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Bearable | A Reddie Fanfiction

Read it from the beginning

Chapter 7

"E-Eddie?" Bill's voice, loud and clear, echoed throughout the apartment just loud enough to be heard over the sounds from Eddie's Walkman, "Wuh-wanna come with me down to the p-puh-park?" Hastily, Eddie pulled his headphones from their place atop his head, leaning up on one elbow. His limps felt heavy, his eyes bleary with semi-sleep, a fog shrouding his brain. He was lying in bed, having never gotten out of it since he woke that morning- it was a Friday today, and his Fridays were always void of classes, so instead of getting up and starting his day with Stan and Bill at 7:00 am he had stayed in bed until, well, now- it was just past 5:00.

"Shit," Eddie hissed to himself, clicking 'pause' on his Walkman and setting both it and his headphones aside. He really hadn't meant to stay in bed so late. He hadn't eaten anything yet today, and silently cursed himself for it. He was afraid that he was developing a habit of missing meals; without his mother here to tell him what to do as she used to, he was forgetting all sorts of things. Sonia had been the very best at keeping Eddie on a set schedule, fitting meal times perfectly in between his medication times and getting him out of bed at 6:30 am sharp every morning, even weekends and holidays (which he had hated, but understood). Not having her here was strange- other than food, Eddie found himself forgetting to shower and do his laundry, too. He wouldn't have a single clean outfit if it weren't for his roommates.

"Eddie?" This time it was Stan who called, his voice just on the outside of Eddie's door, snapping him from his thoughts, "Are you dead in there or something?" With three knocks, Eddie called out 'come in!' and the door slipped open. At once, Stan frowned, already knowing that, so far, Eddie had spent his whole day in the same spot and had yet to do anything productive. One could tell by Eddie's disheveled hair and lack of shirt alone. "I'm making you something to eat and then you're coming down to the park with us," He said, his tone flat, leaving no room for argument. With a quick glance over his shoulder (towards where others were most likely waiting) Stan pushed into the room and shut the door behind him, "Come on, what do you want to wear?" As Stanley crossed the room to stop in front of the dresser, Eddie pushed his blankets aside. He felt a little weak, a little dizzy- most likely from the lack of nutrients- and silently cursed himself for losing track of time to such a degree yet again- he wondered how he had done it. With his trashy 12-hour mixtape playing in his ears he must have fallen into some sort of daze.

"Anything's fine," He shrugged, wiping at his eyes with the heels of his hands and then moving to stand at Stan's side so he could dig around his drawers on his own, "How'd your day go?" Stan was passing Eddie subtle, rapid glances, ones that clearly weren't meant to be noticed but were noticed anyways. You didn't have to be a genius to see that Stanley was nervous for Eddie, either his physical or his mental health- both of which were in decent enough places, by the way- and that he was probably desperate to go into some sort of mother mode. Instead of beginning to pester and maybe scold, he replied in a cool, collected voice,

"It was nice. Ben, Beverly and Richie caught me while leaving school," Stan's last Friday class ended at noon, so Ben, Bev and Richie must get out then as well, "and asked me to come down to the café with them." For a brief moment, almost unnoticeable, Eddie froze, and then forced his limbs to continue looking for suitable clothing.

"Ben, Beverly and Richie?" He asked, trying to keep his tone neutral and uncaring, "Are they here too then?" At once, Stan chuckled, shaking his he ad and bumping his elbow gently into Eddie's.

"No, Ed, Richie isn't here." Eddie gawked, startled as a rapid gone-and-then-gone thought shot through his head (how did you know Stan do you suspect that-), and was about to protest (yes, he had been curious about Bev and Ben too- but Richie had been his main curiosity, though he'd sooner die than admit it) but Stan continued before he could, "He and Bev had to work. Maybe we can stop by after the park. Ben's here, though," With a smile and another chuckle Stanley continued talking about his day. He had ordered a coffee, black, as usual, and chattered away with the three others before Beverly and Richie were swept behind the counter. Then, he and Ben had stuck around for a little while until Mike arrived, and then sooner or later Bill as well. Now, Ben, Bill and Stanley were here to gather up Eddie to go bird watching or sight seeing or whatever you called walking around and listening to Stan point and chatter about grackles or crows. Eddie had reached for a sweatshirt and Stan had rapidly shook his head, noting how hot it was outside today and that Eds would cook alive. Instead, he pulled out a short-sleeve button up tee laden with stripes of different colors, reds, yellows, dark blues and whites, along with dark grey jeans that were rolled up just above his ankles. "There," Stan said with a smile as Eddie finished slipping on a pair of white socks, "You look like you haven't been dead all day now." With careful hands, Stan leaned forwards to try and flatten down the mess of Eddie's hair. The shorter boy tried to flinch away with an exasperated groan, but gave in after a moment of fighting and let himself be pestered over. A small, tiny little part of him noted how nice it was to have Stan caring for him like this, how similar it was to the way his mother used to, but he pushed that thought away because he did not want to compare his mother to Stan.

"Thanks, idiot," Eddie grumbled after his hair was finally regulated, bashful and red in the face. The two boys, side by side, caught each other's eyes through the mirror. Stanley smiled, and one hand raised to rest on Eddie's shoulder.

"'Course, Eddie. Come on," He flicked his head, motioning for Eddie to follow, "Let's find you something to eat."

*****

Eddie had been greeted warmly by Ben and Bill, and then promptly fed leftover chicken caesar salad and the tallest glass of water he'd ever had. After he finished his food, a little embarrassed because Stan had been watching him like a hawk to make sure he ate every last bite, the group had left the apartment complex and made towards Back Cove Park, where they now walked side-by-side-by-side-by-side. Truth be told, the endless expanse that was the North Atlantic ocean was breathtaking, and the setting sun lit the rippling waves aflame. Though Back Cove Park was nothing like the Barrens, the footpaths did lead you towards a copse of trees about half the size of the jungle that was back in Derry. It was really nothing in comparison, but with the sound of the waves crashing against the shore no more than 100 feet away from the tree line, you could almost imagine that it was.

"You're going to break something Bill!" Eddie had his hands planted on his hips, face upturned to watch as Bill scaled a spindly pine tree, it's branches spiraling up and up and up and getting thinner with each, "You know the branches get weaker in the fall and winter, right? They could snap out from right under you and you wouldn't even be able to do anything!" Despite Eddie's worrying, Bill continued upwards with a haste that was almost inhuman- he was like a goddamn monkey for Christ's sake, taking his steps two branches at a time and giggling like a child each time something creaked underneath him. At last unable to continue watching (his anxiety was mounting steadily) Eddie spun on his heel and trekked away through the underbrush. Dried leaves crunched underfoot with each step thanks to the soft mulch covering the forest floor, and, if anything, that reminded him of the Barrens the most. In the fall the tangle of bushes and trees would turn orange and red, and then a deep brown, shedding their foliage and creating some sort of crackling sheet not unlike like some musical instrument. Stan and Ben were stood beside one another looking over a wide clearing and chattering about something Eddie couldn't quite piece together.

"But that raises another question," Stan mumbled, tapping his chin with one finger, "How would we get it down here? We don't have a car, and I guess we could bring it all down by hand but that would take a while," Ben straightened up, snapping his fingers as a grin split his face.

"I've got it! Mike's grandpa works at a farm, and I know he's got these big ATVs- Gators, I think they're called. I'm sure he wouldn't mind lending 'em to us for a day or two."

"Lending who what now?" Eddie stepped up on Ben's other side, his curiosity piqued. He glanced over the space before him where the trees thinned out for a good 50 feet and then grew dense once more. The break in the trees let slanted sunrays pass by to bathe the clearing in a golden glow.

"Eddie, perfect!" Ben turned to him with that same beaming smile, "What do you think-" He held out his hands, as if presenting a large project, a masterpiece he was very very proud of, "A clubhouse. No, wait- does that sound, like, lame? I... I don't know, but I've been eyeing this place for a while and I think it would be great to build in. Me and Stanley were talking about digging into the ground and making a sort of... underground hideaway so no, like, park rangers come by and report it. We could have a hidden trapdoor and everything. No one would even know it was there if we got it built fast enough!" Eddie took a brief moment to process, both Ben and Stan staring at him expectantly. Ben's words had come out in such a rush they put Eddie's chatter to shame, and despite his thoughts constantly racing a mile a minute he couldn't seem to comprehend what had been said. Slowly, he pieced together this plan, and then, his mouth dropped open as he fought to find the right words to express his outrage.

"Are you insane? Building a clubhouse in the ground?" A hand raised to pinch at the bridge of his nose, a sigh pressing out of his lungs, "With all the bugs and mold and fungus and shit? It's not safe to be digging around in that! And how would we even make it? As if we know anything about building a whole-ass clubhouse!" Stan's own smile overtook his face and he took a few steps closer.

"That's the thing! The cold will kill all of that gross stuff, and make the ground easy to dig without us getting all caked in mud! Before the snow falls we can have it built and winterized! We'll make it watertight, too! Ben knows how to do all of that!" The way both boys were smiling was reminiscent of two children who had just requested a puppy for Christmas- they were hopeful, pleading, almost- if Eddie said yes to this silly little idea then it would be decided. With Eddie's approval, Bill would think the idea as totally safe, and if Bill agreed then everyone else would too. If they could get Eddie to agree with them, then convincing the others would be easy. "Ben's in architecture, Eddie. He knows all about safety and building- he'll make sure everything goes okay." With a heaving sigh, Eddie let his shoulders sag, a frown on his face. He was reluctant to let this happen, but... well, if he supervised everyone to make sure no one did anything stupid then maybe it would be kind of cool. Maybe. And, if Ben really was in the architecture classes then he must know what he's doing.

"Fine," Two fists pumped into the air and a cheer rang out, "But, if anyone gets hurt, even once, I'm shutting it all down! I'm not letting you all get tetanus or aids from rusty nails and shit like that, okay?"

"We won't, don't worry! Come on," Ben punched Stan gently in the shoulder, "Let's go find Bill." At once, the two sped away, into the trees and in the direction of Bill. Following the crashing and crunching of fallen branches and leaves were their voices, loud and clear in the still, Autumn air, shouting up their crazy idea to Bill who must still be perched in the pine tree much like a bird Stan might find interesting and document in his bird book. With another heavy breath, Eddie turned back to the clearing, and really absorbed the details of the small place he was standing in. He missed the Barrens- the sad attempts at building dams, and even an attempt at building treehouse had been massive failures but they had still been lots of fun. Here in the small forest of Back Cove Park there was no bone-like bamboo to rattle eerily in the wind, calling silent warnings of fictional quick mud and tigers and creating the perfect environment to play jungle hunters. Here, there were no sewer drains spilling greywater into the Kenduskeag, which tumbled endlessly through the woods without restraint. Here, there were no paths trodden by children's feet, no trails flattened by generations and generations of walking and running and sneaking during a game of guns- but maybe, Eddie thinks, that will be okay. A clubhouse. A probably illegal underground clubhouse. It would give Eddie a new place to be, to spend his time. It will be a reason to return to these forests and to create new paths with new people, and maybe those paths will help them all one day just like the familiar ones back in Derry would have carried you away from the wrath of Henry Bowers. As Stan and Ben continued shouting their plan skywards, Eddie let the idea of a clubhouse grow on him just a tiny bit. A bud of excitement, even happiness, settled in the pit of his heart. It was warm and comforting, and he held to it tightly. Maybe this really was a good idea.

*****

By now the sun had set and cast the world into darkness. Though Eddie couldn't read his watch with the lack of light, he had to assume it was at least 9:00 pm and he was still in the forest with his friends; Bill, Ben, Stan and he had cleared some of the leaves from the clearing to expose the tough grass underneath, then Ben had found and rolled the smoothest stones he could find into the place to use as makeshift chairs. Now, the four were sat facing one another, a single flashlight in Bill's hand pointed upwards and casting an ominous too-white light over their faces that dragged shadows underneath their eyes and gave them the appearances of ghosts.

"Wait really? Like, full-on OCD? Not just... being a perfectionist or something? I know a lot of people say they have OCD when they actually don't," Ben was leaned forwards with his elbows on his knees, his steady gaze trained on Stan's who, in turn, had his hands clasped tidily in his lap.

"Yeah," He nodded, his curly hair a mess of bright browns and stark blacks thanks to the lighting, "If that's how you want to put it. I'm taking medication for it and stuff." Stan looked as if he were about to continue when Eddie cut in with a smile on his face,

"I remember one time Stan had come over to my house and I went to the bathroom for like- not even five fucking minutes. I left him in the kitchen and when I came out- oh my God," Eddie was already trying not to laugh, biting at his bottom lip to hold in the string of giggles that threatened to escape him, "He had organized everything. In five minutes! All the slats on my blinds had been straightened, all the dishes had been stacked big to small- the dishes!" Amusement grew in his chest, and he let it out in a sound one might imagine a coked-up chipmunk to make. He raised one hand to let it hover over his mouth, his eyes squinting, "I walked- I walked into the kitchen and caught him turning all my cans to face the front of the shelf!" Bill had cracked his own smile, a wide and toothy grin, and soon Ben had picked it up as well. Eddie wasn't certain why this was suddenly so funny. After being in bed all day his energy had shot through the roof. His laughter only grew and grew as he went on foretelling his story, his eyes beginning to glisten and his chest threatening to hurt. He didn't have his inhaler, but the slight concern he felt at that thought was quickly smothered by another wave of cackling, "I- I-I went hey! and he spun on his heel, his face all red- it- it was-" Eddie squeezed his eyes shut, his face hurting with his mirth, "He had a can of- of corn and- when he spun around he tip-" Through gasps for breath, wheezes that left him dizzy, he forced out, "He tipped over everything else on the shelf, too! All his hard work- like dominoes! Oh my God my mom was pissed! Stan was so- he looked like he was gonna die!" At last, Eddie couldn't hold himself together any longer. His amusement was contagious, and throughout the course of the story Bill and Ben had grown giddy all the same. Now, the three were howling, heads tipped back, rocking back and forth and fighting to get ahold of themselves while Stan on sat bashfully, a grin on his face. Briefly Eddie wondered why this felt so goddamn funny but found he didn't care.

"It was... I felt horrible," Stan had to raise his voice to be heard over the laughter of the three, his face visibly reddening even in the weak light, "Canned foods are expensive, and I didn't have the money to reimburse her or anything!" The howling laughter didn't cease, and, well, Stan decided that maybe this situation was funny enough to let himself laugh. His grin cracked wide and now he was giggling all the same, all flushed and breathless just like anyone else. Eddie was nearing physical pain but wow was that feeling fantastic. A good hard laugh was something rare to him and he always tried to soak in the moment when it arrived. His lungs burned, his head throbbed, and his eyes spat tears down his face. He glanced at Bill through bleary, slotted eyes and then at Stan and then at Ben, who were all laughing just the same, giddy off the feeling of being with one another. That feeling was just like when Eddie was with Stan and Bill, but amplified now that Ben was here too. That feeling was fantastic- That feeling was cut abruptly and Eddie shrieked like a madman as a sudden hand shot around his shoulders- all of a sudden, just like that, he was being pulled backwards into something, into someone- an arm around his throat in a chokehold threatening and dangerous and memories bad memories Henry Bowers and bullies and-

"Ooooooh looks like somebody Got Off A Good One!!" A fist was pressed into the top of his head and the sudden spurt of panic was gone again all at once- that giddy, light, precious hilarity returned and so did Eddie's grin as Richie trapped him in his arm and gave him a harsh noogie. It burned and Eddie didn't care as Richie continued off with that stupid MovieTone Newsreel Announcer voice, "Yowza, Eds, just YOW-za! You've got the stuff, kid, you've got the stuff for live theater! Sign right here on this dotted line and I'll get you on a stage! You'll make it big I know you will-!"

"Get off, Richie!! Beep fucking beep!" Eddie was giggling again, clawing at Richie's arms as tears streamed from his eyes, "Let me- Let me go!" He kicked and thrashed, writhing as a chorus of laughter continued on bright and bouncing. Somehow Eddie managed to wriggle free like a fish, and then he was rocketing up and bursting into a run as Richie reached to trap him again. He leaped from his seat on the rock, smiling from ear to ear- just as he had gained his freedom he saw Richie reaching to capture him once more but Eddie wouldn't let that happen. He glanced a single time over his shoulder to see Richie's own warm grin- that split second of time, no more than a heartbeat as Eddie's eyes locked with Richie's in a silent challenge, Eddie saw what was most likely the greatest thing he ever would. Richie's glasses were gently lit by the harsh LED from the flashlight- underneath the stupid coke bottles perched on his nose, Eddie could see the deep brown tone of his eyes and the way his smile pinched them gently in the corners. His teeth were miraculously straight, as if he'd had braces at some point in his life, and his cheeks wore a high flush. Eddie's head snapped forwards again and he set off into the forest, the darkness, hearing Richie's voice echoing behind him.

"I'll git ya Spaghetti! I'll git ya good 'n then I'll wrap y'up like a big 'ole presen', put ya undah my tree!" The New Yorker's accent rang through the trees with an almost surreal undertone, sending a shiver down Eddie's spine. Exhilaration ripped through him, lighting his veins aflame with a shaky happy-fear he didn't quite know how to explain. He was letting out little squeaky sounds, things like giggles of terror but he wasn't scared in the slightest. His chest was swelling with an almost-sick feeling, but it was a good kind of almost-sick. The emotion was confusing but reminded him strongly of childhood and he accepted it with open arms. As he crashed haphazardly through the undergrowth, eyes strained in the darkness, Eddie wasn't concerned in the slightest for what he might be pushing through- poison ivy, thorn bushes- shit, he could walk right over a corpse and he wouldn't be afraid for his health! Though certain he was not being too quiet, Richie was being even louder. Eddie had the upper hand here thanks to his significantly smaller, less gangly, more agile frame and also his ability not to be a big lumbering goofball every second of the day. Wyatt the Homicidal Bag-Boy was gone, and Richie was back in his place with his crooning, teasing, playful voice, "Eddie, my love! Come out come out wherever you are!"

Eddie's stomach did a weird little backflip, probably a symptom of his excitement as he decided that he was far enough away to start searching for a hiding spot. Years and years of hide-and-go-seek experience came flooding back to him, and he bit at his bottom lip to stop from making a single sound. He dropped into a crouch, scanning his surroundings in a flash; the darkness made it difficult to navigate, especially since everything was so unfamiliar as of now, but Eddie could work just fine with the silhouettes of trees and bushes. The beam from the flashlight danced through the trees, bobbing and waving around as Richie blundered closer by the second. Cheater, you shouldn't get a light, Eddie thought and then almost let out a bubble of laughter driven by his own delirium- he reached out a hand and brushed the brittle, hardened leaves of a bush, crawling immediately closer and trapping one between his fingers. Rubbing the surface rapidly, he deducted that it wasn't poison ivy (which had an oily feel, even when the leaves were dried) and used both hands to part the branches and skitter right through. He kept his head low, his shoulders and elbows tucked in with an expertise you could only get form having done this a billion times already. Hiding places like these were Eddie's specialty- this bush was small with tight-packed branches, but he was smaller and could fit just fine, whereas someone lankier like Bill or Stan would not stand a chance.

"Come ooooon Spaghetti-man!" Richie called out in a sing-song voice, only about 100 feet away, "If you don't come out right this instant I might just have to lure you, and trust me, you don't want that! My singing is just i-rre-sis-tible!" Eddie patted around him, finding a smooth, round stone about the size of a golf ball and clutching it tightly. Risking his spot just for a moment, he slid his front half out and pulled his arm back- then, with as much force as possible, he sent the rock flying. If everything had gone according to plan, the rock would have flown far and called Richie's attention away; that would have allowed Eddie to scurry back to the others with a smug smile to wait for the Trashmouth to give up and return to see him sitting proudly. Sadly, everything did not go according to plan, and the stone barely made it 10 feet. Eddie's throwing hand wasn't horrible- he considered himself rather strong for his size- but his vision sure was, and the rock collided with a thin, wiry tree and went clattering into the brittle leaves before making any great distance. At once, the beam of the flashlight went whipping towards the sound, and Eddie felt his heart leap into his throat. That almost-sick feeling went waving through him again as he shot back into the bushes and curled his knees into his chest, slapping a hand over his mouth. Through his mind ran the word shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit but he was grinning like an idiot and trembling lightly with stifled howling. The flashlight clicked off- now, total darkness ruled the world.

"Heeeeeeeeeere Eddie Eddie Eddie!" Richie's voice was like a breath of wind, far-off and terrifying. Eddie balled his hands into fists and bit down on the knuckles of his left, the right one wrapped tight around his knees to hold them as close, as out of sight, as possible, "Why are you hiding from me like this?" That was the last thing Richie said- the silence that followed was stifling. Far off, Eddie could hear the voices of his other friends, Bev's dancing titter was familiar now, as was the powerful tone of Mike's. All seven of them were here in the forest right now. Following that realization was another wave of childish glee, along with a swell of affection that was there and gone in an instant. Who knew Richie could move so silently? Not a single breeze stirred the branches, and not a leaf crunched under the sole of a sneaker. Eddie's own rapid breathing sounded much too loud, and he wouldn't be surprised if the thudding of his heart was as noisy as the beat of a drum. Anticipation, cold, crept up his spine and fed him a sudden alertness. It felt as if the world had brightened for a second, as if his eyes had sharpened and began to see crystal clear just for a blink. The outline of unruly hair, a mass of it, was suddenly discernable from the shape of the nature. Richie's head was bent, half-kneeling, and he was slinking around like a ninja. It was only for a brief moment that Eddie could see him before he was gone again, swallowed by the shadow, but he had been much, much closer than before- Eddie bit into his knuckle a little harder, afraid he would let out a squeak like a mouse.

The quiet seemed endless. Time lost all meaning. If it weren't for those far-off voices, Eddie would have been convinced that time might have frozen entirely. The air was cool and fresh, warmed to a pleasant bite and not the bitter iciness it would have been otherwise thanks to the days sunniness. Through the leaves blocking the sky Eddie could see faint glittering stars, but the pollution from the Portland lights almost smothered them entirely. It was fascinating to him- back in Derry, the stars had been crisp, clear, displaying their constellations with pride. Now, here, it was the polar opposite. Curious. Somewhere an owl hooted and Eddie jumped. Leaves crumbled beneath him- a twig snapped under one heel. He didn't even have time to register that he had made a noise.

"Eddie!!!" Eddie shrieked, a total screech, ear-splitting, blood-curdling, horrific enough to freeze the blood in your veins. Hands plunged through the foliage and then he was being dragged out by the arms, yanked to his feet and then swept right off of them as he was thrown over a shoulder. "Sure an' begorahh! I caught me-self a boyo, an' a foine one at that!"

"Richie! Richie!" Eddie was squealing as a hand wrapped tightly, securely around his waist, and then Richie was spinning, twirling Eddie with him in endless dizzying circles that brought out that bubbling fountain of laughter once more. "Richie no- no, put me down- Richie!!"

"I caught me-self a boyo! A foine, foine boyo!" Richie picked up a tune to his words, some improvised nothing-ness that was too, too funny. He began to dance, prancing around on light feet and rocking Eddie all around as he sang his words. "I caught me-self an Eddie!" Eddie's lungs were hurting again because of his lack of breath, tears rolling down his face in steady streams. Richie was laughing too and the sound of it made Eddie's stomach do it's little backflip yet again. His laughter was hearty, loud, the sound of someone who was entirely happy with life and all of it's wonders. The spinning didn't stop until Richie almost stumbled, stomping down on his shoelace and drawing out another cry from Eddie as he almost went to the ground. "Wooooah! Sorr-ee 'bout tha', Spaghe-i-man, rough rough wa-ers it be!" Richie took on the voice of a sea captain, dragging up the image of an old man with a peg-leg and a pipe hanging from a mouth full of golden teeth. Eddie was laughing only harder.

"Put me down you fucker! Let me- let me go!" Eddie began to pound on his back with his fists, and at last that flashlight clicked on again. The light was blinding after the absence of it, but Eddie couldn't care less. He was on cloud nine.

"Something tells me you wanna stay up there, Eds! Something tells me you- you wanna stay where you can see the whole world!" Richie took one more grand spin, a pirouette that would put a beginner ballerina to shame. It would have been impressive if Eddie hadn't had his eyes screwed shut to stop the flow of tears.

"Fuck you, Tozier! Let me down!" Alas, Tozier didn't comply. Instead, he began to hum the tune of 'Here Comes the Bride' as he took overdramatic, high-kneed steps towards the direction of the others- the hand that isn't wrapped tightly around Eddie's waist moves up to capture his legs, which had begun to kick and had almost knocked him right in the glasses.

"Watch the toes, Eds, you don't want to knock out these pearly whites, do you?"

"That's what I'm fucking going for you jackass!" Eddie brought his elbow back into the back of Richie's head, knocking it forwards with a dull thud and an 'oof!'.

"Oh-ho, you're in for it now, Eds! You asked for it!" And then, Richie began to tickle. Eddie felt his heart stop, and then begin to thud much too quickly. He could handle teasing and carrying and stupid singing but tickling- oh no, he didn't have the breath to deal with that. He was howling again, curling instinctively in on himself as much as he possibly could- which wasn't a lot, since he was tossed over Richie's shoulder and locked into place. Fingers jabbed and poked at his ribs, his sides, and he was in pure hysterics.

"No- No no no Richie Richie stop! Stop it stop it ohmygodRichieRichieRICHIE-" Eddie no longer had any breath. His screaming laughter had halted, now no more than painful wheezes. Tears soaked his face, soaked the back of Richie's shirt, and his cheeks were a bright beaming red. He wanted to scream at Richie to stop, to let him be, to please please spare him but oh my GOD he couldn't take it- Richie's hand pulled away and Eddie sucked in a heaving breath, his chest pulsing with each and every one as the lasts of his laughter forced it's way out. He felt like he was suffocating and for once it wasn't because he didn't have his inhaler.

"There," Richie said, the smug grin basically audible in his voice, "That'll teach you, Eds. No more elbowing!" Just to defy him, Eddie bumped him in the back of the head again- and then instantly regretted it as he felt Richie shift to tickle-attack him again.

"No! No no I'm sorry it was a joke-" Richie's own laughing burst out, and the hand dropped as he nearly doubled over. The tickling hand went to rest on his knee, and now he was the one howling away, that jovial sound echoing around the trees with a dream-like authenticity. It was bliss.

"Oh, Eddie, Christ you're just- you're a hoot!" Richie spoke as best he could through his growing breathlessness, and finally put Eddie down back onto solid ground, though the shorter boys knees wobbled as his own dizziness held strong. The two boys fell apart beside one another, grinning and sobbing and cackling like maniacs, fighting just to stay upright as their contentedness fed off of one another and radiated in warm, yellow rays. Minutes passed, more than 10, before either boy could regather themselves. Surprisingly, Richie was the first to go silent and manage to catch his breath- and then, just as Eddie did the same, the tone shifted, growing warmer yet. Eddie's eyes raised, locking with Richie's own. The Trashmouth wore his toothy smile, his eyes crinkled in the corners, bright as stars behind those coke-bottle glasses. Something heavy settled around them, something Eddie had never felt before and didn't recognize. Richie's head tilted, and the smile fell into something smaller, more serene, and yet almost ten times prettier. "I like the sound of your laugh, Eds." His voice was uncharacteristically sincere, and it took Eddie by surprise. The sudden flat tone was dripping with... affection? He wanted to answer, to say something back like 'Yours is nice too' or 'I like the sound of you shutting up' or anything at all, but before he could piece together a coherent phrase Richie was moving again. "Come on," He grabbed Eddie's hand- no, more like his wrist, and with no intent other than to guide him- and began to head back in the direction of the others, "I'm sure they'll want their light back."

Eddie's face was warm and red, and he had seemed to lose his voice. He felt like he was glowing with a soft light- and he felt like Richie was doing the same. He had never, ever laughed like that before. He had never, ever felt that free and normal and human. There was no voice of Sonia Kaspbrak, no warnings of broken necks or arms or noses, no shouting over bugs and thorns and rashes. For those last minutes, Eddie Kaspbrak had been just that- Eddie Kaspbrak. For once in his life he had not been Eddie Kaspbrak, son of Sonia Kaspbrak. He had just been himself. With Richie's hand around his wrist, dragging him, he wanted nothing more than to relive that moment forever and ever. If he died right now and went to heaven, he was certain that those moments alone with Richie would be what heaven was. The sound of his stupid, goofy laugh, the soft, almost manic dancing of those big, brown eyes, that lanky arm around his waist- that is what heaven was. Eddie found himself wanting to go back in time. The two arrived back with the others.

#reddie #reddie fanfiction #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #bill denbrough #stan uris #stanley uris #ben hanscom #beverly marsh #mike hanlon #the losers club #it #it movie #it chapter 1 #it chapter 2 #it 2017 #it 2019 #it chapter one #it chapter two

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billhaderlovebot · 5 years ago

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beep beep (5) - richie tozier.

@ceruleanrainblues @the-star-above-you @a-second-hand-sorrow @shockwavee @socially-unaccepptable-dameron

the usual sexy stuff and swearing and weed. y'all know the drill.

"i've never been... uh... good at the whole, um, serious thing. but, this is us. this is... our wedding. and i put real effort into this shit. so, get ready, fuckers, because this is a real tearjerker. um, yeah. okay..."

you honestly hadn't trusted richie to write his own vows, but neither of you had wanted them to feel... artificial. you wanted them to be your own. and now he was standing before you, holding your hands in his and tearing up already. big softie.

he had also teared up as you walked down the aisle on wobbly legs, mike on your arm.

"we were... we were owed more time, i think." richie lamented. "we should have done this years ago. i should have married you years ago."

---

richie had known, for a long time, that you were the one he would marry.

it was 1993, and the sun was setting over sleepy little derry, giving the quarry an orange-pink glow and bathing you all in its warmth.

you were all pruning up a little, and it wasn't as warm as it was when you'd come down a few hours previously, but summer was coming to an end, and you wanted to make the most of your last couple weeks of freedom with your favourite people in the world.

richie watched as you sat in the shallows, taking a hit of the sizeable joint between your fingers. you exhaled loudly, leaning your head back toward the watercolour sky.

shades of blush pink and peach and apricot illuminated your skin, the low sun setting a warm glow across the water, and oh, god, he was in love.

you laughed, loud and beautifully obnoxious, at something stan had said, passing him the joint and wiggling your legs in the water. your laugh just so happened to be the losers' favourite sound in the whole world, as it was one of those wonderfully infectious laughs you can't help but laugh along with.

richie had always tried to make you laugh in the hopes that you'd like him, but when you did laugh, he found himself falling in love.

eddie watched on in disapproval, sitting cross legged on the bank behind you.

"when you get lung cancer i will laugh and i will spit on your grave." he grumbled, but took the joint anyway when it was passed back around to him, just as enthusiastically as the rest of you. perhaps he was trying to protest in hopes that it would lessen the guilt he would feel later as he frantically sprayed himself with deodorant to get the smell out, and applied the emergency eyedrops he had bought.

ben, bev, bill and mike were in the middle of a very intense game of chicken. beverly had toppled off of mike's shoulders at least twice, but she had pushed bill back into the water more than four times, shrieking with laughter as, arms flailing, he disappeared under the surface of the lake.

"rich! c'mere." you had caught sight of him and held out your arms in his direction, making cute little grabby hand motions toward him. the look of utter joy on your face warmed him from head to toe, and he smiled as he swam over, dodging bill, who had once again been knocked into the lake by bev. ("stop being such a little bitch, billy.")

you came to meet richie halfway, leaving stan and eds to finish the joint and sinking into the water up to your neck. you immediately attached your lips to his, running both of your hands through his hair because you were stoned and everything felt better under your fingertips.

kissing him was like... a whole other plane of existence. you were joined at the lips, joined at the heart. the sun was going down and it was getting cold, and you were both shaking, and he noted the way you tasted of smoke as he kissed the life from you, the water rippling against his chin. you groaned quietly, and richie smiled into the kiss, ignoring everyone else's exasperated groans because ugh they're making out again ew look at them they're so disgustingly in love.

"you're both whores!" stan all but screamed, and you flipped him off, kissing richie all the more enthusiastically.

and richie broke away just to look at you.

the sun, now casting a deep orange-red light behind you, was almost set, and you were beautiful.

the quiet "hi, babe." that tumbled from your lips made him feel as if everything was right with the world, and, then, staring at you, drinking you in, in all your red-eyed, swollen-lipped, soft-grinning glory, like he was seeing colour for the first time, he knew that if he didn't marry you he would probably die.

---

"but now we're here."

richie cleared his throat, his eyes darting around because if he looked directly you he had no chance of keeping it together. "and i have you for the rest of my life. it took a lot for us to get here, too. god knows how we managed to plan all this. thanks, bevvy."

---

eddie was your best man.

obviously.

eddie was your best everything, to be honest, so it was an easy choice while wedding planning. eddie had been the essential third to your group of three ever since you were kids, and he meant so much to richie, and so much to you that you hadn't even had to think about it.

eddie was going to be the best man. that choice was a no-brainer.

all of the other choices, however, were not.

richie and yourself, apparently, were completely incompetent at any sort of planning whatsoever.

you tried, though, you really did.

you got out the big notebook and a pen and richie pulled up pinterest and you had some serious talks about colour schemes and flower arrangements and the like.

well, sort of.

("can we have, like, yknow, like, those worms..."

"worms?"

"like those worms on strings... yeah, those."

"the googly eyes?"

"the eyes.... yeah, and just..."

"hang them?"

"from the ceiling... yeah. "

"richie?"

"yes?"

"i think that's the best idea you've had since i met you.")

but after consuming copious amounts of alcohol, and only having made one useful decision, the two of you decided that you were not in any state to plan your fucking wedding.

("so... s-so if we get- richard, stop trying to take my clothes off- if we get the worms, do you want the pink- rich, i swear- do you want the pink ones or the blue ones...?")

turning off whatever true crime show was playing in the background, you stumbled, leaning against one another, to the bedroom.

"sex?"

"that's the plan."

but any attempt to undress each other only got half way before you were both asleep atop the bedsheets, snoring lightly, an intoxicated tangle of limbs.

the planner notebook you had been using to write down the essentials lay open and abandoned on the coffee table, the only thing in it being one line of richie's chickenscratch handwriting.

it read: set a place for stanley.

---

richie was really, properly crying now, and the only think keeping him from losing his shit was eddie's hand on his shoulder, and your thumb running across his knuckles.

everyone else was crying, too. not a dry eye in the room.

"almost losing you again... so soon after we had found each other... really put shit into perspective for me, yknow? hospitals, um, suck. and i was so pissed... because... fuck, sorry, fuck... i was, uh, pissed, because all i could think was that we were losing time again."

---

(before the sewer fight)

"kiss me." richie's quiet, shaky voice came from behind you, and you whirled around from the suitcase from which you were trying to put together an outfit more suitable for clown killing.

he took you in his arms almost immediately, bending down to kiss you, but the kiss almost scared you.

it was too tense.

there was too strong an edge to the way he held you close, kissing you as if it were the last time.

"what's wrong?" you murmured, centimetres from his lips, your breath ghosting across them.

"i... i don't know if we'll both come out of this." he admitted in hushed agony, kissing you again, slower. "i won't be able to live with myself if something happens to you." richie kissed you again and again, such raw emotion behind each soft crush of lips that he had to swallow the quiet, broken gasps that spilled from you.

"whatever happens," you breathed, running your thumbs along his cheekbones. "i love you."

"show me." he pleaded, red rimmed eyes locking onto yours with such intent that you almost fell over. "please, just-"

"we have to be quick." you said, and he nodded, pulling you into another long, searing kiss. there was a sort of burning desperation to the way his lips moved, now.

richie shifted your shorts down and slid his hands under your thighs, whispering a low "jump" in your ear. your legs wrapped around his waist, and you gasped as your back hit the wall.

"fuck, rich, hurry the fuck up." you mumbled, tilting your head so as to give him better access to the skin of your neck, to which he was already leaving marks.

"okay, baby." and then he was all but tearing off your shirt, immediately exploring the newly exposed skin with his mouth, teeth included. fuck.

"you're such a prick." you hissed.

"and you might just be the most beautiful thing ever to have existed, sweets." said richie, pushing his glasses up his nose and looking at you with dark, dilated, sex-me-up eyes.

"do something about it then." you challenged.

"anything for you, doll."

richie was pushing you so hard against the wall, that you were surprised you didn't go right through the drywall and topple into eddie's room.

you ran your tongue along his bottom lip and he groaned so fucking loud.

"i love you." you whispered the sentiment against his lips, fumbling at his belt buckle.

"i love you more."

---

richie took a moment to compose himself, allowing you to do the same. your eyes drifted about the room. the absence of both yours and richie's families bothered neither of you.

at the front row, the losers and stanley's empty chair, reminded you that they were the only family you'd ever need.

