Why has nobody written that ST/IT crossover where troy and his friend are the first to find richie and they're like "hey frogface" and richie's like "who the fuck are you calling frogface?" and then troy's like "wow, now you have glasses? maybe it was all of that book squinting you do." and then it just becomes an insult fest and richie roasts the fuck out of troy and his friend (i forgot his name wow im terrible person) and then mike arrives and everyone is confused
i love this and you. here, take my brain’s first word dump on this:
Richie didn’t think he looked that much like Mike. He could see it, but not really. Other kids at school though, were easily fooled apparently. Especially those with only two brain cells to feebly rub together.
“Well well well.” Troy scoffed. He walked towards Richie like a cowboy with a full diaper– what a fucking dumbass. “Isn’t it Frogface.”
Richie was trying to peacefully smoke the cigarette he bummed from Billy’s dresser without his knowledge. But now, Troy was instigating Richie, which meant he had to fucking eat literal ash and be burned by his own words.
“Who the fuck you calling ‘Frogface’?” Richie asked, ashing his cigarette.
“Oh wow, James. Check out the binoculars Froggie’s got!” Troy pointed at Richie’s glasses with new found enjoyment. “Need ‘em from squinting at all those fucking comic books, nerd?”
“No. I need them so I can see who the fuck you think you are talking to. Because I know it’s not me.” Richie placed the cigarette back between his lips and inhaled deeply. This was why he smoked; it forced him to breathe.
“Oh, got some fire in you today, huh?” Troy laughed and still waddled closer. Smoke came out Richie’s nose as he laughed at his poor attempt to be tough. “What are you laughing at, Froggie?”
“Your terrible Clint Eastwood impression.” Richie hissed the smoke into his face. “You look like a damn fool, Troy. And James, come on– do you really take orders from this guy?”
“At least I don’t take orders from that little fucking fairy Byers!” James spat. It was a sad excuse for a loogie, landing on the grass beside Richie’s shoe.
“Yeah! He’s practically a girl!” Troy tacked on proudly.
“Why is that a bad thing?” Richie took another deep breath. “We both know a girl who emptied your bladder against your will.”
“We don’t talk about that fucking freak accident.” Troy hissed, pointing at Richie. “She did something with her mind.”
“Use it to think?” Richie suggested. “I know that’s a freak event for you two.”
“Fucking watch it, Wheeler!” Troy grabbed Richie by the shirt and hoisted him off the ground. Richie braced himself against the wall with his feet and tried to maintain a sense of composure. “So help me God I’ll smear you across the parking lot right now!”
“Watch yourself,” Richie held up his cigarette between his thumb and forefinger. “Don’t want to get burned by two fags now do we?”
“Don’t start mouthing off-”
“They’re called Lucky Strike because you are lucky enough to get a warning before your third strike and I put this out in your fucking eye.” Richie gritted, still trying not to fall from Troy’s grip.
“Where did you get these balls, Frogface? Where are you friends to do the fighting for you?” James asked. He pushed Richie and his head bummed against the wall.
“One.”
“Oh, tough guy thinks he’s going scare us? You’ve got nothing on us, Frogface!”
“Two.”
“Oooo I’m really shaking over here–”
“Richie! What’s going on over here?” Mike rounded the corner of the adjacent wall and gasped at his brother. “Put him down!”
Richie fell with unceremonious speed, cigarette still safe between his fingers. “You’re out.”
“Wh-What the fuck?” James sputtered.
“Where is she?” Troy demanded suddenly, whipping around in circles. He turned so quickly, the straps of his backpack slapped against Richie’s face. “Where’s that freak girl?”
“What? El has nothing to do with this.” Mike said sharply. “What are you doing to Richie?”
“We’re just twins you simpleton.” Richie said, speaking around his cigarette. He got to his feet and walked over to Mike. He immediately started brushing the dirt off the back of Richie’s shirt carefully. Their contact confirmed to Troy and James that they were both in fact real and tangible; their eyes seemed to expand in their heads.
“N-No. There’s not two of them.” Troy seemed to tremble with the thought. Richie was delighted by the fear and Mike seemed offended. Mike liked to think he was the palatable twin. “Great. More freaks.”
“Wait a minute.” Richie laughed. “Who are the idiots here that couldn’t tell us apart?”
“Shut it, Frogface!”
“I’m not Frogface, he is!” Richie pointed his nearly finished cigarette as his brother.
