Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The end of the school year is quickly approaching. In a week Summer break will start and the seniors of Hawkins High School will be graduating. Not that Mike will be, he’s only a sophomore, but Nancy and Robin are, and Eddie Munson finally managed to be cleared to graduate, so this week’s Hellfire meeting is the last one that's going to be DM’d by him, and the campaign that Hellfire's been doing since coming back from spring break would come to ‘an epic finale’ (in Dustin’s words). 

This particular campaign however, happens to be inspired by what happened over Spring Break with Henry/Vecna/One, except with a twist, instead of preying on traumas like Henry did, this monster, a dark wizard like vecna, preys and feeds on fear. If Mike hadn’t known better he would’ve thought it was a sick joke they were playing on him, but he hadn’t told anyone about the clown, so it wasn’t exactly targeted. Still, he attended one night of this campaign and afterwards stopped showing up to Hellfire entirely. Lucas and Dustin keep trying to get him to come back, or at least tell them what's wrong. He doesn’t, though and now hasn’t shown up to a campaign night in over a month which essentially got him kicked from the table they sit at lunch, but it's fine, he just hangs out with Max more (which is also fine, the two of them have been getting along a lot better lately and have actually grown kind of close with Will and El in California), and sometimes Dustin and Lucas abandon the Hellfire table to sit with the two of them, so even if he did get kicked out from the Hellfire table, it's not so bad.

The final bell rings, signaling the end of the school day. One more week and he’ll be out of this hellhole for two months. 

Mike quickly picks his backpack up off the floor and heads for the exit of the classroom, then the exit to the building. He doesn't want to waste any time getting out of here, especially when he runs the risk of his friends stopping him and begging him to stay for Hellfire today, even though he's told them multiple times that he wants nothing to do with the campaign Hellfire's been playing through since they returned to school after spring break.

As Mike walks out into the parking lot and starts nearing Nancy's car, he hears Lucas shout his name.

Mike turns around. “What?” he asks, a little snappier than intended. 

“Are you going to stay for Hellfire tonight?” Dustin blurts, receiving a ‘dude!’ from Lucas and an eye roll from Max.

Mike crosses his arms. “I haven’t gone to Hellfire since before spring break, why the hell would I come tonight?”

Dustin sticks his index finger up, starting to list off reasons. “Well for one: it’s the finale and the party needs all the help it can get.” He sticks another finger up. "Two it’s Eddie’s last time DMing for Hellfire since he graduates next week so it’d be nice if you would show up; if you don't remember Eddie was the only one—” 

Max's hand clasps around Dustin's mouth cutting him off. "Shut up," she hisses.

"Is the campaign the same one he started after spring break?” Mike asks.

Dustin nods 'yes', mouth still covered by Max’s hand.

“Then I’m not coming.” 

“Mike, c’mon man—” Lucas starts saying but Mike ignores him, walking away from his friends, to Nancy's car where she's already waiting.

He opens the front passenger door and slides in. Through the window he catches Max saying something to Lucas and Dustin. He can't really make out what she was telling them, he doesn’t really care either, though.

Nancy is about to pull out of her parking spot when Max knocks on the driver’s side window. Nancy rolls it down.

“Hey, sorry that this is last minute but my mom’s working late again, then she's going to—”

“Yeah, Max, you can come home with us.” Nancy cuts her off, already knowing where the conversation is heading. Max ends up at the Wheeler house pretty often, especially when her mom is drinking a little too much. It started with her sneaking over because she didn’t know where else to go after her mom came home drunk and started yelling rather than immediately passing out. After Karen kicked out Ted and started the process of divorcing him, she told Max she was allowed to sleep at their house whenever she needed to. Although, not having permission hasn't stopped her before.

Max climbs in the back. “Cool, thanks.” 

Mike and Max drop their backpacks in the basement. Max heads to the box of comics kept in the basement and starts digging through it. Mike heads over to the phone and dials the number to the Byers' house in California. He's not sure if Will and El are still at school, considering there's a three hour time difference between Hawkins and Lenora, but he's going to try and get a hold of one of them anyways. After everything over spring break Mike and Will made a much larger effort to keep in contact with each other, being sure to try calling at least once a week, even if only to keep Will updated on what's happening in Hawkins.

“All of your comics suck. Why do you only have Spider-Man, Batman, and Superman comics?” Max complains.

"Hey! There's nothing wrong with Spider-Man, Batman, and Superman. They have the most shows and movies about them for a reason."

"They're overrated," Max argues. "Plus, Wonder Woman has a TV show too, and she's much better than those three."

"I don't have Wonder Woman. But I have some more comics up in my room. X-Men, Swamp Thing, Fantastic Four," he starts listing.

“I’ll judge those later. I guess for now I’ll have to deal with reading Superman.”

Mike rolls his eyes. There’s a click as the line connects.

“Hello?”

It’s Joyce.

“Hey, Mrs. Byers, it’s Mike, is Will there?” 

Max perks her head up as Mike waits for Joyce’s response.

“Yes, just a second,” she says and the line goes silent.

“Hey, Mike.”

“Hey! You guys are still flying back to Indiana this weekend right?”

“Idiot," Max mutters, setting the comic book down.

Will laughs. “Yes. You didn’t call just to ask that, did you?” 

“No! I just wanted to call. You and El finished up school this week, right?”

“Yeah. But we haven't really done anything all week, so my mom didn’t make us go today. We got stuck helping pack up the house instead, though and even El's friend got roped into it when she came over.”

“I thought El didn’t have any friends?”

“I don’t know why she didn’t tell you about her. They’ve been friends since December, I think, they've gotten pretty close, I think I might even be friends with her too, now, I'm not totally sure."

“Damn. Where was she on spring break?” Mike half-jokes. El lied about having a ton of friends in her letters, even mentioning she was friends with Angela and Stacy when he got to California (which couldn't be further from the truth) so Mike assumed she just didn't make any. But if she did, why lie and say she's friends with other people she obviously wasn't? It didn't make much sense.

“I think El said she was going with her aunt somewhere for a few days.They’re in El’s room right now, but if I start calling her Jane then just know her friend is down here.”

“Got it.”

“Wait, El made a friend?” Max asks, now fully paying attention to the conversation.

Mike shrugs. “Yeah, apparently they’ve been friends since December.”

Max gets off the couch, walks over to where Mike is standing, and yanks the phone out of his hand. “Hi Will,” she says, in a somewhat aggressive manner. “So, tell me about my replacement.”

“Could you at least have the phone where I can hear it too?” Mike hisses.

Max rolls her eyes but moves the phone away from her ear and holds it to where it’s possible for both of them to at least kind of hear and talk at the same time.

“So her name is Beverly,” Will starts. Mike pales upon hearing that name. It's probably just a coincidence though, it’s not a super uncommon name. “We’re in the same grade, I have some classes with her, and we're friends now, I'm not as close with her as El is though. They met after Angela harassed El one day so bad that she ended up crying in the bathroom. Don't tell either of them I said this, but I'm pretty sure El latched onto her so quickly because she reminded her of you, Max. You both have red hair and don't back down easily, although I don't think she's nearly as good at DigDug as you.”

Will’s description matched the Beverly that Richie knew before moving to Hawkins, the one from that awful summer. It could still be a coincidence they have the same name and hair color, but it's less likely. 

“If I ever meet Angela, I’m gonna punch her in the face,” Max says glaring at the phone.

“El already did it, with a roller skate,” whispers Mike.

“Damn. Wish I was there to see it.” 

“It was bad, her nose was broken and bloody, and she got a concussion. El literally got arrested for it."

“Anyways, she’s the only friend El has made here. And she’s currently at our house. Did you know Hopper proposed to my Mom?”

“No way,” Max gasps dramatically.

“Haven’t they only been together for a couple months?” Mike asks, a bit shocked at how fast they were going.

“Yeah. But I guess their logic is we never know when we’re gonna die, and it could be soon knowing how Hawkins is.”

Mike shrugs. “I guess that makes sense.”

There’s a loud knocking noise from the door, then an aggressive doorbell ringing. Mike looks at Max.

“It’s your house, you go open the door," she argues.

He groans and rolls his eyes, mocking Max under his breath while heading up the stairs. He gets to the door and opens it, it's Lucas and Dustin.

Mike crosses his arms. “I thought you two were going to Hellfire?”

“We were, but we felt bad about earlier,” Lucas says, having the decency to look a little guilty.

“And Hellfire got canceled,” Dustin adds, not looking guilty at all. He gets an elbow from Lucas.

Mike steps aside to let them in the house. “Canceled? Why’d it get canceled?” he asks. It would take something really serious for Eddie to cancel or postpone a campaign night, even Lucas’ championship basketball game hadn’t been important enough to postpone. 

“All after school activities are canceled for the rest of the school year, Chief Powell enacted a sunset curfew again, like over spring break. In the past week they’ve had reports of more than five missing kids from across Hawkins, their bodies weren’t found but a couple limbs were found in the woods,” Lucas explains as they head to the basement where Max is still on the phone.

“It’s bullshit! Way crazier shit has happened without anything being done about it!” Dustin exclaims as they reach the bottom of the stairs. He does have a point, but maybe it's different now because of what happened in March.

“We were talking to Will when you guys got here,” says Mike returning to the phone. Lucas and Dustin follow, wanting to say hi to Will.

After saying their hellos the entire Party (at least the ones in Hawkins) is now gathered around the phone. El is on now, talking about her last few weeks of school. Things had gotten a little better since she assaulted Angela in March. All the charges had disappeared, thanks to her saving the world and all that, and Angela and her gang didn’t mess with her as much anymore. '

As they're talking, Mike can't help but think about what Lucas had said about kids going missing. Logically, it probably isn’t the clown, he's not sure the clown ever leaves Derry, but he can't help but think It might’ve followed him here, or maybe It didn’t follow him at all. Maybe It isn’t just in Derry. Maybe that’s why he never forgot after he moved to Hawkins, because Hawkins was also cursed . Although Hawkins doesn't have murders or horrible things happening every twenty-seven years (as far as he knows anyways) although, it is possible that weird shit like disappearances have happened here and the government just covered it up. Wouldn’t be the first time they did that.

Mike noticed a hand waving in front of his face, and quickly pulled himself out of his ‘oh god Pennywise is after me again’ spiral to find Lucas, Max, and Dustin all staring at him in concern. 

“You good, man?” Lucas asks. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Mike attempts to reassure his friends.

None of them believe him.

Dustin opens his mouth to say something and Max covers it, she didn’t believe he was fine either. She used her free hand to put the phone back up to her ear again. “Mike’s being weird again, see you and El Sunday, Will.” She hangs up the phone, then takes her hand off Dustin’s mouth.

“Can you stop doing that!?” Dustin yells. 

Max rolls her eyes and crosses her arms. She would not be stopping, no matter how much Dustin wants her to. Lucas is now standing next to Max with his arm swung over his girlfriend's shoulders. They got back together after Spring Break and somehow have not broken up since. Mike is pretty sure this is the longest Max and Lucas have ever gone without breaking up and getting back together less than two weeks later. 

“Guys, I’m fine, I swear,” he once again attempts to reassure with no avail. Sometimes his friends just see right through him, this happened to be one of the times. He swears he isn’t that easy to read.

Lucas gives him a skeptical look. “When we said something about kids going missing you just got this look on your face, you looked out of it, and terrified.”

“It’s nothing, Lucas. Just reminded me of shit that happened in the town I lived in in Maine. I really don’t want to talk about it, so can we just watch a movie or something and forget about this?”

“What the fuck happened to you in Maine to get you like this?" asks Dustin. "It’s like you lived in a town that was the setting for a horror movie or something”.

Mike tenses, he really doesn’t want to talk about this. He would rather fight another demogorgon than talk about this. At least a demogorgon he could kill with fire, he wishes he could kill his feelings with fire, that’d be so convenient.

“You do realize our lives have basically been a horror movie, right?” Max points out, flopping onto the couch. She looks over to Mike, who is still tense and staring at nothing. She knows they aren’t going to get anything out of him in this state. “Anyways, a movie sounds fun. As long as your movie selection isn’t as lame as your comic book selection.”

Mike looks up, briefly snapping out of his funk. “My comic book selection isn’t that bad..”

Max rolls her eyes. Mike gets up and goes to look through the VHS tapes. Most of the time they just rented movies (Dustin used Steve’s employee discount) for Party movie nights, but a few tapes are kept in the Wheeler basement, mostly movies they've all watched dozens of times before. “Star Wars Marathon?” he suggests, pulling out the three Star Wars tapes.

“I’m down.” Lucas responds looking over at Max, who shrugs before announcing her agreement with the proposed movies. Dustin agrees enthusiastically.

They'll probably still harass Mike over his issues in the morning, but that was a problem for Future Mike. Or maybe they’d forget about it. God, he hopes they just forget about it. 

About halfway through The Empire Strikes Back, Mike decides to slip out of the basement. His friends are all engrossed in the film, despite how many times they had all watched it. Quietly he slips up the stairs, checking to see if anyone is behind him and being relieved when he finds no one. 

As soon as he reaches the top of the stairs, he hears someone in the kitchen. Most likely Karen or Nancy, possibly Holly.

“Michael!” His aunt shouts. Okay, so that’s who's in the kitchen.

“What!?” He shouts back. He just wants to go and have alone time in his room, is that too much to ask?

“Kitchen!”

Mike huffs and turns around, heading back down the stairs and to the kitchen. “What?” He repeats, not as loud this time.

Karen is putting away dishes. She pauses once she realizes he entered the room. “Are Dustin and Lucas also planning on staying the night?” she asks, not yet turning to look at where Mike is standing in the doorway.

Mike shrugs. “Didn’t ask, but probably.”

“Well, make sure they call their parents," Karen hums. "Can’t be too careful these days, especially after those poor kids went missing, one was in your grade you know?”

“Okay,” Mike groans, rolling his eyes and turning to leave the kitchen.

“Michael.”

“What?” he huffs, leaning against the wall, why did she decide to be annoying tonight? Karen finishes putting away the dishes and picks up a stack of…are those envelopes? that were sitting on the table.

Karen hands the stack to Mike. “I think these belong to you, I found them with Ted’s stuff.” 

“What are these?” he asks, taking them from her and flipping through them. They all had return addresses to his friends' houses in Maine, they also all had 'Richie Tozier' written instead of 'Mike Wheeler'. Holy shit they're—

“Letters from your friends back in Maine,” his aunt answers, just as he reaches the same conclusion. His eyes widen, he assumed his friends just didn’t want to stay in touch with him, but instead he now has a huge stack of letters. He isn’t sure how old some were or if any are recent, he’d probably have to open them up to see. From what he could notice just glancing at them about half are from Stan and Bill, and the other half are from Eddie. There are even a few from Ben and Mike mixed in. His aunt seems to notice him smiling at the letters. “You should call them,” she says comfortingly, clapping him on the shoulder, then leaves him alone in the kitchen.

For a few minutes or maybe it's just seconds, he stood there staring at the unopened letters. Moving over to the table he starts at the bottom of the stack, it looked a few years old. He quietly opens it after checking to make sure no one entered the kitchen. He pulls the letter out noticing that it's dated Feburary 1984, mere weeks after he moved down to Hawkins. He isn’t sure how his friends got his new address so fast but he's not upset about it.

He takes a deep breath then starts to read.

Chapter Text

It had been about half an hour since Mike left and Max is concerned. Not that she’d ever admit that out loud. Lucas and Dustin were still focused on the movie even though they’d seen it dozens of times, as well as debating what was going on in Hawkins this time and if the Upside Down was back. They were getting towards the end of Empire Strikes Back and Max stood up. Lucas immediately notices and soon Dustin does as well.

“You okay?” Lucas asks, looking at his girlfriend in concern. 

“Yeah, I’m good. Just gonna go see where Mike ran off too, he disappeared like half an hour ago if you hadn’t noticed.” 

“Oh,” Lucas says and Dustin pulls his attention from the TV. “Wait Mike left?”

Max shook her head and muttered, “idiots” under her breath before heading upstairs. She steps into the kitchen to find Mike sitting at the table with several letters, it looked almost like he was crying, she really hoped he wasn’t, she couldn’t deal with her own emotions, let alone other people’s.

Mike didn’t notice Max at first, reading through the fifth letter he opened. This one was the most recent one so far, sent in March of this year. He was surprised they even sent him anything anymore, although judging by dates this was like a last ditch effort before giving up because there was a year between the last one and this one. He hadn’t planned on crying, but it was kind of hard to not. He was so focused on the words on the paper in front of him he didn’t notice Max peering over his shoulder until she spoke.

“Who’s Eddie?”

Mike almost falls out of the chair from jumping after Max spoke. “What?” he chokes out, turning to look at her, eyes wide.

Max laughs, “I asked who ‘Eddie’ was, the person who signed that letter? It’s obviously not Eddie Munson.” So what? She was curious, sue her.

In a panic Mike starts hiding all the opened letters. Yes, it looked suspicious but if Lucas or Dustin came up, he didn’t want to explain his life story to them, he’d avoided telling them about the name change and Karen and Ted not being his real parents for the almost four years that he’s known them. He was kind of worried about how they would react if/when he told them that he'd basically been lying about who he was for years now. He planned on telling them at some point soon, he just needed to figure out the best way to do it and explain his situation in a way that they wouldn't kick him out of The Party.

“Okay who’s Stan then?” she asks, picking another one up.

Mike snatches it out her hand, was privacy just not something allowed by her? “Can you mind your own business?” he snaps, the words coming out a little harsher than intended.

“You were crying. I think I can count on one hand the times I’ve seen you cry since I’ve met you.” 

Oh, she was worried about him. Weird. People usually didn’t care enough to worry about him.

“I wasn’t crying,” he lied, knowing damn well he was crying.

“Yeah, okay, sure.” Max crosses her arms. “Those are a lot of letters.”

“Yeah, they’re basically three and a half years worth of attempts made by my old friends to get back in contact with me, but Ted hid them from me, so I stopped sending letters thinking they didn’t want to talk to me anymore, I’m not sure if the ones I tried to send even got sent.”

“God, that is such a shitty thing to do. What Ted did, not what you did, that’s not your fault. Now I know why he and Dustin had this ongoing feud.”

Dustin wanted to throw a party to celebrate Karen finally shoving divorce papers at Ted. He had literally screamed ‘YES FINALLY’ so loud half the street could hear when The Party was informed.

“No yeah, Ted was the worst.” He pauses before looking down at the letters. “My aunt wants me to call them.”

“You should, they probably would want to know what happened to you. Not that you can legally tell them about the upside down shit, but you can tell them about the evil uncle shit, not that they’d believe you about the Upside Down.”

“I think they would probably believe me about the Upside Down.”

Max raised an eyebrow, a bit in disbelief. He doesn’t elaborate on why he knew they’d believe it. But it raised some questions for her. What the fuck happened in Maine?

“I kind of want to call them...but it would be super embarrassing if no one picks up or if they changed numbers in the past four years. Plus what if they don’t wanna talk? All I was was annoying and then I just moved to another state and changed my name and toned down my personality-”

“Mike, shut up,” Max cuts him off, an annoyed look crossing her face.

“See, that’s exactly my point. I am annoying, I never know when to shut up, you already look annoyed with me; and even though it wasn’t my choice to change my name to Michael I still went with it and used it for the past almost four years it’s all you guys know me as, so I've basically been lying to all of you for the entire time I've lived here which makes me even worse of a person and a friend, and-” he continued rambling, starting to spiral.

Max inhales sharply, and briefly takes a look around. She pinches her nose, annoyed, not because he was annoying but his everyone-hates-me-spiral was. Couldn’t he see how many people cared about him?

“Richie, shut the fuck up,” Max states. Mike just stares at her, he hadn’t expected her to call him that, she'd known for months now, and for some reason saying that had a bit more impact on him than her just saying ‘mike, shut up.’ “You can be annoying, sure, but you’re a good friend, and if you were half as good of a friend then as you are now I’m sure your old friends would really want to hear from you, especially if they sent all those letters even when you didn’t respond. The name thing wasn’t your choice or your fault, your uncle forced you to, you and Nancy both told me that. Sure, you've lied, and they've been some pretty big ones, but we all do sometimes, you aren’t a bad person and your friends don’t hate you. And if they do, I will personally drive to Maine, no license be damned, and beat them up for you, and I guarantee Lucas, Dustin, Will, El, and Nancy won’t be far behind.”

His lips quirk up into an almost playful smile. “Aw, you care about me,” he teases. Max rolls her eyes and laughs.

“You know what, I take everything I just said back,” she says, clearly teasing as well.

“Nope, you already threatened to drive to Maine to fight some people you’ve never met before. No take backs.”

Max shoves him. “Call your friends before I do it for you.”

“Okay, okay. But seriously, you’re more eager for me to call them than I am.”

Max rolls her eyes, watching Mike make his way over to the phone and start dialing a number, he looked nervous. Maybe she shouldn’t have pushed him. Nah, he needed this, if her friends in California had ever cared enough to stay in contact, she’d need this too, for closure at least. Max and Mike were more similar than either of them wanted to admit, Lucas reminded her of that an obnoxious amount of times. She played dumb every time.

“I’m gonna go downstairs and tell Lucas and Dust-”

“No, you aren’t gonna wuss out on me, Wheeler. At least attempt to call one of them, if no one picks up, fine. If you don’t then you’re gonna have to tell me, Lucas, and Dustin why you got all weird earlier.”

“I did not get weird earlier. Also really, you can use my first name but not my last name?”

“Okay, it’s still weird as fuck to me to call you Richie and not Mike, so forgive me if I’m still using ‘Wheeler’ for your last name.”

“Then just fucking use Mike as my name, it’s what everyone here uses anyways,” Richie mutters moving back over to the phone and dialing a number off of memory alone. Max watches in curiosity as he waits for whoever he called to pick up.

“Hello?” Eddie Kaspbrak’s voice comes from the other end of the line. Richie almost panics and hangs up. He would have if he hadn’t been shot the world’s scariest death glare from Max. “If you don’t answer in like five seconds I’m hanging up.” 

“Sorry. Hi.” He quickly gets out right before his friend (could they even still be considered friends?) could hang up.

There is a solid thirty seconds of silence before Eddie responds again. “Richie?” he asks, finally recognizing who it was that was calling him.

“Yep, honestly I’m disappointed, Eds, it took me less than five seconds to realize it was you.”

“Yeah, well, you called me, asshole, also don’t call me that, also it’s been three years since we’ve talked. So you better have a real good fucking reason for dropping off the face of the earth. You didn’t call, you didn’t write. It’s been over three years, Rich.  We thought you forgot like the others, which considering you’re calling now clearly you didn’t.”

“Sorry! I swear I have a good reason.”

“Do you?”

“Yes, I do, obviously. Okay so, you know how I moved in with my aunt and uncle in Indiana? So my uncle or I guess he was my uncle since my aunt is divorcing him, decided that I couldn’t have contact with any of you guys. I'm still not sure why. I did write letters, but I guess somehow those never ended up making their way to Derry. Then I figured once I didn’t get anything from you guys, you didn’t wanna talk to me anymore so I stopped writing.”

“We did write. I’m pretty sure I had half a notebook worth of letters I sent.”

“I’m getting there, so then today my aunt hands me a bunch of letters and was like ‘I found this in Ted’s stuff” There’s also the fact that uh-” He pauses before talking really fast. “I've been fighting monsters from another dimension annually” he takes a breath. “And Hawkins is shit.”

“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“That I bet your mom misses me.”

“No, the monsters. Really, a ‘your mom’ joke already!? I haven’t talked to you in three years-”

“And it’s been more than three years since I fucked your mom.”

Max snorts from behind, and Richie jumps. “What forgot I was here?”

“Kinda. Yeah.” He hissed, holding the phone away for a second.

“Did you really have to say that about the monsters? We signed NDAs.” Max whispers.

“Yeah well, contracts with minors are invalid or something, so it doesn’t matter.”

“They will literally try and kill you.”

“They’ve tried that three times, and failed.”

“What a miracle. Can I say hi to your friend?”

“No.” He puts the phone back up to his ear. “What did you say? Sorry my friend started yelling at me.”

“I said, we haven’t talked in three years and you made a ‘your mom’ joke within two minutes.” Eddie huffs. “Shit, my mom got out the bathroom. What’s your number? I don’t know the one for your aunt’s house, especially since you haven’t called in a few years or sent a letter that told me the number.”

“Tell her I say hi and I can’t wait to-”

“Richie.” his friend hissed.

“Right, sorry, as soon as she knows it’s me she’ll make you hang up I know,” he huffs then gives him the phone number.

“Cool, thanks, I’ll call you back from Bill’s house.” The call then ends and he puts the phone back up. 

“So, I'm guessing it went well?” Max questions, seeing the look of relief on her friend’s face, along with another expression she couldn’t quite place.

“He was…less pissed than I expected.”

“I heard him yelling over the phone.”

“I said less, not wasn’t at all.”

Lucas and Dustin soon join the two upstairs. Max and Mike hadn’t realized how long they’d been gone from the basement. As Dustin and Lucas enter the room Mike hides his letters as best as he can (shoving them in a drawer) and hopes that the phone won’t ring while they are up here. But given how long it might take Eddie to convince his mom to let him out the house, and the time to bike (or maybe drive? had any of the Losers gotten their drivers license?) over there, he assumed he had at least half an hour. 

“What are you two still doing up here?” Dustin asks, leaning against the counter.

Max shrugs, “I just came up to check on Wheeler, and we got distracted with calling one of his old friends, because shockingly he had those before you nerds took him in.”

“Is it really that surprising I had friends?”

Max shrugs, a teasing smile on her face. 

“I want to talk to your old friends!” shouts Dustin, enthusiastically. 

“Yeah, dude. You never talk about them," Lucas points out. He had mentioned the Losers probably a max of three times around the Party, most of which were in the first year after he moved. 

“Well, I thought they hated me because they stopped contacting me, but turns out Te-my dad was just hiding their letters. My mom just gave them back to me tonight, which is why I was up here so long.”

“I can’t believe Max got to meet your friends before we did. Max” Dustin rants, now sitting on the countertop. Max sticks her tongue out at him. 

“Yeah, you don’t even like Max. Why does she get to be the only one to meet his old friends,” argues Lucas, receiving a glare from his girlfriend, before she gives him a teasing smile.

“What? You jealous, stalker?”

 “Okay, one: Max didn’t even talk to him; she just stood over my shoulder and eavesdropped after looking at some of my letters. Two: I didn’t like Max, but I’m cool with her now,” Mike explains. 

“I’m not sure how I feel about you two actually being friends now,” Lucas admits, looking between his girlfriend and one of his best friends. “But I guess that means you both have less self-loathing going on.”

Max and Mike give each other a shared confused look, before turning back to Lucas and Dustin. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mike questions, crossing his arms.

“You two are literally almost the same person.”

“Oh, so you want me to break up with you? I mean if Mike and I are basically the same person, you should have no problem dating him,” snarks Max, side eyeing her boyfriend.

“Woah woah, Mike’s a dude,” Dustin points out. He gets ignored. 

“I mean, he has freckles, is good at arcade games-” Lucas starts listing.

“Oh so I should break up with you so you can date Mike. If it’d be just like dating me anyways since we’re ‘basically the same person’.”

“I take it back! Okay!”

Max smiles triumphantly. 

“Are you guys staying the night?” asks Mike.

Lucas, Max, and Dustin were all setting up the basement for a sleepover. Parents had been contacted (per Mrs. Wheeler’s request). Richie is pacing the kitchen waiting for Eddie to call him back. What if he didn’t even want to talk to him anymore. What if the whole time they were talking was him just trying to be nice? Realistically it’s probably just taking forever to convince his mom to let him leave the house and explain the situation to Bill (and maybe Stan?, Stan being there would be great too). But in a world where there were alien/demon shapeshifting clowns living in the sewers and alternate dimensions and people with psionic abilities when was realistically ever the answer?

The phone starts ringing. He answers it way too eagerly, which would be really embarrassing if it was just some telemarketer. “Took you long enough to call back,” he says immediately, before cringing inwardly. Stupid mouth moving faster than his brain. 

“Yeah well, I had to convince my mom-”

Richie opens his mouth.

“Don’t even think about it.”

Damn. How’d he know the joke was coming before he could even say it?

“And then I had to bike to Bill’s because my mom refuses to let me drive although I have my license, after I had to convince her that I had all the fake medicine she still is trying to  make me take with me, then I had to convince Bill that I wasn’t crazy and had actually talked to you when I told him why I was-” Eddie rambled, before being cut off by someone in the background, “I d-didn’t th-think you were crazy.” Bill. 

Then he heard a third voice from the other end of the line, “yeah, you did. You basically told him there was no way that Richie called him after four years of nothing.” Stan.

“Wowww Billy, good to know, you had so much faith in little ole’ me.”

He could almost hear the eye roll from his friends all the way back in Maine.

“W-what were we suh-supposed to think?”

“Listen, I have a good reason, okay? One of them is my aunt’s husband was a total jackass. He made sure I couldn’t ever call, and hid all the letters you guys sent and probably prevented mine from even getting sent.”

“Why didn’t you just send and receive mail from someone else’s house?” asks Stan. That…might’ve actually worked. If he had told his friends about the name change, that is. “I…never thought of that, actually.”

He spent the next half hour catching up with his old friends, and it was probably the happiest he’d felt in months. They told him what had been going on in Derry, while he explained what life in Hawkins was like (emitting several upside-down related details). He knew he missed them, but hadn’t realized how much. 

At some point both Stan and Bill had gone to go…fix food or something? Richie was pretty sure that they were just doing it to avoid having to hear him and Eddie bicker over the phone. 

“I’m still mad at you, asshole.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” He repeats for the fifth time in the five minutes since it had just been the two of them on the phone. Despite that, he had the biggest grin on his face. 

“Who was with you while you called me earlier?”

“Oh, you heard her?”

“You two were arguing, kinda hard not to.”

“Oh yeah, uh that was Max.”

“Max?” Eddie repeats.

“What? afraid I replaced you, Eds?”

“Don’t call me that, and no, was just…curious I guess.” 

“Max is one of my friends, she moved to Hawkins from California about two years after I moved and two of the people I became friends with, Dustin and Lucas, were so obsessed with her and wanting to date her they drug her in. She’s dating Lucas now. I didn’t like her at first, but she’s pretty cool, she’s a lot like Bev, actually.”

“The trashmouth made friends?” Stan’s voice pops back up. “Staniel! You’re back, and yes I did make friends, five of them.”

“Max, Dustin, Lucas; That’s three,” says Stan, as if he didn’t believe that Rich could make more friends. His friends REALLY had no faith in him. How dare they.

“There’s also Will and El, they’ve lived in California the past year but are moving back soon. El’s pretty badass. Will is a super great artist, he’s probably my favorite out of my friends in Hawkins, he really likes Dungeons and Dragons and he’s super nice.”

There was quiet on the other end of the line before he heard Bill laugh in the background, “Ed-Eddie are you alright?”

There was no response. “No, he’s currently seething in jealousy,” says Stan in the most serious dead-pan voice possible.

“I am NOT,” Eddie shrieks, voice much clearer now that he was obviously holding the phone to his ear.

“Aw, no need to be jealous, you know your mother is my only love.”

“Shut up. Can you seriously not go one conversation without-”

“Just tryna’ make up for lost time. You just don’t wanna admit you missed it.”

“Whatever, dickwad.”

“See! That wasn’t a denial!” He shouts, a bit louder than he should’ve. 

“I did not miss the ‘your mom’ jokes, how have you not scared off your new friends with those?”

“You know I only have eyes for your mom.”

“You’re such a fucking dumbass.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”

“I don’t know if you can hear them, but Bill and Stan are giggling and whispering behind me.”

“Those assholes,” he laughs, “conspiring against us.”

Suddenly he gets an idea, “put the phone where they can hear me.”

“Rich, what are you-”

“Just trust me, okay?”

“They can hear now.”

“Good. Dickheads! If you wanted this private phone sex to be an org-”

There was a loud groan belonging to Stan, a ‘Beep, beep’ from Bill, and a huff and ‘shut up, Richie’ from Eddie. It just made his grin grow wider.

“Who ‘ya talking to, Wheeler?” a new voice asks from the kitchen. Immediately, Richie reaches for any object to defend himself, sometimes they were good like the baseball bat in the house on Neibolt, sometimes they weren’t so good, like the candle stick at the Byers’ house when the demodogs were on their way. This time it was a paper towel roll that his aunt had left out on the counter. He turns, swinging it, before noticing who it was. Robin, wearing Nancy’s Emerson sweatshirt.

“Robin! What the fuck!?”

“Did you just try to attack me...with a paper towel roll?”

“It was the first thing I found!” he protests, knowing that a paper towel roll was a horrible weapon. “And you came out of nowhere!"

“Sorry! I wasn’t trying to scare you I swear! I was coming downstairs to grab some water, and saw you standing by the phone smiling and laughing and I was not eavesdropping I swear, I literally had music playing from my walkman so whatever you were saying I promise I didn’t even hear, but I don’t know you looked happy so I assumed it was because you and Will were talking again, and-”

He looked at her in confusion before finally catching onto what Robin was trying to say. 

“I wasn’t talking to Will.”

“Oh. Sorry, I guess I assumed that you liked him.”

“I mean, kinda?” He picks the phone up again, “Sorry, my sister’s friend just showed up, talk later,” he says, then hangs up before he can get a response. “I guess I kind of do like him, but Will doesn’t like me that way, plus uh there was someone I liked a while ago, that I just got back in touch with and all those repr-why am I telling you this,” He huffs leaning back.

“Because I’m probably one of the only other people in this town who understands?” Robin suggests. “But if you want to gush about this other boy, I’m all ears”

He thinks about it, Robin would be a good person to confide in. Easier than telling any of his friends, especially since that would involve telling them about the whole 'not being into girls' thing, he really needed to apologize to Will about that, now that he thinks about it. Even if Robin wasn’t great with all people she did help him slowly start to accept himself, enough to finally break up with El, anyways. 

“Okay, so, his name is Eddie. We were really close friends back when I lived in Maine.”

“I think Munson would be glad to hear you have a crush on an age-appropriate Eddie.” Robin teases. He feels his face go warm, he might’ve had a slight crush on Eddie Munson, but he was just really cool! Not that he ever wanted to get with him, he was like five years older or something.

“Robin!” Mike protests, burying his head in his hands. Robin laughs.

“You seemed really happy talking to him, I know I don’t know you super well, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile like that. It's weird.”

“Stop,” Mike groans. Robin goes to tease him again, before she could say anything else he decides to change the subject. “I know you and Nancy are together,” he blurts, pushing the attention away from his feelings for boys that would never feel the same way as him. Robin stops and her eyes widen.

“HOW THE FUCK DID YOU FIND THAT OUT!?”

Chapter Text

The lights turn on, and Mike immediately groans and covers his face with his blanket. He wasn’t sure what time it was but it had to be way too early and he just wanted to go back to sleep. Maybe if he just lays on the couch and doesn’t move, Karen or Nancy or whoever just barged into the basement would leave. 

They didn’t leave. Instead he can hear them storming down the stairs, and soon enough the blanket is yanked off from over his face. He opens his eyes again, and could now vaguely make out Nancy standing over him, probably giving him her most annoyed look. Which would be more effective if she wasn’t insanely blurry.

“Will you get up, we need to leave in twenty minutes,” Nancy yells.

Instead of getting up, he flops over facing the back of the couch. “But Nancy, it’s so early,” he groans, voice muffled by the couch. 

Nancy huffs, pinching the bridge of her nose. “It’s noon. If you hadn’t been hogging the phone until four AM, then maybe you wouldn’t be so tired right now.”

“What, jealous you couldn’t call your girlfriend?” he snarks, burying his head further into the couch.

“I have my own line, also I’m not even going to question how you figured that out, but you better be ready by twelve-fifteen or you don’t get to see Will and El.”

He rolls back over and glares at the Nancy-shaped blob still standing near the couch. “You wouldn’t-”

“Their flight gets in in three hours, and we still have to meet up with Steve and Robin, then drive there. So yeah, if you’re not ready to go I’m leaving you here,” Nancy states.

“Fine,” he huffs before dropping a hand to the floor to reach for where he set his glasses last night. Even if he wore contacts more often now, it wasn’t uncommon for him to wear his glasses around the house, especially when none of his friends were over. Now where the fuck were they?

“I have your glasses, twerp. Stop leaving them on the floor, you'll break them,” says Nancy, holding them out. Annoyed, Mike takes them and puts them on, letting things come into focus, then once he can properly see her, he flips Nancy off. Who was she to tell him what to do or not do with his glasses when he’s worn them for years and she’s never had to? 

Nancy doesn’t give much of a reaction just shaking her head as he makes his way up the stairs, probably wondering how he could manage to never be on time for anything or how he figured out that she and Robin were together. 

By some miracle, Mike is downstairs and ready to go with five minutes to spare. Nancy would be proud if they weren’t already running late, or maybe they weren’t. Nancy always seemed to like being places early, so maybe Nancy-late, was normal-person-on-time. And if they were normal-person-on-time, there was no need for her to berate him on his tardiness, although knowing Nancy she still would. The two get in Nancy's car, and Nancy drives down to where Lucas lived, even though there was only one house seperating them and the Sinclairs. After about thirty seconds of bickering Nancy basically pushes Mike out the car so he can go get Lucas and Max. He flips her off for the second time today, then knocks on the front door.

The door swings open to reveal an annoyed Erica Sinclair standing behind it. “Can you have your nerd party at your house,” she says, crossing her arms, clearly not wanting to be bothered by whatever her brother’s friends were up to.

“We’re not-" he starts before cutting himself off, he didn't come here to argue with a middle schooler, "Lucas and Max are both upstairs right?”

“Yes, and they’re being extremely obnoxious.” 

“Cool,” says Mike before walking past Erica into the house. The twelve year old rolled her eyes but shut the door behind him. He goes upstairs to Lucas’s room, to find the door closed. Despite that, he could easily hear Max and Lucas talking, laughing, and kissing behind the door.

“They’ve been like this since Max got here two hours ago,” Erica reports, still standing behind Mike.

“Should I knock or just enter?” he asks, turning around to look at her.

“The door is locked.”

“So knock, got it,” Mike says before loudly knocking on the door.

“Go away, Erica!” Lucas shouts. 

“It’s not Erica!” Mike shouts back.

“Go away, Mike!” shouts Max this time.

“Okay, fine, I guess you guys just won’t get to go to the airport to pick up Will and El, then.”

There’s a click as the door unlocks and Max opens it. Lucas is still on his bed. 

“Weren’t you supposed to be here twenty minutes ago?” she asks, crossing her arms. Why did everyone want to be on him about being late today? It wasn't his fault he overslept.

“I overslept, I was up late last night,” he retorts, crossing his arms as well.

“Doing what? Talking with your friends from Maine that you won’t tell anyone anything about?”

“I’ve already heard it from Nancy, and she’ll probably tell me more about it later. And if I remember correctly you encouraged me to call them, and then threatened to drive all the way up to Maine to beat their asses if they decided to be jerks.”

“I don’t remember any of that,” Max denies.

“Oh, that’s what you two were upstairs talking about Friday,” says Lucas, before getting the world’s scariest death glare from his girlfriend.

“Whatever, Nancy is waiting outside. So unless you guys don’t want to come with us to pick up Will and El from the airport-”

“Oh I’m coming with you, I haven’t seen El in months.”

“Then leave, so maybe I can watch My Little Pony without hearing you two-”

“Erica!” Lucas shouts, trying to get his sister to shut up.

“Just the facts,” she argues back, crossing her arms.

Lucas rolls his eyes at his little sister and follows Max and Mike out to Nancy’s car, Erica slams the door behind them. 

“You’d think after two near-death experiences, she’d be nicer,” complains Lucas, opening the door to the backseat. 

“I think that’s just how younger siblings are,” Nancy says, butting in on their conversation. “At least in my experience.”

“Holly’s not that bad,” Mike argues. Nancy gives him a look that basically says ‘are you dumb? Clearly that’s not what I was talking about.’ “What?” he asks, a bit confused about what Nancy was implying. There was no way she was talking about him, he wasn't even technically her brother.

“I was talking about you, dipshit.”

His jaw drops slightly, mostly in offense, but also in surprise. He didn't really expect her to say that. Sure, she was basically his sister now, but he was pretty sure that she still thought of him of the annoying little cousin that ended up living in her house. It was kind of nice to know that she thought of him as her brother. Although the thought was still there that maybe she actually didn't, everyone else thought they were siblings, maybe Nancy was just playing along and finding a way to make fun of him in the process. 

Nancy pulls into the Family Video parking lot at twelve-forty-five. Steve was already there, standing outside his car, waiting. Dustin and Robin climbed out as soon as Nancy put her car in park. 

“Took y’all long enough,” Steve comments, arms crossed, as everyone in Nancy’s car unloads.

Immediately, and unsurprisingly, Nancy immediately throws Mike under the bus, “Mike didn’t wake up until noon.”

“Typical, that is so- why am I not surprised?”

“It’s not that big of a deal, their flight doesn’t get in until after three, if there were no delays. So we have plenty of time,” Mike argues, crossing his arms. It was true. He really didn't know why everyone was making a big deal of this. It's not like getting there sooner would make the plane come any faster or any slower if they got there later.

“It’s already almost one, and it takes an hour and a half to drive there, if traffic is good, and we’re driving to Indianapolis, so traffic is never good,” Nancy points out. 

“Okay, Nancy, can you take your brother, Lucas, and Max. I’ll take Robin and Dustin,” Steve asks, stepping back towards his car.

Robin and Nancy look at eachother, “Actually, Steve, I think I’m gonna ride with Nance.” 

“So you’re gonna leave me alone with the little shitheads? Rob-” 

“We’re right here, Steve!” Dustin shouts.

“You could ride with Nancy and Robin and I could dri-” Max starts, Steve immediately cuts her off.

“No-no! We’ve been over this, you don’t get to drive my car, plus you don’t even have a license.”

“I drove a car with you in it a couple years ago.”

“And that was the most terrifying road experience of my life!”

“At least she’s not as bad as Mike, he’s failed his driver’s test twice now,” Nancy mentions. 

“Seriously? You had to bring that up?”

“I have no doubt that Max will fail hers when she takes it.”

“I’m right here.”

“Maybe we should get going?” Lucas suggests.

Nancy checks her watch, “Lucas is right, if we don’t leave now we may not make it on time.”

Steve checks his watch as if to confirm what Nancy was saying, “Okay, yeah. Henderson, Sinclair, Mayfield, you're with me. Nancy, you can take your brother.”

Steve’s car loads up first, then Nancy gets in and Robin takes the front seat, kicking Mike to the back. He knew this would happen, Robin got special privileges with Nancy, because they were so obnoxiously in love with each other. Really, it’s a shock that no one (other than him) has figured out they were together yet. 

“How come Robin gets the front seat,” Mike complains five minutes into the drive. 

“Girlfriend privileges,” Nancy states, as if it were obvious. Mike rolls his eyes. He knew it wasn’t completely ‘girlfriend privileges’. Nancy liked doing things she knew would annoy Mike, it was her way of getting back at him for annoying her. This was just one of those things. 

“Hey! Watch your knees, asshole! I could’ve rear-ended Steve!” Nancy shouts. 

“But you didn’t,” Mike points out.

“I almost did!” 

“But you didn’t.”

Robin looked in the backseat at Mike, then to Nancy, as Mike and Nancy bicker. Mike was pretty sure Robin found this amusing. Nancy and Mike continue going back and forth for another five minutes before, surprisingly, Nancy gives up. However, she doesn’t acknowledge Mike was right and instead starts talking to Robin, rendering Mike practically invisible in the back seat. So he had two choices now, actually shut up and take the ‘win’ or continue to annoy Nancy and Robin until they reached Indianapolis. 

Obviously, he chose the second option.

“Hey Nancy, maybe instead of eye-fucking your girlfriend you should focus on the road. I mean unless you want us to end up in a ditch,” he says as casually as possible. Nancy turns her head to be able to see him in the rear view mirror and sends a glare his way. He could also see her mouthing ‘Richie’ at him, as a way to scold him for his behavior. He rolls his eyes at her. 

“It’s actually kind of nice that your brother figured us out, I mean, obviously we wanted to keep this a secret, but at least it’s one less person that we have to pretend we’re just ‘platonic besties’ around, and he’s obviously cool with it, and sure he teases but so does Steve and-”

Nancy leans over to the passenger seat and kisses Robin, probably to stop her rambling. Mike gags at this, being as dramatic as possible. He honestly didn’t care that they were together. It was better than Nancy getting back with Steve. But Nancy had made a comment about him being annoying so he was going to show her how annoying he could really be. 

“Oh, stop being dramatic,” says Nancy, eyes now back on the road. 

“Yeah, little Wheeler, it’s not that bad, plus, don’t act like I didn’t see you on the phone grinning like a lovesick idiot, then listened to you talk about the boy you were calling,” Robin points out, looking into the backseat.

“You asked! And I was not, you completely misread that situation.”

“I know that I’m not the best at picking up on social cues, but I definitely picked up on that, plus you literally said-”

“I’m sorry, he was what?” Nancy questions, cutting her girlfriend off. 

“Can we not talk about this, please?”

“Was it Will?”

“No,” Robin shook her head, a sly grin on her face. Mike wanted to be anywhere but here, talking about anything else but this.

“Wow, I thought-”

“Yeah, me too! But turns out it was someone he was friends with before moving here. I didn’t even know you guys weren’t from Hawkins.”

“Okay, can we please stop talking about this-” 

“Which friend was it?” Nancy asks.

“No, I’m not saying anything else, and Robin please don’t tell her. Plus, you never really knew any of them anyways, so I don’t know why you’re so concerned with this.”

“Wait, was Mike not as close with his friends before you moved as he is with the Party? Because you know them pretty well.” Robin wondered aloud, now confused.

“It’s complicated,” both Mike and Nancy answer simultaneously. He didn't want to explain his life story and was sure that Nancy didn't want to either. Robin would just have to deal with a not-answer for now. 

“...That wasn’t suspicious at all,” Robin mutters, then shifts the topic, “so Nance, you excited for graduation next week? Personally I cannot wait to finally be free and as soon as I quit Family Video, have no more obligations to Hawkins.” 

“I’m excited to move to Boston,” Nancy says, a small smile crossing her face due to thinking about her future. Mike rolls his eyes and looks out the window. He tried to not think about his own future sometimes, specifically the part about possibly having to go fight a clown again in twenty something years, but at least he’d see his friends again when he goes back to fight the clown (if he goes back), they all might be old by then, but they’d be back together. Hopefully they’d be back together sooner than that, talking to them again, even if it was on the phone from over a thousand miles away. Maybe at some point this summer he’d get his license (or convince Nancy to drive him) and he’d be able to take a road-trip to visit them in Maine.

By some miracle they made it to the airport ten minutes before Nancy expected them to, and therefore got there before Will, Jonathan and El’s flight was expected to arrive. All seven of them were now inside the airport, waiting. 

“Hey, guys, I see them,” says Max pointing towards where they could all now see Will, El, and Jonathan walking towards them. It didn’t take long for the Byers/Hopper siblings to notice the group. El goes up to Max first and the two girls hug. Dustin and Lucas force Will into a group hug with the two of them. 

As El and Will break away from Max, Dustin, and Lucas Mike throws his arms over their shoulders. “Wonder twins, back in Indiana,” he jokes, receiving a quiet laugh from Will and a slight look of confusion from El who probably didn’t get the reference. Oh well, he tried. He lets them go and everyone gathers in a kind of circle, to determine who was riding with who back.

“Byers…and El, are you guys riding with Nance or would you rather ride with me?” Steve asks.

“Nancy,” all three of them say simultaneously.

“Great, so I’m stuck babysitting everyone else, great,” Steve mumbles. 

Robin pats Steve’s shoulder, “there, there, Stevie, it’ll be okay,” she says with fake sympathy and a teasing smile.

“I hate you,” Steve mumbled, causing Robin to laugh at her friend in response. 

“How were the last few months of school?” Mike asks Will, attempting to strike up conversation with his friend. Will shrugs, “alright, I mean, it was school, nothing special, although I did win an award for art.”

“No way, that’s awesome, dude. I mean you’re really good at art. It's cool that it’s being recognized.”

“Yeah…” Will trails off,”it wasn’t anything special though, like I said, just something the art teacher does every year.”

“I’m riding back with Nancy, I haven't seen or talked to El in forever,” Max announces, swinging an arm across El’s shoulders. El smiles, looking down at the ground, then back to Max, a bit concerned, “One has not tried to take you since Spring Break?” she asks. 

Max shakes her head, “I still try and keep music on me, just in case, but the headaches and nosebleeds haven’t come back since you fought him in my mind.”

El nods, satisfied with her friend’s answer and looks to Nancy, “when are we going back to Hawkins?”

The drive back had been uneventful, just a little bit of talking had occured between everyone in Nancy's car, which became much more crowded with the addition of Jonathan, Will, El, and Max, although Robin had ridden back with Steve, so really it could have been worse. “So what has happened here while we were in California?” El asks, as The Party settles into the basement. El, Will, and Jonathan would be staying with the Wheelers until Hop and Joyce made it back to Indiana and were able to move into their new house, but right now everyone was hanging out together for the first time since the few days following Spring Break. 

“They found limbs in the woods and kids have been going missing,” Dustin reports, while Mike tries to ignore him (and the fact that this feels like a repeat of the fall before the summer with Pennywise) while digging through the pile of movies for one that wouldn’t start a fight amongst the Party. Star Wars was usually safe but everyone but Will and El had watched that less than two days ago. Ghostbusters should be fine, even Max liked watching it sometimes. 

“Strange, that does not seem like One,” El says, half to herself, half to the other people in the room. 

“Probably because it’s not,” Mike mutters, hoping no one heard him, because he really didn’t want anyone to ask him about it, because he really didn’t want to talk nor think about that clown. He wasn't even sure if that was what this was anyways. 

“Who could it be then? Will, do you feel anything from the Upside Down?” Dustin questions.

“That’s not how it works,” Will sighs, instinctively bringing his hand to the back of his neck, “but Henry’s still hurt, too hurt to do much.”

“Who else could it be though? Vecna is the only one we know with the ability to do all this unless there’s some crazy kidnapper cutting off limbs and leaving them in the woods. But what’s the probability of that?”

“I don’t know Dustin,” Will snaps, “there’s something else in the Upside Down, I can tell that much, something or someone other than Henry, something not connected to the hive-mind. I really have to focus to be able to feel it.”

“Hey guys, is Ghostbusters okay?” Mike asks, showing everyone the tape. He really didn’t want to hear anything else about missing kids or body parts in the woods or anything else that reminded him of that summer or the months preceding it where random kids started disappearing including the little brother of one of his best friends. 

“Ghostbusters? Again? We literally watched that two weeks ago,” Max complains, crossing her arms and leaning back against the couch. “Maybe we could watch something like The Karate Kid, it’s been awhile since we watched that movie.”

“We’d have to go out and rent it, I don’t have it.”

“Family Video is still open, it’s only six.”

“Okay, then go to Family Video and get the movie you want.”

“Will and El just got back, I don’t want to go and leave-”

“Then we’re watching a movie we already have here.”

“Your movie taste is terrible, though.”

“Your movie taste is terrible, also we've literally watched the movies I've had a dozen times anyways, so obviously they aren't terrible.”

Mike and Max continue arguing over movies and Dustin leans over to where Will and El were sitting, “Believe it or not they were actually getting along two days ago,” he whispers, “it was so weird.”

“I mean, when Mike called the other day, Max was there with him before you and Lucas got there, so I kind of assumed they were getting along better,” Will whispers back to Dustin with a shrug.

“Yeah, but now Mike is telling Max secrets that he won’t tell us. And he let her meet his old friends from when he lived in Maine.”

Mike and Max stop arguing and both turn to look at Dustin. “You do know we both can hear you right, Dustin? And he didn’t actually let me meet them, I was just in the room while he was on the phone with one of them.” 

Dustin shrugs in response, “I wasn’t hiding what I was saying, Max. Also I’m down to watch Ghostbusters again. We all know what happens so if we end up talking instead, it’s not too big of a deal.”

“Looks like we’re watching Ghostbusters then,” Mike says, pulling the tape out the box, and turning the TV on.

“I thought this Party was a democracy? Two people saying yes in a six person group isn’t a majority. I know for a fact that your sister has at least Fast Times, The Breakfast Club, and both Grease and Grease two,” Max argues, crossing her arms. “So our choices are more than just Ghostbusters or Star Wars, which would be fine if we hadn’t just watched them.”

“First off, all of Nancy’s movies are terrible. There’s barely any plot in any of them. And the ones that do have plot she won’t let us touch.”

“Who gives a shit about plot if we’re all just going to end up talking the whole time!?”

“I like Fast Times,” El says, looking over to Max, who gave the other girl a look of approval (and slight surprise). Everyone else, even Will, looks over at El confused, probably all wondering when she watched that movie. It didn’t seem like the type of movie Jonathan would rent or that Mrs. Byers would rent for the three teens to watch.

“When did you watch that?” Will asked.

“When I was at Beverley’s, after Mike dumped my ass,” El shrugs,  “you were not there.”

“Hold up, Mike dumped you?” Dustin loudly questions, astonished. “Why?”

Lucas looks at El, then Mike, then El again. “Wait, no way, I thought you dumped him.”

“Why are you so surprised that I was the one to break up with her?”

“Because you literally kept talking about how she was basically a superhero and you got back together right before she moved away,” Dustin attempts to explain. 

“I am more than a superhero. And Mike did not love me that way and friends don’t lie,” El explains simply. 

“Yeah, that’s pretty much what it was. El was already upset with me for thinking of her only as a superhero and not being able to tell her that I loved her, so I broke up with her once we got back to Hawkins and made sure everyone was safe. If I hadn’t she probably would’ve,” Mike explains, recounting his and Eleven’s conversation they had after arriving back in Hawkins, neglecting to mention that he also told her that he was pretty sure he didn’t even like girls like that and might instead like boys like that.

“Yes, I would have,” El agrees. 

“Another question, who is Beverly?” Lucas asked.

“My and Will’s new friend.”

“Huh, alright.”

“We can talk about El’s new friend later, we still have to pick a movie, Mrs. Wheeler is probably going to make some of us go home in a couple hours,” urges Max. 

“I’m good with Ghostbusters,” Will answers, with a shrug. Mike gives Max a gloating look, she rolls her eyes.

“Me too, we can rent The Karate Kid next week or something, plus I don’t want to have to go get them from Nancy” Lucas finally answers, unexpectedly not siding with his girlfriend. “Max, I thought you liked Ghostbusters?”

“I do, but we watched it last weekend, so I wanted to watch something different.”

Mike turns the TV on and pushes the Ghostbusters tape into the VHS player. As predicted there was not much movie-watching that occurred. The Party members who’d remained in Hawkins were asking about how California had been, obviously with the knowledge that El had been bullied and that Will and El had actually made at least one friend. Max and Dustin were especially curious about said new friend. Asking Will and El as many questions as possible. Lucas asked a considerable amount as well. Mike put his input in every now and then, not wanting his friends to get suspicious about why he was so quiet, although in reality they probably already were. He was seriously starting to consider the possibility of that stupid clown being back. Realistically, it probably wasn’t. It was probably some kidnapper or some monster from the Upside Down that was able to make a gate or found one that they missed when closing them. Although Will had said he felt something different, something that wasn’t Henry or anything else connected to the Upside Down hivemind. Whatever, he’ll just ignore it for now, he’ll start worrying if he sees a red balloon or his deepest darkest fears. 

The Party was gone now (other than Will and El) and Mike was bored. Originally, he had planned on calling Stan or Eddie and talking to them again. Instead he was laying in his bedroom just staring at the ceiling  because Will, Jonathan, and El were on the phone with their mom so he couldn’t annoy them, and they were using the phone and Nancy would never let him use heres so he couldn't call his friends either. He had been reading through a comic but his contacts were starting to bother him, and he didn't feel like pulling his glasses out the dresser drawer he left them in this morning, so he couldn't see very well right now, so 'ceiling staring' was about all he could do right now. 

The door to his bedroom opens and Mike sits up and looks to the door trying to make out who was there. He squints and determines it to be either Jonathan or Will. Most likely Will because Jonathan was probably hanging out with Nancy. “Hey Will,” he huffs, flopping back down, hoping to God that it was Will in his doorway and not Jonathan, because if it was Jonathan that would be embarrassing and he would never hear the end of it from Jonathan or Nancy or Will. 

“Can I come in? Or are you too busy staring at your ceiling?” Will half-jokes. 

“Yeah, you can come in, sorry."

Will sits on the bed, a good six-inches to a foot away from Mike. Things were still a bit awkward between the two of them but it was better than it was during spring break. He was glad that they were friends again. 

“Are you alright? You’ve been acting weird all day.”

“I haven’t been acting weird.”

“Okay, Mike,” Will sighs, shaking his head as if he didn’t believe him. That was fair. Anyone could see that he’d been acting weird the past couple of days, last couple of months even. Apparently including someone who had been in a completely different state since April. 

“Did you come in here for a reason or just to ask me if something was wrong?” he asks, eyes not moving from the point on the ceiling he'd been staring at. 

Will pinches the bridge of his nose. “I just wanted to make sure you were alright. Even Lucas and Dustin said you’d been acting off lately, skipping Hellfire and avoiding everyone. Your sister is even starting to get concerned.”

“I’m fine Will, seriously, I am. This shit is just reminding me of something that happened in the town I lived in before I moved here,” Mike explains. He might not be totally 100% fine but it wasn't like he was not fine. Really, he was somewhere in the middle. 

“What happened?”

“Bad things, I don’t really want to talk about it right now, Will.”

Will huffs, “alright, did you know Hopper said that we can use his cabin as a hang out spot since El won’t have to hide out there anymore? We just have to help him fix it up.”

Mike finally sits up, “seriously?”

“Yeah, he told me and El on the way to the airport. Also, weird totally unrelated question, did you change your name when you moved here?”

Mike’s eyes widen and he starts floundering, letting out ‘uhs’ and ‘ums’ before just nodding. No use hiding it. Will wouldn’t be asking if he didn’t already know something. “Yeah, yeah I did,” he finally verbally confirms. “It’s a long story that I don’t really want to tell, but basically Ted and Karen aren’t my parents, Karen is my aunt and Ted was her husband, or still is right now I guess, and when I moved in with them Ted changed my name.”

Will nods, following along, not seeming as shocked as Mike thought he should be. “So that was you in Bev’s old yearbook. I thought it looked like you but the glasses threw me off and El said it couldn’t be you because that wasn’t your name.”

“Yeah, that probably was me. You and El’s friend, her last name was Marsh right?”

“Yep, you knew her?”

“Yeah, I knew her.” 

I’ve bled with her, was left unsaid. 

The two boys sat in silence for a few minutes before Will spoke again, “do you know why she can’t remember anything before moving to Portland?”

“Nope, it might have something to do with leaving Derry, but I don’t know why she’d forget and I’d still remember almost everything if not everything. According to my friends, Ben left last year and they’ve heard nothing from him since a few weeks after he moved, so he may have forgotten like her or just lost contact like I did. Bill told me that Mike told him that according to the research he’d been doing, people who left Derry tended to forget everything there.”

“But you still remember?”

“Yep, lucky me, I can remember what is possibly the shittiest town in the world and all the fucked up bullshit that happened there,” he huffs sarcastically. 

“Shittier than Hawkins?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. Hawkins is pretty close but I think the people in Derry are worse than the people in Hawkins,” he shrugs. Hawkins was bad, and it had been especially bad to Will, but without the Upside Down or Pennywise, Derry was probably worse than Hawkins, the only upside to Derry were the Losers, and even then not all of them were there anymore. 

Will seems at least semi-satisfied with that answer, because they stop trying to compare Derry to Hawkins. “So just to confirm, you moved in with your aunt and uncle, and they changed your name from Richard Tozier to Michael Wheeler, and Derry has some weird curse that makes you forget that somehow hasn’t affected you?”

Mike nods, “yep, that’s the gist of it. Also, I went by Richie not Richard.” 

“Does anyone else know?”

“Obviously my aunt and Nancy know, Holly probably does too. Oh, and Max.”

“Max?” Will questioned incredulously, why did no one ever believe that he and Max told each other things? They might have used to go at each other's throats (and still do sometimes) but they were friends now, and had gotten weirdly close the past few months. 

“Yeah, Max. Me and Nancy told her when she started staying here more. Her mom’s drinking habits have gotten bad enough that she ends up staying the night here pretty often and Nancy still calls me Richie sometimes so we figured she might as well know.”

Will nods, and before he can ask anymore questions Jonathan shows up to tell Will that their mom wanted to talk to him again. After the Byers brothers left to go back downstairs, Mike once again collapses onto his bed, but this time a small weight felt lifted from his shoulders. One more person knew his secret, not all of it of course, but still, Will knowing part of it was a relief, it was one less thing he had to hide from his friend and Will wouldn’t tell the rest of the Party either. He did plan on telling them eventually, but not right now, they didn’t need to know yet. 

Chapter Text

Richie slides another quarter into the coin slot on the arcade machine. He’s been playing for about half an hour now, and has been on the one Street Fighter machine in the arcade almost the entire time. No one else had been trying to play it, so why not waste time playing his favorite game? Maybe he could even get his high score up even higher so Max couldn’t take the number one spot on the leaderboard from him again. He finally got the top spot back just five minutes ago, and only barely, he doesn’t plan on giving it up any time soon. 

He’s seconds away from winning when something distracts him from behind. Someone was saying his name but that couldn’t be right, everyone only knew him as ‘Mike’ here. Even Will and Max, who know that he went by Richie before he moved, only ever really called him Mike. He quickly looks behind him, but nobody is there other than the few other people who were too consumed with their own games to have called out to him. He has to be losing it, either that or he’s way more stressed about the whole ‘children are going missing and it’s reminding him of Derry and Pennywise thing’ than he thought. 

He turns his attention back to the screen just to see ‘Game Over’ displayed across it. “Fuck,” he mutters under his breath before reaching into his pocket for another quarter, finding he only had two left. “Fuck,” he once again mutters.

“Isn’t that a bad word? My mommy says people shouldn’t say that word,” someone says from behind Richie, and he would be lying if he said that he didn’t jump when he heard them.

“Really? She didn’t seem to think that last night,” he replies without thinking.

“What happened last night?” the voice behind him asks a little too innocently, causing the dark haired teen to turn around. There was a boy, around Holly’s age, maybe a little bit younger, standing behind him. Why the hell is there a random unattended child here? And why is he the one this child is bothering?  

“Nothing. Nothing happened,” Mike replies a little too quickly and a little too snappily trying his best to get control over his mouth. He’s gotten better from letting out inappropriate jokes at the worst times, but it still happens from time to time. Especially if he happens to be alone.

“Okay…are you gonna play that again?” The kid asks, pointing at the game. 

He was planning on playing again, that’s why he’s still standing by the game. But this entire situation is weird. Just minutes ago someone had called out to him using a name that only a few people in this town even knew he ever went by, but no one was there when he looked. Then suddenly this random seven year old appears out of nowhere, swear-shaming him, as if he’s not already fully aware of his swearing problem, he was fully aware of it, it’s part of the reason he earned the nickname of ‘trashmouth’ from his friends back in Derry. 

Suddenly, the thought occurs to him, what if this is It? Kids are going missing now, kids went missing when It had started his once-every-twenty-seven-years torment on Derry that year. Weird shit was happening then, weird shit is happening now. It adds up, except for one thing, It is a Derry thing, not a Hawkins thing. Hawkins’ thing is ‘alternate dimension with monsters bothering them because of some guy with powers that El sent to a hell dimension’. Demon murder clown doesn’t really fit in with that. So logically this isn’t because of It, but even then, he really doesn’t want to stick around and find out.

“No,” Richie finally replies, stepping away from the machine and walking off. He could leave or he could play a different game, then leave. Maybe he can somehow beat Max’s high score on DigDug, that’d annoy the shit out of her. As Richie nears the DigDug machine, he realizes that he in fact is not going to beat Max today, because she is currently playing DigDug. 

“Hey Mike,” Max says, somehow realizing who’s behind her without even having to look. How did she do that? She turns around to face him. “Did you seriously let some random six year old kick you off of that game you were playing?”

Richie flips her off, “fuck off, I was almost out of money and had been playing half an hour anyways.”

“Hm, sounds to me like you’re making an excuse for letting yourself get bullied by a kindergartener,” Max hums, obviously teasing.

“I wasn’t letting myself get bullied by a kindergartner,” he protests, as if it would make much of a difference. 

“Not what it looked like to me.”

“Whatever,” Mike huffs, shaking his head, he doesn’t want to talk about this anymore, “did you see mine and Dustin’s new combined score on DigDug?”

“Yeah, when the hell did you two get to only one-fifty behind me?”

Mike shrugs. “Two days ago, when we came here after school while you and Lucas went out on a date.”

“Looks like I’m going to have to take Lucas on an arcade date and make this gap wider,” Max mutters, the changes the subject. “I still get to pick the movie for movie night this weekend since we had to rewatch GhostBusters for the fiftieth time last week, right?”

