#richie done lost his marbles

[marshbevvie]

Richie with Bill’s baseball bat

[har-rison-s]

heaven: 16

nothing lasts forever

request/plot: Stan x Reader where they were together back in Derry and kind of forgot about each other after moving away but they always had a void in their lives. And then when Stan is just about to do it after Mikes call his phone rings and it’s you and you’re crying after just getting off the phone with Mike to come to Derry. You both end up going back and seeing each other at the restaurant and you guys just catch up after all these years that passed and old feelings come back.

A/N: Hi! Part sixteen already. Whew, last one was quite long, wasn’t it? It’s one of my best works ever, I think. Has me feeling so many emotions, and quite strongly, idk. Welp, here goes one of the last chapters. I still haven’t decided how many more chapters there will be, but I just know this Heaven is nearing its end. I hope you all like how this turns out. I’m still a bit conflicted between a few characters and plot points of the ending, like I have a few versions of the ending in mind, and I wanna execute all and none of them at the same time. If I decide on this one ending that’s the most strong out of all of them, I hope y’all won’t kill me. I just finished rewatching the 1990 mini-series. Damn, that’s messy. The dialogues, the special effects… Don’t even get me started on the acting. Anyways, happy quarantine reading! Love you lots <3

warnings: long as always hahahah, wounds, blood, food, nothing else

word count: 3.7k

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Gif credit goes to owner, which isn't me! (Also, it's raining in the gif but idc! Y'all know it's morning and sunny as hell in Derry, Maine rn!)

“Could we have six menus and a first-aid kit?” Richie Tozier asks the young waitress who has approached their miserable-looking table. Her eyebrows raise and she scans the eight adults to see why they would need a first aid kit—not that it’s any of her business—and she screams, coming across Eddie’s bleeding side. The Losers flinch at the high pitch of her scream.

“You need to get to the hospital!” She says, tears streaming down her face. Now this one’s quite emotional for six o’clock in the morning, the Losers think in unison and exchange looks between themselves, finding it imposible to say any words at the current moment. 

“I promise, he’s fine.” Richie tells the girl, looking at her through his thick glasses.

“It’s just a scratch.” Eddie says non-chalantly, and the waitress thinks to herself that these really are a bunch of crazy people, as she presumed when they walked inside the diner. “Besides, I’m a doctor. Could you please bring the menus and a.... uh, a first-aid kit?” He squints and tries his best at a smile at the crying waitress. 

She gathers herself, wipes her tears and smiles as wide as up to her ears. “Right away.” She says in a squeaky voice and leaves their table. The Losers exchange looks between themselves once again, overwhelmed by the events of the night and by the heavily emotional waitress that they have to deal with. They huddle closer together to one another in their red-and-white leather seated booth. 

The place smells of freshly cooked food, coffee and cigarettes. Oh, they’ll all definitely have coffee. A mood and energy booster, that’s for sure, that’s what they need. Though none of them are sure they even have such a thing as a ‘mood’, or ever will. This morning they’re certainly not in any kind of mood. To be completely honest, the Losers feel quite hollow. They feel completed, and they feel a lot of love and pride, but they feel empty inside, as if there’s a hole in their chests and it keeps getting more hollow. 

Stanley’s head rests on Y/N’s shoulder, his hair fallen against her delicate neck. She runs her fingers slowly through his semi-dry curls. Only the roots have dried, and slowly the draught moves further through his jet black strands, taking its time. Stanley places his hand over Y/N’s in his lap, their fingers intertwining seconds after. She lays a kiss on his forehead, and he closes his eyes. You can be at peace.

Y/N looks onto Eddie and Richie, both anxiously waiting for that requested first-aid kit. But they look more peaceful than ever before and Y/N thinks, they all must look that way. Richie’s arm has fallen with natural force around Eddie’s shoulders, and Eddie holds that slack hand in his own, creating a lock of security around himself. Richie’s other hand is drumming against the marbled surface of the table, and he looks at Bev and Ben across the table.

They’re talking to themselves abotu something so quietly that no one can hear them. Their foreheads are pressed together and they’re playing with each other’s hands softly, playfully. Bev’s crimson locks touch Ben’s cheek ever so softly and he closes his eyes. January embers. He opens his eyes again and looks strongly into Bev’s. My heart burns there, too.

Bill tries not to watch them too strikingly. But it’s hard, his first supposed crush and love sitting at the other end of the table with his best friend, completely in their own world, completely in love. It’s hard for his heart, to be precise. His mind knows better. You know better, Bill, you have a wife that you love and, now that you think of it, looks a lot like Bev here. And Beverly’s happy. So are the rest of your friends. You’ll go home and you’ll be happy, too. Back home with Audra, her movies, your novels and their shitty endings. 

Maybe I don’t want to go home, he finds himself thinking. And he’s a bit surprised by that thought. Hmm. What does that mean? Maybe I could live in Derry, spend the rest of my days here, watching as the town, hopefully, evolves, changes. Maybe he can live with Mike now. Bill looks over at his friend. Mike’s smiling, smiling for his friends and his own self, but he’s not looking at them. Mike is probably gonna stay, isn’t he? So what’s so bad about me staying here, and with him? 

Actually Bill doesn’t even wanna think about going back what’s been, for the last thirteen years, considered home. The thought of it makes him sick, for some reason. Maybe he’s not yet ready to think about it all, think about the possibility of going back to England and telling Audra they’re moving to Derry. Yeah, she is not gonna like it at all. And he’s not gonna like that she won’t like it. The thought of it makes him sick, as already said. 

“Here are your menus and the kit.” The waitress has returned, and she doesn’t look shabby anymore. She lays out the menus on the table with her delicate, seemingly teenage hands, and puts the first-aid kit on the table in front of Eddie. 

“Thanks so much.” Eddie speaks his thanks the loudest, and the young girl leaves again. Eddie immediately opens the red box and searches for disinfectant and bandages. He finds a bottle of Equate antiseptic and hands it to Richie, continuing his search for cotton gauze and pads, assuming he won’t find plasters as big as he needs in here. 

Richie unscrews the antiseptic and lifts up Eddie’s shirt. Jeez Louise, it’s a bloodbath. Eddie’s started to bleed onto the seat. Y/N sees their desperate situation and hands the box of tissues on the windowsill to Richie. But Richie gives them to Mike, so he can help clean the wound while Richie cleans it with wipes Eddie’s found in the box. 

“You’re losing a shit ton of blood, dude, you feeling okay?” Richie asks Eddie, carefully cleaning the scrape in his side. Eddie winces here and there, and even draws back when it really stings. 

“I’m fine.” Eddie replies in that same non-chalant voice he’s used for the past half hour. “It’s not that much, anyway.” Richie shakes his head at that statement. They’re almost done with cleaning the skin and wound. The blood still flows, though. 

“We’re going to the hospital later.” Richie states in a soft, commanding voice. Eddie doesn’t really pay mind to Richie’s words, having trouble connecting to thoughts about the next five minutes. He’s gathered some bandages from all that he could find in the kit. Then Eddie looks down at his left side and groans.

“Looks like something took a bite out of me.” He states, looking at the obvious strike in his skin and a bit further than that. There’s other layers visible already, a darker red than his skin. Muscle, that is, and he can see some blood vessels too. Oh, dear God, he’s going to faint. The blood flow is not stopping. 

“Be thankful it didn’t.” Richie reminds him. Eddie takes some medical wool and gives it to Richie. He puts it, as softly as he can, directly into the wound after it’s disinfected, to hopefully stop the blood drip for at least a while. Eddie winces, and his face scrunches so much he feels tears squirting out at the corners of his eyes. That is not a nice feeling at all. 

Mike presses his hand on the wool to keep it there while Richie gets bandages from Eddie. He puts the biggest plasters at the top and bottom of the wound, securing the wool, and Mike lets go. Then Eddie adds more wool, puts tissues and bandages over it, and Richie helps him secure it all with gauze. Quite messy, but for the time until they’re in the hospital, this will have to last. Richie cleans up the blood around their make-shift work place and puts Eddie’s shirt back down. They throw the tissues in a trash can under their table—wow, they have that kind of thing here?—and lean against the sofa, both tired, more tired than before.

“No staph infections in our lifetime.” Richie states between yawns. The ones who were there, in the back alley where the two holy words were spoken first, laugh. But Mike and Bev only share looks of confusion. Richie lays a kiss atop of Eddie’s head and embraces him back in his arms. Now they have time to look at what the menu’s offering.

