.: Friday I'm In Love :|: Reddie :.

The Third Person

Bill Denbrough had not been expecting two important people to go missing in the short span of one month. In fact, he hadn't ever anticipated anyone important going missing, ever.

That's why it was so horrifying when the third person went missing.

He had been staying at Stan's place ever since Georgie went missing. Stan had been amazing through all of this, truly. He had always stuck with Bill through thick and thin. Sometimes it felt like they had been through something important together, all seven of them, but they were only 17 and had only been friends all together since the age of 11. They were going on 6 years of friendship.

Of course, there were the people who were closer than they were with others in the group. Bill and Stan were an example of that, for they never went somewhere without the other. But they were dating, so it was only expected behavior. Ben and Bev had been inseparable ever since they got together. Mike liked to hang out with Stan and Ben mostly, which meant he was almost always with Bev and Bill, too.

Then there were Richie and Eddie.

Of course, Richie and Bev were best friends. They smoked together, they drank together, they did all that jazz. But Richie and Eddie were different, and none of the losers knew what to call their relationship.

Sometimes they would walk in on the two screaming their heads off at each other, then five minutes later they would be back to normal, just the usual snippity comments at each other. That was on rare occasion, and only once had they ever actually had a real fight. That was when Eddie first found out Richie had been smoking weed. The boy had been more terrified than angry and it just came out in yells. Even Richie had started crying during that one. Stoic Richie, Richie the jokester, Richie, the trashmouth who laughed at everything and cried at nothing had cried when Eddie found out he was smoking pot.

He hadn't started crying, if Bill remembered correctly, until Eddie did. Whenever Eddie started crying, Richie totally lost his shit. He was going to give hell to whoever caused it. That time it had been he who caused it, so Richie naturally had no idea what to do with himself but cry as well. Then they hugged it out, and it was all okay for the most part.

Eddie must have cried that night. The night when he lost his backpack. That's why Richie went back. It's why he was missing. Bill couldn't stand it, couldn't stand the fact that he knew why Richie got so upset when someone made Eddie cry and yet Richie himself couldn't even figure it out. The two were closer than anyone he had ever seen and it was obvious they cared about each other more than they even cared about their family.

"Just shut up and kiss already!" Bev had shouted once when they started talking in the middle of a movie. "Then you'll have a reason to stop talking!" Eddie had stared at her with a reddening face and shock written all over it. Richie had laughed, but it sounded a little forced. Bill hadn't missed the warning look he gave Bev, and Stan had confirmed that he wasn't imagining it. Richie had definitely shifted a little closer to Eddie, and by the end of the movie, all the losers could see them snuggled up on the end of the couch. Richie's arm was draped gently over a sleeping Eddie, who had settled his head under Richie's chin.

Bill knew there was something there. Eddie hadn't seemed to have come to terms with it either, but what confirmed it for the stuttering boy was how utterly torn up Eddie was in the weeks after his beloved Richie went missing. The little boy with asthma who flipped his shit when Richie admitted to his drug use was now using the very same weed he had been upset was in his partner's pocket in the first place. He put on one of Richie's sweatshirts and burrowed himself in Richie's room.

Then one night he went looking for Richie and he didn't come back, thus marking Eddie Kaspbrak as the third important person who went missing that summer.