Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Blink?” Bev asks. She throws herself down over Bill, Eddie, and Mike’s laps.

“Guess so,” Richie shrugs as he sits down at his friends’ feet. Stan tosses him the remote.

“Kinda creepy,” Ben states, crouching down next to Richie. Richie rolls his eyes and elbows him teasingly.

“Only you would find the word blink creepy, Haystack.”

“Play it, Rich,” Eddie tells him, kicking at him. Richie swats at Eddie’s leg, shoving it roughly away from him, then presses play.

They all fall into easy silence as a young, blonde woman jumps a creaky fence and wanders up an overgrown path onscreen. Richie rolls his eyes. Strike one: never go into a place that’s clearly condemned as all hell.

“Reminds me of Neibolt,” he whispers to the room when the old stone house appears. Eddie kicks him again, mumbling in an unsure voice for him to shut the fuck up.

They all shift in unease when the woman peels the dilapidated wallpaper away from the wall. Spiked letters appear below it, spelling out cryptic messages. Behind him, Richie can hear Eddie mumbling something about black mold and chronic bronchitis. The woman pulls back more and more strips of wallpaper, and the vaguely unsettling demand to DUCK, NOW puts a frown on Richie’s face. Another strip reveals the lady’s name as Sally Sparrow, if the confused look on her face is anything to go by, and Richie can’t help but think that if he found a custom-made message for him specifically to do something, he would do it no question. He almost shouts at the screen for Sally to motherfucking duck, already, when she does, and a large rock comes flying through the air where her head was a second ago.

A visceral shudder rolls around the room when Sally’s flashlight falls on the statue of what is, apparently, a Weeping Angel. Well, no shit - the thing sure is an angel, and it sure is weeping. Nevertheless, the evil that floods into the Tozier basement through the screen is palpable at the sight of the… statue? Creature? Creature, surely. It just threw a fucking stone at Sally Sparrow’s head, for God’s sake!

The theme tune plays as the TARDIS hurtles through space.

“Told you it was creepy,” sighs Ben. Richie punches lightly at his upper arm, grinning.

“It’s just a statue, Ben,” Bev tells him, patting at his head playfully. Ben goes an impressive shade of red; Richie resolves to make fun of him later.

“But it threw that rock at her,” Stan says. As much as the boy lives for all things empirical, Richie knows he has a soft spot for a bit of implausible fantasy.

“True, that, Stanny,” agrees Richie. He watches the TV as the title of the episode lights up centre-screen. “But the Doctor knows she’s there. He left the message. So he’ll come and help, right?”

“Can you not read, moron?” Eddie asks him. “It said the Doctor left that message in, like, 1969.”

“Heh.”

“Yeah, you’re really fucking funny, Rich.” Eddie’s eyeroll is audible.

“Eddie’s right,” Bill nods, cutting what would have been an extremely intelligent and witty retort from Richie’s tongue. “If the Do-Doctor left the message i-i-in the sssssixties, we don’t know if he’ll buh-be able to help her.”

“Kathy?” Sally asks onscreen. They immediately stop talking, though Bill’s words echo around all seven of their heads.

When Sally’s best friend starts exploring the house by herself, Richie sucks in a sharp breath. Strike two: never go exploring a crumbling old house by yourself (or at all, for that matter). The Angel in the garden’s hands fall from its face, and each of the Losers simultaneously clench in fear. Quiet whispers of, “Holy shit,” and, “How is it moving,” and, “Fucking hell,” drift around the room.

Kathy is caught, whisked back to a random English field in 1920. Ben and Richie share a bemused glance, then another when it is revealed that the young man at the door is, in fact, Kathy’s grandson.

“Time travelling shit,” snorts Stan mockingly, but his eyes are fixed intensely on the screen when Richie looks around at him.

Richie likes Lawrence, when he’s introduced. He similarly likes Billy, and his unmitigated charm, and assigns himself to the character despite Bill’s claims of “But we literally h-have the same name?”. Richie points out that onscreen Billy doesn’t have a stutter, and Bill swats at the side of his head in retaliation.

Richie also very quickly finds out that he can reach the height of comedy by saying “wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey” in a British accent in every quiet moment, which never gets old. To him, anyway.

When David Tennant starts having an actual conversation with Sally and Lawrence, Richie struggles to wrap his head around the time-travelling script that the Doctor has access to. He gets lost in trying to understand it, but tunes back in as 10 starts explaining how the Angels actually work. This is the interesting bit, and his friends agree; they all lean in slightly.

“Creatures from another world.”

“Only when you see them.”

“As old as the universe.”

“Quantum-locked.”

“Don’t exist when they’re being observed.”

“Turn to stone.”

“And you can’t kill a stone.”

“Don’t blink.”

“Don’t even blink.”

“Blink, and you’re dead.”

“Faster than you can believe.”

“Don’t turn your back”

“don’t look away”

“and don’t blink.”

Richie swallows nervously. Sally and Lawrence are hissing at each other angrily onscreen. The tension around the Toziers’ basement makes the air crackle.

“You’re not looking at the statue,” Sally says.

“Neither are you,” returns Lawrence.

To cover up the way his heart is beating in his throat, Richie declares into the quiet, “Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wiholy SHIT WHAT THE FUCK?!”.

The Losers all scream as a jarring chord echoes around the room. The Angel is looming above Sally and Lawrence, arms outstretched, jaw open to reveal sharpened teeth. Richie shoots backward, throat hurting from yelling so loud, practically landing on top of Bev as he falls backwards onto the couch. She laughs breathlessly and shoves at him, pushing him back onto the floor. The other Losers join in on her laughter, but Richie can’t bring himself to. The idea of being pursued by such a horrifying, almost subjective creature sets his teeth on edge, makes his skin crawl, stands his hair on end, and all the other overused metaphors for utter, shit-your-pants fear.

His leg bounces, restlessly anxious, throughout the rest of the episode.

Even when Lawrence calls out triumphantly, “They’re looking at each other! They’re never going to move again,” Richie’s fight or flight is through the fucking roof. He’s still recovering from the short montage where the Angels had chased Sally and Lawrence through the basement; the flashing lights allowing the creatures to move closer and closer without repent had him, embarrassingly enough, watching through the cages of his fingers. It goes without saying that the more he saw of these stupid Angels, the more an intense fear writhed within him, no matter how much he tried to convince himself that it’s only a show, they’re not real, how could they be? Empirical, remember? Get it together, Trashmouth.

The ending credits eventually roll, and Richie finally lets go of a deep, painful breath he hadn’t even been aware of. A strange calm fills the room; usually after their weekly episodes they’ll immediately start chatting about it, about their theories, about how much they love the Doctor, about how much they love David Tennant… but this time, the seven of them seem to have made an oath to wait in silence. Let the last forty-five minutes sink in.

“So,” Bill says evenly after a minute. They all turn to look at him, and he shoots them all a smirk. “Yuh-You guys know that Paul Bun-Bunyan statue, right?”

They all dissolve into laughter, this time Richie included. The hold that the Angels had over them is shattered in an instant, and he revels in it. He knows that he’ll be upstairs later, and he’ll be thinking about those sharp teeth and swift

(faster than you can believe)

movements, and he won’t be able to get to sleep. Maybe he’ll even end up sneaking out and into Eddie’s room. Or Bill’s, or Stan’s. But for now, awash in the laughter of his friends, he can remind himself that the Weeping Angels are not real.

After all, how could they be?

Two months later, and Richie can no longer hear laughter. His ears are filled instead with the sounds of his own gentle sobs.

The bench under his ass is splintered and practically crumbling to dust in real time as he sits on it. His glasses are off, allowing him to bury his face in his hands, catching the tears. That way, he might be able to pretend that the interaction he’d just bolted from didn’t actually happen.

But it must have. Because Henry Bowers’ words still echo through his brain. Every time he thinks he’s forgetting the sneer on the other boy’s face, it comes straight to the forefront of his mind, ripping open the fresh wound.

What, you’re trying to bone my little cousin?

Richie’s knee bounces. He puts his hands to his hair and tugs at it, trying to let the stinging pain distract himself from how Connor fucking Bowers had turned on him.

I’m not your fucking boyfriend.

Richie hadn’t even– He wasn’t even trying to–

Looking back at his mental image of Connor’s face, Richie’s stomach lurches. He thinks he’s going to throw up, but forces himself not to. He’s already embarrassed himself enough today.

And Connor, he. Fuck. Richie’s stomach rolls again, and he tugs mercilessly on his own hair. Connor was cute. Even after everything.

You assholes didn’t tell me your town was full of little fairies.

Richie’s breath stutters out through his mouth. It devolves into another sob halfway though.

Get the fuck outta here, faggot!

Fuck. Fuck.

His breathing only worsens until, absurdly, he’s desperate for Eddie’s aspirator. He groans. Thinking about Eddie is not helping.

Why the fuck can’t he get a hold of himself? One of his fists comes down to punch hard at his thigh, hard enough that it should hurt, but it just doesn’t. He keeps hitting until his leg is numb enough that he might as well be punching a cushion. But his disgust stays the same. What is wrong with him?

No, that’s not the right question. He knows exactly what’s wrong with him. The right question is, how is he meant to fix it?

He’s tried a huge list of things. Smacking himself across the face whenever he thinks too fondly about Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, or Christopher Reeve’s Superman, or - worst of all - ugly fanny packs and beautiful cocoa eyes. Gazing at the covers of Playboy, trying desperately to list attractive features of the models. Taking his glasses off for half an hour, once, when he felt the tell-tale thumping of his heart at the sight of a man with a loud, true laugh, all in a frantic attempt at behavioural conditioning. He’s recently taken to hitting at his legs whenever his mind drifts too far. It helps, somewhat. Though the green bruises do make his mouth twist into a grimace when he sees them.

Why is it so fucking hard to set his head correctly on his shoulders? He’s sure there must be something physiological going on. A misfiring neuron. A deviant corner of his brain. It pisses him the hell off. He just wants to be fucking normal, right? He doesn’t think it’s too much to ask, but now he’s wondering if it just might be. He wants Bev to be the Loser who puts the blood to his face and causes words to fall clumsily from his tongue. But she’s just… not. She would be a hell of a pretty boy, granted, but that’s not what Richie’s traitorous brain wants.

He sniffs and hits weakly once more against his thigh. Nobody bothers him. He’s just a pathetic thirteen-year-old boy who can’t seem to escape the fog in his brain. Nobody worth helping.

WANT A KISS, RICHIE?

And suddenly Richie is panicking about a whole ‘nother fucking thing. He briefly doesn’t know whether to be grateful or not, until he looks up, and Paul Bunyan is missing

(police department city of derry missing richie tozier 13 years old)

and his brain makes the decision that not is the right way to go.

Forgotten tears left drying on his cheeks, he frantically starts craning his head around the park in his best impression of a meerkat. A delirious Voice kicks up at the back of his mind - that of an old British man, telling his companions, “As the startled Tozier young takes stock of his surroundings, the unseen danger waits for the perfect opportunity to pounce. It is hungry, so hungry, and this kill will provide It with enough sustenance–” before Richie manages to shut it up.

He shudders as he keeps glancing around. Nothing is out of the ordinary. The citizens of Derry are still mindlessly milling about, carrying bags, pushing strollers. One man is there with his young daughter; Richie watches out of the corner of his eye as the girl points at the distinct lack of Bunyan and bursts into tears. He breathes a sigh of relief. He’s not dropping his marbles across the floor, then.

But then the man looks up in unimpeded confusion, picks up his daughter, and starts soothing her as he walks away. Dread replaces panic within Richie.

An almighty thud resounds across the park, followed by another, and another. The ground seems to shake with each crash as Richie shoots to his feet, whirling in a rapid half-circle, blood immediately draining from his face and leaving him feeling distinctly faint.

Oh, there he is, he manages to think, before his adrenal gland starts doing its job.

In the split second before he’s on his back on the ground, Richie’s frantic brain takes in the demonic creature in front of him. It’s undoubtedly Paul Bunyan, except he’s so bastardized that it’s almost unbelievable. His huge mouth is open, cracks running up from either corner of his lips right up to his ears, like one of those egg-eating snakes whose jaws unhinge to an absurd degree. Inside the gargantuan mouth are two rows of small spiked teeth - like stalactites and mites - that Richie knows immediately could and would rip him apart in an instant. At the back of Bunyan’s throat, the inner workings of the statue are visible. For some reason, this detail is what scares Richie most. This isn’t just a visage. This is the real fucking deal.

Across Bunyan’s immense torso, the paint is chipped and flakey. At his joints, the plastic is corroded so that his limbs may move . His eyes are a glowing yellow, a shade that Richie will now and forever more associate with broken arms and werewolf claws and fucking puppets. Fuck.

As he lands with a pained oof on the ground, his haywired brain finally manages to piece together that it isn’t Paul Bunyan come to life to torment him. The truth is, somehow, worse, because instead of that, it’s a million-year old clown-god-alien with the ability to mold the world around It to Its advantage. Richie would take Bunyan any day of the week.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t get much of a choice in the matter.

He wrenches his tear-filled (with terror, now) eyes open, and instantly drops his mouth wide in a strangled yelp.

Bunyan is impossibly closer, looming over Richie. His mouth is open, showing off his monstrous teeth (Come closer, kid! I bite!) as he rears his immense spiked pole behind his head. His other gargantuan hand is reached out towards the cowering boy, giving Richie a good view of the lines of dirt in the hinges of his fingers. He very nearly reprimands the thing in a Voice undoubtedly similar to that of his own mother, when he clicks that the pole above Bunyan’s head is going to crash down straight between his eyes if he doesn’t move now.

He doesn’t know if it’s a trick of his own adrenaline-fueled brain or not, but as he scampers to his feet to flee, he observes belatedly that Bunyan hadn’t seemed to be moving. But he can’t afford to linger on the fleeting thought for long - not when those heavy feet are back, right behind him, right behind him, so fucking close behind him, holy fucking SHIT–

A terrible, bone-freezing laughter cuts through the air. It’s high and manic, poisoned with twisted playfulness, and if there was any worm of doubt lurking in Richie’s brain that this was truly, actually It, the noise crushes it once and for all. It also startles him into missing his footing. He stumbles, falling in slow-motion like every clichéd book and movie, landing heavily on his hands. A jolt of shock rushes up his arms, but the pain fails to register in his brain.

He twists around so he’s on his hands and feet in an awkward crab-walk, eyes shut tight, trying desperately to block out that fucking giggling while he keeps moving away, away, away from the possessed statue. He shouts a mantra to himself, over and over, remembering that this thing works on belief. So if he doesn’t believe… It’s worth a try, surely?

Not that he has much choice. It’s either try or die.

“It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real, It’s not real,” until his heart stops impersonating an African drum. The laughter is gone - when, exactly, it had stopped, he has no idea - and it’s that realization that convinces him to gingerly crack an eye open and slide his glasses onto his nose.

Bunyan is back on his pedestal. Families mill around distant-mindedly, none the wiser to how the strange boy lying on the ground had just nearly died. He sees a couple of girls, a few years older than him, shoot him sideways glances and turn to each other with mocking smiles on their lips. But Richie can’t bring himself to care, because he’s just evaded a literal demon, for fuck’s sake! He feels that he’s allowed a moment free of self-consciousness. Hell knows he doesn’t get enough of them.

He keeps his eyes on Bunyan for a long few seconds, daring his mouth to split open, his nose to cave in on itself, his limbs to crack into an attack stance. But none of that happens. For all intents and purposes, he’s just a regular old fucking statue once more.

Richie’s never going to be able to look at the thing ever again.

Fatigue starts crashing through his system as his body finally registers that he’s safe and the adrenaline starts to wane. His head drops back against the ground, his eyes close, and he lets himself feel each breath as it leaves his lungs. A dazed thought half-forms, and he lets himself declare weakly, “I think I just

Chapter Text

shit my pants.”

His laugh, when it sounds, is flat to even his own ears. He’d intended to retell his encounter with It in a lighthearted, yeah-I-almost-died-but-I-didn’t-so-who-cares? tone, but the house in front of them seems to be sucking the mirth and joy out of every single thing in the way it glares accusingly at them, just waiting for them to approach. With its sunken roof, peeling black paint, and rotting foundations, 29 Neibolt has never been the eye candy of the architectural world, so to speak. The thought prompts Richie to glance over at Ben, who is gazing at the illness of a building with a contemplative frown.

Bill, unsurprisingly, is the first to step forward. He tells them all to pick up spikes, and the others all do so as Richie stoops to grab at a filthy brown bottle (because he is not doing anything that Denbrough tells him to right now. His face still smarts.). He has a mental image of stabbing Pennywise through the nineteenhead with it, and smashes it against Neibolt’s crumbling porch. Apparently he had severely overestimated the structural integrity of a drink bottle probably older than himself, though, because it breaks with a high-pitched crash all the way up to his fist. He looks sheepishly over his shoulder at the others, who are all shooting him incredulous looks back. So fucking much for that, then, he sighs in his mind as he tosses the useless weapon to the side.

The six of them make their way slowly past the rotted door, one at a time. Because Beverly isn’t with them. She’s fucking missing, and they’ll die if they try, but still, here they are. Losers stick together, Richie reminds himself frantically. I hope your savior complex is worth all our deaths, Billiam.

They convince Stan that staying together is the only way to escape their own gruesome ends and save Bev. They make their way down a frayed rope into a tunnel carved into the side of a well. They scream at the sound of Mike tussling with none other than Henry Bowers

(get the fuck outta here faggot!)

then again as Bowers goes tumbling past them into the infinite darkness. They splash through the graywater as they shout for Stan, then cry when they find him a breath’s distance from death. They groan in frustration when Bill ‘Martyr’ Denbrough runs off by himself. They gasp at the sight of the floating Bev, then again at the sight of the floating bodies, then again when Ben kisses her and it fucking works. They watch as Bill finds the balls to shoot the effigy of his baby brother right between the eyes. They scream furiously at the sight of the clown, then again in terror when the gun clicks pathetically. They all launch themselves at It - to no effect, when It takes a punishing hold on Bill and suddenly none of them can move.

The clown starts offering them a fucked-up proposal, all while Bill struggles weakly in Its arms.

“Leave. I'm the one who dragged you all into this. I'm s-sorry…” he forces out to his friends. Richie is immediately hit with a bizarre sense of anger. Not just at Bill - who really does fancy himself the modern-day Joan of Arc, huh? - but also at the clown, and at Bowers, and at Eddie (though that stings), and at this stupid fucking town that can’t seem to let him just be.

He pushes himself to his feet, teeth gritted together. He’s broken through into the eye of his irate storm, and a strange sense of calm has taken over him. He takes a second to subtly scan his surroundings for something useful, and his eyes light on a baseball bat sticking out from the gruesome pile of stolen belongings in the centre of the cistern. His heart leaps into his throat. A plan starts formulating, and all the pieces fall perfectly into place as Bill stutters out an apology.

Time for the three Ds of Tozier’s coveted improv.

Distract (your target from the fact that you have no idea what you’re doing.)

“I told you Bill. I fucking told you.” His voice is laced with venom as he spits out the words. Some of it is a frankly superb bout of acting on Richie’s part - some of it is residual anger that starts seeping back into Richie’s brain as he enters the second part of the hurricane. Bill punched him in the face, just because Richie didn’t want to sign his own death warrant! It’s hard not to feel somewhat vindictive. “I don’t want to die.” Bill is watching him. There must be a streak of sadism in Richie, because he goes for a low blow. “It’s your fault.” Bill only follows him with his eyes, pleading. Accepting. Richie feels sick.

Displace (your target’s attention from your planned route.)

He starts slowly making his way over to the pile, disguising the movement as absent-minded pacing. The clown keeps watching him, but makes no move to attack. Richie counts that as a win, for the moment. “You punched me in the face. You made me walk through shitty water. You brought me to a fucking crackhead house! And now?” He reaches out and tugs the baseball bat from its position, anticipation building in his veins. “I’m gonna have to kill this fucking clown.”

Pennywise roars and stands, tossing Bill to the side like a broken toy. Fury builds in Richie’s lungs, forcing its way out through his mouth.

Dickhead (SWING THE GODDAMN BAT!)

“Welcome to the Losers’ Club, asshole!”

He does, and he doesn’t think he’s ever found the crack that resounds so satisfying, nor ever will again.

Everything falls into chaos with impressive speed. The Losers are suddenly crowded around, each with a weapon of some kind, face grim but ready. After only the briefest moment’s hesitation, Mike rushes forward, lead pipe in hand. A scream that sounds like it hurts rips from his mouth, a melody to the beat of his racing feet, and he holds the pipe behind his shoulder. It flies forward, right towards Its stupid fucking face, then–

The room is flung into darkness.

And not really just darkness, either. Not the kind of darkness you get when you wake up in the middle of the night with your curtains drawn and your bedside light flipped off. Not the kind of darkness that comes with closing your eyes and waiting to fall back asleep. Not even the kind of darkness that happens when you finally slip under and into nothingness. Comparing this darkness with those is equivalent to asking which between a cupcake and arsenic is better to eat.

Because this darkness is not the sort vaguely illuminated by a distant, clouded moon. This is the sort of darkness where there is no illumination. None. Zilch. Absolute nada.

It’s unsurprising that their sudden, utter blindness causes all seven members of the Losers’ Club to yelp in fear and shock. There’s the sound of a body sprawling across the floor at the same time that Mike grunts at the pain of having the wind driven from his lungs. Richie’s attention snaps in Mike’s direction. He hears the clicking of someone pressing their flashlight button, but nothing happens.

“Oh, shit, my fucking flashlight!” Eddie yelps, sounding an inch away from panicking. The flipping of switches fills the cistern from all around Richie.

