#that sentence is fucked but it’s true her name is sally mae

[rosereign]

I’m mixed because of slavery…

[brittle-bone-gabe]

The Forgotten: Chapter Nine - Trashmouth

Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three, Chapter Four, Chapter Five, Chapter Six, Chapter Seven, Chapter Eight, Chapter Ten, Chapter Eleven, Chapter Twelve, Chapter Thirteen, Chapter Fourteen, Chapter Fifteen, Chapter Sixteen, Chapter Seventeen, Chapter Eighteen, Chapter Nineteen, Chapter Twenty, Epilogue

Summary: Barry Berkman couldn’t remember much of his childhood; he knew he used to live in Derry, Maine, but that was about it, besides being taken by his “Uncle Fuches” at age 16 to move to Cleveland, Ohio. Eddie Kaspbrak moved from Derry, Maine to LA, becoming a police officer, surprisingly enough. Normally things were quiet for the most part, besides the occasional drug busts, but it’s when someone named Barry Block enters his line of sight as a possible suspect for the recent string of murders he has to push the feeling of remembrance to investigate.   Pairing: Adult Reddie  (Richie x Eddie) Or, technically, Barry x Eddie Read on Ao3: Here

Eddie waited in the lobby of the precinct until Richie drove away from his spot across the street before heading back inside. Almost like he needed that reassurance that Richie left without any issues, Eddie was hoping that he would make it home alright… Wherever home was for Richie…

There was so much on Eddie’s mind right now, after hearing what Richie had to say. Just… knowing that he was more or less forced into a life he didn’t want to be apart of was very saddening. While it was sad, Eddie had to tell himself that Richie could’ve tried a little more to get out of that life; he could’ve left without telling anyone since it was apparent that he was allowed to go wherever he wanted, especially since he attended an acting class. The situation was fucked up, but Richie still killed people, he was still a murderer… So why was Eddie having such a hard time coming to terms that he needed to arrest him?

Pulling himself out of his thoughts, Eddie turned around, limping his way through the precinct. A couple of phones started ringing in the office around him, for some reason the sounds were setting Eddie off, suddenly it felt like he was having sensory overload. The officers who were standing around talking and laughing at a normal, reasonable volume now felt like they were all screaming and it was setting Eddie on edge. He needed to get away from this.

Instead of heading back into his cubicle, Eddie took a quick turn, limping into the conference room where he used the whiteboards for the case he was working on. The pictures of those in the acting class were still pinned up, seeing them felt like a slap in the face. The answer was there the whole time and he was too blind to see it. What was he going to do now? The case was more or less solved… but did he honestly have the heart to arrest Richie? Yeah, he understood that if he didn’t he would be a hypocrite, and if anyone on the force found out he would get into some major trouble… but at the same time… Richie was his best friend that was put into an unfortunate situation.

As if on autopilot, Eddie began taking the pictures down, deciding that he needed to talk to Richie about all of this if he were going to keep this from coming out. He couldn’t willingly allow Richie to keep doing this job, but if he stopped, actually changed his life around like he wanted to then maybe it would be more bearable to let Richie walk free. Yeah, it felt wrong, it felt horribly wrong, but it was a difficult choice. Letting out a shaky sigh, Eddie pinched the bridge of his nose as he felt a headache coming on.

“Giving up on the case?” Detective Mae asked, leaning against the door frame of the conference room with her arms folded over her chest.

“What? Oh…” Eddie looked at the pictures he was holding onto. “I dunno…” he admitted, tossing them onto the long table in the center of the room. Everything is right there… you have the evidence… Eddie let out a sigh, rubbing the back of his head. “I can’t… really find anything else about this case. I think it’s time to put it back.”

“Uhhuh…” Mae said, acting as though she didn’t believe him which set Eddie further on edge, giving her a look. “What, uh… what was that in the car?”

At first Eddie had no idea what she was talking about, but then it hit him quickly.

“Were you watching me?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.

Mae shrugged, walking over to the table, picking up the pictures to shuffle through them as if there was a secret message there. “Did it have to do with the case?” She asked, a small smile tugging at her lips but she refused to smile fully, dropping the pictures back down on the table.

“Yeah,” Eddie lied, “but, it’s not that. I don’t have anything else to go off of this case…” he repeated as if he said it enough times it would become true.

She couldn’t hide it anymore, Mae finally let her smile shine through. “I know what’s going on here.”

The sentence was so vague, there was so much shit that Eddie had going on, so much shit that Eddie was hiding that he felt like panicking. No, there was no way she knew about Barry. Eddie knitted his eyebrows together, trying to act like he was confused about what she was talking about… Well… he was confused. Eddie literally had no idea what she was going on about or what she could possibly know.

