Chapter Text
When the thirteen of them pulled up outside Richie’s house to let the Hawkins group get their things, Richie was relieved to see no cars in the garage. They were out again. That meant no one would wonder where Richie was, or where his cousin was, and he could stay at Bill’s possibly all through the weekend until Monday rolled around. He usually alternated Bill or Stan so that their parents didn’t get annoyed with him, despite knowing that Stan’s parents liked him and Bill’s parents didn’t care that much.
“You guys just go on in, get whatever you need,” Richie said. “Door should still be unlocked.” They never locked it when they went out at night. They forgot to.
While the Losers waited outside, they turned to Richie.
“So, Rich,” Bev started. “Thoughts on your cousin?”
“What, thinking of dropping Haystack so quickly? Harsh, Ms. Marsh,” Richie teased, making both Ben and Bev go red. Bev threw her arm around Ben’s shoulder.
“I would never , Mr. Tozier.” She turned up her nose dramatically. “And most certainly not for someone with your face.”
“So it’s my face that’s the problem? My personality is fine?” Richie grinned and Bev giggled.
“No, your personality is definitely part of the problem,” she said, reaching over to mess up his curls.
“Good thing my personality doesn’t matter to Eddie’s mom, am I right?” At the chorus of groans, Eddie rolled his eyes.
“Just answer her question, asshole,” he said. Richie shrugged.
“I mean, he’s my cousin. What else is there?”
“The fact that you look identical?” Ben offered.
“At least he’s quieter ,” Stan said. “C’mon, Rich, before they come back out. We didn’t know you had extended family either, we’re just as curious.”
“Yeah, I guess. I mean, he seems cool?” Richie glanced at his door to make sure they weren’t going to interrupt. “Kind of...angry, like a protective angry when we talked about Bowers. I get the feeling he can be just as annoying as me, though, which gives me hope for him.”
“Well, w-we all know you can be p-protective too, Richie,” Bill said, motioning to the bruises on Richie’s face.
“Nah, Bill, I did that for the battle scars!” Richie grinned. “The chicks dig ‘em.”
“What chicks?” Eddie asked, raising his eyebrows. “The ones that already think you’re a weirdo?”
“The chicks in Hollywood, obviously,” Richie scoffed. “When I make it big, they’ll all ask where my heroic scars came from, and I’ll tell them that I was defending my best friend’s honor.”
“What honor? This is Bill we’re talking about,” Stan said, holding back a grin. Bill tried to scowl at him but dissolved into laughter while leaning on his handlebars.
“Hey Rich,” Mike asked, drawing attention away from Bill. “What was it like when you first saw him?”
Richie tried not to look at Eddie, managing to only glance his way before answering.
“Dude, it was fucking weird!” He laughed. “I thought one of you assholes propped a mirror outside my door. My second thought was damn, I’ve got competition for Eddie’s mom.”
“He’s your cousin, Rich, for fuck’s sake,” Eddie sighed. Richie shrugged.
“And we have basically the same face, your point?” He asked. “It was kinda weird in a different way, though. Once I actually realized that it was him, not a prank by you guys, it felt...familiar? But I’m pretty sure I’ve never met him before.”
“It was probably j-just because of the similarities,” Bill suggested.
Richie was about to agree, when the door opened and the Hawkins group trekked out with backpacks thrown over their shoulders. El was still scanning them with an odd look on her face, but she didn’t say anything as she got onto the bike behind their Mike.
“Well? Are we having a massive sleepover or what?” Richie broke the silence, slipping into his British accent to see the eye-rolls of his friends. “Let’s get on with it, my good fellows!”
Beverly coughed loudly.
“And lovely ladies!” Richie amended, speeding into the lead on his bike, making Bill hurry to catch up.
Richie’s house was silent as the Party entered, finding their bags untouched in the middle of the living room. The only difference from the morning was the addition of an empty bottle on the counter, and the leftover smell of alcohol, which made everyone frown. No one said anything about it, though, instead simply making a beeline to their bags.
“Well, this has been an interesting first day in Derry, I’d say,” Max said, kneeling by her bag. Dustin laughed.
“Yeah, interesting,” he said. “Love hearing about crazy teenage serial killers.”
“It’s almost worse than the Upside Down, y’know?” Lucas added. “That was a monster, here it’s just...a dude. Who cut off a kid’s arm.”
“The Gate was opened by people,” El added. “People can be monsters too.”