“Why aren’t they working?” asks Stan in a wobbly voice.

“Other problems! Mike?” Richie snaps into the intense black. “Did you get him?” No sound of contact had resounded, the realization of which sends acid up his throat.

“No, I dont–” Mike calls back, sounding pained. “I don’t know what happened, he just disappeared.”

The lights suddenly come back up. They all wince involuntarily.

“Where the hell i-is It?” Bill asks as he strides quickly over to Mike and pulls him to his feet. The seven of them fall into a crude circle, each with a makeshift weapon in their hands, looking around the cistern frantically. Richie realizes in the back of his mind that he’s between Bill and Eddie, and takes a subconscious, protective half-step towards the latter.

“Does anyone see him?” calls Bev from the other side of Bill. Nobody responds - the clown really has done an excellent job of disappearing, Richie has to give It that. His heart is beating out an SOS in his chest.

Then a high, deliriously manic laugh reverberates off the walls of the cistern. The echo gives the impression of being surrounded - more like smothered - by the sound, shooting fear up Richie’s spine.

“You fucking cuh-coward!” screams Bill, making them all jump. “If you w-wuh-want to fight, then come and ffff-fuh-fight!”

The laughter cuts off immediately. Unfortunately, it’s replaced by a creeping, taunting voice. Richie redoubles his attempts to spot its source, desperation seeping into his brain.

“You want to fight me? You? Little B-B-B-Billy Duh-Duh-Duh-Duh-Denbrough? Ooh, but what a fight that would be… for all of ten seconds. Tell me, Little Billy, how’s your brother?”

“Don’t you fucking dare talk about Guh-Georgie!” Bill shrieks, knuckles white as they grip at the heavy chain he’d claimed.

“Yes, it’s a sore topic, isn’t it. If it makes you feel any better, he was the sweetest little thing. I almost hesitated, just for a second.”

“FFFFuck y-you!”

“Oh, but then…” The voice sounds reminiscent, almost nostalgic, and it makes Richie want to personally rip Its head from Its writhing body. “Then, he tasted even sweeter, Billy. His fear was the perfect flavor, but with such a small body, you see, there’s only a certain amount of sustenance available.”

“No!” Bill’s not the only one screaming, now; they’re all yelling and screeching at It, despite not knowing where It lies, as Its voice keeps swirling like clouds around them.

“I had to draw it out. Make it last, at least until my next feeding. But the first one after my sleep is always the tastiest, you understand. Or maybe… Maybe that was just him. Maybe it was just little Georgie Denbrough, so desperate to get his boat back that he reached out for it, because if he didn’t… well.” Its voice goes childlike, high-pitched and filled with panic. Richie recognizes it from long days spent at the Denbroughs’ in years gone by. “Bill’s gonna kill me.”

“No.” Bill declares again, but it’s clear that he’s affected. Richie squeezes his shoulder once. “I didn’t kuh-kill him. It’s you that killed my brother, you fucker. If it weren’t for you, Guh-Georgie would still b-be here.”

“Oh, yes, you keep telling yourself that, don’t you? But you know that’s not right, Little Billy, you know that it’s your fault, that you sent him to his death that day.”

“Fuck off, you sloppy son of a bitch!” screams Richie in Bill’s silence.

“We’re not afraid of you!” Mike shouts. Speak for yourself, thinks Richie, but forces himself to yell his affirmations along with the others.

“You’re not afraid?” asks the clown, then giggles childishly. “You will be.”

The room is submerged in that utter lack of light once again. All seven Losers step backwards, shrinking the circle so that they are pressed together. Next to him, Richie can hear Eddie’s breath coming shallow and fast, and puts his hand around Eddie’s bicep in a way that he hopes to God is grounding and reassuring. Eddie shifts slightly closer. When Eddie clicks again at his flashlight, it stays stubbornly off, and he sighs hopelessly.

“Fuck, I hate the dark so much,” he whispers. Richie squeezes his arm, then forces himself to let go.

There’s the sound of movement in the blackness, followed by stifled whimpers from the group. The dim light comes up, and they all flinch when Mike lets out a short shriek of fear. Richie swivels his head around, then immediately wishes he hadn’t.

A few feet in front of Mike lies a small pile of what are undeniably bodies. Undeniably after only a moment, though; the forms are, truly, less body, more charcoal. The putrid scent of burned flesh hits Richie like a sledgehammer, and he gags helplessly.

Two pairs of limbs are twisted up together, the skin melted down and skeletal. What were once hands have been torched into misshapen lumps; the two skulls are blackened and the smaller of the two has a deep fracture running over the crest and through the empty eye socket. Like they had been hit by a falling beam, or something similarly devastating. The two of them look fragile, like they would crumble into ash as soon as Richie exhaled in their direction, but he somehow knows that they're stronger than he could ever imagine. He doesn't know who these people are - or, were - and doesn't particularly care to. Whoever they were, it was clearly a grisly end that they met. He doesn't want that shit; he doesn't need that shit.

Unfortunately for him, the universe has never really cared what he wants.

The lights turn out.

A voice sounds in the darkness, indisputably coming from one of the charred corpses in front of Mike. The words are deep and rough around the edges - Richie can imagine it being a fairly pleasant voice, under other circumstances. As it is, though, there is a scratchy fry to it that puts goosebumps on Richie's arms. Because the guy's vocal cords got burned right out of his throat, he realizes with a shudder.

“Mikey,” the voice rasps. As a collective, the seven Losers step back. Mike’s breath audibly hitches at the sound.

The lights come up.

They all jump back again, shouting in fright.

The bodies have moved.

The two charred skulls have tilted up from where they’d been hunched together. The bigger one, recognizable as a man, has piercing yellow eyes that seem to pin Richie in place. The smaller corpse, a woman, Richie thinks, has trenches cut from the corners of her mouth and up her cheeks. One of them disappears into the mess of bone that makes up her collapsed eye socket. The way they seem to be glaring at the Losers - at Mike, specifically. Fuck.

“But… You, I– How’re–?” stammers Mike. In any other place, Richie might have lightheartedly jibed at him, perhaps called him Big Bill two-point-oh. The terror in his voice, though, acts as glue and the words stick in Richie’s throat.

The lights turn out.

“You could have saved us, Mike,” that croaking voice says in the absence of any light.

“It burned, Mikey, it burned so bad…” That was a different voice - no less raspy, like it was being forced out through a lungful of smoke, but a woman's timbre.

Mike breathes out a strangled, “No…”.

And finally, it clicks in Richie’s head.

I was inside when it burned down… my mom and dad… trapped in the next room over from me... trying to get to me…

Oh, Jesus, shit.

“Mike, they’re not–”

“Why didn’t you help us, son?”

“You left us to burn.”

“Only one door away.”

“You listened as we screamed, Mikey. But…”

“You did nothing.”

“No!” Mike shouts, voice wrecked.

The lights come up.

They’re closer, this time. Richie’s grip tightens around his baseball bat absentmindedly. The urge to run, to get the hell away from whatever this is, to go back to his house and sleep for forty hours and tell everyone else to go fuck themselves rushes through his mind, irresistible for a brief moment before he shoves it frantically away. He’s not going to abandon his friends down here, not when so much rests on them.

Thank

(Maturin)

God that the others seem to be thinking the same. A shared shiver rolls through the group, but not one of them steps away, even when

the lights turn out.

A scrabbling, scratching noise echoes from the position of the two corpses. They’re coming closer in the darkness, the only thing to indicate it that incessant scritch. Like birds’ feet on concrete.

The lights come up.

Richie blinks as he notices that his analogy was… remarkably on par. The shapeless lumps of burned flesh that had made up the Hanlons’ hands had transformed, shifting like melting wax into the shape of scaled, three-toed crow’s feet. The talons reach out towards the Losers, sharpened to a needled point, and Richie suddenly has an intimate understanding of how the mouse feels as the falcon descends from the sky.

His own fear has nothing on Mike’s, though. He glances towards his friend and swallows in concern at the ashy gray hue of Mike’s cheeks. His eyes are wide, frantic, desperate. Searching for something beyond Richie’s understanding. His knuckles are pale where he’s gripping the lead pipe, his jaw is set. His gaze is unmoving from the corpses of his parents. He’s the epitome of terrified - yet as Richie watches him, he takes a deep breath. His shoulders loosen ever so slightly. His fingers flex on the pipe.

The lights turn out.

The smell of burning flesh intensifies a hundredfold. Eddie gags to Richie’s right, and they all cower when the broken voice of Mike’s burned mother wails, “Mike! Help us, Mikey, it burns!”

Her pleading is cut out by the sound of a strong, sure scream. Richie senses how Mike races forward, away from the group, weighted pipe hanging over his shoulder. He winces at the sound that is coming from Mike’s mouth - does it not hurt to yell like that? - but is distracted when

the lights come up.

With a definitive, furious-sounding yelp, Mike swings the pipe for the second time that day. The reinstated illumination means that each of the Losers are able to see in crystallized clarity how it makes contact with his father’s head and knocks it to the side. A revolting pop! emanates from the skeletal figure as his neck is jolted at a truly unfortunate angle, and a brittle bone shoves its way through the skin there. Richie’s stomach lurches, and only gets worse when the momentum on Mr. Hanlon sends his skull directly into his wife’s. They crack together with a sharp sound that Richie thinks he’ll never be able to unhear, particularly when the force of it is clearly too much for Mrs. Hanlon’s already fractured head. The weakened bone shatters into smoking shards that go flying across the cistern, sounding like that scritch-scratch of bird feet on concrete.

Mike doesn’t drop the pipe, even as he stands over the obliterated remains of his parents and looks down at them. He’s too smart to discard his weapon just like that.

Richie, for one, can’t move. His muscles have either entirely locked up or disintegrated into nothingness. He swallows back the steadily-growing wave of nausea in his gut as he forces himself to look at the crumpled bodies strewn across the cold, wet floor. He then immediately regrets it, when he sees Mike’s father roll his yellow eyes towards Mike. He shivers on his friend’s behalf, then on his own behalf when that gaze falls on the group of six who are watching. It comes to rest somewhere near Richie's left. He glances in that direction, morbidly curious, and catches the movement of Stan’s throat as he swallows in discomfort. Mr. Hanlon’s mouth, crumpled at one side where Mike’s pipe had hit home, seems to tick up at the edge, just for an instant.

The lights turn out.

The lights come up.

The charred bodies are gone.

The spell that had seemed in place over the Losers is dispersed suddenly, and they all race forward to Mike’s side. He is breathing heavily as he turns towards them. Ash and dust have settled over his skin; tears have cut lightning bolts down his cheeks.

“Are you okay?” Bill demands immediately, his hand on Mike’s shoulder as if to make sure he’s not a delirium-induced hallucination.

“They–” Mike tries, then cuts himself off with a shaky sigh. He looks round at the Losers, offering them a watery, brave smile. “They were my parents. Or not, like, my parents. But they looked like them. Or, damn, I guess what I thought they would’ve looked like. When they told me after about what had happened. To them. Shit, I never thought…”

“Mike, that was the bravest thing I think I’ve ever seen, actually,” Bev tells him. She’s smiling when Richie looks at her, but her voice is sincere.

“What, me knocking my dead parents’ heads together?” asks Mike.

“What a crazy fucking sentence that it,” Richie can’t help but comment. Mike rolls his eyes, but gives him a grateful smile nonetheless.

“Guys, not to buh-be a buzzkill, but does anywuh-wuh-one know where the hell It actually we-ent?”

“I didn’t kill It,” Mike says immediately. His eyes are certain. “It’s still alive, injured if we’re lucky, but not dead.”

“So where actually is–” Stan starts to ask.

The lights turn out.

The rest of his question is swallowed by a high, inhuman screech that makes Richie worry about the structural integrity of the Standpipe. He has to make a conscious effort not to cover his ears to ward off the abominable noise, instead opting to grab tighter onto his bat as the group subconsciously falls back into their circle. Without knowing how he knows it, he is aware that Eddie is still right by his side. Thank fuck.

“Oh God,” Eddie yelps.

“Seconded,” mumbles Richie, before it devolves into an embarrassingly high-pitched scream at the sound of rapidly-approaching footsteps. He thinks momentarily of being chased by the gargantuan Paul Bunyan, but this tread is different - it’s fast and light, like a rat’s.

The lights come up.

Like a group of bobbleheads on display, the Losers all start swinging their heads back and forth looking for their attacker.

Stan is the first to see the woman. Richie can tell because he goes stiller than Richie himself could ever imagine. Stan’s breath is caught in his lungs, his gaze is fixed directly ahead. Richie follows his line of sight until he sees the monstrous creature, at which point he lets out a dismayed, panicked moan.

He’s seen the woman before - not half an hour prior, in fact. When they had been racing through the labyrinth of pipes and graywater, screaming Stan’s name, only to burst in on their friend quite literally in the jaws of death. The thing that had shrunk away from them then is the same thing that’s currently standing in front of them, stretched face contorted further into a gruesome smile, reaching out towards them with nails that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a jaguar.

“Woah, what the fuck is that?!” shrieks Eddie, stepping backwards automatically.

“Get back!” commands Ben.

“No, n-no, do not run!” Bill practically screams. He flings his hands out, landing them on Richie and Bev’s shoulders by chance. His grip is devastating. Richie winces. “Together, to-to-to– Fuck!”

“Stay together,” Bev tells them, her eyes fixed determinedly on the monster before them. “You know if we split, we die!”

Richie side steps, simultaneously pulling out of Bill’s painful grasp and placing himself between Stan’s creature and Eddie. His brain hisses at him for it, but he’s got bigger problems right now than his own self-loathing. The woman really is hideous. Richie remembers talking about their fears, the seven of them crowded close on and around a park bench. He’d poked fun at Stan, then, more out of habit than anything. Now, he makes a mental note to sincerely apologize when they get out. If they get out. He shivers.

The lights turn out.

That awful sound of scurrying resonates, undoubtedly getting closer. The seven children, standing in a line, each let out a guttural scream and clutch at each other.

The lights come up.

She has covered more than half the space between where she was and the Losers, just in that instant of darkness. Richie adds the insane observation to his mental notepad, then sketches an arrow off it and, for some reason he can’t elucidate, jots down Don’t even blink at its point. Something to think about at a better moment, perhaps - for example, when he’s not face-to-face with a creature with far too sharp teeth for her own good. Nine out of ten dentists recommend filing down those canines of yours, a delirious Voice echoes in his head. He nearly snorts outwardly at the idea of this woman turning up for an appointment at ol’ Wentworth’s clinic.

Stan shifts to Richie’s left, giving him less than a half-second to come back to reality before

the lights turn out

and Stan is letting out a fierce shout as he breaks the line of Losers and runs directly towards those teeth. Richie knows the wounds framing his face are still bleeding, and probably hurt like an absolute bitch. He considers that Stan definitely needs some kind of disinfectant for those, then cringes at the realization of what an Eddie thought that was, then feels pain tearing up his throat as he joins in with his friends’ screams of Stanley’s name.

There’s a metallic thunk! that rings out, slicing through the Losers’ concerned shouting instantly.

“Stan?” Richie says cautiously, breaking the silence. He’s trying to tamp down the hope inside him; for whatever reason, he can’t escape the feeling that it can't have finished just like that.

The response is a strangled, “Guh,” that immediately fills Richie with confusion. That was a noise of effort, of exertion - what could Stanley be doing that’s so physically demanding?

The lights come up.

Oh, right.

Turns out, Stan had managed to successfully unite his piece of rusted plumbing pipe with the monster. Unfortunately, the contact is at her hand, rather than her head.

The woman clasps deceptively strong fingers around the weaponized pipe, holding it harmlessly in front of her. Her eerily blank eyes seemed fixed on Stanley below her, who is struggling to no effect to frantically pull the plumbing back. She’s glaring, but there’s a sort of cruel playfulness to her elongated features that makes Richie shudder.

He’s just as frozen in place as she is. His heart is rabbiting in his chest, he wants nothing more than to rush forward and help Stan, but he can’t–

Richie physically jolts as that strange thought races through his brain again. Don’t even blink.

Why isn’t the woman moving? At the moment, she’s a literal statue, sturdy and relentless as she holds onto Stanley’s piece of plumbing.

Holy shit. Holy shit!

“Guys, It’s not a woman, It’s an–”

The lights turn out.

There’s the whooshing of air, the sound of a body being thrown onto the ground, and an impressively animalistic howl from Stan. Richie’s epiphany is momentarily lost to the void of his mind, replaced by utter terror for his friend.

“Stan!” he shouts. His muscles reengage, and he takes a step forward, towards where a low growl is coming from. Well, that certainly isn’t Stanley. Because Richie can hear the way Stan’s breathing is coming out in panicked notes. There’s a yelp of fear, prompting Richie to take another step forward, brandishing his baseball bat helplessly in the darkness.

The lights come up.

Much as he had anticipated, Stan is on his back on the stony ground. He’s staring up at the woman looming over him, blood gushing freely from the teeth marks bordering his face. It mixes with the tears rolling down his cheeks. Long, pale fingers are clasped around one of Stan’s ankles, like the woman is planning on dragging him away. Richie immediately pushes away the idea of listening to Stan’s fading screams, but he can’t quite manage it when he catches sight of the murderous grin on the monster’s face. Somehow, Stanley’s managed to keep a hold of his pipe, and his knuckles flex as he tightens his grip on it.

“Kill It, Stan!” shouts Ben suddenly, making Richie startle. After a moment, the other Losers join in, and Richie tosses in his own, “Stab It!” to the cacophonous mix.

Stan’s chest heaves. Blood and tears continue trekking down the planes of his face, uniting in a revolting marriage on the cistern floor. Then he screams in what Richie recognizes as half fear, half complete rage. He awkwardly repositions the rust-sharpened pipe, then thrusts it forward with more strength than Richie would have thought possible for a scrawny thirteen-year-old.

The pipe enters through the woman’s cloak-dressed shoulder and protrudes from the other side, the image of a gruesome gyro. Around Richie, the Losers simultaneously flinch. Mike’s hand flies to his own shoulder, like he’s trying to sympathize with the monstrous woman. Richie blinks, his mouth falling open. He has just enough time to see the viscous black ichor dripping from the skewered end of the plumbing pipe before

the lights turn out.

The woman screams.

Richie’s never heard anything like it before. If Mike’s earlier shriek had sounded painful, this one is obliterating. It ricochets off the walls of the cistern and the pile of rotting children’s belongings, slamming back into his ears with such force that he clasps his hands over them without conscious thought. He can’t escape it even then, though, the excruciated cry seeping between his fingers and giving him the intense realization that his head might actually be about to explode. His eyes are closed so tight that he doesn’t initially notice when

the lights come up.

Blinking in the illumination, Richie looks around himself. His friends’ faces are all scrunched up in pain, though the screaming itself has stopped. It still takes a few seconds for him to convince his brain to let him remove his hands from his ears.

“Oh, God, S-Stan!” Bill says abruptly, making Richie wince. He quickly gets over himself, and joins Bill in rushing to Stan’s side. Stanley’s face is pale and drawn, making his wounds stand out starkly. In his hand is the pipe, still dripping that black goo. Richie can’t help but notice how foul the stuff smells as he helps pull Stan to his feet.

“Yowza, Stan the Man, that was some stabbing you did out there.”

“Yeah, well,” Stanley shrugs with a familiar little half-smile on his face. Tears still roll down his cheeks, and the skin of his elbows has been erased where they scraped against the floor as he was thrown down. Richie reckons he’s never looked better. “I heard someone shout for me to stab Its ass, so.”

Richie laughs giddily and brings his hand down on Stan’s shoulder hard enough that Stan’s smile falters for a moment.

“Ow.”

“Oi say, mate, you sure are gonna make a damn good bushwhacka one a’ these days,” Richie grins.

“Beep, beep!” calls Eddie. Richie turns, delighted, to stick his tongue out, then stops as soon as he sees what’s creeping up behind the distracted group.

“Holy shit,” he manages to breathe. He can actually feel how the blood drains from his face as he forces himself to keep his eyes open.

“Rich?” Bill asks. Richie knows he’s looking at him, but he also knows he can’t afford to turn his gaze away for even half a second.

“Turn around right fucking now, all of you, what the fuck.”

The Losers do as instructed, then lurch backwards as a collective, each with a noise ranging from disgusted to piss-your-pants startled.

It’s Bev.

But it’s not. Because Bev is right there, looking at her own image with an expression that can only be described as horrified. Richie thinks there’s probably a similar look on his own face.

It’s Bev, if Bev had just crawled from the same fire that had claimed Mike’s parents. Her beautiful summer dress is ripped all over, blackened with soot and still actively smoking in parts. Ash is smudged all over her usually flawlessly pale skin. That awful smokey smell is back, and Richie chokes as his throat fills with it. Somehow, though, the fact that her clothes are actually on fire isn’t the worst part, because that’s reserved for the neck-upwards area. The skin on her cheeks and forehead is peeling back and raw, glowing at the edges in the same way paper will if set alight. Her eyes are a burning amber, fixed severely on Ben. And her hair could roast marshmallows, literally. Flames dance in the dim light of the cistern - Richie makes another mental note that, though this fucked-up Bev is stock-still in and of herself, both the fire and smoke are still animated. Maybe it’s, like, a clue that’ll tell him something. He did always like Scooby-Doo. Later, though. Not right the fuck now, when one of his best friends has been duplicated and dragged through Hell backwards.

He remembers the strange poem he’d swiped from Ben’s bag as they sat by the quarry, in an entirely different life. Something about hair and embers and hearts - clearly a confession of love. Cute, he’d thought at the time. Now, though, all he can think is, Well, yeah. Her hair certainly fucking is winter fire, huh?

The lights turn out.

