Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Bill!  Bill, are you coming?” Ben called from the street, waving at the Denbrough lawn where Bill looked up from his book.  

“Y-yeah, gimme a sec!” Bill called back, shutting the book and getting to his feet.  He looked next to him and held out a hand to help Georgie up with him. Georgie pouted as he was led back inside, but none of the other Losers could hear what Bill was saying to placate him, despite having a good idea of what it might be.  Georgie was easily swayed by Bill, and vice versa.  Bill called inside to his mom, and then was darting to the garage to grab his bike and join the Losers. It was a sunny summer day, barely entering July, and the Losers were off to start their annual tradition of shoving each other off the quarry cliff by the barrens.  This was the first day that was the perfect weather, and so they were forgoing the clubhouse and spending the day in the ever-chilly water that probably was giving them multiple diseases.  

“You fuckers won’t believe the news my mom dropped on me this morning,” Richie said in lieu of a greeting as the Losers pulled up in front of his house.  He hopped onto his bike with a running start, joining the back of the pack and circling around them while he talked.  

“What is it, Richie?” Mike asked, grinning a little at the exasperated glance Stan sent his way.  Richie did another lap of the group, standing as he biked despite the glare of Eddie.  

“Mrs. K is gonna pop the question soon!  Say hellooooo to your new stepdaddy, Eds,” he pulled up right beside Eddie as he spoke, flashing a shit-eating grin and only laughing at the chorus of groans sent back his way.  

“The only reason I’m not shoving you off your bike is because I don’t want to spend any more time in the hospital than my mom already makes me, and that includes visiting your dumb ass,” Eddie shot back, taking one hand off his bike to slap Richie on the arm.  

“Aw, you think about my ass?” Richie pretended to swoon.

“Was there actually any news, Richie, or was this just to make fun of Eddie?” Stan asked.  Richie perked up immediately, the smile dropping from his face to make way for a more confused expression.

“Nah, there was actual news.  Apparently I have cousins? Literally never met them or heard their names before and I didn't know my parents had any siblings, but honestly not a shocker given how little I talk to my parents!” His bright tone didn’t manage to stop the Losers from frowning in concern.  “Anyway, one of them is coming to visit? I think his friend is moving here or something, and so a bunch of his friends, including my cousin, are coming to stay for a bit.”

“You’re gonna be m-meeting your cousin?  That s-sounds fun,” Bill said, and Richie shrugged, hopping off his bike before it was fully stopped, then haphazardly letting it fall against a large rock.

“S’long as he’s not super boring,” he replied.  “We’re related, which takes away about fifty percent of my joke repertoire.”

“Do you even know what that word means?”

“I know big words, Encyclopedia Brown, thank you very much.” Richie stuck his tongue out at Stan.  

“I don’t know, Richie, you’ve said a few times that Stan and Bill have been your friends for so long that they’re practically your brothers, and you still joke about their moms,” Ben added, causing Richie to groan and Eddie to make a face.

“What about me?  I’ve been friends with Richie as long as both of them,” he protested.  Richie grinned, looping an arm around Eddie’s shoulder and pulling him close.

“That’s because you’re my lover , Eds,” he crooned, managing to not wince at the sharp elbow suddenly in his stomach.  

“Don’t call me that, we aren’t lovers.”  Eddie wriggled himself from Richie’s grip, but then realized that he had positioned himself right by the cliff’s edge.  His eyes widened. “Shit shit, wait, Bev is usually first! Bev goes first! Someone push Be-”

He was cut off by Bev grinning and pushing him off into the water.  A high shriek was heard for a few seconds as he fell, followed by a splash, and then a few seconds later a loud cry of ‘ FUCK YOU GUYS ’.  

“We love you, Eddie!” Mike called down, rushing up to push Bev before she noticed his approach.  

“I could have hit my head!  Then I would’ve drowned, breathing in this dirty water that I still don’t know why we swim in!  Are you all trying to kill me?” Eddie was still shouting up at them, despite Beverly’s clear laughter coming from right next to him.  

“It’s okay, E-Eddie, we’ll s-send a sacrifice!” Bill called down, nudging Mike with a side-eye.  Mike was confused for a second, before his eyes cleared and he gave a sly smile and a nod, a look not often seen on his face.  Richie was too focused on the shouting coming from Eddie to notice Mike darting over to lift Richie over his head and carry him to the edge of the cliff.  

“Mike what the f-”

Mike tossed Richie down into the water to the background noise of every Loser cheering.  

In the end, it was Stan who ended up winning that year, for his first time.  Mike had picked up everyone else, with a short, playful wrestling match on the edge with Ben.  But right after he had tossed Bill down, Stan saw an opening and shoved Mike off to follow. With all the Losers soaked to the bone and cheering his name, Stan cracked a wry grin and jumped off to join them.  

In the next few hours, their skin got pruned and cold, tanned from laying in the sun, and marked with indents from the rough rocks they lay against. The light breeze chilled their bodies, but the sun always warmed them back up.  It was a stark difference, going from the shockingly cold water to the sun-warmed rocks, and they alternated between shivering and sweating. But laughter rang through the air, mock arguments filled the time, and smiles never dropped. This was what they wished life could be like always.  No school to take up their days. No bullies to cause bruises, cuts, or worse. No parents making up illnesses, or shunting blame for a brother’s disappearance, or expecting so so much, or just not giving a shit at all.  No fear of a clown in the sewers.  

But the sun started to set, and reality came crashing back.  

“Richie, when is your cousin getting here?” Ben asked.

“Yeah, w-we can show h-him around,” Bill added.  Richie thought for a moment.

“I think he and his friends are getting here this weekend?  Might even be tomorrow. Like I said, my mom gave me, like, no warning.”

“If he’s anything like you, I’m staying home,” Stan said, picking up his bike and turning away to hide the upturn of his lips.  Richie sighed loudly.

“I understand, Staniel, I really do.  You just know our love is too strong, it would kill you if there was suddenly two of me.”

“One of you already kills me.” Stan rolled his eyes.  

“Let us know when they all get here!  Maybe they’ll even be cool!” Ben said, a smile brightening his face.  

“Yeah, I’ll let you all know, don’t get your panties in a twist,” Richie joined the pack on his bike as they rode away from the barrens.  “Doubt they’ll be cooler than us, though.”

“R-Richie, we’re the L-losers for a reason,” Bill grinned.  “E-everyone’s c-cooler than us.”

“Fair point, Billiam,” Richie conceded.  

“We’re cool where it counts, though,” Bev said with a fond look at the other Losers.  

“That’s what Eddie’s mom told me last night!” Richie laughed gleefully, holding out his arm for everyone else to ignore his high-five attempt.  

“You’re disgusting,” Eddie said, shaking his head.  

“ Disgustingly good in-”

“Beep beep , Rich,” Stan interrupted.  “We managed to make it four hours without a string of sex jokes, I think that’s a new record.”

“There w-was that one time that Richie had l-l-laryngitis,” Bill offered.  “A wh-whole week of quiet.”

“For you, maybe,” Eddie argued.  “He was texting me jokes about my mom almost every day.  Every text I sent him became an innuendo sent back at me.”

“One of my proudest moments,” Richie commented, a wry grin on his face.  Stan frowned.

“Why did you keep texting him, then?  I put our chat on Do Not Disturb, and I wish that existed in real life,” he said.  Eddie flushed.

“He was sick!  What if he died or something?” He defended himself valiantly, but Bill and Stan just raised their eyebrows and shared a look with the rest of the group.  

“Died?  Of Laryngitis?” Bev asked, incredulous.  Eddie tried to squeak out a response, but no words came.  

“Aw, it’s alright,” Richie cut in.  “My knight in shining fanny pack.”

He reached in and pinched Eddie’s cheek before getting his hand slapped away.

“I don’t even wear the fanny pack anymore, dick!” 

“I know, and I miss it every day.”

“I miss when you couldn’t talk for a week.”

“Oh can it, Stanford.”

“That is an actual name, you know, it’s just not mine.”

“Do you prefer Stanthony?” 

“I hate it, thanks.”

“You’re welcome, Standrew.”

With a final cheeky grin and a ruffle of Stan’s hair, Richie peeled off of the group to ride up his driveway.  He left his bike in the garage, making his way to the key hidden in a flowerpot, knowing his parents wouldn’t be home yet.  It was a Friday, which meant it was their latest night. They were never home before dinner, sometimes not before midnight and usually drunk by then.  Not violently so, thank goodness. Just...not entirely there .  Richie was usually in his room, trying and failing to sleep by that point.  Fridays were his second least favorite day. Most weeks he found himself knocking on the windows of either Stan, Bill, or Eddie, but this time he couldn’t.  With his cousin coming in possibly only a day, he couldn’t risk accidentally pissing his parents off the one time they might notice he’s gone.  

Fuck Fridays.  His parents were better almost every other day of the week.  Almost.

Maybe his cousin could be a welcome reprieve from his empty home life.  Maybe having another group of friends hanging with the Losers could actually be fun.  

He sighed and dropped onto the couch.  Yeah right. No one but the Losers actually liked hanging around the Losers.  

Chapter Text

Richie was awoken by a loud knocking at around noon on Saturday.  He groaned and put his pillow over his head, but the knocking didn’t stop.  Eventually, Richie remembered two important things.

1. It was Saturday.  His parents were hungover and usually slept well into the afternoon, dead to the world.
2. His cousin was coming at any point this weekend.

Shit.  He hurried out of bed and into relatively clean clothes, darting down the stairs while only almost tripping twice.  He made his way to the door and called out, “I’m coming, I’m coming!” 

The knocking ceased, leaving a blissful silence.  Then Richie swung the door open and was greeted with his own face staring back.  

He blinked.  His mirror image blinked.  There were other people he didn’t know crowding the sidewalk behind his doppelganger, but he didn’t care about them.  He was focused on the face in front of him, and the unnerving similarities. Richie 2.0 didn’t have glasses, and his hair was a little less curly, but other than that, he was almost identical.  His eyes were also a little darker, but Richie wasn’t looking that closely, blaming it on shock.  If it weren’t for the people standing behind Richie 2.0, Richie 1.0 would be certain that this was a prank.  That someone had actually propped a mirror outside his door. Neither Richie nor his mirror image said anything for a minute or so, until Richie managed to clear his throat.

“Well,” he said, keeping his voice surprisingly calm.  “If this is some clown shit, I’m officially going to lose it.”

“Are you-” His twin on the steps managed to find his voice too.  “Are you Richard?”

“Yep,” he replied, popping the ‘p’.  “Richie. Are you a figment of my nightmares?”

“It’d be a nightmare for me too, trust me.  I’m, uh, I’m Mike. Wheeler? I thought I had the wrong house as I knocked, but judging by this whole...thing,” he motioned between their faces, “we are definitely related.”

“I fucking hope so, otherwise some cloning doctor has a lot of explaining to do,” Richie stepped aside to let Mike into the house, deciding to ignore his potentially confusing name for now.  He was still half asleep and honestly wasn’t fully convinced he wouldn’t wake up having dreamt all this. “My parents are asleep, but the guest room is all yours if you want it. Your friend is moving here, right?  Are you staying with them?”

Mike shook his head.

“Will and his mom have enough to deal with, the move is kinda rough for them.  Is it, uh, too much for our other friends to stay here too? Your mom didn’t seem against it when my mom broached the subject but figured I’d ask.”

Richie wasn’t surprised that his mom had agreed to that, she probably didn’t even know what she was agreeing to.  He thought for a second, thinking through the next couple of days and what his parents would be doing. What he was planning on doing.  

“Can’t see why they wouldn’t let more people stay,” he answered.  “But, fair warning, we’ll all most likely be on our own for food, and I usually stay at a friend’s house on Sundays.  But, uh, it’s a big sleepover so if you all wanted to come…” He let the offer trail, thinking that so far, his cousin wasn’t that bad.  Then again, Richie was half asleep and hadn’t made a single joke or used a single accent. He did find it funnier to make those jokes around his friends, though.  He really only said them to other people in retaliation for being an asshole or to drag their attention to him instead of his friends. So far, Mike hadn’t done anything to deserve an innuendo shot his way.  However, that could change. And Mike could very well learn to hate him soon enough.  

“Uh, yeah, maybe,” Mike answered.  “Hold on, let me get my friends.”

He went back to the door and poked his head outside, waving the group of kids inside with him.  Richie saw two girls, one with hair the same flaming shade as Bev’s, and one with curlier brown hair.  Both of them looked like they could and would kick his ass at a moment’s notice. Luckily, those were the only girls Richie hung out with.  Or, uh, only girl, singular. There was also a boy with curly hair and a black boy who was smacking the arm of the curly-haired boy. Richie held back a sigh, wanting to warn that boy about some of the assholes in town, but not wanting to scare him.  He should probably let Mike (his Mike) handle that conversation. Richie might not be a serious person, but when it came to the remnants of Bowers’s gang, he knew what they were willing to do to people, and he didn’t want this kid to get caught in their sick traps.  

“Will is moving in, but this is Dustin, Lucas, Max, and El,” Mike pointed to each of his friends, then back to Richie.  “Guys, this is my cousin Richie.”

“I think you mean twin brother, dude,” Dustin said, eyebrows raised.  “Why did you not tell us you guys look identical?”

“We didn’t know,” both Mike and Richie answer in unison.  

“I honestly didn’t know I had a cousin until yesterday when my mom told me you were coming to Derry,” Richie admitted.

“Yeah, my mom said something about her side of the family not talking much?” Mike offered with a shrug.  “I don’t think she remembered your mom lived in Derry until Will’s mom said they were moving here.”

There was a beat of awkward silence that Richie itched to fill, but with none of the other Losers around, all his jokes just sounded wrong in his head.  So he swallowed them back and ran a hand through his hair.  

“So, uh, you guys can drop your stuff here if you want,” Richie said to the other kids.  “Be quiet though, my parents are asleep.”

“Still?  It’s almost one,” Lucas said.  Richie shrugged. 

“It’s Saturday.”

Once the rest of Mike’s friends had set their stuff in the living room, Richie went into the kitchen to make himself some breakfast/lunch, and definitely did not eavesdrop on his cousin and his friends.  And by not , he meant he absolutely eavesdropped.  Sue him, this kid shows up looking exactly like him, his friend is moving to fucking Derry of all places, Richie was a little curious.  Their voices were hushed, probably trying to avoid Richie hearing, but luckily Richie had very good hearing. The universe decided to gift him with hearing after taking away his eyesight.  They were talking about their friend Will.

“A new town will be good for him,” Mike was saying.  “It’s far away, which sucks, but Hawkins never gave him a break.”

“It’s better now,” the girl named El said.  

“We can’t be sure of that, though,” Max said, sounding slightly dejected.  

“But why couldn’t they move like, an hour away?” Dustin complained.  “Instead of seventeen?”

“The further the better, I guess,” Lucas said. 

“Mrs. Byers is just worried, for good reason,” Mike said.  “I’m worried too.”

“What if this doesn’t help?” Max asked, breaking the quiet that had settled for a second.  Richie almost didn’t hear her over the crackling of the bacon he was cooking.  

“It will,” Mike answered.  “Everything in Hawkins, it won’t bother him here.  Maybe he’ll actually be able to sleep better, too.”

“We’d better get to visit often,” Dustin said.  

“Hop said he’d drive us up,” El said.  “He wants to visit Mrs. Byers.”

“I’d say gross, but like, they’re actually kinda sweet,” Max laughed.  

Richie could imagine what they were going through.  Bev had almost moved away, after That Summer, when her aunt came to take care of her.  For one awful, lonely, quiet week, she was gone. Ben was dejected, bordering on depressed, Bill stayed with Georgie even more than normal, and Richie desperately missed the chaotic energy that she loved to share with him.  But after that week, she came speeding back into Derry, her aunt having bought a new house in the town after seeing how much Beverly missed the Losers. She didn’t miss Derry, and her aunt understood that, but she needed to be with the Losers and they needed to be with her.  Without all seven, they were incomplete. This Will, he was the sixth member of his cousin’s group. Richie briefly wondered if Will’s situation was at all comparable to Bev’s, minus the homicidal cannibal demon clown, of course. He hoped it wasn’t, for the kid’s sake.  

“I’ve got bacon in here if anyone wants any.  It’ll be gone in five minutes if you don’t make your intentions known,” Richie called, putting an end to their rather serious discussion about how this move was good for their friend.  He added that last part after a moment, forgetting that these kids wouldn’t know to hurry when Richie cooked. The Losers all knew that if there was food near Richie, he ate it, and they had to stake claim fast to avoid losing their food.  It was a good thing Richie remembered, too, because all five of them were joining him in the kitchen after only a minute.  

“So what is Derry like?” Max asked Richie once they had all taken the rest of the bacon.  Richie made a face.

“Depends on what you’re like, y’know?  Different people, drastically different town.”  He didn’t want to scare them, make them worried about their friend, but Derry fucking sucked and he didn’t want to lie either.  “For some people, it’s great. A fuckin’ dream. Can do basically whatever they want.”

“...for others?” Max looked like she really didn’t want to ask the question.  Richie frowned. He didn’t want to come right out of the gate with Bowers killing his dad and carving up Ben, or with the repeated child murders and ignorant parents.  Or, you know, the supernatural shit. So he decided to deflect, as he does best, and save the gory details for when they were less apprehensive about him as a person. He grinned.

“Let’s just say my friends and I aren’t called the Losers for nothing,” he said.  “But hey, I’m sure your friend’ll be fine here. Especially if he fits in with my group.  We look out for each other.” He decided not to entertain the possibility that their friend might fit in with the new and improved Bowers Gang.  The rest seemed like nerds, he doubted that the sixth would be anything different. He hoped so.  

“Your group...the losers?” Mike asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Losers, capital ‘L’,” Richie confirmed.  “It’s like a reclaiming thing, being proud of the shit we’ve been called.”  Funnily enough, ‘Loser’ was probably the tamest thing any of them had been called.  It wasn’t even touching the slurs that got hurled at them when the Gang got really mad, or the trauma that got used against them in Bill, Bev, and Mike’s case, or the casual but stinging insinuations that followed Beverly for being best friends with six boys.  But Loser was the easiest to take back. To make their own. They were Losers, and they were proud of it.

“Respect,” Max said, holding out her hand and fist-bumping Richie.  

“Great, Derry is just as bad as Hawkins,” Dustin said.  Richie raised his eyebrows, lowering them again when he realized that he looked just like Mike did when he did the same thing.  

“What’s Hawkins like?” He asked, returning the question.  Mike huffed a laugh.

“Hawkins couldn’t notice something was wrong if a murderer ran naked through the streets with a bloody knife,” he said.  Richie nodded.

“Ah,” he said.  “Yeah, Derry’s fuckin oblivious too.  Curfew is 7 at night, but no one follows it and the police don’t even enforce it.  I’ve snuck out to go meet my friends at midnight, walked right by a police car, and the cop inside didn’t even bat an eye.”

“I think Hawkins has got Derry beat,” Dustin said, causing Richie to scoff in disbelief.  “One time, the power shut off in the whole town, because of some electrical lab right outside the limits, and literally no one asked what happened.  We only found out it was the lab because we don’t let anything go.”

Richie was about to argue, getting ready to mock-debate about how much Derry sucked, feeling a grin rise on his face, when Mike’s phone dinged.  Richie hid his frown as their attention all turned to the text. He hadn’t made a joke in over twelve hours. He hadn’t play-fought with someone in over twelve hours.  Could he even be called Richie anymore? He needed to see the Losers. He didn’t feel like himself when he wasn’t around them.  

“Will said his mom is letting him explore the town,” Mike read out the text to the rest of his group.  

“I can text my friends, we can show you guys around?” Richie offered.  “Do you guys have bikes?”

Lucas scoffed.  “Do we have bikes .”

“They’re nerds who bike everywhere,” Max said, rolling her eyes.  “I don't, but I brought my skateboard.”

“Fuckin sick .”  Richie fist-bumped her again.  So far, she was his favorite. And not just because she reminded him of Bev.  He grabbed his phone off the counter as they all piled their dishes in the sink.  Richie made a mental note to do those when he got back to the house, knowing they’d still be there even if it was days later.  Mike and his friends made their way to the door and Richie slipped his shoes on as they walked out to the sidewalk, Mike with his arm around the shoulder of El.  Her head was resting lightly on his shoulder. They hadn’t explicitly said that they were dating, but it was pretty obvious. The same way that Ben and Bev hadn’t needed to announce their relationship to the rest of the Losers.  They just knew .  Richie grinned, about to call out to them to leave room for Jesus, when El muttered something to Mike and he grinned.  Mike gave her a peck on the lips, and Dustin made a mock-disgusted face. A face very reminiscent of one that Richie made when his own resident lovebirds got too cute.  Richie pushed his glasses up his nose and readied the Jesus joke again, when-

Oh no.

His eyes caught a figure far at the end of the sidewalk, frozen in step, his face practically crumpled in stunned confusion.  The figure was staring right at Mike, who hadn’t noticed anything, and the way that El leaned up to kiss him again. Richie knew from experience that his door was mostly blocked from view from that far away, meaning that the short figure wouldn’t see Richie unless specifically looking for him.  Richie’s heart dropped to his stomach, and he opened his mouth to shout down the street. But before he could, the figure took a step back. Then Richie watched as Eddie turned and ran the other way. 

Chapter Text

Eddie was growing a little worried.  Richie had gotten home around eight the past night, texted them all that he had made himself dinner (with a picture attached for proof), and then texted Eddie until he went to bed at midnight.  Or at least, until he said he was going to bed. Eddie knew he was probably awake until two in the morning, but he never called Richie out on it. He chastised him about getting more sleep, but he knew Richie struggled with that, and he wasn’t a total asshole.  But Richie hadn’t contacted anyone since then, and it was almost two in the afternoon. They usually saw Richie for most of the weekend, since his parents didn’t have work and would be in the house.  

He eventually decided to just go over and check on him, and drag him to the clubhouse if he needed to.  Stan volunteered to do so, seeing as he was the closest, but Eddie just said that he needed the excuse to get out of his own house too.  His mom was worried about heatstroke like she was every summer, and it was grating even more on Eddie’s nerves. Everything she said has annoyed him so much more since the previous summer.  He just wanted to be around his friends.  

The walk to Richie’s house was about ten minutes, but Eddie didn’t mind.  He felt a skip enter his step the further he got from his own house, knowing that even if his mom would be unbearable when he got back that night, he had a few hours of freedom.  He expected to have to use the spare key to get into Richie’s house, sneaking up to his room past his sleeping parents, waking him up. He expected Richie to have forgotten to replace the key, making Eddie climb to his window.  He expected to find Richie, passed out in his bed, dead to the world until Eddie pulls him onto the floor.  

He didn’t expect to see Richie, standing in his front lawn with kids Eddie didn’t know, kissing a girl.  Eddie felt his chest contract, his breath catching in his throat at the scene he had stumbled upon. Richie wasn’t even wearing his glasses, which meant he felt comfortable enough around this person to be practically blind.  Eddie thought that he, Bill, and Stan were special. Who was this girl? Why didn’t Richie tell them about her? Who were those other people?  

Eddie didn’t care he was kissing her.  Why would he? Why would that bother him?  Why were his eyes stinging? He didn’t care!  He didn’t!  

He couldn’t watch any longer.  

He turned and he ran.  

“Shit, shit!” Richie slammed the door behind him, hopping down the steps and almost knocking Mike over.  “Eddie!” 

“What?  What’s wrong?” Mike frowned, confused.  Richie didn’t answer, waving him off.

“Just, stay here!  Shit, Eddie!” He ran after Eddie, feet pounding the pavement and heart racing.  He wasn’t an idiot. He knew himself. He knew why it bothered him so much that Eddie was the one to mistake Mike for Richie, and that there was only one scenario worse than this one.  He also knew that it was his fault for not texting the group earlier and warning them that his cousin could be his twin.  How was he supposed to know that Eddie was gonna come by? If he had known, he would have said something. Or he would have been out waiting with Mike so that it was clear there were two of them.  Shit, shit, shit, why was Eddie such a fast runner? Richie was panting by the time he saw Eddie again, rounding the corner towards the barrens. 

“Eddie, wait!” He called, picking up speed and rounding the corner to see Eddie stopped, staring at him with eyes that were angrier than he expected.  Eddie’s arms were crossed, his fingers digging into his arms as he stared Richie down. “Eddie, I-”

“-who was that?” Eddie asked, his voice more hurt than angry, much to Richie’s surprise.  “Who were those people? Are you keeping secrets from us? A secret girlfriend?”

“Eddie no, it’s nothing like that, I swear,” Richie assured him, getting as close as Eddie would allow before he took a step back.  “This was just a misunderstanding, I should have texted you guys as soon as my cousin got here, I told you I would, and-”

“-What does your cousin have to do with this?  This is about me, seeing you kiss a girl that is a total stranger!” Eddie said.  “If you have a secret girlfriend, okay, but why keep her a secret?”

“Because she’s not my girlfriend, and that wasn’t me!” Richie urged.

“Oh, really?  It wasn’t you!  That’s the oldest excuse in the book, Richie.” Eddie rolled his eyes.  Richie ran a hand through his hair, gripping the strands like they’d give him an answer.  

“I’m serious, Eddie, when I opened the door this morning to my cousin, I thought one of you guys had put a mirror outside my door as a prank,” Richie said.  “I had never even seen a picture of him before, he looks exactly like me, just with perfect eyesight like a jackass.”

Eddie snorted a laugh despite himself, returning his face to a frown instantly.  

“So that was...your cousin?  Who happens to look like you?” He asked, disbelief in his voice.  Richie leaned against a tree, sighing.

“Yes, and I know that sounds like I’m lying.  But you can meet him, his name is Mike. His girlfriend is El, she’s quiet but seems nice enough.  Could totally kick my ass, though.” He said. Eddie rolled his eyes again.

“Anyone can kick your ass, Richie.” He sighed.  “So you aren’t hiding a secret girlfriend from us?”

“Nope, not in the slightest,” Richie said earnestly.  “Except for your mom, but that’s not a secret.”

“Oh shut the fuck up,” Eddie shook his head with a light laugh.  “I’m uh, sorry for overreacting.”

“I mean, it makes sense.  That’s not how I wanted you to find out that my cousin could be my twin,” Richie said.  “Um, I mean, you guys. All of you guys.”

Eddie was quiet for a minute.  His eyebrows furrowed, then he swallowed.  

“You know, I, uh, I don’t mind if you do have a girlfriend,” he said.  “I mean, that’s not why I ran.”

“I know.  I don’t, though,” Richie said, his voice just as quiet.  “Uh, have a girlfriend.”

“I don’t care if you do,” Eddie said.  “Or if you kiss her. That’s not what this was about.”

“I don’t want to kiss her.”  Richie couldn’t tell if this conversation was just awkward or if there was more to what Eddie was saying.  “My girlfriend. Because she doesn’t exist.”

“Good,” Eddie said.  “That you aren’t keeping secrets from us, I mean.  Not good that you don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Do you want me to have a girlfriend?”  Richie was started to err on the ‘awkward’ side.  

“If you want one,” Eddie replied, just as awkward.  

“What if I don’t?”

“Then that’s okay too,” Eddie said.  Richie stuck his hands in his pockets, suddenly overcome with the urge to say something else.  Something more .  He hadn’t been planning on saying anything to anyone, too afraid of even the Losers hating him, but something in Eddie’s voice made him want to open up.  After all, Eddie just thought Richie was hiding a secret girlfriend.  Richie didn’t want him to keep thinking that. Especially when...well, Richie wasn’t about to ever have a girlfriend.

“I, uh, don’t,” Richie said, his voice at the same volume that he used when he snuck into Eddie’s room and had to make sure Mrs. K didn’t hear.  “Want a girlfriend.”

He hoped Eddie heard what he wasn’t saying.  What he hadn’t said out loud yet, and didn’t know if he could.  Eddie’s face softened, his mouth dropping open into a quiet ‘oh’.  He reached out and put a hand on Richie’s arm.  

“That’s okay, Richie,” he said.  “You’re okay.”

Richie felt a real, genuine smile tugging at his face.  

“Uh, don’t tell the others just yet?  I mean, Stan knows, he was- I was kind of panicking and he was really close, but-” Richie took a breath, meeting Eddie’s eyes again.  “I want to tell them, really, I just need to...get more used to it myself.”

“Yeah, of course, Rich,” Eddie assured him.  “But they’ll still love you. We’ll all still love you.”

“Of course you guys will,” Richie grinned, ignoring the stinging in his eyes.  “Who could resist this?”

“Oh hush,” Eddie lightly punched his shoulder with a grin.  “Now are you going to tell the others your cousin is here? Ben was excited to meet someone new.”

“Yeah, c’mon, I kinda ditched him to run after you,” Richie said, throwing his arm over Eddie’s shoulder, wiping his eyes when Eddie wasn’t looking.  

“You ditched him?” Eddie asked.

“Uh, yeah, of course I did.  I ran right after you.” Richie shrugged.  

Eddie didn’t say anything to that, but he didn’t shrug off Richie’s arm either.  Richie texted the others as they walked back to his house, enjoying the silence for once.  He usually enjoyed quiet more when it was just him and one of the original Losers. It just felt comfortable.  When they weren’t running, it took around five minutes to walk back to Richie’s house, and they saw the group of Mike and his friends still loitering in the front yard, looking up as he and Eddie rounded the corner.  The Losers weren’t there yet, to the pair’s slight surprise. Richie figured at least Bill, Stan, and Bev would be fast, but if they were at the clubhouse then they all wouldn’t be too far away. Richie put a grin on his face as they got closer to the group.

“Sorry ‘bout that!” He called as he approached, his arm dropping from Eddie’s shoulder.  Eddie looked between Richie and Mike.

“Shit, you really weren’t kidding,” he said.  

“Would I lie to you, Eds?” Richie grinned, and Eddie hit his arm.

“Not my name, asshole,” He shot back, holding out his hand to Mike.  “I’m Eddie.”

“Mike,” he replied, shaking Eddie’s hand.  The rest of his group introduced themselves, and Richie noticed that there was a new kid joining them.  He was shorter than Mike, but still taller than Eddie, with an unfortunate bowl cut and eyes that looked perpetually tired.  Richie put together that he was Will even before he was introduced, and tried to gauge how well he would fit with the Losers.  Eddie nudged him.

“What are we gonna do about the whole name thing?” He asked, and Richie shrugged.

“We’ll figure something out, at worst it’s just confusing.”

“What are you talking about?” Max asked, and Eddie turned back to them.

“Nothing, just, one of our friends is named Mike too,” he explained.  

As if on cue, a voice exclaimed from behind them, “Holy fuck!”

“Yeah, I know, Bev, it’s wild,” Richie was answering her unspoken question before he even finished turning around, meeting the eyes of five stunned Losers walking their bikes the rest of the way to Richie’s sidewalk.  

“Sorry we’re l-late,” Bill said.  “I had to g-get Georgie settled back h-home.”

“So which one of you is moving here?” Mike (Richie’s Mike) asked, his eyebrows furrowed slightly, and all the Losers noticed the slight sigh of relief when it wasn’t Lucas who answered.  They all knew that as much as Mike would like to not be the only black kid in Derry, subjecting Lucas to the assholes in town wasn’t what he had in mind either. After another quick round of introductions, the Hawkins kids got their bikes (and Max’s skateboard), and the thirteen set off in a large pack, headed first to the school.  It was the safest place, ironically, since no part of the new Bowers Gang wanted to be anywhere near it when they didn’t have to be. Anyway, Will would need to know where it was. The seven Losers took the long route, avoiding any of the roads that the Gang liked to lurk on, just in case. They wanted to explain Derry before running into those assholes.  

“Alright, this is the high school,” Bev announced, having appointed herself the tour guide.  Richie had volunteered but had been promptly shut down by a chorus of six ‘fuck no’s. “Curriculum is surprisingly good for a middle-of-nowhere Maine town, but the teachers and students balance it back out by being utter fucktards.”

“How bad is bullying here?” Hawkins Mike asked, his eyes flicking to Will.  Stan frowned.

“Did you get bullied in Hawkins?” He asked Will, who winced slightly and nodded.  

“It got worse after I had an, uh, accident a few years ago, though,” he said.  

“I hate to tell you, but the bullying won’t be better here,” Ben said, his face falling in sympathy.  “We can all speak from experience.”

“But we’ll watch out for you,” Bev promised.  

“I am quite good at diverting attention,” Richie said, and Eddie glared at him.

“Yeah, by pissing them off!  Then you end up hurt, and I have to patch you up, and those assholes get to get off on slamming your head into a locker!” He hissed.  “My mom is going to notice our painkiller stash going down one of these days.”

“It’s violent here?” Lucas asked, his eyes widening.  

“Is it not in Hawkins?” Stan asked back.  Mike made a face.

“Not usually.  There was one time Troy pulled a knife on Dustin, but he did think that we made him piss his pants in front of the whole school, so…” He trailed off.  

“Did you?” Richie asked with a grin.  “Cus that’s epic .  Bowers never would have let that slide, but still, a nice image.”

“Oh, Troy didn’t let it slide,” Mike shook his head, “he held a knife on Dustin and told me to jump off the quarry cliff.  El showed up just in time and broke his arm, though.”

“Okay, but did you make this guy piss himself or what?” Richie asked again.  El grinned, the first real smile Richie had seen her give to someone who wasn’t Mike.

“I did,” she said.  Richie cackled, holding out a hand for her to high-five.  

“ Man , I wish we could pull that shit here,” he said.  “I mean, with Bowers and them gone, we might not literally d-”

“- beep beep, Richie ,” Stan whispered, elbowing Richie.  “Don’t give him a panic attack.”

He looked towards Will, who was looking around with a glazed expression on his face.  Richie frowned. He had thought Will was just quiet, and sure, that was part of it. But that look...he knew it.  He had seen it. On Stan, when their class this past year took a field trip to an art museum and Stan never fully looked at anything or anyone when surrounded by the paintings.  On Eddie, when he sat in his mother's car, covered in filth, holding his broken arm and crying. On Bill, when he held Georgie’s torn raincoat in the depths of the sewers and thought his brother was gone for good.  Even on himself, when he looked in the mirror after another nightmare, or after a particularly bad day with his parents. Will wasn’t just quiet. He had been through something big. Probably not It-level, but trauma wasn’t something you could compare like that.  

“It’s better now, though,” Ben assured with a soft voice.  “Not...great, at all, but the worst of them are gone now. The others mostly were following their lead, and they all still suck, but they don’t go as far as Bowers and his gang did.”

“Bowers?” Max asked.  Ben frowned.

“Henry Bowers,” he answered.  “Total dickhead.”

“Holy shit, Ben cursed!” Richie exclaimed, excited.  Ben flushed, and Bev rolled her eyes.

“‘Dickhead’ is barely a curse, Rich, he’s still our sweet Ben.”

Ben flushed harder, if that was even possible.  

“Henry wasn’t just a bully,” Stan brought the conversation back to the point.  “He was...well, do you want the sugarcoated version?”

All the Hawkin’s kids shook their heads, even Will.  For all the shit he looked like he’d been through, he was fucking strong.  

“He was a murderer,” Eddie said bluntly.  “Killed his dad. And the rest of his gang.”

“Tried to kill me once,” Mike admitted.  “Well, technically twice.”

Judging from the look that flashed across his face, the Losers gathered that he had just remembered the third time Bowers had almost killed him, but he didn’t amend the number again.  Most likely to not freak the other group out too badly.  

“Probably would’ve killed me, if I hadn’t run away,” Ben glanced down at his stomach, where the scar still rested under his shirt.  

“Holy shit,” Dustin muttered.  “What happened to him?”

“He, uh, he died,” Eddie said.  Every Loser was currently trying very hard not to glance at their Mike, who was trying not to look conspicuous.  “They found his body in the sewers after his, um, murder spree last summer.”

“Fuck,” Max said, eyes wide.  “That’s a lot.”

“You said there were others, though,” Hawkins Mike said.  “Are they that dangerous?”

“Not nearly on Bowers’s level,” Ben said.  “Or even Patrick’s, that guy was awful too.”

“P-Peter is the worst n-now,” Bill added.  “But w-we can h-h-handle him.”

“Will, if we tell your mom any of this, you know she’ll pack your new house right back up and find somewhere without murderous bullies,” Hawkins Mike (Man, Richie needed to find a better way to differentiate them) said.  Will sighed.

“I know.  Jonathan would be on board too, but...I don’t want to move again.  And she’ll probably go even further from Hawkins, which means you guys will have to drive even further to visit.” He sighed, looking at the Losers head-on for the first time since the introductions.  “You guys said you can handle them?”

“I can’t promise that nothing will ever happen, because this town likes to throw curveballs,” Bev said.  “But, I can promise that we’ll have your back. It’s how we’ve gotten through it.”

“With Bowers around, us Losers had to stick together,” Stan said.  “No one else would stand up for us.”

“On the bright side,” Dustin said to Will, “no one here is gonna call you zombie boy!”

“Dustin, dude,” Lucas leveled him with a glare, “come on.”

“Zombie boy?” Richie asked, unable to keep his mouth shut.  Will frowned.

“Yeah, uh, the accident I mentioned earlier had people thinking I was dead for a while.  So then when I wasn’t...that nickname started circling.”

“Oh man, you gotta love bullying nicknames,” Richie grinned.  “Some of the lamest shit imaginable. I mean, seriously? A kid miraculously isn’t dead and you’re gonna think calling him a zombie is the peak of bullying creativity?  It just makes it cooler, that's what it does.”

“We’ve got n-nicknames t-too,” Bill grinned.  “Another th-thing w-we’ve taken b-back.”

“I’m Beaverly.” Bev gave a mock bow on her bike.  “He’s B-B-Bill.”

“Haystack,” Ben smiled kindly.  “But I think Bowers only called me that once.  He did call me Fatboy a lot though. Like yeah, I’m fat, fuck off.”

“Ben!” Bev tried to gasp loudly, scandalized, but was laughing too hard.  Her face was red, and Richie had nearly fallen off his bike in his haste to lean over and high-five Ben.  

“Damn, Haystack comin’ in for the kill!” Richie catcalled, tossing his arms in the air proudly.  Ben flushed, grinning.

“None of them even try with me,” Stan said, almost offended.  “They always just call me the Jew. As if there’s nothing else to make fun of me for besides my religion.  I mean, seriously, Richie is Jewish too.”

“You know that if they knew about it, they would definitely be making fun of your bird watching hobby,” Eddie said, grinning.  “Anyway, I never really had a good one either. But not for lack of trying on their part. I think the most common now is Momma’s Boy or Loverboy, but the latter is entirely my own fault so it doesn’t bother me.”  Richie and the others knew why he wasn’t mentioning the major things he was called, and that’s because they fell under the category of ‘slurs’ and therefore still hurt when thrown around.  

“You did have Lover written on your cast for like, three months,” Mike teased, causing Eddie to stick his tongue out.  “They tend to call me Chicken, leftover from Bowers. It’s got a long story, but it admittedly wasn’t until I met these guys that it stopped bothering me.  The one that these Losers took for their own, though, is Homeschool.”

“And I was also given a beaver themed nickname,” Richie admitted, “but I much prefer Trashmouth.  It fits me better. So yeah, bottom line, bullies have no imagination and I think being a zombie is fucking sick.”

Will was grinning a little, which seemed to make all his friends relax.  

“Uh, thanks guys,” he said.  “Really.”

“Anytime Willicent.” Richie never got tired of the baffled look he got whenever he gave a new person a nickname.  Eddie huffed.

“He does that,” he said.  “You get used to it.”

“Got that right, Eduardo.”

“Not my name.”

“So!” Beverly cut them off before they could argue more.  “Should we head to the quarry and the barrens next? We’ve been here for quite a while.”

“Sure, because the only two places he might need to know in the town are the school and the barrens,” Stan said with a slight grin. Bev stuck her tongue out at him. 

“The barrens are fun , Stanley,” she returned. “I guess you just don’t know the meaning of that word.”

“I believe I won our annual barrens competition this year, Ms. Marsh.” Stan raised his eyebrows. 

“Doesn’t mean you’re fun, just means that you know how to push Mike off a cliff,” Richie pointed out.  

“Guys, the barrens?” Bill got them back on track, and Bev started pedaling away, the rest of them peeling off to follow her.  The day was steadily trekking on, but all the Losers could tell that this was building to yet another sleepover at Bill’s house.  And none of them minded one bit, hoping that their new friends would want to join them. 

Chapter Text

They almost made it.  They looped back around town, side streets and alleys serving their purpose rather than the main roads.  They rode carefully, knowing that they were a bigger group than normal and that they would draw attention.  Bev didn’t even show off the sights like she did on the way to the school, since they knew that to get to the barrens, they had to go through town.  Even the Hawkins kids had picked up on it, staying quiet and looking around, sometimes getting worried looks on their faces at the attitudes of the Losers.  They hoped those assholes were busy doing something else, focused on anything else but waiting for people to pick on. And they got so close. They were almost there .  But Derry wasn’t a town that you could let your guard down in. It shouldn’t have caught them off guard, but with the six new people, their whole day was weird already.  So it startled them when right as they were riding down the road, only two minutes away from the quarry, a rock hit Ben’s bike wheel, tangling the spokes and sending him skidding to the ground.  The others stopped immediately, forming a circle as Mike helped Ben to his feet, the Losers instinctively putting the Hawkins kids behind them.  

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the Losers,” Peter Gordon sneered, tossing another rock in his hand.  The rest of his gang, other acquaintances of the old Bowers gang, stood behind him with their arms crossed.  “Does your little club have new members? How much did you have to pay them to pretend to like you little shits?” 

“Fuck off, Peter,” Bev called, seething as she held a hand comfortingly on Ben’s shoulder, “they’re just passing through town.”

“Good,” Peter leered.  “We don’t need any more losers in this town.  As for you newbies, listen close. You don’t want to be caught with their group of fairies, sluts, and f-f-freaks.”

“Oh, play the st-stutter card, very c-creative,” Bill scowled.  Peter stopped tossing his rock in the air, focusing in on Bill. His grin turned angry.

“Careful kids,” he hissed.  “Stick around the Losers for too long, and you’ll end up just like G-G-Georgie.  People around them tend to-”

“-Fuck you, asshole!” Richie shouted, reacting to the ugly shade of red that Bill’s face had turned at the mention of Georgie.  He charged forward, his sleeve tearing from Eddie’s grip, and kneed Peter between his legs. As Peter doubled over, Richie immediately got a punch to his face from the cronie on Peter’s left, sending him to the ground.  The Losers rushed forward, grabbing Richie by the arms and pulling him away, just barely too slow to keep him from getting a kick in the ribs, though.  

“Oh, you want to go you little freak?  Four-Eyes wants to go? Huh?” Peter lurched back to his feet, face blotched and angry, fists clenched.  

“Yeah, go out with your mom!” Richie shouted back.  Peter’s face twisted, but the rest of the Losers hurried back to their bikes, Eddie clamping his hand over Richie’s mouth to keep him from making things worse.  Richie was put on the back of Mike’s bike, with Stan riding one-handed as he held Richie’s bike upright next to him.  

“Go on, run!  Next time I see you, you’ll wish Henry was the one who got his hands on you, fuckin’ queers!” They heard Peter shouting as they sped around the corner, tensions running high as they led the group past the Barrens, towards the only place they wanted to go at that moment.  As if on one wavelength, they didn’t even need to communicate where they were going, they just knew that they needed to go to the clubhouse.  

Their bikes skidded to a stop in the woods.  To their credit, the Hawkins kids didn’t say a word as Bill opened the trapdoor, just huddling in silence as he ushered them all down before he helped Richie down the ladder.  Once the door was shut, chaos erupted. 

“Richie, what the fuck were you thinking?  He could’ve had a knife, you know this,” Eddie was ranting, wiping the blood off of Richie’s face and palms, pulling his first aid kit from the shelf.  Bev was doing the same for Ben, helping him clean the twin skinned knees he had been given.  

“Yeah, well, if I hadn't hit the bastard, Bill was about to do the same thing, and don’t pretend you’re any better either,” Richie defended himself, wincing as Eddie prodded his ribs.  

“You do this every time one of them brings up Georgie, they’re gonna start thinking that you’re more affected by it than Bill,” Eddie argued back.

“Good!  Maybe then they’ll stop fucking bringing it up to him.” Richie was stopped from saying anything else by Eddie grabbing his jaw to check the growing bruise.  

“What’s bleeding, dumbass?” Stan asked, noting the blood around Richie’s mouth.  “Did you lose a fucking tooth?”

“Bit my cheek,” Richie mumbled around Eddie’s grip.  “Teeth are fine.” 

“Be thankful for that, if you lost a tooth then Eddie would be going batshit right now,” Bev looked up from bandaging Ben’s knees.  He was looking down at Bev with such a lovesick look in his eyes that Richie almost couldn’t look at him.  

“You c-call this not b-batshit?” Bill asked, handing Eddie his supplies.  Eddie laughed.

“Oh Bill, you do not want to know how fucking pissed I would be if Richie was that much of an idiot,” he said.  “Open your mouth, asshat, I need to see how bad your cheek is cut.”

“Oh Eds, if you wanted to get this close to my mouth, all you had to do was- ow, shit! ” Richie was cut off by Eddie manhandling his bruised jaw again.  

“Sorry, but also not, now just open your mouth so I know if you’re that unlucky that you need fucking stitches,” he ordered, Richie complying with a roll of his eyes.  At Eddie’s sigh of relief, and subsequent releasing of his jaw, Richie slumped back into the chair.  He’d have a nasty bruise on his cheek, but at least his parents wouldn’t get mad at him. If they even noticed.  Eddie started cleaning the scrapes on Richie’s palms, and the sound of a throat clearing reminded all the Losers that they had an audience this time.  The six others, with their Mike in the front and El right at his shoulder, were watching the scene with wide eyes.  

“Is that, uh, normal?” Max asked from over Mike’s shoulder.  Stan looked up from the book he had grabbed off the table.

“You mean is it normal for Richie to be that stupid?  Yes, absolutely,” he said. “As for the violence, kind of.  Peter might not have gotten physical today if Richie hadn’t hit first, but he was right that Bill was about to be just as stupid.”

“It j-j-just p-pisses me off!” Bill had his arms crossed as Eddie packed the first aid kit back up.  