Y/N opens the menu in front of her and Stanley so they can both read it at once. Stanley sighs. “I don’t have my glasses.” He mewls. The words printed on the laminated paper are blurry to him, and he realises his obstacles are either back at the  hotel or lost in the over-flown sewers or the underground lair. He blinks his eyes twice, but he still can’t read anything except for Derry Diner Menu, which are much larger and in bold. 

Y/N tilts her head to rest on his. “Breakfast. Pancakes - ones with caramel, ones with chocolate, ones with bacon and cheese, ones with berries and fruit, ones with ice cream…” She reads out loud. “Country breakfast - ham, eggs, fries, baked beans. Eggs Benedict, Lobster Benedict, Irish Benedict, Eggs Florentine, waffles, steak & eggs.” She sighs. “Anything strike your fancy?”

Stanley shrugs. “Keep reading.” He says, and feels his eyelids and chest heavy. Her voice is so sweet and soothing. Y/N nods.

“Breakfast burrito, mac and cheese, mac and cheese with lobster,” she widens her eyes, “chili, chicken pot pie… turkey, roast beef sandwhiches… sea food, side orders…” she flips through the menu, which requires to move the arm that’s around Stanley. And she finds that his body is limp against hers. She worriedly looks down. 

His breath passes through his slightly parted lips, his eyes are closed and his face is completely relaxed. He’s asleep. Y/N almost laughs into his face, but she turns away and suppresses her giggles. Her friends look at her. “He’s fallen asleep.” She tells them in a whisper, pointing down at Stanley. They nod and most of them smile. No wonder. They feel like doing the same, and they’re actually on the verge, if they weren’t concentrating on reading the menu and hoping for coffee soon. 

Y/N stops her giggling fit and looks down at the menu again. What do I want, what do I want… “What are you guys gonna order?” She asks her friends. 

“Probably pancakes.” Comes from Bev, who’s decided for both her and Ben.

“Us too.” Mike informs. “Bacon?” He asks.

“Berries.” Ben responds. 

“We’re gonna get that country breakfast or whatever.” Richie says. “To get proper fat, you know, grow into Eddie’s mom.” He explains further and everyone giggles, even Eddie himself. 

Y/N hums. “I’ve got no idea. I want everything, but it just won’t fit.” She states and Bill chuckles. “I know what to order for Stanley, but myself…”

“Take the same and stop working your brain.” Mike suggests. Y/N looks at him.

“It’s worked enough for the past hours.” Bill supports his argument. Her eyes shift to Bill, and then she looks down at the menu again, a smile on her face now. 

“I guess it’s just that easy now.” She admits and closes the menu, putting it on the table instead. Making decisions really is that easy now. She leans back into the seat, Stanley’s body moving with hers. He gets more comfortable while sleeping, his face nuzzling into her neck, tickling her a bit, and his arms going around her, securing themselves together at her waist. Y/N smiles and hugs him back, resting her cheek on his curls. She closes her eyes. 

“What will you have?” Bill asks her and she opens an eye to look at him, her own eyelids feeling sort of heavy now. “Before you join him.” He whispers, smiling. She smiles back.

“Love you, Bill.” She tells him sincerely. “Eggs Benedict for us both.” She says and Bill nods. “And coffee, too. Both black, but two sugars in Stanley’s.” She’s surprised herself that she still knows how he likes his coffee, or which breakfast option he’d always choose. It’s like it’s basic knowledge now, something that’s imprinted in her mind and feels like it’s been that way since she can remember. She closes her eyes again and lets her exhaustion take over. She wants to rest, just for a little bit, just lay with Stanley for a while.

She did join him in sleeping for a while. Bill wakes her up when the food and coffees have arrive, starting to tickle her, Ben doing the same to Stanley. The two adults jolt awake, eyes wide and confused, and make their friends laugh. 

“Morning, sleepyheads.” Richie nods to them with a smile. Stanley nods right back and Y/N and he both right themselves, sitting up straight. Y/N moves her hair behind her ear and Stanley flattens his shirt. They look down at the fresh food in front of them, though their vision and look on their environement is still hazy from the good-as-hell nap they just woke up from. 

“Bone, apple, tit, was it?” Richie suggests as a toast for the Losers’ diner breakfast. Everyone laughs once more, but they clink their coffee cups together, repeating Richie’s ridiculous words and they laugh again, harder this time. Languages have never been Richie’s strongest side. 

They all drink coffee in unison and regain some amount energy at that, then delve into their steaming breakfast which fill their noses up to the maximum with utterly irresistible aromas. Richie, like the beast he is, devours half of his plate in the first few minutes while everyone else devours their food bit by bit. But everyone is so endorsed in eating that they don’t pay mind to their friends, for the time they’re eating they even forget they’re with their friends, lest someone else entirely. Food is very good right now. Heavenly, if you might.

When they’re done, they all slump into their seats, letting out groans of content and holding their bellies. “For a diner, that was really good.” Bill says. Y/N laughs. Bill, Eddie, Stanley, Ben—cross that, all of them, except herself and Mike, have grown used to dining at fancy restaurants where it costs to even reserve a table, grown used to making great mega-dishes at home for themselves. They’ve grown used to business events with crazy dinners and a wide range of appetisers. Champagne, wine, whiskey of the highest classes. So this is entirely out of their usual menu, and Bill is, of course, taking it like a snob. Hence Y/N laughed. 

She and Mike have not lived the life their friends have. Not that it’s bad lives they’ve been living upto this point, just different, way different from most of the Losers Club. Y/N hasn’t become a famous writer, architect or fashion designer, neither has Mike. So for one, their daily routine differs, and two, their eating habits differ from their friends’. Diner food may be the lowest of them all, considered so by the highest class of society, but Y/N can safely admit that she likes diner food and doesn’t mind having it once in a while. And what can Mike have in this shithole town, anyway, other than make-believe restaurant meals, takeout and diners? Neither of them mind eating here now or any other time. 

“I want more.” Y/N manages to croak out, and everyone laughs. “Anyone up for a sundae split?”

“Ugh, we’re really gonna get fat.” Eddie sighs. 

“Haystack’s gonna have a come-back!” Richie announces and changes his face into an excited expression. But he still makes his friends laugh, including Ben himself. His laughter rumbles deep and low like a bear’s roar.

“I’ll have a sundae split with you, Y/N/N.” Beverly says, then. Y/N smiles at her. 

“Anyone up for a Diet Coke and salad?” Mike asks now, and they all laugh again. Richie joins the girls for a sundae split, and the rest agree with Mike’s offer. 

“Wait, wasn’t Y/N working in a diner for a while? In, like, high school?” Eddie asks now, as they wait for the waitress, and he looks at Y/N. She looks at him, tired and full from the eggs, but nods. 

“I was.” She confirms. “Not this one, though, the one in the center of town.” She leans towards the table to sit proper and rests her elbows on the surface. She crosses her arms and puts her chin on top of them. “After Bowers and Cockstetter were… out of the picture, I had the freedom to work in the skirt the diner required me to.” She recalls. Those boys were always onto her and Beverly, while they were still alive, which made it hard for them to ever wear something remotely feminine. They always got some sort of cat-calls, and groping was the worst of what would come from them. “Jesus…” 

“What scumbags they were.” Beverly joins in, also leaning against the table. She moves her hair out of her face, and looks to Y/N, but Ben’s worried gaze catches her eye instead. She turns to him. He only reaches for her hand with his own. I’m here now. 

“You working in a diner was the best thing, Y/N.” Richie says, putting emphasis on ‘best’. She looks at him now and smiles, remembering how stoked they all were for free food and the food that she actually made. Mostly deserts. Stanley’s arm makes its way around her waist. She leans closer to him. “I mean, the birthday parties there were amazing. Nothing could top them.”

“Wow, Rich, even college and work parties?” Mike asks, and they both chuckle.

“You bet your fur, Mikey,” Richie says, patting his friend’s shoulder. He looks reminiscent for a second, his head hangs down, and then he tries to put it into words, “you know, I think—I think because childhood, and teenage years, were the best part of my life. I mean, I’m forty now, so I’m old enough to say shit like that, you know, but… It’s true. I know that I thought it then and I know it now—those were the best parties of my life.” He admits and looks around at his friends. “Because—because I was still young, and because it was the best childhood, I think, any kid could wish for. Even counting in all the shame, the fear, and IT. And because I was with you guys.” 

