Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ben Hanscom has always been different, he just never thought one day there’d be a valid reason for people to stay away from him. Throughout the lonely stretch of existence Ben had called his life, he had gotten used to the occasional disgusted glare or disappointed sneer. Such is the nature of the biggest boy around: if you are not mocked, you are ignored. For the most part, Ben could coexist with that label better than most did, although after a lifetime of exposure, you can get used to anything. His mother used to tell him that often, and he believed it just fine. He never could have suspected that anything really did mean anything, though. If only Ben had been privy to what his anything meant, maybe he wouldn’t have gone down the twisted path that led him into the pickle he was in now.

As he stared down at the body of Henry Bowers, old, wrinkled, fat, dead, Ben’s hunger grew. Unfortunately, he wasn’t alone at the moment; unlike every other time he feasted, now his friends had to be involved. At least he didn’t kill his meal this time, that was Richie’s burden to carry, of course. Ben would be the one to literally carry Henry, though. Carry him forever and ever as part of his flesh and blood once he’d been digested down. Whatever remained of him inside his body after a bathroom trip and digestion would be fat, a truly ironic fate for the guy who teased him for his body all summer. It’s not that Ben wanted to eat Henry Bowers, he was well aware that Henry's death was unfortunate and probably something IT had planned from the beginning. However, that didn’t change the simple fact that Ben couldn’t help himself. He’d tried to fight off his urges for as long as he could. Lord knows he’d never want Beverly or Bill or anyone else to know about what he was doing to people behind closed doors. At least Stanley wasn’t here to see Ben like this, hungry, exhausted, animalistic. Stan wouldn’t be able to take it at all. In all fairness to Stan, though, nobody seemed to be taking Ben’s urges well.

Eddie was beyond freaked, understandably so, as a boy who once had an existential crisis over the communion wafers and wine part of every church ceremony, cannibalism was something he wasn’t fond of.
It grossed him out (as did many things), and Ben couldn’t help but agonize over how disgusted he was with him. He was a little jealous of that reaction, though; he wished he could be as disgusted as Eddie was right now. Oh, how he longed for the feeling of looking down at a dead body and being queasy instead of famished; he couldn’t remember what that felt like. It’d been so long since he’d experienced death in a normal way, maybe as long ago as his father’s funeral. He wanted to be disgusted again, too, but he couldn’t anymore; this was his normal now. Henry’s body brought out no guilt, shame, fear, or joy from Ben. All it brought was hunger, a sinful hunger that he’d been forced to partake in for the last twenty-seven years…

Chapter Text

Ben arrived back at his aunt’s house later than usual, and, as was customary everytime he was home late, his mother threw a big fit over it.
Arlene was not like Sonia Kaspbrak in the way of coddling her boy so much she would strangle him, but she was fussy and oftentimes insecure about her own parenting.
She kept Ben on a relatively short leash compared to his peers, and who could blame her? She’d lost her husband– her darling little soldier boy– and was left with a heap of debt and an overweight socially awkward child to take care of.
Ben was understanding of that, very understanding, almost too understanding for a child.
Perhaps it’s not quite so normal to be concerned about a child’s tendency to listen, but Arlene sometimes wondered if it was getting out of hand.
Kids shouldn’t hear everything, it burdens them with things out of their control.
Ben couldn’t help but listen and worry though, it was in his blood to fuss and bother.
It was the family curse.

With all that being said though, today had been an exceptionally rough day at school for poor Ben, and an exceptionally rough day calls for exceptionally aggravating fuss.
Today was another dull dinner at the Hanscom-but-not-really-the-Hanscom’s-house house, and it slotted in rather nicely with all the other dinners.
A bucket of fried chicken his aunt Jean picked up on her way home from work, watered down dr pepper to drink, a cheap chocolate cake that was going to go bad the next day so the bakery gave it to them out of pity, a borderline fist fight breaking out at the table between Ben’s annoying cousins, and Ben Hanscom in the middle of it all with a “special” meal made just for him.
His plate had no chicken, and his cup held no Dr. Pepper, and any slices of cake were reserved for those with decidedly smaller stomachs than his.
He had a garden salad- or what seemed to be his aunt’s attempt at a garden salad. He wasn’t quite sure how you could make a shitty salad, but Jean’s disgust for Ben seemed to permeate her cooking.
He was given water to drink, which Ben was fine with since he didn’t even like Dr. Pepper.
Although it hurt quite a bit to know his aunt didn’t give him water because she cared about his preferences, just didn’t wanna see her fat ugly nephew slurping down sugary beverages.
Of course her scrawny spawn could eat whatever they wanted no problem, they were a consistent exception in their house.
Ben wasn’t sure what was more unhealthy for him, his aunt’s obsession with making him thin or his mother’s obsession with keeping him big.
Lord knows if Arlene had cooked dinner tonight the meal would have been a fattening full course- a proper Tennessee dinner that would have looked like a whole thanksgiving dinner in comparison to the portions out here in Maine.
Of course Aunt Jean still would have forced Arlene to make Ben something different, and if Arlene argued with her that would have just turned into one bloody mess.

Food aside, the actual mood of the dinner was icy– although icy was very much the norm in aunt Jean’s place.
Any conversation the family tried to carry was interrupted by Ben’s cousin’s incessant need to annoy each other and argue.
It was like trying to make casual conversation while a war movie played in the background, every little word Ben tried to squeak out getting inevitably cut off by another “Ow! He kicked me!”.
Of course today was a special kind of awful, so there were also some exterior forces at play in making this dinner as deeply uncomfortable for Ben as possible though- namely the massive black eye he was sporting.
When he walked into the house he planned on keeping it a secret for as long as he could- truthfully Ben did not wish for any extra attention after the ordeal he’d been through, but life hated him and because of that- one of his cousins ran into him and shouted. “Jesus fuck! Benny where’d you get that shiner!?”.
His mom barreled into the hallway with feet like thunder after that, snatching Ben by the shirt collar so quickly it damn near knocked the wind out of him.
She launched into her usual smothering dialogue, tears in her eyes as she wondered who could have attacked her baby on his way home.
She fanned the air with her hand, ushering for one of his not so helpful cousins to get off their ass and fetch her the frozen peas from the freezer that they were going to make for supper.
That’s what prompted having just the fried chicken with no sides or anything, because their shitty freezer was just so shitty it couldn’t make ice anymore and that meant they couldn’t have any peas because Ben had to press it against his eye.
It was oddly humiliating in a way, but Ben was fairly used to humiliation these days.

An hour had passed since he got home and Ben had still managed to avoid letting the cause of his injury slip, as sad as it sounded- it seemed like everyone else was a little too focused on everything else happening at the table to ask Ben too many questions.
Suppose that was some small comfort, although it didn’t last long once they’d sat down to eat and Arlene could get a word in over his cousin’s incessant squabbling.
She placed a tender, slightly wrinkled hand on top of Ben’s and squeezed it a little.
“Benny what happened?”.
Her voice was disgustingly sweet, the same voice you would talk to a baby in.
Ben would never tell his mother this, but he hated that voice very much.
“Who did this to you?”.
Ben sighed and turned his view to his mother, although he really would have preferred keeping his eyes downcast, he knew that eye contact was part of the little game he and his mom played everytime something bad happened.
“Someone punched me.”.
“Who?” Arlene placed a hand over her heart, if she had a necklace on she’d probably be tensely fidgeting with it about now.
Of course she didn’t though– the Hanscom’s were far too poor for jewelry these days.
Ben thought for a moment, carefully taking the bag of peas away and putting them down on the table. He bit his thumb, a bad habit of his he did whenever he thought a little too hard.
“A bully, some big lunk head I share a homeroom with.”.
It wasn’t just SOME big lunk head though, it was Henry fucking Bowers.
It was always Henry Bowers, the only times it wasn’t Henry Bowers it was Patrick Hockstetter or those two morons that followed him everywhere.
For a brief moment Arlene looked at Ben with a pained but somewhat lost expression, and for an even briefer moment Ben wondered if she even knew Henry Bowers existed.
He wouldn’t believe her if she said she did.

“Oh poor dear, I’m so sorry Ben– I’ll– I’ll–” Arlene’s grip was getting tighter and she didn't even know it. She was getting so worked up she didn’t even realize she’d been using her son’s chubby fingers as a stress ball. “I’ll walk you to and from school from now on!”.
Ben cringed at the thought, the only thing that could possibly be worse for his reputation than being fat was being escorted around town like a baby. Not even Sonia Kaspbrak thought to do that.
“No mom, I really don’t want that. It was a one time thing.”.
Arlene bit her lip, growing a little restless in her chair. “I don’t know-”.
“Mom-”.
“Ben I would really feel better if-”.
Ben flashed his mom a look, a somewhat threatening but still pleading glance that said “I’m begging you not to do this, if you do I’ll lose it.”.
In defense of Arlene, she did drop it rather quickly.
She sighed. “Okay, fine. I’m just- God I can’t believe this.”.
“I know momma.”.
“Everytime we move you get picked on.”.
“I know.”.
“No matter what we do there’s always somebody.”.
“I know.”
“Some bastard-”.
“Mom please-”.
“I just wanna know why?! Why can’t they leave you alone!?” Arlene smacked the table, making their silverware shake and momentarily getting Ben’s cousins to stop bickering.
Aunt Jean put the chicken leg she was eating down and wrung her greasy hands in thought.
She looked at Arlene and clicked the roof of her mouth with her tongue. “‘Cause your kid’s fat.”.
“Jean!”.
“What? Your kid’s obese not blind. It’s not like he doesn’t know.”.
Ben frowned at his aunt’s comment. He was pretty sure he hated his aunt Jean when he first met her and she had yet to change his mind since then. This sort of cruel jab at his expense was unfortunately what most of their interactions were like.
His cousins seemed to have found some odd common ground in teasing Ben, putting aside their little fight to start snickering at their mother’s blunt way of describing him.
Ben was sure he hated them too, enough that he still didn’t care to remember which of his cousins were which, they were identical and equally annoying so he felt they were interchangeable.
They really went against the stereotype of “twins are best friends” to the point that Ben was almost sure they fantasized about killing each other all the time.
One time Ben made the mistake of asking why they hated each other so much and got an earful about how they hated that they had to share everything.
Ben wasn’t so sure that was true, they might have said that they were expected to share everything, but from his perspective it felt like they got everything they wanted and just had to share a few things, like a birthday and a last name.
If you’re terrible enough though an inch can seem like a yard, so maybe his cousin’s views on siblinghood were a bit skewed.
Or maybe it was just Ben being weird and assuming he knew more about things than he did, his cousins did say he was a “smart aleck”, whatever that means, and Ben never had a sibling.
He never got the chance to, really.

“I’m surprised we even had any food to put on his injury, must have stashed it somewhere long enough he didn’t get a chance to grab it.” She giggled, a terribly high pitched giggle that Ben found quite grating.
Ben sighed and looked down at the rabbit food his aunt was forcing him to pretend was a meal and picked at the greenery with his fork like he didn’t know what it was.
The whole conversation was shifting its focus onto him and he really didn’t like that, so he figured the one and only course of action to take was to bail before he could embarrass himself further.
“Can I go to my room?”.
“What? Aren’t you going to eat any?” Arlene’s eyes bugged out in a deeply concerned expression Ben found more pitiful than compassionate.
He looked back down at his rancid, dry, not very appetising salad and swallowed.
“I’m not hungry.”.
He was actually very hungry, and a nice comforting meal would probably help him feel a lot better after today, but this salad wasn’t worth putting up with his aunt’s snide remarks and cousins snickering to themselves and his mom’s almost agonizing tendency to overblow every problem her son went through.
It was better to just call it a night and hope tomorrow might be a little less insufferable.
Arlene shifted in her seat for a moment then brushed a few stray hairs behind her ear. “Well, okay. Just making sure you mean it.”.
Ben got up and returned to the spare guest room that had recently become his bedroom, and looked just as impersonal and sparsely decorated as every other bedroom Ben had ever had.
No point in making it all nice and homey if home was disposable, right?
While Ben went off Arlene quickly disposed of the lawn trimmings his aunt had served to him on a plate, very aware that not a single person in this house would eat it even if you paid them to.
Ben didn’t have much to do to keep him occupied when he wasn’t eating, doing homework, or going somewhere, but he could always count on his history books to keep him company in hard times.
Life might have been tough for him but at least he wasn’t a soldier slowly dying of gangrene, at least there was that, but on the other hand- a civil war era soldier was never forced to deal with Henry Bowers.
Guns and cannon fire and the death of all their allies maybe, but Henry Bowers was off the table and he almost envied that.

Eventually Ben’s eyes started to get so tired from all that reading he just kind of nodded off in his bed, book left resting right atop his face as he silently snoozed.
He didn’t wake up until late in the night, long after everyone else had gone to bed and the house had become stiff and silent.
Ben rolled over, accidentally letting his book flop onto the floor with a thud that instantly jolted him awake. He rubbed his eyes and glanced over at his analog clock.
It blinked three AM on and off again in a bright piercing red. The overwhelming need to pee suddenly hit him and, although Ben surely would have loved to just go back to his dreamless slumber, he heaved himself off his bed.
It was getting harder to get up as of late, as well as harder to find seats that would hold him, but Ben didn’t wanna think about that.
Even if he wanted to linger on thoughts of how big he was, his pee was going to make his bladder pop unless he got to the toilet fast.
He waddled through the house, his big feet uncomfortably pitter pattering against the cold hard wood floors as he made his way to the bathroom, the all encompassing darkness of his aunt’s house making the journey all the more difficult.
He blindly felt around until he came across a skinny door he knew had to be the bathroom door and flicked on the switch.
The bathroom was somewhat kitsch, with cat statues on the counter top, a mosaic on the shower wall, and a fluffy pink shag carpet stapled over the linoleum because his aunt was insane enough to think that was a good design choice.
Ben would certainly have loved to just stand here and bitch more about his aunt, but again, he really didn’t wanna pee his sweat pants right now, so off to the toilet he went.

Once he got finished he turned to leave, but as he shuffled out of there he couldn’t help but stop and take a glance at himself in the mirror.
He touched his own face, feeling the soft roundness of his cheek and the slight curve of his double chin, and for a moment Ben felt what true insecurity probably felt like.
He cautiously approached the mirror, studying his facial features like his reflection was an animal and he was David Attenborough ready to explain the evolutionary purpose of each fat roll.
“Ah yes, here we have the ever elusive Benjamin Hanscom, a large mammal of the ape variety, covered in blubber put on from its extreme diet of food high in fat. Its large mass is an extreme rarity in its species, scaring off mates and likely hindering its chances to ever reproduce. People have attempted to interfere with its genetic abnormality, but all treatments have been ineffective against its large appetite. Truly an unfortunate creature.”.
Ben stared into his big brown eyes, which seemed to be naturally stuck in a squint due to the fat around them in his cheeks and forehead.
His very light brown hair was probably the most attractive thing about him, but right now it was all tousled and wisped around due to tossing and turning in his sleep.
A natural pink blush flushed his cheeks, which on a skinny person might have made them look cute, but to Ben’s bruised ego it just made him look like a pig (and considering his upturned nose, he didn’t need anymore help in that regard).
Clearly, he wasn’t a looker, but it wasn’t like Ben was trying to be.
If he wanted to he could probably be more presentable, but only if he REALLY wanted to.
As it stood he lacked the ability to care, because a part of him would always wonder if it was useless to try when the elephant in the room would always throw people off.
If only his lack of caring extended into caring about what other people thought, maybe then he wouldn’t feel so bad.
The sad thing though was that he did care about what people thought, he cared so much, because, as we already established, Ben is always listening. For better or worse.
Ben wondered to himself how it probably felt to be lighter, how the world might see him if his inside matched his outside, if when he loved somebody the doubt of being loved in turn wasn’t so immediate.
He’d like to know how that felt, even if it was just for a few days. It sounded nice.

Ben washed his hands and spun around to leave for real this time, content… enough with himself to go back to bed.
Something stopped him in his tracks though, something highly peculiar but not incredibly out of the ordinary for a strange town like Derry.
“Beeeeen~.” A disembodied voice croaked, echoing from some place deep in the bathroom.
Ben perked up, intrigued yet just a little bit terrified.
“Who-who is that?”.
“Beeeennny~.”.
“Is this my aunt Jean? Is that you?”.
“No it’s not. It’s much better.”.
“Are you… IT?” Ben whispered, taking a few cautious steps back towards the door.
“Come to the sink Ben. Please do me a favor and just come over to the sink. I wanna talk.”.
Bev had told Ben about IT talking to her through the sink, she didn’t go into the specifics of what happened when she got close but she mentioned blood and hair and several taunting voices urging her to come on down and float.
That didn’t seem to be happening here, this was just one voice, not many colliding. Still, Ben wasn’t very stoked to approach a sink with a creepy voice coming out of it.
“Who are you? Why are you talking to me?”.
“I’ve been watching yoooouuu~.”.
Ben was starting to get mad, the echoey taunting voice wasn’t being extremely clear and there was only so far he’d allow his curiosity to lead him.
He was naturally quite curious, but if this mysterious force decided to keep toying with him he would just go to bed and never think about it again.
Ben had already killed IT with his friends earlier that summer so his patience for weird cosmic monsters was already quite thin by this point.
“Show yourself to me right now or I’ll go back to bed.” He demanded. “I mean it. I’m not screwing around.”.
The cavernous sink drain seemed to stretch on for miles into an endless void, although realistically he knew all that was down there was filth and rusty old pipes.
The voice bellowed from deep within, sounding ever so humored by Ben’s demand.
“Fufufu~ so impatient, but very well.”.

Pipes below the sink rumbled and creaked as the creature slithered its way into the bathroom, and when Ben’s eyes feasted on the mysterious monster who had been talking to him, he fought the urge to gag.
Really, Ben should have been used to seeing monsters by now- he’d been pursued by quite few over the summer (both human and non human), so anything from inside the sink should not have shocked him.
Still, he stumbled over his feet and fell right onto his ass, the plush carpet of the bathroom cushioning his fall as he continued to skitter back in fear.
It crawled out from the drain and quickly plopped down to the carpet where Ben sat, allowing its grotesque form to be taken in.
Its appearance looked like a giant worm, far too thick to ever fit in the pipes unless it could just constrict its body to any shape.
The body was red like blood and oddly veiny, and at the front of it was a large leech-like mouth that made it look as though it had a hole blown in its face. Inside of it grew rows and rows of sharp, jagged teeth that could have very well lined its entire insides.
The length was definitely the most disgusting thing about it though, it spanned a whopping ten feet long and looked rather happy to be such a size, curled up in a perfect circle like a snake.
This creature, this massive snake-earthworm-leech hybrid, was disgustingly (and thankfully) alien to him. Ben wasn’t sure how a creature like this wound up on this planet or in his bathroom for that matter, but Ben didn’t really care.
He grabbed the toilet brush and swung it over his head in defense, hoping this weird monster would just take the threat and leave without him actually having to beat it to death.
He could probably do it no problem of course, but he wasn’t exactly in the mood to gore anything at three AM and get blood all over his aunt’s stupid carpet.

The creature looked up at him despite having no eyes and laughed again.
“Oh wow, is that really necessary?”.
Ben’s fearful but determined expression faltered ever so slightly and slipped into just plain old confusion.
For one reason or another, he felt his guard slip just a tad, and next thing he knew he’d dropped his toilet brush without a second thought.
“Good boy.” The creature said, genuinely pleased with Ben’s cooperation.
He approached the worm monster, cautiously sticking his hand out like he was going to pet it.
“What the hell are you? Are you like IT?”.
“No, I’m something a lot more… helpful.”.
Ben scratched his head, genuinely lost in this conversation.
Safe to say Ben never imagined he’d be in this predicament, but it was such an intriguingly strange predicament he couldn’t part from the creature’s presence.
“Helpful? How are you helpful?” Ben snickered.
“Helpfulness is a bit relative, don’t you know? What seems useless to one can be the golden ticket for another, and you, my dear Ben Hanscom, are in need of my services.”.

It was then Ben realized that the worm was talking without moving its mouth at all, almost like it was using telepathy to get its message across. He could only assume it was telepathy, he couldn’t imagine such a gross creature being so articulate without some magical mind powers.
But honestly Ben lacked the ability to care about how this thing was speaking right now, he was more preoccupied that he somehow knew who he was.
“How do you know my name?”.
“I listen Ben, you and I have that in common. We’re always listening.”.
A lump formed in Ben’s throat, wholly unsure of what to believe in anymore. The creature was polite enough, and it certainly hadn’t made Ben feel like killing it was justified. Unless of course you considered being ugly as sin a crime worthy of the death penalty.
“What have you been listening to, exactly?”.
The creature paused, as if to show it was in deep thought about what to say next.
“Your misery. I’ve learned a lot about you Benny, I’ve learned your father was a good soldier who died too young, I learned your mother is a waitress at her wits end, and I learned how your nasty aunt and cousins make your life a living hell. Most importantly of all though, I know you’re being mistreated for the most superficial reasons.”.
Ben’s eyes bugged out, choking on his own shock for a moment.
The worm laughed at that, understandably humored by the boy’s surprise.
“You’re also bullied quite badly, I know that, and the source of this bullying falls squarely on all that pesky belly fat you’ve got. Quite an unfair reason to be picked on, but hey– you’re a special little guy Ben, and bullies don’t like special. It makes them feel humble.”.