“Let’s move onto happier topics, okay guys?” Will asked, standing awkwardly seeing as all his stuff was back at his new house. “Your cousin is...something, huh Mike?”
“Yeah,” Mike frowned slightly, “something. I wish he’d be quiet for two seconds.”
“At least it’s obvious why his friends keep calling him Trashmouth,” Max laughed. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard that many ‘your mom’ jokes in that short a time span.”
Mike wanted to mention the weird feeling he got when he looked at Richie, like something was suddenly fixed. Something he hadn’t known was broken. But he didn’t know how to word it, he didn’t even really know what he was feeling. So he just rolled his eyes and shook his head, forcing those thoughts out for now. He’d figure it out before they went back to Hawkins in a week, but until then he wasn’t worrying about it.
“You find those funny?” He asked Max, who shrugged.
“It’s only funny because I can tell he knows they’re not,” she said.
“And how can you tell that?” Lucas asked. Max sighed.
“Because, I saw him start grinning, like, really big when his friends got annoyed at him. He’s not trying to make them laugh,” she explained. “I mean, I’m sure he wants to, but it’s like me calling Lucas ‘stalker’. Him rolling his eyes is the intended outcome.”
Lucas grinned and she shot him a glare.
“Not a word, Sinclair,” she said before he could open his mouth.
“That’s cute,” Dustin teased, not even flinching when Max turned her glare to him.
“Are you trying to die, Henderson?”
“Out of everything we’ve heard today, I think you’re the least likely thing in this town to kill me,” Dustin said, shoving clothes haphazardly into his backpack.
“They said everything was good now,” Will reminded him, but Dustin just shrugged.
“And El says they’re not telling us everything, so until they do, I’m assuming shit’s still going down.”
“I mean, worst-case scenario, at least we managed to find the people who know something,” Will tried to seem optimistic. “They said they found where that guy hid, they know more than the police do.”
“I guess that is a bright side,” Mike agreed, wondering how weird it was that both he and his cousin got wrapped up in things too big for a young teenager. “They’re probably waiting for us, do we have everything?”
At the nods from his friends, Mike picked up his own bag and left Richie’s house, leaving the door unlocked despite the weird feeling that gave him. The Losers were all waiting outside, clearly having just listened to something Bill said, seeing as all of them were looking at the boy. Mike didn’t know what would happen at a sleepover with the Losers, but he found himself surprisingly excited to find out. He knew that something in Derry was waiting for him to find it, but he didn’t know where, how, or what. But it didn’t feel bad, and he knew that the Losers had something to do with it. Most likely his cousin.
The set-up for a Losers Sleepover remained surprisingly similar despite the addition of six more people. Step One: Enter Bill’s house with raucous laughter. Step Two: Eddie calls his mom, gets Bill to politely convince her by assuring her that Richie and Beverly aren’t there, then lets Stan, Ben, Mike, Bev, and the new addition of Will use the phone. Step Three: Gather every pillow and blanket that the Denbrough’s own, taking them to the living room and throwing them on the floor to make a massive bed-like surface. Step Four: Put a chair under the doorknob of the basement (and earn weird looks from the newcomers). Step Five: Get drinks and snacks, grab a random stack of movies from under the TV, and claim a spot somewhere in the Pillow Pile.
This time, it ended up being the Losers clustered on one half of the pile, with the Party taking up considerably more room, with considerably more boundaries between them. Not to say they weren’t sitting close, but Max was leaning on Lucas, Dustin had splayed back on the blanket with his limbs starfished, and Mike had his arms around El while Will leaned against the couch with his knees drawn up and Mike’s hand occasionally finding his shoulder to make sure he was alright with the big group of people. There were a few extra blankets piled around Will since he said that he found Bill’s house to be rather cold. Meanwhile, the Losers were a tangled mess. Stan had his legs crossed under him, back against the couch like Will, but Richie had laid his head in Stan’s lap while his torso lay across Bev’s and his feet tangled with Eddie’s. Bev was lying down with three pillows stolen for under her head, laying on Ben’s shoulder with their hands intertwined while her other hand ran through Bill’s hair. Bill was in the corner of the pile, pillows surrounding him as Bev played with his hair and his feet threatened to shove Richie out of Stan’s lap. Ben was perfectly happy with Bev laying against one side of him and Mike on the other, Mike politely trying to not hit anyone else as he stretched himself out to where his legs lay over top Richie’s and his head was on Ben’s thigh. As for Eddie, he found himself torn between staying in his foot-fight with Richie, or moving to the very center of everything and flopping down like a cat in need of attention. Giving Richie’s foot one last firm kick, he chose the second option, immediately feeling Richie’s hand poking his cheek and Ben putting a leg over him for a surprisingly comforting pressure.