“Richie!” Mike huffed and slapped the butt out of his hand. “Don’t encourage him.”
“I’m inspiring creativity, Michael.”
“I’ll be sure to inspire some creativity in mom later when she grounds you for smoking.”
“You wouldn’t dare–”
“Both of you shut up!” Troy shouted, grabbing and clacking their heads together.
“Hey, don’t talk to my brother like that!” Richie and Mike snapped in unison. A terrifying first.
“Oh fuck this.” James scoffed. He turned on a dime and stormed away, leaving Troy, yet again, to look confused and scared out of his mind. Richie took pity on Troy sometimes; he was just so fucking stupid.
Richie suggested from then on that he and Mike would start wearing name tags. Mike of course told him it was stupid and yanked him by his ear to their car. Sometimes one twins just got all the brains and the humor.
sup my bro my buddy my amigo. idea: nancy being a overprotective sister of richie and mike and them just being total sibling goals
“Would you two shut up for just five goddamn minutes! I’m trying to drive!” Nancy cried, slamming her hands on the steering wheel. “I can’t focus when you two are screaming.”
“Maybe you’re just a bad driver.” Richie heckled, leaning up towards the driver’s seat. “Didn’t Steve always drive you to school?”
“I am a fine driver.” Nancy seethed. She turned on the radio to try and drown out her brother. “Sit down in your seat, Richie. I can’t do anything when you are kneeling–”
“I bet Steve says–”
“Shut up, Richie.” Mike groaned, grabbing his brother by the collar and yanking him into his seat. “You’re going to kill us.”
“We’d only be so lucky.” Richie said. “I hate this song.” Mike didn’t even know it, but it sounded like the main instrument was a flute or something.
“How far away are we, Nancy?” Mike asked, trying to redirect the conversation.
“We’ll get there when we get there!” Nancy cried, her voice shrill. “I don’t know where this fucking comic book store is and Mom gave me shit directions!”
Mike shrank back in his seat. “Sorry. I was just asking.”
“Well, until you can drive you aren’t allowed to ask anymore questions.” Nancy said.
Richie looked at Mike, who was still lowering his head from his sister’s rear-view mirror stare. “Fuck her.” He mouthed, hitting his brother in the arm. He rolled his eyes and stuck out his tongue, showing exhaustion to her recent outbursts.
Richie had a thicker skin when it came to Nancy (and probably Nancy alone) but Mike was still unsure how to handle her when she was upset about things that weren’t him putting syrup on her eggs or stealing her quarters. They were bigger life things that Mike wasn’t in control of, but he was yelled at and felt responsible for. College sounded like a terrible thing.
“I’m pulling over. We need gas and I need Richie to annoy the cashier for at least five minutes.” Nancy said, turning the car into a barely-busy gas station.
“Buy me a Snickers bar and I can make it ten.” He said, grabbed the back of Nancy’s seat to put his head beside hers. She held up a dollar bill as she put the car in park beside a pump. “Solid! Let’s go Mike and Ike!”
“I wish you would stop calling me that.” Mike sighed, opening the car door and sliding off the seat. “We’ll be right back, Nancy.”
“Okay.” She said, pushing on her temples. Mike felt the urge to say something pathetically gushy to her, but he slammed the door and followed Richie instead.
“Hello my good, sir.” Richie said loudly, barely checking to see if the man standing at the register that Sunday morning was even a man.
“Nope.” The man said, taking one look at both Richie and Mike. “Get out.”
“What?”
“Excuse me.” Richie said, unfazed. “I have money to exchange for goods and or services.” He held up the dollar. “And I request a Snickers.”
“I don’t sell to people like you.”
“Like us?” Mike echoed. “Twins?” People were thrown off often, but they had never encountered a problem before. The Shining had done very little for their cause.
“I have the right to reserve service to anyone. And I don’t serve fairies.” the man said gruffly, folding his arms. “Don’t make me ask you again.”
“Fairies?” Richie echoed, touching his face. “My ears aren’t that long are they, Mikey?”
“Richie.” Mike hissed. “Don’t start with him. We don’t even know where we are; maybe people are just really… anti- hawaiian patterns.”