Seriously? Max is still on about that? That was Sunday and it’s Friday now. They had literally taken a few finals, basically finished the school year, and helped Will and El move into their new house since then. And yet, for some reason she’s still thinking about how they rewatched Ghostbusters last week, although they didn’t even really watch it since everyone ended up talking over it the entire time. 

“We literally didn’t even pay attention to it, we just talked over it the entire time,” Mike argues, “and if you really want to come to my house and watch The Karate Kid, Steve is working today so we can bother him into letting us use his employee discount.”

“Okay, let’s do that then, but you’re paying,” says Max, heading towards the exit, looking kind of smug. Could she be any less of a jerk today? Didn’t he just say he was almost out of money?

“I’ve only got fifty cent!” he shouts after her, as they make their way out of the arcade and to Family Video just next door, worries of clowns temporarily forgotten.

“Sounds like a you problem, Wheeler,” Max shouts back. 

Mike rolls his eyes and follows Max into the entrance of Family Video. Steve seems to notice them immediately because he let’s out a very audible annoyed sigh from the shelf he was restocking. Max quickly heads into the aisles, knowing exactly what she was looking for. Mike just awkwardly stands there, waiting for her to finish. 

“Steve!” Max shouts, ringing the bell on the counter.

“I’m coming, calm down!” Steve shouts, making his way to the counter, “is it just you two or are the rest of you brats here too.”

“Just us, Lucas and Dustin wanted to go to school today,” Max replies, sliding the tape across the counter.

“Shouldn’t you two also be at school?” Steve questions, taking the tape and scanning it. “Four dollars.”

“I didn’t feel like going, it’s not even a full day,” Mike shrugs, now leaning against the counter. 

“Same, I tried to convince Lucas to skip and hang out with me, but he didn’t want to,” Max adds.

“Also, can’t you use your employee discount for us? Max is trying to make me pay for her movie night choice,” Mike argues, getting an eye-roll and a sigh from Steve.

“Fine, but this is the last time, understand? Dollar-fifty.”

Max pulls out two dollar bills and slides them across the counter. “I thought you weren’t paying?” Mike whispers to her. She just gives him a look as if to say ‘don’t push it’.

“You two actually being friends now is still really weird. Please go back to hating each other soon,” says Steve sliding the tape and the fifty cent in change across the counter. “Also this is due Monday, don’t forget it.”

The two younger teens nod before walking out of the store. “Damn, another one,” Max mutters, noticing the poster posted on the wall just outside of Family Video. It’s a missing poster, some nine year old boy. Richie shudders, thinking of the countless missing children posters in Derry while It was active that year. Max seems to notice. “You good?” she asks, turning to her friend.

“Yeah, fine,” he manages to get out. He was absolutely not fine right now, but he also didn’t want anyone else to know that. Max gives Richie a sideways glance as he pulls his bike out of the bike rack, probably not believing him. “I’m heading home, so I can take the movie with me.”

“Don’t you dare lose it, Wheeler,” she says, narrowing her eyes at him, but tossing him the movie anyway. Thinking about it now, they really should’ve asked Steve for a bag. Would’ve been easier than having to bike home holding onto it, but Mike wasn’t about to walk inside just to ask Steve if they could get a bag, he’d find a way to bike with it. He climbs onto his bike and starts biking home.

Hours later, Hawkins High School’s graduation is starting and the entire Party is at the football field, all there for someone at least. Dustin, Erica, and Lucas, all came for Robin and Eddie, and are sitting with Steve further up in the bleachers. Mike had originally been with his aunt and Holly, since Nancy was graduating tonight, but had since moved to sit with Will and El who had come with Jonathan, Hopper, and Mrs. Byers. 

The graduation itself ends up being boring. Five speeches, none of which were exactly ‘good’ or ‘moving’ or whatever the hell a graduation speech was supposed to be. When one guy who Nancy had been competing with to give a speech started talking about standing like trees Mike started complaining to Will about how dumb this all was. Will just listened, letting out a few chuckles as his friend rants while Eleven just looked confused and honestly Mike didn’t blame her, he doesn’t exactly understand why they did all this either, they could just hand the graduates their diplomas and let them go, but no, there had to be five speeches.

As ‘tree guy’ is starting to finish up his speech, Max comes down from where she was sitting with Steve, Lucas, Dustin, and Erica to sit next to El. Max and El had been closer than ever in the almost week since the Byers/Hoppers returned. The two had gotten close the summer before El moved with the Byers to California, becoming best friends despite everything that occurred that summer with the flesh monster and the Russians (or maybe because of it? Actually, it was probably because of how shitty of a boyfriend he’d been to El, yeah it definitely had something to do with that). 

“What are you nerds talking about?” Max asks, settling in next to El.

“How boring these speeches are,” Mike replies, turning to look at her.

“Thought it was just me, why the hell did this guy start talking about trees? And this is the guy they picked over Nancy, I heard Nancy’s speech, it was good, way better than this guy .”

“If it was so good why would they choose him over her?” El asks. They all seem to keep forgetting how little she knows about the world. She’s definitely learned more in the past year, being in high school with other teenagers and all, but she still knew much less than the average person.

“My guess? Misogyny,” Max replies, crossing her arms.

“Mis-o-ga-ny?” El questions. She’s probably not heard that word before. 

“Yeah, it’s like when people think that someone can’t do something because they’re a girl. It can also be called sexism. So they looked at both Nancy and I think the guy’s name is Brad’s speeches, and although Nancy was better, they picked Brad because he’s a boy,” Max explains. “Or like when I joined the Party and Michael over there, tried to keep me out of things-”

Mike cuts her off, “Okay, that had nothing to do with you being a girl. It had to do with Lucas and Dustin drooling over you and me wanting to keep you out of the Upside Down bullshit.” Oh, and the fact that she seemed like a rip-off Beverly Marsh, yet another reminder of the Losers and Derry, which he was trying to leave behind at the time, figuring he’d never see or hear from any of them again.

Will speaks up, a little embarrassed, “it’s actually more like the time I said MadMax couldn’t be a girl because girls don’t play video games.”

Max turns to Will, offended, “I’m sorry, you said what? Did you really think that there was no way a girl could get to the top of the leaderboard on a game?”

“It was a couple years ago,” Will says, in an attempt to defend himself.

“So I am weaker because I am a girl?” asks El.

“No, you’re not, you’re the strongest person I know El; it’s just some people think that you’re weak because you’re a girl. They underestimate you,” says Max, putting a reassuring hand on El’s shoulder.

“Mouth breathers?” El asks.

“Yeah, mouth-breathers,” Max nods, sending a glare to the guy on the stage or the Hawkins High School administration.

Mrs. Byers then comes over to the group of teens and asks them to quiet down a bit, and because it’s Mrs. Byers, all four listen and stop talking for a few minutes as the speeches conclude and they start going through the names of graduates. 

It doesn’t take too long to go through them, after everything that has happened the past few years a lot of people have left Hawkins and it was never a very big town to start with, so there were only around one hundred graduating seniors, if even that. When Robin and Nancy’s names get called there are cheers from The Party (and Steve) which in turn get them glares and ‘shhhh’’s from older adults. Mike resists the urge to flip them off and settles for rolling his eyes instead. 

The ceremony finishes and Chief Powell walks onto the stage with Officer Callahan behind him. Were those two always working together? Mike isn’t sure he’s ever seen one without the other. He wonders if Hopper would be taking his job back soon, they seemed pretty useless without him.

“I know that everyone is excited for their graduates, and we offer our congratulations as well, you all worked very hard to get here,” the police chief started, stepping up to the microphone. “And I’m sure you would all love to celebrate, but just as a reminder there is a sunset curfew in place and as you can all tell the sun is already setting, so please take your pictures and head home, and remember if you see something, say something, so we can stop whoever it is taking our town’s most vulnerable members, thank you.”

Callahan then steps up to the mic, “that means you all need to go home ASAP!”

Hopper scoffs, as if in disbelief that this was who was in charge of the police department now or maybe he thought that getting the people of Hawkins to follow a curfew would be a practically impossible feat. 

Some graduates started leaving the field and others waited for their family members to join them. Nancy and Robin were standing near the fence smiling at each other, if they weren’t in public they would probably be kissing, but they were in public and Hawkins wasn’t a town known to be friendly to queer people, plus as far as Mike was aware Nancy and Robin weren’t out to very many people.

“Michael!” Karen shouts, standing in front of the part of the bleachers that The Party had been sitting on, holding onto Holly’s hand. Mike huffs, then gets up and heads down to where his aunt was standing. He notices the camera in her hand, great, now he would have to endure pictures with Nancy.  “You’re going to be in the pictures with Nancy too, we need to get these done so once we get home I can leave with Holly to head to Ohio to meet up with Ted,” his aunt explains. 

Mike rolls his eyes but continues following her. He knew about the plan she had to do this, she told him and Nancy yesterday, neither of them had been fond of it She told them it was just so she could give him the divorce papers and talk about terms for it and what to do with Holly, but Nancy and Mike weren’t so sure, it wouldn’t be too out of character for her to retreat back to the safety of having Ted in her life, even if it would hurt Nancy and Mike. No matter how many times she told them to go for what they wanted, she never seemed to go for what she wanted, instead playing the perfect housewife, well until recently that is.

“Hey, mom, can you get a picture of Robin and I?” Nancy asks, as they reach where she and her girlfriend were standing. 

“Of course, honey, you know, I’m so glad that you made a girl friend again,” Karen starts. Mike stifles a laugh as Nancy’s eyes widen in almost a panicked look. “Especially after what happened with Barbara, you two were so close. I’m glad that you put yourself out there and made friends again.”

As Karen was taking pictures and talking to Robin and Nancy, something else seemed to capture Holly’s attention causing the young girl to start wandering off in the direction of whatever it was. No one seemed to notice her wandering, and it wasn’t like they weren’t in a public place, so she probably would be fine, except for the fact that someone was taking kids and it may or may not be It, so actually it might not be fine. As he neared Holly, Mike realized she was talking to someone, that could not be good. 

“Yeah, I have two siblings! Or well kind of, my sissy Nancy, she just grad-u-at-ed. And Mikey is my brother…or kind of my brother. He’s actually my cousin, according to my daddy, and sometimes Nancy and Mommy call him Richie. Mommy says she’ll explain it to me when I’m older,” Holly says excitedly. Who was she talking to? If only all these stupid adults weren’t in his line of sight so he could see her and whoever she was talking with. 

“Well, I’d just love to meet that brother of yours,” a creepy voice replied.

“Who are you, anyways?” another child's voice asks. 

“I’ve gone by many names. Last time I was in town they all called me Mr. Baldo, but I prefer the name-”

“Holly!" Mike shouts, trying to get her attention. Whoever she was talking to, if it was It or not, was a creep. Holly’s attention quickly snaps from whoever she was talking to to her older brother and much to Mike’s relief she runs away from where she was and towards him. As adults moved around he could finally get a half-decent look at where Holly had been. Whoever was there had a red and white painted face, creepy smile, and yellow eyes, and although Mike was pretty far away, it reminded him of a clown. On top of that it looked like they were staring straight at Mike. A chill runs down his spine as he again wonders if Derry’s horrors were now in Hawkins. He pulls his eyes off of it whenever Holly pokes him.

“What’s wrong?” the young girl asks.

“Nothing, but mom wants you for pictures.”

“Oh, okay,” Holly says, following him back to where Nancy and everyone else was. Photos were now being taken of Nancy and Jonathan, who did not look very happy to be in front of the camera rather than behind it. “I made a new friend, people here seem to be super mean to him, they call him Mr. Baldo, he’s not even bald,” she adds. 

“Holly, you know you shouldn’t talk to strangers right?” Mike asks her. At least she didn’t say who she was talking to’s name was Pennywise the Dancing Clown. If she did, Mike isn’t sure he could stop himself from just running away and getting as far away from Hawkins as possible. At this point there were too many coincidences for it to be nothing, but there was no Pennywise, so there was still a chance it was just some creep (possibly in a clown costume). 

“I know, but he seemed lonely, and I wasn’t alone, my friend Jessie was with me,” Holly half-argues. Mike wanted to tell her that having another young kid with her wouldn’t help anything, but he didn't, still thinking about the maybe-clown staring at him. He had to be losing his mind today.

His aunt notices the two coming back to where photos of Nancy were being taken. “Don’t walk off like that Holly,” she scolds softly before handing Mike the camera as she gets Holly in position in front of Nancy. She didn’t even have to say anything for Mike to know what she wanted, a picture with her two daughters, as much as she took care of him these past few years, he wasn’t actually her son, even if Holly and Nancy thought of him as their brother. 

Robin gives him a confused, yet sympathetic look. Probably wondering why he wasn’t going to be in this family photo. He takes the photos with Karen, Nancy, and Holly. Then is surprised by Nancy asking him to get in the photo with her. Reluctantly he hands Jonathan the camera and gets in the picture with Nancy. A few more photos are taken and Mike is even forced to stand with Nancy and Robin in a photo. It was annoying. 

“Okay, we gave everyone twenty minutes and that’s it! You all need to go home now, especially if you have small children, if you aren’t out of here in the next ten minutes we will start fining,” Officer Callahan, once again, shouts into the microphone, sounding even more annoyed now. This time people seemed to listen, maybe it was because they were taking it seriously, or because they had threatened to start giving out fines…it was definitely the second option actually. 

After leaving the graduation ceremony, the Party, as expected, ends up in the basement of the Wheeler house. The older teens were all hanging out upstairs, just like last weekend, except it was just them alone up there, no supervision from Mrs. Wheeler, who had left half an hour ago with Holly to head to Ohio where Ted was staying, not that she usually supervised them, but her presence kept them from doing anything too crazy. 

Max was sliding a tape into the VHS player. The Karate Kid, the movie that they had rented earlier. Everyone else was sitting in their usual spots talking about whatever, Mike wasn’t really paying attention, instead he was trying to process what he saw with Holly earlier. She said that people called whoever the hell she was talking to ‘Mr. Baldo’, that wasn’t Pennywise, but that wasn’t exactly a normal name either, and maybe he was being paranoid, but Mike could have sworn that he had seen that creepy smile that still haunts his nightmares. His breath gets caught in his throat as the dots start connecting. It might not be It, It might be dead or hibernating or whatever back in Derry, could It leave Derry? Or was this just something similar? 

What could he even do about this? He wasn’t going to tell The Party about his suspicions, that was for sure. He didn’t really want to keep it to himself though. The Losers, his brain finally concludes. He needed to tell the Losers, or those still remaining in Derry anyways. Richie quickly stands up then realizes that the Party is staring at him concerned. “What?” He questions looking at the other five teens.

Will was the first one to speak up, “are you okay, Mike?” he asks.

“I’m fine,” Richie answers, a little too quickly and a little too snappily.

“Obviously you aren’t, you’ve been like this for weeks now, and it’s only gotten worse,” Lucas points out. They got him there. He had been like this for weeks now, apparently he wasn’t as good at hiding his emotions as he used to be, especially since he stopped using inappropriate jokes as a way of brushing everything off. What he wouldn’t give to be doing that now but that would be too out of character for ‘Mike Wheeler’. Ugh, why did he change so much about himself when he came here, it only made things harder for himself. 

“Seriously, it’s nothing,” he attempts to convince them. It wasn’t working very well.

“Friends don’t lie,” Eleven reminds him. Right, the Party’s number one rule that Richie was probably the most guilty of breaking of all six of them. 

“I’m not lying.” He was lying, and everyone else seemed to think so too. “Seriously. I’m fine .”

“Bullshit,” says Max, jumping into the conversation. “You’re not, and haven’t been for weeks at least, but I think you would rather eat nails than admit that.”

“Eat nails? That’s the analogy you use?” He snorts, he understood what Max was saying but still, ‘eat nails’? That was so dumb.

Max glares at him, “what would you rather me have said? fight a demodog? Go into the upside down? Jump off the edge of the quarry?”

As Max mentions the quarry, Dustin makes eye-contact with Mike. Both of them obviously thinking back to the time when Troy had a knife to Dustin’s mouth and told Mike to jump or else he’d start cutting. Not a fun time.

“Definitely not that last one,” Dustin mutters, causing everyone’s attention to shift to Dustin as they all demanded to know what he meant by that. Mike takes this opportunity with the Party distracted with Dustin trying to not tell them about what happened while Will was missing and the Party had split up, to sneak upstairs. He’d have to thank Dustin later for distracting the Party although it was not his intention. Dustin would only be able to keep it in so long, but hopefully that would be enough time to get upstairs and call the Losers before the Party realizes Mike is missing.

In the kitchen, he pulls down the phone and starts dialing Bill’s number. “Pick up, pick up,” Richie whispers, as nothing comes from the other end of the phone. He tries again. Then he tries Eddie’s house. Only Mrs. K, he had to put on his best telemarketer impression before she hung up. Then Stan’s, nobody answered there either. 

He slides onto the floor leaving the phone half hanging off the counter. “Fuck,” he mutters looking up at the ceiling. Did they just not care anymore? He had been pretty regularly talking to them for a week now. Maybe that was too much. Maybe he was too much. It had been close to four years after all. He couldn’t just expect things to be the same as before, especially when there were over one thousand miles separating him from them. 

Richie wipes his eyes and stands up trying to compose himself. Will or Dustin would probably be coming up soon to find him anyways. He did not want them to know that he was having a breakdown on the kitchen floor. So he puts the phone back on the wall and tosses some popcorn in the microwave to make it look like he’d done something . He’d have to try again tomorrow. If there was no answer by Monday he would bully Nancy into driving him to Derry. If this was It, there wasn’t much time to waste, because inevitably he’d be targeted, whether that be by his new friends getting taken or Holly or even Richie himself. 

He really hopes that It isn’t in Hawkins, but the probability of that seems to be shrinking.

Chapter Text

It’s way too early for this , Mike thinks with a yawn, glaring at the sun as he stands outside of Hopper’s cabin with everyone. It looked worse than he remembered, and he remembered it being in rough shape from the Mind-Flayer last summer. Someone must’ve broken in between then and now or something.

Hop had handed Jonathan the keys to his truck, he, Robin, and Steve had been tasked with picking up wood, nails, and other building supplies Mike hadn’t paid attention to from the big hardware store a county over. They’d probably been given the easiest task. Hopper was now barking out tasks for all the other teens. 

Will, Lucas, and Hopper were starting basic outside repairs. El, Mike, Dustin, Max, and Nancy would be cleaning the inside and Nancy was apparently in charge. Because of course she was. 

A broom is tossed at Mike, courtesy of Nancy, which he barely catches before it smacks him in the face. “No standing around, Mike, get inside and start sweeping,” she orders.

He rolls his eyes in response, but follows her inside. El, Dustin, and Max were already in one corner working together which made Mike kind of relieved. After last night he really didn’t want to deal with them confronting him over what his current problem was or why he would jump off the quarry. That conversation was bad enough and hard enough to get out of then. He didn’t want to sweep and talk about it.

Mike ends up with Nancy in the kitchen, both working to get all the debris into one pile. They were working in silence, much different to how the three on the other side of the room were. Nancy looked like she was deep in thought, not dissimilar to how Mike currently was. He doubted they were thinking the same things. Mike was questioning how to figure out if this really was It, and It had somehow come to Hawkins, as well as the quickest and easiest way to get to Derry. Nancy looked half like she was studying him, half like she was thinking of something else. 

He had vaguely told her about the clown whenever he first moved in with the Wheelers, she had seen him freak out after seeing a clown in some movie, and in typical Nancy-fashion demanded to know why a simple scene of a circus involving a clown caused him to react like that. He blew her off at first, saying some dumb insult–joke about her ‘Nancy-Drewing’. She kept pressing though, and eventually got Richie to crack. So he ended up spilling almost everything about the clown and that summer to Nancy. The only thing he left out was the promise sealed with blood that if It came back at the twenty-seven year mark, he would as well. He wasn’t sure if she believed him at the time, but looking back, she probably did.

Maybe she was wondering if this could be that too.

They continue sweeping in silence for a few more moments before Nancy finally breaks the silence between them. “You’re being quiet,” she comments, a mix of concern and suspicion in her voice. 

Mike doesn’t look up from where he was sweeping. “Thought you’d be happy about that,” he mutters.

“It’s weird. You’re never this quiet unless something is bugging you,” says Nancy, stopping her sweeping, and staring directly at him. 

Nancy had always paid attention to details, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that she’d paid attention to the behavior of her cousin, since moving in with her family and basically becoming her little brother. It shouldn’t be a surprise that she was able to notice something was up. Although, with his current behavior anyone who knew him for any significant amount of time could tell. Whether he was Richie or he was Mike he was never quiet. 

Still, he tries to deny that something was bugging him. “I can be quiet without it meaning that something’s wrong,” Mike claims, setting his broom against the wall and crossing his arms.

Nancy raises an eyebrow at this. A subtle sign she was calling bullshit.

“Okay, fine, not usually,” he admits.

Nancy sets her broom against the fridge, “then what’s wrong?”

Fuck. Was he really going to have to tell her what was up? If he did then there was a better chance that Nancy would drive him to Maine and if by tomorrow his friends didn’t pick up he was going to have to get there one way or another.

“All the kids going missing, I-” Mike starts before cutting himself off. There was a scream from outside. Actually it sounded like two screams, specifically Lucas and Will screaming. He makes eye-contact with Nancy. “Did you hear that?”

Nancy nods, eyeing the door suspiciously. 

Lucas and Will then burst into the cabin, shutting the door as quickly as possible. Hopper was not with them, meaning he either didn’t see what they saw, was doing something else, or is trying to fight off whatever they saw. 

Mike quickly rushes over to where Will was and El was doing the same. “Will, what’s wrong, are you okay?” he asks, grabbing his friend’s shoulder in an attempt to help calm the other boy down. 

Will doesn’t answer immediately, still breathing heavily trying to recover from whatever he just saw. El had her hand on Will’s other shoulder, also trying to calm him down. “I saw the Mind Flayer again,” Will says in a quiet voice, finally calm enough to speak. “Or it looked like him, anyways. I didn’t feel him though.”

“Was One showing you it?” El asks. Of course that’s where everyone else’s mind went. Henry/Vecna/One was the last monster the Party had dealt with and to them this probably seemed like him. Especially after what the group that had been left in Hawkins over spring break dealt with. 

Will shrugs, collapsing onto the couch, “I don’t know. I was never possessed by him so I don’t know if that’s what it would be like.”

“If you were, I don’t think you and Lucas would be hallucinating the same thing,” says Max, holding onto Lucas’ hand tightly. Lucas seemed pretty shaken up as well. 

“So is the Mind-Flayer back?” Dustin asks.

Will shrugs, then brings his hand to the back of his neck. “I don’t know. But I don’t really think he is, but if it’s not that or Vecna…”

“I don’t think it’s anything we’ve dealt with before,” Nancy announces, causing all six of the younger teens to quiet down. “I have something to show you guys.”

Minutes later they all ended up in the shed outside the cabin. Except instead of tools and shit, like it usually has, there was a conspiracy wall or whatever it was called. It had pictures of some of the missing kids posters and some details, as well as a map of Hakwins with ‘X’s marking where known disappearances occurred. There were also newspaper clippings dating back decades. 

“Hopper and I have been working on this since he got back Tuesday–” Nancy starts explaining until Mike cuts her off.

“Wait, this is why I had to ride home with Lucas almost all week?” he questions, now annoyed. He had to sit in the backseat of Lucas’ car with Erica for three days this week (Max obviously got the front), and this was why. So that Nancy could play detective. Typical.

“Yes, anyways, we’ve been trying to figure out what could be causing these disappearances and possible murders. There doesn’t seem to be much of a connection except all of them were kids. The weird thing is, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened. Everyone says Hawkins is a peaceful little town, or was until the last few years at least, but after digging, it’s not.”

“We all know Hawkins isn’t a peaceful town. If it was then all the shit with Hawkins Lab and the Upside Down wouldn’t have happened.” Dustin points out.

“Yes, but before that everyone would say ‘nothing ever happens in Hawkins, it’s a quiet town.’ Which actually isn’t even objectively true. There doesn’t seem to be much of a pattern to when and why things happen. Not one I can find anyways. Things just seem to happen somewhere between every twenty-five and thirty years. Things that get covered up immediately, probably by the government.”

Mike studies the wall from where he was standing, tuning out Nancy’s explanations. A few things caught his eye quickly. A large index card with ‘Clown?’ written across it in Nancy’s neat handwriting. ‘Hallucinations?’ on another. It was a shock that she hadn’t written something like ‘ask Richie how similar this was to what happened in Derry’, she knew what happened then and had probably already connected the dots. Although this was her and Hopper’s shared detective work, and she promised she wouldn’t tell anyone, so that probably had to do with why now that he thought about it more.

The shed door creaks open, and everyone’s attention turns to Hopper who was now walking in. Adults couldn’t really see It, at least in Derry, maybe Hopper had seen what Lucas and Will saw, if Hop was able to see whatever happened then it wasn’t one of It’s tricks and It wasn’t in Hawkins. Sure having to deal with Upside-Down related shit again would suck, but that would be preferable given the alternative.

“You showing them the board?” Hopper asks Nancy, who nods. The man looks at the teens, specifically the two that had probably run off from him, “what exactly did you kids see?”

“The Mind-Flayer,” Will answers, avoiding everyone’s gaze, “except it wasn’t. Whenever he or part of the hive mind is near I can feel it. But I didn’t this time, it wasn’t an episode or Henry either because Lucas saw the same thing.”

“Kali—Eight—she could make people see things like One,” El starts to explain, “she made many cops not see us all at the same time. It just took more strength. One could probably do the same.”

Everyone seems to consider what El was saying. Henry had been defeated for months now. El defeated him in Max’s mind while Nancy, Steve, and Robin defeated him in the Upside Down. Or almost did, considering he was still at least kind of alive in the Upside Down. From what the Party had told Mike during the debrief after he got back from California, anyways. 

Will is the first one to speak up, “unless I lost my connection to the Upside Down and Henry, it’s not him. He’s too weak.”

“Who could it be then?” questions Dustin.

“I don’t know,” says Nancy, “that’s what we’re trying to figure out.”

There is a silence among the group in the shed, which Mike is now realizing is holding way more people than it should. Between the rising tension in the room caused by this ‘new unknown threat’ and how cramped it was getting, the shed was becoming almost suffocating. 

“Alright, everyone out of my shed,” Hopper orders. There are noises of protest from the Party, wanting to keep discussing what could possibly be tormenting Hawkins now. Hopper shut everything they said down. Arguments of ‘you’re all just kids’ and ‘you’ve been involved in too much already’ falling on deaf ears. Hopper eventually gets everyone out of the shed (including Nancy) and closes it. “Now if you kids want to use my cabin to hang out in, you better get back to work and stop sticking your noses in places that are going to get you killed.”

There were murmurs of ‘okay’ and ‘fine’ from the teens, as they reluctantly got back to work, Lucas and Will now joining the group inside. Mike wanted to argue with Hopper, tell him that if it weren’t for all of them looking in places they shouldn’t he would probably be dead. Mike, however, bites his tongue and heads back inside. He just got off of Hopper’s shit list, and didn’t want to make his way back to the top so quickly. 

Richie was working with Will now. Not much actual work was getting done though. Will was still tense from the whole not-Mindflayer situation, everyone was really. “I thought I might’ve been having an episode again, like the ones leading up to me getting possessed,” Will says quietly. Probably trying to make more sense of what happened, there wasn’t much time to think on it before Nancy showed them what she’d been working on. “But it was different, Lucas saw it too. Whatever this is, it knows how to mess with us.”

“Maybe it’s a really observant shape-shifter,” Richie half-jokes, trying his best to lighten the mood and make his friend feel better. Also to make himself stop freaking out over this.

Will shrugs, “maybe, but if it was a shapeshifter why couldn’t Hop see it?”

Fuck . Richie thinks. The last piece to the puzzle had fallen into place. This was Pennywise, or something very similar at the very least. There was almost no way it wasn’t, or he was starting to think that anyways. He really needed to tell the Losers. But he couldn’t call them from here. 

Quickly, Richie stands up from where he was crouched, getting a concerned look from Will. “You alright, Mike?” the other boy asks.

“I’m fine,” Richie quickly answers. He knew that Will probably wouldn’t believe that. Not after the last few days where he was very much not-fine. He needed to go talk to Nancy though. She at least knew some of what he went through back in Derry and he could convince her of how urgent it was that he calls Bill (or one of the other Losers if he couldn’t get a hold of him).

“Okay, then why’d you jump up like that?” Will asks, slightly tilting his head in confusion.   

“No reason,” he lies. “I just remembered something I needed to tell Nancy.” 

“You never talk to Nancy!” Will shouts as Richie starts hurriedly walking towards the door.

“Which is why I need to talk to her right now! I’ll tell you what’s wrong later if it’s our actual problem,” he shouts back, running out the door.

“Mike!” Will yells, as the door closes. Yeah, running off on his friend like that was kind of a dick move, but Richie really did need to talk to Nancy, and although he really didn’t want to, she was his best chance at getting in contact with the Losers as soon as possible.

“What’s his problem?” Dustin asks, as if the windows in the cabin weren’t thin enough that the conversations inside could be heard if you stood at the right spot on the porch.

“Probably the same as his problem yesterday. And the day before. And for the past month,” Lucas mutters. 

“Just leave it guys, he’ll tell us when he’s ready,” says Will, with a huff. 

Richie finally steps off the porch. The Party really needed to chill the fuck out. If he wanted to tell them, he would, but if this is what he thinks it is, they don’t need to get involved. Hell, he doesn’t want to get involved again if it is what he thinks it is. 

Now out of the cabin he looks around for Nancy. Unsurprisingly, he finds her with Robin, helping unload the wood from the truck. 

“Oh, hey, Little Wheeler,” says Robin, dropping the wooden plank in her hands to the ground. “I thought you and your little friends were working inside.”

“We were, but I needed to talk to Nancy. Also, can you stop calling me ‘little’? I'm literally taller than you.”

“It’s because you’re younger.”

He rolls his eyes. 

“I’m busy, Mike, we can talk later,” says Nancy, continuing to do what she’d been doing. -

“Remember when I was thirteen and you were fifteen and we made a promise to stop keeping things from each other and neither of us kept that?”

Nancy pauses what she’s doing and makes a bit too long of eye-contact with Richie, trying to figure out what he actually wanted. She seems to get the hint that this was urgent and private because she turns to Robin and tells her that she’ll be right back, then follows Richie further into the woods, away from the cabin.

“Is this about what you were starting to tell me earlier?” Nancy questions, crossing her arms. 

If Richie wasn’t desperate, he would walk away right now and deal with calling the Losers later. But he was desperate. If that stupid clown was back he needed to tell them, and if that meant having to tell Nancy things that he didn’t want to tell her, then that would just be something he’d need to do.

“Yeah, it is. Kind of, anyways. I need to go home and try to call my friends again. And I don’t have a license and rode with you so I didn’t bring my bike-”

“If you just need a ride go ask Will or Lucas. Both of them have a license and both of them drove here. Or you can ask Steve.” Of course she was trying to blow him off. Why wouldn’t she? 

“Oh, so you can only help when it benefits you. And if I go with them they’re going to ask questions that I don’t want to answer.”

“This is reminding you of what happened in Derry isn’t it?” Nancy asks, or well sort of asks, it was mostly a statement. She was sure that this was reminding him of what happened in Derry. And she wasn’t exactly wrong. 

“No…kind of…yes. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“So I was right. This is the same thing you dealt with or something similar, anyways.” She was right ? What the fuck was that supposed to mean?

“Yes. Wait, you were right ? When did you say that it’s what I dealt with?”

“I didn’t. I had a suspicion and had written it down as a theory in a notebook. I didn’t tell anyone.”

“So glad that my suffering is proving your theories.” 

“Rich–”

“I’ll go ask Will, I’m sure Hopper has errands he can run,” Richie snaps, walking away from his sister back towards the cabin. He gets a few steps away when Nancy grabs his arm. He turns back to look at her, raising an eyebrow as if to ask why she was stopping him.

“I’ll take you home,” says Nancy looking him dead in the eye. “But you need to tell me more about this clown thing.”

Of course that was her condition. And she’d probably interrogate him once she got him in the car alone as well. But Nancy did already know part of what he dealt with, so this was the best option he’d get. No one new would find out about It and he’d get the earliest chance at calling the Losers.

“Fine,” Richie bit out, “but how are we going to convince Hopper and the Party that I need to go home without telling them about this?”

“Don’t worry, I have a plan.”

Nancy’s plan worked. It resulted in dirt in Richie’s eye and behind one of his contacts, but it worked. He was pretty sure Hopper wouldn’t have cared, but this made sure that they could get home so he could ‘take them out’. It also might’ve been because Nancy wanted to throw him into the dirt. Actually, that was definitely part of it. 

“Are you sure that your friends will pick up?” Nancy asks, turning the corner to the main road. 

“No,” Richie answers honestly, resisting the urge to rub his eyes, which were crazy itchy right now (thanks, Nancy). “They didn’t pick up last night when I tried. But I really need to talk to them. If this is what we dealt with before, they need to know.” He lets out a shaky breath. “I’m not dealing with this shit by myself. I really don’t want to deal with It again at all.”

Nancy nods, probably thinking to herself about this entire situation. “What’ll happen if you can’t get a hold of them?”

“Road trip to Maine?” he suggests with an almost guilty-looking smile.

“You don’t have a driver's license,” Nancy states matter-of-factly.

He rolls his eyes. “I know that. I was going to ask if you could drive me up there, and if not you, I might steal your car and drag one of my friends with me.”

“Okay, you are not stealing my car,” Nancy scolds, turning onto Maple street. Thank fuck they were almost home. “But if you can’t get a hold of them in the next few days, after Mom gets back, I’ll drive you up there.”

Richie groans and slouches further down into the seat. “ After she gets back? We don’t even know when she’s getting back. She literally gave us enough money for a week of food, told you you were in charge, then left with Holly.”

Nancy shakes her head as she pulls into the driveway, “so the clown…?”

“Can I get my fucking contacts out before you ask me about the clown? There’s dirt behind one and it’s itchy as hell, thanks to you pushing me face first into the ground.”

Letting out a huff, Nancy unlocks the front door. “Ten minutes, then I want to know why you think it’s the same thing you dealt with in Derry.”

Richie’s back downstairs within five minutes, glasses thrown onto his face instead of bothering with new contacts, especially since his eyes were now itchy and he had to throw the pair he was just wearing away because they got messed up (thanks, Nancy). 

“So, the clown?” Nancy prompts. Of course he wouldn’t get out of explaining this. Why would he even entertain the idea that he would? Nancy was persistent as hell and wouldn’t give up until she got an answer.

He lets out a shaky breath before explaining to Nancy why he thought that this was the same thing he dealt with, neglecting to mention how it might’ve been It messing with him at the arcade yesterday and how the stupid clown stared him down after he got Holly away. Nancy didn’t need to know those parts. Not right now, anyways.

Nancy followed along with what he said, nodding at parts, and surprisingly not asking too many questions. Although she did have this calculating look on her face as if she was trying to take his information and form her own conclusions. She pulls a notebook out and starts jotting down some things that he was saying about halfway through. Had that been on her the entire time? Richie leans over to look at the notebook and she slams it closed. “Seriously? I’m telling you all this and you won’t even let me look at your stupid investigation notebook? Maybe you should be an aspiring detective instead of an aspiring journalist, since journalists share information and detectives don’t.”

“Shut up,” scolds Nancy, glaring at her brother. “Hopper wants us back to finish up at five-thirty, so whatever you’re going to do, do it now.”

Richie rolls his eyes, but goes to the kitchen anyway. Bill was definitely the best option to call first. He was the one most invested in this clown shit anyways, made them swear an oath and all that. He quickly dials his friend's number and waits. No one picks up. “Fucker!” he shouts, slamming the phone back on to the wall. 

Why the fuck was it that when he needed to talk to them most they wouldn’t pick up? He really should’ve kept in better contact. It was most likely that if the Losers were at anyone’s house it would be Bill’s, which meant they probably weren’t at anyone’s house. They were probably in the clubhouse or swimming at the quarry or doing something fun. Fucking assholes. God, he wishes he was back in Maine with those assholes right now.

“I’m guessing they didn’t pick up,” Nancy says, walking into the kitchen. Richie doesn’t turn to look at her, instead he keeps glaring at the phone sitting on the wall. “They’re probably busy or out having fun since school’s out and it’s the weekend.”

He doesn’t say anything else to Nancy, instead walking right past her up to his bedroom. He’d been in a pretty shitty mood all day, but with the Losers now ignoring him (okay, they probably weren’t ignoring him but it sure felt like it) it was worse. He’d come up with a plan to get to Maine and talk to them later (if they continued to not answer the phone, that is). 

He closes and locks the door behind him, not caring that Nancy had basically volunteered the two of them to pick up gas and snacks and bring them back to the group still working. At the rate everyone was going, it should be usable within a few days (maybe even by tomorrow if things were going smoothly) to hang out in. They could finish without Mike though, not like he had been much help today anyways. 

About forty-five minutes of moping later, Nancy is banging on his door. “We need to go!” she shouts, “I told them we’d be back by five-thirty, and it’s already four-forty-five, and we still need to stop at the gas station.”

“Have fun with that!” he shouts back.

The door swings open, Nancy having just picked the lock. She looked upset, not quite pissed, but close to it. “You’re coming too, asshole.”

“Do I have to? I was going to wait then try call-”

“You’re coming. Put your shoes back on and put your contacts in if you’re putting them in,”

“What if I don’t want to?”

“I’m not giving you much of a choice here. Get ready or I’ll–”

“You’ll what? I’m not going.”

“Just because your friends aren’t picking up doesn’t give you a reason to hide in your room and mope.” 

“Yes it does.”

“Jesus fucking chr–look, I know that what’s happening now is reminding you of what happened in Derry, but that doesn’t mean you can just shut down, especially since if this is what you think it might be, you’re the only one here who really knows what it is that we’re dealing with.”

“Yeah, and I know that I really don’t want to deal with it again.”

Nancy pinches the bridge of her nose, inhaling sharply. “Well you don’t really have a choice. Now get up or else my offer to drive you up to Maine is off the table.”

“Fine,” he bites out, glaring at Nancy. 

He didn’t want to go with her, he really didn’t. He would much rather stay right here, in his bedroom, moping about how his friends won’t answer him and how they’re probably swimming in the quarry or watching a movie or at the arcade, all things they used to do together, that now Richie couldn’t do with them because there were now over a thousand miles separating them. But if he didn’t go, the easiest option to get him to Maine, having Nancy drive him, would no longer be an option. 

So, no matter how much he would much rather stay where he was, he gets off his bed and starts searching for another set of contacts, he wasn’t going to let the Party make fun of him for his glasses. Not today. Nancy notices this, nods in approval, then walks off, probably heading to wait for him downstairs.

He would just have to wait until later to try to call his friends again.

Chapter Text

It's five-fifteen when Richie and Nancy finally make it to the gas station. Nancy was standing at the counter, hitting the bell, waiting on the employee to return while Richie was roaming the aisles tasked with grabbing snacks for The Party (Steve, Robin, Jonathan and Hopper too). He'd already grabbed a couple large bags of chips and dropped them with Nancy but apparently they needed more.

He really didn't want to be here. He just wanted to be in his bedroom moping and waiting to try and call his friends again and hoping they answer this time. He didn't want to deal with the clown alone! He didn't want them to deal with It again either, but Bill would probably have a better idea of what to do. He always came up with the plans back home, anyways.

Richie pulls a bag of jerky off the shelf and heads back over to Nancy to drop it off. "This is enough, right? It's not like Hopper isn't going to order pizza or something for everyone."

"Get a couple drinks, the big two liter bottles preferably."

"Aye-aye captain," he says, giving her a mock salute, walking backwards towards the aisle.

Nancy gives him an annoyed eye-roll and shakes her head at his antics, before hitting the bell again.

He deflates as he heads back into the aisles of the store, letting out an annoyed huff, looking for any of those two liter soda bottles, did they sell those at gas stations? Apparently they do, because he spots them on the shelf right as he almost reaches the back wall. He grabs two bottles of coke and takes them back to Nancy. "Is this good enough?"

"Yeah, that should be fine," she answers, before hitting the bell again, even more annoyed. Whoever was supposed to be working probably wasn't even in the building to hear it. Probably outside on a smoke break or something. 

"I don't think he can hear you, Nance. Maybe you should try hitting it every five seconds," Richie teases, before hitting the bell himself.

He receives an annoyed glare from Nancy. Success. He hits the bell again. Another annoyed look. He might not be able to be alone and mope and/or scheme out a runaway plan, but at least he was able to annoy Nancy.

Nancy turns to glare at him. "Stop."

"Well, you hitting it every fifteen seconds wasn't working, maybe hitting it every five actually will get whoever the fuck is working to come inside," Richie argues, although the point of his argument was less to be right, more to bother his cousin/sister.

"That's not how it works!” Nancy protests. Yes! It was working, he was getting a reaction out of her. “And if they didn't hear me, they aren't going to hear you."

"Ah, but it does, my dear Nancy," he says in an obviously fake-British accent, much worse than the one he used to do. Man, he was rusty. He then walks away from her before she can say anything else to him. He couldn't have her getting the last word.

Richie walks over to one of the shelves that had newspapers and maps of the area. He picked up a map of the midwest. Seemingly, the only map in this entire stupid fucking store that showed more than just Hawkins or Roane County or Indiana because of-fucking-course that’s all this stupid gas station had. 

Opening the map, he was greeted with basically useless information. Just a map that went as far east as Ohio and only had major roads. He wasn’t sure what he expected. Maybe including bus stations? There had to be a bus that would take him at least to Columbus or Pittsburgh. Maybe even one that went all the way to Portland or Bangor. But no, it was all roads, which were fucking useless unless he stole a car or had someone drive him, and at the moment neither of those options seem realistic. 

Tossing the map back on the shelf (it was useless, anyways) he realizes that Nancy hadn’t rung the bell in at least a solid minute. Had the cashier actually come in? Had she given up? It was probably the former, Nancy didn’t give up that easily, and Richie did hear the door open while he was digging through maps. 

He looks over the shelves towards the front of the store where he figured Nancy still was, and she was, but she wasn’t alone, and the person with her wasn’t the cashier. Richie couldn’t really tell who it was from where he was standing, though. Maybe he should investigate. Especially since this guy’s presence got Nancy to stop hitting the bell.

From behind it still wasn’t easy to tell who was with Nancy. He could deduce that it was a teenager now, someone close to his own age if he had to guess. Tall with curly hair, wearing a collared shirt neatly tucked into his pants. Kind of reminded Richie of a slightly older (or well not really older since he would be that age now) Stanley Uris, actually. Wouldn’t that be crazy?

“Wait,” maybe-Stan pauses, “you’re Richie’s cousin….Nancy, I think?” 

Holy shit. It was Stan! Holy fucking shit. This was crazy. This was insane. If Stan was here were any of the other Losers also here? Would they really all just go on a spontaneous road trip to Indiana? Or was Stan here alone with his parents? Either way this was fucking crazy. Thank fuck that no one had noticed his presence yet because words were not properly forming at the moment.

“Yeah, that’s me,” Nancy nods, then looks around the store for a second, obviously not noticing Richie standing right behind Stan. “He's actually around here somewhere, he wandered off a few minutes ago. You’re either Stanley, Bill, or Eddie, sorry I don’t really remember which of you guys was which it was a while ago I was up there visiting.”

“Stanley,” he confirms. 

Nancy smiles and nods and then makes eye-contact with Richie, finally noticing him standing behind Stan. Shit. “Richie is right behind you, by the way.”

Richie gives Nancy a ‘seriously?’ look. What if he had wanted to surprise Stan, now that he knew he was here? He wasn’t planning on it, but what if he was? Had Nancy thought of that?

“Stan the Man! What’s up!” Richie says, with a grin as his friend turns around. Even if he was a little bit upset at Nancy revealing he was there, one of his friends was here , and he could pester him in person! 

Stan rolled his eyes, as expected. He didn’t seem upset though. “Hey Rich,” his friend says, looking slightly exasperated but also kind of happy. The two boys end up hugging briefly before Stan gets this weird look on his face, seemingly studying Richie’s. “Where are your glasses? Your face looks naked.”

“Wha—seriously? My face doesn’t look naked .”

“It definitely does,” Stan hums.

“You’ve seen me without glasses! Like a kazillion times,” Richie protests.

“That’s not a number.” 

“Yeah but—you know what I mean.”

Stan shrugs. “Maybe.”

“Not that I’m not happy to see you, but what are you even doing here?” 

“Waiting to pay for gas.”

“No, I can see that—wait, you’re not even old enough to drive, why are you paying for gas?”

“Bill’s too busy trying to not get killed waking Eddie up or pass out himself.”

Eddie and Bill were here too!?

“Wait, they're here too?” 

“I just said they were.” Holy fuck, they were here too. His oldest friends were here. They were in Hawkins. 

“So if I walk outside right now, I’ll see them?”

“Probably.” Stan once again shrugs.

“Let’s go then, come on Staniel, I want to see some Losers.”

Stan shakes his head at his friend, but starts walking towards the exit anyways, Richie following close behind him. A tired-looking man with a name tag and cigarette hanging out of his mouth passes them as they exit the building. Richie figures it’s probably the worker finally heading back in. That meant Nancy would be back outside soon, which wasn’t really a big deal, but she would want to leave as soon as she filled up the gas cans. He had already made up his mind that he wasn’t going back to the cabin with her, really, she was lucky she got him in her car to head to the gas station in the first place. His friends were here now, and he’d be damned if he had to be away from them any longer.

They make their way to the car, it was parked just behind Nancy’s. It wasn’t nearly as new as hers, probably an older used vehicle, which made sense if it was one of the Loser’s (probably Bill’s) first car. The driver's door and rear door on the drivers side were both open. 

“Eddie come on,” Bill huffs, exasperated.

“No, fuck you Bill, I just fell asleep!” Eddie shouts.

“Two hours ago! We made it to H-Hawkins, by the way.”

“Cool, tell me when you find Richie’s house.”

“Cranky Eddie?” Stan asks, leaning on the top of the car. 

“Yeah,” Bill confirms with a huff, pulling himself out of the backseat. “Did you pay for gas?”

“No, no one was working inside while I was inside. You might want to see what I found, though,” Stan says casually. 

Bill pops his head up over the car, “what?” he asks with a yawn. He looked a little confused, probably tired, especially if he’d been driving or even just in the car for close to twenty hours. He then looks from Stan over to where Richie was standing beside him. “Richie?” Bill finally attempts to confirm, a solid thirty seconds of staring later.

Richie waves from where he was standing beside Stan. “Hi.”

“You got tall.” Bill yawns again. Wow, he was really out of it.

“Maybe you just got short,” Richie half-jokes. Bill had definitely not gotten the same growth spurts that Richie and Stan had both seemed to get, although Stan had already been the tallest of the group, so him getting even taller wasn’t too crazy. Though now the two of them were pretty much the same height.

Stan snorts. Bill doesn’t seem amused. He slams the driver’s door shut and walks to the other side of the car where Richie and Stan were standing. Then, to Richie’s surprise, Bill pulls him into a hug. “Good t-to see you again, Rich.”

“Yeah you too,” Richie says as they split, still a little confused about what was going on right now. “What the fuck are you guys doing in Hawkins, anyways? Stan never told me.”

“We–” Bill starts saying, before pausing, looking back over at his car. “I think Eddie should tell you that, actually.”

Richie turns his head towards the car as well, confused. He is less confused when he sees who is finally getting out. Soon, a pissed-off-looking Eddie Kaspbrak joins the other three boys where they were just standing around. He didn’t look very different from how Richie remembered him. Obviously he was a couple of inches taller, all of them had grown these past three years, he was still short though. His hair had grown out a little, probably in defiance of his mother, it looked good. Otherwise, he looked just about the same, including in style of clothes, other than the fanny pack, which had probably remained abandoned after that summer. 

Eddie’s eyes widened as realization probably reached his brain, “Richie!? Holy shit.” He then turns to glare at Stan and Bill. “Why the fuck didn’t you guys tell me he was going to be here?”

“Oh so you w-would’ve gotten out the car then?” Bill snarks, a bit annoyed with his friend. Although it also could just be because he was tired. 

“Yeah, that’s the reason we’re here, isn’t it?” Eddie snarks back.

Richie’s eyes widen in surprise. “Wait…wait wait wait wait, you guys came here to see me ? Wait. That’s why you guys weren't answering when I called, I thought you were just being dicks.”

“ We were being dicks?” Eddie turns around to only be facing Richie, who proceeds to get punched. It wasn’t hard and it was only in the shoulder, but it still kind of hurt. “ You didn’t talk to us for four years and still remembered everything, dickwad.”

“I already explained why!” Richie protests, before, to his surprise, Eddie pulls him into a tight hug. 

“I missed you, asshole,” Eddie says, voice muffled by his friend’s shoulder. 

“Yeah, yeah, I missed you too, Eds.” Man, this felt good. He’d really missed this asshole. He missed all of them really, but it was different with Eddie. 

Someone lets out a fake cough from behind them, and the two boys scramble apart. Nancy had walked out, bags in both hands. She looked annoyed. Probably at Richie for leaving her to take everything out herself, but he honestly didn’t give a shit, his friends were here , in person, with him. “If you guys need some gas, he gave me twice as much as I paid for since he was on break so long, so once I finish filling these cans up, you can fill up," she says, directed at the Losers. 

“T-thanks, but w-we shouldn’t.”

Nancy shakes her head. “My car still has half a tank and you guys just saved me from having to drive this shithead to Maine to get him to stop bothering me. So just take the gas.”

“Who are you, anyways?” asks Bill.

“Nancy Wheeler.”

“Oh, wait, you’re Richie’s cousin, I’ve seen you like one time,” says Eddie, now recognizing the girl. How the fuck did they keep recognizing her? Richie could’ve sworn that the Losers had only met his cousin once and they were all nine to ten years old. What were the odds that they remembered her?

“Yeah, my grandma on my mom’s side lives up in Maine, so I’ve been to Derry a couple times. One time I got stuck babysitting this asshole—” she motions to Richie “—all day around Christmas and I think that’s when I saw you three,” she explains with a shrug.

“Wait, you weren’t babysitting, my mom said you were just going to hang out with all of us for the day,” Richie argues, remembering the instance she was referring to. “Who leaves a twelve year old in charge of a nine year old?” 

“A lot of people, including our moms.”

Richie rolls his eyes and flips Nancy off. She shakes her head at him and turns to fill up the gas cans.

“Where are you guys staying?” he asks, turning to his friends.

The three boys just look at each other, none of them giving an answer, did they not have one? It wouldn’t be too abnormal for them to do this without a plan. Eddie is the one to finally answer. “We were planning on staying at your house. If that’s okay! If not we can probably find a motel or something, we really should have planned this out better, I’m sorry if this is—”

“Yeah, you—” Richie starts saying, before Nancy cuts him off mid-sentence. 

“You guys can stay with us, for now anyways. My mom is out of state and won’t be back until at least mid next week. I’ve got something to do, but Richie can show you how to get to our house.” 

“I can?” Richie looks from his friends to Nancy, confused. He had barely paid attention to what she said, mad that she started talking over him. Nancy gives him a stern look as he finally processes what it was she was saying he could do.  “Oh, yeah I can, yeah.”

Keys get tossed at Richie, who barely catches them before they smack him in the face. He looks around to see who the culprit of the key-throwing was, and lands on Stan and Bill. 

“Stanley! W-Why'd you throw Richie my keys?” Bill protests. 

“Because you’re not driving,” Stanley states, before getting a confused look from Bill. He inhales sharply and pinches the bridge of his nose. “You’re about to pass out on your feet and have no idea where you’re going. I’ve got no doubt that Richie is a shit driver—”

“Hey!” shouts Richie, offended.

Stan glares at him briefly before continuing, “—but out of the four of us, he’s the most awake and probably has the best idea of where to go, since he lives here now.”

Bill turns to Eddie, an attempt at getting someone on his side. “E-Eddie?”

“Stan’s right,” Eddie agrees. “I mean, we could use a map, but none of us have slept more than a couple hours and we’ve been on the road since like nine-thirty last night. Much more driving and we’re going to end up in a wreck or somewhere far away from where we need to be because no one can pay attention because we’re all too tired.”

“I don’t know if letting Richie drive would be the best option,” says Nancy, turning back to the boys from where she just finished pumping the gas. “He’s failed his driver's test twice.”

Of course she brought that up. “Nancy, come on—” 

“So our choices are can’t drive and too tired to drive, great,” Eddie mutters.

“I can drive!” Richie argues. “I only failed because I fucked up the parking job on the second and I didn’t actually take it the first time because I wasn’t wearing my glasses. Which is dumb because I was wearing contacts, I’m pretty sure they just have it out for me, actually.”

“He still doesn’t have a license, by the way,” Nancy reminds everyone, as if that couldn’t be implied by the fact he failed his test twice and there was no talk of the third attempt.

“I’m retaking it in a couple weeks! No one is going to stop us and check, anyways. All the cops are too busy with the missing kids thing.” 

Everyone shuts up for a second and turns to Richie with confused looks. Shit. He probably should not have said that.

“W-what missing kids thing? Is something going on h-here Richie?” Bill asks. 

Yep. Definitely should not have said that. Although, this would be a good lead in to tell them about his Pennywise-suspicions. Otherwise he was just going to have to randomly drop it on them. Which he was originally planning on doing, but this was probably better. But he really didn’t want to talk about it at some random gas station on the outskirts of Hawkins.

“Let’s talk about this when we get to my house—”

“You have the keys,” Stan reminds him, as if Richie wasn’t fully aware that he had the keys.

“You guys were arguing! And these—” he shakes the keys in front of them “—were just thrown at my face!”

“Get in the car,” Eddie orders.

Richie turns so that he’s looking directly at Eddie. “What?”

“You’re driving us to your aunt’s house, get in the car,” Eddie repeats with a bit more of an explanation. Obviously, they were all done arguing over this. 

“Okay, okay, fucking fine.” He turns to his sister. “Nancy make sure The Party doesn’t come over.”

“No promises.”

Richie rolls his eyes, then goes to get in his friend’s car, the other three boys not too far behind. Eddie ends up claiming the passenger seat before anyone else gets a chance, forcing Bill and Stan into the back. 

“D-don’t wreck my car.”

“I wasn’t planning on it, just because I failed my driver’s test, doesn’t mean I’m that bad of a driver.”

“I’m pretty sure that and still not having a license is exactly what that means,” Stan mutters.

“Shut up Stanley, you’re not even old enough to take a driver’s test.”

“At least I haven’t failed two. Now, drive before we all decide to take the risk of one of us falling asleep at the wheel.”

“Okay! Chill, dude. And I only actually failed once, I’ve got this.”

“Do you, though?”

“Of course I do. Now shut up so I can focus.”

Stan sighs. “We’re doomed.”

They weren’t that doomed. Richie manages to get them from the gas station to his aunt’s house relatively safely. Sure, he took a couple curves too fast, and yeah, he almost missed a turn and had to slam on brakes. But he didn’t wreck, that's what really mattered, right? 

He puts the car in park and looks into the backseat with a grin. “See, I told you guys that I had it.”

“Who the fuck taught you how to drive?” Eddie questions, finally letting go of the handle he had been clutching onto for about three quarters of the drive.

Richie shrugs. “Nancy, mostly. And this guy who ran the D&D club at the high school.”

Saying ‘D&D’ seemed to get Bill’s attention. “Wait, w-when did you get into D&D?” 

“The friends I made here were really into it, especially in middle school,” Richie explains. About a week after he met and became friends with Will, Dustin, and Lucas, Will and Dustin basically begged him to play with them. He had agreed to play with them one time, this was a new town and they were the only friends he’d made since he got here, and he didn’t really want to lose them so quickly. 

“D-do we get to meet these new f-friends, also, do they still play?”

Of course Bill was excited over the prospect of getting to play D&D with someone, even if he hadn’t asked about that yet, the conversation was heading there. The Losers Club had played a couple of times, back when it was just Richie, Stan, Bill, and Eddie. Of the four of them, Bill had been the only one genuinely interested in the game at the time, although Richie did enjoy the dramatics of the game.

“Yeah, they still play, and you’ll probably get to meet them soon.” 

“Do you think they’d let me do a c-campaign with them?”

“Don’t know. Probably.” Richie once again shrugs. It was pretty likely they would. The only one who might not be a fan of it would be Lucas. Dustin and Will were always excited to talk to people about and teach people how to play D&D. Dustin had once tried to get Steve to play. It didn’t turn out very well, but he tried. And Will was the one to convince Richie to start playing more after that first time playing with The Party. 

Richie opens the door to let his friends (and himself) inside, then leads them down to the basement, where he goes straight towards the couch. He and Lucas had stuffed a couple bags of chips under it a few days ago, there should still be at least one under there…Aha! There was still a bag under there. He grabs the bag, plops on the couch, then shoves a handful of chips into his mouth. 

“Did you just…grab those from under the couch?” Eddie asks, giving Richie an incredulous look.

“Yeah, want some?” Richie stuffs another handful of chips into his mouth, then shoves the bag towards Eddie. 

Eddie scrunches his nose and pushes the bag of chips (and Richie’s arm) away. “No, that’s disgusting.”

Richie shoves another handful into his mouth. “It’s not that gross.”

“Do you know how many germs and bugs could have gotten in there from you leaving it on the floor, under a couch?”

“The bag was rolled up!” 

“It’s still gross! You’re eating floor chips.”

“Less gross than your mom’s–”

“No. No. No. No. Do not go there. Seriously, can you not go one conversation without bringing my mother into it?”

“How do you know I wasn’t going to say food? Maybe you’re the gross one for assuming that I was talking about your mother’s puss–”

“ Stop .”

“Richie, what were you saying earlier about kids going m-missing?” asks Bill, breaking up Richie and Eddie’s bickering session. “Also p-pass me the chips.”

Fuck. He’d forgotten that he mentioned that earlier. Although, this did make it much easier to bring up what he’d been trying to call them about since last night, which meant that his question of whether or not this was the same thing as what they’d dealt with in Derry a few years ago could be answered and hopefully Richie would be able to stop freaking out about it, especially if they confirmed that there was no way this could be It. It may make him feel a little crazy, but hey, that’s better than the monster that still plagues most of his nightmares being back.

“Oh yeah, a bunch of kids have gone missing in the past couple of months. It’s gotten way worse the last three weeks though. Especially the last two.” Richie shrugs, tossing the chips over to Bill who was sitting in one of the chairs. 

Bill takes the chips and shoves a handful into his mouth, receiving a disgusted look from Eddie. “Have they found any b-b-b-bodies?”

Richie shakes his head. “No. They’ve found a few body parts, though. It’s like they just—”

“Vanished,” Bill answers for him.

“Yeah. Vanished,” Richie repeats, looking down at the floor briefly, before looking back up at his friends again. “It’s gotten bad enough that there’s a curfew now. No one is supposed to be out after sunset.”

“Shit. That sounds like…” Stan trails off, a worried look crossing his face.

“Have you seen anything w-weird, Rich?” asks Bill, getting much more serious. This was bad. Sure, it was bad before, but now that everyone else was starting to think that It might be in Hawkins, it was so much more real.

“Well. If you count a random clown staring at me after I got my seven year-old cousin away from it as weird, then yeah,” he answers as calmly and casually as possible. 

“Clown?” questions Eddie, eyes widening as he looks from Richie to Bill, then back to Richie. “Why didn’t you tell us!?” 

“I tried to!” Richie exclaims. “I called you assholes last night and tried about five times. Then I tried a few times today. And obviously I know why you didn’t pick up now, but I did try and tell you.”

“Was there an-anything else?” 

“My friends saw a monster, and the adult out there with them didn’t see it.”

“This could definitely be It. Everything about this s-sounds just like him. Kids going m-missing, seeing weird things, adults not noticing the weird th-things, a clown—”

“I was hoping you would say that I was just crazy and there was no possible way.”

“There is no possible way,” says Stanley. “He’s dead or hibernating. He shouldn’t be coming back for probably another twenty-three years. And that’s a Derry thing and we’re over a thousand miles from Derry.” Richie wasn’t quite sure if Stan was trying to convince them of this or himself.

“It wouldn't be the first weird thing in this town,” Richie mutters, looking away from his friends, thinking about the monsters of the past three years. He really had to have some shit luck to move from a cursed town with an evil demon-clown to a cursed town that regularly had gateways open to a hell-dimension. 

His friends are all looking at him now. They looked a bit confused and concerned. Why shouldn’t they be? Richie just told them weird things had been happening (weird things that Bill had immediately connected back to the clown, because of course he did) and implied that things on a similar level of weird had happened in Hawkins before.

“What—what do you mean by that?” Stanley asks, staring him down.

“Uh.” 

“Rich, what’s happened here?” 

“Um. So, there’s this hell-dimension,” Richie attempts to explain, “we call it ‘The Upside Down’. Technically, I’m not allowed to tell anyone about it, since the government made us all sign NDAs. But the monsters from the Upside Down sometimes show up here.” 

“I knew it!” Eddie shouts, gaining the attention of the other three Losers in the room. “I knew you said something about monsters from another dimension when you called me! Then you tried to cover it up by talking about my mom!”

Bill looks from Richie to Eddie back to Richie. “You t-two talked about this?”

“No,” Richie answers. “I mentioned it really quickly when trying to explain why I wasn’t calling or writing to you guys, although for the record, I did write. I couldn't actually really talk about it on the phone since the government bugged the phone a few years ago, and I'm not sure if they ever unbugged it.”

Stan looked confused. “Why would the phone be bugged?”

“I may or may not have kept the government’s favorite human weapon in this basement for a week.”

“You what?!” Eddie shrieks. “Actually, I’m not that surprised. Why am I not surprised?”

“It’s not as bad as it sounds! Will, one of my friends here, went missing a few years ago and got drug to the Upside Down. Me, Dustin, and Lucas went out looking for him and found her in the woods. It was raining so she came with us back here. I didn’t actually know she escaped from Hawkins Lab and was raised to be a human weapon until after she was already here.”

“What the fuck did you get yourself into here?” asks Eddie.

“Too much,” Richie mutters.

“Okay, so, we established that there are monsters in Hawkins. This is just that then. It’s only in Derry, so we can stop talking about this—” Stan tries to convince everyone (and probably himself as well.)

“This s-sounds a lot like It, though. Richie, do any of Hawkins monsters mess with people’s minds and take kids like It does?”

“Not really. Well there was one that was kind of like It, he just went after people with trauma, I think, but he broke all of their bones and just left their bodies after killing them, I don’t really know much about him, that was over spring break when I wasn’t here. The other monsters sometimes take people but not specifically kids, and these monsters definitely aren’t clowns.”

“Guys, this is insane. It can’t be here. It’s not been twenty-seven years, and we’re not even in Derry. We’re not even in Maine.” Stan was scared. They could all tell. Richie couldn’t really blame him, the guy had almost gotten his face ripped off by the clown, he still had the scars to show from it. It wasn’t like Richie wasn’t scared that this was It. He didn’t want to face that stupid fucking clown again either. He was actually hoping they would reassure him that this couldn’t be Pennywise, that this was some kind of trauma response or something. Obviously, that’s not what was happening.

“W-we don’t know what h-h-happens during the twenty-seven years. He might not just hibernate, especially if we interrupted his cycle. Or he managed to follow Richie here after he moved.”

“If he could follow people, why follow me? And why now? I moved here over three years ago.”

“I don’t know, but there has to be a reason you still remember.”

“So he’s after me because for some reason I didn’t forget like Beverly and Ben? It’s my fault he’s here?”

“No—I don’t know. Everything I know is from research I’ve worked with Mike on a few times. All of this is completely new. So unless you know a-anything else, based on what we know, he probably followed you here.”

“Nancy’s been doing research,” he says with a shrug. “She said that stuff like this happens every twenty-five to thirty years. But it could just be a coincidence—”

“That can’t be a coincidence. We need to know for s-s-sure if this is It. So we can kill him and end this for good. In Derry, in Hawkins, anywhere else that he might be. No more Georgies.”

Richie, Stan, and Eddie all share an uneasy look with each other. None of them wanted to deal with this again. That much was obvious. Richie had really hoped this was just some creep in a clown costume kidnapping kids. Would that be awful? Yes, however, it would be better considering the alternative was a shape-shifting demon clown. He wanted his friends to reassure him there was no way this was their clown. Now, Bill wanted them to go looking for It and fight It again and not even the entire Losers Club is here! They could barely take him down when it was seven of them, what were four of them going to do?

Bill seems to notice the other three’s discomfort with this idea. “We made a promise. All seven of us did. We swore it with blood. That’s not something you can just break. We have to take him down. If this is what this is.”

“We made a promise that if he came back to Derry in twenty-seven years we would come back too. We’re not in Derry and it’s only been four years. And in case you haven’t noticed, only four of us are here,” Stan argues.

“Yeah, and we’re all sleep deprived, these kinds of decisions shouldn’t be made when we’ve been on the road for twenty hours,” Eddie adds.

