stan the man. richie is rarely rendered speechless — the trashmouth must continue to talk lest he forget how to — but seeing stanley again made the man freeze. they aren’t friends anymore, richie has to remind himself of that. they haven’t seen each other in over two decades, and yet all he can remember is how they used to be. the teasing and laughing, the good and the bad. this situation was definitely the bad. ‘ we didn’t know if you were gonna show up, ’ but richie had hoped he would. being together again with the losers was somehow comforting, even after finding out the haunting reason they had been called back to derry. close lipped grin is given to stanley. ‘ you missed dinner. there were fuckin’ flying things with baby heads. you would’ve loved it, ’ @oathfeared.
“ my eyes are up here. ” ... lynn said, but she had a smirk on her plump lips as she looked at the other. “ i can’t tell if you are staring at my breasts or my lips. ”
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← Chapter 1.
“Saeran, you’re strong. It will be alright. You can endure everything.”
He trusted these words, echoing in his head along with the pounding pain, his head feeling as if it’s about to burst.
He didn’t know if he should trust her, but he felt as if this woman was his only hope now. He didn’t know her for too long yet, but he was sure she meant well. Unlike everyone else he’s met in his life. She wanted to make him happy.
She wouldn’t leave him, would she?
She said so and he couldn’t help but trust her.
Even in this pain he was going through just now. It was paralyzing, overwhelming, and yet it was nothing he couldn’t go through, because she kept telling him she wouldn’t leave.
And she didn’t. Every time he suffered like this, every time his head pounded from the substance she gave him, she’d stay with him, soothe him, run her fingers through his hair to comfort him, telling him it’ll be over soon.
He didn’t know if she wouldn’t sooner or later leave him as well. But he couldn’t help but let himself be naïve in this moment, letting her lead him forward.
He stared blankly at the wall.
“I need to go, take care of the others. But I will come back, I promise. So please, wait for me.”
He nodded shortly and so she left.
The place became suffocating and unbearable the very moment he was alone again. He didn’t know whether he wanted to cry, scream or run, but he felt sick.
It was stinky around him, he heard screams in other rooms too. Every single time someone screamed in pain, he’d sob in pain along. And every time someone yelled, he’d curl up, trembling, trying to push away all the painful memories.
His Savior never screamed at him. She wasn’t like that woman he used to live with. She didn’t scream. She said she’d come back; not to hurt him, but to help him.
He had to trust her. He didn’t have anyone else.
The walls were cold, the air – almost thick. His breath was shallow, as if there was no much oxygen left in here, ever since no windows would let more inside. He didn’t even know how long has he been here, but he knew lots of people were here before him. There were some dry substances on the plain, wooden bed he was also laying on, but he tried not to think about them. Ensuring himself it was only dried blood was the safest option to not overthink it.
In the moments when Savior came down here, it wasn’t so bad anymore. Her presence lightened up the whole space. She was beautiful and kind, albeit intimidating, making him almost ashamed that she had to go there for him and sit in such a dirty, awful place.
She deserved way, way more. He didn’t know her that well yet, but he was sure of it.
She made him feel at ease whenever she appeared.
“Savior…”
His heart clenched whenever she was away. It hurt to have to wait for her, because her presence made everything easier.
And yet, she never belonged to him to begin with. He wanted her to focus on him only, but she was the type of person who takes care of everyone, eventually not being close to any.
He was aware of that. And it hurt that she’d never be as dependent on him as he was on her.
He felt lonely once again, filled with sorrow. But the soft voice in his head didn’t let him cry, didn’t let him break down as he desperately wished to. It wasn’t giving him any relief.
“You can do this, Ray. You’re never allowed to give up.”
☀
Day 15th.
He kept repeating these words when his head felt as if it was about to burst. He curled up on the bed he was using now, trying to focus on anything else other than what he was feeling. Even pain from the burns wasn’t unbearable now, only the numbness spreading over his body seemed troublesome.
Eventually, he decided to get up.
Miya, the woman that ‘rescued’ him, went out a while ago and didn’t tell him, where. She wasn’t telling him anything about how were the other Believers doing nor what happened to the RFA in the end. It’s been five days ever since he lost contact with the world.
He had to find a phone.
His own has been destroyed, that he was sure of. He left it in Mint Eye, no chance it’d be of any use to him now.
He took a few steps towards the door, leaning against the wall to keep himself stable. He didn’t feel sick at least, only a bit dizzy, but the pain wouldn’t subside no matter what he did anyway, so he just tried his best to ignore it.