Ben couldn’t believe what he was hearing right now, but even more so he couldn’t believe that he was actually listening to any of it.
“This is insane.”.
“Most wonderful things are.” It replied.
Ben scoffed. “You don’t look very wonderful.”.
The worm let out an odd groan that seemed to be its attempt at a hum of dismissal. “Quite judgemental of you Ben. I expected more from you, but I’ll help you regardless.”.
Ben felt himself growing angrier at the creatures insistence that he needed to be helped, Ben probably did but he wasn’t prepared to ask for it– especially not from this fucking thing.
“I don’t want your help.”.
“But you don’t even know what I’m offering.”.
“I know how these things go though, you’re a weird demon or something. You’ll give me something I want in exchange for my eternal soul. I don’t wanna be the fat kid version of Faust.” He huffed.
The worm giggled once more, sounding even more cloying and condescending than it did before. “I’m no demon, I also don’t plan to lie to you, I’m well above that. But if you will just hear me out I’m sure we’ll find a way to help each other.”
Ben raised an eyebrow, growing ever so intrigued but still highly skeptical.
“If you’re not a demon then what are you– who are you?”
“I’m starving, that’s what I am.” It laughed.

Ben groaned, frustration nipping at him the longer the worm skirted around every question.
“Why are you here?”.
“I want a home, somewhere nice, dark, and wet to curl up in and stay forever, that’s why I was in the pipes you see, light and dry are not my thing. I need somewhere with a lot of room and I think your big tummy might be the perfect spot.”.
If the creature could smile it certainly would have flashed a real toothy grin at Ben, a little aware of how disgusting and preposterous of a proposal that was.
Ben skittered back faster than a boy his size should have been able to.
He raised his hands in the air defensively, prepared to push the creature back if it spontaneously decided to force itself on him.
“What!? Forget it! You’re not getting inside me!” Ben’s voice sounded firm and harsh, finally breaking above a whisper and getting loud enough he might accidentally wake his aunt or mom.
Ben couldn’t care less if he woke Jean, she was cranky with sleep and without, but if he woke his mom and she went to work groggy he’d feel just terrible.
And yet, Ben’s usual polite and caring nature was put on the back burner in light of usual circumstances. He figured a worm creature wanting to live inside his gut was a pretty good reason to cause a ruckus in the middle of the night.
“Are you sure?” The creature asked, as if Ben could ever second guess turning down an offer so disgusting.
“Yes I’m fucking sure!”.
“But I can fix you.”.
Ben was going to firmly restate his sheer dismissal but he froze at its offer and went quiet.
He blinked in surprise, letting his disgust step aside while he considered what he just said. “What?”.
The worm straightened its posture, tilting up its head with its cavernous mouth taking center stage.
“I know you’re sensitive about your body, I also know you’ve tried every fad diet there is and still wear the same husky pants you’ve worn for the last three years. You want a change but you’re not well equipped to change– your mother would sabotage you even if you tried. She likes you bigger, but no one else does. I can fix that.”.

He thought about what he was saying, probably more thought than the creature deserved. He knew logically he should have just told the monster off, that was certainly the smart thing to do.
Ben was supposed to be a smart kid, the one that always made the right choices, emotionally mature enough he was more trustworthy than someone like Eddie but not so mature he sometimes lacked empathy like Stanley did.
Ben was still just a kid at the end of the day, and no matter how smart he may seem he also had the tendency to be naive– as did most children.
His mom tried to make being big seem like a perfectly fine thing for him to be when he was younger, pinching his tummy every now and then to remind him that he was a growing boy with more to love. Now that he was older and smarter though, Ben was well aware of the social stigma and baggage that came with being heavy set.
He thought about how the world at large might treat him if he was as skinny as Victor Criss, all the small ways life could be just that much easier if he didn’t always think about taking up space.
It seemed beautiful, like going from black and white to glorious technicolor, but also very unobtainable.
He understood that being smaller wouldn’t solve all of his bullying problems (just look at Eddie), but it certainly would get rid of the massive target on his back.
God, he felt so shallow and stupid caring about this, but evidently his weight did have a huge impact on his life– so who could blame him if he worried about it?
Maybe that was another small privilege of being skinny, when skinny people worry excessively about your weight it’s automatically just good hearted concern for your health, when you do you’re a shallow pig who desperately wants approval from others.
The sad truth of his circumstance was that everyone would have loved for Ben to be thin, and Ben was no exception to that.
If there was a miracle cure for tubbiness he’d take it in a heart beat, but even with his desperation he still wasn’t entirely sold on letting a fucking worm monster live inside him. That seemed extreme.
Still, he was willing to hear it out– at least just for a little.

“How? How could you possibly change that?”.
The coiled position the worm was in tightened as it arched forward.
“You and I have the same problem: we eat a lot, but I can do things you can’t. Once I’m inside you I’ll eat whatever you eat, and I’ll take all the fat with it. I’ll suck out all the bad and make sure you get thin, I can even help you build muscle mass if you so desire. You won’t starve, you’ll only get stronger, there are no negative side effects, everything you could ever want comes from me, I scratch your back you scratch mine. This kind of stuff happens all the time in the animal kingdom, symbiotic relationships are proven to be very beneficial.”.
Ben shook his head, the way this creature casually discussed living inside him and changing his body making a little bile rise in his throat.
“That… doesn’t seem symbiotic, that sounds parasitic.”.
A grumble came from the worms insides, it must not have liked that.
“A parasite only takes, I give.”.
This was all sounding just a tad too good to be true for Ben, and even though he would do anything to fix his ailment, he realized a long time ago that there was no such thing as a free lunch.
If you wanted anything done right it’d always require some kind of sacrifice from either your body or your wallet.
“...What’s the catch?”.
“Catch?” The creature’s tone changed ever so slightly, shifting to put on a front of strange innocence.
“There’s always a catch. Nothing can ever be too perfect.”.
“Well… I suppose the catch is you’ll eat what I want and vice versa.”.
Ben tilted his head and squinted at the creature. “What’s that supposed to mean?”.
“It means what you think it means, obviously.”.

The offer was quite tempting, the perfect body for what seemed like a very low price. Sure, it was weird, but letting this thing inside him would probably be less painful and challenging than just eating healthy and vigorous exercise.
Or at least, that’s what Ben thought at first, before his more sensible side told him to knock that shit off and think about what he was really considering.
He didn’t want a miracle cure, that was cheating– and he refused to cheat.
Besides, this monster could be lying, even if it seemed friendly and amicable, sometimes the nicest things are the most duplicitous.
He shook his head, effectively snapping himself out of a weird half mouth open trance the worm had put him in while he fought with his own mind over what was best.
“No no, I’ll… I’ll just lose weight the right way. I don’t need you. I’m… happy the way I am.”.
“Really?”.
Usually when someone asked him that it was somewhat doubtful, like they genuinely couldn’t imagine someone who looked like Ben being happy with themselves. He supposed everyone was right to do that though, because he really wasn’t, but this worm’s attitude was totally different.
When it asked him that it sounded like it really wanted to know, but not in a prying way more in a… permissive way.
It was checking to see if Ben was okay in a way that he could tell if he told it no it would take no as an answer. How strange it was that this worm monster displayed more understanding of Ben’s boundaries than anyone he lived with.

Ben swallowed, suddenly feeling just the teeniest bit hesitant. “Yes, I’m positive.”.
His words came out like throw up, in a way that his body just had to get it out even though his mouth wanted to keep it in.
The worm monster looked him up and down, despite lacking the eyes necessary for such an action.
“...Well okay then, but I hope you change your mind.”.
“I won’t.” Ben said, admittedly only half sure if that was really the case or not.
The worm creature turned around and quickly slithered up the sink and back into the bowl, its body squishing and compressing itself as it moved along and left a thin gooey red substance in its path.
It flashed him one more cursory “glance” and gnashed its teeth playfully at him.
“Until we meet again Ben Hanscom.” It said, wiggling the end of its worm body as if to wave him bye.
“Meet again? What’s that supposed to-” Ben wanted more answers, but by the time he got to the word “what” the worm was already slithering back down the sink drain and halfway out of there.
After it disappeared the red trail it left behind gradually dissolved into nothing, leaving the bathroom just as spotless as it was when he walked in (which was to say, not very. Aunt Jean couldn’t clean at all).
Ben sat there on the bathroom carpet for a few moments, propped up on his knees while his hands rested on the ground, still not quite sure of how to feel about that interaction.
He did just engage in conversation with a weird veiny worm monster that came from his sink, but it was a very polite conversation.
That worm did seem to understand him in a way, as strange as that sounded.
Somehow it pinned down exactly how Ben was feeling about himself, and when Ben said no it politely went off without further discussion.
He’d never met a kind monster before (Not to say he’d met many monsters before, but IT was like a bunch of monsters all rolled into one and they all wanted to kill him) and this monster was particularly kind.
So although it sounded pretty nuts, and Ben himself would probably be the first person to admit he sounded crazy in this situation, he almost hoped he would see the monster again.
If anything just to talk freely, with no expectation that a dark secret he’d share could get out. He doubted the worm engaged in gossip very often, and even if it did, who would listen to anything a worm creature had to say?
Ben apparently.
That was all only true if the worm was even real at all though, he still wasn’t convinced this wasn’t some weird dream or a hallucination from food poisoning.

Ben stayed on the bathroom floor for just a few more minutes, still hung up on whether or not he could believe what he just saw, until his mom wandered in and brought her son back to reality.
“Benny?” She yawned, rubbing one of her eyes so they’d better adjust to the light.
Ben looked up at her with wide eyes, and for a few fleeting seconds Ben became acutely aware of how utterly ridiculous he looked on the floor.
Her fat son, still walking around in his day clothes that he slept in, wide eyed and shell shocked like he just saw a ghost, surrounded by the ugly decor of this mostly pink and cyan bathroom.
He looked as out of place and silly as a newborn deer walking around an office space.
His mother, in contrast, still looked very pretty, even though her hair was in rollers and she had nothing but a robe draped over her naked body.
“What are you doing? It’s three AM?”.
“I uhm- I-... I had to pee.”.
He supposed that was a good enough excuse, it wasn’t even a lie really, he did, in fact, get up to go pee.
“Oh.” Arlene frowned, a bit too groggy to go all police interrogation on her son right now.
“...Why are you on the floor?”.
Ben nervously laughed. “Oh uh- I fell down. My black eye, it messed with my depth perception.”.
Arlene toyed with the thought for a moment, clearly upset by the idea that her son was so badly injured he’d accidentally go injure himself again.
“Poor dear, you should go back to bed and rest some more.”.
“Okay mom.” Ben picked himself up and hurried over to his mother, you really didn’t have to tell him twice to get off this ugly ass carpet.
His mom put a hand on his shoulder and smiled weakly. “Come on, I’ll tuck you in.”.
She turned around to head to his room but Ben stopped her with a tug on her sleeve, a sudden panic flooding his chest.
“Mom, no. You don’t have to.”.
“I want to though, sweetie.”.
“But you don’t need to.”.
“But I do.”.
“Mom-”.
“Ben.” She put her hands on Ben’s shoulder in her classic “I’m not asking, I’m ordering” grip and looked him straight in the eyes.
“I really think it would be good for the both of us if you let me tuck you in.”.
Ben stared up at her, unknowingly holding in his breath like he was waiting for something big and scary to happen.
Nothing did though, Arlene just kept her eyes locked on him, her piercing blue eyes reminding her son just a bit of the billboard that symbolized the eyes of God in The Great Gatsby.
He let out his breath in a sigh, which to his mom was basically the equivalent of an enthusiastic thumbs up.
“Alright.”.
“Wonderful.” She pressed her lips against Ben’s forehead and made a very audible “Mmmwah!” while she did so.
“I love you.” She added.
Ben felt a sharp tingle in his gut, like something was deeply farcical about his life.
He didn’t get it at first, but eventually the truth of the matter was spelled out to him.
‘I’m not being understood, am I?’ He thought.
No, of course he wasn’t. Children in Derry seldom were.
Still, Ben did as he always did and played along with his mother’s oftentimes irritating need to be reassured she wasn’t a bad mom who was going to drive her son away.
“I love you more.” He smiled.
Arlene gently petted his hair and wrapped her arm around him, feeling all the more protective and prideful now that she had Ben’s “permission” to take him back to bed.
Ben wondered if he should have been more perturbed by that, but honestly, Ben wasn’t thinking very critically at the moment.
He just wanted to go to bed and forget about his black eye, or maybe finally wake up from whatever weird dream he was having and go back to some small semblance of normalcy.
Although as Ben would come to know, nothing in Derry was ever really as it seemed, and very soon he would join the ranks of deceptively simple looking things that filled this bullshit town.

Chapter Text

As far as school days in Derry go, the next day could have certainly been more dreadful– that didn’t make it good though.
At least the sun was out, and it didn’t look like it was going to rain anytime soon, which was quite the merciful change of pace in such a dreary dump of a town.
It’d been raining like crazy, enough to warrant some flash flood warnings and for Bill’s kid brother Georgie to ask him if the sun would ever come back again.
The one positive thing about today was that there wasn’t a cloud to be seen for miles, Ben didn’t pay attention to weather much though.
If anything, he preferred it cold, dreary, and wet– that way he didn’t feel so alone wearing nothing but hoodies and big sweaters to school and home.
Ben did that to hide his stomach and it was painfully obvious to everyone that that was why he did it, but he’d still like it if he wasn’t the only person wearing a sweater when it was seventy five degrees outside.
School was just as busy as it usually was, rude students pushing and stomping through the halls on their way to class (but of course the only one getting hollered at to move was Ben), the weird funky school smell that permeated the halls making Ben’s stomach churn and his nose twitch, and most of the crowd lacking the common courtesy to just patiently wait to get to their lockers.
Ben typically liked school, in fact, he loved it, but for some reason school in Derry was unlike school anywhere else.
Derry public school was an anxiety inducing place for Ben, when he wasn’t learning he felt like he was walking through Death Valley.
The sizable crowds brought him such strange Deja Vu that he found them hard to stomach, even though he couldn’t tell you why such a thing would bring him such nausea.
He supposed the reason was it reminded him too much of his father’s funeral, which was nightmarish and anxiety-inducing in its own right.

People rushing around the casket, shuffling around and making a ruckus that could only be acceptable at a Tennessean funeral.
Hordes coming in, hordes coming out, way too many people to all be his father or mother’s friends. He didn’t even know you could have that many friends or that many people crammed into one funeral home.
Too many people, too many noises, too many conversations going all at once, everything was so crammed and loud and annoying and utterly suffocating Ben struggled to picture why anyone would want this for their final send off.
Ben was glad he didn’t have to go to another funeral for a long time (or at least he hoped he wouldn’t), he couldn’t deal with any more prying eyes on him than there already were.
If that was what all funerals were like he’d tell his friends to just skip his all together and go to the arcade or something.
His anxious feelings about crowds aside, today was still not a very good day.
The black eye Henry had graciously gifted him was still a little swollen and eggplant purple, but only a very select group of people seemed to pay attention to his injury.
Everyone knew it had to be Henry, if not Henry than one of his idiot friends, there was no use asking him what happened.
But even an injury wasn’t enough to get other students to care about Ben, he could kill him right here in the hallway and everyone would be predictably unamused and then carry on to class. If they even noticed his murdered at all that is.
Only the Losers really cared, but given their status as literal children they couldn’t do much about it and their comfort was limited to just “Aw man, that sucks.” before they went back to talking about baseball cards or some other dumb kid thing.
Maybe that was why he declined to bring up the worm from last night, he was going to, but when he got to school and saw all his friends something told him to keep it down.
Perhaps he thought nobody would care too much, or maybe it was that he thought no one would believe him, or possibly– and this was the most likely scenario– Ben didn’t want his friends to know just how insecure he really was.

The inciting incident to make today truly awful was actually brought on by Ben himself, and believe me, Ben kicked himself over it like crazy as soon as it was over.
He should have known better than to try and join the track team, P.E wasn’t his strong suit but after all the teasing and jabs about his weight from his aunt he was in desperate need of consistent exercise to keep him in shape.
He thought joining the track team would be a good start, but he hadn’t expected the process to be so cold and humiliating.
It started out well enough, but when it came time to do their warm ups things went south.
Ben hadn’t even known anything was wrong until he heard a light tittering spread through the room of hopeful track stars and he had to look around.
Of course, now, of all days, of all times, in all towns and with all fat kids in this big wide world, it had been Ben Hanscom’s pants to split open at the back and expose his underwear.
His humiliation was furthered by his sweat shirt riding up over his stomach and the fact said underwear was themed to the anime character of AstroBoy.
After that nightmare it was impressive Ben didn’t just curl up in a ball and die on the gym floor from embarrassment, but he was nothing if not determined.
Ben often had pretty delusional ideas of fairness, even though he was smart and logical, a part of him usually believed that the right thing happens to the right person most of the time. If you stick to your guns the world will treat you kindly.
That got him in hot water with Henry Bowers when he refused to let him copy his test answers, and we already know how that ended.
Ben’s unrealistic expectations were going to end up hurting him yet again though, because instead of just calling it quits he convinced himself there would be some kind of glory in finishing tryouts.
There was simply no room for glory in Ben Hanscom’s life though, only further embarrassment.

The track coach for one reason or another had taken a liking to Ben in the worst way possible.
From first impressions he seemed to be the sort of man who enjoyed finding the weakest link in a room and directing everyone else to hurt them for his own amusement.
He already had his sights set on Ben when he noticed him lumber into the room, big enough he could have absorbed one of the other students into his body like a deep sea angler fish, but that black eye and underwear incident solidified it.
Ben Hanscom was a loser, the ugly duckling of the group, the butt monkey with no greater story purpose than to suffer for punchlines.
Ben might have been better suited for a spot as the school mascot than a spot on the track team, but after a tryout like that he decided to let him on just for a laugh.
A very cruel thing to do to a thirteen year old boy you don’t know, but an especially cruel thing when the boy was as emotionally vulnerable as Ben Hanscom.
It’s a very strange feeling to understand perfectly how unwanted you are in a room, and sometimes that feeling is so painful you end up wishing you were less aware of your surroundings.
He’d never felt so small in his life, not small like Eddie but small in a more… emotional way. Puny, pathetic, easy to stomp on.
It hurt like hell, but Ben still kept his wits about him and refused to cry.
Ever since his dad’s funeral he considered himself too tough to cry, and that proved to actually be a very handy skill in a place like Derry, a town primarily sustained by the tears of the outcast.

With that done Ben was allowed to go home for the day, not that he had anything better waiting for him at home.
Arlene had to work late today and his cousins were going to a friend’s house, which left Ben and Jean totally alone in the house with only each other to talk to.
Fuck that. Ben would rather die.
The silver lining to this very dark grey cloud was that his friend’s had all made plans to go to the quarry later and usually an outing like that would give him some kind of reprieve at least.
With that he could just swoop back home and change his pants so he wasn’t flashing people anymore and he could probably get through the rest of his day just fine.
Mercifully Aunt Jean was busy trash talking her neighbors on the phone with a friend to care that Ben had walked in, and she was already engrossed by a soap opera on their shitty rabbit ear TV to notice him leaving either.
Someone did notice him leaving his house though, and it was probably the only person in the whole world Ben wanted to talk to even less than his aunt.
“Hey piggy.” Ben stopped dead in his tracks and spun around on his heels.
Henry grinned, barring his yellowed teeth like fangs.
He tried to gasp but before he could even do that Henry had dragged him to the side of his house and tossed him in a bramble bush.
Ben stood up pretty quickly and dusted himself off in a frenzy, brambles sticking to his pants and just barely missing poking into his leg muscles.
Henry grabbed him by the shirt collar and pulled him forward like he was going to threaten him.
“How’s your eye feeling?” He laughed.

Ben looked side to side for help despite knowing very well that nobody in Derry would ever help a stranger unless they were a member of the Losers Club.
He reasoned though that one of his friends could easily walk by and save him from this just as well, maybe all of them, maybe just one, whatever it didn’t matter. Ben just wanted his friends to take Henry away from him and he didn’t care which.
A part of him knew and chastised himself for that being such a wussy outlook to have, but around Henry Ben seemed to freeze up and lose whatever meager confidence was in him.
The weird thing about Henry Bowers was that it wasn’t his stature that scared him, nor his muscles, or the putrid odor emanating off his baggy clothes, it was entirely in his eyes that had rendered Ben a breathing statue.
It was as though his eyes contained all of everything that had made Henry Bowers so quintessentially terrifying to everyone he met (everyone besides Bill that was, God damn that guy was brave).
Narrow and blood shot, frantically always looking off and around in a perpetually paranoid state in case someone stabbed him in the back or hit him while he was down, like an animal's eyes in their utter lack of understanding of complex human emotions.
You could easily mistake it as the look of something simple minded, but Henry Bowers wasn’t simple at all. Simple people just don’t know any better. Henry Bowers knew better and actively chose worse.
Ben attempted to wrestle away from Henry, but Henry was accursedly strong for a boy his age, so his grip remained iron tight.
The best Ben could do in the end was lean his head back, hopefully far enough away that if Henry pulled out a knife he could dodge getting his throat slit.
“Ngghh- Hnng-” Ben huffed, clearly uncomfortable with Henry’s presence (as was everyone) but too terrified to put it into words.
Henry giggled (He would have killed him if he knew Ben thought he had giggled, but it was true, that wasn’t a chuckle, laugh, or snort, it was a straight up giggle) about the obvious fear in his eyes, or at least the one that hadn’t swollen shut from Henry’s little present yesterday.
“What? Did you seriously think I was going to leave you alone after yesterday?”.
Ben didn’t have an answer to Henry’s question, mostly because when you were pursued by Henry Bowers you never thought much– only hoped.
“I-I-I-”.
Henry took out his pocket knife and raised it to Ben’s throat. “Speak clearly, Piggy.”.
Ben swallowed but the lump in his throat refused to go away. “I don’t know.”.
For some reason that gave Henry just the slightest bit of pause in what he was doing. “You don’t know? I thought you were smart.”.
“Well you’re kind of putting me on the spot here.”.
“Shut up.” Henry spat.
“What do you want from me, Henry? Praise? Money? Answers for the next test? Whatever it is, I’ll give it to you, just leave me alone. I’ve had enough crap to deal with today.”.
“Oh well why don’t I just skip the usual beatings then? How about I rip your pants off and use my knife to make you a sow? Would that make you feel better?”.
Henry threateningly lowered his knife from Ben’s throat to his crotch, and out of pure fight or flight instinct Ben summoned all his strength to high kick Bowers in the groin.
Henry fell to his knees in shock, punctuated by a guttural “Hng! Fuck!” while he writhed around on the ground, hands cupped to his manhood.