Not even the scorching flames of the demon-Bev survive the incredible darkness. They’re swallowed by it, snuffed out like a candle between brave fingers.

“Fuck you!” Ben shrieks from somewhere in the black. Richie will make sure to congratulate his friend on losing his profanity virginity i– when they get out. He’s quickly distracted by the sound of an effortful grunt, then a distinctly soft, fleshy crunch that makes him shiver.

There’s a soft gasp.

The lights come up.

Ben’s fence post is now comfortably lodged straight through demon-Bev’s diaphragm.

Richie, Bill, and Stan join the other Losers as Ben lets go of the post and stumbles backwards, looking ill. Bev reaches out and puts a shaky hand on Ben’s shoulder, never taking her eyes off the bastardized version of herself. The seven of them take slow steps backwards; Richie, for one, couldn’t tear his eyes away if he tried.

Demon-Bev’s mouth is still fixed in a pointed, twisted smile, showing off charred teeth and mangled gums. Her orange eyes remain stubbornly in place where Ben had been as he thrust the fence post through her chest. Her scarred, smoking hands reach out in front of her, holding onto the protruding end of the post tightly.

“Don’t even blink,” Richie mumbles to himself. Bev to his right and Mike to his left turn to look at him. He opens his mouth to tell them what he’s figured out.

The lights turn out.

There’s a drawn-out, tense silence in which the Losers all automatically put hands on one another. They’re together, all seven of them. If we s-stick together, all of us... we'll win. That’s what Bill had told Stan when he’d been hesitant to cross the threshold into Neibolt. God, I hope you know what you’re talking about, Big Bill, thinks Richie.

Quietly at first, so much so that Richie can’t be sure he’s not hallucinating, there’s a revolting squelch that brings bile to the back of his throat. The noise gets louder, bones grinding against one another and flesh parting for a large intrusion, and the Losers are all making soft gagging noises as it just keeps going. It seems like aeons have passed before it stops. Something, the demon-Bev, Richie thinks it must be, lets out what could almost be called a sigh.

The fence post clangs on the floor, making the line of children jump at the sudden noise in the silence.

Richie realizes that demon-Bev has just literally pulled the fucking thing out of her own chest, and immediately feels ready to throw up and then immediately pass out.

He’s luckily distracted from his plights when a voice that is both achingly familiar and sickeningly unrecognizable echoes through the cistern.

“Oh, come on, fat boy!” it chuckles. Motherfucker’s got a hell of a sore throat, a Voice in Richie’s head tells him nonchalantly. He tells it to shut the hell up. On the other side of Bev, Richie can sense how Ben tenses. “Give me a kiss, you know you want to.”

“I already did, you son of a bitch!” screams Ben.

Demon-Bev growls lowly in the darkness.

The lights blink.

And she’s suddenly coming for them, teeth elongated into fangs, hair crackling furiously. The lights flash quickly, on-off-on-off-on-off fast enough to disorientate Richie, who stumbles backwards as if drunk. The group of Losers has descended into chaos, each of them screaming and flailing backwards, trying their best to get away from the rapidly-approaching creature. But demon-Bev’s eyes stay locked on the terrified Ben, her arms reaching out towards him.

In his frazzled, panicked state, Richie manages to land his gaze momentarily on Bev’s - the real Bev’s - face. Her gray eyes are wide and shiny with tears, her shaking hands held over her mouth in the picture of shock. A flash of understanding cracks through Richie; how awful must it be to be in her situation, waking up in the sewers under Derry, only to be thrust into a head-to-head with her own diabolized self? He can hardly imagine what must be going through her mind right now.

The anger he suddenly feels towards their attacker brings about a strange sense of perception in Richie. His thoughts clear amidst the terror; he is aware of the horrific events unfolding in front of him, conscious of the way demon-Bev’s outstretched arms seem to be rotting before their very eyes, the way dilapidated bandages wind their way around her hands, wrists, and forearms. He sees Ben’s eyes widen in petrified recognition in the same instant that his brain is filled with an echoing Voice. It’s British, but not pompous; knowledgeable, but not posh. He knows who it is immediately.

Creatures from another world, the Voice reminds him. They don’t exist when they’re being observed.

Richie flings out an arm. He finds somebody’s shoulder and pulls them towards him, determination filling his mind. It’s Eddie, who looks up at Richie with confusion and panic in his face when the lights blink on arrhythmically.

“It’s an Angel,” Richie hisses at him. He glances for only the briefest of instants at his friend’s face. “It’s a motherfucking Weeping Angel, Eds.”

Eddie turns to look at It, too. Richie’s own calm is starting to dissipate, now, his earlier dread seeping back into the gyri of his brain. The panic only mounts when Richie sees how the bandages on demon-Bev’s arms have wrapped around Ben’s head, drawing him in even as his feet struggle for purchase on the rocky ground. He’s screaming desperately, but the bandages only tighten every time the lights flicker off, the way quicksand swallows faster the more its unfortunate victim struggles.

Richie steps away from Eddie and towards Bill, who is watching the scene with abject horror in his eyes. Richie grabs his shoulder roughly, not caring about the startled “Hey!” that Bill lets out.

“It’s a Weeping Angel, Bill, like in Doctor Who. Remember? Don’t fucking blink. Bill, It’s an Angel. That’s why It keeps turning the lights off, that’s why It stopped our flashlights from working.”

Bill’s mouth drops open as he looks at Richie. He’s studying Richie’s face closely, as if looking for a hint of this being a joke. Yeah, because Richie would crack jokes while one of his best friends is being pulled into his gruesome death. Fucking sure.

Thank God, Bill seems to realize exactly how serious Richie really is. He nods shortly, then turns back towards Ben and demon-Bev. Then he rushes forwards, out of Richie’s grasp, raising his chain above his head. Richie realizes what he’s going to do a moment before he does, and very nearly calls out to fucking stop, what if you hit Ben?! before Bill swings the chain down. It slices through the molded bandages like sharp scissors through paper, causing Ben to go stumbling backwards away from demon-Bev. The real, human girl catches Ben by the shoulders, ducking her head towards him and whispering in low tones. Richie wants to scream at them to not take their eyes off the Angel.

Bill steadies himself against the momentum of the chain. His eyes turn to the burned face of Its Bev; she stares right back, still grinning as much as always.

The lights flicker out one more time.

When they come up again, demon-Bev is no more. Instead, she has shrunk in size into the form of a little boy.

Georgie’s one hand clutches at the front of his sweater. His mouth is in a slight downwards curve, his bottom lip protruding in a pout. If he weren’t effectively made of stone, Richie knows it would be wobbling tearfully. In the centre of Georgie’s forehead is a perfect, smoking circle. It’s a knot of black, burned flesh with a hint of dried brown blood. Richie had watched only a handful of minutes ago how the injury had happened, and the curling smoke rising from the impression of the bolt-gun causes him to bite back a hiss of discomfort.

“It’s not real, Bill,” Eddie says by Richie’s side. “You know it’s not really him, look at his head.”

In the tense silence that follows, Bill’s face does something that settles confusion in Richie’s stomach. It twists into a frown as tears spring to his eyes, like he’s been told something he doesn’t want to hear.

“No, this isn’t fair. I al-already fucking b-be-beat you, you can’t…” he says quietly. Richie frowns. The chain is hanging loosely at Bill’s side.

“Bill?” he calls. Bill doesn't move from where he’s staring down into his dead brother’s eyes. “Bill.” His friend doesn’t react. “Bill!”

“What the fuck’s wrong with him?” Eddie asks. Richie can feel his gaze on the side of his face. “Why isn’t he listening?”

“I don’t know,” Richie says with dread in his gut. The other Losers are all starting to cotton on where they’re scattered around the cistern - they’re all starting to shout Bill’s name, shout for him to kill It, but Bill isn’t reacting at all. He doesn’t seem to be aware of them whatsoever. Richie tries to step forward, but his legs seem to be literally rooted to the floor. This isn’t like earlier when his lack of animation was just because of his own lack of will - this is like his feet are made of cobalt, and there’s the universe's strongest magnet at the core of the Earth. “Holy shit.”

“Can anybody move?” Mike calls out to them, a note of panic in his tone. “Can you walk?”

“No, I can’t fucking–” Richie calls back. His muscles strain against the strange force against his feet, but to no avail.

“Me, neither!” calls Stan, and Richie can hear that he is terrified out of his mind. “Bill!”

The stand-off between the two Denbroughs is still ongoing. Richie wills Bill to have the sense to realize that this can’t possibly be real.

“I t-told you,” Bill says. “I miss Juh-Georgie. I want noth-nothing more than for him to c-come home.” Richie feels hope rise in his heart. Because Bill isn’t talking to Georgie. Bill is talking to the fucking clown. “But I already had to shhhhoot him once.” There’s a pause. The blood in Bill’s face drains. “It’s n-not my fucking fault. It was yuh-you. Not me. Don’t you f-fucking say that it was my-my fault, because it wasn’t.”

In a movement of swift Richie almost misses it entirely, Bill flicks the chain in his hand forward once more.

The lights turn out.

The magnetism in Richie’s legs is suddenly alleviated entirely, and he almost topples over with the strength of how hard he’d been pushing himself to move.

“Bill!” he calls into the darkness.

“Rich?” Bill says back. Enough relief floods Richie’s head that he feels momentarily dizzy. “I’ve got It, I’ve–”

The lights come up.

The end of Bill’s chain is wrapped snugly around Georgie’s neck. The young boy is looking up at his brother, eyes wide and shiny, his singular hand grasping at the rusted metal scarf. He looks absolutely terrified. Richie’s not sure, if it was his younger brother, whether he would have the heart to kill him not once but twice - and yet, that’s the direction in which this is heading. Though, he supposes, that’s why Big Bill is their leader, and he himself isn’t.

“Don’t take your eyes o-off him!” Bill grits out to his friends.

“It’s an Angel, a Weeping Angel,” Richie adds as he steps forward. “He can’t move if we can see him, remember?” Bemused murmurs break out amongst the group. “Trust me on this. That’s why It’s been turning the lights off!”

“Holy shit,” Mike says, sounding stunned. “Yeah, okay, not ever blinking again.”

Bill suddenly yanks on the chain, drawing Georgie towards him rapidly. Richie knows exactly what to do, as surely as if it had been written on paper in front of him and signed by the President. His hands tighten on his baseball bat.

The lights turn out.

Bill suddenly grunts in effort. A pained growl, punctuated by an inhuman choking noise, reverberates through the cistern. Richie steps forward, readying his bat, forcing himself to take step after step until he can feel that Georgie is right before him.

Then, he swings, an effortful yelp being wrenched from his lips as he does so.

There’s a satisfying, albeit nauseating, crack. He knows he hit his target dead-on, even in the seconds before

the lights come up.

Georgie’s little body has been sent sprawling across the floor. Bill lets go of his chain; it crumples like a dead snake with a heavy clank. Before looking at what he’s done to Georgie, Richie’s eyes are caught by that same sticky black goo on the end of his bat. Drips of the stuff run slowly down towards his hand. He tilts his weapon downwards so that they run away harmlessly. The viscous liquid still smells god awful - there’s probably a joke he can make about Sonia Kaspbrak’s slippers, but he’ll save it for when they get out - and he does not want that shit anywhere near his bare skin.

The Losers all start to crowd around him, looking intently at the collapsed form of Georgie Denbrough.

The side of his face is crumpled like paper in a wastebasket. The same black sludge is mottled and oozing as it leaks from the origami of his cheek. His right eye - the one that is still intact - is opened slightly, the pupil rolled up unseeingly towards the ceiling. His arm lays out by his side, fingers splayed and unmoving. Small milk teeth are scattered on the floor, kicked out of Georgie’s mouth by the bat. The bolt-gun hole in his forehead continues giving out soft, wispy smoke.

It’s not Georgie. They all know it, but that’s not to say that seeing his broken little body dead on the ground doesn’t affect them. Since Richie was seven, he had become accustomed to the sound of childish laughter around the Denbrough household. He loved the little guy, really, loved how he was always so stubbornly determined to join in the game with Bill and his friends. And he’s come to terms with the fact that Georgie is dead, but it’s another thing entirely seeing him so completely lifeless - and this time, by Richie’s own hand. He blanches at the thought.

Bill turns away from Georgie’s body, eyes shut tight, mouth in a thin line. Richie puts his hand on his shoulder in a weak attempt at comfort.

The lights stay on.

Georgie stays dead.

“Did we do it?” Eddie asks quietly. He steps past Richie, attention fixed on Georgie’s body.

“Eds, don’t go near It,” Beverly warns him.

“We don’t know if we actually killed It,” agrees Richie.

“Look at him, though.” Eddie walks forward slowly. He kicks gingerly at Georgie’s slack galosh. “He’s not moving. The lights aren’t going off. I think– Hey, guys, listen! Bill, Rich, I think you got It, man! I think you killed It!” He turns to face them, turning his back on Georgie. Richie hears Bev make an aborted, strangled gasp. Eddie’s face is lit up, looking devastatingly proud. He kicks again at Georgie’s foot. Nothing happens. “You did! You killed It for real-!”

The lights go out.

Bev screams, “No!”

Richie’s brain instantly fills with a whole photo gallery of what could have happened in that split instant. He can only conjure images of the clown dragging Eddie down deeper into the darkness, about Eddie losing a limb to Pennywise’s unforgiving teeth, about - oh, fuck - about the clown sharpening Its arm into some gruesome spike and thrusting it through Eddie’s sternum–

The lights come up.

None of that has happened.

Richie’s heart nonetheless drops about a mile downwards.

Where Georgie had been is now a man. Richie’s pretty sure he can make out the exact shape of the unfortunate guy’s skull through his gray skin. Around his head is wrapped a yellowing, bloody bandage that looks like it couldn’t hope to assist in whatever condition the man has. The front of his nose is completely missing, exposing the nasal cavity beneath, from which runs a thick trail of mucus. Looking at it, Richie finds himself sniffing absentmindedly. The man’s eyes are wonky - the left is higher than the right, and open wide, showing the cataracts beginning to overtake his vision. The right eye is nonexistent, entirely ravaged by the disease and replaced by a bloody, fleshy tangle. The guy’s stringy hair hangs limply either side of his face. On his sickly skin are multiple abrasions that are clearly infected, as well as pus-filled cysts that look ready to burst at any given moment. His mouth droops to the right. Streams of saliva fall out from between his swollen lips.

His hand, similarly bandaged and scabrous, is reached out, and lies on Eddie’s shoulder. His nails are black and cracked. Richie doesn’t throw up, but the issue is in seriously grave doubt for a solid couple of seconds. This has to be the leper that Eddie had mentioned that day on the park bench in Bassey Park. Well, no shit, Sherlock, sighs a critical Voice, what else would it be?

At the feeling of the hand on his shoulder, Eddie swings around in an instant. His face contorts into a petrified grimace, and Richie remembers when Eddie had told him about what had happened when his arm had broken. Shortly after Eddie’s Sonia-imposed lockdown, Richie had snuck through his window in the evening and asked him about his cast. He’d even offered to sign it, but Eddie had reminded him that if his mother knew they were still meeting up without her knowledge, she would probably make them move towns. He’d then told Richie the truth that he’d been spooked by the leper (though he refused to give details when Richie asked) and fainted, falling through a hole in the floor and straight into a table. At the time, Richie had thought it quite funny, to be honest, but now he was struggling to see the humor. If Eddie fainted right now, there’d be no time for any of them to reach him before that leprous man did.

“Eddie!” The call is pulled from his lungs without his explicit permission, and he stumbles towards his friend. Eddie screams, lurching backwards and ending up on his hands and feet on his back on the ground. He stares up at the man, face pale, and Richie is still worried that he’s going to faint, but the issue doesn’t seem quite as pressing now the initial shock has passed.

The lights turn out.

Immediately, there’s a revoltingly wet retching noise. Richie stops in his tracks, listening with a disgusted curl to his lip as something splatters all over… presumably the floor.

Eddie gags and whimpers in the darkness. Richie hisses and cringes. Not the floor, then.

The lights come up.

All of the Losers besides Eddie himself recoil backwards, each sporting an exaggerated look of complete revulsion on their faces. Richie might have laughed at how cartoonish he feels with his face distorted in this way, if he weren’t preoccupied in yet again shoving down his nausea.

The man is hunched over Eddie, who is still down on the ground - and completely covered from head to toe in that repulsive black goo. Richie’s mouth falls open in utter shock. He feels the entirely insane urge to burst into overwhelmed laughter, and might have done so if he wasn’t certain Eddie would murder him if he did.

Eddie turns his head to the side and spits out a mouthful of that black liquid. If it smells that bad, how awful must it taste? thinks Richie with horror. His baseball bat hangs limply in his hand, completely forgotten in lieu of the scene before him.

Eddie looks up at the leper. The fear on his face is unmissable - though as Richie watches on, it morphs into an expression of shock and, if he’s not mistaken, abject fury. Shit, shouldn’t Richie know? It’s usually him that Eddie aims that face at.

The lights turn out.

The room is filled with a terrible groaning noise that clearly doesn’t come from a human. It makes Richie feel that his actual bones are shaking.

Then the darkness is intercepted by Eddie shrieking, sounding pissed the hell off to the ninth degree, “Get the fuck off me! I’m fucking gonna kill you!”

Richie smirks to himself, and his smile only widens when he hears the sound of Eddie’s puke-soaked sneaker make contact with something soft and pliant. The leper yelps in surprise, and when

the lights come up

he has backed up a couple of steps from Eddie. Eddie's face is still screwed up in anger, though there’s a shine to his eyes that reveals to Richie how much he’s finding this whole thing. Nearly there, Eds, he tries to telepathically tell his friend. Just keep it together for a bit longer, you’re so fucking brave.

His heart kicks painfully at his ribs. He tears his eyes from Eddie and onto the leper, sighing quietly to himself. Not the fucking time, Trashmouth. Fix it.

The man has his hands over his face, like he’s cradling where it hurts. Richie can’t feel sympathetic (though it’s not like he particularly tries). He is, however, reminded of how the Weeping Angels would stand so as to not inadvertently look at one another, and it makes him swallow nervously.

The lights turn out.

The lights come up.

The leper has taken his hands away from his face, and is directing his one working eye towards the group of Losers.

“It’s an Angel, remember! Don’t look away from It, don’t even blink, and It can’t fucking move!” Richie calls out desperately.

“Who blinks? I’m too scared to blink,” Ben murmurs from somewhere behind him. If he could afford to look away from the leper, Richie would congratulate him on the successful reference.

“There are s-seven of us, and only wuh-wuh-one of It,” notes Bill.

“Should be easy, right?” Bev says quietly. She clearly doesn’t believe it herself.

The lights turn out.

Something rushes past Richie, brushing his arm faster than he could have ever predicted. He has half a moment to jointedly let out a strangled cry and thank God that he apparently wasn’t next on Its list, because he wouldn’t have stood half a fucking chance.

The lights come up

and he immediately feels guilty for that train of thought.

Another, different man is in front of Bev, now. From Richie’s point of view, he can’t make out who it is, but he can certainly hear the pained, breathy noises that Bev is making. His heart leaps into his throat as he rushes around to rejoin the others. Eddie reunites himself with the Losers a moment later, his face drawn into a thoroughly upset frown as he tries desperately to wipe the slime from his face.

The man standing in front of Bev is her father. He is significantly taller than her, and he looms imposingly. Beverly is looking up at him - though she doesn’t have a choice in the matter. Alvin Marsh’s hand is fisted in her hair, pulling her head up and craning her face back so that she has no option but to look him in the eyes. Her spine is straightened in a way that looks painful; she is practically en pointe in the way that her shoes barely brush against the ground.

Her father is grinning down at her. It should be a natural, friendly expression, but on him, there’s an unmissable predatory edge to it.

Bev’s eyes are filled with tears. Richie doesn’t know if they’re from the pain, or the fear, or (most likely) a convoluted mixture of the both.

The lights turn out.

“Are you still my little girl, Bevvie?” asks Mr. Marsh in a low, dangerous voice. The tone of it is the twisted version of what a regularly fatherly voice should be. It’s clear that when he asks her that, it means far more than what might appear. Richie shudders, feeling sick.

Then there’s rustling movement, and Beverly screams, and dread pools once again in Richie’s stomach.

The lights come up.

Oh, holy fucking shit.

Bev’s father is now stood behind her. His hands frame her face, one of them on her chin, the other on her cheek. Her head is craned hard to the side - not enough to have done any damage, not yet, but enough to convey the threat. He’s going to snap her neck. He could snap her neck, as easily as Richie could snap a glow stick on the fourth of July.

All at once, the six boys surge forward, shouting in shock and terror that they’re about to watch one of their best friends die in front of them. As he gets closer, Richie sees that the tears in Bev’s eyes have spilled over, and are now rolling down her pale cheeks. Her hand is clasped tightly around her own fence post like it’s the only thing keeping her alive. She is muttering something to herself, tone full of desperation, like she’s trying to convince herself.

“Fathers don’t kill daughters, he’s my father, and fathers don’t kill daughters, even if it’s not really him, he can’t kill me, he’s my father, and fathers don’t kill daughters...”

It’s really not helping Richie’s own rising panic.

Each of the boys take a hold on Alvin Marsh’s arms, hands, and wrists, and tug with all their might to get him to loosen his grip. Even though Richie knows it won’t work

(you can’t kill a stone)

it doesn’t stop him from pulling at Mr. Marsh’s elbow until his vision goes spotty. It doesn’t escape his attention that It is letting the lit period drag on, and he’s aware it’s because It’s playing Its normal mind games and probably getting a hell of a kick out of watching them struggle fruitlessly, and he’s so fucking angry. He tries his hardest to channel his frustration into pulling Al Marsh’s hands off his daughter, but nothing shifts.

