Reddie oneshots

I Thought You Only Liked Me For My Pocket Worms

Ao3:Softhargrove

Richie sighs, looking at the text from Bev again. It's an invite to a dinner party at her apartment Saturday evening. The parties are nothing new, and neither is Richie's growing irritation with her other usual guests.

All Richie had ever wanted when he was younger was to have all eyes on him. An attention whore from the day he was born. Every stupid comment or outlandish outfit was practice for future spent planted firmly in the spotlight.

And he got his wish. A stand-up career, his popularity skyrocketing two years ago with a critically acclaimed Netflix special where he'd come out, to the shock of the audience and his fans, and everything that came with suddenly being a household name.

Appearances on every talk-show known to man, podcasts and YouTube shows followed, his appearance on Hot Ones, where he'd managed to make Sean Evans laugh so hard that he snorted water out his nose, was one of the most watched episodes that season.

There's been minimal backlash to his coming out, quite the opposite, actually. He's become something of a queer icon, something he never thought he'd be able to say as a gangly, pimply teenager in oversized thrift store Hawaiian shirts or a struggling comic telling lame dick jokes and griping about his made-up long-term girlfriend Julie, on stage in his 20s.

He got invited to the hottest parties and clubs, and won an Emmy for his special, which led to a gig hosting SNL, a lifelong dream of his. The audience clapping as he ran around playing character after character pumped him up and should have given him a high like nothing else, but the truth is, all the awards, tv appearances, free drinks and dinners all felt a little empty without anyone to share it all with.

Sure, he has people to hang out with. Lots of them. Now more than ever, he always has someone to call if he wants to go out and get drunk or eat a good meal. Whether he's in LA or Chicago or New York, all he has to do was pick up the phone and he'll no longer be alone.

But these people make themselves immediately available because he's Richie Tozier, famous stand-up comedian, the funny guy who's always ready with a joke or a story about what Jimmy Fallon's really like (spoiler alert, he's a jackass with a laugh as fake as the day is long). They hang out with him because he entertains them.

They don't care about Richie himself. They don't care about the guys that ghost him after some great text flirting and what seems to be an awesome first date, leaving him wondering what went wrong.

They don't want to hear about back pain or heartburn or the troubling number of grey hairs he's finding on his head, and they certainly didn't want to help him decide if he should dye it.

No one wants to think about the fact that he's struggling with writing a follow up to that massively popular stand up special, to the point where it's keeping him up at night, long hours filled with fears of never living up to his new reputation. It's left him in the longest depressive slump he's been in in a long time, and he's starting to get worried he'll never climb his way out of it.

Seeing as Bev's one of the hottest fashion designers in the world, these are the kind of people that tend to fill the seats at Bev's legendary dinner parties. Superstars from the worlds of fashion, movies and tv, politics and sports congregate to talk and eat delicious catered food and pat each other on the back for being so wonderful and talented.

***

Eddie watches, brow furrowed, as the stylish red head, who's name he recently learnt was Bev, walks out of the elevator to her apartment door. He stares for so long that the elevator doors start to close on him, and he almost drops the bag of produce in his arms trying to press the button that will open them back up.