A silence falls upon the Losers Club. But they smile at Richie, and at each other, realising that’s true. Those were the best years of their lives, and actually, taking the horrible parts, the best childhood any child could wish for. The best friends anyone could wish for to spend that childhood and those confusing, difficult teenage years with. Without each other, they wouldn’t be the same, and they wouldn’t be as strong and as full of love and, perhaps, belief. 

“You know…” Stanley starts to say, they look at him, “nothing lasts forever.” He states, shaking his head with a dreamy look in his eyes. Nothing does seem to last forever, that is true. But he has a feeling of differing in opinion with his own statement. Nothing lasts forever—the monster they thought had lived under Derry forever, eaten its kids and other residents, cast a spell on the adults and the whole air of Derry, is now dead. So that doesn’t last forever. The promise they made—it is fulfilled now, meaning it won’t last forever, either. It lasted as long as needed to unite them all again. But this… what they have…

“Except for friendship.” Y/N says, looking at him. “And love.” Yes, friendship and love. Those will last forever. The love they have for each other will outlive all their future deaths, all their future kids’ deaths, and their kids’ deaths. This love, and this bond, it will last forever. It will always be somewhere in the predicted long life of the Earth and humanity. It will fly with the wind, blossom in flowers and rosy cheeks, it will swim with the ocean and breathe with the air. Always.

“And love.” Eddie says it with Y/N in unison. They smile at each other. Love. What a wonderful thing. It might as well be a living creature, like fear was. Only much stronger.

“Desire.” Ben suggests. Beverly closes her eyes and leans her head on his shoulder. I know, Ben. But we’re here now. All the desire pent up in teenage and adult years seems much lighter now. For Beverly, Ben and for Richie and Eddie, too. And for Stanley and Y/N. All their desire towards each other has finally been released, even if the door to it is only open in a narrow slit now. Desire might as well live in all eight of them, desire for each other, desire to meet each other again, desire to have that unbreakable friendship again. Desire for that lived in their hearts all these empty years, it was unknown and mysterious, a feeling they could not guess. Now it’s known, and out in the open, nothing to hide from each other. Or anyone else, for that matter. They’re proud.

The Losers Club fall silent, but comfortably so. They’re finally in a comfortable state with themselves and each other, and with the world around them. Strange, vile and ignorant as it may be, the world is truly amazing, though, and much bigger than they all thought. Brought them together that one summer, made a bond that will last forever. They’ve got a lot to thank it for. But they’ve also got every reason to kick the world in the butt and other places. 

For now, they’ll let it slide. For now, they’re only focused on being in the diner, getting desert and then showering. Most importantly, for now, they’ve got each other, safe and healthy, and that’s all they need. That will do. 

“Anything else you’d like to order?”

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[unpack-my-heart]

The Ghost of You

A new Reddie AU featuring property developer Richie and ghost Eddie. I know I have other unfinished stories but I’ve been working on this today as a distraction from various things and thought I’d post it. 

Read it on AO3 HERE

or I’ve also posted it under the cut:

Preview:

The first time Richie sees him, he falls out of a window.

It’s about ten at night, and Richie is painting the grilles on his open bedroom window with the night breeze caressing his face. He’s got the radio on, but every so often the music is suddenly replaced by harsh static that screams into the room for five or six seconds, before the music starts up again like nothing had happened. Richie doesn’t pay attention to it, assuming it’s to do with the terrible reception, until the radio howls like a banshee. When he turns around, he’s met with the sight of a man dressed in an old-fashioned looking khaki uniform who is squatting next to the radio on the floor, and staring at it intently.

Richie promptly jumps, before stumbling backwards, and falling out of the window.

@constantreaderfool @xandertheundead

Richie’s first love is stand-up comedy. He spends most of his adolescent years with his eyes glued to the flickering TV screen, watching late night comedies protected by a blanket of darkness, ready to charge straight up the stairs should he hear the familiar pounding of his father’s footsteps coming down the stairs.

Richie always assumed he’d become a stand-up comedian, or something similar. His mother was forever smiling at him with this dopy, indulgent grin.

‘You should be on the stage, child’, she always told him.

He believes her.

Standing on stage, in front of a sea of squawking, laughing faces. The I did that in your stomach, the I made these people happy.

It doesn’t work out, though. Richie gets horrendous stage-fright, and runs straight off the stage clutching his stomach the first time he attends an open-mic at his local late night coffee shop. It doesn’t make sense. His mom says he’s funny, Bev says he’s funny, the waitress at the diner that does those paprika fries he loves says he's funny (but maybe she’s just being kind and trying to get him to leave a decent tip. He always does.)

He isn’t too cut up about it though. Shit happens. So he leaves stand-up comedy to the professionals, and proceeds to have a minor existential crisis about the direction his life is going in.

His father starts getting a bit impatient, not because he’s frustrated that Richie didn’t go to college, or because Richie is leeching off them or anything remotely similar, but because it cuts him up inside to see his nearly-20-year old son so morose and directionless. So he takes him to work with him.

Wentworth Tozier works as an architect in a small firm in Maine. It’s mainly small domestic projects, the occasional corporate one. Nothing too major. Small houses, buildings to put a new Subway in. Richie is entranced. He loves going with his dad to the sites, he can practically see the cogs in his father’s brain spin and whir as he envisages how he’ll turn this small patch of wasteland into someone’s private sanctuary. Richie decides immediately that he wants a part of this.

Richie apprentices with his father. His dad agrees easily, ecstatic that his son is so enamoured with the field that claimed his own heart when he was pre-college and panicking about where his own life would lead. Richie doesn’t want to go to college, so he can’t become an accredited architect, but that doesn’t matter. Richie isn’t interested in modelling power sockets and skirting boards on the computer. Richie dreams of moulding timber, brick and concrete with his own bare hands, sculpting and crafting and carving out a small piece of perfection.

Property development, is what his father tells him it’s called. He’d be a renovator, and Richie decides that that word sits very nicely indeed on the end of his tongue.

He starts off small. An tired-looking apartment with creaking bones and a dusty sigh. Richie tears out the connecting wall between the lounge and the kitchen, allowing the small space to inhale a much-needed breath of fresh air. He extends the bathroom into the needlessly large master (and only) bedroom, and removes the garish pink ceramic bath, replacing it with a walk in shower. A lick of paint here, a sprinkling of tile here, a dash of wallpaper and some new faux-marble countertops. His father claps him on the back when he sees the finished product. ‘you’ve done good, kid’. Richie knew this was what he was made for.

He’s 28 when he starts feeling the first pinches of boredom at the soles of his feet, 30 when his stomach aches slightly when he wakes up in the morning before work, and 34 when he decides that it isn’t enough for him anymore.

His father, now retired and living off a very comfortable pension, offers to lend him some money while he figures out what he wants to do next. Richie grumbles for a few weeks, feeling uncomfortable about taking his dads money. He uhms and ahhs about it, waxing poetic to Bev in the bar after work about how property development wasn’t sparking the pilot light in his soul quite like it used to. Bev nodded sympathetically, and made comforting hums at all the right intervals. Richie left the bar five times drunker and fifty times more appreciative for her friendship.

He’s 36 when he decides to move to Scotland.

He’s been considering it for a while. Find a derelict church, or a run-down old manor house, buy it for an eye-wateringly cheap price, live in it, renovate it, and flip it. A two year project, max. Something to get his teeth into and stave off the anxious dreams that have him shooting up in bed at night, face sticky with sweat and heart beating with ‘this can’t be it, please say this isn’t it’.

His relationship with Jasmine had broken down. She couldn’t understand why Richie was so restless, why he’d toss and turn at night instead of hunkering down into the cosy nest of safe, steady, predictable. He didn’t blame her. He knew it was frustrating. Hell, he was frustrated. They ended it pretty amicably. A few tears on both sides, a half-hearted promise to remain friends. Richie knew they wouldn’t. He didn’t really mind.