Ben ran away, glancing back every now and then just to make sure Henry wasn’t following him. He didn’t know why he wasn’t– usually Henry chased after his victims like the fucking terminator, but for some reason Henry let Ben get away.
Suppose Henry just figured it wasn’t worth it, afterall, he could always pick on Ben some more tomorrow. It wasn’t like he could hide from him forever.
Ben sprinted all the way to the quarry where he was supposed to meet his friends, lungs burning like he was now the asthmatic of the group (which Ben would happily take over being the fat one anyday).
Surprisingly only Bev was there waiting for him, hunched on the river bank while she muttered under her breath random unimportant stuff that came to mind.
She was poking the muddy part of the water with a long stick she’d picked up, totally unaware that Ben had ran here and was currently peeking at her from behind a bush.
As always, Bev looked stunning, even when she put no effort in her appearance or tried to stand out, Ben always thought she was pretty as pie.
Her dress was a simple white spaghetti strap dress with a bow at the back, and her short red hair was freshly clean and hanging limply over her perfect face.
It was only natural that a girl so effervescently beautiful and sweet would rile up all her male friends, even the ones who were not interested in girl’s at all seemed to go wild for Bev.
She was just one of those great gals that could also be a pretty good guy at times, and even if you weren’t attracted to her looks you couldn’t deny her enviable skills in the yoyo or slingshot.
Any boy would die to have a girl like Beverly Marsh by their side, and Ben was most certainly no exception.
He felt like a freak peeking at her from the bushes, but something about Bev made you just wanna watch her in her own element, completely unbothered.
It also helped that from a distance, Ben felt so much more confident. He had a bad habit of getting tongue tied around Bev, he’d walk up to her with a whole preplanned speech about how amazing he thought she was and then ultimately devolve into a stumbling mess.
Bev wasn’t deaf or dumb though, so she could hear someone approaching fairly easily. She was actually very good at that, because at home one of her main lines of defense was being able to identify a man’s footsteps.

Ben took a step back from the bush and accidentally snapped a twig in half, making Bev raise her head from her mindless pond poking and look around.
Her eyes landed squarely on him and she smiled, wide and pretty.
“Are you just gonna sit behind a bush and watch me all day?” She laughed.
A smile spread across Ben's face as he heard Bev’s laughter, cute and fluffy and feminine and oh so sweet, like the pinkest cotton candy at the county fair.
He stepped out and stuffed his hands into his hoodie pocket, a little embarrassed but still eager to see her again.
She patted at the gravel beside her, urging him to sit down so they could chum around until the rest of the group got here, and Ben gracelessly dropped to the ground.
“Hi.” She wiggled her fingers at him in a playfully girlish wave.
“Hi…”.
“So why exactly were you hiding in the bushes again?”.
Ben slowly blew the air out of his cheeks and craned his head to the sky. “Just watching you I suppose.”.
He glanced back down at her but kept his head in place. “That makes me a creep, doesn’t it?”.
Bev laughed again. “A little.”.
“Damnit-” Ben sighed and buried his face in his hands “-I’m the worst.”.
She giggled really hard at that, but it was a sweet giggle that showed she was simply laughing with him, not at him. Bev would never even dream of laughing at Ben.
She placed a tender hand on his shoulder and rubbed it to reassure him. “Relax, I’m only kidding. I’ve met many creeps and you can believe me when I say– you, Ben Hanscom, are not a creep by any means.”.
Damn if that wasn’t the truth, Beverly had been the subject of many creepy dudes affections, including Henry, Patrick, and even Mr. Keene.
Ben was nowhere near their levels, but Ben cared so much about Bev he often felt like he had to be overly cautious so as not to add to her pain.

Bev’s expression faltered for a second, her natural empathy rearing its head, and she raised her hand to Ben’s face like she was going to rub his cheek.
“Is your eye still hurting you?”.
“Yeah…” He grumbled, then suddenly remembered sulking like a baby wasn’t particularly attractive to girls.
“-but I’m taking it like a champ!”.
She snickered and rolled her eyes, believing that little fib as much as she believed in Santa and the Easter bunny.
“Wow, I guess you’re just a regular macho man. Tough as nails, hard as stone, how does Henry Bowers not wet himself in fear everytime he sees you?”.
“What can I say? It’s not easy looking-” Ben gestured up the whole length of his body “-THIS cool.”.
“I can only imagine.”.
The laughter between the two kids came to a sharp end, mostly due to the fact Ben seemed just the tiniest bit hurt by that last comment.
The sarcasm in her tone made a pit form in Ben’s stomach, a pit that defied all Ben’s logic and past experiences with Beverly Marsh.
She would never sincerely try to poke fun at his weight, Bev didn’t care about how muscular, fat, tall, or skinny a guy was– in a town full of assholes the most important thing about a guy was if he treated women well.
The pit didn’t care about prior knowledge though, the pit’s one and only purpose was telling Ben that Beverly didn’t believe he was cool and she could NEVER believe a kid like Ben was cool. Because Ben was fat, And Bev was beautiful, and a beautiful girl and a fat boy went together like Ammonia and bleach.
He looked back down at the gravel so he didn’t have to stare at her face and worry about if her smile was sarcastic or not, although that didn’t help his insecurities at all considering the fact his pudgy thighs were down there too.
He sighed heavily, his sudden change in mood not going unnoticed by Bev (although he really wished it would have.).
“Hey-” She placed a hand on Ben’s wrist, the warmth of her fingers prancing on his skin.
Ben looked back up and they locked eyes, which only made the pit in his stomach get larger as it was impossible to feel comfortable under Bev’s wide eyed gaze.
He loved her (really loved her), but Bev’s big eyes were sometimes very freaky, even more so when she stared at you for long periods of time.
“Are you okay?”.
Ben’s heart skipped a beat.
“No I’m not.” Ben thought.
“I’m a fat kid who’s hopelessly in love with the most beautiful girl in the world, my dad is dead, my mom is working herself into an early grave, my extended family want me gone, I have a black eye, and on top of all of that a weird alien worm thing just crawled through my bathroom sink and talked to me. I am so far away from okay that it’s amazing I haven't snapped and killed somebody.”.

“Yeah! Just peachy!” He said.
Bev clapped her hands together. “Good! That’s wonderful– you had me really worried there for a moment.”.
Ben nervously laughed along, feeling his stomach churn with anxiety.
“You know Bev, sometimes I think you underestimate just how much you can drive a boy crazy.” His tone made him sound like he was being playful again, but to be honest, he wasn’t joking at all. She had to have been blind to it, cause Beverly Marsh was a kind girl who’d never willingly inflict such torture on anyone, and sometimes pining after Beverly Marsh felt like pure torture.
Bev snorted in what she probably thought of as her “ugly” laugh, but Ben knew there was no such thing.
“No I definitely know, all the men in my life are crazy.”.
Ben looked across the quarry bank and swallowed, the chirp of birds filled the stiff silence between the two. That was a relief, Ben couldn’t stand any more silence, not after the moment of silence at his dad’s funeral. He used to like it being quiet, but not anymore, now Ben only felt at ease when there was something happening around him to fill the void.
That was basically who Ben was at his core, someone desperately trying to fill the emptiness with anything he could find, be it food, noise, or conversation.
Disliking the sudden shift in mood, he opened his mouth to spit out a joke to fix it, but someone interrupted them.
“Hi-Ho Silveeeeerrr!”.
Bill sped onto the bumpy gravel with his trusty bike, faster than a bullet and just as shiny as one too.
He came to a stop that looked remarkably cool and calculated for a thirteen year old boy and hopped off.
Bill, as always, looked remarkably handsome.
Red hair blowing in the breeze, freckles sweetly smattered across his nose and cheeks, his dancing blue eyes as captivating as the caspian sea. And of course, because Ben needed more to fuss about, he was skinny as a rail.
He coolly brushed a hand through his hair and smiled. “Hey g-g-guys.”.

Ben stood up and dusted himself off, smiling as polite as he could muster.
It wasn’t that Ben was unhappy to see him, Ben could never be unhappy in the presence of his friends, but he felt put off by Bill’s presence lately.
Through no fault of his own, Bill had slotted into a role he had no idea he was even auditioning for. The role of the constant winner, which would serve as the polar opposite to Ben’s contant losing.
Sure, Bill was a loser, but he was the leader for a reason. If not for that stutter he could be popular, not just popular for a dork, but Gretta Keene levels of popular.
He was a beautiful boy, so beautiful that Ben wondered if part of the reason Henry bullied Bill so much was because Henry’s white trash rotten toothed dirty necked mullet having self couldn’t compare.
Henry would say it was because he was scrawny and had that little stutter, but Ben knew. You don’t get the reputation of always listening and not learn how to pick up on things.
Ben hated himself for these thoughts, it was terrible to be jealous of your friend like that, and the reason was just so perfectly petty too– but he couldn’t help it.
He’d look at Bill’s pretty face, and everytime without fail, he’d be reminded of just how unalike the two were.
Bill was a mirror, and Ben hated looking at his reflection.

Bev jolted up from where she was sitting and hurried over to Bill, grabbing his hands in a very affectionate way that made Ben feel just the tiniest bit of jealousy.
“I was wondering when you were gonna get here.”.
Bill blushed at the sensation,suddenly getting the urge to stare at anything other than Bev’s face. “S-sorry to keep you waiting.”.
Bev started babbling on about something Ben couldn’t really follow, something about comics and Victor Criss embarrassing himself in homeroom.
Ben was busy focusing on how Bev and Ben interacted with one another, how easily Bill could just stand there and respond to what she said without feeling like he could ruin everything if he didn’t plan it out.
He stuttered, but he was still so confident and daring, and in that moment Ben was reminded of just how unfair life was.
It wasn’t fair that that car rear ended Bill when he was little and gave him that stutter when he got out of his coma, it wasn’t fair that Ben’s dad got blown the fuck up, and it wasn’t fair that Ben didn’t look like Bill. All the little ways life likes to sabotage us and for what? A few chuckles? Ugh.
Ben reckoned that if he did look like Bill then the whole world would have been a bit brighter, and maybe new doors– doors Ben couldn’t even fit through before– would open up.
It felt genuinely disgusting for Ben to think about his friends like this, to have his thoughts littered with such envy and toxic competition, but Ben was just so tired of it all.
It’d been a long day, a very long day, and nobody wants to deal with body issues on top of a wounded eye and a family that doesn’t seem to really understand you.
Ben couldn’t even keep his fake smile on as he watched Bill and Bev chat about their day together. Everything around simply felt too busy for him to enjoy it, too rushed, too loud, too... crowded. Like a funeral home with far too many guests.
And that feeling only got worse once the other losers showed up.
First it was Mike, then Stan, and lastly Eddie with Richie trailing behind him like they were in a chase.
It wasn’t long before a few hours had gone by and the losers had to leave just as soon as they had arrived.
Eddie had to get back to his mom, Richie had chores to get to, Mike had a job he needed to do, Bill had to babysit Georgie, Stan had a boy scout meeting, and Bev said her dad might kill her if she was late home again.
Ben didn’t bother with an excuse or explanation at all, merely slipped out of there after he waved them all bye.
He doubted they’d notice, and to be honest, Ben’s thoughts and feelings were so at odds with each other he thought any excuse would come out nonsensical.

The walk home and ensuing dinner was just a big blur to Ben, who felt light headed from the constant noise coming from the kitchen and dining room and utterly confused as to why hanging with his friends had failed to cheer him up.
He flopped down onto his bed and went to sleep without any emotion, only to wake up later at three AM, hungry and strangely compelled to head to the bathroom.
He didn’t need to use the toilet this time around, but a part of his mind seemed to retain the worm’s promises of a better life and body and couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Was its offer real? Was it serious? It sounded too good to be true, and when you’re a kid like Ben you learn that things that are too good to be true probably aren’t.
Sometimes it doesn’t matter if it’s true though, sometimes our brains can trick us into the most elaborate ideas just because they’re so alluring.
Ben wasn’t in the position to be skeptical of things anymore, not after such an exhausting day.
Even if that worm was just a hallucination all along, he needed to allow himself the possibility that a creature like that could exist.
Call it delusion, call it hope, call it whatever the hell you want, Ben was craving some kind of lifeline out of chubby purgatory and he would take it from anyone… even a fleshy worm creature that may or may not be a delusion.
He got up and stomped his way to the bathroom in a huff, slamming the door a little too hard for how late it was.
Ben put his hands on the sink and stared down the drain with furrowed eyebrows.
“Hey.” His voice sounded shaky with determination, determination to fix his shitty life by any means necessary.
There was no response though, just an empty drain with the stink of a sewer emitting out of it.
He panted at the silence for a little while, quickly growing impatient. He smacked the counter.
“Hey you!” He shouted this time, and the worm slithered out.

“You don’t have to yell at me.” It gently scolded.
Ben wanted to be angry with this thing, but he couldn’t find it in him. He was too pathetically invested in what it was offering to get mad.
He innocently tilted his head, eyes flashing with sad hope.
“Did you mean what you said about making me skinny?”.
“Mhmm.”.
He glanced around the bathroom like he was expecting one of his family members to wake up and talk some sense into him.
He could guess if his aunt or cousins knew about this they would have encouraged him to go for it, no caution at all, but his mom would definitely have something to say about it.
There was no one here to stop him though, no friends or mother urging him to reconsider. Just Ben. Whatever choice he makes in this bathroom tonight is entirely his own.
He swallowed.
“And all I have to do is let you inside me?”.
“Correct, well… and eat what I wanna eat sometimes, but that won’t be so bad.”.
The world went quiet, no crickets outside, aunt snoring, or faucet dripping. You could have heard a moth whisper.
Ben was actually considering it. He couldn’t even believe it had come to this, but by god, he was actually fucking considering it.
And unfortunately… he agreed.

“Alright.” He said, a bitter taste filling his mouth as if he was already aware of the vomit spewing consequences he had unknowingly brought upon himself.
Oh god, if only he knew.
If only, if only, if only.
“Can I ask you what happened to change your mind?”.
Ben stayed quiet, too ashamed to explain.
Somehow it seemed the worm managed to know regardless.
“Oh, no don’t tell me– it’s a girl, isn’t it?”.
Ben remained quiet, but his silence was about all the confirmation it needed.
The creature giggled. “Aw, young love.”.
Ben huffed. “It’s not just that! It’s everything! Everything sucks!”.
He realized too late that he was getting a bit heated out of nowhere and took a deep breath to collect himself.
“Sorry, I am just… not in the mood to be teased right now.”.
“I understand.” The worm said, sounding strangely genuine.
“So…” He fiddled with one of the strings on his sweatpants “How do we do this?”.
The worm coiled around and bore its teeth, shimmying in excitement.
“Well I’d suggest you open wide.”.
“What do you-” The worm suddenly sprang forth and slithered all the way up Ben’s arm lightning fast, and just when Ben had gotten used to the slimy sensation of it going up his arm, the creature jumped down his throat.
In a move that was as quick as it was totally horrifying, It pulled itself farther and farther down Ben’s esophagus as he screamed for dear mercy.
It just kept going and going, it’s squishy slimy body filling the whole width of Ben’s throat, if the worm wasn’t so intent on getting in there he would have certainly thrown up.
The massive girth sliding down his throat brought back unpleasant memories of Ben being seven years old and having to get an intubation before a big surgery.
The surgeons carefully guided a plastic tube down his throat, the steadiness of which they did so almost being more off putting than what they were actually doing.
If you were to offer Ben a choice between that and this though he would have taken the intubation again in a heartbeat, because honestly the longer this went on the worse it seemed to get.
Once the creature had made its way down Ben let out a strangled cough that devolved into a gag, but the worst was still not over yet.
As he gagged with his hands still pressed against the bathroom countertop he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and noticed a certain… movement.
Lumps poking out and stretching across his skin as the creature tried to get cozy, just barely visible under his nightshirt.
Ben could feel it pressing against his intestines, squeezing them in a way that was only comparable to how Bev had once tried to describe the feelings of period cramps to him.
He rolled up his shirt and forced himself to stare at what was happening to his stomach, the bumps and signs of movement so much clearer now that there was only skin in the way.
The creature banged all around in Ben’s insides, hitting the walls of fat and flesh which surrounded it every few seconds.
Ben’s eyes went wide with horror as he reached a realization. “It doesn’t have eyes.” He thought.
“It doesn’t have eyes so it needs to feel around me to know where it’s going.”.

He clutched his stomach to try and make it stop, poking back any lumps he saw protrude out in an effort to sort of guide the worm to a less hurtful spot.
Then, out of nowhere, the movement stopped… and all Ben could feel was numbness.
He steadied himself and heaved in shock for a few minutes, no doubt traumatized from the ordeal he’d just been through.
He looked back at himself in the mirror, locking eyes with his reflection as if it were trying to tell him how stupid he was for agreeing to all of that.
He was about to berate himself for that but before he could even make a noise another pain started up inside of him, and this one was even more painful than the other one.
Sharp jagged things that felt like knives shot through Ben’s intestines, the creature finally finding a spot comfortable enough that it didn’t wanna budge.
It sprouted razor-like hooks from its body and dug them in as deep as it could, keeping the creature firmly attached to Ben’s insides with no sign of giving way anytime soon.
Ben dropped to his knees in pain, screaming bloody murder as the plush carpet pressed against his hands and he suddenly went from looking at himself to just the bottom of a bathroom cabinet.
He screamed and screamed and then he screamed some more until he finally threw his hands over his mouth so he didn’t wake anyone up.
Although the screaming stopped, the pain did not.
Ben could feel himself start internally bleeding from dozens of tiny holes in his intestines, an agony so bad he hoped only he would ever have to experience it.
Then the pain stopped again, and Ben was hesitant to let himself relax at all just in case it came back even worse, but after a few moments of pure silence he finally relented and collapsed on the floor.
It seemed the holes had somehow healed themselves with the hooks still in them, which, granted, was still a pretty horrifying thought but as long as Ben didn’t have to feel it happening he was willing to see it as some mild mercy.
Ben layed there on the ground for a total of fifteen minutes, cheek pressed against the floor, the fuzzy pink carpet blocking most of his vision, a little bit of drool sliding out of his mouth that he definitely wasn’t going to clean up, numbness spreading from his stomach all the way down to his toes.
He looked like he’d overdosed on some terrible street drug, and if his mother walked in at this exact moment she’d probably mistake him for a dead body.
He could take some solace in knowing the worst of it was over now though, soon enough he would be skinny like Bill and everything would be better.
This was just a small sacrifice for his dream to come true, surely what would come after would make all of this seem like small potatoes.
Beauty is pain after all, and if some pain was all that stood between him and a life free from bullies, sneering aunts, or apathetic girls, he would gladly take it.

He slowly collected himself, rising to his feet like a particularly pathetic phoenix rising from the ashes.
Ben stretched his arms and groaned like he just threw out his back, the numbness in his body quickly giving way to soreness now that he was up and moving again.
What he didn’t know though as headed off back to bed was that the changes Ben had been promised had already begun to take shape as soon as he fell on the bathroom floor.
He was too groggy to recognize it in his reflection before he left, but the changes were certainly there, and they were making a difference.
His face was already substantially less chubbier than before, but his big sad eyes looked hungrier than ever.
But that hungry look in his eyes was more than just a side effect, those eyes were a warning of things to come, and if anyone in Derry had even half a brain, they would come to fear them.

Chapter Text

It’s been a month since Ben let a monster live inside him, and if you can believe it, everything it offered and so much more has come true.
The morning after the deal was made he stepped onto the bathroom scale and anxiously waited for the results, terrified but expecting nothing more than the same old big number he’d seen every time he weighed himself. He honestly didn’t believe anything would be different, but to his sheer surprise there was a pretty significant change made.
He’d lost a whopping ten pounds overnight, which wasn’t a huge number but still more weight than Ben had ever been able to lose by himself.
After that Ben began to lose weight like he was terminally ill, the pounds flying off him at an almost scary pace as Ben still enjoyed all of the same fatty foods his mother liked to slap onto his plate.
With the rapid weight loss it was only a matter of time before he reached his goal, a slim 105 on the scale, without the needle even a smidge off.
When he saw that number Ben froze with his mouth wide open like he was trying to catch flies, for a boy who was convinced he’d be entering puberty at two hundred pounds and leaving it and four hundred, this was like a dream come true.
The impossibility of Ben becoming skinny, especially in such a short amount of time did not escape the people around him.
His aunt, cousins, and mother were gobsmacked when they first noticed.
It may sound odd to say that they hadn’t noticed before how skinny he’d gotten, but truth be told Ben hadn’t noticed for a while either.
It was kind of an unconscious reality that they were slowly coming to accept, and it only hit them all on a random afternoon when Arlene looked over at him and said to herself. “Benny… you’re thin.”.
Ben just looked down at his feet and hands, flipping them from back to front over and over again as he marveled at just how thin his fingers were, as if they’d gone from pipes to twigs.
He looked up at his mother with an amazed look, proud of himself despite knowing he made absolutely none of the usual sacrifices people partook in on their own weight loss journeys.
“You’re right. I’m very skinny.”.
“Skinny and beautiful.” His aunt mumbled.
Ben turned his head in shock and locked eyes with his aunt, who herself looked pretty stunned by her nephew’s new appearance.
She had been quietly reading her gossipy soap opera themed magazine the whole time while her son’s fought behind her, the cussing and punching becoming a kind of white noise to their mother after a while, when eyes fell on him and she felt something in her shift.
Regret tugged at her heart, as if it took Ben losing weight for her to finally wake up and realize that he was family and deserved to be treated like it.
“You’re so handsome Benny.” She added, hands going limp enough she dropped her magazine on the carpet.
She didn’t seem to notice it though.