“Fuck!” It’s Ben that says it, as emphatic as you like. “Guys, what do we do? He’s not budging!”

“We just nee-eed to kuh-keep trying!” Bill tells them, but there is a tone in his voice that Richie doesn’t like, because it means that Bill doesn’t believe his own words.

“It’s stone, Big Bill. It’s not going anywhere,” says Richie, stepping away but keeping his gaze fixed stubbornly on Bev’s father.

“We are not letting It kill her!” Ben practically screams, rounding on Richie. Richie hadn’t realized how much he takes Ben’s easygoing nature for granted; having a furious Haystack against him is enough to make him recoil slightly. “Are you out of your mind?!” Then Ben’s face hardens into something adult and scary, and he steps forward towards Richie. He leans up to reach his ear, and whispers something that makes Richie’s entire world shrivel up in flames: “How would you feel if it were Eddie in that position?”

Richie pulls back and stares at Ben. For once, he completely cannot say anything. Blood rushes in his ears - though he’s not sure how, as he’s pretty certain his heart has just stopped beating. Ben studies his face for a moment, searching for something. He must find it, because he nods, then says in a much gentler voice, “Okay.”

Then he turns back towards Bev and the other Losers, who are still struggling to free her. He wants to curl up and die - perhaps offer himself up to Pennywise, Bill style - but that can come later. He’ll panic about this later.

For now, he squares his jaw, and steps back towards the group.

“Listen to me, Bev,” he says stonily. He’s never heard his own voice sound like this - so level and serious and grown-up. He hates it. “He’ll only move when we’re looking at him, right? You’re not gonna like this, but I think we should try it.” He knows they’re all looking at him, so forces himself to keep his eyes on Bev’s father. “If we all close our eyes at the same time, we know for sure when It’s gonna be vulnerable. When we’ll be able to hurt It.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Bev asks him. She’s glaring through the tears, her underlip shaking in its frown.

“Just listen. If we all counted down so we knew exactly when It could be hurt, then we could be ready to, like, kick the shit out of It. Bev, you would be able to fight your way out. Because It wouldn’t be stone anymore.”

“You saw how fast they move, Richie, there’s no way…” she reminds him, choking out a terrified sob. “I don’t wanna die, please, please, I don’t–”

“You’re not going to,” Ben tells her. Richie is sure that, for a moment, he’d just heard what his friend will sound like as a fully-grown adult.

“Does anyone have any other ideas?” Eddie asks. Richie isn’t looking at him, fixated as he is on Bev and her father. His intense focus means that he doesn’t miss the expression that crosses Beverly’s face - her eyes, once squinted against the onslaught of tears, open properly; her lips part slightly; the tenseness in her jaw releases. She’s calm, he realizes with a mixture of surprise and immense admiration. She’s an inch away from death, and yet she’s calm. God, he’s never going to get over just how cool she is.

“B-Bev?” Bill asks hesitantly. Richie hazards a guess that he’s seen the same strange look on her face.

“Yeah. I’ve got an idea,” she tells them. Tears still fall down her face, but they don’t seem to carry the same hopelessness as before. Her knuckles flex against her downfacing fence post, and it’s all the warning Richie gets before she grunts sharply and pushes the weapon down with all the stubborn determination of a thirteen-year-old. He watches in amazement as the pointed business end of the post flies towards the ground, directly through the foot of her father. There’s a crack as it hits rock on the other side of flesh.

The lights turn out.

Al Marsh howls in agony, just once, before his voice falls silent. Beverly shouts in effort, then there’s the sound of something dull whacking into something pliant. Judging by the winded whoof that comes from her father, Richie figures that she’s just landed a pointy elbow solidly into his midriff. Unstable feet fall backwards - too heavy to be Bev’s, and Richie’s lungs seize for a moment. Did It have enough time to twist her neck, after all?

“Bev?!” Ben calls frantically just as Richie opens his mouth to do the same.

“I’m here!” her voice comes back, and it sounds like Heaven has just opened to Richie. Two hands fall clumsily onto his shoulders. “Who’s this?” Bev asks, lifting her hands to slap gently at his face, like that’s in any way helpful.

“It’s Rich, dumbass, stop hitting me!” he hisses at her, though he can’t hide the immense relief in his voice.

“Bev, are you okay?” Bill calls out into the darkness.

“Been better,” she says back.

“Yeah, no fucking shit, Red!” Richie tells her with an incredulous grin. “How’d you know that would work?”

“Didn’t. But I saw how, with the others, it was really only them that hurt It, right? Like, with Stan’s weird woman, it was him that actually damaged her. So I figured I must be able to… You know. Hurt him. It.”

“Hey, speaking of, where’d your daddy go?” She slaps his face again, this time hard enough that it actually stings. “Ow!”

“Do not call him that,” Bev hisses at him. “Beep fucking beep. Also, I don’t know.”

“Yowza. Sorry, Bev.”

“Yeah, yeah. Does anyone know where he is, actually?”

“Bev, I don’t know where you are, let alone that fucking thing,” huffs Eddie.

“Fair point. I can’t even see my nose,” says a dejected Stan.

“Guys, can we just try and listen?” Mike pleads. Miracle of miracles, they all stop talking. They regret it pretty instantaneously, though, when the silence is filled with another, far less pleasant voice.

“Little children. You still really think you can win. It’s admirable, I suppose, to have such stupid courage.” Its voice is taunting, just as cruelly playful as always. A couple of trembling, petrified whines arise from the group. “I am the Eater of Worlds. I am eternity, dear children, as Bevvie will tell you. I could snuff each of your lives out just like that, if I so wished.”

“Then why haven’t you already?” Richie’s mouth says. Bev elbows him. Pennywise’s laugh is mocking when it comes, like It’s preparing Itself to explain a concept to a particularly stupid toddler.

“Does it not occur to you, Trashmouth, that there is no fun in the hunt if the reward is not worth it. Your bodies are merely sustenance; it is your fear that I really desire. That’s what made little Georgie Denbrough such a delicacy, and I am certain the same will arise of the seven of you.”

“We’re not scared of you, though!” Richie calls in the same derisive tone. Bev elbows him again, harder, but his motormouth is grinding its gears beyond help, now. “You say all this shit like it makes any odds, but it doesn’t, because none of us are scared! You’re not Mike’s parents, or Eddie’s leper, or Bev’s dad. You wish you could be so human, because then you might stand a fucking chance at beating us!”

“Oh, but I don’t need to be human to frighten you, do I, Richie.” It’s not tonally a question, and its certainty makes Richie shiver, but he refuses to back down.

“Oh, brother, you’re not scaring me, period.”

ARE YOU CERTAIN? says that same cruel voice. Something about its reception in his brain feels off; rather than coming from an external source through his ears, this time the voice seems to be emanating from the centre of his head itself. There’s a slight echoing quality to it - like Richie’s seen in movies where the protagonist’s inner monologue is being recounted in real time. But this certainly isn’t his internal voice, nor is it a Voice. These are someone else’s words entirely. He frowns against it, but it is relentless.

YOU SEE, LITTLE FRIGHTENED RICHIE, THERE IS A WHOLE LIST OF THINGS IN THIS BRAIN OF YOURS THAT I COULD USE TO DRIVE YOU INSANE WITH FEAR. YOU HIDE THEM BEHIND WALLS, BUT I SEE THEM CLEAR AS DAY. CLEAR AS I SEE YOU RIGHT NOW, MATTER OF FACT. CLEAR AS I SEE EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU. THERE ARE SO MANY DELIGHTFUL SECRETS, SO MUCH DELICIOUS FEAR… TRULY, YOU SPOIL ME, RICHIE.

“Shut up, shut the fuck up, you’re lying, you’re not fucking real.”

“Richie?” asks Stan from somewhere to his right.

“Rich, nobody’s talking,” Eddie tells him.

“It is, It’s…”

YES, THEY CANNOT HEAR ME. NOT UNLESS I DECIDE FOR THEM TO. YOU SEE THE EXTENT OF MY POWER? I AM AS REAL AS YOU, OR ANY OF YOUR WEAK LITTLE FRIENDS.

“Richie?” It’s Bev, from right in front of him. He barely hears her with how hard he’s concentrating in trying to get this fucking voice out of his head. He thinks he lets out a small, pitiful whimper in response, but he can’t be sure.

SO, RICHIE, WHICH OF THE LITTLE BEASTIES IN HERE SHOULD WE PLAY WITH FIRST? I REALLY AM SPOILED FOR CHOICE. OH, THIS IS A GOOD ONE, PERHAPS. SOMETHING RECENT, SOMETHING YOU ARE ONLY FRESHLY ACQUAINTED WITH. WE SHALL SEE WHO IS SCARED, SHAN’T WE?

The lights come up.

An immense shadow looms over the group, and Richie knows what it is before he’s even looked up. Around him, his friends each let out a scream. The resulting terrible chorus is what finally convinces Richie to raise his gaze.

Sure enough, It is once again the demonized Paul Bunyan that had chased Richie across Bassey Park. Somehow, though, his appearance has rotted further: his teeth in his open mouth are blacker and more chipped than Richie remembers, and the plastic of his mammoth body has torn away all across his barrelled chest and shoulders. It's like he's had a confrontation with a lion the size of a mountain. The rips in the plastic mean that Richie can see the inner workings of how the designers had twisted together Bunyan's skeleton, and just like the first time, it's this detail that frightens him most.

His brain is screaming at him, an alarm of It's real! It's real! It's real! ringing in the space between his ears.

He sees that Bunyan has traded out his pike pole for a traditional lumberjack's axe, red and silver, the whole shebang. The statue has it raised above his head with both hands. His golden eyes are fixed on the group, to the untrained eye; Richie knows differently. They're focused purely on him.

It's real! It's real! It's real!

“It's not real,” he manages to grit out as he stares up into those yellow eyes. He knows it's just his brain making shit up in some sort of bizarre confirmation bias, but he swears he sees the briefest flash of uncertainty in the depths of Bunyan's irises.

He forces himself to step forward. He no longer has his baseball bat - he had dropped it when rushing forward to help pry Al Marsh's hands off Bev - and his nails dig instead into his own palms. The sharp pain helps him stave off that rolling ocean of nausea in his throat.

“Beep, beep, bitch,” he hisses at It. If he dies, so be it; at least his friends should have time to escape.

The lights turn out.

He waits for the inevitable whoooooosh of air that would indicate the swinging of Bunyan's axe. He thinks about the folklore, about how easily the mighty lumberjack would cut down trees. He also can't help but reminisce about how much softer than a tree his own skull is. How much easier it would split.

He supposes he really ought to have said proper goodbyes to his parents. How will they react when he doesn't come home? Will they become cold and distant, like the Denbroughs? Will they search desperately for him, like Bill for Georgie? Or, God help him, will they even care? Would they be glad to be rid of him? Richie knows his mother always craved a girl she could understand. Perhaps his death would be a blessed relief. After all, nobody wants a dirty, revolting little queer for a son, right?

He closes his eyes. It makes no odds as to how much he can see.

LEARNED OUR LESSON ABOUT LUMBERJACKS, HAVE WE? I CANNOT SAY I'M NOT DISAPPOINTED, BUT NO MATTER. AS I MENTIONED, THERE'S A WHOLE BUFFET OF FEARS IN THIS HEAD OF YOURS. I SHALL FIND SOMETHING, I AM MORE THAN POSITIVE.

Then, a noise does echo around the lightless cistern, but it's not what Richie had expected. It's more of a pop, like a burst balloon. It's a lot louder than that, though, and it wrenches a startled yelp from Richie's lungs. It's the sound of air rushing to fill a suddenly evacuated space, nothing more. The realization should make Richie's heart slow in its rabbiting and his breaths return to their normal rate, but for whatever reason, a determined little Voice tells him urgently that this isn't over.

The sickening scent of old, rotting meat makes Richie gag as it hits him. Tears spring to his eyes, and he wipes them away furiously. From the darkness comes a strange, low noise - a growl, Richie thinks, and distinctly canine. He thinks of the St. Bernard from that old book, but frowns in confusion. He's never been particularly afraid of dogs, murderous or not, so what is it in front of him that is deemed so scary?

The growl evolves, getting louder and harsher, tearing up the thing's throat, surely. It deepens into a long, low howl. Richie's eyes widen, and his breath catches in his throat. Oh, shit. Oh, motherfucking shit!

“No…” he whispers hoarsely. Two hands are suddenly on him - one on his shoulder, the other on his wrist. He screams and tries to pull out of their grasp, but they hold him tight while he thrashes about, and he can still smell that disgusting, ancient meat, and he's readying himself to punch the creature straight on the snout when his fist is stopped by a familiar voice.

“Stop fucking squirming, moron!”

“Eds?”

“And Mike,” adds the voice of his other friend, squeezing his hand on Richie's shoulder. “We're here, okay?”

“How cute,” snarls a malicious voice. They all know that it's Pennywise, but it's like Its voice has been put through a hundred bastardizing filters. Each consonant is gritty; each vowel a growled bay. “How sickening.”

It howls again. The hairs on the back of Richie’s neck stand on end, the same as they had in the cinema in 2006 when he’d snuck in without his parents’ knowledge. The twenty-five-year anniversary of the movie meant it had been running, and he’d been attracted to the idea of a ‘comedy-horror’, and it had been a funny movie. But then that night, he’d spent his dreaming hours being chased through the streets of London with a huge, hairy, snarling beast on his heels. It had taken weeks for the nightmares to start dwindling, months to abate entirely, years for him to force the creature from his mind. It must have hidden in there, though, lurking deep in the creases of his brain, waiting for the opportunity to arise.

“Richie, what the fuck is that?” Eddie says loudly, trying desperately to make himself heard over the awful howling.

“It’s the wolf,” replies Richie. His entire lower body has started trembling uncontrollably. He can hear the monster breathing raggedly in the dark. The oxygen staggers as it leaves Its lungs, and Richie can’t shake the idea that It’s laughing at him.

“The w-what?” Bill asks, though there’s an edge of knowing in his voice. Richie had spent long hours describing the details of his nightmares to him, so Richie knows he’s putting the pieces together.

“The American werewolf in London.” He laughs, though it’s shrill.

The lights come up.

And It is the werewolf. Or, It is a werewolf. From what Richie remembers of the movie, the wolf hadn’t been wearing a high school jersey. It hadn’t had rings of dark fur around its yellow, searching eyes, and it certainly hadn’t had Tozier embellished in swirling stitching above the left breast pocket of its jacket. Richie gags, and even goes so far as to turn away from Mike and Eddie, but nothing comes up.

The wolf’s elongated, shaggy jaws are dripping with a frothy, foamy saliva. Richie can see its black tongue behind long, knife-sharp, plaque-ridden teeth. Nine out of ten deSHUT THE FUCK UP. The school jersey is ripped at the creature’s shoulders and under its arms, and Richie believes all of a sudden that this monster is really just a young boy in his early teens, unlucky enough to be cursed by such a beastly abomination of nature. One of the wolf’s arms is stretched out towards him. Its fingers are spread, like it’s planning on plucking him out of the safety circle of his friends between its jagged claws. He doesn’t doubt for a second that it really could; ropey muscle lines its arms and legs, only semi-discernible under the tangles of black hair.

“Don’t look away fr-from It,” Richie hears Bill say. It’s not like Richie has a choice - every single one of his muscles is in a deadlock, forcing his eyes open until they hurt, preventing him from taking a single step either forward or backward. When he swallows nervously, he realizes how scratchy and dry his throat is.

“Holy shit,” Stan whispers somewhere behind him. Ben lets out a quiet, agreeing hum.

A CONTENDER, PERHAPS? comes that voice again from the centre of Richie’s brain. He struggles to take a slow, shaky breath through his nose. His lungs seem to creak as they inflate, and he wonders how long he’s not been breathing for.

“Alright,” he manages through tightly grit teeth. “Old school. I- I can dig it.”

A deep rumble comes from deep within the wolf’s chest. Its expression doesn’t move from its snarl, and it doesn’t seem to even inhale, but the growl is still somehow loud enough that it seems to shake the ground from under Richie’s feet.

The lights turn out.

OH, THIS IS AN INTERESTING ONE. A FAN OF OLD HORRORS, AREN’T WE?

Richie doesn’t have a chance to respond before something thick and wet winds around his ankle. He shrieks and leaps backwards in an impressively agile movement, pulling Eddie and Mike with him. He doesn’t take any note of his placement until he backs into Stan, earning an annoyed, “Woah, what the hell–?”

In the air around the Losers, the air is filled with a sticky, sucking noise that makes Richie’s stomach roil. He’s not alone - Bev is groaning unhappily, and Bill asks, “What the hell is making that n-n-noise, my God.”

“Be more worried about what the hell is touching my leg right now,” Mike bites. His sneaker smacks against the rock as he slams it down.

“Rich, why the fuck do you have so many fears,” Stan hisses into his ear. Richie makes a distressed noise in response. “And why are they all so weird?”

“You had a woman from a painting,” Richie tells him, more than ready to launch into full-blown, familiar bickering before he feels something nudging at his feet. “Ew, oh my God, what the hell?!”

Whatever the thing is, it winds its way almost curiously around his shin. The moment it crosses Richie’s mind that now might be a good time to fucking run, it tightens painfully, holding him in place. He yelps in surprise; around the cistern, six more voices echo the sound. Then the grip relinquishes, but the strange squirming thing remains loosely draped around him.

The lights come up.

The thing around Richie’s leg stops moving immediately. He glares down at it in revulsion. He recognizes it for what it is, and before he’s even looked up, he's groaning a despaired, “Oh God Big Bill it’s an eye dear God it’s an eye a fucking Eye–”

“Holy shit!” several people scream, almost perfectly in sync.

“See?! Weird!” Stan tells Richie vehemently. “At least mine fucking made sense!”

“You clearly didn’t see the movie!” Richie shrieks back, practically delirious in his terror.

“What type of movie–?”

“A scary one, Stan! Case in fucking point!” He gestures frantically towards their attacker. A huge, wet eyeball sits in front of them. From the top to the bottom of its capillary-accented sclera, Richie thinks must be about ten feet. The pupil, blown wide, is a black hole ready to swallow them and scatter their atoms across time. A ring of amber iris the size of a large hula-hoop borders that deathly black.

“Both of you shut up!” shouts Bev. “We’ve got bigger problems than your dick-measuring contest right now!”

Looking round at the rest of the Losers, Richie realizes that she is one-hundred percent correct. Each and every one of his friends is restrained by a copy of the same thing that is wrapped around his own leg: a sticky, slimy tendril that doesn’t look particularly strong, but apparently has enough muscle to hold them all in place simultaneously. The tentacle things are a reddy-brown color, glistening with some unspeakable substance. They all converge somewhere behind the Eye, tumbling out across the floor, stretched out to reach the Losers. Bev has one of the tendrils around her wrist and over her back, Ben is being restrained by his shoulders. Stan’s forearms are trapped together by another appendage, while Eddie has one wrapped around his waist. Mike’s legs are held tight against one another and Bill - terrifyingly - has one draped around his neck.

The idea of losing Big Bill Denbrough makes Richie’s heart stutter in his chest. He starts thrashing and kicking at the tentacle-nerve-thing around his leg, Bev’s earlier words ringing in his head. With Stan’s weird woman, it was him that actually damaged her. So I figured I must be able to… You know. Hurt him. It.

True to form, he manages to free his leg from the grip of the slimy limb, thanking God all the while. He tugs himself clear with a squelch that runs in a shiver up his spine, then stumbles away from the tendril.

“Look, you can get out!” he shouts to his friends. It doesn’t necessarily matter that he knows it’s only because this is his monster that he was able to escape. It works on belief, right? So, surely, as long as the other Losers believe they can wriggle their way out…

They all start writhing, just as he had, slowly but surely tugging themselves from Its grip. Richie races to Stan, the nearest person to him, and starts frantically pulling at the tentacles that have bound his arms together. They come away easily under Richie’s hands, until Stan manages to pull away, rubbing at his wrists with a pained expression. He opens his mouth to say something, then is cut off when Bill calls to them, “I got out! C-Come on, Rich, Stan, we nuh-need to help the uh-others!”

Bev is first to be released as Bill goes straight to her. Ben joins them in safety quickly after, whispering a muttered, “Thank you,” to Stan as Richie kicks roughly at the tentacle around Mike’s legs. Mike manages to step out of Its clutches, Richie pulling him along. They share a nod, before Richie swivels in place to see Eddie still pulling at his bindings. Eddie looks over to him, his mouth opening, most likely to tell Richie to hurry the fuck up, but then

the lights turn out.

There’s a moment of disoriented silence. It doesn’t last for long.

“Oh shit, oh shit! Oh, God, help me!” Eddie screams.

That awful wet, writhing noise is back, this time more focused in one area. Richie rushes forward without conscious thought towards where he knows Eddie is.

“Someone help me, oh my God, It’s pulling me I’m gonna die oh my God oh my God oh my fucking God please someone help me!”

The lights blink.

On-off-on-off-on-off.

With each reinstated illumination, Richie can see with horror how much closer Eddie is being tugged towards that revolting Eye. He’s still screaming blue bloody murder, and Richie wonders how Eddie can possibly have asthma when he’s got the lung capacity to shout like that.

“Guys!” Eddie yells, and all of a sudden, he seems on the verge of tears. Richie doesn’t blame him. The lights flicker on for long enough that he can indeed see how shiny his friend’s eyes are.

“Fuck, Eddie!” Richie shouts back desperately, reaching out and managing to grab Eddie’s outstretched left hand. He clasps it as tight as possible and pulls, forcing a pained screech from Eddie’s lips.