---

"you fucking what?"

"it was an accident!" richie held his hands up in defense, slumping down next to you on the couch.

"richie, do you ever imagine what it would be like if you'd have gotten enough fucking oxygen at birth?" you snapped, raking your hands across your scalp.

"watch it, or no sex." he said.

"i will never have sex with you ever as long as i live unless you uninvite my mother right the fuck now."

"i couldn't say no!" richie was now flapping his hands about in frustration, looking a little like a cartoon character. "she called me up yelling about the divorce and then i told her about the wedding--"

"my life would be so much easier if your dad had just pulled out." you deadpanned.

"--and i didn't know how to tell her she couldn't come--

"we have to change the venue. she's not coming."

"but that's the beach grease was filmed on, babe, there's no way i--"

"richie, if you don't change the venue, i will fucking castrate you in your fucking sleep."

---

it was raining that day, anyway, so a beach wedding wouldn't have been possible. it was okay, though. richie quite liked the little chapel you had picked out, and the coloured light that filtered through the stained glass windows danced across your skin in a way that reminded him so much of quarry sunsets. it was perfect, really.

"we could have had... so much more, yknow? a normal life. but, instead, we grew up in fucking derry... like idiots from some dumb horror book." you laughed at that. so did the losers. you were the only ones who knew what it really meant. "i promise... i'm going to, um, spend every moment of the rest of my life, the rest of however long we have, showing you how much i love you. and i do... love you, that is. every moment of the rest of fucking time, baby, because god knows we've lost enough."

and you kissed him before the priest even said the words, knocking him backwards into eddie.

your first dance was unconventional.

of course.

richie was nervous. he had practiced this dance so many times, with beverly, with eddie, with fucking bill. (that particular endeavour had been a tough nut to crack.) and you pretended you didn't know, for his sake, because he had tried so hard.

his hands shook as he positioned them on your waist where beverly had taught him.

"i can't dance, babe." he snorted.

"i know you can't." you giggled, kissing his cheek.

you held him close to you, blinking back tears as the first chords of billy joel's vienna drifted quietly from the speakers in the corner.

richie lay his head on your shoulder, murmuring the words softly in your ear and pressing light kisses to the soft skin under it.

about halfway through the song, you realised you didn't actually know how to dance either, which was a relief to him. whatever you ended up doing had to have been acceptable, because, once again, everyone was sobbing.

bev cried, mike cried, ben cried, bill cried. eddie shoved almost his entire hand into his mouth to stifle his tears, because there was no way in fuck richie was seeing him cry.

richie would sooner find himself down in the sewers again than admit it, but he could carry a damn tune.

when the song faded to its soft end, the two of you didn't move for several more seconds, eyes gently closed, foreheads together. (admittedly, richie was quite a bit taller than you, and to lean down a fraction.) it seemed almost wrong to open your eyes and join the rest of the world, but the losers' over-enthusistic applause and cheering pulled you both from the trance as they drowned out everyone else.

"you're beautiful." richie whispered, and your eyes snapped open. you had a feeling he wasn't just talking about your dress. eddie, of all people, had helped you pick it out, following you around the wedding dress outlet centres, hissing profanity at the disheveled women who got in his way and muttering furiously about how he'd sterilise the fuck out of whatever you chose to buy.

"you're beautiful." you sniffed, wiping your watery eyes and pulling him down to kiss you softly.

"why are you two like that?" eddie whined when you sat down at the table you'd put them all on. he was only half joking.

"it is their wedding day, eds." bev shrugged, remembering how gross her and ben had been at their own wedding a few months previously.

"what can i say?" you arranged the skirt of your dress comfortably around you before slinging your legs over richie's. "richie's a whore."

the rest of the party was... eventful.

most notably, the losers club's exclusive, very enthusiastic (and frankly quite dangerous) group dance to uptown girl in which your shoe ended up across the room in the wine cooler on the table you dubbed "friends from work" and bill and mike accidentally threw eddie half way across the room at the final chorus.

there was also the matter of richie and yourself insisting on recreating the "come on eileen" dance from the perks of being a wallflower, but then not remembering any of the moves. losers club exclusive group dance part 2 ensued.

eddie's best man speech was a wreck, mainly because he was absolutely bladdered.

("trash-mouth... trash-mouth fuckin tozier got the girl. nobody thought it would ever happen, i mean ever-")

---

(6 months after the wedding.)

"are we gonna pretend we have kids?" you pondered, crumpling the empty juice pouch in your hands and tossing it onto the steady-growing pile in the corner of the living room. "or are we just going to have to own up to the fact we drank twelve boxes of capri suns between us this week?"

a quiet slurping noise came from beside you as richie drained his own capri-sun, throwing it onto the pile with a flourish of his arms.

"i think that they've come to expect this of us." he said, shifting your legs out of his lap and standing up to answer the door.

"alright!" you heard him call down the hallway, as who you assumed was bev began pounding the doorbell aggressively.

and then the door swung open, and you heard a chorus of cheerful greetings and borderline yelling. ah, your best friends.

the losers came over to the tozier residence almost weekly for drunken antics and the spilling of long overdue tea.

"MRS TOZIER!" mike hollered jovially, bill in tow. they'd been seeing more of each other recently. none of you were able to miss how mike looked at bill when bill wasn't looking. it was how beverly and ben looked at one another, and how you looked at richie every morning you woke up to his face, and all throughout the day when he wasn't looking, and even when he was looking.

"MIKEY!" you yelled back with equally as much gusto, stretching your arms out for a hug, which he gladly returned.

"novelty not wore off, yet?" mike asked, gratefully taking the capri sun you offered to him as he settled next to you on the couch. "you've been married long enough, realised you don't love him yet?"

"oh yeah, no, this is purely a marriage of convenience. he's not that ugly, and i get laid like every day, and all i have to do is pick up his socks and share a bed with him."

richie wasn't impressed, storming back into the room in front of bev, ben and eddie.

"hey, um, ok, well, i actually am having a passionate affair with ben, and, ben's fucking hung. so, there."

richie slumped on the other side of you, grabbing you and blowing a raspberry on the side of your neck.

"seriously, bitch?" you whined, but you wrapped your arms around him all the same.

eddie bustled over to the towering pile of capri-sun packets, a plastic refuse bag in hand that you assumed he'd just pulled from his fanny pack.

"you guys are disgusting." he shoved the packets into the bag with unnecessary force. "you fucking deserve each other."

"tell them why we got kicked out of the drive-in theatre last week, rich." you smirked, leaning into your husband's side. he cleared his throat.

"i, uh..."

"tell them." you pressed.

"we saw titanic-" richie started, quietly, keeping his eyes fixed on the wall in front of him.

"oh, god." eddie groaned, storming out of the room in search of a recycling bin.

"-and i, uh... was yelling diving scores as they, uh, jumped off the boat."

"for fucks sake, richie." ben sighed. beverly was borderline cackling. mike and bill just looked disappointed.

"it's not my fault!" richie whined. "my beautiful wife was the one who insisted we recreate the sex scenes as they happened. hand on the window and everything."

"the toziers, everyone." eddie came back into the room, sitting on the ground on a beanbag near the coffee table. "you two should never have been allowed near each other."

"ah, but we were." you chimed in. grabbing richie's face and kissing him obnoxiously. "what say we get piss-drunk and, like, play dumb drinking games. for old times sake?" you suggested when you tore yourself from him, your lips separating with a wet pop. "it's been a while."

---

1993

"what's up, fuckers." you threw up a casual peace sign as you descended into bill's smoke-shrouded basement, stumbling slightly down the stairs and sitting between richie and stanley in the circle that the losers had formed.

richie immediately attached his lips to your neck, pulling you into his side.

"hello to you too, trash-mouth." you grinned. richie looked fucking good.

he'd only gone and got his septum pierced the day before, and you were wary at first, but the little silver horseshoe ring that hung between his nostrils now looked amazing, glinting in the low basement lights. richie wore a deep red, oversized, cable-knit sweater that you could have sworn was yours but you'd smoked a huge joint on the way here and weren't too sure. a black beanie sat on his head, a few errant curls poking out by his forehead and around his ears.

"you're hot." you mumbled.

"you're hot." he grinned against your neck, and lifted his head to kiss your lips, his glasses bumping against your nose.

"yo, whores, truth or dare." beverly said, throwing back about half of the bottle in her hand, a mischievous glint in her eyes.

"i fucking hate this game." richie hissed, leaning against your shoulder, sulking.

"truth." you said.

"what's richie's biggest kink?" she leaned forward in the circle, her tongue poking out from between her teeth.

"beverly!" richie was not amused.

"he's really into hair pulling." you sniffed, taking a blunt from between stan's fingers.

"babe!" richie exclaimed. you exhaled in his face.

"is he loud?" bev asked, leaning to take the joint from you.

"BEVERLY!" richie was shouting, now, throwing his hands up in frustration.

"oh, yes. he is." you nodded, grinning from ear to ear.

"FUCK!"

"a bit like that, actually."

"this is actual abuse." richie put his head in his hands, edging away from you.

"i love you." you tried, tugging on his sweater and leaning against him.

he had crawled into stanley's lap at this point, curling up like a baby.

"i fucking hate truth or dare." richie sat up and reached for another bottle, allowing you to wrap your arms around him.

---

most of the losers were asleep, curled up in various, not so comfortable looking positions on your couch and beanbags and weird hanging egg chair thingy that you'd insisted on buying.

"where did you come from, babe?" richie sighed, snaking his arms around your waist from behind as you brushed your teeth. "you're fuckin'... perfect."

one thing richie had always remembered, if a little vaguely, was your smell. the smell of sleep and fabric softener and your shampoo. his memory hadn't done it justice, he decided. when he took you in his arms in the chinese restaurant and inhaled deeply as if it were his last breath, filling his lungs with the smell of you and trying to sear into his brain the memory of how you felt inside his arms. because he would forget again, surely.

he hated himself for forgetting you.

"we're married, rich." you pointed out, rinsing your toothbrush and dropping it into the holder. "you're not too bad, yourself."

"i mean it, though." he muttered, pressing the softest of kisses to your jaw. "you're so fuckin'... doll, i, fuck-"

"don't go all shy on me, babe." you teased. "come to bed, yeah? im cold."

he watched as you shuffled off to your shared bedroom, doing that thing you always did when you stretched, making an unnecessary amount of noise. he smiled. that's my baby.

"hey, rich." another voice came from behind him. at the door of the bathroom, small and tentative.

"oh, hey, eds." richie smiled, taking his own toothbrush from the one next to yours, continuing the conversation through the mirror. but there was a somewhat uncomfortable silence in the small room, made worse by the hollow rattling of the toothbrushes.

"i, uh..." eddie shifted his weight, leaning against the doorframe. "i, uh... gotta tell you something, rich."

"knock yourself out, eddie spaghetti."

"im getting a divorce."

"oh, yeah? good, she was a fucking-"

"im with someone. a guy."

"a guy?"

"yeah. his name is, uh, richie, as it happens. well, richard, but, yknow."

"eds-"

"i loved you." eddie blurted. quiet. barely there. "for, uh... so long."

"you-"

"when we were kids. and, and i... you were never out of my head. not for one fucking second. and my mom... god, my fucking mom, she knew. i think she knew. every time you came round she made sure to scrub me a little harder. the soap burned. fuckin, i don't even know, some carbolic shit, or something. but... it was always her, wasn't it? you and her, um, you loved her and you continued to love her for... for fucking ever. and i wanted it to be me, rich."

richie was almost choking on his heart.

"eds, you know i-"

"no, actually, i don't."

"well i-"

"im not... bitter. if that's what you think. because i think the world of her. she's... my best friend, i would do anything for her, rich. and it wouldn't have made sense for you to end up with anyone else.

and im not... pining anymore? this was uh, what i needed. and im with someone, and he loves me, and i love him. so much, i do. and i love... you... and her... "

"eddie, i loved you too, yknow." richie muttered. the words hung in the air between them like the sword of fuckin' damocles.

"you did?"

"yeah. course i did."

"well, fuck."

"yeah. fuck."

"can i-" eddie held out his arms.

"yeah.",

richie was so used to hugging smaller people that it was natural to rest his chin on eddie's head, enveloping him almost completely. he noted how eddie gripped his shirt a little tighter than was probably necessary.

"you gotta let me meet this guy, yeah?" said richie, muffled against eddie's hair. "you're, like, small and shit. so i gotta make sure he won't break you or something."

"okay, rich." eddie laughed quietly.

when they broke apart, something had changed. there was closure. eddie could go back to his loving boyfriend and richie could go back to his wonderful wife and it was okay. all of it was okay.

it was okay.

---

"g'morning, doll." you had woken up to richie going to town between your legs. which was, um, always a good time.

after he had finished, wiping his lips, wiping you from his lips, he mumbled the term of endearment lowly into your ear, kissing the spot just underneath it, and you almost grabbed his head and pushed him back down there. however, it was cold, and he was warm, so you melted against him, pulling his arm over you.

"hey, baby." you weren't sure if the words had come from you, because you were floating. and half asleep. but they must have done, because richie kissed the back of your neck and pulled you closer to him, if that was possible. "what time is it." you continued, yawning.

"uhh, like, nine." he yawned back.

"ew."

"i know."

"why did you- and not that i'm complaining, because that was great- why did you wake me up, you fucking insane person."

"because they all left, and woke me to tell me they were leaving, and then i was awake, and you weren't, and i was bored, and i wanted to wake you nicely."

"mission fucking accomplished." you sighed, a sleepy grin spreading across your face. "but can we go back to sleep, now?"

"yeah."

"love you, stinky." you mumbled.

"love you more."

#beep beep #richie tozier #it richie #richie tozier x reader #adult richie #bill hader #losers club x reader #losers club

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stellar-alley · 4 years ago

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Everfalls

•Chapter 17•

This is based off of the artwork by oceanteeeth on Instagram! Also shout out to my Beta super.rose.cosplays!

Previous Chapter // Next Chapter

(Summary: The Losers attend the school's annual field trip to a small island. What possibly could go wrong?! )

The next morning Richie drove the two Ancestors to school in time to meet up at the required time before the bus leaves at 6.

“What animal schedules a school trip at 6 am?” Richie groaned as he parked at his normal spot in the school parking lot. Once the engine was off Richie finally turned to look at Eddie but quickly glanced down at their hands that were intertwined on the console between them.

After the fight and Richie’s terrible impressions, they eventually made up; they both mentally agreed that they can’t risk separating at this point, especially with the trip in literal hours.

“Well we’re here, we can’t bail now,” Eddie shrugged as he looked from Richie, out into the rising sun over the horizon. “Come on, let’s go puppy.” Eddie requested with a smirk as he opened his door, nearly took a step out before he looked over to Richie for help, his big doe eyes shining in the morning sun.

Richie smiled warmly before he hopped out, went to Eddie’s side and took his hand in his to help him down. “M'lady,” Richie said as Eddie stepped down beside him.

In response he got a slap on the shoulder, “Trashmouth” Eddie playfully rolled his eyes. He grabbed his bag from the back and stepped aside to allow Richie to retrieve his own before they closed the trunk and made their way towards the school.

The rest of the Losers could be seen by the bleachers not too far away from where the teachers were rounding up all the other students who were going on the trip.

“Sup Losers!” Richie called out as he and Eddie approached the others.

“Hey Rich, glad you could make it.” Bev shot him a smirk as she took a drag from her cigarette.

“I don't think any of us have ever seen you up before 8.” Mike joked, he turned to Eddie and asked, “Did you have to lure him out of bed with like a 6 shot of coffee?”. Mike didn’t make jokes like that often, but when he did, they were good.

Richie let out a bark of laughter and slapped his thigh, “Aha! Mikey gets off a good one. No but seriously imma pass out on the bus wake me up when it’s time to go home”. No one was sure whether he was being serious or not…

It was a miracle that all of the Losers were conveniently going on this trip. It was an English trip that was always accompanied by the Creative Writing class, which was taught by Mrs. Stuart. So Richie, Eddie, Ben and Stan were all in English together while Bev, Bill and Mike took the creative writing class.

While they awaited for further instructions from their teachers, the teens talked about random gossip they’d heard recently or rant about family/school life. Almost everyone had something to add, almost. Bill nodded and looked interested, yet he never spoke, well unless he was spoken to but everyone got the vibe that he wanted to be left alone (which was correct). So he stood slightly behind Stanley, so close that the taller boy could feel Bill’s heavy sigh on the back of his neck. It sent shivers down Stan’s spine.

When it was time to line up to get onto the bus, the Losers were the first in line. It allowed them to get the luxury of the back seats. Bill claimed the window seat of the second last seat, Stan slid in beside him, the two boys almost immediately fell asleep, Bill head rested on Stan’s shoulder while Stan’s rested on top of Bill’s. Mike claimed the seat behind them, the back seat. He sat on the edge with his feet in the aisle to face his friends. Richie and Eddie took one back seat while Ben and Bev claimed the one in front of them.

Everyone got settled and ready for the hour (or so) ride ahead. Suddenly, Ben whipped out Uno, things just got interesting.

“Don’t you fucking dare do it” Eddie glared daggers at Richie who slowly placed a pick up four card on top of the privious Uno card.

“Fucking hell!” Eddie swore as he tossed the rest of his cards down onto the pile.

Richie couldn’t hold back his laughter as he watched Eddie fume and sulk in the corner. Ben and Bev joined in as they sat on their knees and leaned over the back of their seat and into Eddie and Richie’s area.

“Wanna play another round?” Ben inquired as Eddie shook his head.

“I’m tired- plus if this ass hat pulls another plus 4 card out I’m going to kill everyone on this bus, then myself” Eddie said in a joking tone.

Once Bev and Ben were turned around and settled back into their seat, Eddie leaned his head against the window and his hands on his knees.

Neither of them could deny the fact that they both felt a little claustrophobic on the bus, their Ancestral sides craved to break out and run free. They felt too big for their bodies, like their skin was stretching and their bones were aching.

Richie examined the other Ancestor, the morning sunlight made his freckles shine like stars in the night sky. As much as he wanted to count each and every one of them, his attention was caught by something that rippled over Eddie’s hand. He looked down and noticed how the veins on Eddie's hands, the ones that usually go unnoticed, were dark, almost black. As if someone had injected a black ink like iquo into his veins. Richie quickly slapped a hand over Eddie’s.

Eddie’s eyes snapped down to the hand that Richie held. “It’s okay Rich, it happens on the full moon sometimes. Usually not this early on in the day but- later on it’ll get worse. For the both of us” A grime wave passed over Eddie's eyes as he looked at Richie.

Richie shook his head, slowly, and carefully took Eddie’s hand in his and lifted it up to his face where he kissed the back of his hand, black veins and all.

Eddie blushed, leaned forward and buried his face into the crook of Richie’s neck. Richie wrapped his arm around Eddie’s shoulders and held him close. “Get some shut eye, we’ve still got a ways to go…”.

“Okay ladies and gentlemen” Mr Brock said as he stepped off the bus, ahead of the students. “Woah one by one” He instructed as the students began rushing out of the bus.

The losers were the first ones on, that mean they would be the last ones off. Seeing the cliffs, the long green grass, the water that came with the salt in the air, Eddie and Richie were dying to get out and be one with nature. Their extra energy had them bouncing in their seats as they waited for the line up to slowly make its way out of the bus.

“Tag” Richie whispered into Eddie’s ear the moment he stepped off the bus. Immediately afterwards he started sprinting away from the bus, his Ancestral blood pumping through his veins, a certain weight lifted off their shoulders as they ran out in the open. Richie had ran in a circle around their group of students before Eddie quickly caught up and slapped his back-

“Boys calm down!” Mrs. Stuart, called out with a small glare.

Richie halted, Eddie ran into his back. They both turned and giggled like little school girls. “Good one Rich, getting us in trouble before the tour even starts” Eddie mumbled as Richie elbowed him back in response.

Soon a representative from the island came to talk to them and explain how they’d go to the main castle and that’s where they’d meet the tour guide. During that time, Riche took a moment to survey his surroundings.

The wind blew in soft bursts through the tall lush grass on the outskirts of the small city, which consisted of the main building, which could’ve been called a small castle by the way it looked from the outside. Not only was it a castle but it also dubbed as a hotel. But there were also about 20 houses and some general stores. Beyond the main city area, the grass flowed out onto the gravel beaches and into the white waves. Farther out, down a hill there would be ruins of the original city that once laid there. All that was left were tunnels, caves and cement foundation.

“Now this would be a cool place to spend a full moon…” Richie’s voice drifted off as he imagined it in his head.

“Hmm sure” Eddie replied without taking his eyes away from the teacher who was speaking.

“Seriously though! Imagine it, running wild in the ruins, frightening the villagers” Richie jokes. Eddie rolled his eyes, Richie sighed, “Okay what about the beach? You can’t say you haven’t imagined spending a full moon out by the water” he reasoned as he looked at Eddie straight on.

Eddie’s arms that had once been crossed were now down by his sides, “Even if I did, it’s not like we can, our safest option is to just spend it with your dad. We cannot risk getting caught, not now” he huffed.

The wolf knew the rabbit had a point, but he couldn’t help thinking what it would be like to live like the Ancestors had before, at one with nature.

“So if you would kindly follow me into the lobby where you will be introduced to your tour guide for today” The man explained as he led the group through the little town area that separated them from the castle.

All the students oowed and awed at the old fashioned buildings that sat on either side of the road they walked on. Everything was made out of red burgundy bricks, wooden rooftops and white fences.

“It is kinda cool…” Eddie mumbled to Richie.

The group approached the castle and noticed the professional looking lady that stood on the front steps. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for coming to our quaint little island of Balmoral” The lady held her arms out to welcome the students before she continued her speech. “This island is protected by the ocean on all sides, the only way of accessing it is during the day while the tide is low. So our time is short, that’s why I’m so glad we get to have you all hear for the limited time between high tide, shall we begin?”.

“That’s what I was saying! Come on Eddie spaghetti you really need to start listening to me-“ Richie was cut off when he ran into Eddie who was walking infront of him, but had ubrutly stopped. “Woah what’s up spaghetti-“

“Shut up trashmouth” Eddie hissed, his eyes wide, body frozen in shock. Before Richie could question him further, Eddie took a few swift steps and practically hid behind Richie’s taller figure.

“Shut up- Shut up shut up!” Richie turned to face Eddie who shrank back, away from Richie touch. His voice was low and anxious, he was almost shaking as his eyes finally met.

“Woah what’s going on. Eddie talk to me” Richie whispered low enough for only Eddie to hear. To comfort Eddie, Richie reached his hand out and placed it on the back of the other’s head, sliding his fingers under Eddie’s beanie and into his hair. He felt Eddie physically melt into his touch

Eddie hesitated before he Began, “T-That lady is-“.

“Everything okay?” Mike asked with concern as he came up from behind them.

“A-Asthma” Eddie gasped as he started waving his hand around as if he were gesturing for someone to give him something.

Richie rapidly clued in on what Eddie was gesturing to. He did that dance when you check your pockets, he tried his inner jacket pocket, outer jacket pocket, amd both of his pant pockets. Then hre remembered where he kept it and leaped to open his bag’s back pocket. Quickly he yanked Eddie’s spare inhaler from the pocket, shook it rapidly and handed it to Eddie.

The rabbit barley had any time to question why Richie had it before he popped it in his mouth, one pump, two pumpes. Finally his breath slowly began to return.

“I-I’m okay” Eddie breathed, releaved to be able to have his breath back.

“Always prepare, right Rich?” Mike clapped him on the back, shooting him a proud smile before he went to catch up with the rest of the Losers who were at the front of the group. Stan had noticed Eddie’s little attack and instead of leading the rest of the group towards the ancestors, he suggested they go towards the front to hear what the tour guide had to say, in hopes that they wouldn’t notice what was happening.

Eddie and Richie stayed behind as they turned to face eachother.

“What the hell is going on?” Richie demanded with a serious tone.

“Me? Why the hell do you have my spare inhaler? I knew I lost this thing!”.

“I took it to be prepared for exactly this” Richie said.

Eddie began theoriesing, “But my asthma never fucking acts up anymore so why-“.

Richie sntached the inhaler out of Eddie’s grasp and shoved it back into his pocket, “OKay I was worried? Sue me. What the fuck happened in the first place?”.

It was almost as if Eddie had forgotten what he’d seen only minutes before. “That lady, the fucking tour guide, is in the council-“

“WHAT!” Richie exclaimed, catching everyone’s attention in doing so. The students, teachers, and the lady tour guide all turned to stare at the all too shocked teenage boy and his smaller, feistier boyfriend. “What do you mean this was Shakespeare's summer cottage! That’s so cool” Richie joked as he forced a laugh. Thankfully his shitty performance made everyone feel awkward enough to look away as the tour guide continued her introduction.

“Jesus trashmouth” Eddie groaned as he rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“Not the time Kasbrak, you've got some explaining to do” Richie rubs the back of his kneck as he closes his eyes in hopes of rubbing away the emarrasment he just endured.

“That lady is Elizah Brightmoon, she’s the leader of the fucking council” Eddie stressed.

Richie raised his eyebrows, “What? How the hell is she here?” He interrogated.

“How the fuck am I supposed to know? What are we supposed to do! If she sees me I’m as good as dead. And we both know they wouldn’t mind that” Eddie glanced away, behind Richie’s shoulder to look at the tour guide, Elizah. She was explaing the plan for their day.

“Call your parents they must know what to do” Eddie waved wildingly at Richie who proceeded to search for his phone.

The teen found his phone in his inner jacket pocket and quickly dialed his dad’s mobile number which Went had him memorize when he was a kid. His heart nearly stopped when he heard the beep and a robotic voice tell him that he’s ‘Out of range of any cellular towers’ and that he should ‘please find the nearest cellular tower to continue your call’.

“Shit, I don’t have service” Richie groaned as he ran his hand over his snapback, carful not to reveal his wolf ears.

“What does that mean?” Eddie lifted an eyebrow as he had yet to grasp all of the human’s concepts of technology.

“I-I can’t call them. We’re on our own” Richie realized.

“Now if you’d follow me then we can begin our tour of the castle” Elizah began as she moved into the castle. The group slowly followed behind her, Richie and Eddie shared a look or worry before they tilted their heads down and followed behind everyone else.

The tour actually went fairly well, once they were shown the main lobby of the castle, Mr Brock split them up into two groups, one group went with Eliza while the other went with Mr Brock and Janet, one of the other tour guides who was, according to Eddie ‘some random lady he didn’t know’.

By the power of lucky, or magic, Eddie and Richie were put into the group led by Janet. Aside from the two being nearly overwhelmed by worry, they were actually kinda able to enjoy the tour with their friends.

First Janet led them through the castle, citing off random facts about its creation and the builder. Which The Losers mostly listened to, Rich and Bev made jokes about what the creator probably really did in each room, Eddie complained about how dirty everything probably is (and worried about the whole council thing). Ben, Stan and Mike actually listened and tried to take notes. Bill tried to as well but he couldn’t help but notice how tense Richie and Eddie had become.

Sure things were tense between Eddie and Bill (Richie too, even though Bill didn’t know Richie’s secret, he was still on edge), but it was as if they made a mental agreement to stay on opposite ends of their group and keep to limited conversation if any.

Before they left the castle, Janet showed them around the lobby. The room was massive, and very fancy. White tiled floors, high ceilings with intricate designs made of gold and silver. In the middle was a massive crystal chandelier that hung elegantly from the ceiling. In the main area of the lobby there were couches and love seats for people to sit or wait, the main desk, and in the back there was an almost museum like set up.

The tour guide held her hand out to show off the display cases infront of her as she led toe group towards the back of the lobby. “Here we have our artifact sections. Everything here had an important part in Balmoral’s creation, from the first shovel that broke dirt to the last weapon that was used as defense” Janet paused in the middle of the mini musem to allow the students to wander and look at the artifacts.

There were about 10 display cases that house various items, shovels and pickaxes as Janet described, as well as old knives, daggers, rusty old guns. But one gun in particular caught Bill’s eye, it looked newer, cleaner and shinier. A familiar small patch of rust around the mussel.

Old memories flooded his mind as he recalled the various times his father had sat him down and told him his latest and greatest story from the most recent hunt. Bill’s lips unconsciously curved into a grim smile, his eyes became a little wateryer as his hand brushed overtop of the glass casing. It couldn’t be, it can’t be…

A hand landed on his shoulder, breaking Bill out of his thoughts, “You okay Big Bill?” Mike asked curiously.

Bill quickly wiped at his eyes, catching any tears that might have managed to escape during his emotional moment. “Yep, yep. A-All good” Bill nodded, turning away from the case to face the rest of the group.

“Wanna go check out the murals?” Mike inquired, already steering Bill in the direction of the paintings.

After the castle Janet showed them outside through the big glass doors in the back of the mini musem. From there she took them around the fields surrounding the town. Mr. Brock gave them a mini lecture of the history behind the island and it’s original purpose while the students listened and took notes as it would help with their final project. The teacher explained that the final project would have the students do a presentation on one of the town’s famous stories that they’ve picked up on the trip. Balmoral was famous for various pieces of lore and make believe creatures, so the students had a lot to choose from.

The group was already sat outside so when the teacher announced it was time for lunch they simply opted to stay outside and eat on the lush grass by the water.

“Guys I’m kinda feeling a little uh homesick, might go on a walk, anyone want to join me?” Richie urburtly stood up.

“Yeah, love to” Eddie pipped up.

“OKay good, thanks, bye guys” Richie waved and they were off before anyone else could get a word in.

“Well that was normal” Beverly noted as she took a bit of her sandwich.

Stan inhaled and let out a loud sneeze, “Allergies”, he brushed it off.

Bill kept an eye on the two who were walking away from the group. He leaned over to Stan “Keep an e-eye on the-them, something isn’t ri-right” He whispered.

Stan shook his head, retrieved a kleenex from his pocket and whipped his nose. “What do you think is wrong?” He inquired.

“I-I don’t know” Bill lied. Sure, he didn’t knew exactly what Eddie’s intentions were but he knew for sure that he wasn't human. He saw it with his own eyes! That day at the sleepover, ears like a rabit, the night before, eyes as blue as ice. He’s literally seen Eddie transform into a rabbit.

Bill couldn’t stop replaying the events from last night in his head. ‘Where I come from, if he isn’t from here then where the hell is he from? There’s this council, and they rule above all else. After I saved him, they came in. Apparently I had ‘gotten to close’ and ‘revealed our secret’ These must be pretty fuking important secrets if they would kill an innocent man just to keep them hidden.

My dad didn’t do anything, he just wanted some time away from the hecticiness of the Denbrough household, is that too much to fucking ask? Now Eddie, my only fucking lead might be a dead end! And if he isn’t to blame then who the hell is? Some fucking council?

He snapped out of his thoughts when a hand touched his own. What Bill hadn't realized was that his fingers had curled into fists, tight fists, white knuckles and all. He slowly released his fists when Stan rested his own hand on top of them.

“You okay?” Stan asked curiously, his big blue eyes as pure as ever.

Bill sighed, his shoulders sagged, “F-Fine”. Stan leaned away from Bill and sneezed again.

Their day was almost over, they only had one place left to go which was Shakespeare's cabin, but that’s when Stan sneezed into his elbow. When he looked at the sleeve of his grey cardigan he noticed the disgusting looking mucus that now sat on the material. Not even a minute later Stanley stumbled over his own feet, he reached out to grasp Bill’s shoulder and even out his center of gravity.

The sudden touch ripped Bill’s attention away from the two ancestors and he re-focused it on Stan, who was now leaning up against him. “Are you oh-okay?” He asked, worried.

Stan looked up into Bill’s eye as he wrapped his arm around the other’s shoulders for support. “I’m fine Bill… I’m fine” Stan mumbled, his voice almost too mumbled to understand. A moment later he snapped his head away from Bill and proceeded to vomit all over the nice tile floor of the castle’s lobby.

Word Count: 3855

What happened to Stan? Will he recover from whatever he has? What will happen to Eddie and Richie as the full moon approaches? Will Elizah find out about the two runnaway Ancestors?

Find out next Friday on Everfalls!

I hope you guys liked this chapter and are excited for what's to come! Cause trust me- it's goooood. So take a seat, stick around for a while, and enjoy the ride.

That's all from me, until next time

So Long and Goodnight

[Taglist]

@richietoaster @s-onora @that-weird-girl-blog @beproudtozier @ghostnebula @bellarosewrites @s-s-georgie @lermanslogan @iamcupcakefrosting @madidraw @gazebobullshit @thoughtfullyyoungduck @aangzukos @ambitiousskychild @reddieonwheels @breadheadscorpius

Let me know if you wanna be added to the tag list!

#it!everfalls #reddie #eddie kaspbrak #richie tozier #werewolf #werewolf richie #stanley uris #stan uris #ben hanscom #benverly #stenbrough #bill denbrough #mike hanlon #beverly marsh #losers club #the losers club #incorrect losers quotes #incorrect losers club quotes

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acabecca · 4 years ago

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Jenny Davis - The Kids Aren’t Alright // Waking Up @stanley--barber Joey Kingsley - Poisoned Youth // Back Home Betty Nickelson - Neon Summer // Coming Home @wonder-boy-reid

Hugging her knees to her chest, Joey rested her chin on them as she glanced out over the water. The sun was setting, it was unusually warm even for summer, and high school was over forever. She should have been happy.

She should have been ecstatic.

But all she felt was complete and utter fear.

“There she is – hey! Jo!”

“Josephine Kingsley, where the hell have you been?”

Joey turned her head slightly to glance over her shoulder and saw two of her best friends stood behind her – Jenny with her hands shoved in the pockets of her leather jacket as she stared at Joey inquisitively, and Betty with her hands on her hips, a concerned look on her face.

“I’ve been here,” she shrugged her shoulders, staring back out over the quarry. She heard a loud, exasperated sigh from behind her, that she knew came from Betty, and she heard the crunch of shoes on gravel as they made their way over to her.

Betty took a seat to her right, sitting cross-legged on the ground as Jenny sat down on the other side of Joey, her legs dangling over the edge as she stared down at the water.

“You skipped out on a perfectly good party,” Jenny nudged her. “Bill was dancing and everything. And we all know Bill is not a good dancer.”

“I didn’t skip out, I just didn’t make it there yet,” Joey laughed, the image of Bill’s arms flailing in the air as he tried to dance invading her mind. “Although I am sorry I missed the dancing. I can imagine Richie loved that.”

“Richie was too busy wondering what had happened to you to notice,” Betty told her. “He was coming up with all kinds of dark and morbid ways in which you had probably met your demise and that’s why no one could find you. He’s such a good person to have as a friend. A real positive influence on the group.”

“But, while we’re on the subject, where have you been?” Jenny questioned. “The boys voted and Bets and I had to come find you, we’ve been walking all round town for hours!”

Betty leaned backwards, raising her eyebrows at Jenny. “This is the second place we looked Jen, it took us like a half hour,” she smirked, and Jenny waved a hand dismissively. “But like, I second her question. What are you even doing here?”

Joey paused, tucking her hair behind her ears. “Do you guys remember when we used to come down here all the time? All of us, before Bev left? We’d just jump right off here into the water like it was nothing, it didn’t even enter our heads that we could hit the rocks on the way down. We were fearless.”

“Uh…” Jenny began, sharing a confused look with Betty. “You okay, Jo?”

“I’m scared, you know?” she admitted quietly. “Of going out there,” she gestured in front of her.

“You planning on an evening swim?” Betty asked with a laugh.

“Not the water, Betty,” Joey groaned. “Out into the world. Like I know I should be excited to go off to college and live my life but… I’m terrified. I’m scared of being out there on my own. Derry is so small, everyone knows each other, how am I supposed to survive in New York on my own?”

Jenny blinked. “You survived a demonic clown that ate kids, and you think living somewhere else is what’s going to defeat you?”

“Besides, you won’t be on your own!” Betty added quickly, shooting Jenny a glare. “Ben will be in New York, too! You guys can meet up whenever your schedules allow.”

“I guess…” Joey paused. “It’s not just that, though. It’s… Bev left, right? She left Derry, and she promised she’d keep in touch with us and it lasted for, what? A month? And then we never heard from her again, it’s like she forgot all about us. We were her best friends, Bill was… y’know? But our letters went unanswered, she never returned our calls, it’s like we were out of sight and out of mind. What if that happens with the rest of us? I know we said that we’ll all stay friends our entire lives, but what if we don’t? What if we get so busy with college and classes, new friends and work, stuff like that? What if we get so busy with our new lives, we don’t have time to keep up with each other?”

“You sound like Stanley,” Jenny threw her head back with a sigh. “I’m gonna tell you what I told him – of course we’re going to get busy with our new lives. College is gonna kick our asses, and it doesn’t matter if we don’t have time to call each other every week, every two weeks, once a month. What’s important is that, no matter how much time passes between calls or letters, we know we’ll all still be there for each other.”