“Me? I’m handsome?”.
Ben didn’t know what to say, this was the first time his aunt had ever said anything nice to him in… well, ever.
How could this be? Ben couldn’t help but feel as though he owed that worm a great deal, and that any hesitance he had about this before was useless fuss and bother.
He’d worried over nothing, sure, it was painful, but things were better than he could have ever expected them to be, and it looked like this was only the beginning.
And it was, after that the world around him went from tired and grey to bright sunny days.
People were nicer to him, more willing to hear what he had to say or do something if he asked them. Before all of this, if he asked a kid at school to move out of the way they’d give him a dirty look, but now girl’s were practically jumping at the bit.
He was a hunk and a half, pair that with Ben’s genuinely kind personality and brains and he was basically the perfect catch.
Even Gretta Keene had to admit Ben was super fine now, although her haughty pride kept her from ever asking him out.
Something something “I’m too good for him” or whatever. It didn’t really matter, before Ben might get in his feelings about it but now it was just like water off a duck’s back.
As more people became more receptive to Ben, the higher hsi confidence seemed to raise, but he still stayed humble enough he wasn’t insufferable.
All of Ben’s preconceived notions about the skinny world were proven to be true, and that was both relieving and quite depressing to think about.
It wasn’t right that Ben had to lose so much just to be treated like a person, but now that he was here he certainly wasn’t going to complain.
If even Henry fucking Bowers started to shape up his act around him now then there was really nothing to cry about, Ben was given a miracle cure and it was all thanks to some random alien creature who he probably owed a lot too.

As the Losers walked home together in their usual U formation so none of them had to get pushed off the street, carefree snickering seemed to fill the air.
His friends, although mostly unaffected by Ben’s new look, were genuinely happy for Ben.
They didn’t care how big Ben was really, but his noticeable shift in personality was quite pleasant for them.
It’s nice whenever your friend can come out of their shell and start smiling more, if the Losers knew Ben was so miserable at his former weight then they probably would have tried to help him lose it before.
Regardless of how he lost the weight though, they were just happy he was happy, and their shared joy in his new lease on life just reminded Ben of how lucky he was to have friends like them.
Of course if his friend’s were going to treat him exactly the same as before, that meant Richie Tozier’s little jabs at his expense had to stay the same too.
But now he couldn’t even tease Ben about being big anymore, and Richie was starting to find that surprisingly aggravating to work around.

“Ughh, this isn’t fun at all!”.
Richie kicked the ground, sending a pebble ricocheting off of the street and onto the sidewalk as he sulked about it.
“You know I’m happy for you Ben, I really am, but skinny jokes are a lot harder to write than fat jokes.”.
Ben laughed. “Oh come on rich, if you’re really a good comedian you can poke fun at anything. Would it hurt you to come up with some new material?”.
Richie had discreetly started to wander off from his friends to walk along the cracked sidewalk, carefully teetering on the edge of it with his arms flung out like he was on a tightrope.
Richie would never go near a tightrope walker, you have to go to a circus to see those and his fear of clowns made big top tents a big no no.
He glanced up from the sidewalk to look at Ben, noticeably wobbling a lot more now that he was losing focus. “I just can’t get over it, I can’t even call you Haystack anymore. You’re more like Hayneedle now.”.
As relieving as it might have been to go your whole life without hearing another fat person joke again, Ben was still sympathetic to Richie’s complaint. Insult comedy was his main love language (just ask Eddie), and it would appear as though his sudden weight loss had robbed him of that.
Ben brushed his hair out of his face, eyebrows pulling together to make a crease on his pretty forehead.
“You can still call me Haystack Rich, just say it’s because I’m from Tennessee and not because of my weight.”.
Richie wobbled back and forth for a few more seconds before totally losing his balance and fumbling back onto the street like he just barely avoided knocking out all his teeth.
He let out a horsey grunt, blushing about the indignity of it all. “By the way, Tennessee is also hard to make jokes about. If you were from Alabama or Texas then I’d be in comedy heaven right now, but nooo.”.
Richie put his hands behind his head, strutting back to rejoin his friends like the prior scene hadn’t happened. Nobody could put up a false sense of confidence like Richie could, it was practically second nature to him at this point.
Unfortunately when you do something like that for so long it becomes rather easy to see through, case and point, right now.

Ben rolled his eyes at his friend’s phoney coolness, perhaps lacking the self awareness to realize that before this weight loss he would have probably done the same.
“Tennessee isn’t that bad Richie, my mom and I probably wouldn’t have moved here if we didn’t have to.”.
“What do they even have in Tennessee? Ten gallon hats and rodeo clowns?”. He pretended to shudder at the thought.
Ben raised a hand and began to count off touristy things on his fingers, which he found were surprisingly easier to move with all that pudge gone. “Grand ole opry, Nashville, Dolly Parton–”
“An entire state ran off of country music? That sounds like a nightmare.”.
Stan threw his head back in laughter, the only one really amused by Richie’s joke about country music.
It wasn’t even particularly funny to him, he just had a healthy distaste for country music since all his parents liked to listen to was John Denver.
Bev turned her head to look Ben straight in the face, a sweet glimmer in her eyes. “Have you gotten any marriage proposals yet? I mean we all saw how Marcia Fadden was looking at you at lunch.”.
She lightly smacked Ben on the arm, a quick and playful little slap for “leading” all the girls in their class on.
He rubbed at the red spot she’d left on his shoulder. If he could be open and honest with all his friends right now he’d go on about how the only girl he could ever see himself with is the one staring at him right now, but Ben refused to ever be so forward.
“None so far, still holding out.”. He said, his voice pitching a little sarcastic just in case any of his buddies started to worry he was becoming a little too egotistical.
“You’re like the t-talk of the town now man, it’s kind of s-scary.”.
Bill’s expression told a whole story of worry, his cheeks were not so rosy today and his dancing blue eyes were lacking their usual vigor.
He could tell this weight loss wasn’t normal, nor was it healthy, even though Ben had done a fairly well job keeping the shady details quiet.
To explain how Bill knew would be a pretty fruitless endeavor, the only real explanation being that when you’re the leader of a club (especially one as tight knit as the Losers) you know things.
A father knows his children, a teacher knows his students, a good leader knows his followers.
Sadly, only Bill dared to think about the weightloss any deeper than the basic congratulations, Stanley couldn’t care less, Richie was busy worrying about his stand up routine, And Bev, Eddie, and Mike were simply too happy for him to think twice.
Specifically Eddie seemed happy for Ben, in his house diet culture was a fairly hot button issue. Sonia was always trying new diets, all of which Ben’s aunt had tried to force him on once or twice.
One day it would be no butter on your toast, next would be no toast at all, and so on and so forth.
Sonia could try all the diets she wanted though, it didn’t matter what diet it was, no woman who ate like Eddie’s mother would ever be thin– not unless she had a magical metabolism that is.

Richie pressed up against Ben with hand hand against his forehead like a broadway diva. “It won’t be long until Ben starts dressing like a cool kid and ditches us to go be Mr. Popular. Who knows, maybe he’ll even become a jock and start pickin on us.”
Ben rolled his eyes once more, then raised his fists with a cheeky smile.
“Gimme your lunch money!”.
Richie’s eyes went wide, he turned to run away but Ben snatched him by the collar and dragged him back. He flailed his arms around “Ahh! Help! Nerd in distress! Nerd in distress!” He squealed.
The rest of the losers giggled about this scene for a moment, enjoying Richie’s pathetic little arm flaps and leg kicks.
It was Mike who ended up pulling the two apart, like the good mediator he naturally was.
“Okay okay-” He picked Richie up by his shirt collar and set him back down, like a momma cat with her kitten.
“-That’s enough.”.
“You guys are so dumb.” Eddie groaned.
“You’re next.” Ben shot back.
He laughed at his own joke, but Eddie looked surprisingly scared by the threat.
He was staring at Ben with his classic wimpy stare, the kind that was usually reserved for bullies like Henry Bowers or his own mother.
Believing a joke in earnest was not out of character for Eddie Kaspbrak, far from it, he was a very gullible kid who could sense tone if he sat on it. The last believer in Santa Claus, the one still afraid of the elf on the shelf, the kid who read everything there was to know about cars and trains but would still go looking for a left handed monkey wrench if you asked him too. He wasn’t a fool, but he could be fooled in the wrong person’s hands.
But even so, this look on his face was not one of somebody who had fallen for a joke, it was more than that. This was a look a lot like Bill’s, something cautious and somewhat aware that there was more beyond the surface.
That “You’re next.” was meant as a joke, but to Eddie it felt like a big warning sign. At some point, although he hadn’t a clue on how it would happen, Ben wouldn’t be able to make such jokes anymore, because those jokes would just be his reality.
That was probably paranoia, Ben was a sweetheart who’d be quicker to pummel someone with words than fists, no matter how athletic he was.
But Eddie’s face didn’t relax, and everyone took notice of it.
Most of the Losers were worried by that, but Bill was relieved. It was a small confirmation that maybe his hunch about Ben wasn’t totally out there.

Ben’s mouth twitched into a nervous smile. “That was a joke, Eds. You know it’d never actually bully anyone.”.
“Right. I knew that.” His words came out of him like he was trying to cough it up. He didn’t look any more at ease than before.
Richie leaned on Ben, lovingly patting his shoulder. “Yeah come on, Ben’s still a big softie, just… not as big as before, ya know?”.
“Boooo!” Bev said, grasping at air and flinging her arms around like she was throwing invisible tomatoes “Do better material!”.
Richie played along, pretending to get pelted and injured by the rapid fire imaginary fruit until he was keeled over on the ground.
“Ough! Why does someone always bring rotted fruit to performances?!”
The losers shared a hearty laugh over their idiocy, and once they had helped Richie back up to his feet they quickly moved along.
They speed walked the rest of the way home, one by one splitting off from the group to disappear into their homes until the only losers left were Bill, Richie, and Ben.
Ben walked up the steps to his aunt’s house, steps that had once creaked under the pressure of his footsteps but now only seemed to creak due to age.
One night after he got home late his aunt pointed out to Ben that he “lumbered through the house with big thumping footsteps like a slow ass hippo” and it “always pissed her off”.
This conversation was pretty doomed from the start, but Ben didn’t make it any better when he pointed out that hippos are actually really fast so her insult didn’t make any sense.
He got his ears boxed in pretty badly for that, and then came the coddling from his mother upon seeing how badly she’d smacked him.
Nothing like that had happened recently, his aunt hadn’t even said a word of negativity since.
Ben used to try to reason with himself as to why his aunt didn’t love him, perhaps she had resentment towards his father, perhaps the financial burden brought on them by his mother and him was too much, maybe there was some bad blood between his mother and aunt he was just too young to understand. For how smart Ben was, he must have forgotten the principle of Occam’s Razor– The simplest solution is probably the right one.
His aunt just didn’t like fat people, simple as that.
And somehow, Ben couldn’t help but feel like that was even crueler than all the other answers he’d thought of.

Ben took out his house key from his backpack, jamming the small brass key into the hole over and over again, the busted lock on their shitty door not cooperating in the slightest.
He tried it one more time with a little force and it gave way. Ben grunted, oddly burnt out from such a small bit of physical labor. He shot a look back at his friends and threw his hand up in the world’s saddest attempt at a wave.
“I’ll see you guys tomorrow.” He grunted.
Richie smirked at Ben, hands now firmly pressed into his shorts pockets. “Yeah sure… if you’re not too busy getting hard at your own reflection to come to school.”.
“Beep beep Richie…” Bill sighed, barely breaking his gaze away from Ben to look at the boy he was talking to.
Ben chuckled under his breath, “You can sure say that again.”.
He pushed the door forward and stomped inside, slamming it just a bit too hard for the rotten wood it was made of.
Richie tried to get in one last laugh before he and Bill had to leave, but Ben had already tuned him out and slammed the door before he could get the whole joke out.
It sounded like Richie was yelling at nothing, similar to how an old man might snap at random kids on the street for no reason.
Although, anyone who knew Richie Tozier could tell you he was pretty prone to random yelling too.

He flopped down on the couch, still not quite used to the feeling of sitting down without a big stomach getting in the way and making it hard to find a comfortable position to lay down.
To occupy the time before now and dinner he picked up his copy of David Copperfield and dug into it. Sometimes Ben felt like his brain was just one big sponge built to soak in all the information it could, constantly demanding to be fed more and more escapism from the world around him.
Books had been a big deal to him for a long time, his first and only friends as he went from army base to army base, something to comfort him in a way food never quite could.
What Ben had lacked in social standing he had made up for in the world of literature, but now that things in his life had changed so much, Ben didn’t quite understand where his love for the written word lay.
Of course he still loved books, he was the same person underneath, but his books had been a coping mechanism for so much and now they just… weren’t.
He had real friends now, he didn’t need the companionship of Sinbad anymore. His father was dead, he couldn’t even remember the last time he saw an army base. And for once, in Ben Hanscom’s miserable life, his real life was looking just as beautiful as the mystical lands on the page.
His love for books wasn’t without flaw though, sometimes his books could make him sad in ways that weren’t intended.
He was fairly sure that his read through of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory had been his first encounter with shame in his life, and that Augustus Gloop’s fat body being cruelly shoved through that pipe would stick with him forever.
Books were kind of like real life, a mixed bag of pleasant and awful with a side of “what the fuck” for added spice. Sometimes you’re just living your life and see something totally unspeakable, and sometimes you read a book and they throw in a ridiculous detail like the main character’s cock size and you just gotta roll with it either way.
It sounded pretty scary, engaging with books in a totally different way, but he was willing to give it a try. Ingesting a big worm that crawled out of his sink seems like a pretty good sign you’re okay with going out of your comfort zone.

Ben’s mother appeared in the living room doorway, hands folded neatly in her lap and head cocked to the side.
“Put your friend down, it’s dinner time.”.
Ben rested his book open faced down on the couch, his lack of a bookmark another one of his bad habits that he had no intention of fixing.
Bookmarks were pesky little things he usually lost after a while so Ben had learned not to bother spending his pocket change on them.
Arlene had problems with that of course (your mother isn’t your mother if she doesn’t complain about how you’re not taking care of your stuff, right?) but a studious kid like Ben would pick up where he left off frequently enough it wouldn’t crease them so it didn’t matter too much.
Ben never did much wrong ever, being the rule following goody two shoes was kind of his thing. Maybe that’s why Arlene picked fights with him over book marks, just so she could get a taste of what real parenting is and remind her son who the boss is.
He glanced at the clock on one of the living room’s end tables, two hours had passed already to her son’s amazement.
“Oh geez, I must have lost track of time there.”.
He stood up and smiled at the lack of struggle he had to stand up. Ben likened the sensation to how astronauts must have felt as they entered new gravitational fields, as if the entire center of yourself, the one constant in your life, so constant that you sometimes forget it’s even there, changed right under your nose.
He sniffed the air and licked his lips. A savory aroma had floated into the kitchen and he never even noticed.
“That smells good mama, what is it?”.
“Collared greens, salisbury steak, baked potatoes, and strawberry rhubarb pie.”.
“What?”.
Arlene’s cooking nowadays was basically great depression meals with no flavor, things like spice and sauce cost extra and weren’t necessary when you couldn’t afford basic groceries.
The smell of savory steak was nearly enough to transport him back to Tennessee, where sweet tea was always in a glass and a whole stick of butter was a requirement for every meal.
He’d forgotten how much he’d missed it in the sea of bland food and bland sights in Derry, but the fact of the matter was they couldn’t afford to eat like they did in Tennessee, so Ben proceeded with caution.
“Like… with butter and everything?”
His mother scoffed, but she somehow looked happier than ever. “Ben, you can’t eat baked potatoes without butter, that’s criminal.” She laughed.
“No I know it’s just- how can you afford all of that?”.
She laughed again. “Well we’re not eating like this every day, it’s a special occasion.”
“Oh? What?”.
Arlene bent over, put a hand under Ben’s chin and squeezed it like she was trying to wring out lemons. “Why you silly! Your weight loss.”.
Ever since he stopped being fat Arlene had noticed her boy wasn’t nearly as huggable as he used to, and his cheeks were not as nearly as fun to pinch as before. She was happy that her son was happy, but deep down she missed the security of her big fat son.
Arlene was willing to put up with it though for Ben’s sake, it felt only fair to let him have this after making him move here with family members he hated and doing very little about his bullying situation.
In a way, this was how she planned on atoning for past mistakes.

“Oh.” his eyebrows furrowed, something inside of him feeling a little hurt by the celebration. Although he hated himself before, all the congratulations and celebration felt like the resentment was shared.
Arlene’s expression snapped into one of her classic worried looks.
“That’s not going to be a problem is it?” she pressed a hand against her chest, her voice so soft it was like Ben was made of glass and she thought anything above a whisper would shatter him to bits.
Ben shook his head and raised his hands like he was being accused of a crime.
“No. No-” He forced out a laugh. “Come on mom I told you, I haven’t changed how I eat. It’s… a growth spurt. It’s fine.”
She scratched her chin, the concern in her expression staying long after Ben had reassured her. “Well… alright then, so long as you’re happy dear.” She said, voice turning a bit chipper towards the end, but her face betrayed her words.
Arlene and Ben walked to the dining room to find the table was already fully set and Ben’s aunt had been waiting for them with a glass of wine already poured.
It seemed like Arlene wasn’t the only one missing the security provided by Ben’s fatness because his aunt was having withdrawals from her favorite punching bag and coping with it by downing wine.
His aunt loved having someone she could take things out on and not feel bad about, verbally abusing Ben for his weight was her favorite way to let off steam and it was the perfect distraction from her terrible life.
Husband left, kids were shitty, house was falling apart, she needed someone to blame for all of her problems, and her distaste for fat people made Ben a perfect candidate.
Now that Ben was pretty though, she didn’t have any reasons to treat him so bad. Ben wasn’t perfect, but he was a damn good kid. Smart, kind, quiet, obedient, Arlene had spoiled him sweet while his aunt had spoiled her kids rotten, and that really ticked her off.
Yes, she could still be mean to Ben if she wanted, but it wasn’t the same. His aunt wanted someone she could pick apart and make feel bad, and without those extra pounds his aunt had been struggling.
It’s just like Richie said “skinny jokes are a lot harder to make than fat jokes”.

Aunt Jean sulked at the end of the table, hand clutching onto her wine glass for dear life in a way that reminded Ben of how Eddie would put his hand over his drink anytime he had one.
Ben’s cousins walked into the room and took their seats at the table, oddly calm and composed for two kids Ben had previously thought were only capable of beating each other up or shouting curse words across the house.
The dinner spread was as scrumptious as Ben imagined, pie, tea, salisbury steak and baked potatoes with butter, just looking at it made his stomach growl.
He suddenly realized he was beginning to salivate at the food and wiped away a bit of drool that had spilled out of his lip. “Looks good mom.”.
“Thank you.” She said sweetly, then pulled out his chair to sit down.
Dinner was great, not just because of the delicious food but because for once he could enjoy a meal without annoying cousins fighting at the table or an aunt obsessively staring at him while he eats.
The only noise at the table was the clicking of the forks and spoons against the plates as they shuffled around bits of food.
Ben ate everything on his plate, careful not to waste it since such good cooking was rare and he needed to appreciate it.
When the meal reached its end Ben’s plate was so clean you could see your reflection in it.
He leaned back, clutching his stomach in satisfaction. “Oh my, that was delicious I’m-”.
Ben’s stomach bellowed for more.
“I’m not full?” He muttered.

Arlene shot up from her chair and rushed to his side. “Oh dear, I guess dinner wasn’t filling. Here, have some more pie.” She picked up the pie plate and practically shoved her son’s face into it.
He scarfed down two more slices, the sugary sweetness of the strawberry pie bordering on saccharine the more he shoved down his throat.
If he ate anymore he’d throw up, but his stomach demanded more.
In fact, it was like the more he ate the hungrier he became.
Ben finished the last slice of pie and waited for the inevitable numbness of feeling stuffed to overtake him, but it never arrived.
He didn’t feel sick, over fed, or the slightest bit satisfied, he felt starved.
Ben swallowed a lump in his throat, but even that wouldn’t sastiate him. “I’m still hungry.”.
His mother, cousins, and aunts eyes fell on him, gobsmacked, horrified, genuinely baffled by the bottomless pit that had replaced Ben’s stomach.
Arlene looked especially disturbed, but she quickly snapped out of it. She forced a smile. “I know what you need! A sundae!”.
She fetched all the ingredients she needed from the fridge and a big bowl from the cabinet. While she toiled away spraying whipped cream and drizzling chocolate syrup Ben remained seated, hands pressed firmly on the table to keep him from having a panic attack.
“Here!” She placed it on the table a little too hard, making the bowl clink against the wood.
The chocolate syrup oozed off the sides of the ice cream scoops, the dark brown contrasting with the bright blue of the cold dessert, white of the cream, and the rainbow sprinkles on top.
“Come on, it’s your favorite flavor, Birthday cake!”.

