#just a little cannibalism Stan. tell mom it’s okay. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lobanri · 3 years

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i wrote a -shitty, tbh, but it wouldn’t stop haunting my shower time- richie tozier’s stand up post-canon thing, on a everyone lives au. i lost the thread a bit near the end, so i’m putting it up here and maybe i’ll post it on ao3 at some point. enjoy.

So I’m guessing- and I’m probably right, which is decidedly not how my guesses tend to go- that a lot of you came here to see if I could offer a better explanation than the tabloids about what happened last show, because (voice changes to a higher pitched, mocking voice): ‘Richie, what the genuine fuck was that’, (voice switches back.) right?

Well gee! Am I ever here to answer. And also maybe to give a stand-up performance whose entire script I threw out in favour of, like, maybe four jokes I scraped together with what’s left of my brain.

But! Explanation first.

Okay. (short pause.) So. Imagine you’re me, the fantastic -that’s a joke in itself, right there- Richie ‘Trashmouth’ Tozier. You’re about to go out and perform in front of, okay, maybe not that many people, but still a good number, and you’re like, only a bit nervous. And then.

You get a phone call.

It’s an unknown number. It says so, right there on the screen of your phone that’s all smudged and disgusting and maybe a little bit cracked ‘cause you keep dropping it doing dumb shit.

(again, his voice changes to a higher pitched, mocking voice)

“Oh Richie, was it someone you knew?” (voice switches back.) Of course not, dumbass, that’s why I said unknown. Duh.

But on with the tale.

Now, am I the type of person that answers unknown numbers? Normally, no. If your phone got stolen and you’ve ever called me from a burrowed phone about it, now you know why nobody picked up. But remember, I was about to go out into the level of hell that is an audience- not that I don't love it, I do, but being stared, and occasionally laughed at for around an hour is not what most people find a relaxing afternoon experience.

So I picked up. Thought it’d maybe be a wrong number that would leave the other person feeling very awkward and me only slightly less so. Maybe I’d get an idea for a joke, who knows.

Suffice to say, given the whole clusterfuck that was my last show, it wasn’t a wrong number.

I pick up. I go, “Hello, who is this?”, because that’s what you say when you answer a call.

The other dude goes “Hi Richie, it’s Mike.”

In my head, I go ‘oh’. So first, apparently this is not a wrong number! Second, Mike? I don’t know any Mikes, who’s Mike?

Third, I go “Oh, shit.”

Now, have you ever noticed that a lot of comedians talk about their childhoods a lot? I’ve realized that they do this for one of three reasons; either their parents are funny, they had very fun childhoods, or they had a lot of therapy. I don’t talk about my childhood because none of those applied to me, and also because I repressed like a full 90% of it from trauma. I now have a therapist, which means I can tell you people some of it. Also because most of it came back from repression-land right there and then, because turns out I do in fact know a Mike!

Mike my childhood friend! From my childhood gang!

...The same childhood I happily repressed for twenty seven years, in fact.

Mostly from trauma.

Now you might realize that it’s literally two minutes until I have to go out in front of all you lovely judging strangers who have expectations of me already!

I certainly did. So did my agent- lovely man, genuinely hates me so much- who nevertheless had to send me out like some poor lost lamb sent to be sacrificed at the altar. So I come out- not in that way, but keep tuned to that-

Oh wow that was loud. We’ll get to that, don’t you worry. Now that’s going to be fun. If you haven’t seen Twitter, have fun figuring this out.

But let’s try to keep this mess chronological -big word for me, I know, I stole it off some other guy.

I come out, and then I can’t remember my joke, and I can’t remember my name, and I don’t remember where I am, but turns out I can remember the time my friends and I found a corpse!

So anyway, I puke on stage.

Glamorous way to end a show, I know, but in my defense I was pretty busy.

I’d like to make a segue here- who here grew up in a small town?

Yeah? Okay, this entire bit is for y’all. The rest of you big city folk can just check your phones or whatever.

So I grew up in a small town in Maine, called Derry. Pretty quaint, didn’t have much, there was one arcade, one pharmacy owned by a pedophile, one old abandoned -extremely haunted- crack house, and like a couple tiny stores. My friends and I used to hang out at the quarry and at that same old house, which was cool at the time and gross in hindsight.

I’ll tell you what it’s most known for; it’s the child murder capitol of the entire United States.

Oh, that’s some silence there. Are you perhaps uncomfortable? Maybe wondering if you heard that right? I’ll repeat it louder then.

IT WAS THE CHILD. MURDER. CAPITOL.

OF THE ENTIRE UNITED STATES.

AND I GREW UP THERE. A CHILD.

Is it clearer now why I repressed that entire experience?

So. Derry. Terrible, terrible, racist, homophobic, sexist Derry. Would I have loved to never go back? Yeah, of course. Who would?

This idiot. And his entire gang of childhood friends. Because Mike called us and went ‘Hey, could you guys come back? It’s important.’ And we went, because Mikey literally never asks for shit, so clearly this was going to be terrible. If Mike was on fire, I’m pretty sure he’d take care of it and then never mention it again.

I’ve mentioned the others a couple of times before- of course, Mike, who’s a librarian in Derry- or was, but that’s later. But, there are seven of us in our little Loser’s Club! That is the actual name, by the way. Seven Losers.

Even if Stan made us think that was wrong, because while my reaction to remembering Derry was to puke, his was to fake his death. Yes. If you can believe it, he literally fucking faked his death to get out of that reunion.