“Exactly,” Betty nodded her head in agreement. “You don’t go through what we went through and just forget about each other. Beverly had a lot of other stuff going on in her, a lot of reasons why she would want to forget Derry. We have a lot of reasons to remember it,” she shrugged. “Besides, we’ll still see other at holidays! Thanksgiving, Christmas, stuff like that, right?”

Joey shrugged her shoulders in reply, turning her head to look back out over the water. Betty sighed heavily, scooting over closer to her and stick her little finger in front of her face. Joey jerked backwards, pulling a face as she glanced at her friend.

“Pinky swear,” Betty wiggled her finger. “Come on, Jen!” she demanded, and Jenny quickly reaching across Joey to hook her little finger around Betty’s. “Get in here, Joey. Come on,” Betty grabbed hold Joey right hand and shook it. Rolling her eyes, but sending a smile to both of her friends, Joey wrapped her little finger across both of theirs. “Pinky swear that no matter what happens, the losers club will be friends forever.”

“That we will hunt down every last member of the losers club who loses contact with the rest of us and force them to continue to be our friends,” Jenny added with a grin.

“Pinky swear that, if a killer clown couldn’t break us apart, then nothing will,” Joey whispered.

“And pinky swears are legit, you don’t break those,” Jenny poked her in the side.

Betty grinned. “I love you guys.”

“I love you guys, too,” Joey unhooked her pink finger from theirs and wrapped an arm around each of them, pulling them both into an awkward side hug.

“Yeah, yeah…” Jenny swatted her away, pulling herself to her feet and dusting off her jeans. “Now then! We’ve got a party to get to, Kingsley! You ready get out of here?” she asked, holding a hand out to Joey as Betty also stood up and brushed off her skirt. Joey looked up at them both before placing her hand in Jenny’s, allowing herself to be pulled to her feet.

“I’m ready,” Joey nodded. “Let’s get out of here.”

taglist:@ocfairygodmother @sgtbuckyybarnes

#ocappreciation #allaboutocs #losersclubocs #losers club #joey kingsley #fic: poisoned youth #fic: back home #jenny davis #fic: the kids aren't alright #fic: waking up #betty nickelson #fic: neon summer #fic: coming home #crossover #joey x jenny x betty #katie's tag #allie's tag #friends oc #so! many! tags!!!!!!!

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cyberdva · 5 years ago

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Trick Or Treat- Richie Tozier X Reader (Imagine☆)

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Summary- The reader and The Losers Club decide to go Trick Or Treating, while Richie tries to continuously flirt with Y/N. The rest of their friends are fed up with Richie’s banter and try to get the two together with a bit of help from each other. Just their luck Richie had already done the job for them.

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆

Main Masterlist

IT Masterlist

Word Count: 2k

Date Uploaded: 10/30/19

Pairing: Richie Tozier x Reader

Warnings: Cursing

A/N: Halloween is tomorrow, so why not bless ourselves with a poorly written Richie fic.

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆

“Hey Eds, what the hell are you supposed to be?” Richie bolted out his front door running to meet up with his short friend who was inconveniently covered in toilet paper.

He shot his friend a glare, “I’m supposed to be a mummy, you think my mom would let me be anything else.”

Richie laughed, “Aw, your mommy picked out your costume again.” He made a kissy face and inched towards Eddie. The other boy jumped away.

“What the fuck are you even supposed to be anyways?”

Richie pulled his cape under his eyes and hissed, “I’m a vampire, it’s completely obvious Eds.”

Eddie rolled his eyes, “What are you going to do? Bite Y/N?”

Richie went even paler under his white makeup, Eddie was one of the only people who knew about Richie’s enormous crush on Y/N.’

“That shut you up,” he mumbled. Just in time, Stan met up with the two bantering boys, his face had makeup with cold dark eyes and light green skin, a zombie.

“Are you guys fighting again?” Stanley tried his best to remain neutral in these arguments, even though they make no sense.

“Richie is talking about how much he loves-“ Richie slammed Eddie’s mouth shut. Only muffled shouts could be heard.

Stanley looked around for Bill and tried to stay involved in the conversation, ”Wow, Richie has a crush. What a shocker.” The two boys were barely paying attention as they fought in the background. Eddie ended up winning and vigorously tried to wipe off any germs that Richie has left on his mouth. Beverly came up behind the disheveled ‘mummy’ and jumped on his shoulders. It resulted in a shrieking sound, Eddie was just about to head home if Bill didn’t show up moments later.

Beverly has decided to dress up as a cat, a normal costume for someone her age, and Bill dressed up as Marty McFly. He was late on the trend but hadn’t gotten the chance to dress up like him before.

Ben came wandering up the street and sat next to Beverley on a half-empty bench, Bill took notice. He was dressed as one of the New Kids On The Block, which highly amused Beverly.

“Where’s Mike and Y/N?” Bill wanted to get the show on the road and stay near Beverly as much as he could. There were so many houses to explore and so little time with the dumb curfew in place.

Beverly sat down on the grass, “Mike said he was meeting Y/N at her place, they should be here any minute.”

“Since when do they hang out alone?” asked Richie.

“Why do you ask Richie, are you jealous?” Eddie snickered at the confused boy.

“Am not!”

“Yes, you are.”

“Eddie you know wha-“

Mike cut both of them off, “Sorry we’re late, Y/N wanted to make sure she had everything ready.” The whole group relapsed when they saw her costume, a makeshift clown, that looked a tad-bit like Pennywise, stood in front of them. Mike was dressed as Doc from Back To The Future to match Bill. All of them had exceptional costumes, except for Eddie.

“Eddie, what are you wearing?” was the first thing to come out of Y/N mouth.

“See even she agrees with me that your costume sucks!” Richie gaped.

She frowned, “I didn’t say that I just want to know why he’s covered in toilet paper.”

“Well, you meant it.”

“Yeah, I did.”

Eddie let out a huff, “Are we going to get candy or not.”

The sun had already set and the already cold temperature began to drop even lower. It was only 7 and that didn’t leave much time until 10. The day before everyone tried to map out what houses would be the best to go to, but it ended up with Richie scribbling all over the paper and Bill lecturing him on proper behavior, exciting isn’t it. They ended up scrapping the map and just running around through town.

“How about we start by Main Street and make our way to Jackson?” Mike had the best sense of direction out of all of the Losers, a natural talent he developed while bucking through town.

Stan nodded, “That sounds like a good plan.” They all made their way up the street, separating into their smaller groups. Eddie, Richie, and Y/N held up the back, mostly joking about Eddie’s trashy outfit. Beverly and Bill decided to lead all of them, flashlights in hand, discussing some leftover English homework. The middle has a mix of Ben, Stan, and Mike as they chatted about which house had the most candy.

The streets began to quickly fill with smaller children. Really no one in their grade had decided to go out for candy, a party had been the main focus for the high school students. As per usual, none of the nine kids had been invited, they didn’t even know of the event, better that they didn’t. All they hoped was that Bowers or any other new bullies, or harassers had decided to gang up on them.

Ben stopped the group and pointed at a giant green house, “Guys look at the size of that one! I bet you they have a lot of candy!”

“That’s what she said.” Richie joked.

Y/N just looked at him, “How does that even make sense.” They both laughed as they approached the house. Richie has the need to be funny in front of her, regardless of how loud he really was, if he made her laugh it was worth it. The rest of the teens were halfway up the driveway while the other two jokes about phony decorations.

“Could you guys be any slower,” complained Bev. Her voice was strongly overpowered by the teens’ hearty laughs. The night began like that, the group would get candy and move onto another house and so on. All of a sudden the perfect idea popped into Richie’s head.

“Do you want to go do something?” Richie beamed, he had a devious plan and it had to work.

“What do you mean?” he pulled her away from the rest of the group.

“Let’s go do something fun, come on this is so boring.” Y/N shrugged in response, as much as she wanted to hang out with her friends whatever Richie was thinking sounded a lot more entertaining. Richie tried to compromise, now was his chance!

“Come on, please!”

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆

The moon loomed over the Losers Club as Mike shivered, his costume wasn’t enough to keep him warm. He felt like his parents were getting impatient just by the hour, they weren’t too happy with him being out with his friends so late. He wished that this could go quicker, but with Bill that might just be impossible.

“Come on guys, this is the last house on the street.” He huffed. Wait… someone’s missing. He tried to do a headcount and two were gone. Y/N and Richie, of course.

He looked around, but there was no sight of them. No one seemed to notice their disappearance, but it was quieter. Stanley noticed Mike behind him and they linked up. They filled each other in. The rest continued on in confusion.

“Where did they go?” Stanley shined his cracked flashlight around the neighborhood, all he could see was heaps of children. “Have you guys seen the two jokesters around anywhere?” Stanley called out a few shouts of “No!” and “Where are they?” emerged from the teens.

Eddie smiled, “Maybe Richie finally made his move.” He slapped his mouth shut, no one else knew about Richie’s ‘dirty secret and he sure as hell didn’t mean to enhance it.

The group stopped walking, “Wait he seriously likes her.” Ben asked. None of them really seemed to care anyway. It wasn’t a huge revelation.

Eddie shook his head, “Just pretend I said nothing.”

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆

“Just this way,” Richie guided, “I swear we’re almost there.”

A singular beam of light gleamed in front of them, Y/N could barely see anything. The area was of course familiar, The Kissing Bridge. She had no idea on why Rich brought her there, her costume began to itch, few bugs began attacking her arms and legs. The bumps would be worth it in the end. They made their way inside the rickety old bridge, it creaked with on small footstep, ready to collapse. Frogs croaked in the bathroom and Y/N didn’t know why she was there.

“Rich, what are we doing?” she slapped a mosquito on her elbow, the silence was cut with a knife.

“I dunno,” he shrugged, “I personally didn’t want to go collect candy with them.”

She laughed, “That’s an interesting way to put it, but seriously, what do you want to do?”

He thought, what could they do that would be fun, curfew was coming in quick and there was no stores open.

“We could skip rocks?” What kind of response was that? Skipping rocks, how interesting.

Surprisingly she nodded her head and the two began to walk down a hill. Leaves crunched below them, the boy started to collect pebbles

He handed her a few, he picked the small and round ones just for her, “Here, take these.

“Thanks.” Their hands brushed together and the throwing began. Few rocks managed to skip, none of them paid any attention to the activity. Both drifted off into a sort of dream-like state.

“You know what, I’m just gonna say it.” Richie’s emotions got the best of him.

Y/N turned to look him in the eyes, completely oblivious to what was happening, “Say what?” He took a deep breath, “I like you alot and I needed to know if you want to go see a movie with me. Only if you want.”

Y/N’s eyes went big, “Wait really? I’d love too!”

Relief washed over him, “Good, I thought you liked Eddie or something.”

“Wow, good one.” she laughed.

The rest of their night went swimmingly, jokes and stuffing their faces with candy. The perfect Halloween night for a teen, even if they were home late, far passed the curfew. All worth it.

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆

#richie tozier x reader #richie tozier imagines #richie tozier x you #richie tozier #fanfiction #fanfic #it #it chapter 1 #it chapter 2

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bowieandqueen11 · 5 years ago

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Perfect Match / Richie Tozier Imagine

Request: Hey, Legend! Can I request something raising the question, What would it be like for Richie T pining after a reader not as vulgar or sarcastic, someone more tame with a big heart who still loves his personality? Thank you for your time and consideration!

@savethehoneeybees omg my love this is so cute just my heart melts ;’) <3

Camping, to be completely honest, was not one of the things Richie Tozier believed he would be doing this summer. Yet you had raised it, and all the other Losers seemed to agree, and he wasn’t about to disagree with anything that came out of your mouth. So here he was, his hands fumbling with the tent poles that only seemed to fall out from his grasp, swatting little gnats away from his eyes as he squints out from behind his glasses at you, anger bubbling in his heart that Bill had managed to persuade you to share a tent with him instead of Richie. You laugh, your hand coming up to clench over your heart as you throw Bill a smile that just seems so genuinely sweet with just the right touch of shyness that an unexpected warmth rushes through Richie, and he has to blink and look away before anyone notices the slight rush of pink that tinges his cheeks.

Daring to shoot you yet another burning side glance, his eyes quickly gazing over the tip of your nose and the slight crinkles underneath your eyes before Mike wanders over from the edge of the pond to elbow Richie lightly in his ribs with a knowing grin, Ben shaking his head from where he and Bev were standing next to the car, watching the scene unfold yet again. As you were innocently talking to Bill, you had no idea that normal thoughts were barely forming in Richie’s mind before they were replaced with the melancholy longing and the fantasies of what could be if he were only brave enough to tell you how he felt.

He had daydreamed about every feature of your face for as long as he could remember living in Derry, he recalled every way he had ever seen you wear her hair during the cherished time he had spent in your company, he had logged all of your quirky mannerisms to his brain.

Sitting himself down on the grass overlooking the campsite’s pond, Richie pats the spot next to him with a slight huff as his eyes never leave your cheeks, beckoning Eddie to drop the rest of the poles and to follow suit, not without a resigned sigh from Stanley who stops trying to fold up his trousers for the week back into his suitcase, his curls shaking gently as he sits down as slowly as an old grandpa on Richie’s other side, unable to stop himself from cautioning them that ‘there’s poison ivy all over this campsite, and I’m not rubbing cream all over Richie’s back again.’

Richie lies down next to him, electing to ignore this outburst as he places a thin blade of glass in between his clenched teeth, choosing to spend the afternoon when you and Bill finally decide to join the circle of Losers entertaining you all with various terrible jokes, constantly kicking against your leg as a chorus of ‘beep beep, Richie’’s fill the afternoon breeze. You can’t help it, the peals of laughter that bubble out your throat and make you stick a fist into your mouth, biting down painfully to stop the laughter as Richie sits up onto his elbows, looking overjoyed, but also slightly pained. He thought the jokes might be able to mask the heartache he was feeling, but sitting in such close proximity to you only made his mouth twitch into a frown.

‘Hey, I know’, you begin to say, ‘we should all roast marshmallows!’

‘We should all roast Eddie’s shorts that his mom buys for him’, Richie half grumbles back, but his heart begins to pound again and fill him with a new hope as you giggle softly back.

‘Beep beep, Richie’, you whisper, winking at him before pushing yourself up to try and find the food bag Ben had left in the car. You don’t notice Richie lean up onto one elbow, gently pushing the rim of his glasses back up the tip of his nose as he watches you walk away, a dopey, love sick grin lighting up his face and making his chest weak.

The sunny afternoon became a sultry mid-spring evening, and the shore by the lake was as flat and as shimmering as any mirror, lying on the edge of the campsite without a ripple in the silver-blue water as if time itself had been frozen. From the tall pines around the edge came not a sound, no movement of branches, no birds calling, it was only the eight of you alone in this perfect bubble. In the turquoise watery mirror was only the constellations, starlight so old and young, and a few littered rocks surrounding the edge as if you had reached the edge of a mountain trail, the cool breeze welcoming.

Richie shifts uncomfortably, a quiet grunt escaping his frowning mouth as he rustles around, his bottom landing stiffly on some jagged rocks which bite into his skin. He would tell you later when you both arrived home that he had jumped slightly, kicking Eddie in the shin, swearing little piranhas had managed to rustle underneath the soil of the hillside as Eddie kicks him back, a loud huff bubbling out of his mouth.

Squinting desperately in the darkness that swirls in front of his sparkling doe eyes like sullen clouds covering the sun, his arms hit against the side of his lime green sleeping bag, a large yawn shaking his body as he tries to unzip himself and reach out, his fingers craving the warm touch of your arms, the intimacy of your skin, the smooth curve of your nose as he traces his finger over the tip. Smiling to himself, his hand clamps down onto where you had lain next to him in his dream, before his face drops as his fingers fall down heavily onto a small frame, who happened to be awake, and very angry.

‘Jesus Richie, I swear to god if you start making those weird kissy noises you make whenever you dream about y/n, you are so out of here. There are wolves and coyotes and hell maybe even bears in this forest, but you’re taking your chances out there, because I swear to god if I come back with bloodshot eyes because I haven’t been sleeping, my mum is going to freak out, she already thought this was a bad ide-’

‘Shut up, Eddie!’ Richie and Eddie look at each other in slight confusion, before they realise the voice floating through the darkness had been that of Stanley’s from the next tent over.

The tent begins to whistle like wolves pattering through the darkness of a midnight forest as Richie rubs his hands gently over the shaking muscles in his arms, Eddie collapsing back down next to him and pulling the sleeping back bag up to his ears. Richie’s own ears perk up slightly, his head tilting in the dim as he hears something, a slight jangle that sounds like your voice coming from outside.

Pitching himself up, he walks through the waving flap of the tent, welcoming him out into the darkness and the stream of crickets chirping their symphonies. Walking out onto the dewy grass, he hums contentedly to himself as he hears you singing softly in the night air, your voice beautiful and angelic in his ears as he stops for a moment, taking in the pine trees that shake in front of him like slow dancers swaying in time to the music you’re creating, your voice a strange kind of magic that lets the drooping flowers hanging in thick bushes around the hilly campsite raise their velvety heads, breathing a new life into their silky petals and into Richie’s lonely heart. He follows the sound of your voice, his feet crunching against the ground and becoming lighter with every step as he spots you, your legs lying long against the dusty dirt of the ground, your hair whipped around a stout log as the fire burns ferociously by your feet, but you pay no notice. Your attention is on the stars twinkling above your head, bright and distant and so full of wonder. Richie’s attention is on you.

He settles beside you, his eyes twinkling like broken glass as his gaze settles onto your face, his shirt landing heavily on to your side. You grin slightly, your singing dying to a hum as Richie gazes at you expectantly.

‘Hey, I have an idea!’, you start, ‘I couldn’t sleep anyway. Take my hand!’

‘What-what do you mean?’

‘Come on, we’re going to dance! It’s a beautiful night for it.’

Your shoulder begins to shake lightly, your head beginning to move as he stands up again. Hopping up to him like an excited puppy, Richie doesn’t not what to do until you hold out your hand, bowing over-dramatically and looking up at him all excited as his hair flops down over his eyes. As he reaches out and places his palm flat against yours, a smile tugging at your lips, his fingers wrap tightly against yours before sliding in between them, his knuckles almost white with the effort and fear.

You’re not expecting the force with which he pulls you snug against his chest, your shoulders bumping together and hips hitting off one another before melting together, his arm snaking expertly around your waist as if he’d been waiting forever for this moment his feet starting the guide the two of you to the invisible music. Although he kept on standing on your feet, dancing like a newborn giraffe, the two of you couldn’t care less.

Your cheek lands against his burning ones, your skin rubbing as he spins you, the two of you bursting out into giggles as his nose hits against your skin and he nearly jolts back at the impact. He raises your intertwined hands up to his side, nestling his head further against yours and just closing his eyes in bliss as he spins the two of you round in a tender and loving move, just revelling in the feeling of his thumb stroking against the arch of your back and the way your hips sway into his. The way his hair tickles against your forehead, or the warmness of your breath as it brushes like sun rays against the goosebumps that send shivers rolling down his body.

He begins to hum, although he’s afraid to, singing the song he had heard you sing only a few minutes before, before dipping you down in his arms, daring to press his forehead against yours. He wasn’t expecting the night to end, however, with you leaning up almost painfully slowly and pressing your lips against his, taking all the air out of his lungs.

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skepticalcatfrog · 5 years ago

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Stay Ahead and Stay Alive Chapter 2

First Chapter Previous Chapter Next Chapter

Summary: When Bill Denbrough starts his third summer at Camp Half Blood, everything seems perfect. He's finally getting used to his cabin, he gets to see his friends again, and he's even getting the hang of fighting with a sword. But that perfection is quickly turned on its head when his little brother goes missing. Bill is determined to do whatever it takes to find him, even if that means he and his friends need to go to the Underworld.

Pairings: (Eventual) Reddie, Stenbrough, and Benverly

Word count: 3,208

Author's Notes: It took me longer than I thought to finish this chapter, but that's mostly just because of writer's block. Anyway, now it's done!

POV: Stanley Uris

~Earlier~

"Alright, well, just find me if you need anything. If we don't get a chance to talk then I'll see you tomorrow." I waved to Bill as I walked away, heading back to my cabin. I didn't want to go to orientation, but I knew I had to. I would've much rather spent the rest of the day with Bill. Oh, and Richie and Eddie. Of course.

I had to take a deep breath before entering cabin 6. It could be a little intense in there, especially when you were trying to get everyone on the same page. I opened the door and walked inside, clapping my hands once loudly to get everyone's attention. I raised my voice just a little bit.

"Okay everybody, listen up! Firstly, to everyone who only comes here during the summer, welcome back to the Athena cabin." That earned a quiet round of applause from a couple of campers. "And secondly, today is orientation! We'll probably be getting a couple of new campers, so be prepared for that. They'll probably be nervous about being here, and we all know how that feels, don't we? Just help them out a little bit. We wouldn't want anyone to start hating us on the first day, would we?" A couple of people laughed, but I was never really the funny one in the group. My jokes always seemed to land better with my friends than my siblings. "Anyway, that's the end of my speech. I have to go meet everyone at orientation, so I'll be back in a bit."

Then I turned and left. I knew that the entire conversation had gone quickly, but I was sure that all of my siblings were used to it at that point. I was probably one of the busiest counselors in camp, always doing something, constantly popping in and out of the cabin. It honestly got kind of hectic sometimes. That's why I enjoyed time when I could just relax with my friends.

A small crowd had already gathered at the amphitheatre by the time I got there. I sat near the back with a couple of other counselors. We just waited there while the camp director spoke. Once that was over, each counselor was assigned a group of campers to tour the camp with. I'd dealt with new campers before, so everything went pretty smoothly for me. They had a few questions, but otherwise they seemed to understand how I was explaining everything.

The really difficult part was dinner. Athena kids are the only half bloods who are claimed at birth, so we had a lot of new campers at our table. It was much louder than usual, and it felt like I had to remind someone of the rules every five seconds. Usually it was someone trying to go to another cabin's table. I was relieved when we finally cleared out of the mess hall.

Everything calmed down again at the campfire. All of us were tired, so no one had the energy to cause any trouble. The new campers appeared to be having fun, which was a good sign. A few of them were mesmerized by the fire, and how it would change based on the emotions of the people surrounding it. Eventually the moon was fully risen, and the stars were out. That meant it was time to go back to our cabins.

My siblings helped the newcomers get into the routine of things. Soon enough, everyone was fast asleep, including me. Everything was peaceful, which was refreshing after the busy day I'd had. Unfortunately, that serenity didn't last long. I was woken up by someone shaking me.

"Stanley?" I heard someone whisper from near me. I opened my eyes to see one of my siblings standing next to my bed. She was significantly younger than me, maybe around seven years old.

"Yeah?" I said something so she knew I was awake, but I closed my eyes again.

"I can't sleep." She said simply.

"Have you tried imagining something calming?" I asked, glancing at her.

"No." She shook her head.

"Have you tried anything?" I closed my eyes again.

"No…" She admitted.

"Then how about you get back to bed. Maybe you'll be able to fall asleep in a little while." I resolved. Then I heard her climbing back into her bed.

A few minutes later, she woke me up again. We went through the same conversation, and it ended with her going back to bed again. That cycle repeated four more times. When I felt someone shaking my shoulder for the seventh time, I'd reached the end of my rope.

"I know, you can't sleep, but that doesn't mean you have to-" I opened my eyes, but she wasn't there. Instead, I was met by familiar blue eyes. I was startled out of my tired state. It was Bill, frantically trying to wake me up. He was completely dressed, his hair was wet, and the front of his jacket was splattered with mud. "Bill? Why are you here, you're supposed to be asleep. And why are you covered in mud?"

"I'll explain l-later, right now I just n-n-need your help." He told me uneasily, wiping tears from his face.

"What's wrong, what happened?" I sat up, now completely awake. If Bill had taken the risk of coming to another cabin at night, something big must've happened.

"I-I-It's Georgie, he's m-m-m-m-m-" He struggled with his stutter.

"It's okay, just breathe." I sat up and reached for his hand, but hesitated. He was clearly very emotional, any sort of contact might just make it worse. My hand dropped back to my side. "Everything's going to be okay. Now, do you think you can tell me what happened?"

"Georgie… is m-missing. We w-were out in the w-w-woods, and I l-l-left him alone, and now..." He burst into tears, burying his face in his hands. "Shit, I left him a-a-alone!"

My eyes widened. "Are you sure? Are you sure it wasn't just a bad dream?"

"Y-y-yes, of course I'm sure!" He looked up at me, his eyes catching mine. He spoke as if he'd never been more positive about anything in his life. "And I n-need you to help me f-find him."

"But why me?" I asked.

"I d-don't know, I thought you'd know w-w-what to do!" Bill dried his eyes on his sleeves, regaining control of his emotions.

"Well I'm not going to have a perfectly planned solution right away after being woken up in the middle of the night." I sighed. I was tired, and I didn't feel up to dealing with a serious situation. But I had to do something, I couldn't just tell him to get over it, he'd be crushed. I just needed time to figure things out. "Go back to your cabin and try to get some rest, we'll figure something out tomorrow morning. I promise."

"O-okay…" He stood up and went to the door. I attempted to go back to sleep. I heard the sound of the door opening and closing, signifying that Bill had left the room.

It took a while for me to fall asleep again, but I don't know exactly how long it was. I just had too many thoughts in my head. First I wake up in the middle of the night to see one of my best friends standing over me, then he tells me his brother is missing, and he needs my help to find him. It was a lot to process. At first I thought it might've been a dream, but then it started to feel a little too real. I tried to think of a plan until eventually I just couldn't keep my eyes open.

I was woken up abruptly the next morning by sunlight shining through the windows and the seemingly ever-present sound of projects in the process of being completed. I only had time to change into regular clothes before I heard a persistent knocking at the door. I was lucky that I got to the door first, because standing on the other side was Bill, still wearing the clothes he'd been in the previous night. That plus the faint dark circles under his eyes made it clear that he hadn't slept at all the previous night.

"We n-need to find R-R-Richie and Eddie." Bill got right to the point the second I opened the door. "The more p-people we have to help us, the b-be-better."

He started to walk away, gesturing for me to follow him. We went to find Eddie first, mostly because his cabin was the closest to mine. Bill stopped in front of the door of cabin 7 and knocked on it. I stood next to him, and we waited there for a good couple of minutes. It wasn't like no one was awake, Apollo kids tended to rise early; It was just that no one answered the door. Finally though, someone did. It was one of Eddie's half siblings.

She opened the door with a smile on her face. "Hi, can I help you guys with anything?"

"I-Is Eddie here?" Bill asked.

"Sorry, he's not." She shook her head. "He woke up a few hours ago with the rest of us, but he usually goes to the infirmary earlier. He says he has to be ready for whoever might come in."

"Okay, thanks. We should've known he'd be there. Sorry to bother you, see you around." I waved to her, and she waved back before closing the door. I glanced at Bill. "So, to the infirmary?"

"Yeah." He nodded, and we were on our way again.

I looked at him out of the corner of my eye as we walked. I didn't need to look at him to remember what he looked like, but sometimes I did it anyway. You would be able to tell that Bill was a son of Aphrodite just by seeing his face. His hair was brown, like the feathers of a song sparrow, but the sun made it look a little lighter. His icy blue eyes were striking, and could be intimidating at times. Especially times like just then, when they were filled with determination. Normally, though, they were much more welcoming. More like going to an ice skating rink with your friends and less like falling through a thin sheet of ice into freezing water. I snapped out of my train of thought and quickly looked away, worried about being caught staring. Soon after that, we approached the entrance to the infirmary.

We opened the door and stepped inside. Just as we'd been told, Eddie was pacing back and forth in the middle of the room. None of the lights were on yet, but the blinds were open on the windows, letting in the natural light. The infirmary was entirely clean and orderly. It looked like just the place you'd expect someone like Eddie to be. Clean tile floors, pristine white walls, various types of medicine organised on shelves. The beds on either side of the room were perfectly made, and looked as if no one had been in them for a while. However, the more likely option was that Eddie made all the beds the moment he got there.

Eddie looked up at us as soon as we walked in, but it was clear that he hadn't expected it to be us. What made it obvious was that he didn't immediately start talking. He looked relieved when he saw me and Bill, but also vaguely… disappointed. "Oh… hey, guys. What are you doing here? Is one of you hurt?"

"N-no, we're both fine." Bill closed the door behind us. "B-b-but we need your help with s-something."

"Yeah, it's more about who isn't fine." I glanced around the room nervously.

"Oh my- is it Richie again?" Eddie gritted his teeth. "Because I swear, if he's escalated to the point of sending you guys to get me, I will actually punch him right in the face. I don't care how bad the scrape on his knee might be, I'll do it."

"No!" I said quickly. "You don't need to do any of that. Seriously."

"Okay, if it's not Richie, then who is it?" Eddie finally stopped his pacing.

"Georgie." Bill said simply. Then he went on to explain. "He went m-missing in the woods last night, and I d-don't know where he is, b-b-but I need to find him. That's w-why we're here, we wanted to a-ask for your help."

"The North woods?" Eddie asked. "That's inside the boundaries, if he got lost there then he's definitely still in there somewhere. Maybe the satyrs found him."

"No, i-i-it wasn't the North w-woods." Bill shook his head. "It was outside the b-borders. I think s-something might've t-t-taken him."

"Wait, it wasn't the North woods?" I looked at the ground in thought, crossing my arms. "Then this is worse than I thought. Chances are, if something did take him, he's probably not in the woods anymore."

Bill shot that down right away. "He has to b-be, we'll be a-able to find him. We j-j-just have to look."

"That might be true, but the woods isn't the place to be looking." I sighed, tapping my foot on the floor. I finally looked up, glancing between Eddie and Bill. "Demigods who get taken by monsters… well, they don't usually come back. So as much as I hate to say it, I think the next best place to look would be the Underworld."

The room fell into an awkward silence. Bill stared at me like I'd just hit him with a rock, and that look alone made me regret what I'd said. He was about to say something, but then the door opened. We all looked in the direction of the sound. There, strolling into the infirmary with a bleeding knee and an elbow to match, was Richie Tozier.

"Hey Eds, I fell off of the climbing wall again and I need you to-" Richie seemed to become aware of the serious tone of the room. "What happened in here?"

We explained everything to him, from Georgie's disappearance to our plan to go to the Underworld. I even learned a couple of new things, like how Bill had found a bloodstained puddle of water in the place where he'd left Georgie. The whole time we were talking, Eddie was bandaging Richie's cuts.

"But the Underworld is all the way across the country." Richie raised an eyebrow. "How are we supposed to get there?"

"We could walk. Take a couple of buses, maybe." I suggested.

"We don't have enough money for buses. And if we walk all the way to Los Angeles, we might be dead by the time we get there anyway, which would make the part where we come back here much harder." Eddie pointed out.

"Eddie's right." Bill agreed. "W-we'll have to f-f-find another way."

"Transportation can wait, for now we just need to figure out the immediate details. Eddie, do you have anything I can write with? And maybe some paper?" I asked. Eddie went to look through the shelves and came back a minute later with a pen and a notepad. I started to make a list. "The classic things demigods need for quests. Weapons, extra clothes, personal hygiene products, and a satyr guide. That shouldn't be too hard."

"I-If we start n-now, we might b-b-be able to get it all done t-to-today." Bill read over the list.

"I have responsibilities, Bill." I handed him the notepad. "I know that this is important, but I can't just drop everything to do it. I'll try to help as much as I can, of course, but I might not always be available."

"Yeah, I'm usually pretty occupied all day too." Eddie nodded.

"I, on the other hand, am literally never busy. I'm available all day, so I'll help." Richie offered.

"So it's settled. We'll prepare today, and leave either tomorrow or the next day depending on when everything's ready." I said. Everyone agreed.

We all said our temporary goodbyes, and went our separate ways. I don't know what everyone else did, but I went back to my cabin. Not many people were there anymore. I used the unusual quiet to get some work done. It was mostly just cleaning, because there was going to be a cabin inspection in a few days, and I needed to prepare. I wandered around the cabin, tidying things up as I saw fit.

Eventually the cabin was entirely spotless, and I had nothing to do anymore. I got my binoculars and bird watching book from my nightstand. I went to the Big House and sat on the porch, pointing my binoculars towards the sky. There weren't any new birds up there, just the same ones as usual. Sometimes I wished I could see something different. I stayed at camp all the time, so I'd seen all of the birds around here. Sure, I loved bird watching, but it got a little boring sometimes. Not to mention lonely, because I was the only person in the entire camp who did it. Maybe I could bring my book with me when we leave for our quest, I thought to myself. I knew that traveling across the country would bring me some different results. I put my binoculars down, and was shocked to see the scene in front of me. A large crowd of campers had gathered around something by the border of camp. I picked up my book and hung the binoculars around my neck, walking down the porch stairs to see what the commotion was about.

I pushed my way through the crowd. Most people moved for me, since I was a counselor. They assumed I knew what I was doing. At the center of the group was a boy who looked about my age. And he didn't seem to be doing too well based on the fact that he was terribly beat up. He was covered in cuts and bruises, with the worst one being a gash on his stomach. His clothes were stained with blood. I got a little closer to him and pushed everyone else away.

"There's nothing to see here, all of you can go back to what you were doing before!" I shouted to the horde of campers. A few of them left, but most of them just took a few steps back. Knowing I wouldn't be able to do much better than that, I turned back to the boy and lowered my voice a little. "Hey, everything's going to be alright. We're going to go to the infirmary, and they'll fix you up there, okay? What's your name?"

"Ben Hanscom." The boy told me.

"Okay Ben, let's go." I let him lean on me as we made our way to the infirmary. I knocked on the door once we got there. Just as I'd hoped, Eddie answered the door. His eyes widened when he saw me and Ben. His eyes asked a silent question, which his mouth then said out loud.

"What happened?"

"Nothing good, that's for sure." I answered. "Think you can help us?"

He nodded wordlessly and moved aside to let us in.

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s-oulpunk · 5 years ago

Text

Vendetta (2/3) - Stenbrough

Chapter Summary: Bill, true to his word, searches for Stan from the moment he wakes up to the moment he crawls, defeated, back into Robert’s truck. By that time, the sun has long since gone away, replaced by a watchful moon and a million tiny stars. Most nights, Bill thinks they’re beautiful. Patches of light in a world full of dark. But tonight they only fill him with an unfathomable amount of anger. How dare they return to this world looking exactly the same as the night before? Don’t they know what happened?

TW: Violence, Manipulation, Non-Con, Kidnapping, Self harm, Mentions of suicide, Mentions of rape

Read on AO3

Part Two:

The Disappearance Of Stanley Uris:

Robert’s prized possession is a tiny, portable camera he carries with him everywhere. Bill knows it all too well. It snaps photos on all of their little excursions. Sometimes it even comes out in those moments where Bill’s on his knees, Robert towering above him. He hears the quiet click and shame burns hot throughout his body.

But he never asks to see the photos. He’s never once asked to look through the camera roll. Why would he need to? There’s nothing there he wants to see.

But, as of currently, the camera isn’t being pointed at Bill. Instead it’s being pointed at Stan. Stan who is standing against the far wall, swaying slightly on his feet, with blood on his face and bruises on his neck.

Stan had gotten a surge of hope when the camera was first revealed, but Robert must have seen the glint in his eyes because he simply laughed and said, “Don’t get any ideas. No one sees this old thing but me.”

The idea of Robert saving this moment forever, the idea that he can go back and relive it whenever he wants, makes Stan’s veins turn to ice. Hasn’t he had enough? Isn’t it enough to make Stan’s skin turn purple and his eyes turn glassy? Why does he need to make it last?

The thought makes Stan’s lower lip tremble, but he quickly sucks it between his teeth, biting harshly, in a desperate attempt to keep it still. He’ll be damned if he lets Robert see him cry again.

“Deep in thought?” Robert coos. “You’ll get wrinkles.”

For a split second Stan can see the facade of the man Bill trusts so much. He can see why he puts his heart and soul in his hands. This man seems charming, caring even. Like a favorite uncle. The thought makes Stan sick.

It takes him a few minutes to get his voice to work. The first few tries, all that come out are rather pathetic little squeaks. Robert, who seems rather amused by this, snaps a few more photos.

“Bill,” Stan finally gets out. “What - What do you want with him?”

Robert sighs heavily and crosses the last few feet between them. Stan pathetically tries to push himself closer to the wall.

“Billy and I’s relationship is something you will simply never understand,” Robert says. “He’s special.”

“I know he’s special.” Stan spits the words out venomously. Even if he can’t look Robert in the eye, his words cut deep. He knows because a moment later he’s being smacked hard across the face. He doesn’t have time to recover before Robert’s grabbing his chin, forcefully turning his head until they’re nose to nose.