“We know, Bill, and that’s completely understandable,” Bev said.  “But they know that too, that’s why they keep talking about it.”

“What...what was he talking about?” Hawkins Mike asked, wincing right after saying it.  “Sorry, if that’s too personal or something, I get it.”

“No, it’s…” Bev shared a look with Bill before continuing.  “It’s fine.”

“We w-weren’t totally telling the t-truth,” he said.  “About B-Bowers.”

“Well, we were, but we left some stuff out,” Eddie added.  “Some stuff that those assholes never really forgot about.”

“See, a year ago - between two summers ago and last summer - a lot of kids went missing,” Bev started to explain.  “The cops didn’t give a shit and barely looked, putting up missing posters and searching for less than two weeks before declaring them dead and giving up.  One of the kids that went missing was Patrick Hockstetter, Bowers’s right-hand man, just as crazy as he was. Eventually, when Bowers’s body was found in the sewers and it was clear he had killed four people, they put together that he was behind the disappearances too.”

“Peter and his gang weren’t part of Bowers’s crew but they were decent friends with Patrick.  They blame us for Patrick going missing,” Ben said. “Well, they blame me .  Patrick disappeared as he was chasing me through the woods.  They still don’t know what happened to him, but he’s been considered dead for a year despite never finding a body.”

“ They never f-found it,” Bill muttered, quiet enough that he thought none of the Hawkins kids heard him.  But El cocked her head.

“What did you say?” She asked, eyebrows furrowed.  Eddie leaned on the table with a sigh.

“He said that they never found Patrick’s body,” he said, his nose curling at the memories he was going through.  “But we know he’s dead. Because we did.”

“Shit,” Dustin breathed.  “For real?”

“We only started looking after Georgie went missing,” Stan said, and all the Losers glanced slightly at Bill to make sure he was still okay with talking about it.  

“My little b-b-brother,” he said softly.  “I had to f-find him.”

“At that point, it was just Bill, Stan, Richie and I,” Eddie said.  “But we met Ben, Bev, and Mike, and we ended up searching the sewers since Georgie was last seen at a storm drain.  I’m still shocked you guys managed to get me to touch that water, by the way. Just saying.”

“We eventually found what must have been Bowers’s hideout, in a blocked off part of the sewers,” Mike said.  “We didn’t tell the police, we didn’t want them suspecting us or punishing Bill for trespassing during the search.  Patrick was there, though, along with other bodies that we didn’t look at close enough to put a name to. ”

“I’m pretty certain I saw Betty Ripsom’s body,” Richie chimed in.  “It was missing a shoe, and we found the other one by the mouth of the sewer.”

“Did you find your brother?” Max asked, hesitant, not fully sounding like she wanted the answer.  Bill nodded, his face in his hands. There was a beat where the Hawkins kids held their breaths, worried until Bill spoke.  

“H-he was okay.” His voice was muffled by his hands, but the relieved tone of voice shone through clear as day.  

“Well…” Richie trailed off with a smack on the arm from Eddie, who almost hit Richie in the ribs before remembering that he was bruised.  

“Bowers must have been feeling extra fucked up,” Bev said, sharing a look with the other Losers.  “Georgie was the youngest one taken, and the only one…” She didn’t finish the sentence.

“Bowers cut his arm off,” Eddie stated, a hand on Bill’s arm.  “So he’s not ‘okay’ okay, but he’s better than he could be.”

“So yeah, those assholes like to taunt Bill with that shit,” Richie finished.  “They blame us for Patrick, they very mistakenly make Bill feel responsible for what happened to Georgie, all while being the second-rate cronies to the guy actually responsible for both of those things.”

“But it’s over now,” Ben said, voice steady despite his thumb rubbing the scar on his palm.  “That’s all over.”

“You all have those scars,” El noticed, pointing to Ben’s palm.  “What are they from?”

Richie snorted a laugh.  “Blood Oath.”

“What?” Lucas looked baffled.  Stan rolled his eyes.

“Seven stupid kids decided that slicing their hands open was the best way to make a promise,” he said.  “And that seven children were the best people to have on ‘missing child watch’.”

“We promised that if someone decided to pick up after Bowers and kids started going missing again, we’d investigate,” Ben explained.  “Because we knew the cops wouldn’t do anything.”

“Eddie made us all get tetanus shots right after, though,” Richie said with a grin, ruffling Eddie’s hair.  

“It’s a tetanus booster , and I only made you get it because you hadn’t had a shot in years, dickwad,” Eddie shot back, hitting Richie’s hand away.  

“I don’t need any boosters, not with your mom waiting for me every night.” Richie avoided Eddie’s hit that time, grin widening despite the pain in his jaw.

“That doesn’t even make sense , Richie, my mother has nothing to do with a tetanus booster, and even the joke I know you were making was such a stretch-”

“-But Eds, I need to stretch when your mom is involved-”

“-Don’t fucking call me that-”

“-Boys!” Beverly clapped her hands loudly, halting Eddie and Richie as Eddie was about to shove Richie out of his chair.  “I love you two, but holy shit. Please take it to the hammock, this clubhouse is far too crowded for this.”

Both of them rolled their eyes, but got up anyway and went to finagle themselves into the hammock in their usual position.  The clubhouse settled into silence. Then Bill sighed.

“Sorry we didn’t t-tell you, W-Will,” he said.  “This t-town can be pretty f-fucked up.”

Will was quiet, lost in thought, before he shook his head.

“Well, at least I’m used to Hawkins,” he said.  “Also a pretty messed-up town.”

“This has been a thoroughly depressing past twenty minutes,” Richie announced from the hammock.  “We should do something fun.”

“I’m not up for cliff jumping today,” Ben said, picking at the edge of his bandage.  

“Oh fuck no, me neither Benjamin,” Richie agreed.  “The water would finally fulfill Eddie’s prophecy of killing one of us.”

“It probably has so much bacteria,” Eddie muttered, unheard by everyone but Richie.  

“We could g-go to my house?” Bill offered.  “Most of you were p-probably gonna sleep over a-anyway.”

“It is getting a bit late,” Eddie agreed.  “I’d need to call my mom, but she likes your parents so it should be okay.”

“What about you guys?” Bev asked the Hawkins group.  “You don’t have to sleep over if you don’t want to.”

“All your shit is at my house, but Bill’s isn’t that far away,” Richie said.  “I’m staying over, though, if that changes anything.”

“No, uh, that sounds fun,” Hawkins Mike said.  “I’d rather that then be by ourselves in Richie’s house.”

“Good choice,” Richie said, an almost unnoticeable scowl flashing on his face for a millisecond.  The Losers saw it, though. They were aware that Maggie and Wentworth would probably be drunk all weekend, and that Richie would find every way to not be in his house.  They were just glad that the Hawkins party was willing to stay somewhere else too.  

“Okay, cool,” Bill said.  “You guys g-go get your bikes, we’ll close up d-down here.”

Will and Mike #2 led the way back up the ladder, El giving the Losers an odd look before following.  Soon the Losers were alone, feeling a wave of comfort wash over them all once it was only them occupying the dusty clubhouse.  Bev broke the silence with a sigh, her hand moving to rest on Ben’s shoulder.

“I feel bad not telling them,” Ben admitted to the soft quiet air between the Losers.  “I don’t know why.”

“Because we lied to them,” Mike said with a shrug.  “We know it wasn’t Bowers, and we chose not to tell them.  But we can’t exactly tell them the truth.”

“Man, their faces would be funny, though,” Richie said.  “Hey 'Cuz, hey Will, guess what? This town has a murderous shape-shifting demon clown that feeds on fear living in its sewers.  That’d be a fun topic at a family reunion.”

“That girl gives me a weird feeling,” Stan said, watching the closed trapdoor carefully.  “The quiet one, El?”

“She seems just...very perceptive,” Bev rationalized, a frown forming anyway.  

“They’re p-probably waiting,” Bill said, standing up and helping Richie out of the hammock.  Richie groaned as he got to his feet. Stan gave him a once-over.

“Are you gonna need to ride with Mike again?  I need to know if I’ll be pulling your bike all the way to Bill’s,” he asked, his words sounding annoyed but his eyes concerned.  Richie gave a lazy grin, barely wincing at the pull on his bruise.  

“Nah, Staniel, I’ll be fine.  It’s a dull throbbing now,” he said.  “Kinda familiar, actually, what with-”

“-Nope, it’s time to shut up now,” Eddie forcibly closed Richie’s jaw and guided him to the ladder before letting go.  Richie’s laughter was heard even as the two of them left the clubhouse. The others just watched with slight grins before following them out, turning off all the lanterns and flashlights.  Bill was the last one out, and he hesitated before climbing the ladder. Not that he didn’t trust the kids from Hawkins, but there was a part of him that dreaded them being in his house. And that part of him was only thinking of Georgie.  

The Party lounged around their bikes while they waited for the Derry kids (the Losers, apparently) to leave their clubhouse.  Everyone had turned to Will.

“So you really think you want to stay?  Even with all that murder shit?” Mike asked, worried.  Will hesitated, but he nodded eventually.

“Yeah, I think so.  I mean, they all seem nice,” he motioned to the trapdoor hidden beneath the grass and leaves, “and they said it’s over now, so…”

“Lie,” El spoke up from her spot by Mike’s bike, her arms crossed.  Everyone turned to her. She was frowning.

“What do you mean?  What was a lie?” Mike asked, not doubting her intuition.  Since living by the creed of ‘friends don’t lie’, El had become almost a master lie-spotter, even when she didn’t use her powers to peek at people’s memories.  But rather than answer confidently, like she had every time before, her gaze turned to the ground. Her frown became more confused.  

“I don’t know,” she muttered.  “Bits and pieces. Details.”

“I mean, we did just meet them,” Lucas said, shrugging.  “It makes sense they kept some things secret, what with that kid’s brother going missing.”

“I swear, if he said that they found his body, I would’ve lost it,” Max said.  “That’s way too much for kids our age to be seeing.”

“Worse than the Mind Flayer?” Lucas asked.  Max looked at him, deadpan.

“Imagine finding Erica’s body after she’d been missing for god knows how long.  Or Will,” she said. At Lucas’s sudden distraught expression, she nodded. “Exactly.  That Bill kid was so fucking lucky his brother was alive.”

El’s brows furrowed even more, but only Mike saw.  He didn’t get the chance to say anything either, as the trapdoor swung open again.  Out tumbled his cousin Richie and the small boy named Eddie. Richie was laughing loudly, and Eddie was glowering in his direction.  Mike...didn’t know how to feel about his cousin. He was loud, annoying, didn’t shut up, and made stupid decisions like kneeing a bully in the balls.  But, it was clear he was willing to take more than just a punch for his friends. He had made Will feel better. And, despite only meeting him today, there was just something about him that felt...familiar.  It made Mike want to get to know him, even with all the annoying voices he had been showing off throughout the bike ride.  

Once Bill had left the clubhouse and joined his group on their bikes, they all set off with him in the lead this time.  Mike rode with Eleven on his bike behind him, seeing as she didn’t know how to ride one yet, and he took the spot near the back of the large group right by Dustin.  He took this opportunity to turn his head briefly and whisper to El, “Can we talk later? About the lies.”

She nodded against his back.  He didn’t think that his cousin and his friends were lying to them, but if El had concerns then he wanted to hear them.  He trusted her judgment. And despite Will’s agreement, he wanted to make sure that this town would be safer for him.  If Will had to move, then he was gonna move somewhere better.  He just hoped that the ‘Losers’ could be there for him when the Party couldn’t.  

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.

Chapter Text

There were no more truly noteworthy questions that rocked the Losers, except for Lucas jokingly saying ‘never have I ever been scared of clowns’ and all the Losers wordlessly taking a drink.  They refused to elaborate, and they’re pretty sure the Party thought it was an inside joke. Stan made Richie drink for the time he face-planted off his bike because he was leaning over too far trying to ruffle someone’s hair.  Richie got back at him with ‘never have I ever dropped an f-bomb at my bar mitzvah’, and Bill grinned (the first time he’d smiled since Will’s story) as he said ‘never have I ever been the only person I have punched in the face’.  Richie took that drink while glaring at Bill, before falling back against Stan’s leg in laughter. To defend Richie, Beverly got a devious look on her face as she said, “Never have I ever refused to invite my long-distance girlfriend to visit.”

Seconds passed before she reached over and smacked Stan’s leg.  He raised his eyebrows.

“Yes?” He asked.  Bev rolled her eyes.

“I’m talking about Patricia, asshole,” she said.  “Drink, or invite her to meet us.”

“Okay first, Patty and I aren’t dating,” Stan said, to a quick chorus of ‘yet ’ from the rest of the Losers, “and second, she’s not stepping foot in this town.”

“Okay, so she comes to Maine in general and we take a road trip,” Bev compromised.  “We need to find out if this girl is good enough for our Stanny.”

“Fine, I’ll bring it up to her,” Stan rolled his eyes, “but again, we are just pen pals.  I just really admire her dedication to her hobbies.”

No one believed him.  Stan had been writing back and forth with Patty for two years now, after meeting her at a bird-watching camp he had gone to for Boy Scouts.  Her Girl Scout troop was at the same camp, and the two became fast friends. The Losers loved to tease Stan about her, despite his steadfastness in saying that they weren’t dating.  Bev’s question seemed to make Stan sufficiently flustered, however, and the game continued without any more targeted questions.

It wasn’t until midnight that the Party shared a look which the Losers missed the meaning of, and declared that they were tired and going to sleep.  Ten minutes later, as the Party lay on the blankets, apparently asleep, the Losers quietly got up and made their way into the adjacent study, sitting on the floor and looking at Bill.  

“What is it, Big Bill?” Mike asked, his hand resting on Bill’s knee.  Now that the Party wasn’t in the room, and it was just the Losers and their comforting, understanding presence, Bill felt the tears fall down his face.  Immediately he was in the center of a group hug, surrounded by their warmth.  

“It’s j-j-just-” he swallowed thickly, wiping his eyes, “what m-makes him d-different?”

“Will?  Or Georgie?” Bev asked softly.  

“B-both, either, I don’t kn-know,” Bill cast a glance towards the door to the living room, unable to see that the Party was still awake and having a discussion of their own.  “He g-goes missing and his friends actually f-f- find him, and he’s okay , and what the f-fuck made Georgie different?  He was s-six .”

“Will wasn’t dealing with...It,” Ben said, his sad eyes downturned on the floor.  

“So it’s D-Derry?  If G-Georgie went missing in any other t-town, he’d be fine?” Bill’s hands clenched into fists.  “It’s not f-fucking fair.”

“No, it’s not,” Stan said.  “But at least Georgie is...still around.”

“I know that we didn’t know Georgie before It happened,” Bev said, motioning to her, Mike, and Ben, “but we love him too.  He didn’t deserve what happened, at all, and neither did you.”

“Georgie is a brother to all of us, dude,” Richie added, his voice uncharacteristically soft.  “When I said that shit, a year ago...I was just so fucking scared. You guys are my family, and the thought of one of us dying was too much.”

“I know, Richie,” Bill said.  “It’s o-okay.”

There was quiet for a moment before Bill sighed.

“I j-just look at Will now and think: this c-could’ve happened if you l-looked harder, sooner .  We didn’t go t-to the sewers for a year.  I feel like a sh-shitty brother,” he confessed.  

“Woah, Bill, no,” Eddie said.  “You went into the fucking sewers after a shitty fucking clown monster for him, you were ready to fucking die down there, you’re the best brother.  It’s not your fault that It…”

He trailed off, but they all knew how the sentence ended.  

“...Thanks, Eddie,” Bill muttered.  

“The door’s closed,” Mike said quietly, watching the Losers file into the other room, almost all of them with a hand on Bill in some way.  The Party sat back up, leaning against the couch and loveseat. Mike turned to El. “So, do you have...any thoughts on what they might be lying about?”

El thought for a moment.  

“Not...lying.  Hiding,” she said. 

“I know that they probably just don’t want to talk about it, but what if it’s something we should know?” Lucas said.  “What if this town isn’t actually over all that murder shit?”

“I feel like they’d tell us that ,” Dustin argued.  

“Not if they’re more involved than they say they were,” Max said.  “We did just find out that two of them have killed people.”

“Both in self-defense, though,” Mike reminded her.  “And we don’t exactly have the cleanest hands either.  El has killed way more than two people.”

“Yeah, with her mind ,” Max said.  “I feel like that’s a bit different than doing it with your own hands.”

“I mean, is it though?” Dustin asked.  

“What do you think they’re talking about in there?” Will asked suddenly, looking at the closed door to the other room.  “Bill seemed upset.”

“He seemed kind of out of it,” Mike agreed.  

“Ever since I told him I went missing,” Will said.  “What if he hates me now?”

“Come on, Will, why would he hate you over that?” Mike asked, confused.  Dustin hesitated before answering.

“Because Will came back...whole?” He said, his voice much quieter.  Lucas hit him on the arm.

“Dustin!” He hissed.  Dustin held his hands up.

“What!  It’s true!”

“His brother,” El said, grabbing the attention away from Dustin and frowning.  “Something about him.”

“Again, I mean, it makes sense,” Lucas said.  “They just met us. His brother went missing. We didn’t share all the information about Will going missing.  It’s personal.”

“Okay so what we’ve gathered so far is that basically everything they’ve said has had something held back from us,” Max summarized.  “But like Lucas said, we just freaking met them. We have a week to figure this out. But if the worst happens, I think they already like Will, and they’ll protect him if we aren’t here.  That’s what’s important, right?” 

“I trust them,” Will said.  “They care about each other a lot.”

“I’m gonna find out where the library is, though, I want to know more about these murders,” Dustin said.  

“Of course you do,” Lucas said, leaning back onto the couch with a sigh.  “None of us can just leave things alone.”

“You’re one to talk,” Max scoffed.  “You not leaving me alone is the whole reason I got roped into your adventures.”

“You can’t go to the library tomorrow,” Will said.  “My mom wants us all to help put stuff away in the house.  You guys can help me set up my room.”

“We have to find a place for all your D&D drawings,” Mike said with a grin, laughing at Will’s groan.

“No, some of those are so old!  I’m only putting up my favorites, that way I save room for new ones!” He protested.  

“I think Richie said that he was staying over here again tomorrow night, so we’ll probably be invited again,” Mike said.  ‘They’re actually...surprisingly fun.”

“For a group that calls themselves Losers, they actually are,” Max joked.  

“They’ve been in there a while,” Dustin noted after a small bout of silence.  “I bet they’re making fun of Mike.”

“What?  Why?” Mike asked, reeling slightly.  Dustin laughed.

“Because you look so much like your cousin!  And you act so differently,” he said.  

“My cousin is annoying ,” Mike said.  “They’re probably making fun of him , not me.”

“But they’ve done so much of that already,” Max said with a grin.  

“There’s a lot about him to make fun of,” Mike shot back.  

“That’s true.”

The Losers sat in a group hug around Bill for at least five minutes, the silence seeping into their bones but not chilling them.  Rather it was a warm silence, comforting, the presence of six other people that knew you better than anyone. It was only broken by a cleared throat from Richie.  

“Hey, um, if we’re having serious talk time, I have something I’ve wanted to say,” he said, his voice still rather thick with emotion.  They almost thought he was about to mention Eddie’s mom again, his go-to tension breaker, but his voice gave him away. It was rare that the other Losers heard him actually show what he felt, so they knew this wasn’t a joke.  Richie would cry for jokes, crocodile tears falling from his eyes the same way nicknames and jokes fell from his lips, but the sound of his voice at that moment was the most genuine that he got. This was important. The group fell away, backing into a circle, facing Richie this time.  He swallowed, frowning and trying to rub the red from his eyes. It didn’t work.  

“Rich?” Eddie asked, a hand moving to Richie’s knee.  He had a feeling he knew what this was, and he looked over to see Stan watching Richie with a concerned expression.  He was really going to do it. Richie hadn’t been sure that he wanted to do this until he drew their attention. He was scared, but he was sick and tired of pretending around the people he loved.  The only people that loved him .  If he couldn’t tell them, then how could he ever hope to survive when they became adults?  Richie looked around the group, looking at his family. Suddenly, the words stuck in his throat.  The word that he had never said out loud, the one he desperately wanted to say to the people that mattered most to him...it wouldn’t leave his tongue.  Only one word was willing to leave, and while it would get the job done, it was so much harsher. So much meaner. But it was all that he could say. So he sighed, his voice dropping to a mere whisper.  A volume that he rarely used.

“Bowers,” he said, so soft that Ben leaned forward to hear him.  “Bowers was right. About me.”

No one interrupted him, not even with questions of what he meant.  He didn’t know if that meant they knew already, or if they were just letting him finish, but he almost wished they’d say something.  He liked their attention on him unless the conversation was serious. He didn’t know how to handle that.  

“He was right,” he repeated, feeling his eyes start to sting again.  Eddie’s hand squeezed his knee. “I’m a fucking f-”

“-Rich,” Stan interrupted him sternly.  His hand reached out to cover Richie’s where it lay on the floor.  “What did I tell you?”

Richie sighed again, eyes dropping to where he was now holding Stan’s hand.  

“...don’t call myself slurs,” he whispered.  “Those shitheads do it enough.”

“Exactly,” Stan said, a small, fond smile flickering on his face.  Richie looked up and met his eyes. Stan. Stan the Man. Stanley fucking Uris.  The first person he came out to. His first friend, and his only friend until he met Bill and Eddie.  The only person that would put up with his shit, even if he rolled his eyes and said Richie wasn’t funny.  Richie saw his smile, and the amusement in his eyes. When he got Stan to sigh with his head in his hands, that was the equivalent of a standing ovation.  Stan’s eyes were kind, open, and fond. Stan was quiet, shy, and bad with his emotions, but he knew when to insult Richie and when to remind him that he cared.  He knew when it was a bad day just from Richie’s mannerisms, and how he only relied on puns when he was having a really, really shitty time. Right now, he saw that Richie was one insult, however fondly said it may be, from unraveling completely.  His hand, warm and soft with the long fingers that pianists would kill for, grounded Richie to the moment, keeping his mind from seeing the worst in his friend’s faces. If they hated him, he’d still have Stan. He’d still have Eddie, whose hand was consistently applying pressure to Richie’s knee as if to remind him that Eddie was there, right next to him.  Richie took a breath, feeling the wall on his tongue crack. He held Stan’s gaze, drawing in that silent strength that had a terrified boy follow his friends into the dark of the sewers. Stan, one of the bravest people Richie knew. Stan gave a small, almost understanding nod, and the word fell from Richie’s lips, free at last.

“I’m gay,” he said, not quite registering that he said it until Bev was almost tackling him in a hug, ripping his hand out of Stan’s.  She kissed his cheek before letting him up, meeting his eyes with a wide, teary smile. Behind her, he saw Ben with a shocked but happy expression, and Mike with a light grin.  He almost couldn’t look at Bill. Big Bill, their leader, practically Richie’s brother. But he saw Bill scoot closer out of the corner of his eye and felt himself get pulled into a hug, much less forceful than Bev’s.  

“We’re p-proud of you, Richie,” Bill spoke directly into his ear.  “We l-love you.”

The dam broke.  Richie felt the heat of tears on his cheeks.  Beverly smiled, reaching over to wipe one off his face.

“We love you, Richie,” she repeated, forceful and firm, giving him no way to think she wasn’t dead serious.  Richie’s smile widened, his heart feeling full to burst.  

“Thanks, guys,” he breathed, his vision blurring even through his glasses from the tears in his eyes.  These were the only people he would ever let see him cry.  

“What’d I tell you, Trashmouth?” Stan said softly.  “We’re always gonna be here for you.”

“St-Stan, you knew?” Bill asked, letting Richie out of his hug.  Stan shrugged.

“Who else’s window was he going to fall through at two in the morning, mid panic attack, as he ends up having a sexuality crisis on my floor,” he said, a wry grin cracking on his face.  “We were eleven, and I was just down the street.”

“Eleven?  Oh, Richie, it’s been three years?” Bev frowned in sympathy.

“...sorry,” Richie said, eyes turning to the floor.  He heard Bill sigh.

“D-Don’t be sorry, Richie,” he said.  “We’re just g-glad we can be here now.”

“Someone, uh, someone’s gotta tell Mrs. K that I can’t stop by anymore, though,” Richie joked, hearing the familiar and normal sound of his favorite people groaning in annoyance.  

With another group hug, this one centered on Richie, the Losers declared the end of their serious talk time, and slowly made their way out into the living room.  The Party was still asleep on the blanket, and they were about to fall back into their previous pile positions when they saw movement on the stairs. Looking over, they saw a small figure rubbing his eyes with his left hand.  His other sleeve was tied in a knot right below what was left of his right arm. Immediately, Bill went over to the staircase and knelt down.

“Hey, bud, why a-aren’t you asleep?” He asked quietly.  Georgie shrugged.  

“I just woke up,” he said.  Bill got a soft smile on his face, glancing back at the Losers and motioning for them to just go to sleep.

“C’mon Georgie, l-let’s get you back upstairs,” he said, his hand moving to gently nudge Georgie back up the stairs. 

“Sleep tight, little guy,” Bev called over softly.  

“Pancakes in the morning?” Richie asked, lighting up at the bright grin and nod he got from Georgie.  With the promise of breakfast, Georgie let himself be led back upstairs by Bill, calling back a good night to the rest of them.  

With everyone exhausted both mentally and emotionally (and physically in Richie’s case, what with his healing bruises), it was no time at all before they were dead asleep, drawing comfort from their close proximity.  They were asleep before Bill got back downstairs, and he just smiled before dropping himself in the middle of the pile and using someone’s torso as a pillow.

Chapter Text

Richie was the first one awake, blearily coming to with Eddie’s foot in his face and Bev leaning on his thigh.  Stan, at some point, had gotten up to sleep on the couch instead, and he seemed to be the most comfortable, which meant that Richie had to disrupt that as soon as possible.  He extracted himself from the Losers, trying not to wake them up, especially not Bill, and made his way to the couch. Flopping down next to Stan, he used his body weight to cause the twig of a boy to bounce off the couch cushion, waking up with a start.  

“What the fuck , Richard?” He mumbled, pushing his curls out of his eyes.  Richie leaned back, trapping Stan’s legs against the couch.

“Bill doesn’t trust me in his kitchen by myself, Stanley, you know this,” Richie said.  “Besides, you looked too comfortable.”

“At least tell me it’s past seven in the morning?” Stan groaned, glaring at Richie.  Richie shifted his glasses that were miraculously not broken, peering at the clock before grinning.

“It’s eight!  Now help me make pancakes, you’re the only other asshole here who won’t burn something.” Richie hopped off the couch and dragged Stan by his hand to the kitchen.  

“It’s a miracle that you don’t burn something, Richard,” Stan shot back, clearly still tired.  Richie didn’t seem like a morning person, and he wasn’t. Technically.  He much preferred being awake at night, staying up until the stars started to fade away and the sun poked over the horizon.  But, once he woke up, he was fucking awake. Meanwhile, Stan seemed like the type to be a morning person, but he was the grumpiest little shit in the morning.  Which was maybe another reason why Richie chose him to wake up.  But despite Stan’s grumbling about losing at least an hour of sleep, he couldn’t bring himself to actually be mad at Richie.  And he decided to blame that on the conversation the previous night (technically just seven hours ago, but...besides the point).  

Stan watched Richie bounce around the kitchen, pulling out ingredients from cupboards that he probably knew better than his own.  They didn’t talk much about Richie’s home life, knowing that their personal comedian didn’t like getting serious, didn’t like talking about himself when it was... real.   But that didn’t mean that none of them worried.  That none of them wanted to ask. Stan knew that they were only fourteen, but he was already planning, getting the idea in his parent’s heads to get Richie out of that house when they turned eighteen.  If the Losers didn't leave town immediately, that is.  He knew it wasn’t violent, he made sure that Richie would tell him the instant that changed, but he also knew that it wasn’t good.  Richie only knew how to cook a few meals, but those few meals were the ones he made for himself because his parents never cooked.  Or worse, they cooked, but not enough for Richie. Ben, Bev, and Mike hadn’t seen much of it, only being in the group for a year, but the original Losers knew.  They knew that Richie would rather be anywhere than his own house. They knew the schedule just like Richie did. Tuesday through Thursday, the house was empty until almost eleven, when they got back from work and immediately went to bed.  Friday, they were out late drinking. Saturday they slept half the day and went out again. Sunday, the worst day, they were home and drunk.  Richie was never at his house on Sunday, or Sunday night.  Monday was probably the best because neither of his parents worked on Monday and so they spent the entire day sleeping their hangovers off.  

Stan wanted to throttle both Maggie and Wentworth, but he knew that it was good Richie at least had a room of his own, even if he had said once that the clubhouse was more of a home.  If they ever did anything, though, or made Richie feel like he couldn’t go back there at all? Stan wasn’t a very violent person, but he might be in that situation. For any of the Losers, sure, he’d fight if he had to.  But especially for Bill, or Eddie. And especially for Richie.  As annoying and loud and disgusting that he could be, Richie was Stan’s first friend.  Stan was worried when he entered kindergarten that no kid would want to hang out with him, the quiet one that would rather sit in a corner and watch out the windows than play with legos or play pretend.  But he found that Richie was in the same boat, only there was no one willing to just listen as he talked a mile a minute.  Stan was more than willing to just be a set of ears.  And soon, he found that he actually really enjoyed Richie’s company.  They were an odd pair throughout kindergarten and early elementary, but they were each other’s only friend.  

“Hey, Richie,” Stan said, once he had woken up a bit more.  At Richie’s questioning hum, his focus still on the pancakes, Stan leaned onto the kitchen table.  “I’m proud of you, for last night.”

“I mean, it was difficult,” Richie said, and Stan almost thought he was being serious until he continued, “but Mrs. Kaspbrak can find another man to keep her company.”

“ Richie ,” Stan groaned.  “For fuck’s sake.”

“I can’t help it, Stan!  I am a considerate mistress.  I wish the best for her.”

Stan slid out of the seat and went to lean against the counter next to where Richie was stirring the batter.  

“I mean it, Rich,” he said, making sure that it was still just the two of them in the kitchen.  “I’m proud of you, and I hope you’re proud of yourself. You deserve it.”

Silence, and then, “Thanks, Stanley.”

Stan sighed.  “I know it’s hard.  And that if Peter and the others found out, then that’d be hell, but-”

“-Bowers knew,” Richie said, rather blunt for the weight behind the words.  “Found out last summer, during... that time.  When Bill wasn’t talking to me.”

“I- Shit , Richie, really?”  Stan felt his heart skip a beat in fear for his best friend.  “Why didn’t you tell me? Did he hurt you?” 

Richie chuckled, but there was no humor.  “Nah, but he tried. Thought I was hitting on his cousin, so he chased me outta the arcade.  I think he would’ve found me, would’ve...maybe killed me, who knows. But It found me first.”

“Fuck,” Stan said eloquently, managing to draw a real laugh from Richie.  “I’m sorry, Rich, I wish I had been there.”

“No you don’t,” Richie said.  “And I’m glad you weren’t. Bowers probably would’ve thought you were the same, then he’d be after you too.” Stan tried to ignore the pained twinge in his heart at those words, because Richie wasn’t done.  “You were fuckin’ terrified of It, Stan, and sure we all were, but I wanted nothing more than to make sure you didn’t see It again. So while it would’ve been nice to have company while running for my life, first from an insane bully and then from a murder clown trying to impale me with the Paul Bunyan statue...for once I was glad to be alone.  Because it meant you guys were okay. I was so fuckin’ alone, that whole time, but I’d rather that to seeing you so scared in Neibolt.”

Stan almost couldn’t find the words.  He knew that Richie was capable of honest speech, of course he did, but even for Stan it was rare to hear it.  It was almost an honor every time it happened. So Stan just leaned forward onto his elbows, looking at nothing, eyes trained on the wall.  

“And I’d rather be that scared than know you were dealing with it by yourself,” Stan said, meaning every word.  “Yeah, I was scared out of my mind, still am sometimes, but I want to be there for you. You were always there for me, and you don’t deserve to be alone on this.  And, um, you aren’t. Alone, I mean. I’m in the same boat.”

He didn’t know what made him say that.  He wasn’t planning on saying that, but the words left him all the same, leaving him staring at the countertop and pointedly not looking at Richie.  But he could see out of the corner of his eye that Richie had stopped stirring. Shit. And after keeping his crisis under wraps for so long too, it just had to slip like this.  Stan hadn’t planned on telling anyone until he had completely accepted it himself.  But...if there was anyone he felt comfortable fucking up like that around, Richie was definitely one of those people.  Contrary to what literally everyone thought, and even to the persona that Richie displayed on purpose, Richie could keep a secret to his grave.  If Stan met Richie now, he might never grow to trust him, not being able to see past the face that Richie put on. But Stan, for better or for worse, was stuck with Richie now, and knew that he would rather die than hurt Stan or one of the other Losers.  Especially after the fight with Bill in front of Neibolt...Richie had been a wreck after that. So yeah, Stan hadn’t meant to let those words slip. But as Richie set the spoon down, he couldn’t bring himself to take them back.

“Stanley, are you…” Richie paused.  “Are you coming out to me?”

In the middle of the Denbrough’s kitchen, with early morning summer sunlight streaming through the windows, Stan looked up at Richie from his stance against the counter, arms crossed and head facing straight ahead.  He hadn’t replaced his kippah on his head after taking it off to sleep, and around most people that would make him feel a little bit uncomfortable. But before there was RichieandEddie , the dynamic spitfire duo that broke the hammock more times than they helped Ben fix it, there was RichieandStan , two loners protecting each other from the rest of the world, not letting their respective flames, however differently they may burn, get extinguished.  Stan loved the Losers, he loved Bill and Eddie, and Bev and Ben and Mike. He’d insist that Bill was his favorite, and he sometimes thought that the others believed that.  But if he was forced at gunpoint to pick a favorite, and to really be honest, he knew it was Richie. For some unfathomable reason.  

So Stan looked up at Richie through the strands of his curls that had fallen back in his face, seeing Richie look back at him with an expression that he never showed in a larger group, eyebrows furrowed and mouth in a slight frown, eyes enlarged by his glasses but still piercing and understanding, and Stan gave a small quirk of his lips.

“Maybe I am,” he answered, feeling brave for the first time since beating the shit out of a demon clown.  Richie smiled for a moment, a real, actual smile, not his shit-eating grin.  The smile that someone gives after finding out that their best friend is just like them.

“Damn, Stan.  Jewish and gay?  You’re just going for the whole Bingo card then, ain’tcha?” Richie said, his tone light again, but his smile not losing its sincerity.  Stan huffed a laugh.

“You’re Jewish and gay too, Tozier,” he said, rolling his eyes.  Richie shrugged.

“Yeah, but I’ve never been as Jewish as you, let’s be honest here.” He picked the spoon back up and started stirring again.  “Does this mean we can talk about boys now?”

“We’ve talked about boys for three years, Richard,” Stan said.  “Thinking I was straight had never stopped you before.”

“That’s true, that’s true,” Richie agreed.  The air in the kitchen was comfortable, and they both silently wished for it to last longer before someone else woke up and inevitably joined them.  After a moment, Richie paused again. “Hey, what about Patty?”

Stan couldn’t help but laugh.  Luckily, after being friends with Patty for so long, he knew that she would be okay with him talking about this, since she knew he had a good judgment of people.

“Yeah, I love Patty, I do,” he said, earning a confused glance from Richie.  “Getting a new letter from her is one of my favorite moments of the week, and it’s probably why we keep doing pen pals the old fashioned way.  I love that she feels comfortable enough talking to me that her letters often include stories of the shit she gets up to with her girlfriend.”

He waited a moment before glancing at Richie with a wry grin.  Richie was still for a moment before he started laughing, shifting over to turn the stove on.

“No shit, really?” He asked.  “How the hell did you two manage to sniff each other out at Nerd Camp?”

“I’d say you can’t laugh at me, but we both know you’re gonna do that anyway,” Stan prefaced, seeing Richie nod in agreement, “I snuck out of my cabin to go see if I could find any owls, and I accidentally caught her making out with a girl.”

“Stanley the rebel !” Richie gasped, smacking Stan in the shoulder.  

“What did Stan d-do?” Bill asked, shuffling into the kitchen with Georgie at his side.  Richie grinned, plating the first of the pancakes and effortlessly acting as if he and Stan had been talking nonsense rather than having a serious conversation.

“Apparently, he met Patty because he snuck out of his cabin at Boy Scout camp,” Richie teased, watching Bill grin.

“Really? Sh-She a rebel too?” He asked, laughing as Stan groaned.

“I hate all of you,” Stan said.  Richie ruffled Stan’s hair before his hand got slapped away, moving smoothly to grab the plate of pancakes and dropping down to Georgie’s height.

“Hey, little dude, here ya go,” he said with a grin, handing Georgie the plate.  “Take that upstairs, if you want more just yell for it.”

“Thanks, Richie!  I love you!” Georgie did his best to hug Richie with his arm occupied, leaning his body onto Richie’s shoulder before scurrying out of the kitchen and back up the stairs.  Richie watched him leave, eyes wide, before sniffling dramatically.

“I’ve been blessed ,” he breathed.  “He loves me.”

“He says that to all of us, Richie,” Stan reminded him.  “You’re blessed, but you aren’t special.”

“Stan agrees I’m blessed, that’s like a double blessing, right?” Richie asked Bill, who frowned.

“I’m not sure, I th-think that might negate the b-blessing?  It is Stan,” Bill responded.  Stan shook his head.

“Wow.  Why do I hang out with either of you?”

“Because we’re your only option,” Richie said smugly.  “Unless you decide to go live with the birds.”

“You know, Richie, that’s the first good idea you’ve had.” Stan stood from his position against the counter and making his way around the table.  “At least the birds would appreciate me.”

“No, Staniel!” Richie cried dramatically, using his British accent and just barely holding back from throwing himself onto the table.  “Staniel we love you! Those blue-footed boobies would never understand you!”

After a rather long pause, Stan reentered the kitchen with a barely repressed smile.

“I’m only coming back because I’m surprised you know a bird that's not a pigeon,” he claimed, hopping up to sit on the counter.  Richie turned back to the pancakes, eyebrows raised.

“That’s an actual bird?  I saw it in a book of yours, thought you were hiding nudie mags in your bird encyclopedias,” he said.  Stan rolled his eyes.  

“Of course you did,” he muttered.

Richie had a hell of a time making breakfast for six more people than normal, but he rarely minded when his friends were crowding the kitchen and yelling at each other as he cooked.  It was so drastically different and so much better than when he made dinner for himself in his empty kitchen at home. Even once the pancakes were all made and the extras were being kept warm in the oven, he was enjoying piling on the couch and turning on another terrible movie.  Eddie was the last to wake up, being woken by the opening theme of the movie, and soon all thirteen of them were joking around like they had known each other longer than one day. The Party didn’t even get too weirded out by Richie’s gross jokes, just letting the Losers groan out a ‘shut the fuck up’ and joining in on calling him disgusting.  Richie swore that he saw Max actually laughing, though, and that made him grin widely.  He usually caught one or two of the Losers hiding a laugh at his bits, but Max had just met him and she found him somewhat funny!  He decided that yeah, she was still his favorite. Will was right behind her, though.  

A jolt ran through all the Losers when Mike #2 was in the kitchen getting more food and there was a loud bang echoing from the kitchen.  They weren’t worried at first, although the Party perked up in concern at the following silence. But when Mike spoke, they shared a look.

“Hey, uh, Bill?” Mike #2 called from the kitchen.  “I think your house is haunted, dude.”

Hands clenched under a pillow so no one saw, Bill laughed a little nervously.

“What h-happened?” He called back.  Mike came back into the living room, frowning.

“I was just getting more pancakes and one of your cupboards slammed shut.  I didn’t think it was open, either,” he said. Bill let out a breath and waved him off.

“Th-that happens,” he said.  “They’re w-weighted weirdly or something.  My dad can’t f-fix them.”

“No, Bill, he’s right,” Richie said, grinning at the exasperated looks he got from the Losers.  “Your house is totally haunted.”

“I’d tell you not to be stupid, Richie, but we’ve established that’s impossible,” Stan deadpanned.  “Ghosts don’t exist.”

Stan was clearly struggling not to laugh.  In fact, so were all the Losers. It was nice to joke about something that still occasionally hurt.

“They do too!” Richie argued.  “Back me up here, who believes in ghosts?” 

Ben, Bev, Mike #1, and Max raised their hands, Eddie giving a very noncommittal gesture instead.  Everyone else shook their heads.

“No way,” Lucas shook his head.  “Other supernatural shit, sure, but not ghosts.  There’d be way too many if that’s the case, and I don’t like thinking about that.”

“You guys have no imagination, I swear,” Richie said, shaking his head.  There was a faint creak from upstairs, and a voice called down to them.

“Sorry Billy!” Georgie called.  Bill cocked his head, but didn’t call back.  “Could I get more?”

Richie met Bill’s eyes, then he groaned and stood up.

“Well, I gotta take a leak,” he announced, watching everyone roll their eyes and ignore him as he hopped over the back of the couch and took the path through the kitchen.  He filled a plate up with two more pancakes, sprinkled a few chocolate chips on top (what Bill didn’t know, he couldn’t get mad at) and made his way quietly up the stairs. He pushed open the door to Bill’s bedroom, seeing Georgie sitting sheepishly on the bed.  Richie paused in the doorframe.

“What did we say about strangers?” He said, trying his best to seem reprimanding.  Georgie pouted.

“I thought he was you!  He wasn’t facing me,” he said, crossing his arm over his chest with a huff.  “I was only down there because I was bringing my plate down.”

“Georgie…” Richie trailed off.  He was never a good role model, and he knew it, but he always felt responsible when he was around Georgie.  The little brother he never had. The little brother he almost never got to see again.  

“I know,” Georgie mumbled.  “‘When strangers are in the house, don’t carry anything on my own’, I’m sorry.”

“Hey, it’s okay, no harm done,” Richie grinned, sauntering over to the bed and presenting Georgie with the plate.  “Don’t tell Bill about the extra sugar.”

Georgie got a devious glint in his eyes that Richie just had to feel proud of.

“I won’t tell him if you let me say another bad word?” He negotiated.  Richie shook his head with a laugh.

“Man, he is going to regret letting me talk to you at all.  Go ahead, little dude, just make sure Bill won’t hear you,” he said.  Georgie lit up.

“ Damn ,” he whispered, eyes bright.  Then he took the plate and scooted back on the bed.  “Thank you, Richie!”

“Alright, Bud, don’t bring that plate down on your own unless Bill calls up to you, got it?” Richie said.  At Georgie’s nod, he left the room again, shutting the door quietly. When he re-entered the living room, Max gave him a weird look.

“Were you talking up there?” She asked.  “El could hear mumbling.”

Richie grinned, dropping back onto the couch and causing Bev to nearly fall off.  “Yeah, no big deal, I talk to myself,” he said. “Or am I talking to Little Richie?” He wiggled his eyebrows, laughing as Beverly smacked him gently.

“Beep beep, dick,” she laughed.  “Way too much information for people who have known you for literally a day.”

They resumed their conversation, Richie’s brief absence forgotten, until Will glanced at the clock and jolted off the couch.

“Shit!  My mom wanted us back to help by eleven!” he said.  The clock currently read 10:45. Within five minutes, the Party had packed their stuff, leaving it in Bill’s house but piling it in a corner.  The Losers promised to come get them and lead them back to Bill’s house that afternoon, waving as the Party left to get their bikes. Mike #1 volunteered to show them the way back to Will’s house, and as soon as he left with the Party, the Losers were already discussing how to spend the day.

“I mean, it’s a nice day today,” Ben said.  “The park would be fun.”

“I’d be down for just hanging in the clubhouse too, that’s always nice,” Bev offered.

“Wherever we go, we’re b-bringing Georgie,” Bill said.  “I promised him.”

“Of course Georgie’s coming,” Eddie said.  “He hasn’t come with us in a while.”

“We should ask where he wants to go!” Ben smiled at the idea.  “Make it a day for him.”

“Even if he wants to go to the Community?” Eddie asked, his voice getting unsure.  Bill frowned.

“It is a little better now,” he said, not sounding entirely sure either.  “K-kind of.”

“It’s better for him there than for us,” Richie said, “but for some reason, he actually likes being there.”

“Because he can talk to them, Rich,” Bev said, even though Richie already knew that.  

“I’ll go get him,” Bill said, maneuvering over the pillows towards the stairs.  “Could someone get f-food?”

With all five of the other Losers gathering snacks from the kitchen, it seemed like no time at all before Bill, Mike, and Georgie were waiting by the door while the others put their shoes back on.  Georgie had decided that he did, in fact, want to visit the Community, which put all the Losers on edge even though they knew that it was safe. For now, at least. They still got treated to Eddie complaining about bacteria and piss while they rode back to the barrens, Georgie on the pegs of Bill’s bike.  When they first trekked into the sewers a year ago, they thought that it would be the last time for at least 27 years.  But there had been a bit of a complication.  No one was particularly complaining , but none of them looked forward to visiting either, especially with the residual fear that seemed to seep from the walls.  It was gone for now, hopefully forever, but they could still feel It’s leftover presence as they waded through the sewer water.  They had quickly tried to find another path back to Its lair other than going down the well in the Neibolt house, since none of them ever wanted to step foot in that place again, and they had managed to find a small offshoot path from the mouth of the sewers, leading out of a small cave in Its lair.  

They all tried to forget.  They tried to take what they had been given, the opportunity to live a life before having to deal with It again, but they found it impossible.  Even whatever mist covered the eyes of other Derry residents no longer concealed anything from the seven of them, which was a blessing and a curse.  A curse, because they remembered It and the horrific things It did and the terrifying forms It took. They remembered the blood in Beverly’s bathroom, the decaying Georgie in Bill’s basement, the fucking Paul Bunyan statue, the leper...all of it.  They remembered almost dying, they remembered seeing Stan bleeding on the floor of the sewer, screaming and sobbing, they remembered Bev floating unconscious in the deadlights. They had nightmares, Stan sometimes suffered from sleep paralysis, as did the others on a less frequent basis, and they all wanted to just be together as a group of normal teenagers.  But...there was a silver lining. Their memory was a blessing because they knew deep down that without their shared experience, their shared trauma, the Losers might fracture. They loved each other, but they knew that they didn’t share too much in common, most especially the newest three. Without the knowledge that they had fought for each other, that they almost died for each other...they might not be the Losers.  And their group, their family, was worth those memories.  Not to mention...Georgie. Bill wanted nothing more than to have his brother back and forget what he went through, but it was impossible.  If he forgot, if Its hold on the town got claws into Bill and the others, they’d lose him again. Because Bill was all too aware of the truth, despite how all seven of them tried to forget.  Every time he entered the Community, he remembered in vivid detail.  

