Chapter Text
Beverly’s living room is clean, warm and comforting. Molly helps them get the blankets and pillows needed for them all to sleep comfortably, but goes to her room as soon as they’re finished, wishing them a good night — she doesn’t bother telling Beverly to sleep in her room, because, somehow, she knows it’d do the Losers no good, and she doesn’t want her niece to have to go and do things behind her back again.
In the end, the Losers are all gathered close in a mountain of pillows and blankets, and the awkwardness hanging between them is almost palpable. Richie’s sitting on the carpet, his back against the couch, and he’s holding onto a pillow as if he were holding onto life itself, fingers clutching at it nervously. He’s been fidgeting since they left the car, since Molly prohibited him from moving around and told him to rest, because the others could take care of it.
And now that they’re close again, now that they’re at each other’s side, Richie seems to be hiding in the same shell he was before — the quiet, scared one; the one that doesn’t interact and doesn’t talk and bottles things up until it’s too late to try and keep them at bay.
Mike watches, confused and guilty, as Beverly and Bill share an agonized look. He guesses they have the same doubts and insecurities as him, and that sucks, because it means no one knows what to do. They can’t simply pretend it didn’t happen, because they don’t want to. But they also can’t take that decision from Richie, they can’t force it upon him and expect it to end well.
But Mike wants to hug him. Mike wants to wrap his arms all around Richie, bring him close, offer him comfort, allow him to bury his head on his chest and stay. He’s in the process of gathering enough courage to do so when Ben — kind-hearted, soft spoken Ben, who’s lovely and good and would never hurt a fly — takes action. He comes and sits in front of Richie, without saying a word. Richie doesn’t look up, not at first.
Ben reaches out, and takes his hands gently. It’s not a big gesture, he just takes them between his, fingers rubbing small circles over Richie’s skin. And, at first, Mike doesn’t understand it — he doesn’t get it. He’s about to give Ben a confused look when, suddenly, Beverly breathes out a sigh of surprise.
“Holy shit.” she whispers, very, very softly, and Mike sees it.
There are tears rolling down Richie’s cheeks, slowly, too slowly, and the tip of his nose’s already red, blush creeping onto his face, neck and ears. Richie doesn’t make a sound, but he doesn’t try to hide either. With shaky shoulders and an uneven breath, he holds Ben’s hands, interlacing their fingers and squeezing. Ben doesn’t tell him it’s okay. Ben doesn’t ask him what’s wrong — he doesn’t say a thing.
And, just like that, Mike understands.
Richie’s throat is closed — there’s a lump in it threatening to suffocate him, his chest heavy, his vision blurry with tears. He’s tired. He’s just so, so tired.
Mike sits next to him, close, too close, and wraps an arm kindly around Richie’s shoulders. And it’s not a forceful contact, he’s not obligating Richie to accept it. Mike’s there if he wants to reach out to him — and the surprising part in this is that Richie does. Richie does.
When he starts sobbing, the Losers gather around quickly. Richie breaks. He slumps against Mike’s chest, whole body shaking, and is immediately enveloped in warmth. Mike hugs him from behind, burying his face against Richie’s hair. Ben’s still holding his hands — Beverly and Stan lie each in one of his shoulders, reaching out to Richie with their fingers and their voices and small whispers of comfort. Bill and Eddie take Ben’s sides; while Eddie joins Ben in holding his hands, Bill reaches out to cup his face softly, thumbs wiping away his tears.
No one says anything. None of them. Even Stan and Beverly, who are talking, don’t really seem to be trying to get to him. They’re just — mumbling. Murmuring. Whispering quietly, so quietly their voices are nothing but a background buzzing sound, numbing his senses.
Richie cries. He cries until his lungs feel like they’re on fire, until his throat feels raw, until his eyes are sore and he feels like dying. Richie cries until there’s nothing else to cry about — and then he cries more.
By the time he stops crying, there’s a dull ache in his chest, a few tears still escaping here and there. His eyes hurt, he feels tired, and it’s like there are tons of sand in his mouth, hot and awful.
“I saw IT.” Richie chokes out, voice hoarse, small, and that hurts, too. “I keep — I keep seeing things whenever I close my eyes. Whenever I go to sleep at night. It’s — it’s everywhere. The balloons. The — the laugh. The b-b-blood. The clown.”
They go still at the mention of the clown, and an horrible feeling settles inside Richie, like a wave crashing down on him, cold water filling him up to his core. Fresh tears roll down his cheeks, and Richie finds it in himself that he can still cry more.
“I’m sorry.” he hiccups, and frees his hands from Ben and Eddie’s hold to push Bill’s fingers away, to cover his eyes, to hide himself. “I’m sorry I fucked up. I’m sorry I freaked out. I — I’ll get it if you — if you don’t want to see me anymore, if you — if you want me to leave, but, shit, I — I’m fucking — I’m fucking sorry, ok? I’m sorry. I — I’m sorry.”