“It’s not a decision. We made a promise,” Bill states. “A-and if this is It, we’re all going to be in danger again anyways, just by being here. I’m not saying we have to fight it. Not yet anyways, but we need to know if he’s here.”

“And how do you expect us to find that out?” Richie asks.

“We investigate. See if we find anything that proves this is I-It. That this is our clown. Once we’re certain that it is, then we’ll figure out next steps and find the rest of the Losers Club so we can take him down once and for all.”

There was silence for a few seconds. The other three boys considering what their (slightly insane) friend was saying. They’d gone through this before. Looking for Georgie led to them going to the house on Neibolt, which led to him, Eddie, and Bill almost getting killed. Then they went back to that house and almost died again fighting the stupid clown. 

Richie was almost positive that this would probably lead to almost dying to It again (or whatever/whoever the fuck was messing with Hawkins right now) and while he didn’t exactly want to have another near-death experience this year, there wasn’t much of a way out of this, like the rest of The Losers Club he swore a blood oath and had the scar to prove it. Plus, if they didn’t do it, he would bet that The Party, or at least some of them, would, and if The Party went after It, chances are they would end up dead. He could already imagine El trying to kill Pennywise with her mind and instead of killing him just making the clown more angry because Richie was pretty sure that her powers wouldn’t work on It.

“I hate this,” Stanley mutters, “I really hate this.”

“Are you sure about this, Bill?” Eddie asks, a panicked expression crossing his face. “I mean last time it didn’t turn out so well. We figure out he’s here, then he knows we’re here, and if he knows we’re here, he’s obviously still going to be pissed with us. Especially after we didn’t just give you up to him. He has it out for all seven of us. And—and there’s no way that if he gets us where he can easily get us that he won’t go after us. He’s already been fucking with Richie and his new friends and he was the only one here. I don’t want him to kill us all. I don’t want to die and—and I’m about to have a fucking asthma attack and I threw out my inhaler, my mom was right I—”

Richie grabs Eddie’s shoulder, trying to get the other boy’s attention on him to calm him down. Eddie does turn to face his friend, but is still taking short panicked breaths. “Hey, hey, look at me, breathe,” he says, as Eddie slowly starts to calm down.  “You don’t have asthma. You’re having a panic attack. It was all fake, remember? They’re placebos, they’re bullshit. Your mom is a bitch and lied to you for years. The clown isn’t going to kill you, I wouldn’t let him, plus, we’re not even positive he’s here. In—out. There.”

“Thanks,” Eddie murmurs, looking away for a second in slight embarrassment as he finally calmed down. He then looks back at Richie, looking a bit concerned. “You’re being weirdly serious and quiet right now. You alright?”

Richie shrugs in response. The answer was closer to no, but he wasn’t going to say that. But he also knew that if he said he was totally fine then his friends would instantly call bullshit. So shrugging was probably the best option.

“Tomorrow. We’ll go into Hawkins and see if we find anything. We don’t have to actively look, but we need to at least keep our eyes out for anything that might be a sign that he’s here,” says Bill, leaving no room for argument. This was probably his idea of a compromise and was probably the most they were going to get him to back off of this. It wasn’t a horrible idea though. Chances are they would see something but they could also just hang out together without chasing a demon clown that they all thought was still asleep (or possibly dead) in Derry.

“You’re not going to find much in Hawkins. It’s just about as boring as Derry.”

“I’m sure there’s s-something.”

“Sure, if you count boiling to death due to the heat and humidity until you start to slowly rot until you smell like Eddie’s mom’s underwear.”

Eddie groans. “Dude, gross.”

“Look, all I’m saying is this town sucks ass. There are a couple things to do, but not much, and it’s summer so it’s going to be hot and humid as hell.”

“It gets hot and humid in Derry too,” Stan points out, finally rejoining the conversation.

“Yeah, I know,” Richie huffs, “I’m just saying if you’re expecting anything…exciting you definitely won’t find it here. Even if a monster showed up—which they won’t, the Upside Down is inactive and the gates are all closed—that won’t be exciting, it won’t be boring but that’s not something anyone really wants to deal with.”

“As long as we’re all t-together we’ll figure something out,” says Bill. “We all did back in D-Derry.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Richie shrugs. “And there’s always the arcade if nothing else.”

A door closes upstairs. Nancy must be back. Richie hadn’t realized how long it had been since he left the gas station with his friends. It had to have been at least an hour for Nancy to be back. Hopefully she was alone. Richie planned to explain everything to The Party soon, but he really didn’t want to do it tonight. 

Still, he turns to look over to the stairs just in case, and as he does, the door opens and Max starts coming down. Shit. Obviously, this wasn’t the worst possible scenario, but it definitely wasn’t a great one. Could he not just have one halfway-normal night hanging out with his friends that he hadn’t seen in years?

Max looks at the four boys, an amused smile on her face and mischievous glint in her eye. “Oh, this is going to be fun.”

He gives her a confused look, wondering what the fuck she was talking about, then the door upstairs slams open, then shut, and loud footsteps are heard above. The Party was here. Fuck.

Chapter Text

Richie has about thirty seconds to get his shit together. 

The Party is seconds from bursting into the basement as if they own it, and when they do, they’re going to notice the Losers, and all hell will break loose. Someone was going to say something, and it would involve either of his names, and when they did, it would leave the other group confused because Richie hadn’t told the Losers he’d been going by Mike here, and Mike hadn’t told three out of the five other members of the Party that before he started living in Hawkins his name was Richie.

It wasn’t like he was never planning on telling the Party. He was. Maybe not right now, maybe not in this way, where he’d be put on the spot to give everyone answers, but he was going to tell them. He’d already told two-fifths of the others in the Party anyways, he just never found the right time to tell Lucas, Dustin or El. But it was looking like the ‘right time’ was just going to have to be right now. 

It didn’t take long for the footsteps to get louder and his friends to start making their way down to the basement. This was it, wasn’t it? The last few moments where that particular secret would remain a secret.

El comes down first, and by some miracle, she doesn’t say anything about the three new people in the basement. She probably didn’t even notice, with her attention being mostly on Max, who she started talking with as soon as she reached the other girl.

Maybe this could still work out. If no one notices the Losers and they don’t say anything to the Party then this would all be fine and he could save the trouble of telling the Party he basically lied to them about who he was for another day.

The next one to come down is Dustin, who stops abruptly midway down the stairs, right at the point where he could easily see the rest of the room. Shit.

“Who the hell are they?” Dustin asks, obviously having noticed the Losers occupying the couch and chairs where the Party usually sat. Great. Fucking great. This actually wasn’t going to work out the way he wanted. This was actually going to happen. Fuck.

Lucas runs into Dustin’s back. “Dude, you’re blocking the way, move.”

“Seriously, Lucas?” Dustin turns around to face his friend. “You’re asking me to move when there are much more concerning matters at hand.”

“Concerning like what?” Lucas sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Like those three random guys sitting with Mike!” shouts Dustin, motioning to the Losers. “Have you seriously not noticed them?”

“Uh, no. I’m just trying to get down the stairs, why would I have noticed them?”

“Because they’re right there!”

Lucas peeks past Dustin to where he too could see the Losers and confirm what Dustin was saying. “Okay, yeah, that is weird, but what am I supposed to do about it stuck behind you on the stairs?”

“I don’t know, be able to run and get help if they turn out to be here to murder us or something.”

Seriously? Dustin thought the Losers might be there to murder them? What the fuck?

Will inhales sharply from behind Lucas and Dustin, having quietly made his way down the stairs behind Lucas. “Both of you move and quit arguing. If Mike seems fine with them, they’re probably fine. Plus, you could just ask him nicely, I’m sure he’ll tell you who they are and why they’re here.”

Richie isn’t sure whether to be thankful for what Will just did or be more worried. On one hand, it meant that the potential of the Party trying to fight the Losers was much lower, but on the other, it meant questions would definitely be asked, and Richie would definitely be explaining himself within the next five minutes. 

“Okay, now, is anyone going to tell us who the hell those people are?” asks Dustin, crossing his arms. 

Max shrugs. “They were here when I came down, never seen them before in my life.” 

Dustin looks at Mike, expecting an answer. Okay, maybe he could manage to get himself out of this, he just had to be super careful about what he says.

As Richie opens his mouth to answer Dustin, Bill ends up answering for him, “w-we’re Richie’s friends, f-from Maine.” 

He was definitely doomed now. Dustin, Lucas, and El had never heard him called by that name, or if they did hear someone (Nancy, mostly) call him that, they didn’t know he was the one being called that. The Party was going to realize that he’s been lying to them and broke one of their biggest rules. Hell, they might even want to kick him out for it. He knew that Will and Max (and likely El too, once he explained things) would be on his side, but he didn’t know about Lucas and Dustin, and really didn’t want to split the Party over this. Plus, that wasn’t even the real lie! Especially since his legal name currently is Michael Wheeler. What was really the lie was his entire personality as Mike. He wasn’t really sure how the party would react to him actually acting like himself around them and not this carefully fabricated version of himself that he had been here. That lie he might not even get the support of Will, El, or Max for.

“Who’s Richie?” Dustin asks, looking even more confused than he was to begin with. 

“What do you mean ‘who’s Richie’!?” questions Eddie, giving Dustin an incredulous look, before motioning to the boy sitting beside him. “He’s right there!”

Yep, doomed.

Richie slides down trying to sink into the cushions of the couch. Maybe he could just disappear and not deal with the consequences of lying to his friends. Or if this was actually some cruel trick by It, that stupid clown could just take him now. He liked fear right? Richie sure felt a lot of fear right now.

“Uh no, that’s Mike,” Dustin says, returning Eddie’s confused look with one of his own.

“Dustin,” Max sighs, sounding slightly annoyed at Dustin’s slowness to get it. “Think for a second.”

“Think?” Dustin turns around to give her an extremely confused look. “Think about what?”

Stanley looks over at Richie, who is still attempting to be swallowed by the couch cushions. “What are you doing?” 

“Hiding,” Richie mumbles, hoping the couch would just swallow him whole at this point. 

“You’re doing a terrible job.”

“I know.”

“What the fuck did you do?” Eddie asks, looking down at his friend with an annoyed scowl.

Richie sits up. “How do you know I did something?”

“You’re trying to disappear into the couch, your supposed new friends are asking who you are and saying that you’re someone else, you did something.”

“Yeah, your mom,” Richie deflects, dropping back down. 

“Oh my god. Seriously? You literally called her a bitch five minutes ago, can you sto—”

“I have thought about it Max!” Dustin shouts, drawing everyone’s attention to him yet again and cutting Eddie off mid-rant. “There’s no way Mike would lie to us about something like that. I know it’s the only answer that makes sense, but I don’t believe it, you’re with me, right El? Lucas? Will?” 

Will shakes his head. “Max is right, Dustin.”

Dustin stares at Will with a betrayed look. “Will, c’mon. Not you too…”

“Sorry.”

“Great. Amazing. Hilarious inside joke between the three of you. And these other three people, apparently.”

Lucas shrugs. “I dunno, Dustin, it makes sense. Plus, I'm pretty sure I’ve heard Nancy and Mrs. Wheeler call Mike ‘Richie’ before.”

Dustin looks over to El, one final attempt at finding someone who completely agrees with him. And lucky for Dustin she does.

“Friends don’t lie,” she states. “Mike would not lie about something like this, although he lies more than I would like him too.”

Stan raises an eyebrow, turning his attention back to Richie. “Are you going to tell them or are one of us going to have to?” 

Richie sighs. “I’ll tell them. Just give me a second.”

“I don’t know if they’re going to give you a second.”

They definitely weren’t. Dustin and El were staring at him intensely, the rest of the Party also watching. Fuck, he was really about to do this. He pulls himself back up onto the couch, sitting at least semi-normally. 

Richie looks over at the party and takes a deep breath. He had to do this, he had to tell them, no matter how much he didn’t want to. “Okay, so, to answer your question Dustin, I’m Richie. Max and Will weren’t just fucking with you.”

“But—I—you— what? ” Dustin stammers, wide-eyed. 

“For someone so smart, you can be so stupid sometimes, Dustybun,” Richie teases, knowing how upset calling Dustin by that nickname would make him. It got on the other boy’s nerves any time someone other than Suzie called him that. Mike had never actually called Dustin that to his face, but he had thought about it so many times, he just hadn’t because that was too out of character for ‘Mike Wheeler’. These past few years he’d tried so hard to be someone else. So much so that he almost didn’t recognize the person he was becoming. But he was coming clean to the Party, so why not start acting like himself again? Sure, he’d have to explain, but that’d be a problem for later when someone else actually addresses it.

Dustin’s facial expression goes from confused, to offended, back to confused, opening and closing his mouth but not saying anything. Richie wasn’t really sure if his confusion was more towards what was just admitted to or how Mike was starting to act, which was a whole separate issue that he had to come clean about.

El crosses her arms, looking a little upset. “So you lie?”

“I—Okay, I didn’t lie, it's just complicated.”

“How?”

“I — so you see — I —” he flounders, failing to string a sentence of words together to explain himself. He puts his head in his hands and lets out a frustrated noise. Pull yourself together, Tozier , you got yourself in this mess , he thinks to himself, before finally looking back up at everyone and taking a deep breath. “When I moved here, I — or well, my aunt and uncle, really — wanted to change my name,” he explains to everyone, then looks directly at the Party. “So, you guys knew me as Mike Wheeler, but before that I was Richie Tozier. Which is why they were calling me Richie.”

El nods, seeming to get it, at least a little. “So you were Richie and now you are Mike?”

“Um. Sort of? I wouldn’t say it’s a was–is situation. I’m still Richie, but I had to be Mike around you guys. Honestly, I probably could’ve just ignored what Ted wanted me to do, he was pretty useless anyways. But Lucas, Will, and Dustin seemed to like who I was trying to be as Mike, so I kept being Mike because they were the only friends I made here and I didn’t want to lose them, and at that point I wasn’t really in contact with these guys—” he motions to the Losers “ —so I kept being Mike, and by the time you and Max came around I was in too deep to stop,” he says, letting out a nervous laugh. “Wow, talking about myself in third person feels weird as fuck.” 

“So you are Richie but had to be Mike?” she attempts to clarify, starting to look confused again.

“I guess, yeah. I mean kind of. It’s complicated!”

“Wait, s-s-so you stole Mike’s n-name?” Bill asks, cutting in. 

“No. Why the fuck would I want to steal his name?” Richie turns to Bill with a confused look.

“I don’t k-know! But ‘Mike’ p-probably came f-from somewhere!”

“Yeah, my middle name.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah…Speaking of Homeschool, is there a reason he didn’t come with you guys? I doubt he left Derry.”

“He’s still in Derry. H-He’s been a lot busier on the farm lately, his g-grandpa fell back in December, s-so he’s had to pick up a l-lot more of the work,” Bill explains. 

“We also kind of wanted it to be just us four again. Plus, we didn’t really plan this out, so…” Eddie adds.

“Oh, okay, and if It’s—”

“W-when we know for s-sure, I’m letting him know.”

“What do you mean ‘had to be Mike’?” asks Will, sounding confused and a little hurt. “All you did was change your name.”

“Well, uh—” Fuck. How was he going to explain that he changed so much more than his name when he moved here. How he was a much more mild version of himself here, so much so that if he actually acted like himself around the Party they would probably be confused and concerned. “I changed a lot about myself when I came here,” he ends up saying with a shrug, keeping it as vague as possible. Going by a different name was one thing, but changing so much about himself just to try and fit into a new mold was something completely different. The Party would realize that they barely knew him, even after spending three years fighting monsters together.

“Do you like being Mike?” asks El. She didn’t seem too upset or anything, not like their other friends, just curious, which was better than he expected, honestly. El took the ‘friends don’t lie’ rule very seriously. The entire Party did, really, but El cared about everyone following it the most.

Richie wasn’t really sure how to answer her, though. Not in an honest way where The Party wouldn’t get upset at least. Did he like pretending to be someone else and being isolated from the friends he spent the first chunk of his life with? Definitely not. There were some parts about ‘being Mike’ that he did like. For one, he was glad he joined Will, Lucas, and Dustin’s Party and became friends with them and later El and Max. Plus, bullying wasn’t as bad as it had been when he lived in Derry. It was bad, don’t get him wrong, but being called things like ‘frogface’, ‘loser’, ‘nerd’, and ‘freak’ were better than some of the things he was called back in Derry. It did suck hearing Will called some of the things he used to be called, though, especially when it seems like he wasn’t viewed that way by the assholes here as much as he was the assholes there. 

Dustin regains the ability to talk just as Richie opens his mouth to give some sort of an answer to El. “Okay, I think I’m even more confused now. So back to the first question, the three of them are your friends?”

“Yep. They’re just three Losers who made the mistake of befriending me.”

“Mike!” Will shouts. "You can’t just call your friends ‘losers’, that’s mean.” The Party seemed to be nodding in agreement with Will. 

“No, it’s—” Richie looks over to Bill for help.

“It’s n-not mean. We call ourselves The Losers Club,” Bill explains to The Party, before turning to glare at Richie. “A-And stop saying that. Befriending you was not a m-m-mistake.”

“Actually, the jury's still out on that,” says Stan. 

Richie snorts. “Says the guy who’s willingly been friends with me since before kindergarten.”

If it were anyone other than Stanley, Richie would have been offended, and a little upset, not that he’d ever let it show. But he and Stan had been close since they were three or four years old (excluding the past few years where Richie hadn’t spoken to any of the Losers, although Stanley had written him a considerable number of letters that he hadn’t seen until a week ago), so if Stan had ever regretted becoming friends with him he’d had the past twelveish years to do something about it.

“So you guys just…call yourselves losers ?” Lucas asks, brow furrowed in confusion.

“Pretty much.” Stanley shrugs.

“Why?” Will asks. 

The Losers all look at each other. Eddie is the one who answers.“We weren’t exactly the most…well liked group of kids.”

“What he m-means is we were bullied all the time. We still are,” Bill elaborates.

“Hey, Same!” Dustin shouts, but gets ignored by Bill who continues.

“But calling ourselves L-losers kind of helped reclaim the insults thrown at us. It makes it hurt less whenever someone yells them at us.”

“Wow, that’s actually a really smart idea,” Will compliments.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t inflate his ego. For every smart idea Bill has, he has five dumb ones," says Stanley, with a groan.

Bill turns to Stan, offended. “I do n-not.”

“Yes, you do,” the three other Losers in the room chorus.

“Name one.”

“Cutting our hands on glass, the same shard of glass,” Eddie quickly responds, getting some confused/concerned looks from the Party.

“Taking us into the crackhead house,” Richie says, thinking about the first time they went into the house, when it had been him, Eddie, and Bill going in and Eddie almost didn’t make it out. 

“All of us going down the well in that house,” Stanley adds, keeping with the trend of talking about events from that summer. Sure, Bill had other dumb ideas, but that summer those ideas had the most consequences.

“Okay, that was one s-summer, I think t-the thing with my b-brother kind of excuses it.”

“What the hell did you guys get yourselves into?” Max asks.

“You don’t want to know.”

Will stops them from talking anymore about that summer. “Not to interrupt this argument, but, we still don’t really know who you guys are, other than Mike—er, Richie’s friends.”

“I’ve got this." Richie grins, not even noticing that it was a different smile than the Party was used to seeing on him. "So this is Big Bill.” He motions to Bill, who waves. “He punched me in the face once.”

The smile on Bill’s face drops. “T-that was f-four years ago. Eddie punched you a c-couple hours ago, if e-even.”

“ You punched me in the face, Eddie punched me in the shoulder.”

“Don’t forget that Eddie is his favorite, so he gets away with everything,” Stan interjects. 

Richie turns to Stan with an offended look. “Not true! I don’t let Eddie get away with everything. ”

“You’re not denying the favorite part.” Yeah, there really was no denying that.

“Uh, context, please? I really want to know what Mike did to get punched!” Dustin asks, getting way too excited over the thought of his friend being punched.

Neither Bill nor Richie answer him, Instead Stanley does. “He told Bill the truth when he didn’t want to hear it.”

“I-it was more c-complicated than that.”

“Not really.”

Lucas snorts. “Reminds me of when he and I fought because I told him El was sabotaging us, and he didn’t want to hear it.”

Richie laughs nervously. “Let’s not talk about that—”

“Oh my god, I remember that!” Dustin exclaims. “Both of you were literally going insane.”

“Wait, when was this?” Max asks, looking between her friend and her boyfriend, obviously having not heard about their fight the year before she came to Hawkins.

“While Will was missing, the year before you moved here,” Lucas answers.

“Lucas, did you win? You better have won.”

“Neither of them won. El got them off of each other by throwing Lucas—”

“Dustin,” Lucas says, glaring at his friend, trying to get him to stop before he releases too much information.

Dustin seems to realize this and quickly changes what he was saying. “Right, yeah, neither won, but Lucas got knocked to the ground and passed out for a minute.”

“And El did that?” Stan asks.

“Yep. She’s pretty badass,” Richie says, looking at his former girlfriend with a proud smile, before moving on. “Anyways, that’s Stan the Man Uris. He and I have been friends about as long as either of us can remember. He pretends to hate it, but he doesn’t.”

Stanley rolls his eyes. “Debatable.”

“Sitting next to me is the Eddie Spaghetti,” he says with a wide grin, throwing an arm around the other boy and practically leaning into him, “my best friend. His mom is—”

“Beep beep, asshole,” Eddie cuts him off, looking very done with his friend’s antics, but not making a move to get Richie off of him. 

“I was going to say a bitch! Don’t beep me for that! It’s true!”

Eddie raises an eyebrow. “So you aren’t going to make a gross joke about my mother?”

“No! Because I can recognize that she sucks, just like how she used to suck on my co–” Richie is then cut off by Eddie’s hand covering his mouth and an annoyed glare.

“If you make one more joke about my mom today, I swear to god—” Eddie pauses, feeling his friend’s tongue on his hand, then jerks his hand away and immediately wipes it on the couch. “Did you just…lick my hand? Dude! That’s literally disgusting! And after the floor chips too! Do you know how many germs could be on just your tongue?! Not to mention your saliva!”

Richie, very maturely, sticks his tongue out at his friend, who rolls his eyes. 

“You’re disgusting,” Eddie says, still trying to wipe his hands off.

“You love it, though,” Richie teases leaning even further on his friend.

“No, I definitely do not.”

“You so do.”

The Party was now staring at Richie as if he had two heads. The looks they had on their faces were almost hilarious, they looked so confused by his behavior, as if their friend had been replaced by someone else. Maybe it did seem like that to them, they’d never seen this side of him after all, which kind of took away the laughability of their current expressions. 

“What. The. Hell,” says Dustin, still staring at Richie, mouth agape. “Who even are you?”

“I’m still the same person I was yesterday.”

“ Yesterday , we didn’t know that your family wasn’t really your family, that your name wasn’t Mike or wasn’t always Mike, and you’ve never really acted like this before.”

“Okay, so I kept a few things from you guys, big deal.” He shrugs, "and they’re still my family, just in a different way than I said.”

“It is a big deal!” Lucas shouts. “Remember the number one rule of The Party? Friends don’t lie.”

“It’s less lying, more withholding information.”

“That’s lying by omission,” Dustin points out.

“Oh, you’re one to talk about lying by omission, Mr. I-Decided-to-keep-a-demodog-as-a-pet.”

“I didn’t know Dart was from the Upside Down! And if I remember correctly that saved all of our asses in the tunnels! Also, we’ve got non-Party down here! We can’t just talk about the Upside Down with them here!”

“Guys, Enough!” Will shouts, getting the attention of everyone in the basement. “Dustin, I get it, you're upset that he didn’t trust you enough to tell you about this, but he probably had reasons.” Will then turns to look at Mike and sighs. “Mike, Richie, whichever name you’d rather us call you, you do know that you could have trusted all of us with this right? You didn’t have to be someone that you’re not just so we wouldn’t drop you as our friend.”

“I know, but—”

“But, nothing. We aren’t like that. You should know that by now.”

“Can we stop ignoring the fact that we were talking about the Upside-Down in front of non-Party members,” Dustin interjects.

“Oh, I told them about the Upside Down. It’s fine.” 

“You what!? ” Lucas shouts. “You do realize we can’t just tell people about the Upside Down, right!?”

“Like you have room to talk. You literally told Max about the Upside Down just so you could impress her.”

“And that’s not what you were doing? Also, it wasn’t to impress her!”

“No, it wasn’t, and if it wasn’t to impress her why the fuck did you tell her? All you did was put her in more danger.”

“You think I don’t know that? Especially after Vecna?”

Will pinches the bridge of his nose. “Enough! Both of you!” he yells, before taking a deep breath, and going back to a normal tone of voice. “Fighting over this isn’t going to make either of you more right.”

“Sorry, Will,” Lucas apologizes.

“Yeah. Sorry, Will,” Richie mutters, also apologizing, before turning to the Losers. “So, that’s The Party.”

“They seem like assholes,” Eddie remarks, giving his friend a concerned look.

“They aren’t usually like this,” Richie shrugs, making a weak attempt to defend the party’s behavior. They were kind of justified in what they were doing, though. He lied and broke the rule of law, things the Party took very seriously. He’d also potentially put more people in danger by talking about the Upside Down, but it wasn’t like that was their biggest problem at the moment, not that the party knew about his suspicions over what was going on in Hawkins right now.

Will sits down on the couch beside Richie, who scoots a little closer to Eddie to make more room for his newer friend. “I think we’re all just a little on edge and finding out Mike’s been lying to us is only making things worse,” he says, looking around the room. “You guys picked a bad time to visit, especially with everything that just started happening.”

“L-like the kids going m-missing?” Bill asks, probably trying to get details out of the party that he’d use on his own to try and figure this out.

“That, and we saw the Mind-Flayer earlier, so the Upside Down might be active again,” Lucas shrugs.

Will lets out an annoyed huff. “I told you guys I’m pretty sure it’s not him, and One is still too hurt to be pulling things.”

Eddie looks over at Will skeptically. “No offense, but how do you even know that?” he asks snappily.

“Will’s got this sixth sense where he can feel when something is happening with the Upside Down,” Richie explains, turning all his attention to Eddie.

“Like Spider-Man’s spidey sense?” 

“Yeah, it’s super cool! Except instead of danger, it’s when there’s something from the Upside Down coming over into our world, which is danger, technically.”

Will looks away, a bit of red tinting his cheeks. “You make it sound way cooler than it is.”

“It is pretty cool though,” Dustin says, reassuringly. “I mean not as cool as El’s powers, but still pretty damn cool.”

“Way to go, Dustin, you just told more people El has superpowers,” Max huffs. 

“I thought they knew! Mike told them about the Upside Down!” Dustin protests.

“He didn’t say he told them about El!” Lucas argues, then turns to Richie, “did you tell them about El?”

He looks over at Lucas. “I didn’t actually, I mean I told them about keeping a human weapon in the basement for a week, but not much more.” He then turns back to the Losers. “Oh, that was El, by the way.”

Stanley rolls his eyes. “Would’ve never guessed.”

“Okay, El doesn’t need anyone else obsessing over her because she has powers, so don't even think about it. She’s not anyone’s superhero,” Max states, trying to get that out in the open before anyone gets any ideas. 

The Losers seem to get what she was saying, because they nod and don’t ask anything about El’s powers, although they were definitely curious.

“Rich said that you guys play D&D.” Bill attempts to confirm, changing the subject.

Will’s face lights up at the mention of D&D. “Yes! Dustin, Lucas, and I have been playing since fourth grade!”

“That’s so cool!”

“Wait, do you play, too? Do all of you play?”

“No, j-just me.”

“Will, we need to set up a campaign while they’re here,” Dustin urges, matching Will’s excitement.

“So, has Richie never actually acted like that around you guys?” Eddie asks. “Because that was normal for him, if not a little tame.”

“No! Never!” Dustin answers.

“I mean, once he told me that Troy was probably just picking on me because ‘he needed to compensate for his micropenis’, then he got punched by Troy the next day, no idea if those two incidents were related though,” says Will with a shrug. “So he’s definitely said some things. He’s never really acted like this, though.”

Dustin looks at Will and Mike in surprise. “When did that happen? Why didn’t I hear about this? That’s hilarious.”

Stan groans. “Don’t say that, it’ll go to his head. Then we’ll have to hear more of his dumb jokes.”

“Like a month or two after I moved here, I think. Also, I’m pretty sure I said that Troy was picking on Will as a way to compensate for his microscopically tiny dick,” Richie clarifies.

“Same thing.”

“Oh, so Dustin has the same sense of humor as a middle schooler? Who would’ve thought,” Max snarks, rolling her eyes. 

“I don’t have a middle school sense of humor!” Dustin protests. “But saying that an asshole like Troy has a tiny dick is funny.”

“Thank you!” Richie shouts, then gives Stan a gloating look. “See Stanley? Some people think dick jokes are funny.”

Stan scoffs and rolls his eyes. “People with terrible taste, clearly.”

Richie gasps and pretends to clutch at his chest dramatically.“You wound me, Staniel.”

Stan rolls his eyes, “cry about it, Trashmouth.”

“Trash-what?” Lucas asks, confused.

“Trashmouth. It’s a nickname we call him.”

“Why?”

“We needed a name for his dirty mouth.”

Lucas snorts, looking at Richie. “We are learning so many new things about you tonight.”

“Yay,” Richie groans. Things weren’t turning out as terribly as he’d expected. The Party and The Losers seemed to be at least somewhat getting along, and yeah, the Party seemed a little upset with him, but not nearly as upset as he expected. Dustin even thought he was funny. Will was trying to reassure him that they still would’ve been friends even if he hadn’t been faking it, and El seemed to understand what he did, at least a little bit. He didn’t exactly like being put on the spot about all of this, but it could’ve been so much worse, he expected it to be so much worse.

“So did you guys drive down here? You’re from Maine right? That’s gotta be a super long drive, how’d you get your parents to agree to that?” Will asks.

Bill looks away nervously. “W-we didn’t exactly ask p-permission.”

“So your parents just don’t know you’re over a thousand miles from home right now?”

“Nope.”

Richie’s eyes widen in surprise. “Wait, even you didn’t ask permission Stanley?”

“I—I knew my dad probably would’ve said no. It wasn’t worth the argument with him. I did leave my mom a note telling her where I was going so she wouldn’t worry too much,” Stan answers, looking a little guilty.

“Wow, so you did actually grow a pair, way to go!” Richie praises.

Stanley rolls his eyes.

“Michael!” Dustin scolds as Max slaps him in the back of the head. Jerks. 

“What!?”

“You don’t just say that to someone!”

“He’s said it to me before. And there are worse things that have come out of his mouth,” Stanley says with a shrug.

“Can we get some examples?” Dustin asks, sounding way too excited about this.

Stan snorts. “How many do you want?”

Dustin looks even more excited.“How many do you have?”

“T-Too many to count,” Bill answers.

“First two that come to mind then, any of you guys feel free to chime in.”

“I d-don’t remember exactly but s-something about Eddie’s mom’s vagina on Halloween.”

Eddie groans. “Ugh, don’t remind me of that.”

“Earlier today he compared the humidity to Eddie’s mom’s underwear,” Stanley supplies.

“Seriously, Stanley? There were so many other things you could’ve said and you went with that one?”

Lucas looks confused. “Does he do that for all of you or—”

“Just my mom. It’s literally just her. Anytime he makes a ‘your mom’ joke it’s about my mom. I genuinely still don’t have a clue why he does it.”

“I do it because your mother is—”

Eddie quickly clasps his hand over Richie’s mouth, cutting him off “Think very wisely about the next words that come out of your mouth, Richard,” he says, then removes his hand.

“The full name was not necessary, Eduardo.”

“Okay, you know for a fact that’s not my name.”

“Edmundo.”

“No.”

“Spaghedward.”

“‘ Spaghedward’ ? That’s not even a real name!”

“What!” Richie gasps. “You mean that your birth certificate lied to me?”

“You’ve never even seen my birth certificate!”

“Uh, have too.”

“When!”

He grins. “That time I fucked your mom.”

“Not funny, dickwad! This is the fourth one today!”

Bill groans. “Can b-both of you please stop, I’m g-getting a headache.”

“That’s actually from sleep deprivation. Probably since you slept maybe three hours in the past thirty-six. That little sleep consistently can cause so many problems, and even short term reduces alertness and causes irritability and headaches, which you’re already showing, keep this up and you could—”

“E-Eddie, stop. Please.”

“Wait, so did you guys just drive straight here non-stop?” Dustin asks.

“Pretty much.” Stanley shrugs.

“Oh, shit," says Lucas. "That’s a long drive, how are you guys not on the verge of passing out right now?”

“Oh, we are. If you guys hadn’t shown up Bill at least would probably be asleep by now. He drove from Derry to around Albany, then again from just outside of Cleveland to here, so out of the three of us, he’s been awake and driving a majority of the trip,” Stanley explains.

“I’m not,” Bill yawns, “t-that tired.”

Stan raises an eyebrow.“That says otherwise.”

“I’ll run upstairs and grab some extra blankets and pillows,” says Richie, jumping off the couch. “Is everyone staying tonight or?”

Will shakes his head. “I promised my mom and Hopper that El and I would be home by nine.”

“Wait, why?”

“They wanted us home. You know how my mom is, especially after everything with the Upside Down and me going missing, and the fact we spotted the mind-flayer today and” he checks his watch, “we actually need to get going now. Sorry.”

“We do?” asks El, looking a little disappointed.

“Yeah, it’s eight-forty-five now, we’ve all been talking for a while,” Will explains, getting up and heading to the stairs. “See you guys tomorrow.”

“Bye. Nice to meet you guys,” El says, the last part directed at the Losers, as she follows her brother up the stairs.

“Dustin? Lucas? Max?”

Max crosses her arms and looks at him as if he just asked the world’s stupidest question. “Well, I’m not heading home and I doubt Mrs. Sinclair would let me stay the night, so take your guess.”

“Unless Lucas can drive me home, I’m staying here,” Dustin states. “Or I’m staying at his house. Either way I need to call my mom from whoever’s house I’m staying at.”

“I’m not driving anywhere else tonight, sorry man,” Lucas apologizes. “And Erica is having a sleepover with her friends tonight, so I think I’m gonna stay here too.”

Richie nods, getting off the couch and heading upstairs. He still wasn’t sure how or why his house had become the designated hangout house for The Party. They would even come over sometimes when he wasn’t even there now. It wasn’t a surprise that they were staying the night again, although Will and El leaving was a bit of a surprise. 

Once he got to his room he quickly changed clothes then went to the closet to try and find the sleeping bag he kept up there. It was pretty likely people would have to share blankets but hopefully there were enough for all seven of them. There definitely wouldn’t have been if it had been the nine that were down in the basement before El and Will left. He grabs it out the closet and tosses it on his bed. 

Now he just needed to find a few more larger ones, since there probably weren’t enough lying around for everyone to have their own since all the blankets that had been in the basement were currently in the washer. But before that he really wanted to get his contacts out, they were starting to make his eyes itch again, which considering he’d been wearing them consistently for the past three-and-a-half years should not still be happening. It could be more because of what happened earlier today, though, he didn’t really clean his eyes before putting the new lenses in, especially since Nancy was rushing him and he’d just sat in his room moping for an hour after taking his old ones out. 

He grabs his glasses off his dresser, where he’d left them earlier, not caring to hide them, and heads to the bathroom down the hall to take out his contacts. Dustin and Lucas might be surprised when he comes down with glasses, but he really didn’t give a shit anymore.

He quickly pops out his contacts and slides his glasses on for the second time that day. Then drops the contact lenses in the trash and heads towards Nancy’s room. Her pillows would be the price she pays for letting the Party come over while she knew the Losers were here and cause him to have to spill his secrets to them. Sure, things turned out better than he expected, but he was still going to get her back for it. And he saw her in the kitchen whenever he came upstairs, so she shouldn’t be in her room, so he was in the clear for this. 

Quietly, Richie slips into Nancy’s room and goes to quickly grab the pillows off her bed. She had four which means for everyone to have one he’d only need to find three more. 

“What the hell are you doing?!” Nancy shouts as Richie picks up the last pillow. He quickly turns around staring at her wide-eyed. Shit. 

“Nothing!” he shouts back quickly.

“Those are my pillows, asshole. The ones that you’re stealing.”

He looks down at the pillows in his arms then back to Nancy, yeah, he was definitely caught. “If you think about it, this is actually your fault since you let the Party come over and Lucas, Dustin, and Max decided to stay the night. Thanks by the way, I really appreciated having to basically tell them I’d been practically lying about who I was.”

She sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose, annoyed. “That’s not what it was—”

“That’s what they thought it was.”

“I did try and convince them all to just go home. Except Max, she planned on staying here, anyways.”

“Max already knew, she was fine.”

“Yeah, I know, which is why she rode with me here. I didn’t know they were coming over until they got here, and that you were going to have to tell them unprepared. You know I wouldn’t do that to you,” Nancy attempts to explain.

“Considering you said ‘no promises’ at the gas station, I don’t really believe that.”

“I said ‘no promises’ because I have no control over what The Party does, not because I was planning on having them come over when I knew what would probably happen.”

“Whatever.”

“It didn’t go too badly did it? If it did I can and will kick them out.”

“It didn’t go as bad as I thought it would. They were a little mad but not as much as I thought they would be.”

“If they start giving you any problems, let me know.” She then yanks the pillows out of his hands. “But don’t steal my pillows. Use your own or the ones in mom’s room or the hall closet.”

“Jesus, okay, fine! I’ll take them from somewhere else.”

“Good. Now get out of my room!” Nancy shouts, shoving him towards the door. 

He pauses in the doorway almost out of her room. “Follow up question, do you know if there are any blankets in the hall closet?”

“Look,” she states, gives him one more good shove, then slams the door in his face. 

Richie rolls his eyes at the closed door. He should have definitely expected something like this to happen. If not, Nancy would’ve noticed and barged into the basement. 

Someone snorts behind him and he turns around to see Max leaning against the wall with an amused look. Why the hell was she up here and not down in the basement with everyone else? “Nice glasses,” she comments. 

He rolls his eyes once again, not acknowledging her comment about his glasses. “What the hell are you doing up here?”

Max crosses her arms. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was restricted to your armpit of a basement."

“You’re not…but things are probably a lot more interesting down there.”

She shrugs. “Lucas and Dustin were talking D&D with Bill. I think they were trying to get him to join the make-up Hellfire campaign scheduled for Tuesday, but he got all weird when they told him what the plot was, just like you did when you quit a week into it, according to Dustin anyways.”

Ah, yes, the campaign that was basically them fighting a Pennywise–Vecna hybrid.

“And did they keep talking about it?”

Max shrugs. “A little, Dustin wanted to know if there was a reason that both he and you reacted that way to it. He didn’t get a straight answer and Eddie was about to come up here and find you, but I left first so he wouldn’t have a reason to, and because I heard Nancy shouting and wanted to know what you did.”

“Gee, thanks. I appreciate it so much.”

Max rolls her eyes. “I’m getting the feeling you would have rather had Eddie come up here.”

“Oh yeah, for sure,” he says, starting to walk towards the master bedroom to take the pillows from in there. “Since you are up here, though. You can help carry stuff down.”

“Seriously? Which one of us actually stayed and worked making Hopper’s cabin inhabitable today?”

“There was a reason that I left early.”

“Which was?”

He tosses the pillows at Max, not bothering to see if she caught them. “None of your business.”

Max doesn’t argue with him. Mike didn’t tend to pry when something was up with her, so she wasn’t going to do it with him right now. She stays quiet as she follows him back down the hall first to his bedroom to grab the sleeping bag, then to the hall closet to see if there were any blankets laying around in there.  

Richie opens the door to find three blankets folded up at the bottom. Well, that’d be enough for about half of them. Which should be fine, it isn’t like the Party hadn’t shared blankets on the regular and it was the same for the Losers. He would probably end up having to share with Stanley, Eddie or Lucas, but he didn’t have much of a problem with that, it wasn’t like it’d be the first time he’d shared a blanket with any of the three of them.

“Why are we getting extra pillows again?” She asks, holding onto the pillows. “Aren’t there some stashed in the basement?”

“Yeah, but half of those are in the blanket fort we all worked on rebuilding last night, and I don’t feel like taking that down right now.”

“Fair enough.”

Neither teen says anything else as they return downstairs, then to the basement, with a quick stop made to the kitchen by Richie to grab the box of pizza he noticed on the way up. Sure his hands were already full, but he was starving. Max gave him an eye-roll when she saw, but didn’t comment.

It was surprisingly quiet when they got back down to the basement. Which considering the people down in the basement, could be pretty bad. Hopefully they didn’t try and kill each other because Will and El weren’t down there to stop any murder that might occur. Hopefully, Mrs. Byers eases up in a few days and lets them stay the night again, it wasn’t like they were any safer at the Hopper-Byers house from whatever (probably It) is terrorizing Hawkins now. 

“We got blankets and pizza, thanks for letting me know that it was in the kitchen by the way, really appreciated starving because I thought there was no food,” Richie announces as he and Max reach the bottom of the basement stairs. 

“Sorry, we were kind of too distracted to mention we brought the pizza back with us,” says Dustin, turning his attention to the stairs. “Also, shhh, you're interrupting the movie.”

He looked over to the TV and sure enough, they had put a movie in, Back to the Future by the looks of it, probably why everyone was so quiet. Although, usually even with movies there was arguing over what was going on. Unless the Losers had fallen asleep and the Party was being nice enough to not wake them. 

“Dude, haven’t you already seen Back to the Future? Multiple times?” Richie asks, dropping the pizza box on the table.

“Yes, Michael, I have,” Dustin snarks, “but Steve rented me it for free so long as I rewind and return it before two tomorrow when I stopped to rent a couple other movies and I wanted to make good use out of it.”

“Since when did Steve rent you movies for free?” questions Max, taking a spot on the floor next to Lucas.

“Since like three months ago. He also gives me a fuck ton of discounts, all the time.”

Richie scoffs at this. “Seriously? Me and Max literally had to fight him yesterday just to get him to let us use his employee discount.”

“‘Max and I’”, Stan corrects, with a yawn. Okay, so he was still awake. 

“Guess we know who Steve’s favorite is. Although, it might’ve been because it had just been returned and he didn’t want to rewind it since this tape hadn't been rewound ye…Oh my god, he gave me this so I could do his job and rewind it for him so he wouldn’t be reminded of the incident with the Russians.” Dustin’s eyes widen. “Holy shit, he played me.”

Max snorts.

“Oh, also, we grabbed a blanket from the fort for Bill when he fell asleep five minutes ago since you were taking so long,” Dustin explains, reaching a hand into the pizza box that Richie had just opened to grab a slice for himself. Dustin then pauses, looking at his friend’s face. Ah, he must have finally noticed the glasses. “Why are you wearing glasses?”

“My eyesight is shit and I need glasses to see,” Richie answers simply.

“Okay, but why have I literally never seen you wear them before?” Dustin asks, still looking confused.

“I normally wear contacts, especially around you guys.”

“Even when we’ve had Party sleepovers?”

Richie shrugs. “I either just walk around half-blind or sometimes fall asleep with them in.” It was normally the first one. There had been four or five times he’d slept in his contacts, but he tried not to do it.

“Wait, Dustin, you didn’t know that he had glasses?” Lucas laughs.

“No, I didn’t. Wait, you knew he had glasses?” Dustin questions.

“Yeah, Lucas, I don't think I’ve ever worn them around you.”

“You have a couple times. I just didn’t make a comment about it. They’re just glasses, not a big deal. A lot of people have them.”

“So was I the only one who didn’t know Mike-er Richie, I guess, or whichever name you want to be called, has glasses?”

“I didn’t know until about five months ago,” Max admits with a shrug, “it’s still weird for me too, though.”

“Awesome. Cool. Amazing. Thank you so much for keeping me in the loop, really makes me feel appreciated,” Dustin says sarcastically.

“I didn’t not tell you intentionally! I just don’t wear my glasses out much anymore, so it never came up,” Richie attempts to defend himself.

“I guess that makes sense, but I’m still mad at you.”

“That’s fair.”

“Damn right it is. Now shut up so we can all watch the movie or sleep in peace.”

That seemed to work because it doesn't take long for the room to get quiet again. They weren’t very far into the movie. Marty hadn’t even gone into the past yet. Richie is pretty sure most of them would be asleep by the time the movie’s over. The Party was pretty tired from working all day at Hopper’s cabin, and one of the Losers was already asleep with the other two who drove down here not looking far behind. especially, considering Stanley just got up to change clothes. It looked like Eddie had done the same in the time that Richie had been upstairs. 

He quickly downs another slice of pizza, before grabbing a blanket out of the pile and getting on the opposite end of the couch from where Eddie was. The blanket would be big enough to cover them both though, even if they were awkwardly laying on opposite sides of the couch where their legs would probably end up on top of each other at some point. If it had bothered Eddie, he didn’t say anything about it, only asking if Lucas could pass a pillow up to him, then yanking the blanket closer to his head. 

By the time the movie ended, the only ones left awake were Richie, Dustin, and Stanley. Max had fallen asleep on Lucas, who fell asleep about halfway through the movie, about twenty minutes before it ended. Bill and Eddie had both been asleep for a while. 

“You guys wanna watch another movie?” Dustin asks through a yawn, climbing out of his sleeping bag and rewinding the tape before pulling it out the TV. “I also rented E.T. and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” 

“I vote for the second one,” Richie yawns, pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. 

Stanley shrugs. “I’m good with that.”

“Awesome.” Dustin pushes in the next tape, then returns to his spot on the floor as the next movie starts up. “We really should’ve watched this one first. No memories associated with Russians, no weird mom trying to bang her son, and no inaccurate science. Just a fun movie.” 

“Russians?” Stanley asks, looking at Dustin confused.

“Long story. Let’s just say last summer was eventful ,” Dustin answers vaguely.

Stan looks over at Richie, who shrugs and mouths ‘tell you later’. Last summer was rough. That week they were dealing with the Mind-Flayer (and Dustin was dealing with evil Russians) specifically. Of course, that last summer he was in Derry was much worse, but last summer had still been pretty rough. The worst summer in Hawkins so far, that was for sure.

“This would not work with my parents,” Stan mutters, ten minutes into the movie.

“I’ve gotten away with it before with my aunt.” Richie shrugs.

“Suzie might be able to help me get away with it,” Dustin murmurs, “especially all the computer stuff.”

“Dude, she literally snitched on herself out of guilt when she changed your Latin grade a few months ago.”

“Yeah, but, she’s like the love of my life," Dustin argues. "I’d do anything for her and she’d do anything for me. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Okay, whatever, man,” Richie yawns, too tired to argue with Dustin. “We should watch this with everyone else when they’re awake, though.”

“Steve told me that this one and E.T. we can keep until Tuesday, so we can do that for sure, and when Will and El are here too.”

The talking dies down not too long after that, when he assumes Stanley finally falls asleep. Dustin might’ve been asleep too at this point. It was hard to tell. Either way the only sounds in the basement now were from the movie. With everyone else now (probably) asleep, Richie pulls his glasses off and sets them on the table next to the couch, it wasn't like he was going to be awake much longer, anyways.

Things were turning out a lot better than expected, the Party seemed to be getting along with the Losers, and no one was talking about kicking him out of the Party. Hell, the Party was even starting to call him Richie (albeit sparingly) now which he did not expect to happen. Although, they could just be playing nice since the Losers were here and they didn’t want to be rude to them. They were probably saving their getting angry at him for lying until he was alone with them.

Whatever , he thinks, lying his head down on the armrest of the couch. If the Party was upset with him that’d just be something he’d have to deal with later. 

Chapter Text

At some point Richie must’ve fallen asleep because one moment he was watching the movie (as best he could anyways, with his eyesight being blurry from sleepiness and just general shitty vision), and the next someone was shaking his shoulder and whispering ‘Richie, wake up’. 

He wasn’t sure who was trying to wake him up or why, his sleepy brain could barely comprehend that someone was saying his name and telling him to wake up, let alone whose voice it was. It wasn’t Nancy, though. She would’ve shouted. Or flipped the lights on. Or both. That leaves his friends. But it couldn’t be the Party, they didn’t—nevermind, yes they did, he had told them last night. Still, it probably wasn’t because he doubted any of them would think to call him ‘Richie’ at—whatever time it is—in the morning. Max, maybe, but it wasn’t her, she would be a lot meaner about getting him up, plus she still seemed to feel weird about calling him Richie. That left the Losers, who were actually here in Hawkins (unless that was a dream, it could totally have been a dream, just like telling the Party the truth, the first one would suck if it were a dream, the second one would be great if it were a dream).

“Rich, seriously, wake up,” the asshole trying to wake him up repeats. It’s a little clearer now that he’s not three-quarters asleep, and he can sort of tell that it’s Bill. 

“No,” he grumbles, not moving from the position he was in on the couch, especially because if he moved even an inch his legs were probably going to hit Eddie’s legs, since they were both sharing the couch (although opposite sides).

“Well, a-at least I know you’re awake now,” his friend says with a chuckle, finally stopping shaking Richie’s shoulder.

“Not willingly,” Richie mumbles, opening his eyes and flipping over onto his other side, careful not to disturb Eddie who was still asleep. Despite the blurriness and faint light of the room he could still vaguely make out Bill standing next to the couch, which meant that he was right that Bill was the one trying to get him up. “What the fuck do you want?”

“Good morning to you, too.”

He glares at his friend. It was way too early for whatever shit Bill was about to drag him into, because there was no way that he wasn’t about to drag him into something. “Seriously, why’d you wake me up?”

Bill shrugs. “I wanted to get an early start to ruling out that this is It that’s causing problems here.”

Of course he did. Of all four of the Losers currently in Hawkins, Bill was the one who was most serious about figuring out if this was the clown, ever since Richie had tipped them off that something was happening and it was similar. It shouldn't be a surprise that he wanted to start early, still annoying though. Why was he so awake already anyways? Sure, he was asleep first last night but he’d also been the person in the room with the least amount of sleep the past two days.

“Couldn’t you have waited until, I don’t know, a few hours from now? Whenever now is,” Richie asks with a yawn, finally starting to wake up a little bit more.

“It’s seven thirty, and if we can rule it out now, we don’t have to spend part of the day looking for clues that this might be our cl-clown.”

“Yeah, but how exactly are you planning on ruling it out? And why did you just wake me up and not the other two?”

“You said that Nancy had been doing research and investigating?” Bill half-asks, half-states, completely ignoring his friend's question. 

“Yeah,” Richie shrugs, “but she does that when anything happens.”

“How much has she figured out?”

“I don’t know, she’s got this whole notebook she’s been keeping a lot of stuff in, but she’s super protective over it for whatever reason. Or maybe she just didn’t want me looking in it, I don’t know.” It was probably the latter. She’d obviously shared some information with Hopper given the board in the shed and it was possible Jonathan knew and helped her with some things.

“Do you think she’d let us look at it?”

Seriously? Was Bill only listening to half of the things Richie’s been saying? “I just said she was super protective over it, so no, especially not before eight AM on a Sunday while she’s still actively investigating.”

“Then maybe we can find a way to get a h-hold of it. D-don’t you want to see what she knows?”

Richie did want to see what she knew. Especially since she’d been keeping it from him. Sure, she showed him and the rest of the Party the clue board or murder board or whatever the fuck it was actually called yesterday, but that hadn’t had much on it, just some things that were vaguely connected or they thought were connected. Her notebook was bound to be more detailed, especially since that’s not even what she actively wrote in while she investigated, that was a notepad. Maybe hidden in there was something that proved he was just being paranoid and that the clown didn’t follow him to Hawkins and show up again three-and-a-half years after he got here.

“Fuck it,” he says, grabbing his glasses off the table by the couch where he had left them the night before, and sliding them on his face. He was getting up to do this anyway and there was no way he was about to try and search for Nancy’s notebook and look at it half-blind. “Let’s find out what she knows.”

Bill cracks a smile. “I knew you’d come around.”

The two boys quickly make their way out of the basement, careful not to step on or wake any of the still sleeping Party members laying on the basement floor. Richie was still worried that they would change their minds and be mad at him after they slept on the information that was just revealed to them last night, he’d been hiding things from them for years now, and had the Losers not shown up yesterday most of them would still be in the dark about who their friend actually was. Maybe it was for the better they knew now, it meant that he didn’t have to pretend to be someone else anymore, he could just be more like himself now. He really should’ve never changed himself to fit into a new mold here, it might’ve been easier then, but surprise surprise it led to problems now. 

“Where do you think your cousin keeps that notebook?” Bill asks, looking around the room from where he was standing.

“I mean, she had it down here while interrogating me yesterday afternoon.” Richie shrugs. “But, she probably put it somewhere else so she can keep working on it. Which means it’s probably in her bag, which is either up in her room, in the living room, or the kitchen. Probably her room.”

Bill nods. “Let’s split up, you go up and ch-check her room, I’ll check down here.”

“Do you want me to die? She’s already mad because I tried to steal her pillows last night. If she finds me snooping through her room then I’m definitely dead.”

“She won’t k-kill you,” Bill laughs. Asshole. He barely knew Nancy. She was one-hundred percent capable of murder, and probably had considered doing it multiple times. She’d get away with it too. 

“You don’t know her like I do! She’d kill me for less. I’ve taken her money to use at the arcade—”

“Not surprising.”

“—and I’m pretty sure she thought about it then and when—.”

“You’ve stolen her m-money and she still hasn’t killed you, you’ll be fine.”

“Only because I barely escaped. And her parents were here. Also I wasn’t bothering her while she was sleeping. She wakes up to me going through her shit, I’m a goner.” Realistically she wouldn’t actually kill him, but she would at the very least be pissed off. 

“You’ll be fine,” Bill sighs, giving Richie an annoyed look, “just go look.”

Richie rolls his eyes. “Fine, but if I die, I leave my comics to Eddie, my music tapes to Stan and Max, any of my D&D shit to Will, my middle finger to the clown, and my dick to Mrs. K, tell Eddie I said that last part. Everything else is free game to a Loser first and Party member second.”

“I don’t get anything?”

“You’re going to be the reason I die, so no.”

“Dick,” Bill mutters. “Wait, w-what am I looking for?”

“Either a gray messenger bag or purple composition notebook, which might be inside the bag,” he answers, making his way up the stairs. “If I'm not back in ten minutes, assume I’m dead and make sure I don’t get slandered at my funeral!”

Richie doesn’t wait for his friend to say anything else and starts heading towards Nancy’s room. There was about a fifty-fifty chance that Nancy locked her door. It’d be higher if it weren’t for everyone who was sleeping in the basement, like he should currently be, and would be, if it hadn’t been for Bill’s stupid insistence that they needed to get an early start to trying to rule out the possibility of that stupid fucking clown being what’s causing everything that’s happening in Hawkins now. As much as they all didn’t want it to be him, Richie had a really really bad feeling that it was. Because it wasn’t the Mind-Flayer, or Vecna, or any of the things that they had dealt with from the Upside Down previously. 

He quietly turns Nancy’s doorknob, sort of hoping it wouldn’t open so he would have an excuse to stop looking, but unluckily for him, it turns, meaning Nancy hadn’t locked her door last night, obviously not expecting any more sixteen year-old intruders after Richie tried to take her pillows. He stands in the doorway for a second, making sure that she was still asleep, and if the barely moving lump under the blanket was anything to go by, she was. Hopefully she would stay that way long enough for Richie to go in, look, and maybe find that stupid notebook.

As quietly as possible, he slips into Nancy’s room, still right by the door. He looks to the side, where the desk was. Sitting on the desk was Nancy’s bag, probably all ready to go for any potential investigating she might be doing today (although chances were a solid chunk of the day she would be helping more fixing up the cabin, they probably didn’t finish yesterday, not with what happened, what Will and Lucas saw). He opens it and starts going through it. He pulls out an old news article, a notepad, and a super old looking map before finding the notebook he was looking for. He takes a quick look back at Nancy’s bed, and sees her starting to move. Shit. Quickly, he shoves everything but the notebook back in her bag and gets out of the room, closing the door behind him. 

Hopefully, Nancy wouldn’t find out that he had been in her room. She’d definitely be pissed if she knew, and fair enough, if she snuck into Richie’s room while he was asleep and started going through his stuff he’d probably be pissed too. Speaking of his room, he could go there now and switch out his glasses for contacts, he told Bill ten minutes, it hadn’t even been five, so he had the time. If he put his contacts in, whenever the Party woke up (if he could get the Losers out of the basement before they did) he could try and convince Dustin and Lucas that last night had just been a weird dream and he hadn’t been lying to them for three years and nothing would change between him and the Party.

Realistically, they wouldn’t fall for it. And even if they did Max would be there to call bullshit. So, that was actually not a good idea, if anything it would piss the Party off more because then he would be lying to them, not even just omitting information, just lying to their faces. Which A. would piss the Party off if they weren’t pissed with him now (or when they wake up, really) and B. was something he didn’t exactly like doing. Sure, he wasn’t completely honest all the time, he’d lied a ton of times to save his ass or keep certain things about him from coming to light, but he didn’t enjoy lying. So with that idea scrapped, he passes up the chance of putting in contacts for now and heads downstairs with the notebook.

When Richie gets to the kitchen he finds Bill digging through the drawers, as if that would be where he’d find Nancy’s notebook. Sure, Richie had hid stuff there before, but he was rushing to hide something, Nancy would just put it away where it belongs. “Do you really think she’d keep it in there?”

“It wasn’t anywhere e-else.” Bill shrugs, turning around. “Did you have any luck?”

“Yeah.” He tosses the notebook on the kitchen table. “Because it was in her bag sitting on her desk.”

“Was there anything else in there?”

He shrugs. “Just some old newspaper from like thirty years ago.”

“What was it about?”

“I don’t know! I just saw the date while I was digging through her bag. Also, I’m pretty sure she’s going to wake up soon, so chop chop, see what you want so that I can give it back to her before she knows it’s gone and decides that murder is what she really wants to do today.”

“She’s n-not going to murder you,” Bill says, unamused, as he opens the notebook and starts flipping through it. It was a lot more full than Richie thought it was. There were even pictures taped in that were no doubt taken by Jonathan. Some were pretty graphic, specifically the ones of body parts that were found. This was a lot of work that she had done in one week. She had to have skipped parts of school to get all of this. “This is really detailed.”

“It’s Nancy. She likes details.” Richie rolls his eyes, looking over his friend’s shoulder. “So, found anything that proves that I’m just going insane and this isn’t actually It yet?” 

Bill lets out an annoyed huff. “I just started looking, Rich.”

“I know. But maybe it’s super obvious that that’s not what this is. Like the balloons. As far as we know Pennywise showed red balloons as a sign it was him or would offer them to the kids he tried to take. But there’s probably nothing about balloons in there, I haven’t seen one, none of my friends have seen a mysterious red balloon.”

“He’s a c-clown, Richie, Clowns almost always have balloons. No one would think of it as weird and say something about it.”

“Well, sorry that I don’t regularly go to places with clowns to know what normal clowns do. They creeped me out even before everything with It.” 

“We s-should’ve convinced Mike to come with us, he knows more about Derry and this clown stuff than I do. He’s kept doing research with Ben since we sent him back to an early hibernation, and even after Ben moved, just in case he wasn’t dead,” says Bill, looking up from the notebook.

Richie groans, now also getting annoyed. “Can’t you just call him? He’s probably up by now."

“I don’t want to bother him with this if we don’t need to,” Bill explains, turning to look at Richie, “but, depending on what we find today, I might call him tonight.”

“You mean we’re seriously going to spend all day trying to hunt down a clown that may or may not be here?” 

“You said Hawkins was bor-boring yourself, and we already went over this, ye-yesterday.”

“Not any more boring than Derry,” Richie protests. “It’s summer, and it’s been like four years since I’ve seen you guys.”

“We still n-need to figure this out.”

Bill wasn’t wrong, as much as Richie hated to admit that. They needed to figure out if this was It, the Losers were the only people who had actually gone up against the clown and made it out alive. Sure, the clown might still be alive, but so were they. And although the Party were seasoned monster fighters at this point, they’d never faced someone like Pennywise, the only thing that came close was Vecna, and they struggled to beat him. If this was It, the Party would likely be targeted, if not for their inability to stay out of things then for the fact that they were close with Richie, and while he wasn’t It’s main target (that was Bill) he was pretty sure that the clown had a grudge against all the Losers.

“What the hell are you two doing!?”

Shit. They’d been caught. 

Richie quickly turns to see his cousin/sister standing by the counter, pissed. She must’ve figured out that he took her notebook. How she did that within ten minutes (at the most) of waking up, he wasn’t sure. 

“Well?” she demands, crossing her arms, looking at the two boys very much unamused.

Unsurprisingly, Bill is the one to answer Nancy. “I wanted to see i-if what was going on here could be similar or the same thing as what we dealt with in Derry a few years ago,” Bill explains, “Richie said that you’d been doing some investigating so we wanted to take a look at your notes.”

“At eight in the morning? On a sunday?” Nancy questions in disbelief, now mostly looking at Richie, since she probably assumed that this wasn’t his idea, especially considering he’d normally still be asleep right now. 

“He woke me up and convinced me to do this. The only thing I’m guilty of is going in your room and stealing your notebook,” Richie quickly defends himself.

Nancy snorts. “Yeah, I assumed that, considering my door wasn’t closed and my notebook is out here with you two.”

“I closed your door!”

“Clearly not all the way, considering it was half-open when I woke up.”

“Okay, I mostly closed it, I was trying to be quiet.”

“Which must’ve been very hard for you,” she teases. 

“It was.”

Nancy rolls her eyes. “Next time you come into my room to steal my stuff, be a little more quiet.”

“I didn’t steal it! We were just borrowing it, I was going to put it back when we were done looking at it.”

“If you guys wanted to borrow it, you should’ve asked.”

“You were sleeping!”

“You could’ve waited until I woke up. Or asked last night,” Nancy states, snappily, before walking over to where her notebook had been sitting open on the table. “If you want, I can explain more about my notes, sorry if these are a little messy, and if you want to talk about any of your own theories I can compare them to what I’ve seen,” she says to Bill, much calmer. 

Richie stares at his sister/cousin, a bit annoyed, a bit offended. Was she seriously being nice and trying to compare theories with Bill? Right after she verbally reprimanded Richie for literally just going along with what his friend wanted and getting Nancy’s notebook. And now she was being nice and trying to share information? After she literally slammed it shut when he tried to look at it yesterday? 

He shakes his head in disbelief before walking off. Nancy wanted to talk about her notes with Bill specifically, fine. Whatever. It totally didn’t bother him that she was sharing information with someone she barely knew and not someone who had practically become her younger sibling. It was such bullshit. 

Richie quietly makes his way back down to the basement, he didn’t want to be upstairs with Nancy and Bill anymore. He didn’t really want to be up there in the first place, but he was actually curious about what Nancy knew. He probably could’ve stayed while she talked about it, but it was the principle of the thing at this point.

Stan, Eddie and the Party are all still asleep once he gets down to the basement, because of course they were. Which meant Richie could either find a comic book and read it in the faint light in silence, go back upstairs or wake someone up and bother them. The Party was out of the question, though, he didn’t exactly want to face the potential wrath of The Party now that they had the time to sleep on what he told them last night. That left Stan and Eddie, who were also both still asleep. Eddie was probably the better option considering he’d been asleep longer. But, he looked calm and peaceful right now sleeping. Which left Stan, who would definitely be annoyed, but Richie really didn’t give a shit. 

“Stanley,” he whispers, poking his friend, who doesn’t budge. “Stan.” Still nothing. Ugh. “Staniel.” This time, Stan moves a little, but still doesn’t wake up. “Stanthony.” 

“Go away, Richie,” Stan mumbles, refusing to open his eyes. 

“No. Bill woke me up so now you get to wake up.”

Stan finally opens his eyes but only so he could glare at his friend. “Couldn’t you wake up Eddie instead? He fell asleep way before me.” 

Richie shrugs. “He looks so peaceful sleeping right now and I don’t want to disturb him, though.”

“I was very peacefully sleeping and you disturbed me. This is clearly just you playing favorites.”

“I’m not playing favorites!” Richie protests. “I just don’t want him to be mad at me.”

“And yet, you enjoy it when he gets pissed off whenever you say something stupid or make a joke about his mom.”

“That’s different,” Richie claims. “Plus, you looked like you were just itching to be woken up.” 

“Whatever,” Stanley yawns. “I see you got your glasses back. Good. Your face looks better with them on.”

“Rude”, says Richie, feigning offense. “And yeah, I literally came down with them on last night. Did you just not notice?”

Stan shrugs. “I was paying more attention to the movies than you.”

“You fell asleep before the second movie even ended,” Richie points out.

Stan once again shrugs before changing the subject. “Why did Bill wake you up?

“The asshole wanted to start investigating if the clown is here early,” Richie explains, letting out an annoyed huff. “He even made me steal Nancy’s notebook which she yelled at me for then offered to explain it to him.” 

“He’s way too obsessed with this,” Stan sighs, shaking his head. “I get that It took his brother, but he’s going to get himself killed. Not to mention the rest of us.”