He’d been half-cut and half-asleep when he’d stumbled on it. A beautiful 19th century building on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. It had originally been an orphanage, before changing hands and purpose multiple times over the years. School, a brief stint as a police station, before it was abandoned in 1947, just after the war. The building is on the lip of a lake, and sits nestled comfortably into a small hillock. The brickwork is run down, patches of orange lichen growing excitedly across the otherwise grey surface. There are two working chimneys emerging from the slate roof that connected to two working fire-places. There’s a small porch connected to the front door, and a back door in the kitchen that leads out into an unfenced back garden. It’s ugly, and sits tired and unassuming against the harsh bracken moors of Scotland, not a neighbour in sight. Richie is immediately besotted with it.

He phones Bev, not caring that it’s nearly 3am and he’s definitely still drunk and is probably definitely somewhat delusional. She picks up on the fifth ring.

“what the fuck, Rich, it’s arse o’clock in the morning. Are you dying? If you’re not dying you’re gonna wish you were”

“I found it”

“Huh? Found what? If you found your lost sock and decided to ring me to tell me, I swear to god, Trashmouth, I’m gonna gut you, you –“

“No, Jesus Red, no. I found it. I found the one”

“the one? You mean that dude you were grinding on yesterday? I mean, he was kinda weird looking, wasn’t he? Looked a bit like a trout. But if you think he’s the one I guess –“

“Can it, Marsh. One, I wasn’t talking about him but oh my god he totally looks like a trout and two, I mean, the house”

“Shit. The house?”

“Yup”

“The house, the house? You mean – THE house?”

“Yes!”

“Holy shit. Where is it?”

“…”

“Rich…”

“Scotland”

“Holy shit”

“I know”

Getting a visa is about as much of a nightmare as Richie expects. It takes forever, and every day he checks the real estate website, sweaty palms and palpitating heart, expecting the little house on the moor to have disappeared from the internet. It never does.

After about four months, and tearful goodbyes to Beverly at the airport, Richie’s on a plane to Scotland. His parents were initially hugely sceptical, lecturing him on the dangers of buying a property without viewing it, and lamenting about how much they’ll miss him when he’s thousands of miles away. They don’t try to stop him though.

Richie spends most of plane ride jittering in his seat. He ends up sat next to a Scottish woman, who balances her tiny daughter on her knee. Richie smiles at the tiny redheaded girl and she smiles back at him, all gums and no teeth. He falls asleep half an hour before they land.

He hires a car at Edinburgh airport. The drive takes him around six hours, a combination of busy main roads and winding country tracks that split the Scottish landscape like veins. He sails over the Skye bridge, and he’s only an hour or two away from paradise.

When he’s about twenty minutes away, he starts getting panicky. He’d spoken to the letting agent at length over Skype, and they’d emailed him a list of all the things that would need fixing, or replacing. It was a very long list. When Richie had received the list he’d not been able to see it as anything other than a challenge, something to get his teeth into. Something to occupy his restless brain. Now though, the list sat like lead in his pocket.

The house sits at the end of an unkempt muddy track, standing alone amongst the foliage. Richie pulls himself out of the car, stretching his aching arms behind his head.

He stares at the house.

The house looks back at him.

He rings his dad.

“y’ello?”

“Hey, Dad”

“Rich! Did you make it okay, laddy?”

“Och, aye!”

“Your Scottish accent is as awful as mine”

“I know”

“How is she?”

“She’s beautiful”

“Need a lot of TLC?”

“More than I think I’m capable of giving her”

“Hey, now. Where’s that trade-mark Richie confidence? Or, should I say, trade-mark Richie arrogance?”

“You’re supposed to be giving me a pep-talk, old man”

“I know, I know. You’ve got it, kid. You know you do. I’ll come out and visit you in a few months, maybe stay for a few weeks. Scotland is supposed to be real nice in the summer. Save some of the really tricky parts until then, okay? I don’t want you to hurt yourself”

“Your concern is touching”

“Richie, I’m serious”

“I know”

“Your mother misses you already”

“I bet she does, now she’s only got you for company”

“I miss you”

“I know”

“I’m here for you. Even half way across the world. You’re my boy”

“love you, dad”

“Knock ‘em dead, son”

Beep beep beep beep

The house stands in front of him, silently waiting. The wild, windy moors stretch far away.

Richie doesn’t do anything to the house for a few days. He drives nearly two hours to the nearest town, and stocks up on all the tools and equipment he thinks he’ll need, before quickly realising that he’ll need to take a trip to one of the larger cities to buy the more expensive materials. He imagines the postal services out in the middle of nowhere leave much to be desired.

The house is much louder than he expected it to be. The moors are noisy, rustling leaves and bleating sheep and wind that whips through your skin and freezes your bones. The house is nearly as loud. Everything creaks, and moans and sighs, loud protests against whatever Richie happens to be doing, whether walking up the stairs or throwing logs into the burner.

He starts working on it four days after he moves in.

The first time Richie sees him, he falls out of a window.

It’s about ten at night, and Richie is painting the grilles on his open bedroom window with the night breeze caressing his face. He’s got the radio on, but every so often the music is suddenly replaced by harsh static that screams into the room for five or six seconds, before the music starts up again like nothing had happened. Richie doesn’t pay attention to it, assuming it’s to do with the terrible reception, until the radio howls like a banshee. When he turns around, he’s met with the sight of a man dressed in an old-fashioned looking khaki uniform who is squatting next to the radio on the floor, and staring at it intently.

Richie promptly jumps, before stumbling backwards, and falling out of the window.

When Richie comes to, he’s lying on the ground directly below the window he fell out of.

There’s a pillow under his head.

The second time Richie sees him, he pours boiling water all over his foot.

It’s been a few weeks since Richie fell out of the window. He’s forgotten about the man in the khaki uniform that he thought he saw looking at his radio, having convinced himself that it must have been a figment of his overtired imagination.

The house is still, for all intents and purposes, unliveable. There is no hot water, there is no gas, and Richie has to go to the toilet in trenches he digs in the middle of the woodland a few minutes’ walk from the back door. He has never been happier.

He’s knocked a few walls through, the downstairs is now an open plan space, and he’s ordered a new bathroom suite that is supposed to arrive today, along with a plumber that he found online. His name is Mike Hanlon, and he’s lived in the Isle of Skye his whole life.

When Mike arrives, he’s joined with a collie who Mike affectionately calls Mr Chips. Richie scratches the dog behind the ears, and receives a few licks to the inside of his wrist for his trouble.

Mike helps Richie haul the constituent parts of the bathroom suite up the rickety stair case, and Richie is overjoyed to discover that Mike doesn’t complain once. Richie leaves Mike in the bathroom, tinkering with the pipes connected to the old, broken ceramic toilet, and begins to make them both cups of tea using a camping stove connected to a gas cannister he’d bought when he’d been in town.

He’s pouring water from the small camping kettle into Mike’s mug (breakfast tea, no milk, no sugar, thanks, Rich!) when Richie catches sight of the man in the khaki uniform, turning the ring  on the gas cannister with a hesitant finger.

Richie startles, the force of which sends his arm flailing through the air, and sends the contents of the kettle sailing through the air in a graceful arc before landing on his foot.

Richie curses, grabbing the bottle of cold water sat on the worktop, and quickly proceeds to pour the contents over his poor, red raw foot.

When he looks up again, the man has gone.

One of the other bottles of water has upended itself on a cloth, however. Richie doesn’t think anything of it when he grabs the soaking wet cloth and wraps it around his foot.

The third time Richie sees him, he learns his name.

A month later, Mike has finished the bathroom. The plaster on the walls is still white and unpainted, and the floor hasn’t been properly tiled yet, but the bath, sink and toilet has been replaced, and Richie was half way through wiring the extractor fan. Mike had kindly agreed to stay on and help Richie replace the kitchen sink, and install the washing machine and tumble dryer. Richie was elated. He’d grown close with Mike quickly, and he loved listening to Mike’s stories about Scottish folklore. Richie listened to Mike talk for hours about kelpies and the loch ness monster and never found himself drifting off.

Soon enough, they broached the topic of ghosts.

“Do you believe in ghosties then, Mikey?” Richie asks, the man in the khaki uniform a vivid picture in his mind.

“Well, they say that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, right? That’s an important element of the physics of life, so, I can’t accept that when we die we just … disappear, and all that energy just leaks into the air? Where would it go?”

“I dunno, back into the ground?”

“Nah, I don’t reckon so. I reckon it’s gotta go somewhere else. I reckon our consciousness, like, the thing that makes us truly us, escapes our physical bodies when they run out of energy and become something else. Maybe we become light. Maybe we become oxygen, I don’t know.”