There’s a moment where the only thing Richie can hear are his own sobs echoing in the living room, the rainstorm out there having dimmed to a small, barely-there sound of tiny droplets of water against the windows. And then, when it starts to make him feel self-conscious, when it starts to feel like too much, when Richie feels as if he’s going insane — Beverly reaches out, and pries off his fingers from his face.
She’s not rude. She’s not cruel. She does it gently, slowly, her own fingers trembling slightly. And Richie lets her. He lets her because he knows Beverly would never, ever hurt him — not consciously, not at all.
“Sometimes...” Beverly starts, voice fragile, sounding vulnerable — it’s the first time Richie hears her sounding like that —, and stops for a moment, just so she can breathe in deeply, holding his hand close to her chest. “Sometimes, when I’m alone, I think about my father.”
Richie’s breath hitches.
Hi, Beverly. Are you still my little girl?
He feels painfully sick. He feels nauseated. Beverly gives a small, failing laugh, and Richie’s heart sinks to his somatch.
“And I’m scared, you know? I’m scared he’ll come and — and take me away. Hurt me. Hurt you guys.” she sniffles, and her fingers interlace with his, holding tightly, so tightly his hand’s a little numb. “Sometimes, I dream of red walls and blood covering everything. And I — I just... Did you know aunt Molly thought red was my favorite color? She was going to paint my room with it, to try and... Try and make me happy. Comfortable. I cried when I found out. She thought she did something wrong. We didn’t — we didn’t talk it out. She threw out everything red she had — dishes, clothes, decoration. Everything. And it wasn’t even her fault.”
Richie looks at her, and Beverly’s crying, too — eyes puffy, tears making their way down her cheeks and chin. But she looks brave. She looks braver than Richie’s ever been, braver than Richie’ll ever be.
“She lets me go out and hang out with you guys. She gives me a freedom I’ve never had. She’s nice and she’s funny and she’s good to me.” Beverly swallows dry. “I’m afraid aunt Molly will lash out. I’m afraid I’ll make the wrong move and she’ll think that, hey, maybe I’m not worth it, maybe I’m not worth this. I know she won’t, but I’m afraid she will. And I can’t change that.”
Richie doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know if there’s even something to be said right now. He looks away, and sniffles, and feels bad. There’s an ache in his chest that won’t go away, no matter how hard he tries to make it leave.
“Mom still tells me I’m sick.” Eddie admits, very, very quietly, and Richie immediately looks at him. Eddie’s looking at his hands, resting them on his own thighs, looking awkward and tense and frustrated. “She’ll buy me fake meds and make me take it, and she’ll smother me and suffocate me and tell me I’ll get better someday.”
And that’s awful. Richie’s seen her like this before, they’ve been friends for long enough for him to know how much it hurts Eddie when Mrs. Kaspbrak treats him like a fragile porcelain doll that will break at the slightest touch. After everything they’ve been through, Richie can only imagine how Eddie feels about that.
“I don’t tell her about the nightmares.” Eddie looks up, and his eyes are full of tears. Richie’s heart’s hammering painfully inside his ribcage. “I don’t tell her when I wake up at night because I dream about being back in the sewers, at being lost down there, about a clown in a fucking abandoned house coming out to get me, yellow-eyed, baring his teeth at me like a rabid dog. I don’t tell her I use my inhaler not for asthma, but for panic — for when my lungs feel like collapsing and the world around me feels like crashing and burning. I want to, but I don’t, because she wouldn’t understand. She’d tell me I’m sick, she’d tell me I’m getting worse, she’d tell me we should leave, get away from you guys, because it’s you who put me there, who put me through this. She won’t mind you helped me, she won’t care you were there for me — and I’ll believe her, at some point. She’ll repeat it and repeat it and repeat it until it sounds true enough for me to hold onto it and pretend it’s the only reality I’ve ever been in.”
Richie’s lower lip is quivering. He reaches out, and wraps his arms around Eddie to bring him closer. Eddie doesn’t try to push him away — he relents instead. He presses his face against Richie’s chest, and hugs him, tightly, as if he’ll never, ever let go. As if he needs this closeness, this contact, ever since things started going downhill, and only now he’s finding comfort without having to ask for it.
“I’m sorry.” Richie mouths against Eddie’s hair, and then again, out loud this time. “I’m sorry.”
Where was he when Eddie needed him the most? Where was he when Eddie Spaghetti, Eds, his best friend was suffering, hiding, pretending everything was alright? Why didn’t he notice it? Why didn’t he do anything about it? Richie closes his eyes.
“I’m sorry, too.” Stan — Stanley Uris, Stan The Man — sounds small, and hoarse, and scared. “I’m sorry because I want to leave. I’m sorry because I want to stay. I feel hollow. I feel dirty. I want to scrub myself until I bleed to clean myself from all of this.”
Richie wishes he could stop this. He wishes he could stop them from hurting. He wishes he could heal them. He wishes he could take away their pain and make it his — just so they’d stop hurting, just so they’d be free again. Free from all this fear, free from all this bullshit.