Ben pushed it around with his spoon, mixing the ice cream until all the colors started to rub off on each other, and now there were rainbow bits in the ice cream and blue stuff in the whipped cream and some of the sprinkles were stained brown.
He didn’t really want ice cream, truth be told he was kind of sick of it, but his stomach was waging war on him and he needed whatever he could get to make it shut up.
Ben ate the whole thing, even licked the bowl clean, but the hungry storm was still brewing.
His eyes darted around the table as his aunt, cousins, and mother waited for confirmation he was full. “I… I don’t-”.
His fervent gaze fell on his mother, her pleading look making him feel even worse than the hunger pains.
Ben clutched onto his stomach and smiled as hard as he could. “I don’t think I can eat anymore!”.
The rest of his family let out a sigh of relief, not that anyone but Arlene cared about Ben’s health, but they frankly didn’t wanna have to head to the ER if he had some rare condition that made him hungry forever.
It was probably not a good idea to lie about that, he could be having a serious medical issue and Ben’s incessant need to people please could wind up getting him killed, but the only thing that could make Ben sicker than downing a whole meal, three slices of pie and a whole ice cream sundae was his mom fussing over him some more.
Ben pushed his chair back and stood up, gritting his teeth as he ignored the pain in his gut.
Maybe if he was lucky this would be just a gastrointestinal issue, kick started by the harsh weight loss he went through.
But luck wasn’t something Ben had a good history with, and this was definitely like no health issue he’d ever experienced.
This was something far worse, and unbeknownst to Ben, shit was about to hit the fan.

“Thanks for the dinner mom, really good, I’m gonna go lay down.”.
Ben turned to walk out but his mother halted him in his tracks.
“Wait!”.
He slowly spun back around to look at her, begging for the universe to just throw him a bone one time and let him get away with this.
Her smile softened. “I just wanna say how proud I am of you dear, I know you said it was all from growth spurt but I feel like you must have been doing something to lose weight in all that time. Whatever you did to turn out like this I… I’m thankful for it.”.
On a normal day Ben would have hugged her and given her a big spiel about how that meant a lot to him, but his stomach felt like it was gonna collapse in on himself and that basically took precedence over everything else he might have been thinking of, so he just said “Thanks, that mean a lot.” and ran off to his room.
Arlene was caught off guard by how fast he bolted down the hall, Ben had never ran away from her before. Even when they fought, he’d usually stay until they could find a way to reconcile.
“How weird. I should go check on him-”.
“Ah leave it.” Jean interrupted, fully wasted on her cheap box wine.
“The kid is weird enough as is, he doesn’t need you going all helicopter parent on him .”
Arlene didn’t appreciate her sister’s rude assessment of her parenting style, but Arlene Hanscom was nothing if not a tireless listener and easily influenced, so she obliged.
After all, he said he was fine, and Ben wouldn’t ever lie to her like that, right?

But he was lying, and Ben was anything but fine in his bedroom.
He spent the next three hours pacing around his room in a hungry frenzy, the dull hunger pains shooting through his tummy every few minutes like he was being electrocuted.
His mouth was watering for something, a craving he didn’t know he had until now, and the slobbery was beginning to really gross him out.
He doubted this wasn’t an illness like rabies (given that he was alive and not currently seizing on the ground) but he imagined this was probably what rabies felt like, foaming at the mouth and all.
Ben also wondered if this was what it was like to go through withdrawals, pacing around your room, jonesing for something far out of your reach, your own body betraying you.
At least with an addict you knew the reason though, Ben was stuck suffering twice as much with none of the explanation and he was starting to go crazy.
He tried to distract himself from the pain by any means necessary, reading, writing, sleeping, tidying up his room, but not a single thing worked.
While he frantically ran around though time ticked on faster than he expected, and by the time Ben had reached his breaking point and had to leave the room it was nine o’ clock and the house was dark.
He ran through the dark house, with the sound of his family's hushed snoring the only thing to accompany him whooshing through the house.
Ben bolted to the fridge and opened it with a rattle, cold blue light spilled fourth onto him and chill crawled up his spine.
He pilfered through the contents without any concern about what he was picking up or even expiration date. Mike would often bring these horrible peanut butter and onion sandwiches for lunch and all of the Losers would tease him on the gross combo, even though Mike always maintained that they were delicious and over hated.
Ben would gladly take one of those now if it would help him stop being so hungry, even if only for a few seconds.
The combination of onion and peanut butter sounded even more appetizing when he compared it to the unholy combos Ben was creating as he ate out his whole fridge.
Pickles and frosting, chocolate milk and tuna salad, old half finished popcorn and peas, cheese curds and caramel, blueberry muffins and mayonnaise, anything and everything went together and into Ben’s mouth, but none of it worked, even the grossest food combos made his stomach crave more.
He swiped the can of whipped cream his mother had used for the sundae and shook it.
“Come on come on come on!”
He sprayed the sugary substance a few inches away from his mouth and it came out almost too fast for him to swallow it all and he started to choke.
“Why am I still hungry?” He coughed out, confused to the point of tears.
He caught a glimpse of himself in the stove reflection and paused, floored to see the absolute mess he’d made of himself in his gross binge.
Now that he had whipped cream around his mouth he not only felt like he had rabies but looked like it too, and that wasn’t even mentioning his tousled hair or all the food stains on his clothes and pants.
He didn’t have time to waste picking apart his appearance though, he could worry about that some other time when he didn’t have a date with death by hunger.
Ben put the can of whipped cream back and traded it for a can of string cheese, but before he had finished even shaking it something made him stop.
“That’s not going to help you.”.

The voice echoed in Ben’s mind, he looked around baffled, but then he realized.
Oh.
It was the worm again.
The worm probably knew more about Ben’s body than he did at this point, so if it was giving him tips then he might as well listen, but if regular food wouldn’t help then what other option did he have?
Then Ben spotted it.
At the very back of the fridge was a single raw steak left in its packaging, illuminated under the fridge lights like it was an ominous artifact of great importance.
Ben reached for it and ripped it open with his bare hands, the little black plate the food came packaged with dropped to the ground along with the plastic, leaving Ben with just a raw steak in his hands.
He huffed under his breath, slowly coming to grips with the gross thing he was about to do.
Ben’s fingers got to work stuffing the cold slippery food down his throat, and while he found it disgusting, he did notice it helped a little, but not nearly enough.
He ate the whole thing before the worm talked to him again, and unfortunately what it had to say wasn’t very helpful.
“You’re getting closer, hehe.”.
Ben had had enough at this point, he was tired, scared, upset, and just wanted at least one answer to one of the thousands of questions he had.
“How are we- How-” He cut himself off with a hiccup and threw his hands over his mouth, embarrassed.
Nevertheless, the worm seemed to understand what he was asking.
“I’m inside of you. That’s how.”.
Ben put his hands down and wrung them into fists, he was quickly starting to lose his patience. “Whatever, forget it- just please tell me why I’m so goddamn hungry!”.

“Our body needs to eat, but the food we crave can’t be found in anyone’s fridge or pantry.”
Ben blinked in shock. “Our body? This… this is my body!” He yelled under his breath, but the worm had to disagree.
“No, our body. And we’re hungry for something special.”.
“What are you talking about?”.
“I spent a while nibbling away at your body fat, anymore weight loss and you’d be walking a toothpick by now. Your cottage cheese was undoubtedly delicious, but I don’t exactly want to live in a scrawny corpse so I have to leave you some. Of course you’re smart enough to know that, right Ben? I know you’ve bought into all the ED stuff your aunt pushes but you still have a brain, you must have read that humans need some fat on their body. Evolution dictated it so. That leaves us with a little problem though, I’m hungry and have run out of food inside the body, so the only logical conclusion is…”.
“...To put food in the body?”
“Yes! Good boy! I knew you’d get it!”.
Ben scratched the back of his head, not following at all.
“So you want me to… eat animal fat? I mean that’s kinda gross but I’m sure I could find some meat where-”.
The worms snapped at him, its usual calm tone changing in a flash. “Animal fat? Animal fat!? Ben do you think we’d be hunched over on the ground from hunger pains if I was satiated by animal fat? Besides, there’s more tasty things than just fat. Keratin, Grey Matter, blood. It’s all a part of a very delicious delicacy for the few brave souls who are willing to try. Of course, unlike them you don’t really have a choice here, do you?”.
Ben’s jaw dropped. “Please tell me you don’t mean what I think you mean.”.
The worm snickered. “I don’t know Ben, I kind of assumed what I want is too awful for you to think of.”.
He didn’t want to hear anymore of it, but even when Ben tried to cover his ears and ignore it the worm kept yapping.
“My tastes are exclusively human, both in hosts and what I ingest. I eat once every 24 hours and I can eat A LOT if you put it in front of me. Don’t be an idiot about this Ben, I think I’ve made myself clear.”.
Ben went red, his anger at the offer making itself evident. “No! Are you crazy!?”.
“Ohohoho, you wanna talk crazy? You’re the nut case who’s screaming at himself by an open refrigerator after you sucked down raw meat like a lion. You’re in no place to call other people crazy.”.
“I am not crazy! I’m just… having an argument with a worm that lives in my intestines and tells me to eat people.”.
He went quiet at that. Oh man, maybe he WAS crazy.
Surprisingly though, the worm decided to reassure him this time. “No no, believe me Ben, as funny as it would be to make you think you’re nuts, this is all very real.”.
Ben shook his head, he felt so woozy from hunger he could pass out right then and there, but he forced himself to stay standing so the worm didn’t think he was desperate.
There had to be another way, anything else besides literal fucking cannibalism. That cannot just be how things are, that’s too awful even for the worst town in the world.
“Look I can get a job, start a paper route, stock up on meat– maybe Mike could sneak me some from his farm-”.
“It must be human.” The worm said firmly.
“-I’ll learn to cook, I’ll make it all fancy for you so it tastes better!”
“It has to be raw.”.
“I can’t do that! That’s wrong!” Ben whispered, voice cracking from preteen frustration.
“Oh please! You humans get so touchy about things that are all around you, it’s always the technicalities with your species. So many people eat meat, from pigs to chicken to fish to cows, some of you even kill the babies and act like that is a special delicacy. You do all of that and more but if someone ate a dog or a part of an animal you personally didn’t find appetizing you’d treat them like a freak, you’re all just going off of imaginary rules and whatever personally grosses you out. The plain truth is my diet is there for those who have the eyes to see it. In church you eat the body and blood of your savior to give your appreciation, and this is a practice you even force children to partake in. Is that not disgusting? To induct children into a cult of cannibalism?”.
“Well- I-”.
“Hamsters eat their own young all the time, chickens eat eggs, spiders do it so much they even made a term for it– matriphagy, a mother spider gives her life to her babies so they can have the nutrition they need to get their start in life. Some nematodes babies eat their way out of their mothers because they don’t have a birth canal. If I have to use examples personal to you I will gladly bring up ancient civilizations since I know how much you love them. The Aztecs used to do cannibalism as part of sacrificial rituals. So did the fore people of Papua New Guinea, hell, even some northwest native americans tried it, these aren’t universal things among the people but they’ve certainly been done before. Remember the Donnor party? They didn’t even do it for cultural reasons, they were simply desperate and hungry just like you.”.
“Stop it!” Ben stomped on the hard kitchen tiles, so overwhelmed by the worm’s arguments that he forgot he was supposed to be quiet. It was a good thing his family slept like rocks. “You’re confusing me! You’re telling me all this stuff that I know is wrong and I won’t listen! So just… stop!”.

“I understand that this may be upsetting for you, I’ll leave you alone.”.
Ben paused. “Just like that?”.
“Yeah, you’re free to back out at any time. You don’t wanna hold up our deal so I’ll leave no problem. Although, you do understand that since you won’t uphold your deal then I won’t uphold mine, right? You can kiss your skinny ass goodbye.”
“What?!”.
“I made you skinny and kept you like that under the expectation you’d take care of me. Now that that deal has fallen through I see no reason to help you, and without me you can’t possibly expect to keep this whole thing going. Face it Ben, you didn’t change a thing about your lifestyle, you don’t know how, without me eating all your fat you’ll go right back to square one, in fact, you’ll probably just get fatter. Think of all the people you’ll let down– think of your mother, your friends. What about Bev? She was supposed to be the future Misses Hanscom, what is she going to do now that her little prince is going to inevitably turn back into a frog? But hey, I’m sure Bill will let you be his best man at his and Bev’s wedding. Who doesn't want a depressed fat nobody in all their wedding pictures?”.
The worm’s words dug into Ben’s very soul and hit him right in the core, no sooner would he have listened to him say that again than he would have let a pack of hungry wolves rip all his skin off.
It was like the creature had not only sucked all the fat out of his body but all his darkest thoughts about himself too, and now it was spewing them all back out in a violent attack on his character.
He felt vulnerable and exposed, like he was out in public and someone had just ran up to him and ripped all his clothes off in front of a crowd of people, exposing the dimples on his ass, the rolls in his stomach, and stretch marks on his thighs for the world to see.
Ben always had a good head on his shoulders, compared to most other kids he was emotionally intelligent and usually one of the more sensible youngsters around.
He was still just a kid though, a very vulnerable and scared kid with issues he liked to hide like snack cakes under his bed.
This worm was preaching to the most damaged part of him and confirming everything he already suspected. It wasn’t simply insulting him, it was telling him exactly what he wanted to hear. Ben wanted a reason to stay like this, he wanted to be told Bev would only love him if he had the right body or a skinny face, because if he had that little push it might make this conceited wish of his make more sense.
He could try and give all the reasons in the world for why he’d want to stay skinny but that would never change the fact that what Ben wanted was selfish and vain, and deep down he probably had more in common with a pompous mean girl like Gretta Keene than he’d like to admit.
The only difference between Gretta obsessing over her looks and Ben obsessing over his was that Gretta loved herself and Ben didn’t, and that was really the reason for everything.
What if Ben realizing that what the worm was saying wasn’t true also meant he’d have to admit that the biggest obstacle was himself all along.
It’s just so much more convenient to pretend everything else is the problem but you, even more so when the solution is something as difficult as learning to be comfortable in your own skin.
If Bev didn’t love him for a shallow reason like his weight then it had to be for a deep reason that was harder to battle, and Ben was never a good soldier, no Hanscom was. Why else do you think his father got killed out there?

Ben hung his head low in a pout, he quietly accepted the worm’s insults as the truth and didn’t argue with it, but he still didn’t wanna give in. “I can’t do it. I don’t care how lonely or fat I am, I won’t do it. I’d rather sit here and starve to death.”.
Even when denying the worm’s offer he still didn’t entertain the thought of letting it leave him, as if death was more palatable than a life spent struggling to get up from couches and shopping at plus sized stores.
No, no, no, the better option was to starve to death. At least he’d leave a good looking body that way.
“Starving to death? Oh, you sweet summer child. Ben, we’re well past starvation, there’s MUCH worse things in store for you.”.
“Huh? What’s that suppo-”
An even greater pain than the hunger ran through his body, and Ben was suddenly sent to the floor.
He writhed in pain on the ground, whimpering in between coughs, mind racing with the horrific possibilities of what was happening to his insides.
He coughed one more time, this time really hard, and blood jumped out and splattered against the tile.
“What’s happening to me!?”.
“I’m eating you from the inside out.” The worm said calmly.
“What?!”.
“I’m hungry, if you want me to leave tell me to leave but if I’m staying I need to eat.”.
“I thought you said you didn’t wanna do that!”
“Oh well I don’t want to, but if there’s no other option-”.
Ben lurched over, clutching his stomach as gross munching noises came from his insides and rang in his ears.
“This- this isn’t fucking fair! You lied to me!”.
“I never lied to you. I said we would share the same diet and we will, if you don’t wanna do it I’ll leave but if I do I’m never coming back. Those are the terms and conditions, make a choice now before I do it for you.”.
Ben rolled over, just mere moments from totally seizing up or getting his insides swallowed whole. His chest bumped up and down at a rapid pace as he tried to catch his breath, the stinging bites of the worm’s razor sharp teeth becoming harder to tolerate the more it ate away.
“Okay okay! I’ll… get us something to eat! Just stop the pain! Please.” He cried.
“Where?”.
“...I-I don’t know- I thought you’d have that figured out!”
“Think Ben, think. Think long and hard. What’s the closest thing to a human meat locker you’ve got in this town?”.
Ben sat up, hands pressed against his thighs, the pain surprisingly going away the moment his little worm friend stopped. He wasn’t thrilled to be thinking about this, but the moment he considered it the answer was rather obvious.
“That would be… the Derry town morgue.”
“Well there you go.” The worm said, voice beaming with pride. If Ben could see it right now it’d be smiling.

Ben fell back to the ground in exhaustion, after all of this he just wanted to go to sleep and forget concepts like fat or skinny even existed anymore.
He aimlessly grasped at the air, coughing as he jumped between lucidity and deliriousness.
“This is insane. This is… fucking ridiculous.” He heaved.
“No Ben, this is the cost of vanity, and as you’ll come to find out, vanity can be such a wonderfully expensive sin.”.
He whimpered again, a painfully high pitched whimpering like a dog who just got his tail stepped on.
All Ben wanted was for the pain to end already, but it couldn’t, because it hadn’t even really started yet.
There was much worse in store for him than writhing on the ground.
For now though, the worm let Ben enjoy a peaceful nights rest on the kitchen floor, but as it’s hold on Ben’s mind faded, it gave him one last piece of advice to cap off the night:

“Always be careful what you wish for.”.

Chapter Text

The Derry town Morgue stood tall and imposing against the rest of Derry’s landscape, although architecture wise it looked more like a big cinder block that someone had smashed some tinted windows in.
Ben was often critical of buildings like this, ones with no flair, style, or story to be told through it’s design, even if a drab building was to be expected for a place meant to contain bodies.
It wasn’t like he wanted a circus or something, but Ben figured architecture with no substance was the kiss of death for most small towns in America.
If they wanted something interesting to look at and on theme they could have just gone full dreary castle, lord knows it would fit how old and dismal everything in Derry was.
Under no usual circumstance would Ben find himself standing outside a morgue at eight o’ clock on a school night, (most people wouldn’t either, because that’s a frankly insane thing to do) but his new situation was quickly making the unusual a part of his daily routine.
Ben knew he couldn’t very well walk into a morgue and just steal a body, that was a given. He needed a proper plan, like a mercenary breaking in to stop a terrorist organization from planting a bomb that would kill millions.
If Ben wanted this to go right he’d have to be a bit conniving, he was gonna have to think like James Bond, only instead of going on a daring rescue mission to save thousands of people from falling victim to a super villains plot he would be stealing a corpse to eat it later cause a worm told him to.
The thing was Ben didn’t really have time to come up with a plan, the worm was more impatient than a preteen girl getting her braces off and had no problem showing it.
Every new hunger pain or stomach ache was like a temper tantrum being thrown in his insides, and every new hunger pain seemed to come back worse.
The only reason he wasn’t puking blood and getting his insides chomped on again was because he promised he’d get to it tonight, and Ben had no interest in figuring out what would happen if he didn’t fulfill that promise.
He really should have just told that thing to fuck off and get out of him, surely thinness wasn’t worth all of this hassle, but Ben’s insecurities never let him consider that.
Every time the idea crept back into his brain his thoughts filled with Bev, sweet, beautiful, perfect Bev, and how she deserved an equally perfect guy.
There was really no contest whenever Bev came into the equation, if his brain was a big wrestling ring Bev K.O’d everything else every match.
She had more influence on him than he could have ever imagined, she practically took up permanent residence in his mind, propped up on a pedestal Ben crafted only from the finest gold accented marble.
In this thin body he felt closer to winning her affection than ever, and when you are that close to achieving your dream you can’t afford to let anything stop you.

Ben spent most of the school day preoccupied with how he was going to get the body, surprisingly without any interruption save for a few random moments in class.
Teachers never paid much attention to Ben because he was so quiet, and ever since he’d lost weight bullies had avoided him to focus on more accessible targets, so his stream of consciousness flowed rather smoothly.
At lunch time a plan had started to rear its head, but Ben was still missing the one thing that could justify going to the Morgue in the first place.
Then, it came to him like a divine dream, sitting right across from him stuffing his face with a double-decker bologna he’d taken out of his Star Wars lunchbox (the same lunchbox Henry had once swiped from Richie and smacked him over the head with it so hard he cried), as innocent as the day is long.
Richie was a sweet kid, but so easily swayed by those around him. Richie’s cardinal sin when it came to relationships was his habit of ignoring the flaws in people he loved and doing nothing short of crawling over hot coals just to make someone happy.
He could be such a wise guy, straight A student, always ready to crack some joke that hit just a little too close to home, but Richie was a total fool when he was being used.
Ben remembered how one time Richie told him his glasses seemed to bring bullies to him, as if they were pleading for the Bowers gang to come snap them in half and beat his face bloody.
That was probably true for any kid with the misfortune of being called four eyes, but now Ben could see something else calling out from Richie’s face.
His crooked little smile with the big buck teeth spoke, and what they spoke of was the most agonizingly desperate pleas to use him without any apprehension.
Corruptible eagerness was how Ben would describe it, the kind of stuff they look for in good lackey’s or yes men, the permanent state of a buffoon who would jump for you without even asking how high before slamming his noggin into the ceiling.
As awful of a thing it was to think about one of his best friends, Richie was prime lackey material, and it probably helped that Richie’s big heart was all the more susceptible to cute boys with pretty faces.

Ben led Richie away to the boys bathroom for a private chat, carefully spinning a lie about wanting him for some kind of prank around town.
Even though Richie was tooth rottingly sweet he was still a jokester, and mischief was almost always on his mind, so pranks were certainly not off the table for him.
He was a bit confused that Ben of all people was suggesting it, usually his partner in crime was Bill or Bev since they were the really fun ones to monkey around with.
Ben could be fun too, but he was a do-gooder, a rule follower, only prepared to go outside the lines if there were dire stakes at hand.
“Well well well, look who’s wanting to get all rebellious now. Mr. Goody four shoes over here.” Richie pushed up his glasses and snickered at his own joke, sounding kind of like when someone wants to do an impression of a stereotypical nerd for quick laugh, except with total sincerity because an actual nerd was doing it.
Ben rolled his eyes. “It’s two shoes Rich.”.
“Yeah but you’re such a goody two shoes you got twice the amount as every other goody goody out there!”.
He punctuated this lousy attempt at a joke with jazz hands, and to no one’s surprise it didn’t make the punchline any funnier.

