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clean-bands-dirty-stories · 6 years ago

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Wait... WHAT? (Richie)(part 2)

A/n: Here's some x Richie lmao sorry

Warnings: Same pairings, but things are shifting in this story. Cursing, homelessness, It, angst, the usual

Writer: Pidge

Bev had begun to drag me everywhere with the Losers. I guess we were Losers now too. I always felt separate from them, even though Bev's constant pushing me and Stan together worked only to create some sort of acquaintanceship between us.

"How long are you going to drag this out?" Stan asked me as we walked, drifting behind the others.

I sighed. He asked this often, but as time passed, I could see definite chemistry between Bev and Bill and I just felt that I couldn't butt my head in. "You know why I'm not saying anything, Stan."

Our usual duo was interrupted by Richie sidling up next to me. "What's up, Hot stuff?"

I snorted. "Nothing that involves you, Trashmouth."

Richie wiggled his eyebrows. "Does it involve Stan?" He leaned close, draping his arm around my shoulders.

Pulling away, I rolled my eyes. "Not Stan either."

No matter how hard I tried, he kept up conversation without problem as we walked, talking about the Quarry and school and Eddie's mom. I found myself easing around him. His jokes always got me to laugh and his presence was easy to get used to. At some point he put his arm around my shoulders again but I let it stay this time.

This whole time I'd been so focused on losing Bev to the Losers and losing Bill to Bev that I hadn't really reached out to the other Losers. I mean, yeah, Stan and I talked but that's because Bev kept shoving us together. I'd even meant to make friends with Ben and bond over losing Ben and Bev to each other. If just never gotten the courage or the right moment to approach any of the others. Richie had some sort of magic or initiative or mix of both, though, because he found endless openings to suddenly approach me and start talking. He had popped up here and there, joking and talking to whoever would listen- which was usually me. The others seemed to listen to him fairly often but in those moments when he'd exhausted all of them he would come and talk to me.

He was easy to talk to and be around. There was no awkward silence I felt obliged to fill or probing questions I wanted to avoid. There was no hesitation or straint or anxiety. It was just him talking, leaving the spaces for me to respond in such a way that he was basically telling me what to say back to him. No conversation was boring or lulled and even though I relied heavily on him to carry it, he didn't mind. In fact he was quite happy that I just sat and listened to him without losing attention, more easily than either of us thought I would be able to as he talked and bounced around and then ended in the complete opposite direction of where he started going.

Recently he'd started flirting more and it got me to laugh if nothing else. It was only too easy to fall into step with him and tell him everything.

For the first time since we'd begin talking, though, he seemed to sense that my subconscious had something to say because as one second stretch to two and we kept taking or in syncronized steps, I found myself mindlessly beginning, "I just don't be-" My words cut off, eyes widening. Richie was the closest of the Loser to actually being friends with me. Stan and I were acquaintances for sure, but I was thiking he was more intrigued by me than actually wanting to be friends.

Richie tilted his head. "I mean, we’re the group of those that don’t belong." I blushed, feeling exposed and vulnerable without being prepared. "I think that’s the biggest thing we have in common. We don’t belong anywhere else. We make it work somewhere else and friendships form but that’s how it starts." He shrugged, his grin sudden;y coming back. "We all know that I’m a Loser just because no one can deal with my size."

For a second my eyes had searched his face, surprised by the love for his friends and the thoughtfulness he was showing. But the last comment ruined it and I snorted, rolling my eyes. "Yeah Rich I don’t know what else it would be,” I stated sarcastically.

"Guys keep up!" Eddie called. I wa sure if he was irritated or worried. We were in the middle of the woods and Richie and I had fallen really far behind. Either way, I lengthened my steps, catching Richie’s hand to pull him after me when it dropped from my shoulders.

Once we had caught up, I dropped it without much thought. My eyes were caught by Bill, but not for the same reasons as usual. Right now, to my horror, I was watching him sift through the little nook under the Kissing Bridge (distracted by Richie, I hadn’t at all realized where we were in the woods. We’d just planned on meandering around lazily on this Saturday that didn’t hold anything to do that we weren’t bored of doing.).

My heart began racing, seeming to grow in size as it pressed painfully against my ribs, rising into my throat and choking me.

"I wonder who lives here," Beverly mused, Pitt and sadness in her face.

Eddie shuddered. "No one sanitary. Look at how disgusting it is. Do you know how many diseases we could catch just standing here..." he shuddered again and I flinched, feeling shame fill me to he brim, triggering my anxiety.

“They must feel so alone,” Beverly mused quietly as she moved to Bill’s side. Her face drooped, her eyes wide and sad. “Being out here in the cold every night. Alone, in the dark... It doesn’t look very comfortable.”

Sta tilted his head. “It’s weird to think someone lives here. Ferry’s a small town and people come to the bride all the time. Wouldn’t someone have seen or heard someone?”