“I’m just hoping he finds something in Nancy’s notebook that proves this isn’t It so that we can stop worrying about this at least for another twenty-three years.”

“Yeah…” Stan trails off looking around the room at the still sleeping Party members on the floor. “Are you planning on waking up your other friends?”

“No, I’m putting off any more confrontation with them for as long as possible. Especially now that they’ve had time to sleep and change their opinions.” He really didn’t want to have the conversation about lying to them again, obviously they were going to bring it up eventually. Especially if he just gave up the entire ‘Mike Wheeler’ act and the Losers stayed in town for more than a couple days. 

Stan shakes his head, “you do know you’ll have to face them eventually and deal with the consequences of lying, right?”

“Yeah…but that doesn’t mean I want to do it right now .” Or ever, actually. But that would be impossible unless the Party could have their memories wiped of the previous day or he just leaves Hawkins and cuts contact with them all. 

“Whatever, your funeral,” Stanley mutters, yanking the blanket over his head, probably about to try and go back to sleep.

Richie pulls the blanket off of Stan’s head. “If I have to be awake right now, so do you.”

Stan glares at him. “One of us was in a car for twenty hours and it wasn’t you. So let me go back to sleep and go bother Eddie instead.”

“I thought you’d appreciate getting my attention, since you claim that I pay attention to Eddie way more,” Richie snarks.

“All i’ve said is that you play favorites and it’s very clear that Eddie holds that spot and has for a while. Now shut the fuck up and let me go back to sleep, before we accidentally wake up your friends, especially since you don’t want to deal with them right now,” Stan snaps, still annoyed at having to be awake this early.

His friend’s snapiness doesn’t phase Richie, they’d done this before, even if it had been a few years. “No can do, Stanny. You’re stuck awake with me now,” he replies not missing a beat.

“Great,” Stanley groans. “How long do you think Bill’s going to be upstairs with your cousin for?”

“Who knows,” Richie sighs dramatically. “Nancy could still be explaining stuff or she could be questioning him on what he knows. They could be at this for hours knowing the two of them.”

As soon as he says that, they can hear footsteps coming down the stairs. That was terrible timing, his point was completely void now. Sure, it was kinda funny with who he assumed to be Bill coming down right after he made a comment about it going on for hours, but he really didn’t want to be proved wrong so quickly. “Or he could be coming down now,” he corrects so that he could at least be sort-of right.

Stanley rolls his eyes. “I would’ve never guessed.”

It doesn’t take long for Bill to get down to the basement, heading straight for the area that about half of everyone was still asleep in once he got down the stairs. Richie was surprised Nancy finished going over her notes with him so fast. He was pretty sure it would take her at least half an hour to go over everything she’d found out. Unless there was something that stood out to him and he felt the need to get the rest of them. That was definitely a possibility.

“Morning, Stan,” Bill says, reaching the two of them. 

“Morning,” Stan grumbles back, still not happy to be awake right now. “I heard you two were looking through Nancy’s stuff?”

“We wanted to see what sh-sh-she knew.”

“ Bill wanted to see what she knew,” Richie quickly corrects. 

“You did t-too,” Bill argues, turning to look at Richie. “Then you left while she was showing it to me.”

“She was pissed at me for breaking into her room and leaving her door open,” he argues. “If I stayed it would’ve just been passive aggressive comments and glares while she flipped through it.”

“So what did you find out?” Stanley asks, getting them back on track with the original conversation.

“I’ll tell you guys, but let’s get Eddie up first so I don’t have to re-repeat myself. And so we can talk without waking anyone else up.”

Stan nods. “Sounds good.”

“Alright.” Richie shrugs, before realizing that both Bill and Stanley were looking at him. “What? Why are you both looking at me like that?” They weren’t expecting him to be the one to wake Eddie up, were they? 

“Go wake him up,” Bill orders. Oh, they were. Assholes.

“Wha-why me!?” Richie squawks indignantly. He must’ve been a little too loud because he notices Max starting to stir on the floor. He really needed to be quieter to make sure that none of the three still sleeping teens on the floor wake up. He loves the Party, really he does, he doesn’t regret becoming a part of their group at all but he really does not want them tagging along today especially if they find out anything concrete about what’s going on in Hawkins right now.

“Why don’t you w-want to wake him up?” asks Bill. Seriously? Answering his question with another question . What the fuck was that about?

“He gave me the excuse of ‘he looks so peaceful and I don’t want to disturb him, after disturbing my sleep,” Stanley informs with a shrug. 

Richie nods in agreement. “What Stan said.”

“But, I'm pretty sure he just doesn't want Eddie to be mad at him for waking him up,” Stan adds, much to Richie’s annoyance.

“Not true!” Richie squeaks out. 

Stan turns to him, looking serious as ever. “Then go wake him up.”

Richie raises his arms in defeat. He wasn’t going to get anywhere arguing about this. “Okay, fucking fine. I’ll go wake him up. You guys are making way too big of a deal about this.” 

He quietly makes his way over to where his friend was still sleeping. He wasn’t sure why they were pushing him to be the one to wake Eddie up. It was most likely just them not wanting to do it after the three had been stuck in a car together for close to twenty hours. Although the thought was still there that they somehow knew what he felt for Eddie and that’s why they were doing this, wanting to see what he’d do. They couldn’t know though, right? He wasn’t treating Eddie any differently than he had before, was he?

”Fuck off,” Eddie mumbles, inching closer to the back of the couch.

“So mean to me,” Richie teases with a grin.

Eddie rolls over to look at Richie, mostly awake now and definitely annoyed. “What do you want?”

Richie crosses his arms, trying his hardest to look annoyed at his friend. “You to get up so that Bill will tell us what he found out.”

“Found out about what?” Eddie asks with a yawn.

“The clown,” Richie replies. “More specifically if he’s here.”

“At…what time is it?”

“Eight-ish.”

Eddie gives him an incredulous look. “At eight in the morning?” 

“Not my idea.”

“I’m going back to sleep,” he says, pulling up the blanket and flipping over to face the couch.

“No you’re not.”

“Try and stop me,” Eddie challenges, looking back over his shoulder briefly. 

Not one to back down, Richie yanks his friend’s blanket off. This seems to catch Eddie by surprise, which quickly turns to something between annoyance and anger, closer to annoyance, though. 

“Hey! What the fuck, asshole!? give that back!” Eddie shouts, getting up off the couch trying to get the blanket back.

“Nope,” says Richie, keeping the blanket away from him. “I’m stopping you from going back to sleep. I didn’t get woken up at seven in the morning on a Sunday for you to stop me from learning what Nancy’s been hiding in her notebook.”

“Seven-thirty,” Bill corrects.

“Close enough.”

“We should probably go upstairs to talk about this, so we d-don’t wake anyone e-else up. We don’t n-need to get Richie’s new friends involved in this if w-we don’t have to. And right now we don’t have to.”

“Can I piss first?”

Stan looks at Eddie, raising an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

“Holding your pee for too long can—”

“Forget I asked,” Stan huffs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’ll go once you're done.”

“W-we’ll see you guys u-upstairs. C’mon Richie,” says Bill, heading back to the stairs. 

Richie tosses the blanket he was holding at Eddie whose head catches it. He yanks it off and gives Richie a glare, probably wanting to yell at him, but not wanting to wake anyone else up, although he’d yelled earlier and the Party barely budged, so he wasn’t sure why Eddie was being quiet now . 

As soon as Eddie turns around to head to the bathroom, Richie finally follows Bill up the stairs to the living room. He wasn’t sure if he was surprised or not to find Nancy waiting up there with her notebook and everything that she had in her bag relating to her investigation. How much did she tell Bill? And how much were the two of them about to show everyone? Was it all similar to what they’d dealt with back in Derry? Richie had a hunch that it was probably It or something similar, but was this actual proof? He hopes it’s not. He was prepared to deal with It again in twenty-three years and not a year sooner, that clown could stay far far away from him until it was time to go back and fight him again.

He looks at Bill, a little confused. “I thought you were telling us.”

“I am, but N-Nancy offered to show some of the other stuff she had to you g-guys.”

“Wait.” He looks over at Nancy. “How much other stuff do you have?”

“I’ve been looking into this since the disappearances started a month ago,” she informs, not directly answering his question. “At first I thought—” she pauses, “have you told all of them about the Upside Down yet?”

He nods. “Yeah.”

Nancy shakes her head in what Richie can only assume is disappointment. “You shouldn’t have, but since you did, I thought that it might have something to do with that until I looked into it more. A lot of this I haven’t even told Hopper yet, and I was planning on talking to you about it once I was more sure that it was similar to what you told me about Derry.”

“Talk to me about it or interrogate me about it like you did yesterday?” 

“For the last time, I wasn’t interrogating you,” Nancy argues, once again pinching the bridge of her nose in annoyance.

“You t-two act like siblings,” Bill points out, holding back a laugh.

“We practically are at this point,” Nancy says with a smile. “Weirdly enough, he’s more like a sibling to me than my actual little sister, although that’s probably because she’s so much younger than me.”

“You have a sister?” 

Please don’t let this circle back to Georgie, please don’t let this circle back to Georgie , Richie thinks.

She nods. “Her name is Holly, she’s seven. She’s out of the state with my mom right now though, which, considering everything going on, is probably a good thing.”

Bill nods, “I h-had a brother,” damn it! “the clown t-took him. T-that’s why we went after the c-c-clown.”

“That’s awful, I’m so sorry,” Nancy says, looking a bit sympathetic about the situation. At least they weren’t dwelling on that. He really didn’t want to think or talk about what happened with Bill’s little brother.

“You aren’t just going to repeat the same shit you told the Party yesterday, right?” Richie asks. “Because if you are, I'm just going to make myself food while you tell everyone else.”

“I literally just said that there was more of it that I haven’t told Hopper,” huffs Nancy, annoyed, “and everything that I told you guys yesterday was what I’ve worked on with Hopper and Mrs. Byers since they got back. But, there were some things that I thought might’ve been too far-fetched, especially since they weren’t from very reliable sources. Although, I’m starting to think they might not be.”

“We’ve dealt with monsters from another dimension, what was ‘too far-fetched’?”

“I’m not repeating myself, you’ll just have to wait until your friends come up.”

“Seriously? So Bill can know and I can’t?” Richie complains, plopping down on the couch behind him.

“ He knows because he actually stayed upstairs, you walked off while I was showing him my notebook. If you’d have stayed you’d know what he knows.”

“Yeah, but, you could’ve told me before!”

Instead of continuing to argue with her brother, Nancy turns to Bill. “When are the other two supposed to get up here?” she asks, starting to grow impatient.

“Whenever t-they get done in the bathroom,” Bill answers with a shrug.

“Unless they went back to sleep,” Richie argues.

Bill rolls his eyes. “They didn’t go back to s-sleep.”

As if on cue, the other two boys walk into the living room. Neither looking too particularly thrilled about this. Richie couldn’t blame them. For one it wasn’t even nine in the morning yet and for two they were talking about the clown, which wasn’t a topic of conversation any of them liked and often avoided. 

“See, t-told you.”

“Whatever,” Richie mutters, crossing his arms.

“What got you in a pissy mood so quickly?” Stanley asks with a raised eyebrow, taking a seat in what had been Ted’s la-z-boy up until he left a little over a month ago. 

Richie glares at Nancy, who was currently facing away from him. “Traitorous cousins.”

Nancy quickly turns around, returning his glare with one of her own. “Oh my god, you were the one who walked off while I was talking about it!” she shouts, exasperated. “You also had time between stealing my notebook and me coming down to look in it, so clearly you weren’t that interested.”

“Well now I am, and you refuse to tell me, although you’ve already told my friend that you barely know a lot of it.”

“If you could be patient for five minutes—”

“What was so important that we needed to be awake and up here?” Eddie asks, interrupting the argument and taking a seat next to Richie on the couch. “Because I’d really like to go back to sleep, especially if it’s just some vague-ass information on a problem that may or may not be like ours four years ago.”

“Nancy has information on w-what’s going on here, and a lot of it s-s-sounds like our clown,” Bill explains.

“Oh my god, this again ?” Eddie groans. “We just got here last night.”

“We n-need to know, Eddie.”

“Not this quickly,” argues Stan. “Eddie’s right, we just got here last night. We don’t need to immediately start a suicide mission.”

“It’s not s-suicide,” Bill protests.

“We almost didn’t make it out alive last time! And there were seven of us! We find the clown is here? Cool, then what? We try to fight him? He tries to kill us? We don’t stand a chance, not the four of us alone,” Eddie argues, now crossing his arms as well.

“L-let’s just talk about what Nancy f-found first,” Bill huffs. “Nancy?”

Nancy nods. “Right, so, to start with, this isn’t the first time in the history of Hawkins something like this has happened,” she says, jumping right into explaining. “According to some articles I found, this has happened at least twice before. The last time being in 1960—”

“Wait,” Richie cuts in, “you didn’t tell me that yesterday. You said twenty-five to thirty years, not twenty-seven .”

“Twenty-seven is between twenty-five and thirty,” Nancy argues, giving him a condescending look as if it were obvious what she meant and he was just dumb. He could’ve sworn he told her that It came around every twenty-seven years, unless that was a detail that Nancy just so happened to have overlooked or forgotten about.

Richie shakes his head. “No, I know that. But I thought I told you that It happened every twenty-seven years in Derry.”

She gives him a confused look. “I thought that was an average.”

“N-no. It’s always twenty-seven years exactly,” Bill informs. “Last t-time it started around the fall of ‘82 and ended in the summer of ‘83, when we either k-killed It or knocked him back into hibernation. The last thing that happened before that started in the fall of 1965.”

“I really hope we killed It,” Stan mutters, looking down.

“W-we all do,” Bill says. “But we have to f-face that we probably didn’t. It’s why we swore the oath.”

Shit. He might’ve told Nancy a good amount about the summer with the clown, but he didn’t tell her about the blood oath and now that it had been mentioned she was definitely going to have questions.

“What oath?” Nancy questions, crossing her arms, looking mostly at Richie, because of course she was. He had guessed she would want to know about it and obviously, he was right.

“It’s nothing—” he attempts to deny, hoping she’d just drop it.

Bill looks over at Richie, confused. “You told her about the c-clown but didn’t tell her about the oath?” 

“What the fuck was I supposed to tell her? ‘Oh, yeah, also, I swore a blood oath when I was twelve to fight some demon-clown again in twenty-seven years with my friends if we didn’t actually kill him because one of them had a vision that we had to fight him again.’”

“You what? ” Nancy questions, giving him a disbelieving look that might have had a little bit of anger behind it. 

He gives her a guilty smile. “Surprise?”

“Jesus christ, Richie,” Nancy groans, face-palming. “Why would you even think that’s a good idea?”

“It wasn’t my idea!” Richie protests. “Just because I come up with crazy ideas with the Party here, doesn't mean I did there. That was Bill’s thing.”

Stan seems amused by this. “I want to know more about this ‘coming up with crazy ideas with the Party’,” he comments, probably hoping either he or Nancy would share what he meant by this. 

“You don’t want to know, he’s pulled some dumb things,” Nancy says, shaking her head. “Anyways, back to what I was saying—”

“They weren’t actually that bad. None of us ever died, and I was right every time.”

“Back to what I was saying,” Nancy repeats, giving him a nasty side-eye. “The last time something like this was happening was 1960, not too long after the Creel incident, which I won’t be getting into, it’s not important.”

“Considering this happened following One AKA Henry Creel ’s attacks back in March, don’t you think it might be important?” Richie argues. It couldn’t just be a coincidence that the disappearances started not long after Henry Creel’s attacks this year and exactly twenty-seven years ago they started after Henry (according to Nancy) killed his family, right?

“No, I don’t,” Nancy snaps, “now shut up and let me keep going.”

For once, he listens and stops talking as Nancy continues to explain. “It lasted for about a year, totalling to around thirty reported child disappearances, which everyone seemed to subsequently forget about. The worst week was during the 1960 Roane County Fair, five kids went missing and according to the source I found, a clown was spotted with each of those kids before they went missing. Of course, this source also was talking about tunnels running under the town and a few pages later in a different article there was something about bigfoot then aliens so, like I said, not very reliable.”

Turns out Hawkins and Derry were even more similar than Richie had previously thought. He’d noticed the similarities over the past few years, sure. Both were cursed. Both were shitty small towns, but you could find one of those in any state, although Derry definitely has way shittier people than Hawkins, not that most of the people in Hawkins are good people. But turns out, both towns had similar things that happened in a similar time frame. What kind of shit luck did Richie have to have to end up in a town that was basically a slightly nicer Derry. 

“A couple months ago kids started going missing around town, I haven’t been able to find much of a pattern yet. But I’ll tell you guys if I’m able to spot one. That’s about all I’ve got that you don’t know already.”

“Well, I guess It didn’t actually follow me here,” Richie half-jokes trying to lighten the mood.

Eddie gives him a look. “We still aren’t sure if this is actually him.”

Richie sighs. “I know. I hope it’s not him but—”

“There’s a pretty big chance th-that it is him,” Bill cuts in, taking the words that had fallen flat at the end right off Richie’s tongue. “We should go see if we can find anything more solid to prove it is hi-him. Then we’ll know for sure and can figure out the next steps to take.”

Seriously? Bill had jumped straight to ‘let’s try and find this clown’. He hadn’t even been here twenty-four hours.

“You guys just got here last night,” Richie groans. “You can’t want to jump straight into clown-hunting since there’s a chance he might be here.”

“You wanted to know too,” Bill points out.

“I didn’t want to hunt him down this fast! Plus, yesterday we all agreed that we were just going to hang out today and maybe keep an eye out for It, remember?”

“I know but—”

“Which of us would rather do that, instead of a full-on clown-hunt?” Richie asks.

Stan and Eddie both raise their hands. Richie turns to Bill with a gloating look.

Bill sighs and raises his hands in defeat. “Okay, fine. I g-got it. But we still need to take this seriously. If he’s here we’re all going to be in danger anyways. We can just hang out today but we need to keep an eye out for him.”

The other three nod, satisfied. It was the best they’d be getting and probably the smartest move given what they’d learned. Hopefully everything would be fine and there would be no sign of Pennywise (if that is who/what is currently terrorizing Hawkins) and the four of them could just hang out together for the first time in close to four years. He really, really hopes that will be the case.

Chapter Text

Richie stares into his closet. He knows it’s stupid, nobody is going to care what shirt he’s wearing. Sure, it’s different from what he’d normally wear here, but not even by that much! Plus, if he wears his glasses out today, like he’s planning to (mostly because his eyes are still bothering him from his fall face-first into the dirt yesterday), that would definitely be the first thing people notice. Especially since Mike had worn glasses out only a handful of times in the three and a half years he’s lived in Hawkins, definitely not enough for people to not be surprised if they saw him wearing them. So if he does run into people he knows, they’re going to be way more likely to notice the glasses on his face before they notice that the shirt he’s wearing isn’t something he usually wears here.

I do not need to be making this big of a deal over this , Richie thinks, finally yanking the yellow shirt Max convinced him to buy for his spring break trip to California off the hanger. It was almost funny. Max wanted him to wear it so that he would look dumb, not knowing how often he’d wear similar shirts, way more graphic than that one back when he lived in Derry and was just Richie.

He throws the shirt on and shuts the closet door, letting out a huff as it clicks shut. He’s still not entirely sure why this is bothering him so much. He wants to just be Richie again, really he has for a while, getting back in contact with (some of) the other Losers had only solidified that. Committing to it just seems to be the hard part. He’s scared of what other people (The Party) will think. He knows he shouldn’t care that much, despite all they’d been through together, The Party still doesn’t know him as well as they think they do, they didn’t even know how much of his personality he’d been holding back, well until last night that is, when they finally started to see it a little more, when the Losers showed up and the walls he had built up came crashing down with the return of his oldest friends.

“I guess you didn’t actually grow out of those shirts,” Stan says. 

Richie jumps. He hadn’t been expecting Stan to say anything. Actually, he hadn’t expected anyone to say anything because he thought he was alone in his bedroom. He hadn’t even heard the door open and someone walk in. He whips around, trying to find where Stan is at. Quickly, Richie spots him standing in the bedroom, leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed. How long had Stan been standing there? Had he just stood and silently watched his friend have a mild crisis over a shirt ?

“Pft. Never,” Richie snorts in response, trying to cover up any signs that Stan had startled him and that he’d been overthinking. “It’s not as graphic as my old ones, though,” he adds, looking down at the shirt.

“Not by much and it’s still just as loud,” says Stanley, moving away from the door and further into the room, closer to where Richie is standing. “I mean, yellow really?”

“You’re just jealous you could never pull off this bright of a color.”

“As if I would want to.”

“I get it,” Richie huffs dramatically. “You’re only into incredibly boring clothes. You’re seriously missing out though. The ladies dig bright colors on a man.”

Stanley rolls his eyes. “Like you’d know.”

“Well, unless in the past three and a half years you got a girlfriend you haven’t told me about, I think I know more than you on this subject.” He actually didn’t know more than Stan on this subject. Sure, he might’ve had a girlfriend for a little over a year, but El wasn’t exactly a typical girl, growing up in a lab and all.

“Are you trying to imply you have a girlfriend?” asks Stan, raising an eyebrow. “I find that kind of hard to believe.” 

What was that supposed to mean? Does Stan just think Richie doesn’t have any game? Which, rude, but fair. Or does he mean something else? Does Stan know? If Stan does know, is he going to confront Richie about it? If he does will he be more mad about what Richie is or that he didn’t trust Stan enough to tell him? 

He really needs to stop spiraling over this, someone is going to catch on soon and then he’ll really have to answer for himself.

“ Had a girlfriend,” Richie clarifies, finally responding. He really hopes Stan doesn’t think anything of the solid fifteen second pause or lack of a funny and/or smartass response. (He probably will but that’s a problem for if it comes up.) “I broke up with her a few months ago.”

“Did you have a girlfriend or did ‘Mike’ have a girlfriend?”

“I have no idea what you mean by that,” he denies, though he knows exactly what Stan means. Richie Tozier and Mike Wheeler are technically the same person, but at the same time they aren’t. ‘Mike’ is just who he had tried so hard to be here. It was Mike that the Party is close with and that the people in Hawkins knew. Which is why when he finally started letting down his walls and the Party saw Richie instead of Mike they were confused and possibly alarmed.

“You know exactly what I mean by that,” says Stan. Of course he didn’t fall for the bullshit coming out of Richie’s mouth. He didn’t normally, why would this time be any different?

“Okay yeah, I know what you mean,” Richie huffs, taking a seat on his bed.

“So?” Stan asks, sitting down next to him.

“The second one,” Richie sighs. “But, I don’t like the way you’re implying that me and who the Party thought I was are two completely different people.”

“I know they aren’t. But unless you’ve actually changed as drastically as your new ‘friends’ make it seem then you have been, in a way. You’ve been someone you know that you aren’t or trying to be at least. And I know you’ve probably changed some, we all have, starting to grow up and mature and all that—”

“You can’t have matured that much, you’ve been like an old man for years!” Richie jokes, trying to lighten the mood.

Stan sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Richie, for fucks sake, let me talk.”

“Alright. Alright. Continue, sire.”

“Yeah, you definitely haven’t changed that much,” Stan mutters. He didn’t seem too annoyed, actually. More relieved. He was even smiling a little. Weird. “What I was trying to get at is, you know you don’t have to pretend right? You have friends who like you for who you are, and if your new friends here don’t then they aren’t really your friends. You shouldn’t have to be someone you aren’t just so they’ll stick around.”

“I know,” Richie sighs. “But you and the other Losers were a thousand miles away, and I wasn’t in contact with any of you. I was pretty much alone here and I guess I was scared being myself would definitely make sure that I stayed alone. Will, Lucas, and Dustin were the only people who were nice to me when I first moved here. I didn’t really want to lose the only friends I made here so I kept pretending. Do you think they're going to hate me now that they know?”

Stan shrugs. “I don’t know them well enough to answer that. But if they do, you’ve still got us. We’re losers, we stick together.”

“You’ve been spending too much time with Bill.”

“Maybe. Speaking of Bill, we should probably get back down there, he and Eddie are probably waiting on us.”

Richie stands up. “Why didn’t you say so earlier and save us the trouble of talking about my feelings? Let’s go.”

Stan rolls his eyes, also standing up. “You know I hate talking about feelings as much as you and I forced you to talk about yours, clearly you needed it.”

“Eh. Could’ve lived without it,” Richie says with a shrug. “ But , since you made me talk about my feelings, I now owe you a talk about yours, so be ready Staniel, feelings talk, it’s coming.”

“Can’t wait,” Stanley groans, looking very much unenthused. “Let’s get downstairs before they come up here.”

Less than five minutes later, the two teens are outside the door to the basement. Nancy is still downstairs, but not really paying attention to them, instead sitting at the table with her pens, highlighters, notebook, and that old newspaper that had been in her bag. The Party is probably still asleep down in the basement, or just now waking up (hopefully the former, as helpful as the talk with Stanley had been, Richie still doesn’t want to deal with the potential conflict with them over the things they just learned last night).

“Are they supposed to be meeting us up here or are we supposed to meet them down there?” asks Richie, looking around to see if Eddie or Bill had come up yet.

“Down there, I think,” Stan says.

Richie turns back to Stan. “Then why are we just waiting right here?”

“You’re the one who stopped.”

“Yeah, but, you stopped too.”

“Let’s just get downstairs,” Stan huffs, opening the door to the basement stairs. Richie follows closely behind him, making sure to stay at least somewhat quiet in case Max, Lucas, and Dustin are still sleeping. 

Once he’s far enough down to actually be able to see what everyone in the basement is doing, Richie notices Max, Lucas, and Dustin all still asleep in the same spots they were in whenever he’d gone upstairs, which is a relief. He wouldn’t have to confront their new opinions about him until later so long as they don’t wake up before he leaves again. He knows that he’s only delaying the inevitable and realistically they won’t be too upset, especially since they weren’t that upset last night. He also knows that he’ll still have the Losers if he does end up losing the Party, although he really doesn’t want to lose them. Ideally, The Party is okay with him and they get along with the Losers and the Losers get along with them. 

At the base of the stairs, Eddie is pacing, probably waiting on Bill. He stops and watches with crossed arms as he notices Stan and Richie get to the bottom of the stairs. “What took you two so long?” he questions. “I thought you were just going up there to see if he was ready, and I thought all you had to do was get changed?”

Stan and Richie look at each other. Richie really doesn’t want to talk about the conversation he’d had upstairs with Stan, as much as he trusts Eddie, it was more about the ‘being honest with his feelings’ issue than what he’d talked about. To his relief, Stanley also didn’t seem too thrilled to talk about what they’d been talking about up there.

“You guh-guys ready to go?” Bill asks, having rejoined the group, saving Richie from having to tell Eddie about his and Stan’s conversation.

Eddie nods and Stan says ‘yes’. Richie is about to give a ‘yes’ himself, when he spots the video tapes laying out on the table and suddenly gets an idea.

“Hang on, I need to do something real quick,” Richie ends up answering, gaining confused looks from his friends. Not elaborating, he quietly and carefully goes to grab one of the tapes sitting on the table. Dustin was the one who seemed most confused/mad last night. So if Mike returns the tape for him, it might make him less mad. It would also serve as the perfect opportunity to screw with Steve. He could also return The Karate Kid for Max, but that would be too nice of him to do. She can return her own movie. 

He picks up the Back to The Future tape and heads over to the desk and starts digging through the drawers for a piece of paper or sticky note or index card and a pen or pencil. Pretty quickly he finds a stack of sticky notes and a pen. 

Richie pulls the sticky notes and pen out of the drawer and scratches down a note reading ‘ Returning Back to The Future to Steve for you (you’re welcome), see you guys later’ onto the top sticky note. He then quickly signs his name beneath it, pulls it off the stack and heads to stick it on Dustin. While walking over to where his newer friends were still sleeping, he looks down at the note and realizes that he’d accidentally signed it ‘Richie’ rather than ‘Mike’. If he had been thinking while writing it, he would’ve put down ‘Mike’, especially since he was leaving this for the Party to find. It was kind of weird, all that time hiding, desperately trying to be someone else to the point it hurt, all thrown out the window after one night.  

He quickly heads back to the desk to add ‘Mike’ in parentheses behind ‘Richie’, just so there wouldn’t be any confusion (although he doubts there would be) about who left it and grab the tape, his friends still watching in only slightly less confusion. He then takes the sticky note and sticks it on Dustin’s forehead, careful not to wake him.

“Alright, I’m ready to go now,” Richie says, returning to the other three, movie still in hand. 

Bill nods. “Okay, l-let’s get going then.” 

The four boys quietly head upstairs, successfully avoiding waking Lucas, Dustin, or Max up. Nancy doesn’t pay any attention to them as they raid the kitchen for snacks before heading out the door. However, the second that Richie is about to leave, suddenly she cares about what he’s up to and shouts at him to ‘hold on a second’. He rolls his eyes, but turns around and waits, letting Eddie go out ahead of him.

Nancy sets down her pen that she was writing in her notebook with and looks at him. “I don’t know what you’re doing, I don’t care what you’re doing, but you better be at Hop’s Cabin by one-thirty to help,” she states.

“Okay,” he groans, “can—”

“Yes, you can bring them, but they’ll probably get put to work too.”

He nods, then turns to head out the door.

“One-thirty!” Nancy repeats with a shout.

“Okay! I got it! One-thirty!” Richie shouts back, yanking the door closed behind him as he heads outside, where the other three were waiting next to Bill’s car.

“What’d she want?” Eddie asks, immediately noticing and walking over to Richie. 

“To make sure I know I have to be at Hopper’s Cabin by one-thirty to do more manual labor,” Richie answers with a huff. It’s not that he doesn’t want to help or be around the Party and extended Party, but there were other things that he’d prefer to be doing, especially since he was with his friends again for the first time in years. “Which you guys are allowed to come and help with, she made that pretty clear too.”

Eddie gives him a confused look. “Who—?”

“Hopper is El’s dad and Will’s soon to be step-dad. He and El used to live in the cabin when she was in hiding, but since they don’t need to hide her anymore and El and Hop are living with Will’s family now, he told us that we could use it as a hangout place, kind of like our clubhouse back in Derry. A monster attacked us there last summer, though, and it’s been practically abandoned since then, so he’s making us all fix it up before we can use it,” Richie explains with a shrug.

“A monster attacked you guys there last summer?” Eddie questions.

“Yep. It was a different form of the mind-flayer, instead of the smoke monster Will saw in his vis…” he trails off noticing the concerned and confused looks of his friends. “I’ll just explain it when I explain everything else, since I’m assuming you guys are going to make me catch you up on all the shit that’s gone down here since I started living here.”

“You assume correctly,” Bill confirms, ending that conversation. “So, w-what should we do? Is there an-anything fun to do here, Rich?”

“Not really.” Richie shrugs. “There’s the arcade but I’m pretty much broke right now. There’s a pool, but we never really go to it. If you’d’ve come last summer there was a mall, but that was burnt to the ground last summer.”

“Maybe you could just show us around town or something, and we can figure out what to do along the way?” Stan suggests.

“Great idea, I’ll be the best damn tour guide this town has ever seen.”

Stan snorts. “By constantly shitting on it?”

“Absolutely. Gotta keep it real. Hawkins is a shitty town so it gets to get shat on when I talk about it. Oh, also can we swing by Family Video, I’m returning this tape for Dustin.”

“You mean sucking up and being nice so your new friends won’t be as mad at you for lying,” Stan argues.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Richie denies. “I’m just being a good friend.”

Stan rolls his eyes. “Yeah, okay.”

“Y-you’ll have to tell me how to get there,” says Bill. “But I do-don’t see why we couldn’t stop th-there. Let’s get going though, s-since we only have until one-thirty.”

Richie doesn’t actually make much commentary on the way to Family Video, other than telling Bill when and where to turn. Not that there was too much to talk about between his house and the store. The only place he mentions is the movie theater and that was just to complain that it sometimes takes weeks for them to get new movies.

The parking lot that Family Video and The Palace arcade share is pretty empty when they pull into it, which makes sense, considering it was just before ten in the morning on a Sunday. The only other car on the Family Video side is Steve’s. Other than that there were three cars parked on the arcade’s side, most of which probably belonged to employees. 

“I’ll be right back, this shouldn’t take more than five minutes,” says Richie, sliding out of the backseat of Bill’s car. "Unless you guys want to come in with me.”

All four of them end up going inside. Stan, Bill, and Eddie heading towards the side of the store with the aisles while Richie goes straight to the counter that Steve is behind, turned around, putting tapes on a cart. He probably hadn’t noticed that anyone came in, or didn't care. Robin isn’t with Steve, which means she is either in the back rewinding tapes or stocking shelves. Richie hopes it’s the former. As cool as Robin is, she also happens to know he has feelings for someone who he’s friends with named Eddie that lives in Maine. It won’t take long for her to put two and two together if she meets him.

Tired of waiting for Steve to turn around and notice him, Richie sets the tape on the counter and starts hitting the bell repeatedly.

“Jesus! Okay! Hold your horses, I’ll be with you in a second!” Steve shouts, still not turning around, trying to finish what he was currently doing.

Richie snorts. “Hold your horses? What are you? Fifty?” 

“Of fucking course it’s Mike,” Steve mutters, turning around and walking over to the counter, looking first annoyed, then confused as soon as his eyes land on Mike. “When did you get glasses?”

“When I was like six.”

“ Six? ” Steve questions, looking even more confused, then annoyed. “No way, I don’t believe that for a second, Wheeler. I’ve never seen you wear them before and if you’d  needed them since you were six, I think I would’ve seen you wear them.”

“I don’t know what to tell ‘ya, Stevie. My eyesight’s been shitty since kindergarten, so if I want to be able to see like a normal person I have to wear glasses or contacts.”

“But you’ve never worn glasses before!” Steve argues.

“Maybe you and Dustin are actually secretly related because both of you were the only ones to be surprised to find out I have glasses.”

“Whatever,” Steve grumbles, looking even more annoyed. “What are you doing here? It doesn’t look like you’re renting a movie and Max technically was the one who rented out the movie Friday, and I doubt you’d return her movie for her, let alone return it early.”

“Returning the movie you told Dustin to bring in by two today,” says Richie, waving the tape in front of Steve’s face.

Steve narrows his eyes in suspicion. “Why…you didn’t do anything to him, right? Because if you hurt him I am not afraid to beat your ass.”

“Why is everyone assuming I’m doing this as a way to make up for something?” Richie complains. “Can’t I just be doing this because I’m a good friend?”

“You could, but you wouldn’t. I will take this tape, though.” Steve takes the tape from Richie’s hand and starts examining the case. “It’s rewound, right?”

“Yes,” he groans. “I watched Dustin do it last night.”

“Good.” Steve sets the tape on top of a stack of other tapes. “Now scram. I don’t need you scaring off the customers.”

“What customers?” Richie asks with a snort. The only people in the store other than him (and Steve and Robin, but they’re working so they don’t count) are Stan, Eddie, and Bill. Unless that’s who Steve is talking about.

“The ones Robin is talking to right now.”

He turns around to see who Steve could possibly be talking about and unsurprisingly Robin’s just talking to the Losers. What she’s talking to them about, he has no clue. Richie turns back to Steve, looking amused. “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about me scaring them off.”

“I guess we’ll have to put that to the test, one of them is walking over here,” hisses Steve, putting on his fake customer service smile. “Unless you’d like to walk away now, which would be very much appreciated considering you aren’t buying anything.”

“I’m good,” Richie says, shit-eating grin on his face. He’s pretty sure that the ‘customer’ coming over is Bill, probably to ask Richie if he’d returned the movie so they could leave. Even if it isn’t Bill, unless someone came in in the last thirty seconds it would be one of his friends. He’s not even sure where Steve got the idea he’d scare off a customer, the only ones who’d ever done that were Dustin and Max. 

“Hello! Welcome to Family Video!” Steve exclaims. “How can I help you?”

“I wah-was just coming over here to see if Richie was done returning the movie so we could leave,” says Bill.  

Steve looks at Bill, extremely confused. “I have no idea who you’re talking about.”

Richie turns to his friend. “Oh, yeah, I’m done now.”

Bill nods. “Alright, let’s get out of h-here then.”

The two younger teens start walking away. “Woah, woah, woah. Hang on a second!” Steve shouts, causing the two of them to stop and turn around. “First, how do you two even know each other? Second, why did you call him Richie? Third, why did you respond to that?”

“We’re friends, because that’s my name, and because that’s my name,” Richie answers, simply. 

“Bullshit,” says Steve, giving him a disbelieving look. “I’ve known you for three years. No one has ever called you anything but Mike or Michael. And this guy definitely isn’t your friend, I think I’d know if The Party added new members.”

“Well, I’ve known him since we were both three, and up until last night had never heard anyone call him Mike before,” Stan cuts in much to Richie’s surprise. Stan didn’t typically like to get involved in any shenanigans that one of his friends might be pulling, and had said he wasn’t getting involved whenever Richie was pitching his idea right before they walked in. 

Steve gives the three of them an extremely confused look, then raises his arms in defeat. “Okay, fine, maybe I’m wrong, then. You’re not Mike Wheeler. But, if you’re not, I’d really like to know who you are, why you look just like him, how you know him enough to be around the Party and return their movies for them, and why you were pretending to be him.”

Richie stretches his arm out across the counter holding his hand out for Steve to shake, a wide grin plastered on his face. “Richie Tozier, pleasure to meet ‘ya,” he says, attempting a transatlantic voice. Steve gapes at him, shocked. Awkwardly, Richie pulls his hand away, sliding it into his pocket. “For the rest of your questions, just ask Nancy, she can tell you,” he adds, returning to his normal speaking voice.

“Why can’t you tell me?” asks Steve, still looking confused as fuck.

Richie shrugs. “Don’t feel like it. Plus, you’ll probably believe it more if it comes from Nancy.”

“Fine. But if Nancy doesn’t tell me I will hunt you down and force it out of you.”

“Sure you will, Stevie.”

“L-let’s get go-going,” Bill says, turning away from Steve and starting to head towards the door. Richie and Stan follow him. Steve is once again staring in shock as they walk away from him.

As he approaches the door, Richie realizes that Eddie is not with them. “Where’s Eddie?” he asks, looking around trying to see where he is.

Stan looks back, “I thought he was behind me, I guess Robin, at least I think that was her name, must still be talking to him.”

Richie pales. If Eddie was with Robin, that meant Robin was probably talking to him about something and Robin just so happens to be the only person here that knows his secret (including the crush on Eddie). He doubts she’d tell him. She promised she’d not tell anyone when he finally broke down and told her, which had been a few weeks after she’d taken the chance and told him about how she likes girls, only girls. But she might let something slip and then everything is just going to go to hell.

“I’m going to go find him,” Richie announces, still looking around the building for his friend. 

“Just wait,” Stan sighs. “He’ll probably find us in a minute. Unless you’re worried about something.” 

“I’m not worried about anything,” Richie lies, “but Robin is known to go off on tangents and not stop talking whenever she starts so if we don’t drag him away it could be hours before he’s free.”

“Both of you also do that,” Stan points out.

“Exactly why I need to find him, if not we’ll be here until Steve and Robin’s shift is over.” 

“Or you’ll also get drug into the conversation then Bill and I will have to drag both of you out of here.”

Luckily for probably everyone (including himself) Richie spots Eddie walking towards the exit just as he’s about to walk off to find him (after he got the last word with Stan, of course). That means he wasn’t actually talking with Robin very long, which means most likely she didn’t tell Eddie what Richie was worried that she would tell him, which is definitely a relief. 

“Look at that,” Stan says. “Eddie’s coming over here, now you don’t have to go find him.”

“Find who?” Eddie asks, rejoining the group. 

“You!” Richie replies, trying to look more annoyed than relieved. “What took you so long to get over here?”

“Sorry, the girl who works here wanted to talk to me about something after Bill and Stan walked off to do…whatever they were doing.”

“They were helping me mess with Steve—”

“Not intentionally,” Stan quickly says, cutting Richie off.

“Not not intentionally, either,” Richie argues.

“I just told him the truth, I wasn’t actively messing with him.”

“Which worked like a charm,” Richie says, then turns back to Eddie with a grin. “You should’ve seen Steve’s face. He was all like ‘what the fuck is going on’. It was hilarious.”

“Hey! I know you shits are talking about me!” Steve shouts, pulling the phone away from his ear briefly. 

“How’s the talk with Nancy going!?” Richie shouts back.

“Well she hasn’t exactly explained anything yet, only laughed at me.”

“Laughing at you because you couldn’t connect the dots?” Robin laughs, sliding a tape into the TV to play.

Steve rolls his eyes. “I connected the dots.”

“You didn’t connect shit.”

“Oh, and you did? Also, shh I’m on the phone with Nance, remember?”

“Hand it over, dingus, I want to talk to her about this.”

“About her dumbass brother?”

“Yes!”

“You guh-guys want to get out of here before they inevitably steal Richie to interrogate him?” asks Bill.

“They aren’t going to—” Richie starts saying before noticing both Robin and Steve watching him, phone still up to Steve’s ear. On second thought, they definitely would and are probably already thinking about it. “Actually, nevermind they’re probably already thinking about it.”

“Then let’s get out of here, like Bill said,” Stan huffs, pushing the door open. Bill follows him.

“By the way, what was Robin talking to you about earlier?” Richie asks as Eddie is about to follow Bill and Stan out the door. 

Eddie’s eyes widen, and he starts to look a little panicked (or more panicked than usual, anyways). “Nothing,” he says a little too quickly. “I mean she did want to talk to me about something. But it wasn’t an important something. Just something.”

Okay. That wasn’t weird at all. What the fuck did Robin talk to Eddie about that he was trying to hide? 

“What’s something?” he pushes, following Eddie out of the building.

“It wasn’t important, just drop it.”

Richie opens his mouth to argue, but closes it when he notices Bill staring at the missing person poster taped up just outside of the store. It isn’t the one that he had seen when he was here with Max only two days ago, though. This is a new one with a different kid on it. The one he saw Friday is probably underneath this new one, forgotten. 

“How long has he been staring at that?” Richie asks, now standing next to Stan.

“Since we walked out here, so less than a minute but still too long to still be reading it.”

“Billzabeth! When you’re done staring at that poster the three of us are ready to go!” Richie shouts, attempting to get his friend’s attention. 

Bill steps away from the poster, turning around to face the other three boys. “Right, s-sorry,” he says. “Where to now?”

“You’re asking me?” Richie asks, giving Bill a confused look.

“You live here, you also still owe us that tour of Hawkins that Stan suggested.”

“Ugh, right. Okay, so this is Family Video, the only video store in town. Next to it is The Palace arcade, one of the only fun things to do here. I currently hold the top spot in Street Fighter although I had to win it back from Max on Friday because she can’t just live with being number one in DigDug, she has to be number one in every game she knows I play.”

His friends snicker at that. Traitors. “Anyways, that’s all that’s here, we already passed like ninety percent of the shit downtown. The high school and middle school are a little further down this road but after that it’s pretty much woods. That’s it for the tour since there’s pretty much nothing else in town.”

Stan raises an eyebrow, looking slightly amused. “I thought you were going to be ‘the best damn tour guide this town has ever seen’?” 

Richie shrugs. “Not much competition for ‘best tour guide’ in a town that would never have people touring it.”

“So there’s nothing else around here, like at all?” Eddie asks.

“I mean, there’s the quarry but it’s pretty lame compared to the one back in Derry, you can’t even swim in it.” 

“We could still ch-check it out, especially if there isn’t anything better to do,” says Bill. “You do know how to get there, right?”

“Of course I know how to get there,” Richie scoffs. “I’m just warning you that it’s not that cool.”

After about ten minutes of driving and five minutes of walking they reach the quarry. 

“I can’t believe there’s no fence around this, I mean you get a little too close to the ledge and you trip or someone pushes you, you’re dead, if not on impact by drowning” Eddie rants, pacing a few feet away from the ledge that Stan and Bill are standing on looking down into the water below. Richie never really got that close to the edge anymore. Not after what had happened while Will was missing. That time when Troy had a knife to Dustin’s face and told Mike to jump.

“Okay, but w-who would be dumb enough to stand close enough for that to happen?” Bill asks, turning around.

“You!” Eddie shouts. “You and Stan are literally almost on the very edge! Somehow Richie is the only one smart enough to not be standing where you could easily fall in!”

“Guys, did you hear that? Eddie called me smart! He said I was smart and you guys are dumb! Ha!” Richie exclaims, a wide grin spreading across his face. He knows that’s taking what Eddie said out of context, but still, Eddie called him smart! He’s going to be riding that high for days.

“That’s not at all what I said,” says Eddie, trying to quickly correct himself.

“Yes it is. Just admit it, Eds.” He swings his arm over his friend’s shoulders. “You secretly think I’m smart.”

“I never said that!” Eddie protests, shoving Richie’s arm off of him.

“You did imply he was smarter than me and Bill,” Stan says, walking away from the edge of the cliff.

Eddie scowls at Stan. “No one asked you, Stanley!” 

“Let him talk,” says Richie. “He never takes my side.”

“Because you’re full of shit most of the time. But this time it’s Eddie that’s full of shit.”

“I am not .” Eddie argues. “You guys are taking what I’m saying out of context. All I said was that he was the only one smart enough to not be on the edge like you two were.”

“We weren’t g-going to fall off, Eddie,” Bill reassures, rejoining the group.

“You don’t know that. What if someone came out of nowhere and threw a rock at you, caught you off guard, then you fell?”

“I don’t think people come out here e-enough for that to happen.”

“Yeah, people don’t come out here a lot. Only to find dead bodies and threaten to cut someone’s friend’s teeth out with a knife if they don’t jump off,” Richie says with a shrug. He’s met with an awkward silence and concerned stares from the other three. He probably shouldn’t have said that last part. The first thing he said was weird enough on its own and they had seen Will alive and well so they probably were a little confused but not concerned. The whole incident with Troy though…that was probably the reason for the silence, which means they’re probably going to make him talk about it more, fuck.

“Rich, what did you mean by that last part?” Eddie asks.

Maybe he could get out of it by playing dumb. “What last part?”

“What you said about the knife to the face and jumping.”

Okay, he won’t be getting out of talking about it. Great. Awesome. Just what he wants to do right now, explain to his friends how he almost died at this exact quarry when he was thirteen. 

“Oh, yeah…that…it’s not that big of a deal,” he says, awkwardly scratching the back of his neck. “Troy just chased me and Dustin here then held Dustin in a headlock with a knife to his mouth and told me if I didn’t jump he’d start cutting his teeth out.”

“You didn’t actually jump, right?” Stan asks.

For a minute Richie debates on just lying to his friends. Telling them no, he had found another way to stop Troy and didn’t step off the cliff when that mouthbreather’s countdown had reached one. He didn’t like lying but if it kept him from having to confront his own feelings or his secrets from getting out he’d do it. He really doesn’t want them to know about that incident. It was bad enough that he had to talk to the Party about it even briefly a couple of days ago when Dustin had let it slip. It wasn’t even that big of a deal, it happened almost three years ago. But if he does lie about it, chances are they might ask Dustin and Dustin would definitely tell them everything, then they would be pissed at Richie for lying about something so serious. 

“Well, technically it wasn’t really jumping , more like stepping off the edge,” he ends up saying, deciding to go with the truth. “But obviously I didn’t go all the way to the bottom, considering I’m still alive. El used her powers to bring me back up before I hit the water.”

There’s a beat of silence as the other three teens process what Richie had said. That couldn’t be good. Obviously, he knows that they aren’t going to be happy about it, but if he had lied they would’ve been even more upset so it’s really a lose-lose situation. 

Eddie is the one to break the tense silence. “Why would you ever think that was a good idea? Unless you were a lot lower than we are now, there’s almost no way you could survive that drop. You could’ve died, Rich. If El hadn’t been there to save you, you would’ve died. None of us would’ve ever seen or talked to you again, hell, we probably would’ve never even known .” He sounded more hurt than angry, although there was definitely a little bit of anger behind the hurt. Richie couldn’t really blame him, though.

“I—I don’t know what I was thinking when I did it, honestly,” Richie huffs, sitting down on a large rock that was sitting on the side of the road furthest from the cliff. “A lot of shit happened that week and that wasn’t the only near death experience I had.”

“What happened?” Stan asks.

“I almost got shot a few times and there was also the demogorgon who almost got me, Lucas and Dustin. That was the week Will went missing and everything started.”

“I t-think you owe us that explanation of everything that happened now,” says Bill, crossing his arms.

“Fine,” he sighs. “I guess you guys do deserve an explanation. But it’s a long story since I’ve been dealing with this Upside Down bullshit pretty much annually for the past three years.”

“We’ve got time,” Bill states.

“Right, so, it started when Will went missing in November of ‘84. That week was when the incident happened here, by the way. He was biking home from my house and at some point got taken to the Upside Down by a demogorgon, which are these huge silver monsters with no face. I don’t know too much about them other than they’re attracted to the smell of blood and they can only really be hurt by fire.”

“So they’re kind of like sh-sharks,” says Bill.

“If a shark could walk on two legs and could survive being shot, sure. Anyways, after we found out he was missing, Lucas, Dustin, and I went out to look for him after being told to stay home where it was safe. Instead of finding him we found Eleven instead.”

“Wait, El is short for Eleven, like the number?” asks Eddie.

Richie nods. “Yeah, she’s got a tattoo on her wrist that’s the number eleven, she was test subject eleven in Hawkins Lab. Her birth name is actually Jane but she didn’t learn that until she’d been out of the lab for a year. But we ended up bringing Eleven to my house, hoping she’d have some idea where Will was. It didn’t seem like she did at first so I was going to have her go to my aunt so she could figure out what to do with her so Lucas, Dustin, and I could just focus on looking for Will until she made it clear that telling an adult would put me, Lucas, and Dustin in even more danger, like bullet to the head danger.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Yeah. By the end of the week we were facing that danger since they found out we were the ones hiding Eleven and the government came chasing us. Eleven saved our asses almost every time except the time it was Hopper who saved us. Hop and Ms. Byers got Will out of the Upside Down and El disappeared after stopping a demogorgon from killing me, Lucas, and Dustin.”

Stan gives him a skeptical look. “I feel like you skipped a lot.”

“I did. Highlights of the things I skipped: a fake body for Will was planted in the quarry so everyone would give up looking for him then El uses her powers to prove Will’s still alive by using my walkie talkie to let me hear him then does the same for Lucas and Dustin using the AV equipment at the middle school which ends up catching on fire.”

“What exactly are her powers?” Eddie asks.

“Telekinesis is the big one but she has a bunch of other psionic powers too. She can also open and close portals to the Upside Down.”

“Woah, that’s so cool.”

“I know, right? Anyways, that's the gist of everything that happened the first year.”

“I hate how that implies there’s more.”

“Oh, there’s way more. That’s just the start. Like I said three years of this bullshit. It gets so much worse.”

“How much worse?”

“Like your mom in bed worse,” Richie says with a grin.

Eddie gives him a glare. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, your mom is terrible in bed, the worst, actually. ”

“No I mean seriously, a ‘your mom’ joke right now ? This is not the time for that, you still—”

“Guys, y-y-you’re seeing t-this right?” Bill asks shakily, interrupting Eddie mid-sentence. 

“I see it,” Stan says quietly, voice about as shaky as Bill’s had been when he asked, possibly shakier.

What the hell had spooked those two? Richie turns around to see what Stan and Bill are looking at, Eddie doing the same. A few yards away from the four of them he spots a red balloon floating.

“Fuck,” Eddie mutters. 

“I jinxed us, I fucking jinxed us,” Richie mutters under his breath as the balloon begins to slowly turn around. 

When it fully turns to the other side they can all clearly see  ‘I ❤ HAWKINS’ written largely across the balloon.

The four stare at the balloon for a moment. There was almost no doubt now who was behind everything that’d been going down in Hawkins the past few weeks. Unless Pennywise has a cousin or something who uses the same calling card as him, this is their stupid clown. The same stupid clown that is supposed to be asleep and that they aren’t supposed to have to deal with for another twenty-three years. The same clown that they thought was only in Derry.

“We should get out of here,” Stan whispers, stepping further away from the balloon.

“N-no, we need to know,” Bill states, not budging, staring down the balloon. He is still tense, like he’s scared but trying his hardest not to show it. 

“I think this is clear enough proof, Bill!” Eddie argues.

Bill ignores Eddie. “S-show yourself!” he shouts, looking around, probably for the clown.

“What the fuck are you doing!? Don’t ask him to do that!” Richie hisses, warily eyeing the balloon. He had wanted to know too, sure, but that balloon pretty much gave them all the answers they needed. It confirms what they had thought. It or something very, very similar is in Hawkins. 

The balloon starts to expand, growing larger and larger, until suddenly, it pops.

Chapter Text

The balloon pops and blood starts exploding out of it, spraying Richie, Stanley, Bill, and Eddie in their faces. The blood even splatters all over Richie’s glasses, completely obstructing his vision. Why the fuck did the balloon have blood in it? Do all of It’s balloons have blood in them? He’s never really seen them pop before, so it’s possible.

“At least I didn't get blood in my eyes,” Richie mutters, pulling off his glasses so he can quickly clean them off with his shirt, so that he can at least see somewhat properly out of them (there is no way the blood is coming completely off without water). 

“Yeah, b-be thankful for that,” says Bill, wiping the blood out of his eyes.

“I’m going to get an eye infection, like at the very least an eye-infection, maybe worse, great going Bill, taunting the balloon for an answer you probably already—” Eddie pauses and gulps “—knew…You—you guys see him too, right?”

Richie slides his glasses back on his face, there’s still a little blood smudged on the lenses, but he’s just going to have to deal with it for now. Once he can see properly, he realizes what Eddie noticed. Pennywise is standing a little behind where the balloon was, smiling that same creepy grin that still haunts his nightmares four years later, staring at the four of them. “Yep, I see him. Same creepy face as last time and everything.”

“Well, what a surprise? Four of my favorite kiddies. Twenty-three years early and in the wrong town,” the clown says, grin growing wider and more menacing. 

There’s a scream. Richie isn’t sure whose it is, it might’ve even been his own. Actually, it’s definitely him that screamed. He’s pretty sure at least one of the other three had also screamed, though. Hell, maybe they’re all screaming. Actually, they’re definitely all screaming.

Stan takes a few steps back from the group, eyes wide in fear. Richie and Eddie are clutching onto each other, Richie having positioned himself slightly in front of Eddie, an attempt at protecting his friend. 

Bill steps forward and picks a rock up off the ground. He holds it in his hand, ready to throw. “W-W-What are you doing h-h-here?!” he questions, arm shaking as his grip on the rock tightens. 

“What does it look like I'm doing here? I’m talking to you Billy-boy,” the clown teases.

“ Why are you h-h-here, what are you here to do?” 

The clown’s eyes turn yellow. “Make you all float.”

Oh fuck. This is bad. He’s here for real and he wants to kill them.

Bill launches the rock at Pennywise before the clown has the chance to open his mouth again. “G-G-Go!” he shouts, looking behind his shoulder at the other three. “My keys are still in the car. I’ll be right behind you!”

Stan takes off immediately, wasting no time trying to put distance between himself and the clown. Eddie doesn’t take much longer to leave, starting to run back up towards the car as soon as he and Richie let go of each other, getting ahead of Stan pretty quickly (and Stan is running as fast as he physically can). 

Richie turns and runs too, not too far behind the other two, but ends up stopping about thirty seconds later. He really shouldn’t leave Bill alone to deal with the clown, Bill might have said he’d be right behind them but it wouldn’t be unlikely for him to stay back confronting or try and make a deal with the clown, and either of those will probably end in Bill dying.

Richie knows he should go back down and help his friend. There’s almost no way that Stan and Eddie are. At least not until they get the car started and get in it. He looks down the slope to see Bill only a few steps back from where he’d been when he’d told them to run, throwing rocks at the clown. Four years ago, he probably would’ve turned tail and ran, leaving Bill to face It himself (or, maybe he wouldn’t, considering he took the first hit after Pennywise offered to leave them all alone if he could just take Bill), but after the last three years of Upside Down bullshit, his self preservation levels are at an all time low. Plus, he really doesn’t want to watch his friends die.

“Guess I’m doing this,” Richie mutters to himself.

He runs back down towards Bill and Pennywise, looking for anything he could use to hurt the stupid clown on the way. Luckily, he spots a couple branches that must have been carried down by the wind during a storm. Richie stops and grabs one off the ground, it’s not a baseball bat or an actual weapon, but it’ll have to do.

“What the hell happened to being right behind us?” Richie asks, reaching Bill’s side. He’s trying to sound calm, casual, and a little annoyed but his heart is thumping in his chest. He should’ve just ran to the car, he shouldn't have run back down to be backup. If he hadn’t, he’d be waiting safely in the car with Stanley and Eddie. But the clown doesn’t seem ready to kill them just yet, he seemed to be taking his sweet time. Plus, he doesn’t want to just abandon one of his friends, especially since he’d practically been doing that since moving. He especially didn’t need to now, because knowing Bill, he would just let the clown kill him. Especially, if it meant saving the others.

Bill turns to look at Richie. “You sh-should be up there with them, getting out of here.” 

“Not without you. Losers stick together. You started that saying. As much as I hate you for dragging me into this shit, I’m not about to leave you down here to become clown food,” Richie says, refusing to move from his friend's side. He really does hate this, but he isn’t about to leave Bill behind to face the clown himself. He wouldn’t leave someone in the Party alone to fight one of their monsters, he’s especially not going to leave a Loser alone to fight a monster. He didn’t when the clown tried to strike a deal with the seven of them and just take Bill. He isn’t going to now. “Although, I’d really prefer it if we both just got the fuck out of here, especially since Stan and Eddie are probably already waiting in the car.”

Bill nods. “Okay, on the count of three you throw your stick t-t-towards his mouth or eye, and I’ll throw this rock, that should give us enough time to run to the car.”

“We probably have enough time now, he’s not moving very—” Richie is cut off by the clown speeding up towards them. “—Fast. Can you start counting now?”

Bill starts counting, as he reaches three they both throw then start running without looking back. Richie isn’t even sure the rock or stick hit the clown, neither he nor Bill tended to have great aim, but he isn’t really worried about that. He’s more worried about getting out of here before he ends up next on the menu for the clown. 

They quickly slide into the backseat, one after the other, since one door is hanging open. Richie slams it shut as soon as he’s in. 

“Drive!!” the two of them shout at Eddie, who had been the one to end up in the driver’s seat. 

“Where?” Eddie asks, putting the car in drive and slamming on the gas. He’s still breathing rapidly, scared from their encounter with It. He’s starting to calm down, but he’s still worked up. Richie wants to go up front and comfort him or try to calm him down, but considering they’re in a moving vehicle, that isn’t exactly a good idea. Plus, Stanley will probably stop him if he tries since Eddie’s driving the car.

“Go the way we came,” Bill says, “i-it’ll at least get us away from the q-q-quarry.”

When they reach the main road, both Richie and Bill look out the backglass to see if the clown was still following them. To their relief, it doesn’t look like he is, it doesn’t look like he was in front of them either. They’re in the clear for now.

“Where to now, guys?” Eddie asks. “I mean, we should probably go back to Richie’s aunt’s house but his cousin-slash-sister also said he had to be somewhere at one-thirty and it’s after one now.”

Bill turns towards Richie. “R-R-Richie, it’s your call.”

Richie looks at him confused. “My call?” He might call the shots a lot of times with the Party, but not with the Losers, with them that was Bill's role. 

Bill nods. “We won’t be able to c-c-call Mike until tonight, if we call him now he won’t answer so we can try and come up with a plan back at your aunt’s house or do whatever it is you were volunteered to do and deal with it l-l-later.”

“I—I guess we can go to the cabin? I don’t want to face everyone’s wrath today for not showing up, especially if the clown is after us.”

“Okay, so, how the fuck do we get there?” Eddie asks.

“Start heading back towards town, turn left at the playground, then right at a tree.”

“Turn right at a tree?! Do you know how fucking vague that is? All there are is trees!”

He has a point, but it’s not like Richie had much better directions, he’s biked there so many times he knows how to get to the cabin, just not how to tell other people how to get there. “I’ll shout when we reach the tree we need to turn at, plus there’s a driveway that leads back there, so you should be able to spot it.”

“This isn’t going to turn out terribly at all,” Stan mutters. 

Richie rolls his eyes. “Oh shut up Stanley, it’ll be fine.”

“Is that playground up ahead the one we’re supposed to turn at?” Eddie asks, taking one of his hands off the wheel and pointing at the playground down the road.

“Yeah, that should be it.”

It takes the four of them about five more minutes to reach the point where they’re supposed to turn to head to the cabin. They do end up turning at the correct spot too, although Eddie did have to slam on brakes because Richie told him when to turn ‘a second too late to slow down enough to make a safe turn’. 

Unsurprisingly, there are already a couple cars parked when they reach the cabin. 

Stan gives Eddie a look. “For someone who cares so much about safety, you really are not a safe driver.”

“I’m a safe driver!” Eddie argues. “It’s not my fault that Richie told me to turn a second too late to slow down and turn.”

Richie leans forward into the space between the two front seats. “How is this my fault?!” he questions. “I don’t usually drive out here, so how would I know how far down the turn is?”

“You live here and were giving me the fucking directions!” Eddie argues.

“At least I gave you the right spot to turn at!”

“ After I needed to know to be able to slow down enough to make a safe turn without having to slam on the brakes!”

“In my defense, I’m visually impaired.”

“Your visual impairment is what your glasses are for, shit-for-brains.” Eddie lightly flicks the frames of Richie’s glasses. “So unless you need a new prescription because your eyes have gotten worse, that’s not an excuse.”

“It’s still an excuse, plus there’s a bunch of smudges on the lenses from the blood that smeared on them when I tried to wipe them off.”

Stan looks over at the two of them annoyed. “If you two want to argue, can you do it outside of the car?” 

“Fine, I need to get some of this blood off me, anyways,” Eddie says, sliding out the car. “Richie, c’mon.”

“Don’t have too much fun in here without us,” Richie teases, flashing a grin at Stan and Bill, before getting out of the car as well to head to the cabin with Eddie.

“This isn’t like a murder cabin right?” Eddie asks as the two approach the cabin. “We’re not going to walk in and get stabbed by some crazed killer, right?”

“I’ve only almost died here once, and that was monster related, so no. But if there was a crazed killer here, Nancy probably would’ve shot them already.”

Eddie stops dead in his tracks. “What do you mean shot them?”

“Nancy’s scary good with guns and almost always has one on her. She even sleeps with one in her room,” Richie explains with a shrug, still continuing towards the door.

“Has she ever tried to shoot you before?” 

“No, but she’s shot monsters before. and Russians. Oh! And she almost shot Steve once, apparently.”

“Russians? What Russians? There are Russians here?” Eddie asks frantically, quickly catching up to Richie who had only been a few steps ahead of where Eddie stopped.

“Not anymore…I think.”

“You think ? What do you mean, you think ?”

The two stop arguing for a second when they open the door to the cabin to see none other than Nancy Wheeler waiting in the doorway, arms crossed, looking as pissed off as ever.

“Nice of you to finally show up,” Nancy says, stepping aside to let the boys inside.

Richie rolls his eyes at her. “Fuck off, you said one-thirty, it’s only a little after one now.”

Nancy opens her mouth to argue back, but pauses taking a good look at the two of them. “What the hell happened to you two? and where are the other two?”

Eddie is the one to answer her. “They’re still in the car,” he says, before his eyes widen, like he just realized something. “Wait, you can see the blood?”

Nancy gives him a confused look. “Should I not be able to?”

She doesn’t get an answer from Eddie or Richie. They’re both just staring at each other, silently asking each other the same question, ‘how is Nancy, a legal adult , able to see the blood on us?’

Nancy huffs and crosses her arms, tired of waiting on an answer. “Whatever, I’ll give you two ten minutes to clean yourselves up, then you better explain what the hell is going on and why your faces are covered in blood.”

“Where’s the—?”

Nancy points across the room. “Bathroom is over there.” 

Eddie nods and smiles politely. “Thanks,” he says, then walks off to the bathroom.

Richie heads over to the sink, turns it on, then pulls his glasses off so he can finally rinse the rest of the blood off the lenses. Looking through those red tinted smudges had been getting annoying. 

“I don’t need to be worried, do I?” Nancy asks from behind, a lot more concern in her voice than there had been when they were walking in. 

Seriously? Could she not wait like five minutes before she starts asking questions? She literally just said she was giving them ten minutes, she didn’t even give him one. Just enough time to get to the sink and start washing off his glasses. 

“What happened to ten minutes to clean up?” he asks, not bothering to turn towards her, still holding his glasses under the running water.

Nancy crosses her arms. “Your friend gets ten minutes, you have to start talking now.”

“Seriously, Nance?” Richie groans. “How come Eddie gets ten minutes unbothered and I don’t?”

“I had to explain all your shit to Steve and Robin, which was not what I wanted to speed my morning doing. The least you can do is let me know if this has to do with something I should be concerned about.”

That’s fair. He did pawn off explaining everything to Steve onto Nancy, which could not have been fun to do which is why he told them she’d do it. 