“Don’t ever speak to me like that again,” Robert snarls, teeth bared and spit flying. “You should be thanking me. I could’ve left you out for the wolves. I could’ve killed you. But did I? No. And this is the thanks I get?” He squeezes Stan’s face harder, pressing the inside of Stan’s cheeks up against his teeth. “Say it.”

“Wh-What?”

“Say thank you.” Stan shakes his head. Or, tries to shake his head. It’s hard with the vice-like grip holding him in place. “C’mon, Stanny, don’t be rude. Things won’t go well if you can’t behave.”

Stan isn’t sure what that means, but there’s no way to doubt that it’s a threat. And Stan doesn't think he’s in any position to be ignoring those right about now.

“Thank you,” he chokes out.

“Good boy,” Robert hums. He drops his hand, and graciously doesn’t say anything when Stan’s own hands come up to rub at his aching cheeks. “What you need to understand, Stanley, is that I know things about Billy that you never will.”

Stan nods mutely, as if he understands. He just has to be good. If he’s good then Robert will have no reason to hurt him. He doesn’t even flinch that much when Robert starts to twirl one of his curls between his finger.

“You’ve actually helped bring us so much closer,” Robert says.

“Please don’t hurt him,” Stan whispers. He keeps his eyes downcast. Speaking out of turn is enough of a risk, he doesn’t need to anger him further.

“Hurt him?” Robert balks, as if the statement is outrageous. As if he would never dream of such a thing. As if he doesn’t have Stan locked in his fucking basement. “I would never hurt him, Stanley. Billy’s become very special to me in the past few weeks.” He tuts quietly. “I can’t believe you would think so lowly of me.”

Stan has so many questions. They swirl around his head, each fighting to be more important than the one before. He half feels that if he doesn’t get an answer to each and every one right now he’ll implode. But one question was risky enough, so he takes to nodding quietly instead.

But that’s not enough for Robert, who tugs sharply on the curl he still has spun around his finger. Stan squeaks out a quiet, “Sorry,” which Robert seems to deem good enough because he lets the curl drop a moment later.

“I’m going out,” he says, as casually as if he’d just announced he was heading out to buy a new pint of milk.

“Alright,” Stan says, because what the fuck else does he say to that?

Robert stares at him, and Stan has the most awful feeling that he’s trying to decide whether or not his response was good enough. He seems to decide it is, though he still presses his thumb into a bruise blooming just under Stan’s right eye and chuckles lowly when Stan winces.

A moment later the door slams closed and Stan is, once again, alone. Except he doesn’t feel any sort of relief. He’s alone alone. The only person who knows where he is is Robert, and who the hell knows when he’ll be back.

For a single, alarming minute, Stan considers the fact that he might never be back. Stan might be left here to starve and rot. But that’s somehow worse than Robert coming back, so Stan pushes it to the back of his mind before he can panic too much.

He slides to the floor, allowing the far wall to support a majority of his body weight. The floor is filthy, but the impending threat of literal death is currently far too pressing for Stan to really be worried about that.

Because that’s what’s going to happen. There’s no way to escape it. Whether it’s today or tomorrow or next month, at some point Stanley Uris is going to die alone in a dark basement, far, far away from the comfort of his friends. They’ll probably never even know what happened to him. And that, somehow, is the scariest thought of all.

Bill, true to his word, searches for Stan from the moment he wakes up to the moment he crawls, defeated, back into Robert’s truck. By that time, the sun has long since gone away, replaced by a watchful moon and a million tiny stars. Most nights, Bill thinks they’re beautiful. Patches of light in a world full of dark. But tonight they only fill him with an unfathomable amount of anger. How dare they return to this world looking exactly the same as the night before? Don’t they know what happened?

If they had just waited a few more minutes, if Bill had just had a little bit longer, maybe he could have found something. Even if it was just a clue, he would be one step closer.

Except, he wouldn’t be. Because deep in his heart of hearts, Bill knows that no matter how much time he had, he never would have found anything.

He failed with Georgie, and he’s going to fail with Stanley.

A hand on his knee rips him out of his thoughts. He jumps in his seat, a soundless yelp struggling to escape his throat. But when he looks again, it’s just Robert.

“I’m sorry we didn’t find anything, Billy,” he says.

Bill shrugs, wordlessly. Because what would he say? Would he say that it’s okay? That they’ll find something eventually? Bill can’t keep lying to himself. It’s not okay, and he’s never going to find something. He just has to accept that.

“Hey,” Robert murmurs. “C’mon, talk to me.”

“Huh?” Bill’s gaze slowly moves, like a buffering computer, up from Robert’s hand on his knee, to his face.

“Are you alright?”

“I…” Bill’s eyes find the moon again. Distantly, he wonders if Stan, wherever he is, is looking at the moon as well. Is he thinking about him? Does he know how worried Bill is?

Bill can see him in his imagination, sitting on the rough ground as he stares up at the moon. Bill tries to focus on Stan’s surroundings, as if it will somehow lead him to the real life Stan. But they remain fuzzy, like a half-processed photograph.

“Billy!” Bill nearly leaps out of his seat at the booming voice, only Robert’s hand keeping him grounded. “You have been like this all fucking day! I do a nice thing for you - I go out of my way to help you - and this is the thanks I get?”

It’s the first time Robert’s really gotten angry with him, the first time Bill’s ever seen that fire in his eyes. It makes Bill’s skin crawl and heart hammer. Little alarms are sounding in his head. Each screaming: Danger! Danger! Danger! But he can’t move. All he can do is sit there and stare at Robert with comically large eyes, hoping and praying the anger doesn’t get any worse.

Flashes of the night before only add to the fear. Images of hands digging into his hips and his face shoved in a pillow echo through his brain. He can still feel the ache in his thighs, a constant reminder like a thumb pressing into a bruise.

“I - I’m - sss-suh-suh-”

Robert must sense the fear Bill feels, because he sighs deeply and moves the arm on Bill’s knee to wrap around his shoulders, pulling him tightly against him.

“I’m sorry, Billy,” he murmurs. “I didn’t mean to get upset. I just worry about you.”

Bill nods, despite the anxiety still pooling in his stomach. He’s ready to leave it there, content with a silent agreement that yes, everything is okay now, but not talking had been exactly what had upset Robert. So Bill murmurs out a quiet, “I know. I’m suh-sorry.”

Robert hums quietly. “We’ll find him, I’m sure of it. He can’t be far.”

Bill traps his lower lip between his teeth, sinking them into the soft flesh until it’s red and bitten. There’s something else he has to say. Something else he has to tell Robert. Something that might change their entire search.

Robert brings him out of his thoughts with a soft chuckle, which is certainly better than the screaming he had been doing only a moment earlier. But the way he drags Bill’s lip away from his teeth with his thumb still makes the hair on the back of Bill’s neck stand on end.

“Thinking hard over there?” Robert says.

“Stan,” Bill says. He keeps his voice quiet, because without him here, Stan’s name feels precious. Something that could be tainted if he said it wrong. “I’m ww-wuh-worried about him.”

“I know-”

“No!” In a flash, Bill is sitting upright again. He fixes Robert with a steely stare. He doesn’t know. “I’m worried h-he did this to - to hh-huh-himself.” Upon Robert’s inquisitive stare, he continues, “Stan ww-wuh-was always - I dunno - ss-sad?” There’s more to it than that, there’s so much more. He wasn’t sad, he was never sad. But it’s complex. And sometimes sad is the only word people understand. “Rr-Ruh-Richie found him one time. In the bb-bb-buh-buh-bah - Fuck - It doesn’t matter! He - He hh-hurt himself, and we th-thought everything was buh-better now. But wh-wh-what if-” He cuts himself off with a sniffle, horrified to find his eyes shiny with tears again. Crying is starting to become a constant part of his day.

“Fuck,” Robert says. “Shit, kid, I’m so sorry.”

Bill shrugs. For a moment he considers telling him what happened the night before Stanley’s disappearance. He considers telling him how nice Stan’s curls felt in his hands. He considers telling him how soft his lips were. He considers telling him how Stan’s shy smile made his entire body feel like it was on fucking fire. Instead he settles for, “Stan was the best of us.”

Stan wakes up to the sound of heavy footsteps. Heavy footsteps thundering down the stairs, heading right towards the locked door only a few mere feet away.

He manages to scramble into a sitting position right as Robert throws the door open.

Robert regards him carefully, like one regards an animal in a zoo. Stan half has the urge to cover his face in his hands, just so he won’t have to see those ice cold eyes boring into his soul. But he knows better than to take his eyes off Robert.

In one hand, Robert’s holding a lantern. It’s dim and flickering, barely illuminates the room, but it’s better than the suffocating darkness Stan had been surrounded by only seconds ago. In his other hand, he’s got a paper bag. Stan hates to think about what might be in it, but he can’t stop his imagination from running wild. Various knives and torture devices, each one worse than the last, run through his mind. It drags a soft whimper from his lips, despite how hard he tries to stifle it.

Robert chuckles quietly, letting the door slam closed behind him.

“Miss me?” he asks. When Stan doesn’t reply, he tuts quietly. “Why is everyone ignoring me today?”

“Sorry,” Stan chokes out.

Robert hums softly to himself. “That’s a start.”

He sets the lamp and bag on the floor, and Stan can’t help but lean forward as Robert starts to rustle through the bag. He pulls out a hastily wrapped peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which he holds out to Stan as if he were a dog begging for a treat.

“You hungry?”

Stan doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t have to, Robert can see the way his eyes lock on the food. He can hear the way his stomach growls the moment the sandwich is out in the open.

“Yeah?”

Stan knows it’s a bad idea, he doesn’t know what the hell Robert did to that sandwich, but he nods anyway. It’s short and broken, but that’s all he needs.

Robert grins wolfishly as he puts the sandwich back in the bag. “You’re gonna need to work for it.”

Before Stan has a chance to wonder what the fuck that means, something is clattering to the ground right before his feet. It’s hard to recognize in the dim light, though that does nothing to ease Stan’s anxiety. He nudges it gently with his foot, as if to check it for explosives. Nothing happens but, again, this does not make him feel any better.

“Pick it up,” Robert urges. “It’s alright.”

Except it most definitely is not alright, because Stan recognizes it as soon he’s got his hands on it. An old razor blade, rusted and worn, rests between his fingers.

“I - I don’t - I don’t understand,” he says, feeling breathless. Like he just got all the wind punched out of him.

“Well you can’t expect me to do all the work!” Robert exclaims.

The longer Stan stares at the cool metal, the clearer the memory becomes. The slosh of the water. The red on his arms. The inhuman sobs Richie let out, glasses fogging up as he clutches Stan’s cold, unresponsive hand between his two warm ones.

“You want me...You want me to-” Stan can’t even finish the thought.

“Please don’t go,” Richie had begged, “Please don’t leave us.”

“Just a couple,” Robert says. He’s leaning against the wall. It’s infuriatingly casual and for a moment Stan wants to leap across the room and lodge the blade into his neck, right below his adam’s apple. Which is strange, because Stan’s never been a violent person.

“You don’t want me to - to kill myself?” Stan asks, feeling his mouth go dry.

Please don’t go.

“God, no,” Robert says, and he has the audacity to look offended. “We are nowhere near done, Stanley.”

Stan swallows thinkly. The blade is so small. It’s strange to think something so small could cause so much pain and fear.

“I’ve been clean for so long,” he says, more to himself than Robert.

Please don’t leave us.

“I can do it myself,” Robert says. “But it won’t be nearly as nice. I won’t be happy to have to do your job for you.”

Nice isn’t exactly a word Stan would associate with his current situation. But, nonetheless, having Robert slice up his arms does sound infinitely worse than doing it himself.

Stan holds out his arm, ignoring how Robert cranes his neck to get a better look, and prepares the blade against his skin. It makes little goosebumps prickle across his forearm.

He hasn’t done this in so long, and yet the first cut still feels as familiar as riding a bike. A very painful, very guilt-ridden bike.

He lets out a quiet hiss as blood dribbles down his arm. It lands in little splatters on the floor beneath him, and distantly he remembers he can’t even fucking clean it up afterwards.

As the second cut goes in, he’s transported back to a shiny clean bathroom with red-stained white tiles. He’s transported back to the stench of cleaning supplies as he scrubs relentlessly, ignoring how his arms sting with the effort. He’s transported back to too-tightly-wrapped bandages and too big sweatshirts.

The third cut goes in.

He’s vaguely aware he’s crying. He must be. What else would someone else do in this situation?

The fourth cut.

He can see Richie sitting next to him in a hospital room. He looks exhausted, but he still grins when he sees Stan open his eyes.

“Stan the man,” he says. “You’re alright.”

The fifth cut.

Richie’s not grinning anymore. Now his glasses are fogging up again, even if both of them valiantly ignore it.

“Promise me you won’t do it again,” he grits out. “Please. Promise me.”

That drags a sob out of Stan. Real life Stan, not hospital Stan. Hospital Stan smiles wetly, and promises to try. Real life Stan can’t keep a promise to save his life.

“Please.” Stan can barely see Robert through his blurred vision. It’s a miracle he’s able to get any words out at all. “Please, don’t - don’t make me d-do any - anymore.”

But Robert’s already fixated on the scene before him. Stan looks so small, huddled into himself as his own blood puddles around him.

“You want your prize, don’t you?” he says.

Stan wails brokenly. There’s so much blood on his arm. It’s practically gushing now, covering his skin in the sticky substance.

“No!” he sobs. “No, no, no, no!”

Robert sighs, like a mother watching her son throw a temper tantrum in a grocery store, as he crosses the room to kneel before Stan. Stan hiccups softly, and clutches the blade in his palm. If Robert can’t get to it, he can’t hurt him.

But it doesn’t matter, because Robert was never going for the blade. Instead he grips Stan’s arm in one, calloused hand and presses his thumb roughly against the cut closest to his wrist.

Stan screams. He screams so loud, he’s surprised no one hears him. But of course they don’t. No one’s ever going to hear him.

“Do you know why Billy was ignoring me?” Robert snarls, ignoring how Stan tries to twist his wrist away in favor of rubbing his thumb over the cut. “Because he was thinking about you. I thought if I eliminated the problem, if I took away all the factors, that he would realize his mistake. But you’re still managing to come between us.”

“Please,” Stan sobs. “Please stop. I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

Robert only grips his wrist harder, digging his fingers into the rest of the cuts.

“I know what you did,” he growls. Spit flies from his mouth, landing on Stan’s cheeks and mixing with the constant stream of tears. “I saw it. You put your hands all over him. You think he belongs to you, but he’s mine. Do you understand?”

“Let go of me!” Stan screams.

“I said do you understand?”

“Yes! Yes, I understand!”

Robert drops his arm, and Stan scrambles to cradle it gently against his chest. It pulsates angrily, the beginnings of bruises forming beneath the still steadily streaming blood.

Robert stands and for one glorious moment Stan thinks he’s leaving. But he returns a moment later, paper bag in hand.

It’s as if a switch has been flipped in his brain. He hands Stan the sandwich casually, like they’re old friends on a picnic. Then he pulls out a package of fresh bandages. Stan eyes them desperately, almost more desperately than he eyed the food.

“Give me your arm,” Robert commands. Stan whines. “Unless you want to bleed out.”

“I can do it,” Stan says weakly. “I’ve done it before.”

Robert chuckles, brushing Stan’s sweaty curls away from his eyes. “It’s cute you think you can call the shots. Give me your arm.”

Stan gives it to him. He watches him like a hawk but, true to his word, Robert cleans the blood off his arm and bandages it tightly. Although he does squeeze it afterwards, earning himself a yelp from Stan. Stan supposes he can’t handle doing even one nice thing without causing a little bit of pain. Not that any of this could be considered nice.

As soon as his arm is free, Stan pounces on the sandwich. It has to be disgusting, watching him eat. He tears into the food as quickly as he can, not caring if he gets peanut butter on his face or if he chews with his mouth open. But Robert doesn’t seem to care. He watches his every movement with the intensity of a lion stalking its prey.

“Good?” Robert says when Stan’s finished his meal. Stan nods. “Don’t forget your manners.”

“Thank you,” Stan whispers.

Robert stands. “Good boy.”

He ruffles Stan’s hair, much like one would to a family dog, before stalking through the door. It closes with a deafening slam, followed by an almost comically quiet click of a lock.

He leaves the lantern, which is a nice change of pace. Stan keeps expecting him to return any moment now and snatch it away, to take away his last shred of sanity. But he doesn’t.

Once his breathing evens out again, whether that be seconds or hours Stan isn’t sure, he slowly stands on shaky legs and begins to tip-toe around the room. There isn’t much to see. Gray walls. Gray floor. Gray ceiling.

The only other thing in the entire basement is a small cardboard box. For a while, Stan tries to ignore it. He doesn’t know what the hell could be in there. What if it’s disembodied limbs? What if it’s something worse?

But eventually his curiosity gets the best of him. Of course it does. What the fuck else does he have to do?

Fortunately, it turns out the box is not full of limbs. In fact, it’s shockingly normal. It’s full of clothes, stuffed animals, old cameras. The same stuff any sane person would put in their basement.

Against his better judgement, Stan shuffles through the contents. He passes an old jacket, a raggedy looking teddy bear, a T-Shirt with a massive hole under the armpit, and roughly a million cameras before he finds something of interest.

It’s a small turtle plushie, worn and droopy, but Stan can’t help but pull it close to his chest. Something about it is so familiar. He can almost see the life it had before it was shoved down here and forced to live out the rest of its life in the dark and the cold. He can almost see the face of a young toddler, gripping the turtle like it’s his lifeline, as he laughs wildly at something his big brother said.

Stan gasps sharply. Realization knots in his stomach and no matter how hard he tries to ignore it, he knows exactly who the turtle belonged to even before he yanks a flash of yellow out from the bottom of the box. He fumbles with the raincoat until he finds the tag, and despite how he knows exactly who went missing in this coat, the lettering still punches a hole through his heart. Georgie Denbrough is scribbled in big, messy letters, and fuck if that doesn’t start the waterworks again.

Stan always liked Georgie. He was a sweet kid. He was always excited about something, talking faster than Stan could understand. Derry got so much quieter after he disappeared.

Staring at the blood-stained jacket, Stan feels sick. He wants to shove it back into the farthest corner of the box, he doesn’t want to think about it ever again.

But then he thinks about Bill. He had been completely shattered when Georgie failed to come back home that day. Stan had held him in his arms for hours as he cried, sobbing until he had no tears left.

And Bill’s done so much for Stan. He helped him change his bandages after the incident, not making any comments out of the ordinary the entire time. He never once thought less of Stan, never once thought of him as a coward, even when that was the only way Stan could see himself. He had always struggled to see the best parts of himself, but Bill made him feel special.

Bill’s always been there for Stan, so who is he if he doesn’t do this for Bill?

In truth, he doesn’t know if he’ll see him again, but someone needs to find out what happened to Georgie.

He goes through at least five cameras before he finds anything with Georgie. By the time he gets to it, he already feels like projectile vomiting. His head is stuffed full of various images of gore and violence, but he can’t stop now. He’s so close.

Georgie is the first photo on the fifth camera. It’s bad, but not murder bad, though Stan knows it will get there. Georgie’s standing against the wall. Blood’s spilling from a busted swollen lip, and bruises scatter his face. The worst are directly under his left eye, swelling enough that his eye is only half-open, and across his neck. It’s not unlike the photos Robert took of Stan merely a few days ago.

From there on out, they only get worse.

Stan can hear the phantom screams as he scrolls through the photos. Mangled limbs and a blood smeared face appear in every one, always with a matching set of tears.

But the last one is the worst. Georgie’s arm has been chopped clean off, and his eyes are distant and glassy. Stan has no doubt it was one of his last moments.

He clicks the camera off as quickly as he can. He’s seen enough. He’s seen more than enough.

He shoves everything back into the box, burying the cameras under piles of clothing. But he keeps the turtle. He holds it close to his chest and tries not to think about Georgie in this exact position.

In the month and a half since Stanley’s disappearance, things have not gotten better.

Bill still spends most of his time looking for him and Georgie, either with Robert or the Losers, but always with the same outcome. Nothing.

The clubhouse is especially lonely without him. It’s a place meant for all seven of them, and knowing that Stan’s out God knows where, doing God knows what, while the rest of them are safe inside only makes the guilt in Bill’s stomach grow. He should be out doing something. He should be helping. What’s he doing instead? Sitting alone as the rest of his friends murmur away, scribbling a story into a notebook that nobody will read.

He had thought this would make the Losers understand, that they would finally see Robert the way he saw him. But it only seemed to increase their hatred. Especially Richie’s.

“I bet Robert has something to do with this,” he seethes. “He’s a fucking creep.”

“Wh-Wh-What would Robert want with Stan?” Bill asks, trying to ignore the way the words prickle under his skin.

“How the fuck should I know? I don’t know how he thinks.”

“Robert d-duh-didn’t do anything with Ssss-Stuh-Stuh-Stan,” Bill says. “He’s been helping me look for huh-him.”

“Yeah, and guess what? You haven’t found anything.”

Bill’s head snaps up, eyes locking with Richie’s icy cold ones. This has been hard on all of them, but especially Richie. He had done a complete 180, going from the lighthearted, goofy one of the group, to their local conspiracy theorist. Their local angry conspiracy theorist. Because he’s pissed off all the time now, which Bill understands. Bill’s always understood anger, he’s understood it far too well. But Bill’s anger is all inside. It sits amongst his organs, slowly poisoning him from the inside out. Richie’s anger is all outward, directed towards anyone and anything that so much as breathes wrong.

“Statistically, a lot of murderers will come back to the scene of the crime afterwards,” Mike pipes up. “They like to help the police. It gives them a sense of accomplishment.”

“Gives them a god complex, more like,” Bev says, words slightly muffled around her cigarette.

“Rr-Ruh-Robert’s not a murderer, guys.”

“You don’t know that!” Eddie cries out.

“If he was a mmm-murderer, don’t you think he would’ve killed me bb-buh-by now?” Bill says.

Bev narrows her eyes at him. Bill doesn’t have to be a genius to know what she’s trying to say. Maybe Robert doesn’t want to kill him, maybe he wants him for something else.

But Bill shakes the idea from his head. It’s not like that. He does favors for Robert because they’re friends, because he helps him. Robert would never purposefully hurt him.

The statement derails Eddie, though, who just huffs quietly and shakes his head. He doesn’t like it, Bill knows he doesn’t like it, but he’s mulling it over in his brain. It’s silent for a while, as the group as a whole waits for Eddie’s final say.

“Yeah,” Eddie murmurs eventually, his quiet voice breaking the silence. “Maybe.”

“Oh, bullshit!” Richie snaps. “Just because he hasn’t killed you, doesn’t mean he hasn’t gotten his hands on someone else!” Bill watches with a silent glare, hoping his lack of response will be enough to let Richie know that he doesn’t want to play this game anymore. But it only seems to encourage Richie’s train of thought. “Maybe killing gets him off. Maybe you’re just not his type.”

“Rich,” Beverly whispers, tugging gently on the back of his shirt. He doesn’t take any notice.

“Ever think about that?” Richie’s eyes are fiery now. The ice has melted away, leaving only the burning hot rage that lives beneath it. “Ever think about how Stanley lived his last moments?”

“Sh-sh-shut up, Rich.”

“Probably begging for his life. Alone and scared, begging for it to be over.”

“Shut uh-up, Richie!”

“And I bet that got Robert real hot and heavy. So he fucked Stanley’s corpse, over and over again, using it like a fuck toy until it was oozing all sorts of disgusting liquids.”

“Shut up!”

Richie narrows his eyes. “You know he did the same to Geor-”

Bill flies to his feet, his notebook flinging itself from his hands. “Fuck you, Richie!” he screams, barely noticing Richie’s yelp when the notebook makes contact with his nose. “Fffff-Fuck you! You know that’s not true!”

“I don’t know anything!” Richie yells. He looks positively terrifying, blood dripping down his nose and onto his lips, filling his mouth and making him fumble with his words. His hands, which had been covering his swelling nose, are also smeared with blood. They shake as he points one accusingly at Bill. “But I know more than you do! You can’t even admit that ‘friend’ of yours has something fucking wrong with him!”

“He’s more of my friend than yuh-you are!”

That gives Richie pause, though he looks no less angry as he spits a mouthful of blood at Bill’s feet. “I’m sure you believe that.”

Bill closes the gap between them, and Richie tenses up, like he thinks Bill’s going to hit him. But Bill just shoulders his way past him, not looking back as he climbs his way up the ladder and storms back towards the direction of his house.

He’s barely made it a foot when someone else is suddenly walking by his side.

“I’m ff-fuh-fine, Bev,” he huffs.

“Yeah, you look real fine. What the fuck was that?”

“RR-Ruh-Richie started it!”

Beverly gapes at him. “Richie started it? How fucking old are you?”

Bill flushes, but refuses to give her the satisfaction of giving in. “It’s true.”

“You know what else is true? Richie’s hunch.”

“It is not-”

“It is, you know it is,” Bev hisses. “Maybe not word for word, but you know exactly what Robert’s doing with Stan. You know he’s doing the exact same thing he’s doing to you.”

“Robert doesn’t have Ss-Stan,” Bill says through gritted teeth. “He’s nuh-not a rapist. And he’s not a murderer.”

Bev fixes him with a harsh stare, one that makes him want to crawl inside his own skin and hide there for the rest of his days. “We both know at least one of those things isn’t true.”

“He’s not,” Bill says firmly. “He’s my-”

“He’s your friend, I know,” Bev says. Her patience is wearing thin, Bill knows it is. He can hear it in her voice. The way she raises her voice ever so slightly, the way her words strain to escape gritted teeth, make it explicitly clear what she’s thinking. “But we’re your friends too. Stan was - is - our friend. We miss him as much as you do.”

“You don’t gg-get it-”

“I get it, Bill,” Bev says. “You want him to be a good person. You want him to be good for you. But it’s fantasy, you have to face that!” Bill shakes his head, eyes screwed shut. “You’re hurting your friends! Your real friends!”

“Wh-What makes you better than Robert?” Bill seethes.

“Well, for starters, I didn’t fuck you so hard you can’t walk straight.”

Bill’s eyes drop down to his feet. “Maybe I jj-juh-just stubbed my toe.” Bev fixes him with a harsh stare. “Alright, fine. But it’s different!”

“It’s not normal!”

“Why?” Bill snarls. “Because we’re two guh-guys? What about Richie and Eddie? Are you gonna tell them-”

“You know that’s not the same,” Bev hisses, pointing an accusatory finger in Bill’s face. “Robert’s a million years old!”

“He understands me!”

“He understands how to manipulate you.”

Bill shakes his head, quickening his pace. “Fuck off, Bevvy.”

Robert’s apartment has become a place more requented than Bill’s own home. Because there isn’t an inch of space in his home that doesn’t shred his heart into tiny little pieces. He can’t look at Georgie’s bedroom door without feeling sick. He can’t even go in his own fucking room without thinking about the kiss he and Stan had shared. And his parents offer no comfort, choosing instead to busy themselves with housework and whatever else will numb their minds rather than checking in on their own goddamn son.

But Robert’s apartment doesn’t have any connections. Georgie was never here. Stan was never here.

So it’s become his new place of refuge. Which is why he’s currently standing in the kitchen, rambling about his shit show of a day, as he helps Robert make sandwiches for his upcoming road trip.

He’s moving nearly halfway across the country. Bill knows he should be happy for his friend, happy he’s getting out of his shit show of a town, but he can’t help but feel a spurt of jealousy. Why does he get to leave? Why is he allowed to escape?

“I can’t ss-stand it here any longer,” Bill’s saying, mindlessly rubbing perhaps too much peanut butter on his third sandwich. “This ff-fuh-fucking town. No one fucking cares about anything. Kids ddd-disappear left and right, and no one does ah-anything! Even my own friends, they’re all complacent. It’s just-” He groans loudly, and smashes the two bread slices together. They crumple under the force. “I’m sick of it.”

“They’ll come around,” Robert says.

“I just wish I lived somewhere normal,” Bill murmurs. “Somewhere where people don’t disappear into th-thin air every two seconds.”

Robert makes a sad noise in the back of his throat. He crosses the kitchen, only stopping once he’s situated directly behind Bill, hands rubbing gentle circles into his shoulders. “You sound stressed.”

“Yeah, well, things huh-haven’t exactly been great lately.”

“I’m sure I could help you with that.”

Bill’s knuckles go white around the countertop as Robert’s hands travel lower and lower until they’re resting just above the hem of Bill’s jeans.

“I - I don’t know,” Bill says. He can’t get the image of Bev out of his head. Surely if Robert listens to him, if he listens to what he wants, he can’t be a bad person. Right? “Nuh-Not now.”

“Why not?” Robert’s kissing down his neck now, stubble rubbing against the sensitive skin until it’s red and irritated.

“B-Because I - I’m - We’re in the kitchen,” Bill stutters out.

Robert chuckles. “That’s alright. I don’t mind.”

“But-”

“Billy.” He’s fiddling with the button of Bill’s jeans now. “C’mon, it’ll make you feel better. You know I would never hurt you.” Bill takes a deep breath through his nose. He nods. “Good. Now bend over.”

Hesitantly, Bill does as he’s told. The counter is cold against his cheek, and instantly he wants to stand upright again. But Robert’s got one hand on the small of his back, holding him firmly in place, and Bill knows he isn’t going anywhere for awhile.

Afterwards, Bill takes a shower. He sits through most of it, just letting the water wash over his aching limbs, watching as the sticky substance coating his thighs disappears down the drain. He sits there until the water runs cold, and then sits there some more. It’s not until Robert knocks on the door, asking if he’s okay, that Bill finally gets himself to move.

He throws on the same clothes he had been wearing before the shower. Robert had offered him a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt, but Bill leaves them lying in a crumpled pile on the floor.

Robert’s leaning against the door frame when he opens the door, a cheshire cat grin on his face. “If you wanted to go round two, you could’ve just said something.”

Bill’s cheeks light up, a bright cherry red. “I ww-wasn’t - That’s not what-”

“Relax, I’m just teasing you,” Robert says. Bill lets out a dry laugh, though it sounds far too forced to be considered genuine. “Hey, I was thinking while you were in the shower, and I had an idea.” Bill cocks his head curiously. “You should come with me.”

“I - What?”

“You could get away with it. You said so yourself, no one ever notices when kids disappear,” Robert says. “And you would be so much happier. This town is destroying you, I can see it in your eyes.”

It’s true, everything in this godforsaken town seems to be made specifically to hurt Bill. He hates every part of it with a burning intensity. But could he really leave? All his friends are here. Does he have it in him to abandon them? After all they’ve been through?

“I don’t know,” Bill murmurs.

Robert hums quietly. “Well, think about it. Are you staying over tonight?”

“I - I shouldn’t,” Bill says. “Mm-My parents, they’ll wonder where I am. But thank you.”

“Mhm, any time.”

Home is not, by any means, better.

Dinner is stiff and awkward. They have a fancy pasta dish his mother spent nearly half the day preparing, and don’t talk through any of it.

Afterwards, Bill cleans the dishes. His mother goes back to her room to fall into a dreamless slumber, while his father remains seated at the kitchen table, his old world war 2 book held firmly in his hands. It’s the only thing he’s read since Georgie disappeared. Bill suspects it’s some sort of weird coping mechanism, a way to face his anger without having to actually admit he has emotions.

“Bill,” he says, and it’s so sudden that Bill nearly drops the glass he’s washing. “Have you done your summer reading?”

No. “Ss-Suh-Some of it.”

His father glances at his over the top of his book, a single eyebrow raised. “School’s only a few weeks away.”

“I know,” Bill says. “I’ve jj-just been distracted.”

His father sighs heavily. “Bill, I know things have been hard for you since Georgie’s death. But we all need to move on.”

“Huh-He’s not dead, dad!” Bill insists. “We don’t know that! He could still be out there-”

“Is that what you’ve been doing?” his dad snaps. “Running around the woods instead of doing your homework?”

“Dad - It’s Georgie. He’s mm-muh-more important than homework.”

The book closes with a snap. It makes Bill flinch. He’s gone too far. He shouldn’t have said anything, he shouldn’t have fought back.

“Georgie is dead,” his dad says firmly. “It’s no use destroying your own life too.”

“Stan might nn-nuh-not be,” Bill says softly. “It hasn’t been nearly as long.”

His father furrows his eyebrows. “Stan? What about him?”

“He went missing, Dad,” Bill says. “Over a month ago.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. He was a good kid.”

Bill’s hands clench around the dish he’s currently trying to force into the drying rack. “Yeah. He is.”

He storms off without another word, ignoring his father’s sigh. Bill knows what he thinks. He knows he thinks he’s just being difficult. He knows he’ll never understand why Bill’s so torn up about it all.

His bed offers little comfort. It’s where he used to comfort Georgie after he had a particularly bad nightmare. It’s where he first kissed Stan. It’s where he’s cried himself to sleep, night after night.

Georgie always cried after nightmares. He would curl up in Bill’s arms and sob until he had used up all his energy and his tiny eight year old brain forced him back to sleep. Bill would stay awake the whole time, running a hand through his hair and quietly shushing him, whispering that everything would be okay.

There’s no one to hold Bill now.

The only person who’s been there to comfort him is about to leave forever.

Around two in the morning, Bill goes back downstairs.

Robert picks up the phone in a matter of seconds. “Hello?”

“When are you leaving? I ww-want to come with you.”

Across town, the rest of the Losers are piled into Richie’s bedroom. Now, the thing about Richie is that losing Stan had been almost as much of a slap in the face as it had been for Bill. Stan had been his closest friend since diapers, the first person outside of family he had truly felt a sense of love for.

Now he’s gone. Nothing more than a memory on a dusty “missing” sign. It infuriates him, which is why he’s dead set on proving Robert did it. He just needs answers. Something to put him at peace. Then he’ll be okay, he’s sure of it.

Currently he’s pacing back and forth, ignoring the exhausted stares of his friends.

“Bill’s become such an asshole ever since that guy showed up,” he hisses. “He would’ve never done this before.”

“Rich,” Mike groans, “We know your face hurts. But can we please go to bed?”

“No, no, no, it’s not about my face,” Richie says, waggling his finger in Mike’s general direction. “This is about everything.”

Ben, who is usually the first to fall asleep, blinks blurrily up at him. “Everything?”

“Yeah. Stan, Robert, my face-”

“We already said your face,” Mike mumbles sleepily.

“Well I never disagreed with you!” Richie snaps.

“Yes you did, you just did.”

“Babe,” Eddie pipes up, “Please just come to bed. Worrying isn’t gonna help anyone right now.”

In a flash, Richie’s sitting in front of his boyfriend’s place on the floor, legs crossed and hands gripping his ankles. “I have an idea.”

Eddie groans. “Oh God.”

“It’s a good one.”

“What is it?” Ben asks, because he’s sweet enough to entertain Richie’s ideas.

“We need to prove Robert guilty.”

Eddie buries his face in his pillow. “How? This isn’t a movie, Rich. Evidence isn’t gonna magically fall into our laps.”

“Yeah, I dunno, Rich,” Mike murmurs. “It sounds risky.”

“You haven’t even heard the plan yet!”

“Doesn’t matter, anything’s risky,” Mike says.

“I agree with Mike,” Ben says. “Sorry, Richie.”

“What - That’s not fair! I’m right! You know I’m right!”

“I agree with you, Rich.” Bev’s sitting up now, hair sleep mused and pajamas wrinkled. Richie thinks she looks like his hero. “Robert’s a monster, and no one else is gonna stop him.”

“I’m not saying you guys are wrong,” Mike says. “But there’s nothing we can do.”

“There has to be something,” Bev says. “We can’t lose hope. We’ve already lost Stan, if we don’t do something soon we’ll lose Bill too.”

Eddie frowns, hugging his arms tightly around himself. “Sometimes I worry we’re already too late.”

“We’re not,” Bev insists. “I promise we’re not. But we do need to act fast.”

Mike sighs, and in that instant Richie knows he’s won. “What do you think we should do?”

“I have a plan,” Richie says. “It’s not the best but…”

Bev grins at him, and even through the darkness, Richie can see it clear as day. “It’s something.”

Robert hadn’t been happy when he found out Stan looked through his box. But he let him keep the turtle, even if he made him beg for it. Stan thinks, even with the extra cuts and bruises he’d earned because of it, it was all worth it.

The basement is cold and empty, and sometimes weirdly wet. It’s nice to have something pure to hang onto, something full of hope and childhood innocence.

The turtle, which he has lovingly named after Georgie, is always tucked under his arms. The only times he’s been without it has been when Robert has physically wrenched it away. Tragically, this has become a fairly common occurrence. Stan knows that Robert likes to see the fear in his eyes when he’s parted from it, likes to see how he squirms and begs for it back. Because, as silly as it sounds, he needs that turtle. It’s the only thing that keeps him sane and, irrationally, he can’t help but think it keeps him safe as well.

