Work Text:
Lonely. That's the best way to describe how he feels lonely. The word doesn't come without its good amount of shame. He hates how he was raised but he likes to think he was raised well enough. Enough to know that ‘lonely’ is a feeling you die with.
It's the clearest they've felt in years—how long they don't really know—Long enough to be tired—beaten and tired—he's more miserable now, than when he was just a beast. It'd be embarrassing but there's no one here. Well, not no one. Six feels mad. Madness that was beaten into him once, and then over and over again. It sinks, drowns, takes hold of him, kicking and screaming. He hates this feeling. He hates it. Hates it like he hates his mom, like he hates his dad, like he hates his friends, like he hates his betrayers. He hates it so completely now.
He hates Richie. Not for the same reason he hates. Everything. He hates Richie because he has to hear Richie. Some points are nice. Richie’s snide comments remind him of picking at wooden benches older than the two of them combined. Meals his dad didn't make for him, his stomach hurting, tears in his eyes, laughter. Laughter mostly. Then richies gone and that madness holds him tighter than it would if he never came at all. The quick peace isn't worth the aftermath, but they’re pathetic, desperate and clingy. They hear his voice through the static and listen anyway. Picks their favorites, pretends it's his friend telling him a story. They smile.
And then Rich leaves. As he always does.
Rinse and repeat. Rinse, tear, pull, repeat
But, then. He sees Richie.
He pushed Richie’s head underwater and understood how his dad could hit him so hard. Richie is all panicked and flailing. Nails rake down his forehead, and he's lost for a second. A second. He should have beat Richie to a bloody pulp right there. Save himself the effort of drowning a corpse. He’s huffing and puffing here and Richie is blubbering and sweating there. Making everything so much worse, because all Rich does is nothing. And Six knows that now. That nothing isn't better, so.
So. That makes Richie an annoyance. A mess.
Richie got one lucky shot and that ugly mass didn't leave Sixs bloody grasp dead. That will become an issue later. He screams, burning the back of his throat. Pulls roots from an old beast stretching higher than he could ever climb, sends her crashing. Collapsing and crushing the brushes of long dark oak that would wait painstakingly for every tantrum.
Constricting around his chest wrapping and squeezing, a boa takes his lungs and hates him. He paces, running hands through his hair. His problem. His problem. Something tight takes hold of him and he can't stop screaming about it.
Every twitch in his throat and cry in his chest. All the rainwater his tantrums bring to the canopy would drip-feed their tiny branches. All his madness, they eat up. He pulls down a mother right on her babies. Breaking their stupid faces. Bending wood and tearing bark scream as they crash into each other, branches snapping and slowly crushing their brothers into the grove.
And he laughs about it. Because laughing is better than screaming.
Richie is stupid for running. There's no out running this. The fact that Richie doesn't see that is a problem now. His problem. His mess to put away and clean up.
There is nowhere that idiot can scurry off to when Six can pull deep and make him shit his pants. They’re a sickness, they burrow deep. He'll haunt Richie's waking and sleeping moments. They’ll eat him from the inside and that idiot will spend his last days throwing up blood. Wasting precious food for both of them.
Burnt corners of his home collide with Richies. They filter in the rotting smell of Six’s own burning flesh. His own voice echoing disgustingly, embarrassingly loud. Huffing and throwing a fit from a moment he no longer lives. When his blood boiled and skin dripped to paste. In the dark, Richie's mind can't help but become his problem.
Richie can run to whoever he wants, there's no pulling, yanking, praying that can save himself now. Rich couldn't tear out his pain, then. He never will, now.
And then. There's his other problem. The one that makes his breather shorter just thinking about. Makes him want to rip ihis tongue out and teach a lesson himself. The fuck up. Thats what he does.