Middle Of Nowhere, Michigan- Hank’s Diner Parking Lot

Winter in Michigan is only slightly (slightly) less miserable than winter in Maine.

That’s to say Eddie only sees like three black-ice car crashes a week from the front window of the gas station she works at right off the freeway as opposed to the fifteen she probably would have seen where she grew up and last week when the weather dropped the both of them just kind of got all sniffly and wheezy instead of getting fucking hypothermia from sleeping in the back of Eddie’s truck.

So, you know, they’re doing great.

They aren’t, though, and it makes something so desperately guilty in Eddie’s stomach feel like it’s about to explode any fucking second now. Because they should be celebrating finishing up their first semester of college right now, and instead they’re both working doubles on fucking Christmas.

(Or, well, Richie should be finishing up her first semester of college. Eddie had always kind of known she’d end up somewhere like this. She just wasn’t supposed to have dragged Richie with her.)

She drums her nails anxiously against her dashboard, right over the broken heating vent, over and over and over. The clock’s broken too, not totally, not like the heat, but she can’t change it, never has been able to. It was a couple hours fast to start and then got even more fucked before and after daylight savings, but she’s lived with it long enough to know Richie’s off work late. Way too fucking late for Christmas.

Ten more minutes, she decides, pressing her palm hard enough against the heating vent something cracks, and then she’s storming in there and breaking someone's nose.

She pulls her hand off the dashboard, crossing her arms hard under her armpits. It’s fucking cold as balls and she can’t help feel like it’s a personal failure that they can’t afford a room at the motel tonight.

(Because it fucking is. Because she’d gotten her hours cut when her boss caught her with a backpack full of stolen ‘sort of dinners’ and beer. And it’s not like Richie’s blaming her for it, she’d just sort of tight-lipped smiled and kissed the top of her head and told her far too sincerely ‘hey, we needed to eat’, which just makes it so much fucking worse.)

They hadn’t meant to end up in Michigan, honestly, it wasn’t nearly far enough for either of them to feel comfortable with the distance and cold was something they both had had more than enough of, but it was where they had run out of gas money so they were stuck here until they could save up enough to move on, which didn’t seem like it was happening anytime soon. When it does, though, Eddie’s voting that they head down to Florida next, at least then they can worry about being hate crimed or homeless on a beach.

There’s a knock on the passenger side window, breaking her away from the consideration of the concept of humidity in December with three perfectly even, soft tap-tap-taps.

“It’s not locked, dumbass.” She calls, and Richie sticks her tongue out at her against the glass before climbing in, “How was work?”

“Long.” She curls herself up over her knees in the passenger’s side, pulling a long since commandeered Eddie hoodie tight over her knees to make up for the lack of insulation in her work uniform. Eddie digs behind her seat to throw a pair of sweatpants at her but she doesn’t unfold herself to put them on, just jams her hands deep into the legs like they’re gloves.

“Fuckin’ weirdo.” She laughs, as though the action itself didn’t fill Eddie’s whole body with something so deeply content she can’t even put it into words.

Richie sticks her tongue out at her again.

“How was your day?”

“Long. Some very angry fucks need gas on Christmas apparently. Probably not as annoying as the sad fucks having their Christmas dinner at Hank’s.”

“Oh! That reminds me-” Eddie snorts, “Eff off, we’re the saddest fucks, I brought you an Italian for dinner.”

“Yes.” She yanks the offered styrofoam box until it breaks around the tape keeping it closed, considering each half of the sub before taking out the smaller one and pushing the rest over to Richie on the dashboard.

“No, come on, I brought it for you.” She whines, pushing it back to Eddie.

“You ate?” She asks, biting down on her pre-selected half, eyebrow raised as high as she can get it to show her skepticism.

Richie doesn’t confirm or deny, which means she’s confirming, crossing her arms grumpily over her knees.

“Just eat the sandwich, Angel.” And then, through a little too big of a mouthful of lunch meat, “Please?”

“You suck.” But she lets the sweatpants fall to the floor of the passenger’s side to scoop up her half of the sandwich, and that's enough of a victory for Eddie.

“I’m fantastic! I was just so polite.”

“You’ve never been polite in your life.”

Richie digs her Walkman out of her backpack and offers Eddie an earbud, leaning over the center console to close the semi-awkward distance, grabbing Eddie’s cold hand in her own, so they can eat their sandwich halves to a semi-staticy mixtape neither remembers making.

It’s almost perfect.