Once everyone was settled, for now, and the Party had been given the pleasure of watching the Losers contort themselves into their current pile, someone (most likely a Party member) put in a movie that immediately became the subject of loud ridicule because the Losers only watched hilariously bad movies at their sleepovers. Luckily, the Party seemed to fit right into that dynamic, making fun of the bad writing and horrible special effects along with the Losers. El seemed personally offended when the character with psychic abilities bragged about it to the entire world, something totally against their character so far. Eddie’s favorite past-time was informing the group of every single time that the characters should have logically died, but somehow miraculously survived, like emerging from a car accident with only a cut on their forehead.
By the time the movies they watched were over, it was nearing ten at night, and their voices had hushed to heated whispers so as to not wake Bill’s parents or Georgie. The TV was shut off, and they found themselves arranged in a circle around the blanket.
“So...lets get to know each other a little bit,” Bev said, a smile on her face that might be categorized as ‘dangerous’. Richie grinned.
“Truth or dare?” He asked. Lucas groaned.
“What are we, twelve?” He complained.
“You’ve never played with those two hellions,” Stan shot back, pointing at Bev and Richie. “If we do truth or dare, no dares involve can involve something that might wake up Bill’s family.”
“Why in the fuck would any of us risk waking Georgie, Staniel?” Richie asked, exaggerated offense crossing his features.
“What about his parents?” Max asked, not anticipating her response to be six exasperated sets of eyes and one blinding grin.
“Ah, Mrs. Denbrough is used to me waking her up at night,” Richie answered with a nudge to Bill’s side, who just rolled his eyes and lightly smacked Richie’s arm.
“I feel like truth or dare doesn’t lend much to ‘learning about each other’,” Will offered. “We can’t exactly give good dares if we don’t know you guys.”
“He’s right,” Ben agreed. “What about Never Have I Ever? We all have some kind of drink.”
“I’m prepared to be called the fuck out by all you guys,” Richie said, shrugging. “We always allow targeted questions as long as they aren’t too personal.”
“What constitutes ‘too personal’?” Dustin asked, getting a slightly devious glint in his eyes.
“Y’know, if there’s a secret that you know is still relevant, or if you know that the targeted person definitely doesn’t want to talk about it,” Bev explained. “For example, we made that rule after I forgot that Eddie didn’t like talking about the one time Richie and I got him high, and I brought up something adorably embarrassing he did.”
“Yeah, like, if she said that now, I’d be fine with it,” Eddie said. “But at that point, I hadn’t wanted the group to know or talk about it, so the rule was made.”
With only a little more discussion, the game began. After a short rock-paper-scissors round to decide who went first, it landed on the Loser’s Mike, who thought for a moment before shrugging.
“We’ll start off easy,” he said. “Never have I ever gone to public school.”
When El was the only other person to not take a drink, curious eyes turned to her. Mike, who still had his arms around her, answered for her. She didn’t seem to know how to answer.
“El never went to school,” he explained. “Her, uh, her parents didn’t really let her out much. But she starts high school with us this coming fall.”
“I can relate,” Eddie grumbled. Mike #1 (Richie’s new way to differentiate them) smiled kindly at her.
“That must be a shift,” he said. “I’m still homeschooled, but I hear stories all day from these guys.”
Next in the circle was Max, who looked between the Losers before deciding on her statement.
“...Never have I ever done something illegal,” she said, grinning. Before anyone could drink, she got the side-eye from the entire Party and dropped her head in her hands. “Shit, never mind, that’s all of us.”
“Ooh, cousin Mikey’s got a rebellious streak?” Richie leaned forward in interest, but Bill nudged his shoulder.
“Sh-shut up Richie, we c-can’t exactly talk.”
“True, true, although this is an interesting question!” Richie defended himself. “Let’s all go around and share, hm?”
“Practically all seven of us have the same answer, Rich,” Bev laughed, leaning over and whispering something in Mike’s ear as he suddenly became very interested in the pattern of the blanket.
“Yeah, but they don’t,” Richie replied, motioning to the Party. “What do you guys say? Up for some storytime?”
“Well for me, it’s driving without a license,” Max said, shrugging. “Kinda tame, but still technically illegal.”