The Community was...a marvel to look at.  Knowing what Its lair looked like before, with the mountain of personal artifacts, bloodied and torn, the bodies strewn half-eaten or floating, it was the image of death and terror.  But the Community worked hard. The pile had been picked through, anything too destroyed or left unclaimed had been shoved into a side tunnel out of sight of the little ones. The Losers had helped, bringing leftover wood from building their clubhouse, along with lanterns and batteries and blankets all pilfered from their houses.  Tents were set up all around the floor, a fire was sending light all over the walls, and slowly but surely the Community was making the cavern sort of nice to look at. It was impossible to forget what it had been, what had happened there, but it was bustling with activity and putting a metaphorical band-aid over the horrors of the past.  As Bill led the group into the cavern, they met familiar faces with slightly awkward smiles. A lot of faces they hadn’t known at the start but had grown to recognize over the months, and others they had known immediately.  

Off to the side, playing with Beverly’s old dolls and other donated toys were kids around Georgie’s age, and Bill nudged Georgie in their direction with a soft smile.  As much as none of the Losers really liked being in the Community, they knew that Georgie liked it.  He didn’t feel out of place down there, even with only one arm. Because surrounding him were people just like him.  One of the kids, a little girl with plaited blonde hair that was clutching an old cloth doll, had a hole through her chest that was covered by her dress.  Another, a boy a year older than Georgie, only had one leg. Each and every kid had a physical reminder of It and Its horror, some more blatant than others.  Bill had been worried about Georgie seeing that, their injuries being a constant reminder of what they had been through, but Georgie didn’t mind. He remembered everything about Pennywise, after all, and these kids understood him in the same way that the Losers understood each other.  

The adults of the Community, far less than the children but still enough to handle them, smiled kindly at the Losers as they watched Georgie with the other kids.  Some of them didn’t like to interact with the Losers, preferring to forget their...situation as best they could. Others wanted to reconnect, starting conversations when the Losers visited and occasionally venturing outside the Community to see what Derry had become.  The most common people that left the Community were the more modern ones, with a few notable exceptions. It wasn’t uncommon for one of the Losers to pass a wistful Betty on the street, moving slowly and awkwardly to prevent her torso from falling off of her legs, watching her parents or her old friends.  On the opposite side, though, the Losers never once saw Patrick leave his brooding corner in the shadows. They could tell that his neck was torn out, something that he seemed to refuse to cover, and he always just glared at the Losers. He never spoke, never approached them, never even tried to see if he could hurt them.  They hoped that maybe he was finally feeling some remorse for what he had done before It took him.  But more likely was that he blamed them just as much as Peter did. 

The Community wasn’t Georgie’s home, but it was where he was most...comfortable.  Most open. Most relaxed. Here, everyone could see him, and talk to him, and hug him.  Outside, there were only seven people who could, and Georgie loved all seven of those people but it wasn’t quite the same.  He still would never stay full time in the Community, though. Not when Bill wasn’t there.  

“Wonder what Cousin Mike and his friends would say if they saw this,” Richie muttered, watching the bustling camp around them.  Ben had handed off their bag of snacks, something that would be carefully rationed and used as special treats for the kids, to one of the older residents.  Her name was Minnie, and she was kind of the de facto leader of the Community, as one of the first ones to encounter It. Before It grew a preference for children.  Stan sighed, his arms crossed over his chest.

“They’d think we’re insane,” he answered.  “Setting up blanket tents in the sewers when there’s no one using them.”

“Bringing food when there’s no one to eat it,” Mike added.

“Talking to thin air,” Bill finished.  

“Maybe we are insane,” Eddie said.  But he shook his head along with the others.  

“No,” Bev said.  “We aren’t. We’re just connected.”

Chapter Text

Everyone watched in horrified, tragic silence as Bill dropped to his knees in the filthy, damp lair.  They heard his choked sob as he reached out to the pile, pulling on something yellow and wet, drawing it close to him and hugging it to his chest.  Stan, Richie, and Eddie felt something constrict their lungs, holding their breath hostage as they realized what it was. They piled forward, followed by the three newest Losers, wrapping their arms around Bill as he cried.  Their eyes stung with tears, relying on each other’s warmth in the chill of the empty lair. Bill buried his face into the yellow rain-jacket, pressing his back against his friends, craving their presence. Stan rested his forehead on Bill’s shoulder, Richie had his arms around both Bill and Stan while trying to hide his own tears, Eddie had his arm hugging Bill’s waist with his head resting on his back, and the others were completing the group hug with linked arms and bowed heads.  

“Billy?” A voice spoke from the darkness, full of fear and thick with tears.  Seven heads snapped up, eyes red, to see a small boy no longer wearing his raincoat.  His right sleeve was torn and bloody, his left hand scrubbing the tears from his eyes.  “Billy, what happened?”

Bill’s sucked in a breath, catching on a sob and lurching to his feet.  But he paused, shaking, two feet from Georgie.

“G-Georgie?” he asked, his real question going unspoken.  Was this Georgie? Or was it...It? Georgie let out a cry, looking around him in confusion.

“Billy, I- I don’t know what’s happening,” he whimpered.  “I wasn’t here, and then...I heard the clown scream. We all did.”

“We?  Wh-who’s we?” Bill asked, voice hesitant but gentle.  Even when suspicious, he couldn’t be mean to Georgie.  

“The Floating,” Georgie whispered.  “It was keeping us, that’s what Minnie says.  It didn’t let us move on.”

“M-Minnie?” Bill asked, then shook his head.  “Never mind, I-I-”

“Georgie, did...did It let you go?” Stan asked nervously, moving up to put his hand comfortingly on Bill’s shoulder, the others flanking behind him.  Richie crouched down on the ground, sending Georgie a light smile despite the tears still streaking down his face. Georgie looked around the lair, eyes relaxing somewhat.

“No,” he said.  “It lost hold. It was never gonna let me go, Billy.  I’m sorry.”

“D-don’t be sorry, G-Georgie,” Bill knelt down, ready to cave and wrap Georgie in a hug.  “P-please don’t be sorry.”

“It’s my fault, Billy, I let her get too far,” Georgie cried.  “I just wanted her back and It got me.”

Bill broke.  He opened his arms and Georgie rushed forward, wrapping his one arm around Bill and letting himself be squeezed in a hug so tight that he should be unable to breathe.  But the other Losers were becoming increasingly concerned. Bill wasn’t focused on anything but Georgie, but the others could see the rest of the lair. What had once been empty was now filled with people.  Ranging from Georgie’s age to the elderly, people were sitting up, climbing out of the pile in the middle of the lair, exiting from small caves around the walls, and emerging from shadows. All were looking around in confusion, some were crying, some were hugging, others were angry and shaking.  Bev sucked in a breath and pointed, drawing the attention of everyone but Bill to a girl shaking as she examined her torso, which was ripped almost entirely in two.  

“...Betty Ripsom,” Ben whispered.  The six of them looked back at Bill and Georgie with a pit in their stomachs.  

“Bill,” Stan said, voice cracking.  Bill turned his head, not letting Georgie out of his arms.  He furrowed his brows in question, something that the Losers answered by all motioning to Betty, who hadn’t seen them yet.  Bill’s face paled.  

“G-G-Georgie?” he whispered.  Georgie’s eyes fluttered back open, meeting the eyes of the other Losers in confusion.  “D-do you kn-know...are you d-d-d-” He couldn’t finish the word. But Georgie knew his brother’s stutter.  He knew his brother. He was six, he was young, but he had been through more than any six-year-old should and he knew the word that Bill was trying to say.  His face fell, his arm tightening around Bill as his eyes began to fill with tears again.  

“I’m sorry, Billy,” he said.  “I’m sorry.”

“No,” Bill shook his head, burying his face into Georgie’s shoulder.  “N-no, no, no.”

“I feel different,” Georgie said, starting to cry once more.  “I wanted to move on, the others did too, but we were stuck. I’m not stuck anymore, but I’m not...I feel…” He trailed off, crying.  

“Oh, no…” Eddie breathed.  Richie couldn’t find words.  If this was any other situation, there would be something funny in Richie ‘Trashmouth’ Tozier being speechless.  But his heart was torn in two at the sight of his best friend clutching the ghost of his little brother like a lifeline.  There was a mixture of heartbreak and relief, two clashing oceans that met in the middle with one crashing wave. In a surge, before they could spot more familiar faces around them, before something could take this away, the others rushed forward and surrounded Bill and Georgie.  In that moment, they felt like It couldn’t touch them. Because if anything tried to take Georgie again, they’d be too angry to be afraid. The cavern was dark, damp, and had the thick stench of old blood, but they didn’t care. They couldn’t. All that mattered was each other. All that mattered was that Georgie was alright.  He wasn’t alive, but he was alright, or he would be. He would be. The Losers would make sure of it. In that dark, horrific cavern, where It had terrorized Derry for centuries, the bond of fear and trauma and protection became something even stronger.  

With Georgie in the center, held so tight that even It couldn’t take him, the seven Losers felt a surge of love.  And those eight became a family.  

Adjusting to Georgie’s new...situation was difficult, for multiple reasons.  It became very clear that the Losers were the only ones who could see any of Pennywise’s victims, but that others could see the things they touched.  They could pick up objects, put on new clothes, and they couldn’t walk through walls or doors, but normal people would see the floating objects and clothes, and they would see the doors open.  It wasn’t all bad though, because Its leftover influence on the town meant that they saw it, and then immediately forgot it. That also meant, however, that Bill couldn’t tell his parents about Georgie because they just wouldn’t believe him.  Even if they saw Georgie pick something up. It wouldn’t let them.  

But, the Community had grown in the wake of Its disappearance.  Whether It was dead or sleeping, It was gone for now, freeing the ghosts of Its victims.  They tried to seem normal, or as normal as they could when they lived in the sewers and all had various mortal wounds.  The Losers brought food that the Community didn’t need , but the ghosts enjoyed eating to try and feel normal, especially the kids.  The kids loved Georgie. He would tell them about how the world had changed, trying to explain new technology with the knowledge of a six-year-old.  Bill hated the reminder that his brother was dead, but he loved seeing Georgie happy.  

At first, it had been rough.  Seeing Georgie would remind them all that he was dead.  Bill would keep hugging him, and all the Losers were prone to bouts of sudden tears.  They thought at points, all individually and never really voicing it even though they all kind of knew, that maybe it would be better if he was just gone.  If they found his jacket, got their answer, and Bill was able to mourn, finally. Wouldn’t that be better than Georgie being unable to live a normal life again, and acting as a reminder of his own death?  But it had been almost a year since then, and their opinions had changed. Georgie had become practically an eighth Loser, joining them on almost all of their adventures, watching in wonder as Richie attempted bike tricks or Ben did a cannonball off the cliff or Bev taught him how to cartwheel.  They all knew he was dead, but he was there , with them, practically glowing with bubbly happiness.  He never talked about It, not unless it was a bad day for all of them, as their worst days tended to come at the same time.  Whenever the Losers wanted or needed to talk about It, about a nightmare or a memory that had been haunting them, they made sure Georgie wasn’t around.  It was a routine, and it was odd, but it was Georgie and they loved him. They were all so glad that he wasn’t completely gone.  

They let Georgie play with the kids for a few hours, having idle conversation with the more vocal members of the Community, some of the Losers more awkward than others.  Minnie came over to ask how the surface was doing, how their school was going, and give the ever-relieving update that there was still no sign of a return from It. She had taken a real shine to Georgie, seeing something in him that apparently reminded her of a younger version of herself, and she always said that if he wanted to, she would watch Georgie if he stayed overnight.  Georgie always politely refused, but he clearly liked Minnie too. She was another mother to all the kids, most of whom had no other family members that had been killed by It. The kids had it the worst, with the memories of It and the confinement of their new status sometimes causing them to melt down. But Minnie could calm them down.  

“Georgie,” Bill called over, “It’s getting l-late.”

Georgie pouted, but he said goodbye to the other children anyway, getting to his feet.  

“It’s okay, bud, maybe we can play a board game sometime this week?” Richie suggested, ruffling Georgie’s hair and causing the boy to giggle.  

“Can I play with your twin?” He asked, grinning widely since he already knew the answer.  Richie shook his head with an exaggerated frown.

“He’s not my twin, and you don’t want to.” He leaned in close like he was telling Georgie a secret.  “You don’t want to because he’s boring .  Trust me, your big bro Richie is way more fun.”

“Alright, stop corrupting him,” Stan said, pulling Richie back up by the collar of his shirt.  They started walking back to the exit cave, waving goodbye to Minnie, Betty, and a few of the others.  “I know you sometimes let him swear.”

“You what ?” Bill exclaimed, gaping at Richie.  Richie shrugged.

“The kid drives a hard bargain, Big Bill, what do you want me to do?  It’s only one word,” Richie tried to defend himself, and Georgie chimed in with a bright smile.

“Richie’s my favorite ,” he said, grinning cheekily at Bill, who shot a mock glare Richie’s way.

“That’s it, Richie, you’re b-banned from my house,” Bill said.  “My w-word is law.”

“Aw c’mon Billy,” Richie nudged Bill with his shoulder, “Georgie wants me around!  You’re gonna have to see my face anyway, what with Cousin Mike in town, might as well get the full package.”

“Did I st-stutter?” Bill asked, and to their credit, the eight of them managed to hold a straight face for five whole seconds.  Even Bill broke, the group of them all collapsing into laughter as they reached the sunlight back at the stream. The sun was beginning to set, but still sent a comforting heat onto their skin as they waded through the water back to their bikes.  They had spent the day together, just the eight of them, no one from Hawkins to have them keep jokes inside or hold their tongue on certain comments. Joking about It was still a touchy subject, but they had learned what could be teased and what should be comforted.  Joking about clowns in general, or the entire idea of the fight, depended on the mood. Joking about the blood oath was generally fine, as was Bev’s blood and Richie’s encounter with the statue (although only Stan knew what Richie had been doing by the statue). They never joked about Mike’s encounters with It, or anything about Georgie (except for the occasional joke about having a ghost brother, when Bill was having a good day).  

Bill split off at his house to drop Georgie back off, feeling apprehensive about having him around the Hawkins kids for some reason.  They seemed nice, and he was perfectly happy with the idea of Will hanging out with them, but he still had a weird feeling. The others continued on to Will’s new house, the address of which they had been given that morning.  The face of Dustin saw them through the window, waving and turning to shout something back into the house. Soon enough, the six of them were leaving the house, waving goodbye to Will’s mom, who joined them at the door to give a kind smile to the Losers.  She, too, did a double-take upon seeing Richie, but she barely faltered for a second.  

“Bye Mrs. Byers!” The Party called, and Will turned to the Losers once they started biking away.  

“She’s gonna want to meet you guys,” he warned.  Ben smiled brightly.

“She seems really nice!” He said.  “We’d be happy to meet her.”

He didn’t even have to check with the others, because they had been basically on the same wavelength since that summer.  

Back at Bill’s house, Bill had gotten Georgie settled for a nap in Bill’s room (which was shared between the two as Georgie’s old room was kept closed by their parents and was soon to be emptied), and had gotten a new pile of movies and snacks.  The positions were generally the same, with the constants remaining consistent. Richie laying on Stan, Bev laying on Ben, Eddie laying on either everyone or whoever was the most separated from the group. At that moment, Eddie was laying bodily across Mike’s lap, his head against Bill’s leg.  It was good. Another good start to a sleepover, with the six newcomers fitting in surprisingly well. There were the obvious speedbumps, mostly involving Richie, but the Losers knew how to shut him up. The others would learn. The Losers tried to intervene and ‘beep beep’ him before the Party could say anything, knowing that a rude shutdown hurt Richie more than he would ever show.  They were most worried about Richie’s cousin, who seemed the most off-put by Richie’s sense of humor, but so far he hadn’t said anything that would actually hurt Richie yet.  

But then Mike, the Hawkins one, jerked upright.

“Shit,” he hissed.  He turned to Richie.  “Could you show me the way back to your house?”

Richie froze. 

“Why?” He said, tone cautious.

“I haven’t called my mom since I’ve been in Derry,” Mike explained.  “She’s probably worried sick, even if Mrs. Byers has talked to her, which I doubt she has.”

“You can use m-my phone,” Bill offered, subtly moving closer to Richie.  Mike hesitated.

“She might not answer.  She doesn’t usually answer numbers that she doesn’t know, and she might not like the idea of me sleeping over at the house of someone I basically just met?” He said.  “It’d just be a lot less questions if I called from Richie’s house, since then I can act like I’ve been there the whole time.”

“Are you... sure you need to use my phone?” Richie asked, and Mike seemed to notice something off in his tone.  He frowned.

“Yeah, I do,” he insisted, doubling down and erasing his hesitation upon seeing Richie’s own reluctance.  “Why don’t you want to lead me back there?”

Richie shrugged, fake nonchalance etched in his bones.  “It’s Sunday.”

He didn’t give any other explanation, and that seemed to make Mike more insistent.  

“I can show him, Rich,” Bev offered, moving to stand up, but Richie stopped her with a sigh as he extracted himself from underneath where Bill had sprawled himself. 

“Nah, Bev, it’s fine, I’ll show the guy.  Gotta be the considerate cousin, right?” he said, clearly a little pissed off.  “I’m not going inside, though.”

“Sure, fine, whatever,” Mike said, leaving the living room and headed to the door.  Richie repeated ‘ sure, fine, whatever ’ with a roll of his eyes, waving off his friend’s concerned looks.  They all knew that he never went to his house on Sundays. Especially Sunday night.  He never even went by the house, just in case.  He said he wasn’t going inside, but...they were still worried.  

Richie, for his part, managed to not punch anything as he left Bill’s house.  He shoved his hands, which might have been shaking, into his pockets as he tried to stroll casually to his bike.  Mike was shooting him annoyed looks, but Mike didn’t know shit, so he didn’t care. He hopped on his bike, beginning to ride without waiting for Mike.

“Gotta catch up, Michael,” he called, hearing Mike curse under his breath as he pedaled to reach Richie.  

“No need to be a dick, Richard ,” Mike shot back.  Richie rolled his eyes.  

“Just a warning, cousin,” he started, “if you see my mom, don’t talk to her.  Same with my dad. Just walk past, call your mom, walk out. Ignore what they say, they’ll probably think you’re me, just fucking ignore it.” His voice was the least humorous that Mike had ever heard it.  The part of him that felt drawn to Richie wanted him to ask what was wrong, but it was drowned out by the part that thought Richie was being an asshole.  

Richie stopped at a corner, nodding down to where Mike could see his house.  

“Don’t be long, I don’t really do ‘sitting still’ very well,” Richie said, still obviously annoyed.  Mike rolled his eyes, huffing as he slid off his bike and forcefully knocked down the kickstand. He made his way down the sidewalk, finding the door to Richie’s house still unlocked and slipping inside.  Instantly, he held back a gag at the reek of alcohol that seemed to seep from the very walls of the living room. He saw his aunt for the first time, lying down on the couch with her dark hair covering her face.  He didn’t even want to look for what she was drinking. Was this why Richie had been insistent on staying outside? She was asleep, he didn’t see what was so bad except for the awful smell. Mike made his way to the kitchen, where he remembered seeing a phone, and quickly dialed his home number.  His mom picked up within two rings.

“Hello?  Wheeler residence,” she said.  

“Hey, mom,” Mike greeted her.  She gasped on the other end.

“Mike!  How has moving Will in been, does he like the town?  Hopper has been asking if you’ve called, he’s worried about El, is she alright?  Are you alright, you haven’t called yet, is everything okay?” She asked.  Mike hurried to cut her off before she could work herself up.  

“Mom, mom, we’re all fine,” he assured her.  “We finished Will’s room today, he seems...pretty okay with the town.”

“Has your aunt been taking care of you?” His mom asked, the very question that had made Mike insist on calling from the Tozier household.  Mike frowned, looking over the counter to where his Aunt Maggie was passed out.

“Yeah, mom, she has been,” he lied.  “We’ve met Richie’s friends, they seem nice and they seem to like Will, so that’s good.”

“Oh that’s nice, I’m glad he has friends already,” his mom said.  “Are you with them now?”

“Uh, no, not right now,” he said.  “But we were going to hang out tonight.  By the way, I might not call every day, it’s been pretty busy getting Will moved in and having him shown around the town.  I just wanted to let you know not to worry.”

“Alright, Michael, but call when you can,” his mom said.  “Do you need to go? Say hello to Mrs. Byers for me.”

“I will, mom.  I love you,” Mike said.  “Bye.”

“Goodbye, sweetheart,” his mom said, and Mike hung up.  

He made his way out of the kitchen, moving back into the living room where his aunt hadn’t moved.  He paused, looking at her. Was she always like this? Where was his uncle? Mike felt a sudden wave of guilt for being an asshole to Richie, since this was most likely why he had been so hesitant to go with Mike.  

Aunt Maggie shifted, her head lifting and revealing that she wasn’t actually asleep.  Her eyes met Mike’s, and she gasped. Mike took a step back, remembering Richie’s words about her mistaking them and ignoring what she said.  But then Aunt Maggie gave a shaky smile.

“Michael?” She asked, almost as if she didn’t believe her words.  Mike frowned.

“Uh, hi, Aunt Maggie,” he said, awkwardly.  Her smile turned sad.

“Oh, Michael, look at you,” she said.  She was...surprisingly lucid, with barely any slurring of her words despite her obvious wasted state.  “You’re all grown up now.”

“Thanks,” Mike said, beginning to edge his way around the couch.  But Aunt Maggie sat up, sending a bottle to the floor as she stared at Mike over the back of the couch.

“Come here, honey, let me see how you’ve grown up,” she said.  Mike didn’t move, and Aunt Maggie seemed to ignore what she had just said.  “Are you doing well in school? I don’t mean grades, but are you going to class?  Do you get in fights? Do you stay out late?”

Mike frowned, not sure where she was going with this.  He edged closer to the door.

“Um, yeah, Aunt Maggie, I’m doing good,” he said.  “No fights.”

Not for a few years at least, since the whole Troy incident.  He also didn’t mention the late D&D sessions that had stressed his mom out a few times.  Aunt Maggie smiled, sighing and sinking back into the couch.

“Of course, you’re a sweet boy,” Maggie said, looking disappointed.  “Oh Karen, you were right.” She met Mike’s eyes again. “You shouldn’t have come, Michael.”

“What?” Mike asked.  He was torn between leaving as soon as possible, and figuring out what his drunk aunt was talking about.  She was probably talking nonsense, but she seemed so serious.  

“Karen...she warned me that seeing you would be hard,” Maggie was kneeling on the couch, staring at Mike with wide eyes.  “I told her I’d be fine, but oh, Michael, you’ve grown into such a nice young man.” Maggie sighed, her eyes dropping and her body swaying slightly.  “I suppose I always knew I picked the wrong one.”

She fell back onto the arm of the couch, not seeing as Mike froze.  He couldn’t even get the question to leave his throat, his confusion catching it before he could say it.  Maggie continued to speak even though she could no longer see Mike. He could leave, but his feet wouldn’t move.  A morbid curiosity kept him rooted to the floor, waiting for her to speak despite every other part of his body wanting to flee before she said something that he couldn’t ignore.

“How was I supposed to know?” She asked the ceiling, her words beginning to slur more.  “You were identical. Twin little angels...how was I supposed to know I picked the disappointment?”

Something sick settled into Mike’s stomach and he turned to get the hell out of the house before he could hear her say anything else.  As the door clicked shut behind him, he leaned against it, taking a deep breath. His heart was beating out of his chest, with a cold sort of fear.  A different fear than when he had faced the Demogorgon or the Mind Flayer. This wasn’t a fear for his life. This was a fear that he might have just found something out that he was not meant to have been told.  Something that recolored his whole life.  

Twin little angels .  

He looked to the bush that blocked Richie from his view.  Richie, who looked so much like Mike that when he opened the door the previous day, Mike thought he was dreaming.  Richie, who despite annoying the hell out of Mike, had something about him that made Mike hold himself back from being a dick.  Richie and Mike, neither of which knew they even had a cousin. 

But the question had resurfaced.  Did he have a cousin at all?  

Or was Richie something more?

Chapter Text

When Mike shoved away his kickstand and struggled to steady himself on his bike, Richie frowned.

“What’d she say?” He asked, recognizing the jittery state that he also found himself in after an unwelcome conversation with either of his parents.  Mike’s eyebrows were furrowed.

“Um,” he hesitated.  “Nothing.”

“Bullshit,” Richie said casually as the two started riding.  “Did she think you were me?”

Mike was quiet for a second.

“Yeah,” he said.  “She did.”

“Then don’t worry about it.  Anything you heard, she’s said multiple times,” Richie said.  That didn’t seem to make Mike feel better.  

“I mean, she was drunk,” Mike said, seemingly to himself.  “That makes people say shit, right?”

“Yeah,” Richie said, frowning slightly.  He knew his mom. When she got drunk, she didn’t spout nonsense like people assumed.  His mom got honest. Almost brutally so. But he didn’t want Mike knowing that his mom meant the things she said to Richie.  Even his friends hadn’t heard all the things she’s said.  They knew most of it, or at least the original Losers did, but there were a few things he’s kept to himself.  Better for Mike to think she was just wasted.  

As they got closer to Bill’s house, Richie got progressively more animated and more like the person that Mike thought of him as.  The brief interlude of a more serious Richie had thrown him off, on top of what had happened inside his house. So Mike was grateful for the distraction of hearing the eleven other people loudly playing truth or dare as they re-entered Bill’s house.  

“Max, that’s so gross!” Lucas shouted as the two of them got back into the living room.  Max was grinning and shrugging, laughing at the look on Lucas’s face.  

“He asked!” She defended herself.  “I was hungry, and we had Cheetos, what do you expect.”

“Cheeto sandwich?” Richie asked, pointing at Max.  Max grinned, pointing to herself.

“Cheeto sandwich!” She replied, meeting Richie for a high-five as they earned groans of disgust.

“What was yours with?” Richie asked, reclaiming his spot in the Loser’s half of the circle, turning so his legs were laying across Bev’s lap and his head was against Stan’s thigh.  “Mine was PB&J.”

“Grilled cheese,” Max answered.  “I figured that I should balance the fake cheese with real cheese.”

“Good choice, although peanut butter is a surprisingly good pair with the Cheeto dust,” Richie said.  Stan groaned.

“If you don’t stop reminding me of the era before you could cook, I will push you off my lap,” he said.  

“Fine, fine,” Richie waved him off.  “Who’s turn is it?”

“Well, Dustin just gave Max a truth, so Max,” Ben said, motioning to Max.  Max thought for a moment.

“Hmm.  Beverly, truth or dare?”

“Ah, redhead solidarity,” Bev grinned, “Dare.”

“Serenade Ben with no background music,” Max said, and Richie wolf-whistled.  Ben was bright red, but Bev was laughing.  

“Alright,” she said, turning to Ben.  “Ready, new kid?”

Ben buried his face in his hands as he realized what she was doing.  Beverly got on her knees and burst into a loud rendition of “Please Don’t Go Girl” by NKOTB, grinning as she sang.  Ben kept his hands covering his flushed face, but it was clear that he was laughing, grinning underneath his hands. As Bev got to the last portion of the song, she pulled Ben’s hands away from his face and pulled him to his feet, spinning him into a haphazard waltz, a dance that neither of them knew how to do.  Bev finished the song by pulling Ben into a very slight dip, peppering his cheeks with kisses that made his face burn even redder than it was. Then Bev plopped back down into her spot, grinning in satisfaction and leaning on Ben’s shoulder when he sat back down. The Losers were laughing and cheering, nudging both of them playfully.  Bev laughed.

“Alright, alright,” she said, waiting for the rest of them to hush.  “Will, truth or dare.”

Will seemed alarmed that he had been chosen, his cheeks pinking.  “Oh, uh...truth?”

Bev smiled, but it was more kind than devious.  “Now, it’s fine if the answer is no, trust me that we all understand,” she prefaced.  “But I’ve been wondering. Would you mind if we called you Zombie Boy?  I promise we’d mean it in an endearing way.”

Will thought for a moment, before giving a shy smile.

“Maybe,” he said.  “But I’m not sure.”

“Alright!” Bev grinned.  “Just let us know.”

“Until then, I’m sticking with Willicent,” Richie said.  “Or Bowl Cut? Or possibly Willma.”

“Um...all of those are bad,” Will said.  

“I know!  That’s the point!” Richie retaliated.  “Now ask, Willicent.”

The game continued, and the Losers and the Party grew gradually closer.  But Mike wasn’t as good an actor as Richie, and the Party could tell that something was wrong.  He wouldn’t tell them, though, not until the Losers had fallen asleep in their tangled pile, Mike watching as Richie snored with his face on Eddie’s shoulder.  By that point, Dustin was the only other person awake. Mike just looked at Dustin, whispered that he needed his help at the library, and then went to sleep.  

The Denbrough’s house was quiet, but not all rested easy.

The Losers were a little disappointed when Mike and Dustin said they wanted to check out the library, Richie hollering ‘ nerds’ as they did, since the others were going to go with their Mike to hang out on his farm.  But Ben, his face lighting up, said that he’d go with them to the library.  

“I love hanging out there!” He said, a wide smile on his face.  “I mean, I love Mike’s farm, too, I’m not saying I don’t, but-”

“I know, Ben,” Mike laughed, nudging Ben playfully.  “I don’t mind, you all come to the farm a lot, go show them the library.”

With Mike’s express permission and farewells from the rest of the group, the three set off on their bikes.  Ben was asking them what they liked to read, and what they were going to look at while they were there, to which Dustin managed to land on the right answer by saying they liked reading about history.  Ben was almost glowing , looking as if he had won the lottery.

“Really?  I love history!  I used to move a lot before I came to Derry, I always read up on the history of where I moved to,” he said.  Dustin shared a look with Mike.

“So you know a lot about Derry’s history, then?” He asked.  Ben shrugged, almost too nonchalant.

“I mean, yeah.  So does Mike. But there’s not too much interesting stuff, it’s a really small town,” he said.  “And other stuff is just unpleasant to read about.”

“Like the thing you guys told us?” Mike asked.  Ben frowned.

“Yeah, that’s what I mean,” he said.  “There’s not even a lot about it, but what there is is just upsetting.”

He pulled into the library’s bike rack, effectively ending the conversation.  He happily showed them around, getting distracted occasionally by his favorite sections of the library, but eventually left them to roam as he pulled some books and went to grab a table.  Dustin then looked over at Mike.

“So are we still looking into those murders?” He asked, whispering the last word.  Mike hesitated.

“Um, actually…” he trailed off, scanning for where Ben had pointed out the newspaper collection.  “I need your help looking for something else.”

“What’s more important than a serial killer, Mike?” Dustin asked.  “I thought we were worried about being left in the dark.”

“We are, and we should still look into that, but…” Mike led Dustin to the newspapers, feeling a dawning dread as he got closer.  “I need to look through the papers for ‘76.”

“...your birth year?” Dustin clarified, a frown growing.  Mike clenched his fists before nodding.

“Yeah.  I need to find birth announcements, it’s a small town, they should be there.”

“Are you gonna tell me what this is about?” Dustin asked, looking as if he already knew.  Mike just gave him a look.

“I...I don’t think I can, Dustin,” he said.  “I don’t really know what’s going on myself.”

Dustin hesitated, but he nodded.

“Okay.  Yeah. Of course I’ll help.”

“Here we are!” Mike announced as they pulled up to his family’s farm. Max was driving, with Mike directing her, since she was the only one of them that actually trusted themselves behind the wheel.  Richie knew the basics, but he also knew that it was a very bad idea for him to drive longer than the distance to the grocery store. Also, Eddie refused to get into a car if Richie was behind the wheel.  The ten of them piled out of the car that they had been sitting in very illegally, a fact that Eddie did not shut up about, and the newcomers took in the sights around them.

Mike’s family farm mostly focused on animals, with a barn of cows and sheep, and a separate chicken coop, but that wasn’t all it had.  They also grew a few different kinds of vegetables, not in huge quantities but enough to sell in town. Mike had also recently taken to a small flower garden and took them over to show the sunflowers that were already up to his knees.  He beamed with pride at them, stating that he’d tell the Losers when they were blooming so that they could come and see.  

“That’s exciting, Mike!” Bev said, kneeling down with him to admire the other, smaller plants that were starting to bloom.  “Are you gonna sell these too?”

Mike looked bashful.

“No, I wasn’t planning on it,” he admitted.  “If I pick any of them, they’ll probably be as gifts.”

“Oh, Mikey, how romantic!” Richie swooned.  “I knew you were the only Loser capable of sweeping little ol’ me off my feet!”

“That’s right!” Mike stood up, sweeping Richie into a bridal carry before he could notice, even though Richie would easily let him do it.  He then strode over to the side of his house, the others watching in slight confusion. As Richie realized where he was going, he started cackling, not even protesting or trying to stop him as Mike dumped Richie directly into the trash can.  “I’ll sweep you off your feet and put you right where you belong.”

“Mike finally did it,” Stan said, awe in his voice.  “He trashed the Trashmouth.”

“You are a god among men, Hanlon,” Bev praised him, literally bowing at his feet.  

“It was on this day, that we l-lost our dear T-Trashmouth,” Bill intoned, shaking his head sadly.  

“Quit telling people I’m dead!” Richie shouted from still inside the trash can.  He was trying to get out, but with his long, gangly limbs it was proving difficult.  He was almost about to knock the can over entirely. Bill held back a snicker.

“Sometimes I still h-hear his voice,” he said, ignoring Richie and his plight.  

“I think my foot is starting to fall asleep!” Richie called over.  “I can totally get out, but does anyone want to come pull me? Homeschool?”

“Do you hear something?” Mike asked.  “I think I heard something in the barn, we should go check that out.”

“I heard it too,” Eddie added.  “It might be urgent.”

“Aw, c’mon, Eds?  Eduardo? I can’t believe you’d do this to me, after all the love I’ve given your mother.”

“It’s definitely urgent,” Bev said with a grin.  

“I think I’m gonna call the dump, there’s something reeking in your trash,” Stan said.  “Or maybe animal control, it might be a raccoon.”

“Are you sure you aren’t smelling yourself, Stanny?” 

“Is he, like, okay?” Max whispered.  “That looks uncomfortable.”

“You should see how he sits in chairs,” Stan said.  “He’s gotten detention for ‘not sitting properly’ more times than I can count.”

“How he doesn’t have scoliosis yet is beyond me,” Eddie added.  

“Can you get high from blood rushing to your head?” Richie called.  “I’m used to it rushing the other way so I’m not sure.”

“I dropped him with his head upright, what the hell is he talking about?” Mike sighed, shaking his head.  

“Alright, you fuckers asked for it!” Richie then began shaking himself violently, rattling the trash can until it tipped over completely and set Richie spilling to the ground along with the small amount of grass clippings and leaves that were in the can as well.  Richie sprang to his feet and ran directly at the group, grinning when Eddie and Stan both leaped out of his way.  

“Richie don’t you dare come near me until you’ve showered, you were in a trash can I swear to god I’ll kill you,” Eddie ranted as Richie tiptoed closer, the distance between them remaining the same as Eddie backed up.  “Do you know how many germs are on a trash can? I trust Mike, I do, I know he wouldn’t throw you in there if there was shit in there or something, but it’s still trash and I’m gonn- AHHH !” He broke into a shriek as Richie darted forward suddenly, an arm outstretched.  “Don’t fucking touch me with your trash hands, Tozier!”

“Can I touch you with my clean hands?” Richie waggled his eyebrows.

“Your hands are never clean, and you know it,” Stan said.  “You wash your hands and the dirt just reappears.”

“Shh, Stanley, don’t tell Eds my magic power!” Richie hissed.  Eddie darted behind Mike, who was laughing.

“Don’t call me that, Trashmouth.”

“He’s not just Trashmouth now, he’s just a trashman,” Bev said.  “You’ve given him a level up, Mike.”

“Alright, alright,” Bill said, laying a hand on Richie’s shoulder.  “We’ve got a t-tour to finish. Rich, go take a shower before Eddie has an aneurysm.  We’ll b-be in the barn.”

“Aye, aye, Big Bill.” Richie saluted, turning on his heel and heading to Mike’s house, where all the Losers were welcome.  Mike’s grandfather had been happy to see Mike with a good group of friends, even if he did have a not-so-preferable first introduction to Richie, that he had opened his house to any of them if they ever needed anything.  Mike’s house was the second favorite sleepover spot, especially since they could go stargazing and hang out in the fields. When Richie had disappeared into the house and Stan was assuring Eddie that there was no trash on him, Mike led the current members of the Party over to the barn, the Losers that knew their way around simply trailing behind.  Mike went around and introduced all the animals by name, looking so in his element that even Richie couldn’t stop a fond little grin from sneaking its way onto his face when he re-entered the barn and saw what was going on.  

They were sitting in a field, further away from the barn in the section of the farm that they liked to keep wild.  The grass was up to their ankles, peppered with wildflowers and dandelions and other weeds that only Stan knew the names of.  Mike had brought a blanket so that Eddie could sit down, but Richie and Bev were laying directly on the grass and pointing out cloud shapes.  So far, Richie had found six different penises.  

Bev had found ten.  

While everyone was chatting lightly or enjoying the soft summer silence, Mike looked over at Will, who was looking around him at the farm and who looked more relaxed than any other moment since Mike had met him.  

“Hey,” he said, drawing Will out of his head, “we haven’t gotten the chance to talk much.  How are you liking it here?”

Will seemed to grow a little nervous again, his hands beginning to fidget in his lap.  

“I- I think I like it,” he said.  “I’m...not super sure about the town itself, but I like all of you guys.”  He got a shy smile on his face and Mike beamed.

“I understand, the Losers are the best thing about this town, in my opinion,” he said.  “I know we dropped some scary shit on you and your friends, and trust me when I say that if we could have not told you, we would have.  But you would’ve found out eventually, and probably from people that hate us, and we didn’t want you to hate us too.”

Will’s smile grew as he let out a light laugh.  “I don’t think I could hate you guys. You remind me too much of our Party.”

“Two groups of friends who banded together because other people treated them like shit?” Mike grinned.  “Nah, I don’t see the similarities.”

Will’s laughter was relaxed and happy, the warm summer breeze and the early afternoon light softening his deep brown eyes.  Mike had first noticed that when he met Will, the other boy seemed perpetually on edge. Like around every corner there could be something that threatened him.  It was a familiar feeling and one that the Losers had gotten unfortunately used to. But now, much like when Mike himself came home to the farm, Will had lost the tension in his shoulders and even the bags under his eyes seemed less prominent.  

“Hey, do you want to see more of the farm?” Mike asked, motioning behind him.  “You can meet the chickens if you want.”

Will’s eyes crinkled a bit as he smiled.  “Yeah! Should we pick up the blanket, or-”

“-Oh, no, it’s fine,” Mike waved him off.  “Anyway, the coop is kind of small. All of us wouldn’t fit.  Would Max, Lucas, and El want to see it, or do you think they’d rather stay here?”

Will looked back to where his friends had joined the Losers in finding cloud shapes, and where Richie was busy weaving wildflowers into crowns.  Their laughter rang loud, almost as loud as the groans that chorused after every one of Richie’s jokes. Will turned back to Mike.  

“I think they’re good here,” he answered, still smiling slightly, just the edges of his lips quirked into a fond look.  Mike stood up and brushed the grass off of his legs. He held a hand out to help Will up.  

“Well, c’mon then,” he smiled.  

“Anything?” Mike asked, scanning yet another newspaper.  He knew that there were only a few months that the announcement could happen during, but searching through those options was taking so much longer than he thought.  Dustin was sitting across from him, searching through his own pile of papers. He sighed.

“Nothing.  I mean, you’re still not telling me what I’m looking for, but...I’m looking for you , right?” he asked.  Mike sent a glance at Ben, who was at a different table contentedly reading a book.  He didn’t seem able to hear their conversation.  

“Um...yeah,” Mike confirmed quietly.  “You’re looking for me.”

“I won’t tell anyone else if that’s why you’re being so secretive,” Dustin assured him.  “Are you gonna tell Richie if you find anything?”

“Of course I will,” Mike muttered, only slightly offended.  “As soon as I figure out how.”

“Are you gonna tell me why you were suddenly suspicious about this?”

“You know I want to talk about it, Dustin,” Mike sighed, folding the paper he was scanning and setting it to the side in the pile he was trying to keep neat.  “But-”

“-You should probably talk to Richie first,” Dustin finished.  “Makes sense.”

They worked in silence for a while longer, Mike taking a break by putting away the newspapers that had been a bust.  He found it distracting to put them back in the right order and file them away in the cabinet. He was sure that if a librarian saw him, they would tell him to stop doing it himself, but he didn’t care.  Anything to get the swim of the newsprint out of his mind's eye. He was right, there was a section in the paper that occasionally had pregnancy announcements, but he just hadn’t found the right paper yet.  

Mike sighed.  What if he didn’t find anything?  He knew that it was most likely just his aunt saying nonsense while she was shitfaced, but the look in her eyes was so lucid.  It felt like...while she wasn’t entirely there, she still knew Mike. She looked at him and didn’t see Richie, she saw Mike , when Mike couldn’t remember the last time he saw his aunt.  That had to mean something, right? Her eyes had been dazed with alcohol, but her words were firm, like she believed them wholeheartedly.  

Mike wasn’t sure what he wanted to find.  He wasn’t sure if he wanted to find anything at all, or if he wanted proof of his suspicions.  Which would be better? Finding out he had been lied to or finding out his aunt was just...drunk.  One outcome would make him angry, the other might just make him guilty over never having met Richie sooner.  Since, you know, his aunt and uncle are like that .  

The air in the library seemed stifling as Mike made his way back to the table, and it only seemed to get thicker as Dustin let out a gasp.

“Uh...Mike?” He whispered.  “Here.”

He held out the newspaper he was holding, the pages only slightly yellowed after fourteen years of careful safekeeping.  Mike took it slowly, noting with a pounding heart that his hand was shaking. Halfway down the page, there was a photo of a smiling couple.  Mike hadn’t seen his uncle since he’d been in Derry, but his aunt looked far more than fourteen years younger. She looked like a completely different person, a smoother face and a brighter smile, but it was still definitely her.  Her eyes were identical. Mike forced himself to look at the words that were written below the picture, a small paragraph that gave Mike the answer he still wasn’t sure he was looking for.  

Margaret and Wentworth Tozier are pleased to announce their pregnancy, due in March of 1976.  Their first pregnancy, the Toziers are thrilled to welcome not one, but two new members of their family to our lovely town of Derry.  The Toziers will be announcing a baby shower in the near future, where they will reveal the chosen names of their twin boys. Please send well-wishes and congratulations to-

Mike couldn’t finish reading it.  He dropped the paper back onto the table, feeling something sick curling in his gut.  He had decided, he realized. He had wanted to be wrong. He had wanted his aunt to be drunk out of her mind, speaking nonsense, recognizing Mike out of pure dumb luck.  He wanted his mother to be his mother. He wanted to be able to look Richie in the eyes through his large, thick glasses and know exactly who he was to Mike. He wanted to not feel like the rug had been pulled from underneath him, leaving him sprawled, breathless on the ground.  But the words on the paper spelled out the truth.  

Suddenly feeling more upset and anxious than he had in a long time, Mike felt nausea rear its head and he turned around, making it to the restroom just in time for him to throw up what little he had in his stomach.  

Chapter Text

The ride back to Bill’s house was the lovely chaos that followed the Losers everywhere they went.  The ten of them were once more being driven by Max, piled illegally into one car, the radio blaring and the voices shouting.  When Mike had returned from the chicken coop with Will, having introduced him to all the chickens and chicks by name and showed him the ones that would let him pet them, he had found Richie in the middle of his final flower crown.  Everyone else had one, some multicolored and others (Stan specifically, Richie knowing he liked things in order) made solely of one color wildflower. Eddie, surprisingly, was also making one, reprimanding Richie loudly for making him get his hands dirty since Richie apparently wasn’t planning on making a crown for himself.  Mike was too caught up watching Richie teach Eddie how to link the flowers together, and neither he nor anyone else present noticed the slight frown that had tugged on Stan’s face.  

Richie was done first, and had bestowed it upon Mike with a deep bow and a ‘ my liege ’.  Will had one handed to him by a smiling Max, made before Richie realized that Will and Mike had left.  Then, when Eddie was finished, he managed to wrestle it onto Richie’s head without it falling apart, as Richie looked to be having the time of his life trying to halt Eddie’s progress.  

A half-hour later, with the ten of them crammed into one car, the flower crowns were miraculously still intact, even Richie’s.  Despite barely knowing him, even the Party was dead set on keeping their gifts safe on the ride home. Mike was in the front seat with Max, which saved both of them from the chaos, Lucas and El were saved by the fact that El had a death glare on par with Stan’s (and unbeknownst to the Losers, was subtly using her recovering powers to redirect any flailing arms that got too close), Bill was being protected by Beverly, Eddie had hidden behind Stan and his equally as powerful death glare, and Richie was using his gangly limbs to keep everyone at a distance as they chattered loudly and argued about nothing.  

It was only as they got into Bill’s house and sprawled once more on the floor (Mr. and Mrs. Denbrough had stopped monitoring what Bill was doing/requiring him to have their permission for these sorts of things after Georgie died) that the ten of them got into an actual debate.  One that, while the Losers were winning by sheer number, continued to be argued until the other three knocked on the door.  If it was anyone but Ben they would have just walked in, but the knocks cut gently through the debating and once Bill called over that it was unlocked, the three joined the chaos to a shout of their names.

“Benny!  Benjamin, Benvolio, Bendina, come back me up here!” Richie called.  Ben raised an eyebrow from where he stood in the entranceway with Mike and Dustin, confused.

