#we turn everything into angst here at stephenskings dot tumblr dot com

[mitchmarnier]

I have read some of your reddie now and I have this idea in my head. Ritchie and Eddie are like 13 and Ritchie tells Eddie he's in love with him but Eddie doesn't feel the same way. When Eddie tells Ritchie he doesn't feel the same way Ritchie leaves imideatly bc he feels embarrassed. The rest of the losers know Ritchie felt that way about Eddie and that ritche was gonna confess and are waiting for ritchoe to come tell them what happend. When he does come he's heart broken

(2) And the rest of the losers decide to comfort him but in the meantime forget that Eddie is super worried about ritchie. Eddie tries to text bill (or any) and he just gets like short awnseres back and the rest of the losers are too busy with Ritchie (not his fault) to think about the fact that Eddie is hurting and has basically been abandoned by his friends, but he is on the track team and has some friends there. | (3). Cue like 2/3 years later and Eddie and the rest of the losers club run into each other at a pary. They feel super bad about handling the Ritchie/eddie thing and Ritchie has missed his bff for so long, Eddie get why Ritchie didn’t wanna talk but feel betrayed by the rest of them for not caring about him and making him feel like he is expendable. Idk man id love to chat with you about reddie and hc and stuff

Anon, I love this. I kind of feel like in the case of a serious fight/falling out, the Losers wouldn’t be like everyone vs one, you know? They’d probably split down the middle, more or less. Like, maybe all the Losers knew that Richie liked Eddie but he only ever told Stan and Bev, you know? So only they know that Richie is going to tell Eddie, only they can figure out what’s wrong with Richie, why he doesn’t show up. Because Eddie feels so bad- he hadn’t meant to hurt Richie, he’s just not gay, you know? He’s not, his mother would never allow that- so he’s not going to tell anybody what happened. 

Stan and Bev slowly start spending their time with Richie, because you know… as much as Richie likes Eddie- and not just likes him likes him, he really adores Eddie just as Eddie! His cute little buddy!- but it hurts too bad to be around him right then. And Bill sort of thinks they’re being dicks, because nobody is talking about what happened- Stan, Richie and Bev are just starting to bail on group activities, and they’re not sitting with them in the cafeteria anymore. The other Losers only know it has something to do with Eddie because is so upset. 

Eddie sort of decides- you know, that it’s not fair that Richie felt like he had to leave their friend group. Because Eddie’s the one who feels like the one who was a dick. Especially when he starts noticing how his heart skips when he catches Richie’s eye in the hallways now- not just in an anxious way, no. In a much scarier way. In a I gave Richie the wrong answer way. So Eddie decides, yeah, if I leave the Losers Club then everybody else can hang out together again like it should be. So Eddie starts hanging out with the Track and Field team more. 

And Bill just hates this… he asks Mike- who does sports, too. A lot of sports, that he only started doing because Stan encouraged him to try out for baseball, but that’s none of my business- asks Mike to please, please check on Eddie. Bring him back. So Mike does, but maybe… maybe Mike really likes hanging out with the other sports kids. He’d never felt popular before. Yeah, the Losers had been the first people who ever made him feel like he even belonged in Derry. But before nobody had been high-fiving him in the hallways and shouting “Hanlon’s the man!” 

So then Eddie and Mike are both spending their with the Jocks and Cheerleaders. In the caf, outside of school, at parties. Ben is still optimistic, you know? “Everything will sort itself out, Eddie and Richie can’t fight forever.” But you can’t fight with somebody you don’t talk to. Bill and Ben both try to bounce back and forth between the two groups, but eventually Ben introduces Bill to the writer’s society and they had their own friends now, too. Not really a Losers club when you didn’t feel like Losers anymore. 

Richie, Bev and Stan were ready to continuing claiming the titles of Losers. They continue to be only the three of them, through everything. Richie convinces himself that he’s over Eddie, that none of it really mattered at all. The Losers Club was never meant to last right? Eddie and Mike would always have become hot sports gods, Ben always would have lost the weight, Bill always would’ve gotten control of his stutter, and they always would’ve become popular. Or, at least, socially acceptable.

Maybe sometimes Richie thinks he’s dragging Bev and Stan down with him, but he would never be willing to admit that for anything. So he lets Stan and Bev stand by him, lets them keep being dragged down by him. It’s as though they never interact with the other Losers, either. When Bill and Ben get outed in their relationship, Richie took come a couple of punches to the face in their honour. He hangs out with Ben alone for the first time in years after that, and once they get down to it and Ben finally asks the question. “Why did we stop being friends, Rich?”

And yeah, Richie almost backs out of that moment. He has emotionally issues galore, and it didn’t help that he’d been sitting on the guilt of this for three years, right? He broke up the Losers Club and for what? Because Eddie Kaspbrak- future Track and Field champion of Derry- didn’t wanna kiss him? But he’d come this far, and it’s Ben Hanscom- so god help him- Richie tells him everything. And Ben is sort of like? U know... that sort of makes a lot of sense, you’re both idiots. 

Ben mentions some huge party off-handedly, and says Richie should come. With Stan and Bev, of course. That their whole class was going to be there, that it wouldn’t be any drama, and that it would just be fun, you know?? and Richie is like... I’m going for weed and that’s it, defintely not because I miss you guys. and Ben is like ok sure richie whatever you say.

But you know... it’s Derry High so like the second Stan/Richie/Bev walk in the door to this house party, they are noticed. By Mike. Who exclaims excitedly and spends an hour trying to get Stan to do a keg stand, even going as far as to literally lift him upside down and carry him around all dangly. 

Then OF COURSE, Eddie comes up because that his best friend Mike and Richie’s best friend Stan. And Eddie has been standing around for a good hour and half being like ahah I should talk to him, but he hates me, but he looks so fucking good, no eddie he hates you so he’s finally three drinks in so he just fucking does it.

“They’re idiots, huh?”

Richie laughs, because maybe he’s a little drunk too, and hasn’t quite fully realized he’s talking to Eddie yet. Maybe Eddie looks cute as fuck right now, and maybe Richie is really ready to let go of the grudge he didn’t even need to be holding. It was a long ass time ago, they’re different people now. He’s over Eddie Kaspbrak.

Or he thought he was... until he was four drinks in and couldn’t stop staring at him. Until he was five drinks in, and they were making out against a wall.

Until it was Monday morning, and they were back to not being able to look each other in the eye.