“So you don’t believe in ghosts in the sense that you don’t believe we can walk around as physical manifestations of how our physical bodies looked, then?”

“I just dunno, Rich. We probably will never know. Here – hand me that spanner, this bolt is being a feckin’ nightmare”

Richie thought about what Mike had said for a long time.

The third time Richie sees him, he learns his name.

When Mike had left for the evening, Richie waded into the shallow lake, water lapping around the tops of his rubber boots. He threw small pebbles into the water. Plip Plip Plip. The moor was uncharacteristically silent. He stared down into the water.

The reflection of the man dressed in the khaki uniform stared back at him.

Richie turned around.

The man in the khaki uniform was stood next to him, wringing his hands, his brow furrowed.

Richie swallowed.

“Who the hell are you?”

“My name is Eddie”

“Why d’ya keep letting yourself into my house, Eddie?”

Richie fought against his quivering voice to keep his tone stern and challenging.

“I – I don’t. It’s hard to explain. What year is it?”

“Uh… what?"

“What year is it?”

“Are you on drugs or something, dude? Lost on your way back from a costume party?”

“Please, just tell me, what year is it?"

“2019”

“Ah”

“What’d’ya mean, ‘ah’?”

“I mean, I haven’t seen anyone in this house since 1947”

“… Dude you cannot be over 70 fucking years old. Stop bullshitting me, just tell me the truth and I promise I won’t get Mike to impale you on one of those rubber poles he keeps in his van”

“I’m not over 70. I'm 38 – I was 38.”

“Well, how do you know no one’s been in this house since 1947? And what do you mean, you 'were' 38?”

“Because I’ve been here on my own since 1947”

“You’re still not making any sense, my man”

Eddie rubbed his hand over his face, and sighed.

“You won’t believe me, so there isn’t much point”

“Try me”

“I worked here. This place was used as an evacuation safe house for children from across Scotland, but mainly Edinburgh and Glasgow. They were moved here to escape the bombing. I worked here as a doctor, I cared for the children. I – I died here.”

“What do you mean, you died here?”

“I was stabbed”

“hang on – bombing? To escape bombing?”

Richie could barely breathe.

“Yes, bombing.”

“… And you said you haven’t seen anyone here since 1947”

“That is correct”

“So, what you’re telling me is that –"

“Yes”

“You’re …”

“I am”

Richie doesn’t reply. He turns around, and walks back into the house.

When he shuts the door, the lake glitters like a pool of liquid mercury. Eddie has gone.

[thelazyeye]

oh okay, internet famous Losers, like they're all youtubers and insta famous kids doing really different stuff around the nation, what do each of them do? who connects with who and how?

Ooff I love this idea. I used to be moderately into youtube people. Mamrie Hart anyone? She cracks me the fuck UP. Anyway this got super long so its under the cut. I hope you enjoy anon! Thanks for sending something it!!

Okay. Here we go. 

Richie 

is a youtube personality. Duh. He started out vlogging and his Voices and somehow his channel picked up. He writes comedy bits, does personal blogging, and tests his voices. 

When he was starting out he had a bit where he was a weatherman that had multiple personalities (Voices) and it got insanely popular. He received some backlash due to the offensiveness of the bit and has since retired it, but references it from time to time to credit his fame. 

Now he focuses a lot on his comedy routines and improv acting with other members of the community. He does challenges from time to time as collabs as well

People are super invested in his personal life (bc people seriously get like that with youtube people) and started speculating about his sexuality. It took him a few years to address all the rumors that he wasn’t straight and how he was probably dating this youtuber or that youtuber. 

Eddie 

is an LGBT Activist that has a youtube channel as well (think Laci Green but LGBT and not sex ed, though he does do sex ed work)

He got his start when he was in college. He became the president of the LGBT club. He wanted to reach a large number of students and he figured the best way to do that would be youtube

The entire club helped him out. Every week he would have another club member on the channel to talk about their sexuality and experiences

It didn’t get big at the school but he got lowkey noticed by the HRC after about 6 or 7 videos. He was contacted by a social media manager on the team to commend him on his work

From then on out he started to work harder on his videos, including more in depth information and he included links to more resources

Eventually, his videos started to rack up views from young LGBT kids thanking him for his channel

He started to collab with famous LGBT youtubers (troye sivan, hannah hart) and that’s when he really blew up 

Bill 

actually got his start on Vine. He mastered the art of the 6 second story and when the platform went down he migrated to youtube, snapchat, and twitter. He’s got profiles on almost every social media platform and he’s written a couple of webseries, as well. 

His first webseries (pre-vine) focused on comedy. He and some college friends got together and wrote the script/acted it out. It wasn’t very big but the following for it had a cultish feel. 

It blew up after he became famous on vine

After that, he started writing more webseries and partnering with other youtube actors

He wrote and completed two successful comedy webseries before he got bored of it. He decided to make the jump to horror work 

Think Marble Hornets

He ended up getting a scholarship to a film school and has been working on becoming a movie director ever since

His youtube work is on a hiatus but he still posts blogs and updates of his life. He’s active on Snapchat and Twitter the most. He still does dumb, funny shit from time to time and tweets out very random jokes

Stan 

is an adventure youtuber. He travels all over the world, seeking thrills and exploring nature. His videos usually have some kind of educational component but they’re always entertaining. Stan has explored the Savanah and Rain Forrests, he’s sky dived and scuba dived. He’s done a lot

He has a side channel for his love of birds because how can I not throw this in here?

When Anti semites started showing back up in the world Stan started to dedicate more of his channel, and his other platforms, to Judaism. He’s uses his popularity and fame to educate people and create awareness around the issues Jews face

As a result, he blogged his Birthright to Israel. It was a weeks worth of videos, some candids that he just uploaded on the whim, and some he took the time to edit. They were adventurous, educational, and full of his personal journey

Stan has also faced a lot of backlash for his involvement with the jewish community. He voices this in his videos. To combat the threats against him, he recruits other members of the youtube community to collab with and talk about issues. He makes it fun. He’s cooked Jewish foods, celebrated Jewish holidays, and had fun discussions with other personalities. 

Bev 

is a famous fashion designer and makeup artist. She got her start on Instagram, posting her designs and outfits that she created. Sh started young. Like 15 years old. As she grew up and went to school, her fashion instagram grew. People got to see her skills improve and they watched as she turned into a teenager designing clothes in her bedroom to a design student to a professional

She gives fashion tips to people and her favorite hobby is making posts that help girls and boys create fun, new, and exciting clothes out of what they already have in their closet

She firmly believes that you don’t need to have money and status to dress well. She wants fashion to be accessible. 

She started a youtube channel out of request from her followers. She got a lot of comments about her makeup and she started to do makeup tutorials there (Think Sailor J)

People really started to see how funny she was, then. She would always throw little bullshit videos onto her story but this was the first time she posted video content that didn’t disappear after 24h

Her youtube is not nearly as active as her instagram. That’s where you can find all of her content

She is also a vocal activist against child abuse on her insta. She frequently donates to various organizations and she does it very publicly. She runs clothing drives for those in need and has even hosted makeover days for young girls whose families can’t afford good clothes/makeup. 

She has recently expanded her fashion designs to male clothing, promoting Non Binary, Trans, and other identities in her lines. She says “Clothing has no gender” and pushes that despite advice to lay low on the issue. 

Mike

is a super unlikely case of internet fame. His instagram is composed almost entirely of his farm animals. He really didn’t think he was going to get famous from it. He just loves his farm so fucking much

The first half of his internet fame just consisted of pictures and videos of his animals. Namely, his dog Mr. Chips and his cow, Barely. They were best friends and Mike posted pictures of them napping together, playing together, and helping him run the farm

Once he started to gain an unreasonable about of followers he would pepper in posts that were educational. He talked about the importance of farmers, the work that he does, and how he maintains his animals. He worked to debunk a lot of myths about farming and really promote the work that he does. 

He still posts a lot of videos of him with his animals being all cute, but he uses his activism to reach large numbers of people at a single time. 

He also promotes healthy eating on his instagram. He talks about balanced diets and how to moderate sweets intake. 

Eventually he talks about working out (because Mike Hanlon is ripped sorry I don’t make the rules) and helps build an all around healthy lifestyle for his following. He kind of accidentally becomes a life coach of sorts. Motivation, healthy living, and cute animals. 