“It probably is,” he sighs, turning off the water. “We saw pretty solid proof that this is the same thing we dealt with in Derry.”

“What kind of proof?”

Richie dries his glasses off and slides them back on his face, then turns around to face Nancy. “After we left Family Video, we went to the quarry. While we were there this red balloon appeared.”

Nancy gives him a disbelieving look. “What does a red balloon have to do with this?”

“It has everything to do with this! They’re almost always a sign that the clown is there, was there, or if you follow it, it’ll lead you straight to him.”

“I think you’re reaching a little.”

He gives Nancy a glare. “Which one of us dealt with what’s pretty much going on now here in a different town when they were twelve?”

She seems to concede. “Fine. But how do you know it wasn’t just some kid's runaway balloon?”

“Well one:,” he starts listing, holding out a finger, “it wasn’t floating with the wind. Two.” He sticks up another finger. “It popped suddenly and when it did, it spewed blood on all four of us, which is why me and Eddie had blood on us when we walked in, and three.” He holds up a third and final finger. “That same fucking clown that we thought was dead or hibernating appeared where the balloon popped and started taunting us.”

“Okay, but how do you know that this is that?” Nancy puts her hands on her hips, looking more annoyed. “We’ve already established that what's here can probably shape-shift based on what Lucas and Will saw. We also know clowns were possibly seen around disappearances, but who says it’s the same clown?”

“That’s the same exact thing that happened in Derry, right down to the clown sightings!”

“I know it is! But how can you say for sure that it’s the same thing?”

“Because it is! Why can’t you just trust me on this? Do you think I want it to be the same thing? Because I don’t. I want it to be anything but this, but it’s him. ” 

“Okay, what’d I miss?” Eddie asks, rejoining the two of them. Richie’s attention immediately turns to his friend. There isn’t any blood on his face now and his hair is wet, so he probably showered or at least put his head under the water to get it off. 

“Not much, I’ve just been trying to get answers out of Richie,” Nancy says, significantly calmer than when she was talking (arguing) with Richie. She looks at her brother. “You need to get the blood off your face and probably out of your hair too, now. Unless you want the Party to pester you about how in the few hours you’ve been gone you got covered in blood.”

“I’m not completely covered in blood, just from the neck up,” Richie argues.

Nancy doesn’t listen and just shoves him in the direction of the bathroom. “Wash up before Hopper comes in and sees you. He’ll definitely want to know why you’ve got blood on you.” 

“If he can even see it,” Richie mutters, closing the door behind him. Odds are that Hopper won’t be able to see it, it’s weird that Nancy could, considering she’s eighteen AKA an adult. Unless, the clown’s definition of an adult isn’t the same as the legal definition of an adult.

It takes less than five minutes to wash the blood off his face, neck, and hair through a combination of sticking his head into the shower and letting the shower head run over it and washing his face and neck with a washcloth.

The entire time he can hear Nancy questioning Eddie on what happened earlier. Didn’t she know he wouldn’t give her much of a different answer? The only one that might would be Bill, who will most definitely be Nancy’s next target whenever he ends up finally coming inside the cabin. Richie isn’t really sure what’s taking him and Stan so long or what they could possibly be doing or talking about in that car that’s kept them in there the entire fifteenish minutes since he and Eddie left. Unless they got out and had been cornered by Hopper as soon as they left the car.

The door to the cabin opens pretty much right after Richie gets out of the bathroom. Please don’t be the Party, he thinks. He’s been avoiding them all day for a reason, sure they’re going to show up here eventually, but eventually doesn’t have to be now. He wants to put off that confrontation as long as possible. Luckily, it’s not them, just Stan and Bill, who must’ve finally decided to get out of the car.

“Both of you clean the blood off yourselves, then I'm talking to you too,” Nancy orders, turning around. “The bathroom is that room over there that Richie just left.”

Bill looks at her, eyes wide in surprise. “Y-Y-You can see the bl-blood?”

“Okay, seriously, what’s so weird about me being able to see the blood that was on all four of your faces? Eddie asked me the same question after both he and Richie seemed confused when I asked what happened, clearly referring to the blood that was on them.”

“You’re eighteen, right?” asks Stan.

Nancy crosses her arms. “Yes. But I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

“You being eighteen means you’re technically an ad-adult. Back in D-D-Derry, adults couldn’t see anything that It did. That su-su-summer our friend Beverly’s bathroom got covered in blood from something he did, but her dad didn’t n-n-notice at all,” Bill explains.

She looks surprised at this. “How covered?”

“Everything in the bathroom was r-r-red and covered in blood.” 

Nancy looks at her brother, raising her eyebrow. “Did this actually happen?”

“I don’t know, I was stuck outside, they left me as the lookout,” Richie complains. He tried to be a good sport about being left as a lookout whenever it happened (which was most of the time they needed one), but he wanted in on the action sometimes too! (Except for the one time he didn’t get left as a lookout when they went into the house on Neibolt for the first time). “But remember how yesterday Hopper didn’t see the Mind-Flayer when both Lucas and Will did? It’s like that.”

“So if adults can’t see these things, and this is hypothetically the same thing you dealt with in Derry, then why can I see the blood on you guys?” Nancy asks, looking confused.

Bill shrugs. “Maybe his definition of an adult isn’t the legal d-d-definition. Or that was completely real, not partially real, partially a t-t-trick by him.”

“How would you know if it was real or just a trick? The blood came off of them when they cleaned up. Is it about believing if it’s real or not?”

“We’re not sure,” Bill says.

“Maybe you guys could just ‘this blood isn’t real, this blood isn't real’ your way to getting it off of you,” Richie suggests jokingly.

Stanley, Eddie, and Nancy all give him unamused looks. Bill seems to actually be considering this, though.

“Do you really think that’ll wuh-wuh-wuh-work?”

“Maybe?” Richie shrugs. “I was just joking, but when the Paul Bunyan statue came to life but in a twisted way I ended up taking off my glasses and tried to convince myself it wasn’t real and when I put them back on he was back to normal.”

Eddie turns to Richie, giving him a concerned look. “When did that happen?”

“That part of the summer while we were all separated. It happened after I left the arcade one day.” He winces at the memory. He doesn’t like to think about that day. It hadn’t been the first time he’d been called that , but that time was the first time it actually hurt, because he realized it might just be true, at least partially true, anyways. 

“You never told me about that,” Eddie whispers.

Richie shrugs. “It honestly wasn’t even the worst thing that happened to me that day. Plus, everyone else had way worse shit that they saw so it didn’t feel important.”

“What else happened that day that was worse?”

Richie looks away in shame. He knows Eddie is asking mostly because he cares, but there’s a reason Richie’s never told anyone (and Eddie, specifically) about that encounter with Henry Bowers at the arcade. “It’s not important, Plus, I don’t want to think about it anymore than I already have. It wasn’t related to our dear old friend, Pennywise, though.”

“Well if it w-worked for that it might work for this,” Bill argues, causing Eddie and Richie to refocus on the main conversation rather than their side one.

“That seems like a kind of outlandish idea,” Stan says, looking at Bill skeptically. “Who’s to say the clown saw Richie wasn’t scared and decided that the statue wasn’t the best way to get to him? Plus, that was something he was seeing that was clearly a hallucination, which seems way different than this.”

Bill turns to Richie. “Were you s-s-scared?” 

Richie shrugs. “I mean, a little.” 

This seems to boost Bill’s confidence in the idea. “I’m going to try it,” he states.

Stan shakes his head. “Fine, but I'm going to wash this off in the bathroom like a normal person. Then you can wash off once I'm done.”

Bill puts a hand on Stanley’s shoulder. “You shouldn’t go a-a-alone.”

“I’m just going to the bathroom to clean up,” Stan huffs.

“Bev got taken in her bathroom. He could get y-y-you there too.”

“I’ll only be there five minutes. We don’t even know if he uses the water system like in Derry, even if he does we probably aren’t connected to the city’s sewer system. Plus those two idiots didn’t get taken in the bathroom.”

Bill takes his hand off of Stanley, letting him go. “Okay, but scream if you see anything weird.”

“Don’t worry, I will,” Stanley sighs, walking away from the group towards the bathroom.

“What did he mean by that?” asks Nancy, looking more confused than she was earlier, but at the same time more determined to get answers out of them.

“W-we figured out everywhere It happens is connected by the sewers,” Bill explains. “Every time he took a victim they were taken through pipes or storm drains. Sometimes you could even hear children’s voices in the drains. His lair was even underneath the house that sits on top of where the town well used to be.”

“Do you know if that’s what’s happening here? I have a map where we’ve pointed out the disappearances but we couldn’t find how they were all connected. Haven’t heard any creepy children’s voices in the drain though, and as far as I know, no one else has either.”

“The only wuh-wuh-way to know for sure would be t-t-to compare the d-d-disappearances and the sewer system.”

“But how would we even do that?” Eddie asks. “It’s not like any of the Hawkins people have access to a map of the sewers.”

“They should have those at one of the city or county offices,” says Nancy, stroking her chin in thought. “I’m not sure if they would take bribes, but I’m not afraid of trying.”

Richie snorts. “You think they’ll take a bribe from you ?”

“Well it’s more likely than them taking one from you ,” she shoots back. 

It’s no secret that despite being the only boy, Mike is Hawkins’ least favorite ‘Wheeler kid’. Maybe that’s because they know he isn’t really a Wheeler, not like Nancy and Holly are. No one ever questioned it, but someone had to think it was weird when Karen and Ted suddenly had a third kid only a couple of years younger than Nancy. If it isn’t that, then it’s everything else about him that makes them dislike him, and really, that’s equally likely.

“Duh. But with the combination of you getting fired from your Hawkins Post internship last summer and your dad leaving town after your mom decided to divorce him, don’t you think they might not want to have anything to do with you either?”

“He…makes a good point, actually,” says Stanley. When did he get back over here? Richie quickly looks around to see if there are any more changes in who’s gathered near Nancy. Bill isn’t there now, so he must’ve gone to the bathroom as soon as Stan got out. “Hawkins is a small town, just a little bigger than Derry, so word gets around fast, especially if you’re in a more well known family. If some well known people worked for the Hawkins Post and she got fired, chances are, a lot of people won’t want much to do with you.”

“That happen to you, Stanley?” Richie asks teasingly. “I didn’t know the Urine name was that well known in Derry outside of its Jewish community.”

Stan turns to Richie, giving his friend an annoyed look. “If you say or imply that my last name is Urine again, I will let Eddie strangle you the next time you piss him off.”

Richie grins, throwing an arm over Eddie’s shoulders. “He wouldn’t. He’d miss me too much.” 

Eddie glares at him, but surprisingly makes little effort to remove the arm. Richie would be lying if he said it didn’t make his heart flutter a little. “You want to put that to the test, dickface?”

“Sure. If you can even reach my throat.”

“I am only a few inches shorter than you. Stop acting like you're a foot taller than me.”

Nancy pinches the bridge of her nose and inhales sharply. “Will you two knock it off. I’m trying to focus so I can come up with an idea, but I can’t think because the two of you won’t shut up.” She turns to Richie. “ You especially since you’re the one instigating here.”

“I’m not instigating!” he protests.

“You are. Now shut the hell up. I’m trying to think,” Nancy snaps.

He rolls his eyes.

Nancy starts pacing. “So, it’s a bad idea for me to go in there,” she thinks aloud.
“But that doesn’t mean someone else can’t. Steve and Robin are both pretty good options. Robin can be pretty convincing and is good at making up stories on the spot, most of the time, anyways. Steve’s parents have money and are pretty well known and respected. So either or both of them should work.”

Eddie tilts his head in confusion. “Steve and Robin? Like Steve and Robin who work at Family Video, Steve and Robin?” 

Nancy nods. “Yes.”

“They’re going to be involved in this too?” Richie groans, throwing his head back.

“They know about the Upside Down and have helped us the past two years, they might as well know about and help with this. If you guys want to check if this has to do with the sewers without going to the sewers, they’re your best bet at getting a map.”

“Yeah but The Party doesn’t even know yet,” he argues.

“Why don’t they? You told your friends from Maine—“

“The Losers,” he corrects.

“Right, Losers, whatever. You told them about the Upside Down, why couldn’t you tell the Party about It?”

Richie looks away. "Well, I mean, most of them did only learn last night that my name isn’t Mike,” he mutters.

Nancy crosses her arms. “It technically is though. Or well, it’s Michael.”

“It didn’t used to be.” He turns his gaze back towards her. “Plus, I’m hoping now that Ted’s gone, Aunt Karen will just go ahead and change my name back.”

“Well, I could see that happening in the near future,” says Nancy, uncrossing her arms and sliding her hands into her pockets.

What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

Richie narrows his eyes. “What do you know?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

“D-did I miss anything?” asks Bill.

The front door opens, causing the conversation to stop and everyone to tense up. Nancy and Mike both relax when they see it’s just Hopper. The other three, not so much.

Hopper surveys the room, eyes landing on where the Losers are standing. “Those three are new,” he comments.

“Mike’s friends from before he moved here came down for a visit,” Nancy explains. 

Hopper nods. “Well, if they’re here, they can get put to work too. When is everyone else getting here?”

“Within the next twenty minutes probably, Steve and Robin should be here when they get done with their shift. How sure are you we can even make this completely liveable? The plumbing is working again and so is the electricity, but there’s still a giant hole in the roof.”

“We can tarp it for now, until we can replace the roof.” He turns to Mike. “Wheeler, why are your friends all squirrely?”

“They heard about the disappearances so they’re all kind of on edge.” It’s not a total lie. The disappearances are why they’re on edge, but more so because of who is behind them. 

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, most of the ones taken were much younger than you kids, although I think one was around you guys’ age, assuming you’re all around sixteen.”

This doesn’t make anyone feel any better but none of them tell Hopper that.

“You are o-o-okay with the three of us sticking around, r-r-right?” Bill asks. “I know you d-d-don’t know us other than the fact we’re Ri— Mike ’s f-f-friends.”

“You can stay as long as you’re helping.” Hopper picks up a toolbox off the ground and starts heading back to the door. “Maybe we’ll actually finish today with three extra sets of hands.” 

No one else speaks until the door closes behind Hopper and he’s out of earshot.

Nancy turns her attention away from the door and back to the boys. “You four better come up with a plan on how you’re telling everybody what’s going on here and do it quickly.”

“What the fuck, Mike!?” Dustin shouts, bursting through the door, only about ten minutes after the Losers started discussing how they’d go about telling everyone what’s really going on. 

Richie turns away from the Losers as they quickly go silent and towards Dustin with a guilty smile. “Hi, Dustin. How are you?”

Dustin glares at him. “Don’t ‘hi, Dustin,’ me, you asshole. You completely ditched us this morning! We all woke up and the only thing left of you was that note you left.” 

“Told you it was a bad idea to just avoid them,” Stan hums quietly enough that the only one who could really hear him is Richie, since he’s standing close to him.

Richie rolls his eyes, he doesn’t need Stan in his ear saying ‘I told you so’ to know that he fucked up. He turns his attention back to Dustin. “Sorry? All I was doing was showing them around town and I returned your movie for you while we were out, you’re welcome by the way, didn’t think any of you would want to tag along for that. Plus, there’s only five seats in Bill’s car.”

“Bullshit. You were avoiding us,” Max says, pushing past Dustin so she has a better view to glare at Richie. 

“I wasn’t avoiding you.” He was. “I just didn’t think you guys would want to tag along while I showed them around Hawkins, plus there was something else we were passively looking for clues for while we were out that I didn’t want you guys getting involved with yet.”

“What if we wanted to spend today getting to know your friends? Also, what the hell could you guys have been looking for that you didn’t want us involved in? I thought everyone made it pretty clear yesterday we’ve dealt with interdimensional monsters before so whatever it is you didn’t want us getting involved with we’re more than capable of handling,” Dustin argues.

“Wait, you actually wanted to get to know them?”

“Yes! You said that you’ve been friends with all of them a pretty long time, and you all seem pretty close, so yeah I want to get to know my friend’s other friends.”

“I just want to know embarrassing stories about you from before you came here,” Max adds.

“I hear a lot of chatting in there and not enough working!” Hopper shouts from outside where Will and El are probably helping him.

“Get to work,” Nancy sighs, breaking up the argument. “There are some brooms in the corner so you can sweep out the leaves and the rest of the debris we didn't get up yesterday. I need a couple of you to help me with putting wood on the inside of the broken windows until Steve, Robin, or Jonathan get here.”

“But what about—” Richie starts to ask before being cut off by Nancy.

“You all can talk later, when everyone’s in the same place. I’m sure no one wants to tell the same story twice.”

“What does that mean?” Lucas asks.

“It means grab a broom and sweep.” Nancy looks around the room. “Max, Bill, you two are with me for now. There are nails, a  couple hammers, and plywood in the bedroom, if the two of you can go get that, that’d be nice. The rest of you start sweeping, there’s a whole bunch of leaves that flew in here last night because of that hole in the roof that need out. Brooms are in the corner for the people who don’t know where they are.”

“Have fun sweeping, nerds!” Max teases, walking away from the group towards what had been El’s room when she and Hopper lived here. Bill follows her.

“I guess that means it’s time to start sweeping, then,” Stan mutters, going to grab a broom from the corner. Eddie follows him.

Dustin crosses his arms. “So, what was it you guys didn’t want us involved in and/or to not know about?”

“Just drop it, Dustin,” Mike huffs, giving his friend an exasperated look. “I’ll tell you later.”

“Okay, but when’s later?” Dustin pushes.

“I don’t know! Either after we’re finished here or whenever Jonathan, Robin, and Steve show up since Nancy is pretty adamant about everyone knowing.”

“Wait, so, what you didn’t want us to know is important enough that Nancy wants everyone to know about it?” Lucas asks.

Richie nods. 

Lucas looks upset now. “And you weren’t going to tell us?!”

“I was going to!” Richie attempts to reassure them. “I was waiting until I knew for sure to tell you guys. Nancy interrogated me pretty much as soon as I got here because there was blood on my face and said we needed to tell everyone. If she hadn’t I would’ve told you guys to head over to my house as soon as possible so we could talk about this.”

“Oh, so that’s what the red is on your shirt collar and the bottom of your shirt,” Lucas says.

“It’s on my—” he pulls his shirt out to look. “Damnit.”

“How’d you get blood on you?” Dustin asks.

“That’s part of what you’re going to get told later. Don’t worry, it’s not my blood.”

“You didn’t kill someone did you?”

“What?! No.”

“Are the three of you going to help sweep or are the two of us, who have nothing vested in this, going to have to do this ourselves, while you just keep talking?” Stan yells.

“We’re coming Stanley, don’t get your panties in a twist!” Richie turns and shouts back, then turns to Dustin and Lucas again. “We can finish talking about this later. I’m sure you guys are going to want to know more than just what we tell the big group.”

Lucas nods. “Definitely.”

“So are we good?” Mike asks, smiling nervously at Lucas and Dustin, holding his hand out for them to shake, he drew first blood by being the one lying after all.

“Still a little mad about the lying thing, but yeah, we’re good,” Dustin says, smile returning to his face as he shakes it. 

“Lucas?” 

Lucas shakes his hand. “Yeah, we’re good. Just stop keeping us in the dark.”

He brings his index and middle finger to his temple in a two-fingered salute. “Will do.”

The three head over to the corner of the cabin where the brooms are, not saying anything else to each other. At least they aren’t pissed now. Will, Max, and El might still be, but two of the three of them are outside and the third is with Nancy so he won’t get a chance to clear things up with them until later. Later, when the four losers that are here have to tell everyone else about It and how he’s here, causing trouble in Hawkins.  

He really hopes they take it well and understand why he didn’t tell them the moment he suspected it. 

Chapter Text

Nancy, Steve, Robin, Jonathan, the Losers and most of the Party are back at the Wheeler house. Lucas had stopped by his house first to pick up Erica and Max went with him, so they are still yet to arrive. It shouldn’t be long before they do, though. They stopped repairs on the cabin early due to a thunderstorm moving in. It was about as done as they would be able to get it anyways, with plywood covering the shattered windows and holes in the walls and a tarp nailed into the giant hole in the roof.

Nancy had told everyone (except Hopper and Joyce) there was a code red and that they all needed to meet at her house. She hadn’t elaborated though, even after being asked ‘what’s going on’ by pretty much everyone aside from The Losers.

Richie isn’t sure why she called a code red over this, they just needed to tell everyone about It and the fact that he is the reason that kids are disappearing and people keep seeing things. Not exactly a ‘code red’ emergency. Urgent? Probably. Bad? Definitely, but code red? That’s usually reserved for if something Upside Down related happens. This is a whole separate issue. As far as he knows, It has nothing to do with the Upside Down, he comes from space or hell or something. But Richie had also been under the assumption that It is an exclusively Derry problem, and that turned out to be wrong, so maybe they are related, who knows.

“Okay, seriously, Nance, you called a code red, what for and why’d we all have to come here to talk about it? If it were really that much of an emergency couldn’t we have talked about it while we were at the chief’s cabin? There’s no way it happened just before we left,” Steve rants, pacing around the living room. “Also speaking of the chief, why didn’t you tell him or Ms. Byers? They’re just as involved in the Upside Down as we are, if not more and if something’s going down, they should probably know too.”

“Steve, would you just hang on until everyone gets here,” Nancy sighs, annoyed. She’s on the couch, waiting, notebook on hand for when they start talking in case there’s anything she needs to add to it. 

Steve looks equally annoyed but opts to pace in silence instead of continuing to voice his annoyance.

“Is there a reason Mike’s friends from out of state are here?” Jonathan asks. He’s on the couch as well, but is on the opposite side from Nancy. “If this is a code red, then they probably shouldn’t get involved.”

Richie snorts at this. If anyone needed to be involved in this it’s them. “Sorry Johnny, it’s about four years too late for that,” he says.

Jonathan scowls and crosses his arms, but doesn’t say anything.

“Okay, seriously, what is wrong with him today?” Steve shouts, stopping his pacing and motioning to Mike so it’s clear who he’s talking about, although it already was pretty clear. 

“Steve, we talked about this earlier,” Nancy huffs.

“That didn’t have to do with the way he’s been acting today,” Steve argues. “Robin, you were working with me today, back me up here.”

“I mean, he was acting a little different than usual, but he might just be more comfortable around his old friends than the Party, so he lets loose a little more. He did spend a longer time with them than he has the Party,” Robin reasons.

Steve turns to her, betrayed. “I said back me up, not argue against me!”

“Sorry! But you were acting like there’s no reasonable explanation for him to be acting the way he was and there is, especially if you take into account what Nance told us.”

“Wait, what’d you mean by four years too late?” asks Dustin, turning his attention away from El who he’d been talking to, to look at Richie in confusion.

Richie opens his mouth to give Dustin some sort of answer but doesn’t get the chance when the door bursts open and Lucas, Max, and Erica walk in. 

“Sorry for taking so long,” Lucas says, as he heads over to sit next to Dustin.

Robin looks around. “Okay, this room is getting really crowded. We really didn’t think this through. There are—” she pauses to count. “Fourteen people here and none of us are small children, except maybe Erica, except she’s not super tiny anymore either. Next time there are this many of us, we need to hijack Steve’s house, where there’s more room, or do this outside.”

“What? Why my house?” Steve asks, giving Robin a confused look. He’d given up on trying to convince everyone that something was wrong with Mike causing him to act the way he’d been acting today.

“Because Nancy’s got the second biggest house out of all of us and one of the biggest rooms is still too small and the basement would be too small too. You’re the only viable option left since your house is bigger than hers,” Robin explains.

“She does have a point,” Nancy sighs. “But we’re all already here, so we can just deal with it being tight.” 

“Why are we all here?” Erica crosses her arms, annoyed. “Lucas said something about a code red. I thought we closed all the gates and that the Russians are gone. Also who the hell are those three nerds?”

“This code red isn’t upside down related, at least from my understanding it isn’t,” Nancy says.

Outside, thunder rumbles and the rain starts coming down harder, loud enough to hear it pounding on the roof.

“The weather sure knows how to set the mood,” Richie jokes, attempting to relieve some of the rising tension in the room. It doesn’t really work. He gets a chuckle out of Robin and Dustin. Everyone else is unamused.  

“Okay, so if it’s not the Upside Down, why’d you call the code red?” Max asks, taking a seat on the arm of a couch next to El.

“It’s about the missing kids situation and the fact that Will and Lucas saw the Mind Flayer yesterday,” Nancy explains.

“What do those things have to do with each other?” Steve asks, looking even more confused and annoyed.

Jonathan looks at Nancy, alarmed. “Wait, the Mind-Flayer? I thought the Mind-Flayer was gone. Why didn’t anyone tell me he’s back?”

“For the last time, it wasn’t actually the Mind Flayer,” Will huffs.

“They have a lot to do with each other,” Bill says, causing everyone’s attention to shift to him. “We th-think we know what’s going on here.”

Lucas gives him a skeptical look. “No offense, but you’ve been here barely a day, how could you possibly know what’s going on?”

“Because the same thing happened in Derry four years ago.”

Everyone just stares in a shocked silence for a second.

Richie gives the Hawkins people a guilty-looking grin. “Surprise.”

Silence turns to chaos as everyone starts asking questions at once.

“What do you mean the same thing happened in Derry four years ago!?” Dustin shouts.

Lucas’ eyes widen as he turns to look at Mike. “Wait, so this is why you’ve been acting weird.”

“So Hawkins isn’t the only cursed town?” Max asks.

“What does the fake Mind Flayer have to do with missing kids and how would you have had the same thing happen four years ago?” questions Will.

At this point, it starts getting confusing who is asking questions and what they’re saying since everyone is shouting over each other. He can understand El asking what happened in Derry and Erica asking ‘who the hell are those nerds’ in reference to the Losers. They also aren’t allowing any of the Losers to get a word in to answer all the questions being thrown at them.

“Alright, everyone shut up!” Nancy shouts, taking control of the conversation, and successfully getting everyone to quiet down. “Either let them keep explaining or slow down and ask one at a time. Some of you are adults, I should not be having to keep everyone in line. Actually, why am I trying to keep you all in line right now?”

“You were the one that called us all over here saying it was a code red, Nance,” Robin points out.

Nancy sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. “Whatever, I’m not saying anything else. This is all on you four now.”

“Great,” Richie groans, “really feeling like you’re being a supportive sister right now, Nance.”

Steve turns towards Nancy again, looking confused. “Didn’t you say this morning while you were on the phone that you two are technically cousins?”

“Yes, but he’s lived with us long enough, he’s practically my brother now.” She turns to give Richie a little glare. “Although, if he keeps getting on my nerves I’m demoting him back to ‘annoying cousin’.”

“Wait, Mike’s not actually your brother?” Jonathan asks. Right, he and Erica are the only ones here who didn’t know yet.

Nancy shakes her head. “No, he’s technically my cousin. He’s just been living with us for the past few years.”

“Why?”

“It’s…not important.”

“So, in Derry, every t-t-twenty-seven years this thing happens,” Bill starts to explain. “This monster who lives under the town wakes up and things start h-h-happening. Including kids d-d-disappearing. It feeds on the fear of the people of Derry, especially the victims he takes and is able to shapeshift and mess with your mind to make you more afraid.”

Max narrows her eyes in suspicion. “Mess with your mind, how?” she asks, probably thinking back to everything she went through with Vecna/Henry/001.

“He makes you see things…There was this painting in my dad’s office of a lady,” Stan says, fear still evident in his voice, even if he was just remembering what happened. “It had always creeped me out. I saw her outside of the painting, and she tried to chase after me. Although, I think while she was chasing me it was actually just him taking that form.”

“Well, that’s disturbing,” Max mutters.

Eddie talks next. “I saw a leper,” he starts. “It…it talked to me, then tried to get me, then when I tried to cut through the yard of the house on Neibolt, there was this clown holding a bunch of red balloons, telling me to join him.”

“Wait, what’d the leper say?” Dustin asks.

“Henderson!” Steve shouts, scolding him.

Dustin puts his hands up defensively. “Sorry! I was curious!”

“His usual form is a clown named Pennywise,” Bill continues to explain.

“A clown?” asks El, tilting her head. “That is not scary.”

“This one is,” Richie says. “Especially when he dislodges his jaw and you see all those teeth, takes the creepy factor that clowns have and just multiplies it by a thousand.”

Max scrunches her nose in disgust. “Gross.”

“This is…interesting and all, but what does this clown have to do with what’s going on here?” Lucas asks. “I get you guys had a string of child disappearances a few years ago and some monster that could make you see things, but how do you know it’s the same thing? We’ve had monsters that are able to get in your head here, too.”

“W-We were at the q-q-quarry,” Bill recounts, “and there was this red b-b-balloon—”

“Red balloons are kinda like It’s thing by the way,” Richie interjects. “Like if you see a random red balloon floating around, chances are he’s nearby.”

“The b-b-balloon popped and sprayed blood all over us, then he was there,” Bill continues to explain. “The same clown that was in Derry four y-y-years ago.”

“Okay, but I’m assuming you’ve been told that Hawkins has interdimensional monsters of its own, including one that can get in your head and make you see things. How do you know it’s not that?” Robin asks.

“It’s not Vecna,” Richie, Max, and Will all say at the same time.

“How do you know?” Steve questions. “Because showing you your worst fears sounds a lot like Vecna.” 

“Vecna brought up trauma to people who were already in a bad place,” Max explains, giving Steve an annoyed look. “Plus all four of them saw it and he doesn’t do hallucinations for multiple people at once, and Will said he’s weak, too weak to be doing anything. I can’t even feel him anymore, so we know it’s not Venca. We literally ruled this out yesterday.”

“This clown, what is he?” asks Jonathan.

“We’re not entirely sure,” Bill answers. “Our friend Mike has some theories based on stories his grandpa’s told him and things he’s read, but w-w-we don’t know how t-t-true they are. All we know is he feeds on fear, can shape-shift, and can get in your head.” 

“That knows exactly how to scare you and eats children, great,” Steve mutters.

“How would we be able to tell him apart from a normal clown?” Dustin asks.

“Well one—” Bill lists, “if he i-introduces himself as ‘Pennywise the Dancing Clown.’”

“And if a clown mentions anything about floating or asks if you want a balloon or if you even just see a red balloon, just get the fuck out of there,” Richie adds.

“Yeah, that t-too.”

Everyone seems to at least somewhat get it, judging by their nods. Everyone other than Nancy anyways, who seems completely lost in thought.

“Nance? You good?” Robin asks, giving her girlfriend a concerned look.

Nancy snaps out of her thoughts, looking at the group. “Yeah, I’m good,” she says. “I’m just trying to figure out what we can do about this. We need to find a pattern to where he strikes. We’ve got a map in Hopper’s shed of where the disappearances were. We just need to connect them. They mentioned sewers earlier. I think we need to start there.”

“What, so you want us exploring the sewers?” Steve asks, giving Nancy a ‘you’re insane’ look. 

Nancy shakes her head. “Not necessarily. A map would be good. Then we could compare without having to find a way in.”

Steve is still staring at Nancy like she’s insane. “How the hell are we going to get a map of the sewers?”

Robin’s eyes widen as she gets an idea. “The same way we got the blueprints for StarCourt.”

“Do you really think you bribing someone is going to work twice?” Steve asks.

Robin shrugs. “Maybe. It’s worth a shot.”

“She’s right. It’s worth a shot,” Nancy says. “Plus that’s the same idea I had. When do you think you can go try?”

“Tuesday,” Robin answers. “Steve and I aren’t scheduled to work that day, and if I can’t get it there’s a chance he can.”

Nancy nods. “Alright, so we’ll continue this Tuesday after you two get a map of the sewers.”

“We’ve got the make-up Hellfire campaign Tuesday,” Dustin interjects.

Nancy sighs and pinches her nose. “How long will that take?”

“Could be an hour, could be ten, we don’t really know.”

“Okay, well, who all is going to this Hellfire thing?” Nancy asks.

Dustin, Lucas, Erica, and Will raise their hands.

Steve looks confused. “Wait, since when is Will a part of Hellfire?”

“Dustin asked Eddie and he said he’ll write my character into this session so I can play,” Will explains.

“Is there a reason Mike isn’t playing?” Jonathan asks. “I thought he usually plays D&D with you guys.”

Richie shrugs. “I quit Hellfire a few months ago when Eddie started this campaign.”

Jonathan looks surprised by this but doesn’t say anything.

“Do you want us to ask Eddie if he wants to help?” Dustin asks.

“You can, but I’m pretty sure his answer’s going to be a ‘no’,” Nancy answers. 

Dustin shoots her a thumbs up. “Still going to ask.”

Nancy stands up. “I don’t think there’s anything else, so this meeting’s over now. Stick around since it’s still storming, go home, do whatever. If you have any questions, don’t ask me, ask the people who’ve dealt with this clown before. We can talk about this again on Tuesday once Robin and Steve get the map of the sewers.”

“You guys want to head down to the b-b-basement before they start asking us more questions?” Bill whispers to the other losers.

The other three give various nods or words of agreement and the four losers quickly slip away from the larger group, heading down to the basement.

The Losers only get about five minutes of peace before The Party comes down, which is exactly what Richie expected. They hadn’t even gotten the chance to call Mike, since Nancy was using the phone upstairs to order food, and the basement phone operates off the same line. They probably won't get the chance to call him until The Party leaves, unless they call him while they’re still here, which he doubts will happen.

“There is no way what you told us up there was everything,” says Max, crossing her arms staring at the four boys who’d already taken residence on the couches and chairs.

Richie rolls his eyes. “So what? We told you the important shit.”

“You did promise that you’d tell us what you didn’t tell everyone else,” Lucas points out.

“Fuck, I did,” Richie mutters to himself, sitting up. “What do you want to know?” he sighs.

“How’d you four know all of that about the clown in the first place?” Dustin asks. “You just being in town while that happened doesn’t explain everything you know. Like how we only know about the Upside Down despite it affecting everyone because we went after the monsters from it. I’m starting to think that you went after the clown, and that’s how you learned all of this, not just because it went after you.”

“We d-d-did,” Bill admits. “It took my little brother, G-Georgie, around the time everything started. So when school let out for summer I got everyone to help me look for him, although I’m pretty sure all three of them were c-c-convinced he was dead by that point.”

“How long had he been missing?” Will asks.

“About eight months.”

Max gives him a disbelieving look. “So your brother had been gone eight months and you kept looking ?”

“I d-d-didn’t want to give up.”

“Did you find him?” El asks.

“We found him. Sort of,” Bill answers.

Will looks at the four of them suspiciously. “What do you mean ‘sort of’?”

“It turned himself into my brother a couple times,” Bill explains. “He almost c-c-convinced me it was him too, almost , but I knew it wasn’t. Then we saw his body floating with all the other kids in Its lair.”

Dustin’s eyes widen. “You went to Its lair? Holy shit.”

“Almost died down there too,” Stan mutters.

“We a-almost died a lot of times that summer,” Bill reminds him.

That seemed to alarm some of The Party. The losers told them about the clown, did they really think that they survived that without coming close to death at least once?

“What do you mean you almost died a lot of times that summer?” Max questions, crossing her arms. “What all happened that summer? And don’t give some vague non-answer either, especially since according to you four we’re dealing with the same thing here. Explain everything .”

“We didn’t know there was a c-c-clown at first,” Bill explains. “I was just trying to find my brother and the three of them agreed to h-h-help. The day after school got out for s-s-summer, we went to where the sewers come out and went into it searching for Georgie. Or, well me and Richie did. Stan and Eddie refused to step foot in the c-c-culvert.”

Max gives them a disgusted look. “You went into the sewers ? Do you know how gross that is?”

“Yes. They do,” Stanley says.

Richie rolls his eyes.

Eddie nods. “I told them they were just splashing around in piss and shit but neither of them seemed to care.”

“While we were d-d-down there, Bowers got a hold of Ben and was try-trying to carve an ‘H’ into his stomach,” Bill continues.

“Who’s Bowers? Who’s Ben?” Dustin interrupts.

“Ben is another Loser and Henry Bowers was one of our b-b-bullies,” Bill answers.

“He has an even smaller dick than Troy, and that says a lot,” Richie adds. Everyone is unamused. 

Max gives him an annoyed look. “Seriously? A dick joke? Right now? Is this something we should be expecting from you from now on?”

“Probably,” Stan affirms.

“Troy literally tried to get you to kill yourself and almost succeeded, how bad could this Bowers guy be to be worse than him?” Dustin asks.

“Well if we’re talking about killing, he would’ve done it himself,” Richie says.

Eddie nods in agreement. “That’s true.”

“Are bullies in Derry really that bad?” Lucas asks.

“Yes, and Bowers was the wuh-worst of them,” Bill answers.

“His gang’s had it out for us for years,” Eddie adds.

“The last full school year I lived there, one of them took a shit in my backpack,” Richie recounts.

El scrunches her nose. “Gross.”

“And I thought the ones here were bad with the insults, names, and slurs,” Dustin says. “The only time they’ve ever come close to murder was that time with Troy at the quarry and when Jason was convinced we helped Eddie kill his girlfriend.”

“You guys keep mentioning this E-Eddie guy and he’s clearly not our Eddie, who are you talking about?” Bill asks.

“Eddie Munson, he just graduated but he was a super-super—I think that’s the right number of supers—senior that ran our high school’s D&D club, Hellfire,” Dustin explains. “He ended up getting involved in the shit that happened over spring break after there was a whole witch hunt for him after they found Chrissy Cunnigham’s body in his trailer all fucked up.”

Eddie’s eyes widen in alarm. “What? Did he kill her?” he asks frantically. “Please say he didn’t kill her. I don’t want to share a name with a murderer.”

Dustin shakes his head. “No, but everyone thought he did. It was actually this guy named Henry who we called Vecna, he got into people’s minds and made them see things. Then he killed them leaving their bodies all messed up. All of their limbs are broken and there’s blood coming from the eye socket where the eyes are rolled way back into the head. It’s really gruesome.”

“He almost took me,” Max says, looking away from the group. “They were barely able to save me and stop him.”

“Are all of the names you give your monsters D&D references?” Bill asks.

“Mostly,” Mike answers.

“Why?”

He shrugs. “No clue, ask Dustin. He’s the one who names them all.”

“They’re good metaphors,” Dustin argues.

“Analogies.” Lucas corrects.

Dustin rolls his eyes. “Whatever.”

“We’re getting way off topic here,” Will says. “Can you guys just finish telling us what happened and then we can ask questions at the end?”

Bill nods. “That’s probably the b-b-best idea.”

It takes about half an hour for the Losers to finish telling the Party about that summer, sparing the details that had been told to the larger group. Surprisingly, the Party is able to keep themselves from interrupting the entire time although it’s very clear that they’re confused at some parts and have questions. 

“Did you guys seriously make a blood oath to go back and fight that thing?” Lucas asks.

“We did, we even have the scars to prove it.” Bill turns his hand to show them the scar on his palm. The other three do the same.

“I always wondered where that scar was from,” Dustin comments. “Blood oath was not on my list, though.”

“That also explains where Bev’s scar came from,” Will mutters.

Bill looks surprised. “You know Bev?”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you guys, Will and El became friends with Bev while they were living in California,” Richie explains.

Stan also looks surprised. “I didn’t know she moved to California, I thought she was still living in Portland.”

“Apparently not, and she doesn’t remember shit about Derry, either.”

“She said she remembers fear, but that is all,” El elaborates.

“Wait if all seven of you made that blood oath to fight him again, doesn’t that mean the other three have to come here too?” Lucas asks.

Bill nods. “Yes, b-b-but we’re not sure how or when they can show up. We’re going to call Mike later and start fig-figuring things out from there.”

“Speaking of ‘Mikes’.” Max looks at Richie. “I believe someone has some more questions he needs to answer.”

“Now?” he groans. “You’ve literally known for months now about the name thing.”

Max crosses her arms, looking annoyed. “Doesn’t mean I don’t have more questions now, plus some of the others might have questions.”

“Fine,” he huffs, leaning further back into the couch. He really doesn’t want to answer their questions, but there’s no getting out of it at this point. Plus, he did agree to be more honest with them and stop hiding things.

“Great. So, I’m going to ask the question everyone else is probably thinking. Are we supposed to be calling you Mike or Richie now?”

“There’s no way everyone else is thinking that,” he argues. 

“Raise your hand if that’s one of the main questions you have,” Max orders.

To his surprise all of the Party members raise their hands.

They all really want to know? He didn’t really expect that. He probably should’ve. Especially since the Losers hadn’t stopped calling him Richie and he’d implied changing his name hadn’t been his choice. Some of The Party probably already have an idea of what his answer will be but haven’t said it outright or switched the name they’re mostly calling him in case they’re wrong.

“Okay, I got it.” He raises his hands in defeat. The Party might not be too happy with his answer, but they’re the ones who want to know, and he’s getting tired of lying. “I prefer Richie over Mike. If it were up to me, my name never would’ve even gotten changed. Which is also why if none of you guys are with us Nancy calls me Richie and a lot of times my aunt Karen does too. Ted only did it if he was super pissed off at me, like pissed off enough to actually get out of his La-z-boy pissed off. But I’m fine with Mike too, I’ve gotten used to it.”

“You could’ve told me that while you were explaining things after I asked last weekend,” Will whispers to him, looking a little hurt, like he didn’t like that Mike would keep something like this from him. He didn’t want to hurt Will, but at the same time, he had reasons for not telling him.

Richie shrugs. “It wouldn’t have made a difference, since no one else but Max knew about the name thing.”

“That’s fair, I guess,” Will mutters.

“So, now that that’s covered, is there anything else we should know about this clown? Like weaknesses, strengths, how we can protect ourselves if we have a run in with him, how to defeat him?” Dustin asks.

“He’s at his strongest when you’re scared and a-alone,” Bill explains. “The only times we really huh-hurt him, all seven of us were together. The sev-seven of us fighting together was the only reason we made it out of The Neibolt House alive both times.”

Dustin nods. “So we need to stick together, got it.”

“And if you th-think you saw or encountered the clown and w-w-we’re not with you, you need to tell us.”

“Why? Why can’t we just go after him then and there?”

“Did you not just listen to—you’ll die!” Eddie shouts.

“You guys didn’t, and you had no experience with monsters,” Dustin argues. “We have experience.”

“Your experience won’t mean shit against It,” Richie retorts. “He’s worse than anything we’ve been up against here. Fighting monsters from the Upside Down is way different than fighting him .”

“Easy for you to say when you were on the other side of the country while we were dealing with Vecna,” Max snaps. “I almost died . Twice. I could feel him starting to drain the life out of me the last time before I got away and was able to get out of the trance. You saw my broken arm and leg when you got back, and if anything went wrong it would’ve been even worse.”

“Yeah but, from what I know, Vecna could only hurt you if he was in your head. What we’re dealing with now isn’t like that. Sure, he can make you see things that aren’t actually there and get in your head, but what he does can be in the real world too. Not just your mind. Also, considering me, Will, and Jonathan were all with El while she was piggybacking and fighting One in your mind, I think I kind of know what happened, especially since she almost died too.”

“There is no way he’s that much worse than Venca,” Max continues to argue.

“Well, he is.”

The basement door slams open, interrupting the argument. Erica is behind it. “Hey, nerds. Pizza’s here,” she shouts. “Also, Lucas, we’re leaving in an hour, Tina’s coming over tonight, in case you forgot.”

“Again?” Lucas groans. “She and all your other friends were over last night .”

Erica crosses her arms. “And she’s coming over again tonight. Her mom and our mom already agreed to it. So you’re taking me home in an hour.” She looks at her watch. “Fifty-nine minutes, actually.”

“Can’t you just walk home? We pretty much live next door.”

“There’s a killer clown who eats kids running around and you expect me to walk home alone?” she argues.

“Fine,” Lucas sighs.“But can you at least bring the pizza down so we can keep talking?”

“No.” The door slams behind her as she leaves.

Lucas turns towards Richie with a smile that was somehow simultaneously both guilty and sly. “Mi—Sorry, Richie , can you go up and get the pizza?”

He narrows his eyes, looking at Lucas, suspicious. “Why?”

“It’s your house, also, we’re all probably leaving in an hour or two and we want to get to know your friends. Plus, you did lie to us. For three and a half years.”

“I already told you I was sorry about that!”

“I know. But still. Please?”

Richie stands up. “Fine,” he huffs.

“Make sure you bring down a box of sausage and pepperoni!” Dustin shouts as Richie makes it to the top of the stairs.

He rolls his eyes and flips his friend off, then heads to the kitchen to try and grab a few boxes of pizza as quickly and discreetly as possible.  He manages to get three boxes and is only stopped by Steve who tells him to tell Max and Dustin if he’s driving them home they’re leaving at ‘seven-thirty on the dot’.

“I got the pizza,” he announces once he gets back down to the basement. “Two boxes of pepperoni and sausage, one box of cheese.”

Dustin grins and immediately takes a slice once the pizza is set down. “Sweet.”

“Also, Steve said that if he’s taking you home, he’s leaving at seven-thirty,” Richie adds, plopping back down on the couch next to Eddie.

“Ugh,” Dustin groans. “Lucas, is there any way you can take me home tonight later than Steve?”

Lucas shakes his head. “You heard Erica.”

“Why not just make her wait to go home?” El asks.

“Because he’s scared of her,” Max teases.

“I am not,” Lucas protests.

“But you are scared about her telling us about whatever is under your bed,” Dustin points out.

“What’s under your bed?” Stanley asks.

“Nothing!” Lucas shouts, though considering how high his voice rose, it was more of a squeal.

“It’s probably a porno,” Richie says, suddenly.

The Party looks at him like he has two heads. Just like they had every time his mask had slipped around them and they saw Richie rather than Mike. He knows it’ll take time for them to get used to seeing this side of him more often, and it definitely won’t happen overnight. They could be less obvious about their shock, though. 

“What? One of you had to have thought it before. It’s hidden under his bed and Erica thinks it’s gross. Clearly, it’s a porno,” he argues.

“It’s not! I swear,” Lucas claims, attempting to defend himself.

“You sure? Because that’s only convincing me more that you’ve got a porn magazine stashed under your bed that you probably jerk off to whenever you’re home alone, there’s probably even some girl in there that looks like Max who makes you think of her while jerking off.”

“Beep beep, Richie,” Bill warns.

Richie looks around the room and notices Lucas glaring at him, Max looking a mixture of disgusted and angry, and similar disgusted expressions on some of the other Party members' faces. Okay yeah, maybe he did take it a little too far. He lets out a huff and leans further into the couch, finally shutting up.

“Okay why do you guys keep doing that?” Dustin asks. “What does that even mean?”

“It’s basically a sig-signal that he’s going too f-f-far and needs to stop, it works most of the time,” Bill explains.

“Sometimes, we just tell him to shut up, though,” Stan adds.

“Does that work?” Lucas asks.

“Rarely.”

“So those are the keywords to get him to shut up, good to know,” Max says, grinning maliciously.

“Those are their keywords to signal I’ve gone too far,” Richie corrects. “If you tell me that, I’ll still keep talking.”

Max rolls her eyes.

“So, you guys are hanging out with us tomorrow, right?” Dustin asks.

Bill shrugs. “Depends, what are your p-p-plans?”

Dustin clasps his hands together, a wide grin on his face. “I am so glad you asked. So, when we were exploring the area around Will and El’s new house, we found out that there’s a path to Lover’s Lake behind their house. Or sort of a path, like it could be a path. I thought we could all go swimming, then maybe come back here or go to Will and El’s house and hang out and watch some movies after. I’d say we could go to the arcade, but I’m broke and I’m pretty sure Max and Mike—sorry, Richie—are too.”

“Are we sure Lover’s Lake is even safe to swim in after WaterGate?” Will asks. 

Dustin shrugs. “The gate is closed, plus that was on the other side of the lake. Also, when we went down there, there weren’t a bunch of dead fish washed up, which means they’re probably fine, so chances are we'll be too.”

Eddie tilts his head, confused. “Water-Gate?” 

“There was a gate that opened in the lake after Vecna killed this guy on the basketball team, Patrick, which we called WaterGate,” Max explains.

“Gates are what we call the portals into the Upside Down, by the way,” Dustin adds. “Wait, how much have you been told so far?”

“Not too much. Richie had just finished telling us about what happened the week Will was missing when It showed up,” Eddie explains.

“So you guys just know the beginning. Cool. We can help him catch you up later, but don’t worry, none of the dangerous things from the Upside Down are in the lake.”

“As far as we know,” Lucas adds.

Dustin nods. “Yeah but we’re pretty sure about it.”

“ Pretty sure?” Eddie questions. “What, you're pretty sure that the water isn’t toxic enough to kill us or give us cancer?”

“Yeah. It hasn’t killed the fish that live in it yet, so us swimming in it for a couple of hours is fine,” Dustin reassures. “Plus, I’ve been to the Upside Down itself, and I’m still here.”

Richie turns to Dustin, confused. As far as he knew none of the Party (except Will and El) had actually been to the Upside Down, not counting the tunnels. “Wait, when did you go into the Upside Down?”

“Spring break,” Dustin answers, as if it were obvious.

“Oh. Right.” He probably should’ve guessed that. 

“We recapped all of this to you months ago.” 

Oh, yeah, the debrief he mentally checked out of not even half-way through. He already knew a lot of what happened from what El had told them about One and her mind-fight with him that ended up saving Max. Not all the details of what happened in Hawkins specifically, but what One could do. When Dustin started going off on a tangent about how Eddie was being framed for a murder he didn’t commit, he kind of stopped fully listening.

“I’m gonna be honest, I was only half paying attention,” Richie admits. “I got the gist of everything that happened, but some of the details I kind of missed.”

“Will, you paid attention right?” Dustin asks, turning to Will immediately. 

Will nods. “You weren’t that hard to follow.”

“Thank you.” He turns back towards Richie. “See? What Will did was what you were supposed to do.”

“Oh my god,” Richie groans. “You guys won, so why does it even matter?”

“Um, because it was important,” Dustin argues. “And if you remember correctly from everything we’ve said, he’s not dead-dead, so there’s a chance he comes back to finish the job.”

“I don’t know if that’s going to happen,” Will says, putting his hand on the back of his neck, like he usually does when he feels or is trying to feel the Mind-Flayer or Henry. “He’s dying and not strong enough to break the barrier between our worlds again. He’ll probably just die there and we’ll never have to worry about him again, unless the Mind Flayer gets out again and finds a new host with powers.”

“Well, at least we don’t have to worry about that and It,” Stan mutters.

The Party is gone now with the last ones to leave (Will and El) having left about ten minutes ago. Bill is by the phone in the kitchen, dialing Mike’s number. “Hey Mr. Hanlon, is Mike home?” he asks after the call is picked up.

“You might want to be careful what you say,” Richie suggests. “I’m pretty sure all the phones in this house are bugged.”

“Thanks to your bright idea about keeping a fugitive in your basement,” Stan points out.

Richie shrugs. “That and also because I basically told a government agent ‘fuck off, I’m not telling you shit’, in slightly nicer words.”

Stan just sighs and shakes his head.

“If you keep getting into shit like that, I’m going to have to never let you out of my sight again,” Eddie says.

“I’m okay with that.”

Bill makes a motion for them to quiet down. “Hey, Mike, it’s Bill.”

The other three start crowding around the phone so that when Bill takes it away from his ear they can also hear.

“Yeah, w-w-we made it h-h-here last night,” Bill says into the phone.

“Tell him I said ‘hi’,” Richie says as everyone starts to further crowd Bill.

“Richie says hi, by the way. We ha-have some im-important things to tell you, I’m gonna turn the ph-ph-phone real quick so everyone can hear you, hang on.”

“ You guys have been there a day, what could’ve possibly happened?” Mike asks.

“We saw him. It. Pennywise. The clown. We saw him,” Eddie says immediately.

“ You’re not in Derry, though. Hawkins isn’t cursed like Derry is, he can’t be there, plus, he’s asleep, he won’t be back for another twenty-three years if we got the timing right.” Mike sounded confused and honestly, fair, no one expected this to happen. They all thought they wouldn’t have to deal with It again until they were pushing forty and if/when they did it would be back in Derry.

“Well, Homeschool, saying Hawkins isn’t cursed, isn’t exactly true. It might not be totally the same as Derry, but it’s definitely cursed,” Richie corrects.

“ What do you mean?”

“Legally, I cannot tell you. Just trust me, this isn’t a normal town.”

“ Wasn’t there some kind of lab there that got exposed and shut down a couple years ago? ” 

Oh right, the lab did get exposed, just not for housing super-powered children being raised as military weapons or harboring a gateway to another dimension or any of the actual shit that Hawkins Lab had done.

“Yep. And that’s definitely got something to do with it, just not what the news probably said it did. Also, it’s partially Derry-cursed at least, my cousin Nancy did some research and apparently the kids disappearing and bad things happening has been happening consistently once every twenty-seven years since around the turn of the century. Not as bad as in Derry, but still pretty bad.”

“ I didn’t know he could go to other towns. It seemed like he was confined to the city limits of Derry. Unless there was a way he could get there from Derry without leaving his lair.”

“We d-d-don’t know how he’s here, either,” Bill says. “ Just that he is. Do you think you can come down here and help?”

“ I—I don’t know, Bill. I want to but I can’t get my drivers license until next week, and if you want to fight him there, we’ll still be down two Losers. Bev doesn’t live in Portland anymore, I don’t know where she moved to and Ben moved too. Far enough that he’s probably forgotten by now.”

“Bev moved to California,” Richie informs. “Lenora Hills, California, specifically. It’s a few hours from Los Angeles.”

“ How do you know that? You’re in Indiana.” 

“A couple of the people I became friends with here moved to California last year and became friends with her. They moved back here last week,” Richie explains.

“If you guys can get Bev, I can try to get Ben, but it’ll probably be a couple weeks before I can make it down there,” Mike says. “ Just keep me updated on what’s going on, and don’t die. I’ll try and see if I can figure anything else out about him from either my grandpa or the library in the meantime so we can come up with a plan.”

Bill nods. “S-Sounds good, Mikey. We’ll see what we can figure out here, or you and B-B-Ben can help when you get down here.”

“I’ll call before I plan to leave. So other than the clown showing up, how's it been in Indiana? Is there corn everywhere? Nevermind, you guys can tell me later. I’ve gotta go, my Grandpa’s calling me for something. Talk to you guys later. Bye.”

“Bye, Mike.” Bill sets the phone back on the holder. “I t-t-think that w-w-went pretty well.”

Richie gives him a confused look. “Went well? All we got was a big maybe that he’d come down and bring Ben, in a couple weeks.”

“B-B-Better than nothing,” Bill asserts. “And it gives us time to figure out how to get Bev here.”

“The easiest way to do that would probably be to have Will and El help get her here,” Richie suggests. “They’re the only people that are here she actually remembers.”

“Speaking of that, how would we even get her to remember, how do we know this thing that causes you to forget when you leave Derry is reversible?” Stan asks.

“It has to be. She has to ruh-remember.” Bill turns to Richie. “How close were Will and El to her?”

“Not sure,” Richie says with a shrug. “I didn’t even know they were friends until last week. But they’re close enough for Ms. Byers and Hopper to allow El to go to her house, and she can be very protective over whose houses Will and El get to go to and sometimes who can come over to theirs.”

“The more you talk about her, the more she sounds like my mom,” Eddie remarks.

“She doesn't tell them they’re sick when they’re not or make them take fake medication, so she’s not crazy like your mom. They’re just both regularly hunted and haunted by the horrors and she feels the need to protect them. Plus, she’s only half the size of your mom and smells way better.”

Eddie glares at him. “That’s not any better than calling her hot.”

Richie raises his hands defensively. “Hey, I’m just stating facts.”

“So this means putting a pause on searching for the clown, right?” Stan asks. “Until Mike, Ben, and Bev get here?”

“I don’t think the Party is going to wait that long, now that they know,” Richie mutters.

“We need to keep them away from It as long as possible,” Bill states. “And if not, stick with them so they don’t get themselves killed. And if that means we go after him, then we do.”

No one argues with him. There’s not much arguing they could do. When Bill sets his mind to something, he sets his mind to something, plus it’s the best way to keep The Party from getting themselves killed over this. Vecna might’ve been similar, but they weren’t the same. From what Richie knows about Venca, anyways, considering he wasn’t even in the state when everything with him went down. 

At least the Party probably won’t be trying to go clown hunting for the next two days, considering the plans made for tomorrow don’t involve anything related to trying to hunt him down, and most of them will be busy Tuesday with Hellfire. 

But after that, well, hopefully they have more sense to stay away from It than Richie thinks they do.

Chapter Text

The Losers (plus Lucas) are the last to arrive at the Hopper-Byers’ house. It’s Richie’s fault, really. He was digging through his dresser trying to find his swim trunks whenever Lucas, who had offered to drive them all over, pulled up to his house. The others had been ready to go by that point, but it took Richie ten more minutes after Lucas’ arrival, with help, to find where he stashed his swim trunks at the end of last summer.

Dustin is pacing outside whenever the five of them arrive. Will, Max, and El aren’t anywhere in sight, but are all probably inside, considering Max’s bike is laying on the ground.

“What took you guys so long?” Dustin questions. “I thought we planned to all be here at ten. Max and I literally biked over and took less time, you guys drove .”

“Careful, Dusty, you’re starting to sound a little too much like Steve,” Richie teases. A week ago he would’ve just rolled his eyes and bit his tongue to keep the inevitable joke or mean or teasing or crude comment from coming out and maintain his image as ‘Mike Wheeler’. It felt so freeing to not have to do that anymore. To just be able to start being himself again (or trying to, at least) without worrying about losing all his friends.

“I do not sound like Steve!” Dustin protests. “And you aren’t allowed to call me that, that nickname is reserved for Suzie’s mouth and Suzie’s mouth only.”

“So, just like your dick then?” Richie jokes.

Dustin’s jaw drops and there’s a snicker from Lucas. There’s not much of a reaction from the Losers. They definitely expected this, though he can hear a sigh come from Stan sounding way more dramatic than he probably feels about it.

Richie takes advantage of Dustin’s slack-jaw expression to mess with him even more. “Hey, Dustin, might want to close your mouth before flies fly in.”

This turns Dustin’s shocked expression into a more pissed expression and he regains the ability to speak. “Could you stop? I didn’t appreciate you putting that image in my head.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have had your mouth open so wide that you might accidentally eat a fly.”

Dustin shakes his head. “No, not that one, the other one, about Suzie.”

Instead of stopping and leaving it, Richie keeps going. “Why? Because you don’t want to think about it since you can’t jerk off to the thought in front of everyone and know that you can’t actually do anything about it with her since she’s in Utah and you’re here and she’s Mormon so she definitely won’t do anything like that with you until marriage.”

“Beep, beep, Richie,” Stan warns, which fair enough, chances are if he keeps going it might make Dustin mad at him past the point of no return.

“No! Because it’s gross and I’d rather you not talk about Suzie like that while she isn’t even here to defend herself because like you said, she’s in Utah,” Dustin argues, despite the fact that Richie had already been warned to stop. “And, yeah, she’s Mormon but she’s not nearly as Mormon as her parents! Which, considering you’ve met her and some of her family, you should know!” 

“Okay, whatever, dude,” Richie huffs. “I’ll stop talking about how you don’t like that you can’t give Suzie anything and she can’t give you anything because you’re so far away from each other.”

“No, he’s giving her something,” Lucas starts, a mischievous look on his face. Dustin’s eyes widen in fear. “But it’s just nightly renditions of singing ‘turn around look at what you see’” Lucas sings, as off-key as possible. “Isn’t that right, Dusty-bun?”

Richie laughs and holds out a hand for Lucas to high-five. Lucas looks surprised but gives him the high-five. If he were still trying to be Mike like he had been he would’ve bit his tongue to keep the laugh from coming out or attempt to cover it up with a cough, it felt nice to not do that anymore, even if it was confusing to The Party.

Dustin’s face turns even more red and he flips Lucas and Richie off. There’s a small cackle from Bill while both Stanley and Eddie are trying their hardest to keep straight faces.

“Hey, you guys made it,” Will exclaims, walking out of the house, oblivious to the entire conversation that just occurred. “Thought you might not show up since you were supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago.”

“Will, thank God you’re here,” Dustin says, turning to Will. “They won’t stop bullying me.”

Will looks at Dustin skeptically. “All five of them?”

“No, just those two.” Dustin points at Lucas and Richie. “But the other three weren’t helping.”

“Considering Stan stopped the Trashmouth from going any further, I wouldn’t say he wasn’t helping you,” Eddie points out.

Dustin’s eyes widen. “You mean it could’ve gotten even worse?”

Stanley nods. “Yes, which is why I told him to stop before he took it too far.”

“Oh wait, yeah,” Dustin realizes. “That beep beep thing you guys use that you said, that’s why he backed off. Wait, how much further could he have gone?”

“That depends on how much more you would’ve given him to use,” Stan answers with a shrug.

“I didn’t give him anything to use though! He was taking everything I said out of context!” Dustin argues. “Like he couldn’t get his head out of the gutter for five seconds to understand what I meant.”

“I understood what you meant,” Richie mutters. "I just didn’t care.”

“That’s even worse!” Dustin shouts.

“It was kind of funny,” Lucas admits.

Dustin turns to Lucas, offended. “It was absolutely not funny, both of you are disgusting.”

Richie snorts. “Thought you’d’ve figured that out when you learned their nickname for me is Trashmouth.”

“I thought that had more to do with your swearing issue than anything,” Dustin admits.

“I literally made ‘your mom’ jokes to Eddie and dick jokes about Troy and Bowers in front of you,” Richie points out.

“Yeah, but—that’s different!” Dustin protests. 

“Not r-really,” Bill disagrees. “It just feels diff-different because you were the target this time.”

“Where are the girls at?” Lucas asks, changing the subject before any more arguments can break out. 

“Inside,” Will answers. “Max was changing and El is packing a bag with towels for everyone and sunscreen. They should be out soon, though.”

Sure enough, not even a minute later Max and El come out the front door, Max wearing El’s backpack and El carrying a tote bag. Both of those bags combined probably are holding everything and if not some of the boys will just be going without a towel.

Max crosses her arms, giving the boys an annoyed look. “Nice of you assholes to finally get here. Almost thought you wouldn’t show.” 

Great. Another person who is about to be on him about being late. Seriously, it’s not his fault that his swim trunks somehow ended up under a couple blankets and pairs of sweatpants on the shelf in the basement closet. But then again it’s Max, they may have gotten pretty close recently, but she still would take any chance to make fun of him or act like she hates him, it’s not like he can’t say he wouldn’t do the same though.

Lucas raises his hands defensively. “It’s not my fault.”

“Oh, I knew exactly whose fault it was, considering he’s regularly late to everything” Max snarks, turning her glare so it’s directly on Richie. There it is. 

“Okay, I am not regularly late to everything,” Richie argues.

“Doesn’t change that you're twenty minutes late today,” Max points out.

“Fifteen,” he corrects.

Max rolls her eyes. “Whatever. Are we going to get going or what?”

“You guys all ready?” Will asks.

There are nods and murmurs of agreement among the teens.

Richie gestures dramatically towards the woods. “Lead the way, my good sir,” he says, in an over-exaggerated British accent. It’s still not as good as the ‘British guy’ he used to do, but it was better than the one he did in front of Nancy at the gas station a few days ago, so there was already some improvement there.

“So, why is it even called Lover’s Lake?” Eddie asks about five minutes into the walk. “Is there a popular make out or date spot near it or at it or something?” 

“It’s called that because it’s heart-shaped,” Richie answers. “But there is a makeout spot nearby, skull-rock. Why’d you ask about a make out or date spot, you planning on making out with someone sometime soon?”

Please don’t let him think too much into that , Richie thinks. Maybe he should’ve thought a little more about how close to sounding eager that would come out before he said anything. Then again, Eddie could easily just interpret it as him teasing him, something that wouldn’t be too out of the ordinary. There’s no way he’d think that this was Richie flirting with him, right? And if he did would he be weirded out by it? Richie knows there’s no chance that Eddie likes him back, but would realizing his friend had a years-long crush on him (that didn’t even go away even with distance) weird him out so much that he just stopped being friends with him? What would everyone else think if they figured it out? 

“I was just wondering why it was called that and who would I even make out with, anyways? I barely know anyone in this town. Plus, I wouldn’t want some random person shoving their tongue down my throat, who knows what kind of bacteria they’re carrying in their mouths,” Eddie rambles. He looks a little grossed out, probably at the thought of making out with a random stranger, which is kind of a relief.

Soon enough they make it to the lake. Most of them dripping in sweat from the walk in the heat. 

“Thank fucking god, we made it.” Dustin pants. “I swear this walk was way shorter the first time we did it.”

“Probably because we weren’t doing it in the middle of the day,” Max argues.

“Well, at least this time we can jump in the water and cool off,” Will says, trying to mediate before an actual argument breaks out.

“Where will we jump?” El asks, looking around. “I do not see anywhere we could jump from.”

“It was a figure of speech, El,” Will explains.

“Oh,” El says, looking a bit disappointed. “It would be fun to jump in from somewhere, though.”

“Jumping into the wa-water is fun,” Bill agrees. “B-B-back in Derry we used to jump off the side of the q-qua-quarry into the water.”