I’ll move on a bit so I don’t spend the rest of the show dissing Stan the Man and his extreme as fuck reactions- would you believe that this man is an accountant? Like, what the fuck? Now whenever I see an accountant I wonder if they’re the type of person that would fake their death to get out of things and it’s fucking with my head every time I have to go to the bank.

Okay. Seven- six not counting me, we’ve talked about Mike, and I’ve already said why Stan wasn’t there- we’re left with the weirdest group you’ve seen; Ben Hanscom, or Handsome really, that man got so hot, who’s a famous architect, Beverly Marsh, Bevs, very famous fashion designer -hell yeah she is actually my friend, I know, it’s weird- William Denbrough, Big Bill himself, horror author with terrible endings, leader of out weird gang, and last but the very opposite of least Eddie Kapsbrak, risk analyzer, the most germaphobic person I’ve met, who also wore fanny packs while we were kids. The last part tells you very little about him but I feel like I have to mention it from time to time, because he’s hot and all now but in my head he always had a fanny pack and it freaks me out a bit to see him without one. I also made ‘your mom’ jokes at him all the time, mostly for attention but also because sometimes he’d snap back and just verbally gut me like a fish, and I? Loved that shit.

For those of you that look like you just came to a realization, yes. You’d be right. But we’re just gonna ignore it for now, because some of the others didn’t get it yet, and I’m not gonna hold your hand until you do, I feel like I’ve dropped enough hints already.

Where was I? Oh, yeah.

They’re all hot and I hate it. How come they get to grow up and get muscles and I get to grow up to look like a beanstalk with some fucking bug-eyes and a shitty party city wig? I used to call Eddie “Eddie Spaghetti”, but then turns out that the actual noddle here was me all along.

Well. I’ll get the reunion out of the way and move to the important part; what did Mike call us there for? The answer may not surprise you, given that we were in fact in Derry, but guess what? If you thought ‘child murder’ you win nothing at all, but you’d be right. There was in fact a serial killer! Who was, uh, also… a cannibal.

Terrible, right?

But you’d think ‘this sounds weird’, right? Some unknown dude is killing and eating people, yes, but what does that have to do with lil ol’ me?

Now’d be the time to point out that Bill’s little brother Georgie disappeared twenty seven years previous and turned out to have been literally murdered and possibly eaten along with like, some other six or seven people. And at the time, Big Bill made us all go along to go look for him. In the sewers. While we were also kids. Y’know, like those other kids that got killed.

Big Bill was charismatic, but that doesn’t mean he was the wisest guy, okay. And we were also dumb and young, so that was pretty much all it took.

Thing is that we, uh, …did actually end up finding a serial killer in the sewers. So.

Who was it? Henry Bowers. Our middle school bully. To those true crime fans that recognize the name, yeah, that Bowers.

It didn’t turn out to be that much of a surprise that our bully was the dude killing people, actually, because he was the most fucked-up kid I ever met. He broke Eds’s arm and tried to carve his name on Ben, which is genuinely fucking nuts, right? Like, what? The everliving fuck? I think he liked to kick puppies.

Now, this time around, you’d think it was some fucked up copycat or something? Nope. Dude escaped to try again, this time dressed as a clown.

You think I’m joking here? He literally dressed as a clown to kill people. I could not begin to tell you why.

He can’t tell you, either, because he’s currently, uh, sort of dead. As in, someone buried an axe in his spine and he died.

In my defense-

(louder)

he was trying to kill Mike and you’ve already heard that I’d go back into Derry for him, so.

If you’d wondered why I came back really late, yeah, that was part of it.

The other part is that before dying he managed to stab Eddie Spaghetti in the face and make us go into that one old ass, extremely haunted crack house- don’t ask, I don’t know either- in which an entire beam fell on him. I’m genuinely baffled at how this didn’t happen earlier, because this was literally our childhood hangout spot. But karma or fate or whatever caught up with us, so it did.

By the way, he’s okay now. We all thought he was gonna die first, of course, because how the hell else do you react when a dude’s been impaled right in front of you? He didn’t. But when we all thought he was gonna die in front of me, holding his hand -him included- he looked at me in the eye and, with all the strength his failing body could muster up, he said:

“I fucked your mom.”

So does it come as a surprise to anyone that we’re dating now?

#reddie #my snippets #my fics #richie tozier #richie tozier's stand up #i'm proud of this one #it was written almost entirely yesterday evening while i waited for the clothes to dry #think i'll post it on ao3 actually #i've read way too many of these not to want to contribute a bit

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trash-the-tozier · 6 years

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The Disappearance of Georgie Denbrough (3/10)

Title: The Disappearance of Georgie Denbrough

Length ~60.8k (~6.7k for this part)

Summary: The summer between junior and senior year of high school, Bill’s little brother Georgie goes missing.

Warnings: It’s relatively canon-typical in terms of content. For this part there’s bullying, explicit language, blood/injuries, mentions of child neglect, mentions of murder and cannibalism, lots of gay

Pairings: eventual Richie/Eddie and Ben/Beverly

A/N: yes I did that thing with Richie’s parents but I mostly needed an empty house for plot reasons and this was the first thing I thought of, it’s not really mentioned much more than this also posted to my ao3 here (much more readable tbh) Previous Parts: 1 | 2

The sewers were a bit of a walk. Thanks to painfully fast growth spurts and the ability to drive, none of them rode their bikes much anymore, something that Stan was really missing as they went. His feet were starting to ache, but when he turned to ask Bill if he was experiencing the same thing, he saw his friend engaged in a quiet, slightly awkward-looking conversation with Beverly. Maybe he could take Eddie’s place and use Richie’s piggyback ride offer.

As they walked around a bend in the road, a car came into view. A very familiar black car.