Ben coolly stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Just wanna try something a little different.”.
“Well what’s the plan man? I mean what do you need me for.”.
“I wanna plant a smoke bomb in the Derry Morgue, a really small one.”.
Richie’s dopey grin dropped, as to be expected the idea of a joke that could cause serious damage wasn’t one he wanted a part in.
“Won’t people get hurt?”.
“What? No, it’ll be a small one. It’s just gonna fill the room with smoke and confuse everyone a little.” Ben said that really confidently, but to be honest he didn’t know.
He’d never done anything like this before, but the rational part of his brain knew a smoke bomb was both easy and non lethal so he was going to have to just trust his gut and hope for the best this time.
Richie didn’t seem so convinced, but his trusting nature plus Ben’s track record as one of the smartest kids in school made him more quick to push down any feelings of doubt.
He shrugged off his concern, scratching at his scalp while his itchy black curls aggravated him. “Okay, I guess you know what you’re doing… but uh, I still don’t know where the Richster fits into all this mess.”.
“I need a reason to go to the morgue, I was hoping you could sneak into the principal's office for me and do one of your voices to trick one of the workers. I have their number written down, I figured you could make up some lie about me doing an assignment for career day and wanting to interview them about the business.”.
“But you said all my voices were terrible.”.
Ben groaned.
Richie’s voices were indeed terrible, they didn’t sound like different people at all and any accent he attempted was so bad they often veered into offensive territory, but he was his only hope.
“You can do a mildly impressive pompous adult voice.”.

“By Jove! Really? Ya mean it chum?” Richie grinned.
He facepalmed, regret for all of the life choices that brought him to this moment bringing forth a raging headache.
“Not that voice Rich. Please.”.
Richie shrugged again, a little more careless this time. “Anything you say Haystack, you’re the boss!”.
Ben chuckled at that, that meaningless quip adding fuel to his burgeoning ego.
“Thanks a bunch.” His voice tilted into a chipper, obviously fake tone to compensate for Ben’s uncharacteristic lack of gratitude.
For some reason, Ben didn’t feel genuinely thankful that Richie was helping him, nor did he feel excited to be causing mischief with one of his friends.
All Ben felt at the moment was visceral hunger and unwavering determination to take what Ben’s rapidly growing sense of entitlement felt he deserved.

It was a little mean for him to rope Richie into this scheme, especially knowing how vulnerable he was, but Ben rationalized that what he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him.
Everything else seemed to fall into place after that, he bought a mini smoke bomb from a gag shop Richie recommended and stuffed it into his backpack for safekeeping.
The people at the morgue fell for the plan hook line and sinker, but requested Ben only come by at night because they were swamped with work all day.
In any other situation creepy morticians asking a little boy to sneak into the office at night with no adult would be cause for stranger danger, but in an ironic twist of fate Ben was the only predator lurking about tonight.
That’s another lesson he’d learned from this situation, appearances could be deceiving, and that, much like a wolf in a fairy tale wearing the face of your kindly granny, a mask of innocence can be most helpful in getting a meal.
Ben walked around to the back of the morgue to be let in, the back of the building somehow even more drab and desolate looking than the front.
The back, unlike every other side of the massive beige cinder block, lacked any windows or signage to indicate the building’s use.
Its only defining detail was the big doors the morticians always enter from to wheel in bodies since they were big, lacked steps, and very easy to push open.
The windows on the doors were also tinted like all the others, the deep purple of them doing a mighty fine job of obscuring whatever laid beyond the boring exterior.
He hitched up his backpack he’d brought and marched forward, but when he went to knock on the doors a man burst through them before his knuckles could even graze against it.
The man coughed into his gloved hand, clad in business casual clothes covered by a thin plastic apron.
He was a fairly sensible looking man, mid to late forties, balding, mustached, pudgy around the midsection, tiny half moon glasses on one of those chains he’d only ever seen grandmas use.
His green rubber gloves were covered in blood though, as was the center of his apron, but Ben tried not to focus on that at the moment. Not because he was scared of him or anything, but because he didn’t have time to wonder if getting squicked out by blood would make him a hypocrite now that he had a plan to devour an innocent person.
It probably did.

The man clapped his hands together, making a rubbery squish noise that sounded like nails on a chalkboard to Ben, then smiled at him.
“Welcome, you must be the Hanscom fella. Benjamin, right?”.
Ben nodded. “Yeah but please, call me Ben, nobody’s called me Benjamin since I was a toddler.”.
“Right.”
He stuck his hand out for him to shake it.
“I’m Ernest Criss.”.
Ben’s train of thought crashed to a halt, but you wouldn’t know that from looking at him.
Only his bugged out eyes communicated that he was alarmed at all.
“Criss? Any relation to Victor Criss?”.
Ernest smiled ear to ear at the name, the twinkle of a proud papa gleaming through his orange-ish brown eyes.
“Ah, you’ve met my boy! Are you a friend of his?”.
Vivid memories of Vic calling Stanley anti semetic slurs and pushing Ben in the hallways played out in his mind’s eye like a bad movie you couldn’t shut off.
“Uhhh… we’re definitely on speaking terms.”.
Mr. Criss didn’t notice Ben’s lie of omission, nor the weird tone he had when the topic switched to Vic, he was clearly too trusting to understand what sarcasm was.
Ben had to wonder if Mr. Criss did that with everything in his life.
Judging by his genuine fondness for his son assumed Vic and Ernest’s relationship was never soured by the fact his son was a borderline Neo Nazi who’s innercircle consisted of a slob, a psychopath, and a kid with daddy issues that desperately needed a haircut.
Simply based on vibes alone, Ben could tell Ernest wasn’t a very witty man, if his son told him he was a good boy who never caused trouble he’d accept it as a law, just like he accepted gravity or whatever faith he subscribed to.
It was rather obvious, almost as obvious as Ben’s tummy used to be before he got his big break, although he highly doubted even a weird monster could take the toys out of Ernest’s attic.

He ushered Ben inside without another word, gloves still creating that awful bendy rubber noise Ben hated so much.
When they got inside, Ben was greeted by the fluorescent glow of overhead stretch lights and an all green hallway. Green tiles, green walls, even a greenish ceiling, all color matched to the exact hue of Ernest’s apron and gloves.
Mr. Criss adjusted his glasses a little as they walked down the corridor, a soft buzzing from the lights and their harsh footsteps against the tile serving as an eerie backing track to their little journey together.
He stopped mid-walk to stoop down a little before he spoke to him again, like every condescending adult did when they talked to a child (even bigger, scarier children like Vic apparently).
Under all this ugly washed out lighting though, Ben found the fact that Ernest was Vic’s dad harder to ignore than ever, because for some reason that seemed to make every feature he inherited from his dad all the more pronounced, namely his highlighter blonde hair and thin face.
Family resemblances would have to wait for another time though, Ben had neither the time nor the energy for anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary in getting him a corpse at the moment.
His one and only goal anymore was just to blast through small talk until he could find a reason to sneak off and drop his smoke bomb somewhere nice and safe.
Thankfully, Ernest’s head was as empty as it had been when he’d told Ben to come inside.
“Gotta say Ben I was most surprised to hear you wanted to do a report on our line of work, I have to ask– what’s a sweet kid like you looking to gain from the mortuary business?”.
Ben faked a cheeky smile, something he was becoming surprisingly good at recently (not that hiding his emotions was new to Ben, god no, but he’d never been able to effortlessly turn it on and off before).
“Oh, nothing really, I guess I just like helping people and medical school is too expensive.”.
He laughed at his own joke, a laugh with no light behind the eyes.
Ernest clapped a hand on Ben’s back, his hands too big and strong for what was intended to be a fatherly display of affection. “Hah! You’ve got jokes, that’s a good sign. It helps to have a morbid sense of humor in a place like this.”.
The idea of laughing about the dead sounded sickening to the small part of Ben that stubbornly clung to his moral compass, but every other part of him considered it merely more mindless chatter he was forced to endure.
That slightly still moral part of him was being eroded rather quickly, washed away by the tides of vanity and hunger that raged through him.
Any moment now Ben’s last feelings of person-hood could finally falter and his perception of himself would twist into a new side of Ben nobody wanted to see, one that was neither Ben Hanscom nor an entirely separate person.
What was becoming of Ben’s identity under the extreme stress of his hunger couldn’t be described like any other change of self, it wasn’t like puberty, it wasn’t a midlife crisis, it was a primal urge coming to the surface, supported by the towers of self doubt and desperation he’d created next to the perfect pillar of Beverly Marsh.
Alas, Ernest had no idea who he was talking to right now, and even if he could get a glimpse into Ben’s psyche the likelihood of a man like him understanding it was next to zero.

A young woman dressed similarly to Ernest ran from the opposite end of the hallway.
The lady looked mighty frightened, and as she tried to run in this cramped corridor, bun in hair unraveling, glasses falling off her face, smeared lipstick, heels clicking like hooves, you really got the sense that not only had she seen some shit, but it’d left her a bit of a mess.

“Sir! Sir!” The woman exclaimed, waving her hands around all crazy like as if she was swarmed by a crowd.
Of course there was no crowd, just an adult woman frantically running down a creepy hallway, so it only added to the impolite picture Ben was painting of her in his mind.
Ernest was not swayed by this woman’s intrusion at all, in fact, he smiled at her warmly, like a father seeing his child after a long day at work.
He gestured at her with his open hand, smiling a big toothy grin. “Oh Ben! This over here is the wonderful miss Pauline Wilkes, my very bright and extremely lovely assistant-”
She pressed a hand over his mouth, silencing him aside from a slight muffle under her fingers. “You can gush about me later, sir we have a serious emergency here.”.
When she removed her hand Ernest seemed more frazzled, like a hen realizing a hungry fox had burst into the room.
“Now? Can’t it wait? I’m giving a tour.”.
Pauline whipped her head around to check if anyone was listening, then leaned forward with her voice hushed into a whisper. “Well I was hoping to be discreet since we have a child in our presence but you’ve put me in a bit of a pickle here-”.
She winced, then, all in one breath let out: “We got a kid named Bill waiting for us to take him.”
Ben blinked, the name making his heart skip a beat. “Denbrough?”.
For a brief moment, the two sides of Ben engaged in all out war over the possibility Bill might have been dead.
His good nature told him that was a horrible thing if true, one of the worst things he could ever imagine happening in this town and an omen that more horrible things were on the horizon.
Ben’s hunger thought otherwise though, in fact, he relished in the idea, because Ben’s gluttonous feelings could only see Bill as a mere obstacle to his goals.
A perfect boy, a far more perfect boy than Ben could ever hope to be, even in all his thinness.
The sole problem Ben had that couldn’t be fixed by changing a number on the scale.
Model kid Bill Denbrough, handsome and strong like a Disney prince, or perhaps even some hero of myth.
Big Bill. The best friend Ben could have ever hoped for, and the kind of competition you had nightmares of.
Dare I say Ben might have even hated him at times? Maybe even considered the thought of a world without him?
Yes, yes he did think that, absolutely, who wouldn’t have in his position? But Ben tried to be civil in the wake of his jealousy, so those thoughts remained hidden in dark corners, crouched under staircases in Ben’s mental library like a dirty secret.
One would hope those thoughts would stay there forever, pushed back where no one could feel the sting of hatred boiling within such thoughts, but given how much Ben had already degraded since the worm had first claimed him as a living nest, it all seemed like only a matter of time.
He waited for an answer, mouth pulled tight as he held in his breath.
Pauline just blinked back, squinting through her thick framed glasses, quietly confused by the boy’s interest in the identity of the victim.
“No, Shelburn.” She stated plainly.
He sighed, but of relief or frustration I honestly couldn’t tell you which.

Ernest bobbed his head side to side like he was rolling dice around inside, Pauline’s plea evidently going one ear and out the other. “I still don’t see why that warrants me going to get him with you.”
She glanced down at the floor for a fraction of a second, and when made eye contact again her teeth were clenched tight enough you could see her lower gums.
Through her (quite big) clenched teeth, she whispered out Bill Shelburn’s final moments of life.
“The kid’s twin brother dropped a bowling ball on his head while he was sleeping-” She leaned in even closer, eyes popping out like she was one of those stress balls in the shape of a face. “-poor guy’s face looks like spaghetti bolognese right now.”.
Despite her voice softening, the emphasis on certain parts made Pauline’s words pack quite the punch. Ben thought Pauline might have a future career as the host of a true crime show given her flair for the dramatic, which would be great for everyone since Ben was fairly sure he didn’t want either of these weirdos touching his body when he died.
Ernest must have been equally put off by this, cause his tone switched up real quick once Pauline got into the dirty details.
His shoulders shimmied and his lip quivered, the surge of movement caused by a weird cringe feeling that rushed through his body and ended at his toes. “Eughh, okay, you have my attention.”.
He spun around on his heel, hands raised to his chest while his fingers grasped at the air.
Ernest smiled right through the cringe worthy feeling though, because Vic wasn’t the only Criss who was obsessed with keeping up appearances.
“Wait here Ben, I’ll be back faster than you can say Heimlich.”.
Pauline gasped. “Oh that reminds me, we also have an old lady who choked to death.”.
Ernest pressed his palm against his eyes, a tiny groan escaping his lips. “Ah, Pauline… time and place.”
“Right! Time and place! I’ll remember that for next time.”She agreed, although her tone of voice indicated she would not.

The two mad morticians bolted for the end of the hallways, leaving the lone thirteen year old to stand guard by a potted plant and a couple chairs.
By all logical reasoning, this was too easy. If Stanley was here he’d lose his mind at the buffoonery on display, probably even start pilfering through their files and shit to look for more errors.
“What kind of idiot leaves a thirteen year old alone in a morgue?” Stanley would say, pencil shoved between his teeth as he searched high and low for more violations like a young health inspector.
The same kind of idiot that would spawn Victor Criss apparently, but you have to just count your blessings I guess.
In a film this would be where the protagonist gets lured into a false sense of security before meeting his demise, or a saucy temptress desperately in need of some hero dick to change her villainous ways.
But Ben’s life was no movie (thank god, what a depressing film that’d be), and these idiots were not geniuses with a grand scheme to fulfil, this was reality being boring and stupid like it always was.
And of course, in a stupid back water place like Derry, their security systems were on par with cartoons with sleeping pot bellied sheriffs guardian prison cells with the bars too far apart.
God, no wonder kids went missing so often. But hey, at least no cameras meant you could take what you wanted a hell of a lot easier.
Ben did as the adults had done and made a beeline for a nearby door, but when that didn’t have the room he was looking for he quickly moved onto the next.
He ducked down from windows on the doors, zipping from one to another in a crouched position and only raising his head to take a peek inside, lest he be caught.
Ben made a pit stop on the way to the morgue to toss in his activated smoke bomb, and despite his distrust in the quality of a bomb he bought at a gag shop the fucker got to work fast.
He slammed the door on his way out but the hallway had already started to fill with smoke by the time he was out, and soon enough grey clouds blocked out the ceiling lights.
In all honesty Ben didn’t quite know what he was looking for, the only experience he had with morgues were what he had seen on cop shows.
He had a vague idea of what he needed to find, a big room with grey fridge looking things meant for housing corpses. Something like one of those Japanese capsule hotels he’d read about in Times magazine, except duller and not as cozy.
The increasing smoke made the search even more difficult, but he did find a room that looked close enough to his mental image of the human freezer that he took a chance and went in.
Ben swallowed hard, hands ringing at his side. He’d been so lost in the rush of his crime he hadn’t taken a moment to process the severity of his crime.
This was theft, not just theft but abuse of a corpse BY theft. The cannibalism, even though vomit inducing, was something he had made peace with like it was a necessary evil, but the words criminal activity hit Ben like a truck now that he was in the moment.
Ben Hanscom, common criminal with a depraved taste for a meat you couldn’t find in the animal kingdom, didn’t feel right to him, even though nothing about this should have felt right at all.
And the crazy part was it didn’t feel right to him, not a single thing about where he was standing felt okay or normal.
The morgue lockers emitted cold air that made the room chillier than the back of an ice cream truck, imposing medical objects hung from the walls like freshly shined trophies, a cacophony of screams, smoke detector beeps, and exclamations of “Fire! Fire!” sounding from the hallways and, oh yeah, the little fact that he was in the room with a bunch of DEAD people! Dead people who, by the way, had their names and causes of death plastered on the front of their lockers for the world to see!
Christ, anyone who stayed in this room after all of that had to be some flavor of crazy.
Nobody in their right mind could possibly see, hear, and feel all of this and still decide this was a route worth pursuing, right?
Anyways, Ben got to searching for his dinner.

Ben’s eyes scoured the selection of lockers like it was all one big pantry, each one a door to an organ buffet of his choosing.
Being picky about who you dined on was understandable, but not exactly ideal in a moment where time was of the essence.
Ben realized his own inability to just make a choice and ran to the first locker he saw out of the corner of his eye so he wouldn’t have to.
A gust of frigid air hit him in the face, but that mild annoyance was nothing compared to the fact he was staring at a dead man’s feet right now.
Ben swallowed his fear and put his hands on the bottom of the long rollie thing that held the corpse, but getting a full view of the body’s body was just as sickening as seeing his feet.
It was hard to admit what he was looking at, but Ben’s randomized selection had brought him the rotting corpse of a boy who was only a little older than he was.
Lacerations around the neck indicated he was strangled to death by a rope, and his neck was easy to move around like the bones in it had snapped.
Whoever this boy was he must have had such a hard life his only way to cope was to end it all, and as sad as that already was, Ben figured he was about to make it a whole lot sadder.
“I’m… sorry for what I’m about to do to you.”.
The corpse gazed back at him with its lifeless stare. Nothing was left in this kid anymore, he really was just a husk now.
Ben of course knew what death meant, he wasn’t five, he knew that when you died you ceased to be and all that, but there’s a difference between knowing something and seeing it face to face.
The creepiest part of locking eyes with the body though was not just by virtue of it being a corpse, or the clammy grey texture his skin had taken, but actually the way he lacked the spark behind the eyes that every living person had.
He’d never seen that before, eyes without personality or life, the only person he’d ever seen that came close to this was Patrick Hockstettor, but that was different.
Patrick didn’t have a spark, but he had a glint of something in there, not of humanity or anything positive, but for his desire to see the world fall at his feet.
This boy was truly empty though, and that was a sickening thought.

Ben forced a relaxed smile, the sort of smile you’d give someone if you were reassuring them about something you knew was doomed from the start. “You know it’s funny, you’re kinda one of the lucky ones. I mean, yeah you’re dead but lots of kids go missing in this town and they don’t even get found by anyone.”
If the boy was empty and Ben knew that, he also logically knew it made no sense to talk to him, but he still did it all the same just to ease his own guilty thoughts.

Richie once forced Ben to watch an episode of tales from the crypt with him about the dead still being conscious, and although Ben didn’t like it at all the question it posed was very intriguing.
What if the dead could listen? What if they could feel their own autopsy? What if every corpse was secretly screaming for help on the inside.
That was clearly made for TV science fiction drivel, but as his mind wandered back to his memories of the episode he caught himself praying to god that wasn’t the case for this poor guy who’d already suffered enough as is.
Whoever he was, he surely didn’t need to know some random kid he never met was planning on eating him, that felt like an honest to god fate worse than even death itself.
He brought him off his little wheely thing and dragged him over to the rolling metal table they used to transport the bodies inside.
Ben swiped a big black tarp hanging off a hook in the wall and tossed it over the body so he wouldn’t have to look into its creepy eyes anymore.
If he was lucky the tarp would be nearly invisible under the cover of night to anyone who happened by, but even if that didn’t work there was still a chance he’d get away with it.
People in Derry don’t like asking questions about anything, but especially tragedies that happen right next door.
The likelihood of any stranger seeing Ben and immediately assuming he had a corpse under there was pretty low, and the likelihood of them following up on that assumption even lower.

With the body all loaded up Ben pushed it like he was Sisyphus, hurrying through the smoke he’d left in the hallway to get out.
On the way out he made sure to grab the smoke bomb out of the janitor’s closet to hide the evidence and stashed it in his backpack, adrenaline flooding his system as he made his grand escape.
Ben and his new corpse friend barreled out of the morgue doors and into the dark of the night, the sirens of firetrucks and ambulances swarming all around him but getting fainter and fainter the further away he got from the scene.
He made a hard turn into his own backyard, so hard his corpse friend almost slid off into a ditch, but he managed to find his balance again and push the table into his backyard, corpse and all.
He dumped out the body remarkably fast then ran with the table all the way down to the quarry so he could get rid of it.
Ben let go of the table and let it roll on its own right off the same cliff he and the rest of the losers had all hocked loogies over, and he watched on as the thing fell hard and fast.
It made a big splash but sank like a ton of bricks, to the point that it only took a few seconds for that thing to hit the lake floor.
He tossed the smoke bomb down there with it and now that all the evidence was off his hands he could walk back home like nothing even happened.
Nobody paid attention to Ben walking home, every nosey neighbor much too focused on the fire trucks zooming to the morgue to wonder what Ben was doing.
He returned to his backyard without bother and saw it was just as empty as he left it, save for the sprawled out dead man laying on their paved concrete patio.
Crickets rubbed their wings together in delight, chirping away in the darkness, unaware of the depravity happening behind the Hanscom’s fence.
If they could understand it though he doubted they’d really care too much, just as the worm had pointed out to him last night; eating your own kind is normal in the animal kingdom.
Probably not for crickets, but would any animal be above sinful things like that if they could?
Ben used to think he was, but evidently some people’s wills are not as strong as they’d like them to be.
Now Ben thought that you had no way to really know what your limit was until you had it dangled in front of you like the shiny fishing hook.
Perhaps more people would have made Ben’s choice if they too had all they ever wanted bundled with it.
Isn’t that why most people commit cannibalism anyways? Desperation? Sure, Ben wasn’t starving on a deserted island in the pacific, but he’d been isolated long enough everywhere he went might as well had been out in the ocean, and he was in need.
His carnal desire was for something so shallow, but at this point he didn’t care how shallow it was.
All anyone ever did was tease him for his weight, and they wanna turn around and say being skinny wasn’t a need like water or food? Hah! Laughable, simply fucking laughable.