Dustin’s eyes widen, obviously thinking about the quarry in Hawkins and the drop there. “And you didn’t die?”

“The quarry in Derry has a lot less of a drop than the one here,” Richie explains, reassuring Dustin that he and his friends weren’t regularly trying to plunge to their deaths.

Dustin nods. “That makes more sense.”

“Well, we could jump off that tree over there.” Lucas points at a large oak tree with a couple limbs sticking out over the water. “I don’t know how sturdy the limb that’s out over the water is, though.”

Max’s eyes light up. “That’s a great idea, and we can make a competition out of who goes the furthest.”

Eddie looks at her, flabbergasted. “That’s a terrible idea. Someone could break their leg and/or neck.”

“You don’t know that,” she argues.

“And you don’t know if the water is actually deep enough to jump into over there,” he retorts.

“Fine.” Max pulls off the shirt and shorts she had on over her swimsuit. “I’ll climb up and test it, since you’re all pussies.”

“We’re not pussies!” Dustin shouts defensively as Max quickly makes her way towards the tree.

Everyone watches as she climbs up and ventures out onto the limb, holding onto part of the tree as she walks out onto it. It wobbles a little underneath her, but doesn’t bend or break.

“This is a terrible idea, we should tell her to get down, she’s going to get hurt,” Eddie tries to reason.

Max rolls her eyes. “Relax, I’ve done way worse,” she reassures him as she continues to inch towards the end of the limb. “I used to hurt myself all the time skateboarding before I got good.” She looks back at the boys and El with a grin, then jumps off. Everyone on the shore watches in silence as she hits the water, hoping the water was deep enough that it wouldn’t hurt her.

There’s a collective sigh of relief when Max resurfaces. “Told you guys you were just being pussies!” she shouts, then starts swimming back towards the shore. This is just another thing to add to the list of Bev and Max similarities. The two were scarily similar and it’s leading Richie to wonder if they’ll get along super well or absolutely hate each other if/when they meet.

“How deep’s the water?” Stanley asks.

“Way deeper than I thought it’d be,” Max answers, heading straight for the bag to pull out sunscreen. “But it’s definitely safe enough to jump in, fun too. Although the branch might not hold some of you guys’ weight. It was shaky enough while I was up there.”

This seems to set El’s mind to doing what Max did and jump from the tree. “I am going to go up and try now,” she states, pulling her shirt off and tossing it on top of Max’s, before walking towards the tree.

“Be careful,” Will tells her. She gives him a thumbs up before starting to climb.

“Well, I don’t know about you guys, but I’m hot and don’t want to wait, so I’m gonna get in the lake now,” Dustin announces as he pulls off his shirt and adds it to the pile of discarded clothes next to El’s backpack. Bill does the same and follows him to the water.

“I’m surprised you’re wearing your glasses again today,” Will remarks after moving to stand next to Richie. “This has got to be the longest you’ve gone wearing them since I’ve met you.”

Richie shrugs. “My eyes have been bugging me since Nancy shoved me at the ground Saturday. Plus, I was running late this morning and we’re going swimming, so I figured it was better to just not put them in.”

“Wait, you’re not wearing glasses in the water are you?” Lucas asks.

Richie gives him a confused look. “What? No. They’d fall off and might get broken or something. My eyesight might be shit, but it’s not so bad yet where I can’t go swimming without them. Things’ll just be pretty blurry for me, that’s all.”

“Guys, El’s going to jump,” Max says, interrupting the conversation.

Everyone’s attention turns to the tree that El had already climbed up. She’s not out on the limb yet, still up against the tree. She steps onto the limb, holding onto one a little higher for steadiness. It starts wobbling as she reaches the end and jumps into the water. She resurfaces after a few seconds. “That was fun,” she breathes out with a grin. 

“Told you.” Max grins, heading towards the tree to jump back in herself. “The boys are all just too big of wusses to do it.”

“We’re not wusses you said it might not hold us,” Dustin argues.

Max looks down at him from the branch. “And I’m surprised that’s stopping you from testing it. Move out of the way, I don’t want to land on you.”

Dustin, El, and Bill all swim away from the area surrounding the branch, before Max jumps once again. “The rest of you coming or what!?” she shouts at the five boys still standing on the lakeshore.

They all end up getting in soon after. None of the boys jumped in like Max or El did, and Eddie took some extra prodding and convincing that the water wasn’t toxic, but eventually all nine teens are in the lake.

“Guys, we sh-sh-should chicken fight,” Bill suggests.

“Oh my god! That’s a great idea,” Dustin exclaims.

El looks at the two of them confused. “Why are we fighting chickens? Where are the chickens?”

“No, no, no, there aren’t any chickens. It’s a game,” Dustin explains. “Two people are on each team and one’s on the other’s shoulders, they try to knock the other team down or separate them, it’s fun, you can watch first if you want.”

El nods. “Okay. Watch who?”

“Richie and I can be o-o-one of the pairs,” Bill volunteers. Sure, he didn’t ask Richie if he wanted to beforehand, but the answer would’ve been yes so it wouldn’t matter. He was the most likely one to agree out of the other Losers here, anyways.

“Lucas and I can be the other,” Dustin says, then starts trying to climb on Lucas’ shoulders.

Lucas turns and stands taller to where Dustin can’t climb him. “Dude, what the fuck?”

“Get down so I can get on top of you,” Dustin orders.

“Who said you were going on top?” Lucas questions, still giving Dustin a confused look. “Plus, I don’t remember agreeing to do this.”

“C’mon, we’re always a team, why should it be different now?”

Lucas lets out a huff. “Fine, but again, who said you were going to be the one on top?”

Dustin rolls his eyes. “Please, you’re an athlete and I have no collarbones. It’s an obvious choice.”

“Rich, get down, I’m cli-climbing up,” Bill says.

“Woah, who said you were going to be the one on top?” Richie asks, looking at Bill in surprise. 

“I did. Y-Y-You’re taller than me now, which means it’s smarter for you to be on bottom,” Bill reasons.

“Fine, but only because I want to win.”

“You losers ready to go down?” Dustin teases from atop Lucas’ shoulders.

“Never,” Bill responds.

“Yeah, you fuckers are going down!” Richie shouts.

Dustin rolls his eyes. “In your dreams.”

“Enough trash talk! Actually fight!” Max shouts. She’s a good distance away from where most of the boys were, next to who Richie can only assume is El, he can’t really tell though, not from this distance without his glasses. What he can tell is that he probably needs to start moving towards Lucas and Dustin before they get any closer and Bill tells him to start going towards them. Ugh, why’d he have to be the one stuck on the bottom, being the one on top doing all the shoving is way more fun.

They’re about to win, Dustin is starting to slip off Lucas, when both Richie and Bill end up falling backwards into the water. It was weird. His feet had been buried in the sand so he wouldn’t move as much. Dustin hadn’t been pushing, his hands were on Lucas’s head and shoulder as he tried to restabilize himself. It’s like some force had pulled Bill into the water and taken Richie down with him.

“I told you I should’ve been on top,” Richie argues, as soon as his head gets back above water and gets the water out of his nose. “What the fuck happened? We were about to win.”

“I don’t know. It was like s-something just pull-pulled me backwards and took you down with me,” Bill explains.

Of course. It all makes sense now. Richie turns towards where Max and El are and squints trying to make out if El’s nose is bleeding, her face is still too blurry to tell, though. “Hey, weird question, is El’s nose bleeding, or was it bleeding?”

“Are you trying to blame your loss on El? Are you that sore of a loser?” Max taunts. 

“Her nose was bleeding like thirty seconds ago but she wiped it already,” Eddie informs, which causes Max to let out an annoyed groan.

Richie grins. “Thank you, Eddie, this is why you’re my favorite.” And so many other reasons, but he doesn’t have to know that.

“W-W-What does a nosebleed have to do with us losing?” Bill asks.

“When El uses her powers, her nose bleeds. And she used her powers to pull you and by extension me into the water, because Max wanted her boyfriend to win,” Richie explains.

“No, I just wanted you to lose, and if Lucas just so happened to win, that’s just a plus,” Max corrects.

Richie turns back to the Losers. "Well, if you guys doubted El has powers, there’s proof now.”

“Honestly, you not being dead after you apparently jumped into the quarry was proof enough,” Stanley says.

Lucas looks surprised by this. “Oh, he told you guys about that already? It took us three years to learn about it.”

“It wasn’t important so I never brought it up. Now can we never talk about it again?” Richie urges. He’d really appreciate it if they all drop the quarry-thing, it was three years ago and he himself tried not to think about it so why did they have to keep making a big deal over it?

It takes a bit more arguing to get them to let it go for now, but eventually everyone moves on from it and starts talking about other things, while also messing around in the water. After a while, they all decide it’s probably time to dry off and head back towards the Hopper-Byers house. Especially since it looks like the afternoon thunderstorm will be starting soon.

The nine of them make it back to the Hopper-Byers house just in time to get inside before the downpour starts. When they get there no one else is home, so they have the whole house to themselves. 

“We’ve got a few movies here and Dustin has the two he rented if you guys want to watch something,” Will suggests. “If not we can play something, there’s a deck of cards around here somewhere, probably in the same box as my Atari and I’ve got a box of comics in my room that haven’t been fully unpacked.”

Max’s eyes light up in excitement. “Ooh, do you have Wonder Woman?”

Will shakes his head. “I don’t but El bought a couple issues while we were in California, so there might be a few that got thrown in there.”

“Sweet.” Max grins, and heads upstairs, Dustin and Lucas heading up with her.

“Actually, b-b-before we do anything,” Bill says suddenly, catching the attention of everyone left downstairs. “El you said tha-that you were friends with Bev?” 

“Yes, we became friends in Lenora, why?” El answers.

“Can you call her?” Bill asks.

“Why?” El repeats.

“W-W-We need her to come up here. To h-h-help with the clown.”

El tilts her head in confusion. “She does not remember, though.”

Bill sighs. “I know. But m-m-maybe there’s a way to get her to if she sees us and talks to us, and if n-n-not here, it’s quicker to get from here to Derry than California to Derry and that might get her mem-memories back.”

El nods, understanding. “Okay,” she says. “I might be able to help too. I went into Mama’s head, Billy’s head, and Max’s head. I did not try and make them remember things, but I could see their memories. If I could go into her head, maybe I could get her memories back.”

“Wait, can she actually do that?” Eddie asks. Richie had given them a rundown of Eleven’s powers, but neglected the ‘going into people’s heads’ part of her powers.

Richie shrugs. “I know she can go into people’s heads, but helping Bev remember? No clue.”

“If we need to, y-you can try that. But we should try and get her h-here first,” Bill tells El.

“To fight the clown?” she asks.

He nods. “Yeah.”

El seems to consider it for a minute. “Okay. I will call her,” she finally responds. “But what should I say?”

“Whatever will con-convince her to come here.”

She nods and pulls the phone off the wall, then starts dialing Bev’s number, the four Losers gathered around her to better hear what’s going on. Will is a few steps away. Max, Lucas, and Dustin are still upstairs, probably digging through his box of comics. 

“Hi, this is Jane, is Bev home?” El asks, holding the phone close to her ear. “Yes.”

“What’s happening?” Richie whispers loudly.

“Her aunt answered the phone. She is getting Beverly,” El explains. “Do you have ideas on what I should tell her? I do not know what to say and Bill was not much help.”

He pauses to think for a second. “Just tell her that you miss her and want her to come visit you and Will here.”

El raises an eyebrow. “You want me to lie?”

“I mean, it’s not a total lie, right? You probably do miss her and want her to visit. It’s just keeping the part about Pennywise from her for now.”

“That is still lying, since I would be leaving out something important,” El states. “But you should know, since you have been doing that since we met.”

There’s a few snickers from his friends and a dramatic ‘Ooh’ from Max who had just made it back down. 

“Oh my god,” Richie groans. “I’ve already apologized for that, what more do you want from me?”

“For you to stop lying,” El says simply, then puts the phone back up to her ear. “Hi! Yes, me and Will made it back to Hawkins. We moved into our new house last week, it is about the size our house was in Lenora. It is nice to be back with everyone, even Mike.”

“Seriously,” he groans. He could not catch a break during this conversation could he?

Stan looks at him, slightly amused, slightly annoyed. “What’d you do this time?” 

Richie gives him a guilty smile. “So, you know how I mentioned that I had a girlfriend?”

Stanley nods.

“Well, that was El.”

“I shouldn’t even be surprised at this point,” Stanley sighs.

“Wait, you had a girlfriend!?” Bill asks, shocked.

“And the only one of us you told was Stan ?” Eddie adds, seeming a little upset, Richie assumes it’s at Stan being the only one that was told about this.

“What? I can tell Stan things before I tell you guys.”

El turns and shushes the four of them before returning to her conversation on the phone. “Sorry. Mike and his friends are being loud. No, I am not friends with them like I am everyone else, they do not live here, they are down visiting him. Everyone else is also here, but they are not being loud. We just came back from swimming in the lake that’s not far from my new house. It was fun. I jumped out of a tree. You should come up here and meet everyone. They want to meet you. Mike and his friends also want you to come. But they want you here so you can help fi—” El is cut off by Richie lunging forward and snatching the phone from her hand. She glares at him. “Why?”

“You were about to tell her about our clown issue!” he argues.

“And? It is the truth, you four want her to come here to help fight and she helped you before, right?”

“She was actually the o-only one who w-w-wanted to chase It down with me,” Bill mentions.

“Then wouldn't it make sense to just tell her?” Will tries to reason.

“If she doesn’t remember us, and especially It, if we tell her that she might think we’re pranking her and hang up,” Stan explains. “That’s what I would probably do, anyways.”

Wait, speaking of hanging up, did she hang up already? She totally could’ve in the time since he snatched the phone away from El. 

As his friends continue to argue over whether or not they should tell Bev about what’s going on straight up, Richie decides to check if she’s even there instead of joining in the argument. “You’re still here right?” he asks, putting the phone up to his ear.

“ I’m here,” Bev answers. “Who is this? Because you’re not Jane and you aren’t Will, either.”

“I’m—” he pauses, unsure of how to answer. If he tells her Mike, she’ll probably identify him as Jane’s shitty ex-boyfriend, which, fair, he was a terrible boyfriend to El. If he  tells her Richie, she’ll probably have no idea who he is, if this whole Derry-related amnesia thing is as severe as it seems from the little he knows about it. Instead of making a decision and actually answering her, he decides the best course of action is to pawn the problem off on Bill, of all of them he probably knows what to do best. Plus, he was probably the closest one out of the four of them here to Bev considering the thing they had going on that summer. “Giving the phone to Bill, he wants to talk,” Richie finally says, getting the words out as quickly as possible, then shoving the phone at Bill.

“Richie, wait,” Bill warns, but it’s too late, the phone has already been shoved to his ear. “S-S-Sorry about him, I have no idea why he did th-that.”

Stan turns to him with a raised eyebrow. “Why did you do that?”

“She asked who I was and I didn’t know if I should tell her Richie or Mike,” he explains.

Stan just shakes his head, deciding not to argue about it.

“What all d-d-do you r-r-remember about Derry?” Bill asks, phone still close to his ear as he paces. Richie hadn’t really been paying attention to what Bill had been saying to or asking Bev, but he must be getting somewhere since he’s asking what she remembers from Derry. “Do you r-r-remember much about your l-l-last summer there?”

“Wait, question, why would she not remember stuff from Derry?” Dustin interjects, making it known that he was present and at least partially paying attention to the conversation. 

“According to Mike, Derry has this curse where if you leave for a long time you kind of forget everything that happened there, almost forget it’s existence. Which both Bev and Ben did after moving. He thinks it has something to do with It. It can even affect the people who live there, making them forget all the bad things that happen or turn a blind eye to it,” Eddie explains, probably a little too quickly for some of The Party to fully comprehend everything he’s saying.

Dustin, Lucas, and Max all turn to look at Richie as if he was the ‘Mike’ Eddie was talking about, which wouldn’t even make sense because the only time the Losers ever called him Mike was when they were at Hopper’s cabin and Hopper was talking to them. He’d also told them all last night that he’d rather go by Richie over Mike.

“Not me,” he says with an annoyed huff. “Mike Hanlon, we told you guys about him yesterday, when I also told you that I’d rather go by Richie than Mike.”

“Yeah, but why do you still remember? Is it because of the Upside Down?” asks Dustin. It could have a little to do with that. After everything with the Upside Down started, he’d thought the same. Up until they figured out that It is in Hawkins and probably has been at least a few times in the past as well.

Richie shrugs. “Maybe, but probably more because of Its presence here.”

“Wait, what if that’s why no one ever talked about bad things happening here before everything with Hawkins Lab and the Mind-Flayer and Vecna, especially if those bad things were connected to It,” Dustin hypothesizes. “Unless what happened with Derry is because things are so bad your brain represses the memory without reminders.”

“Like how I did not remember what happened at the lab with One,” El says.

“Yes, just like that!” Dustin beams. “Maybe it’s something perfectly explainable and not supernatural.”

“But then why forget everything , including whatever few good things there were?” Stanley points out.

“That’s—” Dustin pauses, unable to come up with a good answer. “Yeah I got nothing for that, actually.”

“Mid-July? Is there a-a-any way you could get here s-s-sooner?”

This catches Richie’s attention. Did Bill actually get Bev to remember enough to convince her to come to Hawkins to help or was she saying that to get him to stop bugging her about this? Maybe he should’ve paid more attention to the conversation he pushed off onto his friend.

“Al-alright. We’ll t-t-try and figure something out.” Bill then hands the phone to El who takes it and starts talking again. 

“So?” Richie immediately asks as soon as El gets the phone. The others seem interested in what went on in the phone call as well. At least Stan and Eddie do, maybe Dustin and Lucas as well. Max and Will seemed more interested in whatever El is talking to Beverly about now over what was just said.

“She was able to ruh-remember us,” Bill answers. “At least remember us enough to know we were fr-friends.”

Stan raises an eyebrow. “Remember us or remember you ?”

“All of us, i-i-including Ben and Mike,” Bill clarifies. “She remembers some stuff about the clown and what happened that summer but not that much. She also said she’s been hav-having nightmares she can barely remember since then. She remembers they all seem to have the s-s-same people in them, but sh-she can’t make out who they are. But th-that’s not super important. She’ll be in Chicago with her aunt in mid-July, that’s the soonest she th-thinks she’ll be able to get over here unless someone is able to drive her over or get plane t-tickets since she doesn’t have her own car. She did agree to come here and possibly fight It again, though.”

“Mid-July, that’s only a few weeks from now,” Eddie points out.

“Yeah,” Bill says. “W-which means that we sh-should be able to wait to go after h-him until she, Ben, and Mike get here. As long as he doesn’t take any of us or we d-d-don’t get attacked by him again first.”

The Losers seem satisfied with this, Lucas as well, Dustin—not so much.

“Why not start now, try and get some more information on how he works here and where he is or take him out now so they don’t have to bother?” Dustin asks.

Bill shoots the idea down quickly. “I’m not putting any more people in danger because of this. You all aren’t going to die because of me. We’ll hopefully know m-m-more tomorrow about how he operates here and we can figure out a plan from there so we’ll be better prepared when we g-g-go after him.”

“How much will knowing if he uses the sewers even help us? Like that doesn’t seem like it’ll do much that’ll even help with making a plan,” Dustin continues to argue.

“It’s how we knew that the house on Neibolt street was the center of everything, well th-that and some stuff from the his-history books Ben did research in,” Bill explains. “It’ll give us some big hints if he uses them here.”

“So we’re just putting a pause on this until tomorrow and then probably again until your other friends get here, if they get here? How do we know that there won’t be problems before then?”

“Yes and we don’t. But if we don’t go after him and no one is a-alone for too long, then it’s a lot less likely.”

Dustin doesn’t seem totally satisfied with this, but doesn’t keep arguing it, leaving it for now, instead deciding to go over to El, Will, and Max who are still gathered by the phone.

Chapter Text

Everyone is gathered at Hopper’s Cabin to discuss more about what’s happening in Hawkins (specifically if It happening is connected by the sewers like it is in Derry), just like they had agreed upon Sunday. 

Well, not everyone. Lucas, Dustin, Will, and Erica still aren’t here, the four of them are still at the make-up Hellfire campaign that started this morning and obviously hasn’t finished yet. This definitely wasn’t unexpected, though, Hellfire campaigns ran long pretty often, especially the big ones, and Eddie didn’t usually care if people had places to be or not, the campaign would run as long as it needed and unless there was an emergency, no one would be leaving early.

“Alright, we’re just going to have to start without them,” Nancy huffs, tapping her foot against the floor impatiently. They’d all been waiting for about half an hour now in hopes that everyone else would show up, but clearly the four at the Hellfire campaign were either going to be extremely late or not make the meeting at all.

El tilts her head in confusion. “But shouldn’t they also know about whatever we are about to discuss?” 

“Yes, but I’m not waiting any longer,” Nancy sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Who knows how much longer they’ll be busy for.” She then turns to Robin, who is standing behind her. “Robin, you got the blueprints of the sewers, right?”

Robin hands them over to Nancy, a wide grin plastered on her face. “Yep! Cost me about twenty bucks and a fake story about how I’m starting a civil engineering program at Purdue in the fall, Purdue specifically because the guy was a Purdue alum who still has way too much school spirit for someone who hasn’t attended that school in decades, but I got ‘em.”

“Thanks, Rob.” Nancy takes the map and sets it on top of the map she’d carefully copied marks from the one in the shed onto, luckily they were both around the same size with about the same scale so it’d be pretty easy to compare. Nancy grabs a marker she’d left on the kitchen counter and starts copying the ‘X’s representing where disappearances had occurred onto the map of the sewers.

Strangely, the marks and the sewers don’t really line up. A few here and there do, but there’s no evidence that the pattern of everywhere It happens follows the sewers. Not like there was when it came to where It happened in Derry.

“It doesn’t line up,” Nancy observes. “A few do, but not enough to be able to claim it’s all connected by the sewers. She turns to Bill, who is standing next to her looking at the maps. “Are you sure it was all connected by the sewers in Derry?”

Bill nods. “Ev-everything was. Everywhere people were taken was near the storm drains or where the sewers came out. Even when things happ-happened other than di-dis-disappearances, they were all at places the sewers reached and everything met up at this well that’s underneath this old abandoned house. Its lair was under that h-h-house. You could also hear children’s voices in the drains sometimes. So every-everything was definitely connected by the sewers in Derry.”

“Remind me to never put my ear up to a drain,” Robin shudders. “Creepy kid voices in the drain? No thank you.”

No one reacts to Robin’s comment, not even Steve. Everyone was still paying attention to the maps and Nancy.

“Then either this is something else or he’s doing something different here,” Nancy concludes.

Bill shakes his head. “It’s def-definitely him. Too much is the same for it no-not to be. Not using the sew-sewers seems to be the only difference so f-f-far.”

Nancy looks at him skeptically. “You’re sure?”

“P-P-Pretty sure,” Bill confirms.

“Yeah, unless he has a secret twin or cousin with all the same abilities that he does and same usual targets and same—” Richie starts listing.

Nancy raises her hands in defeat. “Okay, I get it. You four are almost positive it’s the same thing.”

“Not almost, we are pos-positive,” Bill corrects.

“Yeah, hard to deny it when we saw him ourselves,” Eddie agrees.

There’s silence for a few moments as everyone looks down at the maps, everyone probably trying to make some sort of sense out of it.

Robin’s eyes widen in realization. She looks at Nancy. “Wait, Nance, can I draw on this real quick?”

Although she looks annoyed with this request, Nancy passes Robin the marker. “Knock yourself out.”

Everyone steps back so Robin has room to draw on the maps, but they’re all still close enough to be able to see what she’s doing. Robin starts drawing lines connecting all of the X’s on the sewer map as well as on the other map. It’s a shock that neither Nancy nor Hopper had thought of doing this originally to see if there was any sort-of path along which these disappearances happened.

When Robin steps back, finished, the lines run across a majority of Hawkins, including into some outlying areas beyond the city limits, even the woods where Hopper’s cabin is and out towards the quarry. Close to none of the lines cross over water, only a stray line here or there where there are still other paths to the spots that don’t involve going over water. There are also a few spots where several lines meet up, like some sort of hub. It all sort of reminds Richie of the tunnels that Will had drawn and Bob helped piece together while Will was possessed by the mind-flayer.

“These paths, most of them meet up in a couple places, one over here and one up here,” Robin explains, circling the spots where a bunch of the lines meet. “It’s like they spread mostly from these spots, but the lines seem completely random, but also not because they don’t really go or necessarily have to go over the lakes. Maybe there’s some sort of underground cave system he uses.”

Steve’s eyes widen in realization. “Like the tunnels the demo-dogs used!”

Well, at least one other person is thinking the same thing as Richie. Even if it’s Steve of all people.

Robin looks at Steve, confused. “What?”

“Oh wait you weren’t with us for that,” Steve recalls. “Like two years ago Will got possessed and there were these tunnels that were also the Upside Down, I don’t really know what they were, I just know the kids kidnapped me while I was unconscious and took me to the tunnels so we could set it on fire to give everyone else more time.”

“I’m sorry, you got dragged by a gang of fourteen year olds, while unconscious, to some creepy Upside Down tunnels and then set fire to it?” Robin laughs.

Steve rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, but we did help give everyone enough time to get the Mind-Flayer out of Will and let El close the gate. But that’s also why Max isn’t allowed to drive a car with me in it anymore. I won’t even allow it whenever she gets her license.”

“Okay, I wasn’t that bad, Steve,” Max counters. “You were just barely conscious and probably concussed, you even thought Mike was Nancy for a minute, so I don’t think your judgement was great at the time.”

“You what?” Robin laughs again.

Steve’s face grows red in embarrassment. “I deny that ever happened.”

“It did happen,” Richie confirms. He’s not letting Steve live that down. “It was super weird.” 

“You’re both dead to me,” Steve deadpans.

“Okay, so, there were tunnels and you got dragged to them by a gang of fourteen year-olds,” Robin recounts. “What the hell is a Demo-Dog, though?”

“They’re like baby demogorgons kind of. They also walk on four legs instead of two. It’s the thing Dustin tried to keep as a pet before knowing what it was,” Steve attempts to explain.

“Need I remind you, I wasn’t here for that. That was before I knew that there was an alternate dimension with monsters connected to Hawkins,” Robin reiterates. 

“Oh, right, yeah.” Steve pauses, as if he’s realizing something else. “Wait, why don’t Mike’s friends from Maine seem surprised about any of this?”

“Because I told them about it already, duh,” Richie answers, like it’s obvious.

“ We told them about it,” Max corrects. 

Richie rolls his eyes. “Yeah, but I did most of the work.”

“You were expected to, they’re your friends,” Max argues.

“Yeah, but you guys saw and did things I didn’t and I thought they’d appreciate the full story.”

“I mostly appreciated knowing you stayed out of some of the crazier things,” Stan comments, inserting himself into Richie and Max’s argument.

“See? Stanley appreciated you, Lucas, and Dustin telling everyone about when you tried to draw the demodogs all to one spot with Steve.”

A car door slams outside, catching everyone’s attention, causing the group inside to go quiet. Less than a minute later Lucas and Dustin come barreling into the cabin, the door slamming against the wall as they enter. Will and Erica behind them, much calmer, with Erica shaking her head at them.

“Did you guys seriously start without us?” Dustin complains, before he’s even fully inside. “You knew we had Hellfire today.”

Nancy crosses her arms. “We waited over half an hour for you to show up, we had this planned out two days ago. You also said that it could take up to ten hours and I was not waiting here another four hours for you to show up.”

“Yeah, but we’re only like forty-five minutes late,” Dustin protests. “Also, it would’ve been five more hours if it took ten because we didn’t actually get started until nine, we were just really efficient getting through this session. Probably because Will was playing with us for once. Also, I asked Eddie after we finished the campaign up but before we left and I don’t think he wants to help, but maybe with a little more convincing—”

“He actually said ‘hell no, I’m sticking to made-up horrors from now on, good luck with this shapeshifting clown thing though’, so it’s a definite no,” Erica corrects.

“Which is exactly what I expected, do any of you have anything to say we don’t already know?” 

Nancy is met with silence, which she takes as a sign that no one else has anything to say. She’s about to start speaking again when Lucas pushes his way into the group and takes a spot standing next to Max, then asks, “so, what did we miss?” 

“If you would’ve waited thirty seconds I was about to tell you,” Nancy huffs, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Sorry,” Lucas apologizes.

“It’s…fine. Anyways, to answer your question Lucas, we figured out that whatever this thing is doesn’t use the sewers here like they say he did in Derry, the marks on the map don’t really match up with the sewers,” Nancy recaps. “Robin connected some of the spots where disappearances happened and found a couple of things. One was that a majority of the lines when connected don’t cross water, they also stretch to just outside the city limits of Hawkins, about as far as Hawkins Lab, if I had to guess. There are also a couple spots where the lines seem to intersect. If these lines are what or similar to what he uses, those might be some sort of hub.”

“Sounds like a whole lot of nothin’,” Erica complains.

“It’s not completely nothing,” Nancy sighs.

“Yeah, it’s kind of like the tunnels Will drew that ran across Hawkins when he was possessed, a lot of them even avoid water just like those. And it’s not because It’s afraid a little water will kill him since the sewers he used were full of water. And shit. And piss. But also water,” Richie explains.

“I don’t really remember that,” Will admits, putting his hand on the back of his neck.

“You wouldn’t remember much about that, the Mind-Flayer was more in control of you than you were,” Jonathan reassures.

Jonathan isn’t wrong. From what Will had told Mike after everything with the Mind-Flayer (the first time, anyways) he barely remembered anything from the Mind-Flayer going into him in the field after school to when Nancy, Jonathan, and Joyce burned it out of him.

Will points at the circles on the map. “So what would these circled places be?” 

“Hubs where the lines meet up, the closest thing to an origin for all the lines we found,” Nancy repeats, looking increasingly fed up with everyone.

“Wait.” Lucas steps over to the table with the maps, looking at the spots Robin had circled.  “I think this one is either at or close to the Creel house, and this one with a few less lines is at Hawkins lab.”

Maybe this is more connected to what’s happened in Hawkins than Richie thought.

“We should go to those circles to see if there’s anything there,” Dustin suggests.

“No, you sh-sh-shouldn’t,” Bill says and everyone’s attention turns to him. “I t-t-told you yesterday that the plan is to wait.”

“Wait until we find out what’s going on today! And we did!” Dustin protests.

“And until everyone else gets here,” Bill reminds him.

“More nerds?” Erica groans. She’s ignored.

Steve’s jaw drops. “You mean I’m going to have more kids to babysit?”

“You aren’t even babysitting these ones,” Robin jibes. “Plus they’re sixteen, not really babies.”

“Uh, some of them are fifteen, and fifteen-sixteen year olds are absolutely babies, they can’t even all drive,” Steve protests.

“Only one of them is fifteen,” Nancy points out.

“Two. Stan’s still fifteen also,” Richie corrects. “Despite the fact he acts fifty.”

“And you’re sixteen but act like you’re six,” Stan quips.

Richie playfully flips him off. Stan just rolls his eyes.

“Okay, but who knows when these extra people are even going to get here? Other than maybe July. It’d be a good idea to go ahead and get a head start or if we can kill this thing do that so they don’t even have to come,” Dustin argues. “Even if we don’t get a head start if we know where he is, we’ll be able to come back after making a plan so there’s a better shot at actually killing him.”

“Are you crazy?” Eddie questions. “He won’t care if you’re just going to check things out, he’ll still try to kill you.”

Dustin shrugs. “Then we fight back and get the hell out of there.”

“And what if he doesn’t give you the chance to do that?” Bill questions. “We did that, went to check out the well house once we figured out everything met up there, the exact same thing you want to do, and like we told some of you guys already, we almost didn’t make it out of there alive and it split us all up for about a month. You all n-n-need to stay out of this. We’re not even planning on trying to go after him without the rest of us here now that we know it’s him. Like I s-s-said, no one else needs to get hurt because of this, so no one is going af-after him yet.”

“Okay, but what if we don’t care and want to help,” Dustin retorts, Lucas, Max, El, and Will all nodding in agreement. 

Do they really not understand how much worse It is compared to anything they’ve dealt with here? They’ve been told it about one hundred times already, but still insist on helping. A few days ago they seemed to have at least somewhat realized how dangerous Pennywise is when they got everything explained to them. Either something changed or they are too stubborn to accept this is way different than everything they’ve dealt with before. 

Even with Vecna being somewhat close, as bad as he was (or as bad as Richie’s been told he was anyways, considering he wasn’t in the state during the whole Vecna thing), he could easily be hurt, he was still at least somewhat human and a combination of the older teens hurting him in the Upside Down, Eleven hurting him inside his mind, and the adults hurting part of the hivemind in Russia, he was able to be defeated. That wouldn’t work with It. It was hard to hurt him and even when they were able to hurt him, they were unable to kill him. And he’s definitely not anything close to human.

Richie turns to Dustin. “So you want to have anything and everything you might possibly be afraid of thrown in your face then most likely get killed and eaten by him?” 

“Who says I’ll actually die? None of us have died yet,” Dustin insists. then pauses, realizing the last part of what Richie said. “Wait, he doesn’t actually eat you, does he? I know you guys said he eats kids when you were telling us everything but I thought everyone was just being dramatic, like he takes them and kills them and eats their fear or whatever but actually eating them like eating them eating them?”

“Yeah he c-c-can eat you, eat you, both your body and your fear, although fear is what he re-really wants and needs,” Bill explains.

Richie nods in agreement. “Yeah, we’ve seen some of his victims' bodies torn apart, like we saw this girl in our grade, Betty Ripsom, or we saw her upper body which was torn off from her legs hanging behind a door in the Well House,” he recounts. “It wasn’t real though, it was just one of It’s tricks, I think. According to Bill it wasn’t real, anyways.”

A few of the others grimace at this, probably not wanting the image of a twelve year old girl with only half her body randomly hanging behind a door in their heads.

“Plus, you all saw the photos of limbs found in the woods, some of them chewed up, clearly he ate part of them and took the rest of the body,” Richie adds.

Steve shrugs. “I just assumed it was a bear that chewed them up or something.”

Nancy looks at Steve incredulously. “A bear? Seriously, Steve? Those bite marks aren’t like any wild animal, it would make more sense to assume it was a demogorgon before a bear.”

“Okay, sorry I don’t know how to differentiate different animal teeth marks!” Steve protests.

“So he can really eat you or tear your body up?” Lucas asks.

“Yep,” Richie confirms. “Which is why you should stay out of this, unless you want to be torn limb from limb and have your blood and guts spewing out of you, as It tries to make you more scared so he gets more when he eats you.”

“Can you be a little less graphic when describing things? Please,” Nancy sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose in annoyance once again.

“That wasn’t even that graphic!” Richie protests.

“Well, it wasn’t not graphic either,” she argues.

“Everyone here has seen some pretty graphic things I don’t think that grossed anyone out,” he counters. 

“Not the point, Richie,” Nancy groans.

Jonathan and Erica stare at him and Nancy in silent confusion for a minute.

“Nancy, is there a reason you just called Mike ‘Richie’?” Jonathan questions.

Erica raises her hand. “Seconded. That was weird.”

Oh shit. They had all forgotten to mention to Jonathan and Erica that he hadn’t always gone by Mike. With everything going on and everything everyone was told, he thought it had come up at some point, and Nancy probably did too, since she was calling him ‘Richie’ in front of everyone. Almost everyone had found out, it must’ve slipped her mind too that there were still two people in the group that never found out.

Nancy’s eyes widen in surprise. “Wait, did you two not know?”

Jonathan just looks at her, still confused. “Know what?”

“Oh my god,” Nancy gasps. “No one told you.” 

“Told me what?” Jonathan asks. “What do I not know, Nancy?”

Nancy looks over at Richie. “Do you want to explain or do you want me to?”

He shrugs. “You can if you want.”

“Okay, so you know how I told you a couple of days ago that Mike’s technically my cousin not my brother?” she asks Jonathan.

Jonathan nods. “Yeah.”

“That’s still true, but I left out the fact that when he moved in with us my dad wanted him to change his name, I’m not entirely sure on the logistics of who all agreed to it, I know he didn’t, but anyways, his name ended up getting changed which is why you and everyone else knew him as Mike. He went by Richie before his name got changed.”

“I still go by Richie, by the way,” Richie adds, raising his hand to draw the attention to him. “I just haven’t gone by it in public in a while since nobody here knew. Other than Nancy, obviously. Mike’s fine too, though, since that’s what you’ve known me as the entire time I’ve lived here.”

Jonathan doesn’t say anything for a minute, probably processing the information. Erica looks like she could care less.

“That’s…a lot,” Jonathan finally says. 

“Yeah,” Nancy agrees. “With my mom divorcing my dad, though, we’re pretty sure she’s already in the process of or at least planning to change his name back, especially since he and I noticed paperwork for that in her room the other day.” 

“I’m guessing the only reason we’re all learning this now is because his friends from before he came here are here, though,” Jonathan murmurs.

Richie nods. “Yeah, if they hadn’t come down I probably wouldn’t have told anyone else at least not until my name was changed back.”

“Okay, he’s used two different names, whatever,” Erica says, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms. “Can we get back to talking about the important shit now? Like this child-eating clown? That we apparently have zero leads on that those nerds don’t want us doing anything about?”

“We don’t have zero leads,” Nancy corrects. “We’ve got the circles Robin made on this map.”

“Yeah, which seems like a whole lot of nothin’,” Erica scoffs. “Especially if they’re all hell bent on us not going in there. Which is fine by me, I don’t want to be used as bait for Operation: Child Endangerment 2.0. Because let’s look at the facts, I’m closest to the ages this thing seems to prefer, so out of all of us here, he'll want me most.”

“We won’t let him get you, Erica,” Lucas reassures.

“Damn right you won’t, and I’m not planning on letting him get me either,” Erica argues.

“The circles might not be nothing, though,” Dustin proposes. “I still think it’s a good idea to check them out, they don’t, but like Erica said she’s closer to the prime target age, we’re a little older than what he seems to prefer, unlike how they were when they went after him and they all made it out alive. We’re older and more experienced with monsters so hypothetically it shouldn’t be too risky to check this out and maybe even get some answers.”

Eddie looks at Dustin incredulously. “‘It shouldn’t be too risky’? You do realize that even though you’re a few years older than we were when we went up against him originally doesn’t automatically mean you’re safe from him, right? He can still kill you and there’s still a big chance that he tries to, and you shouldn’t even want to chance it. All four of us have told you that we almost died doing exactly what you want to do.”

“We can’t just do nothing , though,” Dustin continues to argue. This is the third time since they all found out about It that almost this same exact argument has occurred. No matter how many times the rest of The Party gets told to back off so they don’t get killed, they continue to insist that they need to actively do something right now to make progress on this It situation.

“No, but we can do more research on this, come up with a plan before anyone does anything,” Nancy says, breaking up the argument. “This way no one gets hurt and we’re better prepared to go after him. I’m not saying for you guys to stay out of this like they’re saying, but we don’t need to rush into this just yet. If they’re right then this isn’t the same as if we were dealing with Vecna or the Mindflayer or the Demogorgon, so let’s figure out a good, solid, plan first.”

Despite what she’s saying about ‘research’, Nancy will likely go ahead and start investigating this at some point soon. She doesn't like to sit back and wait when something is going on that she could do something about or find answers about, just like what’s happening now. She might be telling The Party to step back and wait, but that doesn’t include her and probably the other older teens as well.

He’s thankful that she’s at least somewhat on the Losers’ side over this, though, even if she goes off on her own with some combination of Steve, Robin, and Jonathan to find answers. At least she’s more trying to find answers to make a plan rather than try to kill him with brute force immediately (though, she might try and shoot a few bullets at him, he should really warn her they probably won’t work). But, of everyone here, the others in The Party are more likely to listen to her about this and keep out of trouble, at least for now. Or he hopes so at least, because they still might try and get answers themselves.

No one argues with Nancy, while there are some looks of annoyance or displeasure with this, no one is trying to change her mind on it, they all know better by now. Dustin, Lucas, and Max exchange glances, almost like the three of them are having a silent conversation. Lucas whispers something to Will and El that Richie can’t hear and they both nod, leaving him wondering what they are talking about and why he’s being left out of it.

“So, what exactly do you mean by research?” Steve asks. “Like being stuck in the library for hours, staking-out Hawkins Lab or the Creel House, what are we talking about here?”

“Library,” Nancy confirms, nodding. “At least for tonight. I’m going to dig through some old newspaper archives they’ve got stored on microforms, see what I can find.”

“I can go with you, two heads are better than one after all,” Steve offers.

“You’d get bored before finishing reading the first one. If Jonathan or Robin want to come, they can.”

Steve’s mouth gapes in offense. “Seriously? You think I can’t pay attention and Robin can? She’s got like the world's shortest attention span, which you should know by now.”

“She gave us our biggest lead when it came to Vecna, she’s useful,” Nancy argues. “But if you really want to come, I might have you look over whatever books they have on local history to see if there are any leads there.”

“History books?” Steve whines. “What are we even going to find related to this in one of them?”

“I don’t know, Steve, but you want to help, so that’s what you’d be helping with,” Nancy snaps.

“If it h-h-helps, Ben was able to figure out that things were happening every twenty-seven years because of history boo-books, and where they hap-happened,” Bill pipes up.

“See Steve? It could help.”

“I’m free for the rest of the afternoon, so I can help,” Jonathan volunteers. “Probably be better help than Steve .”

“Hey!”

Nancy smiles. “Thanks, Jonathan.”

“I can also help,” Robin offers. “Put me on the history books upstairs or microforms downstairs, whatever.”

“Okay, meet at the library at four, we’ll stay until they close,” Nancy orders, receiving a nod from Jonathan and a thumbs up from Robin. “And Steve, if you really want to come you can, but you’ll have to read and think critically.”

“Okay, just because I’m not as smart as you or Robin, doesn’t make me stupid,” Steve argues.

Richie is tempted to make a comment towards Steve about how he should just confess he’s still in love with Nancy already, since he’s acting like her not preferring him to help her out over Robin and Jonathan is the end of the world. He would say it, if it weren’t for the fact it’s not really the time and chances are if he does, Nancy will just leave him here and he’ll have to hope he can convince Lucas to take him home. So he’s trying to hold it back, trying so hard he’s literally biting his tongue. It had never been easy to refrain from making inappropriate comments or jokes, but in the time he’d lived in Hawkins he’d gotten a little better about it, up until he started letting them out again after some of the Losers showed up, anyways. It’s still not as hard as it was when he was, say, twelve, but he now has less incentive to keep his mouth shut, which makes it harder than when he worried letting one too many inappropriate jokes would leave him all alone.

“Whatever dumb shit you’re about to say, just say it, you look like you’re about to explode,” Eddie whispers to him. 

“Your mom looks like she’s going to explode,” he jokes immediately, like a reflex. 

Eddie groans. “Seriously? I know there’s no way you were thinking that before I said anything, dickface.”

“Nope,” Richie admits, stupid grin on his face. “But it redirected my thoughts so I didn’t say what I was thinking to Steve, so thank you for that.”

“Wait, what were you going to say to me?” Steve asks, sounding even more distraught than he was earlier when Nancy tried to find ways around her having to be around Steve helping with research.

“You probably don’t want to know,” Stan replies, knowing full and well that it most likely wasn’t something very appropriate.

“Why am I not allowed to know anything?” Steve complains. “First Nancy not wanting me to go with her now this?”

“And we’re back to you complaining about me preferring to have Robin or Jonathan with me,” Nancy huffs. “And I never said you couldn’t come, I explicitly said that you could.”

“Yeah, but you also said that I’d be flipping through some boring-ass history books while you’re looking through old newspaper articles probably in two different rooms,” Steve protests.

This seemed to piss Nancy off even more. “Oh my god, if you don’t want to do this just say so! I have plenty of help with both Jonathan and Robin coming, there’s no reason you have to come if you don’t want to.”

“Fine, whatever,” Steve ends up saying after a minute of thinking. “I’ll skim through history books, but only if it’s Robin with me not Jonathan.”

Nancy nods. “Okay, but Robin’s coming home with me tonight to hang out.”

“For the record: I’m cool with both of these things, but could I maybe choose what I’m doing next time?” Robin interjects.

“Yeah, you can, sorry for not asking you first.” Nancy turns to look away from just the older teens so that she’s facing the entire group. “We’ll let you know what we find out at the library today and maybe tomorrow then make a plan from there.”

There are nods of agreement before the group starts to break apart. At first it looks like everyone was just splitting among their age group until everyone else in The Party (aside from Mike, of course, but including Erica) gathers in a tight circle, talking quietly to each other. So quietly that even though he’s only a few feet away, Richie can’t hear a word they’re saying. 

He’s pretty sure they’re excluding him from their conversation on purpose, especially since Erica is with them. It might be because he’s been avoiding them the past few days, opting to spend more of his time with the Losers in the few days they’d been here rather than The Party. In his defense, though, he hadn’t seen any of them in years and had always felt more comfortable being himself around them than he ever has with The Party. It’s still weird though. The Party never really excluded him from anything before or purposefully kept him out of the loop. Maybe it’s nothing and he’s thinking too much into this.

“If you’re riding with me, I’m leaving in two minutes,” Nancy announces, pulling Richie out of his thoughts. This also seems to cause the other Party members to stop talking about whatever it is they were talking about and start dispersing from that tight almost circle they were standing in.

“Hey, Will, what were you guys talking about over there?” Richie asks Will as he passes him while walking towards Jonathan.

“Oh, uh,” Will stammered, looking uncomfortable, like he’s hiding something. “It’s nothing, don’t worry about it.”

“Are you sure?” Richie presses. “Because standing in a really tight circle and whispering really quietly to each other where no one else can hear you doesn’t seem like nothing.”

“I’m sure, Mike, sorry Richie,” Will quickly corrects. He tries not to be disappointed, his friends are all trying, this is probably weird for them, and honestly, hearing them call him by ‘Richie’ is a little weird for him too. Good weird. But still weird. Plus, it's not like he hadn’t told them all he’s still okay with being called Mike. “We weren’t talking about anything important, just the way the campaign ended today, and we were being quiet so we wouldn’t bother anyone.”

Okay, that’s definitely weird and most likely bullshit. El and Max occasionally partake in Party campaign nights, but it’s rare. Both of them could care less about D&D at most times. When it came to Hellfire, Max could especially care less, and it seemed the same way for El, although she had been around the Hellfire Club significantly less than Max.

“Okay? But why tell El and Max?” Richie continues to push. “They don’t give a shit about Hellfire.”

Will shrugs, but he still looks uncomfortable. Yeah, he’s definitely hiding something. “It was Dustin’s idea not mine.”

That adds up even less. Dustin is unapologetically loud about a lot of things, D&D and Hellfire especially, included. He, like Richie, tended not to care who he bothered by being loud. So him being quiet and secretive about something like this? Unlikely. 

Richie opens his mouth to question Will further, but before any words can get out his mouth he hears Nancy shouting his name and turns to see her standing in the doorway arms crossed.

“Unless you plan on hitching a ride with Jonathan, Lucas, or Steve or you want to walk home, come on, I’m leaving,” she states. 

Richie lets out a groan but heads outside anyway, he’ll have to save figuring out what The Party was talking about for later. Max would probably be over again either tonight or tomorrow. She had biked over to the Wheeler’s house (with El on the back of her bike) earlier in the day, but both of them had rode in Nancy’s car with the four Losers over to Hopper’s cabin, leaving her bike at the house. Meaning she has to come pick it up, unless she decides she just wants to get around via skateboard or Lucas and his car for a day. But even if she doesn’t, somehow his aunt’s house has become the designated hang out spot for The Party, so there’s always a chance someone will end up over there and he can question them then. Unless they actually are avoiding him.

“Did you hear any of what the Party was talking about?” Richie asks Nancy, as they near the car. “Like when they were all whispering to each other in that circle.”

“I was too busy talking about the plan for tonight with Steve, Robin, and Jonathan,” she replies. “They were being abnormally quiet though. They didn’t tell you anything? Or include you?”

“Nope,” Richie replies, sliding his hands into his front pockets. “I was asking Will about it when you yelled at me to leave but he tried to avoid the question.”

“Weird,” Nancy hums as the two reach the car. The other Losers had already piled in when they saw the two of them leave the house. “I’ll ask Jonathan and Steve if they know anything when we get to the library. Now get in the car.”

He rolls his eyes but complies, sliding into the last open seat in the backseat, successfully squishing Eddie between himself and Bill. Stanley had taken the front seat this time, probably having been the first one in when the three of them noticed Nancy and Richie leaving the cabin and heading towards the car.

The entire drive Richie is uncharacteristically quiet, still trying to figure out what The Party is hiding from him and why. There’s a chance it’s nothing, that Will was telling him the truth, but despite the fact Will rarely lies to Mike, he kind of doubts that’s the case this time.

Chapter Text

The Party hasn’t called, radioed, answered any call, or come over since they’d all met up at Hopper’s Cabin to discuss any further findings yesterday and it’s starting to get concerning. Even if Mike tried to ignore them they never went total radio silence for this long. Max hadn’t even come inside with the sole purpose of bothering him when she stopped by last night to pick up her bike. This means that they were definitely talking about something yesterday and purposely leaving him out of it and all five of the other Party members (plus Erica) are up to something.

Richie could think of three possible scenarios for what’s going on and why they’re avoiding him.

The best case scenario is that they’re just giving him space and time to hang out with his old friends again. This is also the least likely scenario, especially since he’d avoided them to do just that a few days ago and they got mad at him for doing that. So why do it themselves, and especially why not give him a heads up about it?

The second scenario he could think of that probably isn’t the worst (because it’s not life or death) but also definitely isn’t good is that they all hate him. Maybe for lying, keeping secrets, for who he is when he’s not pretending, or for something else they might have assumed, maybe even a combination of all of the above. Most likely a combination of all of the above. They’d seemed cool with him sometimes, but they also could have definitely been pretending because at other times they seemed either mad at or extremely annoyed with him.

The worst possible scenario he could think of is that those idiots are actually going after Pennywise on their own and trying to figure out where he is without alerting the Losers—probably because they knew they would try and stop them—which is the dumbest thing to do because they’d just try and fight him like they fought everything from the Upside Down! Hell, they’ll probably fall for his tricks which could definitely lead to them getting killed. He really hopes it’s not this option, because he’d rather them not die and also rather the Losers (technically only around half of all of the Losers) not have to try and keep them from getting killed while trying not to get killed themselves in the process. 

They also might just be busy. Which isn’t likely, because why would they be discussing something in secret if they were just going to be busy? If it hadn’t been for them discussing something secretively yesterday, he’d think this is weird, but not actually be thinking this much into it.

“Could you stop pacing? you’re starting to stress me out,” Stan huffs, looking up from the comic book he’d been reading through. 

Richie stops abruptly, briefly quitting his pacing around the basement that he’d been doing for the past fifteen-ish minutes. “I wasn’t pacing,” he argues.

Stan rolls his eyes. “Then what do you call it?”

“Walking around the basement in circles because I’m bored.”

“If you’re ‘bored’ then why are you being so quiet today?” Stan questions, setting his comic book down completely. “As much as I was enjoying the silence, you being this quiet is never a good sign.”

Bill nods in agreement. “You h-h-have been weirdly quiet since yes-yesterday afternoon. And especially this mor-morning.”

“Yeah, Rich, what’s wrong?” Eddie asks, joining in. “You’re never this quiet unless something is really bugging you, and even then you aren’t normally this quiet.”

Of course the other three already caught on that something is up with him. It really shouldn’t be a surprise that they did. Even The Party could notice that him being quiet usually means something is up. He really thought he wasn’t that readable, but for some things, it seems like he is. He should really try and fix that.

“Nothing’s wrong ,” Richie claims, crossing his arms. “I’m just pretty sure The Party hates me now. Either that or they’re planning to do something really stupid. Like probably one of the most idiotic things they’ve done, and that says a lot considering all the dumb shit I’ve gotten into with them.”

“Maybe they’re just giving you space,” Bill suggests.

“I thought that at first too,” Richie huffs. “But considering how secretive they were being yesterday, I doubt it.”

“Do you th-th-think they figured out we were trying to stick close to them so that they would-wouldn’t go after IT, and didn’t call or pick up any calls this morning because of that?”

Richie shrugs. “It’s possible. I mean, El could’ve spied on us and told everyone else we were trying to keep them away from It. Or spied on me, specifically, considering she’s done that before.”

“Spy on you, how?” Stan asks. Right, they knew about El’s powers, but not really the full extent of them. That never got fully covered when the Party was helping him explain everything that’s happened to them.

“Her powers,” Richie answers, like it’s obvious. “She goes into the void and if she has a picture or knows someone well enough she can find them and see what they’re doing, what they’re saying and kind of where they are. It’s one of the big things the government wanted to use her for, maybe the main thing, because from what she’s told us they focused on that part even more than the telekinesis.”

“Try call-calling some of them again,” Bill instructs, forcing them back to the original subject before the conversation could derail any more. “See if any of them pick up, if they’re going after It, we need to know.”

“Okay, but they’re not going to, Eddie’s mom is more likely to get laid by someone who isn’t me, than them picking up.”

“So, there’s a one-hundred percent chance one of them will pick up?” Stan says dryly, though he looks relieved that Richie’s joking around again. All three of them seem to, actually, including Eddie, who usually seemed more annoyed or pissed off than anything whenever Richie made jokes about his mom.

“Rude!” Richie gasps, feigning offense. “I’ve totally banged Eddie’s mom, I’m the only one that’ll do it.”

“Can we stop bringing my mom into these things? Please?” Eddie groans.

“Sure, thing, Eds, but only because you asked so nicely,” Richie teases, ruffling his friend’s hair, stupid grin on his face.

“You know I hate it when you call me that, asshole,” Eddie mutters, but despite how annoyed he’s trying to sound, he still looks just as relieved as he did a minute ago.

“Do you really, though? Because I think you look relieved to hear me call you that and talk about your mom.”

“Richie, phone,” Bill reminds him.

Richie pulls the phone off the hook. “Okay, I’ll call them, relax.” He dials the number to the Hopper-Byers house, of everyone, Will and El are the most likely to answer.

Unlike the last time he tried to call, someone actually picks up. “ Hello? ” the voice on the other line—which Richie immediately realizes belongs to Jonathan and not Will or El—asks with a yawn.

“Hey, Jonathan, are Will and El home?” he asks, getting straight to the point.

“ No, Mike, they’re not, they should be at your house. They said they were going over there two hours ago,” Jonathan huffs. “ Wait, are they not there?”

What? They said they were going to his house? Which means either A: they lied because they didn’t want anyone to find out where they were actually going or B: something happened to them along the way. But considering he called and radioed Will before he would’ve probably left and the fact Will and El would probably not be taken out that easily, even by It, Richie kind of doubts it’s option B.

“No? If they were, I wouldn't be asking if they were home.”

“That’s…weird.”

“Yeah.”

“ So you have no idea where they are either?”

“Nope, I called earlier and tried to radio Will, and no one answered. The rest of The Party isn’t answering either,” Richie explains.

“ Okay, that’s really weird. Hang on a sec, my mom is still here so I’m going to ask her if she knows anything about where they are.” The line goes silent for a minute as Jonathan goes to presumably ask Joyce where Will and El are. “ She said they told her they were going to your house.”

“Well, obviously, they lied.”

“ Yeah, I figured that out, ” Jonathan mutters. “ If you figure out where they are, could you tell me or at least tell Nancy so she can tell me?”

“Yeah, I’ll tell Nancy.” Richie hangs up the phone and turns back to his friends. “Apparently, Will and El told Jonathan and Ms. Byers that they were coming over here a couple of hours ago, which they obviously weren’t.” 

“So they’re probably not ju-just giving you space,” Bill concludes.

“Nope, they’re not,” Richie agrees. “They’re definitely up to something. And by something, I mean trying to get themselves killed.”

“Maybe they’re not actually going after It,” Stan suggests. “They can’t be that stupid can they?” 

Oh, Stan has no idea how stupid and determined The Party can be if he doubts they’d  do this. Something potentially getting them killed only stopped them in the beginning, and even then it didn’t really stop them, only made them hesitate a bit more. 

“I’ve got a bad feeling they actually can be,” Eddie disagrees. “Especially, since they barely wanted to listen to us about him other than weaknesses.”

“They definitely can be that stupid,” Richie confirms. 

Bill stands up. “Which is why we need to fig-figure out where exactly they’re going. My guess is either that house or lab that we talked about yesterday. We should go to both, see if they’re at either.”

The room goes quiet. Both Eddie and Stanley don’t seem to be very big fans of this idea, both looking worried and a little scared at the thought of encountering It again, not by accident, but from actively pursuing him. Richie isn’t a huge fan of the idea either, but he’s also not a huge fan of just letting his friends die to that monster.

The short silence is broken by the sound of someone coming downstairs, specifically the sound of them stepping on the creaky stair near the middle of the staircase. Richie looks towards the stairs to see who it is. Nancy wouldn’t just randomly come down here. Not without slamming a door or yelling at him, at least. It could be Robin, she had stayed the night after coming back with Nancy from the library, but he honestly doubts it is. But unless someone else came over without him knowing, it had to either be one of them or one of It’s tricks.

When Richie’s finally able to see who it is, he realizes it’s Will. Sure, Jonathan said he was told by Will and El that they were going over to the Wheeler’s house, but that had apparently been hours ago. There’s no way it took Will that long to get here. Plus, it doesn’t seem like El’s with him. So, either somethings up or that’s not really Will.

“Will? What’s going on?” Mike asks, noticing Will’s worried and slightly stressed expression once Will makes it down the rest of the stairs.

“I lied to you yesterday,” Will admits. “We weren’t actually talking about the Hellfire campaign.”

Richie crosses his arms. “Yeah, I kind of figured that out. Especially since Max wouldn’t really care about whatever you were talking about if it’s got anything to do with D&D. Why tell me now, though? You didn’t seem to have a problem lying to my face yesterday and to your mom and Jonathan today.” He knows it came out kind of mean, and he probably shouldn’t have said it that way, especially since Will came over to tell him the truth, but honestly, he was kind of pissed. Was this how everyone else felt when they found out how much he’d been keeping from them?

The other Losers don’t seem like they have anything to say, but they’re watching closely, interested in what’s shaping up to potentially be a heated argument.

“I didn’t think it was too big of a deal,” Will argues. “I thought when we actually met up to talk about it everyone would just call Dustin’s idea stupid, and move on, because at the time it seemed like that’s where it was heading, since it seemed like a half-baked idea. Plus, it’s not like you haven’t been excluding The Party from the conversations you have with them .” 

It’s pretty obvious that when Will said ‘them’, he meant the Losers, especially since he’d looked directly at them as he said it. What his problem is with them, Richie isn’t sure. Will, along with the rest of the Party, seemed perfectly fine with the Losers hanging around. Unless they were just playing nice. Or he could be reacting this way because he felt like he and the other Party members were being purposefully excluded. Which is true to an extent, but it’s not always intentional.

“So you lied because you were mad at me for wanting to spend time with my friends ? Seriously?” Richie questions, focusing way too much on the very last part of what Will said, and not nearly enough on the rest of it because seriously, he had a problem with him hanging out with his friends he hadn’t seen in years? Why the fuck did he have a problem with that? Plus, it’s not like he’d been completely icing out The Party, like sure, a few times he’d been with just the Losers, but he’d hung out with both groups together in the past few days too. “And it’s not like you guys have been purposefully excluded all the time. I’ve—”

“Richie,” Bill warns, trying to get him to shut up for a second, and he does. Bill looks at Will. “Wha-what did you mean about ‘Dustin’s idea’ that you thought every-everyone would call stupid?”

Oh shit. He hadn’t really caught that part, he’d been focusing way too much on the end part of what Will was saying.

“That’s what I was coming here to tell you about,” Will sighs. “Yesterday, Dustin told us we were all going to meet up at his house a couple hours after everyone went home from Hopper’s cabin to talk about what we could do about It. He also specifically didn’t want any of you to know what we were doing.”

“ Any of us?” Richie asks, hoping Will would get what he’s implying. He could kind of see why they wouldn’t tell the Losers, especially if it’s because they didn’t really know them, but they know him, he’s been a part of the group longer than both El and Max, so if that was the reason he shouldn’t have been left out of it. But considering he was, unless it’s because of how close he was standing to the other Losers, it didn’t make sense for that to be the reason.

Will nods, looking kind of guilty. “Yeah. El asked if we should tell you, but Dustin shot her down and everyone else backed him up. He said you’d just tell the other three and try to stop us.”

“Stop you guys from what ?” They aren’t actually trying to go after It on their own, are they? Sure, he had theorized they could possibly be doing that, but he’d really been hoping they weren’t picking up for a more reasonable reason.

“Going after It,” Will answers, confirming the worst scenario Richie had thought of to be what’s actually going on. Fuck. “We’re supposed to be meeting up at the Creel House soon, I just—I thought you guys should know.”

With that Will turns around and starts heading back up the stairs, not waiting to see or hear any of the Losers’ reactions.

“Will, wait,” Richie calls after him, though in the moment, he’s probably more Mike.

Will turns around,a bit exasperated. “I have to go. I told everyone I needed to bike home and grab something and that I’d be back at Dustin’s as soon as possible so we can all leave together. If I’m not back soon, they’re going to get suspicious.”

“So what? It could delay them or stop them from going,” Richie argues.

Bill nods in agreement, standing up. “They’ll be suh-suspicious anyway, when we sh-show up.”

Stan looks at Bill, a little shocked. “ When ?”

“We can’t just l-l-let them go after It a-alone,” Bill reminds him.

“Couldn’t he just talk them out of it?” Stan tries to reason.

“It won’t work,” Richie and Will say at the same time. 

“Plus, I kind of agree with him, we need to do something about this, I just didn’t think we should keep you guys in the dark,” Will adds then turns around once again to head out of the basement.

“We w-w-were planning on doing some-something. But we didn’t want to un-until Bev, Mike, and Ben could get here,” Bill argues, but Will’s back is already to them and he isn’t listening, heading out as quickly as possible. 

Mike follows Will up the stairs, calling after him, but Will doesn’t even turn around. It’s reminding him of the fight they had last summer, except with just a little less blowing up at each other. Unlike last summer, he doesn’t follow Will outside. Stopping in his tracks as the door closes behind Will, not quite with a slam, but with more force than usual. No point in following him if they’re all probably just going to end up at the same place soon, anyways, and this time he wasn’t really at fault for the argument. Well, in a way he was, but at the same time he wasn’t.

He stands there dumbly for a few seconds, just staring at the closed door, then he looks down at the scar on his palm. He’s really going to have to face this soon isn’t he? Face It. Which he hadn’t expected to have to do for another twenty-four years if Ben, Bill, and Mike’s assumption on the timing was right. At sixteen instead of pushing forty.

Richie turns around, planning to head up to Nancy’s room to tell her what’s going on, mostly so she can call Jonathan to tell him what Will and El were doing before Joyce finds out—though, now that he thinks about it, Joyce finding out might not be too bad of a thing, she might be able to stop them from doing this, but, then again, she probably wouldn’t be able to see anything relating to It, so maybe not. When he turns around, though, Eddie is standing right there. Had he been right behind him long? Did Eddie follow him up?

“He already left, didn't he?” Eddie asks, before Richie even had the chance to ask what he was doing up here, not that him being up here wasn’t appreciated (it is). 

“Yep, tried to stop him, but he didn’t even turn around. Unlike your moth—” Eddie gives him a look. “Right, not the time.”

“It’s never the time, dickwad.”

Richie changes the subject. “I need to go tell Nancy.”

“That you fucked her mom? Wouldn’t that be incest?” Eddie questions. It almost makes Richie laugh. Probably would have, if it weren’t for everything else going on.

“No, about Will and everyone going to the Creel House to go after It,” Richie corrects, looking behind him as he starts heading up the stairs. “Geez, get your mind out of the fucking gutter Eds.”

“Hey, stop calling me that, and my mind was only in the gutter because yours was first, Trashmouth,” Eddie argues following him up the stairs. “Also, you two seem to be at each other’s throats a lot, why the fuck are you telling her?”

“She might be able to stop them, they usually listen to her.” Richie shrugs, as they reach Nancy’s door, which is closed. Robin stayed the night so she’s most likely in there as well. Hopefully they’re not naked. Or screwing. He really does not want to see that. “Also, she can tell Jonathan where Will and El are and he can deal with them. He wants to know, anyway.”

“You really think that’ll work?”

“Honestly? Probably not, but if they listen to anyone it’ll be her.” Richie twists the doorknob and swings Nancy’s door open. He calls out Nancy’s name to get her attention as he opens it, then notices her and Robin on the bed, fully making out, Nancy slowly pushing Robin down onto the pillows. At least they’re fully clothed , Richie thinks to himself before shouting Nancy's name out again.

This time it seems to catch Nancy’s attention, because she gets off of Robin and turns to glare at him. “What the fuck , Richie. Ever heard of knocking?” she snaps.