“Hey! Bowers’s ride!” Richie exclaimed, rushing over to it. He took an exaggerated sniff. “Still minty fresh. You guys see any mud around here?”

“No, no.” Eddie said quickly, and Stan had to agree. “We’re not doing that again.”

“But it was fun!”

“It was, but still--” He stopped, frowning and pointing. “Is that the homeschooled kid’s bike?”

They all recognized the basket bicycle immediately, fallen to its side next to Bowers's car, books with “Derry Public Library” stamps on them spilling over the lawn. They must have just missed seeing him.

An incoherent shout made all of them jump, the voice horribly recognizable.

“Bowers.” Stan murmured. “They probably jumped him.”

“We have to help him!” Beverly insisted.

“We should?” Richie asked. Stan could understand his hesitancy; if Bowers tried to kill Ben just for being present when his car got fucked, the chance of them getting out of an encounter with the bully with all of their fingers, toes, eyes, or ears was slim. Beverly looked around at them all, openmouthed, as though she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“Yes!”

Then she took off, and they had no choice but to follow. Stan’s long legs kept up with her easily, coming up on the edge of a creek, watching in alarm as she bent, picked up the biggest rock she could fit in her fist, and hurled it at Henry Bowers. It hit him so hard in the forehead that Stan could’ve sworn he heard something crack.

That got the attention of the whole group. The bullies had Mike Hanlon, the homeschooled kid, flat on his stomach on the ground, shoving his face into the water. The rock had Bowers taking his foot off the back of Mike’s head and staggering backwards, Vic and Huggins loosening their grips and letting Mike breathe.

“The fuck?” Huggins shouted, the skidding of sneakers signaling the arrival of rest of the group behind them. Henry looked up. His expression was absolutely murderous, the glare turning to a bit of a smirk when his eyes landed on Beverly.

“You losers are trying too hard!” He yelled at them. “She’ll do you. You’ve just got to ask nicely.” He rolled his hips, grabbing at his crotch. “Like I did.”

Ben let out an angry roar, a gargantuan rock already in his hand too, the sound so close and loud that it made Stan flinch. Both his friends and the bullies were starting to pick up stones, arming themselves for battle as Mike scrambled to get to their side of the creek. Stan didn’t know whether or not they would make it out of this rock fight alive. He didn’t know whether or not Richie could tell the future. There was one thing he was sure of, though: their new friends were crazy.

“ROCK WAR!” Richie shouted, and rocks went flying.

Stan tried his hardest to dodge and keep his head down, picking up the sharpest pieces of rock he could find and hurling them across the creek. It was particularly satisfying when he managed to hit one of them, but they hit him right back and goddamn, the rocks hurt. Eddie let out a battle cry, leaping into the water to get closer, beaming Huggins straight in the face. Huggins cursed at them as Bill jumped in the water too, but after another direct hit from Beverly, began to retreat.

Bill threw a particularly large stone, hitting Bowers right between the eyes. It seemed to happen in slow motion, Stan watching in amazement as the bully fell on his ass.

The fight wrapped up quickly after that. As soon as Bowers was down and out they wasted no time, Stan grabbing one of Mike’s shoulders and steering him back the way they’d come. Behind them, Richie yelled.

“Go blow your dad, you mullet-wearing asshole!”

“Fuck all, it’s like he wants to die.” Eddie murmured from next to him. They made it to safety, Ben and Beverly picking up Mike’s books, Ben walking with his bike until they were far away from the car and the creek. Then they stood there, taking in each other’s injuries.

Stan hadn’t been hit too many times, he realized. Not when he looked over the others. All of them had cuts somewhere on their faces, one on Bill’s lip looking particularly deep, nasty, and badass. Beverly was bleeding from her nose, Eddie from a nick on his chin, and Richie was smiling at them from a nasty forehead wound that was running blood into his eyes. Ben looked incredibly banged up, though it was hard to tell what was old and what was new, and Mike looked half drowned. Everyone had a few growing welts.

“We kicked their asses!” Richie shouted, arms thrown in the air as though he hadn’t just been beamed in the forehead by a lump of breccia the size of his fist. “We. Kicked. Their. Asses.”

“Yeah.” Beverly was beginning to grin, though it looked like it hurt. “We did.”

“We need to do something though.” Eddie was beginning to panic, trying to fuss over the cut on Richie’s head but was hilariously too short to do so. “We need to disinfect.”

“C’mon Eds, you didn’t seem worried about germs when you jumped into that creek!” Richie told him, bending down in compliance. “That was fucking awesome, Spaghetti Man.”

Eddie’s smile was muted, like he was trying very hard to hold it in and continue looking disapproving.

“Is there anywhere we can go and wash up?” Beverly asked. There was only one place where parents wouldn’t ask any questions, Bill, Eddie, and Stan himself all looking to Richie. He beamed.

“To my house!” He declared grandly. “We can get patched up there. Mom won’t mind, if she’s even home.”

They began walking, Stan leading the way as he pressed the heel of his hand to the cut on his cheek. The procession only made it a few paces however, Ben stopping when he noticed that Mike wasn’t coming along.

“You too, Homeschool.” Richie told him, extending the invitation with a wave of his hand. “C’mon.”

“You guys shouldn’t have done that for me.” Mike said. He frowned, looking troubled. “Now they’ll be after you too.”

“What, Bowers and his gang?” Eddie asked. “Nah, they already beat up on us.”

Richie nodded in an almost proud manner, coming up behind Mike to slap him on the back, both as a show of camaraderie and a means to urge him forward.

“Welcome to the Loser’s Club.”