The lights turn out.

The steady darkness is the worst thing that could possibly happen right now. Because now none of them can see It, so It’s free to move, and Eddie is still fucking trapped in Its grasp, and Richie’s trying so hard but he’s not doing anything.

“Eddie,” he gasps, blinking back his own terrified tears. He’s so focused on the solid feel of Eddie’s hand in his that it takes a second for it to register that Eddie’s no longer being tugged away from him. Then Eddie lets out a deep breath, and there’s another one of those strange pops as air fills a vacated space.

“Richie, oh my God, I think you did it!” he says. Even though there’s no light, Richie can hear the smile in his voice as clear as day. He’s suddenly very aware of how he’s still clasping Eddie’s hand between them, and drops it quickly.

“Shit, dude, are you okay?” he asks.

“Yeah, I’m pretty good!”

“Eddie, what the fuck,” says Bev from somewhere behind Richie.

“Are you good?” Mike calls.

“Think so. Hey, guys, where are you?”

There’s a chorus of answering “Over here!”s, then Richie feels Eddie step past him towards the rest of the group. He also definitely feels the hand that Eddie briefly puts on his upper arm. He stays stock-still, letting the warmth from Eddie’s touch drift upwards to his face. Ugh, he’s just fucking saying thank you, calm the fuck down, he scolds himself with a press of his nails into his palms.

AH, YES. OF COURSE, rings that dreadful voice in Richie’s head once more. This time, It sounds like It’s considering something, but Its tone is underlaid with that same taunting hiss as always. It fills Richie with so much apprehension he’s not sure he won’t explode on the spot.

“Guys?” he calls to his friends. They don’t quite get the time to respond before

the lights come up.

Oh, God, what the actual hell is this, now?

Stupid question. He knows exactly what it is. It’s Eddie.

Just normal, regular Eddie.

His dark eyes are turned up towards Richie, a small, almost shy smile on his face. Richie can’t help but stare straight back, because… well, he’s only human. LOVER is scrawled over Eddie’s white cast in perfect red and black. The freckles on his face are dark, just like they get when Eddie spends long summer days outside with his friends. His hair is swept neatly back from his face. His eyes are shiny with pleased gratitude from Richie’s saving him.

As Richie looks on, Eddie blinks. And it completely throws Richie off.

“Wait… Eds?” he asks stupidly.

“Wait, Rich?” Eddie parrots back to him in a playfully teasing mockery of his tone. “Yeah, dude, it’s me. Are you good?”

“I don’t…” He swallows nervously. “Gonna be honest, Eddie, I did think you were one of Its Angels.”

Eddie’s mouth falls open, his brow furrowing. Then he snorts out a disbelieving laugh.

“You though I–” He gestures down the length of his body. Richie doesn’t let himself look. “–was an Angel? Are you kidding me?”

“It’s not my fault! It’s been a long fucking day, man.”

“Yeah, no duh, Rich.”

Richie is aware that, behind him, the rest of the Losers are calling to him. He’s tempted to turn around and tell them to all shut up - can’t they see he’s talking to Eddie? - but honestly their words are so unimportant to him that he finds himself able to tune them out entirely. Whatever they’re saying has a kind of muffled quality to his ears, and he doesn’t care, as long as what Eddie’s saying stays clear.

He takes a tentative half-step towards his friend. Eddie watches him intently, face in that competitive little smirk that Richie knows and lo– that Richie knows so well, hands on his hips.

“Hey, speaking of, what the hell kinda crappy fear is a big-ass eye?” he asks. Richie sighs.

“Don’t even start, I’ve had enough of that shit from Staniel. You guys just haven’t seen that movie.”

“The Crawling Eye, right?”

“1958’s best, baby.”

Eddie pulls a face. “If you say so, idiot.” He crosses his arms over his chest, his cast making the movement slightly janky. He takes a couple of steps forward, so that only a couple feet remain between them. “Hey, Rich?”

“Yeah, Eds?”

“Thanks for saving me.” His playful smirk falls back into that small, devastatingly cute smile. “Fuck, I really thought I was gonna die.”

“Don’t even worry about it, Spagedward,” Richie tells him. Eddie keeps looking at him, eyes wide and honest, and it’s honestly making his heart skip. “All part of the R.T. services, you know? You ever need saving from an alien entity masquerading as a huge-ass Eye again, and you just call my name.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” smiles Eddie. Richie has to make a conscious effort not to look down at the way his lips form the shape of that maddening smile, especially when Eddie keeps stepping closer, closer. His head is tilted properly up, now, with how close he is to Richie. Richie’s brain is screaming at him, shouting wrong! dirty! pathetic! on loop. He wants more than almost anything to be able to step away from Eddie and those eyes that he’s sure are going to put him into cardiac arrest any second now. Unfortunately for him, the only thing he really wants more than to run away is to stay this close to Eddie and let whatever his friend has in mind play out. It’s completely bizarre, and he’s still convinced he’s about to wake up from this dream, but… If it really is a dream, then surely there’s no harm in it?

His blood is rushing in his ears so loud that he couldn’t hear his friends’ muffled shouts if he wanted to.

Eddie’s gaze drops for a moment, flicking back up to Richie’s eyes so quickly that Richie’s pretty sure it was a hallucination. Eddie’s head tilts to the side, like he’s curious about something, but his eyes are searching and almost frantic where they’re locked on Richie’s.

“Hey, Rich?” he asks again, voice low between them.

Richie’s tongue comes out to run across his lower lip self-consciously. “Y-Yeah, Eds?”

“I wanna tell you something, but you have to promise not to hate me, okay?” His eyes are imploring when Richie looks into them. He can see his reflection in the dark blend of pupil and iris; that’s how close Eddie is to him.

Wrong! Get away!

“I couldn’t,” he almost laughs, tickled by the idea of ever hating Eddie. Him, Richie Tozier, hate Eddie Kaspbrak? Not a chance in Hell. “Eddie, I literally could never. What do you want to say?”

Eddie sighs. He hangs his head, his hair brushing against the front of Richie’s shirt. “It’s kinda… embarrassing, I guess. And, like, I don’t really know what I’m doing, so I need you to just– give me a minute, okay?”

Richie doesn’t say anything. From where Eddie’s head is, he’s pretty sure he’s able to hear how hard Richie’s heart is kicking against the inside of his chest.

“God, fuck,” Eddie says vehemently after a moment, startling Richie slightly. He raises his head again, looking Richie in the eye once more. His eyes are starting to fill with frustrated tears.

“Hey, it’s okay, Eds,” Richie tells him, barely refraining from reaching out and doing something stupid like putting his hands on Eddie's face. He takes a deep breath. He still doesn’t think this can possibly be real, at least not if what he desperately hopes is happening is correct and he isn’t misreading the entire situation. “If it helps, uh… there’s kind of something I’ve wanted to tell you for awhile, too, actually.” He smiles, terrified. “But you gotta promise not to hate me.”

“I couldn’t,” Eddie tells him quickly, brows fixing into a serious line. His eyes flick down again, and stay there for just a touch longer this time before darting back up.

“Eds, I–” Ah, fuck. He should have known it wouldn’t be that fucking easy. “Can I, uh, do something? Then I guess we can talk about it after, if- if that’s something you would… like? To do?”

Eddie nods, and that shy smile is back in place.

Richie takes another deep, shaky breath through his nose. Then he counts down from three in his head, and gathers every ounce of courage he’s ever had, and ducks his head down towards Eddie.

For just a moment, he can almost kid himself that he feels the soft, plush press of Eddie’s lips against his.

Then there’s a sharp gasp against Richie’s mouth, and Eddie pulls back, and everything feels about fifty degrees colder.

“What the fuck?” Eddie hisses loudly. Richie pulls himself quickly up to his full height, his gaze fixed solidly on the toes of his sneakers. His mortification is so intense, so all-consuming, that he would truly be grateful if that clown showed up and killed him right at that moment.

“I cannot believe this,” Eddie says, and his tone is dripping with venom. But then, it changes to something cruel and mocking, and that’s somehow worse. “Actually, yeah, I fucking can. Of course I can. All those rumors, all those messages left on the bathroom stalls. Why am I fucking surprised? ‘Richie Tozier sucks flamer cock’, right? It all adds up. God, how fucking disgusting. And you thought–” He laughs, shrill and savage. “–you thought I could ever like you back? This is fucking rich, this is seriously, seriously hilarious. I’m not fucking like you. I am nothing like you. I will never be. You are revolting, Richie Tozier.”

“Eddie…” Richie whimpers weakly. He forces himself to look up into his friend’s (or, not anymore, it seems, and fuck if that doesn’t make Richie’s eyes burn) face. “I’m so– I’m so, so sorry, Eddie, please, I didn’t ever want to–”

“Shut the fuck up, Richie!” Eddie screams, straight into his face. Richie recoils helplessly, the first tears spilling over. “You cannot fucking fix this! Nothing you could possibly say can fix this! All you think is that if you open that big, stupid mouth of yours, you can talk your way out of anything, but it’s not true! It’s never been true! I really cannot believe I was ever your friend, oh my God.” His face is twisted into an ugly snarl as his good arm lashes out and grips Richie by the front of the shirt. He pulls Richie roughly down, hard enough that it makes Richie’s back twinge in pain. His tear-blurred vision is filled with the image of Eddie’s furious, betrayed face. “Honestly, Richie,” Eddie says in a low, dangerous voice, “you should just fucking kill yourself. It’s better to be dead than like you. Now, get the fuck away from me, you fucking faggot.” He shoves Richie away from him. Richie cannot believe that the last time he’s going to touch Eddie is when Eddie was pushing him away in disgust.

He looks up at his fr… at Eddie. His heart aches with the realization that he wasn’t lying, earlier: even after everything, he still doesn’t hate him. It’s not biologically possible.

But Eddie hates him. He said he wouldn’t, he said he couldn’t, but he does. One of his oldest friends, and Richie’s just lost him by listening to his own stupid, selfish, disgusting wants. Eddie’s face is still the absolute picture of fury. His fists are clenched by his sides, his shoulders are tense.

Oh, God, what has Richie done?

The sea of nausea that’s been present since entering Neibolt in another life kicks up a tsunami that Richie can’t ignore. He lurches over to the side as the immense wave crests, and empties his stomach over the cavern floor. The cramping in his stomach brings yet more tears to his eyes. Fuck, he doesn’t think he’ll ever stop crying. He wants to curl up and die.

Finally, the sickness abates, and he straightens up. His vision is as blurry as it would be if he weren’t wearing his glasses, but he can still see enough of Eddie’s face to see how it has changed. Rather than the vicious hatred that Richie had expected, on his face is a wide, barbaric grin.

“Just a pathetic little queer,” he hisses, but there’s something to his voice that puts Richie somehow more ill at ease. “Secretly hated by his friends, barely tolerated by parents who wanted something else, something better. He knows how unlovable he is, it haunts him, and yet he pines for one out of his reach. But nobody will miss him, nor will they care. Just a pathetic. little. queer.”

“Eddie?” he asks, and he’s glad to hear that his confusion has strengthened his voice slightly.

Eddie’s eyes, squinted with hateful mirth, flash gold.

The lights turn out.

The lights come up.

Eddie’s face is a sickly grey. There are dark circles under his eyes, like he’s not slept for the last few decades. His usually smooth, full cheeks are hollow and gaunt.

The lights turn out.

The lights come up.

The black liquid that Richie has so unfortunately become so well acquainted with over the last hour or so is now spilling out of Eddie’s mouth. It runs down his chin in a thick rivulet, seeping over and between his teeth as his grin widens and sharpens.

The lights turn out.

The lights come up.

Eddie’s teeth are whetted into the teeth of a saltwater crocodile (or a werewolf). His yellow gaze is fixed on Richie’s face, looking like he’s more than ready to tear Richie’s throat out.

The lights blink.

On-off-on-off-on-off.

This newly-demonized version of Eddie starts walking intently towards Richie, getting closer with each flicker of the lights so fast that it makes Richie yelp.

Suddenly, the words of the Losers’ Club reach his ears in a way that they haven’t for the last handful of minutes. He actually hears them, rather than just a happy blur; he actually understands what they’re saying - what they likely have been saying since he stopped being able to pay attention.

“Richie, oh, God, RUN!” Bev shrieks.

“Come here! We’re over here!” adds Stan. It’s true; when he turns his head to look over his shoulder, Richie can see his six friends standing together, fidgeting restlessly like they’re trying to move, but their feet are made of cobalt, and there’s the universe's strongest magnet at the core of the Earth.

“Holy shit!” he yells, scared out of his mind as relief floods so thick through his veins that he nearly collapses as he dodges demon-Eddie’s grabbing hands and races towards his friends. He crashes into them - into Bill, specifically, who puts out his hands to catch Richie by the shoulders. He looks carefully into Richie’s face. Tears still fill Richie’s eyes and run down his cheeks, but for some reason, he can’t help but want to laugh.

“Are you fucking oh-okay, R-Rich?” Bill demands, before hissing at the others to keep their eyes on demon-Eddie.

Richie presses his lips together, then nods his head unconvincingly. His legs are quivering underneath him, as are his hands. He’s never felt more vulnerable, and his despairing helplessness makes a new wave of tears prick at his eyes. Bill squeezes his shoulders, frowning.

Demon-Eddie shrieks as the lights briefly blink off. Richie twists on the spot, forcing Bill’s hands from his shoulders and himself to pull it together. If he can just get through this, if he can just survive, he’ll have all the time to cry that he could ever need. He keeps repeating the reminder to himself as he stares at the thing that had just killed him. He can’t believe his own stupidity - demon-Eddie had been clean and fresh-faced, purposefully carved as to most painfully tug on Richie’s heart. The real Eddie, the one standing to Richie’s left, is still dripping with that dark sludge that was falling from his demon counterpart’s lips. The same lips that Richie had almost– Fucking hell, if he lives, he’s going to wallow in embarrassment until it kills him.

The lights come up.

Demon-Eddie is stood a handful of yards in front of them. He looks at them, frozen solid. The grin on his face seems to have faded slightly, appearing less certain. His eyes have an air of wariness about them, like the lion suddenly face-to-face with the buffalo.

The lights turn out.

A scuttling noise rolls around the group of Losers, not dissimilar to the light-footed scampering of Stan’s woman, but multiplied by a hundred. It quietens as its source moves away from the group. All seven children release a breath.

Another person appears by Richie’s side - by the sound of his breathing, he knows it’s Ben. Richie’s heart thumps as a spot in the back of his brain remembers: Ben knows. He nearly throws up again just at the recollection. But, he figures, it could be worse. Ben hasn’t spit at him, or punched him, or offered him up to Pennywise in disgust, not yet. He can’t quite feel relief, and won’t until he can pull Ben aside and have a proper discussion with him (and even then, reassurance would be an unlikely thing), but for now, it’s a strange weight off his chest to have someone that he can at least partially confide in.

“Ben,” he hisses out of the corner of his mouth at the same time that Bill starts telling the rest of the group to be ready for when the light returns.

“Richie,” Ben says back. Richie doesn’t miss the apprehension in his tone, and blinks hard to distract himself from instantly catastrophizing.

“What happened to me? Just now? I couldn't, like… hear you guys.”

“Yeah, we could tell. We could hear you, though.” Ben then gasps sharply, and Richie hears as he slaps his hands over his mouth. It takes a second for his words to sink in, but when they do, Richie wants immediately to be rid of them.

“What?”

“Don’t freak out when I tell you this, okay,” Ben says quickly, the equivalent to slapping a Band-aid over a broken bone. Richie’s heart seizes. Ben’s tone is gentle and quiet, like you would talk to a spooked dog. “While you were over there, we could, uh. Hear everything you said. And everything that It said. And we could also… see everything. That happened between you.”

The breath flies from Richie’s lungs with the same efficiency as that time Henry Bowers had socked him in the gut so hard he’d ended up vomiting. “You… saw–?”

“Rich, listen, it’s–”

“No-no-no-no-no, Haystack, don’t… Just, don’t. Please. I’ve allocated time for panic at a later date, I just don't have the time for it right now. Please talk to my assistant if you want to book an appointment.” The effect of the admittedly already weak joke is diminished further by the way his voice cracks in terror. A hand lands on his bicep. He flinches away on impulse, then reminds himself that It has crawled somewhere away from them, and forces himself to relax. “Dude, Ben, I’m serious. I appreciate it, buddy, but I’m already this close to stress-puking again, so literally any sympathy is gonna make me punch you.”

“Okay, please don’t do that,” and that is certainly not Ben’s voice. He never thought he’d say it, but this voice is the one he least wants to hear on the entire planet right now. “Also, if you become the second person to throw up on me today, I’ll kill you with my own bare hands, I swear to God.”

“Eddie–” is all Richie manages to get out before his mouth snaps shut. It’s not often that his brain-mouth filter makes an appearance, but when it does, it usually means that Richie’s going to fuck shit up beyond repair if he keeps talking. Eddie's hand squeezes tightly on his arm.

“Rich, I want you to listen to me for once in your life, okay?” You’re disgusting, we can’t be friends, I’m going to leave you down here to die and nobody will even care– “I want to talk to you, but not right now. Later. When we get out. We’ll talk about this later.”

“No, dude, I am so unbelievably sorry, I don’t know–”

“Richie. We’re going to get outta here, and we’ll get back to town, and then you can say whatever you want to say. I promise we’ll talk. But right now, we need to kill this son of a bitch.” His teasing smile is audible when he tags on, “Capiche?”.

Richie can’t help but breathe out a gentle laugh, even as his heart is already preparing itself for its newly-scheduled rejection. Judging by how Eddie squeezes his bicep again, it was the intended response. “Capiche.”

“Let’s go.”

The lights come up

at the same moment that Eddie takes his hand off Richie’s arm. The loss hurts, because Richie knows he’s got a severely limited amount of times he’s going to feel the touch again, and he forces himself to look around the cistern instead of at Eddie. Later rings in his head. He refuses to spend the remaining time he has with Eddie as his friend wallowing in self-pity.

“Hey, where are you, you bitch?!” he screams to the wide expanse of the room. Ghosts of his voice bounce back to him.

“Oh, God!” yelps Stan. “Over here, he’s over here! On the ceiling.”

They all follow his pointed finger upwards until they each land on a staggeringly huge Pennywise. Calling It a clown is barely validated, at this point; It may still have the grease-painted upper body and smile that each of them know and despise, but Its body has changed like setting lava into that of an immense, fucked-up spider. Like one of those centaurs that Richie used to love reading about as a kid, except conceived by the Devil himself. Pennywise is upside-down where It is on the roof of the cistern, Its grotesque legs clinging to the concrete. Its eyes seem to shine like spotlights where they glare down at the Losers. Its arms hang loosely with gravity, gloved fingers splayed, like It wants to play. Richie grits his teeth and inwardly curses whatever being was responsible, all those aeons ago, for creating this thing.

“Fucking hell, what is that thing?” shrieks Mike, stepping backwards. They all mirror his movements, though it’s more of a protective than a cowardly move. If we s-stick together, all of us... we'll win.

YOU ALREADY KNOW, says that same creeping voice. A frantic glance around Richie tells him that, this time, he’s not the only one who’s hearing it. Pennywise’s mouth doesn’t move in the slightest. I AM YOUR DEATH, ALL OF YOUR DEATHS. I AM THE DESTROYER OF PLANETS, THE EATER OF WORLDS. NONE OF YOU CAN DEFEAT ME, AS MUCH AS YOU WAVE AROUND THOSE LITTLE STICKS AND SPEARS. AS MUCH AS YOU BELIEVE. YOU WILL NOT, YOU CANNOT KILL ME, AND I WILL GO BACK TO MY SLEEP, THEN I WILL WAKE UP AFTER MY REST AND BEGIN MY FEAST ONCE MORE. BUT FIRST, I WILL KILL YOU ALL! It cackles. It still does not move.

“You think we cuh-can’t kill you?!” Bill shouts back at it, fury in his eyes.

“We’re gonna kill you so fucking hard you won’t believe it!” adds Richie, letting his mouth take the reins.

“Yeah, you’re just a fucking clown,” Stan hisses, sounding less certain.

The lights turn out.

The lights come up.

Its mouth has dropped its bloody grin, instead glaring single-mindedly down at the group in a way that makes Richie feel like he’s about to combust into smokey flames.

“Nothing more than a stupid, fake Weeping Angel!” chimes in Mike. He points at It, the way a parent points down at their misbehaving child. Richie bites his smile back.

“You can’t even move if we see you!” Eddie reminds It. “How fucking weak are you that you can’t move right now?!”

“‘Eater of Worlds’? We’ve been beating you - how could you be the Eater of Worlds if you’re not even the eater of seven kids?!” snarls Bev, vindictiveness in her voice.

“What’s the quote?” Ben asks out loud. “Their greatest asset is their greatest curse, right? But you don’t even have the good parts! If you were a real Angel, we would be long gone by now!”

“Yeah!” Richie shrieks, practically insane with adrenaline. “You’re not an Angel, how could you be? You’re a clown, nothing more, and we’re gonna kill the shit outta you.”

The lights turn out.

“Oh, am I not an Angel?” Pennywise’s voice comes echoing down to them. “Am I not a clown? Am I not both? Are double-lives and secrets no longer permitted, Trashmouth? Well, you’d know all about those, wouldn’t you, Rich– though, whoops! I suppose not anymore. Cat’s out of the bag, it seems! And they’ll hate you for the rest of your meagre lives for it.”

“He’s lying, Richie!” yells Ben. Richie doesn’t respond, not to his friend. He can’t reveal just how much he doesn’t believe Ben.