He entered the bathroom and the moment his eyes accidentally fell upon the mirror, he froze.
He tugged off his shirt in an instant.
His whole torso was bandaged, along with his arm and hand. Another bandage was around his neck. It didn’t hurt at all. He couldn’t feel anything. Along with the elixir, Miya must have given him some painkillers, apparently.
Because when he ripped off the bandages, he was more than sure it should hurt as hell.
The skin on his neck and upper chest was red. Deep red. There was almost no skin left there at all. Ripping off the bandage so roughly reopened the wounds, making fresh blood run down his chest, along with the sticky ointment Miya must have treated him with when he was unconscious. From the way she wrapped bandage around the burns he guessed she didn’t have much experience with such things. Neither he had though.
The burn on his arm was a bit better, only covered with blisters that would sooner or later go off. But he guessed it would be more efficient to let them ‘breathe’, without the bandages. The woman must have supposed it’s not too safe to leave them out considering he’d thrash around while sleeping.
There was a scar on his forehead too, as if something heavy hit him hard enough to break the skin.
His ribs were dark from bruises.
It didn’t hurt. But it should.
He felt numb.
His stomach twisted and he kneeled by the toilet to throw up the food he was given a few hours earlier.
He didn’t know what else other than the elixir Miya stuffed him with, but at least it worked. He didn’t feel anything from these wounds.
And yet the pain in his head would be the one considered unbearable.
He sat on the floor, leaning against the wall. He felt cold, the wounds seemed to take all the heat away from him. Now that he didn’t have any clothes on his upper body, the cool air of the room surrounded him, making him shiver.
But he couldn’t let himself rest like this. He had things to do. He needed to find Savior, whatever happened to her. He only hoped she’d be safe. He needed to make sure other Believers were safe as well. And a lot of other things…
He rested his healthy hand on the toilet seat to support himself while standing up. He reached to the sink and took a cup standing by to fill it with water, then drink it – definitely too fast, but he didn’t care.
He decided to check the other rooms. There must have been a computer.
The kitchen was small and empty, he didn’t find any food, only a few bottles of water. He wasn’t hungry anyway, but the water would be helpful. In one of the drawers, there were a few small bottles of turquoise liquid. He ignored them.
He went to the small living room, filled with as much as sofa, a few drawers, wardrobe and TV. He supposed Miya slept there when he took the bed. He wandered around the room and checked the drawers, but – aside from TV – not a single electrical device was there to be found.
He turned on TV, but – as he expected, actually – the news didn’t show anything he’d be interested in.
He went back to the bedroom.
In the only drawer here, there were only some ointments, boxes and first aid kit that seemed almost empty by now.
He sat back on the bed and shifted to lay as comfortably as it was possible, which actually meant just avoiding touching the wounds, nothing else really mattered to him now more than to getting himself to a state good enough to leave this place and do what he was supposed to.
But he couldn’t even force himself to think about it for long as the peaceful dream took over his body, quickly giving him a release from the torture of living.
☀
“Please… Five minutes more, dammit…”
“You will sleep when you’re dead, MC.”
“Then hurry up and kill me…”
He smirked and ruffled your hair, making you grumble but – finally – open your eyes. You shifted slightly, acknowledging the surroundings.
You were sitting on the passenger seat in a car, covered with a black hoodie. The owner of the said hoodie was sitting next to you, focused on the road. He had only a red shirt on, the silver cross on his chest glistened in the glow of street lights.
It was a very early morning, as the digital clock on the radio stated. Soft music played in the background, probably the only reason why you managed to stay asleep for so long.
You were driving through suburbs of some city you didn’t recognize. The drive lasted the whole night and – after spending the whole day trying to help Seven (or actually, trying to not disturb him as you turned out to be quite useless), the whole night has been spent on the road. Your body was stiff from the position you were in and you tried to cover yourself with the hoodie even more, clearly unpleased with the cool, morning air.
“So, what are we at…?” you mumbled. “And aren’t you cold? We can stop and get my jacket from the trunk.”
You two were aware what you were doing may take longer than one day, so you obviously prepared for all the cases you could predict. Low temperature was relatively easy to predict.
“We can do it later, if you want. I’m fine. Anyway.” He was so in hurry last evening that he didn’t really explain much to you. “I looked carefully over the map of the surrounding area and, thanks to the satellite recordings I found, I figured out the only road he could have used while leaving. Or anyone else who would be able to take him away. And it turned out that yes, at that time someone used this road. Driving their way to some point and then in the opposite direction. If this person wasn’t looking for the hacker, then I don’t know what they were doing, considering it was pretty much middle of night.”