“What am I backing you up on?  There’s a high chance I won’t agree with you, Richie.”

“You will,” Bev assured him.  “We need you three to help us decide once and for all, who would win in a fight?  Mike or Richie?”

Ben laughed. “Which Mike?  It’s a very different answer.”

“Which Mike?” Richie scoffed. “I’m not stupid , Haystack, I know I could never beat my main man Micycle.” He flopped backward onto a chuckling Mike.  “Anyway, I don’t know if I could bring myself to fight him in the first place. How could I hit that face?”

“Aw, thanks Rich,” Mike ruffled Richie’s already messy hair, carefully avoiding the flowers.  It was at that moment that Ben, Dustin, and the other Mike noticed the flower crowns still carefully laid on everyone’s hair.  Ben pouted.

“Hey, do I not get a crown?” He asked. Richie grinned.

“Answer the question and you get yours,” he said.  “Bev is wearing it right now.”

Sure enough, Beverly had two crowns on her head and raised her eyebrows in challenge.  Ben grinned.

“Richie, duh,” he answered, and the Losers cheered.  Bev stood up and handed him the crown, kissing him on the cheek.  The Party, except for Max, groaned. Mike just looked confused.

“What?  I could definitely beat you in a fight,” he said to Richie, earning a sly grin.

“Want to test that?” Richie asked, but he was shut down by Stan’s hand reaching over to smack his arm.

“No fighting,” Stan ordered.  Bill shrugged.

“I’d rather not have any injuries wh-while we’re all at my h-house,” he agreed.  Richie stuck his tongue out.

“No fun,” he complained.  “Anyway, we’re all in majority agreement now, I could totally beat Mike, his point is moot.”

“Hey, hey, not fair, he should get to defend himself!” Dustin argued.  “You all were debating when he wasn’t even here!”

“Alright, go ahead,” Eddie said.  “Why do you think you can beat Richie?”

“No offense, Mike, but you don’t seem like you could take a punch,” Max said, shrugging as Mike turned a betrayed glare her way.  

“You don’t treat Steve like this and he’s only ever won a single fight,” he muttered, rolling his eyes.  “I could beat you because I’ve fought bigger guys than you and made it out fine.”

He neglected to mention that the ‘bigger guy’ was in fact an other-dimensional monster and that he didn’t so much ‘fight’ it as he did ‘hit it a lot while his girlfriend tore it to pieces with her mind’.  He gave a sharp look at his friends so that they didn’t call him out on his rewriting of the story. He then looked back over at the Losers, who didn’t seem convinced. Mike was...a little curious as to why they had so much faith that Richie could beat him.  Sure, Richie had taken a decent hit to the face on the very first day Mike met him, but that didn’t determine skill, it just meant that Richie wouldn’t back down easily. Richie took a deep breath, his eyes closed, and when he looked at Mike next his eyes were determined and glittering with amusement.  

“Mike.  Michael, Mikey, Mike and Ike, the only cousin I’ve ever met-” Mike tried not to flinch “-I was saving this argument in order to say it to your face, and I’m sorry to say that you’re about to lose this debate.  I could totally kick your ass, and there’s one simple reason.” Richie was grinning deviously. Bev played along, leaning forward and fluttering her eyelashes.

“And what’s the reason, Rich?” She asked.  Richie’s grin widened.

“I have quite a bit of experience fighting clowns,” he said simply.  There was silence for a second, and then the Losers were losing it. Bev was cackling along with Richie, burying her head in his shoulder, Ben was trying desperately not to laugh but failing miserably, their Mike was giggling in stunned amusement, Bill was straight up crying, Eddie was wheezing, and even Stan (who Mike had pegged as the common sense of the group) was laughing loudly.  The Party was laughing too, but more a mix of confusion at the exuberance of the Losers amusement with the joke and the thrill of making fun of Mike. Mike was just confused, and slightly offended.  

“R-Richie, I’m-” Bill tried to stop laughing.  “You c-can’t just d-d-drop that on us, holy shit.”

“What?” Richie said, shit-eating grin on his face.  “It’s true, I’m practically a clown fighting expert.”

“Are you calling me a clown ?” Mike asked, scandalized, and that set Richie off on another bout of laughter.  

“Yes, Mike, he called you a clown,” Dustin was laughing too, and he patted Mike on the shoulder before dropping onto the blankets.  

“Wait, wait, wait,” Lucas called attention, waiting for the giggles to subside from the Losers.  “Ignoring that Mike is a clown, and ignoring that Richie is winning this argument-” there was a small noise of protest from Mike before Lucas continued “-when the hell did you fight a clown?”

In the sudden silence, the Losers looked at each other.  Richie grinned, looking Bill in the eyes and nodding slightly.  “I’ve got this,” he said. They had never discussed what they would say in this situation because it was one that they never anticipated.  But they knew that unlike what people thought, Richie could actually take things seriously.  The list of things he took seriously was very short, but it existed, and this was number one.  Richie turned back to the other six.

“Well one, Henry Bowers, total clown.  But actually , it was like, two or three years ago,” he started, pulling this story out of his ass with the bullshitting skills he had perfected in school.  “We were at the carnival that gets put on in town, just me and Bill and Eddie and Stan, and of course there were clowns there because why the fuck wouldn’t there be.  Other people like clowns for some reason, I don’t get it. And there’s this one clown, and he’s really tall and not even on stilts, and he’s really creepy.  Not like a scary Halloween clown, but just a dude who’s really creepy and should not be in clown makeup around children.  So I’m walking, I’m working my game, getting the chicks, everything’s all normal, when I see this creepy ass clown and I see him talking to Bill.  I get a little closer, and I hear that even the things he’s saying are creepy as fuck, and that Bill is both very uncomfortable and very close to the gap between two game stalls.  So I do what any best friend does, and I-”

“-wait, wait, let me tell this part,” Stan cut in, brushing his curls out of his face and sitting up from where he was laying against Bill.  Richie raised his eyebrows but grinned as he waited to find out what Stan would say. This was a good plan, he had to admit. The Party might not believe the story if Richie told it, seeing as they had gotten to know his personality decently well over the past few days, but Stan?  They trusted Stan’s word. They didn’t know that he could be just as much of a little shit when he wanted to be. Or that all of them would lie about this subject, but that was a given.  

“So I was sitting at a picnic table, waiting for my dumbass friends to realize that it was past our meeting time to get dinner, and I looked around to try and find them,” Stan started.  “I didn’t see Eddie but I figured he was off trying to find the least greasy food for us to get, and then I saw Bill. Richie described it pretty well, the clown was at least six feet tall, and was practically leering at Bill.  So I get concerned, and I start to stand up, when I hear the most unholy screech that I can immediately place as Richie, because it’s the sound that usually precedes him getting kicked out of wherever he is. Next thing I know, he is dashing past me and taking a running leap at the clown with a baseball bat in his hands, and he is swinging the bat directly into the head of the clown.”

“I was like, eleven,” Richie bullshit, laughing again.  “It was my first thought.”

“It w-was a pretty awesome m-moment,” Bill agreed.  “If not t-terrifying too.”

Richie almost sobered, remembering the real moment.  The real terror. How he didn’t feel heroic, he just felt scared and angry and heartbroken over the events in the sewer.  How he didn’t think anything through before he started his speech.  He saw Bill about to die, Bill being strong, Bill telling them to leave him to his death, and he just grabbed that bat.  He kept his grin light, though, refusing to let the Party see him the way the Losers had during that summer. The way they still do, after a nightmare, or during one of their rare but heartfelt talks about It.  The way no one but the Losers could ever see him.

“Is that why you’re scared of clowns?” Lucas asked.  They all shrugged.

“M-mostly,” Bill answered.  “They also just s-suck.”

“ Fuck clowns!” Richie cheered.  He was echoed by the rest of the Losers, and they earned yet another confused look from the Party.  That was fine, though. The seven of them all understood each other, and that was what really mattered.  That was what would always matter.

Tuesday morning saw the group on their bikes once more, finally taking the Hawkins kids to the best spots in Derry, the quarry cliff and the barrens.  The Hawkins group wasn’t quite up for cliff jumping, saying something about a quarry back in Hawkins, but they still wanted to see the view. Luckily, Peter was always at the arcade on Tuesday, which meant that they could avoid any contact with him and ride freely in the middle of the street.  It also meant that Richie could annoy Bill until he did his cheerful call of ‘ hi-yo, Silver!’ to the glee of the Losers and the bemusement of the Party.  

Their bikes came to a skidding stop a ways back from the cliff, and the six Hawkins kids were much warier as they approached the edge.  Seemingly in unison, they all let out a sigh of relief.  

“That is so much shorter of a drop,” Dustin said, sounding much more at ease.  

“How tall is the quarry at Hawkins?” Ben asked, and Mike let out a slightly bitter laugh.

“Tall enough that there’s a good chance you’d die when you hit the water,” he said.  Stan raised his eyebrows.

“Didn't you say you almost jumped off it?” He asked.  Mike frowned.

“Yeah, but luckily El showed up before I did,” he said.  El was looking at him strangely, but no one saw it. “It’s maybe twice as tall as this one?  Maybe even more, I’m not sure.”

“Shit, and I thought this one was terrifying to jump off,” Eddie said, peering over the edge with a grimace.  “The fact that there’s no fence here is a crime, but yours? Yours definitely needs a fence, preferably with like, barbed wire or something so no one fucking climbs it.”

“I’m surprised they haven’t put a fence up,” Will said.  “I mean, kids have died in the quarry.  Not a lot, but you’d think they’d block it off after they thought-”  he cut himself off and flushed.  

“After they thought what?” Richie asked, knowing no one else would push it.  He was curious, though, because there was something about what Will had said happened to him that wasn’t sitting right with him.  Will hesitated, exchanging a look with Mike, before he shoved his hands in his pockets and answered.

“Well, uh, it was when I was missing,” he started, and almost everyone noticed Bill stiffen slightly.  Will purposefully didn’t look at him. “There was a body, found in the quarry, and for a few days, they thought it was me.  There was a funeral and everything. Eventually, when they found me, they figured out who it really was.”

“Worst two days of my life,” Mike said, his voice bitter and hushed.  There were a few seconds of awkward silence before Ben cleared his throat.

“Well, you don’t need to worry about that here,” he said.  “We’ve jumped off here a bunch of times.”

“Have you?  Or have you watched like a bunch of chickens as I jumped off first?” Bev grinned cheekily.  Richie smirked.

“Oh but Ms. Marsh, I love to watch you go,” he said.  Bev hit him lightly on the back of his head, setting him off laughing.  

“To b-be fair,” Bill said, “You did s-strip practically right after m-meeting us.”

“Oh please, what was I gonna do, jump in my clothes?” Bev scoffed.  “You invited me here while you were watching Eddie patch up Ben and Richie was being Richie, it was obvious you guys were no danger to me.”

“We just exude Eau de Loser ,” Richie waved his hand to go along with his terrible French accent.

“You kind of did,” Ben laughed.  “I mean, we all do, but there was a reason that I let you help me so easily.”

“Sometimes I forget that we met you both on the same day,” Stan said.  “All because of Henry fucking Bowers.”

“I’ll never forget,” Bev said.  “First I help you three shoplift medical supplies and then I go outside to see Ben covered in dirt and bleeding, with Eddie yelling at Richie with bifocals on.  It was memorable.”

“What did that guy do to you?” Max asked Ben, who frowned, a hand moving automatically to his lower abdomen.  

“You’ll see when we swim,” he said.  “The scar is still there.”

“Are we going swimming?  Because I believe you guys that we won’t die from this quarry, but it still freaks me out a bit,” Dustin said.  

“It freaks me out every time,” Eddie said.  “There’s so fucking much that could go wrong, I don’t know how they keep getting me to jump.”

“Easy,” Richie said.  “We push you. Or we jump together.”

“You are going to be the death of me,” Eddie said.  “I’ll die, and the police will know exactly who’s responsible.”

“Eddie, how could you?” Richie said, his face sobering.  Eddie paused, thrown off by Richie’s tone and the use of his actual name.  

“Rich, what-”

“-How could you get me arrested and deprive your mother of all this?” He asked, motioning to his whole body and grinning as Eddie all but launched himself in Richie’s direction.  The Losers all rolled their eyes while the Party watched Eddie attack Richie with the ferocity of an angry cat. He wasn’t hurting Richie, not really, but he was cursing up a storm while attempting to lightly smack every limb he could reach.  

“Alright, well, while they burn themselves out,” Stan said, pinching the bridge of his nose with a sigh.  “We weren’t really thinking of jumping off today either. But the Barrens are fun.”

“They aren’t really a place to swim ,” Mike #1 said, “but when you get closer to the actual river, it gets deeper.”

“Maybe we’ll go cliff jumping later in the week!” Bev offered.  “But we aren’t gonna force you.”

“You have to at least see Ben’s cannonball, though!” Richie said excitedly, having extracted himself from Eddie’s wrath.  “He’s got a gift.”

He got a few frowns from the Hawkins kids and he rolled his eyes.

“Oh come on, it’s not because he’s fat, it’s because he’s just awesome at cannonballs,” he insisted.  “Not even talking about splash sizes, Ben has got the perfect leaping start.  Like, for real, forget Sonia Kaspbrak, I could get off on Ben’s glorious cannonball arc for the rest of my life.  It’s an art form.”

“Disgusting, but I’m flattered, Trashmouth,” Ben said with a shake of his head and a grin.  Richie bowed.

“It’s what I aim for, Haystack.”

After a few more minutes of chatting on top of the cliff, the sun became too hot and they decided it was time to head to the barrens and cool off.  As long as they stayed at a decent distance from the sewers, they’d be fine and they could even get Eddie into the water. But the Party started to head to their bikes and they looked surprised when they were stopped.

“We don’t b-bike there,” Bill said.  “The woods are faster.”

“I feel like a bike would be faster, but...okay,” Mike frowned.  Bill sighed.

“If we biked, we’d have to g-go on N-N-Nuh-N-” He cut himself off with a curse.

“Neibolt,” Eddie said for him, shivering.  “We’d have to take Neibolt street, and we don’t go there.”

“None of us want to look at that house ever again,” Stan said, arms crossed.  “The one that led to the sewers.”

“Oh,” Max said.  “That makes sense.”

A beat, and then, “Last one to the barrens gets dunked underwater!” Richie shouted gleefully before taking off at a sprint through the trees.

“Get back here, jackass!” Eddie shouted after him, chasing him at a much faster speed.  Without Sonia Kaspbrak convincing him he had asthma, Eddie had discovered that he was easily the fastest of the Losers.  

“I’m going to kill him,” Stan said calmly, “if he even tries to dunk me underwater.”

He then set off at a brisk walk through the trees, followed by Ben and Bev.  Bill smiled at the Party and waved for them to follow as he jogged into the woods, surpassing Stan, Bev, and Ben rather quickly.  Max raised her eyebrows at the rest of the Party.

“I, for one, am not about to get shoved underwater,” she said, shrugging before setting off through the woods at the same pace as Bill.  Lucas and Dustin shouted after her, starting to run too, and soon Mike, El, and Will were following. The Loser’s Mike purposefully started walking last, grabbing the bag that Richie forgot (which had some of Richie’s extra clothes thrown in, seeing as they would fit most of the Losers.  There was also a pair of clothes for Ben, just in case, and Mike had his own). He then started strolling through the trees, hearing the shouting from ahead and grinning. The Barrens were one of his favorite places to hang out with his friends. The clubhouse was awesome, and he understood why that was Ben’s favorite place.  He built it, after all. But Mike? He loved remembering when he first met the best friends he would ever have. It was emotional whiplash, really, going from the fear of thinking his skull was about to get smashed in by Henry Bowers to feeling the affection from six random strangers as they pelted the Bowers gang with rocks and then pulled him from the water and welcomed him to their group.  He remembered hearing Ben’s battle cry as Bowers insulted Beverly, he remembered Eddie, forgetting for a moment his fear of germs as he splashed through the water to get closer, he remembered as Richie screamed at Bowers before taking a rock to the face for Mike. Even Stan, who everyone thought was a goody-two-shoes at first (including Mike), looked pissed as he took careful aim with every throw.  Mike had never felt included like that before, he had never felt such a bond, and he knew from the moment he laid eyes on the other six that they were all something special. And they needed him to be truly complete.  

So the Barrens had always felt like his place, his special place that he shared with the Losers and that signified his part of the Lucky Seven.  Mike loved it.  

The shouting got louder, and that was clearly Richie yelling at Stan for taking so long.  Mike couldn’t hear Stan’s response, but he could see the eye-roll in his mind's eye.  He heard the splashing as he got closer to the Barrens, but it was still faint and far off, and Mike was distracted by a much closer sound.  Breathing, heavy and labored, like one of the panic attacks that each of the Losers had gotten at least once, or when Eddie worked himself into a pseudo-asthma attack.  He frowned, peering through the trees, and saw Will, staring into the shadows.  

“Will?” he asked, checking if Will was even able to hear him.  Sometimes Richie went almost deaf during a panic attack, unable to hear any of them and only responsive when they touched him.  Conversely, Stan could only be talked down and would freak out if any of them touched him accidentally. Will startled at his voice, and Mike relaxed a little.  He didn’t know how comfortable Will would be with being cuddled out of a panic attack the way Richie was.  

“I-I-” Will couldn’t get the words out, but Mike remembered what he had told the group.

“Is it the woods?  Since that’s where you...got lost?” He asked, hesitating on saying that he went missing, unsure if that would make things worse.  Will nodded shakily, leaning against a tree. “Alright, just breathe, okay? You aren’t lost, I know exactly where we are, the others are just a few minutes to our right.”

With Mike near him, Will calmed down in only a minute or so, crossing his arms and looking at the ground.  

“Sorry,” he muttered.  “They ran ahead when everyone started shouting, and then I was alone, and it just felt…”

“Scary,” Mike finished, an understanding smile on his face.  “There’s nothing to be sorry for, Will, I’m just glad you’re okay.  You are okay, right?”

Will returned the smile, albeit smaller and hesitant.  “Yeah, I’m okay now. Thank you, Mike.”

“Anytime,” Mike said, holding out a hand.  “I mean it. Do you want to join the others?  We can stay here if you’re not ready yet.”

Will shook his head and took Mike’s hand.  “No, I’m okay. I want to go join them.”

Mike felt his smile widen a little as he led Will through the trees to where the Barrens were full of life.

Chapter Text

The Party fit in seamlessly as the thirteen of them splashed through the Barrens and slowly made their way towards the deeper water that neared the cliff.  Ben had gotten some concerned and slightly horrified looks when he took off his shirt to reveal the H-shaped scar along his stomach, but he didn’t mind telling the story.  It always made him feel better when Bev would kiss his cheek and call it a ‘hot battle scar’. In fact, calling them battle scars made everyone feel better, as Richie never failed to remind Stan during bad days that his facial scars were badass.  At least as battle scars, they functioned as more than just a reminder of how awful Derry was.  

Bev and Max faced off in a game of chicken fight, in which Max managed to knock Bev off of Richie’s shoulders to the well-meaning boo’s of the Losers.  Bev resurfaced and wiped the water from her eyes with a laugh, and Richie nearly fell on top of her as he lamented their loss. Max, still on Lucas’s shoulders, was cheering for herself until Lucas accidentally dropped her and got dunked as soon as she resurfaced.  Stan had managed to avoid getting dunked by Richie, although not for lack of trying, yet he had let himself get dragged into a splash fight that soon evolved into all thirteen of them trying to splash each other.  It was total chaos, and no one would have it any other way.  

It was starting to edge towards sunset, and not everyone was still in the water, but none of them made any motion to start leaving.  But even with most of the Losers still floating in the water, Richie found himself making his way along the shore to where the Party was chatting.  To where one member was sitting quietly, listening rather than speaking. Richie tapped Will on the shoulder, and when the smaller boy looked up, he motioned for Will to follow him.  Will looked back at his group, but decided that they were deep in conversation and he didn’t want to interrupt them, so he quickly got up and hurried after Richie’s long strides. He followed Richie into the woods, and it was only the sight of the other boy and the knowledge that he knew where they were going that stopped him from turning back once the others were out of his vision.  

“Richie?” he asked, seeing the taller boy leaning against a tree, seemingly nervous for the first time since Will had met him.  The look vanished as soon as Richie realized that Will had reached him, his eyes brightening as he grinned.

“Hey, Willicent, I just wanted to talk to you,” he said.  “And, uh, I didn’t know how much your friends knew, so I figured privacy was best.”

“How much my friends know about what?” Will asked, confused.  Richie hesitated, shrugging.

“Y’know, I mean-” he sighed, adjusting his glasses.  “Shit, never mind, I probably misread everything, Trashmouth missing his filter once again.  I’m gonna go fuckin’ cannonball onto Stan, can’t stop me dunking him if he doesn’t see me coming-”

“-Richie, what are you talking ab-”

“-you like guys,” Richie blurted hurriedly, his eyes widening as he realized that he said that.  Will froze, instinctively taking a step backward.

“I- what?” He asked, his voice barely a whisper.  Richie, also frozen, stared at Will with just as much worry hidden in his eyes.  

“I did not mean to say it like that, but I figured, y’know, like a band-aid, just gotta rip it off,” he started to ramble.  “I’m right, though, right? It’d be kind of embarrassing if I’m wrong, or just straight-up awful depending on just how wrong I was.  I don’t think I’m wrong, though, so tell me if I am before I make even more of an ass of myself.”

Will frowned, crossing his arms and not looking at Richie.  His voice was quiet and slightly scared. “Is it that obvious?”

Richie visibly sighed in relief, leaning back against the tree behind him.  

“Nah,” he said, waving off Will’s concerns.  “I just knew what to look for.”

“You knew…” Will trailed off.  “Are you…”

“Uh, yeah,” Richie pushed his glasses up again, averting his eyes.  “I just wanted to tell you some shit that we hadn’t covered yet about Derry, but it’s not very good.  How was Hawkins with...this kind of stuff?”

Will thought for a moment.  He felt himself relax in the knowledge that Richie was not only being the most serious Will had seen him, but that he seemed to genuinely want to help.

“Not the worst,” he answered.  “I got bullied just for people thinking I was gay, but they were pretty much all talk.  And our friend Steve has a friend who’s a lesbian, she’s pretty awesome.  She doesn’t tell people, but she said that the worst reaction she’s gotten was her friends leaving her, nothing violent.”

“Shit, okay,” Richie frowned.  “Well, Derry is, in fact, the worst.  In case you couldn’t tell from Peter’s lovely comments a few days ago, all seven of us get called queer and they don't care if it’s true or not.  Even with Bowers gone, who was by far the worst and was probably fully ready to kill me one of these days, those fuckers finding out they’re right would be really fucking bad.  I hate to be the one to tell you that, but I figured you had to know.”

“I gotta say, I’m kind of surprised that you’re the one telling me this,” Will admitted, feeling a shiver from the implication of Richie’s words.  Richie laughed.

“Yeah, I don’t blame you.  Usually the whole ‘real talk’ thing is done by, uh, literally anyone else except maybe Eddie.  But this is personal, and I practically just told the other Losers so I’m kind of on a roll, figured I might as well keep the train going,” Richie said, and this was a completely new Richie than anything else Will had seen.  He was trying to seem not uncomfortable, still smiling and bouncing slightly on his feet, but his eyes were anything but relaxed.  Will figured that since he had, in his own words, just told his other friends, it was still a little too fresh for him to be good at covering up his anxiety.  Will joined Richie in leaning against a tree, unwinding his arms from around his chest and sticking his hands in his pockets.  

“Well, you’re the first person I’ve ever told,” Will said.  “I think Dustin knows, but he’s never said anything to me about it and so I’ve never said anything either.  Max might have noticed too, but the others don’t know.”

Richie gave an exaggerated sniff, wiping a nonexistent tear from under his eye. 

“Oh, little Willy, I’m honored ,” he simpered.  Will laughed, shoving Richie lightly.

“Okay, ‘little Willy’ is the worst,” Will said.  “I actually miss Willicent.”

“Well, Willicent,” Richie winked, “if you need an ear to talk to, you can bet your bowl cut that you can talk to me.”

“Thanks, Richie,” Will smiled.  “Even if Derry sucks, it’s nice to know I’m not alone.”

“Yeah, I get it.  And if you wanted to, the Losers wouldn’t hate you if you told them,” Richie shrugged.  “No pressure, though. I waited for three years. They were only upset that I waited because it meant I was dealing with bullying that I knew was true, and dealing with it without them helping.”

There was a slightly awkward silence for a moment, as neither of them quite had anything more to say.  Will appreciated it, though, because it gave him a chance to ponder Derry. So far, he had heard nothing good.  It was laden with awful bullies, a kid had gone on a murder spree, and all the Losers had at least briefly mentioned violent encounters that they had before that other bully, Bowers, died.  Jonathan had met a few of the kids his age, and he had told Will that almost everyone mentioned that their future plans involved moving across the country. Jonathan hadn’t heard anything about Bowers or the murders from a year ago, and Will didn’t mention it, because some part of him didn’t want to leave.  He blamed the Losers, and the unexplainable draw that Will felt towards them. He got the sense that, like the Party, they could understand him in a way that other kids didn’t even try to. He knew that if he moved again, he wouldn’t find another group like them. And he got the feeling that that’s why none of them had left Derry either.  

“So…” Richie drew out the word, breaking the quiet.  “Mike, huh?”

Will flushed, earning a sly grin from Richie.  

“Yeah, uh, I-I mean,” he stammered, “I know, um, I know I just met him, but-”

“-Woah,” Richie interrupted, the grin on his face widening and the glint in his eyes growing devious.  “Woah, woah, woah. I was talking about my cousin. ”

Will’s face blazed red and Richie started cackling.

“Damn, you have a thing for Homeschool ?” He asked, his voice hushing to a loud, excited whisper.  “I mean, I get it, honestly. Is it the muscles? His dashing smile?  The lighthearted farm boy vibe? The fact that he is very good at carrying people in a bridal carry?  Do you just have a thing for the name Mike? I’ve heard of weirder fetishes.”

“ Richie !”  Will hissed, trying to rub the furious blush off his face.  “He’s just...he’s really nice, okay? And, yeah, sure, I did like my Mike for a while.  But he’s with El, and he’s happy, and he’s my best friend.  So I’ve been trying to get over him, and I think I finally have.”

“Well, shit, man,” Richie didn’t seem to realize that his smile had dropped as he looked off into the trees, “good for you, really.  That’s fuckin’ difficult.”

“Do you-”

“Will?” A call cut Will off, clearly coming from his Mike.  He sounded worried. “Will!”

“Mike?” Will called back.  “What’s wrong?”

“Will!” Mike came through the trees, followed by Dustin, and immediately looked relieved as he saw Will.  “We were starting to pack up and we saw you weren’t there, and we-” he noticed Richie was there “-we just, uh, we got worried.”

“Shit, I’m sorry,” Will said.  “I was just talking to Richie, I didn't mean to scare you guys.  I’m fine, though, I’m not lost.”

Something unspoken hung in the air that Richie didn’t understand.  It felt vaguely familiar, though. Mike pulled Will into a hug.

“Good,” he said.  “We should head back to the others, they were gonna lead us back to the bikes.  Go back with Dustin, I just want to talk to Richie for a sec.”

Will nodded, sent Richie a small smile, and got a wink in return.  Then he was gone, back through the trees with Dustin, and Mike was whirling on Richie.

“What the fuck, man?” He said, suddenly angry.  “We told you that Will went missing in the woods, and you go talk with him in the woods without telling anyone where you’re going?  What the fuck?”

“What, are you worried I’m gonna steal your best friend?” Richie asked, bristling.  “Because I already have six, dude. I know everyone wants a piece of me, but it’s not open season.”

“Are you fucking hearing yourself?” Mike asked, incredulous.  “We have a very good reason for worrying about Will, and you’re making jokes ?”

“I make jokes about everything, asshole, you’ve been around me for how many days now?” Richie shot back.  “I figured this was coming eventually, everyone gets fed up sooner or later and I could practically see the fuse burning down behind that perpetual fuckin’ sneer.  What am I, dogshit? Because it looks like you got some under your nose.”

“Yeah, everyone gets fed up because you don’t know how to shut up!” Mike said.  “Half your humor is talking about having sex with your friend’s moms, the other half is insulting your friends.  I don’t see why you’re mad at me for being worried about my best friend, it’s more than you seem to do for them.”

“Oh, I’m a bad friend?” Richie laughed, not even trying to hide his offense.  “I’m a bad fucking friend? I’m not the one who didn’t notice that Will joined us at the barrens after clearly having been talked down from a panic attack.”

“Oh bullshit,” Mike said.  “Will was right behind us.”

“Try again, Michael,” Richie glared at him.  “It was the better Mike who walked out of the woods with him.  You didn’t even notice you left him behind, did you? Wow, what a good best friend.”

“Shut the fuck up!” Mike hissed.  “We’d never leave Will behind. How the fuck do you even know if he was having a panic attack, huh?”

“How do I know?  Because I’ve had them, jackass!” Richie threw his arms out, barely missing hitting a tree.  “I have, we all fucking have, we all know the signs!”

“You’ve had panic attacks?” Mike asked, scoffing slightly.  “Because of what? The others I get, I mean, two of them have fucking killed people, but you?  What the fuck is giving you a panic attack?”

“Oh, hmm, let me think,” Richie exaggerated the miming of tapping his head and stroking his chin.  “Maybe the fact that my friends and I found a room of dead bodies? Or that we were attacked by a bully who was dead set on killing us?  Or maybe that I’ve lived a decent portion of my life knowing that a decent portion of this town wouldn’t care if I died, or even kill me themselves?  That if I don’t get the fuck out of this town, I will most likely end up dead in a ditch somewhere? Because I live in Derry fucking Maine, Homophobia Central, USA, where I deserve to be beaten to tar because god forbid I want to hold a boy’s hand ?” Richie was breathing heavily by the end of his rant, and Mike missed the flash of pure fear in his eyes as he realized what he had just said.  He had opened the floodgates with telling the Losers, and now he had to work on closing them again or his chilling prediction might just come true.  “So yeah, I know what the fuck a panic attack looks like, and I was just trying to make sure Will was doing okay, so get the fuck off my dick.”

Mike seemed torn between saying something and leaving, but he ultimately decided on cringing at Richie’s final remark.  

“Can you be anything but gross?” He asked, and Richie wasn’t sure if he was ignoring Richie’s confession or if he managed to not hear it.  

“I’m gross all the time, my warranty expired and I can’t be returned,” Richie replied.

“ God, you’re annoying,” Mike muttered.  Richie laughed.

“I’m annoying?  You think I don’t know that?  At least pick something I don’t get called three times a day already.”

“And yet you continue acting like a douche?” Mike shot back.  “Maybe people wouldn’t get fed up with you if you didn’t act like a five-year-old.”

“On the contrary, my dear Michael, because sometimes you just gotta accept that something’s true,” Richie argued.  “What do the bullies in Hawkins call you, huh? Do they mention the stick in your ass, because I’m pretty sure that's up there so deep even doctors couldn’t pry it out.  Living in Derry taught me one thing and that's that even if they don’t know it, assholes can hit the nail on the fucking head.”

“So, what, you spout bad sex jokes because bullies call you annoying so you might as well be?  That’s fucking stupid.”  

“Read between the fucking lines, dipshit, I don’t need to explain myself to you.”  Richie, although he was only an inch or so taller than Mike, did his best to tower over him.  “Why should I bother with other people when they’re gonna end up reacting just like you are, huh?  I don’t fucking need them.”

“So you decide to be an asshole?  Real mature,” Mike rolled his eyes.  

“Oh but I am an asshole,” Richie crossed his arms.  “I know exactly who I am, which I’m pretty fuckin’ sure is more than you can say.  I know what insults that get hurled at me are true, I know which ones are bullshit, and I know who’s really in my corner.  So call me anything, Michael. Call me annoying, call me an asshole, call me four-eyes, Trashmouth, Bucky Beaver, dumbass, freak, loser, fag .  I know it’s all true, you don’t fucking get to me and I couldn’t care less about your opinion.”

“God, what the fuck did I do to deserve this?” Mike muttered to no one, pinching the bridge of his nose.  Richie laughed.

“Oh, besides accuse me of being a shitty friend?  And insulting me to my face after pretending to not be bothered by me?  Yeah, I have no idea,” he said, sarcasm and bitterness laced in his voice.  Mike felt something snap. It had been building since he met Richie, but it had reached its breaking point the previous day and had been waiting for something to push Mike just a little more.  He couldn’t stop the words that left his mouth.

“No, Richie!” He hissed, pissed off and speaking without thinking.  “What the fuck did I do to deserve you as a twin?”

Richie, for the first time since Mike had met him, froze.  His foot stopped bouncing, his jaw dropped slightly, his fingers dug into his arms.  He looked almost catatonic.  

“ What ?” He asked, his voice making Mike reel back with just how much venom was hidden in it.  Mike felt the anger drain from his body, replaced with the same cold chill that had grown when he found that newspaper.  Mike didn’t answer, unsure of what to even say. He hadn’t meant to say that. He hadn’t meant to break the news to Richie in anger, but he just got so fed up.  He knew, somewhere, that there was more to Richie than he presented, there had to be or the Losers wouldn’t brush off his jokes so easily, but Mike just couldn’t see it and it pissed him off.  But he didn’t mean to do that .  

“I, uh,” he floundered for what to say, for how to tell Richie what he had found out.  

“What the fuck does that mean, Mike?” Richie’s voice was hard, angry, and brittle.  Richie suddenly succeeded in towering over Mike, with Mike realizing that he felt smaller, his hands in his pockets so Richie couldn’t see his clenched fists.  

“I found a newspaper, at the library,” Mike started, his voice uncertain.  His next words were barely a whisper. “The year we were born, your mom expected twins.”

Richie didn’t say anything.  His mouth snapped shut, his eyes boring holes into Mike’s.  Mike had never once associated Richie with silence, but the quiet that now surrounded them was suffocating.  Mike waited for Richie to say something, to yell at him for keeping this a secret as long as he did, a whole day of knowing without telling him.  To say something disgusting, like ‘guess I can’t fuck your mom anymore, ‘cus she’s mine too’, then Mike could grimace and say that he couldn’t say that anyway because he would still be talking about his aunt.  But the silence persisted, the two boys staring each other down as the night rose around them and darkened the trees.  

Then, wordlessly, Richie turned around and walked away.

Chapter Text

Mike arrived back at Bill’s house late, having stared in stunned confusion as Richie left him in the woods.  He had started running after him, but Richie’s bike was gone by the time Mike got to his own. He pedaled as fast as he could, thankfully remembering the way back to Bill’s house, and he saw Richie walking inside as he was turning into Bill’s driveway.  He dropped his bike on the grass, not bothering with the kickstand, and rushed after him into the house. The scene he walked in on, though, was Richie walking right past everyone else and into the study adjacent to the living room, shutting the door behind him.  Mike stood in the entrance hallway as everyone else watched Richie leave. The study door shut with a click, and almost immediately, all six other Losers turned to face Mike.  

“What the fuck did you say to him?” Eddie hissed, his voice quiet but angry.  Mike held his hands up.

“I- nothing!” He protested, also whispering.  It seemed to be an unspoken rule that Richie was not to hear what was going on in the living room.  

“Bullshit,” Bev said.  Mike was shocked to see that all the Losers looked pissed.  Eddie was staring Mike down, rage coiled in his short body, Bev was glaring at him with her arms crossed, Bill was sitting on the couch with his leg shaking and his eyes flicking from Mike to the closed door.  Their Mike didn’t look angry, but more disappointed, Ben was looking concernedly at the door that Richie had vanished through, and Stan was looking downright livid. Mike was...confused. What did he do that warranted this much anger?  Sure, Richie was upset, but he would cool off! It wasn’t that big of a deal! And anyway...a small part of Mike whispered rudely that at least Richie was quiet now.  

“What did you s-say?” Bill repeated.  “We know you were the last to t-talk to him.”

“Why do you think I did something?” Mike tried to defend himself.  Eddie scoffed, rolling his eyes.

“You think this is normal?” He asked, waving his arm at the closed door behind them all.  “You think he just fucking gets like this over anything? You don’t know anything about him at all, and you want to pretend that you did fucking nothing?”

“I have seen Richie in some shitty situations,” Bev said, her face humorless.  “He has joked his way through it so that the rest of us didn’t feel shitty. I’ve seen him like this exactly twice, including right now.”

“I’ve only seen it th-three times,” Bill added.  “You said s-something serious.”

Mike didn’t know what to say.  He didn’t feel right telling everyone else what he found before he actually talked to Richie about it, before they had a conversation where they weren’t insulting each other.  

“He’s surprised because he thought we’d be happy,” Stan said, matter-of-fact and full of anger.  He wasn’t looking at Mike so much as looking through him.  “He thought we’d be happy that he’s being quiet.”

“What?” Mike protested, despite that very thought having crossed his mind only minutes earlier.  

“You think we want him to shut up?” Eddie hissed.  “Richie annoys the shit out of me and I tell him to shut up on an hourly basis, but he knows none of us mean it.”

“We don’t love him despite his personality,” Bev said.  “We love him because of it, however unlikely that may seem to you.”

“He’s a dumbass sometimes, but he’s our dumbass.  So, one more time,” Stan said sternly.  “What the fuck did you say to him?”

Mike sighed.  “I don’t think I should tell you.  Not before I talk to Richie about it.”

The Losers exchanged a look.  Then, as if acting as one body, they turned back to Mike.

“Only if he w-wants to talk to you,” Bill said.  Mike nodded.

“Yeah, of course.”

The conversation tapered off into an uncomfortable silence, with Mike going to awkwardly sit next to El with the feeling of all six pairs of eyes burning into his back.  There were no games that night. Everyone just lay down before midnight had even rolled around, and fell asleep in silence.  

The Losers were worried.  They had wanted to go check on Richie before they went to sleep, but the door to the study had been locked, and Richie wasn’t responding to their soft knocks.  They all slept fitfully, always feeling disrupted when one of the seven was upset. Their connection went deeper than just friendship, and the physical and emotional separation from Richie was impacting all of them.  

They woke up in the morning to the smell of breakfast and the sound of movement in the kitchen.  Stan frowned, looking around to notice that all six of them were still in the living room, and all six of the Party were blearily waking up as well.  He felt something sink in his gut as he realized that Richie hadn’t woken anyone up. He wasn’t feeling any better, then. The Losers filed into the kitchen, seeing Richie silently plating food.  He looked over his shoulder as they entered, and they saw the lack of emotion in his eyes. A smile tugged at his lips as he saw them, but it didn’t reach his eyes. They all tried to give him comfort, still not knowing what it was that was making him upset, and not knowing how much they were helping.  Bev kissed his cheek, Eddie stood on his toes to ruffle his hair, Bill put a solid hand on his shoulder, Ben hugged him from behind, Mike put an arm around his shoulder and pulled him into a small side-hug, and Stan rested his forehead briefly against the side of Richie’s head. But it took another hour for Richie to leave the kitchen and re-enter the living room.  

He sat down on the couch, looked at Mike across the room, and leaned on his knees.  

“Talk,” he said.  Mike started, surprised.  

“I- here?” He asked, looking at the eleven people in the room with them.  Richie nodded.

“You guys can leave if you want,” he said, talking to the rest of the Party, “but the Losers stay.”

“Okay,” Mike frowned, and none of the Party moved to leave.  “So, uh, I don’t really know what to say.”

“Well, tell them what you told me,” Richie said, his voice still flat.  

“I found a newspaper from ‘76 at the library,” Mike started, hesitant, “and it said that Margaret Tozier was expecting twins.”

Mike and Richie both ignored the hushed gasps that surrounded them, but Richie took comfort in the proximity of the other six Losers.  

“Why were you looking for that?” Richie asked.  Mike frowned.

“What?  I just found it.” Even as he said it, he could hear that his voice wasn’t sure.  

“You just happened to stumble on a newspaper from 1976?” Richie asked.  “Yeah, I call bullshit. My mom said something, didn’t she?”

“Your mom?” Mike asked, not wanting to talk about what Maggie had said.  Richie rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, you go to my house, go to the library the next day, then this shit happens.  I’m not stupid. What did she say?”

“Well, uh, she didn’t think I was you,” Mike started, knowing exactly what he wanted to avoid saying.  “She knew who I was almost immediately.”

Richie didn’t say anything, waiting for Mike to continue, just knowing that there was more to the story.  Mike sighed.

“She was drunk, man, what she said doesn’t matter.  I just got a weird feeling,” he said, but Richie shook his head and stood up.  

“No, I know my mom.  I’ve lived with her and my dad and so much alcohol for years now, I know that she doesn’t act like a ‘normal’ drunk.  She gets honest. She has never once lied while she was drunk, not that I can ever remember.” Richie hid his shaking hand in his pocket.  “What did she say ?”

“She said...she said that seeing me was hard,” Mike said, knowing that the words Maggie Tozier had said were never meant to be heard by Richie.  But that Richie wouldn’t let it go without Mike saying them. Mike knew that if he were in Richie’s position, he’d want to know. “She said that...she always knew she picked the wrong one.”

Silence.  Mike felt his throat close as Richie stared at him, not angry at him , but hurt nonetheless.  

“She said that?” Richie asked, Mike unable to read his voice.  “She said that to you? Was that it?”

“Richie…” Bev started, but Richie held up a hand to stop her.  Mike swallowed.  

“Yeah,” he said.  “That’s it.”

“Don’t fucking lie to me,” Richie said harshly.  “Not right now.”

Mike hesitated, but Richie stared him down until he relented.  His voice was barely a breath.

“She said, ‘twin little angels, how was I supposed to know I picked the disappointment’.” Mike breathed, feeling the tension in the air thicken at his words.  Richie’s jaw clenched.  

“The disappointment,” Richie repeated, spitting the words like they were poison.  “Yeah, that sounds like her. Straight A’s weren’t enough, she needed a perfect little son to handle the house while she and Went drink themselves to death.  I’m not even surprised, you know. This makes so much fucking sense.”

“Richie,” Bill said, starting to stand up, reaching out to offer comfort, but his hand was slapped away by Richie.  

“ No , Bill!” Richie shouted, raising his voice for the first time.  “I’m sick and fucking tired of being everyone’s fucking disappointment!  I always knew my mom wished I was someone else, I just never realized that person actually existed !” 

“What are you talking about?” Mike #1 asked, concern clouding his eyes.  Richie gripped his hair, trying to ground himself. He forced himself to ignore the Party in the room, focusing on the Losers so that he could actually answer them.  Some part of him was screaming at him to just let it go, just answer with a joke, brush it all off and go back to normal. But Richie was fucking tired. He was in a room with the only six people who he felt comfortable enough around to be genuine, who after that summer had told him that he didn’t have to act around them because they loved him.  So, ignoring the Party so that he didn’t clam up, he shook his head.  

“I’ve told you guys some of the shit she’s said, Went too, but…” He paused, laughing bitterly.  “She’s mentioned occasionally that she wished she could just ‘switch’ me. She’d say cryptic shit like ‘I wonder how he’s doing’ or ‘why can’t you be more like him’ and I assumed she meant Went!  But no! She meant you !” He flung his hand out to point at Mike.  “She didn’t even know who you grew up to be, but she was so fucking certain that whoever you were was better than me .”

He was breathing heavily, his outstretched arm shaking, his eyes stinging.  He noticed motion, saw El shifting to watch him and Mike closer, and felt sick to his stomach.  Before the Party saw him cry, he turned and dashed to the stairs. Mike was left standing in the middle of the circle, eyes wide and eyebrows furrowed, a hand raised as if to catch Richie before he ran.  

“E-Eddie, Stan,” Bill said, his own heart hurting along with Richie’s, “one of you go talk to him.  You two are the best at calming him down.”

“Eddie,” Stan said, his jaw clenched.  “You go.”

“I- what?” Eddie started, having been practically frozen in shock.  “Why me?”

“ Because ,” Stan said through gritted teeth.  “I’ll just make things worse. If I go up there, I don’t even know what I’d say, because the only thing I want to do is go give Maggie Tozier a fucking piece of my mind.”

“Eddie,” Bev said lightly, concern and unshed tears clouding her voice, “a lot of us understand bad parents.  But you understand bad moms in a way that I know I don’t.”

Eddie hesitated, but not because he didn’t want to help Richie.  He hated seeing Richie like this, knowing that up in Bill’s room, Richie was not only upset over the situation but also upset over breaking down in front of people outside of the Losers.  He understood Stan’s reaction, and he was certain that if the news had finished sinking in, he would also be pissed. As it stood, Eddie was still in a state of shock, but he stood nonetheless and made his way to the stairs.  

From the living room, the eleven of them listened in near silence, hearing as Bill’s door creaked open and let Eddie inside.  They couldn’t hear what was being said.  

“Poor Richie,” Ben breathed, sympathetic tears falling down his cheeks.  Mike #1 reached over to help wipe them away despite the trails on his own face.  Footsteps sounded through the floor, back and forth.  

“I h-haven’t seen him that upset s-since-” Bill hesitated for a moment, remembering their company “-since Eddie’s a-arm broke.”  The only difference was that deep down, both Bill and Richie had known that their fight wouldn’t last forever. They had too much history, and even with the emotions riding as high as they did, Richie would never leave Bill to face that clown alone.  But this? Richie met Mike a few days ago, not six years ago. This time, neither Bill nor any of the others knew how long this would hurt Richie. They really only saw Richie upset in the dead of night, when either he or someone else had woken up from a nightmare and the feelings came flooding back.  It was the morning now, the sun streaming through the windows and offering no warmth. Nothing here could be brushed away with soft, muttered words, a kiss on the forehead, and the urging to go back to sleep. This felt raw and real in a way that their nightmares often didn’t when morning came, even if they knew that they were more memory than dream.  A member of their family was in pain, and they had no idea how to fix it.

If any of the Party found it odd that Richie had apparently gotten this upset over a broken arm, no one mentioned it.  No one had anything to say.  The silence had dropped back over the room like fog.  Even the Party was watching in a dumbfounded, confused, concerned silence.  They had only known Richie for less than a week, but anyone would be concerned after the revelation that had just been dropped.  The air in the living room was tense, fraught with a clash of emotions, and it flared red as a shout was heard from upstairs, loud and angry and broken.

