No One But You ✔️ Reddie

Nineteen

The Losers club sat themselves down around the circular table of the Chinese restaurant. Drawn like magnets, impelled and completely unconscious, Richie and Eddie sat beside one another. They each felt bombarded with their history, their incomparable connection, lives so intertwined with one another's and yet they'd spent so much time apart.

The memories weren't all there, but there was more than either of them expected, far more than the last time they had met. Possibly because this time they looked almost exactly how they did ten years prior, plus a few grey hairs and forehead wrinkles. Possibly because some of the memories had resurfaced before and were buried in shallower graves. Possibly because they were in Derry again and the memories of the town, of Pennywise, of the other five members of the Losers club were so tied to their experiences of each other.

Richie Tozier remembered that when he was young, he'd been hopelessly in love with Eddie Kaspbrak. By some miracle, they'd found each other over a decade later, and then he'd suffered the most violent heartbreak of his life when Eddie didn't follow him to LA. He didn't remember much of places or faces. So, he didn't remember meeting Myra at Eddie's apartment.

Eddie Kaspbrak remembered that when he was young, he'd shared a romantic relationship with Richie Tozier, and Richie Tozier had broken his heart when he left Derry and forgot him. They'd reconnected briefly in New York City, then he'd left again, this time for LA. He didn't remember many words or sentiments. So, he didn't remember Richie asking Eddie to join him on the west coast.

Eddie's primary emotion was fear upon seeing Richie. A fear he had buried and buried again. Richie represented everything in his life that he'd shut away, everything that his mother had always taught him to be afraid of, everything that Myra had reinforced that he should avoid.

His childhood with Richie had been fraught with danger, brought him closer to death than he'd ever been. Richie was chaotic, unclean and uncouth. Richie was a man who loved other men, a man who had loved him. Richie threatened everything he had forced himself to identify with, the image and the personality he had cultivated.

But by God, Eddie was happy to see him. So unbelievably excited to see him. Even if his face was pallid, his glasses dirty, his clothes not pressed. Nothing could quash the butterflies flapping in his stomach, the thudding swell in his chest. He couldn't help but overanalyse and rebuff Richie's jokes, count how many insults were directed at him, how many times Richie looked in his direction.

'Eddie, you got married?' Richie asked Eddie, a sneer on his lips to conceal the icicle piercing his heart.

'Why's that so fucking funny, dickwad?' Eddie said quickly.

'Like, to a woman?' he asked. To the rest of the Losers it would have seemed like an insult, but it was a genuine question, swiftly and hurtfully answered by Eddie saying, 'Fuck you, bro.'

Richie laughed maniacally and reciprocated the sentiment before the Losers asked Richie whether he was married. Richie said he was.

Eddie's heart stopped. 'When?'

The Losers looked surprised. Richie asked Eddie, 'You didn't know I got married?'

Eddie's face contorted, 'No.'

'Yeah, I got married,' Richie said, knowing that he was twisting the knife a little. 'Me and your mom are very happy.'

The Losers burst out laughing, but Eddie was furious. Fury hampered with relief, even as the jokes continued piling up.

Richie's primary emotion upon seeing Eddie was anger. Seeing him talk about his life and his wife made him seethe, because he knew that Eddie deserved more, that Eddie was more than the life that he'd built.

If Richie had the time or the mental capacity to think on his emotions for a moment, he'd realise they came from sadness. A broken heart which had never healed, a rejection he had never anticipated, from the one person he'd believed could do neither.

Not only this, but Eddie's choices reflected a complete denial of everything that he had ever shared with Richie. It made Richie begin to relentlessly question his own fragmented recollections of their relationship, whether any of it was real, or if he just heard what he wanted to hear, believed that Eddie felt what he wanted Eddie to feel.

Eddie and Richie both drank too much throughout the meal, trying to dull the extremity of their emotions.

To buffer his insecure internal monologue, Richie offered jokes and insults without respite. After a while, he started to relax. It was unintentional and unavoidable: he liked to see Eddie laugh, see Eddie get annoyed, see Eddie pull faces and scoff and catch his eye.

His joy bubbling out of him, Eddie found himself shouting, 'Let's take our shirts off and kiss!' before suddenly remembering that was something that they'd done in New York City. The sudden realisation caused him to weaken his grip, and Richie won the arm wrestle.

Richie started to feel peaceful for the first time in a decade. The clouds parted when Eddie was around. He felt the phantom feeling in his chest dissipate; Eddie, his other limb, slotting back into position.

Eddie felt ambivalent, torn in multiple, completely disjointed directions; a rush to the familiar, electric, terrifying past or a hard stance at the pillars of sand he called his future.

They both came to the same conclusion as the night wore on: I'll wait for Stan to get here. Stan knew. Stan will understand. I can talk to Stan.

But Stanley never came. When Beverly delivered the news of Stan's tragic suicide following her phone call with Patricia Uris, Eddie and Richie were both struck with grief.

Richie realised quite how brutally dangerous the town he had wandered into truly was. The levity of the evening's shenanigans, his conflict over his relationship with Eddie, all seemed so trivial when juxtaposed with Stan's death.

It had taken Stan. He wouldn't let It take him. And It couldn't take him if he wasn't in Derry. He went to the hotel and he packed. Ben tried to convince him to stay, but he refused, climbing out of the window.

Then he thought about Eddie. He couldn't leave without knowing that Eddie was coming too. This time when he left, he wouldn't take no for an answer. Eddie came with him, or Richie stayed behind. There were no two ways about it.

Eddie too was thinking about leaving. He wanted to run away and forget again. The pain of Stan's death stung deep into his core, like he had been impaled. He kept imagining his suicide, over and over, replaying in stark and devastating gore.

Then he thought about Richie. Forgetting had been easier the second time, but it had been a damn hard choice to make. The universe, whether he liked it or not, had a funny habit of throwing Richie back into his life.

He thought about what Richie had said when they were kids. 'We'll find each other.'

Even if he ran away again, there was no guarantee that Richie wouldn't reappear in his life to throw him off course all over again. Or worse, what if Richie never appeared again and he spent the rest of his life without him?

He'd never really considered that before. When he'd left Derry as a kid, he'd known the blood oath to return and hence, that he might see Richie again. When Richie had left New York, it was possible some subconscious part of his brain recalled the oath too, knew that in another decade, they could be reunited.

Now, the prophetic reunion had occurred. After this, there was no cosmic destiny to come back together outside of Richie's belief. He could be wrong. This could be the last time they were ever in the same place at the same time. He had to make it count.

Bev's recollections of her vision in the Deadlights confirmed their positions. Eddie stayed, so Richie stayed too.