“Hey, I bought these Jams with my own money. I like them!” Richie ran his hands over his brightly colored shorts. “Just because they have colors on them doesn’t mean I’m gay.” Richie argued. “It’s my boyfriend who does that–”
“Richie!” Mike grabbed his arm and tried to pull him back out the door. Richie was lying, but he was saying all the right things to push the owner’s buttons. He was fuming, hand fumbling under the desk and pulling a phone to his ear.
“Don’t make me call the cops.” The man said. He could have been doing a lot worse, but Mike wasn’t about to test his luck. “Get out of my store.”
“Come on, guys! What are you doing, making the candy yourself?” Nancy said, pushing the door in and forcing the bell to clang against the glass harshly. It was the only noise as the man’s fingers hovered over the phone’s dial. Richie was practically being gagged by his brother and Mike could feel the sweat forming by his temples. “What’s going on here?”
“Are you with them?” The man asked.
“Yes. I am.” Nancy said. “What the hell did you two do?” She yanked Mike’s hand away from Richie’s mouth.
“We look gay.” Mike said, his brother still sputtering through the past two minutes of commentary. “He won’t let us buy candy.”
Nancy blinked at Mike, the tension on her face dissolving. Her eyes softened and her hands reached for both of theirs. “What candy do you want?”
“I just wanted something with fucking caramel.” Richie said, fixing his waistband and huffing at the pattern he was growing to feel insecure about. Mike could see the doubt cross his brother’s face quickly, Richie rushing to shove his glasses farther up on his face and disguise his furrowed eyebrows.
“I wanted gum.” Mike admitted.
“I would like a pack of Wrigley’s.” Nancy took the dollar from Richie and placed it on the counter. Her hand smacked against the metal surface. “And something with fucking caramel in it.”
“I am refusing service.”
“Give me the fucking candy.” Nancy grumbled. “I just paid three dollars for two gallons of gas. The least you could do is give me and my brothers some goddamn candy.”
“Don’t start threatening him, Nancy Drew. It’s okay. We can go.” Richie said, trying to explain the deadlock grimaces off Nancy and the owner’s face.
“No. We aren’t leaving until you get your candy.” She leaned her elbow on the counter, resting her chin on her hand. “I have all day.”
“I don’t serve people like them.”
“Children?” Nancy laughed, shaking her head. “Boys? Twins? Nerds?”
“Hey!”
“What about them makes them unservable?” Nancy motioned towards her brothers, Richie in his bright pants and coke bottle glasses and Mike in his old summer camp shirt and ruddy sneakers. “You can’t possibly be that ignorant.” She sighed. “Give us the damn candy so we can leave.” He opened his mouth again, although with less urgency and confidence. “Are you going to deny service to me?” She leaned back on the counter with both elbows.
The dollar was replaced with both pieces of candy.
“Fuck.” Richie muttered.
“And a pack of Lucky Strikes,” Nancy added, pointing over his shoulder. “for good looks.” She winked. The pack was handed to her with the same hand that previously held the telephone. He lost.
“Check fucking mate.” Richie laughed, grabbing the Snickers off the counter and running out the door with Nancy and Mike behind.
They all climbed back in the car, Nancy laughing as Richie bestowed half his Snickers bar to her. She denied it and pushed it towards Richie, telling him to enjoy it. He did it without being told twice.
In his chewing, Mike was able to take advantage of the silence. “Why did you take cigarettes?” He said. “You don’t smoke.”
“Yeah, I know.” Nancy was a moment away from giggling, her face flushed red. “I just always wanted to do that.”
“Who knew you were a badass?” Richie said, teeth nearly stuck together by caramel.
“Demanding to be treated equal is not being badass.” Nancy said, finally turning the car over and beginning to pull away from the station. “I’m just looking out for you guys.” Mike saw her face tense up although her words were gentle and quiet.
Oh shit. It wasn’t college, was it? Mike reached forward and touched Nancy’s shoulder, trying to catch her eyes in the rear view mirror at the red light. “We’re going to miss you, Nance.”
“I’m going to miss you guys too.” She sighed. She reached across herself to hold Mike’s hand. “I don’t want to leave, but–”
“We understand.” Richie said, surprisingly aware of the gravity of the conversation. “We want you to be happy though.”
“Thanks, Richie.” Nancy’s lips pressed together as her smile restrained from crumpling from her quivering bottom lip.
“Yeah, you’ve got to go to college and be fucking smarter than Ted.”
“That’s not hard, Richie.” Mike countered. “Dad’s kind of an idiot.”