“Any bright ideas of where to sleep tonight?” Eddie breaks through the almost perfect like a sledgehammer, toying carefully with the toothpick rattling in the bottom of the sandwich box as an excuse not to look at Richie directly. (Her fucking fault the answer to that isn’t a fucking bed. But it’s fine.)

Richie hums slightly too consideringly, like she’s been thinking about it, pulling out her earbud.

“You know that ledge we went to a couple weeks ago, that looks over the lake but also like… the highway kind of?”

“Yup.”

“I don’t think it’s, like, legal to park there but could we maybe just go for a little bit? And then we can go to the back of the Walmart parking lot again or something-”

“I have never once given a shit about parking somewhere legal.”

“My wallet gives a shit.”

“Baby. Angel. Chill out, we’re fine.”

Richie buries her face in her knees and lets out a sustained groan, shoving both the earbuds back in, which Eddie takes as a sign the debate has not reached a conclusion yet and pulls out of the parking lot anyway.

“Why you wanna go here anyway?” She asks once they get closer, poking at the earbud closest to her side until it falls out, shifting the finger to her cheek when she puffs them out unhappily, “Hey. Why-”

“Wanna scream.”

“Mmm. Elaborate on that please.”

“Wanna. Scream.”

“Ah. Dope.” And then she drives a little bit faster because, you know what? Richie wants to scream and she fucking deserves to.

Christmas Day

December 25th, 1995 (Later)

Middle Of Nowhere, Michigan- The Lookout

“You good now?”

Richie falls back into the truck bed, rolling to curl up against her and nod into her neck, seemingly all screamed out, for the moment. Eddie can’t say she’s not a little disappointed.

“Do I need to punch someone or was that just, like, one of those gotta scream moments?”

“Both? I mean, like, please don’t punch anyone-”

“Come on.”

“No.” She chastises, sort of like Eddie is a misbehaving dog, she sticks her tongue defiantly out against her forehead until Richie shoves her off.

“I- um, I have a present for you.” Richie whispers, when she wiggles back against Eddie’s side.

“No, come on, we promised not to do presents!” Eddie whines, pretending both that she doesn’t still feel guilty about it, because it was a mutual decision, and that she hadn’t also broken the promise.

“I know, but, like, it’s awful and not really like a present, I don’t know it’s like, stupid- nevermind, sorry-”

“Hey, no, it’s not like I’m mad at you,” She presses her hand hard over Richie’s before she can fully spiral, that’s not what she wants, not even a little bit, “I also got you a thing.”

“Oh. Cool. I gotta- wait a second I gotta grab mine-”

Eddie pulls her own shitty present out of her backpack, wrapping it up in a hoodie while Richie digs hers out of the cab.

“Um, it’s really stupid, just, as a forewarning and everything-” She starts before even climbing up, holding a plastic to go bag close to her chest and worrying at the handle nervously.

“I’m gonna love it so beep beep and gimme my present, Angel.” She makes grabby hands for it and untwists the scrunchie Richie had wrapped around the top of the bag to keep it closed, slingshotting it carefully into the side of her head when she tries to make another amendment.

Folded carefully at the bottom of the bag is a hat.

Sort of.

It’s kind of misshapen at the top, and the yarn color shifts to a different shade of red halfway through the incredibly loose stitches. It’s the best thing Eddie’s ever seen in her entire life.

“Did you make this?”

“Yeah, that’s why it's awful.”

“Is not.”

“No, it really is, but, like, I missed having something to do with my hands because I’m not practicing all the time anymore but I don’t have needles so I was trying to finger knit but I kept dropping stitches and you really don’t need to wear it-”

“Fuck off, it’s perfect and I’m never taking it off.” She swats Richie’s hand away when she tries to take it back, shoving her new favorite hat low over her ears.

“You just, I know you needed one, but-”

“I did and I love it, dumbass.” She stares down at the balled up hoodie in her lap, pushing it across the floor of the truck bed until it’s stopped by Richie’s knee, “Okay, so, now open my shitty gift, I gotta explain it.”

“If you don’t think mine is shitty then yours is- oh. Hm.” Richie goes still, hands hovering over the top of the unraveled sweatshirt, like she’s not certain she wants to touch what's inside. She shoots a look to Eddie quick enough she almost misses it and focuses back on the present like there’s something she’s missing.

“Okay, so, like, part two of the present-” Eddie reaches over to yank the bottle of Heineken out of Richie’s lap, tossing it from hand to hand before launching it as hard as she can off the ledge. It tumbles out of sight before she can watch it break but they hear it shatter against the side of the drop off, muffled with the sound of the highway and only half of the way through it’s fall.