Today, Robert lets him hold onto it as he hands him his daily sandwich.

“There’s something special about your meal today, Stanny,” Robert says. The nickname makes Stan shiver. He only calls him that when he’s in a good mood. Not that that means Robert is gonna hurt Stan any less. He’s just gonna do it with a smile on his face. “You want to know what it is?”

Stan shakes his head. He’s fucking starving, he needs to be able to eat this without finding out there’s fucking rat guts or whatever hidden between the bread. Robert answers anyway.

“Someone very special made it.”

Stan shakes his head again. He doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t want-

“Aww, c’mon, Stanny. Billy worked so hard on them.”

And, somehow, that is so much worse than anything Stan could have imagined. “I don’t - I don’t understand. Bill knows I’m here?”

Robert lets out a loud boisterous laugh. “Absolutely not. You think Billy knows about any of this? No, I’ll have to build up to that. He wouldn’t understand quite yet.”

Stan stares down at the sandwich in his hands. He hasn’t had contact with any of his friends in what feels like years, even something as simple as a sandwich feels like a million dollars.

And it wasn’t just any of them who made it, it was Bill. Bill who would hold him when he was scared, and still hold him when he wasn’t. Bill who would let him curl into his side as he read his latest story, in that soft voice reserved only for Stan. Bill who accepted him graciously for who he was.

The same hands that drew him closer during his first kiss, were the hands that made this. It’s a horrible thought, that a memory he held onto so dearly could be tainted so quickly. But he supposes with Robert’s track record, he shouldn’t be surprised.

“Aww, don’t look so glum,” Robert coos. “You should be happy you even got one. The rest are all back at my house. But I figured this would make a good last meal.”

In a flash, Stan’s eyes are back on Robert. “Last - Last meal?”

Robert lets out a loud sigh, as if the topic actually pains him. As if anything could. “Well, you see, Stanny boy. Billy and I have decided to move away.”

“Bill and you?” Stan repeats, head starting to grow fuzzy.

“It’s a big step!” Robert grins. “But I think-” Robert stops dead, jaw hung open, as the sandwich connects with his face. Stan’s on his feet now, hands curled into fists by his side, one with nails biting into the soft flesh of his palm, the other clenching around Georgie the Turtle.

“Bill’s not your fucking boyfriend,” he spits. “And someday he’s gonna realize that. It doesn’t matter how brutally you kill me. Someday he’s gonna realize he deserves better, and then you’ll be alone again.”

Stan knows he’s fucked up. He can see it in Robert’s eyes, the way they darken until the whites of his eyes are almost invisible. Even with the strawberry jelly smeared across his face, he looks terrifying. But Stan can’t bring himself to care. He’s going to die anyway.

“Bill is going to be my good little fuck toy for as long as I want,” Robert snarls. He’s advancing on Stan. And Stan desperately wants to give in, wants to drop to his knees and beg for his life. But if there are his last moments, he’s not going to spend them at some old creep’s feet. “I will decide when we’re done. I will decide when I’m finished with him.”

“You can try to convince yourself as much as you like, but we both know Bill’s smarter than that. He’ll figure it out eventually.”

Robert chuckles lowly. “You haven’t seen how well he takes my cock. Haven’t seen how pretty he cries for me.” It isn’t necessarily true, Stan’s seen the photos, he’s heard the stories. It’s one of Robert’s favorite ways to make Stan squirm. But Robert’s much too angry to remember such details. “I know you wish it was you, Stanley. But we can’t all be that lucky. Billy’s mine. And he always will be.” Stan hisses as Robert grips a handful of his hair, yanking his head back until their eyes are forced to connect. “Do you understand?” Stan grits his teeth. He can’t give him the satisfaction. “I said do you understand?”

Stan spits a large glob of spit directly between Robert’s eyes. “Fuck you.”

Robert releases Stan’s curls in favor of wiping the spit off his face. “You’re a real menace, you know that? God, I can’t wait to get rid of you.” He rips Georige the Turtle out of Stan’s arms, earning himself a shriek in response. He only pulls it away further when Stan tries to lunge for it. “You know what Billy’s gonna do when we finally get to our new apartment? He’s gonna let me fuck him on every surface available. Again, and again, and again. That’s all he’ll ever do. This town put too much pressure on him, made him hurt. I’ll be there to soothe the pain away.”

Stan snarls. “You’re gonna fuck the saddness out of him?”

Despite the biting tone of his voice, Robert hums as if this is exactly what he means. “He’ll forget all about this place.”

Stan steels his gaze. “You’re a monster.”

Robert sinks the knife between his ribs not a second later.

#the losers club #stenbrough #bill denbrough #stanley uris #richie tozier #beverly marsh #mike hanlon #eddie kaspbrak #ben hanscom #stenbrough fanfiction #stenbrough fanfic #IT fanfic #IT fanfiction #georgie denbrough

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hamletkin · 5 years ago

Text

There were times in which Richie Tozier thought that Stanley Uris had gotten it right.

Rating: T for language, mentions of suicide, alcohol, and a car crash.

Word Count: 2181

Summary: Richie Tozier has been struggling with the loss of his best friend and love of his life for months now and something has to give.

This is part two of my Secret Santa gift to @floating-catastrophe for the @itfandomsecretsanta ! The prompt was about Richie learning to cope with Eddie’s death.

There were times in which Richie Tozier thought that Stanley Uris had gotten it right.

Usually he thought about it late at night when he was left alone with his thoughts and one too many glasses of whatever he had lying around. These days he didn't bother with being picky about it. Whatever got him drunk was enough.

It was funny though, to think that no matter how much he tried to drink to forget he couldn't. It was a load of bullshit too, that whenever he hadn't wanted to forget he had and now that he desperately wanted to, he couldn't. No matter what he did, Eddie's face was always in his mind. Sometimes he saw him happy and smiling in The Jade of the Orient in the final moments before everything went to shit. He could feel the warmth of his hand in his, the softness of fingers suited to desk work and no doubt a repetitive lotion routine. He'd think up jokes in his head then too. Ladyfingers wasn't particularly clever but when he said it in a spot on posh woman's British accent it became comedic gold. Probably the sort that Eddie would have liked too, considering he'd come up with it himself.

But more often than not it wasn't Eddie's smiling or annoyed face he saw. Why is it that he couldn't decide what memories to hold onto? It has his mind, wasn't it? Why then was he forced to relive that moment in his head? He could hear Eddie's voice echoing, echoing, echoing out his name in that moment of pain, of shocked confusion. Richie?

His first night alone after leaving Derry had been the hardest. Not only was he forced to deal with the stark reality of Eddie's death, of Stan's, of the childhood he had forgotten but now too, the deep abiding loneliness that was left. It was one thing being alone -- he'd been alone for most of his life -- but it was another entirely to have that void filled by the Losers only to now find himself without them. Of course the remaining Losers were only a mere phone call away but asking for help had never been his style. He'd made a joke to himself and the silence of his now obnoxiously-too-big-apartment greeted him. He had had one drink to settle his nerves before they gripped him so hard he was sent running for the toilet. Richie had remained in the bathroom for the rest of the night, even after his nausea subsided and he was left sobbing and hugging his knees and begging for Eddie to come back. He'd give anything for that.

He wasn't sure when he'd started screaming for him, pleading with whatever powers that be and cursing them in the same breath but by the time he was done he was hoarse and wheezing worse than Eddie ever had.

"Too bad...you didn't keep that inhaler... I could use a good blast off...." Richie had croaked. He wasn't sure when he'd passed out but he'd woken slumped against his large tub with Stan's letter clutched in his hand. Be proud. Of what?

Things hadn’t gotten better from there. His self destructive behaviors had gone from drowning his sorrows in a bottle to wrapping his car around a light pole. It was a miracle he was alive, the tabloids had said but he hadn’t seen it that way and part of him wondered if it had really been an alcohol induced accident at all. That was a part of himself he didn’t like to think about but one that was growing steadily more prevalent. Steve had found him a great lawyer, one who even kept him with his smart mouth out of jail. Community service was somehow supposed to be better but he’d only remarked at how it paid to be a celebrity. He’d made headlines for that and in spite of Steve’s pleading with him he had cancelled the rest of his tour.

Steve was another hitch in his road to recovery. All he had to do was look at him, listen to him talk to put it together in his head. How had his mind managed that? He hadn’t even remembered Eddie but his mind had somehow filled in the blanks.

His manager had begged him to stay and especially to stay out from behind the wheel of a car but Richie had ignored him on both counts. He’d packed his bags, tossed them into the back of his car, and said “fuck it” to commercial travel. As much as he didn’t want to be alone he needed to be away from people who wouldn’t understand. He didn’t want to deal with paparazzi or fans or, God forbid, babies screaming back in coach.

Driving gave time for his mind to wander and that was the last thing he wanted but it was something he’d dealt with for months. He could stand it now. Something had to give. His mind gave him enough to ponder. Every time he drove over an overpass or took a particularly tight turn he thought about how easy it would be to go right over the edge or flip his car. It wouldn’t be quick or pretty and the tabloids would read: We Told You So. Maybe he could time it just right so he’d die with his middle fingers posed in the air as a final “Fuck You”. Morbid, he thought, and in the end he couldn’t do it. As much as he hurt, as much as he longed for Eddie he didn’t want to die.

What he wanted was to be free from the pain that woke him, sobbing or crying out for Eddie when he was finally able to sleep. The Deadlight dreams had died with It for Beverly but Richie thought they were all he saw. It hadn’t died in the cistern; It still lived in his mind and he feared more now than he ever had before. He feared what would happen if the numb and hollow feeling inside of him remained and he feared what might happen if he allowed it to close up. In a way, that pain was all he had left of Eddie.

There were memories too, memories now as bright as the sun but they weren’t enough to stop his breath from catching when his chest tightened painfully with each new thought of him. What made it worse were the missing years. For twenty-seven years he had longed for something he couldn’t remember. For even longer than that he had loved Eddie Kaspbrak. He’d never felt much hope in regards to a relationship with him but that was okay. After they killed the fucking clown they could have at least been friends like they had been. They could have been something and maybe he’d have finally been less of a mess. They hadn’t even had the chance and he cursed as he felt hot tears building behind his eyes.

Twenty-fucking-seven years taken from them and this is what they had to show for it! Eddie and Stan were dead! And they were left to pick up the fucking pieces of their shitty lives and move on! And how? How was something like that even possible? There was so much bitterness, so much hurt and they’d been left with no way to process it. Yeah, maybe Stan the Man had gotten it right… What would it be like to not feel like this anymore?

That thought didn’t feel like the others, it felt real and before he could give it any more thought, Richie jerked the steering wheel to the right to pull over onto the shoulder before slamming on his brakes. He heard horns honking behind him but he paid them no mind as he shifted his car into park. He reached first for the letter he always carried in his pocket and smoothed it out over his steering wheel with shaking hands. Had his fingers always been that pale? He scanned the creased letter and found comfort there, as he always did, in Stanley’s final words.

But there was anger too and that hurt, the familiar one that rose from beneath his rib cage that took away his breath and he pressed one hand to his chest as though that would make it stop.

I know what this must seem like…

He could recite it word for word for himself but reading it, imagining the words as they flowed from Stanley’s pen was something that provided him with some sense of connection to another human being who understood. Even if that person was gone, his words weren’t and even if Richie had never heard his voice as an adult he imagined it in his head and that was soothing.

Richie pushed up his glasses to rub at the inner corners of his eyes and to stop the tears from slipping down and making a mess of his already impaired vision. Then, he kept reading.

And don’t ever forget, we’re losers, and we always will be.

They had forgotten, all of them, and now they were cursed with this memory. He wondered if it was this difficult for the others. Ben and Bev had one another at least and Mike and Bill...well, last he had heard they were doing well. That could have been a lie, though. The Losers were good at pushing their emotions down into deep and dark recesses to avoid dealing with them until they climbed back up, like a clown from a well, and tried to strangle them.

There were times he wished he could forget, times when he wondered if the good really outweighed the bad. Were the good memories enough to make up for the loss of two of their friends? Thinking about it made his body seize up again and he forced his eyes to scan the letter once more. Stan had said they had nothing to lose but that wasn’t true, was it? They had everything to lose and they’d lost it. They really were losers. He laughed before it turned into a sob and the shaky breath that followed was painful.

No, he couldn’t go through with it. Not now. Eddie and Stanley would just have to wait for him. “Gotta follow my own path, right, you poetic asshole?” He laughed again then and there was something cathartic in it. It wasn’t going to heal him but it made it easier to breathe.

Be brave.

That was easier said than done but Stanley did have it right. They were Losers and they always would be. Maybe they did have a lot to lose after all, but they’d lost it together. They were supposed to be together. He neatly folded the letter and carefully slid it back into his pocket to instead withdraw his phone.

“Shit.”

Maybe he wouldn’t pick up. Then he’d be off the hook and he could go back home. He wasn’t even sure how far he’d driven, only that he’d gotten behind the wheel and had followed the signs. He wasn’t in Chicago anymore, that was for sure.

There were only three rings before he heard Mike Hanlon’s voice saying his name. He could hear the surprise in his voice and with it, concern. That gave him pause and he closed his eyes tight before staring up at the roof of his car.

“Hey, Mikey…” Shit, was that his voice? He sounded like a balloon deflating.

“How’s it going? You’re -- You’re okay, right? I saw --”

“Yeah. You shouldn’t believe everything you see, Mike. That’s like...Clown Fighting 101.”

“Beep beep, Richie.” Richie could hear the smile in his voice and it felt good. It made him ache too.

“Look, man.” He paused there, his brow furrowing as he once again rubbed at his eyes. “I’m in the neighborhood. Thought I might stop by.”

There was no hesitation in Mike’s response. In fact, he sounded happy and Richie was relieved that he didn’t question him. That might come later because, of course, Mike would know the truth but for now it gave him some time to breathe in that ignorant bliss. He told him he could stay as long as he wanted and while Richie assured him it was just going to be a short visit, the two packed bags in his backseat said otherwise.

“Yeah, I’ll call you if I get lost. I’ve always wanted to be search and rescued. I’ll see you soon.”

When he hung up he exhaled and put the car into gear before pulling back out onto the road, this time with some sense of direction and maybe purpose. Nothing would bring Eddie back and that was a fact he didn’t want to live with. Maybe he could learn to, even if it still hurt him, but until then he’d do what he should have years ago. He’d do what Losers do best; stick together and fight. If not for himself, then for Eddie, who never had the chance.

His eyes were burning again and he turned on the radio.

#itfandomsecretsanta2k19 #itfandomsecretsanta #reddie #richie tozier #i hope you enjoy it!!#i only feel sadness when i think about richie now and you did this #happy holidays!#i never post my writing on here sweats #it 2019

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eddie-boii · 5 years ago

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Never Let You Go (part 6/14)

Fic info: Both Eddie and Stan live because I do what I want. Multichapter.

Rating: Teen and up (may change). Language.

Pairings: Reddie, Benverly.

Ao3 link: here

Summary: The Losers prepare for a wedding. Ben’s bachelor party.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14

“Beer?”

Eddie accepted the bottle Ben handed to him and quickly checked the ingredients and alcohol percentage as Ben handed out the rest to the others.

“Thanks, man, but I think I’m gonna cut back on the alcohol intake,” said Richie, and Eddie looked over at him in surprise; Richie was never usually one to decline alcohol no matter how much Eddie pestered him about the state of his liver.

“We’ve got lemonade?” Ben offered.

“That’ll do.”

Richie accepted the glass and leaned back in the deck chair, eyes closed contentedly, his long legs stretched out in front of him and the beams of sunlight that filtered through the wooden planks from the balcony above lighting up strands of his dark hair in streams of gold. Eddie caught himself staring and looked away quickly, accidentally making direct eye contact with Stanley who just rolled his eyes. Eddie scowled at him in return.

Ben’s bachelor party was far more subdued than Bev’s; just the guys hanging out on the back porch of Ben’s frankly massive house, watching fall leaves drift down onto the garden, their warm hues lighting up in the glow from the afternoon sun. Warmth still lingered from summer but it wasn’t sweltering, and the Losers - minus Bev - were able to lounge around in light jackets while Ben grilled burgers and hotdogs on the barbecue, the smell of charcoal mingling pleasantly with the sweet scent of the fall air.

“You know shoes were invented for a reason,” said Eddie, grimacing as Ben accidentally dropped a scolding hot sausage onto his bare foot for the second time.

“If you say that again, I’m feeding you the floor hotdogs,” said Ben. “Shoes are restrictive.”

“Also protective.”

“Those floor hotdogs sure have a lot of germs on them, Eddie. You know this is where Ember does her morning piddles.”

Eddie nearly gagged. “And you’re walking barefoot there?!”

“I pressure wash it.” Ben lifted his foot and tried to stick it in Eddie’s face. “My feet are super clean. Here, smell them.”

“I’m not sniffing your fucking foot.”

“Lick it, Eds,” said Richie. “Once in a lifetime opportunity.”

“You are both fucking disgusting,” said Eddie, shoving Ben’s foot out of the way which threw him off balance and straight into Mike’s lap.

“Christ, man, are you sure you lost weight?” Mike groaned. “I think you just broke both my legs.”

“He replaced it all with muscle,” said Stanley, leaning forward to squeeze Ben’s bicep.

“Ooh, if he gets a squeeze,” said Richie, leaning forward too.

“Nope, nope, nope, we are not doing this again,” said Ben, extracting himself from Mike’s lap. “I have burgers to cook and bicep-squeezing privileges are for Bev’s hands alone.”

“Lucky lady,” said Richie with a wink, and Eddie tried not to let his jealousy show.

“So, guys, is anyone going to tell me what actually happened last night?” said Ben. “Bev refuses to say anything.”

Eddie sank down in his chair a little, hiding his face behind the beer bottle so no one could see how red it had gotten. Richie, on the other hand, didn’t seem at all ashamed.

“Let’s see, we got drunk, hired a stripper-”

“A stripper?” Ben squawked.

“Not as hot as you, don’t worry,” said Richie, winking again. “Got more drunk, played some party games, Eddie apparently decided to fuck off and clean my house-”

“It was fucking disgusting,” Eddie protested.

“He’s always been like that,” Bill snorted. “R-remember when we all had that sleepover at mine when we were like twelve and ss-stole my mom’s chardonnay and he ended up downstairs doing laundry?”

“Oh shit, that’s right!” cried Stan, grinning gleefully. “And your mom’s face when she came home and we were all throwing up but she didn’t even get mad coz the house was so clean!”

“Drunken housemaid, that’s our Eds,” said Richie, grinning over at Eddie fondly.

“Don’t call me Eds,” Eddie grumbled, sinking lower in his chair.

“So what happened after?” said Ben, smiling warmly at his friends’ stories as he piled burgers and hotdogs into buns and passed them out on paper plates.

“Then Richie got super friendly,” said Mike.

“I cannot be held responsible for what I did when drunk!” Richie protested, mouth full of burger. God help him, Eddie even found him cute with food spilling out of his mouth.

“What did he do?” said Ben, grinning already in anticipation.

“Only tried to make out with literally everyone there,” said Stanley.

“Did he now?” said Ben, grinning even harder. “I hope you’re not trying to steal my fiance.”

“She wasn’t into it,” Richie pouted. “But if you’re feeling left out, Benny-boy…”

Richie lunged towards Ben who managed to block him just in time, holding him away with ease and laughing as Richie made kissy noises and grabby hands at him.

“Ok, ok, you can kiss my cheek,” said Ben when Richie didn’t relent. Ben turned his cheek towards him and Richie leaned in but grabbed his face at the last minute and smashed their mouths together.

“Success!” cried Richie, pulling back and raising his hands in victory while Ben wiped his mouth and tried to stop laughing. “I have now made out with every Loser!”

“You d-d-didn’t use tongue with him, it doesn’t count,” said Bill.

“Don’t you dare,” said Ben, holding his hands out in front of him defensively when Richie looked like he was about to try again. “We’ll say it counts.”

Richie held up his hands in surrender and finally sat back down. “Whatever you say, Benny-boo.”

“You know how fucking revolting that is right?” said Eddie. “You know how many diseases pass via saliva? You could get mono, you know?”

“What’s the matter, Eddie-spaghetti, are you jealous?” said Richie, turning to grin at him obnoxiously.

“No, I’m not fucking jealous,” said Eddie which was a huge fucking lie.

“You know you’re still my number one guy, Eddie Bear,” Richie cooed, pinching Eddie’s cheek until Eddie swatted his hand away. “Well, right after your mom.”

“I hate you.”

“If that’s what you wanna call it,” coughed Stan and Eddie glared at him.

By the time everyone had eaten enough food to last them the whole winter, the sun was dipping low in the sky and the air had gained a chill more reminiscent of fall, so the Losers packed up the deck chairs and headed indoors to lounge on the stylish but comfortable couches and snoop through Ben’s things.

“Holy shit, you have all my shows on DVD?” said Richie from where he was sat cross-legged on the floor, eying up Ben’s impressive film collection as Ember snoozed in his lap, something that Eddie found revoltingly cute. “Didn’t know you were such a fan.”

“They’re Bev’s, actually,” said Ben. “From back before we all remembered. She said she never actually watched them but bought them all anyway coz she just liked having them.”

“Huh, that’s so weird,” said Richie, smiling slightly as he brushed his fingers over the plastic covers of the selection.

“I’ve seen them all,” said Eddie before thinking, and Richie looked sharply up at him, eyes wide.

“You have?” he said, his mouth splitting into a very egotistical grin

“Fucking hated them,” said Eddie, which wiped the grin straight off Richie’s face. “Your jokes never felt right. Guess subconsciously I just knew they didn’t sound like yours.”

“But you still watched them all?” commented Stanley.

Eddie shot him a look to tell him to shut his mouth, then shrugged. “I don’t know, I guess some part of me just…”

“Missed me?” Richie finished, that shit-eating grin back on his face.

“Yeah, whatever, dickwad,” said Eddie. “Myra fucking hated you, for the record.”

Richie gasped dramatically. “How could she? The love of my life!”

“I thought Eddie’s mm-mom was the love of your life,” said Bill.

“Same thing.”

Eddie threw a cushion at him and Richie batted it away before it hit the dog.

“You know, I went to one of your shh-sh-shows once,” said Bill as if only just remembering. “Friend of mine d-dragged me to it.”

“Did you at least like it, Big Bill?” said Richie as he put on his most exaggerated puppy dog face.

“As much as you liked the endings of my books,” said Bill, and Richie pouted, affronted. “Nothing beats real Rich’s jokes,” Bill added, which seemed to cheer Richie up.

“Don’t inflate his ego,” said Stanley, rolling his eyes. “He’ll never shut up now.”

“You know you love me, Stan-the-man.”

“So you read Bill’s books?” Ben asked Richie. “Before we remembered?”

“Oh yeah. Got the whole set back home,” said Richie.

“I went to a signing once,” said Stanley, and Bill looked over at him in surprise. “It was like your first book and I had no idea who you were, but you were in town so I went. Had no idea why, but-”

“Part of you knew,” finished Mike. “I went to one of those book signings too.”

It was Mike’s turn to be stared at.

“Yy-you did?” said Bill.

“Couldn’t stay long or I’d start forgetting, but yeah, man,” said Mike. “You were in Maine and I couldn’t resist.”

“But I wouldn’t have-” said Bill. “I didn’t recognise you.”

“No,” said Mike. “But it’s fine, man. You all remember now, that’s what matters.”

“But you could remember the whole time,” said Ben.

“That really must have sucked, man,” said Richie.

Mike shrugged, looking a little self-conscious. “I mean… Yeah. At first, when you’d just moved out and you never replied to any of my letters, I thought… I thought maybe you just didn’t wanna talk to me anymore.”

“Shit, man,” said Bill, reaching out to squeeze Mike’s hand. “You know we would never…”

“Yeah, I know,” said Mike. “I know you guys aren’t like that. That’s when I figured it had to have something to do with It.”

“You were still all alone,” Eddie said, almost a whisper. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like if he remembered the Losers while they couldn’t remember him, if they were out there living their lives while he was stuck at home with his mother, never responding to messages or calls. If he saw them in person only to be met with irrecognition, their eyes passing over him blankly as though he were just another stranger. And, god, if Richie ever looked at him like that...

“It wasn’t so bad,” said Mike, smiling at them all in a clear attempt to be reassuring. “I kept track of you, watched your careers grow. I was so proud of you all… I’m glad I can tell you that now. I love you guys.”

“You better shut up before Richie starts crying,” said Stanley who seemed to be the one actually close to tears. He smiled at Mike. “Love you too, man.”

“Yeah, thanks for dragging us all back to that shithole,” said Richie, “or we wouldn’t be here now.”

“I wouldn’t be getting married,” said Ben.

“I wouldn’t be divorced,” said Eddie. “That’s a good thing,” he added when Mike looked concerned.

“You mm-made me have to go back to speech therapy,” said Bill teasingly before nudging Mike with his shoulder and squeezing his hand again. “But it’s all worth it.”

“Gay,” said Richie.

“Aaand you ruined the moment,” said Eddie.

“Glad I could be of service.”

“God, how did we survive without each other?” said Ben.

“Barely,” said Stan quietly, tugging down his sleeves a little.

The others fell silent for a time until Richie, being Richie, decided to lighten the mood.

“I’m thinking of getting a dog!” he said a little too brightly as he scratched Ember behind the ears. He grinned up at Eddie. “A little pomeranian called Penny. What do you think, Eds?”

“I am terminating our friendship effective immediately,” said Eddie, and just like that, the shadow that had fallen over them was lifted.

Ben lit a fire in the hearth and they all lounged around it, basking in the warm glow as they fell back into easy conversation. Ember migrated to Eddie’s lap which he was very smug about until Richie squeezed up next to him to be able to pet the dog, but Eddie was secretly quite content with a dog on his lap and Richie at his side, like something out of one of his more domestic fantasies.

Bill told ghost stories somehow scarier than their experience with Pennywise, and Stan calmed them all down afterwards by rambling about types of birds, which everyone paid rapt attention to because Stan talking about his favourite thing, his face lit up and hands waving around excitedly, was a joy to watch even if no one else cared all that much about the topic.

Later on, Ben showed them all an old photo album he’d found at his parents’ house of them all as kids, and Mike pointed to the odd picture and excitedly reminded them all about the time they all dressed as each other for Halloween, or the time Richie got suspended for filling a kid’s locker with shaving foam for picking on Eddie, or the time they all went as each other’s dates to Homecoming and tried to dance all together in one chaotic circle.

The fire was warm, and the beer seeped into Eddie’s limbs and made him drowsy, his eyes slipping shut as he listened to Richie and Stanley argue over who had the better homecoming outfit. The next thing he knew, he was waking up in the middle of the night half-draped across Richie with his face buried in his chest, Ember curled up in the small space between them, Mike leaning against his shoulder with Ben against his, and Bill propped up against his legs with Stan’s head in his lap, all fast asleep. He’d fallen asleep with his phone in his hand, and when he checked it, he found a text from Bev who must have come home while they were all sleeping, for it showed a picture of them all cuddled up to one another fast asleep on the couch. He would have been annoyed, but he had to admit it was kind of cute.

[11:25pm] Queen B: [image.jpg]

[11:25pm] Queen B: My boys <333

Eddie smiled slightly and saved the photo to his camera roll, then let his head fall back against Richie’s warm chest, not really caring that the fabric of his shirt scratched his cheek or that no one had brushed their teeth. This was a night for the Losers.

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#it chapter 2 #reddie #benverly #the losers club #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #ben hanscom #fic #fanfic #writing #fluff #fix it fic #EB writes

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anistarrose · 5 years ago

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To See The Unseen - Ch. 2 (Gravity Falls)

Summary: Stan meets the mirror’s creator.

Warnings: a very brief description of a dead animal, and a character being hospitalized (no character death)

AO3: archiveofourown.org/works/20884673/chapters/49642817

Big thanks to @apathetic-revenant for betaing this chapter!

***

“I’ve never been more ready to go to bed in my life,” Wendy groaned as she led the way back to the Mystery Shack. “You think Stan will mind if I crash on your couch for a couple hours? My brothers will be awake and screaming their heads off by the time I get home.”

“Yeah, he probably won’t mind,” Dipper replied. “Just be sure to tell him we were camping. He’ll go ballistic if he found out we almost died in the Author’s doomsday bunker.”

“But only because he cares about us,” Mabel spoke up. Her sweater was still slightly damp, and she shivered in the brisk early morning breeze. “I mean, if I was him and you guys told me you fought a shapeshifter in a fallout shelter, I’d go ballistic too!”

“You WHAT?!” Stan gasped. “What did I tell you just the other day about looking for trouble with the Journal?!”

The kids kept walking, passing straight through him. Mabel shivered again, but other than that, they gave no sign of having heard his outburst.

“Even if I have been a hypocrite about it…” Stan whispered.

Wendy squinted at the Shack, raising a hand to shade her eyes from the morning sun. “Hey, am I so tired I’m hallucinating, or is that Blubs and Durland on the porch?”

“Oh, great. What did Stan do this time?” Dipper mumbled. “Hey, Soos, you should probably hide that laptop from them —”

“Pines kids!” Durland shouted. “Oh, thank goodness you’re here! Something terrible has happened!”

Soos, Wendy, and the twins stared at him with glazed-over, sleep-deprived eyes.

“You need us to… help solve a mystery?” Dipper asked.

“A murder mystery?” Mabel echoed, rubbing her eyes. “We have a kind-of-okay track record with those…”

“Whatever it is, I have an alibi,” Wendy muttered.

Blubs stepped forward, gaze fixed on the floorboards. “It’s about… it’s about your uncle.”

“Shit,” Stan mumbled. “Kids, whatever they say happened, I promise it’s not actually that bad —”

His voice cut off. Was that even true? He didn’t know a single thing about what being trapped in this gray mirror world meant for him — it easily could be not just ‘that bad,’ but even worse.

“Is Mr. Pines okay?” Soos asked. “What happened?!”

“He’s in the hospital. Dan Corduroy found him in the forest this morning, and… well, I’m no doctor, but apparently he didn’t seem injured and his vitals were all A-okay. He just… won’t wake up no matter what anyone tries.”

Mabel gasped, and Soos covered his mouth.

“Do — do you know how it happened?” Dipper stammered. “Was it one of the anomalies? How long has he been unconscious?”

Blubs sighed. “I’m so sorry, Dipper, but I don’t know a single thing. You know what — here, get into the squad car. I’ll drive you to the hospital so you can see him.”

Stan drifted after his family, watching as they piled into the police car. Mabel stared out the window, quieter than Stan had ever seen her before, while Dipper buried his nose in Journal 3, frantically flipping through pages so quickly he gave himself a paper cut.

“It’ll be alright,” Mabel told him without making eye contact. “The doctors will figure something out.”

“But what if they don’t?” Dipper asked. He didn’t seem to have even noticed his finger was bleeding. “What if medicine can’t help him, because it’s supernatural?” he continued in a voice barely above a whisper. “There’s no info about anything like this in the Journal — but if only I had the other volumes, then maybe they’d have something that could help. Something about how to cure him…”

“Oh, Dipper,” Stan murmured. “It just got me into this mess in the first place…”

***

Pacifica lay in bed, half-awake, for longer than usual that morning, until the sound of a servant knocking on her door startled her, and she finally crawled out from under the satin sheets. It took a few seconds of staring at the compact mirror resting atop her dresser before the events of the past night rushed back to her, and she shuddered.

The mirror still gave her bad vibes, even in broad daylight and outside of the infamously unnerving Gravity Falls forest. It reminded her of certain taxidermy-filled rooms of the mansion, especially the allegedly haunted one — there was just a sort of chill in the air around it, just barely subtle enough for you to convince yourself it was only your imagination acting up.

Even though she hadn’t changed out of her nightgown yet and would’ve looked ridiculous had anyone been around to see her, Pacifica put on a pair of gloves before opening the mirror. She was still going against both her gut feeling and basic common sense by examining the artifact at all, but she knew that if she hid it away now, there would eventually come a day when she grew so bored, she wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation any longer.

Despite bracing herself for the worst, nothing cataclysmic happened when she opened the mirror — no swarms of insects flew out, no bolts of dark magic incinerated her, and as far as she could tell, no deadly plagues seemed to be released into the world.

But although it wasn’t quite the Pandora’s Box she’d been expecting, it was most definitely supernatural. The mirror reflected everything in grayscale, except for her own body, which glowed blue. And the picture below…

Surprisingly, it looked incomplete. A broad-shouldered silhouette dressed in dark clothing stood in front of a row of trees, that much was clear, but most of the details were missing, especially around the completely blank area where a face should’ve been.

“Well, that’s freaky…” Pacifica was about to rummage through the contents of her desk, looking for a magnifying glass to examine the portrait more closely, when her maid knocked on her door again, and she reflexively snapped the mirror closed.

“Remember, your dance tutor will be arriving at ten o’clock sharp! You’d best be eating breakfast soon, unless you want to be late!”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming!” Pacifica called back, shoving the mirror under her pillow as she hastily selected a dress from her closet and a necklace from her jewelry box before rushing to the bathroom. “I’ll be back for you,” she whispered to the mirror.

The mirror didn’t reply, but had it still been opened, Pacifica might’ve noticed that the portrait was ever-so-slowly growing closer to completion, adding a tie to the figure’s sharp black suit.

***

After a few minutes of asking the doctors one question after another, none of which they were able to answer, Dipper threw a glass of cold water in his face, adjusted his hat, and declared that he was off to investigate the place where Stan had been found, hoping to find some evidence that would lead to a cure. Wendy quickly announced she was going with him, which didn’t surprise Stan — he knew she’d never been fond of hospitals.

Figuring it would be smart to stay close to his body in case of a breakthrough, Stan didn’t follow Dipper and Wendy as they left, but still he overheard Dipper muttering to himself:

“I need to find the other Journals. One of them must have the answer to getting him back, somehow…”

“Come on, kid,” Stan whispered. “Don’t you go down this road too. It’s no fun to live your life like this, trust me…”

Mabel pulled her chair right up next to Stan’s hospital bed, and leaned up against him, burying her head in his spare pillow. Soos sat on the other side of the room, half-heartedly flipping through hospital-provided health magazines and flinching almost every time Stan’s heart monitor beeped. Like Pacifica, neither of them had reacted to the pale blue glow that Stan could see coming from beneath his body’s half-closed eyelids.

He tried to give Mabel a reassuring pat on the back, to no avail. Her breathing slowed as his hand passed through her shoulder, and for a second he was afraid he’d hurt her somehow, but then she began to snore quietly, and he realized she’d just fallen asleep.

“What am I gonna do, Soos?” Stan asked. “I can’t get back in my body, I can’t tell you what happened, I can’t even let you know I’m okay…”

A new, terrifying realization dawned on him. “I can’t operate the portal! I was so close to getting Ford back, so goddamn close! But how am I going to save him if I’m trapped in this mirror world?!”

“You could always do what he did, and get a little help from a friend!”

The voice wasn’t spoken out loud as much as it resonated in Stan’s mind, high-pitched and echoing in a way that made his nonexistent ears ache. He was also pretty sure he’d heard it before, even if he hadn’t been in the most coherent state at the time.

“I swear,” he growled, “if I turn around and see that screaming geometry dipshit from my nightmare last week, I’m gonna puke ghost guts all over that one-eyed piss-yellow triangular ass of his.”

The being behind him began to clap. “Go ahead and turn around, then! I’d love to see it!”

Stan turned, and sure enough, found himself facing a one-eyed, piss-yellow, triangular entity.

“Well? Where’s the ghost puke you promised me?”

“Shut the fuck up, Bill. That is your name, right? I gotta be sure you know exactly how much I hate your dumb whiny voice in particular.”

“Read about me in Fordsy’s journal, did you?” Bill asked, twirling his cane.

Stan raised a hand to his ear. “Huh, what’s that noise? ‘Cause it definitely isn’t a first grader’s math homework shutting the fuck up, that’s for sure!”

Bill let his cane go flying out of his grip and through the nearest wall, disappearing from view for a moment before popping back into existence in his other hand. “Oh, Stanley, Stanley, Stanley. I’m here to help you, just like I helped Sixer! So let’s not say anything we’ll end up regretting later —”

“Too late.” The cocky grin disappeared from Stan’s face as he made a fist. “No one calls Ford ‘Sixer’ but me, and you’re really gonna regret mixing that one up if I have anything to say about it.”

“Oh, my bad!” Bill shot back, voice dripping with sarcasm. “I didn’t mean to slight your precious sibling relationship, which you both clearly value SO much! If only I could make it up to you by… I dunno, saving you from ETERNAL IMPRISONMENT?!”

“I’ve broken out of prison in three different countries, I’ll be fine on my own. Also, I know you tried to hurt my family when you all went off on your wild goose chase through my mind — and call me overprotective of those kids if you want to, but in my book, that’s a pretty good reason not to make any dark magical contracts with you.”