“More than that —” Stan stops, shaking. Mike takes one of his hands, holding it tight. Bill takes the other. “More than that, I’m sorry for wanting to hate you. For wanting to hate all of you. For wanting to blame you, and leave you, and be able to erase this all from my memory. I’m sorry — I’m sorry for being tired and being scared and not wanting to feel guilty anymore. I’m sorry for not being able to. I’m sorry for not — for not being able to take it out of my head. For — for constantly fearing and — and being a coward and telling — telling you we shouldn’t do things because I can’t do them. Because I can’t — I can’t face them.”
Richie feels Stan’s tears dropping onto his shoulders, and his primary instinct is to wrap an arm around his shoulders, too, and squeeze him along Eddie, to hold onto both of them so tightly he’s sure he’s suffocating someone. Stan doesn’t complain. Eddie doesn’t, either.
There’s a moment of silence — just a moment, brief, quiet, heavy. Stan sobs against Richie’s shirt, and Richie’s cries are muffled against Eddie’s hair. Beverly sniffles, but Eddie doesn’t make a sound. The others don’t make a sound. And then — then Mike runs his fingers through Stan’s hair, and hushes all four of them, Richie, Beverly, Eddie and Stan, gently, quietly, kindly.
More often than not, Mike remembers Richie he still has a reason to fight for.
“I didn’t want to worry you.” he whispers, and his eyelids flutter open, his gaze cast down, his heart breaking inside his chest. “I thought — I thought it was just — I thought I was the only one...”
He trails off. How can he tell them that? How can he tell them he thought he was the only one struggling, the only one lost? It sounds stupid. It sounds selfish. For all he likes to play and joke around and say dumb shit, Richie Tozier’s actually a smart boy — he should’ve known better than just assume things and take them as undeniable truth.
It makes him feel ashamed.
“I’m sorry.” Richie rubs his eyes, feeling exhausted and emotionally drained. “I didn’t — I’ve never thought of it that way.”
“We didn’t, either.” Ben comments, softly.
“T-Theres nothing t-to be s-sorry for.”
But there is. There is. Richie refuses to simply accept he gets a free pass off the guilt train just because he didn’t think it through. He just can’t talk about it now — none of them can. Stan’s calmed down, Beverly’s got sleepy eyes and Eddie’s starting to relax against Richie’s chest, his breath even, his fingers slowly freeing Richie’s shirt.
They can’t talk about it now, but they’ll talk about it later; that’s a given, if the look they share means anything along the lines of not keeping secrets from each other from now on — and Richie supposes it does.
Yeah, he supposes it does.
The Losers pile up that night, boundaries forgotten.
Eddie’s fast asleep, head on Richie’s chest, one hand latched onto his shirt, holding onto it, the other holding Ben’s, whose head’s lying on Richie’s stomach. Stan’s curled up between Ben and Richie, with Mike wrapped all over him like Stan’s a human-sized teddy bear, but none of them seems to mind — Stan’s hand’s dropped over Eddie’s hand, the one that’s holding Richie. Beverly’s on Richie’s other side, curling around Eddie, head pressed against Richie’s shoulder, one of her hands reaching out to Ben, the other holding Bill’s, who’s behind her, one arm around her waist, the other dropped over Eddie’s stomach.
And they’re not exactly comfortable, no, but they’re together. They’re together, and close, and safe — no evil in the world can reach them right now. Not IT, not their inner demons, not anything.
It’s the first time in many, many nights that Richie sleeps peacefully.
(Months later, Mike will tell him about his nightmares. He’ll tell him about the flames and the hands and the screams. He’ll tell him about the smell of smoke, of the fire, of the ashes covering him and the burning feeling and the fear. He’ll talk about the sound ringing inside his head, about the flames licking his lungs, the despair clawing at his guts. Mike will tell him about how the dreams change — about how, sometimes, it’s his parents there; and, sometimes, the Losers, all together or separated, all screaming for him, pleading, begging for him to help. Sometimes there’s a clown laughing and sometimes there’s not. Someone always dies at the end.
Ben won’t really talk as much as he’ll show him. He’ll show him when he flinches at loud sounds, at children crying. He’ll show him when he starts talking excitedly about something, and then his voice will get lower and lower until it’s barely there at all, until he’s all but mumbling whatever it is he’s talking about this time. He’ll show him with the bags under his eyes, with dimmed smiles, with earbuds blasting NKOTB loudly to block the outside world. He’ll show him with how he reaches out to him, to them, how he’s kind and caring and willing to go anywhere if it means being close to them, if it means they’ll be all together, all there for each other, never alone, never on their on. If Richie always reaches out back, always finds a way to touch him, to hold his hands, to pat him on his back, to ruffle his hair — they don’t talk about it, either, because they don’t need to.
It’ll take years for Bill to open up about it. Not days, not weeks, not months — years. Years where they drift apart and fight and make it up and fix things, slowly crawling their way back to light, out of their fears, leaving behind the darkness and the terror and the memories of a living nightmare down the sewers and days fighting their demons because of it. Even then, Bill doesn’t talk fully — it’s more like a frenzied ramble, more like a desperate whisper, the kind of confession you speak very quietly, hoping for no one to hear, expecting silence and judgement in return and nothing else.
But that’s later. Only later.)