“Suck my fat one, asshole!” he screams instead, his voice wobbly, but certain. He turns to the Losers. “Don’t blink, remember? Just like the Doctor said. Just keep your eyes the hell open, and looking the hell at It.” Blink and you’re dead runs once again through his head, but he doesn’t say it.

BLINK AND YOU’RE DEAD, HM? HOW INTERESTING. Nobody around him starts immediately panicking, so Richie dares to guess that this message is for him and him alone. PLAY A GAME WITH ME, WOULD YOU, RICHIE? IT GOES LIKE THIS: I TURN THE LIGHTS ON, YOU BLINK, AND WE TEST IF YOUR LITTLE THEORY IS CORRECT. SOUNDS FUN, RIGHT?

Kiss my ass.

WHAT FIGHTING TALK. CAN YOU BACK IT UP?

The lights come up.

Richie squints against the onslaught of brightness, but manages to keep his eyes open just enough to see how It has lowered Itself from the ceiling and is now crouched on the rocky floor in front of them. He steps backwards, biting back a frightened whimper.

“Look at It,” he bites. His friends all snap their gazes up towards the Spider.

“Don’t blink,” adds Bill. His voice is low and emotionless.

Most of them, Richie included, have lost their weapons in the chaos of the last hour. Mike, with his lead pipe, steps forward towards it, his eyes hard and determined. Bev has retained her fence post, and crouches down to grab another laying by her feet. She holds it out to her side; Eddie takes it without fuss.

“Leave Derry alone!” Mike shouts in Its direction. “Bill already said it: there are seven of us and only one of you! You can’t win! Just leave us alone, and leave this town alone, you son of a bitch!”

VERY COURAGEOUS OF YOU, YOU FOOLISH LITTLE BOY, Pennywise’s voice echoes through each of their heads. YOU CANNOT EVEN PULL THE TRIGGER FOR A SHEEP, MIKEY-BOY - DO YOU REALLY EXPECT TO HAVE THE BRAVERY NEEDED TO FACE ME AND WIN?

“I’m here with my friends, so yeah, I do expect that!”

The creeping voice almost sighs, WHAT A SHAME. I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT HAVE AT LEAST ONE BRAIN BETWEEN THE LOT OF YOU, BUT IT SEEMS NOT. It pauses for a moment, like It’s thinking. THOUGH, MIKEY, YOU RAISE A GOOD POINT. YOUR GAME IS SKEWED, LOSERS. YOUR RULES ARE UNFAIR! SEVEN AGAINST ONE HARDLY SEEMS EQUITABLE, HM? SO, I SAY IT’S TIME TO EVEN THE PLAYING FIELD A BIT.

The words are still actively bouncing around Richie’s brain when they are cut off by Mike’s piercing, guttural scream.

His lead pipe clatters noisily as it falls against the ground. Mike hunches forward, his hands coming up to cover his face where he stands with his back to the Losers. His breath is coming loud and agonized from his mouth as he writhes around on the spot.

“Mike!” the others all shout together.

“S-Stay put! Keep fucking luh-luh-looking at It!” demands Bill, before rushing forward to come to Mike’s side. Richie keeps his line of sight on the Spider, but in his peripheral vision, he can also make out what’s going on with his friends.

Bill takes the groaning Mike’s wrists in his hands, coaxing them away from his face. Richie can’t see what Bill’s looking at in Mike’s expression, exactly, but the way that whatever it is makes the blood drain from their leader’s face forces Richie’s heart into his feet.

“What’s going on over there?” Ben calls out to the pair.

“Bill, Bill, I can’t– What’s going on?” Mike breathes, his voice quiet and terrified beyond comprehension. Then he turns to face the Losers, and Richie’s mouth drops open.

Mike’s eyes, usually dark and wise, are clouded over in a gray sheet. His pupils are barely discernible from the surrounding storm of his iris. As Richie watches, his eyes glance around the room, unfocused, unsure. Unseeing. His arms are stretched out in front of him, his fingers spread wide. He keeps making uncertain little noises, grappling for something familiar. Richie has to look away lest he throw up again.

“Bill, Bev. Eds, guys. Where the hell are you guys, I can’t see you, I can’t see anything, it’s all just nothing, please somebody say something! What the fuck’s going on with me?!”

“Mike! M-Mike, calm down, man! I’m here, ohk-kay?” Bill tells him firmly, placing a hand on Mike’s shoulder. Mike immediately presses into the touch, but his tear-streaked face twists into a grimace.

“No, I can’t, how am I supposed to calm down?!” he shrieks. His hand comes up to grab desperately at Bill’s. “I can’t fucking see anything, Bill! I can’t see anything, I can’t see. Oh, my God, I’m blind, I can’t see, man!”

“We’ll fix it,” Bill says to him, his other hand coming up to rest between Mike’s shoulder blades and encourage him to walk back towards the Losers. “We’ll fuh-fix it, and you’ll be ay-able to see again, I promise, Mikey.”

“You can’t know that,” sobs Mike. “How can you know that?”

Bill doesn’t say anything. He just leads Mike forwards, one step at a time, until he comes to a large rock. He gently leads Mike down into a sitting position, his back against the rock, his legs spread out in front of him. When Bill pulls away, Mike’s hands flail desperately until they land on Bill’s forearm.

“No-no-no, don’t leave, Bill. I can’t see anything, please don’t leave me here in the dark…”

“I’m not leave-leaving you,” Bill replies with certainty in his voice.

“It hurt so much, then it all went blurry, then it all went black and I can’t see anything...” His shaking, teary words have Richie biting down on his lip to stop himself from breaking down into despairing sobs.

“We’re gonna beat It, okay?” Bill says determinedly. As he keeps whispering attempts at consolation to the trembling Mike, Bev asks in a quiet tone,

“What do we do?”

The Spider is still in position under the power of their gazes. The cruel smile on Its blood-red lips remains just as spine-chilling as ever.

“We kill Its bitch-ass,” Eddie growls. Richie can’t stop himself before he’s flicking his eyes over to his friend. Eddie’s face is carved into a stony expression of concentration and confidence. His skin is still slick with that revolting black goop, and he’ll be washing the stuff from the creases of his cast for weeks to come, and his legs are visibly trembling. He looks fantastic. And that’s before he reels his working arm back, gripping the fence post from Bev tight, and hurls it forward like an Olympic javelin thrower. He shrieks out a furious, “Beep, beep, motherFUCKER!” and if Richie wasn’t already embarrassingly gone for the guy, he would have fallen right then and there, consequences be damned.

The fence post soars through the air in a glorious arc, but Richie’s heart sinks. Eddie’d been forced to use his weak hand, as his right was stuck in the cast, and it shows in the trajectory of the post. It wasn’t going to hit.

Though, as they all look on in astonishment, the weapon seems to curve in midair. Its course rights itself like a homing missile, until it shoots directly between Its painted lips and into the fleshy back of Its throat.

The lights turn out.

The Spider begins retching and coughing into the incredible darkness, audibly writhing around in an attempt to dislodge the spike in Its throat. Its copious legs scuttle and clack awfully as they hit against rock and concrete, and there's an almighty thump as Its immense body crashes into the wall of the cistern. One particularly wet, nasty cough is followed by silence that is abruptly broken by the clanging of the metal fence post against the ground. Richie has no time to mourn Its continued existence.

The lights come up.

Pennywise is pissed. Its face is contorted into a furious snarl, eyebrows furrowed, eyes flashing, teeth coated in sticky black ichor. A string of the stuff falls from Its lip and stretches all the way to the ground - a solid twenty feet, as It is propped up high on Its legs - without breaking. It’s also significantly closer, and each of the Losers yelp as they stumble backwards. When Ben’s and Stan’s fearful shouts turn to screams of terror and pain, Richie’s attention swings towards them.

Bev catches his eye, and together they immediately rush over to their agonized friends, shouting at Eddie and Bill to keep their eyes on the Spider as they do.

“Stan!” Richie yells, seizing his friend’s shoulders. Stan shrinks away from him, tears meeting still-flowing blood on the point of his chin.

“No! No, don’t– Don’t touch me, stay away, no!” he screams, punching out at Richie’s shoulders and chest. Richie glances momentarily over at Bev, who is having significantly more success guiding the shaking Ben over to where Mike is crouched against the rock.

“Stan, it’s me! It’s Richie, it’s Richie, it’s okay!” he tries desperately to placate, keeping his hands tight on Stan’s arms. Stan’s struggling doesn’t cease, but it does abate slightly.

“No, I can’t know that, I don’t know. I can’t see, I can’t know, I c-can’t…” Stan’s voice is wretched like it was when they’d rescued him from his painting before. Richie hadn’t been able to stop the tears then, and he’s having a damn hard time doing it now.

“It’s me, Stanley, it’s okay! I promise.” He starts pulling Stan towards where Bev is crouched in front of the sobbing Ben. Stan resists for a moment, then his feet start falling into place behind Richie.

“Guys, what’s going on?!” Eddie calls to them.

“They can’t see,” Beverly grits out bitterly. She’s looking into the stony, unseeing gray of Ben’s eyes when Richie helps Stan sit down on the other side of Mike.

“Oh, shit,” hisses Bill.

“You guys all need to stay here,” Richie tells Mike, Stan, and Ben fiercely. Stan is wiping at his eyes, whether to quell the tears or the pain, Richie can’t guess. Mike’s grimacing face snaps in his direction, his brow furrowing into an angry creek.

“Shove that up your actual ass, Tozier,” he tells Richie, voice passable for a growl. “We wanna help, let us–”

“With all due respect, Mikey, shut the fuck up,” Richie shoots back. Mike starts trying to scramble to his feet, but is held back by a restraining hand on each of his shoulders. He sits back down with an annoyed oof. “If you guys get involved you’re gonna fucking die, okay, and believe it or not, I don’t fucking want that. Stay put.”

Stanley coughs out a fresh sob. Ben’s hand reaches out to the side, over Mike’s lap, and pats around awkwardly until it clumsily lands on Stan’s knee.

“He’s right,” Bev tells the three of them. Mike scoffs, his leg bouncing.

“Guys, if you’d just let us try–”

“Mike,” Bill snaps. His eyes are still fixed on Pennywise when Richie glances towards him. “You can’t s-s-see. Stay there.”

Mike rolls his unseeing eyes, but doesn’t argue.

Richie and Bev rejoin Bill and Eddie.

“Is that gonna happen to the rest of us?” Eddie asks quietly. “Like… Are we gonna go fucking blind like the others?”

“We’ve got names, remember?” Stan reminds him. His voice is still wobbly, and his face is tight with panic, but at least he’s speaking like Richie expects him to.

The lights go out.

The four seeing Losers all whimper in fear, reaching out to grab onto one another.

“What a good question, Eddie-bear,” hisses the Spider with a malicious giggle. “Yes. I’ll blind you, I’ll drive you crazy with the agony, with the knowledge that you can do nothing to stop it. Ask your friends, they'll tell you.”

“Fuck you, bitch!” cries Richie into the darkness. The only response is the clacking of spider legs on concrete before

the lights come up.

He steps back in the face of the Spider, closer again. His knuckles are white as they grip around Bill’s and Eddie’s biceps, and they are pulled backwards with him. With his other arm, Bill pulls back his reclaimed chain once again, his face set in determination in Richie’s periphery.

Then the muscles in the arms under Richie’s hands tense at the same moment, and the chain goes crumpling to the ground as both Bill and Eddie shriek in piercing pain.

RUNNING OUT OF EYES, AREN’T WE, LOSERS? Its voice cackles in their heads, loud enough that it’s unignorable even over the two boys’ screams. Bill’s knees have buckled under the pressure of the torment, so he’s crouched down with the heels of his hands digging into his eyes. Eddie’s biting down on his tongue viciously, his face ducked down into his cast, hiding his eyes.

“Fuck, Richie!” Bev shouts desperately on the other side of Bill. He can see in the corner of his eye how she’s straining to keep her eyes on the clown.

“Keep looking, Bev,” he hisses back at her as he darts over and swings Eddie around 180°. He tugs his arm away from his eyes. Eddie whimpers in pain and surprise, his hands coming out to grip at the lapels of Richie’s shirt.

“Hurts,” he says. His usually chocolate eyes are flat and steely, and fixed somewhere around Richie’s collarbone. Tears track freely down his reddened cheeks.

“We’ll fix this,” Richie tells him as surely as he can, which isn’t saying much. He reaches down to grasp Bill’s shoulder, his other hand staying firmly around Eddie’s wrist. “Come on, both of you, quick.”

“Oh, God, what’s going on?” Ben asks the group at large as Richie sits Bill and Eddie down.

“M-Me and Bill,” Eddie sniffs, rubbing at his eyes.

“Fuck,” grimaces Mike as Stan groans loudly.

“Rich, could kinda use you over here, please!” Bev calls to him, voice sharp.

“Stay,” he orders his other friends, pulling back and rejoining Beverly in the world’s deadliest staring contest. After a moment, he forces out a choked, “God, fuck, Bev, what do we do?” She doesn’t say anything.

“Hey, guys!” Mike shouts suddenly from behind them, making them both jolt. “It’s not an Angel, remember? Like the Doctor said, the Angels get, uh, uh, quantum-locked, right? They can’t physically move.”

“Not if you’re looking at them,” Bev points out, a crease between her eyebrows.

“Sure, but we’ve already hurt It. Even when It was frozen, we could still, like, interact with It, you know?”

“What about when we were trying to free Bev from her dad?” Ben asks in a slightly quieter voice. “He wouldn’t move an inch.”

“Yeah, that’s…” Mike stops and sighs. “Okay, fine. But even then, Bev could hurt him, couldn’t she? She escaped because she hurt him and he let her go. Same as when I hit that body with the pipe, and same as when Eddie threw the fence post right now, right?”

“We can do this,” Bill says. His voice is firm, albeit watered down by his tears slightly. “Beverly, Richie, it’s on y-you guys, but you need to huh-hurry up.” Richie knows what he’s getting at - they don’t know how long they have until they, too, lose their sight. And when that happens… all seven of them are dead.

The way Bev grinds her teeth is practically audible, her jaw clenching at the edge of Richie’s vision. The Spider is watching the two of them closely, a hint of what he would label as mocking pity in Its eyes. He feels that hurricane of anger start its rotations inside him again. It has lowered Itself on Its legs, now, so It’s practically level with them. Its greasepainted face leers in their vision, grinning cruelly, knowing It has the upper hand.

Richie’s discarded bat is only a few feet before him, slightly to the right, like it was sent by Maturin Himself. He moves quickly, praying that he’ll take It by surprise as he ducks down and snatches up his trusty, clown-killing weapon. A couple more swift steps forward and he swings with a shriek, hearing the satisfying whoooop of air parting for the bat, followed by the even more satisfying crack! of two solid forces meeting as

the lights turn out.

Pennywise hisses in pain and shock. Its joints creak organically, and Richie can sense as Its immense presence pulls away from him.

The lights come up.

The Spider has retreated halfway across the cistern, facing them, looking at them with a startlingly affronted expression that nearly makes Richie burst out into hysterical giggles. He doesn’t have time to, though, before Bev is screaming and rushing past him and she’s holding a fence post and she’s running practically underneath It and she’s aiming her pointed weapon and she’s thrusting it forward into the colossal abdomen of Its body and there’s sticky black ichor pouring down towards her hands and

the lights go out.

And the Spider screams a single word, out loud so they can all hear it, including the Turtle Himself, probably. A web of cracks appear as if by magic on the walls of the cistern as the entire place shakes. Wet, burbling noises come from somewhere below them, but are drowned out by Pennywise’s furious voice.

“E̶̻̜̰̩̠̐̓̉N̷̟̤͂͐̔Ò̷̠̑̂͆́͜Ù̵̘̗̫͕̈́͌͒̓G̴̛͈̹͌̈́̊Ĥ̵̡̛̝̪̈̽̚!̷̧͍͈̮̠̓́̅”

The lights come up.

Beverly drops her fence post carelessly. It slips from Its abdomen, followed by a steady stream of the black goo. Her hands are at her face, and Richie has only a split-instant to realize what this means and think, oh, fuck, before Bev screams again, this time in utter anguish.

“No! Fuck, Bev!” Richie shouts, stirring a tangle of voices from his friends behind him.

“Richie! Where are you?!” she calls back, wheeling in his direction. Spider be damned, Richie isn’t going to let the coolest gal on the planet be killed in front of him. So he runs forward, grabs her flailing hand, and hauls her away haphazardly. Her Keds drag on the ground, and she is crying and swearing under her breath, but he can’t look at her. Because if he looks at her, he can’t look at It, and if he can’t look at It, they’re all fucked six ways from Sunday.

He’s walking backwards, just as blind to where he’s treading as the rest of the Losers, and as a result nearly trips over a pair of legs that turn out to be Ben’s. Richie coaxes Bev behind him, handing her off to Ben with a mumbled, “She’s all yours, Haystack.”

He marches forward a few steps towards the Spider, his hands trembling where they’re grasping the bat. He wonders if this is what David felt, facing up to the grinning Goliath, armed with nothing more than a mere slingshot. But at least David had been in God’s favor; Richie doesn’t think he’s ever come close to such a thing. If anything, he’s in Satan’s disfavor. He’s quite literally the only thing between Pennywise and his friends, the people he cares about more in the entire world. If he as the wall crumbles, or cracks, or lets himself be bulldozed by the clown, it’s all over.

JUST YOU AND ME NOW, LITTLE TRASHMOUTH. YOU CAN’T PROTECT THEM. YOU CAN’T EVEN PROTECT YOURSELF.

Another rolling tsunami of nausea forces its way through his stomach, and he squeezes his eyes shut as his abdomen cramps and he doubles over to throw up. It hurts, sending tears pricking at his eyes, but he only has a second to pity himself before there’s yet another piercing scream. He straightens up so fast he makes himself dizzy, his head snapping over to look for the source of the noise.

He finds it immediately; it’s hard not to when suddenly all he can see is Pennywise hunched over Eddie, back in Its beloathed clown form, while Eddie kicks out desperately. His good arm is flailing, and he sees it catch Bill in the chest. Bill doesn’t react, though, other than to continue in his fumbling attempts to help push the clown away. It’s not going anywhere, though - Its gloved hands are wrapped tightly around Eddie’s upper arm, between the sleeve of his polo shirt and his filthy cast. Drool falls from Its lips and onto Eddie’s lap, and It’s not moving - not now that Richie is looking at It - but it’s still abundantly clear how It is planning on snapping Eddie’s arm. Probably off, like how that psycho Patrick Hockstetter would pull wings off flies in the middle of Math.

“Get off! Let go, get the fuck OFF ME!” Eddie is screaming, trying to no avail to pull his arm away. All five other blinded Losers are crowded around him, shouting insults and pleas, but as long as Richie’s eyes are frozen on Its sneering face, It’s not going anywhere.

He wants to vomit again, but forces himself to swallow the urge down as he sprints over to his friends. Adrenaline fills his arms and his hands, his fingers flexing on his baseball bat. His eyes are wide; everything in his field of view is ten times its normal clarity.

“You heard him!” he shouts, feeling his muscles stretch as he reels back the weapon. “Get the fuck off him, you motherfucking irrelevant sloppy bitch!”

The bat laughs out a familiar triumphant crunch as it reunites itself with Pennywise’s skull. Richie barely blinks when

the lights flicker,

accustomed to the rules of Its game. When the light is reinstated, Pennywise’s left eye has collapsed into a mess of scrambled black brain matter, streaked with flaky white greasepaint. Its mouth is twisted into a pained, enraged snarl in Richie’s direction, Its functional eye squinted into a slit with the intensity of its glare. Dark goo drips slowly over Its cheekbone and down Its chin - the same stuff that is still pouring ceaselessly from the gash in Its abdomen.

“You’re okay, you’re okay, It’s gone,” a quiet voice says. Richie tunes his ears to it without shifting his gaze from Pennywise’s cavernous eye. It’s Ben, talking softly to Eddie, whose breaths are coming out ragged and gasped.

“Fuck, I don’t– my as-aspirator, I can’t– breathe– hurts. Pack– outside. Richie.”

The choked words flow through Richie’s brain, and he forces himself to step towards the clown as his teeth clench together.

“Hey, fuckface,” he hisses, “who’s running out of eyes now? God, fuck, I wonder how it must feel to be blinded like that. Must suck, huh.”

“Fuck you!” Bev shouts loudly. Richie can’t be sure who it’s directed towards.

OH, YOU WONDER, DO YOU? asks Pennywise, almost curiously. Richie freezes in place, his mistake hitting him like Bill’s fist had weeks before.

“I–”

DON’T YOU WORRY, LITTLE RICHIE, YOU WON’T BE WONDERING FOR MUCH LONGER. It giggles.

A sharp gasp rushes to his lungs as the back of his eyes start to burn. It’s not like it seemed to have been for the other Losers; they’d all immediately been rendered immovable by the suddenness of the pain. For Richie, it’s uncomfortable, yes, but manageable. His eyes fill with tears, but he keeps them locked on the clown even as his vision becomes watery and distorted.

“Richie?” Bill calls out.

“You okay, Rich?” asks Stan.

“Ah,” Richie bites out through his gritted teeth before drawling, “yeah, just peachy, dawlin’. Nothin’ a little perseverance ain’t gon’ solve.” He opens his mouth to keep going, a stream of Southern consciousness, but all that comes out is a strangled groan. His bat clatters to the ground as his fingers come up under his glasses to push into his eyes, like he’s trying to ward off the rapidly increasing fire in his retinas. He’s panting now, each exhale tail-ended by a wounded moan.

“Oh, God, Richie?!” Eddie shrieks.

“Talk to us!” demands Mike.