For the first time, Bill looked genuinely looked caught off guard by one of Stan’s comebacks. “You were conscious for that? You know what, forget it. I —”

“Well, I mean, I was asleep — but I was definitely dreaming about you getting your ass kicked.”

“I said FORGET IT!” Bill snapped.

“Touchy subject, eh?”

“It was in the past! It doesn’t matter anymore!” Bill shouted. “You need my help and my deal now, Stanley Pines, and there’s no way around it!”

Stan floated lower, until he was able to roughly approximate sitting at the foot of the bed. “Well, looks like I’ve got all day to kill and nothing better to do. I’m not gonna listen, but you might as well start making your case anyway.”

Bill’s eye narrowed with glee, and he began to chuckle to himself, then cackle louder and louder until it felt like his laughter would never stop echoing inside Stan’s head.

“Here’s the thing, Stanley — you really don’t have all day at all! In fact, you have…”

With a burst of flame, he summoned a ticking gold pocketwatch in his hand. “Exactly twelve hours and two minutes!”

“Until what? I’m not gonna fold and cut a deal with you just because of a vague threat and a time limit — that’s like, even more basic than Manipulation 101.”

Bill laughed, and his pocketwatch cooed like a cuckoo clock as an avian skeleton sprung out of the hole in the center. “Twelve hours until your body stops breathing, obviously! It’ll be real sudden, too — no time for the doctors to switch you over to life support before your brain runs out of oxygen!” One of his arms extended as he reached over to Stan, rapping him on the skull. “Then again, I’m not sure you’re getting much blood flow up there in the first place. Certainly less than old Fordsy —”

“Why should I believe you?” Stan asked. “If I was a math nerd’s demonic fever dream, I’d be making up bullshit life-or-death ultimatums left and right. Who would be be dumb enough to make a bargain with me otherwise?”

“Oh, you’d be surprised. But to answer your question, just look at your own eyes, down there in your body! They’re not even glowing half as bright as when you first got flipped into the mindscape, and they’re only gonna keep getting dimmer until the connection’s gone altogether!”

Bill snapped his fingers, summoning a plume of blue flame in which an image of the mirror flickered into existence. “When that portrait in the compact is completed, exactly twenty-four hours from the moment you entered the mirror, you’ll be severed from the living world forever — and that’s not all! Your soul gets trapped inside that musty old picture to rot and fester until either someone new scries with the mirror, or eternity itself comes grinding to a halt at the end of the world! That’s the beauty of it: you get to be all-seeing — almost like me! — for exactly one day, but once that’s over, all you’ll ever see again is the inside of a closed compact!”

The image in the flames faded away as they swirled around Bill’s hand, which he extended in Stan’s direction. “But I can put you back in your body, and send the mirror’s previous prisoner back into the painting instead! I can save you, just like I saved your brother! Whaddya say?”

“Yeah, of course,” Stan answered, voice dripping with sarcasm. “All makes perfect sense to me. You just so happen to be the world’s leading expert on cursed mirror and equally cursed painting combos!”

“Well, why wouldn’t I be? I helped make the thing, after all!”

“Oh, did you? That explains why holding it instantly reminded me of my deep hatred for trigonometry.”

Bill ignored him. “You know, your brother wasn’t the only mortal I’ve been a Muse to! He was just the only one in recent memory who was actually USEFUL. I’ve appeared before countless pupils over the years, looking for someone who’d be smart, ambitious, and not to mention gullible enough to help me fulfill my vision — but before Six-Fingers, everyone fell short. And worse — some of them wouldn’t stop summoning me even after I’d given up on them! They kept asking me inane questions about the beginning of the universe and the meaning of life!”

His triangular body turned bright red and the flames surrounding him roared as he continued: “Life doesn’t HAVE a meaning! Humanity was put on the planet to reproduce, die, and make meaningless philosophical arguments in a desperate attempt to convince themselves that morality and ethics are worth anything in the callous void that is existence — what else did they want me to tell them?! Some saccharine bullshit about being born so they could make the world a better place?”

“So you got fed up, and made the mirror to trap one of your ex-pawns?” Stan asked.

The flames disappeared, and Bill seemed to calm down, turning yellow again. “You catch on faster than I thought you would! I tricked one of my most insufferable pupils into creating it, and sure enough, he hasn’t bothered me since!”

“So when Ford tried to scry with the mirror thirty something years ago, he freed that guy’s ghost — but you still thought Ford would still be useful, didn’t you?” Stan tried to keep his voice calm, but he was starting to get a good idea of just who had driven Ford to such paranoia and desperation thirty years ago, and he was fuming inside. “So you freed Ford by switching his place with the ghost of that first guy you trapped.”

“Exactly!” Bill cheered, rubbing his hands together. “And I can do the same for you — just give me the word, and you’ll be back in your body before you know it!”

“Let’s imagine a parallel universe where I was a dumbass and I did take your deal. What other conditions would you be hiding in the fine print?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be hiding it! I’d actually be rather upfront, just like I’m being right now!” Bill smacked Stan on the head with a roll of paper, which unfurled to reveal a document titled CONTRACT.

“All I’d ask is for you do owe me one tiny favor down the line — a chance for me to borrow your restored body for a few hours when the right moment rolls around! I mean, you’ve coped without it for this long — what’ll one more brief stint in the mindscape be to a pro like you?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna have to say FUCK NO to that. I know you’re used to dealing with my brother, the most gullible genius on the planet, but while he may have all the brains, I have some actual goddamn common sense.”

“But — but don’t you want to open the portal?” Bill asked him, a little too quickly. “I’d like to see you try and operate it without your body!”

“Well, yeah — but are you really expecting me to be able to activate it all on my own? Even with all the journals, I’ve still got no idea what I’m doing,” Stan lied. “I could just as easily flip the thing’s self-destruct switch as I could find the right settings to bring Ford back. I’ll feel guilty if I can’t at least try, but… it was a hell of a long shot in the first place. I accepted that a long time ago, even if I don’t like to admit it.”

“Are you kidding me?!” Bill shouted. “The thing doesn’t even HAVE a self-destruct switch! I — I could even sweeten the deal, if you want! I could help you turn it on! This has been thirty years in the making — you can’t just give up on it now! Also, did I forget to mention YOUR ETERNAL FUCKING IMPRISONMENT and SLOW, PAINFUL CORRUPTION INTO A REVENGE-BENT MONSTER?!”

Okay, so Bill really wants the portal activated for some reason, Stan thought to himself. Interesting.

Out loud, he told Bill: “I’ve been messing around with too much shit that I don’t understand since before you even showed up. I’m not adding a deal with a demon to that list, and that’s final. Besides, you’re forgetting that the kids will probably figure something out. They always do.”

“Well, that sure is a cute sentiment!” Bill shot back. “But you’re already as good as dead to them, Stanley. They can’t see you, they can’t hear you — and soon enough, if you don’t do something, they won’t be able to feel your heart beating in your body anymore either!”

“Oh, I do plan on doing something,” Stan replied with a straight face. “It just won’t be the something you want me to do.”

“My offer still stands!” Bill shouted as he disappeared in a burst of blue flames. “Just call my name once it sinks in how doomed you are without me, and I’ll be right there to shake your hand and seal the deal!”

Mabel, still asleep next to Stan’s body, let out a deep sigh as Bill vanished, but otherwise didn’t react to their conversation. She was hugging Stan’s arm and clutching handfuls of the bedsheet like it were the lifeline tying Stan to the world, and if only she held on tight enough, she’d be able to drag him back.

And maybe, in a roundabout way, she could.

“Bill said I’m all-seeing like him until my twelve hours are up,” Stan explained to her, even knowing it wouldn’t be heard. “So if you’ll bear with me here, Mabel…”

He placed his hand over her forehead, and closed his eyes.

“I’m gonna see if I can haunt dreams like him too.”

***

Pacifica’s dance lesson dragged on for over an hour, showing no signs of coming to an end until she claimed to be experiencing a dehydration-induced dizzy spell and her instructor reluctantly excused her, probably fearing a lawsuit. She headed back to her room right away, and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that her pillow — and the mirror beneath it — hadn’t been disturbed. She was going to have to find a better hiding place for it soon.

As she pulled out a map of the mansion, trying to think of nooks and crannies that no one ever checked, a thud from the hallway made her jump. She almost brushed it off, chalking it up to her imagination, when she heard it again, and then a third time, growing louder with each repetition.

It didn’t sound like footsteps — or at least, not the footsteps of any human. If anything, it sounded like solid stone was striking the hallway’s hardwood floor.

Pacifica watched, frozen in place, as a veil of smoke materialized around her doorknob, twisting it counterclockwise degree by degree as the door ever-so-slowly swung open —

And then she laughed, because what she was seeing in the hallway couldn’t have been further from the monster she’d been expecting.

“You’re a statue,” she snickered, and her visitor’s stone eyes lit up red.

Oh, but not just any statue, a voice boomed from inside the familiar face that had once watched over the town square. I’m Gravity Falls’ very own Nathaniel Northwest!

***

(End notes:)

I was very excited for this chapter since I don’t write a whole lot of Stan and Bill interacting (outside of Some Sunny Day, which was a whole different beast altogether). And sure enough, I had a ton of fun with Stan’s dialogue, which led to this chapter being about a thousand words longer than expected.

Anyways, comments/reblogs are appreciated as always!

#gravity falls #stanley pines #bill cipher #dipper pines #mabel pines #wendy corduroy #soos ramirez #pacifica northwest #fic: to see the unseen #rosalia writes fic

28 notes · View notes

millieswickedbooks · 5 years ago

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the somewhat tragic story of georgie’s savior - chapter three

CHAPTER THREE: bowers, burgers and b-what in the actual fuck is happening?

(3/?)

previous chapter || masterlist || next chapter >>

pairing: Loser’s Club x black!OC (platonic), Pennywise x black!OC (NOT ROMANTIC AT ALL)

WARNINGS: PENNYWISE, the Bowers’ gang, racism, racial slurs, LGBT+ related slurs, sexual harassment, harassment, bullying, DESCRIPTIVE CHILD ABUSE, bruises, wounds, blood, puke, some disgusting food description, snakes, chase scene, nightmares, swearing

word count: 7,955

~~~~~

EXTENDED WARNING:

THIS CHAPTER WILL HAVE A SCENE THAT DESCRIBES CHILD ABUSE

SLIGHT SPOILER: IT WILL BEGIN WHEN JORDYN GETS HOME

!!! PLEASE READ WITH CAUTION !!!

~~~~~

☹

Previously:

After taking a peek into her mind, and saw it as a gold mine of fears. Behind the ‘brave’ act this girl put up was a messed up, scared little girl. What if making her even more scared, made her taste even better? IT laughed, knowing that he would have a lot of fun with her. She had no idea that that summer, which was rapidly approaching, would be a memorable yet harrowing one.

☹

Eight months later…

THE BELL HAD JUST RUNG meaning that Hell would let its tortured souls have a three-month break. That’s right; school is out. Summer has officially begun and the halls are now flooded with hundreds of loud and excited teenagers, who have been waiting for this day since the first day of school. One of those hundreds people being Jordyn.

Jordyn sighed as she walked through the crowded and loud hall, immediately getting irritated with the fact that she has only been out in the hall for five seconds and she has already bumped into six people. She never used her locker throughout the school year so she was able to skip that hassle walk right to the doors.

She walked out and felt the sun on her skin, and she sort of basked in it. She sighed and remembered that today, she would be babysitting Bill. She scanned the yard full of kids, searching for him and his friends, which she knew he would be with. After walking a bit, she managed to find Bill and she made her way over to him. And she was correct, he was accompanied by Stan, Richie, and Eddie. They were standing near the trash can, their bags empty and in the middle of a conversation so they didn’t notice her coming towards them.

“Is that how you wanna spend your summer?” Jordyn heard Eddie ask, who was looking at Richie. “Inside an arcade?” She remembered Richie talking about this new game he wanted to beat really badly. What was it called again? Oh. Street Fighter!

Jordyn wasn’t a big fan of video games but she listened to Richie talk on and on about them because she knew he was very passionate about them and she simply amazed at how much he liked them.

“Beats spending it inside your mother, oooh!” Richie quickly retorted and he lifted his hand up to accept a high-five from Stan, to which the unamused Stan quickly rejected by grabbing Richie’s arm and bringing it down. Jordyn rolled her eyes at Richie’s comment, silently laughing on the inside but she would never admit that.

“What if we go to the Quarry?” Stan suggested.

“G-guys, we were g-going to th-the woods tomorrow, r-rem-remember?” Bill said. The boys nodded, remembering that they promised Bill they would join him in the hunt to find the animal that attacked Georgie. It was silent for a moment and at that very moment, Jordyn had finally reached the boys, who still hadn’t noticed her.

“Hey guys,” she announced herself, causing all four of the boys to turn and look at her. They all smiled when they realized it was Jordyn.

“Hey, J-Jordyn,” Bill said, happy to see his brother’s savior. Ever since she had saved Georgie and been babysitting him and Georgie, he had grown very fond of the girl. Despite the fact that he hated the idea of having a babysitter at his age, he couldn’t hate Jordyn. He loved having her around, she made him feel as if he had a friend over instead of babysitting him and his brother.

Jordyn smiled at him and then at the other three boys, who, in return, murmured ‘hi’ s, and she wondered why they were acting so off. She soon realized that Eddie, Richie, Stan, and now Bill, were staring at her body. She blushed, tucking a strand of her curly hair behind her hair, feeling slightly self-conscious.

Today, she decided to actually clean up a little bit, make herself more presentable. She was wearing a white crop top that showed off her stomach and a light blue denim jacket. She paired it with a light blue denim mini-skirt that complimented her long, dark legs and a pair of black converse. In the boys’ eyes, the top… really— really— complimented her chest.

Eddie was slightly blushing at being caught staring there while Stan’s eyes were definitely checking out her legs. Bill’s eyes were wide, just taking her appearance and Richie just whistled. The boys, deep down, were still shocked that after all this time, a cute sophomore like Jordyn would even hang out with them. To them, Jordyn was absolutely gorgeous, and the fact that she had such a big heart and saved Georgie, only augmented her looks. Richie was the first to speak up about her attire.

“Damn, Jordyn! Remind me why do you hide that hot bod every day again?” Richie joked, winking at her. Jordyn just rolled her eyes at him, smiling slightly, ignoring his comment.

“Got any plans for later on today?” She asked, knowing that she would stick with them for the entire afternoon until the curfew, because of babysitting duties and whatnot.

“Nothing really but tomorrow we will be taking a nice trip down to the forest for our regularly scheduled hunt–!” Richie started to explain but he never finished because he was abruptly interrupted by Eddie.

“Beep beep Richie!” Stan quickly told him but it was too late. They all stared at Jordyn, knowing what she was about to say.

They knew she would end up going with them tomorrow because she would have to watch Bill, but they knew Jordyn was super against hunting for the animal that attacked her and Georgie.

She never really talked about what happened that day in full detail, even though just about everyone knew she could recite the whole thing as if it happened yesterday. The four boys knew the whole ordeal was mostly likely traumatizing all together, so they never mentioned the hunting in front of her. They watched as Jordyn’s face went from confused and curious to conflicted in a matter of seconds and they all felt bad, thinking they had reopened old wounds for her.

She knew Bill was almost hell-bent on catching this ‘animal’ he thought attacked Georgie and it worried her. He told her that she had inspired him, he wanted to save other people like she did with Georgie. But he wanted a bigger impact, he wanted to stop animal altogether so the kids wouldn’t stop going missing by the dozens like they were at the moment. He wanted to catch the animal so they could live in Derry in peace. Jordyn tried to change his mind and warn him as much as possible how fucking dangerous that shit was but Bill is stubborn as hell.

She worried that whatever the thing she saw in the sewer or at the hospital would end up getting him or one of his friends and she would be at fault, it’s her lie. It would cost them their life.

The clown-thing eyes flashed in her mind and she shuddered.

“Are you guys seriously going after that animal?” Jordyn asked, knowing very well that she would not like the answer to her question. The boys nodded slowly and she sighed, knowing she wouldn’t be able to convince them not to. “Ugh, you guys are so infuriating. But there’s nothing I can do. Make sure you all have weapons and calamine.”

The boys felt relieved at her reaction and a smile was plastered on Bill’s face. He was happy to have Jordyn on board.

“Guys, look…” Eddie said, looking off to the side. “Betty Ripsom’s mom.” They all turned in the direction where he was looking and Jordyn saw a distressed pale, white lady in a light green dress. Her hair was dark and curly and she had tears brimming her eyes as she frantically looked for any sign of her missing daughter, like as if the girl would be here.

The sight made Jordyn’s heart feel like it was breaking. She felt for the woman, the loss of a child must be… unbearable. And right behind the mother was two police officers, one being Henry Bowers’ father.

She got shivers down her spine as she made eye contact with the man. He glared at her, his eyes trying to project how much he hated the girl. She quickly looked away, turning back to the group.

“Is she really expecting to see her coming out of school?” Stan asked, confused by Betty’s mother’s actions.

“Stan, the lady is desperate. Just look at her… imagine being in her shoes. I’d be looking just about anywhere too if I was her,” Jordyn explained, trying to get Stanley to understand. The boy nodded at her, now getting why the lady was acting so weird.

“But still, it’s not like Betty Ripsom has been hiding in HomeEc for the last three weeks,” Eddie said, still not getting why the mother choose probably the least likely place to search for her missing daughter.

“Do you think they’ll actually find her?” Stan asked genuinely and Jordyn wanted to nod and be optimistic but something deep down told her “absolutely not” .

“Sure,” Richie replied. “In a ditch, all decomposed, covered in worms and maggots, smelling like Eddie’s mom’s underwear,” he finished, trying to lighten the mood, in such a bad way. Jordyn grimaced at the joke and at the godforsaken image that just came to life in her mind.

“Shut up, that’s fricking disgusting…” Eddie retaliated, making a face at Richie’s inappropriate comment.

“Okay, enough talk about missing kids,” Jordyn broke in, not wanting to talk about the topic anymore since it increased the guilt she held within her. “It’s totally killing my summer vibe right now. Since you guys aren’t going anywhere right now, how about burgers? On me?”

“On y-you?” Bill asked, knowing that that would be a lot of money.

“Yeah, your dad paid me extra because I successfully taught Georgie how to divide, I did all your chores, and I cleaned the bathroom,” Jordyn recounted. “Annddd I found $20 on my way to lunch today!” She happily finished, pulling the $20 out of her pocket, to show the boy she wasn’t lying.

The boys looked shocked and smiled at her, all happy about going out to eat. As she tried to put the bill back in her pocket, it slipped from her hands and fell to the ground… next to a $10 bill! Damn, this day got eighty times better.

“Holy shit, a $10 bill! Now we’re getting dessert! Let’s go and actually talk about how tomorrow is gonna go down. Just because I’m allowing you to go doesn’t mean we’re gonna go in all willy-nilly and fuck around in the woods,” Jordyn informed the boys in what she liked to call her ‘Mom Voice’, as she shoved the cash into her pocket and turned around to begin walking away from the school.

Stan, Bill, Richie, and Eddie stood there, still shocked that she just found more money but they soon began to walk with her. Bill and Eddie sped up to walk in front of Jordyn, while Richie and Stan stayed behind her.

“I’m glad Jordyn’s actually coming with us for once. You know, Jordyn, the forest isn’t that bad. There’s nothing better than having your shoes smell like lake water and having a poison ivy rash on your ankles and knees,” Richie joked, nudging her shoulder.

“Poison ivy is my favorite!” Jordyn sarcastically confessed, joining in on the joke almost at once. “Thank God I was actually invited this time, it’s been my lifelong dream to rub poison ivy on every inch of my hot bod while you guys watch me.”

Jordyn never really thought herself to be a hilarious person like Richie but she knew she could be funny at times, so she felt kind of embarrassed when she expected to hear a couple of laughs or another joke in response from Richie but she heard none of that. Instead, all she heard was a couple of grunts and the sound of a body hitting the ground.

She turned around to see what happened and saw that Richie and Stan were currently on the floor and in front of her, and quite close to her might she add, was the one and only Demon Bowers. And he was smirking evilly at her.

She didn’t have any time to react to his presence because she was quickly shoved to the side by him and she stumbled into someone’s arms. A pair of lanky arms. She looked around and saw Henry standing in front of Richie and Stan’s fallen bodies, behind Eddie and Bill, who had just turned around after hearing the commotion, Belch was behind Eddie and Victor standing near Stan’s head. Meaning that there’s only one answer to who was holding her. Jordyn tensed up as the arms wrapped tighter around her waist, bringing her closer to his body.

“You wanted to rub what exactly all over your hot bod?” Patrick asked, his menacing smirk making her feel dirty all over.

“Get off of me–” Jordyn spit out but Patrick interrupted her, his hot breath making her gag.

“I have a couple of ideas in mind of what you can do to that hot body. All of them involving me,” He suggested disgustingly, leaning down to smell her conditioned curly hair and her perfume. His pupils were blown wide with lust as he stared at her. Jordyn struggled against his hold but his grip became painful and she had to stop, a whimper of pain escaping her throat.

Stan, Richie, Eddie, and Bill were all watching them from their own various troubling positions and they all felt sick to their stomachs at Patrick’s comments. Richie on the other hand, felt as if he couldn’t just stand there and watch that happen. Bowers and his dickheads could harass him and his friends all they wanted but he drew the line at Jordyn. He went to stand up but Bowers pushed him back down.

“Don’t even try it,” Henry warned him, somehow making Richie hate him even more. Beside them, Victor saw Stan trying to reach for his fallen kippah and he quickly grabbed it, waving it out of reach for the Jewish boy.

“Give that back!” Stan pleaded angrily, looking irritated as he tried to reach for it from the ground but, no, Victor was just having too much fun. Of course he wasn’t going to give that stupid hat back to that stupid kid.

“No, I’d much rather play frisbee,” Victor commented bluntly, giving Stan a rude look as he flung the kippah onto the moving bus that just drove down the road and past them.

‘What a fucking dick,’ Jordyn thought. The blond boy was probably proud of himself as he walked away, smirking his whole way towards the parking lot.

Belch then decided it was his time to shine as he burped right into Eddie’s face, causing the boy to gag. Jordyn tried to get out of Patrick’s grip once again, feeling the need to defend the younger boys swell in her chest.

Bill watched as she failed once again. He too was disgusted at how Patrick was acting towards Jordyn and he was about to go do something when Henry began to walk away from the group, bumping roughly into Bill’s shoulder to get past him.

Patrick got to pinch Jordyn’s arm, causing her to yelp, and inhaled her scent before letting her go, following Henry and Belch. Jordyn shivered as the tall boy winked at her while checking her out and licking his lips. She now regretted putting on the outfit.

Bill was fed up. And he was about to say something. While Richie helped Stan get up behind them, Bill spoke up.

“Y-you s-s-s-su-su-suck, Bowers!”

“Shut up, Billy!” Eddie frantically blurted out, not wanting any more trouble with the rather terrifying older boys. Yet the three boys turned around upon hearing the stuttering boy’s insult, all three of them actually surprise the boy had the balls to stand up to them, but they made sure not to show it on their faces.

“Y-you s-s-suh-suh-say something? B-B-B-Buh-Buh-Billy?” Henry falsely-stuttered out, mocking Bill’s disorder. Belch and Patrick both found this highly amusing, both of them laughing. This angered Jordyn to end. She wanted to rip a chunk of the boy’s ugly, greasy ass mullet out his mostly likely dandruff-and-lice-infected scalp. He continued his taunting.

“You,” and then he turned towards Jordyn, “and you, got free rides because of Stuttering Billy’s brother. You guys had so much attention on yourselves, if anyone laid a hand on any of you, especially you, Miss Savior of Derry, the town would riot. But guess what,” As Henry got closer to Bill, Jordyn was subconsciously getting closer too. She didn’t like where this was going. “Free rides over.”

Henry had taken another step closer to Bill and Jordyn had finally decided enough was enough. In a quick movement, Jordyn stood in front of Bill, shoving Henry back. He stumbled back a little bit and it took a while to process what just happened. Once he realized what had happened, he moved forward, his hand raised in a fist, aiming at Jordyn. Richie and Bill went to grab Jordyn, to move her out of the way of Henry’s wrath. But before the hit could land, Jordyn called out.

“Your father’s right there!” She had no idea why she felt the need to say that but it obviously worked since that triggered something in the mullet boy, making him freeze.

Silence fell over the two groups. Patrick and Belch looked at Jordyn, in shock and waiting, not knowing what to expect was going to happen next. Meanwhile, Eddie, Richie, Stan and Bill were confused as to what Jordyn was planning, yet they knew whatever she was doing was working. Henry looked over at his father and something like fear flashed before his eyes. She continued. “I wonder how he would feel about you putting your hands on the oldest Denbrough’s son. At school. Where everyone was watching.”

Henry looked torn. He didn’t know how Jordyn had figured his fear of his father but he wanted to kill her for it. But he knew she was right, there would be hell to pay at home if he did anything to them out here in here in open. The boy huffed angrily.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the boy tried to quickly cover up and Jordyn almost smiled. “But I sure do know that he would love to watch me beat you to a pulp. He might care for those f*rries but not for you, n*gger. This summer is gonna be a hurt train, for you and your f*ggot friends. Don’t think that hanging out with them will save you. Watch your back.”

And with that, the three bullies walked away, going towards their car and speeding off down the road, most likely on their way to find a new victim to harass and assault.

Jordyn, Eddie, Bill, Richie, and Stan stood there, subconsciously huddling together as they watched their tormentors drive off and then everyone kind of let out a breath they didn’t know they were holding in.

“I wish he’d go missing,” Richie spoke up from her left and Jordyn sighed, feeling the same way.

“Yeah, so does every child in this fucking town,” she commented, rolling her eyes as she adjusted herself, feeling appetite vanish after dealing with Patrick’s grubby hands. She absolutely despised the boy.

“He’s probably the one doing it,” Eddie claimed, looking at the group and Jordyn shook her head, knowing that his dumbass wouldn’t be able to hide all those bodies.

“Whatever, let’s go, I’m starving,” Jordyn murmured, knowing the boys could hear her and began to walk away from the scene. Even though she lied to them, she hoped maybe smelling the food or seeing it would reawaken the dead appetite within her. She didn’t need to look back to know her boys were following behind, them not wanting to be there anymore either, thanks to Bowers.

☹

They stopped at Georgie’s elementary school before going out to eat, picking up Georgie who was waiting for them. His face lit up when he caught sight of Jordyn and her friends. His happiness brought joy to her heart. He ran over and hugged her tightly and took her hand as they began to walk away from the school. She didn’t think the boy could get any happier but then she told him that they were going out to eat and it was like watching a ball of energy burst into flames.

Once the group got to the diner, everything was fine. Like Jordyn had hoped, the sight of food brought the joy back into the group that had been snatched away and stomped on by the Bowers and his minions.

They all ate burgers and drank their milkshakes happily, cracking jokes here and there, laughing loudly and enjoying each others company.

They were so distracted enjoying each other’s company that no one saw the red balloon just outside the window a few feet behind them.

☹

After hanging out with her boys for a while around town—thank god it was Bowers-free—and then dropping Richie, Stan and Eddie off at their homes, Jordyn had gone with Bill and Georgie to their house. She wanted to hang out at the Denbrough’s house for a bit until the curfew came around, which was usually when Mr. and Mrs. Denbrough came home and when she was able to go home. She hugged Bill, kissed Georgie’s forehead and bid the family adieu as she made her way home.

When Jordyn had gotten home, she didn’t like the feeling of dread that filled her stomach, making it feel heavier than it already was with the burger she had eaten earlier. Had she done something wrong? Curfew didn’t start until a couple of minutes from now…

She shook her head, walking up her porch and into her house, quietly shutting the door behind her. The room was dark so she had to be careful so she wouldn’t bump into anything. But what she wasn’t expecting was the loud voice of her father screeching at her.

“Where the FUCK have you been?!” Isaiah roared out in anger at his daughter, which caused Jordyn to flinch so hard, she fell backwards in utter shock and fear, bumping into something on the way down. The sound of something crashing and breaking accompanies the light being turned on, finally allowing Jordyn to see.

And the sight caused her muscles to contract in fear. Her father was standing a couple of feet away, seething with rage. She turned to see what she had bumped into and she felt her heart drop. She had accidentally bumped into the end table, which knocked the picture of her father and her mother hugging and smiling at the camera over. The glass was cracked and some parts of it even fell out, glass all haphazardly splayed all over the ground beside the end table. Also, the golden frame was broken, which was a frame that Mama had gotten custom-made for that picture.

Jordyn looked over and saw her father looking over at the broken picture and she closed her eyes, trying to prepare herself for what was about to happen as the fear settled deep within her gut.

“Jordyn, Jordyn, Jordyn…” Isaiah started in a low voice and Jordyn cringed, knowing exactly what she was in for. ”First you come home late, nearly past curfew might I add and now… you… you fucking broke your mother’s frame? Is that correct? Because if it isn't, please correct me.”

“Dad–” Jordyn began, trying to get her apology out, knowing that explaining she hadn’t meant to break it wouldn’t work with him. But Isaiah was not having any of it.

“DID I SAY YOU COULD SPEAK?! HUH?! DID I SAY THAT, LIL’ BITCH?!” Isaiah bellowed at her, running at her and grabbing her forcefully by her biceps. He had a bruising grip on her arms as he shook her violently. Jordyn brought her forearms up, her hands feebly in front of her face as a way to protect her in some way. She was cowering, turning her face away from Isaiah’s mouth, not wanting to feel the brute intensity of hate that was coming out of her father’s mouth head-on.

“Dad, I did'n–” She tried to explain, looking forward at her father, deciding to abandon the ‘just take the blame and apologize’ route. She wanted to get away from him as fast as possible. But Isaiah cut her off once again, this time he brought his hand down on her face, slapping her hard.

Jordyn didn’t feel the slap at first—since he hit her that hard—she just suddenly realized she wasn’t looking at him anymore. After a couple of seconds of Jordyn blinking, trying to focus her blurry eyesight, she felt her cheek get warm as the blood rushed to the spot he had hit. The stinging sensation was very much present there in the cheek as she heard her father bellow at her once again.

“SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH! I bet you were out there with those little white boys doing God knows fucking what. Is that why you’re always late, you fucking slut?” Isaiah accused and Jordyn shook her head, tears rapidly falling down her cheeks. “Because you’re letting those boys use you and when one is done with you, they pass you on to the other one? Is that what you do out there, get passed around like some fucking sex doll all fucking day?!”

“No Dad, they’re just my friends! I swear!”

“You lying fucking bitch… and after all that sinning you doin’, you have the audacity to come show your face here and you barely get here and you’re already fucking this place up like you do with every-fucking-thing!” Isaiah screamed right into Jordyn’s face, spit landing on her cheek and chin. She cringed again and tried to get out his painful grip but he wasn’t letting up. “You ruin everything, you hear me?! EVERYTHING! You ruined your body, you ruined your mother, you ruined our marriage, you ruin everything!”

Isaiah punched Jordyn in the jaw, causing her to fall back just by the sheer force of the punch. Isaiah was a large man, he was 6’4 and one-hundred-ninety-one pounds of pure muscle. Jordyn, on the other hand, was 5’3 and weighed one-hundred-eight pounds. And she certainly didn’t work out.

From her position on the ground, Jordyn saw her father raise his leg and she winced, as she laid there as the man repeatedly kicked her stomach.

Unbeknownst to the father and the child, a pair of glowing yellow eyes watched from the corners of the room. IT stood there, watching the father as he grabbed the girl’s hair and drag her as she screamed and cried out in pain. He had a huge smirk on his face as he watched the abuse unfold right before his very eyes.

‘Interesting…’ He thought to himself as he sniffed the air, the fear and pain in the air caused him to let out a groan in satisfaction. ‘This is good.’

☹

Jordyn sat in the bathroom, dabbing the small and scattered wounds on her right shoulder and arm with warm water. At some point during the beating, Isaiah pushed her and she fell out the glass from the broken picture frame.

After she pulled several pieces of glass out, she rinsed the cuts with mild soap and warm water and was now trying to get the bleeding to stop by applying pressure over several areas at the same time. It was working but slowly.

Jordyn sighed as she looked at the bruise on her jaw in the mirror and she rolled her eyes, already trying to come up with her excuse. She sighed and painfully stood up, her ribs protesting highly at the movement.

She didn’t need to lift her shirt up to know that there was a bruise there but she did anyway. And ‘lo and behold, thereupon her brown skin, was an enormous bruise from Isaiah’s kicks. While flashbacks played in her head of her father’s abuse, Jordyn shivered in fear.

The feeling of tears rolling down her cheeks is what snapped her out of her trance.

Jordyn stared at herself as she watched the tears that were falling down her face. She felt something stirring deep within her and she couldn’t understand it at first. But she soon recognized it was anger. She was angry, so angry she could feel her hands shaking, her jaw clenching and her chest, neck, and ears getting warm with the flush that was creeping up to them. The longer she stared, the angrier she got. Angry with herself. For allowing her father to make her cry. She knew he couldn’t exactly see her but this to her, still felt he was winning in a sick way.

“Stop,” Jordyn told herself in a shaky voice as she kept glaring at herself in the mirror, irately wiping the tears away. “Stop fucking crying.”

Another tear slipped out and Jordyn swiftly wiped it away just like had done with the others. She shook her head and took a deep breath, pushing her sadness deep down her like she always did after these things. She bottled it all up, not wanting to deal with her… issues or feelings afterwards.

Jordyn decided to distract herself by fixing her hair for sleep since she was already in the bathroom. She dampened her hair and proceeded to use a comb to detangle it with some Detangle Aid!—she always used to see her mom use it for her hair and Jordyn was fascinated by her mother’s lacquered, kinky hair, so she would always buy it for herself.

After successfully detangling her hair, she parted into sections and beginning to do four dutch braids.

With aching arms muscles—and aching everywhere else—and now sporting four neat and firm dutch braids on her head—she does this nearly every night, it would be shocking if she wasn’t a pro at braiding—Jordyn silently walked out of the bathroom. She tip-toed to the kitchen downstairs, not wanting to wake her father and have to endure what she just went through once again. Once was already way more than enough.

She grabbed the frozen peas from the freezer and made her way upstairs to her room, stopping in the hallway closet to get a small towel as well.

Once she was inside her room, Jordyn gently closed the door behind her and sighed, as she changed out of her clothes carefully, not wanting to irritate her ribs further. She threw on a light gray top and some black plaid pajama shorts and turned on her fan and walked over to her bed and carefully tucked herself in.

Once she was comfortable—well, as comfortable as one could after what just happened to her—under her warm and heavy comforter, Jordyn laid the peas on the towel and put it on her stomach, the weight of the peas on her tender bruise hurt, producing a gasp of pain from her. But the coldness sent shivers down her spine. She knew by morning the peas would be melted and would’ve soaked her shirt so that's why she got the towel.

Jordyn was very exhausted so it didn’t take her long to fall asleep, which she did happily, she was tired of many things, like tired of being awake. She was tired of living in this house, tired of dealing with her father’s anger issues, tired of missing her mother, tired of dealing with Bowers and his goons, tired of this childhood she was forced to live in. She was tired of Derry.

She was tired of living.

So Jordyn closed her eyes, letting all the tiredness drift her off into unconsciousness, praying that whoever was above would have some mercy on her soul and grant her wish of not waking up the next morning.

Not so surprisingly, Jordyn wasn’t lying about being tired at all, because she was so tired, she didn’t even see the red balloon just outside of her window.

☹

The smell of syrupy pancakes and eggs almost immediately woke Jordyn up. She sat up in her bed, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes and saw that it was morning already, so she should probably get ready to go hunting with Bill and others soon.

But after getting another waft of that delicious food, she couldn’t even stop herself from getting up and out of bed and walking to the kitchen. When she got downstairs she froze at the sight. Her father was wearing an apron and cooking. Something that he doesn’t do—well not anymore, since her mother went missing.

Jordyn felt uneasy suddenly, not understanding what was going on but what she does understand is everything in her body screaming her to GET AWAY but she doesn't understand why it's telling her that. It all seems so nice though. It was just like old times, when her Mom was still there.

“Hi, sweetheart, you sleep well?” Isaiah asked as he continued to cook the eggs on the hot pan. He didn’t need to look at her for her to hear the smile in his voice, the smile she missed seeing so deeply—he doesn’t do it anymore.

“Yeah, I did, Isa–Dad,” Jordyn corrected herself as she looked at her father, cooking just like old times. She couldn’t stop the smile from appearing on her face if she wanted to.

“Why don’t you sit down and wait for breakfast, yeah? I’m almost done,” Her father told her and Jordyn scrunched her eyebrows in confusion; he hasn’t turned to look at her, how can he see that she is standing? Her father spoke up once again. “I said sit down.”