“Yeah, well at least you know your mom fucking wants you!” Richie shouted, his voice carrying through the floorboards as clear as day.  Everyone froze, the words hitting to their cores, and the silence began to fracture, growing brittle until Stan broke it by standing abruptly.  

“He’s right, you know,” he said, his anger audible in his voice, his arms crossed.  

“What do you mean?” Ben asked.  Stan scowled at the floor as if his gaze alone could set the carpet on fire.

“Sonia Kaspbrak is a raging bitch , and it’d be a whole lot better if Eddie never had to go back there, but at least he has that place if he ever needs it,” he said, rage simmering.  “If, for whatever awful reason, he had to go there because he had nowhere else, she would always open that door for him and our only worry would be getting him back out.  Now? Now I’m scared for Richie to step foot in that house again because his parents don’t give enough of a shit, they don’t give a single shit, and any day could be the day they pull the rug from under him and kick him out.”  He paused, running a hand through his hair. “And, fuck , I feel like an asshole for saying that about Eddie because I know he hates his house, but I also know Richie better than his own parents do, and I know that he has good memories.  Good memories that are now fucking ruined. And I don’t want to know what he’s thinking about right now because it’s just going to make me want to punch Margaret and Wentworth even more than I already do.”

“Stan-” the Loser’s Mike started to say something, his eyebrows furrowing in his sadness, but Stan kept going.  He had the floor, and he had no intention of stopping until he had said what he wanted to.

“You know what’s worse, though?” Stan said, his voice breaking briefly.  “We fucking knew. All of us, to some degree, knew that his parents were shitty and what did we do?  What did we do , Bill?”

Bill startled at being called out, but he recovered quickly and leaned on his knees, watching Stan intently.  “We s-supported him, Stan. We d-did what we c-could.”

“We did nothing, Bill,” Stan corrected him sternly.  “If we really were supporting him, we would have done something to get him out of there, before this happened.  If we- if I-” his voice broke and he fell back onto the couch.  “I should’ve helped him.”

“ Stan ,” Bill said, using the voice that had cemented him as the leader of the group.  Stern, affectionate, and unignorable. Like a lighthouse beam piercing the fog, a gust of warm air in the middle of winter.  Stan’s head raised to meet Bill’s eyes, red around the edges and welling with tears. “We did all w-we could.”

“He knows that he’ll always have us, Stan,” Bev agreed.  “When he needed us, we were there. That’s what’s important.”

Stan sat in silence, ruminating and simmering, and the next words he spoke were merely exhausted.  Tired beyond his years, drained of his anger, for now.

“Here, or my place, Bill?” He asked, and Bill didn’t need to ask for clarification.  He just looked up at the ceiling and sighed.

“Yours,” he said.  “I don’t w-want to make G-Georgie upset.  He loves Richie.”

“I think he already knows what’s going on, Bill,” Ben said softly.  “Richie wasn’t exactly quiet.”

Bill wondered where Georgie was.  He wasn’t in Bill’s room, otherwise Richie would have picked a different room.  But Ben was right. No matter where Georgie was upstairs, he would have heard Richie.  

“Yeah,” he admitted.  “But I think it’s b-best if he goes with you.”  He looked to Stan, who nodded.  

“I’ll call my parents,” Stan said, getting up off the couch and leaving the room to its silence.  Another minute passed, and Eddie reentered the room. Ten pairs of eyes locked onto him, but he looked right at Ben.

“Benny,” he said, motioning behind him back towards the stairs.  “Your turn.”

“Of course,” Ben said, immediately getting up and leaving through the same door that Eddie just entered.  Eddie dropped onto the couch between Bev and Mike, both of them scooting closer to lean into him. They knew that Richie would be joining them again soon, now that Eddie had sent Ben up.  Ben was good with physical comfort, like hugs or a shoulder to cry on. He wasn’t good with anger, though, which meant that Eddie had managed to calm Richie down. Eddie, conversely, wasn’t great with crying, he thought that snot was gross and every Loser knew it, which meant that none of them were offended when he offered words of support instead of hugs if someone was crying.  There were exceptions, of course, but it helped that Ben loved the comfort he gave and loved supporting the people he loved. Eddie loved it too, he just had a different way of support.  

“How’s he doing?” Bev asked quietly.  Eddie frowned.

“How do you think?  Shitty, and for good reason,” he answered.  Bill sighed.

“I think it’s b-best if you all go home tonight,” he said.  “R-Richie needs to h-head with Stan.”

“Are we just...gonna ignore this?” Max asked, drawing the attention back to the Party for the first time since Richie stormed off.  The Loser’s Mike answered.

“He just needs time,” he said.  “Going with Stan and having a room somewhere that’s not his house will help.”  He sounded sure, surer than the Party thought he could be. Maybe he was sounding more confident than he actually felt, but Mike felt it inside himself that Richie would be okay.  All the Losers did, but Mike was one of the best at sounding sure of himself when it came to their bond. The connection between them wasn’t definite, it wasn’t distinct or certain.  More...amorphous, omnipresent, and in need of discernment. It pushed them towards feelings or decisions, but was fallible. However, they had rarely been wrong about each other yet.  

Stan came back into the room with a slightly more relaxed posture, some of the exhaustion having seeped out of his body.

“I barely had to explain,” he said.  “They’re setting up the guest room now.”

“We’ll go get his stuff from his room once he’s ready,” Bev decided, a determined glint in her eyes.  

A few minutes later, there was a creaking on the stairs and everyone turned to look.  Ben ushered Richie back into the room, not stepping back as Richie got dogpiled by his real family, encasing him in a group hug that toppled them backward onto Bill’s floor with a thud.  A quiet ‘ oof ’ was heard as five bodies landed on top of Richie, but other than that there was no speaking.  They didn’t need to speak. One of the easiest things to feel through their connection was the love that they felt for each other.  They had to actively try in order to stop that feeling from being broadcast. Richie didn’t know whose shoulder he was pressing his face into, but it didn’t matter.  Just like he knew it didn’t matter if any stray tears started to dampen the fabric. He was where he belonged. He felt Bev gently remove his glasses so that they didn’t break, and someone that he guessed was Ben was rubbing his shoulder.  Eddie’s face was pressed into his collarbone, and someone was running their fingers through his hair. Everyone was preoccupied, distracted, or just not paying enough attention, and no one noticed as Stan lightly pressed a kiss to the side of Richie’s head.  Richie didn't even seem to feel it.  

Richie was set free after a few minutes, but he sat still surrounded by the Losers until Stan held out his hand.  

“C’mon, Rich, we should get you settled in,” he said, his voice soft.  “My mom should have the guest room ready soon.”

Richie looked at Stan, readjusting his glasses on his nose.  “Your guest room?” He asked. Stan nodded.

“You’re not going back there, Richie.  We’ll make sure of it.” Stan’s voice gained the same sharp edge that it had when he was threatening Maggie Tozier.  A grin flickered onto Richie’s face.  

“You didn’t have to make up the guest room, Stan,” Richie said, “I can just sleep with your mom.”

Too relieved to be annoyed, the Losers all tried to stifle their laughter, but failed miserably judging by the surprised but slightly delighted look that grew on Richie’s face.  Richie took Stan’s hand and let himself be pulled back to his feet. As he stood, the smile flickered, clearly hard for him to keep up. Stan lightly tugged him towards the door, hoping that a nice meal made by his mom and a full night’s rest in a house that didn't reek of alcohol would do Richie good.  That maybe tomorrow, his grin wouldn’t look so heavy. Richie gave each of the other Losers another hug before leaving with Stan, earning quite a few cheek or forehead kisses as well, his quips seeming strained to the untrained eye. None of the Losers could tell what the Party thought of this, those six standing almost forgotten in the corner, quietly packing their things to head to Will’s house.  

They all watched as Richie rode away with Stan, subdued and taut, drained and tense at the same time.  Too quiet for them to relax. With two gone, even if it was only temporary, the others split off. The Party left with a hushed, awkward goodbye, the remaining Losers assuring them that once Richie was up to it, they would stop by to hang out again.  Then Bev, Ben, and Mike left too, riding off in three different directions. Eddie hesitated before leaving, knowing that his mom would be unbearable with how long Eddie had been gone. He was lucky the police hadn’t been called, not that they’d do anything.  But eventually, he left too, with a quick hug and a small wave goodbye to Bill.  

And then Bill’s house was empty.  With only absent parents, the ghost of a brother, and the remnants of an abandoned sleepover to keep him company.  

Chapter Text

Knocking.  Hurried, annoying knocking was what woke Mike Wheeler up on Thursday morning.  He was groggy, despite the sunlight streaming through the windows, and he seemed to be the only one woken up by the incessant rapping on the door.  Even El, with her almost superhuman hearing, was still sleeping soundly with her face tucked in a couch cushion. She and Max were sharing the couch, leaving the boys to roll out the sleeping bags that had gone unused at Bill’s house.  He groaned and stood up, stepping over Dustin to make his way to the door. It was earlier than he was planning on waking up, the clock read 9 am, but whoever was outside was determined. Then, swinging the door open with a tired glare on his face, he froze.  

“Richie?” He asked.  He hadn’t expected to see Richie so soon, especially not with such a determined look on his face.  But his hands were in his pockets, his lips pursed, and his glasses skewed as if he had put them on in a rush.  Stan was standing off to the side, watching Richie carefully.  

“Michael,” Richie nodded in response.  “We’re calling Auntie Karen.”

“Wait, what?” Mike’s attention snapped back to Richie right as he was giving Stan a slightly awkward wave.  “Why?”

Richie raised his eyebrows over his glasses.

“Would you rather go ask dear old Maggie for the truth?” He asked.  “Be my fucking guest.”

“No, no, you’re right.” Mike frowned, sighing briefly.  “Come on in, everyone else is still asleep, but Will’s phone is in his kitchen.”

“I’ll wait with them to make sure no one bothers you after they wake up,” Stan offered.

“Thanks, Stanny,” Richie said, clapping Stan on the back as they entered behind Mike.  Stan split off as he saw the others splayed out in the living room, and Richie continued with Mike into the kitchen.  Mrs. Byers was still asleep too, along with Jonathan, but they would probably both be awake soon. It was unspoken that they both wanted privacy for this conversation.  Mike took the phone, but hesitated before dialing. He knew what answer they would get, he saw the newspaper, but he still didn’t fully want to hear it.  He had to, though. He had to know what the fuck was going on, and he knew Richie did too.  So slowly, carefully, he dialed his home number, feeling a pit grow in his gut as it began to ring.  

Richie was tapping his foot on the ground, nervous energy flooding from him as his fingers played pattern after pattern on the kitchen table.  The knowledge that Stan was right in the other room helped a bit, but at the moment it was just him and Mike, with the only noise being the ringing of the phone.  It seemed to drag on into infinity, toying with them, and Richie felt like screaming. Just to do something .  He didn’t know if he felt betrayed, envious, angry or distraught, but whatever he felt it was intense.  And he hated it.  

With a soft click, the phone was answered.  Richie froze.  

“Wheeler residence,” A woman’s voice came through the line, and even though Richie had never heard it before, he knew it was his aunt.  Mike frowned.

“Hey, it’s me,” he said.  He wasn’t sure how to feel about any of this besides angry, and until he figured it out, he found that the word ‘mom’ felt wrong in his mouth.  

“Oh, Michael!  How are you, is everything okay?” Karen immediately picked up on the flatter tone of Mike’s voice.  

“Richie is here with me,” he said, avoiding her question.

“Hi Auntie Karen,” Richie said, leaning back in the chair.  

“Oh hello Richard, it’s great to hear from you,” Karen said.  “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you, I don’t even know if you remember.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Richie muttered, too quiet for the phone to pick it up.  Then he raised his voice to say, “It’s just Richie, Auntie Karen. Only my parents call me Richard.”

“We wanted to talk to you about something,” Mike said.  There was a pause before Karen answered.

“About what, Mike?” She asked.  

“I haven’t been staying at Richie’s house,” Mike started, “we’ve all been staying at one of his friend’s houses along with his other friends.  I’ve only seen his mom once since I’ve been here. And she said something weird.”

“She’s always said weird things to me, but when she said the same thing to Mikey here…” Richie trailed off.  Neither Richie nor Mike were looking at each other, unsure how they were supposed to feel about this. Especially not given the way that they found out.  

“What did she say?” Karen asked.  Mike didn’t miss the slight hesitation in her voice.  

“I think you know.”

“What does that mean, Mike?” 

“It means, I think you know ,” Mike repeated.  “It’s true, isn’t it?”

“Is what true, Michael?” Karen insisted.  Mike leaned forward onto the table, as if Karen could see the rising anger in him.  

“The real reason why Richie and I look so alike, yet neither of us knew the other even existed.  I found a newspaper, mom ,” he said.  “Aunt Maggie had twins.”

Silence.  Then-

“... oh ,” Karen’s voice was soft.  Mike seemed to slump, dropping back into his chair like his strings had been cut.

“So it is true,” he said.  “You lied to me.”

“We were going to tell you two-”

“- when ?” Mike interrupted.  “You didn’t even tell us before we first met each other!” 

“This wasn’t expected, Michael!” Karen said, distress beginning to enter her voice.  “I haven’t even thought about Derry in years, I never anticipated Joyce moving there of all places.  With such short notice, and with you trying to handle Will moving, I didn't want to pile this on too.”

“When were you going to tell me?”

“We had planned to tell you both when you turned eighteen,” Karen said.  “But I suspected even then that it would be me telling you , and you contacting Richard.  Maggie never did have the best memory, even for important things.  Although I admit that this had managed to slip my mind until I heard Joyce was moving there.”

“Eighteen?” Mike repeated, dumbstruck.  “You were waiting eighteen years to tell me I have a brother?  You didn’t think that was something I’d want to know sooner ?”

“I made a promise, Michael,” Karen defended herself.  “I made a promise to my sister .  If you had seen her, you would understand.  She was so scared when she found out she was having twins.  She was barely ready for one child, Wentworth wasn’t much better, and she was scared that she couldn’t handle having two children.”

Richie scoffed lightly.  

“No offense, Auntie Karen, but Maggie wasn’t able to handle one child either,” he said.  “I’m surprised she was sober when you talked to her.”

“Richard, I-”

“-It’s Richie , Auntie Karen,” Richie repeated.  He heard Karen sigh slightly.

“ Richie , I’m sorry.  Maggie never made any effort to stay in touch after we parted ways, and I should have made it in her stead but I didn’t and I’m not sure why.  Regardless, I never managed to see how she did as a mother,” she said. “Maggie trusted me to take care of you, Mike. She told me to care for you as my own son, and I did.  I do .  You’re my son, Mike.”

“But I’m not, am I?” Mike shot back.  “My mom is apparently an alcoholic in some middle-of-nowhere Maine town, who looked me in the eyes and simultaneously praised me while insulting the son she raised!  My sisters are my cousins, my cousin is my brother, so who the fuck am I?”

Then, before Karen could speak, Mike hung up the phone.  

He collapsed back into the chair, pinching the bridge of his nose and curling his shoulders in.  

“ Shit ,” he said emphatically.  He didn’t see so much as feel Richie nod.  

“Shit indeed,” he said, the humor in his voice sounding much more forced than usual.  “How come you got the mom that actually seems to care?”

“Does she, though?  She should’ve just told me,” Mike said.  His eyes were unfocused as he stared at a point on the opposite wall.  “Nancy and I finally stopped fighting over every little thing, and now I find out she’s not even my sister.  My mom isn’t my fucking mom.”

“Dude,” Richie said, his sharp tone knocking Mike out of his slight stupor.  “Fuck that.”

“What?” Mike asked, startled.  Richie rolled his eyes.

“Would you rather think of Maggie as your mom?  Hell, I’d rather pick Karen over her any day.  Maggie is as much my mom as she is yours, which is to say, jack shit.”

“But...she is our mom,” Mike said again.  “That’s the whole point of this shit, we were both lied to about our family.”

“Fuck family, man!” Richie said, adjusting his glasses when they slid down his nose at his outburst.  “Maggie and Wentworth aren’t my family. They’re my parents, sure, they’re my blood family, but that doesn’t matter because they suck!  The Losers are my family, Mike. You can choose your fucking family.”

Mike hesitated, thinking for a moment.  His eyes found the phone, lying silent on the table.  He was angry, sure, and he wasn’t quite ready to forgive her, but...he shouldn’t have hung up like that.  Richie was right. He would much rather have Karen as his mom than Maggie. He wondered briefly if Nancy knew.  She probably didn’t. He felt a little bad for hoping that she would be just as blindsided as he was.

He reached out and picked up the phone again.  Richie leaned back and watched as he redialed the number, and this time it barely rang at all before Karen answered.  Richie couldn’t help but be reminded of so many times he had called his home phone just to hear it ring and ring and ring until it finally clicked to voicemail.  Not once had it been picked up, but he had kept hope for so long. One of the times, he had just been caught after detention by Bowers. He seemed to like using Richie like a punching bag, and it just so happened that none of the others had been able to walk with Richie after detention that day.  Eddie had to go home to his mom, Bill had to go pick Georgie up and take him home since his dad was on a work trip, and Stan’s dad had needed his help in the synagogue. Richie had eventually snuck back to the school after he managed to kick Henry in the shin so hard that the older boy doubled over and gave him the chance to run, his own ankle sprained and painful with every hurried step.  He found an empty classroom to call his house, hoping his mom could drive to the school to pick him up. But it just rang.  

He didn’t go home that day.  Instead, he had limped alongside his bike all the way to Eddie’s house, knowing that Eddie would be in his room, sequestered away from his mom, and that Eddie would help him ice his ankle.  That was the last time he had tried to ask his mom for help in anything. His dad wasn’t any better.

Here, though, Karen picked up the phone with the obvious sound of tears clouding her voice.  Richie tried to ignore the bitter feeling that began to well inside him.  

“Michael?  Mike, is that you?” She asked.  Mike sighed.

“Yeah.  Yeah, mom, it’s me,” he said.  

“I’m sorry, Mike.  You too, Richie,” she said.  “I shouldn’t have held my promise to Maggie over your feelings.  I should have told you as soon as you were old enough to understand.”

“It’s...it’s okay, mom,” Mike said, the vitriol having faded from his voice.  He wasn’t fully calm, but he wasn’t yelling. “I’m still mad, but I didn’t mean what I said.  You’re my mom.”

He found that he meant it.  The memory running on loop in his head was one that he thought of often.  But not this part of it. He usually remembered nighttime, the moon overhead, its light drowned out by the flashing red and blue of the cop cars that surrounded the lake.  The splashing of the men as they carried a soaked stretcher out of the water. The small, motionless body that rested upon it. The similar looks of stricken horror and heartbreak on Dustin and Lucas’s faces.  El’s stunned shock, her disbelief, his rage. And then, when the rage had burned, the deepest sorrow he had ever felt. Usually, the memory stopped as he was riding away on his bike with his back turned to El and a determination that it was her fault.  But now he remembered riding home with the tears clouding his vision. And he remembered collapsing into his mom’s arms as the dam broke and he grieved his best friend. She was his mom. He was angry, but he wanted her to be his mom.  

He heard Karen sniff, and he looked out the corner of his eyes to see Richie staring at the woodgrain like it held a secret he needed to find.  There was an emptiness behind his eyes, and he didn’t seem to notice Mike looking at him. Mike had the feeling that this expression wouldn’t exist if he did.  

“You’ll always be my son, Mike,” Karen assured him.  “And Richie?”

Richie glanced up to look at the phone, and all traces of the melancholic expression Mike had witnessed were gone in an instant.  If he hadn’t seen it for himself, he would never have thought Richie could make that expression.  

“Yeah, Auntie K?” He asked, resting his hand on his chin like the poster boy for nonchalance.  Only the insistent bouncing of his leg gave him away.  

“When I spoke to Maggie and told her that Mike and his friends would be staying there...I didn’t actually talk much with her,” Karen started.  “Just enough to make sure that she was alright with Mike visiting, that she would be okay. I should have noticed that she might not have been...fully sober.  And I’m sorry that her sobriety is apparently a rare occurrence. She told me that she wanted to be a good mother to the son that she kept, that she and Went had wanted a family.  I’m not sure what happened, but I’m sorry that I never found out she had failed.”

Richie leaned forward onto the table, his leg’s movements beginning to shake the entire thing.  He wanted to say something, but even his many accents had left his head. Karen continued.

“Knowing now that Maggie...well, knowing now the type of mother that she turned out to be,” she started, “and how I am assuming that Wentworth is not much better,” Richie looked about to interrupt, but Karen powered through, “I would be happy to think of you as my son as well.”

“I-oh,” Richie said, staring at the phone.  He seemed blindsided.  

“You are Mike’s brother, after all,” Karen continued.  “If you want to, you can think of me as your mother. If not, that’s alright.”

“ Oh ,” Richie whispered, too soft for the phone to pick up on.  Then he cleared his throat. “Uh, thanks Auntie Karen. I’ll, uh, keep that in mind.”

“I think we’re gonna go, mom,” Mike said, reaching out to take the phone.  “I’ll talk to you when I get back on Saturday.”

“Oh, alright,” Karen said, “and Mike?”

“Yeah?”

“I really am sorry,” she said again.  “I should have told you years ago.”

“I know,” Mike said.  “Bye, mom.”

“Goodbye Mike, Richie.”

The phone hung up with an almost deafening click.  The room was silent for another minute, until Richie grew antsy.  

“So you forgive her, then?”

Mike scoffed slightly.  

“No.  Not fully, anyway,” he said.  “I’m still mad at her. But you’re right.  She is my mom.  And, I guess, kind of yours now too.”

“I guess,” Richie said.  

“She might even be willing to move you away from Maggie if you-”

“-No,” Richie shook his head.  “I’m not leaving here.”

“I thought you hated this town?” Mike asked, confused.  Richie let out a short laugh.

“Of fucking course I do, man, Derry sucks,” he said.  “But I’m not leaving here until all us Losers are ready to ditch together.  I’m not leaving without them.”

“I’m sure they’d understand, though?” Mike frowned.  Richie shook his head again.

“Of course they would, but no.  We gotta stick together.” He remembered the fear in Bev’s eyes as she knocked frantically on Bill’s door after she got back into town with her aunt.  The way she threw herself into his arms, hugging him tightly as soon as he opened the door, crashing the first sleepover the Losers had thrown since she’d left.  It was almost as if she had waited until they were together before coming back. Or maybe somehow, the Losers had known she’d be coming. She had sat in the circle, wiping the stray tears on her face, and stared at them like she was memorizing their faces.

“I forgot you,” she started, her voice shaking with confusion and traces of fear.  Richie chuckled nervously.

“Wow, feeling the love here, Marsh,” he said.  “How could you forget this face?”

“Beep beep, Rich,” she said immediately.  “I’m serious. Until yesterday, I couldn’t remember any of you.”

“Bev, it’s only been a week,” Mike said, frowning.  “Are you okay?”

“No, Mike, I don’t think I am,” Beverly admitted, her hands folded in her lap and tapping against the ground with her nervous energy.  “I got to the hotel that my aunt and I were staying in before continuing to Portland, and everything seemed fine. Then I woke up the next day...believing that my aunt had finally won custody of me from my dad.”

“What?  You didn’t remember he d-died?” Bill asked, rejoining the circle.  Beverly shook her head hurriedly.

“No, I mean, he died and that’s how she gained custody, but I thought it was liver failure.  And I was happy. All the sadness about leaving you guys behind was just gone. I was so happy to be going to Portland, I thought maybe I’d finally make friends,” she continued.  “All I thought of when I thought of Derry was the bullies and the hissing of the word slut.  Nothing about you guys. Even my pictures on my phone were gone, the whole album of our photos.”

“Even the one of Bill snorting ice cream out of his nose?” Richie asked, horrified.  Stan smacked his arm lightly, staring at Bev in concerned confusion.

“Bev…” Ben trailed off.  “How did you remember? If you didn’t remember that there was anything to miss in Derry?”

Bev laughed slightly, the sound thick with the relieved tears she had managed to hold back.  “It’s the littlest thing, Benny. Someone snuck a polaroid into my luggage.”

She looked right at Richie when she said ‘someone’.  He shrugged, grinning, but his cheeks turned red.

“What can I say, Bevvie, I couldn’t have you leaving that picture behind,” he said.  Bev laughed.

“No, you’re right, Richie,” she said.  “I was going through my bags yesterday while unpacking, trying to find a certain shirt, and the picture of us all trying to do a mid-air photo fell out of one of my bras.”

“The one where Eddie accidentally kicked Mike in the stomach and Richie almost poked Bill’s eye out?” Stan asked.  “I have never been happier that I decided to take the picture rather than participate.”

“The very same, Stanny,” Bev grinned.  “At first, I didn't know who you guys were.  I was wondering how in the hell these random boys got me to take a picture with them.  Then I saw the horrifically dumb pick-up line Richie had scrawled on the back of it and the memories came flooding back.  I think I gave my aunt a heart attack when I nearly kicked her door down shouting about coming back here.”

There was silence.  Bev was breathing deeply, relishing in the presence of the best friends she had managed to forget about in just a day, and the others feeling complete once again with her back in their ranks.  Then Mike broke it with a sentence that had all of them freezing with the ice in their veins.

“This has to be It, right?” He asked.  He swallowed thickly. “It has to be. That’s not normal, and we already know that It messes with the minds in this town.”

“So if we leave...we forget?  Everything?” Eddie asked, dawning horror in his voice.  “If we want to stay together…”

“...we either leave together, or never leave,” Ben finished.  The wake of his words was a deep, horrified silence. Richie flopped backwards, staring at the ceiling.

“Shit,” he said.

Mike broke Richie out of his memory by standing up to return the phone to its cradle.  He didn’t seem to notice that Richie had zoned out.  

“Well, if you change your mind,” he said, “El lived in my basement for a while so my mom is used to new people in the house.”

“I’m surprised you’re bringing this up,” Richie said.  “I thought I was an annoying asshole.”

Mike had the decency to wince slightly.  

“Yeah, well,” he hesitated, “I was worried about Will and I had just found this out and I was just really angry.  But I didn’t mean to say that. So...sorry I was being a dick.”

“So are you saying I’m not annoying?” Richie grinned smugly.  Mike scoffed.

“That’s absolutely not what I’m saying, you’re very annoying,” he said.  Then he leaned on the table with a shrug. “But, I’m saying that I think I can deal with it.”

He paused for a second, before ducking his head and saying, slightly embarrassed, “I kind of always wanted a brother.”

Richie’s grin lost its smugness, but stayed stretched across his face.  

“Gotta say, the idea has some appeal,” he said.  “I mean, Bill is basically my brother, but another one could be nice.”

“At least this means you can’t make jokes about my mom,” Mike said.  Richie laughed, shaking his head.

“Man, you have no idea how little shame I have, do you?” He said.  “I definitely can still make jokes about her.”

“Don’t make me regret this.”

“Too late, Mikey,” Richie reached over and messed up Mike’s hair before his hand got slapped away.  “I’m like mold, I grow on people.”

“Mold doesn’t grow on people?” Mike argued.  Richie shrugged.

“Agree to disagree.”

Mike just shook his head and sighed, a silence gathering in the room as they registered the sound of light chatter coming from the living room.  

“The others are awake,” Mike commented.  “Finally.”

“Hey, this is still early,” Richie said.  “If I hadn’t been on a mission, I would totally still be sleeping right now.”

“Kinda sucks,” Mike said, drawing an amused but confused look from Richie before clarifying, “I mean, we just figured this all out, and I leave in like, a day and a half.”

“Aw, Mikey wants to stay with little old me?” Richie leaned onto the table and batted his eyelashes.  Mike rolled his eyes and groaned.  

“Well if you’re dead set on not leaving Derry, how else are we even supposed to get to know each other?” Mike asked.  “I thought we both just agreed that being, you know, brothers would be kinda cool.”

“Alright then, brother o’ mine,” Richie said, before laughing, “man, that feels weird to say.  What do you propose?”

“Well, we’re all worried about Will anyway,” Mike said.  “Shouldn’t be too hard to convince Hopper to drive us back up next weekend.  He says he can say no to El, but he’s lying.”

“Next weekend, huh?” Richie said, grinning to hide the flare of anxiety and the brief flash of sympathy towards Will.  He had been genuinely surprised when Karen had even remembered her promise to Maggie.  And he was trying to prepare himself to not hear from his newfound brother again as soon as he and the rest of the Party left Derry.  Mike said he’d visit again next weekend, but Richie wasn’t getting his hopes up. He was rather surprised by how much the idea of Mike being his brother felt...natural, but he hated knowing that within a few days, Mike probably wouldn’t remember that he existed.  

“Next weekend,” Mike confirmed.  “Have to make sure you guys haven’t died in this hell town.”

“We’ll make sure Will is okay, dude,” Richie said.  Mike raised his eyebrows.

“Yeah, at the expense of getting punched yourself.”

“I can take it.” Richie shrugged.  “I have strong bones.”

As Richie laughed off the bruises that had only faded a day prior, the bruises he got from defending his friend (who Mike realized held the title that Mike himself was beginning to earn too), Mike saw him.  Really saw him.  For almost a week, Richie had been an enigma to Mike, but one that he didn’t care too much to figure out.  He was loud and annoying, and Mike hadn’t understood why the Losers seemed to care so much about him. But after the argument with him the other day, and this whole morning as they called his mom and actually talked for once...Mike saw it.  He was starting to see what the Losers saw.  He saw the cracks. He figured that it really started with that melancholic stare at the wood grain of the table.  The Richie that Mike wasn’t supposed to see. He saw the hints of what was behind his smile, the pain that he refused to show.  He was reminded of himself, during the year where El was gone, and he tried so hard to act normal around his family so they wouldn’t worry about him.  But inside, he was just hurt and scared and anxious. Richie went about it differently, it seemed. While Mike tried to act normal, stay in the middle zone, to not arouse suspicion, Richie seemed to try and draw attention to himself.  He was loud, he was bright, he was the sound of cackling laughter when you’re supposed to be quiet.  A wide, bright smile to hide the cracks. Mike stopped looking at the Richie that was projected to the world, and started searching for the Richie that was actually his brother.  The Richie that apparently jump-slashed a clown with a bat for his friend, the Richie that had taken Will into the woods not to accidentally freak the Party out but to make sure the new honorary Loser was alright, the Richie that his friends were ready to fight over when they thought Mike had hurt him on purpose.  Not Richie, his cousin. Richie, his brother .  He was right, that was weird to say.  But it eased the feeling of familiarity that Mike had felt since first laying eyes on Richie.  They were twins. Richie was his brother. Broken from something, most likely the words that he said his parents threw around almost nonchalantly, but strong enough to keep laughter in his eyes.  Annoying, but Mike understood what Richie had meant in the forest now. If no one but the Losers cared enough to get close to him, then no one would see the other side of him. And those who did try to get to know him anyway were probably the good kind of people.  The Losers were those people. They saw Richie, and he was obviously more himself with them than with anyone else.  

They saw him, and Mike realized that he wanted to too.  

“So, Mikey,” Richie leaned back in the chair, crossing his arms behind his head.  “Tell me about my new sister-cousins. I forgot they existed for a while.”

“That term is not staying,” Mike said, holding back the involuntary laugh that threatened to come out.  “But I’ll let it slide this time.”

“Oh, really?  Oh well, thank you , your supreme Mike-esty, for letting it slide,” Richie professed dramatically.  Mike rolled his eyes.

“Do you want to know about them or not?”

“I can always just make my own assumptions about what they’re like, I don’t need you,” Richie said.  Mike shook his head.

“That would be an absolute disaster.”

“Funny, though.”

“Absolutely the fuck not,” Mike said.  “So just let me talk.”

“Alright, alright.” Richie held up his hands in mock surrender. “The floor is yours, Mike and Ike.”

“Hate it,” Mike said.  “Anyway, Nancy is a few years older than us.  And for a while, we really didn’t get along. But then during the, uh, thing with Will...we started to understand each other a little more.  She’s dating Will’s older brother, actually, and man was that a roller coaster…”

Chapter Text

Going over a day without seeing Richie, following the events of Wednesday, had the Losers more than a little on edge.  Which made them all breathe a sigh of relief when Stan called each of them and told them to meet at Will’s house. Apparently Richie had been talking with Mike, and Stan wanted the Losers to surprise him when they were done.  They couldn’t get a hold of Eddie, for the rather obvious reason of his mother, but they figured that they’d go get him in person once they had Richie back in their ranks. The day seemed promising, the summer heat beating down their backs as they rode down the streets towards Will’s house.  It was around noon, and they all dumped their bikes as Bill led the way up the steps and knocked on the door. Will answered, and he smiled upon seeing the five of them.  

“Hey,” he greeted.  “If you’re here for Richie, he and Mike are in the kitchen.  I can get him for you?”

“Yeah, thanks Will,” Bill said.  He gave the smaller boy a slightly apologetic smile.  “We promise that we’ll all h-hang out tomorrow before your friends have to go home, we j-just…”

“I get it,” Will said.  “I think we need to do the same today for Mike.”  

“How are they doing?” Ben asked.  Will glanced over his shoulder, his smile growing a little softer.

“Better, I think.  Stan said that they called Mike’s mom while we were still asleep, but they’ve been talking in there for a while.”

“Richie in a one-on-one conversation for over an hour?” Bev said.  “That’ll definitely get Mike used to his humor.”

“Immersion therapy,” Mike #1 said with a slight grin.  Will laughed lightly.

“They seem to be doing alright,” he said.  “I’ll go get Richie and Stan.”

He turned and walked into the house, leaving the door open a crack and letting out the sounds coming from the living room.  It sounded like Stan was getting regaled with stories from Hawkins, mostly revolving around an arcade. That was certainly familiar to the Losers.  The conversation ceased as Will turned into the room, the voices muffling to a more normal volume that was inaudible from outside the door. After a few moments, Richie poked his head out from the end of the hallway, all the Losers relaxing at the light smile that pulled at his lips.  Nothing like the strained grin he had held up the last time they saw him, but something genuine. Not the happiest they had seen him, and definitely not the usual vibrancy they got from him, but leagues better than the previous day. Stan met him as he passed the entrance to the living room, accepting the arm that Richie slung over his shoulders with nothing more than a slight roll of his eyes.  

“Miss me already, fuckers?” Richie greeted.  “I knew you all couldn’t get enough of me.”

“Yeah, yeah, we love you too, Rich,” Bev grinned slightly.  “Wanna hang in the park?”

“It won’t be empty, but we should be able to find a quiet spot,” Mike added.  They wanted to talk to Richie, and they knew he wouldn’t feel comfortable if other people could see him.  Richie shrugged.

“Sure, but someone else is gonna have to deal with Mrs. K’s disappointment when she doesn’t get my- hey, where’s Eds?” He cut himself off before he got beeped, suddenly noticing the lack of Eddie in the group.  Bill cracked a grin.

“Couldn’t get a h-hold of him,” he answered.  “Figured you’d like t-to break h-him out.”

Richie’s face split into a wide grin.  “Hell yeah! My second favorite Kaspbrak needs a prison break, I am on it.”

“Then we were thinking we’d go raid your room,” Ben said.  “Bring your stuff back to Stan’s.”

The grin faltered, just barely.  In fact, the change was so small that even the Losers almost didn’t notice.  But they felt the slight flash of anxiety and heartbreak that came through their bond.  Richie may be the expert of deflecting through words and jokes, but he was easily the worst at disguising his feelings over the bond.  Stan wrapped his arm around Richie’s waist, the arm over Stan’s shoulders having gone ever so slightly limp.

“It’s Thursday,” Stan said softly.  “We can take our time. Make multiple trips.  The guest room is your room now, my parents said so.”

“ Shit , Stanford, buy me dinner before you ask me to move in, yeah?” Richie’s grin brightened again, and Stan just raised his eyebrows.  

“I have paid for your lunch more times than I can count , Richie,” he said, deadpan.  “Be glad I care about you enough that you’re not paying rent.”

“I pay rent enough with the loving I give to-”

“- beep beep, Richie ,” Stan shoved Richie’s arm off his shoulders with a groan.  “Now c’mon, we don’t want to spend too long at the park, it’s already noon.”

The other Losers each gave Richie some form of affectionate gesture, then they shouted a goodbye into Will’s house and shut the door behind them.  Stan and Richie brought up the back, and Stan slid his hand into Richie’s to give it a supportive squeeze. He was proud of Richie for doing what he had done that morning.  He hadn’t heard all of it from the living room, but...Mike hadn’t exactly been quiet. Richie’s normal volume wasn’t what one could call an ‘inside voice’ either. So he got the gist of how the conversation had gone.  Once the other members of the Party started to wake up, he didn’t pay as much attention to the kitchen, and Richie and Mike had both quieted down too. But judging by the way Richie had relaxed, the two had at least started to work things out.  

He knew that going to his house to get things from his room would be difficult.  Even without the elder Toziers there, the house still had a lot of memories attached to it for Richie.  Some of them were even good. But Stan was not letting Maggie and Went keep him in a house that didn’t care about him.  Over his dead body.  

Richie didn’t waste any time as he scurried to the side of Eddie’s house, dumping his bike in the street and leaving Ben to keep it from hitting the asphalt.  He picked up a small rock before climbing up the tree by Eddie’s window, peering into the room. Then he lightly tossed the rock so it bounced off the glass, gently enough to not leave a scratch or a crack, otherwise Eddie would lecture him for hours.  Which, normally, might act as an incentive for Richie to do something.  But Richie had already filled his quota for broken windows that year, and he was saving up his mental points to shatter the front windshield of Peter’s car.  He could see Eddie inside his room, noticing the clink of stone on glass and looking up with a start. The window was soon thrown open, and Richie grinned.

“Eduardo, Eduardo, let down your hair!” he called, soft enough that Sonia wouldn’t hear it through the house.  Eddie rolled his eyes, but started to climb out the window anyway.

“Not my name, dipshit,” he said automatically.  “I figured I’d be getting broken out today, there was no way my mom was letting me leave the house after practically ghosting her for a few days.”

“Well, the fairest princess deserves the most dashing rescuer,” Richie grinned, earning a punch in the arm.  “Yowza! We’re feisty today, huh, Eds?”

“Please, for the love of that damn turtle, never say ‘yowza’ again,” Eddie insisted, dropping out of the tree and making his way over to his bike, leaning against the garage.  

“I’m with Eddie, that was horrible,” Stan said.  Richie’s eyes lit up.

“Yowza!” he said.  “Tough crowd, am I right?”

“Stan, can you please let Richie borrow a few of your brain cells?  He’s in desperate need of them,” Beverly asked. Stan crossed his arms, shaking his head.

“Sorry, Bev, I can’t spare any, and any that go to him would not be ones I want back.”

“They’d probably c-combust as soon as they entered his b-brain,” Bill added.  Richie stuck out his tongue.

“I am plenty smart, Billiam,” he argued.  “And Stan has enough common sense for the both of us, so I don’t need any.”

“Stan has the common sense of three people, which is good because Eddie can be just as much of a dumbass sometimes,” Mike said with an affectionate grin.  Stan shrugged and nodded his agreement. Eddie gasped indignantly as they began to ride off.  

“Excuse you?  Michael Hanlon, you did not just insinuate that I am as bad as Richie, did you?  With how many times I have kept him from getting himself killed like a fucking idiot?  I have never been more offended in my life, I have leagues more common sense than him. Tell me that you were not insinuating that.”

Silence answered him as the others tried not to laugh.  Eddie huffed and focused on riding, pointedly not looking at any of the others.  Which only made it harder for them to keep from giggling. The rest of the ride to the park was fairly quiet, but a much more comfortable quiet than the one that had permeated Bill’s house a day ago.  Laughter had just been in the air, the familiar teasing atmosphere that surrounded the seven of them, and with the wind whipping through their hair as they followed Bill down the street at high speeds, it all felt almost normal.  

They reached the park around one in the afternoon, and found a few parents with their kindergarten age kids clustered around the sandpit and the jungle gym.  But the back section of the park, where the trees were close together and shady, was completely empty. The Losers made a beeline, traipsing along the grass in a line, following Bill into the shade.  They made their circle and sat in the grass, at first saying nothing. Just...existing in the moment with one another. It was always calming to the seven of them. Then Bev leaned onto her knees and smiled at Richie.

“So,” she started, “you have a brother?” Her voice was kind, not teasing.  They weren’t quite sure if they could tease him about this yet, but they weren’t about to test that.  Richie shook his head with a sigh.

“A-fucking-pparently,” he said.  “I have a whole notebook of ‘cousin Mikey’ jokes to burn now, since they’re useless.”

“But think of all the twin jokes you can make now,” Ben offered, smiling brightly at Richie.  Richie returned the smile with a cheeky grin that finally did reach his eyes.

“You know what?  You have got a fantastic point there, Benny,” he said.  “Y’know, maybe Mrs. K won’t even notice the difference! Since I can’t be there for her, that is.”

“You’re encouraging a monster, Ben,” Eddie glowered, huffing and crossing his arms.  “I doubt Mike would want to be dragged into those jokes.”

“You say that like you do want to be dragged into them, Eddie,” Stan said, raising his eyebrows.  Eddie backpedaled hastily.

“Woah, woah, not what I meant!” He argued.  “I’m just used to it at this point, Stanley.”

“S-sure, Eddie,” Bill said with a grin.  

“How are you feeling about all this, Richie?” Mike asked, voice soft and not demanding.  Gently curious, but able to be brushed off if Richie really wanted to. Richie leaned back onto his hands.

“Can’t you tell?” he asked. If anyone had overheard, they might have taken that question to be accusatory, asking if Mike could read Richie as well as he thought he could.  But everyone who mattered knew that Richie was genuinely curious. Their bond was a common cause of curiosity among their group. Limits, specifics, interpretations. They often tried to test each other on the more empathetic part of the bond, to see who was the best at deciphering the different emotions.  Mike was still in the lead, followed by Ben, then Richie, then Bev, Stan, Bill, and Eddie. Mike focused for a minute, then smiled gently. They also could guess that Richie asked Mike that in order to avoid voicing his feelings himself.  

“You feel...conflicted,” he answered.  “Confused, hurt, but happy at the same time.  Not as hurt as I could feel yesterday, though.”

“Got it in one, Professor X,” Richie joked.  His tone had sobered slightly, however. They all moved in a little closer.

“Talk to us, R-Richie,” Bill said.  “No one’s around. J-just us.”

A year ago, even the presence of the original Losers might not have been enough to get Richie to let down his walls.  It took specific circumstances to get him to open up, even to just one of them. But if you fight a killer clown with someone, if you almost die for them and them for you, it becomes hard to hide around them.  The Losers broke Richie down in a way that no one else could, not by yelling or disciplining or ignoring, but by loving him even when he was being an asshole comedian. By understanding. By letting him not break down until he was ready to.  

So Richie looked at his six favorite people, and he let his smile drop.  He leaned forward onto his knees, looking at the grass with a tired look in his eyes.  He wasn’t sad, but he wasn’t bright and happy either.  

“It fuckin’ sucks, guys,” he said.  “Apparently my mom didn’t think she could handle two kids, so she had Auntie Karen pick one of us for her own son.  They weren’t gonna tell us until we were eighteen, and Auntie Karen already expected to have to have Mike find me because Maggie wouldn’t remember!”

“Did your aunt defend Maggie?” Stan asked, frowning.  Richie shrugged.

“At first, yeah.  She said she promised.  And I’m sure Maggie actually was terrified of two kids, that tracks.  But I made sure she knew that Maggie never should have even kept me, and then she apologized.” He paused, biting his lip.  His hands were fiddling with the cuff of his shorts. “Then she said I could call her mom if I wanted.”

Richie almost looked up at the utter lack of response he got, but he remembered his own reaction and he figured they were just shocked.  He certainly hadn’t expected that either.  

“...do you want to?” Ben broke the brief, stunned silence.  

“Uh...I don’t know,” Richie answered.  “I mean, I don’t remember ever meeting her, but she seems nice.  She clearly loves Mike, which is a step up from Maggie. She said that since I was Mike’s brother, she’d be happy to think of me as her son.  It, uh,” his voice quieted, “it actually sounded kinda nice?”

A pause, and then he huffed, running a hand back through his hair and taking off his glasses to rub at his eyes.

“Not that it fucking matters,” he said.  “They’re leaving Saturday.”

“Richie, you don’t know for sure that anything will happen,” Eddie said, all of them knowing exactly what he was talking about.  Richie laughed, only slightly bitterly.

“Yeah, there’s a chance I’ll actually see him after this week,” he said, “but why get my hopes up if there’s a non-zero chance that he will never once think of me again?  Especially when there’s Will to think about, and how they all might forget him now too!”

“If Mike forgets you, Richie, then we go on a fucking road trip to Hawkins and we knock on his door,” Bev said.  “We were all gonna leave together anyway, why not leave to where your brother is?”

“We can’t take Will, though, not permanently,” Stan mentioned, his eyebrows furrowed thoughtfully.  “Otherwise, that’s a solid plan.”

“We don’t want them to forget us either, Richie,” Mike said.  “I think they’ve become...decent friends. We aren’t gonna let It fuck this up for us.”

“Damn right,” Bev agreed.  

“W-we’ll give them a f-few weeks.  If they don’t c-contact us or Will, then we g-go to them,” Bill said, holding out his hand to the middle of the circle, scar side up.  Every other Loser clasped his hand with their own scarred palm.  

“That’s a fuckin’ plan, Big Bill.” Richie grinned.  The air was slightly somber, yet spiked with determination.  The Losers were not about to lose their new friends to something as bullshit as leftover clown magic.  It may still have a claw dug deep into Derry, but not into them.  

“Let’s talk about something happier,” Ben offered, shifting in the grass.  “Do you like having a brother?”

“I mean, not to be a sappy fuck,” Richie started, “but I basically already had at least one.” He gestured first to Bill and then around the circle to the rest of them.  “And a sister, of course.”

“Saving the best for last, I see,” Bev teased.  Richie bowed his head in her direction.

“As always, My Lady.”

“Don’t pretend you’re not a sap, Richard,” Stan said, a wry smile on his face.  “Your heart is the only thing bigger than your ego.”

“False, my dick is definitely bigger than both of those,” Richie shot back automatically.  The chorus of groans made him grin.  