“Ever heard of locking the door when you don’t want someone to walk in when you have your tongue halfway down your girlfriend’s throat?” he bites back, not really caring that Eddie probably didn’t know about Nancy and Robin dating, it’s not like it’s much of a secret when the two of them were literally making out right in front of them. Plus, even though Nancy and Robin are two girls not two boys, it could be a good way to gauge how gross Eddie thought being… like that is. He’s taking Eddie’s current silence and not outrage as a relatively good sign though.

Nancy rolls her eyes. “What the hell do you want, asshole?”

“You to talk the Party out of the shit they’re about to do.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Nancy asks, brow furrowed in confusion.

“Wait, they’re not going after that shape-shifting-fear-clown thing, are they?” Robin blurts. Richie and Eddie’s expressions and lack of response must have given away the answer because a few seconds later Robin says, “oh my god, they are, aren’t they?”

“Well, considering I told them to hold off until we had enough information to come up with a plan, I highly doubt it,” Nancy sighs. “What exactly are they doing, and why are you just bringing this up now?”

“Going to the Creel House to see if It is there, and I’m only bringing it up now because those fuckers had a secret meeting to talk about it, and the only reason I even know is because Will came over just to tell us, and then he left to meet back up with them.”

Nancy’s eyes narrow. “They talked about it without you, on purpose ?” 

“Yes! They were worried that I’d ‘tell the other Losers’ which I would have, but still, they’re going to get themselves killed.”

“That’s what Will said, anyways. I think they’re just being assholes and avoiding him,” Eddie counters. “Also, unrelated, but are you two—”

“We’re together,” Nancy confirms, before Eddie could finish his question. She looks back at Richie. “I’m going to call Steve and Jonathan in a few minutes, and then Robin and I’ll head over there. I’m assuming you four are going to try and catch them there too.”

“Probably.”

“Don’t get yourselves killed before we get there. Now get out of my room, and close my door behind you,” she orders, pointing at the door.

The two boys listen, heading out of her room, but Richie makes sure not to close Nancy’s door all the way, just to piss her off.

“All the way!” Nancy shouts, immediately noticing. He rolls his eyes but closes it the rest of the way, as aggressively as possible. “And next time knock!” she shouts again.

“So, Nancy likes girls?” Eddie surprisingly asks, as they head downstairs. “I knew Robin did, but I thought Nancy and Steve had something going on, the way Steve was acting yesterday.”

“Oh you picked up on that too?”

“Hard not to,” Eddie pauses. “Wait, was that what you were trying hard not to say something about yesterday when you ended up making that joke about my mom exploding?”

“Yessir,” Richie confirms, briefly putting on a southern voice. It wasn’t great, but considering how out of practice he was, it wasn’t terrible either.

“That was awful,” Eddie complains, but there’s no real bite to it.

“I’m out of practice, okay! They take time to perfect and I’ve only pulled any of my voices out a few times around The Party.”

Eddie looks at him in concern. “You really did try and be someone else around them, didn’t you?” 

Richie laughs awkwardly, adjusting his glasses, a nervous habit he still hasn’t broken despite mostly wearing contacts these past few years. Hell, sometimes he’d still try to do that despite the fact he wasn’t wearing them, only to be met by air. “Yeah, yeah I did. And it sucked not being able to joke around with them like I do with you guys.” It really did suck . While he didn’t exactly hate who he was (or who he was trying to be, anyways) here, he’d always felt pretty phony in the way he behaved. He definitely didn’t like to think about it, though, because that would sometimes send him down a spiral wondering who he was becoming, and fearing he eventually wouldn’t even recognize himself anymore. So, he changes the subject. “So uh, you said that you knew Robin liked girls, how’d you even know that?” 

Eddie is caught off guard by the question and sudden change in subject. “Oh yeah, that, she told me, at the video store, I think it just accidentally slipped out, but it kind of seemed like she said it on purpose which was kind of weird, I don’t know,” he rambles.

Robin had definitely done it on purpose, she was typically very careful with her secret. But why ?

“Wait, that’s what she was talking to you about?”

“I mean, that was one of the things,” Eddie says quickly. “We were talking about movies too, since it’s a video store. You’re cool with her, though, right?”

“Who? Robin?” Richie asks, confused. Why would Eddie be asking him about Robin? He barely knew her. Maybe it was because—no, he’s not going to let himself get his hopes up. 

“Yeah, specifically with her, you know, being with Nancy.”

Oh, so it was about Robin being a lesbian or at least about her being in a relationship with Nancy. Maybe, just maybe—no, that couldn’t be why he was asking. It was probably something else, or to go off on how gross it was, or something. Although, if Eddie was going to go off on how gross it was that two people of the same gender are in a relationship he already would’ve.

“Oh, yeah, duh. I don’t really give a shit that she’s dating Nancy. Better than her getting back with Steve . Plus Robin’s pretty cool. I’m more worried about Nancy making her less cool. Why? Are you not okay with it?”

Please don’t let him have a problem with it. Richie pleads internally. If Eddie’s not cool with two girls being together, then he probably wouldn’t be cool with two guys being together, and would most definitely not be cool with Richie liking boys in the way he’s supposed to like girls—which he hadn’t even accepted was true himself until recently. 

Eddie shakes his head. “No. I mean I don’t know either of them that well anyways, so there’s no reason I shouldn’t be okay with it, although, I’m probably not supposed to know about them, am I?”

Thank fuck he’s not weirded out because Nancy and Robin are two people of the same gender in a relationship. Obviously, that didn’t mean anything for Richie considering it’d probably weird Eddie out that not only was he a boy who liked other boys—which Eddie might think put Richie at a higher chance for AIDs, and by extension transferring AIDs to him, especially if he believed all the bullshit the media (and probably Eddie’s mom too) said about AIDs and homosexuals—but that he also had a crush on him. This is at least a good sign, though.

“Nope, but neither am I. The only reason I know is because Robin fell through Nancy’s window three nights in a row last month and neither of them were quiet, but especially Robin since she almost fell off the roof the first time.” Shit. Now Eddie will think he’s implying that climbing through someone’s window is inherently romantic, which would not be good considering Richie had done that (or attempted and mostly failed, anyways) a couple of times to Eddie back when they both lived in Derry. “Not that climbing through someone’s bedroom window means you’re dating,” he quickly corrects. “I mean, I tried to climb through your window a few times before I moved, although, that was mostly to see your mother.” 

“Okay, we both know that’s not true considering the amount of times I shoved you under my bed and into my closet just to avoid her seeing you,” Eddie argues.

“Psh. You just didn’t want to share.” He throws an arm around Eddie’s shoulders, leaning onto him. “Don’t worry, there’s enough of me and my dick to go around.”

“Seriously, can we not go one day without you talking about your dick or my mom?” Eddie spits, shoving Richie off as they reach the door to the basement stairs. “Does the joke about fucking my mom ever get old for you? It’s obvious you fucking hate her and she could never stand you.”

“Doesn’t stop the hate-sex from being amazing.”

“You’re the actual worst.”

“You don’t think that. If you thought that you wouldn’t have taken a twenty-plus-hour road trip behind your mom’s back to come see me.”

“Ugh. You’re not going to let that go anytime soon are you?”

“It’s probably the best thing that’s happened to me all year, maybe in the past few years, so nope.” 

“Did you get Will to st-st-stay? Or at least get him to tell the others to not go after It?” Bill asks as soon as he notices Richie and Eddie coming down the stairs, effectively ending the two’s conversation.

“Nope,” Richie replies. “He was out the door a few seconds after I got up the stairs.”

“So they’re definitely doing this,” Bill gathers.

Richie nods. “Yep.”

“Nancy doesn’t think she can stop them either, since she said something about it yesterday and they completely disregarded it,” Eddie quickly adds.

“Yeah that too,” Richie confirms. “She’s gathering up Steve, Robin, and Jonathan and is going to head to find them at some point soon.”

“Do you know how to g-g-get to this ‘Creel House’ that keeps getting mentioned? Have you been there before?” Bill questions.

“I think I might know where it is if it’s the house I think it is, but I’m not sure. Nancy’ll know for sure, though.”

Bill nods. “Go dou-double check with Nancy, make sure you know what house it is, so we can find them before they have a chance to get hurt if he is there.”

Richie gives Bill a mock salute. “Aye aye captain.” 

“You’re serious? We’re really going to go after them when they’re trying to chase down It? Without even thinking about it?” Stanley questions Bill, then turns to Richie. “And you, you’re just agreeing, no questions asked this time?”

“They don’t know what they’re getting into. We can’t just let them die. Plus, this might tell us if this is a place where we can easily f-f-find him, like Neibolt,” Bill tries to explain.

“Yeah, what he said,” Richie agrees. “The first part, not the second, I’d rather not go into another Neibolt. They’re idiots but we can’t just let them get themselves killed.”

“There’s no possible way to stop them without following them?” Stan asks, desperately trying to get them to consider any other option.

Richie shakes his head. “No, and there’s probably no way to stop them from going in even if we get in there first.”

“Yeah, I got that too from what Nancy was telling us, especially since she said she doesn’t know if even she can stop them,” Eddie reaffirms.

Stan looks around at the other three. “You’re all agreeing to this? Even you Eddie?”

“I—” 

“We have to,” Bill states, leaving no room for disagreement. “Richie, go make sure you know where we’re going, or at least have Nancy mark it on a map for us. Stan, Eddie, help me pack some supp-supplies just in case.”

“So, we’re doing this? We’re actually doing this?” Stan questions, eyes widening.

Bill puts a hand on Stan’s shoulder. “I kn-know you’re scared Stan, but we have to.”

Stan sighs, looking away from Bill. All four of them were scared, but it seems to be affecting him the most. 

Richie turns to head up the stairs to go find Nancy, making a mental note to yell at his newer friends over this. Not just them choosing to go after It, despite being warned multiple times to not, but also completely excluding him from the conversation about this, which, yeah, he’s still a little upset about. Maybe they’ll get mad at him back, for also keeping things from them, but if it keeps them from going in there and possibly coming face-to-face with Pennywise, then it’ll be worth it, especially since that means he and the other Losers also won’t have to go in there. Of course, that’d be if they got there before The Party. If not, then he’ll just have to hope that it was just a coincidence a lot of the lines met up there and Pennywise won’t be there waiting for them.

Chapter Text

Richie swings Nancy’s door open once again. He knows he should’ve knocked, but it’s her fault she didn’t lock the door after he and Eddie walked in on her and Robin not even fifteen minutes ago.

“What the hell , Richie?” Nancy shouts, turning away from Robin to glare at him. “You were just in here ten minutes ago, what could possibly have caused you to need to barge into my room again ?”

“I was told to double check I knew which house The Party is going to since I haven’t actually been there before, and you have,” Richie explains, leaning against Nancy’s wall after fully entering the room.

All Nancy responds with is an “oh.”

“It’s the murder house on Morehead, right?” Richie continues, whether Nancy wanted him to or not. “The one that there’s some weird stories about some guy brutally murdering his entire family and gouging their eyes out, or whatever it was Lucas told me whenever he, Will, and Dustin were showing me around town like a week after I came here.”

Nancy nods. “Yeah, that’s the one, although that story is—”

“As fake as Mrs. Click’s tits?”

Robin tries to fight back a surprised snort but fails, meanwhile Nancy lets out an audible sigh, hiding her face behind her hand. “I—you aren’t wrong , but please don’t put it like that.”

Richie rolls his eyes. “Why? It’s a good analogy, there’s some parts of it that are real but most of the story is fake just like her—”

“Enough,” Nancy cuts him off and gives him a glare. “I’m glad you feel more comfortable being yourself around more than just me now, but please , stop.”

“I honestly don’t mind seeing this side of him,” Robin comments, smiling slightly. “I like this better than him just acting all broody and depressed all the time.”

“I don’t act broody and depressed,” he protests, crossing his arms.

“I don’t know if I’d say broody, but you have acted pretty depressed a majority of the time you’ve lived with us, when you aren’t being an annoying little shit that is.”

“Lies and slander.”

“Whatever,” Nancy huffs, shaking her head. “Anything else? Because I still need to call Steve and Jonathan and grab supplies so Robin and I can head over there in case something goes wrong with this ‘rescue mission’ you guys have planned.”

“It’s not a ‘rescue’ mission, it's a ‘get them out of there before anything might happen’ mission,” Richie argues.

“That’s the same exact thing,” Nancy says flatly.

“It’s not because if it were a rescue mission, they’d already have had to have gotten into trouble.”

“And you expect them to have not gotten into trouble by the time you get there?”

Okay, yeah, she got him there.

“...Good point,” he mutters, not wanting to fully admit Nancy’s right.

Nancy smiles smugly. “I know.” The smile drops and her ‘focused face’ is back. “You know how to get there right?”

He nods. “I think so.”

Nancy doesn’t say another word to him, instead sliding off her bed and walking over to her desk as Richie watches in confusion. Once Nancy reaches her desk, she opens the desk drawer, and pulls out a map. Why she had the map in her desk and what she’s pulling it out for, he’s not sure. 

Richie inches closer, now standing over Nancy’s shoulder as she pulls out a sharpie and draws two circles on the map. One where their house is, the other presumably where the Creel House is. She then draws a path between the two circles, like she’s going to use this to show him how to get there, which is dumb because he just told her that he was pretty sure he knew where to go, meaning he doesn’t need some map to lead the way.

Nancy folds the map back up and turns around, looking annoyed at how close Richie had gotten. “Here.” She shoves the map into his hands. “So you and your friends don’t get lost.”

He looks down at the map, then back at Nancy, offended. “I’m not that bad at directions, I could get them there.”

“You probably could,” Nancy hums. “But this makes sure you won’t mess up getting them there. Plus, it should help you four get there faster since you won’t have to worry as much about making a wrong turn. Hopefully , that means you’ll be able to get there before the Party.” 

Richie shoves the map in his back pocket, and rolls his eyes. “Wow, look at you being all helpful for once.”

“I will push you down the stairs,” Nancy deadpans.

“Sure.”

Nancy shakes her head, then looks at Robin. “Rob, do you think Steve’s up by now? Considering he didn’t make it to our meet-up at the library this morning.”

Robin shrugs. “Probably. I mean, it’s two in the afternoon, so if he’s not then he needs to be.”

“Can you go to the phone downstairs in the kitchen and call him? Tell him to meet us at the Creel House as soon as possible. After the shithead leaves, I’ll call Jonathan.”

Richie makes it a point to look offended about Nancy calling him ‘the shithead’, meanwhile Robin gives Nancy a “yes ma’am” and a mock-salute as she slides off of Nancy’s bed.

Nancy smiles at Robin, a bit amused, as she heads out the door, then presumably downstairs. The smile drops as soon as Robin leaves and Nancy gets serious again.

“Are you sure you four can handle it without us?” she asks. “Because, it might be a half an hour to an hour before any of us get there, depending on how long it takes to get a hold of Steve and Jonathan and gather supplies.”

“We should be able to,” Richie replies, then puts on an over-exaggerated southern accent. “This ain’t our first rodeo.”

Nancy purses her lips, then sighs once again. “Just, be careful, okay?”

“We will be, Jesus, don’t sound so worried.”

“After what almost happened to Max, I don’t want to take any chances. You should probably bring a radio with you in case something happens before we get there, you know I bought one after Vecna, just in case.”

“Okay,” he sighs dramatically. “I will bring my supercomm with me in case of emergency.”

Nancy rolls her eyes, then stares at something on his face.

He stares back at her, confused. “What? Why are you just looking at me?”

“It might be a good idea for you to leave your glasses here,” Nancy suggests. “If you break them, you won’t be able to get a new pair until Mom gets back from Ohio.”

As much as he doesn’t want to admit it, Nancy brings up a good point. Who knows what they’re going to run into there. Though, during the first fight with It, he’d worn glasses the entire time and sure they got a little dinged up, but not enough to where they needed fixed or replaced. Then again, maybe if he looked and acted more like the Mike they knew and were comfortable with, the Party would actually listen and back off. Not that he wants to go back to pretending, because he doesn’t, but it is something to consider.

“Fine, whatever,” he huffs. “My eyes aren’t bugging me like they were the past few days anyways, thanks to you shoving me into the dirt.” Yeah, he’s still a little mad about that. It took three days for the eye where the dirt got behind the contact to stop bugging him. 

Nancy glares at him. “This? again? We needed an excuse to leave, that’s the first idea I thought of, and you should be thankful I did, because if not, we wouldn’t have ran into your friends when we did.”

“They probably would’ve still ended up here at some point while we were here, anyways, and maybe then I could’ve avoided that conversation with the Party,” Richie argues.

“Which would’ve had to have been had anyways, with them sticking around and you being more well, you , again around more people. Plus, who's to say the Party wouldn’t have come back with us, saw them, and then the same exact thing would’ve happened, possibly worse, and no one would’ve been prepared.”

“ Or , they might’ve decided to all go home instead and I’d have had at least another few hours to figure out how to come clean to them. Also I’m going to put contacts in, but I’m doing it because I think it’s a good idea and don’t want to break them, not because you told me it was a good idea.”

“Oh my god,” Nancy groans. “Fine. Whatever. Stay mad about that and act like leaving your glasses here was your idea first.”

“I will. Anything else before I try not to poke my eye out for the first time since Sunday?”

“Yes, actually. Try not to get into too much trouble before the rest of us get there.”

“And when are you guys going to get there?”

“I already said—” Nancy cuts herself off and composes herself. “Robin and I should be able to leave within the next half hour, within the next hour at the most. Jonathan and Steve might also be able to get there faster though, since I’m going to make sure I have my gun and at least a couple flashlights before I leave. So just, please don’t do anything stupid.”

“No promises.” 

Nancy just sighs as he backs out of her room, slowly and dramatically closing the door about ninety-five percent of the way (instead of fully, just to piss her off). He can hear her calling Jonathan as he finally heads to his bedroom, and is still on the phone with him when he gets to the bathroom.

Despite how many times he’s put contacts in by now, it still takes a solid five minutes for him to get them in right. When he finishes, he looks at himself in the mirror. He doesn’t really look like ‘Mike’ even without his glasses on. The way his hair is laying, the clothes he’s wearing, it all looks more Richie than Mike, and if he’s being honest with himself, he’s happy about that. That is until he remembers that he has to deal with The Party’s stupidity today, and no matter how much they pretended to not care, they were all (some more than others) still weirded out with the way he’s been since the Losers arrived.

Sighing, he brings his hands up to his hair, and tries to fix it to be something more like how his aunt tried to make it look. It doesn’t really work though and actually ends up more of a mess than it was to begin with. Whatever . He thinks, giving up. Not like it’s going to make much of a difference, anyways . 

He leaves the bathroom, drops his glasses off in his bedroom, then heads back downstairs, where Robin is now on the phone with Steve, then back down to the basement.

The other three Losers don’t notice him immediately when he reaches the bottom of the basement stairs. Stan and Bill are too focused on each other, with Bill trying to reassure Stan and convince him that this isn’t a terrible idea. Eddie has Bill’s backpack and is filling it with First Aid supplies he probably found in either the basement bathroom or kitchen upstairs. It doesn’t take too long for Eddie to look up from what he’s doing and notice that Richie’s back.

“So did you figure out if you know where we’re going also do you know where any flashlights are also where are your glasses?” Eddie asks all in one breath, almost immediately after noticing Richie’s return.

“It’s the house I thought it was, so yeah, but Nancy apparently doesn’t trust me so she also gave me a map with it circled,” Richie answers, pulling the map out of his back pocket.

Eddie quickly snatches the map out of Richie’s hand, then unfolds and examines it. “Oh yeah, I can definitely use this.”

“ You can use it? What, do you not trust me to tell us how to get there?”

“Not really, also flashlights, where are they, same with your glasses.”

“Seconding that question, did you lose them in the less than twenty minutes you were upstairs?” Stan pipes up. He must’ve finally noticed Richie came back. Bill must’ve noticed as well, considering he’d turned around and is also looking at Richie now.

“Seriously guys?” Richie groans. “You’re just assuming I lost my glasses when you know I have contacts now, which I was literally wearing when you guys first got here.”

“It’s a f-f-fair assumption,” Bill points out.

“I’m not that irresponsible,” Richie argues. “I was being responsible by taking my glasses off and putting contacts in instead in case we get into a fight so I don’t break them. Can’t exactly get a new pair right now with my aunt out of the state, and I don’t have a spare since my prescription is different from my old pair.”

“Wow. That was surprisingly responsible of you,” Stan comments.

Richie crosses his arms and smiles smugly. “Thank you, wait.” His smile drops and is replaced by an offended look. “Surprisingly?”

Stan shrugs, smiling wryly.

“Did N-N-Nancy tell you any-anything else while you were up there?” Bill asks, getting serious.

“Yeah, she said, ‘What the hell, Richie? You were just in here ten minutes ago, what could possibly have caused you to need to barge into my room again?’” he answers, raising his voice as high as he possibly could to mock Nancy.

“Anything relevant.”

“Well, she said it’ll be half an hour to an hour before she gets there, and she and Robin are calling Jonathan and Steve, so they might get there before or after her, she’s not really sure. She also said to bring a radio with us in case there’s an emergency before she gets there,” he explains.

“Th-that’s a pretty good idea, but I didn’t bring mine with me d-d-down here,” Bill says.

“Well, good news for you, I can bring mine. You know, the one I was using this morning to try and get a hold of someone when I wasn’t calling them, which already just so happens to be tuned to the same frequency as the Party and the two walkies that Nancy, Steve, Robin, and Jonathan share between the four of them.”

Bill nods. “Alright, good. Eddie, is everything else packed?”

“We still need flashlights.”

“Wouldn’t it probably be a good idea to bring some sort of weapon too?” Stan suggests.

“Yeah, it w-w-would,” Bill agrees. “But it’s more important we get over there before them to keep them out, th-this stuff would be just in case we can’t stop them. If there’s anything we can grab q-quickly before we leave, that could work. I know you’ve had some m-m-monster issues here Rich, are there any weapons here we could use?”

Richie shakes his head. “Not unless you want to beg Nancy to let one of you take her second gun. Which, feel free, it would be funny to watch since she’s definitely not giving any of us a gun.” 

“So weapons will just have to be wh-whatever we can find on the way out or once we’re there,” Bill concludes, making it a clear statement for everyone.

“For the third time, flashlights,” Eddie reminds them. 

Richie walks over to the closet he knows houses a couple flashlights. He’s not entirely sure they’ll actually need them, considering it’s mid-afternoon, but they also might, since he’s pretty sure the house is boarded up. Either way, Eddie seemed to think they’d be needing flashlights. 

“Do we even need them?” he asks, pulling them down, despite trying to start an argument over it, although, to be fair, he’s only starting an argument in order to rile Eddie up, because not only is he kind-of cute when he’s all frustrated and his face is flushing and he has that scowl, but it also means getting his undivided attention. “It’s the middle of the day.”

“Of course we need them!” Eddie shrills. “The house is abandoned so it’s got no power, the windows are probably boarded up so there’ll be no outside light either, and even if they aren’t there’ll still be parts of the house that are pitch black and it’s way easier to get separated in the dark which would be one of the worst things that happens because I really don’t want to be pinned underneath that clown again or or something even worse happen because it’s dark and no one can see shit!”

This briefly catches the attention of Stan and Bill, but not for long since they stop paying attention when they (or at least Stan, anyways, considering he muttered something to Bill) notice the flashlights Richie is holding onto.

“Okay, okay, I was going to give them to you, anyways,” he concedes, passing Eddie the flashlights so he could put them in the bag. He would’ve made a joke or done a Voice or something to get on Eddie’s nerves even more, but with the reminder of what almost happened the first time they went into a house trying to find It, he couldn’t really think of anything, the only things in his head the image of what had happened that day when Eddie almost died and his mom pretty much banned him from being around the Losers for the rest of the summer after seeing his broken arm and the knowledge that they were going through this again, with even less people than they should be because the Party wanted to be idiots and not listen to what anyone else said.

Eddie gives him a weird look but takes the flashlights anyways. “Are you okay? You didn't even make a joke or do one of your dumb Voices when you gave me the flashlights.”

Oh fuck, now Eddie’s worried, that definitely wasn’t what he wanted to do. “Yep, I’m all good.” He grins and throws an arm over Eddie’s shoulders, deciding to tease him, just to keep anyone from being concerned that there’s actually anything bothering him. “It’s cute that you’re so worried though.”

There’s an audible sigh from Stan behind them.

Eddie rolls his eyes and shoves Richie off. “I shouldn’t have fucking said anything,” he mutters. “Do you have any more flashlights, or are we just going to have to share?”

Richie shrugs. “There might be a couple upstairs, I think they were left in the kitchen after the last time the power went out.”

“Then we can grab them on the way ou-out,” Bill states, inserting himself into their conversation. “We need to get going if we want to get there before they have a ch-ch-chance to get themselves killed.”

“I have a really bad feeling about this,” Stan mutters, but no one listens to him and reconsiders the plan, even if there was some uneasiness over it.

The Party is already there when the Losers arrive. How long they’d been there for, Richie’s not really sure, hopefully not long enough to get into any trouble if Pennywise just so happens to be here, which there’s a solid chance he will be, even if it’s not some central point for him. He probably knows the Party would draw the Losers (or the ones here, anyways) over, and if there’s anyone Pennywise really wants to kill, it’s the Losers.

“What if we got here too late? What if they’re already dead?” Stan asks, trying to reason with everyone, trying to get them to reconsider going in. “Then we’re just walking right into It’s trap.”

“Let’s just assume they’re not for n-n-now,” Bill attempts to reassure as the four of them approach the house and head up the stairs to the front door.  “You guys ready?”

“Nope,” Richie answers, not that it would make a difference, he’s doing this either way and he knows that even if (when) the others also told Bill they weren’t ready, that wouldn’t stop them from going in either.

Eddie shakes his head, clutching his chest, struggling a bit to breathe. If he hadn’t left his inhaler back in Derry, Richie’s sure that he’d be taking a puff from it right now.

“Shouldn’t someone stay lookout, like the first time we went into a house to look for him?” Stan suggests. 

The other three turn around, Stan is still behind the steps that go up to the house, having stopped as the other three walked up them.

Bill shakes his head. “We can’t split up. We’re already not all here, we split up, we leave each other vulnerable. If he is here, we’re already limited on time to m-m-make sure they don’t get themselves killed, so we need to go in now.”

There’s not much arguing as Bill easily twists open the door, it having been left unlocked since the Party, Nancy, Robin, and Steve broke in over spring break. 

For it being afternoon, it’s pretty dark inside, other than the area directly near the door, which made sense considering all the windows were boarded up, and according to the Party the door had been too up until they broke it down when they broke in the first time.

Richie switches his flashlight on and shines it around the room, landing the light on one of the cobwebs in the corner that had what seemed like it might be a spider crawling on it. “Wow, this place is even creepier than they said it was.”

He hadn’t really been sure what to expect coming here. He knew it’d probably be kind of creepy based on what Max, Lucas, and Dustin had told him, but he hadn’t imagined it’d be like this. At least it didn’t give him the creeps as much as the house on Neibolt did, but if he were to make a ranking of ‘creepiest houses he’s been inside’, this one would definitely be number two on that list. 

“This place is gross,” Eddie mutters, scrunching his nose as he looks around, having moved closer to where Richie’s standing.

“As gross as Neibolt?” asks Richie, turning towards him.

Eddie shakes his head. “No, but there’s spiderwebs everywhere and like a layer of dust on everything. If I actually had asthma, I wouldn’t be able to breathe right now, actually I can barely breathe right now anyways, so maybe my mom wasn’t lying about that,” he starts ranting, now close enough that the two of them are touching, with their flashlights pointing at the same cobweb in the corner. “Shit is that a spider, there are a bunch of spiders in here, aren’t there? What if they’re venomous? What if they're venomous, and one bites me and I don’t know it, and then I collapse and die before we even get out of here. Or that happens to one of you. Or, or—” Eddie inhales sharply, struggling to catch his breath. “Yeah, I think my mom was right about the asthma and I didn’t bring my inhaler, fuck, shit.”

“I think you’ve got to worry more about one of them falling onto your head and laying babies there, and then you wouldn’t know until the babies hatch and then crawl out,” Richie jokes, looking up at the webs and spiders on the light fixtures above them. 

Eddie turns to him wide-eyed, but not struggling to breathe nearly as much. “Can that actually happen?”

“Dunno.” Richie shrugs. “Maybe.”

“Fuck,” Eddie mutters, then brings his hand to his hair to start ruffling it to get any potential spider eggs out. At least he’s not freaking out as much now. Sure, the distraction made him freak out a little, but he’s probably not thinking about all the things his mom told him he had now and is breathing more normally, rather than in quick panicked breaths.

“Max? Max!” Lucas calls out from somewhere above them. Shit. That couldn’t be good.

Richie and Eddie both turn towards Lucas’s shouting as Bill points his flashlight at the stairs, the light from all three of their lights, plus Stan’s which was already pointed that way, landing on Lucas standing at the top frantically looking around for Max. 

Lucas doesn’t seem to notice, though. Or at least he doesn’t acknowledge them, shouting out Max’s name once again, his voice cracking as he does so.

“It’s here,” Bill whispers, turning to the other three. “He’s splitting th-th-them up, w-w-we don’t have much time.”

“What if he splits us up?” Stan asks, voice trembling. “He’s done it before.”

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees. 

“We just ha-have to make sure he doesn’t,” Bill states. “Or if he d-d-does, he doesn’t do it completely s-s-so there’s someone still with you.”

“Mike?” Lucas calls out, confused, but finally noticing the four of them, or noticing Richie, at least. 

Richie waves. “Hi.” He’s trying not to take it too personally that it seems like the Party is still dead set on continuing to call him Mike, especially since a majority of them haven’t even known for a week.

“What are you guys doing here?” Lucas questions. “You weren’t even supp—Will told you, didn’t he?”

“That d-d-doesn’t matter,” Bill interjects before Richie can respond back to Lucas himself. “W-w-what happened? We heard you shouting for Max.”

“I don’t know. The six of us split up and I was with Max, but I thought I heard Erica — who went with Dustin — screaming for me, so I turned around and when I turned back around Max was gone and the door was shut,” Lucas explains.

Bill looks at Lucas, shocked. “You brought your little s-s-sister here?”

Lucas shrugs. “She surprisingly wanted to come with us, see what was going on, her only condition was she wouldn’t be used as bait.”

“We need to find Max, before It gets her, then get your sister and e-e-everyone else out of here too,” Bill states.

Lucas’s eyes widen in surprise. “He’s here? How do you know?”

“He’s splitting you idiots up!” Richie answers, like it’s obvious, because really, it’s obvious. “What did you think made you hear Erica or cause you and Max to get separated like you did?”

“I don’t know,” Lucas admits, looking taken aback by his friend’s outburst. “I thought maybe Erica was actually screaming for me and something happened with Max, like Vecna got to her again somehow. Wait, if she got separated, does that mean It might—”

“Unless he’s busy with someone else and trying to torment her in other ways in the meantime to make her more scared, yeah,” Richie interrupts.

“Fuck. We have to find her!”

“We w-w-will,” Bill attempts to reassure. “Where were you guys last before you got sep-separated?”

“I’ll show you guys if you follow me,” Lucas says.

“How do we know this is really him? What if it’s a trap?” Eddie whispers frantically.

Stanley nods in agreement. “He has a point.”

“It’s just a ch-ch-chance we’re going to have to take,” Bill states, starting to head up the stairs, leaving no room for disagreement, Richie not far behind him. 

Eddie and Stan hesitate, but also head up the stairs, following Lucas, Bill, and Richie.

“We were about to head up to the attic,” Lucas explains once they reach the door that led to what Richie presumes includes the stairs or ladder to the attic (he’s never been in this house before and none of the Party had been very descriptive when telling him about what went down where, at least not during the parts he paid attention to). “The door must lock from the inside because after it closed and I tried to open it, it wouldn’t budge.”

Bill looks at the door, then back at Lucas. “Or It c-c-could’ve kept it from opening.”

“Yeah, he did that after separating me and Bill after splitting Eddie off from us the first time we went into that house,” Richie adds.

“Lucas? Lucas!” Max shouts from the other side of the door. They can hear her jiggling the door handle, trying to get it open and escape. Presumably to get away from It if this is anything like the experience he had after being shut in the room with the clown dolls and casket. 

“Max!” Lucas shouts back, trying to get the door open himself. It takes a few tries but eventually it swings open and Max runs out, Pennywise chasing her. 

As soon as Max is out of the room, she collapses into Lucas’s arms, panting, and Bill slams the door closed moments before Pennywise reaches it, but not before everyone else backs away from it. 

“What the hell are you guys doing here?” Max asks, looking at the Losers after she calms down enough. Whatever she saw in there was enough to scare her, that was for sure. It’s definitely possible that Pennywise made himself look like Vecna, or used some of the same tricks Vecna used on Max on her again, like making himself appear to be Billy. Wouldn’t be the first time he’s played on someone’s guilt considering the times he used Georgie to get to Bill.

“Saving all of you guys’ asses,” Richie quips. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

Max rolls her eyes and flips him off.

“Wh-wh-what did you see?” Bill asks, calmly but seriously.

“At first it was Billy,” she starts, voice shaky. Okay, so the clown did exactly what Richie expected him to do, cool, at least he’s being predictable, even if predictable Pennywise is someone he really would rather not deal with.

“Her brother,” Lucas clarifies. Bill’s eyes widen, likely thinking back to Georgie and how It had used Georgie’s death against Bill back when they dealt with him the first time.

Max nods then continues. “He—he was blaming me for letting him die. For not doing anything, and saying I was happy he was dead.”

“It used my br-brother against me too,” Bill interrupts. “He t-t-t-turned into Geor-Georgie and kept t-t-telling me he want—wanted to go h-h-home.” Bill’s fighting back tears now, stuttering much worse than usual. He takes a deep breath and composes himself. “It’s not real though. None of what It says or does is r-r-real, he’s just trying to get to you, make you feel gui-guilty and more scared.”

“Yeah well, it was the same with Vecna,” Max snaps at Bill, then looks at the rest of the group. “He kept using what Venca used against me, then he turned into Vecna. For a minute I thought that maybe somehow Venca was back, and was trying to take me again, even though I know that he’s not. That’s when I started trying to get the door to open again. Then Vecna turned into this clown and charged after me, that’s when I was finally able to get out.”

Lucas hugs Max even tighter and she buries her head into his shoulder.

“Where d-d-did everyone e-e-else go?” Bill asks. “We need to f-f-f-f—fuck—find them before It does and guh-guh-get you all out of here.”

“And ourselves out,” Stan reminds him.

“Th-that too.”

“Will and El are somewhere on the first floor, I think Dustin and Erica went to the basement,” Max explains, lifting her head back up. 

“We can split three and three to try and find them, it’ll be faster that way,” Lucas suggests. “Mi—chie—”

“Who’s Michie?” Richie asks jokingly. At least Lucas is trying, but still the opportunity to mess with him over the failed correction presented itself and obviously he’s going to take it.

“I corrected myself mid-name and it turned out like that, sorry,” Lucas apologizes. “I’m trying, though, promise.”

Richie laughs. “I’m just messing with you, dude. It’s fine. I’ve corrected myself mid-name before when I was first getting used to Mike.”

“Wait, I think I remember that happening,” Lucas recounts. “Thought it was weird at the time, but then I waved it off as you just being super awkward.”

“I’m not that awkward,” Richie protests. 

Lucas ignores him and continues what he was trying to say before he’d been interrupted. “Anyways, I was thinking we split up, we can cover more ground faster that way. Richie can come with Max and me, and you three can go together.”

Stan looks at Lucas skeptically. “You want to split up? After splitting up almost got your girlfriend killed?”

Richie nods in agreement with Stan. “Yeah, dude, splitting up is like the first lesson in how not to survive a horror movie 101.”

“We’ve split up plenty of times before here,” Lucas argues.

“And then met back up before we got in too deep at least most of the time,” Richie points out. “Plus, we literally told you guys that there’s strength in numbers when it comes to Pennywise, which means splitting up is a bad idea, because then it’ll be easier for him to split you up even further, and when you’re alone, you’re easiest to get to. Although, clearly, you only listened to half the shit we’ve told you because you’re doing this.”

Lucas raises his hands defensively. “If you want to blame someone, blame Dustin, this was his idea.”

“Yeah, but you all went along with it, and clearly you didn’t think it was a bad idea, because if you did you would’ve told Dustin that, then not did it,” Richie argues.

“Could you two stop arguing?” Max huffs. “Lucas, they’re not going to let us split up, so let’s just go find everyone else and get out of here. I don’t want to deal with some monster messing with my head again if I don’t have to.”

“Alright,” Lucas sighs, finally conceding.

“Seriously?” Richie’s jaw drops dramatically at Lucas’ quick dropping of the subject at Max’s request. “That’s all it took? You’re that pathetically in love with her?”

Max snorts at this. “He just knows when I’m right, which is always.”

“Maybe in his eyes, because he’s so pathetically in love with you.”

Max opens her mouth but before she can say anything back there’s a scream from downstairs, it sounds like El. That couldn’t be good.

“Was that—” Lucas starts to ask, having quickly caught on to the fact that El is screaming.

Mike nods. “I think so.”

“Shit,” Max mutters.

“Shit what? Who was that?” Eddie questions. 

“Eleven,” Mike, Max, and Lucas answer at the same time.

“Oh.” Stan’s eyes widen. “Shit.”

Richie snorts. “Yeah, that’s what we’re saying.”

“We need to find them,” Bill states determinately, standing where he’s facing everyone. “Duh-Dustin and Erica too, and get out of huh-huh-here.”

“For once you say something that actually isn’t insane,” Stanley mutters.

“Wait, so we’re all just listening to whatever he says now? Really?” Max points at Bill, then crosses her arms. “Who put him in charge?”

Richie moves to stand next to Bill, looks to him, then looks back at Max. “I did.” 

Max grimaces at this.

Richie claps Bill on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, you guys can trust Big Bill.” He pauses, taking his hand off his friend’s shoulder then shrugs. “More or less.”

“‘More or less’? What the fuck does that mean , Richie?” Max questions. 

Bill turns to him, looking confused. “Yeah, I’d luh-like to know too.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Richie walks back over to where he’d been standing originally. “Let’s just find the others and get the fuck out of here, like you said.”

“When we split up we made sure each group had a radio with us. Maybe we can use ours to try and find out where they went,” Lucas suggests.

Bill nods. “Good idea.”

It would be a good idea, if it weren’t for the fact that Lucas and Max clearly don’t have a radio with them right now.

“Yeah, only problem is Max was hanging onto it when we got separated,” says Lucas.

“Do you still have it?” Bill asks, turning to Max. Clearly, she doesn’t, but obviously Bill doesn’t seem to notice that.

“I dropped it when It turned from Billy to Vecna,” Max sheepishly admits. “I can go back in there and—”

Bill stops the idea before Max can fully get the words out. “N-N-No,” he says. “We grabbed one to be able to get a h-h-hold of Nancy if something went wrong, so we can use that. Even if he’s prob-probably not still in there, it’ll slow us down.”

Lucas’ brow furrows. “Wait, why wouldn’t he still be in there?”

“He can’t be in two places at once, and we just heard El scream, you figure it out,” Mike says bluntly.

“Do you think he has her?” Lucas questions. “Or Will?”

“It’s def-definitely a possibility,” Bill answers.

“Where’s the radio you guys said you have?” Max asks. “So we can actually try to get a hold of any of them.”

Mike looks at her, then looks around the room. He’s not totally sure where it is either. He gave it to Bill before they left, but obviously he doesn’t have it, none of them are holding it. Either Bill or Eddie probably put it in the backpack. “It’s in the backpack, I think,” he ends up answering after going through all the possible options of where it could be in his head.

“Yeah it is, here.” Eddie pulls the supercomm out of the backpack Bill is wearing and passes it to Richie.

“Why thank ‘ya mistah K,” Richie says, grinning at Eddie, who rolls his eyes, trying his hardest not to smile. He notices an eye-roll from Stan and Max as well out of the corner of his eye.

“Did you really have to pull out one of your stupid voices right now ?” Eddie huffs.

“Absolutely I did.” And really he didn’t but it serves as a good distraction for everyone from freaking out over Pennywise as well as Will and El’s potential doom. He turns to Lucas. “Are you guys still on the same channel you were on? Or did you change it so I wouldn’t accidentally overhear something, since you wanted to keep me out of this.”

Hopefully Lucas noticed he was being a little passive aggressive there, he might be here trying to help them, but he’s still pretty pissed at the Party.

“We changed it,” Lucas reveals. “I can put it on the right one if you pass it over.” 

“Shouldn’t we tell Nancy first before you change channels? Let her know that It’s here and separating everyone?” Stan suggests.

Bill shakes his head. “We can t-t-tell her when she gets here. We’ll just have to be more careful until then”

“Nancy’s coming?” Max asks, her and Lucas finally fully separating as Richie passes over the supercomm to Lucas.

“And Robin, Steve, and Jonathan,” Richie adds.

Max looks surprised by this. “Wow, way to bring in backup.” 

“Nancy offered, and is dragging the other three here,” he explains, then turns back towards Lucas, leaning in closer, while Max starts talking with the Losers.

“Sorry about keeping you in the dark, by the way,” Lucas apologizes, as he tunes the radio to the right channel. He hands it back to Mike. “That was a shitty thing to do.”

“Yeah. It was,” Mike says bluntly. “We can talk about it later though, once everyone’s out of here.” And oh, are they going to talk about it later, when the entire Party was in one place and he can not only let them know what shitty friends they were but also about how they put everyone in danger for no good reasons. Maybe they’d call him out and say he was being a shitty friend too, but he’s already explained himself, and it can be easily assumed why he’d been with the Losers more, especially since the Party knows he hadn’t seen them in a few years before they came down.

“I can radio and ask if you want,” Lucas offers. “Since no one else knows you’re here.”

Mike shakes his head. “No, I can do it. I want to do it.”  He wants them to know that he’s here, even though they tried to stop him from being here.

“Just, try not to be too harsh.”

“I’m saving that for later anyways, so I’ll go easy on them for now.” Mike presses down on the side button and speaks into the radio. “It’s Mike, does anybody copy? Over.”

He’s not entirely sure if he should’ve said Mike or Richie there, but this is The Party he’s trying to get a hold of. He might’ve told them he preferred Richie, and he does, he definitely prefers being Richie over Mike, but they all probably were still thinking of him as Mike, anyways. Plus, maybe if he did do this as Mike, they’d be more likely to listen and go along with what he says.

“Are you sure this is the right channel?” he asks, after there’s no response other than static for thirty seconds.

Lucas nods, a confused expression crossing his face. “Yeah, I’m sure, and there’s no way they’re out of range either. Let me try.”

Mike passes the walkie to Lucas. “This is Lucas, does anyone copy? This is a code red. I repeat, this is a code red. Over.”

Static again.

“This isn’t good.”

“Yeah, no shit.” Mike takes it back. “It’s Mike again, if anyone copies say something, this is a code red, over.”

A sound finally comes through but it’s not Dustin, Will, El, or Erica answering. Though, in the background El is able to be heard shouting Will’s name, which they can also hear from upstairs, barely. There’s also heavy breathing, that’s the loudest thing, Will likely was the one who answered, hitting the button to say something but not being able to.

The sound is a laugh. A creepy, haunting, laugh undeniably from that stupid fucking clown. From It. 

Things just couldn’t stop going wrong, could they?

Chapter Text

The Losers all turn towards each other with alarmed expressions, having all reached similar conclusions about who the laugh belonged to and how much more serious this situation (especially with Will and El) has gotten.

“Wait, that’s that clown,” Max realizes, eyes widening.

Okay, good, so Max, and hopefully Lucas, now that she’s said it out loud, are also on the same page. Now they won’t have to waste time explaining who is with Will to Max and Lucas and focus on finding Will and El and getting them away from It as quickly as possible.

“W-W-We need to find them. Now,” Bill states, his expression becoming more serious and determined than it already was.

“They could be anywhere though,” Lucas argues. “I think they went to cover the first floor, but this is a big house. We could still split up, and—”

“No,” the four Losers say in unison. How stupid did Lucas have to be to not get that splitting up is a terrible idea and continue to insist on it?

Lucas raises his hands defensively and sighs in defeat. “Alright, no more splitting up, got it.”

“Come float with me, you’ll never have to worry about what your friends will do when they find out that dirty little secret of yours and figure out what you are,” It taunts over the radio, presumably towards Will, considering it was his breathing and El’s screaming sounds muffled by a door they’d been hearing. Richie stiffens at this, thinking about his own ‘dirty little secret’. There could be a chance that’s what he was talking about with Will, but he’s probably just projecting here, sure Will was bullied most of the time with and for the rumors about him being gay, but that doesn't mean he actually is, right?

It laughs. “Then again, you aren’t the only one of your friends hiding a dirty secret.”

Richie’s eyes widen and he inhales sharply. He’s definitely the ‘friend’ in question there. He looks around to see if anyone noticed his reaction, if they did, then he’d need to play it off as him reacting that way for some other reason. Luckily everyone else is more focused on what they can hear over the radio than what he’s doing or which one of them could be the friend in question. Maybe he should talk to Will about this later, about what It said and possibly tell him the secret he’s been keeping, especially if it’s the same or similar. After they all make it out of here of course… if they make it out of here.

“Go away!” Will shouts.

There’s another loud scream from El, much more audible this time, like she’s trying to use her powers and they won’t work. Hopefully, she and Will are still together. It would be a lot better for their sakes if they’re still together.

“Oh, so you want them to find out, then,” It laughs. “Well alright, I know that some little ears are listening in right now.” the sound coming from the walkie suddenly becomes very clear. “Isn’t that right, Losers.”

“This isn’t good, he knows we’re here now and that we’re listening,” Eddie says frantically, pacing and waving his arms around. He stops in his tracks and his eyes go wide. “Oh fuck, he’s going to kill us.”

“He p-p-probably just heard Richie earlier and assumed,” Bill attempts to reassure. It doesn’t really work.

“He might also just… know things,” Max mutters. “It’s the easiest way to explain how he knew just how to scare us.”

Bill shakes his head. “I don’t th-th-think he just knows. He might watch us enough that he knows what might sc-sc-scare us, but I’m not so s-s-sure he’s om-omniscient. If he was then he’d be able to scare us bad enough we w-w-wouldn’t even realize it was all fake and just him, which means he w-w-wouldn’t have had to put Bev into the d-d-deadlights.”

Max tilts her head in confusion. “The deadlights?”

“We’ll tell you late-later,” Bill says. “It’s not important. We need to get everyone out of h-h-here first.”

Max nods, seemingly accepting the non-explanation, for now, at least.

El screams again, this one even louder than the last, and it catches everyone's attention.

“I-I-If we can follow her scream, we should be able to find them,” Bill explains and everyone turns to him, at least somewhat listening. “And if Will says anything when we get closer we should be able to hear him and find him.”

“What about Dustin and Erica?” Lucas reminds him.

Bill takes the supercomm — which had been silent since the last thing Pennywise said — from Richie and passes it off to Lucas. “Keep tr-trying to see if you can get in contact with h-h-him. If not, we’ll find him and Erica after we get Will and El. I won’t let someone else lose a sibling to this.”

This seems to convince Lucas for now, because he stops arguing.

“Will!” El shouts again from downstairs. Like the last few times, it’s distant but still audible.

“So, are we going after them or just waiting up here?” Richie questions. “If we wait too much longer, even though it’s Will and El and they could survive pretty much anything especially with El’s powers, they might still end up dinner. Not to mention Dustin and Erica once he finishes with the Wonder Twins.”

Max looks at him, a little confused, a little annoyed. “Where did that nickname for them even come from? I heard you mention it at the airport too, so it’s not just a one-off thing.”

Richie shrugs. “Reread a comic with them in it, El and Will could practically be twins, El has super powers and Will is connected to and has survived the Upside Down, which is practically a superpower, you figure it out.”

Max rolls her eyes.

“We’re g-g-going, c’mon,” Bill finally answers, motioning for everyone to follow him. “If a-a-anyone has any b-b-better ideas of w-w-where they are, feel free to lead the way.”

There isn’t any more arguing — or even talking, really — as the six of them head downstairs. When they reach the first floor, they’re able to hear El’s screaming a little more clearly, as well as what sounds like someone (probably Will) banging on a door. Unfortunately, wherever Will and El are they aren’t in sight of the group, despite being within ear shot.

Everyone spreads out across the room, making sure to stay close to someone else, either intentionally or unintentionally creating pairs with Lucas and Max standing close together (and trying to hide the fact Lucas is squeezing Max’s hand), Stan sticking with Bill, and Richie and Eddie staying together.

Bill breaks the silence. “So, any i-idea where they c-c-could be?”

Lucas looks around. “If you didn’t see them when you came in, especially if you guys were looking around, then they’ve got to be in one of the back or corner rooms.”

“Let him go!” El shouts, then there’s a loud slam.

A couple people jump, everyone’s attention turning towards the presumed direction of the noise.

“This way,” Lucas calls, leading the way towards the noises. He and Max know this house the best out of the six of them, anyways, so no one argues about it.

As the group turns the corner, they can see the door is now wide open. El is still staring at it, but her hand is at her side rather than outstretched, blood streaking her face from her nostrils and her eyes. She’s unsteady on her feet, like she might collapse from overexertion of her powers any second now. Will is leaning against the wall, holding his right arm, breathing heavily. Neither have noticed that it’s not just them here now, but at least it seems they got away from Pennywise unscathed. Or well, mostly unscathed, considering the blood running down Will’s arm from underneath where he’s tightly holding it. Hopefully the cut or scratch or whatever he’s hiding isn’t too deep and is something that could quickly be patched up.

“Holy shit, what happened to you two?” Richie asks impulsively, causing everyone who wasn’t already looking at Will and El to look at them.

“Oh fuck, that does not look good,” Eddie mutters, turning to Richie. “That blood looked like it was coming from her eyes, I mean I know you said dripping from her nose happens when she uses her powers but her eyes? She could be dying! She’s barely even standing, like she looks like she’s about to collapse!”

“It’s her powers,” Lucas butts in.

Eddie turns towards Lucas with a confused look. “What?”

“When she overexerts herself with her powers, this happens,” Richie elaborates.

Eddie turns back towards Richie. “Including the eye thing?”

“Definitely including the eye thing. Sometimes it’s so bad it comes out her ears.”

Eddie’s eyes widen. “Her ears?” he questions, but is ignored with everyone’s attention on Will and El, who begins to wobble then collapses onto the floor.

Will is at El’s side almost immediately, quickly followed by Max, with Lucas and Mike not far behind. Eddie, Stan, and Bill inch towards them but don’t immediately join the group surrounding her.

“El, are you okay?” Max asks, kneeling beside her and helping her sit up.

El nods weakly.

Bill steps closer, then crouches down as well. “What h-h-happened?”

“Will was trapped and the door would not open,” El begins to explain. “I tried to use my powers and they would not open the door either at first. When they did there was a clown. He had Will. I threw him against a wall. The clown disappeared before me and Will got out of the room.”

Richie turns to Bill. “At least her slamming his ass into a wall proves her powers work on him,” he says trying to lighten things up just a little bit, even though he’s fully aware that despite El’s powers working on him (at least somewhat) they didn’t work on him to the extent that they should, and they probably would barely cause any damage to him, El being able to do that, probably came more from her not being afraid than her actual powers being strong enough to hurt It.

“Her powers barely work on him,” Max scoffs, looking at Richie like she can’t believe he’s saying that when he knows how much more powerful El typically is. “Especially since she’s been able to kill people and monsters or send them back to the Upside Down before, which you already know.”

“Wait, she’s killed people?” Eddie shrieks, staring at El in shock.

“Bad men,” El mutters, meeting his gaze.

“The government agents who tried to kill us for her,” Lucas clarifies.

Max puts her hand on El’s back and looks straight at her ignoring the boys. “Can you get up?”

El nods and shakily makes it back up to her feet, leaning onto Max as she does so. Once she’s up, she keeps leaning against Max, still too weak to stand on her own.

“She needs something to get her strength back,” Will states. “You guys didn’t happen to pack any snacks in that backpack did you?”

The four Losers all kind of just look at each other for a second, silently asking each other if they did bring snacks.

“I actually did put some in there,” Eddie ends up answering.

Lucas looks at Eddie, surprised. “Wait, seriously? You packed snacks?”

“In case something happened and we were stuck in here for days or something!” Eddie defends himself. “There’s also a bottle of water. Bill, give me the backpack.”

Bill slides the backpack off and passes it to Eddie, who puts one strap on, then pushes his way into the cluster that had formed around El. After Eddie gives her whatever food had been packed into the backpack (some sort of granola bar by the looks of it), he then turns his attention to Will and his still bleeding arm.

Eddie starts examining Will’s arm as much as Will would let him. “It doesn’t look too deep,” he deduces. “And if it’s infected an arm is way easier and more possible to amputate than a waist.”

Will’s eyes widen in alarm. “Amputate?” he squeaks out.

Richie shoves himself to where he’s right behind Eddie, peering over his shoulder. “Yer scarin’ him Dr. K.”

Eddie turns and glares at Richie while pulling the first aid kit out of the backpack. “Seriously? Do you have to do this right now?”

“Do what?” Richie asks faux-innocently, knowing exactly what Eddie’s talking about.

“Press the gauze down on your arm until the bleeding stops,” Eddie instructs, handing Will a gauze pad. He turns back towards Richie. “You know exactly what!”

“All I was doing was warning you that you were scaring poor Will.” And trying to diffuse the tension a little. And trying to annoy and frustrate Eddie into paying at least a little attention to him. But no one has to know that.

“I have a feeling I don’t want to be in the middle of this,” Will murmurs.

“That feeling would be right,” Stan confirms.

“Yeah, and calling me ‘Dr. K’ and doing that voice which is distracting me so I can’t focus on fixing Will’s arm!” Eddie continues to rant, ignoring everything Stan and Will said.

“It’s just a cut, I’ll be fine,” Will tries to reassure.

“That’s way deeper than ‘just a cut’,” Max states loudly, catching everyone’s attention and at least pausing the argument between Richie and Eddie. “Probably not deep enough to need stitches or as bad as El’s leg last year, but it’s definitely more than just a cut.”

Everyone stares at her.

Max groans. “Seriously? Again? I skateboard. That’s how I know this. I also know the right steps to patch up a wound. Bleeding is already stopping so it just needs cleaned then bandaged.”

“Which is exactly what I was about to do if Richie would ever stop distracting me,” Eddie claims, shooting a glare at Richie.

“Why not just tune him out?” Max asks. “I do that all the time.”

“Hey! Rude!” Richie squawks.

“I do it too,” Stan tells Max, then glances at Richie, giving him a wry smile. “But if he’s annoying enough I’ll eventually pay attention to him.”

“Again. Rude,” Richie pouts, crossing his arms. “Actually, it’s even ruder coming from you, Stanley.”

“I feel so terrible,” Stan deadpans. “Anyways, Eddie just has an inability to actually ignore him.”

“I do not!” Eddie shrills.

Stan rolls his eyes, smiling a little. “Yeah, okay.”

“I don’t.” Eddie glares at him, then turns his attention back to what he was originally doing, pulling out a bottle of rubbing alcohol. He uncaps it, then pours a decently large amount onto the cut on Will’s arm.

Will hisses in pain, yanking his arm towards himself as the alcohol makes contact with his wound. “Did you have to pour it on like that?”

“Do you want it to get infected?” Eddie snaps. “I’m working with limited supplies here and still have to wrap your arm up and have enough left in case someone else gets hurt before we can get the fuck out of here.”

“Then why pour that much directly onto my arm if you’re limited in supply?” Will asks, still holding his arm close to his chest. “You would’ve wasted less and it probably would’ve burned less too.”

“I’m limited in the amount of gauze pads we have! Not stuff to clean the wound with since there was a whole bottle of rubbing alcohol and I found a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, plus there’s always the water I brought too! So unless everyone gets a bunch of huge open wounds, I’ll run out of gauze first, so I couldn’t just pour it on that and then put that on your arm,” Eddie explains. “Plus, no offense, but there’s an AIDs crisis going on right now, and I’d rather not come in contact with other people’s blood if I don’t have to.”

Will looks uncomfortable, possibly over the AIDs comment, like he thinks Eddie’s implying something by that when he probably wasn’t, especially considering a similar thing happened before he got the supplies to patch Ben up that time after his run-in with Henry Bowers’ knife.

“Also, it would’ve still burned either way even if it was only a little alcohol.” Eddie grabs a roll of gauze out the first aid kit and yanks Will’s arm back towards him, wrapping it around it. “Hand me the bandages and scissors,” Eddie orders, looking back at Richie.

“Wait, where’d you get scissors? Also, was all of that in that first aid kit all along? I mean I know the rolls are kind of small, but they all really fit in that box?” Richie asks as he pulls out everything Eddie asked for.

Eddie snatches the scissors and bandages from Richie. “Bathroom, with the first aid kit, and yes, they were.”

“Ow, that’s too tight,” Will winces as Eddie finishes bandaging his arm.

“Well, it’ll keep it from bleeding out or getting infected,” Eddie says bluntly, then turns back towards the rest of the group. “Anyone else have any injuries before I put this shit away?”

There’s a mix of shaking heads and mutters of no from the group.

“Sorry for not asking earlier, but you’re okay, right Will?” Mike asks, softening his voice a little after Eddie walks off.

Will nods. “Yeah, it kind of hurts, but I’ll be fine.”

“Okay, cool, good. You’re lucky Eddie was here, because he’s really good at patching people up and he was the one to think of bringing first aid supplies.”

“Mhm,” Will hums unenthusiastically. Richie’s not sure what's up with that.

“Also, I would’ve asked you first thing, but then El literally collapsed and—”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” Will sighs. “We need to find Dustin and Erica.”

“Lucas, can you try radioing Dustin again?” Mike shout-asks, looking over his shoulder towards the rest of the group.

“I’ve already tried,” Lucas groans. “Like five times.”

“Well try again,” he orders, crossing his arms and fully turning around.

Lucas sighs, but attempts to contact Dustin again.

The Losers look at Richie, surprised.

He looks back at them, confused. “What?”

“N-n-nothing.” Bill shakes his head. “Just never really seen you t-t-take charge like that.”

Lucas looks at the Losers, surprised. “Wait, really, that’s probably one of the most normal things he’s done since you guys got here.”

“Yeah, he’s really good at bossing us around… or trying to, at least,” Max adds, nodding in agreement with Lucas.

“Huh,” Bill says, with this look on his face like he’s getting a crazy idea. That could not be good. He looks at Richie with a shit-eating smile. Oh no. “I might have to use you to help keep the other Losers in line, especially when we’re all back together again.”

“Please don’t,” he groans.

“Hello? Does anyone copy? Over,” comes a garbled voice from the radio, and thankfully everyone’s attention turns back towards that instead of the ongoing conversation, because Richie really doesn’t want to talk about the difference in his roles within his two friend groups or for Bill to get any more ideas.

Lucas’ eyes widen and as soon as ‘over’ is said, he presses down on the button on the side of the supercomm. “Dustin! It’s Lucas! What’s wrong?” he practically shouts into it.

“Lu—as is—you where—stuck,” Dustin’s voice comes back from the radio, garbled and cutting in and out like the battery is dying, or he’s too far away, or something's blocking the signal.

Richie yanks the walkie from Lucas’ hand and presses down on the button, if Lucas wasn’t going to figure out what’s going on fast enough, he was. “Dustin, what’s going on? You’re cutting out. Over.”

“ —ike? What are you — how — even find out? Over.”

Of course Dustin is more concerned over the fact that he figured out what they were up to than the fact that his radio is only half-working.

“If you’re asking how I found out, Will told me and you’re lucky he did,” Richie replies snappily. “Where are you? Over.”

“Basement,” Dustin answers. “The door’s jammed, we can’t open it. Over.”

“Is there a—”

“Is Erica with you?” Lucas shouts over him, cutting him off.

“Yeah, but — going to — another way out. O—er.”

“Are you and Erica going to find another way out or just one of you?” Mike asks before Lucas can butt in again. “Over.”

“We were — split up — by the door Erica — wait in case someone — it open.”

Richie looks up from the supercomm and at everyone else. “Okay, could anyone understand any of the shit he said?”

Eddie shakes his head. “No.”

“Not really,” Max answers.

“Maybe like half of it?” Will echoes the same overall ‘no’ of everyone else.

Lucas crosses his arms. “Not totally but he better not be or planning to be leaving my sister alone.”

“Richie,” Bill calls, trying to catch his attention.

Richie turns towards Bill, who’s looking at the walkie. Richie quickly understands what Bill wants and passes the radio to him (and tries to ignore the dirty look from Lucas as he does so).

“D-D-Dustin, can you repeat what you said?” Bill asks. “W-w-we couldn’t understand you, you keep cut–cutting out. Over”

“We planned on splitting up,” Dustin huffs. “I was going to try to find another way out while Erica stayed by the door in case she or someone else could get that door open. Did you copy all that? Over.”

“Yeah, copied th-that. But you’re not sp-splitting up, you need to stay with Erica until we c-c-can get you out of there. Just h-h-hang on until we get there. Over and out,” Bill says, leaving no room for (verbal) disagreement from Dustin.

“Yeah like he’s going to listen to that,” Richie mutters. He’d like Dustin to listen to that, obviously, but Dustin doesn't even listen to him sometimes, so him listening to Bill? Unlikely. Practically impossible, even. Even if not listening has possibly dire consequences for himself and/or Erica.

Bill passes the radio back to Richie, who quickly passes it off to Lucas, then faces the group. “Do a-a-any of you know how to get to the b-b-basement?”

“I don’t know exactly how to get there, but I know the way Dustin went,” Will answers, holding his arms close to his chest and looking away for a moment. He looks back at Bill. “I’m pretty sure I know what door he went through, but I’m not totally sure.”

Bill nods. “If no one else knows anything more, y-y-you can show us where he went. Anyone else know an-anything helpful?”

There’s a solid thirty seconds to a minute of silence, no one else offering up any other answers.

“Alright,” Bill finally says. “Will, l-l-lead the way.”

Will nods and begins heading towards presumably the basement door, everyone else following him. Except for Stan.

“Shouldn’t we wait until Nancy and the others get here? Or at least have someone stay back to tell them where we are when they get here if we’re not leaving first?” Stan suggests, catching everyone’s attention.

Everyone turns back towards him, noticing Stan now a few feet back from everyone else.

“Sp-Splitting up is a bad idea,” Bill reiterates for what’s probably the fifth time since they got here.

“I know,” Stan huffs. “But, what if Nancy and her friends get here while we’re in the basement and the radios stop working again? Plus, we’re not even on the same channel as her now, if something happens down there, it’ll save time when it comes to backup getting there.”

Bill considers this for a second. “Okay. Max, El, you two stay back,” he orders, “If Nancy shows up, t-t-tell her we’re in the basement and point in the direction we go, if there’s an em-emergency, use the radio Will left on the ground over there, we’re taking one down with us.”

Max crosses her arms and scowls at him. “Oh, so, El and I get to stay back, just because we’re girls while you guys go down there to rescue Dustin and Erica? That’s such bullshit! Will is literally injured and you’re more worried about keeping us out of it because we’re girls? Leave Stan as lookout, it's obvious he doesn’t want to go anyways.”

“Yeah, I can stay back,” Stan agrees.

“Will is the only one who said he knows where we’re g-g-going, El collapsed a f-f-few minutes ago and y-y-you already had one run-in with It—” Bill attempts to explain.

“Which means a second run-in won’t be as bad,” Max continues to argue, cutting Bill off mid-explanation.

“And Stan needs to c-c-come with us,” Bill continues, with an exasperated huff, “He was there the first time we fought It, if he’s down there when we get down there and we have to deal with him again, he sh-should be there then too.”

“I really don’t, Bill. I’m a liability,” Stan murmurs, looking away. “I almost got killed last time.”

“We all almost got killed last time,” Bill points out.

Stan looks at Bill again. “I still have scars from that day, his mouth was on my face. I could easily get led away from you guys again where he can get me.”

Bill places a reassuring hand on Stan’s shoulder. “And y-y-you got him off of you. You're still alive. And I won’t let that h-h-happen. Not to you, not to anyone e-e-else. I promise.”

“Okay,” Stan sighs, then gives Bill a small smile. “I still hate you for this, by the way.”

“I know.”

“Boo! Cut it out with the sappy shit!” Richie shouts, getting a few eye rolls and a couple laughs in response.

“I could stay back instead of Max,” Eddie proposes.

“No. We need you down there too,” Bill says firmly. “It would be best if all sev-seven of us were here, but since it’s just the four of us, all four of us need to go down there.” He looks at Richie with that, making sure he didn’t try to get out of this. Which, he actually wasn’t planning on doing this time. Sure, he might not want to face It again and Dustin might be acting like a dick, but he’s still his friend, and he didn’t want to just let him die. It’d be the same for any other Party member or Loser.

“Oh, so this is because we’re not a part of your little group then? Well, neither are Will or Lucas and they’re coming with you,” Max keeps going, getting increasingly pissed off at this.