Richie’s house was a little farther than any of them wanted to walk, but eventually they made it. Richie gave a bit of a bow as the building came into view, putting on a terrible accent that wasn’t really from anywhere.

“My humble abode.”

There was nothing “humble” about Richie’s house, full to the brim with fancy, out-of-place furniture and needlessly expensive knick-knacks. Mr. Tozier liked things better than people, which was quite fortunate, because he liked his job better than his family, too. No one was home, as expected. There wasn’t much of a sign that anyone had been in the lower floor of the house in a while.

“Where is your mom?” Ben asked, glancing around. “Work?”

Richie shook his head. “No job. I dunno; she does this sometimes. And if she is home she’s drunk, so I really don’t care.”

Richie did care, though. Stan knew how many years Richie had tried hard to care about her, tried to get her to sober up or come home. After years of it not making a difference, he’d started to stifle those feelings, confessing to Stan once at near three a.m. that the less he cared, the less it hurt. Richie tried to keep himself convinced that he didn’t need her; he didn’t need either of them. It worked most of the time.

Eddie took control of the first aid as soon as they all were inside the kitchen, asking his friends to line up in order of who was most needed medical attention, Richie digging around in his cabinets for any supplies they could use. Eddie hadn't brought anything more than a few spare bandages, hand sanitizer, and his inhaler--his mother had confiscated the rest, claiming he didn't need anything if he truly was just going to the library, which was the dumbest thing Eddie had heard in awhile. He'd tried not to tell her that, but it had slipped out anyway.

Mike was pushed towards him first, but after a quick once-over Eddie found that all things considered, Mike didn't need much of anything except for some ice, and time to recover from the emotional trauma of nearly being drowned in a creek by the Bowers gang. He told Mike to go sit down but Mike wanted to help, so Eddie asked him to start getting ice instead. They'd need a lot of it.

Stan was offered up next, because while Ben and Bill were most badly banged up, they were refusing to get help before Beverly, Bev trying to argue about how stupid that was. Stan gave him a sheepish look.

“I’m really okay.” He said earnestly. He had a stripe of red on his cheekbone where the skin had split and bled, now bruising. Eddie gave him the quick rinse-peroxide-bandage treatment, really wishing he had some sort of gloves to wear, his jaw clenching every time his friend flinched.

“Sorry.” He said. “Go get some ice from Mike, then drag Bill over here. His lip is still bleeding.”

Stan did as he was told, and a second later Bill was shoved into the chair in front of Eddie by Stan and Beverly, stuttering out protests. His lip looked rather nasty, the whole front of his shirt covered in blood. He tried to tell Eddie something, but between a stutter and now a swollen lip, it was near impossible.

Ben and Beverly both were very good patients, keeping still as he cleaned their wounds, and then it was time for Eddie to wrangle Richie. The gangly teen had been flailing around the house, grabbing things they needed--water for everyone, more bandaids or peroxide, a clean shirt for Bill--and while he was possibly the worst injured, Eddie knew that Richie still had too much adrenaline in his system to stop moving and get his head looked at, so he’d just let him go.

He approached Richie now with peroxide and a paper towel, ready to demand that he sit still when Richie looked at him and blinked.

“You know you’re bleeding too, right?”

“What?” Eddie looked down, his eyes catching on a spot of blood that he was pretty positive wouldn’t be coming out of his yellow t-shirt. He felt around on his face until he touched the scrape on his chin, hissing out a breath when it stung. He’d been so worried about his friends that he hadn’t even felt it. “Shit.”

“Let me clean it for you!” Richie offered excitedly, taking the peroxide from Eddie’s hand. “I know what to do, I promise.”

“There’s no way of knowing the last time you washed your hands.” Eddie said in declination.

“C’mon Eds, it’s good for you! Ever heard ‘rub some dirt in it’?”

“And how many people that said that have died of tetanus? Probably all of them. Except the people that got anthrax poisoning first.”

Richie wasn’t really listening to the jape, looking over the bottle of peroxide.

“What would happen if I drank this?”

“It would burn through your intestines and you would die.”

Richie laughed. “No kidding.”

Eddie took the bottle back, a bandaid over his cleaned chin wound in no time. Between his mother and his friend group, Eddie had plenty of experience patching people up, including himself. Nobody else seemed to care when they had scraped knees or other arbitrary scratches, but he couldn’t just let his friends walk around in such a susceptible state. It made his eye twitch.

“Now it’s your turn, trashmouth. Bend down so I can look at you.”

Richie complied, but it soon became apparent that the arrangement wasn’t going to work for long. The rest of the group was sitting around the dining room table icing their wounds, Beverly now in the chair Eddie had been using, and Eddie didn’t want to ask her to get up for him.

“Here.” Richie offered, patting the countertop. Eddie understood, jumping up and sitting, his legs dangling over the edge. Richie’s head was angled down, looking at his lap until Eddie used a couple of fingers to tilt his chin up. Richie swallowed.

“I like those shorts.” He said. “You look cute in them.”

Eddie willed himself not to flush. The shorts were pretty old, red with a rainbow stripe down each side. He'd been absolutely drowning in them when he'd first gotten them, the waist cinched as tight as it would go, but now he figured they were getting a little too small.

“Do you really want to tease the guy with full access to your gaping head wound?” Eddie asked, raising his eyebrows. Richie chuckled.

“How about you learn to take a compliment, Kaspbrak.”