He has no idea how it happened but he doesn’t regret a single minute of it

Ben

is a singer! This sweet old mother fucker started out on youtube when he was 16. He bought a Ukulele and started writing love songs for the girl he was pining after

We all know that one mother fucker who owed a Ukulele in high school

His voice was like velvet, though. He wasn’t popular enough for anyone to really see it so he didn’t get teased in high school for it. His first couple videos got only a handful of views

What kick started his fame is a cover video. When he decided he wanted to do an acoustic cover of Lady Gaga’s Love Game

He did it on Ukulele

It ended up being such a fun and unique cover of such a popular song that he got noticed. Like. The video fucking blew up. He ended up getting over 5 thousand views overnight and the number just kept growing

Ben ran with it. He covered other popular songs (I Kissed a Girl, Viva La Vida, So What, etc) 

He blew up so hard and fast that people started to notice his original works

He got noticed by a label and signed the summer after he graduated high school

His first album was a love album because it’s Ben come on

He doesn’t have much of a social media presence after his youtube channel. He has the mandatory instagram and twitter that all famous people seem to have but they’re fairly inactive

Collabs

Richie and Bill

Richie and Bill were the first to collab with each other. Richie acted in Bill’s first webseries and it built a friendship that lasts a lifetime. 

The two of them do stupid youtube challenges with each other whenever they’re in the same city

Bill used to guest on Richie’s channels and play improv games to help both of them work on their comedy. They always turn out ridiculously funny and normally involve some level of alcohol

When Bill lost his younger brother in a car accident (sorry georgie dies in like every single universe) Richie flew out to see Bill and spend time with him. The two of them filmed a vlog together where they talked about the loss and then they both donated to anti drunk driving campaigns and urged their followers to do the same and never drive drunk

Richie and Eddie

They met for the first time at vidcon when they were first starting out. Richie was already pretty big but Eddie was working on his following. They hit it off immediately and they filmed a video for Eddie’s channel that focused on Eddie debunking stereotypes surrounding the LGBT community. Richie added a tasteful comedic flair that brought in views and he taught Eddie that things don’t always need to be serious 100% of the time

They kept in loose contact after that, always meeting up at vidcon and filming a ridiculous video for Eddie’s channel

2 years later, Richie reached out to Eddie and asked him to film a video for Richie’s channel

He wouldn’t tell Eddie what it was until they were in front of the camera, but Eddie readily agreed. He loved working with Richie. He thought he was fun and witty

When they got in front of the camera Richie revealed that he was bisexual and that Eddie’s videos helped him learn about bisexuality and come to terms with it

They spent the video talking about Richie’s journey to self acceptance, why he decided to come out, and Eddie’s knowledge surrounding sexual identity development. The video ended up being 15 minutes long and had the highest comment numbers Richie had ever seen. Not every comment was positive, but he took the experience in stride and started doing little bits of advocacy here and there for his and other channels 

Richie and Eddie end up dating, but not for a long, long time after that video when they’re both living in LA and well established in their youtube careers. 

Bev and Mike

An unlikely combo for an unlikely youtube star! Bev and Mike do a collab that focuses on self esteem and loving yourself!

Mike gives health tips and Bev gives fashion advice, but both of them talk about the importance of self worth and how external image means nothing if you don’t love yourself first. They both talk about their own journeys. 

The collab starts because Bev finds out about Mike through insta and she ends up contacting him about wool. They partner up business wise and Mike helps provide wool for her fashion line while Bev promotes his farm work. 

They don’t do many intentional collabs after they one, but they do show up on each others stories and in pictures together very frequently. The two become best friends

Ben and Bev

They don’t collab. But they do get married. 

They meet through the fame and bustle of L.A. Ben’s music career makes him end up at the same Gala as Bev, where they’re introduced to each other. They hit it off immediately, connecting with their childhoods and such. 

They date for 3 years before Ben proposes via Flash Mob and song written just for Bev

Bev loves the song so much she insists Ben release it. It becomes a Billboard hit

Eddie and Stan

Stan finds himself in NYC where Eddie lives and he reaches out to do an educational collab on LGBT politics in the Jewish community. 

He takes Eddie rock climbing and the two film the video with go pros. 

Eddie is terrified at first and it makes for a funny introduction but he eventually gets his bearings and the two of them scale a cliff together, talking about issues and getting to know each other. 

Stan and Richie

Eddie introduces them after the Coming Out Video. 

They collab as frequently as they can

They do ridiculous shit and Stan films Richie’s commentary. Its hilarious

They have a natural chemistry and they feed off of each other. Stan didn’t know he was a funny guy until he met Richie. Then it just kind of came out of the woodwork. Richie really highlighted Stan’s eccentric sense of humor. 

Everyone

Richie and Bev are childhood best friends

Eventually, they all end up meeting. They don’t really film videos with each other. Sometimes there’s a vlog that includes more than two of them but very rarely are they all in the same video at the same time. 

It happened intentionally once. It was chaos. Everyone was drunk. The video had to be edited so severely that it was only 1 minute and 30 seconds

They do however show up in snapchats, insta stories, and pictures as a group. By the time they’re all 30 they’re very, very good friends

[film-in-my-soul]

A Pair of Arms Means Love, Seven Means Home - Everyone/Everyone

Pairing: Poly-Relationship Between All the Losers

Word Count: 2515

Request: It wasn’t one. This one goes out to my Familosers. I love you guys.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It starts with Bill and Eddie.

One day they’re pals, sophomores in highschool, pushing each other into the quarry, and cracking jokes together in between class with the rest of the Losers. Then suddenly the next day they’re holding hands, trading kisses between classes when they get the chance, still cracking jokes with the other Losers. No one actually brings it up. It's a progression of something that really, to everyone, seems like a long time coming. So there isn’t anything for the others to question.

Even Richie, who feels a spark of something (hurt, jealousy, desire) doesn’t say anything about it. Not even when his hands want to shake at seeing the two boys together.

It seems natural that he’s the first one to be added to Bill and Eddie’s thing. (Even they hadn’t really talked about what they were to any full extent.)

They’re down at the water’s edge, Eddie in Bill’s lap, their feet in the shallows while the others swim. The others aside from Richie, who’s skulking further up the shore, leaned against a tree with a cigarette dangling from his lips. He’s been like that for the month and half that Bill and Eddie have been whatever they are and really, Eddie is done with it, has been since the first week.

He doesn’t like hurting Richie and for a while, he didn’t know how to make it better but now that it’s been nearly six weeks of his best friend moping around and pretending like he isn’t, Eddie Kaspbrak is done. He’s come up with a potential solution. Eddie twists around in Bill’s lap, feet dripping water onto the other boy's jeans. Bill looks down while Eddie looks up.

“I’m gonna go kiss Richie,” while it’s said like a statement Bill knows that, essentially, Eddie is asking for his permission. Bill’s lips quirk into a genuine smile and he nods.

“Okay.”

Eddie is sure that if it were any other person he was in a maybe relationship with they’d break up with him in a second, but Bill isn’t like that, if he said okay, then he meant okay. Eddie nods and extracted himself from Bill’s lap, suddenly the picture of five foot four determination as he strode over to the boy. Bill watches, getting to his own feet and strolling over at a slower pace, as Eddie knocks the cigarette from Richie’s mouth and grabs the collar of his shirt in two tight fists. Richie had looked both pissed and scared that he was going to get decked for no reason.

He wasn’t expecting for Eddie to yank him down into a kiss. It doesn’t last too long, mostly because by the time Richie realizes what’s going on and that he is, in fact, kissing Eddie back he realizes he’s kissing Eddie back. Eddie, who is, from what everyone has gathered, going steady with Bill. Richie yanks himself harshly from Eddie’s hold, eyes snapping to Bill who was finally standing beside the shorter boy. Richie opens his mouth to apologize, because wow he does not want to lose Bill as a friend because Eddie had apparently lost his marbles, only to be promptly stopped when Bill leans forward and places his own, softer kiss, on Richie’s mouth, and oh, Richie thinks that he understands now.

This too comes as no real surprise to the others so it also goes unmentioned when Bill and Eddie become Bill, Eddie, and Richie.