After a long second, Richie whispers: “What the fuck was that?”

“I, uh, I’m not gonna drink anymore?” Richie’s head snaps over to her and Eddie distinctly doesn’t look back to her, studying the cars zooming just behind the lake across the freeway, because suddenly this feels horrifically embarrassing, “Or, like, I’m gonna try to stop. I don’t know if it’s gonna stick. I’m gonna try, though, because I know you hate it.”

There's a lot of other reasons, like how they desperatly can’t afford Eddie’s fucking habit, and how even more desperately she can’t get fired for stealing again, but she really doesn’t give a shit about any of that. Not in the way that actually matters.

What she does give a shit about is how sad Richie looks when she finds the flask Eddie keeps in her backpack when she’s trying to find something for her or the last time they were able to stay at the motel when she came back early from work to, found her passed out over the toilet, and locked herself in the closet to cry about it for two hours.

“Really?”

“Sorry, I know it’s pretty a crap present to say I’m gonna try-”

“No, it’s not,” she finds herself suddenly occupied with an armful of Richie, sniffling hard enough she can feel her nose scrunching through the shoulder seam of her jean jacket, and the ‘happy Richie’ alarm bells in her brain blare in painful, baffled contrast against the long established ‘crying Richie’ sirens behind her temples, “It’s the best present ever.”

“Oh. Then… I’m glad?” She huffs a laugh, and then a kiss, into Richie’s hair, desperately uncomfortable at the very specific attention.

Richie pulls back and grabs her cheeks, pressing their foreheads together.

“I love you so much.” It’s not often Richie initiates kisses, especially not when they aren’t hidden entirely behind locked doors, so Eddie takes advantage of them when they come.

“I, um, took a KitKat from the counter for you too.” She offers, slightly too loud to cover up that she might be blushing (shut the fuck up about it) when they finally break apart, and Richie snorts, collapsing into her shoulder, “You know because my actual physical present wasn’t like… real.”

Richie huffs another laugh against her neck and pushes herself back onto her knees, swiping her wrist over her eyes and holding her hand out for Eddie’s offered KitKat once she digs it out of her pocket.

“Thanks.” “Don’t mention it.”

“We can split it.” Richie smiles, soft, and cracks the bar down the center before even unwrapping it, pulling out the crumblier half (the side that had really fallen victim to sharing a pocket with Eddie’s car keys) and handing over the solid half.

“We can’t split a present, it’s against Christmas rules.” Richie’s whole face drops almost entirely judgemental, eyebrows so flat behind her glasses frames the two are nearly indistinguishable, “Fine.”

Richie’s grin when she takes her half makes her thorough and silent defeat worth it.

“Merry Christmas, Eds.”

“Fuckin’ shit Christmas.” She shoves half a bar into her mouth and lets herself fall totally backwards. Richie kicks her awkwardly with the side of her bent up foot as she scoots up next to her, “What? It is.”

“I don’t think so.” She bites down on her KitKat, and chews it, consideringly, “I’ve definitely had worse Christmases.”

Eddie huffs her agreement but neither thinks too hard on it. (If they had, they would have realized that they couldn’t remember any Christmas before this one.)

“I love you.” She whispers around a piece of the chocolate, reaching up to tug her hat over her eyes so she doesn’t have to keep looking at Richie while she says it.

She’s said it a million times, hell, Richie had just basically screamed it for all of Michigan to hear, but it feels less vulnerable this way. She’s been vulnerable enough for a decade tonight.

“‘Love you too, Spaghetti.” Richie whispers right back, flicking her shoulder, because she gets it enough to know what Eddie needs right now, which is part of why she loves her so intensely that it even gets vulnerable. Becuase she’s a fuckin’ perfect, delightful, incredible bitch.

They reach over simultaneously to offer the other their final bite of KitKat without looking, Eddie’s hat still over her eyes. They don’t discuss it over their laughter and make the trade.

Both feel like there's something they’re missing, people or a children’s bedroom with ornithology diagrams on the wall next to very carefully selected Tiger Beat posters, but they don’t mention it. If they tried they wouldn’t have been able to find the words, anyway. Any memories past the feeling that they should be there wiped perfectly clean from both their minds.

So, they just finish their traded pieces of candy, ankles locked and leaning into each other’s sides, and pretend nothing is missing at all.

#merry Christmas y'all im being mean to children again #rev fem reddie #rev richie tozier #rev Eddie kaspbrak #fem reddie #one shot

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