None of the lights in the house were on except for Ben’s bedroom light, the house itself empty of all its usual residents as they were all off doing their own little side quests.
Ben’s cousins were at a slumber party with some older kids, the ones where people sneak alcohol out of their parents liquor cabinet and play spin the bottle once they’ve drunk it all.
Safe to say, Ben was not invited to those kinds of sleepovers (and frankly, he’d like to keep it that way).
His mom was working a late shift at the diner, probably slaving away on some freshly baked pies the owner was gonna let sit in the hot case until the mold spores found it.
Arlene worked late most nights now, say what you will about Arlene’s attachment issues and over indulgence with her son’s meal plan, she did work hard to provide for her boy.
The only person who usually would be staying home tonight (other than Ben of course) was his aunt, but she had left before even her kids did.
Aunt Jean spent hours getting herself ready to go out, more time than Ben had ever seen his aunt spend taking care of herself, and when Ben asked her what the special occasion was she revealed (more like bragged) that it was a date.
As gross enough as that was on its own, she also revealed that the date was with Butch Bowers of all people.
The mere thought of that alone was honestly harder to stomach than the idea of eating someone, and considering the fact she still wasn’t back yet, he’d bet that Jean and Butch were too preoccupied with having a wrestling match in his cop car to worry about what Ben could be doing.
Yuck.

He circled the body, steps careful and slow against the pavement, stomach screaming for him to just get it over with and eat already.
Ben actually was starting to salivate a little, but he kept his feet moving so he didn’t have the chance to stew on the feeling too much.
He came to a sharp stop, feet planted firmly on the ground to keep himself from just pouncing on the body.
Wringing his hands again, Ben cleared his throat.
“So uh… now what?” .
Silence. Pure silence. Not even the crickets were chirping anymore.
He knocked on his stomach like it was a door.
“Uhhh, hello-”.
The worm wriggled inside him and let out a groan like he’d woken it from a deep sleep.
“What do you mean now what? We eat obviously.”.
Ben tapped his foot, clutching his stomach for comfort like he used to do when he was little.
It didn’t do much for him these days though, you can’t exactly feel cushioned by your body if you lost all your cushioning inside.
“Shouldn’t we at least… season it or something?”.
The worm groaned again, its voice growing a little more bitter. “No, humans are best eaten raw.”.

He glanced back down at the body, the man’s cold unfeeling gaze staring back at him.
Ben was starting to feel hot, hot and unfathomably queasy.
“...I don’t know if I can do this.” He shook his head.
“It’s a little late for take backsies now, Ben. The hard part’s over, now you get your reward.”.
“My reward?” Ben scoffed.
How dare it say that, getting the body was the easy part, convincing Richie to help was the easy part, THIS was horrific.
He shrunk away from the body, hands raised at his defense.
“I can take the body back, say it was all a misunderstanding, I’ll pin it on someone else-”.
“Just try it.”.
Ben stopped. No words. No breath. Nothing.
“I can’t.” He choked out, eyes watering.
“Try it and if you don’t like it we’ll think of something else.”.
“...you mean it?” His voice lilted with childish hope, he really wanted to believe that was true. God, nothing would be better than to realize there was an easy out to all of this.
“Yeah, just a little nibble.”.
Another hunger pain shot through Ben’s tummy, and this one was enough to nearly knock him over.
He whimpered at the pain. “Y-you promise? If I just try it you really won’t make me do it?”.
“Promise.” It said, and for what it was worth, the worm truly wasn’t lying.

Ben swooped down into a froggy crouch, face full of uncertainty and fear.
The best way to put how Ben was feeling was like he was watching a car accident in slow motion, except he was the God damn driver and could easily just step on the gas at any moment if he was a good enough person to.
Ben was not a good person though, and that was becoming an undeniable fact as of late.
A good person wouldn’t have stolen this body, and a good person certainly wouldn’t have gone down this path to begin with.
And of course, no good person would have ever done what Ben did next.
He carefully picked up the man’s right hand, raised it to his mouth, opened wide, and took a big chomp of his index finger.
The bone cracked under very little pressure, but the sound it made was loud enough it almost caught Ben off guard and made him choke.
The crunch of the bone sounded a little like the crunch of a nestle bar, and blood squirted out of its fresh wound like cherries when you popped them in your mouth.
Sensations and flavors Ben had never felt before splashed against his tongue, everything tasting similar to some other thing he had tried but clearly so different it fell short and became something entirely new.
Savory, tangy, a little metallic, but oh so rich and FILLED with nutrients that would make Ben’s skin and body even prettier than the worm had already made it.
Like the best fourth of July barbecue he’d ever had, but without the awful charred taste Ben found to be repugnant on most cooked meats.
The worm was right, human flesh WAS served better cold and untainted.
He thought lacking heat or seasoning would be an issue, but spices would only tarnish the delectable flavor that came from the body.
And that was all just the skin, there was a whole new world of flavor in the muscles, veins, bones, and the BLOOD. Oh good heavens the blood, better than grandma’s home cooked soup, better than the most unethically sourced meal at a five star bistro, better than any drink you could get anywhere in the world! Nothing would ever come close to this sensation again, holy fuck!
And to think, all of those delicious flavors were all packed into one body, like a big lasagna.
There was even more to be discovered though, because in all his excitement over his new favorite meal, Ben had forgotten he hadn’t even got a taste of the main dish: his organs.
“Sooo how do you like it?” The worm sounded so pleased with itself, its tone failing to hide the fact he knew Ben’s enthusiasm was inevitable.
This was all part of the plan, there was never any real choice here, that promise he made– although not technically a lie– was an empty one.
Still, Ben didn’t care now. How could he even get mad at it for that when it was all a ploy to get him to taste something so magical.
Honestly, Ben should be thanking it for using any means necessary to see the truth.
“It’s… it’s…” Ben gnawed on the finger, then suddenly, like a wild animal, whipped it head back to rip it off.
He chewed on it like a dog with a bone, then swallowed it down remarkably well given the strange shape and size of it.
“-delicious.” He sighed.
His timid feelings about the whole thing melted away all at once, and Ben dove right in on the body's torso with absolutely zero remorse.
He dug inside with his hands and ripped the organs out one by one and stuffed into his mouth where they were then slurped down like oysters.
Manners were not something he concerned himself with during this dinner if you couldn’t tell, before he’d even gotten to the heart his whole face was covered in blood like a toddler eating spaghetti.
As he sucked down the boy’s liver, the worm took a break between swallows to make a quick comment about Ben’s ravenous hunger.
“Wow slow down, I can hardly keep up with you kid!”.
Ben didn’t react to what it had to say though, just kept eating and eating, reminiscent of some hungry beat from an old fairy tale about never taking more of your fair share.
As Ben feasted he started to think of himself as some kind of parasite, like a tape worm or, more accurately, a tick.
He used to encounter ticks all the time back in Tennessee, and the grotesque way that they would just latch onto you and eat and eat and eat to the point they couldn’t even move anymore was fascinating.
If Ben could gain weight anymore he might have done the same thing, and he would have happily done it too.
Some meals are just so God damn tasty it’s worth getting so bloated you just have to sit there and smile.
While Ben divulged more and more into his feeding frenzy the worm snickered to itself, highly amused from getting a front seat to his total meltdown. “You know Ben, I get the feeling this is the start of a beautiful friendship between us.”.

Ben dropped the arm he was nibbling on and looked to the sky, moon bright and pale as could be, it and the stars being the only source of light for him in his creepy backyard.
He took deep breaths as his eyes roamed down to his hands which were now covered in the boy’s tasty viscera, small fleshy bits jammed under his fingernails like dirt.
Under the cold moonlight, surrounded by the crickets that had finally started making noise again, Ben wondered if he had truly lost the plot.
Dazed, confused, and still just a little bit hungry, Ben ran a hand across his face to rub the blood off.
Logically Ben knew hands covered in blood plus face covered in blood didn’t equal a clean anything, but he still did it anyways, as if it were a force of habit.
Ben had never eaten something that was so hard to get off, so big and messy, and even if it was the insecurities instilled in him as the fattest boy in Derry made him extra careful when eating.
No fat person wants to be the idiot with chocolate cake all over his face, so Ben went the extra mile to clean himself up and mind his manners.
Eating this body awakened something in him, a free feeling only attained by someone who had truly let their carnal desires run rampant with unabashed glee.
He reveled in his gluttony, enough that he even licked his fingers to get the blood off, but it left him feeling kind of woozy.
Even in a moment like this, full of adrenaline and ravenous desires, all Ben could say to the worm’s comment was a mumbled: “Yeah… I guess so…”.
Ben sniffled and wiped his nose, making the bloody face situation even worse. “I’m not gonna get sick from this, am I? I won’t get cannibal diseases or anything?”.
“Oh trust me, you won’t even get so much a tummy ache with me.”.
Ben shrugged and went back to eating, but continued the conversation in between bites.
“Do you got a name Mr. Worm friend? Or do I have to just call you the worm all the time?” He spoke with his mouth full of human hand, blood dripping down in probably the grossest display of the whole night.
The worm hummed (Ben didn’t think it could do that) in thought. “I suppose if you really wanna be on a first name basis we can be. I’ve been called lots of things in my life, but I think the one I liked the most was “Beel”.”
Ben huffed down some more of his unwilling dinner, but once he was done chewing a smile creeped onto his face at the silly sounding name.
“Beel.” He chuckled. “Nice to meet you.”.
“Likewise.”

Ben went about eating until there wasn’t a speck of that boy left, and I really mean a speck.
As fantastical (and physically impossible) as it sounded, Ben had somehow managed to finish his dinner bones and all.
He ate it all, hair, bones, organs, skin, everything on the boy that he could shove into his mouth got devoured, and when it didn’t fit in he simply nibbled on it until he’d eaten the whole thing and could move onto the next bit of him.
Ben only felt full when he knew that every trace of the boy was finally inside him, his own stomach now a graveyard, the final resting spot for a teenager Ben had never even met.
The one thing that remained of the man was the blood all over Ben, but everything else? That was Beel’s domain now, and once Beel was done with it he imagined it would be up to his stomach acid to deal with.
Now that he was done Ben felt like he could pass out for hours, and he did pass out, but only for a few minutes before he remembered he couldn’t be found here covered in blood when his family got back.
Honestly he hit the ground so hard it was amazing he didn’t bust his skull open on the ground and try to lick that up neck.
In a surprisingly impressive feat of strength he forced himself to get up in spite of his overwhelming fullness, but he was still just a bit drowsy after all of that.
Beel couldn’t resist making another stupid comment about it though, and to be fair, most people wouldn’t have been able to either in this situation. This wasn’t exactly something you just let happen without some kind of reaction.
“Well Benny, you might be skinny now but your appetite sure hasn’t changed.”.
Ben huffed, struggling to make it over to his backdoor and into the house. “Duh, you said I wouldn’t have to worry about that. It’s part of the deal…”
“Don’t get snippy with me, you’re not in the clear just yet you know?”.
“Now what’s that supposed to mean?” He shot back, tone turning just the teeniest bit icy.
“Well I hate to break it to you Ben, but I’m not exactly gonna clean all this up for you.”.
Ben looked back down at himself, now painfully aware of that fact he needed a shower and a quick load in the washing machine real bad.
“Oh.”.
“Yeah, “oh” is right. Now go do yourself a favor and clean yourself up before anyone sees you like this.”.

And so, Ben did exactly as Beel instructed.
He showered, he washed, he searched high and low all over the patio for anything he could have left behind, and when all that was done he waited for his unsuspecting family to finally get their asses back home.
The Hanscom house seemed to fall into the usual dynamics now that everyone was together again, to the point that even Ben let himself buy into the weird sense of normalcy that took over the house, but in actuality that wasn’t the truth at all.
Things definitely weren’t the way they were before, they weren’t even the way they were yesterday, things would never be the same in the Hanscom house again.
Nothing ever would be, the world and how Ben interacted with it would be forever changed from what he did here tonight, because in his lust for good looks and the love of his peers he’d lost the only thing that ever truly mattered: His own humanity.
And maybe that was the cost of vanity all along.

Chapter Text

The following Saturday morning almost felt too normal given the night that preceded it, but Ben supposed his bizarre new diet WAS going to be his new normal from now on.
Golden light spilled in from the windows while the nostalgic smell of black coffee wafted through the kitchen.
His aunt Jean and Arlene swept through the kitchen, nearly bumping into one another as they both reached for a coffee cup in the cabinet.
Ben’s cousins were fighting like usual, but ever since he’d lost weight they’d stopped trying to get him involved.
At most, Ben would play referee to their foolishness, but if he decided he wanted to jump in and join the mood would shift dramatically like he’d shown up with a gun to a sword fight.
They could tell Ben was not to be messed with anymore, but they weren’t so sure as to how they knew that.
Something was off with him, more terrifying than weight loss but too subtle to pick out.
Ben should have been alarmed by the fact his cousins were suddenly scared of him now, but in truth he couldn’t blame them.
He also was just too thankful they were leaving him alone to give a shit about what his cousins’ thoughts on him were now.

Saturday meant different things for different people in Ben’s family all across the board, for his cousins’ that meant all morning, day, and night spent fighting over turns on their Nintendo Gameboy, for Ben’s mom that meant working a double shift at her second job as an office cleaning lady, and for aunt Jean it meant getting wine drunk at nine o’ clock in the morning.
Ben, however, had a very different idea of how to spend his Saturday, and no, this idea didn’t even have anything to do with cannibalism.
He was just gonna meet the Losers at Mike’s place and hang around with them, no plan, no real reason, just a fun low stakes hang out with friends.
A low stakes hang out was basically the exact kind of thing Ben needed this morning, something that would rinse the, admittedly quite yummy, taste of human flesh out of his mouth and make him forget it all.
The boy he ate was still on his mind though, he couldn’t get that dead thousand yard stare out of his head no matter how hard he tried to shake it.
Maybe it was just one of those things you’d forget with time, but even if he knew it was gonna go away eventually it wasn’t exactly easy getting ready with thoughts of a corpse staring at you on the mind.
He put on his shoes and laced them up all nice and tidy-like, then sauntered into the living room to find his aunt already passed out wasted and his cousins on the verge of going full Cain and Abel.
When the doorbell rang it was painfully obvious Ben was the only one who was gonna answer it, but he still waited a second before he did so just to give his extended family members the benefit of the doubt.
Of course it went to waste anyways, just like all the chances he gave to his cousins and aunt, but he still thought to try.

The doorbell rang a second and third time as the stranger on the other side of the door grew more impatient with the Hanscom’s for not answering.
Ben groaned and threw open the front door, he was almost prepared to yell at the person for being so impatient, but the moment he peeped the shiny gold badge on the person’s chest his tune did a total one eighty.
The corners of Ben’s mouth tightened into a sharp and completely forced smile.
“Hiiii Officer Bowers.”.
Butch was standing right on top of the Hanscom’s welcome mat, his large imposing frame blocking out the sun and casting poor Ben in shadow.
He had his hands relaxed in his pockets and hip cocked to the side, but despite his slacken demeanor his natural contempt for everything ruined any chance of the two having a normal discussion.
Not that the vibe mattered though, the only reason a cop would ever drop by for a visit was if they thought you or someone you loved had gotten into some serious trouble– or worse, caused the trouble yourself.
Butch took one hand out and stroked his gun like it was a threat he was even touching it, which only served to make the conversation that much more tense.
Ben fidgeted under his gaze, of course he knew Butch wouldn’t fire at a random kid while on duty, but even after eating a man like he was a chicken pot pie, Ben was still just child with normal fears you would expect a child to have– like bat shit crazy people having jobs that not just gave them guns, but encouraged them to fire whenever they felt necessary.
Say what you will about Butch but when he wanted to scare the piss out of you he did so brilliantly, shame he wasn’t a scare maze actor and not a cop though.
With a father like Butch Ben almost felt compelled to extend what little compassion he had left to Henry, since he truly couldn’t imagine a worse dad to have than him, but Ben’s pansy ass emotions weren’t something he wanted to explore at all.
It was more tempting to simply shrug your shoulders and say Henry deserved to get beat, humiliated, and emotionally tortured over the hell he’d made Ben go through, but Ben still tried to deny himself that temptation.
He already had a hunger for flesh, he couldn’t stomach a hunger for revenge too, if he did at this rate he’d end up looking like Ghandi.
Butch tilted down his aviator sunglasses, his beady dark brown eyes peeking just over the top to squint at him.
Certainly, Butch was not happy to come here, but when duty calls it calls– or at least when you don’t have any more excuses to skip work.

He blew air out of his cheeks, then hooked his glasses to the front of his shirt where they would dangle freely.
“I wanna get this over with as soon as possible, so I’m just going to be straight with you.”.
“I would hope you’re straight with everyone Mr. Bowers, I’d hate to see a man of the law toy with citizens’ feelings for his own amusement.” Ben said, his gaze drifting down from Butch’s face to his haphazardly thrown on uniform.
“Although, by the looks of it, you seemed to have already done your fair share of toying with citizens last night.” Ben snickered.
Butch balled his hands into calloused fists, if Ben was Henry Bowers he would have flinched at the sight.
“Watch that sarcasm boy, we have serious things to discuss.”.
Ben pressed his palm against the doorway and leaned in, hip rested carelessly against the frame.
He gestured with his open hand. “Ask away Butch.”.
Butch pursed his lips side to side like he was gonna spit on him, but in reality that was just Butch’s “thinking face”.
“There was a big fire at the morgue last night, Ernest Criss told me you were there and disappeared sometime during the night.”.
“Well yeah, normally when a building is on fire you make a run for it.”.
“But he said you had some kind of project due, what did your teachers think?”.
“My homeroom teacher was understanding, she didn’t want to make me worry about a report and almost dying, so she gave me an easy A, said I could forget about it.”.
Butch’s eyebrows furrowed. He didn’t believe that excuse, not at all, but it made enough sense he couldn’t figure out where his suspicion even came from.
Something felt fishy though, and for all of Butch’s shortcomings, the one thing he was actually pretty good at detecting when people were lying to him.
Butch let out an ogre-like chuckle, which made Ben feel very on edge considering he had not idea what he was laughing at.
Butch’s laugh sure was unsettling, but Ben had gotten very used to finding almost all laughter a bit hair raising.
You don’t get many good natured chuckles when you’re hefty, usually it’s just the prelude to something worse.
He felt like he should have been past things like that now, the magic of being skinny should have logically nulled such a feeling into oblivion once he didn’t need to be wary of being mocked anymore, but… it didn’t.
And Ben was perplexed by that.

“What’s so funny Butch?”.
“It’s just that, when we surveyed the premises last night we ain’t find no scorch marks or flames going. It seemed like somehow somethin’ had started to smoke but never got burned. We found this-” Butch pulled out a plastic baggy he was keeping in his back pocket, inside was the small lighter Ben had used to activate his smoke bomb.
Bile rose in Ben’s throat, his heart beat kicking up a notch at the sight of the object.
Ben didn’t crack though, he remained steadfast and prepared as ever, determined to keep his mask of non-chalantness up until Butch was out of his hair.
“-This yours?”.
“No.” Ben lied.
“Have you ever seen it before?”.
“No.” Ben lied again.
“So you wouldn’t care if I, say, threw it in a river?” Butch’s face turned so smug Ben had to restrain himself from smacking the look off his face. There really was nothing more infuriatingly douchey than a cop with a tiny half smile and a raised eyebrow, the look of someone who was convinced they had got your ass and was ready to gloat about it over a pint of beer with his coworkers later.
“No.” It was clear now that honesty had gone out for milk and never came back.
He was going to miss the lighter frankly, his daddy had given him that before getting deployed, it had the U.S army logo and everything.
It was one of the few things his father had left behind for his family (the man didn’t even leave anything for them to bury), aside from that and the dog tags Ben’s mom kept in a box under her bed because they were “too upsetting to look at”, Ben had nothing to remind him of his dear old pa.
If he let Butch take that lighter and stuff it in an evidence locker never to be seen again it’d be like Ben was willingly letting go of his father to save his own ass.
Did he really wanna give away one of his dad’s belongings just to stay out of trouble? He could still probably get it back if he just said he dropped it, was it worth it to avoid trouble he might not have even been in?
The answer, to Ben, seemed relatively obvious.

“Chuck it in a fire for all I care.” He scoffed.

Butch huffed and stashed it back in his pocket. “Alright, you got a good alibi, I’ll give you that– but I want you to answer me honestly on this next question.”.
He leaned forward with his hands resting against his knees. Eyes cast down at him like Ben was Jack and Butch the hungry giant.
“Did you have anything to do with the disappearance of Travis Mitchlechuck?”.
“Who’s Travis Mitchelchuck?” Even though that sounded like he was simply feigning innocence again, Ben was actually being totally honest there. The name rang no bells for him.
He rolled his eyes like a sarcastic teenager at Ben’s actually quite genuine response. “Oh come on, I said be honest. Don’t pull my leg, he’s the kid who’s body got stolen. We’ve put out a search and rescue team and everything.”.
“A search and rescue team? For a corpse?”.
Ben had to laugh, when kids went missing in Derry the police basically did nothing about it. If a parent who lost their child repeatedly asked the cops if they were looking for their kid they’d just tell them to fuck off and calm down most of the time.
That was the usual for Derry though, never caring about the suffering children right in front of them, then doing a complete 180 when they turned up dead and got to act all shocked.
“How could this have happened?!” They’d cry at the funerals, unaware of the hand all of them played in this silly game of kill the kid.
Ben got the feeling that if Travis Mitchlechuck was still alive, or even a hefty boy like he used to be, the police wouldn’t care about losing his body.