“I think for the rest of us it’s trespassing,” Lucas answered, continuing the story to draw attention away from the slight frown that El got. “We broke into the school one time, snapped the lock and everything.”
“We also technically snuck into a movie theater and stole from a supermarket,” Dustin added. “I can’t believe you forgot your fireworks, Lucas.”
“Does it count as shoplifting if you’re stealing to help the daughter of the police chief?” Lucas argued.
“I’m pretty sure it’s still shoplifting, Lucas,” Mike #2 answered. “Just because Hopper would never arrest us for it doesn’t mean it wasn’t illegal.”
“Okay, well, what about you guys? And don’t say trespassing, we already know about that,” Max said, motioning to the Losers. Stan rolled his eyes.
“Would you like the simple answer or the detailed answers?” He asked. At the tentative ‘both?’ from the Party, he sighed. “Simple answer is that Derry doesn’t give a shit about underage drinking, despite it technically being illegal. For me, the detailed answer is both the drinking, and Eddie, Bill, and I shoplifted from the pharmacy once.”
“I will never forget the first words that Eddie ever said to me,” Bev grinned. “‘There’s a kid outside, it looks like someone killed him’. I have never been happier to flirt with a pedophile in order to distract him from a shoplifting.”
“You flirted with Dr. Keene?” Richie looked disgusted. “Ew, fuck that guy.”
“And that was b-before you even knew it was B-B-Ben,” Bill added, grinning at the slight blush that formed on Bev’s face when she glanced at Ben.
“Well, I definitely didn’t regret it after finding out you were patching up Benny,” she said, leaning further into her boyfriend. “As for my illegal dalliances, there’s the drinking, shoplifting, trespassing, and also that time I hit my dad in the head with the toilet tank lid, which was technically assault considering the police never gave enough of a shit to find out that it was self-defense.”
“Wouldn’t your dad tell them it was you?” Max asked, surprisingly calm after being told Beverly hit her dad with a blunt object. In fact, the whole Party was taking it oddly well. At least until Beverly hesitated with her answer.
“Well…” She trailed off, her hand covering Richie’s mouth before he even had the chance to say anything.
“Did you- did you kill your dad?” Dustin asked incredulously, earning him loud shushes from everyone else in the room.
“He was an asshole ,” Richie said, pulling Bev’s hand away from his mouth. “If she didn’t, I would’ve. Any of us would’ve.”
Bev rolled her eyes but giggled with a fond smile. “Thanks, Rich. But seriously, it was self-defense. He had finally gotten fed up with how quickly his ‘little girl’ was growing up and was about to do something that I was never going to ever let him do. So yeah, I did kind of kill him, but I did mean to only knock him out.”
“They blamed it on Bowers,” Ben said. “Made up a story about her dad helping him, or something.”
“Wow,” Lucas said. “Your group definitely has us beat on illegal stuff.”
“Of course they do, Lucas, there’s fucking murder on their end,” Mike #2 argued. For some reason, he glanced at El before continuing. “Sure, justifiable and valid murder, but still.”
“Just you wait,” Mike #1 added, smiling nervously as all the Losers turned to give him looks. All of them were wordlessly saying ‘ you don’t have to do this ’. They knew Mike was a lot more impacted by what he did than Beverly was by what she did. But Mike’s smile grew more confident as they all gave him reassurance, and he turned back to the Party. “As long as you swear that nothing said here leaves this room, I can bring that number up to two.”
Silence rang for a second, before Dustin was whispering, “What the fuck even is this town.”
“You’ve killed someone too?” Mike #2 asked, before shaking his head. “How is this even a conversation we’re having, what the hell.”
El gave him a confused look and he whispered something in her ear while Mike #1 kept talking.
“When we were looking for Georgie, we figured that if there was any place Bowers would use as a hideout, it was the old abandoned house on Neibolt street. While we were there, we found a well that led to the sewers, which was how we found his actual hideout, but before I was able to join them going down it, Bowers found us.” Mike started fiddling with his hands as he spoke, all of them remembering the fear they felt. Mike’s fear as he fought Henry, and the others as they could do nothing but listen to the fight and worry that they were about to lose Mike as quickly as they had become friends with him. “He was legitimately ready to kill me. I had brought one of my grandfather's bolt guns for protection, and he was about to use it on me. So I kicked him, pushed him backward, and he, uh, fell down the well.”