“Well, we need you to be super smart so you can make a lot of money and we can live with you instead of Mom and Dad.” Richie said, patting Nancy’s shoulder with a wink.
“Promise?” She laughed, her eyes watering. “Move in with me?”
“Promise.”
“You’ll always be my little brothers?”
“I mean, physically we have no choice. Sure.”
“And I’m your favorite sister?”
“Holly doesn’t get us cheap candy, so, yeah.” Richie said, wrapping his arms around Nancy’s shoulders. “You’re the best there is.”
Mike and Richie twin prompt: Mike is hurt pretty badly and Richie is angry and superprotective ?
An alternate way of Richie dealing with a broken arm…
Richie had never heard a bone break in his entire life. He never wanted to hear it. He hoped old age would have deafened him before he ran into a situation where a bone would snap near him, exposing him to what he imagined to be the worse sound. He had never heard it, but he was sure it was terrible.
As Richie soon came to find out; it was.
Mike was out at the arcade, Richie feeling too lethargic and blatantly not interested to go with him and the rest of his friends. He was lounging on the couch, paging through a comic book he had borrowed from Dustin– well, Mike borrowed it from Dustin and Richie was stealing it from Mike for the afternoon. The solitude wasn’t always Richie’s favorite, but it was nice to have the house to himself.
Eventually, as Richie threw the comic to the side and onto the floor, he could hear voices coming up the street. The windows were open in the summer weather, and Richie could easily pick out his brother’s voice biking up the street. Richie waited for Dustin or Lucas to answer his brother, but he sounded alone.
“Mike? Who are you talking to?” Richie asked, speaking mostly to himself. “Mike?” He opened the front door to the sound of clattering metal on the asphalt. Mike’s bike was on the street, the boy himself a few feet back, on his side. Another boy in a bike was circling him, tantalizing him and finally becoming the second voice in the street. “MIKE!”
Richie stepped out on the house’s front step, and for a second thought he had splintered the wooden porch. There was a thick, tangible snap as Richie moved towards his brother. He looked down at his feet and saw the porch undisturbed and in tact, his eyes shooting up to his brother now writhing on the street, crying.
“Mike?” Richie cried, running forward. Mike was heaving and coughing, rolling onto his back and clutching his right arm to his chest. It looked awkwardly bent, and Richie couldn’t help but hear the same crack again with every step. The boy on the bike continued to cycle around him, laughing at him as he began crying. “Hey! Hey, what the fuck is your problem!”
“See you around, freaks!” The kid waved and mocked both of them before pedaling off down the end of the street. He kicked gravel up at them, a stone clinking off of Richie’s glasses.
“Hey! Get back here, asshole!” Richie yelled, taking off after him. His feet pounded the sidewalk and each step felt like he was going to snap his own legs in half, but it was the only way to keep up with the boy. “I’m not through with you.”
“Catch me if you can, Dick!” The kid swung a sudden right turn off their street and into the woods winding away from them. “Broke like a twig!” His voice echoed back to Richie as he skidded to a halt.
“Yeah, you fucking run, asshole! I’ll– I’ll fuck you up…” Richie’s voice faded into the silent neighborhood, barely meeting the laughter bubbling from the woods. “I’m gonna kill that motherfucker.” Richie muttered, reaching down and throwing a rock into the dirt trail of the boy..
“Ri-Richie!” Mike whined, his voice creaking with distance. “Richie!”
“Here I come, Mike. Don’t worry. Here I come!” Richie cried, turning and sprinting back to his brother. He was in the middle of the street, alone and terrified. “Shit, here I am.”
Mike was trying to sit up, his one arm limp across his lap and words jumping out of his throat with his sobs. Richie skidded to his knees, scraping them as he slowed to a stop at Mike’s side. His hands hovered over Mike, afraid to touch him.
“What do I do? Mike, oh my god. What do I do?” Richie cried. “Mike, what hurts?”
“M-My arm. It’s broken.” Mike coughed, the pain contorting his face. “Fuck, Richie. It hurts.”
“What happened?” Richie asked, pulling him into his side. “I thought you were at the arcade. What the fuck happened, Mike?”
“I was.” Mike said, gripping Richie’s arm like he was slipping through his hands and into another wave of pain. “H-He followed me home. He’s from the high school.”
