#so a lot of fans from different divisions have been mingling and more accepting

[banqanas]

Speaking about fanta during their predebut days i will always think about this sentence that i saw in an old blog

"why do exile members like Sekai and Taiki have to go around the country to hold free shows with a bunch of expg kids"

I only understood the weight of the exile title then

[tthael]

Are you still taking asks? Disregard if not, but I'm still thinking about the TTHAEL universe now and then, and I know Kay has plenty of justified reasons for not being too jazzed about Richie, but I'm wondering if, over the course of Bev's life with R and K as some of her best friends, they ever end up having any more positive interactions?

My state of taking asks is nebulous because it takes me a while to get around to them but I do usually plan to answer.

So the thing about Kay is that she’s angry with Richie’s stage persona and his early career. And some people--like Eddie--make a clear division between the things that Richie says on stage and the things he actually thinks, and are relieved by him turning over a new leaf after Derry and writing his own stuff and the still-irreverent but overtly gay and left-leaning comedy he now produces. And some people--like Kay--maintain that Richie is still responsible for the things he said, even when he wasn’t writing them, because he put them out into the world and he had a significant fan following of people (mostly men) who treat women very badly. The division between Kay’s followers and Richie’s early followers is pretty clear, it’s a straight line down the middle.

And Kay loves Bev with all her heart, and agrees that Ben Hanscom is certainly an improvement on Tom Rogan, but Kay always second-guesses Bev’s relationships around men. She’s always keeping an eye out. Bev’s in charge of Bev, but if Kay witnessed behavior that worried her she would start making a list and just... preparing herself, the way that she did when Bev was married to Tom. So the fact that Bev went off to Derry and came back with five previously-unheard-of man friends, several of whom are extremely famous, one of whom is Richie goddamn Tozier? Kay is completely flummoxed. And out of the lot of them, Richie Tozier is definitely the worst, as far as Kay’s concerned.

So Richie is himself when they’re like, sitting around Ben’s firepit in Nebraska, and he isn’t overtly an asshole (or at least, not any more than he naturally is). He’s obnoxious, and he’s a man, but he doesn’t seem to be deliberately misogynistic the way he  plays on stage. And Kay doesn’t know what’s going on with him and the little guy (the fact that Eddie is exactly her height doesn’t stop him from being the little guy) until Richie Tozier actually like puts an arm around him and pulls him tight to his side, and Kay understands how toxic masculinity is a prison that doesn’t allow men to touch each other except in acts of violence, but she’s pretty surprised that Richie Tozier would pull a move like that. And Eddie kind of snarks at him a little but also leans his head back against Richie’s shoulder because he’s had too much to drink and he’s totally nodding off, and Kay just... files that away. (She works it out by the time she sees them dancing together at Ben & Bev’s wedding.)

So Kay and Richie are probably two of the most important people in Bev’s life (Kay being the exceptional non-Loser) and frequently they’re at events that are important to Bev. They’re in closer proximity than Kay would prefer, but Kay can be civil. For Bev. And Richie never says anything to Kay that really sets her off, but he also never apologizes.

(It never occurs to Richie that Kay might want an apology. He never said anything offensive to her specifically, and he’s not going to ask her for a benediction from all of womankind or anything.)

But I picture maybe one day there’s some kind of event happening in a gallery, and Bev’s there, and Kay’s there, and inexplicably Richie’s there but Eddie’s not so he’s sulking a little, and they’re both like in the back of the room drinking and pointedly not talking, and Kay is noticing how Bev’s actually mingling with people this time. When Rogan&Marsh did their public appearances, their congratulatory events, Tom always did the talking, and if Bev dared to speak to anyone it was because she was on his arm and he could listen to what she said. If Bev was tired and perched at the bar and drinking screwdrivers because she was just worn out, she didn’t talk much. But now Bev’s heading her own label and she’s out there working the room and accepting the congratulations that she’s due for her work, and Kay--who is two drinks in and feeling relaxed enough to initiate conversation with Richie goddamn Tozier--asks something about the security at the event.

And Richie snorts and tells her about the time after he and Bev got papped, when they were all convinced that Tom Rogan was out standing in the pool at his apartment complex. Kay casts an eye over the big glass windows (lots of natural light!) of the gallery but it’s all pretty opaque darkness out there. She doesn’t touch her scar. She doesn’t wear concealer over it either.

“She told me that night that she wanted to kill him,” Richie says quietly. He’s also been drinking a little but he probably wouldn’t say that to anyone other than Kay. Not Ben, because it would upset Ben. Maybe Eddie, but talking about Bev like that to Eddie feels a little bit like going around Bev’s back. Kay’s different, though. Kay understands.

“Out in your pool?” Kay thinks about the logistics. It would have been very easy.

“No,” Richie says. “We were, like, eating nachos and drinking, that’s what they papped us doing, and she was like, ‘I want to kill him.’“

Kay remembers those photos--Beverly Marsh’s New Funnyman?--and how at ease Bev had looked, despite being tucked into the corner. The way they shoved the dish of nachos back and forth at each other. Bev didn’t look the way she did with Tom, she looked the way she did with Kay, when she forgot there was anything to hide. She can’t imagine Bev saying anything like that to her with that look on her face. Bev holds things back, now that Tom’s hurt both of them.

“Really,” she says, almost impressed.

“Yeah, and then she walked it back, but.” Richie Tozier shrugs. “I mean, if the opportunity presented itself, I’d ask her first, but.”

There’s a sealed court case in Derry, Maine, with Richie Tozier’s name on it. Kay doesn’t know the details, but it’s like a little bit of the night comes in to their corner, casting shadows over them while Bev, out on the floor, just blazes with light.

“Well, how kind of you to ask her first,” Kay says airily, but actually she prefers that to him taking things into his own hands. Better Richie than Ben--Bev doesn’t want to do without Ben, for all that she could--but he’s still the one that draws the most of Kay’s suspicion, seconded only by the horror writer Bev’s still tense and awkward around.

Richie smiles in response to the joke and replies, just as airily, in a voice tending toward an English accent, “I am but a simple old-fashioned man. I need her blessing before I go out and commit vigilante justice.” In his own voice he says, “Also Eddie would fucking kill me, so we’d have to be really good at cleaning our tracks.”

Kay snorts. “If you two go out and kill him without inviting me along I’ll never forgive you,” she says. It’s not even that she wants to kill Tom Rogan, it’s that she’s so angry about what he did to her and Bev that she wants him to hang himself with his own rope. She wants to take what he did and throw it back in his face--this is not /her/ fault, it’s his, and she wants him to never be able to do anything without what he did haunting him.

That’s not always the world they live in, but it’s the one Kay McCall is trying to make.

Richie Tozier just lifts his eyebrows, considering. “Fair,” he seems to decide. He looks at her glass, which is down to just ice. “You want another--?”

“Yeah.”

“What’re you drinking?”

“I don’t know, it was friggin’ disgusting.”

He laughs. “What do you want to be drinking?”

“Just get me a screwdriver,” she says. “Me and Bev’ll match.”

“Got it,” he says, and goes to get her a drink.