Eddie is worried they’ll have to make rules and talk about things now and then it might all be awkward but is pleasantly surprised when Richie simply steps into the little crevices in his and Bill’s relationship he hadn’t even noticed before.

A month goes by and then Stan is next to be brought into the fold.

It’s not until Bill is tucked between Eddie and Richie on his too small bed does he bring up something that’s been on his mind for the last week or so. Eddie had made it seem so easy when he’d looked up at Bill with his big brown doe eyes and stated that he was going to kiss Richie.

The room is draped in comfortable, post make-out silence, with Eddie’s head under Bill's chin and Richie's arms throw over the both of them, he being the tallest of the three. Bill breaks the calm with a stuttering confession.

“S...sometimes I th-think ab-bout kis...sing S-Stan.” Bill’s waiting for things to get awkward after the whisper is past his slightly puffy lips. It doesn’t come. All Eddie does is hum something close to an agreement into his chest and snuggle in deeper, Richie’s breath tickles Bill’s ear when his says “that’s hot,” and pulls both of the boys closer to him. Bill is so frightening revealed that both boys know him so well, that they know it’s not because he doesn’t /want/ them in any way, or that he wants something new. They both know that Bill just has too much of his heart to give (and that sometimes he can get lonely at night when Richie and Eddie, who live close together, can spend them together.)

It’s also the fact that Eddie finds Stan attractive in the way that he’s meticulous and organized, he likes the way his shirts are always crisp and seem to fit perfectly. Eddie also likes Stan’s long legs and sharp humor. Richie has thought about tangling his hands in Stan’s hair and making his curls a mess. He’s also wondered what it would be like to place a kiss on his cheek in the hall and see some of the kids he knows who have a crush on Stan look on with envy.

By the end of the week, once Bill has asked, hesitantly, if Stan might be interested in joining whatever the hell they are at this point, Richie get’s to do just that. Bill had been worried that Stan would only want to be dating him and not the other two as well. When Stan kisses him good morning at the bike racks and moves on to do the same with Eddie and Richie as well he feels happier than he had been when Stan first agreed.

Bill is sure that now that there are four of them they’re going to have to talk about it more seriously. Stan never really brings it up though, just starts holding hands with whichever three are closest to him, sometimes two at one time, walking with them to classes and dropping kisses on their lips before leaving like they all do. Stan does it in a rotation because aside from first and fourth period his classes are on the other end of the school from everyone else.

The Losers, while completely accepting are a bit more surprised with the addition of Stan, more for the fact that he’s willing to be in a relationship that involves Richie than anything else. Stan told them, almost tonelessly, that while yes, he and Richie bicker and he thought that his jokes were tasteless he didn’t like him any less than Bill or Eddie. No one ever questions it again after that.

The four are surprised when Mike is the next to wheedle his way into their relationship, but really, none of them are complaining in the slightest. It was a subtle integration.

It happens the night the four of them are watching a movie in Bill’s converted basement. It’s a date night, they’re all sprawled against each other, kissing occasionally, tickling more often than not (Richie had caught Eddie’s elbow to the ribs for that one.) Everything is normal for them when the sound of Bill’s doorbell ringing. They all get up to answer it. Mike stands on the other side, hands tucked into the front of his jeans, looking almost bashful under the porch light of the Denbrough house.

“Mind if I join you guys?” At the time, none of them had thought anything of it and agreed, welcoming Mike into Bill’s house with open arms. They all descended back into the basement. Stan was sure that the newcomer was going to sit in the lazy boy that had been unoccupied for the majority of the night but he didn’t. Instead, once everyone else was back to where they had been before (Richie and Bill twined together on the couch, Stan and Eddie sitting in front of it, fingers interlocked) Mike places himself next to Stan and in front of Richie, but not enough that his vision of the screen was disturbed.

After the film resumes and was playing for a bit Mike carefully slings his arm over Stan’s shoulders, fingers brushing the nape of Eddie’s neck enough to make him shiver slightly. The next day at school Mike carries Richie’s books to class for him, and after lunch, on his Bill and Stan’s way to fourth period he takes Bill’s unoccupied hand in his. By that time the four realize that when Mike had asked “mind if I join you guys,” he hadn’t just meant for the movie.

After three days when Mike has yet to kiss any of them Stan thinks it might be time to actually talk about “rules,” for the five of them.

The discussion ends with Mike explaining that while he definitely has romantic feelings for them he isn’t sure about anything more intimate, the idea just not very appealing to him. Most, aside from Stan, are surprised by the revelation but it was decided that kisses on cheeks were acceptable for giving and receiving on Mike’s end, anything else was to be determined at the boy's own discretion. It did nothing to change the fact they were now a group of five and Mike had shown his relief by treating them to ice-cream.

Richie decides that Mike is now his favorite boyfriend because of it. (Everyone knows that there really are no favorites which is why, ultimately, the relationship works.)

Ben and Beverly are the only two left. They’re already in a relationship and have been since before Billy and Eddie became a thing. That’s why Bill is sure that the evaluation of the Losers club is complete and everyone is in their place.

When Bev comes to him with Ben in tow one day, just Bill on his own (the other three in the process of getting picked up by Mike in his pickup) he’s not expecting her to say what she does.

“I want to date you guys,” Bill can feel his eyes widen because right away he’s willing to say yes, no matter how in love he is with his four wonderful boyfriends (because he is) he’s also in love with Bev, and, Bill’s eyes wander to her boyfriend, Ben as well. Bill loves all of them, deeply in a way that doesn’t allow just friendship to dwell. But Ben looks mildly nervous, like there’s something he wants to say but doesn’t know how. Bill says it for him. Because he knows Ben, and he knows that someone has to.

“B-But B-Ben’s not g-gay.” Because what it comes down to, really the heart of the issue, is that if Bev wants to date Bill and everyone else, Bill won’t let her do it without Ben coming along. It wouldn’t seem right. Ben almost sighs with the release of tension, like the statement was welling up inside and only now that it was brought up could they really address it.

“I’m not,” he starts out, more confident than Bill’s ever really seen him (at least without a pen and paper in hand), “but the truth is, I do, kinda, love you guys,” he looks at Bev who’s holding his hand for reassurance, then he looks back to Bill, “all of you.” And Bill sighs as well, because good Ben feels it too, the deepness in his heart that can’t just be filled with only one of the Losers. Maybe with all of them, it can be.

New “rules” are brought up at the quarry that night while they relax, feet dipping into the rapidly cooling water. Eddie and Stan love Bev, forever they promise, but sexually they just aren’t into women at all, unlike Bill and Richie, so while light pecks on the mouth are alright and more than welcome anything more intimate will be left to the boys (aside from Mike and Ben of course). After it’s established that Ben is more than willing to cuddle and hold hands with the others (much like Mike is) there isn’t anything else to really talk about and everything is good.

Richie can’t help but think that everything is complete and in a moment of actual maturity, states as such, earning him a kiss from Stan and Bev alike.

So yes, it starts with Bill and Eddie, but it ends a bit differently.

It ends with a lazy Saturday night, a group of seven people in love crammed in the converted basement of their boyfriend’s house. The lazy boy goes completely unused because if someone is sitting there then they aren’t all together, connected by crossed limbs and tangled fingers.

They’re all on the floor, blankets and pillows spilling from the puddle of people they make. Bill is resting his back against the front of the couch, Stan’s back against his chest as he sits between his legs, Bill loves running his fingers through Stan’s curls so that’s what he does. Mike is beside Bill with Bev on his other side, she’s got one of his hands in her, fixing his nails (which are often a wreck after working on the farm), Eddie is laying across their laps, feet on top of Bev’s legs while his head rests on Stan’s thighs. Ben in on the couch, laying so that he can reach Bev’s hair, braiding little sections that have grown longer than other and Richie is laying with his head on Eddie’s stomach, something they all know the smallest boy with complain about later on which will cause Richie to stretch out across him instead and tip the careful balance of bodies they’ve managed. They know it’ll happen, and when it does they know they’ll laugh, and share kisses and rearrange into a new coordination until they fall asleep one by one. Safe in the little nest they’ve made of each other's hearts and arms.

[dear-mrs-otome]

4 + 11 +1 with Ieyasu please hehe for the drabble things hehe

(That’d be ‘I have never wanted anything more’ + Surprises + Coffee Shop AU)

Full disclaimer: This is probably not what you had in mind for these prompts but this is what struck me. Also, I’ve never played Ieyasu’s route (sorry! sorry!) SO I hope I didn’t royally eff up his character here. Enjoy!