“Alright, well, Richie’s overcompensating aside,” Eddie started, “you never actually answered Ben’s question.”

“You’re just jealous that your mom gets this and you don’t Eds,” Richie said, sticking out his tongue as Eddie scoffed in disgust and smacked Richie’s knee.  “Anyway, it’s kinda cool, I guess. We haven’t had too much time to talk, but I like the idea of a twin.”

“Does Mike f-feel the same?” Bill asked.  Richie grinned lightly.

“Yeah,” he said.  “He does.”

“So…” Richie trailed off in the silence of the kitchen.  “It doesn’t, like, bother you, then?”

“What doesn’t?” Mike asked, looking back up at Richie.  Richie shrugged, masking his nerves.

“Y’know, the thing that I accidentally blurted out in the woods.”

“You, uh, said a lot of stuff,” Mike said.  “Which thing are you talking about?”

Part of Richie wanted to just say ‘never mind’ and make a dick joke.  But if Mike was going to be his brother, even just for two days, Richie needed to know.  If someone wanted to be considered for the inner circle of ‘Richie Tozier’s real family’, they had to be okay with all of who Richie was.

“The, uh, the part where I said I like guys,” Richie said, satisfied with how flippant his voice sounded.  “You don’t care that your brother is-” there was an almost imperceptible hesitation before “-gay?”

“Oh,” Mike said.  “No, that doesn’t bother me.”

“Okay.  Good. Fuckin’ peachy.”

“I mean, honestly?  If we had met a year ago, the answer might not be the same.  I didn’t really...understand much about how all that worked,” Mike admitted.  “But then Dustin’s pseudo-babysitter Steve introduced us to his friend Robin, and she’s gay.  She’s badass, too, but that’s not the point. The point is that she set me straight on quite a few things about not being straight.”

“She sounds rad,” Richie said.  

“She is.”  Mike sighed and leaned on the table.  “I, admittedly, had to fix a lot about how I thought.  But don’t worry about it. The fact that you like guys is one of the things that bothers me the least.”

“What bothers you the most?” Richie asked, raising an eyebrow.  

Mike looked at him, deadpan.  “The fact that we share a face and you choose to have the fashion sense that you do.  Your shirts are hideous.”

“That, dearest brother, is the whole fucking point.”

Richie couldn’t help the genuine smile tugging at his lips.  He didn’t just ask Mike that so he could make sure his brother still wanted to be his brother, although that was part of it.  The other part of the reason was that even if he might never see Mike again, even if Will might have to deal with It screwing him over and tearing his best friend away, he needed to know if Will would be alright opening up to Mike.  He’d be the test run. If Mike could accept that his newfound twin was gay, then he should be fine with Will.  

As the Losers pulled up to the Tozier household after leaving the park, Ben pulled a large blanket out of his backpack and started unfolding it.  It was Thursday, so Richie’s parents wouldn’t be home, but they didn’t really want to go through the rest of the house. Richie had said he would prefer to just go through his window.  Richie made his way around to the side of the house, where his window faced the east. He always kept it open, just in case, even though it made both Eddie and Stan lecture him about bugs.  Ivy crawled up the drainpipe that reached near his windowsill, and Richie slid off his shoes for a better grip.

“Alright so, we’ll hold the blanket, just toss out what you want and we’ll catch it,” Bev said, grabbing a corner of the blanket from Ben.  Richie shook his hands out in preparation for climbing, a small grin appearing on his face.

“Gotcha.  Stangela, Spaghetti, you coming up too?” he asked, earning two scoffs.

“Why the fuck wouldn’t we?” Eddie countered.  Richie shrugged.

“Just asking,” he said.  “I didn’t mean to leave you out, Big Bill, but if you can climb up without breaking anything then you’re welcome to join.”

“Fair warning, it’s a bit of a tricky swing to get to the windowsill,” Stan added, and Bill looked up at the side of the house with a small wince.  

“Yeah, uh, I’ll h-help down here,” he said.  “I’m m-more used to Richie sneaking into my r-room, I’ve never snuck into h-his.”

“I nearly broke a leg the first time Richie asked me to come over,” Stan said, watching as Richie started to scramble up the drainpipe like it was second nature.  “Eddie was lucky that I was there to help catch him when he first came.”

“My mom was being herself, and I couldn’t take it,” Eddie explained.  “So Richie said he was already having a movie night with Stan and that I could come over.”

“I’d be offended that I w-was never invited,” Bill began, as Stan started to climb the pipe with far more care than Richie, “but you all s-snuck into my house enough to m-make up for it.  Also, this might’ve k-killed me.”

“I’m honestly surprised he hasn’t ended up in the hospital,” Eddie remarked, watching Richie help stabilize Stan on the windowsill.  Eddie then sighed and made his way to the pipe, wrinkling his nose at the ivy before pulling himself up the wall.  

It was only a few minutes before stuff started to get tossed out the window.  Mostly pictures, clothes, a guitar that was definitely not stolen and was carefully dropped into Mike’s waiting arms, a polaroid camera that was also carefully dropped, a few books that were tossed out by Stan as he insisted to Richie that he needed to fucking read things, and there was the sound of loud complaining before Eddie tossed Richie’s school supplies out the window.  One of the picture frames broke in the fall, but the picture inside was fine, one of Bill, Stan, and Eddie sitting on the edge of the quarry with their backs to the camera and the sunset in front of them. Richie had a lot of photos, and every last one came out of his room. He took down his posters, but he doubted that he would re-hang them in the room that the Uris’s had given him.  He just wanted to keep them with him, since he didn’t want to have to come back to this house to see them.  

He hated leaving his room for what might very well be the final time, purposefully leaving some things behind.  But he had what he needed. And he had his real family.  

While Stan and Eddie carefully made their way down the drainpipe, Richie chose to hang from his windowsill and drop into the begrudgingly waiting arms of Mike.  

Then they folded the blanket with all the stuff inside it and took turns carrying it as they rode to Stan’s house.  

That night was spent in Richie’s new room, putting up his pictures and putting away his clothes, in the midst of laughter and love.  The way a home should be. Richie knew that it wasn’t the room, though, although the Uris’s had been nothing but welcoming to him. His home was six people who were currently trying to convince him to burn his tacky shirts.  

He felt a cheeky grin split his face as he crossed the room to pull his shirts out of Bill’s hands.  He felt a little brighter already.

Bill called the Byers household early on Friday, hoping to apologize for leaving the Party to their own devices on Thursday and invite them to the quarry.  The Losers were all feeling the jittery sort of energy that was perfect for throwing themselves off the cliff into the probably dirty water right below. He told Will that they didn’t need to jump if they didn’t want to, but that it was a lot of fun and not deadly.  Eddie, who had once again avoided his mom by sleeping over at Bill’s, shouted from the couch that Bill should not claim that it’s not deadly, maybe all seven of them just kept getting lucky and didn’t hit their fucking heads on the way down. But somehow, even despite Eddie doing his damndest to make the cliff jumping sound worse than it was, Will said that all the others were good with jumping.  

Bill and Eddie began to make the rounds, meeting Mike outside Bill’s house and then picking up Stan and Richie, then Bev, then Ben.  The Byers’s house wasn’t too far from Ben’s, hence picking him up last. They met Mrs. Byers this time, as she opened the door for them while the Party finished changing into swimsuits.  She was thrilled that they seemed to really care about Will, and just like he had said, she invited them over for dinner one night the coming week. Will came to the door then, groaning that she was embarrassing him, and she ruffled his hair and gave him a kiss on the side of the head despite his protesting.  Then she told them all to have a good time and let the Party file out of the house to join the Losers.  

The sun beat down on their backs as they rode down the streets to the quarry, wind whipping their hair as they sped around corners.  Riding this fast was when the Losers felt truly free from all the dark influence that seeped from Derry. It was the Party’s last day in town, and they weren’t going to let the evil in this town ruin it for them.  They got lucky, using the main roads and not running into Peter or his goons, making it to the cliff in almost record time. Their bikes were clustered together against the trees as they looked out over the water. The Party was apprehensive, but most of the Losers were excited to jump.  

“Are we starting with Bev, like usual?” Stan asked, frowning as he peered over the edge.  Bev shrugged, stretching out her arms as she made her way to the cliff.

“If you all want to be wimps like usual,” she teased. 

“We aren’t wimps , we are being sensible,” Eddie crossed his arms.  “Except for Richie, he’s never sensible.”

“It would be insulting if you implied I was, Eddie,” Richie said, walking in an uneven circle along the cliff.  “And anyway, I have a solution.”

“Oh r-really?” Bill raised his eyebrows.  “Do share.”

“Easy.  The first time we all jumped as the six of us, it was Bev’s first jump and she went first,” Richie said.  “And the first time it was all seven of us, we got Mike to jump first. So, one of the newbies should go first.”

“Uh….hell no,” Lucas said.  “I am not going first.”

“Wimp,” Max said, accepting a fist-bump from Beverly.  

“Are you volunteering, Max?” Lucas countered.  

“I think my sweet little brother should take the cliff for a spin,” Richie said, grinning.  Mike scowled.

“‘Little’?  We don’t know who’s older, dipshit,” he argued.  “And I am not going first.”

“Really?” Richie asked.  “Then why oh why are you standing so close to the edge?”

Before Mike could put together what he meant, although all the Losers had caught on immediately, Richie had darted up and placed a firm shove to Mike’s shoulder, sending him off the edge to the whoops and cheers of the Losers.  Lucas and El both looked slightly worried, but Dustin and Max were also cheering, rushing to the cliff to see Mike resurface with an even deeper scowl on his face.  

“THAT’S IT!” he shouted up to the group.  “WE AREN’T RELATED ANYMORE!”

“CAN’T GET RID OF ME NOW, MIKEY!” Richie called back down.  He had a wide, cheeky grin on his face as he ran forward and launched himself off the edge to join Mike as the first Loser in the water.  Bev was close behind him, shrieking gleefully as she plummeted towards the newfound twins. For a moment, this final day, worries were forgotten.  Most worries, anyway. The Losers all tried to dissipate the cloud that hung over them, reminding them that there was a chance they’d be forgotten within a day.  They were...mostly successful. Successful enough that the Party didn’t suspect anything was wrong, which they took as a win.  

The Party gained the confidence to jump after Bill followed Bev into the water, Max grinning as she leapt and Dustin cannonballing alongside Ben.  Stan rolled his eyes and held his hand out to jump with Eddie, who continued to eye the cliff warily. No matter how many times he jumped, he always hesitated.  He was more confident jumping with someone. Lucas saw Eddie jump and decided that he probably wouldn’t die despite what Eddie had been saying for the past twenty minutes.  El gave Will a small smile before making her way to the edge of the cliff and closing her eyes before jumping down to join the others.

Then it was just Mike #1 and Will.  Will was frowning at the cliff edge, arms crossed around his body.  He could hear the others laughing in the water, splashing each other and yelling, but his feet wouldn’t move to jump.  He knew this wasn’t as high as Hawkins, but he still just…

“Will?” Mike asked, drawing Will out of his head.  

“Yeah?” Will turned to look at Mike, hoping he didn’t seem too scared to jump.  He didn’t want to be seen as the weak one. He was always seen as the frail kid, especially after the Upside Down. He didn’t want his new friends to think of him like that too. But Mike was looking at him with something understanding in his eyes.  Will didn’t quite know what he thought Mike would say next, but he didn’t expect the other boy to hold out his hand much like Stan had done for Eddie. Will felt his heart begin to thud in his chest.  

“Do you want to jump together?” Mike asked.  “It can be overwhelming your first time. Especially if the quarry in Hawkins is as bad as you all are saying.”

“ C’mon, Hanlon!  The water’s nice!” Bev’s voice called up the cliffside, causing Mike’s smile to widen.  

“There’s no pressure if you don’t want to jump,” Mike encouraged.  “But despite all the shit Eddie says, it really is a safe jump.”

Will hesitated, but a few moments later his hand found Mike’s. It was warm, and Will felt the heat spread up to his cheeks. Mike's fingers curled around Will’s hand and his smile grew softer. 

“Alright.” Will nodded, determined. “Let’s jump.”

As he and Mike sailed through the air, falling to the water with the sound of their friends cheering reaching their ears, Will didn’t regret a thing. 

They stayed in the water for hours. None of them seemed to want to leave, the Losers out of fear that it would be the last time they saw the Party, and the Party because they didn’t want to leave Will behind.  They had been feeling a lot better since hanging out with the Losers and seeing that Will wouldn’t be alone in a new town, but he was still the sixth member of their Party. They didn’t want to lose him. So they tried to ignore that they would need to leave soon, gather their things, and wait for Hopper to arrive Saturday morning.  They just enjoyed their last day with their new friends and with Will.  

Richie managed to beat Mike #2 in a game of chicken, cheering wildly from Stan’s shoulders as Mike resurfaced next to Dustin and brushed his wet hair out of his eyes with a glare in Richie’s direction.  He took that as confirmation of their earlier debate about the two of them, which Mike still protested despite being heavily outnumbered. He really couldn’t be too annoyed though. Not when he was having this much fun.  Lucas and Max were entrenched in a splash fight to his left, Dustin was trying to dunk Bill underwater to his right, and Beverly was trying to teach El how to do an underwater handstand closer to the shore where the water was more shallow.  Will, Eddie, and the other Mike were just talking, enjoying the sunlight and the company and the relaxing feel of the water. And right in front of Mike, there was Richie. Arms thrown in the air as he celebrated his victory over Mike, his glasses miraculously still on his face after leaping off the cliff although practically useless with the amount of water on them, a wide and ecstatic grin splitting his face as he almost knocked Stan over with his celebrations.  Stan was rolling his eyes, but the relaxed grin on his own face as he laughed gave him away, his cheeks flushed and his hands gripping Richie’s thighs as he tried to keep them both upright.  

Mike didn’t want to go back to Hawkins.  Sure, he already told the others that he wanted to come back in a week and they were completely with him, but a week without Will?  A week of not getting to know the brother that he just found? He knew that this coming week couldn’t pass quick enough, although he’d never say that.  He knew that if Richie knew just how much Mike actually wanted to get to know him, just how comfortable the idea of having a brother actually made him...he would never let Mike live it down.  But it was true. Richie was annoying as shit, and he clearly knew it, but Mike knew that there was a point in which that faded to the background. The rest of the Losers had reached it already, he could tell.  Mike...kinda wanted to reach it too.  

“Hey, Mike?” Dustin nudged his arm as Bill drifted over to tackle the Loser’s Mike, starting a large splashing war.  Mike startled out of his thoughts, turning to look at Dustin, who looked so different with his curls plastered to his head from the water.  

“Yeah?” he asked.  Dustin frowned down at the small waves that were created by the splash war happening a few feet to their left.  

“I didn’t want to bring this up before, you were dealing with the stuff about you and Richie, but when we were at the library...I found something,” he said.  “Something that I think you need to see.”

“Dustin,” Mike sighed, looking back to where the laughter and shrieking was coming from.  “Is it dangerous?”

“No, but-”

“-is it going to hurt Will?”

“I- no, I don’t think so,” Dustin said, his eyebrows furrowing.  Mike looked back at him.

“Can it wait, then?  Just a day or so? It’s our last day.  Let’s just have a good time, yeah?”

Dustin frowned, but nodded.  “Yeah. Okay.”  

As Mike made his way over to the others to join in, Dustin shot a look back at the cliff where his stuff was.  Particularly his bag, where a newspaper article had been sitting, feeling as if it would burn through the fabric, for days.  

The Party had to stop by the Tozier household to grab their things, and no one expected Richie to go inside.  But he wanted to. He said he had to. He hadn’t been inside through the front door since he first showed Mike to the living room, and he had to leave properly.  And even though he knew that his mom wouldn’t be there, neither would his dad, Richie still felt like he needed to go inside. What if they were there? They didn’t know that Mike and Richie knew the truth.  They didn’t know that Richie wouldn’t be coming back. So he followed them up the walkway to the nebulously unlocked front door, partially hoping that his parents would be there for him to confront and then leave, partially hoping that he could get out of this without seeing them.  He didn’t know which one he wanted. But in the end, his preference wouldn’t matter anyway.

The house was empty, as he expected.  Despite part of him not wanting to see his parents, a pit of disappointment curled in his gut anyway.  So while the Party was packing their things, Richie wrote a note and put it right where they would have to see it, on the back of the door.  

Dear Maggie and Went,

Thanks for not telling me I have a brother.  Real stand up job, there, I thought being the comedian was my job?  Anyway, you don’t have to worry about raising a disappointment anymore.  I won’t be living here anymore. And don’t bother calling the Uris’s to try and get me to come back, we both know you don’t want me to.  You can cut the act now. Anyway, Mike is chill. Turns out, having family that actually likes you does wonders for the psyche of a teenager.  According to Eddie and Stan, anyway. Who would’ve thought? So have a nice time drowning this house in alcohol. I’ll be out disappointing other people, and by disappointing, I mean I’ll be fucking thriving.  Toodles!

See you in Hell, we all know I’ll be there,

Richie

His friends read over the note with their hands on his shoulders, and they gave him looks that were mixtures of sympathy (not pity, never pity) and amusement.  His parents would hate it. It was perfect. He stuck it to the back of the door with a pushpin, something his father hated, and left his house for good, Eddie holding his arm almost protectively, Stan’s hand on his back, Bill’s arm around his shoulders, Bev holding his hand, and Ben and Mike exuding their comforting presence.  

He felt at home.  

And the next morning, when they all gathered to wave off the Party, he still felt good.  He watched the car that held his twin brother disappear into the outskirts of Derry and he knew that he might never return.  They all tried to keep looks on their faces that matched Will’s, sad at the departure but excited to see them again in a week, but they weren’t sure how successful they were.  Will asked if they were okay. They lied and said they were.  

Richie could already feel the loss of his brother as if he was gone forever.  But he still had a family. He would be okay.  

Chapter Text

Will was a nearly seamless addition to the Losers, even without the Party there to bridge a gap between the two groups.  He wasn’t an eighth wheel, although there were a few hiccups with inside jokes and the naturally affectionate nature of the Losers friendship.  Nothing too big, but enough that it tripped up the conversation for a few moments. Even still, he grew from an honorary Loser to practically a fully-fledged member of the club in only a few days.  It had been clear that he wasn’t too comfortable around large groups of people, but he had grown to like and trust the seven of them enough to relax around them, and they were treated to his sarcastic humor and his recountings of the many D&D adventures he had experienced.  

The week had been going surprisingly smooth.  Despite not hearing from the Party (or at least, not hearing from Will that they had contacted him), they were having a good week.  Peter had even managed to not notice them for a few days, which gave them a welcome reprieve to ride the main streets with a reckless abandon.  They even got to show Will the rest of the town, including the arcade and the Aladdin, without any unwanted interruptions. While Richie was a little disappointed that Will wasn’t as enthused by the games in the arcade as him, he was easily mollified by the fact that Will preferred watching to playing and was perfectly willing to just watch Richie play Street Fighter.  

In fact...all the Losers found that they really liked spending time with Will.  Stan was more than happy to have someone else who was alright being quiet for long stretches of time, and was quick to invite Will on his next bird-watching trip.  Ben found that he and Will had a similar taste in books, and could spend hours discussing them. Bev managed to convince Will to let her paint his nails one day, and he found that he actually really enjoyed it.  Eddie was glad to have someone else in the group that didn’t like endangering themselves to have fun, although he earned teasing from the others when he said that, seeing as he was one of the first people to follow Richie if he had a new chaotic idea.  Mike invited Will to his farm whenever Will wanted, and seemed interested in learning about D&D. Bill...still grew slightly quiet when he was alone with Will. But he wasn’t unkind. Will figured that it was still something to do with the fact that he had gone missing too.  Which made it mean all the more when Bill let Will help with the wooden model boat he had started to build in his garage. He said it was a present for Georgie, and that he wasn’t letting Ben help because Ben would make it perfect, and Bill wanted it to show how much effort he was putting into it.  

So, all in all, everyone was having a good week.

Which was why it startled Stan so much when he heard a tapping at his window past midnight on Wednesday.  He instinctively groaned and opened his eyes to glare at Richie, before remembering that Richie was in the room right next to him and no longer needed to use the window.  Instead, he was greeted by the anxious face of Eddie, sitting on the garage roof that was right outside Stan’s window, motioning for Stan to let him inside. Stan frowned, sliding open the window and letting Eddie tumble to his floor ungracefully.  

“Eddie?” he asked, confused and concerned.  “Are you okay? If you’re looking for Richie, he’s the next room over and also asleep for once, so I have to ask that you don’t wake him up.”

“He’s actually sleeping?” Eddie seemed both surprised and relieved.  “Good. We all could use more sleep. How, uh, how is he doing?”

“Well, he’s pretending that he wasn’t somewhat hoping Maggie or Wentworth would call about him,” Stan said, sitting back down on his bed after realizing that whatever Eddie was here for wasn’t an emergency.  “So he’s pretending to not be slightly upset that they haven’t. But other than that...I think he’s happy here. I hope so, anyway.”

“I’m sure he is, Stan,” Eddie assured him with a small grin.  “Out of all of us, I’m not surprised he’s staying with you.”

“Yeah,” Stan agreed, looking at the wall that separated his room from Richie’s.  Then he frowned slightly, glancing at Eddie. “Eddie, why are you here? Did something happen with your mom?  Do you need to stay the night?”

“Oh, uh, not this time, actually,” Eddie admitted, his face flushing a bit as he looked away from Stan.  “I just, um, kinda needed to talk about something and apparently you’re the guy to go to for this kind of crisis?”

Stan didn’t quite get what he was talking about, but he wasn’t one to kick his friends out when they needed to talk.  He might have been tired, but he loved his friends, and if he concentrated (it’s harder when he’s tired), he could feel Eddie’s anxiety.  “Okay, yeah. What’s the problem?”

“Well…” Eddie searched for his words for a moment, Stan waiting patiently.  “How do you know if you like someone?”

“Oh,” Stan said, eyebrows furrowing.  He hadn’t expected that. With how vibrant a personality Eddie was, he hadn’t thought that Eddie would be able to hide a crush long enough to need to ask someone about it.  “What makes you think I know?”

“I know you insist you aren’t dating Patty,” Eddie started, ignoring Stan’s interruption of ‘ I’m not ’, “and I know that I’m not the best at knowing what everyone is feeling.  But I can recognize love, I think. I’m pretty sure I feel it from you.”

Stan frowned.  “I love all of you, you know that, Eddie,” he said.  Eddie nodded.

“I know, I do too.  But all our emotions were running a little hot last week, and they were a little...easier for me to understand.  I- this love felt different, Stan. Do you like Patty? How did you know?” Eddie was wringing his hands together.  “Sometimes...sometimes my own emotions are harder to understand than everyone else’s. I don’t know what I’m feeling.”

Stan sighed.  He was more awake, now, and when he reached out a little more he could feel the steady bond between the seven of them.  Eddie’s was the strongest, seeing as he was right next to him, and there was the normal thrum of affection for everyone else in the bond, but something stronger too.  Eddie was right. It felt different. It was a feeling Stan usually did his best to hide, but with the events of the last week he must have slipped. He didn’t want to overwhelm Eddie by confirming that Stan felt the stronger love coming from him, so he decided to just answer the question.

“It feels...safe,” Stan started, drawing Eddie’s attention.  “But terrifying at the same time. As easy as falling into your bed, but difficult in the sense that you know it could change everything.  When you’re around this person, or you talk to them, you can’t help but feel...lighter. Even if they annoy the shit out of you.” Stan missed the way Eddie’s lips pursed at that comment, too focused on his own words.  Stan’s voice grew softer. “It’s warm. Similar to the feeling of the seven of us, but...different.”

“Well...shit,” Eddie muttered, seeming smaller than normal as he sat on the edge of Stan’s bed.  Stan moved over to place a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“So you like someone?” Stan asked.  “That’s not a bad thing.”

“That’s not- that’s not the problem.” Eddie was quiet.  In fact, he was quiet for a good few minutes as Stan waited patiently.  Then he sighed, and turned to Stan with conflict in his eyes. “Stan, is it possible to like girls and boys?”

Stan managed to keep himself from reeling at the question that he hadn’t expected.  He felt something drop into his gut, a feeling that closely resembled dread, but he ignored it in favor of the obvious crisis that Eddie was having, all too similar to the one he had talked Richie through three years ago.  Yet, Richie was babbling non-stop during that crisis, his anxiety causing his motormouth to run even faster than normal. Eddie was silent, stressed, and looking for Stan to tell him that it was all okay. So Stan shoved down the part of him that felt slightly sick, and gave Eddie a small upwards quirk of his lips.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” he answered.  “Some people like girls, others like boys, why couldn’t someone like both?”

“It’s that simple, huh?” Eddie asked, then he swallowed and looked away from Stan.  “I just...I’ve liked girls before. Not Bev, but just random girls at school who would never notice me anyway.  And now…”

“Now you like a boy,” Stan finished, that pit in his gut growing a little bigger. Eddie huffed a short laugh.  

“I don’t just like a boy, Stanley,” his voice was affectionate but exasperated at the same time.  “I think I like Richie .”

Static.  There was static in Stan’s ears, that had to be it, he didn’t hear what Eddie had said, he couldn’t, there was too much static, that had to be it .  Because Eddie couldn’t say that.  The pit had become a boulder weighing down Stan’s gut, making it hard for him to draw breath, but it didn’t mean anything because Eddie hadn’t said that.  He couldn’t have. It was just the static. But Stan wasn’t stupid. In fact, he prided himself on not being stupid.  He had seen the slight increase in how often Eddie looked at Richie.  He had seen it, felt his lips twitch into a small frown, and ignored it.  Stan wanted to believe that he had heard a ringing, that his head had filled with static and that Eddie would say something else if Stan asked him to repeat himself.  But he knew that wouldn’t happen. He felt a chill in his chest, near his heart. He recalled his arm and held it to his chest, afraid of tightening his hold on Eddie’s shoulder to a vice grip.  

“Oh,” he managed, his voice low.  “Good for you.”

He tried to keep his voice level, but judging by the startled look on Eddie’s face, it didn’t work.  He tried his hardest to hold back his emotions, building a wall between him and the bond, and he hoped it was working.  He was one of the best at it, but his emotions were threatening to get the best of him at the moment. No, not just threatening, they were getting the best of him and it was terrifying.  He wanted to remain cool and collected, help his friend, and then go through this when his room was empty and quiet and darkened by the nighttime.  But emotions were, inherently, illogical. They acted on their own impulses and desires, no matter how much Stan wanted to keep them quiet and held back.  The heart didn’t listen to logic or schedules, and Stan’s heart didn't care that Eddie was still in the room, confused by the sudden change of Stan’s demeanor.  

“I- Stan?  What does that mean?” Eddie asked.  Stan tried, he did, he hated the idea of accidentally hurting Eddie because he couldn’t keep a lid on his feelings, but he couldn’t stop the slight bitterness that leached into his voice as he responded, turning his gaze away from Eddie as it sharpened into a glare that was now trained on his sheets.  He had to glare at his sheets because this anger wasn’t towards Eddie, but something bigger than all of them.

“It means you have a chance,” Stan replied, feeling as if everything he had held back for three years, everything he had worked to keep hidden and handled, was crashing through and washing over him like a tidal wave.  He didn’t want to feel angry, he didn't want Eddie to think that he was mad at him, but being angry was better than being sad. Because being sad would mean completely losing hope. Eddie frowned, eyes concerned but at the same time they were lit up by a sudden spark of hope.

“Do you mean…” Eddie started, almost afraid to break the silence.  “Does he like me?”

Stan scoffed, muttering under his breath.  “Does he like you...” He shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose.  “I can’t fucking believe this.”

“Stan, what’s wrong?  What are you feeling? I- I can’t tell.” The smaller boy reached out to try and place a comforting hand on Stan’s knee, but Stan moved away.  He pressed his back against the wall and raised his eyes to meet Eddie’s, knowing that the hurt he had been suppressing for years was finally on display.  He couldn’t hold it back any more, but not for lack of trying.

“What am I feeling?” Stan repeated, his tone thick with emotion and yet steady as if there were no feelings behind it.  “Tell me, Eddie, tell me how you would feel. How would you feel if you were eleven, and your closest friend confides in you, practically melting in panic, that he likes boys?  That he likes one boy in particular? A boy who happens to be a mutual friend of both of you. How would it feel to hold him as he trusts you with this, as he breaks down because he lives in a town that hates him.  How would you feel to realize, that very same night, that you might be in the same boat? That as your best friend lies crying in your arms, more vulnerable than you have ever seen him, more scared and sad than you ever want to see him again…” Stan’s voice grew hushed.  “That you might care about him far more than you thought. How would you feel to realize this right as your best friend tells you of his feelings for another boy?”

Eddie was silent.  Mouth open, not quite agape but getting there, hand still outstretched towards a knee that was now too far to reach.  But Stan wasn’t done. His eyes, now glazed with unshed tears, dropped again to the sheets. 

“I can tell you,” he said.  “It felt like there was no point in trying to like someone else, because the universe had already deemed that you should be alone.  That if this is the first situation in which you realize you have those feelings, then it will never work out. But you keep hope.” His eyes shut briefly.  “Because the boy that your best friend likes is straight. And you feel like shit for using that fact as hope, since you know that it hurts your friend to like him and know it’s a fruitless endeavor.  You don’t want him to suffer like that. You would never want that. But you can’t help but think that maybe, just maybe , he’ll move on and he’ll finally see you.” A small tear escaped Stan’s eyes and he quickly wiped it away, swallowing.  “But he jokes around and calls you a brother, he says that he loves you but you know it’s in a different way, and he’s living with you but sleeping so far away in a separate bed and a separate room.”

There was another pause, but Eddie could feel that there was more.  It was in the air, a tension waiting to snap, waiting to fall alongside the tears gathering in Stan’s eyes.  Eddie couldn’t breathe, his own eyes stinging harshly as he watched his most composed friend fall to pieces. This was different than the sewers.  This wasn’t something that could be blamed on that clown, on him separating Stan from them so they couldn’t protect him, on Stan being hurt because It had made sure he was alone.  This had been around for years. Festering in the background, only exacerbated by how good Stan was at guarding his emotions. This had been building and building, and Eddie had torn the keystone right from under the careful tower of thoughts and feelings.  He let Stan try to compose himself, try to calm the racing heartbeat and the shuddering breath, try to blink away the tears and swallow back the emotions. He watched as Stan failed for the first time since the sewers. The moonlight reflected off of the tiny white scars that circled Stan’s face, and Eddie moved closer along the bed until he was in front of Stan.  And he waited. He wanted to say something, to ask questions or try for comforting words, but he was too afraid of breaking something else. He didn’t blame Stan for feeling like this, for being set off by Eddie’s confession. He knew, he could feel , that Stan wasn’t mad at him.  Stan just needed to feel the things that he had pushed aside for years, and Eddie was more than happy to be a sounding board for the words that needed to be said.  Stan sniffed, scrubbing his red eyes as the dam broke and the tears began to fall. 

“And then,” he said, his voice small and wavering, “then the boy himself comes into your room and tells you that he likes your best friend.  Your best friend who never seems to look at you the way you want him to, who talks about boys and one specific boy in your late night discussions yet doesn’t notice how you pull back every time that boy is mentioned on those nights.  And you’re faced with the truth that this boy isn’t straight and that your best friend has the chance to have what he’s been wanting for years. And you can’t be upset.” His voice broke, briefly, and Stan shook his head sharply. “You can’t be upset.  Because he is your best, closest friend no matter how much of a little shit he is, no matter how annoying he is, no matter how oblivious he manages to be. And the other boy is your friend too, and you love them both, and you want desperately for them to be happy, for them to find the love that they deserve.” Stan’s voice wasn’t raising, too aware of Richie sleeping in the adjacent room, but it was becoming more desperate and more unhinged.  More emotional. Insistent and intense, a hissed whisper not meant to hurt Eddie but to make sure that he understood.  Practically begging him to understand.  “You want them to be happy, they deserve to be happy, and you would never stand in the way of that.  But don’t you deserve that too?” His whisper raised in volume, never leaving the realm of whisper, yet steadily rising as the tears cut down Stan’s face.  “Don’t you deserve to be happy too?”

A beat, and then Stan’s voice had a broken quality to it that Eddie never wanted to hear again.  

“Don’t I deserve to be happy?”

Eddie didn’t think about the tears on Stan’s face, or the sniffling that would normally have him handing a tissue and getting Ben, he just lunged forward and pulled Stan against him in a tight hug.  He felt the same fierce protectiveness that was at its strongest a year ago flare up again as Stan’s face got buried in his shoulder, and Eddie didn’t let go.  

“I’m sorry,” Stan managed to mumble through Eddie’s pajama shirt.  “You came for help. Not to hear me cry.”

“Don’t you fucking apologize to me, Stanley Uris,” Eddie scolded.  “I might not be an expert, but even I could tell that if you hadn’t said all that then it would have just kept getting worse.”  He felt Stan’s hand grip his shirt as he finally relaxed into the hug. Eddie had always known that he would do anything for Stan, even without the bond between the seven of them, Stan was one of the original Losers and Eddie would never let anything hurt him.  But right now? Eddie felt closer to Stan than he ever had, the bond between them feeling warm and seeming to pulse with a heartbeat. Eddie would fight that fucking turtle for Stan.  

When Stan pulled away because Eddie was holding him too tight for him to breathe, Eddie kept his hands on his shoulders.

“Stan, you asked me how I would feel,” he said.  “And I can tell you with absolute fucking certainty that I would not have been able to hold onto this for three years.  I would’ve exploded at someone within a few months. And while I get why you didn’t say anything...we all want to help, Stanny.  With anything. With everything.”

“I know,” Stan gave a small, grateful twitch of his lips.  “But if I had my way, I wouldn’t have said all of that tonight.  Ever, preferably.” 

“I know I usually focus on physical illnesses and injuries when I talk about health, but that is not healthy , Stan,” Eddie insisted, a frown tugging at his features once more.  “Honestly? It scares me how good you are at holding back from the bond.  And I’m sure I’m not the only one. Are you worried that we would pry? Do you use it to pry?”

“No, of course not,” Stan said.  He had sat back against the wall, wiping the tears from his face with his sleeve, which Eddie managed to suppress a wince at.  “It’s not that. I just don’t want you all to worry about me. I can handle my own emotions. If I felt anything abnormal, like- like heightened fear, I would let you all know.”

“We know you can handle them, Stan,” Eddie said, shifting so that he was next to Stan, his back pressing against the cool surface of the wall.  “But you shouldn’t have to do it alone. We know you aren’t perfect, we know you aren’t some calm and collected cyborg that doesn’t feel. If anything, knowing that and still feeling only the things that you let through the bond... that’s what worries us.”

“What do you want me to do, Eddie?” Stan looked tired, far more exhausted than he had when Eddie first showed up at the window.  “I feel like I owe you one after my...outburst.”

“No, you don’t owe me anything.  But I want you to let us in,” he said.  “I know that Richie is your best friend, and I’m sure you tell him things that you don’t tell the rest of us.  But we love you, Stan. Just let us help. You deserve to be happy, Stanley, and keeping yourself cut off isn’t going to make you happy.”

Stan sighed.  “Fine. I’ll...try to be less vigilant about what emotions get broadcasted.”

“Thank you,” Eddie said.  Stan then looked up and met his eyes.  There was something unreadable in them, and the emotions that Eddie could feel were too jumbled for him to decipher.  Mike would have been able to. But Eddie was stuck waiting for Stan to speak.  

“Tell him, Eddie,” he said eventually.  “You and Richie deserve to be happy too.  Tell him.”

Eddie’s expression softened.  “You know...I don’t know if you have as little of a chance as you think.”

Stan shook his head.  “Don’t. Don’t give me false hope.  I don’t need any more than what I already give myself.  Just tell him, and be happy.”

Eddie didn’t know when his hands had moved from holding Stan’s shoulders to holding his hands, but he didn’t pull away.  Rather, he acted on impulse and leaned forward to kiss Stan’s forehead.  

“Get some sleep, Stan,” he said.  “We’ll all be over tomorrow. I love you.”

It had taken him a little bit to grow comfortable saying those words so casually to his best friends, but now it was practically second nature.  Telling the Losers he loved them was as easy as breathing. Especially when it made Stan give him that soft smile that made him seem younger than he acted normally.  Like the kid that he was.

“I love you too, Eddie.”

Then Eddie was leaving the way that he came, back into the night.  Stan sat on his bed, only moving when he realized that his phone had been lighting up with notifications the entire time.  Grabbing it to check, he saw multiple texts from Bill, Bev, Mike, and Ben, all of whom were still awake to varying degrees.  They felt his distress. His anger, his hurt, his heartbreak. They were worried. That soft smile remained on his face as he sent messages back, merely saying that he was having a bad night.  He knew how they would take that, but he still couldn’t bring himself to talk about the real reason with anyone else. Eddie finding out wasn’t planned, but he couldn’t bring himself to be upset about it either.  

A knock sounded on the door, soft and quiet.  

“Stan?” Richie’s voice came through the wood.  “I woke up a minute ago, and I could feel...something.  Are you okay?”

Richie entered the room to see Stan sitting on his bed with red eyes and tear tracks.  In seconds, he was on the bed too.

“I’m okay, Richie,” Stan assured him.  “Just a bad night. Did I wake you?”

“Nah,” Richie waved off his concerns.  “My body just has an aversion to a full night’s sleep.”

“Good,” Stan said, his voice dropping in volume as his exhaustion hit him again.  He lay back against the pillow, and not even a moment had passed before Richie lay down beside him.  Stan felt something constrict. Of all the nights for Richie to come into his room and lie down next to him, he picked this one.  Just Stan’s luck.  

“Can I stay here?” Richie’s voice was a breath.  “Since I can’t get a full eight hours, I’m worried this might be a bad night for me too.”

Richie had never successfully lied to Stan, and this was no exception.  But Stan let it slide. He nodded, forcing himself to ignore the ice near his heart as he let the contentment from his situation wash over him.  

Allowing himself to forget Eddie’s confession for one night, he fell asleep with Richie beside him.  He never slept better.

“Alright, Dustin, what is it?” Mike said finally, turning to the fidgeting boy next to him.  Lucas and Max were focused on the movie, and El was rather confused on the premise, but this was one of Dustin’s favorite movies and he wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention.  He jumped slightly as Mike addressed him, his fingers tapping on his arms.

“I’m just...worried,” Dustin admitted.  Mike frowned, reaching over and pausing the movie to get the attention of Lucas and Max.  They turned with a frown, but as they saw Dustin’s face it shifted to concern.

“About what?”

“Well, I haven’t shown you what I found in Derry,” Dustin said.  He pulled a piece of newspaper out of his pocket. Lucas raised his eyebrows.

“Did you cut a library newspaper? I feel like that’s illegal or something,” he said.  Dustin shook his head.

“No, this was a paper from only a year ago, so they still had extra copies.” He unfolded the paper and then handed it to Mike.  “Here.”

Mike took it, anxiety starting to enter his chest, and as he read the words at the top of the clipping, he just felt confused.  It was a clipping from the obituary section. Short, impersonal, and very telling of how much Derry really cared, but an obituary nonetheless.

George ‘Georgie’ Denbrough, age 6:  After going missing five months ago, in August of 1988, George Denbrough was declared dead on January 7th, 1989.  There will be a closed casket burial on January 11th, open to all friends of the Denbrough family. We here at the Derry Post send our condolences and prayers to Zach and Sharon Denbrough, and their surviving son William.  

“I- what?” Mike asked, passing the paper to Lucas and looking up at Dustin.  “Bill said they found Georgie. He said that they found him and he was fine.”

“We had a funeral for Will, too, Dustin,” Lucas added as he scanned the obituary with a crease between his eyes.  Dustin shook his head.

“Yeah, but...Will’s was taken back.  His obituary. There were articles, that’s how he got the name Zombie Boy!” Dustin insisted.  “I searched every paper over that summer, the one that they said they found Georgie during.  There was nothing .  Not to mention, monster or no monster, Will was missing for a week.  Georgie, if they found him in the summer of ‘89, would have been missing for a year.  I feel like that would warrant some kind of public announcement, right?”

“...what are you saying, Dustin?” Max asked.  

“I’m saying…” Dustin hesitated.  “Maybe they did find Georgie.  Maybe Max’s first thought was right.”

“Oh, shit ,” Mike said, stilling suddenly.  “You think they found his body?”

Max’s eyes widened, her hand covering her mouth.  “But...but they talk about him. They mention taking him places!”

“The first time we saw Bill, he had just come from taking Georgie back to their house,” Lucas said.  

“Yeah, but have any of you actually seen him?” Dustin asked, knowing he was right when none of them answered.  They all looked a little lost, and very concerned.  

“Do you think...is Bill okay?” Max voiced, tentative.  “Is this just how he copes , or does he…”

“He wasn’t lying,” El said.  “He believes what he says.”

“So he thinks Georgie is alive,” Mike said, sighing and leaning into the couch.  “This feels too much like when people called Mrs. Byers crazy.”

“But she was looking for Will,” Dustin said.  “They say they found Georgie already.”

There was silence as the five of them absorbed that thought.  As they grappled with the idea that their new friends might not be...okay.

“Do you think they all think Georgie is alive?” Lucas asked.  “Or are they humoring Bill?”

“I think we’d be able to tell if they were humoring him,” Mike said.  “They would be...sad or something. They all talk about him like he’s still living with Bill.”

“ Fuck ,” Max cursed, dropping her head in her hands.  “I don’t know how we can help with this. Can we?”

Mike was lost in thought, thinking about the seven kids who had managed to make friends with the Party in less than a week.  They had found the body of Bill’s little brother, they had to have.  Dustin was right.  After being missing for a year, if they had brought Georgie home, there would be some form of announcement.  Mike suddenly remembered their run-in with the asshole that punched Richie. ‘ You’ll end up just like Georgie’. The words that set his brother off, that made him take a punch for Bill, had been about Georgie being dead.  That was more than just humoring Bill, that was belief. Richie had said that Bill was practically a brother, that must have meant that he saw Georgie as a brother too.  But was Richie defending the memory of Georgie, or did he really think that the little boy was still alive?  This was too much.  

“I felt something,” El said suddenly, drawing all their attention.  “The house. It felt...off.”

“Off, like the Upside Down?” Mike clarified, relieved when El shook her head.  

“Just off.  Not evil.” Her tone was definitive, which was definitely a relief.  At least whatever she was feeling in the Denbrough’s house wasn’t evil.  

“We could just...ask,” Lucas said.  “Ask to meet him?”

“Or we come clean,” Max said.  “Say we accidentally found the obituary, and we’re worried.  It’s not unreasonable, and they are our friends.”

“I can’t even imagine how I would be right now if it had been us to find Will’s fake body in the quarry,” Mike said.  “I think it’s understandable that we’re concerned.”

A beat passed, and then Mike sighed.

“I need to call Will.”

As good as the week started out, the last two days before the Party (hopefully) returned to town were a bit more tense between some members of the group.  Stan kept sending Eddie odd looks, and they were returned with equally odd expressions from Eddie, a silent conversation that not even Richie could decipher.  Eddie hadn’t told Richie, and when Stan finally caught him alone, Eddie explained that he was waiting to see where Richie went. Then he gave Stan a small smile, a gentle brush of his shoulder, and he’d leave Stan to watch him go in confusion.  

Will had been acting weird too.  When they met with him on Thursday, he was in his own world, watching the Losers with an almost sad expression.  They assumed that he was upset because the Party hadn’t gotten in touch with him since they left. That would explain the slight frown that seemed persistent on his face, the slightly lost look in his eyes.  But when they asked him what was wrong, he said it was nothing. He was just anxious for Saturday, when he got to see Mike and the others again.  

“So they’re still coming down again this weekend?” Bev asked from one of the clubhouse beanbags, her voice gentle.  A smile flickered onto Will’s face for the first time that day.

“Yeah!” he said.  “Mike said it was really easy to convince his mom, she’s still worried he’s mad at her.” The smile dropped slightly.  “Which, I mean, he is , but not as mad as she thinks he is.”

“So you talked to Mike then?” Stan asked, masking the curiosity.  Will nodded, a simple act that froze all the Losers.

“Yeah, he called this morning!” Will said brightly.  “They’re taking an overnight bus tomorrow night, they’ll be here Saturday morning.”

“So, if you just talked to Mikey, what’s gotten you all debbie downer today?” Richie asked, leaning back into the hammock with the side effect of shoving his foot further into Eddie’s ribs.  Will hesitated for a moment, looking at all the Losers. If his gaze stopped on Bill for more than a second, none of them noticed. But then he frowned and looked at the floor.

“Nothing, there’s just…” he sighed.  “There’s something weird going on in Hawkins, that’s all.”

“Weird?  W-weird, how?” Bill asked, all of them paying a little more attention to the conversation.  Will shook his head. 

“It just doesn’t make sense.  And it’s kinda...disheartening.”

“Is everything okay? Is anyone in danger?” Mike asked.  

“No, no,” Will assured them.  “No one’s in danger. Mike was just telling me that...people have stopped talking about us.  My family. They- everyone looks at my friends weirdly when they bring me up, apparently. Mike, Lucas, and Dustin even ran into Troy, and he didn’t mention me once!  He always asks them where the zombie boy is, where their-” Will hesitated for a minute before continuing “-’fairy friend’ is.  It’s almost as if…” He trailed off, not having an answer.  

“It’s almost as if they forgot you,” Eddie said, the frown on his face easily passing for confusion when Will looked up at him.  

“Yeah,” he said.  “But that’s not possible, I moved two weeks ago.  Everyone in Hawkins knows each other.”

“There are worse things, though.” Ben tried to reassure Will.  “At least you don’t live there anymore.”

“And at least Mike and the others still remember you,” Bev added, smiling lightly at Will.  Will looked at her, eyebrows furrowing.

“Of course they do,” he said defensively.  “Why wouldn’t they?”

“Of course they remember you,” Mike hurried to agree with Will, feeling the relief that had flooded through the bond when there was proof that the Party, for whatever reason, hadn’t been affected by It even when the rest of Hawkins was clearly forgetting about Will.  Will seemed to relax as Mike continued. “This is just a weird situation, she was bringing up something happy when the rest of it might seem, as you said, disheartening.”