“What the fuck did he want with you?” Richie grumbled. He wrapped an arm around Mike’s waist and tried to hoist him to his feet. Mike wasn’t heavy, but his legs were weak under him, bending and collapsing with any weight on them. “Mike, come on. Work with me a little bit. I can’t do this by myself.”
“I can’t.” Mike whined, tears streaking his cheeks. “It hurts so bad, Richie. It hurts so bad.” The grip on his other arm was white-knuckle and unrelenting.
“I know. Okay okay. We have to call for help, Mike.”
“No no no.” He begged, shaking his head. “They’re going to push it back in place. No, no you can’t.”
“Mike. You have to!” Richie said firmly, grabbing his waist again. “It’s either that or get ready for me to cut it off with a butter knife.” Mike groaned and closed his eyes, like if he pressed hard enough everything would shut off. Richie wished he could make that happen. Instead, he counted down slowly before hoisting his brother to his feet. He screamed and Richie had to pretend he was playfully shrieking in the quarry, or squealing at recess.
“Where’s mom?” Mike whimpered, limping along with Richie. “Don’t tell me she’s still out.”
“She should be back soon.” Richie promised. “You’re okay, Mike. Really. I’ve got you.” He leaned his head against Mike, trying to give support without dropping him back on the street.
“Richie, I’m scared.” Mike whispered, barely speaking over the squeak of the front door. “I’m scared.”
Richie eased his brother through the house and into a chair in the dining room, resting his side against the table to give his arm somewhere to rest. He wasn’t sure what else he was supposed to do; his brother was screaming and writhing and sobbing with pain Richie couldn’t comprehend with his rattled brain and he was clueless. He didn’t know what to do and it was making him feel like the worst brother Mike could ever have been stuck with. Mike could have come home to Nancy, maybe Jonathan if he was over, or their mother. Instead, Mike was chased down by bullies and badly hurt and all he had was Richie to help.
“Mike, hey, listen to me.” Richie said, crouching in front of his brother. “Hey, hey look at me.” Mike stared down at his arm and its new and frightening shape. “Hey! Look at me. Mike, you’re going to be fine.”
“How do you know?” Mike begged, his voice quaking as he tried to still his body’s shaking.
“I don’t know.” Richie said the words without them filtering through his brain. Mike’s eyes went wide and his lip began to quiver too. Fuck fuck fuck. “But, I’m not going to let anything else bad happen. I’ll call mom and Nancy and Jonathan and even– fuck, what’s his name– Steve. I’ll see who’s the closest and we’re going to get you to the doctor.”
“Yeah?” He sniffled, looking at Richie with focused eyes. They were dark, everything behind them fighting to be the center of his attention, but he stayed with Richie.
“Yeah.” Richie nodded, squeezing his knee. “Now let me call them–” Richie’s hand was caught and yanked back. “What, Mike? What’s wrong?”
“Don’t leave me.” Mike pleaded. “I don’t want to be by myself.”
“Okay… Okay… Uh.” Richie looked behind him at the telephone and the surrounding walls. He was sure there was another plug behind the china cabinet. “Give me one second, okay? Just one.”
“Richie.”
“Trust me.” He said, holding a hand out to Mike before sprinting into the kitchen.
He ripped the phone off the wall harshly, the bell clattering inside, before running back to Mike. He placed the phone on the floor by the cabinet as he situated himself between the furniture and the wall. Using his legs against the wall, he pushed the china cabinet over enough to see the plug. Richie fumbled with the plug in his fingers before being able to put it in the wall. He tapped the receiver quickly, waiting for the dial tone to ring in his ear. Once it echoed in his ear, he quickly began dialing the number of Holly’s daycare, knowing his mother would be there. As he waited for someone else to answer, and to no longer be alone and be Mike’s only hope, he sat beside Mike’s chair, holding his hand tightly.
“Hey, Mom?” Richie said. His mother answered slowly, knowing something was wrong just by Richie’s wavering greeting. “Something bad happened a-and we need you to drive Mike to the hospital. Someone broke his arm.”
“I’m okay, Mom!” Mike called over the line. “Richie’s here. I’m okay until you can get here.”
Richie pressed Mike’s hand against his chest as he talked his mother through everything he saw and tried to do. Even though Mike was probably speaking from some altered state of comfort from shock, Richie was able to exhale knowing that his brother trusted him and his makeshift sense of responsibility.
Richie could take care of a broken bone. Well, he could, if he wanted to. The two broken arms he was going to cause the next time he saw that asshole on the bike Richie had no intention of healing.