He glanced at you, but you didn’t say anything, waiting for him patiently to continue. You only hoped he wouldn’t use any of his complicated slang to explain you how he came to these conclusions.
“Anyway. There are only two directions they may have used further, but the trees are in the way and I don’t know which one is the right one. I think it’s most possible they went to this city, because the other is way further away. They may have went even farther, but so far, we should start looking here for any hints. I can hack into the CCTV cameras everywhere, but it’ll be quite time consuming and we can’t ignore what we can find out from other resources.”
Now you looked up at him.
“Other resources?”
“People. In short. I suppose that most of these Believers chose to stay together, but it’s hard to find a place for so many people, isn’t it? Most of them were probably considered missing, coming back home would be troublesome, and I doubt they’d be even willing to do so. So I can bet if we look into the underground of this place, we’ll sooner or later find some of them. And that’s how we can find the hacker as well.”
“So… in other words, you’re gonna sit with the computer and look for the CCTVs, while I’m talking to strange people, yes…?”
His eyes widened as he stared at you, for a second forgetting about controlling the car. He quickly composed himself.
“A-are you crazy? I would never let you do something like this. Vanderwood will take care of it. He decided to go there on his own so he probably already started searching.”
“So… I’m useless again” you summarized.
“You can take care of food supplies since Mary will be busy” he offered with a goofy smile.
You rolled your eyes.
“Will try not to poison you guys.”
“Thankie~”
He chuckled and then fell silent again, focusing back on the road.
You leaned against the window and closed your eyes, trying to get a few more minutes of sleep, but it turned out you weren’t woken up for no reason; the car finally stopped and you looked around, memorizing the surroundings.
You still were in some rather poor district, definitely in the suburbs. Buildings were built tightly next to each other, not giving much space in between the rows, only as much as roads and the narrow paths for people.
Seven drove onto the path to stop the car and frowned all of sudden.
“…I didn’t predict that.”
You glanced at him, only partly suspecting what he meant.
“My car is… visible. Way too visible. I decided we should stay in this place to be unnoticed. But I… didn’t think about that…” He banged his head on the steering wheel. “…I’m so stupid.”
You couldn’t help but laughed softly.
“We’ll think of something. We can park somewhere closer to the city center and go back there some other way. By feet, for example. I doubt we’ll need to use this car too often, to be honest.”
“It’s still a long way to the center though” he whined.
“You can leave me with the bags here and I will wait for you” you offered. “You won’t have to drag everything.”
He whined once more.
Like a child, you thought.
“Can’t let you do that… This place isn’t the safest possible, especially now that we have cult members on the streets…”
You rolled your eyes.
“Then I don’t know what to do. Think of something, Zero.” You purposely used the other number, making him glare at you, a bit annoyed. Zero was definitely not a lucky number.
“…I will leave my baby for a few minutes. Nothing bad should happen. Nothing. Bad. Should Happen” he repeated. Paranoia much?
“No one will steal it, chill out.”
“But what if someone touches it and-“
“Oh my god, Seven, you’re exaggerating.”
“My baby…” he whined once more, but your glare made him quiet down in an instant. “…I-I will take you to the flat I rented and then come back here to find a good place to hide the car.”
“Well, that’s a good plan. I didn’t know you rented a flat though.”
“It’s… small. But it was the only place no one would ask us about anything. Our identity is safe here.”
“Unlike your car” you smirked.
Seven grumbled quietly.
“Get up, gotta hurry.”
“Aye~”
The place was rather quiet and empty at this hour, the road was rather narrow and didn’t predict larger traffic. As you remembered from your way here, another, wider road was on the other side of the row of buildings – old houses that looked as if they were about to fall apart – Seven stopped his car by.
As much as cars were rather rare here in general, you couldn’t not notice all the dirt around, trash and broken glass shreds laying on the street as if no one really cared about it. The smell was at least unpleasant.
“Let’s get in” you murmured, not really encouraged by these unwelcoming surroundings.
Seven looked around carefully before getting the bags from the trunk and going in the direction of one of the buildings. The elevator was out of order and so you were forced to go by feet onto the fourth floor. You didn’t complain much, but – what could you say – you were impressed Seven didn’t start to, considering he was carrying all these bags and even refused your help.
Obviously, he mentioned it before to be working for some agency, but you didn’t know what exactly was he doing there. It’d be obvious for him to just sit in front of his computers and… well, hack. But the way he seemed to easily do all this practical stuff made you suppose that he had more experience in this than it’d look like at first.