“Maybe th-they aren’t always- aren’t always here,” Bill offered. “Like in the day- the day time too, you know?”

“Well if they’re busy in the day and gone at night, when they hell do they come back here and sleep?” Mike asked, crossing his arms.

Ben shuffled. “Guys maybe we should leave. They could be back any moment and the sun’s gonna be going down soon. This is where someone lives. It’s like walking into someone’s house and poking around.”

Bev’s gasp caught everyone’s attention. “She’s a girl.” She held up a tattered, faded box held together desperate with duck tape, holding my extra clothes all neatly folded and my cleaning supplies. She then put it down, running a hand through her hair. “Looks to be our age, too.”

“Guys I think Ben’s right,” I rushed, feeling my panic start to overwhelm me as I shoved my hands behind my back to hide their shaking. “These are someone’s things. We shouldn’t be poking around in it.”

The Losers frowned but nodded, Eddie, Ben, and Stan leading the group eagerly as they wanted to get away. Bill and Bev lingered as I met with Richie and Mike, following after the three in front of the group. “Come on, guys, no underwear is worth poking through that long,” Richie drawled, making Bev and Ben both blush and come join the others as Beverly shot her middle finger in Richie’s direction.

It occurred to me then that Richie, despite his reputation, had stayed quiet the whole time. He hadn’t made any jokes or rattled off any insults or innuendos. He’d been completely quiet for the first time since I’d known him, choosing to pull his friends away from the scene instead of investigating it for humor material like he did everything else.

Maybe there was more to Richie Tozier than I gave him credit for...

As Ben had predicted, the sun began to sink dangerously low. We all made our way back to the piles of bikes we’d left at the bridge, which is why we’d headed back in this direction. Our walking adventures were over and everyone was turning in for the night. Goodbyes were exchanged and I drove Beverly home.

Hopping down, she caught my wrist before I could take off. Our eyes met and I recognized the same sadness and concern the young woman had shown while under the bridge, looking at my little makeshift house. “Y/n, I can’t bare thinking about someone living like that. Someone our age. I bet they go to our school, have friends they hang out with just like us.”

Trying to keep myself calm, I sighed. “It’s probably one of the dickwads that push us around. It would explain why they’re either bored or insecure enough to be so mercilessly brutal to other people.” Bev’s face didn’t change so I continued. “Or worse, it’s one of the kids that sit back and watch or bow their heads and pretend nothing is happening. The ones who do nothing and pretend that that’s okay. That doing nothing somehow doesn’t make them just as guilty.”

Bev sighed, the sound even heavier than mine had been. “They’re still a child though. We’re all still just kids. Stupid kids doing stupid things in situations none of us should have to deal with. The kind of trauma someone would endure, living on their own at this age. And why did they leave? We’re they abused? Kicked out?” Her eyes grew watery. “Raped?” I flinched. She’d hit too close to home with both of us.

“You’ve never said it out loud before,” I whispered.

She cleared her throat, never one to show weakness for long if at all. “Help me figure out who it is?” She asked quietly. “So we might be able to at least make another friend? Give them something? Anything?”

I almost told her right then and there. Almost let it all come out and broke down and was vulnerable and open. Almost told her about my parents and fears and the cold and loneliness and how everyone seemed so far away and how sometimes weeks would pass and it would feel like hours, causing weeks and months and years to blend together into one mass of general events with no time line. I almost told her about how much it hurt me to see her with the Losers when I felt no part of them. How much it hurt to see her with Bill when all I’ve ever wanted in this shitty life of mine was to feel his arms around me and his lips on mine. See him draw me. Hear him say my name differently than he said everyone else’s...

Almost.

But I didn’t.

“Yeah sure Bev.”

She smiled. “Thank you, Y/n.”

“No problem. Goodnight.” She returned my words and then turned away, her shoulders sagging and the life draining away from her as usual as she approached her house, the dread taking place over the strength and bravery she had anywhere and everywhere else.

How did she think she could help me? She couldn’t even help herself. It was better that I kept my mouth shut- the Losers had their own problems to worry about without me adding mine to the pile.

I biked back to the Kissing Bridge the exact way I had just come from the get to Bev’s house. I was exhausted and it was completely dark, the cold seeping into my skin and musicle straight into my bones. My back hurt with how tense my body was. I dropped my bike in the same spot I had picked it up from not too much earlier, taking an extra precaution to cover it with branches and leaves and general foliage unlike I had done when I had been with the Losers. And then I moved around to the bottom of the hill, maneuvering between trees and undergrowth to the bottom of the bridge where I settled in my bed without changing my clothes, pulling my blankets around me.

