#reddieau

((So I know in the last post I made it seem like all 7 losers all lived and killed Pennywise but I changed that in this one))

And then Stan sees Eddie die.  Physically sees him become a ghost.  And Eddie’s so shocked to see Stan that he doesn’t know whether to hit him or hug him.  Deciding he might just fall through his friend if he tries either, he just cries.  And that’s when he realises that hugs are fine, because Stan is hugging him and apologising endlessly while he attempts to explain.  And then, just as the sewers start to come crashing down Eddie realises Stan is fading, fast.  

“Unfinished business,” Ghost!Stan tells him, “you have unfinished business!” and Eddie feels a phantom (literally) asthma attack coming on because what unfinished business could he possibly have - Pennywise is dead.  

Unsure of what else to do Eddie finds himself back at the townhouse, the remaining living losers preparing to leave.  He’s found it too painful to watch them these last few days.  He hears one of them sobbing most nights though he can’t tell who and can’t bring himself to check.  

The first loser to leave is Richie.  The guy looks a wreck as he slips a note onto the checkout desk and heads out to his car.  In fact he looks such a mess that Eddie’s instinct is to follow him.  He gets into Richie’s car and fully expects him to drive to the airport.  But he doesn’t.  He stops just before the city limits.  Gets out some place Eddie recognises: the Kissing Bridge.  

Eddie stays sitting in the car while Richie seems to be recarving something in the wood.  Curiosity getting the best of him, though, he gets out to take a look.  R+E and right then his heart breaks.  If only he had told Richie when he had the chance.  

Unfinished business. Richie’s getting up to leave but Eddie understands now what he needs to show him.  A carving he did himself 27 years ago, just a little further up the bridge.  

He’s talking to Richie, talking to him as if he can hear him, telling him where to look, eventually turning to yelling at him-

***

Richie couldn’t tell you why, but he felt compelled to turn around.  To take one last look at the bridge that connected the hell that was Derry to the rest of the world.  And as he took that last look, his eyes caught on something that made his heart stop.  There, amongst everything else scratched into the bridge was E+R.  

Don’t be stupid, he told himself, there are hundreds of people that could be about.  He shook the idea off and turned back to his car.  And then, something he’d never forget for as long as he lived.

He could have sworn he saw Eddie, leaning against the side of Richie’s own car, smiling at him, though he seemed almost transparent and was gone so quickly Richie barely had time to catch the words.  

“...and they had returned to the Derry townhouse, bleary-eyed and soaked but alive - some of them - and together, until bill had murmured something about handling something at home and richie, without knowing, knows that bill’s ring has been fitting loose on him every since he saw mike again. then bev and ben make excuses about leaving, talk about calling and texting - email, ben even throws out like he is the thousand-year-old entity they killed instead - but they are gone and he knows it. mike disappeared faster than anyone he’s ever seen. richie tozier curls his worthless, blood-soaked body into eddie kaspbrak’s townhouse bed and wonders, am i allowed to keep his things?”

“...bev and ben get married. mike moves to england and they all pretend it doesn’t coincide with bill’s divorce. richie grieves for a boy he never knows loved him.” 

This is my first post actually acknowledging that Eddie is dead and it makes me want to cry a lot and I already have:

Every day Richie writes letters “to Eddie” but as a diary entry type thing. Ex;

“Dear Eds,

Today was my first comedy show without you. It hurts a lot knowing that you’re not gonna hear about it. Not even in the news or on tv or anything. I still think about you constantly and it still hasn’t fully sunk in yet that there isn’t a seat saved for you at my show. I know you’re in a better place but the only place I want you to be is here with me. I love you eds”

“Dear Eds,

Today was the day of your funeral. All the losers were there. All your family and friends.. gathered there to bury an empty casket.. the speeches were beautiful and as much as I hate to admit it, I did cry to myself a little. I had to rush to the bathroom cause I just couldn’t take it. Seeing that memorial picture of you and seeing everyone stand up and speak... it was all too much. Sometimes when someone dies...it doesn’t fully set in until you reach that church or gravestone and you realise....the only way it can ever feel like I’m genuinely talking to you is if I sit next to a stationary slab of stone and just talk my life away”