“His death was ruled a suicide because his body washed up further down the sewers with all the fingerprints that might have been there washed off,” Eddie said. “So we just never said anything. Peter and his gang would just hate us even more if anyone found out what really happened.”
The other Mike and the rest of the Party promised they wouldn’t say anything, and then the group fell into a slightly awkward silence. It was about a minute later that Richie told Lucas to take his turn, reminding them all that they were trying to play a game. Lucas awkwardly had them reveal which of them had broken a bone (which had Eddie complaining that Bill was the reason his arm broke, and Richie saying that Bill was lucky he didn’t break Richie’s nose), before it got to Dustin’s turn and he looked around the room before speaking.
“Never have I ever had a crush on someone in this room,” he said, grinning smugly. Lucas stared at him.
“Dude, didn’t you like Max?” He asked. Dustin held up a finger.
“Correction: I thought I did,” he said. “Now drink, Sinclair.”
But he was soon holding back laughter as every single other person in the room took a drink. Mike #2 didn’t seem surprised until he saw Will taking a drink.
“What?” He asked. “I thought you said you didn’t like Max!”
“Yeah, well…” Will trailed off, but Richie saw the way his face flushed a little deeper as his eyes flicked back to Mike. Ah. So that was a thing. His cousin was fucking oblivious. Meanwhile, on the Losers side of the circle, Beverly was looking meaningfully between the four boys she hasn’t dated. The boys from which she had never gotten the feeling they liked her like that. She met each of their eyes with a secret look that said ‘ I see. It’s okay.’ , knowing as they drank that they weren’t talking about her. Then she laughed, high and clear.
“Man, I knew about Ben and Bill, but this is a bit of a shocker,” she said, her smile wide and affectionate. “I’m flattered though, really.”
Richie couldn’t say he was surprised that she knew from that. That she knew he had never been attracted to her and she had put the pieces together. Beverly was smart, she was going to know that not all the male losers had been attracted to her. He also couldn’t say that it wasn’t reassuring. He had told himself that they would love him anyway, and Eddie and Stan both said the same thing, but seeing Bev look at him so knowingly before drawing any attention away from the fact that their crushes might not all have been on her...it felt nice. And he knew that he was going to tell them all. Hell, he told Eddie just that afternoon, and there was nothing different between them. He just had to wait until his cousin and his group went to sleep, with the Losers inevitably being awake long into the early morning. Almost all of them had some level of insomnia. He was still nervous, but they were his Losers. They cared about him, trashmouth and all, even if he didn’t always understand why.
El used her turn to quietly have them reveal which of them had ever been dumped (with a sly grin on her face towards Mike #2 who groaned before drinking), and with Bill being the only Loser to drink, attention turned to Mike #2, who clearly was about to call out Will.
Staring directly at Will, he said, “Never have I ever snuck out of my room despite knowing perfectly well that my mom would frantically call the police the instant I wasn’t in my bed?”
Two people downed their drink, Will sheepishly and Eddie proudly. Mike #2 muttered something about ‘making sure he didn’t do that again’ when Will shot a slightly annoyed look his way. When it came time for storytelling, Will flushed and actually turned to Bill.
“Well, um...I actually went missing. Almost two years ago,” he admitted, causing a hush to fall over the Losers. “It wasn’t, uh, anything like what happened here, I just got lost in the woods for a week, but it caused a lot of panic. The police thought they found my body, which made my mom break down, and so since Mike and the others found me, she’s been really protective.”
“Y-you were m-m-missing?” Bill asked, his face almost unreadable. His eyes flicked up to the ceiling, as if he could look through the floor and see Georgie asleep on his bed. Will nodded.
“We looked for him that entire week,” Mike #2 said. “We never believed he was dead.”
“I g-get it,” Bill said. His face was still blank, a slight frown tugging at his lips.
“Well, for me, my mom is just a bitch,” Eddie broke the tension like shattering a window, causing the Losers to start laughing and Richie to cheer softly. “Doesn’t like me leaving the house at all, so of course I sneak out.”
“Or I sneak in ,” Richie winked, his eyebrows wiggling suggestively. Eddie lightly smacked the back of his head, but Richie didn’t stop giggling.
“Shut it, Trashmouth.” Eddie rolled his eyes.
The game continued, but Bill was noticeably quieter, his eyes focused on a spot on the wall. The Losers knew that stare well. They knew the clenching of his fists, the glazed look in his eye, and the absurd about of times Bill swallowed.
He was trying not to cry.