Eddie bit hard on the inside of his cheek, but knew Richie could tell he was trying not to smile. Then Richie moved his hand, placing it palm down on Eddie's thigh, on the skin where either the shorts had hiked up from him clambering onto the counter or just weren't long enough to cover anymore, and it was suddenly so, so much harder to focus on the gash on Richie's forehead. He hoped Richie couldn't hear his heart beating as loud as he could feel it.

Eddie was not in love with Richie Tozier. Richie was loud, obnoxious, gross, and liked to tease him way too much. He was tall and cute but gangly too, his hands always so warm that Eddie often wanted to check and make sure he wasn't running a fever.

“Here, hold your hair back.” Eddie instructed, brushing a few strands out of Richie’s eyes as he took off his glasses. By some miracle, Richie did what he was told twice in a row, Eddie dipping a paper towel into warm water and beginning to clean the blood off Richie’s face. Richie simply watched him, his eyes traveling Eddie’s face as he worked. Eddie couldn’t stand the silence for more than a couple of minutes.

“This is the most still and quiet you’ve ever been.” He remarked. “Someone needs to write this date down. Make it a national holiday.”

“Just trying not to mess you up, Doc. This is my face we’re talking about. If even an inch of it got screwed up, your mom would mourn for weeks.”

Eddie rolled his eyes, his default response to Richie’s mom jokes after learning that telling him to shut up just wasn’t going to cut it. Richie blinked at him.

“You do that a lot.”

“Do what?”

“Roll your eyes at me.”

“Yeah. It’s because you say a lot of stupid shit.”

“Oh.”

For a moment, Eddie felt bad.

“You… You make me laugh though, too. You know that.”

Richie winked at him, using his free hand for a finger gun.

“Well, that is my life’s calling after all. I’ve gotta be good at it.”

“What?”

“Purpose on Earth: make Edward Kaspbrak smile. I’m even going to major in it in college.”

“Oh, shut up.” Eddie responded. He didn’t want the words to make him happy--it was just more of Richie’s stupid teasing after all, just like everything else was--but his heart wouldn’t listen. Richie grinned, pointing at his face.

“See? I’m acing this thing already.”

Eddie placed the adhesive bandage over Richie's forehead wound with gentle fingers. It was huge tan rectangle that wasn't nearly as cool as Bill's busted lip.

“Well nurse?” Richie asked, taking a step back to let Eddie take in the whole picture. “How sexy do I look?”

Eddie bit his lip and grinned.

“You got hit in the face with a rock.” He responded. “You look like a huge dumb dork.”

Richie beamed at him, and for a moment every single thing was right in the world.

Okay, maybe Eddie was in love with Richie Tozier. But only a little bit.

Finally, everyone was bandaged up. Mike watched as Richie and Eddie also came over to them, noticing the table was one chair short. He was about to get up and offer his own seat when Stanley simply scooted over, now taking up part of Bill’s chair, the two sitting half on top of each other, and Richie and Eddie sat down.

“Thanks for all of this.” Beverly said to Eddie, Mike nodding along to her words. She was holding a washcloth full of ice to a knot on the side of her head. “You did a really great job.”

“Yeah, you should be a nurse or something.” Ben agreed. Eddie pulled a face.

“And touch other people’s gross and diseased bodies? No way.”

“But you’d get paid to touch them.” Richie pointed out.

“Unlike your sister, who touches gross bodies for free.”

“...do you have a sister?” Ben asked.

“You’re right Eds, you couldn’t be a nurse. The world isn’t ready for you in that nurse outfit.” Richie let out a loud wolf whistle. “The skirt alone--”

“Beep beep, Richie.” Eddie said, flicking Richie’s forehead bandage and making him yelp. Beverly looked over at Bill in an almost accusing manner.

“And you’re sure they’re not dating?”

“It’s all teasing.” Eddie said quickly. Mike felt his eyebrows go up his forehead.

“I'd be cheating on my main squeeze!” Richie said, mock indignance in his voice. “I would never do Eddie’s mom dirty like that.” Even as he spoke, Richie was stretching an arm across the back of Eddie’s chair. “I mean, I do her dirty every night, but--”

“Beep beep, Trashmouth.” This time it was Stan. Beverly seemed unconvinced, but changed the subject anyway.

“So… Your parents are never home?” She asked Richie, something akin to envy in her voice. “Is this where all the wild midnight ragers happen?”

“Oh, you mean me lying around and eating a disgusting amount of Cheetos in my underwear?” Richie asked. He sent a wink her way. “Because those are biweekly, baby. Just come on over.”

Bev looked around at all of them in disbelief.

“You guys really don't hang out here all the time?”

“The no parents thing sounds cool, except then your mom doesn’t go grocery shopping for four weeks and you’re left eating peanut butter and lunch meat sandwiches.” Richie said with a sigh. Mike couldn’t believe he was talking about something like this so offhandedly, but Stan pulled a face.

“Watching you eat one of those was the worst experience of my life.” He said, Richie sitting up indignantly.

“But it’s full of protein. That’s good, right? Isn’t that how food works?”

“You can eat a peanut butter sandwich, and you can eat a sandwich with lunch meat in it, but you can’t eat them together.”

“You’re telling me to eat one of them just by themselves? That’s even worse.”

“Okay, you can’t buy more bread with the tiny amount of money that you have for yourself, but you’re able to keep the house stocked with…” Stan reached forward into the pile of first aid supplies, picking up the first thing his hand landed on. He frowned, sounding the word out carefully. “...hydrocortisone ointment? What does this even do?”

“That stuff’s important.” Richie mumbled, glancing down, and Mike would have bet money that he was looking at Eddie’s hands, which the little hypochondriac had resting in his lap. Bill took advantage of the lull in the argument, cutting in.