What the fuck is True Sight? Richie sure as hell doesn’t know and doesn’t trust it. Well, he wouldn’t if it wasn’t for the fact he had every reason and feeling telling him he had found a missing half after thinking he was complete the whole time. Part 1 | Part 2
“Run it by me one more time.” Richie asked, taking off his glasses and pinching his nose. He was sitting on the back of Eddie’s car again, unable to stand and comprehend the unfolding events at the same time. Only one miracle at a time.
“True Sight.” Mike repeated. “It’s like, seeing into a different dimension.”
“I can barely see with the eyes in my fucking head and you’re telling me I can see a whole other goddamn world?” Richie cried, pointing at his face. “I don’t know what kind of joke this is, but I’m not laughing.”
“It’s not a joke, Richie.” Will pleaded. “You have to believe me. I’ve been there.”
“Been where? Another dimension? A-Are you joking?” Richie coughed out a laugh. “I mean, you’re high, right?”
“N-No.” Will said, looking at Richie with a confused face. “No.”
“You have to be. This is insane. First, I’m a fucking twin and now I’m what? A fucking psychic?”
“It doesn’t tell the future. It’s the present, just, in The Upside Down.” Mike explained, waving a hand at Richie, trying to clear his mind of the false assumptions like a fly in his vision.
“The what?” Richie laughed again. “Okay, so that’s made up.”
“It’s what Eleven called it!” Mike cried, defending himself. He didn’t seem to find the main oddity in his sentence so Richie let him have it, choosing to stand up and leave everyone standing around Eddie’s car. “Hey, where are you going?” Mike reached out and grabbed onto Richie. In an instant the world switched to black, the street cracking under his feet and slime sliding down the bumper of Eddie’s car.
“Hey! Stop doing that!” Richie screamed, trying to pull his arm out of the invisible grip around his arm. He took a step forward, hoping to slip out of it, but the grip followed. “Stop it! Stop it!”
“Richie?” It was Eddie, but he sounded an entire room away, like he was standing on the second floor of a building and speaking down to him. “Mike, what’s happening?”
“He’s seeing it.”
“Stop! I don’t want to! This isn’t fucking cool, man. Stop!” Richie turned to stare at Mike, or rather where he should have been, but instead saw a towering, swirling tunnel of black smoke. It hovered over Eddie’s car, its gusts of wind breaking the windows in a terrifying silence. It would be like screaming into a vacuum. No one would hear Richie. “What the fuck is that! Hey, stop! Let go of me!” The smoke shifted and slid like a snake, coiling around Richie’s feet. He started screaming, without words and without any restraint. He wasn’t sure if they’d ever hear him. “Stop, I don’t want to see this! Stop it, Mike! Stop!”
Finally, in a flash of blinding sunlight, the world around Richie returned. Eddie was in front of him, shoving Mike backwards. Bill was holding Richie’s other arm, but he didn’t notice until his eyes fell on the boy’s hand; his body was still gaining sensation as his eyes adjusted to the bright light.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but you need to stop!” Eddie cried, placing a hand on Richie’s arm firmly, although hesitant to what would flash before his eyes at his touch. The world stayed same.
“Drive me home.” Richie ordered, turning and going towards the car. “Take me home now.”
“Sure, sure.” Eddie nodded, agreeing with Richie demands. “Of course.”
“No, wait! We need to understand this!” Mike cried.
“No! I don’t care about the fucking Topsy-Turvy or the fucking Up Your Ass! I don’t care! I’ve had it to my fucking eyeballs-- the ones that see reality-- in this weird intergalactic shit. I don’t care. I don’t want it. I don’t fucking care!” Richie screamed, nearly touching noses with Mike. “You didn’t want me before you found out I can fucking hallucinate in goddamn negatives, but the minute I’m useful, you want me. So much for being my fucking twin.”
“That’s it!” Will cried, waving his hand out and cutting the tension between Richie and Mike. “The fusion.” Richie looked at the small boy through half-lidded eyes, barely able to listen.
“The what.”
“You guys were connected at birth. And Mike, remember when you were in the tunnels? What happened?”
“I got attacked on my way out. A vine got me.” Mike shrugged. Richie laughed, turning to look at Bill and Eddie, making sure they shared his expression. “So?”