Unfortunately for me, this seemed to be one of the nights that sleep didn;t overtake me. I thought my exhaustion from all the biking and walking would overtake me the second I was laying down but nope. I wasn’t so lucky as to have that pleasure. INstead, I started crying. I started crying and crying until my eyes could only see black and dark blue blobs of the nighttime colored world around me. My soft sobs - I had long since learned how to cry silently but I was slipping on the control factor tonight and the sounds made me feel even worse - exchoed against the underside of the bridge, like lighter in an empty house.

Except I was crying. And all this echoe did was remind me how empty I was inside and how lonely I truly was.

There was a sudden, loud POP that made me jump and stopping my crying instantly. I sat up, raising my arm to wipe my tears so my vision would be cleared and I could see what was going on. When I lowered my arms, though, I screamed and scrambled back. There was, for just a second, a pair of glittering golden eyes inches from my own. When I was far enough back, though, they had turned into Beverly’s green eyes as she stood up straighter.

“Bev?” I whispered, shaking already as I realized that she had seen me here, at night, all alone, sleeping in this dingy little nook.

Her face wasn’t full of pity as it was before though. It was full of anger. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Something was off. She looked like herself, but she stood without any... life. She looked at me with nothing behind her eyes, her body sagging despite her animated facial expression in a way it only did when she was absolutely exhausted. She always stood up as straight as was comfortable, making herself bigger and as strong and intimidating as possible. “What you don’t trust me?” She sneered, sounding more like Greta from school than the bets friend I knew and loved. “You were just going to let me worry and wonder, weren’t you?” She scoffed. “You’re a terrible friend. I’m glad I have the Losers. They’re so much better than you.”

My heart began to ache as I sat there, eyes wide and lips in a soft ‘o’ as I tried to process. “Wh-what?”

“Now you sound like me.” I jumped as Bill walked into view, crossing his arms over his chest and standing beside Beverly. Except this Bill was different too. He stood straight, his eyes the same empty and dead as Bev’s, his face twisted with the same anger as well.

Bev smiled when Bill came up, but it was more creepy than genuine. “Hey Bill,” she mewed in a way that made me shiver in disgust. And then she leaned over and they kissed and my insides twisted.

They only parted when Stan and Richie came from the same direction Bill had. He looked ore disgusted than angry as he called to the two, catching their attention. I looked at the curly haired, tall boy for comfort - which surprised me - but there was none to be found. She scoffed, taking a step away. “It’s time to go,” Stan sneered. “I don’t want to be here anymore. It’s disgusting.” And for a moment, even though he said ‘it’ and not ‘her’, I wondered if he was talking about me and not the location we were at.

My eyes fell to Richie, but the boy was silent. He wouldn’t look at me and a sense of dread sunk into my soul, replacing the cold and heartbreak of Bev’s harsh words and Bill’s rejection and Stan’s insults. There was something about Richie not even giving me recognition or time or attention. Something about his lack of acknowledging my existence with a look, let alone dropping a dirty joke or a snide remark or an innuendo to make me laugh or blush. There wa something about his silence that sit me so hard and deep I started crying again. I sat there, raw and exposed, as the only four people who could hurt me (more than I thought could, it here we are) left me to my own devices.

To my own surprise, I scrambled to my feet. “Richie?” I croaked. He paused, the others already gone somewhere in the woods. He paused, but he didn’t look at me. “Richi?” I whispered. He had to look at me. I just needed him to look at me. “Richie please? Please don’t leave.”

And, before my eyes, Richie turned to me. But I blinked and when his eyes found mine, he wasn’t Richie anymore. He was my father. My throat closed and I froze, eyes wide in horror. “Leave,” he growled. “Leave... and never come back. You ungrateful, stupid little shit.” The exact words he had told me the night I’d run away. Except he wasn’t drunk or swaying. He met me with even eyes. “LEAVE!” I stumbled back, slamming my back into the wall of the bridge. He growled and began to run at me and I screamed, turning my head and pressing as for into the wall as I could, too perizlized by fear to even think about escaping.

Silent stretched. Pain didn’t come. Nothing did. I opened my eyes, looking around, and my eyes landed on a single red balloon. It floated in one place for a few beats and then moved up, crossing towards the bridge and out of sight.

I didn’t move for a long time but once I did, I numbly moved back to my bed and lay down, pulling my covers over my shoulders. My eyes remained wide with panic, my heart never slowing and my body never ceasing its shaking.

At some point I fell into a half sleep daze, my eyes closed and my ody relaxed but my mind still screaming, the image of Bill and Beverly making out and the balloon hovering and my father, come back, running at me at full speed, and their eyes too vivid and horrifying to truly settle.

Their eyes. All of their eyes. Richie. Bill. Beverly. Stan. Even my father. Empty and blank. Lifeless.

#bill denbrough #richie tozier #It #2018 #jaeden lieberher #finn wolfhard #imagine #imagines #x reader #fluff #angst #lots of angst #I usually don’t converse in my tags but guys there is so much angst #at least I think there is #amyway good luck

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