Richie tries to tell them, he really does, but his voice box allows him to do nothing more than scream wordlessly when he engages it. His glasses slip off the end of his nose, he thinks. Across his vision spread cigarette burns, blackness stretching in agnosia-like patches that threaten to overwhelm him. The agony continues to get worse, rusted nails thrust through his corneas. He can feel tears flooding down his cheeks as he screams again.

“Richie!” he hears at least three different voices call, but he can comprehend no more than that. The only voice he can understand as clearly as if it were talking to him on a quiet summer’s day is the clown’s.

OH, DEAR, DID WE OVERESTIMATE OURSELVES? A PITY, I SUPPOSE. I WAS ALMOST BEGINNING TO ENJOY THE COMPANY OF THE SEVEN OF YOU, BUT THEN AGAIN… YOU’RE MORE VALUABLE AS FOOD, AREN’T YOU, RICHIE? It teases, golden eye boring into Richie’s. HOW DOES IT FEEL? DO YOU STILL WONDER ABOUT WHAT IT IS LIKE TO BE BLINDED LIKE THIS?

Richie’s legs are trembling, and his vision is almost completely blotted out. Fuck, if this is it, if he’s never getting out of here, the least he can do is remind the bitch of the truth.

“You’re not fucking real,” he spits, gasping tearfully. His head is filling with a black, dull fog. He can almost feel the way his pupils are clouding over as he fixes one last, painful glare on the clown. “You’re not an Angel. You’re not– fucking…”

What’s left of his vision crumbles like paper in a fireplace. The little remaining strength in his knees deserts him under the weight of the all-consuming torment in his eyes; they buckle, sending him falling heavily towards the ground, like his body is made of cobalt, and there’s the universe's strongest magnet at the core of the Earth. His eyes slip shut as his brain shuts down.

Chapter Text

The last little flickers of burning thread their way through Eddie’s eyes as he sits with his back against a rock and his knee pressed against Ben’s to his left. At least, he thinks it’s Ben next to him; it’s not like he can be certain. The pain leaves in its wake an awful pressure that doesn’t necessarily hurt, per se, but does make his head feel about thrice its usual weight.

He knows that the only reason the agony has faded is because It has allowed it to. He knows that It could make it worse and worse, if desired, until his heart gives out from the sheer pain. And most of all, he knows how much he despises how out of control he feels. It’s bad enough feeling like knitting needles are being shoved through his eyes, but then the clown had to go and grip his arm like that, like his Mom, and it only got worse and he was trapped and he couldn’t escape and he was screaming his head off but It wouldn’t let up and–

And he’s having an asthma attack, now. His lungs are compressing, his blood is rushing in his ears, he can feel the tears welling up in his eyes, he can’t breathe. He calls for Richie to go get his aspirator, but he knows it’s on the dead lawn outside Neibolt. Fuck, why did he throw it away like that?! Mommy would be so disappointed, she always knows what’s right for him, she always knows how to treat his asthma attacks–

Fuck off, it’s not an asthma attack, it’s NOT. Gazebos, remember? a brave little voice in his head admonishes. You’re just having a panic attack, you can get yourself out without those bogus meds. Eddie grits his teeth and starts breathing in and out, slow slow slow, registering Ben’s knee on one side and Bill’s elbow on the other. The ground he’s on is hard and uneven, and perfect to distract him.

He doesn’t know how long it takes for him to catch his breath, but when he finally does, he’s almost sent straight back into panic by what greets him.

Bill and Stan are calling to Richie, who is making little pained noises with each outbreath. He reports in a clumsy Voice that everything’s peachy and he needs nothing more than simple perseverance - but it’s clear to all of them that he's lying when he lets out a strangled, throaty groan, and something that must be his makeshift weapon clatters noisily on the ground.

When Eddie cries out, “Oh, God, Richie?!” it’s more like it’s been jerked sharply out of him on a fishing line.

“Talk to us!” Mike pleads, but Richie can’t. The only answer Mike gets is a scream that wouldn’t have sounded out of place in Psycho. For a moment, Eddie thinks his heart has given up on his life as a bad job, because it really does sound like the clown has just…

No. Richie can’t be dead.

He, Bill, and Stan, panicked, all shriek out his name. It’s not Richie who answers them, though, but the clown, whose mocking voice almost entirely drowns out the shouts of the Losers as it rings through their minds. HOW DOES IT FEEL? It asks. It might as well already be licking Its lips with how triumphant It sounds. DO YOU STILL WONDER ABOUT WHAT IT IS LIKE TO BE BLINDED LIKE THIS?

“Richie! Rich, please!” Eddie calls. His voice is lost in the tangled noise of his fellow Losers’ similar pleas, but if any of them garner a response from Richie, he can’t hear it.

“You’re not fucking real,” Eddie hears a voice say. For a moment he can’t place it, because surely that can’t be Richie speaking so shakily, so pained? He feels a burst of utter fury rear its head inside him; Voices help make Richie into himself, and the fucking clown is taking that away from him. The others all seem to hear him, too, and quieten enough to hear him spit out at Pennywise, “You’re not an Angel. You’re not– fucking…”

The two seconds of silence that follow, Eddie recalls later, are the worst he’ll experience for a long, long time.

Then comes the noise of something collapsing heavily onto a hard surface, and Eddie’s breath catches so harshly in his throat that he nearly chokes. Stan is the one to break the group’s silence.

“No!”

“Yes!” giggles the clown, and Eddie can hear Its footsteps as It starts slowly walking towards them. Next to him, Bill scrambles ungainly to his feet. Someone else joins him immediately - Eddie would bet anything it’s Mike - and his friends have always made him braver. He stands with them. His ears are straining to hear where It is, and he fixes his most determined glare in the direction of… where he’s pretty sure It stands.

Pennywise laughs. Even without his eyes, Eddie can see the teeth sharpened into five-inch paring knives, the pupils shrunk into slits, the cracked and peeling greasepaint.

“How admirable. You still think you stand a chance? Ha! It’s too bad, I suppose, that none of you will ever live long enough to become more wise. Oh, my - who will tell your parents, hm? Well, Mikey, there’s no need for you to worry about that, is there? And Billy… Will they care? What’s another child, hm? Eds, gosh… She’ll be torn to shreds, I suppose. You always knew that it would be you to kill her, isn’t that right? Stanny, one more disappointment for your father, what does it matter? One more for the road. Bevvie, your father… how will he react when he wakes in the hospital and finds that his little girl messed around with a group of boys and hasn’t been seen since? He’ll live the rest of his days knowing that the rumors are true, that you are nothing but a slut, hm? A true shame, for all of you. You could have lived long, haaaappy lives, and yet, here you are. Bitten off more than you can chew, hey, Benny-boy? Wouldn’t be the first time. You know, Bill, considering the amount of foreshadowing you like to use in those little fairytales of yours, I would have thought you might have had the brains to foresee the inevitable ending of this encounter.”

“How could I, wh-when you chee-cheated, you lying son of a b-b-bitch?!”

“Oh, yes. I give you your master of linguistics, Losers,” It sneers. It doesn’t seem to be getting any closer - a fact that Eddie would usually rejoice in, but now all it means is that Richie’s unconscious form is in terrible danger. “So inept that he cannot even speak a sentence wi-without be-c-c-comin-ng a s-s-s-s-st-stuh-stuh-stuttering mmmm-m-m-mess. Your uselessness is what killed your brother, Billy.”

“Take it b-back, motherfuh-fucker! You killed Juh-Georgie, not me!”

“Yeah, you’re full of shit!” Mike screams in solidarity.

“You’ve not said one true thing since we got down here!” adds Ben vindictively.

“Oh, is that right?”

“You bet your fur it is!” Eddie shrieks, losing sense in the flood of adrenaline. He puts as much confidence into his voice as possible, but can’t help but feel in his heart that they’re just kicking the can down the road. He instantly forces himself to push down the thought as far as possible; if the clown gets even a whiff of doubt, it’s all over.

“You’re not even true in and of yourself!” Bev shouts at It.

“She’s right! What– What kinda Weeping Angel are you? They never blinded anyone - you’re just a crappy mimic!” Stan tags on.

The clown audibly recoils.

All six conscious Losers pause for a moment.

Eddie’s not sure if it’s just that his sanity is slipping entirely, but he could swear that the darkness of his blindness abates slightly. And, gloriously, so does that awful pressure.

“Yeah, just a mimic!” he calls. He can hear the tentative hope in his own voice.

“Nothing m-more than a stupid imposter!” Bill doubles down.

“I am your deaths,” It tells them. But if there’s one thing that Eddie’s suddenly become very good at, it’s using his ears, and they don’t miss the edge of uncertainty in Its tone.

His vision continues to brighten. The pressure continues to diminish.

“You’re not our deaths. You’re not even an Angel!”

“You’re just a… a bully!”

“A– A headless boy!”

“A sick man!” The cistern around him is visible enough, now, that he feels confident enough to follow Bev as she steps away from the rock. The clown is a blur of white and orange before him.

“A sink full of stupid fucking blood!”

“Nothing more than a painting!”

“A motherfucking stupid mummy!”

“A little boy!”

“You’re just a clown!”

“I am his death.”

“You…” Eddie starts, then cuts himself off with a strangled gasp. His vision is returned to its former glory, allowing him to see two really fucking bad things.

Pennywise is animated once more. Even as Its chest heaves in what looks like fear, Its mouth curls into a grin and Its eyes flick down to–

To Richie, supported under Its arm, his head lolled back limply over Its shoulder. His glasses are missing - Eddie frantically scans his surroundings and pinpoints them abandoned on the floor, next to the forgotten baseball bat. A long crack runs through one of the lenses. That doesn’t matter; Eddie will buy Richie a lifetime’s supply of coke-bottle specs himself if they get out of here. Richie’s left arm is slung over the clown’s back, like he’s palling along with It and not in mortal danger, while Pennywise holds him up around the torso. He seems still mostly-unconscious, his knees bent and weak under him, like he’d collapse if the clown let go of him. But he’s breathing, which is one more step than Eddie had honestly expected.

He realizes that he and the other Losers have stopped in a line facing It. He glances to either side of himself - they’re all focused on It, their eyes sharp and attentive, albeit terrified. Good. That’s good. They can all see.

Eddie steps forward slowly. The clown’s eyes are pinned on him instantly. If he didn’t know it was just his imagination, he might think that literal blood dipped from Its lip to the ground.

“Hey, fuckface,” he growls. His heart is hurting with how fast it’s pumping. That’s called tachycardia Eddie and it’s dangerous because it can damage your heart muscle so you need to let Mommy know if you ever have any worries about it okay Eddie-bear? Hey, Ma? Shut the fuck up. “Let him go right the fuck now.”

“Oh, really? Tell me, Eddie-bear, why would I do that?”

“Because…” Oh, Jesus Christ. If only Ma knew what he’s doing. “Because if you do, you can have me.”

“What?!”

“Eddie–!”

“Interesting. And yet, I ask the same question: why would I do that? I have a perfectly easy meal right here in my arms.” It jostles Richie roughly. Richie groans woozily, his eyes squinted so hard they can barely be considered open. Eddie has to push his nails into his palms to stop himself from marching over there and punching It straight in that blood-red mouth, to hell with the consequences.

“He’s basically unconscious, right?” he says, proud of how calm he sounds. “And like you’ve said, what you really want is the fear. That’s, like, your whole schtick. And fucking trust me, man, I’ve got a shitload of that good stuff. But how can he, when he can’t feel basically anything right now?”

The clown studies him closely, then tips Its head back and sniffs at the air. When It refocuses on him, there’s a dark hunger in Its eyes that feels like a million spiders crawling up Eddie’s spine.

“So here’s the deal, asshole.” He steps closer, ignoring the discontent murmurs of his friends behind him. “You hand Richie over. I go with you, willingly, and–” Another couple of steps. “–you leave the Losers the hell alone for the rest of their lives.”

“They will leave as soon as the little brat is with them.”

“Duh. I don’t want them here when…” He can’t finish that sentence. He takes a step.

“No tricks.”

Eddie crosses his fingers behind the back of his mind.

“No tricks.”

“So it shall be.” There’s a strange pop in Eddie’s ear that he’s only ever felt when flying to New Orleans to visit his mother’s friend, and suddenly the words of the Losers aren’t so muffled.

“–are you doing?!”

“Eddie, what are you thinking?!”

“You can’t!”

“This is stupid, you can’t fucking sacrifice yourself!”

“Richie will kill us when he finds out!”

“No, he won’t,” Eddie tells that last, which had come from Ben. “It’s my choice, not his. Not any of yours. Now fucking give him here, motherfucker.”

The clown’s arm seems to snap in half with a revolting crack that reminds Eddie of frantic, terrified fumblings and stomach-clenching pain and indiscernible screaming. Pennywise’s arm keeps breaking, though, over and over, elongating with each snap, pushing a stumbling Richie towards them.

“Shit,” Eddie can’t help but hiss as Richie falls, dead weight (Jesus, shit, could you choose any worse words, Eds?), against him. He awkwardly winds his arms around Richie’s torso as his knees buckle under him, and Eddie lowers him clumsily to the ground. He looks round at his friends, who rush over immediately to help.

“We can’t let you do this,” Bev tells him quietly. She reaches out and puts her palm on his cheek, her eyes shining.

“Get ready,” he whispers back, his brow furrowed seriously. Her eyes widen minutely as she looks at him, but then they sharpen and she nods quickly. A strange energy passes around the Losers at his words - he hopes desperately that the clown can’t sense it. He looks at each of them, more relieved than he can ever remember being when he is greeted with five pairs of sincere, determined eyes. God, he really would die for any of them, he realizes. The thought doesn’t scare him as much as he’d worried it might.

“Now you take him away,” Pennywise tells them. The triumph in Its voice makes Eddie viscerally shudder.

Before they can comply, Eddie picks up Richie’s glasses and slides them onto his nose for him. As his friends hoist Richie up and start helping him stagger away, Eddie takes a hold of the discarded baseball bat. He stands up slowly, careful to keep his body angled such that the weapon he’s betting all their lives on is concealed from the clown’s sight.

“Come here, little Eddie,” It croons. There’s still a handful of feet between them, but Eddie knows that It won’t come any closer Itself. He has to willingly go to It; that’s the whole point.

At least he doesn’t have to school his face into something terrified. It’s doing that all by itself.

He takes a step closer, then another. Close enough, now. He closes his eyes.

Through his mind flashes a series of images. Firstly, bizarrely, the last he remembers of Dad: sick and dying on a hospital bed, while five-year-old Eddie sits on the side and tells him animatedly about the new friends he’s made at school. In hindsight, he’s pretty sure he can recall the shadow that passes over Mommy’s face when he mentions “a really funny boy, he’s called Richie, but he keeps calling me Eds, and that’s annoying.” That leads onto the image of Ma giving him, at seven, a white bottle of pills over breakfast. He dutifully tells her, “Yes, Mommy,” and “Every day, Mommy,” and then he’s eleven and he’s pretending he doesn’t see the unfortunate man on the side of the road. His moth-eaten clothes and pale skin and rasping breath. Eddie rushes around the corner and tugs his inhaler from his fanny pack, taking a deep breath of… “Bullshit,” Gretta Keene tells him, at thirteen. He pictures himself no more than ninety minutes ago, throwing that fanny pack as hard as he can across a rotten and yellow front yard. Then… he hears, rather than sees, a voice that he doesn’t recognize. You’re braver than you think. He might not know the man who tells him this, but he can’t dispute the wave of warmth and courage that the words rear in him.

Eddie opens his eyes. He takes a deep breath; his lungs expand and fill readily.

“Fuck you, bitch,” he grits out, and swings the bat.

PhwooooCRUNCH!

If he’d thought Its screams of fury and agony were loud before, nothing could have prepared Eddie for the way, at this proximity, his skull seems to shake inside his head. It seems to both bellow with a voice as deep as the engine of the tractor on Mike’s grandpa’s farm, and screech as pitched and shrill as a crying eagle. The sound is almost enough to have Eddie dropping the baseball bat to the ground and slamming his hands over his ears - almost. As it is, he widens his stance and swings the bat forward again, shouting with the effort as it strikes across the clown’s jaw.

Stunned, Pennywise seems unable to do anything but look at him, Its brows cutting trenches in Its forehead, Its broken jaw hanging limply. Once upon a time - no more than a month ago, in fact - the sight would have given Eddie pause that might well have gotten him killed.

“I’m gonna kill you!” he shrieks instead.

He’s practically bouncing off the walls by the time he’s joined by his friends. Each of them freshly invigorated and with brand-spanking-new (rusty, jagged, ancient) weapons, they crowd around It in a sort of circle and take turns hitting It, pushing It back and forth like the world’s ugliest, most murderous hot potato.

Eddie is so caught up in the insults and shouts of anger from his friends that he, at first, misses the broken little mumbling coming from behind him. Then it registers somewhere between his ears, and he can’t help but swing around to look at Richie. He’s still very much out of it, his eyes lidded and unfocused behind his glasses, his breath coming out as a weak whistle, but if he’s finding it in himself to try talking… Eddie doesn’t think he’s ever been happier to hear that voice.

“Rich!” Stan calls loudly, and breaks the circle to run over to him. Adrenaline races freely through Eddie's body, born of a strange cocktail of anger at the clown and blinding, glorious hope. He brings his bat down on Pennywise's shoulder; Its knees buckle under the effort of staying upright, and It falls backward onto Its hands and feet, looking up at them with venom in Its eyes.

“That's what I thought, bitch!” Eddie tells It, feeling one misstep away from total delirium. He, Mike, Ben, and Bev all fall back in unison, like the urge had gripped them all at the same instant. Bill doesn't move, though, glaring back down at the clown, his trusty chain in hand.

“He thrusts h-his fi-fi-fists against the p-p-p…posts, and st-still insists he ssssees the g-g-g-ghosts…” Pennywise mocks him, Its mouth somehow still in that lecherous grin. Eddie wants to smack all Its teeth out of Its skull, but stays back. Bill takes a step towards It; It scrambles backwards away from him.

“He thrusts his fists against the posts, and still insists he sees the mother. fucking. ghosts,” he almost growls, signed with a flourish by the clank of his chain as it whips across the crown's face. A deep, black gash is left in its place, one that no amount of antiseptic would fix.

Pennywise screeches out a hoarse scream, Its movements descending into a frantic chaos as It keeps trying to push Its way away from the group. It seems to be choking, Its breaths ragged and wet, and shining drool slicks Its chin revoltingly. If he really, really put his mind to it, Eddie feels he might be able to feel some bastardized worm of pity for the creature. But then he remembers how that same drool had dripped onto his face in the rotting kitchen upstairs, weeks ago, and suddenly he doesn't feel quite so benevolent.

He steps forward with his friends. The clown watches them, falling back jankily, until Its heaving body collapses against a wide, gaping mouth of a pipe. It stares directly at Bill, Its bloody lips curling up at the edges even as It gasps and gurgles for breath.

“I know you… I know all of you. I know your fears, I know that you're nothing more than scared little children.”

“Are we?” Bill cuts It off. His hands are tight and strong where they're clenched into fists; he must have finally abandoned that chain. Eddie and the others stand in a half-circle behind him - and when Stan joins them, mostly-carrying a disoriented Richie with him, Eddie feels the strongest bout of sureness he can ever remember. His lip curls in disgust as he looks down his nose at the pathetic, writhing thing in front of them. Almost subconsciously, he passes the baseball bat along the line, and the group wordlessly helps it find its way into Bill's hand.

“You didn't kill Bev,” Bill continues, “for the s-same reason you can't kill us nuh-now. Because she wasn't afraid. She wasn't, and n-neither are we. You're the one that's afraid. B-Because you're gonna starve.”

“i am the eater of worlds.” Its voice is weaker, more unsure. “i am your fears, i am your deaths…”

Bill raises the bat above his head, his mouth twisting into a snarl. Pennywise hisses, then with a terrible groan hoists Its entire body weight against the pull of gravity and flips backwards into the abyss of the pipe. It doesn't yet disappear, though; Its gloved hands hold onto the lip of the pipe, and the Losers take a step forward to keep an eye on It.

“i will be your deaths. i am eternal, i am everything you will ever lose. i’ll kill you all. every single–”

Bill tenses his muscles, faking a downward swing. It cringes and sinks another foot into the pipe.

When It speaks, Its voice is barely a whisper. It sounds… almost confused. Like It doesn't know why. Though, Eddie supposes, It truly might not. At least, not up until now.

“fear.”

With an echo that sounds like the screams of a hundred children, Pennywise the Dancing Clown lets go, and is swallowed by the incredible blackness.

“I hate you,” Stan tells Bill, and for an awful moment there's a disjointed silence around the circle. Then, watching closely, Eddie sees his friend's mouth tick upwards in a familiar little half-smile, and he can't help but burst into relieved giggles. The others quickly join him, and he'd forgotten what it's like. To stand, and to live, and to feel the sun on the back of his neck, and to not have the weight of the world shared between seven young pairs of shoulders.

It doesn't even matter that his hand is aching and his blood drips, a steady metronome, onto the ground. Nor does it matter that around the circle, scarring little cuts and deep bruises flourish on skin. Eddie can't even bring himself to worry about the risk of infection wrought by holding Richie's hand in his sliced one - not when the laughter of his friends severs the final thoughts of the last dark months from his brain.

“I'll… see you later,” Stan says, looking around at his friends with a generalized nod that they all return. As Bill tells Stan goodbye, Eddie's mind is whirring.