The flat he rented was, as he said, quite small. It was… well, it was furnished. There was a creaking bed with a pierced mattress in one room, along with an old TV that probably showed in greys, and a small drawer with an old, empty vase. In the other, also small room, there was a sofa and an old wardrobe… without doors. There was a kitchen and bathroom with only the necessary things inside; everything looked as if no one really took care of this place in years, even though people surely lived there in the meanwhile.
“Nice place, isn’t it?” Seven said happily and you weren’t sure whether he was serious or sarcastic, actually.
“U-um…” you stuttered. “Could… be worse” you noticed, trying to cheer yourself up. It didn’t work.
Seven smirked at your reaction.
“You’ll get used. Open the windows and let some air inside. We’ll clean it up a little and it’ll look pretty.”
“It’d look better… with some flowers” you said, staring at the vase standing lonely in the bedroom. “Hey, what about we hold a housewarming party? Maybe this one will be successful.” Your lips curled up in a very bitter smile.
“Oh, great idea, we can invite all the cats in the neighborhood” Seven chirped along, placing the bags on the floor. “Okay. Try to get cozy, I will be back in a few hours. Also…” His eyebrows furrowed slightly. “Don’t go out, and don’t open the door even if someone knocks. Just pretend no one’s home, okay?”
“What if neighbors want to say hi?” you asked, actually rather ensured no one would come.
“Just pretend not to be here. And, um… Don’t use the kitchen, I’ll need to make sure all the pipes work. We don’t want to have a fire here… Be careful with the bathroom too…” he smiled awkwardly.
You rolled your eyes but nodded. The idea of having to pay for any damage the previous tenant caused wasn’t really what you wished for on the first day here.
“I’ll just take a nap” you said, but he was already at the doorstep, probably not hearing you anymore.
“I’ll buy some food on my way here, so be patient.”
“See you later, Seven.”
And so you were left alone.
It was still early morning, but you seriously considered taking a nap. The night was longer than you’d wish and – no matter how comfortable – you were happy to not have to use Seven’s car any time soon.
You only hoped that your stay here would be as safe as he said.
–– MC has entered the chatroom ––
MC: Hello, guys…
–– Zen has entered the chatroom ––
Zen: MC!
Zen: You’re here.
Zen: Haven’t seen you in a while, you didn’t even say bye after our night…
MC: …You make it sound weird, Zen.
Zen: lol sry
–– Yoosung★ has entered the chatroom ––
Yoosung★: MC!
Yoosung★: …Are you okay?
Yoosung★: You disappeared so suddenly…
Yoosung★: As I think about it, Seven hasn’t been here lately too…
Yoosung★: V, on the other hand
Yoosung★: Comes here almost every day and asks about you two.
Yoosung★: But he’s not here now…
MC: Did he want something from us…?
Yoosung★: It seemed so, but I can’t be sure…
Zen: Wait
Zen: Did you say
Zen: “us”?
Zen: Are you with Seven?
MC: …
Yoosung★: Whaaa
Yoosung★: Are you???
MC: Guys;;
MC: I’m
You hesitated. Seven told you to keep it in secret from V. If you wrote it in the chat, he’d surely see it later. He’d surely figure out that you two ended up together like this.
No matter how much you hated to lie, you couldn’t reveal this secret. It wasn’t only yours, after all.
MC: I’m at home, just this
MC: I think I need a break from everything… A lot happened, after all.
Zen: Figures…
Yoosung★: Guess you’re tired T-T
Zen: It’s understandable…
MC: I was about to take a nap now so
MC: See you later!
Zen: Good bye.
Yoosung★: See you!
Yoosung★: Ah, my classes start, I’ll be going off as well. Bye!
–– MC has left the chatroom ––
–– Yoosung★ has left the chatroom ––
–– V has entered the chatroom ––
V: Oh
V: MC was here, I missed her…
Zen: You ok?
V: I’m good. But a bit disappointed I didn’t get to talk to her…
Zen: She said she just needs some time…
V: Yeah, I saw it…
Zen: It must have been tough for her, don’t you think…?
‘ holy shit, eduardo, what th’fuck happened to your face?! ’ immediately richie is upon the other man, hand hovering over the bloody bandage on eddie’s face. it slightly irritates him how worried richie still is over eddie, like they’re still those kids attached at the hip. but he doesn’t have time to be irked right now. eyes move to meet eddie’s, his brows furrowed and face scrunched in concern. ‘ y’know, besides the obvious flaws, ’ @diamondols.