“I-It must have wanted you next. But you don’t have True Sight; Richie does! He’s missing.” Will exclaimed, waving his arms out. Eddie blinked at him slowly and Bill was holding his temples, sitting on the back of Eddie’s car.
“T-T-This is ridiculous.” Bill muttered, shaking his head.
“No, Will. I was dead. They said I was dead. Nice bullshitting though. Become a novelist, kid. Make good money.”
Richie rolled his eyes and went back to Eddie’s car. He climbed into the passenger seat without another word, waiting for Bill to climb in the back and Eddie to get into the driver’s seat. He wanted to go home-- home? What the fuck was that now. Richie hadn’t even met his biological parents. The impostors standing around his house would only make Richie feel worse. “I call a sleepover, Eddie. I fucking need it.”
“Why don’t I drive you home-”
“And where is that exactly?” Richie said, arms crossed. He watched Mike and Will disappear in the side mirror, unable to feel anything but a tug growing in his chest.
Bill was asleep on the floor while Richie and Eddie struggled to fit on Eddie’s childhood twin mattress. Eddie was quietly snoring but Richie was staring up at the ceiling and what was left of the glow-in-the-dark stars taped above them. It was too dark for Richie to feel safe. He kept thinking he’d open his eyes and be in the Down place Mike was talking about-- lying about. Richie knew he had to be lying. That place couldn’t have been real. It sounded like a bad trip, some fever dream or a drug hallucination. Richie wasn’t missing from Mike. Nobody ever missed Richie.
“Richie.” Eddie mumbled. “It feels like I’m sleeping with a dead body.” He tapped Richie on the chest lightly. “Relax.”
“I can’t.” Richie confessed, reaching for his glasses on the night table. “I can’t stop thinking about that shit.”
“It’s all a lie. Go to sleep, baby.” Eddie’s speech was slurred but his words were sincere. “It’s nothing.”
Richie stirred, his feet kicking up the blankets. “But I know what I saw.”
“Wha?” Eddie muttered.
“Nothing.” Richie said, placing a hand on Eddie’s hand and pressing him into his shoulder. “It’s nothing.”
Richie couldn’t shake the ice cold chill still tickling his skin. He wasn’t sure what he saw, but it wasn’t as much as a mirage as he had hoped-- he could still feel the tickling atmosphere in his throat, like he was smoking his first cigarette all over again. The deafening silence that wrapped him up, making him swallow his screams like a potent sleeping pill. The black smoke that was without eyes but seemed to see Richie and track his movements. Mike was the only thing he could really feel when the world was volatile and black and oozing with slime. Mike was the only thing that grounded him. Richie belonged to something, to someone in a far bigger way than a date to prom and a hand to hold under tables. Richie completed something. He wasn’t as forgettable as he had been that morning, just trying to wander downtown with his boyfriend and childhood friend, hand in hand. Richie had a family.
“Eddie.” Richie said, slowly slipping his arm out from under his body. “Eddie, I have to go.”
“What? Where are you going?” Eddie asked, slapping the mattress, trying to find Richie’s body again.
“Home.” Richie said, grabbing his jeans from the end of the bed and slipping them on.
“Richie, what? No. It’s late. Wait until morning.” Eddie insisted, pushing up on his elbows.
“I at least have to see Mike. I don’t know what’s going on.” Richie stepped carefully around Bill. “And I don’t intend to lie around oblivious anymore.”
“Richie, wait!” Eddie clambered out of bed and chased Richie out into the hallway. “You don’t know what he’s hiding.”
“What does that mean?” Richie asked. No one was more suspicious than Richie, all possible outcomes considered. Well, most of the typical ones.
“Aren’t you tired of chasing bad news?” Eddie sighed, grabbing Richie by the shoulders. “Richie, please, don’t do this. It’s not worth it.”
“How do you know that?” Richie sighed, not stopping as he continued to tuck his shirt into his jeans. “Maybe I can help! Maybe I’m meant for this.”
“Meant for what? More world saving! That’s not up to you, Richie! Please!” Eddie was whispering as to not wake his mother, but he was desperate, gripping Richie’s shirt like he was wiling to tear it and Richie’s persistence to shreds. “Baby, please.”
“I have... True Sight.” Richie said, the words trying to break through his teeth as he struggled to confess. “I have to help. I have to be good for something.”
“Richie--”
“I’ll be back later.” Richie said firmly. “Tell my foster parents I’ll be back later.”
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