The pressure of Richie's hand in his - so gentle, like he'd been trying his hardest not to inflame the cut - has his internal photo reel flicking over to watching Rich come face-to-face with Eddie's own, polished image. In the moment, he'd been too preoccupied with screaming Richie's name to linger on the weirdness of the situation, but even that hadn't been enough to distract him from the expression that had flit over his friend's face when Eddie's imitation had come closer. Seeing the way his own puppet had kept getting closer and closer until It was practically tucked under Richie's chin, while the real him was stuck fast to the ground… Eddie had been sure to keep the lick of bizarre jealousy that ran up his spine deeply, deeply hidden.

And then, Richie had… He'd leaned in. He'd fallen for Its trick - and Eddie's still gearing up for the reprimanding he’ll give Rich for that - and he'd said, there’s kind of something I’ve wanted to tell you for awhile, and he'd leaned in. It had all gone to shit pretty damn quickly after that, but that night, scrubbed clean and burrowed into his bed, it was Richie's timid voice that echoed through Eddie's head, saying on loop, can I, uh, do something?

Those words must have awoken something in Eddie, because that night, his dreams were filled with snapshots of Richie doing something.

He's been trying, over the last forty-eight hours, to think about this whole situation with an if… then… mentality.

If…

Richie wanted to demonstrate something, then leaned in to… well, do it,

then…

is Eddie really to blame for the rampant spiel of longing that has suddenly made itself known? Is he wrong to think that Richie could maybe, possibly, want…

Fuck, he's not too great at this empirical shit that Stan's always harping on about.

He's also never been particularly patient, even by the standards of the regular thirteen-year-old boy. Even now, standing with his friends, the Kenduskeag trickling happily over the sun-warmed stones, he can't ignore the familiar sense of frustration that comes with waiting. Suddenly, he needs to speak to Richie more than he's maybe ever needed anything before.

He turns in place, throwing his good arm around Richie's side. He hooks his chin over his shoulder, and can't help but sigh quietly in contentment when Rich's arm tentatively wraps its way around his torso, clapping him between his shoulder blades in a way that reminds Eddie of the exercise-addicted ninth-graders he sees as he sits on the sidelines during gym. For whatever reason, the action runs him up the wrong way, and is what convinces him to pull back a bit and whisper into Richie's ear, “Clubhouse, five minutes.” Rich tenses immediately, his arm locking around Eddie's body, and Eddie quickly adds in a soft tone, “It's okay. Just meet me.”

He pulls back properly, glancing at Richie's face. He sees how the blood has drained from his cheeks slightly, and his eyes track the movement of his throat as he swallows in apprehension. But Richie nods minutely, and that's all Eddie needs to turn on his heels and head after Stan with nothing more than a muttered, “Bye, guys,” to the others. He does turn around after a moment to look at the group, though, and waves to them.

Richie's eyes are stuck on him.

Is Eddie wrong to wonder if, just maybe…

Well. He'll find out soon enough.

The shade of the trees drops the surrounding temperature just enough that Eddie frowns. He weaves through the foliage, watching quietly as Stan in front of him veers right and up, towards the Kissing Bridge. If Eddie was anyone else, he might have told Rich to meet him up there. But, to be honest, he feels that the clubhouse kind of… fits. Fits the images of he and Richie that exist in his head, anyway; hidden and secretive, yes, but also triumphant and withstanding.

Jesus, he hopes this isn't a huge mistake.

As soon as Stan is out of sight, Eddie bears left and starts heading deeper into the Barrens. His hand is throbbing with each deafening thump of his heart, and he's definitely leaving a trail of bloody drops behind him, like some twisted Hansel. As if that story isn't already fucked to hell anyway, he thinks with a roll of his eyes.

He has no way of knowing for sure that Richie will follow the trail. He just has to hope.

The clubhouse is just as triumphantly sturdy as ever when Eddie reaches it and flings open the trapdoor, coughing at the eruption of dust that flies into the air. He likes to bitch about the place's structural integrity just because being a contrarian is written into his DNA, but truthfully, he thinks that Ben's ability is uncanny.

The paddle-ball (minus one ball) glares at him accusingly as he makes his way backwards down the ladder. He makes sure he's safely on two feet before twirling around and flipping the broken toy off with both hands. He collapses into the hammock, feeling slightly unmoored by the unfamiliar weight distribution with just him in it.

It's only once he's settled down that he realizes not only is his heart kicking roughly at his ribs, but he also has absolutely no idea what he's actually going to say if Rich turns up.

(WHEN he turns up. Christ, stop being such a pessimist, Kaspbrak.)

He's about halfway through figuring out a broaching question when he hears the tell-tale crunching of leaves above his head. His heart clenches - Bowers! - before he forces himself to remember that Henry was arrested and carted off to Juniper Hills not a day ago.

Rather than a snarl and ragged mullet, it's a pair of coke-bottle glasses and a tight-lipped smile that appears in the square of sunlight exposed by the open trapdoor. Richie carefully makes his way down the ladder - which is the first indication for Eddie that he's a moment away from bolting at the slightest provocation. When has Richie ever done anything carefully?

When he turns to face the room, he's looking everywhere except Eddie.

“Hey, Loser,” Eddie says. The reflex to immediately start swearing and shouting is hard to repress, but he manages it, instead opting for what he hopes is a reassuring smile.

“What, ho, my good fellow!” Richie hoots suddenly in a shaky British Voice.

“Uh, Rich–”

“Wot a day, am I right? Woz that out there - the sun, you say, sir? Blimey, guvna, I– I ain't ever seen somefin so beau-ifol in all moy days.”

“Are you just gonna–”

“Yes, well, right you are, then! Though, I say, sir, I do miss those gray skies, wot-wot! Hardly feels like home when'iz all bright and evryfink, wouldn't ya say?”

“Come here, Dodger. Jesus fucking Christ.”

“Dodger, iz it?” Richie drawls, his accent getting more and more outrageously Cockney with each passing second. He’s still not looking at Eddie, but he does step closer slowly. “I’m takin that as a compliment, I am. Doez’at make you Oliver Twist, then, sir?”

“I’ll twist somethin’, alright,” Eddie grumbles. He looks up at Richie as he comes to a stop next to the hammock. For the first time, he meets Eddie’s eye, and his mouth turns upwards into a real grin.

“Hey, ya promise?” he asks, dropping the accent into something overly flirty and caramelized. It takes only half a second for his face to fall in recognition of what just left his mouth. “Wait, shit, Eds–”

“Come here,” Eddie tells him, his voice firm and sincere. He draws his knees up to his chest and looks at Richie expectantly.

“Eddie–”

“I’m not having this conversation with you looming over me like… like the fucking clown, dude. Sit down, already.”

“Okay, uh…” He perches on the edge of the hammock, his hands on his knees, one of his legs bouncing. Eddie sighs, and reaches out a hand to manhandle his friend so he’s properly lying down. Their legs form a gaelic cross, and Eddie’s thigh is trapped under the point of Richie’s knee, and Richie’s foot is right next to Eddie’s head, but at least this is familiar territory.

“Okay, Rich, listen to me,” Eddie starts before Richie can, “I’m gonna need you to, like, take this seriously.”

“Mhm.” Richie’s eyes are wide. The hands that would usually be splayed over Eddie’s shins are crossed carefully across his own chest.

“That means no Voices.”

“M-Mhm.”

“And if you don’t interrupt, I won’t either.”

“Mhm.”

“Okay. Do, uh… You wanna go first, or…?”

“I’m so fucking sorry, Eddie,” Richie blurts out suddenly, tilting his head back to stare at the ceiling. “I- I should’ve been more careful, and, and… I’m so fucking stupid, dude. I get it if you, er, if you don’t wanna. Talk to me. ‘Cause I know it’s gross and you’re way better than anything I could… Uh. God, I’m fucking this up. Eds- Eddie, you shouldn’t have to deal with this shit. That’s on me. I’m just… I’m so sorry, dude. So sorry. I’ll leave if you want, and if you don’t wanna see me again, then that’s… Well, it’s not fine, but you know what I mean. I’ll, I’ll respect that. The clown was just playing Its usual shit. But that– That was my monster. It wasn’t fair to drag you into it as well. I– Sorry. Sorry, Eddie.”

“It’s not a monster,” Eddie says quietly but surely when Richie falls silent. “Well, I mean, It is. But what I saw, Rich, that wasn’t like the monsters from the books, you know? What I saw was you looking at– I guess not me, but me enough for it to count. And the way you looked, Richie, it…” He trails off with a sigh. Slowly, as to not spook his friend, he reaches out and puts his hand on Richie’s knee. Rich jerks, his head flying upright to stare at Eddie. “You remember when I was round yours a couple months back, and your parents came back from that date?” He waits for a slow nod before continuing. “The way you looked in the cistern was the same way Maggie and Went looked at each other back then.”

“Eddie, please, I–”

“Shut it, you said you wouldn’t interrupt,” Eddie snaps on reflex. He puts a balm over the sting of his tone by soothing his hand over Richie’s knee, feeling the fine hair against his palm. “Sorry. It… It wasn’t a bad thing, Rich. That’s, I guess, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. I didn’t see that and think, ew, you know?” Richie cringes slightly, and Eddie frowns.

“But, like… why not? It is ew, it’s not good for me to…” He sighs shakily through his nose, his eyes fixed on the movement of Eddie’s hand.

“Says who?”

“Says literally everyone! You know that, Eds - you’ve heard your mom, right? Always on about how– how people who are…” He takes a deep breath. “…like me. How they’re filthy and disgusting and, I don’t know, riddled with disease. And you know, and I know, that it’s not just her who thinks that. It’s this whole fucking town, it’s– It’s this whole country, this whole world. If I let myself want what I want, I have to give up… everything. I’ll just be seen through this lens, you know? I c-couldn’t even, like, get married. And, damn it, friends?” He laughs. It sounds pained. “Never heard of ‘em.”

“That’s bullshit. You know that’s bullshit.”

“Sure. It’s bullshit, it sucks absolute ass, but it’s just the way the world works, Eddie.”

“No. It’s bullshit as in, it’s not fucking true. I mean, I– I know, now. And I’m still your friend, aren’t I?”

Richie looks at him for a long moment, an indiscernible light in his eye. “You are?”

“Rich…”

“Eddie. No offence, but I just… I can’t be sure. You know?”

“You can,” Eddie tells him lowly, squeezing his hand on Richie’s knee. “With me, you can. I’ll always be your friend, Richie.”

“But… You know I don’t…” He stutters for a moment, then cuts himself off with a frustrated growl. “You know I don’t want that. I don’t see how you can be my friend when we both know I want…”

“Were you even listening to what I said earlier?” Eddie asks with amused incredulousness after a moment. He shifts closer almost subconsciously. “It wasn’t a bad thing that you looked at me the way your parents look at each other. Rich.”

“Eddie. Wait, you–”

The silence that consumes them is filled with an energy that Eddie hasn’t ever felt before. Brown eyes meet deep blue and hold them, neither blinking, just waiting.

“Oh, my God.”

“You alright?”

“Eddie, I…” Richie swallows, then sits up. Eddie does the same, and their weight pulls the hammock down in the middle until they’re no more than a foot from each other’s faces. “Are you sure?” he asks, his voice slightly hoarse.

“Pretty sure, Rich. I’m just… I’m sorry it took me so long.”

“Literally shut up. You have absolutely nothing to be sorry for right now.” He says it through giddy laughter even as tears well up in his eyes. Eddie tilts his head and smiles as he opens his arms.

“Come here, idiot,” he whispers, and Richie falls into him. Eddie’s face ends up buried in the side of Richie’s neck, and Rich’s shoulders are shaking in Eddie’s arms, but holy shit, this is insane. This is insane! Eddie hides his smile in Richie’s skin as he thinks about what Mom would say if she saw him.

“Eds,” Richie eventually croaks out into the hem of Eddie’s shirt. His arms don’t loosen where they’ve created a clamp around Eddie’s waist.

“Yeah, Rich?”

“Thanks.”

“For what?”

“I… don’t actually know. Not specifically. But still.”

“God, is this how it’s gonna be? You crying into my shirt and saying all this sappy shit?”

Richie pulls away and looks at him. His face is blotched red, tears roll slowly down from under his glasses, and his mouth is in a wobbly smile. “You, uh. You want ‘gonna be’? Like, you want this to… to happen? In the future, I mean?”

Eddie reaches out and twists his fingers around Richie’s between them, raising an eyebrow playfully. “Uh, yeah. If you do, Rich, I’m in.”

“Holy shit, pinch me, dude.”

“I think maybe let’s save that sort of shit for a bit later down the line.”

“Ha! You fucking minx, Kaspbrak.”

Eddie smirks, reaching up and brushing his fingertips along Richie’s cheekbone. The teasing smile on Richie’s face vanishes, replaced by newly-reddening cheeks and gently parted lips.

“You know, I’m kinda pissed as hell that you thought the clown was me,” Eddie says, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards.

“No-no-no, I’m officially not taking any responsibility for the decisions I made down there.”

“Wow, even though It just let you call It those stupid fucking names? It’s like you don’t even know me, Trashmouth.”

“Trust me, Eddie, if you were in my position where this cute-ass guy that you’ve liked for… for too long. If he came up to you looking like that, and he was basically all like–” His voice goes high-pitched and cooey. “–oh, we should lowkey kiss, wouldn’t that be fun?–”

“Holy shit, is that meant to be me?”

“Yes. Well, it’s the clown being you. So yes. Point is, my tunnel-vision is crazy shit when it comes to you, Eds. It would’a taken a way, way stronger guy than me to resist that crap.”

Jesus.

“Yeah, well,” Eddie hedges, looking away in a bout of bashfulness. “This whole thing doesn’t mean I’m putting up with your nicknames, for the record.”

“They’ll grow on you.”

“You’ve said that since we were five. Not happening, give it up, already.”

“Now it’s like you don’t know me, Eddie, my love,” Richie grins. Eddie glares at him, trying to hide how his stomach flips happily.

“Shut the hell up.”

“Eddieeeeeee,” Rich sings, his hands finding Eddie’s face and smushing his cheeks together. “Eds, Eduardo, Eddie, babyyyyy.”

“Richie, shtop!” Eddie shrieks, laughing despite himself as he pushes Richie away to the other end of the hammock. Rich immediately rights himself and reaches out with a gleeful shout.

“Oh, playing dirty, I see!” Before Eddie has a chance to react, he’s slipping his hands to his ribs and scrabbling them frantically, and Eddie practically screams as he struggles to wriggle away in the small space. “Have a taste of your own medicine!”

“N-No! Oh, fuck, Richie– Rich! Please!” Eddie gasps, falling backwards and failing to kick his assailant away as tears of laughter fill his eyes.

“Admit it! Admit you like the names, Eds, or I’m not stopping!”

“Never! I’ll die before I– Agh!”

Richie is on his knees above Eddie, hunched over for peak tickling ability. Eddie, breathless in a way that doesn’t hurt for once, manages to pry Richie’s hands from where they’re maniacally working, linking their fingers and pushing with all his might. He does actually manage to get Richie off him, until Rich leans forward and the weight of his body has both of their hands against the hammock on either side of Eddie’s head.

“Asshole,” Eddie wheezes, the final tendrils of laughter falling from his mouth. He’s really stuck here, he realizes when he tries to no avail to free his hands, for as long as Richie keeps him. The epiphany doesn’t concern him.

“I’ll get you to say you like them. One day,” Richie tells him with a smile.

“In your dreams,” Eddie replies, and they both laugh.

Eddie might not be patient, but the silence that follows is one of the very few that he feels no need to break. Richie, too, usually so quick to fill any lull, just lets them sit in the silence comfortably. At least for a couple of contentedly stretched seconds, before asking quietly,

“So what now?”

Eddie furrows his brow in thought. Could he just… ask? He doesn’t think he’d be shot down. But does he really want that? It just seems kinda gross. But it’s Richie! And Eddie does want that. If he changes his mind, Richie will understand; sometimes being a famed mysophobe has its benefits, no matter how few and far between they are. Eddie inhales deeply, then hesitantly says,

“You know when you were going to, uh… In the cistern. You wanted to…”

“To… kiss? You?”

“...Yeah.”

“Yeah, Eds.”

“Would you… do that? Now, I mean. Is that something you’d, like, be interested in?”

Richie just nods. His gaze flicks downwards for a moment.

“Um, I. I might freak out,” Eddie mumbles in an attempt to put all his cards on the table. “I’ve never… you know.”

“Neither have I, dude. It’s okay.”

“Okay.”

That gentle quiet returns. Eddie’s eyes slip shut and he tips his head to the side. He’s really not sure what he’s meant to do, but he feels Richie’s fingers gently squeeze his, and he knows it’s going to work. His nose bumps against Richie’s, and they each laugh nervously, but then Eddie feels his lips brush Rich’s. He pushes into it slowly, unsure, encouraged when Richie does the same.

Kissing is one of those things that, when Eddie thought about it in theory, he wondered how it could ever be something people actively seek out. It’s just… bumping mouths against each other? he remembers ranting to Bill once, years ago. And it’s meant to feel good? It just sounds like you’re giving each other lots of germs.

The practice, though, makes him want to go back in time and rave to his younger self all about how naïve he is.

All it is is a simple, tentative, closed-mouth exchanging of pressure between he and Richie. But he can feel the way Richie’s lips are in a slight smile, and the way his hands are warm against Eddie’s own, and he has to break away with a gasp. Richie’s eyes are wide behind his glasses, roaming wildly over Eddie’s face. Before he has the opportunity to speak or, worse, pull away, Eddie manages to tug his hands free and uses them to cup Richie’s face. Nodding dizzily, he leans in once again.

This time, there’s less hesitance. It’s still exploratory, it still asks if they’re doing it right, but it’s clear to both boys that there’s more certainty to the movement of their lips. Eddie’s thumbs run across Richie’s cheekbones, and one of Richie’s finds his waist while the other stays in place against the hammock.

Between one beat and the next, they seem to mutually come to the silent agreement to tilt their heads. The kiss, from that point on, becomes more tentatively dynamic, the two of them falling into a slow beat. Neither of them try to speed it up; Eddie plays with the idea of pushing harder, perhaps seeing what will happen if he uses his tongue to part Richie’s lips, but he’s pretty sure full-on making out really will make him freak out. He stores the idea for later - perhaps when they’re not in danger of one of the other Losers barging into the clubhouse without warning.

Almost like God Himself was watching and had decided to make Eddie Kaspbrak’s life just a little more ironic, the moment the thought has formed in his head, Eddie hears a pair of footsteps on the ground above them.

“Mmph, shit!” he hisses, pushing Richie off him with a wet noise that makes his heart lurch. He glances to the ladder - the trapdoor is still wide open, so either they’re about to be walked in on by a Loser, or a curious someone wondering why there’s a door in the ground.

To Eddie’s simultaneous immense relief and earth-shattering despair, it’s the former.

“Oh, shoot, sorry,” Ben mumbles, having descended the ladder and laid eyes on them. Eddie frowns at the sight of him, and not just for the obvious; his face is red and his eyes are slightly swollen, like he’s just been crying. “I didn’t realize anyone was already here. I’ll– I can go.”

“This is your place, Haystack,” Richie reminds him. Eddie glances over at him. His face is similarly flushed, and Eddie’s pretty sure he himself is in no better shape. He should be embarrassed, but to be honest, seeing the physical effects of what he’s done to Richie sends a content lick of something warm down his spine. “We won’t kick you out.”

“Uh, we… We can leave, if you wanna be by yourself. I was just about to go home, anyway,” Eddie adds. Richie turns, his eyebrows asking a question. Eddie nods. Yes, dumbass, obviously you’re coming with.

“Um, okay. Thanks, guys. I… Yeah.”

“Do you wanna talk about something?” Richie asks suddenly as he swings his legs out of the hammock.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Ben tells him. His eyes, though, trail over to the pack of cigarettes on the ledge.

“You sure?”

“...Yeah.” Ben looks at Richie, and there’s a sad gratitude in the smile he manages. “Yeah, it’s alright. I get it. I understand. It’s all fine. Thanks, Rich.”

“Alright. Gimme a holler if you change your mind. We’ll get outta your hair, though, come on, Kaspbrak. Up you go.”

Eddie puts a sympathetic hand on Ben’s shoulder as he passes, not quite sure what to say. Ben offers him that same watery smile anyway, before Eddie heads up the ladder.

“Wait, Richie,” Ben says from below, and Eddie looks back down into the clubhouse where Richie looks at the other boy. He glances up at Eddie, smiles, and mouths, One minute.

Eddie’s throwing rocks against trees when Richie finally appears again. He pulls himself free of the trapdoor and marches over, slinging one arm around Eddie’s shoulders and craning his neck down to plant a kiss on his temple. Eddie squawks indignantly, but doesn’t pull away.

“Ben is right there, Rich!” he hisses.

“Yeah, well. Ben is way more observant than necessary.”

“Uh?”

“Yeah, um, he knows.”

“Thefuckdoyoumeanheknows?!”

“Dude, he figured out I had a thing for you, like, ages ago. The cistern just confirmed it for him, apparently. Also, he said you were giving major bedroom eyes down in the clubhouse just now–”

“I was not!”

“Yeah, okay, I’m paraphrasing.” Richie’s expression softens into something less sure. “Is that okay? I mean, I didn’t really have a chance to check with you, or anything.”

Eddie sighs, leaning his head on Richie’s shoulder as they walk. “It’s fine. Seriously, it’s okay. At least Ben can keep a secret. And also wouldn’t blackmail us with it, like some people I could mention.”

Richie laughs. “Stan’s the worst. I think we should tell him last, just because it would be funny. Now, you promised a visit to the Kaspbrakian residence, I believe, lover.”

“Okay, that name is an absolute no.”

“Awh! But it’s literally written on your cast. It’s cute. Cute name for a cuter boy, huh?”

“We’ll see how cute I am when I bite your dick off.”

“Promises, promises, Eds!”

“Do not call me that!”