“Wh-what-what do you mean?” Eddie stuttered, resting his hand on his aching leg, which suddenly felt more painful than usual. He needed more pills.

“Don’t play dumb, Kaspbrak. You weren’t talking about the case with that guy.”

“Wh-”

“What’s his name?”

Eddie paused, trying to put two and two together to see where she was getting at, but he couldn’t be sure.

“ What?” Was she implying what Eddie thought she was implying? For fuck’s sake, what was Eddie getting himself into now?

“I’m not stupid, Eddie.”

Eddie opened his mouth to naturally say Barry, but that wasn’t his name. “...Richie,” he answered quickly.

“And how long has that been going on?”

Well, shit. Mae was implying… that. For almost a year, Janice and Mae had been encouraging Eddie to put himself back out there after he broke off his engagement with this woman he’s been seeing when he lived in New York for a short period of time. The relationship had become long distance when Eddie decided to move to LA for a better job opportunity, of course his fiancée didn’t like that, but she was suffocating him, so why not break it off? Eddie wasn’t happy with her, she wasn’t happy with the situation… It seemed like the best option.  

Eddie cleared his throat, his face now had a pink tint to it. “We’ve actually known each other for years, but we’ve just reconnected.”

                                                              -----

Barry slammed the door of his car a little too hard in the parking lot of the theater that it echoed. Out of pure paranoia, Barry glanced over his shoulder into the street to make sure that nobody had been following him. Well, the only person he had been paranoid about was Eddie, if he wasn’t paranoid before he was paranoid now, especially since he basically spilled everything to him in the car earlier. Now he had every right to come and arrest him, but if Eddie was going to keep his word like he had implied then Barry should be fine.

He moved towards the building, his mind and heart heavy as he had been thinking about something the entire drive here. He clutched the backpack strap that was over his shoulder, digging his fingernails into it instead of picking at his skin, Eddie told him to stop doing that so he was going to attempt to stop. From behind, Barry could hear a group of other students laughing and talking amongst themselves, something he lowkey wish he had; of course he was acquaintances with most of the people in his class, but not close. Sure, they invited him out sometimes, more so when Barry first joined the class, now it seemed like he would be invited once in a blue moon. While going out with friends once in a while would be fun and get him out of the hotel room, he wasn’t going to force himself into somewhere he wasn’t welcomed.

Letting out a sigh, Barry went inside, picking at the band-aids on his hands. The dim light shined over his face as he moved past the stage he had become accustomed to rather quickly so he could take his normal seat up in the front. Before sitting down he caught eyes with Sally, giving her a small smile, she returned it but it didn’t feel sincere. Yikes, this is why Barry didn’t interact too much with others.

There was a lot on Barry’s mind right now; his main issue was his identity. Who was he? Obviously his real name is Richie Tozier, he understood that now, but it was still hard to come to terms with. His childhood was a distant memory, his whole life was picked apart and pieced together with false information from the one man he thought he could’ve trusted, and now this whole thing with Eddie? Barry closed his eyes, letting out a breath to calm himself, to calm his thoughts and focus on the moment like Mr. Cousineau had taught him to do.

“...Barry? Barry.”

Barry jerked his head up at the stage where Gene Cousineau was standing, trying to get his attention. He felt the entire class looking at him, like their eyes were burning in the back of his head and he hated the feeling. Barry’s shoulders hunched up, embarrassed that he was zoning out in class again. Gene was more like a father figure to Barry than Fuches ever tried to be to him and Barry hated letting him down.

“Yeah?”

Gene motioned for him to come up on stage. Out of habit, Barry looked over his shoulder to make sure he was gesturing to him. He swallowed hard, shifting his backpack to the left side of his feet so he could get up from his seat.

With his heart pounding against his chest, Barry made it up on stage, standing next to Gene, who was holding a script out to him. He paused, looking at the small stack of papers in Mr. Cousineau’s hands.

“This is the monologue I want you to do for the next class, Barry,” Mr. Cousineau told him, shaking the script a little to encourage Barry to take it from him.

Knitting his eyebrows together, Barry took the script, the papers feeling rather heavy in his hands. His identity was a major part of anxieties as of late, he wanted to change himself again. Or… Not necessarily change himself, more like going back to the person he was born as.

“Hey, guys… um…” Barry had started his announcement to the class, instantly regretting it as he had no idea how he wanted to word this or if this was exactly what he wanted. Well, he started, he might as well finish it. “So I’ve decided something.” He had everyone’s attention, he could tell by their confused looks. “I’ve decided that…” He took a deep breath, looking at the script in his hands. Yes, he wanted this, he didn’t want to be Barry anymore… “I’m changing my name.”