Will sighed.  “You’re right.  Sorry Beverly.”

“No problem, Zombie Boy,” Bev returned with an easy smile.  Will had told them only a day ago that he was alright with the nickname, and it had only added to his near-seamless fit with the Losers.  “It’s weird, you’re unsettled, I didn’t take offense to it.”

“I just don’t know what’s going on,” Will said, looking back at the floor.  “I was never popular, but I didn’t think I was that easy to forget.”

“Sometimes things just...don’t make sense,” Stan said, frowning.  “Trust me, it’s not a fact I like to think about, but the world doesn’t always care about our sense of how everything works.”

“And look on the bright side, Willicent,” Richie added.  There hadn’t been the chance to mention it, and no one knew for sure that they would , but it was clear to all the seven Richie’s relief at the continued memory of the Party was the strongest.  As such, he was in quite the good mood. “You have your old friends and now you have us too. The much cooler, much sexier, way funnier, upgraded version of your old friends.”

“Mike would fight you over that comment,” Will said with a grin.  Richie grinned right back.

“And we have established that I would win,” he said.  “Don’t worry about Hawkins being weird, you’ve got people and that’s what matters.”

“Thanks, guys,” Will said, relaxing in his chair.  A chorus of ‘no problem’s’ came back to him, and he felt a smile on his face despite his nerves over what he had talked to Mike about.  It wasn’t just about Hawkins. Will had to do everything he could to stop from glancing at Bill every few seconds. He just had to wait.  Mike and the others would be back soon, and then they’d find answers and Will could ignore the fact that his hometown seemed to not remember his existence.  He just had to be patient. He had one more day.

Just one more day.

Chapter Text

When the bus pulled into the station early Saturday morning, the five newcomers from Hawkins were greeted by seven grinning faces.  Bill was suspiciously absent. That didn’t dampen the mood, though, with the two groups colliding in a hug in the middle of the station.  They gathered a few odd looks, but the Derry station was always rather empty. Not many people entered or left the town, thanks to It. But the Losers weren’t letting that passing thought get them down.  They were too happy about seeing their friends again.  

The Party didn't quite know how to bring up the fact that the Losers seemed relieved to see them, like a weight had been lifted off their collective shoulders, but they definitely noticed it.  El had noticed something off when Hopper was driving them away from the Byers's house but didn't know what it was, she had no name to put to the feeling she had seen in their eyes.  Now, in the dim morning light of the bus stop, all of them noticed this. But they didn't want to think about anything potentially upsetting until they brought up Georgie later, and so they filed that observation away.  They knew that they had a good day ahead of them, one that could potentially go sideways when they confronted Bill, and so they wanted to put that off as long as possible.  

Mrs. Byers offered to host them all, making lunch for thirteen people (fourteen if you count Jonathan, but he was only there to greet everyone, tease Will, and go back to his own room).  The living room was a little cramped, but no one really wanted to leave, not until their plans to go to the clubhouse later. Bill showed up as they were settling into the Byers’s living room, giving the Party an apologetic smile.

“S-sorry,” he said as he joined Eddie, Bev, and Ben on the couch.  Stan had taken an armchair, El had taken the other, and everyone else was sitting somewhere on the floor.  “I was gonna b-be on time, but Georgie insisted on another round of c-cards.”

“That’s fine, Bill, we basically just got back here anyway,” Will said, smiling kindly, if a little strained, while the rest of the Party shared a subtle, worried look.  “We were just starting to catch up.”

“I’m excited to hear more about Hawkins,” Bev said.  “Most of us have rarely been outside of Derry, it’s always nice to hear about other small towns.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t know if Will told you what’s been going on, but...Hawkins has been weird lately.”  Dustin gave Will a concerned look. The Losers nodded.

“Yeah, he told us.  People are acting like he never existed or something?” Eddie said.  “That is really weird.”

“Is it just a few people?  Or is everyone but you forgetting about the Byers’s?” Mike #1 asked, even though he had a feeling he knew what the answer was.  Max bit her lip.

“It seems to be...everyone else,” she said.  “Mrs. Wheeler and Nancy remember, so do Steve and Robin and Hopper, but…”

“Even Mr. Clark forgot that there was a fourth member of the AV Club,” Mike #2 said, almost scandalized but definitely indignant.  “He’s worked with us and Will for years now.”

“Are you sure it's not a side effect of whatever was in the water supply a year or so ago?” Ben asked.  “I remember reading about that somewhere, it was a big government thing, right?”

“Yeah,” Lucas said, meeting Mike’s eyes briefly.  “We don’t think it has to do with that. We hope not, anyway.  Otherwise, it might affect us too, right?”

“Don’t say that, guys, whatever this is won’t affect you guys,” Will said, seeming to try and reassure them as much as reassure himself.  “It can’t! Even if it is the water, it can’t , right?”

“We aren’t gonna forget you, Will, don’t even worry about it,” Mike #2 said, his hand on Will’s shoulder.  “I don’t think there’s anything we can do about the rest of the town, though.”

“Let’s talk about something happier,” Bev said, changing the subject with the sympathetic smile towards Will.  “How was your week back home?”

The tense air seemed to lift as they began to laugh and joke once more.  The secrets that went unspoken faded to the background, an incessant itch in the back of everyone’s mind, drowned out by the happier feelings of the room.  There was something weighing in the air, though, and everyone was able to feel it, even those without a bond connecting them. There was a tension, a fog, a different feeling than there had been the other week when the Party had been there.  This was new, and this was worrying. But none of them wanted to think about that when they had their newest friends back in town after a week of fearing they would never return. So they listened as the Party told stories of their families, Mike groaning about Nancy calling Jonathan at all hours of the day and hogging the phone, Dustin telling stories of the new kitten his mom had gotten, and Lucas and Max sharing stories of their dates that had turned into more along the lines of adventures.  El was rather silent the whole time, but she had a few stories of living in the woods with the police chief, since that was bound to create some shenanigans. Most of them involved the Great Escape style ways that she had to come up with to sneak out of the house when the Party met up at night. Mostly, though, she was listening and watching, but the Losers had come to realize that she was just like that sometimes. The Losers shared a few stories too, catching the Party up on everything that happened to them and to Will in the past week.  Bill was particularly excited by these stories, as he got to tell the Party that Stan had gotten the number of one of Patty’s friends to pass onto Bill. Apparently Bill seemed like Audra’s type. The two had chosen to go the more modern route, texting instead of following Stan and Patty’s example of mailing actual letters, and Bill was always eager to talk about the quickly budding relationship. Stan got teased that Bill and Audra were moving faster than Stan and Patty, but Stan just rolled his eyes and insisted once more that he and Patty were not dating.  

After eating with Mrs. Byers and Jonathan, and thanking her profusely for putting up with all of them, the large group made their way to the Loser’s clubhouse.  They stayed quiet, taking the side roads once again. None of the Party mentioned the bandage on Bill’s face, the scrape on Mike’s chin, Richie’s taped glasses, or the way Stan was holding his arm slightly funny.  They didn’t mention Eddie’s increased overprotectiveness of all the others, or Ben’s slight wince as he stood up, or how Beverly was carrying more makeup with her than she ever had the other week. They could figure out what happened.  Peter had been rather mad when they all got away over a week ago.  The Loser’s didn’t seem to want to talk about it, and so no one brought it up.  

All in all, the day went smoothly.  It was just two friend groups, reuniting.  Catching up. Relaxing in the presence of people who seemed to understand.

It should have stayed that way.  

But when they returned to Bill’s house that night, after hours of games in the clubhouse and embarrassing childhood stories, the Party remembered what they had found.  Will held his arms to his chest, slightly out of nerves for the questions they were about to ask, and partially because he still found Bill’s house to be abnormally cold.  No one else seemed to notice it, but Will felt the goosebumps on his arms. He wasn’t completely on board with confronting the Losers about it, because he was scared of losing his newest friends.  But he was worried about them just as much as the rest of the Party, and he couldn’t keep wondering if they needed help and he wasn’t giving it. So as the sun was setting outside the Denbrough’s windows, and the thirteen of them were once more taking up the living room, it was Dustin who broke the silence.  It was his discovery, after all.  

“Hey, Bill?” He asked, gathering the attention of all seven instead of just the one.  They all seemed to move closer to Bill on instinct, moving in the way that they sometimes did where none of them said anything.  It was slightly unsettling to the Party, the way that they moved in sync without speaking, but judging by the way Bill’s eyebrows furrowed as he turned to Dustin, they all brushed it off as the others noticing the hesitance in Dustin’s voice and getting reading to lend support.  

“Y-yeah?” Bill responded, leaning slightly so his shoulder was against Bev’s.  Dustin put his hand in his pocket, where the slightly crumpled obituary rested.  He almost couldn’t get the words out, but his concern over his new friends took precedence over his nerves.

“So, uh, when we were here the other week, and Mike and I went to the library, the thing about the Tozier’s wasn’t the only thing we found,” he started.  “I found something else, and I wanted to ask you about it.”

“Yeesh, more library revelations?” Richie laughed.  “Wasn’t one enough?”

“What w-was it, Dustin?” Bill asked.  

Dustin took out the obituary and held it out for Bill to take.  Bill took one look at the rectangular slip of newspaper and knew immediately what it was, reading the first few words, the name , and refusing to take it from Dustin.  His jaw clenched as he looked at the reminder of what he wished he could forget, all too aware of the concerned, watchful eyes of the Party.  A sudden wave of grief spread through the bond, exacerbated by all seven of them, and Ben and Mike felt the sharp sting of tears start to well in their eyes.  

“What are you trying to say?” Bill asked, his voice shockingly level, his tone quiet and heavy.  “Will died too, right?”

Mike #2, Dustin, Lucas, and El flinched slightly at the memories, and Will just looked to the floor with a faraway look in his eyes.  Max wasn’t unaffected, but she hadn’t been there for Will’s disappearance. So she looked at her friends as they once again thought back to that horrible week, and then turned back to the Losers.  All seven of them were on edge, muscles tensed as if for a fight. More than a few of them were clearly trying not to cry, which made Max wonder if they had been on the right track after all. She tried to make her voice gentle, not wanting to make them mad, but not wanting to talk to them like they were frightened animals. 

“...Will’s return was made very, very public,” she said.  Those words somehow made the Losers tense even more.   

“And?” Bill asked, speaking slowly and carefully.  “What do you think is going on here?”

It looked like he knew, but it was still hard to get the words out.  In the end, it was El who answered. She was used to being the one to bluntly say what everyone was thinking, and while it might have led to arguments, it hadn’t led to her losing a friend yet.  She couldn’t think that this would be any different.  

“You see Georgie,” she said, picking her words carefully.  “But Georgie is dead.”

Silence.  Richie laughed awkwardly.

“Careful, there,” he said, moving a little closer to Bill.  “Last time I said those words, Bill almost broke my nose.”

He looked to Bill, waiting, hoping that he would accept his spiritual outstretched hand, his offer to dissolve the tension.  To take the focus away from Bill. But Bill did not utter the ‘beep beep’ that Richie was waiting for, he merely ignored the tense chuckling from behind him and curled his fingers into the carpet beneath him.  He took a breath, his chest rising and falling as he tried to keep it from becoming more of a shudder than a breath. He locked eyes with each of the Party in turn, who found it difficult to keep the contact.  

“I couldn’t have one thing, could I?” he said, not necessarily speaking to the Party or the Losers, just speaking his thoughts to the air.  “Not one f-fucking thing.  I thought I could finally have people that I could talk about G-Georgie with, people who weren’t there and people who don’t look at me with p-pity if I use present tense.  But even after fucking everything , It-”

Bill cut himself off before he said what was running through his head.  That even when It was supposed to be dead, even after It already took Georgie from him, It couldn’t let him have one good, new thing.  He sighed and looked back at the Party, not angry at them , but they didn’t know who else he could be mad at.  

“We’re just...we’re concerned, Bill,” Max said.  “We don’t quite know what to think.”

Bill glanced quickly at the ceiling, as if he could see into his room, before coming to a decision and turning back to the Party.

“If you m-met him, would that change your minds?” he asked.  Instantly, the other six Losers were turning towards him with furrowed brows.  The Party didn’t need to answer, everyone knew that their answer would be yes. The Losers were more concerned with the asking in the first place.  

“You don’t have to do that, Bill,” Stan said softly.

“If you don’t want to, they don’t need to know,” Bev muttered.  A few of them were sending furtive looks towards the Party, as if checking that they couldn’t overhear what they were whispering to Bill.  Richie, however, was pointedly not looking. He didn’t want to. He wasn’t mad, he was more frustrated than anything, but he just couldn’t look at them.  He didn’t want to look over and see Mike look back at him, he didn’t want to see Mike try and nonverbally ask Richie to take his side. He didn’t know if Mike would understand that they might be family, but Richie agreed with Bill that he never wanted them to find out.  He wanted to keep everything related to It as far away from them as he could, as contained as he could so that no one else he cared about could get fucked over by It. He didn’t know if Mike would expect or want Richie to take his side, but Richie didn’t even want to check.  So he kept looking at Bill, watching as their leader stood up, sending determination through the bond and flooding over the grief and the frustration. He didn’t say a word as he turned to make his way quietly up the stairs. In fact, no one said a word. The Party was waiting in confusion, concern, and anticipation.  The Losers were just worried. Worried that what Bill was planning wouldn’t work, and the Party wouldn’t believe them. Worried that everything would work, the Party would believe them, and that they would think it was crazy and leave.  

The air was as tense as it was the day of Richie and Mike’s confrontation, but in a much different way.  If that was a fuse, burning down and waiting to explode, then this tension was much more subtle. Like a gas leak, filling the room and making it hard for everyone involved to breathe, invisible and palpable.  The sun had set, leaving behind silver moonlight that didn’t help the slightly somber atmosphere. Will shivered slightly, a blanket over his shoulders. El’s head was cocked as she tried to listen to what Bill was whispering upstairs, but he was speaking so quietly that even she couldn’t make out words.  

It was times like this that the Losers wished their bond went deeper than just emotions and intuition.  It was times like this that they wished they could communicate without words, so they could express their worries and their fears without telling the Party more than any of them wanted them to know.  They all knew that they couldn’t lose the Party as friends. They had to make this work out. But they had no way to guarantee that. All they could do was sit in the silence, sit in the darkened room, and feel.  Feel the steady presence of the other six, feel the steady warmth of their connection, and hope that everything would be alright.  

When Bill came back down the stairs almost ten minutes later, it seemed to the Party that he was alone.  All of them grew nervous, worried that they were right and that Bill needed their help. That all the Losers needed their help, because all of them unarguably agreed with Bill and were behind him completely.  Bill’s hand was slightly outstretched as if he was holding something, and even though his expression was resigned and flat, there was undeniable love in his eyes as he stopped in front of the Party and knelt down.  He turned to his right, staring at thin air, and began to speak. The other Losers stood too, making a semi-circle around the blank space beside Bill, almost making a shield.  

“Alright, bud,” Bill started, his voice soft, losing all the bite it had gained while talking to the Party.  It was still hesitant, still slightly agitated, but not harsh at all. “Just d-do what we talked about. F-focus on us.”

“Focus on the energy, Georgie,” Mike #1 added, smiling gently down at the empty air.  “You said we feel different, right? Focus on that, draw from that.”

The Party watched, enraptured and worried all at the same time, as Bill whispered encouragingly to absolutely fucking nothing.  

And then, there was something.  

Their eyes widened in tandem as the air beside Bill seemed to shimmer, like heat waves on a sweltering summer day.  At their shock, the Losers grew slightly more energetic, their encouraging words gaining fervor. Suddenly, there was a hand in Bill’s.  A small hand, the size of a very young child. Still slightly translucent, slightly off-putting, but a human hand nonetheless. As they watched, something akin to dread curling in their guts, the color spread up an arm, reaching a gray shirt, forming a torso, legs, and the covered stump of what should have been a right arm.  The dark brown of dried blood still stained the sleeve, tied into the knot to hide it. And then, the slightly see-through head of a small boy. His eyes were shut, his face screwed in concentration, but at the sudden intake of break from multiple members of the Party, his warm brown eyes fluttered open and a wide smile split his face.  Bill looked between the boy and the Party, his face clearly conflicted between pride and worry. The other Losers seemed to share the sentiment, more than one of them reaching out to rest a hand on the boy’s shoulders. But none of them said anything as the boy - Georgie, it was Georgie - took his hand out of Bill’s to wave brightly at the Party.  

“Hi!” he said, his voice echoing just enough to remind the Party that something was off.  “Can you see me?”

A shellshocked Dustin nodded his head.

“Um...yeah,” he said.  “We can.”

“Georgie, right?” Max asked, her eyes wide.  Georgie nodded.

“Billy said I could finally meet you!” he said excitedly.  “I haven’t tried to be visible for a while, I don’t usually need to be, but Billy said that you guys might actually remember I exist and-”

“-Georgie,” Bill interrupted, the corners of his lips twitching upward involuntarily.  Georgie took Bill’s hand again as his cheeks flushed a transparent pink.

“Sorry, Billy,” he said.  “Can I shake their hands?”

Bill thought for a moment, locking eyes with the others, before turning back to the expectant young boy.  

“If they’re alright with it and if you actually can,” he said.  “We still d-don’t quite know what you’re c-capable of, bud. If it’s t-too much energy, don’t do it.”

Georgie looked back at the Party, who all looked to their unofficial leader.  Mike #2 didn’t hesitate before holding out his hand. He knew that if he did, it might seem like he was scared.  Which he wasn’t, it seemed impossible to be afraid of the bright, bubbly child standing in front of him. He was just incredibly, intensely confused.  He didn’t really want to think of the implications of what just happened, but it was standing right in front of him.  

“It’s nice to meet you, Georgie,” he said, trying to seem like he wasn’t confused or slightly freaking out.  If he hadn’t seen monstrous creatures far bigger than a small child, he might not have believed his own eyes.  But despite never believing in ghosts, there was no other word to describe the child in front of him. So he put his crisis off for when the boy wasn’t in the room, and he tried to smile normally.  “I’m Mike.”

“No, he’s Mike!” Georgie said, giggling and pointing behind him to where Mike #1 smiled and shook his head lightly.  Georgie then reached out and took Mike’s hand, and Mike tried not to shiver. Touching Georgie’s hand felt like putting his hand in a bowl of ice.  It was barely tangible, with the chill of a morning mist spreading over Mike’s skin. Georgie let go, his hand fading quickly before he shut his eyes and focused again.  When he reopened his eyes, his hand once more translucent, there was no change to his bright smile. “Why do you look like Richie?”

Mike looked up, trying to meet Richie’s eyes and succeeding for the first time since Georgie was mentioned.  Richie was grinning lightly, looking back down at Georgie occasionally, and Mike couldn’t see the slight crease between his eyebrows that was brought on by his anxiety over this whole situation.  The fear that this revelation would only lead to more questions that they couldn’t answer. That they didn’t want to answer. All Mike saw was that Richie and the others cared for Georgie so much, it was evident on all their faces.  He glanced back down at Georgie, who seemed to be examining Mike’s face.  

“I’m his twin,” Mike answered, and Georgie lit up, tilting his head back to stare in amazement at Richie.

“I thought he was your cousin! ” he exclaimed.  “Richie has a twin ?”

“We didn’t know either, buddy,” Richie said, ruffling Georgie’s hair with far more ease than when Mike took the boy’s hand.  Georgie looked back at Mike with stars in his eyes.  

“Richie’s my favorite ,” Georgie said, laughing as Bill pouted exaggeratedly next to him.  “Now there are two!”

“Hey, hey, I’m still the better one, right?” Richie asked, pulling the boy back into a quick hug and slight noogie.  Georgie’s echoing laugh rang through the room. The Party watched, enraptured. They didn’t know what to make of it. Mike didn’t even take the bait and start arguing with Richie, too busy watching his brother interact with the faintly see-through little boy like there was nothing weird about it whatsoever.  

All of a sudden, Georgie flickered mid-laugh, fading out of view for a few moments.  At the startled look that came across the Party’s face, Bill seemed to realize what had happened, and he lightly tugged Georgie from the grip of Richie.  

“If you want to m-meet the rest, better be quick,” he said.  “D-don’t exhaust yourself.”

Georgie sighed, nodding.  Despite still smiling, there was a sudden tired look that entered his eyes.  He made quick work of meeting the rest of the Party, either not noticing or not mentioning their wide eyes and hesitant smiles.  By the time it was over, he really was looking rather tired. But he wouldn’t let Bill send him back up to bed until he was promised that he’d get to talk to the Party more at a different time.  Bill sighed before quickly acquiescing.  

“Okay, you can c-come along with us to the clubhouse the n-next time we go, okay?” Bill said, getting an excited nod from Georgie.  “Now go b-back to bed, sorry for waking you.”

Georgie waved once more to the Party before visibly relaxing and fading out from their view.  The Losers could clearly still see him, kneeling down and hugging the air one by one before Ben gently ushered the ghost - ghost , the word was reeling in the Party’s minds - towards the stairs.  Then silence fell once more in the living room, the tension beginning to seep back in through the walls.  Bill watched the staircase for a few moments, his eyes growing slightly wistful. Then he turned back to the Party.  No one spoke. Bill blinked, and wordlessly, Bev reached out to take his hand in support.  

“Georgie’s d-d-dead,” Bill said, squeezing Bev’s hand and watching the Party.  A ripple of grief and slight guilt ran through them. They didn’t turn to look at each other, but they wanted to.  They had been right, but also so incredibly wrong. But how could they have known? Bill ran a hand back through his hair with a sigh.  “But he’s still here. We...we don’t really know why, b-but we can see him.”

“We think it’s because we found him,” Stan said, watching Bill in concern.  

“...we’re so sorry, Bill,” Will said, breaking the silence of the Party and drawing Bill’s eyes.  “We were just worried, we didn’t know. And…” he hesitated for a moment, “I’m sorry. Even though he’s still around, I’m sorry for what happened to him.”

I’m sorry that he didn’t get found like I did , the words went unspoken.  But Bill heard them, and he gave a small smile.  

“Thanks, Will,” he said.  

“If you don’t mind me asking,” Dustin started, “how were we able to see him?  Can anyone see him if he wants?”

“It’s...complicated,” Ben answered, frowning.  

“Do...do your parents know?” Max asked.  Bill shook his head sharply.  

“No.  And don’t t-tell anyone.”

“But he can be seen, they’ll have to believe you, right?” Lucas asked.  Bill shook his head again.

“Like B-Ben said, it’s complicated,” he answered.  “People...they see what they w-want to see, especially here.”

“You want to stop talking about this,” El said suddenly, and Bill seemed surprised but he nodded.

“I don’t like t-to think about it,” he said.

“We don’t usually have to, since we can see him normally,” Eddie said.  “We don’t tend to mention the, uh, situation.”

“We’ll stop, then, we didn’t want to make you upset at all,” Mike said.  “These library revelations have done enough of that, I think.”

“I’m glad we met him,” Max said, smiling.  “He seems really sweet.”

“Georgie’s the best,” Richie grinned, nudging Bill.  “All ‘cus he has a kickass older brother looking out for him.”

Bill managed to crack a real smile.  “Aw, Rich, that’s actually-”

“-I’ve always been the best older brother Georgie could ask for, after all,” Richie finished, interrupting Bill with a cheeky smile.  Bill lightly pushed Richie backward into Stan, rolling his eyes.

“F-fuck off, Richard,” Bill couldn’t help but laugh slightly as he flipped Richie off.  

“Let’s play some games,” Bev offered, sitting back down on the floor.  “We’ve had enough emotions for one night, I think.”

“More like enough for a week,” Ben agreed, joining her.  The Party accepted the topic change, questions racing through their minds that remained unasked for fear of bringing back the air of grief that had permeated the group earlier.  They had a few new answers, big ones that added so many more big questions to follow it. But they still had their friends, and they knew now that somehow, Georgie was dead but not gone.  For all the confusion and shock that they felt, they also couldn’t help but feel overwhelming relief for Bill and the others.  

They had gotten their answers, and they spent the rest of the night back in the comfortable atmosphere of the usual sleepovers.  But they had even more questions now. And those might be even harder to answer.  

But for now, they laughed and they joked and they tried to ignore the knowledge that the ghost of a dead young boy was sleeping right above them.  That the Losers had lived with that knowledge for a year. But the Party agreed that it had been an emotional night of revelations. Discussion could wait. 

For now, they let it go.  

Chapter Text

“They’re freaked out,” Eddie said, slightly dejected, as the Losers remained awake into the early morning.  Perks of their collective insomnia, the Party all fell asleep before them. They were left sitting in the silence of the room, soft moonlight streaming through the window, still very aware of the six sleeping figures a few feet away.  Mike frowned slightly.

“Of course they are, but they also took it surprisingly well,” he said.  “Even those who were stalwart that ghosts didn’t exist took it seemingly in stride.”

“Even if it was just because Georgie was in the room, that at least means that they believed it,” Ben added.  

“I just hope they d-don’t ask questions,” Bill said, leaning back against the couch.  “I don’t even know wh-what we’d say.”

“They’re probably going to be curious as to why we haven’t told anyone,” Stan said.  “Even if we say that it’s because they’d forget immediately, then they’ll think we know what’s happening in Hawkins.”

“Well, they’d be right,” Bev said.  “Not that we can tell them that.”

“Sounds like a great way to get them to actually freak out,” Richie said.  “Ghosts are one thing. The rest of it is a whole other bag of worms.”

“I’m sorry you felt that you had to tell them, Bill,” Ben said.  “We know you didn’t want to.”

“It was ‘tell them and h-hope they don’t think we’re n-nuts’, or ‘accept that they think w-we’re nuts’,” Bill said.  “I was just so f-fucking sick of people using past tense, I wanted them to st-still think he’s normal.”

“Hopefully they’ll drop it now,” Eddie said, “since they’ve seen how personal it is.  But seeing how much they like looking into things and being overall too curious...I can’t see them never bringing it up again.”

“Great,” Stan said, sarcasm seeping from his voice, mixing with the anxiety that they all were feeling.  “Lovely.”

“At least we’re the only ones who know what happened,” Bev said.  “They can’t find that in the library.”

“Knowing this fucking town, I wouldn’t say for sure,” Richie said.  He got six deadpan looks in response.

“Thank you, Richie,” Stan said.  “Very reassuring.”

“Let’s just try and sleep, okay?” Ben said.  “They liked Georgie, and that’s a good sign. I have a good feeling about them.”

“We know, Benny, we feel it too,” Mike said with a small smile.  “I agree, though. It was surprising how well they reacted, but I think we shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth here.  We have six new, good friends who didn’t run away when we brought up ghosts. We deserve something good, right?”

They felt his passion, his peaceful optimism and love, spreading through all of them.  It was always hard to argue with Mike when he got that look in his eyes. They all hoped he was right, and they all agreed, wordlessly, that this had to be the best outcome.  They felt them all agree, aligning as they came to the decision. It was time to just accept it. It was time to see what came from it, and spin whatever stories they needed to.  The bond would help them say the right thing, hopefully. Keep them on the same story. They all relaxed a bit.

“Maybe you’re right, Mikey,” Bill said.  “M-maybe you’re right.”

“That can’t be it.”

It was morning, the summer sun beating down once more, and the two groups were separated.  The Losers had gone to make lunch, crowding the kitchen, and the Party had volunteered to put away all the blankets that had been strewn across the living room in order to escape the cacophony that was currently coming from the far-too-full kitchen.  They didn’t mind at all, though. They hadn’t gotten to talk the other night, the Losers not leaving the room nor going to bed before all six of the Party had succumbed to sleep. So as they folded the blankets and rearranged the pillows, and as they tried to keep their voices unheard by those only a room away, they finally discussed what they had learned barely half a day earlier.  Dustin was the one who spoke, his arm outstretched underneath the couch to try and get at a lost empty can. Lucas frowned.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Dustin repeated, “that here has to be more.  A reason , an explanation .”

“Well we aren’t gonna ask them, Dustin,” Max said, shooting him a look.  “We’ve asked too much already.”

“He has a point, though,” Lucas said hesitantly.  “If ghosts are apparently real, then why isn’t every dead person a ghost?  Are they, and we just can’t see any of them? Why can they see Georgie? Why can he make himself visible?  Can all ghosts do that? Are there even any more ghosts? If not, why is Georgie a ghost? Why-”

“Okay, Lucas, we get it,” Mike interrupted him.  “But Max is right. We can’t ask them.”

“Of course we can’t ask them, I doubt they know anything anyway,” Dustin said. “But we can ask someone else.”

“Are you- are you seriously considering asking the six-year-old dead child why he’s a ghost?” Max asked, incredulous. Dustin shook his head emphatically. 

“Woah, no, I doubt he knows either.” He shifted his gaze from Mike over to where El was folding a blanket. She was watching the conversation curiously. “But even if he doesn’t know, it might be somewhere in his head.”

Mike sighed.  “Really, Dustin?  Just because it might work doesn’t mean we should do it.  Is going behind their backs really the best option?”

“I don’t really like that either,” Will agreed with Mike, looking in concern towards the kitchen.  

“We don’t have to tell them what we learn!” Dustin insisted.  “The only people who will know are us and Georgie, and El can ask him not to say anything.  We’re just curious, we aren’t trying to, I don’t know, undermine them or something! Anyway, they might want to know why too!”

“What if we tell them you want to do this?” Mike offered.  “I’ve been thinking that we might even be able to tell them about El’s powers, they probably won’t freak out given their whole situation, and then we can ask them.”

“But if they tell us not to, then I’ll feel bad when we inevitably still do,” Dustin argued.  “Ask for forgiveness, not permission, right?”

“Listen,” Mike sighed, “I know that you all don’t listen to me the way that they listen to Bill.  That’s fine, I know I can’t tell you what to do. But none of this is happening if El doesn’t want to-”

“-I want to know,” El said, drawing everyone’s attention.  She had stopped folding, her hands resting on her knees as she looked intently at Mike.  “Death wasn’t the end for him. I want to know why.”

“Fine,” Mike said, pinching the bridge of his nose, clearly exasperated with how this conversation was going.  “But I’m not letting this fuck up my new relationship with my brother, okay? So do what you want, but I’m telling Richie so that if they find out, I at least tried to make it seem like we weren’t going behind their backs.”

Then he turned to El.

“Do you feel up to doing this?  I know you’re getting stronger again, but-” a pillow hit him in the face, cutting him off.  He gave her a deadpan look. “A pillow? Really? Pillows are easy, El. We all know how much this takes out of you.  Lift me , and I’ll feel better about you doing this.” 

He had been worried about El’s powers ever since she lost them, because it was clearly upsetting her that they took so long to come back.  It was hard to not be worried about them, not when she was perpetually downcast with the loss of them. It had only been a little over two weeks since they started to resurface, and she had been so thrilled that it was impossible for anyone to tell her to slow down as she started training them back to their normal strength.  Hopper had tried, that was certain, but even he couldn’t get El to slow down. El shut her eyes, concentrating, and Mike felt the familiar yet long-absent feeling of her powers surrounding him and lifting him a few inches off the floor. She held him there for a few seconds, showing him that she could, before cutting off her powers and letting him drop rather unceremoniously back onto his feet.  Mike watched as she opened her eyes, looking determinedly at him as she wiped the small trail of blood from under her nose. He sighed again. He couldn’t just... order them not to do this.  He wasn’t their leader in that sense of the word.  All he could do is try to make sure they wouldn’t lose their new friends because of this.  

“Alright.  Fine. Ask Georgie to see his memories, see what you find out.  Just know that I’m telling them while you do it so we aren’t keeping any secrets.” He looked sternly at everyone.  

“I just want to know how the hell ghosts exist, man,” Lucas said.  “But yeah, that’s fair.”

“I think after lunch would be best,” Dustin said.  “We can ask to hang out with Will alone, and then figure this out.”

“Guys...I really don’t want to do this,” Will said, crossing his arms.  “I like them, they’re nice, they seem to really understand even if I can’t tell them everything.  I don’t want to lose that, and Georgie seems to be a really sensitive topic for them.  For good reason.”

“They already told us how he died, Will,” Dustin said, his voice growing softer, less argumentative.  More comforting. “We aren’t asking Georgie to relive any bad memories. We just want him to let El see what he might not even be aware of.”

Will hesitated, then frowned.

“Just...don’t make them hate me, okay?  I know I couldn’t stay in this town if they hated me.”

“Of course, dude,” Dustin promised.  “I don’t want them to hate me either.  It’s nice having more friends.”

With that, the plan was accepted.  Reluctantly by some, but in the end everyone was on board in some capacity.  It was hard to keep from telling them when they came to say that lunch was ready, and when they all went to go eat in the Denbrough’s backyard.  If anyone noticed that Mike was slightly quiet, or that El seemed to be taking a nap to restore her energy, no one said anything. Mike was sure that they noticed, though.  That they knew something was wrong. That whatever secret language they had that let them move in unison without speaking was telling them that the Party was sneaking around to investigate the secret they had been trusted with.  Mike would be lying if he said he wasn’t curious. He wanted to know what El found out just as much as Dustin did. But that didn’t mean that he didn’t feel bad about how they were going about their investigation.  

They laughed and talked like everything was normal.  The Losers were perfectly accepting that they wanted to hang out with Will alone, like it was when he lived in Hawkins, and they said that they’d stay outside to give them some privacy.  Bill said that he’d be going upstairs to check on Georgie, and all the Losers quickly pretended to not be watching the Party’s reaction. But they all seemed to relax when no one batted an eye at the mention of the little boy.  In reality, the Party was too busy hoping that Bill wouldn’t walk through the living room and see what they were really doing. But they had no other opportunity, they were leaving Derry the next morning on another bus.  

And then, all too soon, they were filing back inside, leaving the warm sunlight and the loud teasing of the Losers, reentering the air-conditioned house and making their way to the living room.  Lucas wordlessly handed El one of his bandanas, and Max used her phone to bring up some white noise. It was very systematic at this point, even though they hadn’t done this in a while. Muscle memory still remembered.  Mike sat on the edge of the couch, bouncing his leg in a movement far too reminiscent of Richie for his liking. El sat cross-legged on the floor, tying the bandana around her head and resting her hands in her lap. The sound of white noise filled the air, soft enough that it wouldn’t be heard outside.  Dustin looked over at Mike.

“I thought you were going to tell them?” he whispered, careful not to disturb El.  Mike bit his lip.

“I am.  I just...I don’t like leaving her when she does this.  I get worried,” he admitted. Dustin put a hand on his shoulder.

“Dude,” he started.  “We all know what to do to help her.  We don’t want her to get hurt either. She knows to get out of there if she needs to, and she’s seen much worse than a killer teenager.”

Mike hesitated.  “I know. I just...I’m gonna make sure she finds Georgie okay, that she can make contact, and then I’ll go tell them.”

Dustin nodded, turning his attention back to where El was meditating.  It was obvious the moment she entered the void, or her ‘mind palace’ as they’d taken to calling it.  Her back grew straighter, and her head tilted to the side. Immediately, everyone around her perked up, except for Mike who slowly made to stand up, and Will who furrowed his eyebrows in conflict.  

“I see him,” El said softly.  “He sees me.”

A pause, and then - “Hello, Georgie.”

A small smile twitched at the edge of El’s lips, and Mike really wanted to stay and hear the rest of the conversation.  Georgie was a really cute kid, and he wanted to hear him talking with El. But he had made a promise to himself. So he quietly stood up from the arm of the couch, carefully stepping to the door so that the floor didn’t creak.  He could hear El softly explaining the situation to Georgie, and it seemed to be going well. He had no doubt that she’d convince him to help. He grew a bit more determined in his search, making his way to the doorway into the kitchen.  He stopped suddenly as he heard the back door open, but then he relaxed. That was good. That was what he wanted. He resumed his walk, entering the kitchen to find a hideous Hawaiian shirt glaring back at him. Just who he had wanted to tell.  Richie didn’t notice him entering the kitchen, too busy searching the cabinets for something, and Mike opened his mouth to gain his brother’s attention.  

But the words stuck.  They wouldn’t leave his throat, and he stood there paralyzed in the doorway, frozen.  What if Richie did hate him for this? He should have tried harder to stop them, he should have ordered them not to, he should have been fully on board and agreed to help hide it, he should have done something other than try to have it both ways.  A part of him wanted to turn on his heels and go back to making sure El was okay. He trusted her, of course he did, but he didn’t trust that mindscape. Not after what had happened with the Mind Flayer. But a bigger part of him knew that if he didn’t tell Richie, if he kept this a secret, it would eat away at him.  And he still remembered how the last time he tried to keep a secret from Richie went.  

He swallowed thickly, trying to force the words out, and opened his mouth again.  Richie still hadn’t noticed he was there. He appeared to be...making Kool-Aid? Whatever it was, it was obnoxiously red.  Mike watched as Richie glanced out the kitchen window to where the other five Losers were playing in the grass, a fond smile tugging at his lips.  Wait...five? Was Bill upstairs? What was he seeing as Georgie talked with El, was he there? Mike shook his head, that wasn’t the focus right now.  The focus was telling Richie. He steeled himself and knocked gently on the doorframe. Richie startled, looking over his shoulder and relaxing as he saw it was Mike, an easy grin spreading across his face.  

“What’s up, Michaelangelo?” He asked.  Mike tried to look casual, like what he was saying was no big deal.  

“Nothing, really,” he shrugged.  “I just wanted to-”

A shriek split the air, freezing Mike to his core.  This was not the scream of exertion that El had made as she tore the Mind Flayer’s head in two.  Nor was it the scream of anger from when she ripped the Demogorgon to shreds. No, Mike knew this scream.  It was the same scream from when she had yanked the Mind Flayer’s gross tentacle off her leg, from when Jonathan had cut into her calf with the burning hot knife, from when she had used her own powers to tear the piece of the Mind Flayer out of her own leg.  

Pain.  It was a shriek of pain.  

And it wasn’t stopping.

Mike didn't look back as he turned and sprinted down the hall, back into the living room.  He knew Richie must be hot on his heels, the rest of them probably right behind him, but he couldn’t bring himself to give a single shit.  Something was wrong, and he had left El behind. He skidded into the living room, falling immediately to his knees and staring at El, who was heaving, wide-eyed, leaning on a scared Max for support as she gripped her arms close to her chest and continued to cry out.  She wasn’t even trying to wipe away the blood streaming down her face, smearing across her chin and dripping onto her shirt. Dustin, Lucas, and Will were hovering anxiously over her, trying to calm her down, trying to get her to speak, but she kept staring at nothing.  Mike reached out, his hand stopping an inch from her arm.

“El?” he asked, softly, hesitantly, not wanting to startle her.  Was she still in the mindscape? Did she know where she was? She didn’t acknowledge that Mike had spoken, just like she wasn’t acknowledging the hushed murmurings of Max or the worried concerns of the boys behind her.  “El, please, talk to me. You’re okay, it’s okay, just tell us what happened, please .” He urged her gently, all too aware of six new presences that had crowded in the doorway, watching worriedly.  At that moment, he didn’t care that he was adding fuel to the suspicious fire of the scene that the Party made. He just needed El to be okay.  He moved the final inch and gently squeezed her arm.

“El, Eleven , c’mon,” he begged, as El continued to shake in what had become a silence almost more terrifying than her screams.  “ Jane .”

He rarely called her Jane.  She rarely wanted to be called Jane, and he knew her as Eleven for so long, called her Eleven for so long that it had taken on a more personal meaning than when she was in the lab.  So at the sound of ‘Jane’ coming from Mike, so scared and pleading, El’s head snapped to face Mike. Her mouth moved, forming words that had no sound, and then Mike could hear what she was muttering.

“Something saw me,” she breathed, eyes still wide and bloodshot, looking horrific when paired with the blood pouring from her nose.  “Something saw me. And it took .”

Before Mike could pull her to him and ask her what she meant, a broken cry came from the stairs.  Bill careened down them, looking the very definition of a madman, eyes wide and cheeks flushed, chest heaving and hands flailing.  As he reached the bottom of the steps, he began to shout, drawing the attention of the Losers immediately as they rushed to his side.  Bill began to sob.

“He was fine!  He was f-fine, he was napping, everything was n-normal, I swear I only looked away for a f-few fucking s-seconds, but its-” he heaved, choking on a sob and screwing his eyes shut as he gripped onto Stan, who looked utterly blindsided and confused and so incredibly worried.  “He’s gone , he’s not there , he’s not f-f-fucking there anymore!  I can’t-” he raised his head and looked at all the Losers with wide, pained eyes.  His voice grew hushed, almost confessional in how much emotion seeped into his words.  “I can’t feel him.”

The other Losers froze, the Party conflicted between watching them and comforting El, who had tucked her face into Mike’s shoulder.  Blood was smearing on his shirt, but he didn’t care. He pulled her closer and felt her breathing begin to even out, although she kept shuddering.  

“...Bill?” The other Mike spoke, hesitantly, a sudden horror filling his voice.  He sent a quick, almost nonexistent look towards the Party, before apparently deciding that he didn’t care that they were there.  He turned back to the others, wringing his hands. “I can’t feel you .  I can’t feel any of you!”

Mike didn’t know what that meant, but at the sudden stricken looks that crossed the faces of every other Loser, they had realized the same thing as their Mike.  And suddenly Bill was looking at the Party. His face was pale with anger.  

“What the hell did you f-fucking do?” he asked, voice shaking as he pointed a furious finger at the six of them.  “The t-timing, it’s too close, you did something .  She screamed, he v-vanished, what did you do?”

In answer, Mike simply turned back to El.  The problem was that while he knew what they did, he didn’t know what happened.  Why was Georgie gone? What had scared El so much? He looked her in the eyes, and she took another, shuddering breath.  

“I found him, Mike,” she started, her voice quiet.  Hoarse. “He was hesitant, but he showed me. It...it made no sense , Mike, it was so dark.  Dark, cold, quiet. Almost like...like I was there again.”  She stopped, pausing, closing her eyes and curling in on herself again.  “There were voices, they felt comforting, but there were no bodies. No people.  I don’t know why, Mike, but I felt so scared .  It was so empty, the darkness lasted forever, I don’t know where it was, and then something else was there and it wasn’t just a memory, it was real and it wasn’t human, I could just feel it , and then it saw me and it grabbed me, Mike, it touched me and it stole from me .” Her voice became a hoarse hiss by the end of her sentence, her hands grabbing Mike’s sleeve as if to convince herself that he was really there.  His eyebrows furrowed, something cold gripping his heart.  

“What did it take, Eleven?” he asked, a fear that he couldn’t explain inching through his veins.  She opened her eyes again, and the raw panic in them made him freeze.  

“ Power ,” she whimpered.  “I could feel it, it was...it tried to take it all.”

“What was it?” Mike started to feel his heart pounding, his own breath stalling in his lungs.  No other sound reached his ears, he wasn’t sure if anyone else was saying anything at all. El hesitated, moving closer to Mike, not relaxing even when the rest of the Party joined him in holding her.  For a reason that Mike couldn’t place, a pit began to form in his gut. Some part of him felt like he knew what she was about to say, but the words wouldn’t come to him. El rested her forehead on his shoulder.  The words left her in a whisper, but it rang through the room like a gunshot.  

“It was...it was a clown.”

Mike frowned, about to ask her what that meant, if she was sure it was a clown, when he raised his eyes only a little bit.  Ice shot through his heart.

See, he remembered the day a week ago when they all ran into those asshole bullies.  Peter, the dick, had taunted them about Georgie, called them names, threatened them and hit Richie.  They had all seemed mad, but Mike had definitely thought that he had seen some fear in their eyes. After living with the murderous bastard that was the Bowers kid, how could they not be afraid of this bully?  That he was just as dangerous? Of course they were afraid. Mike had been scared of Tony, at least before the Demogorgon and the Mind Flayer. 

But Mike hadn’t realized just how wrong he was.  Because he raised his eyes to try and see the reactions of the rest of the Party, and his eyes had landed on the Losers instead.  Mike couldn’t help but realize that the Losers weren’t scared of Peter at all. Not in the fucking slightest. Because right now? The looks on their faces was pure, naked, unfiltered terror .  

Within seconds, it was like the Party didn’t exist.  The Losers collapsed in on themselves, existing in their own world as they began to shake and argue.  

“No, no!” Eddie was shouting, gripping his hair.  “It’s too- it’s too fucking soon, you said we had time!  We were supposed to have some goddamn time!”

“I can’t do this again, I can’t do it!  We’re gonna fucking die, and I can’t do it!” Stan was deathly pale, his hand flying up to dig his nails into the side of his face, where pale, white, triangular scars glinted in the light.  Did he always have those? Mike could have sworn that those weren’t there a moment ago. They circled his face, looking horrifically like a bite mark, and Stan backed up against the wall, his breath coming in short pants.  

“Holy shit,” Richie was pressing his hands into his eyes, as if he could reopen them and everything would be different.  Back to normal. “Holy shit , we’re never gonna make it out of this town, are we?  What the fuck even happened, it’s only been a year!”

“I don’t know!” Ben exclaimed, his hands trembling, his eyes welling with fearful tears.  “It’s too early, everything else happened on the cycle!”

“Does this look like the fucking cycle, Ben?” Eddie’s face was flushed red, and if they weren’t sure that he didn’t have asthma, they would think he was in the middle of an attack.  His voice grew hysterical. “No! It’s not the fucking cycle, and It’s back to fucking kill us!”

“Whoa!  It’s not Ben’s fault, guys, we all saw the research!” their Mike tried to calm them down, but he was shaking too and his eyes were far too wide to seem calm.  “Something went wrong, but it’s not our fault.”

“We were supposed to live !” Stan gripped his arms tightly, trying desperately to be his own lifeline.  

“Guys, it’s- it’s gonna be okay,” Bev said, her own fear rendering her words completely unconvincing.  “We did it once, right? We always knew we might have to do it again.”

“Yeah, when we’re fucking forty!” Richie argued, throwing his hands up.  “We barely did it, we had no idea what we were doing!”

“I can’t-”

“-no fucking way-”

“-all gonna die-”

“- please be a dream-”

“-this can’t be happening-”

Mike watched them argue, simultaneously yelling at each other and seeking support from each other.  They all reached out, not quite touching each other, hesitating like there was something stopping them, or something missing .  His own fear grew as he watched them panic and act like the world was ending, and he needed to say something.  