His voice made her hair stand on end as she was taken back to times she didn’t want to remember. She quickly sat down at the table to upset him any further.

As she sat there, she heard a noise from her right and she looked over, seeing… something… scurry out of sight into a rather large hole in their dining room. Since when were there holes or animals in their house? She heard something else make some noise from her left and she turned to look and she couldn’t explain what she saw before it ran off. It was long, slimy-looking, bleeding and… decaying. Jordyn could see the stain it left behind from its slimy skin—actually everything it had touched was turning a blotchy gray-black color. It was spreading throughout the room.

‘Wait…’ Jordyn thought to herself as she soon realized that everything was too bright and… saturated. It was starting to give her a headache.

“Dad… do we have animals in the house?” Jordyn found herself asking as she rubbed her eyes, trying to have her eyes adjust to the unusual brightness.

“Yeah, I bought something earlier today, decided you would totally want to see it,” Her father informed her as his whole body twitched, his eyes never leaving the now burning food in front of him. Jordyn still hadn’t seen his face yet.

“Dad, why is it loose in the house? What is it?” Jordyn questioned her father further, eyes wide as the rot neared the kitchen further and further. It had absorbed just about everything but the room they were currently in but it was getting there steadily.

Jordyn watched as chunks of their decayed house began to fall apart from behind her. She tried to get up but she found rope wrapped around her arms, legs, and torso, holding her down and not letting her get up from her chair. She felt her breath become more rapid and she struggled to get out, everything becoming too scary and confusing for her to handle.

She heard the creature scurrying around once again and she flinched at the sound—it was getting closer.

“Don’t worry about that, how’s your food, darling?” Her father asked her and she looked down in front of her and saw what her father had cooked. She gagged at the sight.

It was a huge plate of what Jordyn could only make out as puke and undigested food. And it had fucking giant maggots wiggling around in it. There was hair, bloody toenails, mold, bloody eyeballs, and what looked like octopus legs all wiggling around on the plate, causing everything to make a wet, squelch-y noise. And not to mention that all over were just-hatched baby chicks and they were squealing and squawking loudly and painfully, but that all ended when blood suddenly came pouring out of their tiny eyes and mouths. The birds, now dead, slouched forward and their blood began to mix into the rest of the disgusting mush on the plate.

And to top it off, it smelled like straight horse-shit and it was making Jordyn was gagging so hard that her throat hurt.

“Dad…” She managed to spit out in a whimper but her father cut her off.

“JORDYN!” He roared out and Jordyn flinched, trying to hide but she was still tied to the chair. The rope was now painfully tighter and Jordyn could feel her skin nearly splitting from how tight it was now. She let out a whine of pain as the room suddenly got dark. The decay had reached them, it had engulfed the whole house, everything, absolutely everything.

Jordyn heard her father breathing heavy and she looked over to see him looking right at her. And she couldn’t believe what she was looking at.

Her father’s eyes were black. Like all black. Like ‘demonic possession’ black. And he has these red lines painted on his face, coming out of the corners of his mouth and going up to his eyes, over them and just a couple inches above his eyebrows.

‘Where have I seen that before?’ Jordyn thought to herself, her eyebrows scrunching up in confusion as she looked at her father with wide, scared eyes. But before Jordyn could think further, her father spoke up once again, but it was different this time. Jordyn didn’t know what exactly was happening but she could hear his voice as it neared the end of his sentence. It became all distorted and weird, his voice becoming something else… something so familiar.

Jordyn gasped as she slowly began to figure out who was standing before her, and it wasn’t her father like she had thought it was. Was it that fucking thing from the sewers?

“You have been causing such a ruckus out of this stupid pet thing, you haven’t even said hi to your mother who has been sitting beside you this entire time, now go on, say hi Jojo-Bear,” Not-father told her as his face began to warp and… melt?

‘Mom?’ Jordyn thought to herself. She wanted to turn and look but everything in her told her not to.

‘It’s fucking a trick,’ she thought to herself. ‘The clown is doing this to you, so wake up! It’s a fucking dream!’

“Jordyn…” She heard from beside her and she gasped at the sound of her mother’s voice, so clear and so close to her. Was she really there? Jordyn, after fighting with herself, sucked in a breath and turned around and she immediately regretted it.

Beside Jordyn was her mother, so the thing was not lying but it was different. Her eyes were gouged out with blood spilling out of the holes in her head and her skin was decomposed, her skin blue and gray and her mouth black like tar.

“ WAKE UP! ” Her mother screeched out, her voice loud and powerful, like a sonic boom that gave Jordyn a sense of control of this situation. Her mouth was opened and Jordyn could see the creature that was crawling around the house in there, just sitting in her mother’s mouth and threatening her with its glowing yellow eyes.

But Jordyn knew better. This isn’t real.

And just as the creature jumped out to attack her, Jordyn closed her eyes and simply told herself; ‘Wake up.’

And she did. But not it was not where she expected.

☹

Jordyn gasped as she sat up, not feeling her comfortable bed under her body. She was covered in a cold sweat as she looked around and realized that she, in fact, wasn’t in bed, or her room, or even her house. She was outside, literally. She was laying in the middle of the road and it was dark. She looked down and saw the pajamas she had put on before she went to bed and she had a throbbing pain all over her body.

‘My bruises…’ She thought to herself as she carefully stood up, looking around to see where she was and to figure out exactly how she got there.

‘Did I sleepwalk? I must’ve. There’s no other way I would’ve gotten here if it wasn’t that… That’s weird though. I’ve never sleepwalked before…’ Jordyn thought to herself as she rubbed her arms up and down her bare arms. Couldn’t she have grabbed a coat first before she sleepwalked all the way out here?

While she was looking around she saw a house that she realized looked familiar and she felt grateful to at least be in Derry. She walked over to a street sign, one she had to get closer to read since the darkness was shrouding it almost completely. Once she was close enough, she read the words; ‘Jackson St.’ and she couldn’t stop the gasp that she let out.

She was in fucking Jackson Street? That was at least a good mile from her house. She looked to her left and saw the dreaded sewer opening from eight fucking months ago. The one where that clown thing came out of and snatched Georgie’s arm clean off. She took a couple of steps back from it but it was hard because of this darkness…

Then suddenly, the darkness surrounding her made her hair stand on edge as she realized two things; One, she was out past curfew. If the cops caught her, she would be so ridiculously fucked. Two, the sound of giggling coming from the—the fucking sewer, of fucking course—a couple of feet behind in front of her made her realizeshe wasn’t alone.

Jordyn didn’t even dare look into the sewer to see what was waiting for her. She knew it was that fucking clown. He got into her head and she knows it. Is IT the reason why she is out here? Was IT in her house?

“Jordyn…” His voice completely derailed her anxious thinking. His voice alone sent shivers down her spine. He wasn’t done tormenting her. She was frozen with fear.

“Little baby Jo is scared of the dark isn’t she? Don’t know what could be hiding in there right?” IT commented, his voice now behind her and she didn’t hesitate to book it the fuck out of there, her legs finally deciding to be useful at the moment. She was running as fast as fucking possible in the direction of her house but she had a wholemile left—all she did in Track was the one-hundred meter.

“Im’ma coming Jojie, you can’t escape me!” IT taunted her, and she couldn’t stop the tears from pouring out of her eyes as she ran. When will IT leave her alone… She didn’t think she could continue on like this forever. Despite how fast she was going, the cold air roaring in her ears.

“Stay here and play Jo! You wanna go back home? You wanna go to the house where your father beats you?” IT jibed at her and Jordyn was so shocked at the fact that that thing was in her house she tripped, falling onto the ground hard. “You know you don’t wanna go there, so come with me, where we all float!”

Jordyn tried getting up but she was so out of breath, she thought she would pass out before she could do anything, let alone get up from the ground. She looked down to see what she tripped over and couldn’t even believe what she was looking at.

She had tripped over a turtle.

Like a real-life turtle. Like a living, breathing turtle. A reptile. Literally just standing on the road.

And it was staring at her. Like its’ beady little eyes were staring at her. And she knew it was looking at her because she could… feel it staring at her. Like as if this turtle was somehow staring right into her soul.

Jordyn felt as if she was malfunctioning. Given any other circumstance Jordyn probably would’ve laugh so hard at the weird situation she was in, she probably would’ve ended up crying and pissing herself at the same. But at the moment, Jordyn simply couldn’t wrap her mind around what was happening. Like she simply couldn’t understand the fact that a turtle that small caused her to fall and that she didn’t completely crush it with how recklessly she was running.

‘Running…?’ Jordyn thought to herself, wondering what she was doing before she got here when she remembered the fucking clown.

Jordyn quickly snapped out of the weird trance she was in when she remembered exactly why she was there. She stood up quickly as she looked around for anything, anything that gave away that IT was near but when she saw that the coast was clear, she booked it to her house.

She had already ran a considerable amount when the clown was chasing her so when her house came into view, she nearly collapsed with relief—which was something she never thought she would do since it is her house after all.

She bounded up the steps of her porch and quickly came in, happy that the door was left unlocked. She carefully ran up the steps of the stairs and locked herself in her bedroom.

Jordyn tried to stay up to maybe be able to defend herself if whatever the fuck that thing is came to torment her again but it was 3:47 a.m. and her exhaustion was winning. She convinced herself that IT went to go torment some other innocent child or hopefully get some rest—if whatever the fuck that is even needs it—and she drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

Little did know, right on her porch was the tiny turtle from earlier, standing in front of her house protectively.

The clown, on the other hand, was seething. That fucking turtle had decided to get off its’ lazy ass for once and do something, and completely ruined his plans for Jordyn tonight.

IT wouldn’t have really minded with any other random child but there was something about Jordyn that… IT needed. IT needed to have her. And now was when the turtle decided it would intervene. But he knew why. It’s because the turtle knows something about her, that something is what IT craves about her.

‘The turtle won’t always be there to protect her, ’ IT thought to himself as he slinked away into the shadows, his glowing yellow eyes looking at Jordyn’s house, taking in the decor of the house. It would be a place he would be spending a lot of time in so might as well memorize its features by heart. ‘And when he isn’t there… then she will be mine.’

☹

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harttohartforever-blog · 5 years ago

Text

I Left My Hart in San Francisco

Jennifer hugged her pillow, dozing lightly. Jonathan had left early this morning and promised to have Max bring her breakfast on a tray so she was trying to get back to sleep for a few more minutes. The sun streaming in the big windows was making it difficult. Then the phone rang. She had ended up over on Jonathan's side of the big California king so she grabbed his extension without opening her eyes.

"Yes?" The smile spread across her face at the sound of his voice. "Hello, Darling."

"Have I thanked you for starting my day off in such a lovely way?" He asked her from somewhere on the 405.

"The pleasure was all mine." She assured him. Her voice still held that same sleepy arousal he had heard an hour ago. The voice that caused him to delay his shower for thirty minutes or so and make love to her even though it meant he had to forego his breakfast. Max had smiled knowingly and handed him a foil-wrapped package on his way out the door.

When he had realized Jonathan was running behind he had brought the Bentley around and had it idling by the front door. His regular Tuesday morning omelet had been wrapped in a warm tortilla to become a Tuesday morning burrito instead. Barring any traffic incidents, Jonathan should still make his meeting. Assuming of course, that he could resist the siren song of his sleepy wife.

The meeting with the Chinese team had gone well, Hart Telecomm would be expanding into the Asian markets in the coming year. Jonathan had just finished dictating some correspondence for Deanne when the intercom buzzed.

"Mr. Hart, I have a Sister Domenica from the Mission Street Orphanage on line two. She says it's an emergency."

"Put her through Deanne." Jonathan hadn't spoken directly to Sister Domenica in several years although they still exchanged Christmas cards every December and Jonathan paid the tax bill on the orphanage he'd grown up in every April.

"Jonathan, I need your help. I don't know who else to turn to. There's a young boy, Charlie, who lives here. He's very bright. Actually, he reminds me a lot of you. He's disappeared. The local police aren't doing anything about it, they think he's just a runaway. But I'm worried.

"His parents have been coming around lately, ever since the judge placed him here permanently. They have substance abuse issues and Charlie was dreadfully neglected when he lived with them. They were using him to panhandle on the streets. Imagine, eight years old and he'd never been to school. I know you have some pull with the police and I was hoping you could make a phone call." The kindly nun sounded frantic.

She had been the one to recognize his talent with electronics and had encouraged him. She had often brought him various gadgets that had been donated or she found at the Salvation Army, helping him take them apart and explore how they worked. She took note of his boundless curiosity and took him to the library every week. She had urged him to read up on all sorts of topics and learn everything he could. By the time he had left the orphanage at seventeen, his education would put a third-year college student to shame.

He owed a large part of his success to Sister Domenica, that was part of the reason he paid the property taxes for the orphanage and the convent it was attached to every year.

"I'll take care of it." He promised the Sister now and hung up the phone. "Deanne, would you get Mrs. Hart on the phone. And ask Stanley to come up as soon as he can, please." He clicked off the intercom and looked at the scant information he had gotten about the missing boy. If San Francisco cops were as overworked and understaffed as Los Angeles police the boy might never be found. Just then his phone buzzed, interrupting his thoughts.

"Darling, do you have anything pressing in the next few days? I need to go up to San Francisco to look into something and I'd like your input as well." He paused a moment then smiled at her response. "Aren't they always? I'll tell Frank to get the jet ready and be home in an hour or so. Yes, I love you too Darling." He clicked the disconnect then asked Deanne to call Frank for him. He was just hanging up again when his office door swung open and Stanley stumbled in breathless.

"Stanley, I need you to do some digging for me. I have a police case number. I need all the files related to this case from San Francisco PD. Make sure you cross-reference any files on the parents as well. And there should be a family court file too. I don't know if it will be linked to this case number or not, you may have to access the court records separately. And I need it as fast as possible."

"Right away Mr. Hart." Stanley tripped on the rug as he turned and hurried out of the room.

Jennifer hadn't asked any questions, she simply packed a bag for each of them. Whatever was going on, she trusted that he would explain eventually. Once they had made their way to the airport and Frank was winging them up the coast, Jonathan filled her in. He didn't have much to go on yet.

Charlie Grant, eight years old, removed from the custody of his parents, Willie and Crystal Grant (current address unknown) and placed in the temporary care of the Mission Street Orphanage eight months ago. Stanley was trying to get the court files unsealed. He couldn't go through official channels but there was always a backdoor into any computer system, he just had to find it.

By the time they landed at SFO Stanley had emailed the Grant's criminal files to Jonathan. It was mostly small crimes, petty theft and panhandling. Crystal Grant had several arrests for prostitution but the charges had always been reduced to misdemeanor solicitation, probably due to Charlie's existence.

At the orphanage, Sister Domenica was able to fill in a little bit more. The Grants had been arrested panhandling in Russian Hill. Charlie, ill-dressed for the November night, had been standing on the center island at Van Ness and Lombard streets holding a ragged cardboard sign, Willie and Crystal were passed out under some shrubs on the corner. The boy was filthy, malnourished, and very nearly illiterate. He couldn't remember when he had last eaten and he coughed terribly from chronic bronchitis brought on by sleeping outdoors.

The Sisters had fed his body and mind with as much as he could hold. He was still small for his age, and very thin, but he had lost that pinched, skeletal look and he devoured books as fast as he could get his hands on them. Sister Domenica had recognized the boy's potential and had been shepherding him gently, just had she had steered Jonathan all those years ago.

But over the past few weeks, the nuns had seen Willie and Crystal loitering by the gates, watching Charlie play. They had tried to lure him away when the nuns' backs were turned on several occasions and Sister Domenica suspected that was what had happened this time. The police had no time for one missing boy who probably ran away. She gave Jonathan a photograph, one of those stiff posed, plain background school pictures. Of a solemn-looking boy with grey eyes and a shock of dark brown hair sticking up in the back.

"He's a delightful boy, a little withdrawn still, but he always tries hard. Sister Dorcas was teaching him to play her guitar."

"May we keep this?" Jennifer held up the photo.

"We are going to the police station next. Harry Grey has given us the name of a local detective to speak to." Jonathan added.

"Thank you, Jonathan, Jennifer. It means so much to me that you would drop everything to come up here and help." Sister Domenica clasped each of their hands in turn and made a sign of the cross as they turned to leave.

"I'd like to speak to Detective Montgomery, David Montgomery," Jonathan told the desk sergeant.

"Please let him know that Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Hart would like to speak with him." Jennifer knew that Jonathan was reticent to trade on his name but something in the boy's thoughtful grey eyes had gotten a hold of her and she would go to any lengths to find him. On the plane, she had told Jonathan that she didn't want to find the kid's body in a dumpster but now she knew they had to try.

Predictably, the desk sergeant perked up at the mention of Jonathan's name and they were ushered past security to a gritty bullpen crowded with battered desks. Detective Montgomery had a desk under the air register, his craggy face looked tired in the harsh fluorescent lights. But by the time he had crossed the room, with an armload of file folders, to where they stood his smile was right out of a press release.

"Mr. Hart, Mrs. Hart. Why don't we talk in the conference room." He led the way to a small room at the end of the hall and closed the door. "So what can I do for you folks?" Jonathan filled him in on everything they had learned from Sister Domenica and added their own concerns for the boy's safety.

"So you see Detective, my wife and I would consider it a personal favor if you would make every attempt to locate Charlie forthwith."

"Mr. Hart, I can assure you that everything possible is being done to find Charlie Grant. It was, even before I got a phone call from one Lt. Grey. He spoke in glowing terms about your assistance with some of their cases and asked that we extend you every courtesy.

"Now I can't share case files with you because of privacy laws so I'm going to have to ask you not to open these while I am getting a cup of coffee." He patted the stack of files, "the coffee maker on this floor is crap. Philz Coffee Truck is usually down in the courtyard by now. I guess it will take me about fifteen minutes." He glanced pointedly at the thick stack again and walked out of the room.

"There is no way we can read all of this in fifteen minutes." Jonathan worried.

"I know," Jennifer said. "I can take a photo of each page with my phone and we can blow them up and read them later. Here, you turn the pages and I'll take the pictures." She quickly adjusted the settings on her phone and started snapping a photo of each page. They made it through a little more than half of the stack before they heard Detective Montgomery's voice approaching the door.

"I'm sorry about that," He told the Harts. "If there is nothing else I can do for you folks? Thank you for coming by, and we will keep you posted." He escorted them back to the lobby then winked and added: "and I hope you will keep us posted as well."

When they arrived at the Fairmont Hotel Jonathan asked for a printer to be sent up and they spent a couple of hours printing the pages and looking for clues.

"Ah-hah," Jennifer yelled triumphantly. "There's a notation here in the CPS report that the parents are known to sleep in an encampment next to the reservoir a few blocks from where they were arrested." She pulled up a map of the area and printed it while Jonathan called a car service to take them to Russian Hill.

When they pulled up near the encampment Jonathan had to do the old tear-a-hundred-dollar-bill-in-half number to get the driver to wait and Jennifer had to stifle her giggle while he did.

"I thought they only did that in the movies." She spoke quietly, moved by the extreme poverty she saw. Only a few blocks from two and three million-dollar homes were people who were so destitute that they often didn't even have a tent, just a ratty tarp spread over some boxes or stretched between signposts. Even though the Harts had dressed down for this excursion they still stood out simply because their clothes were ironed and in good repair.

They walked up and down the rows asking about the Grants and pressing folded bills into the hands of anyone who had information. Or, at least Jonathan did. Soft-hearted Jennifer was giving money to anyone who had children with them whether they had information or not.

"Darling, come on," he urged. "Mike here says that he saw the Grants panhandling by the cable car turn out a couple of blocks east of here. He said they will sleep here if they don't get enough to rent a motel room for the night." They hurried back to the car but when they arrived at the cable car stop the Grants were already gone. Another panhandler was able to confirm that they did have a young boy with them in exchange for another of Jonathan's folded twenties.

"Come on Darling, there's nothing more we can do tonight. Let's go back to the hotel. We will try again in the morning. Since their driver had actually waited, twice, Jonathan gave him the other half of the c-note and then tipped him a second one when he secured a promise to return in the morning and drive for them again.

"Darling, what would you say to some room service supper and early to bed?" He asked her as they walked through the lobby.

"I would say 'hello lover'." She smiled her saucy smile at him and entered the elevator. They dined on grilled ribeye steaks with potatoes lyonnaise and Caprese salad, with chocolate cake for dessert. Then Jennifer went to run a bubble bath.

"Jonathan, it's deep in here. What if I drown? There's not even a lifeguard." Her laughter floated through the air and he quickly shed his clothing to join her in the big tub. Jennifer looked fantastic in bubbles. She was right, the tub was deep. And plenty large enough for two.

"I'll save you, Darling." He promised as he stepped in opposite her.

"Jonathan, move your foot."

"Sorry." He assumed a look of fake contrition and she leaned forward to kiss him. They soaked until the water began to cool and Jennifer very deliberately stood up. Bubbles and foam slid sensually down her body, drawing his eyes up her legs, her flat stomach and high breasts, the heat in her eyes nearly enough to rewarm the water. He stood and pulled her into his arms.

"You are so lovely." He spoke as if he was seeing her for the first time. She loved that about him. He always made her feel cherished. She put her hands on either side of his face and kissed him very sweetly. The fluffy white bath sheet was big enough to wrap around them both and their drying each other off looked more like dancing in the steamy bathroom.

The big bed felt like an island and there was just the two of them in the whole world. They made love slowly, continuing the dance they had started. Wrapped in their own universe that expanded beyond the joining together of their bodies.

The next morning after breakfast they met their driver again and returned to the homeless encampment. This time they were lucky. Many people remembered their prior generosity and were more willing to talk to them today. The Grant's tent was pointed out in fairly short order. Willie and Crystal Grant were nowhere to be seen but Charlie was sitting just outside the tent flap reading an old paperback.

"Darling, get a little ahead of me and go make conversation with the boy. See if you can move him a little bit away from the tent. I've called Detective Montgomery to meet us here but I would rather Charlie not have to see them arresting his parents. I'll hang back a ways as not to frighten him."

It was a sad commentary on the state of young Charlie's life that he assumed Jennifer was another social worker and expressed no fear, only a tired sort of resignation when she began to steer him away. It broke her heart to watch him not showing any emotion when the police arrived and his parents were arrested. Crystal was as apathetic as her son but Willie Grant broke free and made a run for it. A high school track star before the drugs had taken hold, he was able to pull away from the pursuing uniforms until he broke free of the encampment and straight into oncoming traffic.

Jennifer twisted Charlie against her as the sickening thud echoed back to them. She held him tightly in case he tried to run but the child wrapped his arms around her waist and buried his face deeper into her waist. Something shifted in her as she awkwardly patted his head and she decided that she would speak to Jonathan about establishing a trust for the boy, perhaps something Sister Domenica could administer so the mother couldn't touch it.

The look on her face was as clear as neon to Jonathan. There was no mistaking her arms wrapped around the child so he approached Detective Montgomery and secured permission for them to drive Charlie back to the orphanage. The smile on Sister Domenica's face when she saw Charlie was worth everything they went through. He launched himself out of the Towncar and raced across the blacktop to hug her.

"It's a terrible thing when a child is better off in an orphanage than with the people who brought him into the world." Jennifer spoke quietly but her low tone only enhanced the importance of her words. Jonathan made no reply but to reach for her hand. They stood like that, watching the children play, for a long time without speaking.

Detective Montgomery met them in the hotel lobby with bad news.

"Crystal Grant committed suicide in her cell an hour ago. She hung herself with her bedsheet."

"Oh no," Jennifer cried.

"Detective, what will this mean for Charlie?" Jonathan asked.

"He will remain at the orphanage until a suitable home can be found for him. Unfortunately, prospects are not good for a boy his age. There aren't enough foster homes to go around and most adoptive parents want babies, not older kids."

"Has Charlie been told?" Jennifer asked.

"I called the orphanage before I came over. A Sister Dorcas said they would handle it. I came by because I wanted to let you know personally. I'll be going now. Thank you for the assistance finding Charlie." Jonathan signed for the check as soon as the detective left them in the lounge and took Jennifer upstairs.

"Jonathan ...?" He cut her off before she could finish her thought.

"I already spoke to the bank and set it up." He assured her.

"Set what up?"

"A trust for Charlie. I named the orphanage as his trustees. They can always reassign it if he gets adopted. I knew from the look on your face at the reservoir that you were thinking about it."

"That's lovely Darling, but it isn't what I was going to say. I ... I was wondering ..." Jennifer bit her lips. Jonathan couldn't recall ever seeing her look nervous before. " ... Well, I was thinking about what Detective Montgomery said about there not being enough foster homes, and that Charlie would probably have to stay at Mission Street ... couldn't we take him home with us?" She finished in a rush.

"He seems like a fine boy Darling, but we don't actually know anything about him."

"But Sister Domenica does and she thinks he has real potential. You heard her, she thinks he is a lot like you." She argued. When they had decided not to have children it had seemed an easy choice. They didn't live a life that was exactly baby-friendly. But something about Charlie wouldn't let her go. Maybe it was because of what Sister Domenica had said, or maybe just his dark hair and quiet manner, but she fancied she could see the young Jonathan in him.

"It would mean some major changes in our way of life. And we don't know how Max would feel about having a kid in the house." He cautioned.

"Protest a little longer before you agree, Darling." She patted his shoulder and gave him a quick kiss. Jonathan opened his mouth to say something more then shut it abruptly. He knew that the boy needed a family, he just hadn't let himself consider it before now.

The thought of having a child had sort of been in the back of his mind for several years, ever since Jonathan Jr. had stayed with them for a few days. He had known he wasn't that boy's father no matter what the mother had claimed in the beginning. But the way it had felt when Jonathan Jr. kissed him goodnight and called him Dad had made him wish the boy was his.

"How about if we go see him tomorrow, spend a little time actually getting to know him. And if you still think it's a good idea then I'll make some inquiries. Sound good?".

"It sounds wonderful. Thank you, Darling." She hugged him tightly then kissed his lips again and again. The sweetly innocent kisses deepened into something more. There was a need in their caress. Their kisses grew hungrier, their touch more heated. The desire which had brought them together all those years ago had never waned. no matter the years that passed between them, Jonathan had never stopped wanting his hands on her body. Jennifer never stopped needing to feel him moving within her, the heat in his gaze scorching her.

They came together now. Leaving a trail of clothing and mild disaster in their wake as they moved blindly across the suite. They couldn't bear to stop kissing, stop touching each other for even a second. His senses were filled with her, her thoughts overwhelmed with him. Something soft bumped their knees and at first, they didn't know if it was bed or sofa but they tumbled onto it just the same.

Jonathan had the presence of mind to twist their bodies on the way down so that he absorbed the impact and she landed safely on top of him. Protecting her was something he did as automatically as he breathed, it didn't require thought or intent, it simply was. Now as they sank into the bed together he fell even more in love with her again. Every time he thought that he loved her as much as one human being was capable of loving, he found a way to love her more.

Jennifer felt his love, the tenderness in his care, no less than the heat in his kiss. He was her safe place as she was his wild one. This was the true strength of their marriage. His need to protect her made her stronger, not weaker. And now, as he moved over her, and in her, she looked in his eyes and felt the love they were making expand into something so much larger than just the two of them. Their joining made them part of the river of life, rushing, tumbling, ever-flowing to the ocean.

They fell asleep still joined together, only slipping apart after hours of sleep. And in the morning their bodies found their way together again almost before they were fully awake. There was a sweetness in their lovemaking as the sun rose through the window, no less intense than last night, but slower, richer. They dawdled over their waking just in case they were dreaming together.

Breakfast was a hurried affair after their slow waking up. They both knew without speaking that they wanted to spend this day with Charlie, and Jonathan called for the Towncar again as soon as they finished eating. Mid-morning found them sitting in the Mother Superior's office at MIssion Street, inquiring about taking the boy out for the day.

It was Sister Domenica who brought them to the large sunny dayroom where the children passed their non-school hours. Charlie was draped over a squashy chair, the same paperback in his hands and Jennifer marveled that only 24 hours had passed since their first meeting.

"Hello, Charlie," Jennifer spoke with quiet confidence in their decision. There would be paperwork, and interviews, and the inevitable delays of any governmental bureaucracy, but she knew this child would be theirs, that he was meant for them as surely as if he had been born to them. She only hoped that yesterday's trauma hadn't linked them forever with pain in Charlie's mind. "Jonathan and I were wondering if you wanted to come out with us for a while. Maybe see a movie and have some lunch." She deliberately didn't touch the boy, wanting to give him time to process his feelings. But Charlie had no such reservations, he dropped his book and ran into her arms. Unlike her fears, Charlie saw them as his only shelter in a horrific day.

Many foster kids wanted only to return to the family of their birth, preferring the familiarity of chaos and pain over the unknown even when it was pleasant, but Charlie was different. He had harbored no desire to return to his parents. He had only approached them at the gate that day to tell them to leave him alone. But they had grabbed him, covering his mouth so he couldn't cry out and dragging him away before the Sisters noticed what was happening.

Sister Domenica and Sister Dorcas and the others had opened his mind to a world of possibilities and he knew he didn't want to end up like Willie and Crystal. Jennifer and her husband were kind. They obviously didn't have to beg strangers for change or scrounge through dumpsters for food. He hoped they would take him to the library, or maybe the zoo. He had read about all the animals at the zoo when he was first learning to read, Sister Domenica patiently waiting for him to sound out the names under each picture.

"Yes, ma'am." He answered politely the way Sister Rebecca had taught him. He couldn't know how the simple phrase would affect Jennifer, his 'ma'am' sounding so similar to 'mom' but worlds apart. She hugged him close, furiously blinking back a sudden rush of tears before anyone could see. Only Jonathan, who knew her body language better than his own, noticed the sudden tension in her body and laid a steadying hand on her shoulder.

After the zoo, with a lunch of hot dogs and dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets with french fries, they stopped by the Barnes & Noble. Jonathan had decided that Mission Street should have a library of its own so that all of the children could have free access to books. He had spoken to Sister Domenica to confirm how much space they had for such a venture and ordered shelf units, now they faced the pleasant prospect of stocking it.

"Charlie, would you please take Jennifer upstairs to the kid's section and help her start picking out some good books? I'll be up as soon as I speak to the manager." Jennifer loved the easy way he had with Charlie. The way he knelt down to the boy's level, and how he put Charlie in charge to make him feel important. She knew she already loved the child but it would take her some time and practice before she could just reach out and casually tousle his hair the way Jonathan did.

Charlie was having a blast. Jennifer had staked out an unused table in the children's area and started stacking up all of the books he selected. Every time he found a new one he liked he would bring it to her and shyly ask if he could add it to the growing pile. Every choice had a small story of why he chose it and who it was for. She learned a little bit more about him with each small confidence.

For herself, Jennifer made it a priority to seek out the series' and chapter books that she had loved as a child. Anne of Green Gables and Little House on the Prarie. Madeline, and Mark Twain, and Marguerite Henry. By the time Jonathan appeared with a manager pushing a wheeled library cart, the small table was almost visibly groaning under the piles of books.

"It looks like I got here just in time," he exclaimed.

"Is it too much?" Charlie looked suddenly worried.

"No it isn't, we have a lot of shelves to fill. I promised Sister Domenica enough books to fill a library and she assured me that you are the man for the job." The fearful look had melted off of Charlie's face as soon as Jonathan had begun to speak. By the time he finished, the boy was grinning from ear to ear.

"Oh, yes sir. I can do that." He scampered happily back into the stacks.

"You are so good with him." Jennifer marveled.

"He's a great kid. I think your instincts were right on, Darling. He's very easy to love."

"He's so bright too, Jonathan. Sister Domenica said he couldn't read at all nine months ago, now he's reading young adult novels, two or three a week. And he can read music also."

"Speaking of Sister Domenica, I spoke to her about the possibility of adopting Charlie. It turns out that the Mission Street Orphanage is a private agency, not a state institution. That means they have the power to expedite the process somewhat given our history with them. It will take a few months for all of the paperwork, and we still have to do some interviews. But we can take him for a weekend visit if you would like."

"Darling, that would be wonderful. That way he can meet Max and Freeway."

"Tomorrow is Thursday, We can fly out in the morning and bring him back Monday," Jonathan promised.

Charlie had finally succeeded in filling the rolling cart thoroughly. Jonathan handed the boy his credit card prompting another huge grin.

"Why don't you and the manager take these down to the register and get started and we will be along in a minute." Jonathan suggested.

"Your credit card?" Jennifer asked dryly. "Aren't you a little worried he might lose it?"

"I guarantee that card will still be clutched in his fist when we get there. It's going to take at least thirty minutes for them to ring up all those books. I thought we could select a few to keep separate so he will have some at our place. Sister Rebecca says he has only read the first two Harry Potters and none of the Hunger Games yet. Or maybe some Isaac Asimov, apparently he is a big fan of sci-fi." They quickly selected the chosen novels and Jennifer took them to another register while Jonathan went to join Charlie at register one. As predicted, the cashier was only halfway through the great piles of books and Charlie held onto the credit card tightly. He looked so proud of himself that Jonathan gave the clerk a nod when they finally rang up the last of the books.

"Thank you, Sir. May I have your credit card please?" The young man said to the boy. Charlie's grin threatened to split his face in two as he puffed out his chest and looked for Jonathan's approval before he handed the card across the counter. Once the receipt had been signed for and Jennifer had rejoined them with her own bag of goodies, Jonathan confirmed the delivery address. The manager assured them the boxes would be delivered to the orphanage by 6.

Charlie couldn't stop talking about the books he had chosen, who would be most excited about which ones, and how they would arrange them on the shelves. The Harts took him to a restaurant that specialized in build-your-own burgers and super-thick milkshakes for supper. Back at the orphanage, they arrived to happy chaos as children carried boxes and stacks of books from the delivery truck into the new library.

Workmen had spent much of the day turning the former storeroom into a bright, cheerful space, with shelves along the walls and comfortable chairs and beanbags scattered around. While Jennifer had been helping Charlie choose books Jonathan had arranged for several new computers to be delivered with study carrels and an assortment of learning software and games. But for Charlie, the best moment was when Sister Domenica revealed to lettering freshly painted on the door, which read 'The Charlie Grant Library'. Tears filled the boy's eyes and he buried his face in Jennifer's jacket again.

Once things had calmed down as much as possible. The Harts sat down with Sister Domenica and Charlie in the little sitting area of Mother Superior's office.

"Charlie, Jonathan and I were wondering if you would like to come and spend a few days at our house?"

"That would be super! Oh wow! Can I? I mean ... Sister, may I go, please?" The nun kept a tight rein on her smile as she nodded at the boy.

"You may go, but you must pack tonight as the Harts will pick you up quite early in the morning. Say your goodnights and run along now."

"Goodnight Mr. Hart, Goodnight Mrs. Hart, thank you for such a great day." As he addressed each of them he shook Jonathan's hand and gave Jennifer a big hug. "Goodnight Sister, thank you for letting me go."

After he left and closed the door, Sister Domenica opened a file folder and handed over a sheaf of papers for the two of them to sign granting them temporary guardianship of Charlie. Jonathan noticed that she filled today's date in the first space but wrote 'until revoked' in the second space before she passed the stack across to him. Once the papers had been signed, copied, and filed, with a set of copies handed over to the Harts, they said their goodnights and returned to their hotel room.

Jonathan was already in bed when Jennifer emerged from the bathroom in a short robe of dove grey silk. It was one he hadn't seen before. That in itself was a surprisingly rare occurrence, as he bought her so many negligees that she rarely needed to add anything to her lingerie chest. She must have been saving this one for a special occasion and he took the time to admire it thoroughly. The silk was so finely woven as to be nearly sheer with dyed-to-match lace trim on the hem and sleeves.

She paused by his side of the bed for dramatic effect and he saw his opening. Reaching for her waist he untied the sash very slowly, letting the silk ribbons slide through his fingers as the robe fell open. Her hair had gotten long again he noticed, and the thick red curls fell past her shoulders. He loved her hair long like this, it framed her face so softly.

She moved slightly and the robe slid down her arms to land in a puddle on the floor. His heart was racing a mile a minute and his mouth was suddenly dry at the sight of the slip-style gown skimming over her curves. She reached to click off the bedside lamp, leaving only a soft glow spilling from the bathroom, the outline of her legs backlit through the fine silk. She stepped out of her slippers and into the bed and his waiting arms.

The traffic sounds outside the window were soon drowned out

by his breathing. He moved to lie down but she stilled him with a touch, so he was sitting upright, pillows piled behind his back to soften the heavy wooden headboard. She knelt over him, silk sliding beneath his fingers. the scent of her perfume driving him crazy.

Her kisses were sweet on his lips. He couldn't stop running his hands over her body. Going from cool, slippery silk to her warm skin, his fingertips were sending braille messages of pleasure to his brain. And he touched her as a blind man would. Gently. Devouring her with his fingertips as if seeing her anew. She sat quietly, watching him, watching his hands moving on her body.