“We're n-not really allowed to be here all together.” He said. “Eddie's mom k-k-kinda…”

“She hates my guts.” Richie supplied helpfully. “And she’s that crazy kind of mom that actually calls the house of the hangout to make sure her child is ‘doing okay’. As far as she knows, Eddie’s never actually been here.”

“Maybe she hates you because you make jokes about her all of the time.” Ben supplied. Richie gave the suggestion mock consideration before shaking his head.

“Nah, though that would definitely be the reason if she knew about it. I’m pretty positive it happened when I accidentally set her Christmas lights on fire with my cigarette. A word to the wise: never try to climb out of Eddie’s window and smoke a Winston at the same time.”

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

“No w-w-way.” Bill interjected. “That happened l-last year, Richie. She’s hated you for way longer t-t-than that.”

“Was it the drunken serenading thing then?” Richie looked perplexed, scratching his head. “Careless Whisper is a classic, regardless of how late into the night it’s being blasted at Eddie’s window.”

“I t-t-think it was the p-puking in their garden afterwards t-that made her mad, Richie.”

“You just started existing, and that’s when she knew.” Stan said. Richie laughed, pointing at him.

“That’s the one. I’m Sonia Kaspbrak’s mortal enemy, from the womb to the grave.”

“Never, ever say ‘womb’ ever again.” Beverly requested.

“Uterus?” Richie tried.

“Beep beep.” Beverly said. Then she looked between Eddie and Stan. “Did I use it right?”

Mike wondered how long these six had been hanging out together. He couldn’t quite tell, but they seemed like a nice group. As though able to read his thoughts, Stan turned to him.

“We noticed all of the books and stuff with your bike; were you at the library before you got jumped? Because we were there too and we didn't see you.”

“I…” Mike faltered, swallowing. “Yeah, I was there, but something happened. I left the library maybe a half hour after you guys found me.”

“Bowers was beating on you for half an hour?” Richie asked. He sounded almost impressed, but Mike couldn’t tell if he was impressed by the fact that he’d let the gang wail on him for that long, or impressed by the fact that he was still alive. Either way, he was wrong.

“No, I… I saw something.”

“Something?” Beverly pressed. Mike took a long breath. Part of him--an embarrassingly large part, he found--wanted to pretend that nothing had happened, suppress the occurrence until his hands stopped shaking. He clasped them on the table, giving his head a small shake. He could trust this group, and he needed to tell someone.

“I was walking my bike back, because I’d checked out too many books to fit in the basket and had to carry some. I turned to go through the woods--there’s a shortcut to my house past that creek--when I saw a man in the trees. He was holding a large bag in one hand, and… Something in the other, and…” Mike’s mouth felt incredibly dry, but he knew that drinking anything would make him nauseous. “He was dressed as a clown.”

“A c-c-c-clown?” Bill asked. “That’s weird.”

None of them were nearly as scared as he felt they should be, and Mike realized they didn’t know.

“Are you afraid of clowns?” Stan asked, misreading his expression. Mike figured he must seem silly, and was eternally grateful to them all for not laughing at him.

“Not… Not really.” He got up, walking over to his backpack and bringing it over. He unzipped it and began pulling things out, everyone looking surprised.

“Do homeschooled kids not get summer break?” Richie asked in a voice of faint horror.

“These are all my dad’s journals.” Mike began. “He was really interested in all the bad stuff that always seemed to happen in Derry. He thought that they might all be caused by something. The same thing.”

He brought out the pictures he’d managed to find: a clown streaking away from the charred Black Spot, a clown posing for a photo with the rest of the participants in the Easter Parade, before the Kitchener Ironworks explosion. Sightings around town: a dressed up man in the background of photos. A few sketches done by artists who said their houses were broken into. It was a man with cartoonishly bright orange hair, the white facepaint bringing stark attention to his receding hairline. His nose was painted red and so were his lips, the corners of his mouth drawn so far up his face that they went through his eyes and up past his eyebrows. His costume was endowed with red pompoms and ribbons and looked as though the ruffles were once white, but had dirtied and greyed for years. The only bright whites were his gloves.

“Clown.” Eddie breathed.

“All these events happened years apart from each other, but my dad thought the clown was the same person. I measured things, real life things in the photos, so I could check his height, and it’s the same in all of the photos. The same build. So, logically, same guy.”

“And you saw this clown?” Stan asked. “Jesus. What was he carrying?”

“I don’t know.” Mike confessed. “Or… I don’t know what was in the bag, at least. But I saw the thing in his hand. It took me a long time to realize what it was. It wasn’t until he saw me staring at him, and he smiled, and… Waved it at me. It was an arm.”

“An arm?” Ben echoed. He looked pale. He stuck his own arm out into the middle of the table. “Like… An arm arm?”

Mike nodded. Now that he’d started talking, he couldn’t seem to stop.

“The wrist had a bracelet on it, and I realized that I recognized it. So I went back into town, and found out where I’d seen it before.” He opened up a folder, one he was using to collect new evidence into. He pulled out Betty Ripsom’s missing poster. The girl had her face resting on her fist, and sure enough, a bracelet was there. “It looked just like this one. The beads were little pink flowers.” He swallowed again, a sick feeling rising in his stomach. “I think it was Betty Ripsom’s arm, and I think the thing in the bag…”

“...was Betty Ripsom.” Richie finished. “Fuck, dude. Shit.”

“W-w-w-w-w-wait.” Bill looked so shaken that he was about to break. “I-i-i-if… If he h-had B-B-Betty, then t-the other kids… W-who is he? We h-have to g-g-go b-back to w-w-w-where you saw him.”