There was some murmuring, which made Barry worried that he made the wrong choice to bring this up. Maybe he should’ve kept living his life as Barry while suffering with this identity.

“Changing it to what?” Mr. Cousineau asked him, rubbing his chin.

“Richie Tozier. Or, on stage, Richie Trashmouth.”

“What’s with the name change?” Sally had asked from her seat, from her tone it was obvious that she wasn’t impressed.

“I dunno… It feels… right. Better than Barry.”

Sally opened her mouth to say something else, but Mr. Cousineau cut her off before she could say anything.

“Alright, Richie Trashmouth,” Richie let out a sigh of relief, he liked how that sounded coming from Mr. Cousineau who always easily accepted him, “we do our monologues next class.”

The rest of class had ran rather smoothly, certainly a lot better than last time for Richie. He was certainly in the zone now, doing the exercises without his mind wandering and forcing himself into a panic attack. In fact, not once did he think about Fuches, or Eddie, or the hot water he could possibly be in. This is exactly what Richie needed, finally he was able to relax and chill out with a hobby he actually enjoyed.

Towards the end of the class, Gene was standing up on the stage, giving feedback as he checked the old fashioned watch on his wrist.

“Well, that’s all I have for you guys. I hope you all have a wonderful night.” Everyone started packing up their belongings and standing up from their seats, so Gene had to call from over them. “Richie? Can I speak to you for a moment?”

Richie stood up, throwing his backpack over his shoulder before meeting up with Gene who had stepped off the stage. They stepped to the side so the rest of the class could leave.

“I need to ask…” Gene started, gesturing towards Richie’s face, “what’s with the glasses, son?”

“Oh…” Richie instinctively reached up to touch the side of his glasses to make sure they were still on his face, as he had just gotten used to them so it was like they weren’t even there, “I usually wear contacts, but I don’t have anymore. I need them to see.”

“Listen,” Gene started as he grabbed Richie’s shoulders, looking him in the eyes, “I’m really proud of you. I know it wasn’t easy to stand up there on stage and tell everyone about your new identity.” Richie nodded, feeling his eyes burning from the tears that were threatening to fall because, for once, he felt like someone understood him and what he was going through. “But, I have to ask… Is there a reason for it?”

“It’s just… I caught up with a friend from my hometown and seeing him again made me remember a lot of things.”

“Cleveland?”

“Actually, no. Derry, Maine.”

“Never heard of it.”

Richie chuckled, rubbing his eye with the back of his hand. “That’s not a surprise.”

“Well, I can’t wait to see what Richie Trashmouth brings to us. Have a nice night, Mr. Tozier.” Gene patted his shoulder before heading back down the hall towards his office.

Richie’s heart and chest felt heavy, but not from anxiety or any negative feelings for once, no, instead it was more like a… overwhelming feeling of happiness. He had a huge smile on his face as he turned to leave the theater. Mr. Cousineau accepted his new identity and that’s all that really mattered to Richie, it felt like he was doing something right for once in his life and wanted to keep this going. Now that he was Richie Tozier that meant he wasn’t going to be doing anymore jobs for Fuches and that was final. As soon as Richie got back to the hotel he was going to take his half of the money, pack his shit up, and leave to find his own place away from Fuches and Hank. Fuck the job. Fuck Fuches. Fuck this.

The moment Richie stepped outside the building his smile dropped when he saw Sally standing out there, waiting for him with her arms folded over her chest like an upset mother. Richie stopped in his tracks, his hand clutching the backpack strap again, swallowing hard. He felt like he did something wrong, but wasn’t sure what it was. He opened his mouth to speak but Sally started speaking first.

“What the hell was that?” She asked him.

“W-what was what?”

“That… Richie thing.”

Richie glanced around for a moment before looking back to Sally, confused on what that was supposed to mean. “That’s… my name?”

“And the glasses?” She reached up, touching them which caused Richie to flinch and back up a little bit. “What the fuck’s going on with you?”

“I just feel like it’s more fitting,” Richie defended himself with a single arm shrug.

Honestly though? What was the big deal? He was wearing glasses and had a new name. How did that suddenly make it the end of the fucking world? Why was it okay for other people in Richie’s life to do things to make themselves happy but whenever he did something for himself to change his life, to make him happy it was suddenly wrong? It wasn’t fucking fair.

“I mean…” Sally started, dropping her arms to her side dramatically, “it’s one thing to have a stage name like Barry Block, but why do you need to change your entire name? And why Trashmouth?”

“Oh… that’s what my friends called me back in Maine.”

Sally rolled her eyes. “Get it together, Barry,” she said before walking away.

Richie took off his glasses, holding the lenses up so he could see through them before attempting to snap them in half, only managing to bend the frames. He was left there alone, confused, and in the middle of yet another identity crisis.