There was a time not long past when she would not have been comfortable just letting him look at her, or having the lights on when they made love. But since she had hit the backside of her 40's things had changed. She realized that she truly didn't care what other people thought. The only people she had to please were Jonathan and herself. Jonathan already thought she was beautiful so she really only had to accept herself. It hadn't happened overnight, she still tended to see only the flaws when she looked in her mirror. And Jonathan's gaze still made her blush and want to squirm but she took a deep breath and forced herself to remain still.

Jonathan didn't know what had brought about the recent changes in her attitude. He only knew that he liked looking at her. Whether she was puttering in the garden, reading aloud to him, or making love like they were right now, he couldn't help but stare. She was so lovely. Even after eleven years of marriage, he was still floored by her beauty.

It took only a slight shift on her part for him to slip inside her, his hands skimming under her gown, once again letting his fingertips guide him. Inch by inch he stroked her soft skin, watching the way her eyes flared when he touched her like this, how her pulse raced when he kissed her that way. They moved together with the ease of old lovers seeing each other with new eyes. They fell asleep tangled together in the middle of the big bed.

Jonathan awoke to the sensation being watched. Jennifer, never an early riser at the best of times, was staring at him. A glance out the window showed an indigo sky, barely touched with pink and gold.

"What are you doing awake so early?" He groaned and tried to pull the pillow over his head.

"I can't help it, I'm excited."

"Well go back to sleep. It's too early."

"No, it's not, the sun is coming up. What time is it anyway?"

"It's half past too damn early." But she would not be swayed and eventually, he gave up and got into the shower.

"Darling is the shampoo out there? I can't find it."

"Here you go." Her slender arm thrust the black bottle past the curtain.

"Why don't you come in here and soap my back for me?" He teased, but she moved out of reach.

"I want to get going. I'm going to order room service. What do you want for breakfast?"

"Darling, the kitchen won't even be open for another forty minutes. Besides, I'm sure Charlie is going to be hungry so we will get some breakfast after we pick him up. At worst, we can eat on the plane. I know you are excited, I am too, but we cannot pick the boy up at 5:15. I told Sister Domenica we would be there around seven."

"Seven!" She exploded. "What am I going to do for another hour and a half?"

"See. Back to my original suggestion. I could still use some help washing my back." He pulled the curtain open and dangled the loofah. She sighed theatrically then dropped her robe with a teasing smile.

"Didn't I promise you we'd be on time?" The Towncar pulled up in front of the orphanage at four minutes to seven.

"Well, we wouldn't have made it if there had been an accident or something."

"But there wasn't."

"But there could have been." She insisted with a teasing smile, unwilling to concede that he had been right.

"Oh, you ..." He playfully reached to throttle her which somehow became a kiss. She jumped out of the car as soon as it came to a stop, even before he could come around and open the door for her. Charlie was waiting just inside the lobby, a suitcase at his feet and the floppy ear of a stuffed toy hanging out of the zipper of his hoodie.

"You came back." He hurried to hug Jennifer and shake Jonathan's hand.

"Were you afraid we wouldn't?" Jennifer asked him now.

"Well, I hoped you would." He was staring at his shoes like he had never seen them before and Jennifer's heart broke all over again for him. She knelt down on the floor heedless of her skirt and gathered the boy into her embrace.

"I will never break a promise to you." She told him solemnly. "Neither will Jonathan. Not ever. Okay?"

"Pinky swear?" Charlie asked just as solemnly, holding out his fist.

"Pinky swear." She hooked her little finger around his and their smiles looked remarkably similar as Jonathan helped her to her feet. They both turned to say good morning to Sister Domenica.

"I won't keep you, I know you have a schedule to keep. Charlie, behave yourself and be helpful. Go with God" She made the sign of the cross as they moved back toward the car.

Suddenly a boisterous crowd of kids spilled through the doors, surrounding Charlie and the car, all of them telling him good-bye and thanking the Harts for their new library. Sister Domenica gave them a chance to say their piece and then blew two short blasts on the whistle hanging around her neck. The kids obediently lined up by the door and waved excitedly as the Towncar pulled away.

Jonathan was correct about Charlie being hungry, the boy had been too nervous to eat much breakfast. Rather than continue to keep their driver tied up, he called ahead to the Amoura Cafe inside the airport terminal and ordered a selection of breakfast sandwiches to go, then called Frank and asked him to pick them up en route to the plane.

Charlie had never flown and he was craning his neck wildly trying to see everything as they approached the airport.

"Hey, look. That plane says Hart Industries on the side. That's like your name."

"That's our jet," Jonathan explained. "Hart Industries is our company and we do business all over the world. The jet lets us get wherever we need to be."

"Cool." The boy sounded awed as they pulled up next to the rolling staircase. The tarmac was already smelling hot and sticky as Frank came down to help with the luggage and Jennifer took Charlie aboard. They were sharing bacon and egg sandwiches and a bowl of grapes when Frank and Jonathan came aboard for takeoff.

After the jet had reached cruising altitude and they were able to move around Jonathan took Charlie on a tour of the plane culminating in the cockpit where Frank let him sit in the co-pilot's seat and 'fly' the plane. Charlie often seemed older than he was but this morning Jennifer glimpsed the little boy who had just embarked on what would become a lifelong love of flying. Jonathan looked almost like a little boy too, introducing the next generation to his favorite hobby.

The two of them spent most of the flight in the tiny cockpit. Jonathan gallantly folding himself into the tiny jump seat so Charlie could stay in the co-pilot's chair.

"Missus Hart, Missus Hart. Mr. Hart and Captain Frank showed me how the plane works and I got to help FLY!" Charlie's hair was even more disheveled than usual from the headset and he was hopping from one foot to the other in his excitement.

"Mrs. Hart sounds awfully formal. How about if you call us Jennifer and Jonathan." She suggested.

"I don't think Sister Rebecca would like that." He told her seriously. "She says it's disrespectful to call adults by their first name."

"Well then, let's compromise and say Aunt Jennifer and Uncle Jonathan? I'm sure Sister Rebecca would agree with that. And when we land you will get to meet our good friend Uncle Max, he takes care of us. And our dog Freeway will be at the house."

"Oh wow, a dog! You guys sure are lucky."

"I wasn't much older than you when I learned that the harder I worked, the luckier I got," Jonathan said, coming up behind him.

"What's that mean?"

"I'll explain it later. Right now we need to get this luggage unloaded. Do you think you can carry Aunt Jennifer's suitcase if I carry your's?"

"Sure but how come Aunt Jennifer can't carry her own?"

"She could, but we carry it for her because it's polite to always help a lady if you can. We do nice things for people to show them that we care. Just like you did such a good job picking out those books for your friends because you care about them." Jennifer watched him struggle manfully with her heavy bag, but when she would have intervened to help him, Jonathan held up a hand to stop her.

"Let him try." He told her quietly. "He'll ask for help if he needs it."

"But, the stairs, they're so steep. What if he falls?"

"He knows how to be careful, Darling. Besides, Max is there." He kissed her thoroughly then grabbed his own suitcase and Charlie's much smaller one and followed the boy down the stairs.

Her 'menfolk' were already in the Bentley when Jennifer exited the jet. Once again, Charlie was in the front seat and Jonathan in the back. Max let her into the back with Jonathan then sat down behind the wheel. Jennifer leaned forward and tapped Charlie on the shoulder.

"Put your seatbelt on, sweetie."

"Yes, ma'am" Once they made it to the northbound 405 Jennifer quietly asked Jonathan about her suitcase.

"He carried it all the way to the car and even insisted on putting it in the trunk by himself. He may not be very strong yet but he is tough and that's even better. A man can become strong but tough is something you are either born with or you're not."

Predictably Charlie loved Freeway and Freeway loved Charlie. They had to play fetch and run around for an hour before they were both worn out enough that Jennifer could show Charlie his room and where to put his things. She put the new books they had gotten him on the nightstand and helped him put his clothes in the dresser. He was excited about reading the next Harry Potter book and asked if he could start right away.

"Of course you can. You know, there's a really comfortable reading chair downstairs, next to the fireplace. Why don't you check it out and I'll call you when lunch is ready. And think about what you would like to do tomorrow."

"Do you think we could go fishing? I've seen it on TV and I've always wanted to try it."

"I think that sounds like a great idea." Jennifer left him to explore the magical world of Hogwarts and she went to seek out Jonathan.

"We can go to Calabasas Lake or Echo Park." He suggested.

"Oh Darling, let's go to Calabasas. Echo Park always gets so crowded. After lunch, we can take Charlie to the sporting goods store and pick him up a fishing rod and waders."

"You know what, I have an even better idea. We haven't taken the Romance out in a while. Why don't we make a night of it? We can sail out to Catalina Island tomorrow, do some fishing, and spend the night on the boat. We'll sail back on Sunday. You think Charlie will like boats as much as he likes planes?"

"I think Charlie will like anything you show him. He seems to have taken a real shine to you." Jennifer smiled. She could already picture them out on the Romance, Jonathan patiently teaching Charlie how to sail. "We had better pick up some deck shoes for him too. His sneakers won't do once they get wet. I wouldn't want him to slip."

"You figure out whatever he needs, Darling. I'll fill Max in on our plans and then I'll call Sal at the marina to get the boat ready."

"Oh Jonathan, this is going to be so much fun. What a wonderful idea you had."

"Well, what can I say? When I'm inspired, I'm inspired."

"Don't I know it." Jennifer quipped with a smile.

The day was perfect, there wasn't a cloud in the sky. The sun was blazing hot but there was a fresh breeze blowing over the water that kept the temperature comfortable. Charlie was entranced by everything, and he soaked up Jonathan's instructions like a sponge. In the six hours it took to sail to the island he learned to tie a Bowline and a Sheet Bend almost better than Jennifer. And he didn't mix up his 'ports' and his 'starboards' the way she did either.

Max had packed them a picnic hamper with enough food to last two weeks, not two days. They dropped anchor in Big Fisherman's Cove and Jennifer taught him to fish for yellowfin tuna.

"Yellowfin can grow to be as much as 400 pounds." She explained to Charlie. "But the biggest I ever caught was 86 pounds."

"86 pounds! That's heavier than me!" The boy enthused, looking particularly cute in his bright yellow life jacket.

"The next time you come we will have to go snorkeling," Jennifer told him.

"Really? You'd let me come back again?" The combined look hope and fear on his face broke her heart.

"Of course we would. How else would we be able to go snorkeling?" She tried to keep her tone light even though everything in her wanted to grab him and never let go. It was an odd feeling for Jennifer. She had never expected to want a child. But then Jonathan Jr. had come into their lives for an all too brief period. His mother had claimed he was Jonathan's son and for a few weeks, he had stayed with them even though Jonathan knew the boy wasn't his child.

They had even talked about taking him in permanently, but his mother had admitted the truth and he had gone home with her. But something about the way he had hugged her goodnight. Or thrust his hand into hers before crossing the street, like it was the most natural thing in the world, had set off all these new feelings in her. She thought maybe if she ignored it, it would pass eventually. But now she knew, it hadn't passed at all, only gone dormant for a time.

She suspected it was much the same for Jonathan. She recognized that far-off look in his eyes when they visited with friends who had children. It was probably harder for him, she reasoned. He had known for years that he couldn't have children. At least she got to make the choice. And now she thought, maybe it had worked out for the best. Maybe Jonathan Jr. was never meant to be theirs, only to pave the way for Charlie. After all, Jonathan Jr. had a mother who loved him very much. Charlie had no one.

Suddenly her line twitched and the rod bent sharply.

"Come here," she said to him now. "Help me land this one." He obediently took his place in front of her and she showed him how to let the line play out a ways and then reel it back in until the fish got tired. She kept her hands on the rod to make sure the fish didn't pull him overboard but otherwise let him reel it in to where Jonathan was waiting with the net.

That night they dined on fresh tuna steaks that Jonathan grilled on the little hibachi grill and some fresh zucchini that he and Charlie sliced from Max's picnic hamper. With a little more digging, Jennifer unearthed a bag of marshmallows and chocolate bars. Max's care package was looking more and more like Mary Poppins' magic bag. They sat up on deck making s'mores and looking at the stars until Charlie was falling asleep against the railing.

In the morning they docked in the marina to do a little sightseeing on the island and had lunch at the Harbor Reef restaurant before sailing for home. Charlie was so excited, telling Max all about reeling in the tuna and roasting marshmallows and his first time tasting crab at lunch. He fell asleep soon after a late supper, and Max and the Harts held a quiet meeting in the kitchen after he was put to bed.

"If you're not ready to make a decision that's fine, but I wanted to see where we all stand on the subject. Jennifer?"

"I vote yes, but you knew that already. Max? You are the one who hasn't had a chance to spend much time with him."

"Well it doesn't take much does it? He seems like a great kid. I say yes. Mr. H?"

"I guess that makes three yesses. I'll talk to the Mother Superior when we fly him back tomorrow."

"Oh Jonathan, do we really have to take him back there? He feels like part of the family already. I don't want to give him up." Her eyes were suspiciously bright all of a sudden, he could see how hard she was trying not to cry.

"I'm sorry, Darling. I'll miss him too. But that was the agreement. We have to follow the rules." He came around the table and stooped to wrap his arms around her. "We will talk to the Mother Superior tomorrow and find out what we need to do next. Come to bed, Darling. Everything will happen the way it needs to." Max got up and began closing up the house as Jonathan took her hand and they walked up the stairs together.

Charlie was sound asleep when they looked in on him. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban open on his chest. Jonathan slipped the bookmarker in and laid the book aside on the night table while Jennifer bent down and kissed the boy's sun-browned cheek. She was starting to understand what people meant when they said that a child was a choice to have your heart go walking around outside your body.

It was inconceivable that a boy she hadn't even met a week ago could have become such a huge part of her life. She waited in the doorway as Jonathan bent and kissed the boy's cheek as well and clicked off the bedside lamp, casting the room in shadow. They left the door open a crack so a tiny bit of light from the hall spilled in just in case he woke in the night.

In her dressing room, Jonathan handed her a large, pale pink gift box that she immediately recognized as being from the seamstress who made all of her lingerie.

"I was saving this for our anniversary but I think you need it more tonight." Jonathan always knew how and when to cheer her up. She lifted the lid off the box and folded back the tissue to find a negligee of the sheerest silk she had ever seen, in a delicate rose gold color that shimmered softly as the light played over the fabric.

Bias cut, it draped into a soft vee between her breasts when she dropped it over her head. It was so sheer that he could have counted her freckles through it if it wasn't also backless all the way down to her dimples. It was in the simple column style of a 1930's evening gown with a slit up one thigh. It was at once incredibly elegant and sexy as hell. She spent an extra moment primping in front of her mirror, putting on a fresh swipe of copper lipstick and adding a spritz of Jonathan's favorite perfume in her hair. The extra effort was worth it when she saw the look on his face.

"I knew it would be beautiful on you, but Wow." She performed a small pirouette for him, the back view rendered him incapable of further speech. She somehow looked even more nude than if she had actually been naked.

"Dance with me," He said.

"There's no music." She countered. He held up the little remote control to the stereo and the soft strains of Ed Sheeran's Perfect began. They danced so often that now they looked effortless moving together. But after the first chorus, the song shifted. The new voice was deeper, richer somehow. And singing in Italian.

"Bocelli?" She asked

"Is there any other?"

"Spero che un giorno, l'amore che ci ha accompagnato. Diventi casa la mi famiglia, diventi noi." She sang quietly to him.

"You are so beautiful." This was one of a thousand reasons why she loved him. He told her constantly how beautiful she was, but somehow he always sounded like it was the first time he was seeing her. His heart was pounding when she laid her head on his chest and the scent of her perfume filled his nostrils. He breathed deeply. That sweet, slightly spicy scent never failed to affect him.

To him she was beautiful. Not beautiful like those vapid, empty faces in magazines. She was beautiful for the fire in her eyes and the kindness of her heart. She was beautiful for the way she made people smile, even though no one was allowed to see her cry. She was beautiful beyond the transience of her physical attractiveness. That was what he saw when he looked at her.

"You look so lovely that it's almost a shame not to take you out somewhere, but in this outfit, you would start a riot."

"Just take me to bed, Darling. You are all I ever need," He did as she asked and they made love to the music of Jennifer's favorite Italian tenor.

The Harts tried to maintain a cheerful atmosphere on the Gulfstream the next morning. They didn't want to distress the rest of his holiday with their dismay at having to give him up. The flight north was made even shorter by a tailwind coming up from Baja, an early precursor to the coming Santa Anas. Fortunately, this time Charlie spent much of the trip with his nose in his book.

"I'm trying to finish before we land." He told Jennifer earnestly. "I've got to see how it ends."

"Charlie, are you under the impression that you have to give your books back?" She asked him. "Those are yours, we got them for you. Plus, there's a complete set in the new library as well."

"Really? I can keep them? That's so neat. Thank you."

"I wish I could satisfy you that cheaply." Jonathan teased her quietly when Charlie had returned to his pages. "That whole stack of books cost less than one of your handbags."

"I don't know, I think you satisfied me pretty well last night. Several times." She whispered back with a smile. Once they were back at Mission Street, Charlie was excitedly telling the other kids about his adventures. When he told them about flying the plane and sailing to Catalina some of them didn't believe him until Jennifer handed him the thick envelope of photos she had taken, thankful she had the foresight to order an extra set.

The shot of him sitting in the co-pilot's seat, wearing the enormous headset and backed by fluffy clouds through the canopy drew envious comments from several children and a very admiring look from one little girl. Jonathan noticed her staring and nudged Jennifer.

"Looks like Charlie has got himself a girlfriend."

"Whether he wants one or not." She responded just as Sister Domenica came in with the Mother Superior.

"Mr. and Mrs. Hart, would you step into the office, please? I don't need to ask if young Mr. Grant had a good time. What about you two? Did you enjoy your visit with him?" The Reverend Mother asked them.

"We hated to see it end. Charlie is a wonderful boy. We have already discussed it and we would like to know what our next steps need to be in order to adopt him permanently." Jonathan took Jennifer's hand as he spoke.

"I know that Sister Domenica told you a little bit about our vetting procedures and policies. This is rather a special case given your history with our agency. That, combined with the lack of any remaining Grant family members does simplify things considerably. So the question I need to ask you now is, How soon would you be looking to take custody of him permanently?"

"Today!" Jennifer interjected quickly. "We would like nothing more than to take him back home with us."

"Is that your feeling as well, Jonathan?"

"It is, Reverend Mother."

"If you both are certain this is how you want to proceed then we can move forward immediately. There will be the necessary follow-ups and interviews before it will be finalized. It takes a minimum of one year because we are required to conduct interviews at six and twelve months before the judge will sign the adoption decree but we can transfer Charlie's custody to you as 'pending' adoption."

"We would appreciate that very much, if Charlie is willing to have us."

"I don't think that will be a problem. Sister Domenica, would you fetch Mr. Grant for us please?"

"Of course Reverend Mother." It only took a few seconds since the kids were all still clustered in the lobby passing around Charlie's photos.

"Mr. Grant, I take it you enjoyed your time with the Harts?"

"Yes, Reverend Mother. It was loads of fun! And they have this dog named Freeway, he knows how to play fetch."

"That sounds lovely. The Harts have expressed an interest in having you visit again, maybe permanently. Do you think you would like that?"

"Oh yes, Reverend Mother. That would be neato. I mean ... I would like that very much, ma'am." Charlie corrected himself. He had moved closer to Jennifer as the conversation progressed and now he was standing right beside her chair.

"Reverend Mother, if I might say something." Jonathan waited for her nod before continuing. "Charlie, I'm sure you would like time to say goodbye to your friends and pack your things. And Jennifer and I have a couple of errands to run. How about if we come back at, let's say four o'clock. We can have supper together here and leave after that. Does that sound good? And would that be all right with you Reverend Mother?" She nodded once more, but Charlie pressed even closer to Jennifer, his eyes glistening. Jennifer took both of his hands in her and looked straight into his eyes.

"Charlie, I promise you we will come back. We are not going to leave you. We will not leave you. You can go get your things packed and we will come back in a few hours and we'll have a little going away party for you and your friends. Okay?" He nodded and hugged her tightly before he turned and left the room.

"Mrs. Hart, that was lovely, you handled him just right. You are an excellent mother." Now it was Jennifer's eyes that watered at the older nun's praise.

"Reverend Mother, we would like to bring some food and treats for all of the children tonight. Would that be all right?" Jonathan spoke for both of them.

"That sounds lovely. I'm sure the children will enjoy it."

They said their goodbyes and left the orphanage. It wasn't until they were pulling out of the driveway that Jennifer turned to him and asked the question that had been on her mind for the last 20 minutes.

"What errands do we need to run? I hated to leave Charlie there."

"Darling, he will be fine. He needs a chance to say goodbye to his friends and that wouldn't happen if we were there hovering over him. Besides, I thought we should do something special to mark the occasion. Charlie isn't a puppy we are picking up from the pound. He deserves a special memory of the day."

"You're right, of course, I hadn't thought about it that way. I am just so happy to be taking him home with us."

When the Harts returned to Mission Street at four p.m. it was clear that all of the children were excited at the prospect of a party. Hastily colored construction paper signs had been taped up on the cafeteria walls saying 'GOOD LUCK CHARLIE' and 'WE'LL MISS YOU'. Jennifer brought in a cake and Jonathan carried a large stack of pizzas for everyone.

After the leftover pizza had been cleared and the last slice of cake eaten, Jonathan selected several of the oldest kids to help him bring in 'a few more things'.

"Since this is kind of like a birthday but not exactly, we thought there should be birthday presents but not exactly. So today we are giving the presents to you instead of the other way around." Jennifer announced as the first armload of gaily wrapped packages was brought in. Silently she blessed the extremely organized nuns who had provided them with a list of all the children's names and ages along with a brief description of their interests and hobbies.

It had been a hectic few hours at a large warehouse store purchasing everything, and then they still needed to have time for the additional stop Jonathan wanted to make. But they had managed. There was one little high school girl at the warehouse store who heard what they were doing and called her whole squad of cheerleaders to come and gift wrap all of the presents in record time.

Once all of the gifts had been handed out and opened, the Reverend Mother called for silence and asked Charlie and the Harts to come to the front of the room.

"Charlie, when Jennifer and I were married we gave each other rings as a symbol of our commitment to each other. Today we are committing to you. So we want to ask you 'officially' if you would accept us as your parents?" As Jonathan finished speaking Jennifer slipped the little box from her purse and opened it. It was a simple gold band very similar to Jonathan's wedding band, sized down to fit a child's finger. The jeweler had managed to rush the inscription, winding around the outside of the ring because the inside was too small were all three of their initials, as well as their signature double heart symbol. But now that double heart had a plus symbol next to it and a third heart.

Charlie couldn't speak but he nodded his head fiercely as Jennifer slid the small band onto his ring finger. Sister Domenica was especially moved by the little ceremony. She had cared for many children during her years at Mission Street and had been especially attached to a few, but only Jonathan had given her a sort of roller coaster and lightning feeling in her stomach. That was until Charlie Grant had come to the orphanage. She had only hoped to convince Jonathan to mentor the boy, but apparently, God had bigger plans in mind. She had no doubt that Charlie would go on to make as big an impact on the world as his new father had.

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stellar-alley · 4 years ago

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Moonstone

•Chapter 8•

Previous Chapter // Next Chapter

(Summary: Richie and the Losers share an emotional goodbye)

Shout out to my amazing writing partner @ _hannahisodd on Instagram for allowing me to bring her amazing artwork to life!

Also, don’t forget to check out my Instagram Stellar.Cosplays if you want to see more of me and what goes on in my life!

“Did you even start packing yet?” Stan asked, tossing open the empty suitcase that sat on Richie’s floor.

“Oh shit-” Richie gasped “I knew I forgot something”.

Stan’s eyebrows shot up, “Richie you leave in four hours! Holy shit- alright, um, you pack your toiletries I’m gonna get your clothes okay? And you are not going to The Dragon Lands wearing that” Stan rapidly began explaining. He watched as Richie remained seated on his bed in his Van Halen T-shirt. “Well come on!” Stan exclaimed, that got Richie up and on his feet, he scurried off to the bathroom to go retrieve his things.

Stan opened the closet, his eyes scanned the contents before him as he began creating possible outfit ideas in his head. He ended up choosing a dark blue crewneck and some black pants, plain, but he knew Richie would find a way to spice it up. He carefully laid the clothes down on his brother’s bed just in time because Richie had just re entered the room.

“Okay I’ve got them” Richie waved his little toiletries bag in the air as proof.

“Well don’t just stand around, start packing your clothes” Stan waved his hands as if that’d get Richie to move any faster.

Richie quickly straightened up and gave Stan an army like salute. He began walking towards his dresser but before he kneeled down he turned his head to shoot stan a small smile, “Thanks Stanley…”.

His soft and sinier voice warmed the brother’s heart, “Don’t mention it Richie”.

Nobody told Richie that the hardest word to say would be Goodbye, because all of a sudden, when the dragon stood before all of his closest friends, that was the last word he could imagine saying.

“We’ll leave in 20, so you have some time to say goodbye to your friends” Andria had told her son before she gave him a quick kiss on the forehead.

Richie was in the main entrance of the Uris’ house, just before the main door. He knew exactly what stood behind this door but that didn’t make it any less scary. Deep down all he wanted to do was retreat to his room but he knew his time was running out, so he had to make it count. He sighed, reached down and turned the doorknob, opening the door that would lead to the beginning of the end.

“Ah there he is, the Prince!” Mike called out the moment Richie stepped outside.

The dragon automatically blushed, his markings softly glowed purple with embarrassment, but also anxiety. He waved towards Mike with a hand that lightly shook, “Guy, guys, please… Today I’m a Loser, and nothing else. That’s all I wanna be” his tone told the others more than enough to get them to knock it off.

“Ey there he is, Trashmouth” Beverly hollered, stepping up beside him and wrapping her arm around his neck. She pulled him down and gave him a noogie. That was exactly what he needed to snap back into reality.

He laughed, pushing her away and brushing out his hair. When he looked back up at her, Richie Tozier saw something he never thought he’d see before. Her eyes were glossed over, slowly filling with tears. Her voice lightly shook as she spoke “I’m gonna miss you…” Trashmouth, “Richie”.

That struck a heart string. His stance fell, his heart pulsed a little harder inside of his chest as he reached out to wrap his arms around her. His arms went around her shoulders and Bev wrapped hers around Richie’s waist. She squeezed him, holding him tight as if he’d somehow slip from between her fingers.

“I’m gonna miss you too Bev” He whispered into her red fiery hair. When he slowly pulled away, his teary eyes met hers. “Don’t ever let anyone extinguish your flame” He put a hand on her shoulder.

She nodded, it was hard and small, as if she were to move any more, then she’d break.

Richie gave her a nod in return before he stepped to the side, now face to face with Ben. “Haystack” Richie breathed.

Ben had already shed a tear and when Richie stepped in front of him, he immediately stepped in to give him a hug. When he let go he looked at Ben and told him “Never stop being you, you’re so much more than anyone has ever realized. And uh-” Richie leaned in, “Treat her well” he nodded at bev, who had to look away. “And watch out for-” He nodded at Stan, “he may not know it but he needs a close friend sometimes”.

Ben whipped a tear from his cheek, “Yeah of course Richie, and uh- I love you man” his voice shook a little.

“Aw, whittle ol’ me? You really know how to make a girl blush Bennifer” Richie forced out a western accent which made Ben laugh. That made Richie smile, making them smile always did.

He turned towards Bill. “Ah, The Little Mermaid” Richie hummed.

“Oh god” Bill choked out a breath, forcing a smile. “I’m guh-guh-gonna miss you Trashmouth” Bill warmly smiled as he and Richie went in for a hug.

Richie’s hands shook as he let them go of their hug, “You’re the leader Big Bill, so you’ve gotta keep them in line, alright?” His voice became stern. It broke when he continued “And with me gone- crack a couple more jokes every now and then, will ya?”.

Bill smiled brightly, tilting his head down to hide his face as the dame broke, sending tears from his eyes. When he looked back up, his green eyes were tinted red, giving Richie a small nod “Will do” he whispered.

Next was- “Mikey!” he exclaimed, immediately going in for a hug, because at this moment he needed nothing more than a ‘Mike Hanlon Best Friend Of The Year Award Winning Hug’, and that’s what he got. Mike wrapped him up in a hug that felt the same way hot chocolate does on a warm day, filling his body with the same feeling of serendipity that you get when you eat a cookie fresh from the oven.

“You’re such a good friend, a better friend than a trashmouth like me ever deserved” He admitted with tear filled eyes.

“Aw- Rich don’t say that” He could tell Mike was trying to hold back the tears as well.

“Ah, it’s okay… Just- do me a favor and watch over Billy boy alright?” Richie sniffled, “He needs a leader too, from time to time”.

Mike smiled a little bigger as if that would stop the tears that began to flow from his eyes. He rushed back in and got another hug from Richie.

Next was- Richie sharply inhaled, “Eds…” He didn’t even get to say anything else because a small elf had already latched himself onto his chest, his arms wrapped around Richie in a bone crushing hug. For a moment he wondered if he’d have to bring Eddie with him since he didn’t plan on letting go. When Eddie finally leaned back it was only to get on his tippy toes and kiss richie with the heat of a thousand suns. It was filled with the same love a wife shares with her pirate lover who was about to go to sea, with no guarantee that he’d return.

“I love you so much Richie” Eddie whispered against the dragon’s lips.

“I love you too Eds” Richie exhaled, “more than you’ll ever know”.

Richie hugged Eddie again. This one didn’t last as long, he pulled away since there was one last person he had to say goodbye to- “Stan”.

Richie’s eyes fell upon his brother. Stan’s eyes were red, puffy, and filled with tears. Richie could never say he’s seen Stan cry like this. And that was what broke him. The tears began to fall from Richie’s eyes, rolling down his cheeks like hot lava.

“Richie” Stan choked on his own words. He held up a hand, as if that would stop the sobs that threatened to spill from between his parted lips.

Richie took a quick step towards Stanley and hugged him. He wrapped his arms around the witch’s waist and lifted him up off of the ground. When he put his brother back down he held his hand up to go into Stan’s messy golden curls. He slowly pushed his head down so their foreheads would touch.

“You're the best brother I could’ve asked for” Richie sobbed, tears dripping down his face and onto the pavement below.

“I’m gonna miss you Richie” Stan whispered.

“I love you brother” Richie lifted his head up and saw Stan’s lip as it trembled.

Stan went in for another hug, that’s when he whispered “I love you too” to Richie and only Richie.

Richie pulled away and gave Stan a small pat on the shoulder. “Don’t overwork yourself alright Stanny?” Richie advised.

“Well don’t fuck up a kingdon Rich” Stan shot back with tear filled eyes.

“I’ll try” he replied with a wobbly smirk.

Finally, Richie took a step back, when he looked, there stood before him, The Losers. Behind him, on the road was a packed car that both Donald and Andria now sat in as they waited for their son. Richie knew his time was up.

“Bring it in Losers” He held his arms open. They didn’t need another invitation, they all made their way in with open arms as they enveloped Richie in a big group hug. Everyone had a hand on Richie whether it was his back, arm, or chest, they were all with him for one moment. It was filled with so much raw love and passion.

Sadly the moment came for them to let to. Richie looked up at them as they all stayed generally close to him, and well, if he was gonna leave he was gonna do it with a bang.

So with rapid speed he went in. He kissed Beverly’s nose, Ben’s forehead, Mike’s cheek, Bill’s forehead, then Stan’s forehead. Finally he gave Eddie one last love filled kiss with as much passion and tongue that he could muster.

They all stared at him with shock and amusement, “I love you guys so fucking much. And I will be back, don’t you ever forget that”.

They all yelled and shouted their goodbyes and various other things as the car slowly drove down the road. Leaving the six teens in the middle of the road in front of the Uris’ house.

Richie said he would be gone a week or two. But something deep inside of each and every one of them told them that things wouldn’t work out as they had planned. He knew well enough, they all did.

“He’s here” An older Wentworth told his wife, who was currently waiting anxiously by the window that overlooked their kingdom.

She immediately perked up, her eyes wide with shock and anticipation, “Really?” Maggie asked nervously. She aimlessly fiddled with the ring on her finger . “How can you be sure?”

The king went around and stood behind his wife, he slid his arms around her back and gently held her waist. He leaned forward, resting his chin on her shoulder. He whispered “Because the guards just saw the Uris’ car pull in”. Went felt Maggie tense in his arms.

She quickly turned, now face to face with her husband, eye filled with tears, “our boy is coming home” she whispered.

Went gave her a warm smile as he finally gave in and allowed the tears to come, “Finally”.

The two went in for a hug, holding each other tight.

A new voice cut through their tender moment, “Pardon” he caught their attention, the guard’s face filled with worry, “Sorry to interrupt you two but, he’s here”

Maggie slid from her husband’s grasp, taking his hand and pulling him as she followed behind the guard. They followed him down into the big entryway of the castle. The guard stopped before the massive staircase, allowing the King and Queen to proceed on their own.

Tha main entrance had large quartz pillars and a beautifully marbled floor. Sun shined in from the crystallized windows which created pretty rainbow patterns on the floor. In the middle of the farthest wall were two big double doors, the main entrance to the castle.

The doors towered over a small group of 3. The two made their way down the stairs and they quickly realized that the group consisted of Andria and Donald Uris. They stood on either side of a teenage boy, their son.

The Uris’ noticed the King and Queen pretty early on, but they still listened to their son as he talked about how nervous he was. When the Tozier’s reached the final step, Donald nudged his son, grabbing Richie’s attention and directing it to the royalty that stood before them.

There was maybe about 20 feet that separated them. The moment Richie turned towards them, Maggie stopped. She froze where she stood with Went by her side, her arm had been linked with her husband’s. But for a while she just stayed still, taking in the boy- the man that stood before her.

He has changed so much. Okay of course he’s changed it’s been over a decade but aw, look at him! His black curls, ah! He has my curls. His eyes are just like Went’s though, soft but I know the look they’d give when he gets mad. It’s him- it’s-

“Richie?” Her voice was just above a whisper. It was filled with shock and disbelief, because deep down she never thought she’d see him again. Yet here he is.

The sound of his own name caught his attention. The young dragon recognized that voice, it had been so long, but he still knew it as the voice of his- “Mom?” his voice broke as his posture sagged just like something had been lifted off his shoulders.

“Oh Richie” Maggie whispered, her arm slipping from her husband’s so she could rush forward towards her son.

Richie took a step away from the Uris’ and ran towards Maggie. Her arms wrapped around him the moment he got close enough. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders with one hand holding his head. She held him tightly as if if she were to let go he’d slip through her fingers, again.

They were both in tears. Richie could feel his chest heavy with every breath he took, eyes hot with burning tears. His head was tightly tucked into the crook of Maggie’s neck, the shoulder of her fancy shirt she had been wearing was now dampened with Richie’s tears.

Maggie was the first to pull away, only because she had to see her son’s face up close. She moved her hands down to cup his face, “My boy” she kissed his forehead.

There was so much more she wanted to say, how every day she has hated herself because she couldn’t be what he needed. She couldn’t protect him, she couldn’t stop The Cresent, hell I fucking sent him away the moment he began showing those goddman powers-

“Son” Went’s voice was soft, unlike his usual stern voice he normally used as a king.

Richie looked at Maggie, he gave her a small nod with a warm smile and teary eyes.

Maggie took the hint and took a step back from Richie, her smile wobbled as she wiped a tear from her cheek.

Richie turned around and gave his dad a small once over before he opened his arms up just as Went leaned in and enveloped his son in a Hug. The two slowly leaned away at the same time. Went’s eyes mirrored Richie’s, tear filled.

“Look at you” He cracked a small smile.

Richie’s cheeks burned, a chill went through his body when he felt another hand on his back. Maggie came up beside Went. The king wrapped an arm around his Queen.

“We…” Maggie started but she couldn’t continue.

Good thing Went knew his wife and swooped in “We know we weren’t there for you for, a long time-“.

“But we’re here now” Maggie cut in, the tremble gone from her voice, replaced by a steady, proud voice. “And we want to be here for you from now on” she declared.

Richie’s eyes started to tear up again, “I-I’d love that” he nodded quickly.

They all leaned in and hugged. It was filled with the love of a family finally back together. Richie felt so happy, and complete.

When they leaned away, Went turned towards the nearest guard “Gather the Council, tomorrow we celebrate, the Prince is back” he declared.

Word Count: 2767

And the first arc is done! Hopefully, y'all have enjoyed everything up until now. Get ready cause the story is about to take a bit of a turn as we enter the second arc!

I don't have too much to say today so uh- Stay safe, hugs not drugs, and hydrate or diedrate!

Until next time

So Long and Goodnight

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