Before Mike could respond, Stan had a hand on Bill's arm.

“No.” He said, and he sounded deadly serious. “If that guy really is some crazy clown with a girl in a body bag, we need to go to the police.”

“He's long gone anyway.” Mike said. “He disappeared, and I didn't see which way he went.”

Bill looked angry for a moment, as though he'd let the clown go on purpose.

“Hey, what is all this stuff?” Beverly had reached forward, looking through one of the journals that he'd brought over. “Who is 'Robert Gray’?”

“I feel like I've heard that name before.” Ben said, frowning. “Was he in the news, or something?”

“Yeah, but it was a long time ago.” Mike flipped through his things, trying to find the copy he had that detailed the Gray family court case. When he did he placed it down on the table, everyone leaning forwards to look at it.

“The whole Gray family lived here a long time ago, and they ran the butcher shop in town.”

“The one your family sells to?” Richie asked. Mike nodded.

“Yeah, that one. They didn't keep the place up to code, so they got into trouble a lot, but they always kept their prices low, so they stayed in business. They always had stuff to sell, but it didn't come out for a couple years that when animal meat they had was in short supply, they would… With people…”

Mike didn't want to say it. Thankfully, one by one, the Losers got what he meant. Eddie was the last one, and the horror on his face had Mike worried for a moment that he might fall out of his chair.

“They would kidnap people and… Sell them?” Beverly asked hesitantly.

“They wouldn’t always sell all of them.” Mike said. “There were some people that they… Kept, and…”

“And ate, yeah.” Richie finished. “What’s this got to do with our killer clown?”

“The family got caught and sent to prison, but the police couldn't find their son. He was only a teenage boy, but he’d been in on the whole thing. Multiple people saw him running out of town, including my grandfather, but searches of the surrounding areas never came up with anything. My dad thought he doubled back. My dad thought he never left.”

“The kid is Robert Gray, isn't he.” Stan’s voice was quiet. “If he never left, where the hell does he live?”

Mike had a bunch of police reports, pulling them out as he spoke. They piled up in the table in front of him.

“People reported break-ins and theft, but it was never any valuable stuff; food, cutlery, things like that. Some people said they'd noticed things being moved in their houses for days--even weeks--before they saw someone, as though someone had been secretly living there. Eventually, mangled bodies started showing up. Then someone got a picture of him, but nobody recognized his face.”

Mike pulled the picture out, placing it side by side with the mugshot of Mr. Gray. Both of the men had similar features, the same hooded eyes and thin upper lip, the same balding pattern in the hair.

“But my dad recognized him. As soon as the photo showed up in the papers, the clown sightings started instead.”

Nobody said anything as he finished. Feeling slightly discouraged, Mike slowly sat back down. He’d had his head in this stuff for days, doing tons of reading and following the trail his father had left behind. It hadn’t really occurred to him how crazy it could sound to anyone else.

“So… The clown is Robert Gray?” Ben asked.

“My dad thought so.”

“But there haven't been any break-ins recently. There haven't been any in awhile.”

“If he got himself a place to live, he wouldn't need to live in other people's houses.” Richie pointed out.

“But what neighbors don't notice a guy in a clown costume living right next door?” Beverly asked. “He'd need a job, a life…” She pointed to Gray’s picture. “The town is too small. We would have seen a guy that looks like this.”

Bill, who had been very still and quiet, licked his lips nervously before speaking.

“The s-sewers.”

“People don't live in sewers.” Eddie was looking more and more uncomfortable. “How could someone stand it? Where would they sleep? What--”

“Why didn't your dad tell anyone?” Beverly asked Mike, cutting him off. “This stuff could really be important.”

“He tried. They laughed him off as soon as they heard 'Robert Gray’. Said they didn't want to deal with that past stuff anymore. But I have a bunch of other things that my dad has put together that might help us find him. It's at home; we could go tomorrow and read over it if you guys want.”

“Why t-tomorrow?” Bill asked. He looked anxious; jittery almost. Mike pointed to the window. The sun was already making its way down.

“Shit, I've got to go home.” Eddie jumped to his feet. “Shit, shit, I’m way later than I should be, she’s going to notice my injuries, she’s--”

“Be cool, Eddie Spaghetti.” Richie said. His carefree tone seemed to piss Eddie off even more, raising his voice.

“Be cool? Have you met my mom?”

Richie frowned, leaning back in his chair to glance up at Eddie’s face. He tugged lightly on the front of Eddie’s shirt.

“Do you want me to spend the night then?”

Every single head turned in their direction, and Mike could tell that as far as sleepovers were concerned, he wasn’t the only one out of the loop.

“No!” Eddie blushed a burning scarlet. “No, I… I’ll be fine.”

“I’ll walk with you, Eddie.” Beverly said, getting to her feet. After seeing the setting sun, her face had gone a bit pale. “I need to get going too. Where should we meet tomorrow?”

All eyes looked to Bill, who had to think for a few moments.

“Is t-that Bunyan statue in the m-m-middle of town g-good for everybody?” He asked. After a collective group of nods people began standing, ready to head home. Ben rushed over to Beverly’s bag, putting it on her shoulder for her.

“Have a good night, Beverly.” He said, smiling. She gave him a soft smile back, throwing an arm around Eddie’s shoulders, and the two set off into the gathering dusk.

“Damn, I’m going to get back so late. If I don’t show tomorrow, just tell everyone else to go on without me.” Eddie said. Beverly nodded, pulling a cigarette from the box in her purse.

“Sure. Why, you going to get grounded or something?”