“Lucas’s suh-suh-sister is down there, and Will knows the way,” Bill defends himself. “I wasn’t asking you two to stay as lookouts because you’re girls.”

“So, you have never left Bev as lookout?” El questions, joining in the argument on Max’s side. She’s definitely not back to full strength, but after the snack she was able to stand without support again.

“We did once, when we were going into N-N-Neibolt for the first time,” Bill responds, getting a triumphant smirk from Max, assuming that she’s right about this, but as she opens her mouth to say something, Bill keeps talking. “But only th-th-three of us went in that time, everyone else waited in case something happened, so she was outside with Stan, Ben, and Mike.”

“Well, did something happen?” Max demands to know.

“Yeah, something happened!” Richie answers before Bill gets a chance to, getting increasingly fed up with the Party, specifically Max right now, but more because she always tried to get on his nerves and everyone else had been kind of pissing him off today too, anyways. “Eddie nearly died, and you saw Will’s arm, now imagine that on someone’s stomach, that happened to Ben, poor guy was leaking hamburger helper everywhere.”

Max crosses her arms again and raises an eyebrow. “So, how’d you pick who went in and who stayed out then and why aren’t you doing that now?”

“We drew straws,” Bill says. “The two shortest ones drawn went in w-w-with me.”

“I still think we should’ve done a dick-measuring contest,” Richie pipes up, trying to again lessen the tension a little. “Then I wouldn’t’ve had to have gone in.”

Stan rolls his eyes. “You would’ve definitely had to go in then.”

“Hey, rude!” Richie gasps dramatically, clutching his chest like Stan just insulted his honor. “I’ll have you know, I have the second largest dick in the entire Losers Club.”

“Second?” Stanley snorts. “Who’s first?”

“Bev, obviously,” Richie says. “Then it’s me, then Bill, then—”

“Why are we talking about dicks, what does that have to do with any of this?” Max groans.

“It doesn’t,” Stan states.

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees. “That was just Richie being Richie.”

“We st-st-still need two or three people to stay b-b-back or all of us are going,” Bill reiterates, getting back on topic.

“Fine,” Max bites out. “I’ll stay back, but only because El isn’t arguing about staying back and Lucas’ sister is down there so he needs to go in case something bad happens. But as soon as Nancy and the others get here we’re coming down.”

Bill nods and gives her a thumbs up. “Sounds g-g-good.”

“Lucas, you better not die. You too Will, no dying,” Max orders.

“I won’t let them,” Bill states.

Max glares at him. “I’m not asking you.” She turns to Richie and glares at him with a death glare worse than what she had just given Bill. “Wheeler, make sure they don’t die, or I’ll make sure you do.”

“Noted.” He shoots her a thumbs up, trying not to focus on the fact that she’s still calling him ‘Wheeler’— though honestly, her calling him anything else would be weird — despite her having known for a while now and everyone else also knowing.

Max seems to be at least somewhat content with this now, because she gives Lucas a hug, picks up the supercomm Will left on the floor, and goes to stand near El.

Bill looks at the group who’d be going down toward the basement. “Will, y-y-you’re still leading the way. Max, El, make sure you l-l-listen close, we’ll radio if we need h-h-help. Tell Nancy and the others where we went when they get h-h-here. Everyone e-e-else, let’s go.”

Chapter Text

Will takes the lead, guiding the six teens to a door, presumably the one that leads down into the basement. “This is it, I’m pretty sure,” he says, taking a few steps back to stand near Lucas. “At least, it’s where I thought I saw Dustin and Erica go.”

“What do you mean ‘thought’?” Eddie asks, alarmed.

“I didn’t pay that close of attention to where they went,” Will admits sheepishly.

“It’s fine, it’s the b-b-best lead we have,” Bill reassures, stepping to the front of the group and approaching the door. He attempts to open it, first twisting, then aggressively twisting and shaking the knob, but just like how the door Max had been stuck behind, it didn’t open. That couldn’t be good, and while there’s a possibility the door’s just jammed, chances are It could be keeping them from opening the door, just like what happened earlier.

“What if you kick the door in, like they do in the movies,” Richie suggests. He’s aware it’s not the best idea, but the door wouldn’t budge at all, so breaking it down would likely be the easiest way to get in, and that’s the only way he can think of to do that. Sure, they could go back and bring El over and try and have her open it, but she’s still recovering from over-exerting herself earlier, and if It’s keeping the door closed and it’s not just jammed her powers wouldn’t be able to do much about it.

Stan rolls his eyes. “Oh yeah, like that would work.”

“No, seriously,” Richie attempts to convince everyone, but is met with eye rolls or blank stares. “Fine, I’ll do it and show you guys that it’ll actually work. Everyone stand back.”

“You won’t be able to actually kick it in,” Eddie shouts. “This isn’t the movies! You’re just going to hurt yourself or someone else dumbfuck!”

“Well, it’s not like anyone has any better ideas,” Richie argues. “And this house is old, so maybe the wood is rotted enough that it’s easy to break through the door, especially if we can’t get it open normally.”

“Maybe we should check that they’re actually here first before we try anything,” Will suggests, “Like knock on the door and yell for them or something.”

“Okay, but what if they’re not there but It uses their voices to lure us all into a trap?” Stan reasons, and he has a point. It’s definitely within Its powers to be able to do that, he’s done the same before to the Losers and even did it to Lucas earlier. Chances are, even if Dustin and Erica aren’t behind that door, they’ll be hearing them if they try and check to see if they’re there, so they’re all probably heading through that door no matter what.

“Stan’s right,” Bill agrees. “It’ll be hard to tell if it’s a-a-actually Dustin and Erica or if i-i-it’s It. We bang on the door, we lose any p-p-p-possible element of surprise we might have. That also means Richie isn’t going to be trying to ram the door in unless we can’t get it open.”

“Aw,” Richie pouts, it’s more for show than anything though. He knows Bill has a good point and it’s probably for the best if he doesn’t body-slam himself into the door. Especially if it backfires.

Eddie gives him a disbelieving glare. “The fuck do you mean ‘aw’, you were literally more likely to hurt yourself than actually succeed in getting the door open or knocking it down. Unless the door is that rotted out,” he rants. “But even then you’d probably end up falling down the stairs after going through the door and breaking your neck.”

“I wasn’t going to—”

“Let me try the door,” Lucas requests, catching everyone’s attention and briefly shutting Richie up.

He doubts Lucas will be able to open the door. Hell, Lucas should know he’s got little chance at opening the door. Still, Bill takes the radio from Lucas and steps aside to let him have a go at getting the door open. Lucas first tries just turning the knob, which as expected, doesn’t work. Then he leans into it more, turning while pushing and surprise surprise, that also doesn’t work.

“Okay, yeah, it’s definitely jammed,” Lucas says, loud enough that if there was someone on the other side of the door, they could hear, despite the conversation that had just been had about not revealing themselves so there’s a possible element of surprise.

And of course, whoever is on the other side of the door hears him, because soon they can all hear Dustin shouting “yeah, no shit, Lucas!” through the door. Whether it’s actually Dustin or it’s It pretending to be Dustin to lure them in, no one can be sure. Richie’s pretty sure it’s actually Dustin, though. If not, this was a very convincing Dustin, and not just the voice.

“Lucas don’t say a-a-anything else, we don’t know if that’s actually Dustin,” Bill warns.

He’s ignored.

“Is Erica with you!?” Lucas shouts.

“Obviously,” Erica scoffs, voice muffled by the door, since she’s not shouting like Dustin and Lucas. “I wasn’t going to let him leave me behind to be clown-food.”

Stan eyes the door warily from his spot near the back of the group. “Something doesn’t seem right about this,” he mutters. He’s not wrong. Something about this does feel kind of weird, but there’s also still a solid chance that it’s actually Dustin and Erica and they’re all just being paranoid.

“Obviously something isn’t right, my sister is trapped in there with Dustin and a child-eating clown and the door is jammed so they can’t get out and we can’t get in!” Lucas exclaims, growing frustrated. No one could really blame him though. His sister is trapped in the basement with Dustin and a child-eating clown after all.

“Stan’s right, I don’t like this, it feels like a trap,” Eddie says.

“Trap or n-n-not. Erica and Dustin are still stuck down there with him, I promised not to let any-anyone else lose a sibling to It, and if I can help it, I’m k-k-keeping that promise.” Bill looks at Lucas with that, reassurance that he’d do his best to get Erica out alive. “Once we get this fucking door open, I’m going down there. If you all really want to stay back, fine, you’d be really useful down there, but I don't want to get any of you killed. But I’m going down there. No one else is getting killed by that thing because of me.”

No one says anything in response to the speech, it does seem to get everyone’s attention though, to the point they’re all considering what Bill is saying, which isn’t really unusual for one of Bill’s speeches, especially if he goes a significant portion of it (or all of it) without stuttering. It also at least puts a pause to all the arguing that’d been going on. Long enough to maybe get something done, anyways.

“Dustin, Erica, both of you need to back up,” Bill shouts at the door, getting down to business. “We’re going to have to try and br-br-break this door if it’s really this jammed and not just It messing with us, trying to keep us all apart.”

“And if it is just It messing with us?” Lucas asks.

Bill looks him in the eye. “Then it’ll p-probably open to something eventually.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound promising,” Lucas mutters. And it doesn’t. But it’s probably what’s going to happen. Hopefully behind the door is just Erica and Dustin, though, like how before it was Max and then Will. But it could also be half-a-corpse, or It himself, or a bunch of clown-dolls, or a demo-dog or a werewolf or the Mindflayer or an empty hallway or Vecna or Paul Bunyan or a pathway to your deepest darkest fears. There’s really no telling.

“How are we going to break the door down?” Will inquires, looking a little uncomfortable. “I’m not really on board with the whole Mi—Richie ramming himself into the door idea.”

Richie raises his arms defensively. “Hey, it was a decent plan.”

“You’ve had better ones,” Lucas says and he’s kind of right, but he doesn’t have any room to talk considering the only ideas he’s come up with today have been ‘divide and conquer’ which has only been making things worse, even if it was initially Dustin’s idea.

“Guys,” Stanley says. Richie ignores him, figuring he’s trying to stop the oncoming argument between him and Lucas for whatever reason.

“Okay, fine, it’s not the best plan, but I don’t see you coming up with something,” Mike argues.

“Guys,” Stan repeats a little louder this time. He’s still ignored.

“You know what we’re dealing with better than I do!” Lucas points out.

Mike rolls his eyes. “Oh yeah, like that’s stopped you before.”

Lucas gives him a look. Kind of confused, kind of offended. “The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“Guys!” Stan shouts.

Everyone’s attention finally turns to him, and when it does it’s pretty obvious why he was trying to get it. The door that they were just arguing about how to open, was now slightly ajar. That’s not a good sign. Especially since Dustin and Erica aren’t opening it the rest of the way and rushing out right now.

“Did you open the door?” Bill asks, looking from the now partially opened door to Stan and back. If Stan had opened the door, he’d quickly moved from being close to it, back to the spot near the back of the group he’d been at.

Stan shakes his head ‘no’.

Bill’s eyes widen in realization. “Everyone get away from the d-d-door,” he orders immediately.

Richie and Eddie listen, backing up a bit, and Stan is already far enough from the door, but Will and Lucas just stay where they are, looking confused. Of course they’re not listening, fucking idiots.

“Did you two not hear him? Back the fuck up!” Richie snaps at Will and Lucas. He feels a little bad, because he rarely snaps at Will like this, but the two of them really need to listen, their lives could depend on it.

Lucas and Will actually listen that time, taking a few steps back away from the door. Despite how pissed the Party was (and probably still is) at him, and how they’d been trying to keep him from knowing what they were up to, they surprisingly were willing to listen to him. Although, it also seems like they’d rather not listen to any other Loser, which isn’t helpful at all.

Bill slowly pushes the door the rest of the way open, everyone else watching from behind him in silent anticipation. Hopefully it’s just Dustin and Erica behind the door, and not the clown or some trick. Though, that being the case seems really unlikely at this point.

When the door is open all the way, they find there’s nothing behind it. No screaming half of a dead girl. No clown jumping out at them. Not even Dustin and Erica. Just… nothing. (Okay, technically not nothing because the basement and stairs are there but nothing seemingly clown related, nothing visible with the faint light they have right now, anyways).

Bill steps forward, shining his flashlight in, illuminating the dark stairway. From what Richie can see it’s still completely empty.

“It’s… empty?” Lucas observes, then turns to Bill. “Why is it empty? Where are Dustin and Erica?”

“I d-d-don’t know,” Bill admits.

“You don’t know?” Lucas snaps, raising his voice.

“It’s a trap,” Stan says. Everyone’s attention turns towards him once again. “It has to be. He wants us to go down there. So we can’t go down there.”

“We have to go down there! My sister’s down there!” Lucas shouts.

“And Dustin,” Will reminds him.

Lucas nods. “And Dustin. We can’t just leave them to die!”

“And we won’t,” Bill reassures. “I won’t.”

“So what are we going to do?” Lucas questions.

“We’re going to go down there,” Bill says, like it’s obvious.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea, Bill?” Eddie asks. “What if Stan’s right,” he lowers his voice. “What if it’s a trap?”

“It’s our only option. They could die if we don’t go.” Bill turns to face the entire group. “I get if you d-d-don’t want to come down with me, but I could really use your help if something goes wrong down there. As soon as we get Erica and Dustin, we’ll get out of th-th-there.”

“I’m in,” Lucas quickly responds.

Will nods. “Me too.”

“Fuck it, I’m in too,” Richie says. “Dustin might be acting like a dick, but I don’t want to leave him to be clown food.”

“Stan? Eddie?” Bill asks.

“I don’t know, Bill,” Stan mutters. “I still think this is a trap. We also won’t be able to get away as fast as we did when we saw him by the quarry.”

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees. “What if something happens? Something goes wrong? He could kill us.”

“He almost killed us be-before, and we’re all still h-h-here. We’re just going down there, getting D-D-Dustin and Erica out and l-l-leaving. We’re not going in to fight him if we don’t have to or find where he comes from th-th-this time,” Bill explains.

“Okay,” Eddie finally agrees.

Bill’s eyes widen in surprise at Eddie’s quick agreement. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Eddie repeats, exhaling. “I don’t like this at all, though, I really think this is a bad idea and is going to end with one of us hurt but—”

“If one of us gets hurt they’ll need Dr. K to patch ‘em up, which means you need to come down. Don’t worry, I promise I won’t let our good ‘ole pal Pennywise hurt a hair on your pretty little head,” Richie says teasingly, patting the top of Eddie’s head, stupid grin on his face.

Eddie groans and rolls his eyes. “Really? You had to put it like that? And my head isn’t little. It’s a normal size for my height and body size.”

“Which is like bite-sized,” Richie jokes.

“It is not. I’m only maybe an inch below average height for someone our age. Not bite-sized,” Eddie argues.

“Eddie, please just c-c-come with us,” Bill sighs.

Richie snorts. “Hah. Cum.”

“Shut up, just shut the fuck up, now is not the time for you to be making middle school jokes. We could all die right now would you really want your last words to be ‘hah, cum?” Eddie rants.

“I don’t know, but if we die those are now your last words,” Richie points out.

Eddie lets out a loud, annoyed, groan then inhales like he’s about to go off on Richie again.

“So?” Bill interrupts once again, redirecting Eddie’s attention back to the original point of the conversation.

“I’ll come, but only in case someone needs emergency help,” he sighs, then glares at Richie. “And to make sure that idiot’s last words aren’t something stupid like a dick or your mom joke.”

Richie gives him a stupid smile. “Aw, so you’ll keep me alive?”

“I never said that.” Eddie rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling back just a little.

“Stanley?” Bill asks, almost pleading with him.

“I really don’t like this,” Stan says, once again.

“I know, but we-we need you down there too,” Bill insists.

“Yeah, you’re Stan the Man, you can’t be a giant pussy about this,” Richie interjects, trying to add a bit more levity to this conversation.

Stan rolls his eyes.

“What he means is, there’s no reason to be sc-scared,” Bill corrects, although that wasn’t entirely what Richie meant, but Bill can use that if it helps. “You survived fighting him once. You survived multiple run-ins with him. This will be n-n-nothing. We’re going in and getting out, the only reason everyone is coming is j-j-just in case something goes wrong.”

“Alright,” Stan huffs.

Bill’s eyes light up. “Alright? You’re coming?”

Stan nods. “Yeah, I’ll come with you. I still hate you for this, by the way.” He doesn’t. Anyone can tell that he actually doesn’t, because he and Bill are smiling at each other now.

Lucas looks around. “So we’re all going now?”

“Yeah, we’re all going,” Bill confirms. “Plan is we go down there, we find Erica and Dustin, and we g-g-get them out, we drag them out if we have to.”

“Yeah, like you haven’t said that fifty times already,” Will mutters.

There’s a little more arguing among the group (mainly between Lucas, Will, and Bill but occasionally the other three (Richie, mainly) join in), but soon enough they’re all slowly making their way down the stairs to the basement, Bill leading the way, his flashlight doing a majority of the work showing any potential dangers in front of them. Not that nobody else brought their flashlights down, because they all did, but everyone else’s flashlights are all over the place, with the lights directed at walls or people or even behind them sometimes.

Luckily, nothing happens going down the stairs, there’s no clown or anything weird, it’s just dark and silent aside from the creaks of the stairs under their feet, which considering the house is old, abandoned, and has no electricity is to be expected.

“Should we spread out to cover more ground and find them quicker?” Lucas asks in a whisper.

Bill shakes his head. “This b-ba-basement can’t be that big and—”

“We need to stick together because there’s safety in numbers with him,” Will finishes for him, sighing and rolling his eyes. Apparently, he has a problem with all the Losers today, but especially Bill and Eddie.

“I still think we should split up,” Lucas argues.

Richie sighs and turns away from Will, Lucas, and Bill to look around the room, not feeling like paying attention to the argument that would inevitably be a repeat of the last five arguments they’d all had. It’s weird Dustin and Erica hadn’t noticed them and said something already, especially since they’d been arguing through the door only a few minutes ago. Hopefully they aren’t dead or weren’t somehow taken by It to somewhere else.

“Psst, Richie,” he hears what sounds like Dustin whisper. He turns around towards the source of the noise. It takes him a minute, but he spots Dustin crouching back down behind a table flipped on its side.

There’s a chance this isn’t Dustin, that this is just It pretending to be him, trying to trick them. As much as he hates the idea, it makes sense, especially since Dustin probably wouldn’t call him Richie, especially without stumbling through correcting himself, like the rest of the Party. They’re all trying, but it’s pretty obvious they all still think of him as ‘Mike’. It could still very well be Dustin though. Maybe he’d fully accepted who he is and that’s why he’s been distancing himself. Because he realizes that Richie isn’t really who he pretended to be, accepts that, but doesn’t like who he actually is. At least then he wouldn’t be faking it. Or maybe Dustin just got the name right and he’s trying to get help while he’s hiding because Pennywise showed his ugly face and he took Erica and went to hide.

“Everyone else heard that, right?” Richie asks, looking back at the rest of the group.

Stan and Eddie both nod silently, staring at where Dustin is hiding.

Lucas stops arguing with Bill for a second and turns towards Richie. “Heard what?” Of fucking course he didn’t hear it.

“Lucas!” Dustin hisses, popping his head up over the table briefly.

Lucas’ eyes widen and he faces Richie. “Was that Dustin?”

He rolls his eyes. “Oh, so now you hear it.”

“Was it Dustin before?” Lucas questions.

“That’s what I thought.” Richie shrugs.

“Dustin? Is that you?” Lucas shouts, because it’s such a great idea to just let It know that they’re trying to figure out if this is really Dustin or not.

“Of course it’s me, Lucas! Who else would it be?” Dustin shouts, which seems kind of suspicious, but then again, maybe it really is Dustin.

“Okay, it’s Dustin,” Lucas figures, seemingly satisfied with this as evidence, which doesn’t make sense considering the amount of times he’s gotten in arguments with Mike or other Party members because he didn’t trust something to be true. Maybe because it’s coming straight from Dustin? Or maybe he just really hopes it is?

“We don’t know that,” Stan disagrees. “This could be It pretending to be him.”

“But it could also just be Dustin,” Lucas attempts to reason. “Will, back me up here.”

“I mean, it looks, sounds, and kind-of acts like Dustin,” Will agrees.

“Oh yeah, because if it wasn’t actually Dustin and was It he would reveal immediately that it’s not Dustin before he can draw us in or split us apart,” Eddie snarks.

Lucas crosses his arms, unsatisfied. “Okay, but how would we know then?”

“Dustin would keep Erica with him, r-r-right? Make sure she’s safe?” Bill asks.

Lucas nods. “He did it when they were trapped in the Russian base together. I think. But he also knows she’s my sister and would protect her because of that too.”

“So, maybe we sh-sh-should figure out where Erica is first. Plus, she’s probably more vul-vulnerable, since she’s younger,” Bill starts to explain. “If Erica is with Dustin and has been with him the whole time then it’s probably Dustin, if not then—”

“We’re fucked,” Richie finishes for him.

“We’re not fucked,” Bill sighs.

“Yeah, we can totally handle this. We’ve fought monsters from other dimensions and even one that messes with your mind. It’ll be fine,” Lucas argues.

“This isn’t the same as what we’ve dealt with here at all,” Mike groans. This has to have been the millionth time he’s explained this to The Party, and frankly, it’s getting exhausting having to repeat it over and over. “I thought after your girlfriend had a run-in with him and you saw the aftermath of what happened with Will, you’d get that.”

“Yeah, Lucas, I’m not so sure it is the same,” Will says, finally joining the side of reason. “I don’t know if I’d say he’s better or worse, since he hasn’t taken me to another dimension where I almost died, but he knows how to get in your head, and can still hurt you just as easily here. He could’ve killed me if you guys hadn’t shown up or El hadn’t gotten the door open when she did.”

“Fine, maybe it’s not,” Lucas concedes. “But I still think that with all of us put together, we’re perfectly capable of at the least, making it out alive.”

“Not if you dumbfucks keep making stupid decisions,” Richie snaps.

“Mike…” Will mutters. He sounds a little upset, possibly (definitely) disappointed in Mike for being kind of an ass to whatever Party members are in earshot, and yeah, he feels a little bad but at the same time, but not enough to apologize or want to take back his words, even if they came out kind of mean.

“He’s right,” Eddie states, coming to Richie’s defense. “You’re being fucking stupid and it’s going to get you and us killed.”

“Aw, look at you backing me up,” Richie teases, swinging an arm around Eddie’s shoulders. He knows it’s not the time, but one — it might relieve some of the tension in the room right now, and two — if he didn’t he might end up seeming too genuinely grateful or just stare at Eddie admiringly to where someone may have noticed and he really doesn’t want anyone finding out about his whole thing for Eddie while they’re in the middle of all this (or ever).

Eddie rolls his eyes and glares like usual, but doesn’t tense up at the contact or make a move to remove the arm, which admittedly makes Richie’s heart flutter, just a little bit. “Only because you’re right this time, dickwad. And you better not let that go to your head.”

“We’re not trying to do anything stupid enough to get everyone killed,” Lucas argues before Richie even gets a chance to come up with a remark to say back to Eddie.

“So you don’t think immediately believing that that’s Dustin and continuously insisting we all split up stupid enough to get everyone killed? Because chances are doing that will get us killed,” Stanley argues back.

“Fine,” Lucas huffs. “What are you guys’ bright ideas to get Dustin and my sister out of here and ensure that we don’t actually mistake It for Dustin?”

“Is there anything only Duh-Dustin would know?” Bill asks calmly.

“Why is that important? You mentioned figuring out if my sister is with him before, why aren’t we just going to do that?” Lucas questions defensively.

“We are. We will,” Bill attempts to reassure. “This is just a backup plan to make sure it’s really him.”

“Well, there’s—”

“Don’t tell us, he’ll h-h-hear,” Bill cuts Lucas off. “Just think about it and try to get that information from him if the time comes.”

Lucas nods, he doesn’t seem particularly fond of listening to what Bill has to say, but he’s at least considering it, thankfully. Or seems to be.

“So what now?” Stan asks.

“Is Erica with you?” Lucas shouts toward Dustin, before anyone could answer Stan with a plan or reasonable next steps. Why is Lucas acting like a fucking idiot all of a sudden? He’s not this stupid.

“Oh for fucks sake,” Stan mutters.

“She’s here with me,” Dustin answers Lucas. “Can you come over here? Help—”

“Get you two out of here, so the rest of us can get out?” Lucas finishes for him.

“Yes,” Dustin replies, the ‘s’ long and drawn out.

Something doesn’t feel right about this.

“Sure.” Lucas nods. “But why are you acting so weird, Dustin?”

And Richie’s starting to get the suspicion this might not actually be Dustin.

Lucas takes a step forward, towards where ‘Dustin’ is and the four Losers immediately start yelling at him to stop and not go after him so fast and get so close.

Lucas turns around. “He has my sister,” he stresses.

“He says he has y-y-your sister,” Bill corrects. “We don’t know for sure.”

“Okay, I get he’s acting weird,” Lucas states. “I noticed that too, but if my sister is there—”

“She might not actually be! And that might not actually be Dustin!” Bill continues trying to reason. “Just hang on a sec-second so we can figure this out and so no one dies while we try to get out. I’m not letting anyone else die to this if I don’t have to.”

“Look who has enough brains to not immediately go after something for once,” Richie whispers to Eddie, just loud enough that Bill could also hear him, and he clearly does because an eye-roll comes out of it.

“Beep beep, dick,” Eddie whisper-hisses back, again just loud enough others could hear it, and lightly jabs an elbow into Richie’s ribcage.

Lucas crosses his arms. “Fine, so what’s your plan, since it seems like you’re going to be the one with the plan today.” He kind of gives Richie a sideways look, like he wants Mike to come up with a plan for this, just like he has for most things in Hawkins. Not that Lucas himself hasn’t had either someone else come up with a plan he followed along with or came up with one himself before.

“We still need to fig-figure out if this is Dustin or not,” Bill reiterates. “And if it’s not, find where the real Dustin and Erica are and g-g-get them out of here.”

“Yeah, but how?” Lucas’ eyes widen in realization. “Wait, this is why you wanted me to think of something only he’d know.”

Bill nods.

“Okay, so, how are we going to do this?” Lucas asks. “Should I interrogate him or…”

Bill shrugs. “Up to you, you know him b-b-better than I do, and it’s not like you’re going to l-l-listen to much of what I have to say, but we are all still going to be close enough that even though I’d rather us not split up, if you really want to, it sh-shouldn’t be too bad, since we’ll be able to see and get to each other if something h-h-happens. Just don’t get too close, and don’t go a-a-alone.”

Lucas seems more satisfied with this. “So you’re basically allowing us to split up but under the buddy system so long as we don’t go too far?”

“Basically.”

“Alright, cool. Will, you’ve been friends with Dustin just as long as I have, can you help? Mi—” Lucas pauses, then corrects himself, “Richie, you can come help us if you want, you know more about It than us and still know Dustin pretty well.”

“Oh, so now you want to think things through and be at least somewhat reasonable?” Mike snarks.

“Do you want to go with Will and me or what?” Lucas sighs.

“I’ll come with you, calm your tits,” Richie says.

Lucas rolls his eyes.

“We’ll look to see if we can f-f-find them somewhere else while you three do that, but stay where we can still see you. Rich, let us know if a-anything super w-w-weird happens or you need b-b-backup,” Bill instructs.

Richie gives Bill a mock-salute. “Aye aye captain.”

Lucas leads the way, Richie and Will not too far behind. They stop a few feet away from where they were and a few feet back from the flipped table Dustin and Erica are presumably hiding behind.

“Dustin!” Lucas shouts. “Are you and Erica there?”

“Yep!” Dustin answers, a bit too cheerily. “We just need you guys to come over here to help us get out of here.”

Okay, that really doesn’t seem like Dustin. Plus there being no input from Erica? Lucas or Will has to think that’s weird, right?

Mike steps in front of Lucas, faking confidence and bravery, like he’d always tried to do when facing danger with The Party. “We need to make sure you’re actually Dustin, first.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he catches Lucas’ relieved expression. Like he’s relieved he’s back to acting like the ‘Mike’ Lucas and the rest of the Party knows, even if it’s just a front.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Dustin asks. “It’s not like I’m the one who’s been keeping secrets and lying about who he was for three and a half years.”

Richie inhales sharply, facade quickly falling. Of course that had to be brought up. “Okay, I’ve already apologized like five times for that,” he responds, a solid thirty seconds of silence later, trying to sound more annoyed than scared, especially considering he can feel his heart rate hastening as his suspicion of this not being Dustin is starting to grow stronger.

“The lying about who you are, you have,” Dustin laughs, poking his head above the table, smile full of malice.

His eyes widen and he loses grip on the flashlight he’d been holding, causing it to fall to the ground as the realization starts to dawn on him. Dustin didn’t know about any other secrets he had, that meant— Richie turns back, trying to spot the other Losers. The three of them are standing near the stairs, Bill’s crouched down, talking to someone. Shit. Fuck. He makes eye contact with Eddie, whose eyes are wide and worried. Eddie looks towards the area under the stairs then back at Richie and then at where ‘Dustin’ was. He gets the message quickly and it’s all the confirmation he needs.

“That’s not Dustin,” Richie mutters.

“What?” Will asks.

“That’s not Dustin!” Richie shouts, pulling Lucas and Will back as best he could as not-Dustin hops out from behind the table, violently shaking with black ooze coming from his mouth, still grinning unnaturally wide as he morphs into It’s typical clown form.

“Right you are, Richie,” Pennywise laughs, grinning at them widely and evilly. Richie feels like his heart might beat out of his chest right about now. “But everything I said remains true and I’m sure the real Dustin would say the same thing, if he wasn’t cowering in fear right now. Yes, I can smell his delicious, delicious fear, I can smell it coming from him and from the rest of you.”

“I called it, I knew this was a trap,” Stan exclaims.

“I wouldn’t say that! Don’t listen to him!” Dustin shouts, climbing out from under the stairs.

“D-D-Don’t hurt them,” Bill raises his voice, stepping closer to where Richie, Will, and Lucas are standing. “It’s me you want.”

“It was you I wanted at first Billy, you out of those pathetic friends of yours, anyways,” Pennywise says, with a laugh, which soon turns to a pout. “But those friends of yours… tsk… they wouldn’t let me have just you… and not everyone here was even a part of the little deal that was so eagerly rejected."

“So, leave them o-o-out of this, then,” Bill shouts. “You want us, right?”

“But they would be so much fun to play with, you Losers never want to play with Pennywise. Never want to float with me.” Its pout turns into a sadistic smile.

There’s no time to react to Pennywise’s change in expression, because he immediately lunges towards Richie, Lucas, and Will, fingers becoming claw-like and poking through his gloves.

Richie shoves Lucas out of the way just as It reaches them. He can feel something sharp make contact with his torso just below his ribcage, it stings a little, but doesn’t hurt all that much, at least not yet. He vaguely remembers something Eddie said once about it when Richie had claimed the gash on his leg didn’t really hurt after wrecking his bike one day when he was being chased by the Bowers gang, and figures that the lack of pain is probably from adrenaline dulling it. Or maybe it’s just not that bad. Either way, at least he’s not doubled over in pain, that’d make this situation even worse, since he wouldn’t be able to escape It or help his friends.

He ends up ever-so-gracefully toppling over on top of Lucas, and ending up on top of a pile that consists of him, Lucas, Will, and about two-thirds of Bill who has a hand on the back of Will’s shirt. Considering Will was further back from where he’d been, Bill must’ve yanked him back and ended up with Will on top of him in the process. Neither would’ve had time to get up before Lucas and Richie came falling on top of them. There’s a groan from underneath him, but he can’t pinpoint who it’s from.

“Are you really trying to protect them?” It questions with a laugh.

Richie scrambles off the pile and back to his feet, Lucas following suit soon after. He keeps his back to It, trying to ignore him, since he wants a reaction and helps Bill up while Lucas helps Will.

“They wouldn’t do the same for you, not now that they know the truth, or some of it, I should say,” It continues.

“Some of it? What else is there to know?” Will asks, looking at Richie, hurt evident in his voice and face.

“Oh, wouldn’t you like to know, Zombie-Boy. I’m sure it’d hit close to home for you,” Pennywise taunts.

Will’s breath hitches. He looks at Pennywise, then back at Richie, hurt being overtaken by confusion. He’s probably starting to connect the dots and even though Richie’s thought about telling him, Richie isn’t entirely sure how he feels about Will knowing, and especially doesn’t want him to figure it out or say anything in front of everyone and the clown. Plus, if Will confronts him, there’s really no time to explain right now.

“What…?” Will asks quietly.

“I’ll tell you later,” Richie answers, words coming out much faster and louder than the one word he let Will get out.

He leaves Will as fast as he can (Lucas and Bill are with him, so it’s not like he’s abandoning Will to be alone with It) to try to find anything that could potentially be used as a weapon (also to avoid any more questions and Will’s reaction). The basement is pretty dim, and he’d dropped his flashlight, so the only light he had were any discarded flashlights (there were a couple that’d been dropped and not yet picked up) that were where the lights were actually visible, and the ones being used by Eddie and Stan over near where Dustin and Erica are hiding.

Luckily, with the little bit of light over there, he can kind-of make out what’s probably a baseball bat against the wall near the stairs. If it is a baseball bat (or anything similar) it’d definitely work, it might not hurt It too badly, but it’d still help, it did last time. Plus, more so than hurting or killing It — which he’s not sure is possible since they apparently didn’t kill It last time — he needs to at least help keep him away from the Party. They were the ones most at risk right now.

“Ooh, looks like he doesn’t trust you, Zombie-Boy,” It taunts. Richie stops walking towards the bat and turns around for a second. “Or he just wants to keep that dirty little secret all to himself." It turns towards Lucas. "And you, what do they call you? Oh that’s right, it’s Midnight. He must not trust you either. Didn’t even offer to tell you. Neither of them offered to tell you their secrets. And I think you know why.”

“Don’t l-l-listen to what he says. It’s not real,” Bill shouts, trying to convince everyone. It doesn’t seem to bring anyone much comfort though.

“It was real enough for Georgie. It was real enough for everyone earlier before you Losers crashed the party,” It pouts. “We were having so much fun together, isn’t that right, Will? We were having a great time upstairs, just you and I.”

Will doesn’t respond, just standing and staring in silent fear.

“My offer to you still stands Zombie-Boy,” It laughs. “Come float with me and no one will ever have to know your truths.”

Richie turns back around, he really needs to get that bat. He could either use it himself or give it to one of the others if they needed it more.

“Will, what’s he talking about?” Lucas asks.

“He’s just talking bullshit, like always,” Richie spits, pausing again and looking over his shoulder to where Will and Lucas are standing, still a bit too close to It for comfort.

He finally makes it to the baseball bat, going around the backsides of Stan and Eddie, and grabs it. A light lands on him just as he’s about to head back.

Richie turns to realize it’s actually two lights and he’s caught the attention of Eddie and Stan, which makes sense, he wasn’t too far from them.

“Hey—”

“Rich, you’re bleeding,” Eddie frets, stopping Richie’s train of thought on what he was going to say before he can get another word out, having immediately caught sight of where It had got him with his claws.

Richie finally looks down at his side where It got him. It’s starting to ache a little, but not too much. His shirt is ripped where Pennywise clawed him, and it’s wet and red around the rip. He’s definitely bleeding, but it doesn’t seem too bad.

“‘Tis but a scratch,” he jokes, walking over to Eddie, forcing a smile and doing a British voice for extra effect. It’s also not entirely untrue, it is just a scratch. It’s mostly to reassure and distract Eddie from worrying about it, though. It’s probably not too bad, anyways, it’s not like he lost a chunk of flesh or an entire limb.

Dustin lets out a laugh. At least someone thought it was funny.

“Are you seriously quoting Monty Python, right now?” Eddie questions.

Richie shrugs, smiling at Eddie again, this one less forced.

“At least it actually probably is actually just a scratch,” Stan comments. He’s crouched near Erica and Dustin, blocking their way out from the space under the stairs they’d been hiding. “It’s not like he or anyone else has lost a limb. Yet.”

“That ‘yet’ was so ominous, Stanford. Got something to tell us?” Richie asks. It’s obvious he’s not being serious, though.

Stan rolls his eyes, deciding not to dignify him with a response.

“Is he just going to be like this now?” Erica asks, annoyed.

“We’ve interacted like twice before this started, and maybe once after,” Richie deadpans.

Erica shrugs.

“You heading back over there?” Eddie asks quietly.

Richie is about to answer when he hears Will finally say something, agreeing with Richie’s earlier words that everything It’s saying is just bullshit. He glances back towards where Bill, Lucas, and Will are. Bill’s still standing his ground , but Lucas and Will continue to inch closer to It. Fucking idiots. “Yeah. Until we can get Will and Lucas away from It, at least,” he finally answers.

“He really seems to want to get to Will,” Eddie remarks.

“Yeah, I know,” Richie huffs.

“Don’t do anything stupid, you dumbfuck,” Eddie says.

Richie pretends to be offended. “What, do you think I’m going to try to provoke him or something?”

Eddie just looks at him, and okay yeah, it had been a thought, and now that he mentions it… it could work to provide a distraction so Bill can force Will and Lucas to join the group near the stairs.

“It’s bullshit? What do you not believe Pennywise?” It questions, loudly.

“I won’t do anything too stupid,” Richie reassures, then messes Eddie’s hair up, more than Eddie had messed it up earlier. “But nice to know you care so much.”

He doesn’t wait for Eddie’s response and finally walks back towards where It, Lucas, Will, and Bill are.

“No, b-b-because nothing you say o-o-or show us is real. You just want to scare us,” Bill answers It.

“Why lie to scare you? The truth can be scary enough. Why try to run from it if it’s not? Why try and convince yourself you’re not a bad brother for letting poor Georgie die, or a bad friend for bringing your friends into this,” It taunts, directed towards Bill this time.

“Hey, you’re not a bad brother, you couldn’t have known what was going to happen,” Richie reassures, being serious for once.

“And you’re not a bad friend either, none of us had to follow you after him,” Stan adds, having left Dustin and Erica, and unbeknownst to Richie, followed him over.

“Yeah, to both of those,” Eddie reiterates. Richie glances behind him. Huh, he had come too. “Plus, you didn’t give up looking for him and would never give up on any of us.”

“You all believed me earlier.” It looks at Lucas. “You believed me when you tried to find that little sister of yours.” It then looks at Will. “You believed that—”

“Yeah, well now we know you’re a liar,” Lucas argues. Will nods in agreement.

“Look at what you four have done, now they won’t believe I’m telling the truth,” Pennywise fake-pouts, looking at the four present Losers, then back at Lucas and Will smiling widely and maliciously. It’s pretty likely that It’s going to make a move towards them soon. Try to hurt them.

“We need to get Lucas and Will away from I-I-It,” Bill whispers to Richie. He must’ve noticed that It’s sights seem to be set on those two more than anyone else as well.

Richie nods, an idea starting to form. Especially because of what he’d said to Eddie earlier. Hopefully, it doesn’t backfire and hopefully someone recognizes what he’s trying to do so that Will and Lucas can get away. The other Losers too, if necessary.

He takes a step forward, gripping the bat tightly and looks up at Pennywise, attempting to swallow any fear he might have.

“You like truths?” Richie teases It, swinging the bat and landing a hit on his leg. Pennywise reacts, flinching but only ever so slightly. Richie glances over his shoulder. Bill is whispering something to Lucas and Will. Hopefully, trying to motivate them to get away.

Richie swings again. “Here’s one,” he shouts. Again, little reaction, but he’s got Its full attention now, considering he’s looking at Richie with a sadistic smile that sends a chill down his spine.

He swings once more. “You’re a sloppy son of a—” Richie involuntarily falls silent mid-sentence as the bat breaks just seconds after It opens his mouth, three lights shining out of it. And Richie’s looking right into them. He tries to look away, but his eyes are locked on them. Eddie shouts his name, but he can’t react, unable to move or say anything and loses feeling of the ground under him. The only thing he can feel is an overwhelming sense of fear and impending doom.

Oh fuck, Richie thinks as everything goes white.

Chapter Text

Eddie had looked away when Pennywise’s jaws had first opened and revealed the lights. He’d really hoped Richie had been able to look away or close his eyes before he got caught up in them, but with the way Richie had gone silent… Well, Eddie’s not too confident that’s the case, in fact, he’s almost positive that it’s not the case, and maybe he’s just jumping to the worst possible conclusion, but there’s a really really high chance that Richie got caught up in the lights.

Eddie looks back to where Richie and It are, and it’s exactly what Eddie had thought (feared). Richie got caught in the Deadlights. He’s even beginning to float upward, meanwhile Its jaws are still wide open, the lights shining out of them. Fuck. Shit. This is bad. This is really bad.

“Richie!” Eddie screams, turning his head away again so he doesn’t look into the lights. He can’t hear a response from Richie, and out of the corner of his eye he can see Richie still slowly moving upward. Fuck.

“Mike!” Will shouts, looking towards Richie and It and the lights by association. Idiot.

“D-d-don’t look into the l-l-lights!” Bill reminds everyone, but mostly Will, considering that’s exactly where Will's looking, and Eddie’s reminded that the group from Hawkins don’t know shit about It, which is probably why Will was almost looking into the lights. But also, what person in their right mind looks into the mysterious lights coming from the mouth of a shape-shifting demon clown?

“What!?” Lucas questions, turning towards Bill. “What are those lights? What haven’t you been telling us?”

“They’re—” Bill tries to answer.

“What’s wrong with Mike? What’s happening? Why is he floating? Why isn’t he responding to any of us?” Will starts questioning as well, not letting Bill get a word out to answer Lucas’s question.

Bill turns towards Will. He’s practically been cornered by Will and Lucas, with the only way out being behind him. He’s handling it pretty well, though. A lot better than Eddie would’ve, at least. While Bill looks uncomfortable and is struggling to answer Lucas and Will, Eddie would’ve already snapped at them and made things way worse. Bill looks close to it, yeah, but he’s way better at keeping his cool than Eddie is most of the time.

“He—” Bill starts to say.

“Oh God, oh fuck,” Dustin panics, which results in Bill, once again, not being able to answer anyone. He must have come out from under the stairs at some point, given how he’s only a few steps away from everyone now. Eddie and Stan both told him to stay put until there was a clear way out where he wouldn’t be in harm's way, but clearly he didn’t listen.

Pennywise begins to laugh. “So that’s how you shut him up.”

Eddie looks back towards Richie and It. It’s safe to look again, the lights aren’t shining out of Pennywise’s mouth anymore, but Richie’s still floating in the air and unresponsive, stuck in that trance-like state they’d found Beverly in before their final confrontation with It last time.

Fuck, this is bad, this is really bad.

Bill shoves his way through Will and Lucas so he can get in front of them to where he’s directly facing It. “Let him go!” he shouts, as if that would work. Richie's been in the lights long enough it didn’t seem like Pennywise had to keep them on him to keep him in that state. Oh god, what if he’s already brain-dead or something and now they’re going to have to watch It eat him or drag him down to wherever his lair is here?

“Mm. No. He’s too much of a pest,” Pennywise hums. “How about instead I leave him like this until he’s ready to join the others.”

Okay, so he’s still okay enough for now to not be totally dead or so far gone that he’s essentially brain-dead or something. There’s still a chance for him to be okay.

“The others?” Lucas asks, head tilted in confusion.

“Yes.” It grins. “You’ll all join them one day. You’ll all float down there.”

Stanley raises an eyebrow. “One day? Not today?”

It’s head twists to look behind himself, like he hears something that they can’t behind them. It then snaps back to the position it was in, facing the group. “I’ll be back for him soon, if you leave, I’ll let you go, for now.”

“We’re not leaving him,” Bill states, staring at Pennywise defiantly.

Eddie nods and crosses his arms. “Yeah, and sure as hell not with you.”

It morphs into Eddie’s mom and it sends a chill down his spine. “Why not? He’s a dirty boy, Eddie-bear, you don’t want him spreading his disease to you, do you?” It questions.

He even sounds just like her. Fuck. Not only that, but she’d definitely say something like that to him. It’s similar enough to things she has said to him. It makes Eddie hesitate for a few seconds, but not much longer. He knows it’s bullshit. Even if this was his actual mom saying this, it’d still be bullshit. Eddie loves her, really, he does, she’s his mom, she’s the person who raised him, but that doesn’t make her an honest person, or a good person at that. She’s lied to him a lot, made him believe things that aren’t true, all under the guise of ‘protecting him’. Sometimes he forgets how much. But he’s not going to let Sonia Kaspbrak get in the way of helping his friends. He didn’t last time when it was the real her and he’s not going to do it now, especially when it’s just an imitation of her.

“What disease?” Eddie argues, throwing out an arm in frustration. “And even if he does have one, I don’t give a shit, he’s Richie.” And that’s completely true. Even if Richie did happen to have some sort of disease, that wouldn’t stop him from trying to help. That probably wouldn’t stop him from anything when it comes to Richie. Bill and Stan and the rest of the Losers too. But especially Richie.

It’s a clown again, grin growing more unnaturally wide and toothy as he stares Eddie down. “Do you really not care? Or is it because you’re carrying the same disease.”

“I—” Eddie starts to say, eyes widening. Is he implying that— no, it couldn’t be that.

“Neither of them have a disease, unless it’s the talk-too-much disease,” Stan speaks up, defending both Richie and Eddie. “You’ve got a disease, though. Being a fucking clown.”

Pennywise ‘tsks’ and for a second he looks smaller, weaker, like a regular clown and not some demon-monster-clown. It's a little weird. “I see how it is. You know what you have to do to save yourselves. For now, at least. I’ll be back for him soon, I have to take care of something first.”

It becomes smaller and squishier and slides through a hole in the floor. Bill runs after him, trying to figure out what he’s going through and where he’s going, although it’s probably pointless and won’t get them much of anywhere.

With Pennywise out of sight, Dustin and Erica finally make it the rest of the way from their hiding spot under the stairs to the rest of the group.

“Lucas, you’ve still got music tapes and a walkman in your car, right?” Dustin asks.

What the fuck is he talking about? What is music going to do about this? What, do they think they can play a little song and break Richie out of the trance? Where the fuck would they have even gotten that idea from?

“Yeah, but I don’t know if anything I have’ll work,” Lucas answers. “I’m not even sure what kind of music he likes nowadays.”

Dustin turns to Will. “Will, do you know what music Mike likes?”

“I—” Will looks down, avoiding eye contact. “I don’t know. Not anymore,” he admits with a sigh.

Now that he’s thinking about it, Eddie doesn’t really know either. He knows what music Richie liked when they were twelve to thirteen, but that could’ve changed in the past few years. They were still catching up when all this It shit started again, so it’s not like the music he’d been listening to lately had been a major topic of conversation (or topic of conversation at all). Eddie’s seen some tapes lying around Richie’s bedroom, and the ones that are actual albums aren’t too far off from what he used to listen to, but it’s not like they’d listened to any of his mixtapes, which probably have whatever he’s more into now on them.

“Okay, so we’ll just have to grab a bunch of tapes and hope one of them does for him what Kate Bush did for Max,” Dustin concludes. Why the hell did they keep going back to music? Did he miss something in the explanation that The Party had given on all the supernatural bullshit that’d gone down in Hawkins the past few years?

“What the fuck are you guys talking about,” Eddie finally asks, exasperated. If they’re planning something, it probably won’t work, but at least they care enough to try and find a solution.

“Max was caught in a trance just like this over spring break,” Dustin explains. “She was floating in the air, eyes mostly rolled back into her head and the parts that weren’t looked glazed over, so pretty much like how his eyes look right now, we — well, Robin and Nancy — found out that music could break through Vecna’s curse and she was able to get free after we put the headphones on her while Running Up That Hill was playing.”

“Yeah, but this isn’t that!” Eddie argues. As similar as Vecna might be to Pennywise, they’re still two very different monsters. Eddie thinks, anyway. No one had been around both before this all went down, considering Richie had been in California during the Vecna fiasco, and excluding him the Party is still pretty unfamiliar with It. Not that the Losers are total It experts, but they know and have seen a hell of a lot more than them when it comes to him.

Dustin crosses his arms. “Looks pretty damn similar to me.”

“It can’t hurt,” Stan whispers to Eddie. “Plus, even if it doesn’t work or we get him out before they get back, it still gets them out of the way for a while.”

That is a good point. Plus, there’ll be less freaking out down here if they’re all upstairs or outside, Eddie can do enough freaking out on his own to compensate for everyone else.

“Will, Erica, you guys going to come with us?” Lucas asks.

Will shakes his head. “I’ll stay down here, help where I can.”

Of course Will is going to stay. It’s obvious he cares about Richie (or well, Mike to him), and Eddie can’t fault him for that. Resent his closeness with Richie the past couple of years, sure, but he can’t fault him for caring. It’s good to know that he has people here who care about him, who would (in theory) stick by his side. Eddie just selfishly wishes they weren’t so close. Close in the way that Eddie was with him before he moved to Indiana. Eddie knows Will probably isn’t replacing him, but that doesn’t stop it from feeling like that sometimes, especially as he learns more about the dynamics among the Hawkins group (including Richie). So sue him if he worries sometimes that Will might be replacing him.

Lucas nods. “Alright, Erica?”

“Yeah. I’ll come. I don’t want to die in this musty old basement with these weirdos,” Erica answers, crossing her arms.

Lucas looks relieved. “Good, because Mom would kill me if you did.”

“We’ll be back,” Dustin announces. “Hopefully with the key to get him out of this trance.”

Erica, Lucas, and Dustin then race up the stairs out of the basement.

Eddie begins raking his brain, trying to remember how they got Beverly out of the deadlights a few years back. He knows it was Ben who had done it. But how?

“Where’d everyone go?” Bill asks, having rejoined the group.

“To Lucas’ car, they think if they do what they did for Max with whatever they dealt with over Spring Break, it’ll get him out,” Stan answers.

“Oh. Well, a-at least they’re out of here.”

Eddie tunes them out, recalling a conversation with Richie a few days after they fought It, where he’d joked with Ben about if someone ever went all ‘Sleeping Beauty’, they’d be able to point them to their resident 'Prince Charming’— wait! That’s it! Ben had kissed Beverly and it had gotten her out of the deadlights.

“I have an idea,” Eddie blurts.

The other three look at him.

“What is it?” Will asks.

“Is it the same way Ben got Beverly out?” Stan asks.

Eddie nods ignoring Will but answering Stan. He didn’t really want to admit that his plan involves kissing Richie. “Yeah. I mean, unless anyone has any better ideas, because I don’t think that music plan is going to do shit.”

“We need to get him down lower first,” Bill says.

“Will he stay down if we do?” Will asks. “How do you know he won’t just float back up?”

“He will,” Bill confirms. “Beverly did when she wa-was like this.”

“He’s pretty high up." Will observes, and he’s right. His head is maybe two inches (at the most) below the ceiling, and this basement has a pretty high ceiling. “How are we going to get him down?”

Bill shrugs. “Someone will have to stand on something or someone.”

Everyone turns in a different direction looking for anything they could use to give them a little bit more height. Stan would need the least of it, but everyone else would need a good amount of added height to reach his feet.

“I found this,” Stanley announces and the three others turn around as he drops a milk crate down at his feet. “Someone could stand on this to start pulling him down, then once he’s within reach we can all pull him the rest of the way.”

“What if it breaks under one of us?” Eddie questions, because that milk crate did not look all that stable, especially since it’d been left down here to rot for who knows how long. “Then someone could have a broken ankle and we’d be no closer to saving Richie.”

“The other option is climbing on someone’s back or trying to grab him while jumping,” Stanley states. “This seemed like the safer option, and we’re not going to leave him up here, so if you don’t want to climb on the milk crate, I will, and I’m sure there are other people here that will.”

Sometimes Eddie forgets that Stanley and Richie are also best friends, and that they had been for longer than Eddie’s even known Richie. Of course, Stan’s equally willing and determined to do whatever it takes to save him. But then again, everyone in this room probably is too.

“I’ll use the crate,” Eddie huffs. He did not want to climb on someone’s back and knows he can’t jump that high.

He uses his foot and flips the milk crate over, pushes it right under Richie and climbs on it. It’s not as unstable as he thought, at least.

Eddie reaches up and easily grabs Richie’s calves (without even needing to stand on his toes or jump) and starts pulling him down. Stan joins in once he’s a couple inches lower, then once Will and Bill take hold of him, Eddie steps down and lets the other three pull him down the rest of the way while he kicks the milk crate out of the way.

“What now?” Will asks. “What worked last time?”

“Wait, how did Ben get her out?” Bill asks. “I d-d-didn’t see it happen.”

Stan whispers the answer into Bill’s ear. Eddie doesn’t know why he doesn’t say it where everyone can hear, but he’s not going to complain about it. Bill’s eyes widen and he looks at his feet. “Oh.”

“Can I please be looped in?” Will huffs. “Just a reminder, I’ve never even been to Derry, so clearly I don’t know what happened, either.”

For a second, Eddie considers finally looping Will in and starting a discussion on who should do it. Maybe they’d decide the best move would be to grab El from upstairs, they had dated at some point after all. But then again, they broke up for a reason, so she probably wouldn’t be a good option, especially if it required someone who actually loved him for it to work. Although, platonic love could probably work too. So, in theory anyone here could. But there’s not a lot of time to discuss it. Eddie isn’t sure how much longer Richie will mentally be able to last in the deadlights before it’s too late for him, so someone needs to act as soon as possible without any awkward ‘wells’ or ‘if he wasn’t a dude’ or ‘maybe we should get one of the girls’ or ‘maybe there’s another way’. Although, there’s still a very high chance everyone in this room would ignore that because Richie’s their friend and he needs them. But still, what if they were all secretly judgmental about that kind of thing and kissing their male best friend is where everyone draws the line on what’s acceptable when it comes to potentially life-saving actions.

The other reason Eddie doesn’t loop him in is a much more selfish one, and it’s the fact that just the thought of watching someone (else) kissing Richie makes Eddie feel all weird and angry and disappointed. If Will knows what has to (in theory) be done to save him, he’d be likely volunteer to do it himself or suggest getting El, and Eddie knows he wouldn’t stop him and would just have to watch Will (or El) kiss Richie, and then he’d have to watch Will comforting him, and while Eddie isn’t the best person at comforting others, it would further the fear that Will’s replacing him. Of course, if it comes down to it and someone else like Will has to do it and they save him, Eddie wouldn’t be that upset, because Richie would still be here and alive, maybe just a little bitter.

Eddie just really hopes that this will work and won’t change anything or fuck up his and Richie’s friendship. He just got Richie back, he doesn’t want to lose him again because of this. But if it does fuck up their friendship but work, then at least it’ll mean that Richie is okay even if it means losing him as a friend just because Eddie might have a crush on him and kissed him in front of Will and the other two original Losers without his permission.

“I don’t want to hear any of you say a word about this,” Eddie hisses, briefly looking back at the other three.

Will’s brow furrows in confusion. “What? About what? What are you going to do?”

Ignoring the eyes of the other three, who are all most-definitely looking at him now, Eddie takes a step towards Richie. His mind is surprisingly pretty quiet. His only thoughts being about Richie and getting him back and what would happen if he couldn’t. There’s not much fear there other than that though. Especially about the fact that he’s about to kiss Richie, who’s a boy, on the mouth, in front of his oldest friends (plus Will Byers).

Eddie cups Richie’s face with his hands and tilts his head downward. Eddie’s heart rate begins to quicken as Richie’s head moves limply downwards. What if he’s too late? What if— no, there’s no time to think like that. He needs to be brave. For Richie if not for any other reason.

Eddie slides his hands up Richie’s jawline, towards the back of his head, keeping his fingers beneath his jaw to keep his head steady, while his thumbs stay on the sides of Richie’s face. The room is unbearably silent.

“You better come back to me, you asshole,” Eddie threatens, staring into Richie’s glazed over eyes.

He closes his eyes and the (small) gap between them and places a kiss on Richie’s lips. Admittedly, he’s imagined kissing Richie Tozier before, but this wasn’t like anything he’s imagined. First, it had never been to save his life. Second, all the details are a bit different than Eddie thought they’d be. Richie’s lips are softer than he expected, still rough and chapped in places, but not to the extent he thought they’d be. They’re also far too still. No movement matching Eddie’s own or even movement of Richie's mouth into a laugh or smile or joke as they’re pulling away from each other. They’re just… limp.

After a few seconds, Eddie opens his eyes, then pulls his face and hands away from Richie’s head, but still stands close to him. He hadn’t let himself get deeper than the surface of his lips or let it last for more than about ten seconds. He didn’t really want any of the others to think much more of it than him doing this just to save one of his best friends’ lives —which was the intent — he especially doesn’t want them to know that it might be a little different than had it been just about anyone else in Richie’s place.

Eddie finally takes a step back. He still doesn’t dare turn around, closely watching Richie instead for any sign that it might’ve worked. He needs to know if it worked. Though, it’s also to avoid any possible weird looks from the three behind him who had undoubtedly watched Eddie kiss Richie. Stanley and Bill would at least have an idea why he did it, but Will has no clue (though he could probably put the pieces together, including possibly the maybe kinda-sorta liking Richie piece) and of the three of them would be most likely to speak out against it.

Richie’s still unresponsive. He’s still in a way that’s very unlike him, and his eyes are still glazed over. It’s only been a few seconds but it feels like it’s been way longer. If the kiss had worked, shouldn’t it have done something by now? Shouldn’t Richie be back to normal? Eddie’s not entirely convinced it was some ‘True Love’s Kiss’ that saved Beverly from the Deadlights, but maybe it was. Maybe that really is what it takes to get someone out. Though, even if it was the case, which he had considered as well, he thought he might’ve still been able to do it, but obviously not. Why’d he think he could be the one to save someone this time? That he could’ve saved Richie? Now they’re going to have to find another way.

“Why did you do that?” Will asks from behind him. He doesn’t necessarily sound angry, more dejected than anything. A little hurt, maybe. “It didn’t even do anything.”

Eddie bites his tongue. He wants to snap at Will, but he’s not wrong. Plus, Will’s very close to Richie and Richie probably wouldn’t appreciate Eddie being excessively mean towards him. So instead he continues to watch Richie, looking for any sign of life. Anything. Even just a slight twitch.

Suddenly, Eddie hears a sharp inhale and gasp for air. He quickly realizes it’s Richie. They’d already pulled him down to the ground, so there wouldn’t be any falling out of the sky, which is good because Eddie would really hate to get him back just to lose him due to fall damage. Unfortunately, even though he wasn’t floating exactly, he still didn’t have gravity working on him, and now he does, and the problem with the fact that gravity is working on him again is that Richie is not the most graceful person. Especially now with his limbs being all long and gangly and that’s definitely showing right now, because he’s all wobbly on his feet barely staying upright.

“You were saying,” Stan smugly tells Will (presumably), which leads to a little bit of chatter between the three behind him, but Eddie doesn’t pay any attention to it.

Instead, he lunges forward without much thinking involved as Richie trips over his own two feet, and catches him before he can hit his head on the ground. Unfortunately, Eddie is also not the most graceful person, and both of them end up on the ground. Richie takes the brunt of the fall, breaking it for Eddie, but Eddie’s arm prevents Richie's head from hitting the ground.

Richie blinks, looking up at Eddie. They’re close, practically nose-to-nose, with Eddie essentially laying on top of Richie. Eddie can feel his cheeks flushing at the closeness.

“Wow, I knew you’d fall for me one day, but I didn’t expect it to happen like this,” Richie jokes, still looking up at Eddie. It’s a weak one, his voice even cracks in the middle of it, but it’s still a good sign. His eyes had returned to their normal dark color and there’s more color in his face as well. In fact, it looks like he’s getting a bit red in the face, not too unlike how Eddie’s pretty sure his own looks right now.

“You fell first, fuckwad,” Eddie points out, rolling his eyes as he climbs off of Richie and sits up. He’s smiling though, and doesn’t know if it’s even possible to hide his smile right now.

“Heh, maybe,” Richie says, also smiling, as Eddie grabs his hand and helps pull him up so that they’re both sitting.

They both sit in silence for a minute, both staring and smiling at each other. It might be the longest they’d ever been quiet around each other before. Or maybe just been quiet in general.

“Eddie—” Richie starts to say, then Eddie surprises himself by impulsively pulling Richie into a tight hug. This seems to catch Richie off-guard because he stiffens up briefly before leaning into it.

“I’m glad you’re okay, Rich,” he mumbles into Richie’s shoulder.

With just about anyone else, Eddie wouldn’t be doing this. He’s not a very touchy person, and typically doesn’t initiate hugs and if someone does hug him he just begrudgingly accepts it or pushes them away (even if he kind-of likes it). He doesn’t usually initiate them like this with Richie either. Of the two of them (and almost all if not all of the Losers, really) Richie had always been the more touchy one. So, this isn’t exactly the most normal thing for Eddie to do, hence why Richie was caught off-guard. Eddie blames it on how badly he’d scared him, getting stuck in the deadlights.

“Yeah, me too, thought I was a goner for sure,” Richie attempts to joke, even laughing as he says it, but there’s too much shakiness in his voice to hide that there’s some sincerity in it.

“Well, you’re not, and if you ever do something like that again I’ll kill you myself dickface,” Eddie threatens, unburying his head from Richie’s shoulder and pulling away some so he could look straight into his eyes with a death-glare.

“Geez, didn’t know you cared so much,” Richie teases.

Eddie’s about to snap back at him. Say something along the lines of ‘of course I care, you dumbass,’ when Will starts talking, a reminder that there are three other people present right now.

“We all care,” Will tries to reassure, even placing a hand on Richie’s shoulder when he walks over. It makes Richie tense up for a second, then look up at Will. He looks sad, ashamed almost, the rare sincere-smile from just a minute ago had completely dropped off his face. “Glad you’re okay, Mike.”

“Thanks, Will,” Richie responds, giving Will a strained smile.

Will nods. He doesn’t move, though. Still basically hovering over Richie.

“That was insanely stupid of you, taunting It like that,” Stanley states, and he’s right. It was stupid. Richie could’ve easily ended up killed.

“We are g-g-glad you’re okay, though,” Bill makes sure to add.

“Yeah,” Stanley agrees. “It was still stupid of you, though.”

Richie turns to face Bill and Stanley. “I was trying to cause a distraction so he wouldn’t get Will or Lucas, because no offense to them, but they do not know how to deal with It,” he attempts to defend himself. It’s a solid defense. Will and Lucas did need to get away, but he didn’t need to taunt It to the point he was getting on It’s nerves so much that It would want to kill him right then and there instead. Eddie’s sure he didn’t used to be this self-sacrificial. But then again, he was the first to reject It’s deal to take Bill and leave the rest of them be, then go strike at It with a baseball bat. But that wasn’t really self-sacrificial. Then again, could this be considered self-sacrificial? It’s not like he said ‘take me and leave the rest of them be’ like Bill or didn’t fight back. “Speaking of It, where’d he go?” Richie adds after pausing for a few seconds.

“We don’t know,” Bill admits. “I went to follow him when he disappeared through a hole in the g-g-ground after saying he’d come back for you. Which means we should get out of h-h-here before he comes back.”

“Righty-o,” Richie says in that British Guy voice he likes to do as he scrambles up. “Let’s get going then, lads, unless Billy wants to show everyone his hole.”

Eddie fights back a smile and laugh, as he too stands up. A small laugh escapes, and he definitely notices how Richie’s eyes light up upon probably realizing Eddie’s trying hard not to laugh or smile. It’s not the funniest thing he’s ever said, but Eddie’s blaming the fact that he can’t fully hold back his laugh or smile on what just happened and being relieved that Richie’s okay.

“A-a-actually it’s Its hole,” Bill corrects, seemingly oblivious to the double meaning that Richie almost definitely intended with his wording.

“That’s not what he meant,” Stan mutters.

Bill’s eyes widen and he puts his palm to his face. “Oh! Fuck, th-th-that went over my head.”

“I mean, everything probably does now considering you and Eddie aren’t too different in height, anymore,” Richie teases.

“Can we get going?” Will asks.

Richie looks at Will. “I know I agreed with Bill that we should get going, but I actually do want to see that hole first, maybe we could use that to find out where his lair is here if he has one, so we know where to get to him to stop him.”

He’s being serious for once. But in the few days that Eddie’s been in Hawkins, he’s noticed Richie being way more serious than he ever used to be back in Derry. Maybe he’s just gotten more mature and grown up a little because they’re all growing up. Last time they saw Richie in Derry he was twelve and he’s sixteen now. But it could’ve also been everything that’s happened here (both supernatural and not) that forced him to become more mature and take charge more. Especially since going into what happened in Hawkins, he was probably the only one that’s dealt with anything even remotely similar before.

“That’s a good idea, actually,” Bill agrees, looking a bit surprised himself. “I tried to see what w-w-was down there after it disappeared, but didn’t notice much.”

“Let’s go see that hole then, Will, you’re going to go over there with us, right?”

Will shrugs. “I guess.”

“Great.” Richie grins. “Time to show everyone your hole, Big Bill.”

“Beep beep, Richie,” Bill sighs.