Also P.S. Why can I never write a drabble, or anything less than a bazillion words for these things?

“Richie Rich, on your six.”

Your coworker’s muttered warning had you smothering a sigh, yanking on the handle of the portafilter viciously as you seated it for a fresh round of shots. The coffee shop was packed this morning, a line of customers snaking through the maze of tables, and the absolute last thing you needed right now was to be waiting on the whims of His High-ass. Through the clamor of drinks being called out, you set about putting together the fruity abomination he always ordered, practically by rote - a triple shot ristretto mocha, light on the chocolate, with exactly six (and a half) pumps of strawberry syrup, plus extra whip, served at no more than 140 degrees.

Double cupped.

You could see his artfully tousled mop of blond hair drawing inexorably closer to the front of the line, like an advancing storm. Today was Tuesday - which meant it was olive-green suit day, a color that no living man had a right to look as sinfully good in as he did, but you shouldn’t have been surprised by the fact that he made something so damned contrary work. It was in his very nature, you imagined.

Pretty as one of Reni’s angels…but a devil lurked behind those russet eyes.

He left the till (without tipping, of course) to make his way to the bar, and you slid the drink you’d already prepped across the tiny counter towards him, hoping like hell that this would be the one day that he’d simply thank you and move on.

Instead, he offered you a genial smile that had your hand clenching around the handle of a jug of milk, because you knew the second he opened his mouth it would be -

“It’s too cold. Remake it, barista.” Somehow he managed to turn that single word into an insult.

You entertained a glorious, fleeting fantasy of swinging the full gallon of two-percent at that grin for a handful of seconds, before offering him a smile in return that was more the feral baring of teeth than anything resembling ‘customer service’. “You haven’t even tasted it, Mr. Tokugawa.”

“I watched you. That was enough.”

Ok. There were real things very wrong with you, because despite the constantly-simmering annoyance his mere presence ignited, your brain took that simple statement and the quirk of his lips and ran in the total wrong direction with it, spurred on by the faint midnight burr you imagined you heard in his voice.

Knocked off-kilter by your derailed thoughts, you swallowed down any further rebuttals and set about making another, movements sharp and furious, taking out your anger and discomfiture on the poor espresso machine. It shouldn’t bother you, by now. Two years you’d been tolerating this. Remaking the same mocha, exactly the same way, at least three times. Every. Damned. Morning.

Or at least the ones you were clocked in for. Your coworkers swore up and down that he never set foot in the shop unless you were manning the bar. So why you? What exactly had you done to deserve being singled out by this man? The one genuine moment of interaction you’d ever had with him was on your first day of work, when something about his ruddy gaze as he stared off absently while waiting in line seemed lost, twisting something inside of your chest. When you’d handed him his cup, you’d offered him your warmest grin and teased him about a grown man liking strawberries so much, hoping to draw a smile in return.

He’d merely blinked owlishly at you, taking the coffee without a word, but that had been the lone time he’d ever accepted the first drink you’d made him. And only after he’d left had your horrified manager leaned over to inform you that you’d just ribbed the nightmarish landlord of this building, God save your soul.

The hiss of a steam wand brought you back to the moment, a satisfying mirror of the fury building inexorably inside of you. Only unlike the machine before you, yours had no outlet, and you genuinely began to question, as the pile of other customer’s cups waiting to be filled stacked up beside you, whether the stress of any of this was worth minimum wage.

No, you decided, as you switched gears and reached for a scoop of ice, rocketing past ‘irritated’ to land firmly in ‘doing something stupid’ territory. It was most definitely not.

Stalking from behind the counter over towards the bistro table he’d carefully perched himself at, you held a new cup out towards him. “Your drink, Mr. Tokugawa.”

He eyed the clear plastic and straw narrowly, lips curling downwards in a moue of distaste. “That’s not my order.”

“It’s a surprise. Try it, on the house,” you cajoled, shaking the coffee so that the ice in it rattled enticingly, offering him a cloyingly sweet smile.

His expression only soured further, growing wary. “I don’t like surprises.”

“Ah.” You sighed with exaggerated disappointment, crestfallen. “That’s too bad. You really won’t like this then.”

And every last fantasy you’d ever entertained to get through the insults he’d slung at you, every wicked elaborate revenge scheme you’d ever conjured up in your head, they all paled in comparison to the glory of seeing Ieyasu Tokugawa, head of the Tokugawa Group, sputtering with fury and disbelief as you popped the lid and upended the frigid drink all over his perfectly pressed lap. Milk and coffee and half a bottle’s worth of that garish red syrup he so dearly loved, running down his legs in rivulets to pool in the chair beneath him, ruining silk and fine tailoring that had probably cost him more than you ever made in an entire year of putting up with his shit.

He shot to his feet, still dripping and livid. His eyes were incendiary, but it was the icy perfection of his calm tones that had you truly unnerved, each word limned with frost. “That. Was the last thing you’ll ever do on this job.”

“Because you’ll have me fired?” You laughed a challenge, untying the apron around your waist to fling it at him. He flinched, but caught it, and the stained green fabric hung limply from his fingers like a banner of war. “You can’t. I just quit.” Closing the gap between you, you set your jaw and glared up at him. “No more redoing your drinks. No more putting up with your spoiled, bratty insults. Never having to see your pretty two-faced self ever again? Let me tell you, Ieyasu. You might consider firing me a threat, but I have never wanted anything more.”

And rolling on the strength of what ire still smoldered in your belly, you turned on a heel to storm back through the shop full of slack-jawed customers and staff to snatch your purse from the back room. Stiffened your spine and made it out the front door, through the gleaming lobby and a handful of tottering steps down the sidewalk before what was left of your bravado withered and you sank back against the marbled side of the building, bent over shaking knees and huffing out breaths. Wondering who’d stolen all the oxygen from the air.

Then polished oxfords filled your field of view, still beaded with pink milk, and you knew with a sort of bowel-churning certainty that you were dead. They’d be hauling your body out of the harbor, two weeks from now, clucking and shaking their head about tragic accidents.

“I’ll triple your pay.”

Nothing he could have said would have possibly stunned you more, and you straightened to gape up at his impassive face, floundering. Too shocked too even be afraid any longer. “Wh-what?”

Where were the threats? The army of lawyers breathing down your neck, ready to sue you within an inch of your life?

He shifted his weight, glancing away a moment, before fixing you with a sneer. “Did I stutter?” He thrust your abandoned apron back in your direction. “Put it back on.”

You ignored the gesture. “Triple still isn’t enough,” you said, before you could falter beneath the intensity of his glare. “It’s not…just about the money.”

Scoffing, he folded his arms. “It’s always about the money. Quit pretending you’re some paragon of virtue.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t partly about the money,” you shot back, emboldened by the way he kept his eyes trained on you and the lack of a counter or uniform between you - just two people, standing on a busy sidewalk. Removed from the social confines of business and transaction. “But the other part…”

Oh God, it was too stupid to even say out loud. You clamped your mouth shut and shook your head.

“The other part?” he supplied, after your silence had dragged on, brows arching with no small measure of impatience.

Ah, fuck it. You were never going to see him again, anyways. “I just wanted you to smile.”

A myriad of expressions flickered across his face, like signs past the window of a  speeding car. Too quickly for you to follow or read before his features settled back into their usual veneer of disdain. “That might be the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Yes, well…” You shrugged, at a loss, before pushing away from the wall with one last bit of mockery, offering him the same bland goodbye you had for years. “Have a nice day, Mr. Tokugawa.”

You’d made it two steps before a hand wrapped around your arm and jerked you to a halt, though you didn’t grace his arrogant behavior with turning around. “Name your price. And… I’ll…work on your bonus.”

Perhaps it was your imagination, but you thought you caught a hint of his lips curving as you finally faced him and took the apron back from where he’d folded it over an elbow, tying it back on. Maybe you’d live to regret this.

But then again, maybe you wouldn’t.

“All right.”

“All right,” he echoed, and something like relief softened his brow, only for a moment, before he nodded his head in satisfaction. “I’m still docking the dry cleaning from your pay, though. Double what it costs me.”

And as you trailed behind him, back towards the front door of the Tokugawa Tower, it was, you figured, a small price to pay for progress.

(Part 2)