“My mom doesn’t ‘ground’ me. She takes me to the doctor all day and has them do tests on me. I’ve had nineteen CAT scans. I’m only sixteen.”

Beverly lit up, then took a long, slow drag. She couldn’t imagine having a parent like Eddie’s. It seemed like it could be nice though, having someone that cared so much.

“So.” She glanced over at Eddie, smiling a little. He looked back. He seemed nervous to be walking alone with her, but she wanted to ask him something. “About Richie.”

His ears turned pink immediately.

“What about him?”

“That’s what I want to know.”

Eddie shrugged. Beverly had the feeling that the action was supposed to look casual, but it really, really didn’t.

“He’s super tall and a complete idiot, though somehow he aces everything in school without trying, which is completely outrageous because it’s like his brain is hardwired for stupid shit. He says a lot of gross stuff too but he actually does care, and you can always tell him to shut up--not that he’ll listen probably, but you could try--and sometimes--”

“When did you realize you were in love with him?” Beverly cut in. She had a feeling Eddie’s rambling about Richie could go on for a good while, so she decided to cut to the chase. Eddie fell completely silent, and for a second Beverly thought he might try to deny it. But he had to know how obvious he was; he had to realize how pointless that would be.

“...I don’t know.” He finally admitted. His eyes were on the ground. “Awhile ago, I guess. But… But I shouldn’t, it’s wrong, and bad, and he’s my friend, I…”

Eddie let out a loud breath, swallowing hard. Beverly frowned at him.

“Eddie, do you… Do you not see the way he looks at you?”

“What?” Eddie shook his head. “He just teases me. He likes to tease me like that, pinching my cheeks and all that shit. He doesn’t… Nothing’s serious.”

“Eddie.” She tried again, waiting until he was looking her in the eyes. “Seriously?”

Eddie was quiet again, looking down at his feet as they moved. He moved quickly, but didn't seem to get very far; Beverly could keep up easily.

“Sometimes… Sometimes I want to think that maybe, but…” He shook his head. “It's wrong, and bad, and he's my friend.”

Eddie stopped, staring at a house down the street with a resigned sort of loathing. That must be where he lived. Beverly put her cigarette out against the heel of her shoe.

“There's nothing wrong about loving someone, Eddie. Okay? Fuck whatever…” She looked down the street at the house too, imagining Eddie's overanxious mother sitting inside. “Fuck whatever anybody else says.”

Eddie gave her a small smile. “I… Thanks, I guess.”

“Yeah.” She shrugged, touching his shoulder. “See you tomorrow, maybe.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

Eddie walked home, and Bev set off down the street. She could only hope that by some miracle, her father wasn't home. She wasn't allowed to stay out past sunset anymore, and as unpredictable as her father's behavior could be, she knew for certain that her consequences for staying out past curfew wouldn't just be a trip to the doctor's.

When she opened her front door, a blast of sound from the television hit her like a gust of wind. She stood there for a moment, swallowing. The TV was loud, which always meant her father was drunk. That meant this encounter could go two ways; good enough or very, very bad.

Against all of her expectations, Alvin Marsh was passed out on the couch. She wanted to cry in relief, creeping past and going into her room. She changed out of her clothes and into a set of pajamas, doing everything she needed to get ready for bed. As she rifled around in her bag for her cigarette and lighter, ready to hide them in her dug out copy of Gone With The Wind, something fluttered out of it and onto the floor.

She frowned, bending to pick it up. It was a “Welcome to Derry Maine” postcard, a picture of a large white lighthouse taking up the majority of the front. Confused, she turned the postcard over.

Your hair is winter fire! January embers! My heart burns there too

It was from a “Secret Admirer”, her name written in on the address half of the postcard. Beverly stared at it, reading it over and over again, biting her lip as her cheeks began to ache from smiling. She ran her finger over the last line of the poem, unable to believe it. Someone liked her.

As soon as that happiness was there though, it was chased by another feeling. Her father. He would ruin this; he always ruined everything. She needed to hide it, but wanted desperately not to part with it, stuffing it quickly under her pillow. It was a temporary place, but as long as she was home too, it would work.

It soon became apparent that the blaring of the television from the living room wouldn’t let her sleep. She didn’t want to go back out there, terrified of waking her father up from his drunken stupor, but she couldn’t help herself. After mussing her hair up a little, trying to look disheveled and fresh from bed, Beverly walked out into the living room.

She stepped lightly and gripped the knob, trying to turn the volume down gradually, hoping that the lack of sudden change wouldn’t disturb him. It didn’t work.

“Bevvy?” He sat up fast, red indentions on his face from the blanket thrown over the arm of the couch, his breath smelling strongly of hard liquor. He seemed confused and slightly angry. “When did you get home?”

“I've been home Daddy.” She answered, gesturing to her pajamas. He seemed puzzled by the sight of her bedclothes. “You’ve been drinking. You sent me to my room.”

She could tell he knew that the story didn't quite match up, but was too inebriated to be completely sure. She didn't wait around for him to figure it out, bidding him a goodnight and hurrying to her room. When he didn't follow her, she took it as a good sign.

“Your hair is winter fire.” She murmured to herself, and again a smile grew on her face. A secret admirer. She got quickly into bed, tucking the covers under her chin, holding onto her pillow. The top of her finger touched one of the corners of the postcard and she beamed, a warm ball of happy light swelling in her chest. Beverly nestled her face in her pillow, now excited for the day ahead, and tried to fall asleep.

#myfic #tdogd #it 2017 #bill denbrough #ben hanscom #beverly marsh #stanley uris #mike hanlon #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #reddie #reddie fic #benverly #benverly fic

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