“What the hell are you talking about?” he asked, freezing as seven heads snapped towards him in a unison that seemed far more disjointed than it ever had before.  It was like a rubber band had just broken, because in barely a second, Bill was rounding on them.

“What the hell did you do?” He asked, livid, even angrier than when it was just Georgie disappearing.  

“We were just- just curious!” Dustin tried to defend them, balking in the wake of the Losers rather explosive terror.  “We weren’t trying to do anything!”

“Just curious ?” Bill repeated, incredulous.  “Do you even know what the f-fuck just happened?  What you’re d-dealing with?”

“No!  Because we weren’t told anything!” Lucas argued.  “You all clearly know, and we weren’t told, so how can you blame us for something we didn’t know?”

“If you trusted us, you would have trusted that you didn’t need to know!” Eddie shot back.  

“You would have trusted that it was f-for your own fucking good,” Bill added, his knuckles white as he gripped the back of the couch, every muscle in his body tense.  

“For our own good?” Mike asked.  “What does that mean? What even happened?  Why are you all so scared?”

Bill shook his head sharply.  “Get out,” he said. He raised his eyes slowly, boring holes into the Party.  “Get the fuck out.”

“What?”  Max was involved now, her face pale.  “Something is happening, you can’t just kick us out!”

“I can , and I will , I am losing everything today because you all went fucking snooping!” Bill shouted.  “You let It take my fucking brother back, and now It’s going to come after us and take everyone else I care about too!  Get out !”

“No!” El refused, glaring right back at Bill.  “Something dangerous is here, we can’t just be-”

“ - DID I FUCKING STUTTER?”  

Bill’s voice rang through the room, hanging there in the sudden silence.  No sound followed. He was heaving, shuddering, staring the Party down despite the other six Losers not meeting their eyes, clustering together like they were trying to melt into one person.  Like holding onto each other was still too far away, and they could never get close enough. Mike felt cold, lost, scared. Not of the Losers, althought Bill's look was flaming, but of whatever it was that the Party was unaware of.  Whatever it was that had stolen El's energy.  He grabbed El’s arms and gently lifted her to her feet, letting Will move forward to help support her other side.  They moved in silence, not looking at the Losers. They couldn’t look. They could just crowd around El protectively, and begin to obey Bill.  

But they hadn’t moved even two steps before something else shattered the silence.  

Sharp, purposeful, and ominous.  

Someone knocked at the door.

Chapter Text

“...no,” Bev whispered, tightening her grip on the others, all seven of them backing away as a group.  Not a single one of them wasn’t shaking.  

Another knock, louder this time.  The Party exchanged a look, confused but fearful due to the Losers reaction, and it was caught by Stan.  

“ Don’t fucking answer that door ,” he hissed, freezing the Party in place.  They hadn’t been planning to, but now they were simultaneously more confused and more scared.  They just watched as everyone waited for something to happen.  No one knew what that ‘something’ was, but they could all feel it coming.  

The Losers, faced with what they knew had to be outside the door, started to grow still.  Their heartbeats remained fast, accelerated with adrenaline, but they reached for each other with hands that shook no longer.  It was too late to do anything about stopping It before It came back.  They couldn’t be afraid, that was what it wanted, but it was so hard to push away the fear.  They almost lost Bill last time.  And now It knew them, It had to be angry.  And the Party was still in the house, they didn’t know what they were up against.  They were practically sitting ducks.  The Losers wanted to stand tall, to show It that they weren’t fucking scared of it, but...that just wasn’t true.  At least, not with the shock still settling into their bones.  And then there was the other part, the part that had them clinging to each other like a limb was missing.  

The fact was that it felt exactly like that.  Like someone had taken a scalpel and carved out something deep within them, leaving a gaping hole behind.  It was gone.  Their bond was gone.  They all felt cold, empty, and like they were suddenly sent freewheeling through this shitstorm called life, but they no longer had any way of knowing that they all felt the same.  It had to be It.  When It came back...it must have undone everything that Its defeat had given them.  Georgie, the bond, and most likely the entire Community.  It was back to square one.  None of them had realized just how whole the bond had made them feel until it was torn from them, leaving only a void behind.  They knew they were all terrified, they knew that they were slowly regaining the resolve that had them following Bill a year ago, but they no longer felt the concurrent waves of emotion from the other six.  It was so cold, without that constant warmth.

The knocking turned into a steady rapping, echoing in their ears with a sharp crack of knuckles against wood.  Everyone flinched.  Then it stopped.  Lungs held bated breath, no plan of attack and no idea of what horror lay behind the door this time.  They all tensed, preparing for what they knew It used against them.  A leper, a father, a painting, a brother.  

Then the door was kicked inwards with a splintering crack.  

At first, they thought it was Henry.  It looked like him, only older.  The same greasy mullet, the same cruel glint in his eyes, the same angry, clenched fists.  But they noticed a few differences.  They noticed that the face was different, he was too old, and he didn’t look at the Losers at all.  

They noticed the way Max went deathly pale.  She took a shaking step backward, right into Dustin, who put his arm in front of her as he stared in fear at the man in the doorway.  

“B-Billy?” she whispered, eyes wide.  “You can’t- it’s not-”

Whatever her sentence was going to be, she didn’t get the chance to finish.  The man in the doorway, Billy, rushed forward without hesitation, bypassing Max entirely and shoving Lucas against the wall.  The smaller boy struggled, shoving at the muscular arm against his neck, but he made no progress.  The Party spurred into action, shouting at the man and trying to get Lucas away from him.  The Losers were stunned, watching this happen with a small voice shouting at them to attack while they could.  Another voice was wondering if this really was Pennywise, or if this ‘Billy’ was actually here.  

“Ben,” Bill whispered over the shouting of the Party, softly enough that only the Losers heard him.  “Go t-to the kitchen.  G-get knives.  Weapons.  Anyth-thing.”

It didn’t matter if it was a normal man or It.  He was hurting Lucas and scaring the others.  Ben, in the back of their cluster, snuck off towards the hallway.  They were no longer used to consistent verbal instructions from Bill, not after a year of being able to guess what he was about to say, but they slipped back into old habits rather easily.  

“Get off of him!” Max was shouting, kicking at Billy.  He remained unfazed, sneering in Lucas’s face and hissing something about him not being worthy to even look at Max.  Then, right as Ben reentered behind them and began handing out the few weapons he had grabbed, Billy turned his head.  

With a horrifying shriek that sounded more at home coming from an alien, Billy’s face peeled open like a flower, revealing a gaping maw with tiny sharp teeth lining the edges.  The Party all scrambled backward, a fear in their eyes not unlike the one the Losers had after hearing El utter the fateful c-word.  A fear that wasn’t caused solely by the shrieking or the sudden fright of the mouth appearing.  No, this was more personal.  A fear of an old enemy that they thought was long gone.  The Losers didn’t understand, but they felt the same way.  It was definite, now.  This was not a man.  When Billy’s, no, Its face had closed back into the cruel sneer of the unknown man, Bill found his voice.

“H-hey, asshole!” he shouted, tightening his grip on the large steak knife that Ben had handed him.  Its head snapped around to face them.  “It’s us you want, r-right?”

“Yeah, fucker, come for round two of your asskicking?” Richie backed him up, the waver in his voice almost unnoticeable.  It was even almost masked from the other Losers, now that they no longer had the open line to what he was really feeling.  

A sickening, too-wide smile spread across Its face, and it dropped Lucas to the floor, leaving him gasping for breath as the rest of the Party hurried to his side.  They continued to watch in undisguised horror as It-As-Billy stalked across the room towards the newly armed Losers.  But It didn’t attack them.  It just smiled .  

“Well hello there, Losers !” It simpered, Its voice back to the carnival-esque cadence that they remembered, so different from the rasping growl of whoever Billy was.  It was still wearing the face, though, creating an unsettling combination.  “Did’ya miss me?  I sure missed you.  We had so much fun, didn’t we?”

“Fuck off, we beat you before and we’ll do it again,” Bev said.  Her jaw was clenched tight.  “You don’t scare us anymore.”

“Oh really?” It tilted its head to the side, locking eyes with Bev.  “Then why does your fear taste so sweet , Bevvie?  Because it does.  Sweet, sweet, delicious fear.  And I’m gonna have a feast after what you all tried to do.  Tell me, are ya feelin’ lucky?  ‘Cuz you used all your luck up last time.  And I’m gonna enjoy eating you this time.”

As they all tensed, getting ready to rush forward and do whatever damage they could, It locked eyes with Bill and Its smile grew sharper.  Its teeth were pointed, unnerving in a human mouth.  

“Say, Billy,” It hissed, taking a step closer to Bill, who raised his knife.  “Georgie says hi .”

And then It exploded into a shower of blood, splattering the Losers and covering the living room in a deep, oozing red.  The stinging smell of copper reeked through the room as all thirteen kids stood tense and frozen.  The blood on their skin was warm, but their veins ran as cold as ice.  No one breathed.  No one spoke.  No one moved a muscle.  Even the air hung still for a moment, as if making sure It was gone.  

Then time resumed abruptly like the world had resumed turning on its axis.  The Party shuddered and stared at the blood coating the room around them with blatant horror, the Losers felt the stress bring tears to their eyes, and Stan fainted instantly.  The blood on his face stood out starkly against his pale skin as Bill caught him before he hit the floor.  It was fucking with them, that much was clear.  Even more so than last time, It wanted them scared.  This wasn’t a normal cycle for It.  This was revenge.  Richie let out a tense, hesitant chuckle.

“Well, at least this is familiar, right, Bev?” he said awkwardly, wiping the blood from his glasses with the bottom of his shirt.  Bev elbowed him, her blue eyes in bright contrast to the deep rusting blood on her cheeks.  

“Beep beep, Richie,” she muttered, attempting to go along with him and bring some aspect of normalcy into what just happened.  “This is so much worse than my bathroom.  And if you even bring up my period, I am holding a knife.”

“Noted, noted.” Richie replaced his glasses on his face.  The angry fear that had exuded from the group only a few minutes prior now evaporated into the air, leaving behind exhaustion, worry, and a more jittery, impatient fear.  There was no ignoring that It was back, not anymore.  No amount of yelling could put that genie back in the bottle, there was no point in yelling about how early it was, no matter how much all of them wanted to.  All they could do was clean the blood and try to stay alive.  Richie looked down at his yellow Hawaiian shirt, speckled with large splotches of blood that would most likely never fully come out.  So, wordlessly, he took it off, leaving his t-shirt underneath.  He handed it to the closest person to him, which happened to be Eddie, to use to wipe the blood off of his skin until they could all take boiling hot showers.  If his shirt was gonna be ruined, he’d rather it be because he chose to ruin it.  

“What.  The fuck.  Was that?” Dustin shattered the illusion that the Losers were alone, bringing their attention back to the people who had been unwittingly dragged into this fight the second It targeted them through the door.  The Party looked horrified at the blood covering the room, still very shaken by the monstrous shriek that It had given them.  

Bill, no longer seething with the rage that had caused him to demand they leave, looked up from where he had been worriedly making sure Stan was okay.  “That,” he started, his voice a hoarse shadow of what they were used to, “was what you j-just woke up.”

“We don’t know for sure -” Ben started, but he was cut off by Eddie.

“No, it makes sense.  She said It took power.  It was probably trying to take a lot more, but It got enough to wake up from whatever fucking coma we managed to beat It into,” he rationalized, face still as pale as the rest of them.  He had passed Richie’s shirt off to Bev, so his face was cleaner, but there were still small spots of blood here and there that no one was going to mention until Eddie was able to properly freak out about it.  Right now, there was too much else to worry about.

“You’re gonna need to tell us more than that,” Mike #2 said, still holding El protectively, even though the limpness in her limbs and haze in her eyes had faded.  “Especially if something like that’s gonna happen again.”

The seven of them (well, six, with Stan still propped unconscious against Bill) shared a look. A long look, consisting of them attempting to communicate wordlessly, a feat made infinitely more difficult without the intuition from the bond.

Eventually, Bill sighed.  “Later,” he said.  Before he could hear the inevitable protest from the Party, he shook his head.  “We’ll tell you,” he assured them, however reluctantly, “once Stan w-wakes up.  He won’t want to, none of us d-do, but we need to all be here.  And, preferably, have my l-living room not look like a m-m-murder scene.”

“I’m sorry to say that you’re a part of this now,” Mike #1 said, sympathy clashing with the nerves in his eyes.  “It knows you’re close to us.  That’s enough to make you a target.”

“Why are you guys targets?” Max managed to voice, and Richie was the one to answer, the grin on his face not even attempting to reach his eyes.  

“Because we didn’t take too kindly to It eating children,” he said, causing the Party to reel slightly in shock, “and we kicked the shit out of it.”

He didn’t even give the Party time to process the horrifying information he just dropped, because he immediately turned to Bill.  

“Bill,” he started, “I’ll take Stan upstairs so he can rest, and so he doesn’t wake up in the fucking blood room.  But-” he interjected as Bill started to agree, “-you gotta promise me something, dude.”

“Promise what?” Bill asked, and Richie grew serious (which was more surprising for the Party than it was for the Losers).  

“Don’t be a fucking idiot, Big Bill,” he said.  “We’re all scared, we’re all mad that It’s back, and none of us want to deal with it.  But you better know by now that we’re going to.  We’re gonna plan, we’re gonna figure out how to actually kill It, but we will go with you to that god damn sewer for round two.  So don’t you dare even think about going alone again.”

Bill was lost for a brief moment, a memory dancing behind his eyes that the Party was not privy to.  But it was only a second before he nodded.

“Yeah.  Don’t w-worry, Richie, I won’t try to go without everyone.”

“Good.” Richie nodded, and then shifted Stan from his position against Bill’s shoulder, carefully picking him up and making his way to the stairs.  “If no one comes up to take a shift for the ‘not leaving Stan alone’ position, then have fun cleaning without me, dipshits.”

“You’re not getting out of it that easily, asshole,” Eddie called up the stairs after him.  “If I have to do this again , then you’re not escaping it either.”

A laugh was all they heard coming back down from upstairs, and Eddie grumbled before making it clear that he would be making sure Richie didn’t leave all the cleaning to them again.

“To be fair,” Ben said, “we did tell him to stay outside last time.”

“To be fair, we don’t need to worry about Bev’s dad this time,” Eddie countered.  Then he sighed, attempting to brush his hair back but wincing at the feeling of the blood-slick strands and dropping his hand again.  “He’s right, though, we shouldn’t let Stan wake up alone.”

“Richie, right?  Now I’ve seen everything,” Bev said, laughing slightly.  It felt nice to joke, to try and ignore the blood seeping into the walls that they knew would be ignored by everyone else.  They knew that was why Richie did it all the time.  Laughing about what they could was better than focusing too hard on the fear that they didn’t want to feel.  

Bill, Ben, and Eddie went to go get the cleaning supplies from the basement, while Bev and Mike frowned at the bloodied room.  

“Why’d it have to be the living room?” Bev muttered.  “How are we supposed to clean the fucking couch?”

“Can’t you just...call someone?” Mike #2 asked, eyebrows furrowing.  “This is pretty visible, I know you said the cops here were useless but this is a lot of blood.  Shouldn’t that get them interested or something?”

Mike #1 grimaced slightly.  “That’s the thing, though.  It’s not visible.”

The Party stared.  “Um...what?” Lucas asked.  Bev looked around at the blood-splattered walls, frowning deeply.

“They won’t see it,” she said.  “We don’t know if it's just kids who can see it, or those who It wants to see it, but no one else will.  Especially not adults.”

“So this is...in our heads?” Max grew more worried, glancing around the room.  

“No, we’re pretty sure this is real,” Mike replied.  “We think It’s in everyone else's head, making them not see it.”

“Holy shit,” Dustin muttered.  “Is this better or worse than another dimension?”

Bev and Mike either didn’t hear that, or chose to let it go at the moment.  The Party couldn’t tell as they shot Dustin shushing looks.  The others returned with cleaning supplies, and everyone got to work wiping down the walls and windows.  Eddie had reluctantly volunteered to try and blot the blood out of the rug, his nose curling at the smell as he avoided kneeling on any stains as he cleaned.  They worked in silence, the Losers focused on cleaning and trying not to think about Beverly’s bathroom a year ago, and the Party trying to think of every question they wanted to ask as soon as they started to get explanations.  Mike knew that they would most likely have to reveal El’s abilities, but he was much more okay with that than he was a day ago.  If the Losers had gone up against...whatever that thing that looked like Billy was, then they could handle telekinesis.  Hopefully.  Anyway, he was more worried that they’d get mad again and not let the Party help.  Because like hell they were gonna leave others to deal with this by themselves.  They had basically wordlessly agreed that they weren’t taking the bus home the next morning.  They’d deal with the wraths of their families later, they weren’t leaving Will or their new friends behind.  

After around twenty minutes, the room was already looking better.  There were eleven of them working, after all.  The walls were basically clean, and most of them had moved to help with the rug and the couch.  There might be a few spots left when they were done, but luckily the blood hadn’t dried, which made it much easier to clean out.  Eddie rocked back on his heels and rested his elbows on his knees.

“I’m gonna get Richie,” he said.  “He can help finish.”

He did swear to make sure Richie did his part this time.  He pushed to his feet, leaving the others to their work as he made his way up the stairs.  Unlike Richie’s loud steps, easily heard whether upstairs or downstairs unless he really wanted to be sneaky (which, with Richie, rarely happened), Eddie was generally quieter.  Not at all when talking about vocal volume, because Eddie knew he shouted loudly, but just when it came to walking.  And no, no matter how much Richie made fun of him for it, he would never admit that it was because he was small.  He wasn’t even that small, it was just a combination of his size and how used to sneaking around his house he was. 

Whatever the reason, though, Richie was clearly too distracted to notice as Eddie came up the stairs and made his way to the door of Bill’s room.  The door was cracked slightly, and Eddie was about to push it open when he heard Richie speaking softly.  He wasn’t one to eavesdrop, but he was curious as to what words were behind the gentle tone of Richie’s voice.  

“-be fine,” he was saying, and Eddie peered around the doorframe to see Richie holding a damp washcloth that was probably originally blue.  It was too much of a rusty red now to be sure, but the corner that Richie was holding seemed more of a cornflower color.  Stan’s face was clear of blood, along with his arms.  His clothes were still as affected as the rest of them, though.  Richie was watching Stan’s unconscious form, his eyes almost sad.  “We’d better be fine.  That stupid fucking turtle owes us, I think.”

Richie sighed, and Eddie saw his eyes catch on the scars around Stan’s face.  Richie’s eyebrows knit together.  

“Shit, man, we need to do better this time, huh?  Don’t tell the others,” Richie laughs lightly, shaking his head, most likely at the fact that he’s talking to someone who can’t hear him, “but I’m scared shitless.  I mean, last time was bad enough.  Three new friends, but I almost lost you and Bill in those sewers.  And with you...It took you away, we almost didn’t even get the chance to save you like we did with Bill.  I can’t...that’s not gonna happen this time.  With anyone, since now we have six new people to watch out for who don’t know what they're up against, but-”  Richie cut himself off, setting the washcloth down on the floor and leaning onto his knees.  His eyes looked tired.  Eddie felt like he was intruding, but without the bond, he was worried about Richie.  Well, worried about all of them, but Richie was a bit more difficult to get to open up if he really didn’t want to.  He was used to laughing things off.  And when it came to It, Eddie wouldn’t be surprised if Richie kept it all inside until it exploded.  Hell, it was what Eddie wouldn’t put past himself either.  So he stayed at the door, not moving a muscle, and Richie kept talking.  Eddie would interrupt soon.  

“Stanley, I’m not gonna let It hurt you this time,” Richie said, a startling amount of conviction entering his voice.  “If I have to hold your hand the entire time we’re in those sewers so it can’t separate you from us, hell, if I have to handcuff us together, I’ll do it.  Because if It thinks It can pull that shit again, then It hasn’t seen the last of Richie fucking Tozier.”

Eddie’s eyes were drawn away from Richie’s face by a sudden small motion.  Stan’s right hand, laying off the edge of Bill’s bed, in line of sight for Eddie but hidden from where Richie is focused on Stan’s face, twitched.  A small curl of his index and middle fingers, nothing big, but Eddie saw it.  Stan did nothing, though, because Richie hadn’t stopped talking.  And it sounded like this was one of those times where Richie just needed to talk.  Sometimes Richie spouted bullshit until the cows came home, and other times he rambled about things that were actually important, things that he needed someone to hear before it drove him mad.  Things that were just...important to him.  They would beg Richie to shut up when he was being an annoying bastard, but when it was real, none of them liked to make him stop talking.  And if Eddie (or Stan) interrupted this now , Richie could very well bottle whatever it was he was saying back up forever and let it fester.  Richie was no longer looking at Stan’s still face, but his eyes had turned downcast, watching the comforter underneath Stan’s body.  There was miraculously no blood on it.  

“It’s not gonna hurt you again, Stan,” Richie promised.  “I won’t let it hurt any of us, but you don’t have to be scared of it this time because It’s not getting near you.  ‘Cus holy shit, Stan-” Richie buried his face in his hands “-I care about you too fucking much to see you like that again.  Ever.”  Richie sighed and leaned back in the chair, adjusting his still slightly bloody glasses.  “Shit.  Makes sense I can only say this when you’re passed the fuck out.”

Eddie raised his hand to knock, about to interrupt, but he didn’t get the chance to before his hand froze mid-movement.

“You’re my best fucking friend, Stanley,” Richie said, and Eddie realized with an odd feeling that this might be the most times in a row he had heard Richie use Stan’s real name and not some annoying nickname.  Richie laughed suddenly, shaking his head.  “And I...fuck.  I told you it was Eddie.”

Eddie froze, his curled hand an inch from the door.  He hadn’t expected Richie to talk about him .  What did Richie mean?  

“I mean, it was , at least a little,” Richie clarified, his voice still quiet, trying not to wake Stan before he was ready.  Eddie looked back down at Stan’s hand.  It hadn’t moved again.  Had Eddie imagined it?  He didn’t think so.  “Still is, if I’m being honest.  Definitely still is.  I mean, seriously, have you seen the feisty little shit?  Adorable.” Eddie felt his cheeks burning.  At least it was his own blood this time.  A part of him felt bad for listening, but he couldn’t move anymore.  He was frozen, listening.  “But you already know that.  I haven’t shut up about it for three years, have I?  I need to talk to you about him, otherwise I might accidentally talk about who really was the start of it all.  Hell, can you imagine it, though?  If little eleven-year-old me had tumbled in through your window and said that he realized he was gay as shit because of you ?  There was no way in hell I was doing that.  I was scared enough just bringing up that I liked guys.”

Silence.  Then another sigh.

“You have no idea what you do to me, do you Stanley?  Either of you.”  Richie snorted a laugh that only had a slight hint of hurt in it.  “Just my luck, I guess.  I gotta get this far gone with not one, but two members of this dang group.  I miss the bond like hell, but at least I don’t need to worry about you two feeling something odd.”

Eddie felt...warm.  Very confused, still scared from what happened earlier, slightly conflicted, but warm.  He hadn’t doubted Stan, but hearing it from Richie himself was different.  He felt a gentle smile spread across his face.  Quickly, before Richie could speak again and stun Eddie again, he knocked twice.  Richie startled, quickly composing himself and grinning at Eddie.

“Eds!  Blood all cleaned yet?” he asked, his smile saying he knew exactly what the answer would be.

“Not my name, asshat, and no.  It’s your turn,” Eddie answered.  “I’ll keep an eye on Stan.”

Richie groaned as he sat up, stretching his arms.  “Ugh, I don’t know if I can help, Edwina.  Not after carrying this big lug up the stairs, my arms are like noodles.”

Eddie scoffed.  “Yeah right.  There’s a reason we call him bird boy, I swear his bones are hollow or some shit.”  He made his way into the room and stopped at the edge of the bed.  Richie laughed.

“Yeah, he’s light as a feather,” he agreed.  “Should we be worried about him floating off?  A breeze could blow him away, the beanpole.”

“Who the fuck are you calling a beanpole, idiot, look in a mirror,” Eddie countered.  “Besides, birds don’t get blown away.  They don’t relax on branches, even when they sleep, so the wind can’t blow them off.”

“Ah, I remember that lecture now,” Richie grinned.  “Same one with the whole thing about how hummingbirds can actually fly backwards.  If birds don’t relax even when they sleep, no wonder we call him bird boy.  He really is one with his feathered friends.”

“He will fight you,” Eddie said.  Richie shrugged.

“How is he gonna beat me with those hollow bones, huh?  Checkmate,” he said.  “Anyway, have fun staring at a sleeping Stan like a creep, I’ve got a room to make less of a murder scene.”

When Richie reached the door, Eddie stopped him with one more sentence.

“I’ll make sure he’s okay, Rich,” he said.  Richie turned back to flash him a grateful smile.

“Thanks, Eddie.”

Then Richie was gone, his loud footsteps headed down the stairs two at a time.  Eddie watched the empty doorway for a moment before shaking his head with an exasperated smile.  Then he made his way to the vacant chair left behind, sitting down and looking at Stan.  He only waited a second before speaking.

“I know you’re awake,” he said gently.  “I saw you move.”

A brief moment where Eddie wondered if he was wrong, and then Stan shifted, his eyes cracking open with a groan.  “My head is killing me,” he muttered.  “And you’re right, I will fight him.”

“How are you feeling?” Eddie asked.  He got a dry look in response.  

“How do you think?  How are any of us feeling?  Like absolute shit.  I’m surprised I’m not shaking right now,” Stan answered.  Then he sighed, dropping his eyes.  “I hate that any of us have to ask that question now.  I can’t feel any of you.  It’s...cold.”

“I know.  I miss it,” Eddie admitted, even though he knew they all agreed.  “They’re cleaning up the blood downstairs, and then we need to fill in the others.  They’re involved now, for better or for worse.”

Stan didn’t have an answer to that, wincing at the mention of the blood but otherwise not reacting.  He moved back to sit against the headboard of Bill’s bed.  The room lapsed into a comfortable silence, Stan looking pleased at the distinct lack of blood on his skin (although he grimaced at the state of his clothes), and Eddie calming down now that all his friends, his family, were okay again.  Having Stan pass out had scared him.  They sat in the quiet, just enjoying the company, for a few minutes.  Then Eddie broke it, shifting the chair forward with a creak.

“Stan?” he asked, gaining the other boy’s attention.  “We should talk, shouldn’t we?”

Stan met his eyes, a small, hopeful, relieved smile tugging at the corner of his lips.  “Yeah,” he said, his voice bright for the first time since the shitstorm had begun earlier that day.  “Let’s talk.”

Chapter Text

Down in the living room, the cleaning continued. Richie complained loudly, but worked just as diligently as the rest of them, blotting the blood out of the armchair beside the couch.  The room was almost clean again, but there would always be slightly darkened stains on the fabric surfaces that got splattered by It.  Bill was glad that his parents wouldn’t be able to see it, even if the sight of the faint stains made his jaw clench and his breathing hitch.  He’d never be able to sit on his couch normally again.  Good thing the Losers were already used to sleeping in a pile on the floor.  The smell of blood had mostly been washed away and replaced with the smell of soap and cleaners, but the sharp iron stench had yet to waft through the windows that had been opened in the hope of that very scenario.  The Party had been very silent throughout the whole cleaning process, almost enthralled with the blood despite the confusion and fear that was still present.  The Losers couldn’t fault them on that, not when they remembered seeing Beverly’s bathroom and the bizarre experience that cleaning it was.  Or, most of them remembered.  Richie was complaining that it would have been so much easier to clean the tile of a bathroom, and that they kept him out of that cleaning on purpose so he would have to help with this one.  

“ Ow , shit,” a familiar voice suddenly rang out sharply from the stairwell, drawing everyone’s attention.  

“Are you okay?” Eddie asked.

“Yeah, yeah, my head still hurts like hell, that’s all,” the weary but awake voice of Stan responded.  The Losers immediately dropped all cleaning supplies, thankful that they were basically done already, and darted to the stairs to see Stan walking down carefully with his hand on the railing.  Despite his white knuckles and slightly shaking steps, his eyes actually looked pretty happy.  

A grin managed to break out on his face as he reached the bottom of the stairs and was immediately engulfed in a seven-person group hug, Eddie trying his best as he was the last one to reach the clump of friends.  

“ Stanley, you motherfucker, you scared us!” Bev admonished lightly, ruffling his hair and knocking askew the kippah that he had only just replaced onto his head.  He didn’t brush off their concern, resting his forehead onto Ben’s shoulder and relaxing into their holds.

“Sorry about that,” he murmured.  “I’ll do my best to avoid passing out at the next earth-shattering revelation.”

“Hey, thanks to Stanford, you all didn’t need to deal with me during the entire cleaning period,” Richie pointed out.  “Only the end.”

“In that case,” Mike grinned, “feel free to fall unconscious whenever you need to, Stan.”

“Just give us a heads up first,” Ben added, squeezing Stan’s shoulder gently.  

“ No one is passing out anymore,” Eddie insisted.  “I’m not playing nurse to any of you fuckers, and none of the rest of you know proper medical procedure.”

“Ooh, loving the bedside manner, Eds,” Richie said, earning him a smack on the arm.

“Call me that again and I’m not even cleaning any injuries you get for the next month.”

Richie just knocked Eddie’s shoulder with his own, the threat hanging empty in the air along with the memories of every other time Eddie had said he was done helping any of them only to turn around and rush for the band-aids at the first sight of a paper cut.  

After a few more moments of the seven together again, they turn to the waiting Party.  Will waved shyly.

“I’m glad you’re okay, Stan,” he offered, clearly nervous.  Stan gave him a small smile.

“Thanks, Will.”

They settled as much as they could in the living room, the smell of cleaning supplies finally masking the copper smell that revealed the persistent presence of the blood.  It could be cleaned, but it would take some time for it to fade from the room completely.  They all would prefer to talk in a different room, but there was no way they were going outside and there was no other room large enough for all thirteen of them.  So they sat on the rug once again, as that part of it had been mostly spared from the blood.  At first, no one spoke.  Then, taking the lead as he was used to, Bill swallowed and raised his head.

“Before we explain, tell us what h-happened from your end,” he said.  “How did you w-wake It?”

A minuscule glance from Mike #2 to the others, and he was reaching out to take El’s hand.  

“We had no idea that something like that would happen,” he said, trying to sound as earnest as he could.  “We just...we had questions that we thought you wouldn’t know the answers to.  We weren’t even sure if you wanted to think about them.  We were...we weren’t going to keep it a secret.  I was just about to say something when…”

“That’s why you were in the kitchen, then?” Richie asked, and Mike nodded.  

“So what were you doing?  How were you trying to find answers?” Ben asked, and Mike was relieved that, so far at least, they didn’t seem mad anymore.  

“Well…” he hesitated just long enough to meet El’s eyes and see that she was okay with it.  “We have a few secrets of our own that we’ve been meaning to tell you.”

“I’ll say,” Richie snorted.  At the looks he got, he raised his hands.  “Just saying, Its face turned into a fanged flower.  That’s not how Its face usually opens up.”

“How its face usually -” Lucas cut off his exclamation, dropping his face into his hands and muttering under his breath.  Mike reached back to pat his knee, continuing to face the Losers.

“Yeah, and we’ll, uh, we’ll tell you what that was about.  It’s not a fun story, but I don’t think any of those are gonna be told today,” he said.  “But for right now, all that needs to be said is that El has...abilities.  She can-” he cut off, turning to face El with a sudden thought “-I mean, wait, can you...are they…”

She seemed to get what he didn’t want to say, and she turned her gaze to a strewn pillow, narrowing her eyes and concentrating.  

The pillow shook slightly.  

It did not move.

“Okay, that’s fine,” Mike squeezed her hand.  “They came back last time, and at least it reacted this time, right?”

“ Useless ,” he heard her mutter under her breath, and he hurried to shake his head.

“No, absolutely not,” he assured her.  “Are you kidding?  You’re still plenty strong even without your powers.”

“Are they...are you okay?” the Loser’s Mike asked her, leaning onto his knees.  Just as Mike had hoped, and begun to expect, the Losers were confused and shocked but not disbelieving or overwhelmed.  El frowned, but nodded.  

“I can’t demonstrate,” she said.  “Sorry.”

“Her powers were...overextended a few weeks ago, and she just managed to start using them again before we first came to Derry,” Mike explained.  “This must’ve sapped them back temporarily.  But she’s used them to save our asses more times than I can count.  It’s uh, telekinesis mostly.  But she can also find people inside her mind, and sometimes see their memories too.”

“You wanted...to see Georgie’s memories?” Stan clarified, a look of slightly dawning horror beginning to form on all seven of them, a realization happening that the Party was not quite yet privy too.  A slight wince at the mention of Georgie was seen on Bill, but he didn't say anything.  

“We didn’t understand why he was...the way that he was,” Dustin chimed in.  “We figured that even if he didn’t know either, it might be somewhere in his head.  A memory of before he came back.”

“You said it was cold, d-dark, and with comforting bodiless v-voices,” Bill said.  “That’s the memory you were l-looking for.”  His voice was sad once more, but no longer raging with the sudden disappearance of his brother.  Again.  

“If you don’t mind me asking, you called her Eleven earlier,” Beverly said, her hand moving to rub Bill’s shoulder.  “And...I forget the other name.”

“Jane,” El supplied.  Mike nodded at Bev.

“Yeah, uh, technically Jane is her real name,” he said.  “But only a few people call her that.  And...El is actually short for Eleven.  Yes, like the number,” he added, seeing Richie open his mouth.  El held up her wrist with the small number marking.  Nancy had offered to teach her how to cover it with makeup, but El had refused.  The Losers looked confused, and Mike didn’t blame them.  “That's, um, a rather big part of our story, so we’ll give more detail when that happens, but the short version is that she was...taken, after she was born, and held in a lab for her powers.”

None of the Losers looked pitying, which Mike knew El appreciated, but they did look concerned and slightly pissed off.  That was a feeling that Mike understood completely.  There would always be a part of him that wanted to burn that place to the ground.  For what it did to El, for the other people it hurt...that building should’ve been destroyed a long time ago.  

“We’re really sorry,” Will said.  “We didn’t mean for...any of this to happen.  We didn’t want to hurt you guys.”

Bill sighed.  “I know.  And I- I’m sorry for telling you to g-get the fuck out.  I was angry, yeah, but a p-part of me was hoping that if I got you out before It showed up, It wouldn’t t-target you guys.” He gave a short, huffed laugh.  “That worked out well, huh?”

“So...what is it?” Mike ventured to ask.  There was no answer for a moment as the Losers struggled with what to say.  

“We...don’t really know ?” Beverly eventually said.  “We couldn’t really find where It came from, why It exists, any of that.”

“I still say alien,” Richie added, causing all the Losers to roll their eyes.

“It’s not an alien, Richie, why would It live in the sewers,” Eddie argued.  “Aliens would go full world domination, not just take kids from a shitty little town in Maine.”

“You don’t know that!  Maybe It lived on a sewer planet or something.”

“Richie, shut up,” Stan sighed, rolling his eyes, but there was no real heat behind his words.  “Someone, continue.”

“Anyway,” Ben picked up where Bev left off, “what we do know is that It's some form of shapeshifter.  It apparently feeds on fear.  Also like, actual flesh, but apparently the fear makes people taste better?  Like seasoning, or something?  I don’t know, we didn’t listen to Its monologue seeing as we were terrified and Bill was about to die.  But that’s what we put together afterward.  It likes to look like a clown most of the time, but it can manipulate reality and get inside your head to terrify you, and it can change into whatever scares you the most.”

“Like a leper,” Eddie said, “or the dismembered torso of a missing classmate.” 

“Or...Billy,” Max said under her breath, holding onto her arms.  Lucas set a hand on her knee.  

“Who, uh,” Ben started, “who is he?”

Max took a moment before answering, her voice shaking slightly.  “Billy is- was my step-brother.”  Everyone winced slightly at her edit.  “He died just a few weeks ago.  I don’t want to call him an asshole, because he died protecting us, but...he scared me a lot too.  And he hated Lucas.”

“That, uh, wasn’t the first time he’s held me against a wall,” Lucas added, rubbing his throat slightly.  “Even though this...wasn’t actually him.”

“So this...thing,” Dustin continued, frowning slightly, “how did you get dragged into fighting it?”

“Do you remember the story we told about Henry Bowers snapping and killing a bunch of kids?” Bev asked, and when they nodded she said, “Well, he only killed three people.  His dad and the rest of his gang.  During last summer when we were investigating, It got into his head and drove him to it.  The rest of the murders, all the kids including Patrick...they were It.”

“I don’t know why it t-took me a year to start really looking for G-G-Georgie,” Bill added, his face downcast.  “But I know it wouldn’t have ch-changed anything for him if I had gone looking sooner.  He was d-dead the moment It dragged him into the f-fucking sewers.”

“Shit,” Mike said, his hand tightening around El’s.  “I’m sorry.”

“I th-thought I was getting over it,” Bill said.  “But…”

“That doesn’t sound like something you…'get over’,” Will said quietly.  “Monsters like this...they stick with you.”

“I thought your nightmares were getting better, Will?” Mike asked, concerned.  Will hesitated.

“Mostly,” he answered.  “But when they do happen, they’re just as bad.”

“Since we’re doing this, then, what’s your story?” Richie asked.  

“Sometimes talking about it helps with nightmares,” Stan added, nudging Richie sharply for his blunt topic change.  

“Well,” Will hesitated, but he started talking after briefly shifting his eyes to stare at the carpet, “when I went missing...it wasn’t in the woods.  I-I was taken.  By a monster.”

“It wasn’t quite like this one, though,” Mike continued.  “It wasn’t one for...planning, or coercing, or anything.  It was blind, for one, more of a monstrous animal than anything.”

“If I hadn’t grabbed the gun in our shed, it probably would have killed me immediately.” Will shuddered slightly.  “I was stuck in its dimension for a week, but it felt like so much longer.”

“I let it in,” El said, frowning.  “Forced to open a gate.  But it’s closed now.”

“We called it the Demogorgon,” Dustin added.  

“Like that game monster?” Richie cut in, raising his eyebrows.  “Ha, nerds.”

“Don’t you dare pretend you aren’t a nerd, dickwad,” Eddie countered immediately.  “I saw the Lord of the Rings books in your room.”

“Don’t fucking out me like this, Eds, I have an image ,” Richie pouted.  “Anyway, it’s not like I can read .”

“Sure, Trashmouth,” Bev relented, ruffling his hair.  “You definitely can’t read, and you aren’t a nerd at all.”

“ Thank you, Beverly, you’re the only one here that gets me,” Richie grinned.  “My main bitch.”

“Hey, I’m Ben’s main bitch,” Bev leaned onto Ben to emphasize her point.  “You’re my backup bitch.”

“You’re not a bitch at all,” Ben said, frowning slightly.  “Richie, sure, but never you.”

“Babe,” Bev kissed his cheek, “never change.”

“I can’t even be mad at Ben calling me a bitch because first off, he’s right, and second, he’s Ben ,” Richie said, his face pinching in an internal debate.  

“Ben can call anyone a bitch and get away with it,” Eddie shrugged.  “But back to the point at hand, we need to know...well, everything.  If It already knew enough to scare you all with the face of this Demogorgon thing, then we need to assume that It’s ready to show you all anything from your story, and we need to know it so we aren’t caught off guard.”

“We need to know everything too,” Mike said.  “If we’re gonna be any help, then we can’t be caught off guard either.”

“No more secrets,” Bill agreed.  “It’s too dangerous for that n-now.”

“Alright then,” Mike said with a nod.  “It started with Eleven…”

“So...that’s what’s happening in Hawkins, then,” Will said, after everything had been shared.  The Losers had been hesitant to talk about the memory-altering part of Its hold on Derry, but it needed to be shared.  “Because I’m here now.”

“We think so,” Mike #1 replied gently.  “And now that we know your story, that might explain why you all remember.  This…’Upside Down’, contact with it must have given you some kind of immunity to Its reach.  Like what we had after fighting It.”

“Wait-” Mike #2 said suddenly.  “That's...that's why you all looked so sad when we left last time, isn’t it?  You thought we’d…”

“We were preparing to never hear from you again,” Bev admitted, “and we knew that if that happened, we’d have to have already accepted it so we could help Will.”

“Well, we aren’t gonna forget,” Dustin said.  “You guys or Will or any of this.  You’re stuck with us now.”

The Losers didn’t respond again, but they got varying degrees of grateful looks on their faces.  The stories hung heavy in the air, but they weren’t suffocating like had been expected.  There were no more secrets.  An even playing field for battling a demonic shapeshifter.  There was the general feeling of guilt for getting the Party involved, but everyone would be lying if they said they’d prefer to do it alone.  

The room was silent, but it was comfortable.  Or, at least, as comfortable as the silence could be when all thirteen inhabitants knew what was out there waiting.  But in the wake of shared stories, they were calm.  The time for suspicion or anger was passed, and it was time to move forward.

“There are a f-few rules,” Bill said, breaking the silence like one gently opens a squeaking door.  It wasn’t shattered so much as pushed off to the side.  “One, n-no one goes anywhere alone.  Sure, It can show up to groups, but It d-definitely prefers picking us off one by one.”

“Two,” Stan continued, “we don’t step a single foot in that sewer without a real plan.  I know you all need me to go, and as much as I hate it I’m not gonna let you go without me, but we aren’t rushing in like last time.”

“What if-” Ben was cut off.

“Unless,” Stan sighed, “one of us is taken again.  If we’re never alone, that shouldn’t happen, but that’s the only reason we go in without a plan.”

“Speaking of a plan, we need to figure out what went wrong last time,” Ben added.  “We need to find out how to actually kill it, instead of just knocking it out for a few years.”

“Two teams,” Mike #1 said, “one getting supplies and the other doing research.”

“We st-start tomorrow,” Bill said decisively.  “Remember, no one g-goes anywhere alone.”

“What about the bathroom?” Dustin asked.  Beverly raised her eyebrows.

“What about it?  Now isn’t the time for modesty, dude,” she said.  “Speaking of, I do actually need to take care of that, so…”

“I gotcha, Bevvie,” Richie stretched as he stood up, his spine popping loudly.  “I gotta do the same anyway.”

“Wait, you guys are just…” Lucas trailed off.  He seemed to be looking mostly at Ben, who shrugged.

“Like she said, it’s not the time to be modest,” he said.  Bev stuck her hands in her pockets and pursed her lips.

“It got me in a bathroom last year,” she said bluntly, “so yeah, I’m not stepping foot in one alone while this piece of shit clown is in the equation.  I couldn’t give less of a shit about Richie’s dick no matter how much he talks about it, so it’s not an issue.  When we said don’t go anywhere alone, we meant it, this clown is different than your Demogorgon.”

With that, she and Richie left the room.  

“We aren’t taking any chances this time,” Mike #1 continued.  “It was right, we got lucky last time.  The Lucky Seven.  We don’t have that luxury this time, and we need to be extra careful.”

“I think that’s smart,” Will said.  “I’d rather not be alone with this happening anyway.”

“Let’s get the living room ready again,” Eddie said, standing up and helping both Stan and Bill to their feet.  “Who knows if we’ll be sleeping, but we might as well be comfortable.”

In pairs or trios, they set off to reconfigure the pile of pillows and blankets and food that had been put away only a few hours earlier.  At least it was something to do , though, so no one was complaining.  After half an hour, they were looking for something else to do, settling for talking in small groups about nothing in particular, trying not to think about It for just a little while.  They had begun to go in groups to shower, to get the rest of the blood off of them, but that still left a good portion of them with nothing to do while they waited.

Richie nudged Mike #1, who was sitting on the cleanest part of the couch and looking off at the wall.  

“Hey, Homeschool,” he said, sending Mike a sly little smile.  “Go talk to him.”

“What?  Who?” Mike asked, but his eyes betrayed him, flickering briefly over to where Will was sitting by Dustin and listening to a conversation without contributing.  Richie rolled his eyes.

“C’mon, man, he’s clearly scared by all this, for good reason,” he said.  “He’s closest to you, and you’re clearly worried about him.”

“You two seemed to click pretty well,” Mike countered, and Richie shrugged.

“Yeah, he’s cool.  But I’ve got someone else I need to talk to.  Got some things to discuss with the Lesser Mike.”

“Don’t be a dick, Richie,” Mike said, grinning anyway.  “Do you think talking to me would help him?”

“Definitely,” Richie said, hiding the cheeky grin that he wanted to display.  Will might kill him once this was all over, but he recognized the looks that Mike was sending him, even if Mike didn’t.  “More than me, that’s for sure.”

“I’ll send Mike over to you, then,” he said, and Richie lightly shoved his shoulder in the direction of the small group sitting on the blankets.  A few moments later, Will was being urged away by a soft-spoken Mike (a dusting of pink on his cheeks that had Richie winking at him and earning an inconspicuous middle finger in return), and a slightly less soft-spoken Mike was walking over to Richie with a confused look on his face.  

“You, uh, wanted to talk to me?” Mike asked, sitting down on the couch before remembering that there could still be slight bloodstains and awkwardly rising back to his feet.  Richie curled his nose slightly in distaste at the serious conversation he was about to start.

“Yeah,” he said.  “Just wanted to, uh, tell you why I’m not apologizing for not stopping Bill when he was pissed at you guys.”

“Oh,” Mike said.  That wasn’t what he was expecting when the other Mike had told him Richie wanted to talk.  “You, um, I mean- I wasn’t expecting an apology anyway.”

“Really?” Richie raised his eyebrows.  “So you weren’t at all expecting me to stick up for you guys?”

“Well…” Mike hesitated.  “A little, I guess.  I mean, it wasn’t-”

“-your fault, yeah, I know,” Richie finished.  “I’m not saying it was.  None of our faults, all of us, doesn’t really matter now, does it?  We can play the blame game once we’re all still alive.  But...for real, you may be my brother and that’s awesome.  Like, never thought I’d actually have a brother, and it’s been really great to have one.  But...I’m gonna take Bill’s side like, 99 percent of the time, man.  I’ll follow the guy anywhere, if it wasn’t clear by the fact that he got us to fight a demonic sewer clown with no real weapons.  That one percent...its when his decision has already proven itself to get one of us hurt and he’s being a stubborn jackass.”