“Just tell me the truth Ben.” You had to give it to Butch, he was certainly relentless when he had a hunch about something. Too bad refusing to leave people alone hardly counts as a detective skill, or he’d be Fred Jones.
Ben tilted his head while his fingers tapped along the door frame, he was quickly growing tired of this whole thing.
It wasn’t that he was worried he’d get caught that made this so tiring though, it was that his evidence was mostly speculatory but he acted like Ben had already been tried for several counts of murder.
He sighed, but in all earnesty it was more like a groan of frustration. “Officer Bowers, what could I possibly want the dead body of a kid I never even met for? I mean how would I even hide it?”.
In his belly apparently, but even if he wanted to come clean about what he’d done Butch wouldn’t believe him on that.
He could believe a thirteen year old stole a corpse just fine, but it was physically impossible to eat a human bones and all.
Of course it’s only physically impossible if you don’t have a magic worm inside you that can digest anything and make your body immune to cannibalistic diseases.

“Your aunt tells me you’re a real trouble maker, said ever since you moved in you’ve been a spoiled brat who attacks her kids.”.
Ben had to laugh, yeah that definitely sounded like something his aunt would say.
Aunt Jean had indeed been nicer to him ever since his weight loss, but nicer didn’t really mean much for a woman who was a haughty bitch to pretty much everyone she met.
If she didn’t give birth to you you were basically worthless, even her own sister wasn’t exempt from her reign of terror.
Only her two perfect angels stayed out of her path of destruction, those two wonderfully perfect young gentlemen who spent every morning, afternoon, and night trying to kill each other for dominance.
Ben was under the assumption that aunt Jean’s dislike of his mother and Ben by proxy came from the fact Arlene used to be the popular pageant girl prom queen of the two and that drove his aunt nuts.
It must have felt nice for a bitter lady like Jean to point out that her much more beautiful sister had a fat son, while her sons were skinny and handsome.
This struck Ben as disgustingly petty and vain for his aunt to do, Ben couldn’t help who his mother was and his mother couldn’t help that people like her more than Jean.
Ironically though, Ben was not above thinking like that either.
He’d thought Bill didn’t deserve Bev’s attention for similar reasons, almost delighted in the thought of him getting “karma” for daring to be fairer faced than Ben.
He said it himself last night, it would almost be a relief if Bill could just die and get out of the way.
These were terrible thoughts to have, and even though Ben could feel himself whittling down into a worse version of himself– one that didn’t care about death, pain, or sadness, so long as his hunger and vanity stayed satiated, Ben was still not to the point he could say such things about Bill without guilt.
He didn’t want to think about the places his brain was headed anymore, so to distract himself from the horrible realization that Ben could very well turn out like his dearly despised aunt, he turned to take a jab at Butch.

He smiled his best shit eating grin, zeroing in on Butch’s sloppily put on uniform and his knowledge about what he and his aunt had been up to.
“Oh yeah, I bet that’s not the only thing my aunt told you recently.” He winked.
Now the shoe was on the other foot and Butch looked like the one who was tired of all of this. “It’s a simple yes or no, Ben.”.
“No, and if you still don’t believe me you’re more than welcome to look around my house for any dead bodies I left lying around.”.
He looked off into the distance to think for a moment, considering Ben’s adamant refusal.
“...Fine, but I got my eye on you.”.
“Yeah well, I think if you spent more time at work and less time trying to court my aunt you’d have a better chance of finding the real culprit.”.
Butch gasped and raised his hands into furious fists. “Why you little-”

“Butchie!!” Jean cheered, rudely shoving Ben out of the doorway, wineglass in hand.
Butch rolled his eyes again. “...Hi Jean.”.
She gave him a tawdry little wave then took a sip of her wine, almost spilling it. She chuckled as her lips pressed against the glass.
“Why are you coming to visit me so soon, huh? I didn’t take you for the clingy type.”.
Just based on the way Butch and his aunt looked at each other Ben concluded that whatever these two had going on at the moment was very complicated and weird.
Butch didn’t look too happy to see her, but Ben also felt like his aunt probably wasn’t wrong in assuming he liked her more than he let on.
If he had to guess the issue, Jean and Butch‘s relationship had the compatibility of dynamite and a nuclear reactor.
“I came to check on Ben is all, he was at the morgue last night and I wanted to see if he was doing okay after such a… traumatic incident.”.
“Yeah, and he was just leaving-” Ben shot a look at Butch that was almost threatening. “-right sir?”.
“...right.” Butch grunted.
Ben ran a hand through his hair, charisma and confidence oozing out of him now that it looked like he’d talked his way out of this.
Now he just needed to add the sprinkles on top of this schemey sundae to really seal the deal.
“You know, if I were you Mr. Bowers, I’d start looking for the culprit at home. I mean, I know you say I’m a problem child, but I don’t bring knives to school. Your son seems a little more like the stealing corpses type, doesn’t he?”.
God, he really was turning into a regular terror wasn’t he? Henry was a bad kid and he probably deserved far worse than even that, but it certainly was odd behavior for Ben to frame Henry the one time he didn’t do anything wrong.
Not only that, but he framed Henry to his own father, a father who Ben was well aware had psychotic tendencies he’d use to inflict pain on Henry anytime he displeased him.
That kind of stuff could get Henry killed, and yet here was Ben, beaming with pride at his excellent manipulation.

Although Butch didn’t trust Ben any farther than he could toss him over a fence, he also didn’t trust Henry on anything that wasn’t fetching him beer or cigarettes.
His expression darkened at the thought of his own son doing this, and for Ben that was basically confirmation that he’d successfully managed to pull a fast one on old Butchie and he was none the wiser.
“You two have a good afternoon now.” Butch grunted, popping his sunglasses back on.
Jean and Ben waved at him until he’d hopped in his police car and headed down the road out of their sight, and when he was finally gone Jean let out a labored sigh.
“God, he is crazy about me.” She grinned.
“Yeah you two sure are a… match made in heaven.”.
Jean looked down at Ben from the side, face still pointed towards the road in case Butch changed his mind and did a sharp u turn back down the street to propose marriage.
“Be thankful you’re not a woman Bennie, when a man gets in his feelings over a girl he will do crazy things just to be near her. They’ll even make an excuse to visit you on duty apparently. Men are insatiable when they get a crush.”.
Ben couldn’t tell if that was meant to be advice or just bragging, if it was advice he wasn’t exactly sure what he was supposed to do with it.
He doubted he’d ever be in a situation where he needed to weigh the consequences of being male or female, but this was about the only piece of advice his aunt had ever made an effort to share with him.
Maybe he didn’t understand why she was telling him this, but he definitely understood what she was saying.
Ben was basically the perfect example of a boy crawling over hot coals for a woman, and he’d be fibbing if he tried to deny it.
“You know what auntie? I think for once we actually might agree on something.”.
Jean turned her full attention to him, ready and alert. “Really?”.
She sounded so in disbelief, apparently even she never considered Ben and her could find common ground.
“Yeah…” Ben muttered “-I think I know exactly what you mean.”.

She folded her arms with one hand on her face as she contemplated what to say next.
In spite of her general disinterest in everything Ben Hanscom related, she found herself morbidly curious to know what kind of day her nephew had planned.
“So… what are you off to do? Raise hell?”.
Ben shook his head. “No ma’am. I’m gonna go hang out with my friends, we’re meeting at Mike’s house.”.
“Isn’t he that black kid who watched his parents burn to death?” Jean said, lacking absolutely any kind of tact or grace one should have when talking about such a sad subject.
If even an emotionally detached junior cannibal like Ben knew something was distasteful then you probably should rethink how you word things.
He scoffed at her lack of empathy, which was both warranted but still highly hypocritical in light of recent events.
“I mean… yeah. I guess. He’s the only black kid in town Jean, you don’t have to bring up his dead parents to clarify, I know who you’re talking about.”.
Jean groaned, immediately growing defensive at the slight notion she did anything wrong.
Most insensitive jerks don’t like being called insensitive jerks, they prefer other people fawn over them and act like they’re smart truth tellers who are just saying what everyone’s already thinking.
Ben knew people thought like that about Mike, to the point Derry almost treated Mike like a celebrity for having tragically dead parents, but he didn’t think his aunt had the right to be so blunt about it.
Jean of course played the victim as she often did whenever things didn’t go her way.
“Sheesh, I was just asking, no need to get all offended. Anyways feel free to stay out as long as you like. The house is a lot more peaceful when you’re gone.”.
Her tone suddenly dipped into petulant brat territory, like a toddler rubbing it in your face that they got the newest toy, and this already grating switch up was made all the more grating when you accounted for the fact his aunt only spoke in preening high pitched whines.
Ben didn’t show any kind of emotional response to that, merely allowed his dead pan expression and the distant sounds of his cousins fighting in the background to punctuate his thoughts on the matter.
“I… somehow doubt that. But alright, whatever you say auntie.”.
Jean clopped away in her cheap heels, her confident stride obviously affected by the fact she was three glasses of wine into her morning routine and didn’t plan on stopping until she couldn’t stand up anymore.
Ben watched carefully as his aunt clumsily attempted to sashay away from him, a variety of insulting things he could say to her crowding his mind.
Aunt Jean was annoying, vain, shallow, a bully, grossly incompetent at parenting, and a plethora of other things that were too unkind to list.
It was like every moment Ben spent near her or living in this house the harder it was becoming to keep his composure around her.
Thank God he was leaving the house today, otherwise he might finally find out how much Jean was too much Jean and go nuclear.
He wasn’t even sure what nuclear meant in this context to be frank, all he really knew was that right now, watching his aunt drunkenly hobble back to their kitchen table after gloating about how Butch was crazy about her and making an insensitive comment about Mike, Ben thought it might feel nice to punch her in the jaw.

Ben made his way out of the house and quickly found his friends walking down the street in a group, chatting about some random movie Richie had seen last night when his parents went to bed and he snuck into their den to watch the “adult” channels.
Bev wasn’t really listening to any of what they were saying, she was too busy reading a book brought while she walked, but occasionally she’d lift her head and make silly comments about what she could make out.
Nevertheless, they all were all equally delighted to see their tardy friend finally show up, but of course the only smile Ben really cared to see was Bev’s pretty little grin.
“Sup guys, what are you talking about?”.
“Richie watched a porn and he’s telling us about it.” Stan quipped in a voice so flat and empty it might as well have been sarcastic.
“It wasn’t a porn Stan! Believe me, I’ve snuck enough peeks behind the black curtain at the VHS rental store to know the difference between porn and your garden variety bad movie.”.
Stanley raised an eyebrow, which was about as much emotion you could get from Stan unless you scared the shit out of him.
“You said a woman flashed her boobs at the screen, that sounds like a porn.”.
“No, I said she flashed her tatas, and one tata flashing does not a porn make.”.
Eddie paused mid-walk to match Stanley’s annoyance with a speculative look of his own. He squinted at Richie like he was sucking on sour candy, his lips even looked a little puckered.
“You’re soooo eloquent, Richie.” He scoffed.
Richie guffawed at Eddie’s sour little face so hard he slapped his hands on his knees. “See? Eddie gets it.”.
“Can you guys c-cool it with the sex talk? Bev’s right here.” Bill pouted.
Sometimes the losers forgot that Bev was a girl at all, she didn’t talk like other girls talked and her hobbies veered into more tomboy territory than most girls, so it was easy to mistake her for a dude.
Her short hair only made the line between genders more indistinguishable to her friends, which Bev actually preferred compared to being seen as just “the girlfriend”.
Sure, being a girl was nice and all when you weren’t sexualized all the time, but Bev wasn’t someone who enjoyed being held down by anything– even fairly abstract concepts like feminine and masculine.
It wasn’t a problem for her friends really, but it was easy to forget to mind your manners around a lady when you thought of her the same as the dudes.
“I mean we have a lady in our midst.” Bill added.
Stanley rolled his head with his eyes looking up at the grey sky. “Pfft, I’d hardly call Bev a lady. She’s more a dude than most of us.”.
Richie flashed his big crooked teeth, eyes glinting with fiendish glee as the opportunity for the perfect quip presented itself. Every time Richie realized he had an “in” for a joke in any conversation he basically reacted like a deer in headlights, or one of those meerkats that go from looking at the ground to fully standing up at a slight noise.
Richie had to bite his lip to stop himself from giggling, but that really just made Richie wanna giggle even more, like a self fulfilling prophecy.
You could add that to the bajillion other reasons Richie wasn’t ever going to be ventriloquist when he grew up (or at least a very good one).
You have to have some control over your voice for that, and poor Rich could hardly get a punchline out over the sound of his own laughter.
Richie gave up trying to hold back his laughter and went all in on his, honestly, not all that funny joke, in spite of his terrible delivery.
“No, Bill’s right. We should absolutely be more considerate of Eddie.”.
Eddie punched Richie in the pectorals the moment his name left his mouth, but thankfully Eddie wasn’t mean enough to actually hit his friend full force over a stupid joke.
“Fuck!” Richie coughed like an old tobacco fiend from the sudden compression against his chest, Ed’s soft punch admittedly less soft than he thought it’d be.
“Christ on a bike!”.

Ben laughed along, not from the joke nor the pressure of being in a large group of people whose opinions he held dear, but from seeing Richie in pain.
This caught his friends a bit off guard, enough that even Richie stopped coughing to stare at Ben in horror.
He was laughing at Richie, not with him, and he was laughing at Richie’s pain.
Stan and Richie had laughed at each other’s pain a couple times, as did Bill and Eddie every once in a while, but never Ben.
Ben didn’t find suffering particularly funny, mostly because he knew how it felt to be brutalized and picked on for jokes a little too much.
If the same scene unfolded last night he would have had a much different reaction. After he had his big meal though, things were looking a lot more sinister.
It looked like Ben’s whole palette was undergoing some radical changes, and not just in regards to food, but what he found funny also.
As off putting as Ben’s sudden laughter was, you couldn’t incriminate a guy solely based on laughing at weird shit.
If you could, Stanley would be on death row for sure.
It was all just… a really weird thing for him to do. In fact, Ben had been giving off those weird vibes since yesterday morning.
Describing the feeling was difficult, but if the Losers had to liken it to anything they would have to liken it to the feeling you get when you know someone is unlike anyone else in the room.
Usually that feeling manifests as some kind of, magically aura around the person, like a big gold star is above their head and you have to talk to them to get their uber special side quest.
Except there was no gold star or aura to be seen on Ben, because Ben wasn’t special in the good way. Ben was special in the sinister way, the way that was often accompanied by waning signs and cherry colored flags.
The losers just lacked the means to know that.

Richie straightened out his clothes to almost Eddie Kaspbrak degree of ridiculously awkward tidiness, to such a degree that Richie even bent over and bothered to see if his socks were even.
Tidiness was not a word in Richie’s vocabulary, but when conversations shifted in tone so dramatically as this he sometimes felt like he’d come underdressed.
Richie’s folks thought that was just an odd quirk their son had, but in reality it stemmed from his desperate need to please people and the feelings of inadequacy he had about his own identity.
Lately, these feelings were only getting worse, but notably only around Ben, of all people.
He coughed into his hand once that awkwardness was over and anxiously tapped his foot.
“So, anything else we should talk about?”.
Bev scratched at the place where her hair was chopped short, partly because she was thinking and partly because it really did itch like hell sometimes.
“Uhhh… did anyone else see all those firetrucks last night headed to the Derry morgue?”.
Eddie’s eyes widened with recognition, although Richie personally thought he looked like a cartoon animal that just got poked in the butt by a hunter.
“Oh yeah! And the police cars! They woke me and my mom up last night, damn things…”.
Eddie actually loved big fire engines like that, but he kept up pretenses of finding their color obnoxious and sirens ear grating to make his mother happy.
Cars and trains of all sorts captured Eddie’s interest, but he wasn’t allowed to think of them with anything but annoyance or childish fantasies his mom could coo over.
“What was that all about? Was there a fire or something?”.
Bev rubbed her chin in thought. “I heard my dad talking about it on the phone, the place got filled with smoke but nobody has found any signs of arson.”.
Eddie stomped the ground in a petulant huff.
“Shiiiit, just another fucking day in the worst town in the world.”.
“Ah come on Eddie, at least this is a fun mystery and not a horrifying one like IT was.”.
“I don’t care if it’s old man what’s his fuck in a Halloween mask like it’s Scooby-Doo, I think I’ve had more than enough mystery in this town to last me a lifetime, thank you very much.”.

The losers continued on their path to Mike’s as they talked about all that had gone down last night.
Richie whipped his head around so he could stare Ben in the face, a sly smile creeping up his lips.
His right eye squinted into a not very subtle wink at Ben, the kind that would be punctuated by a “ding!” sound if life was half as cartoony as Richie dreamed it to be.
Ben forced a very polite smile in response that completely faded the second Richie wasn’t looking at him anymore.
His patience for Richie was truly growing thinner by the day. After experiencing something like he had last night he didn’t want to pretend like they were on the same level of mischief anymore.
If he did it would only be to humor him surely, like a father telling his child that they were the smartest kid in the world for figuring out their times tables quickly.
Ben stayed quiet for the entire time they walked to Mike’s, and that would have been pretty off putting if Ben wasn’t well known for being quiet around people.
If anything, Ben being silent was a return to the status quo, a palette cleanser after that creepy laugh.
When they got to the Hanlon farm the silence that had overtaken Ben seemed to have spread to it as well because everything except for the bleating of sheep and other farm animal sounds were starkly muted.
Even the lights in Mike’s house weren’t on, which didn’t make any sense considering he knew they were coming over.
No lights was their cue to go back home, or that’s what Eddie probably thought at least, but Mike was expecting them and he wasn’t one to cancel without telling them.
Mike was the perpetual waiter, he didn’t make people wait.
Something was happening, and the Losers felt compelled to investigate.

They slunk around to the back of the farm where the barn was to see if Mike was just hanging outside hopping hay bales or something.
Mike wasn’t there, but the barn door was wide open and pouring out the lamp light from inside.
Usually when they came over Mike’s grand dad had the barn locked up so they couldn’t go inside and touch all their shit, but now it looked like they were so busy he’d forgotten to close the door.
The losers approached the drab red barn cautiously, although none of them really knew why.
It was just a barn after all, it wasn’t like they were gonna find some kind of horrible creature living in the back of Mike’s house. Not anymore horrible than IT or Ben was in the least.
As they crept forward another sound joined the rest, the distinctly sad sound of a young boy sobbing.
His voice sounded a bit nasally and warbled too much, but even past all the tears and snot the losers could pick out that it was definitely Mike’s voice.
They entered the barn to find Mike and his granddad standing by the sheep pen, bolt gun in Mike’s hand as he trembled so hard he couldn’t even place his finger on the trigger.
His grand dad watched on in disapproval, his naturally gruff exterior somehow getting even gruffer as he watched his grandson sob.
Neither of them paid attention to the Losers when they entered, nor when they continued to watch them like invisible spectators to a game, they might as well have not even entered the barn at all.

His grandpa was clearly at his wits end with him, but no matter how much he rubbed his temples or tapped his foot, the head ache Mike was giving him today wouldn’t leave.
“For pity’s sake Micheal, it’s just a stupid animal!”.
“But Rosemary is my friend!” Mike pointed emphatically at the friend in question, a large fluffy black sheep laying down for a nap, blissfully unaware that this sleep might be her last.
“Rosemary is a sheep Mike, she doesn’t even feel things the way we feel. I mean she probably doesn’t even know who you are.” Leroy put a hand on Mike’s shoulder, but Mike smacked it away.
In a normal situation this would have gotten Mike’s ass beat, but even though Leroy was a hard man, he knew beating a kid when they were distressed would get you nowhere.
Mike’s eyes watered with another wave of tears, offended by the notion Rosemary couldn’t love him.
“Yes she does! She acts totally differently when you bring her food! She’s like family!”.
It was true, Rosemary loved Mike just as much as Mike loved Rosemary, although she couldn’t speak it.
She would bleat at Mike every time he came running to her with a bucket of food and never kicked Mike when he sheered her.
Leroy wouldn’t know a thing about that though, his disconnect from the animals was too great for him to form real bonds with anything that wasn’t a dog.
He always maintained that he had to be like that for his job, if he cried over every single animal he had to slaughter he’d go mad, but Mike couldn’t understand why some forms of love held more value than others.
“We’re farmers Mike, it’s our job to do things like this. People need to eat and this is how we put food on the table.”
“What about Mr. Chips, huh? If- if Henry killed him and decided to use the meat to feed his family would you be okay with that?” Mike felt bad bringing his dog into this, Mr. Chips didn’t deserve to be likened to someone’s dinner, he was a thinking feeling being– not some food on a plate.
Mike was willing to give his grand dad some leniency in this, at least he truly didn’t believe animals were as cognizant as people, but if Mike himself were to kill Rosemary it would be a whole 'nother world of awfulness.
Mike couldn’t fathom the kind of soulless monster who could eat someone, knowing they had a whole life outside of just being your next meal.
He didn’t want to become someone like that, and he was hoping if he could just get his grandpa to understand then he wouldn’t become like that either.
However, it was much easier said than done to get a man as stubborn as Leroy to listen.

He scoffed at Mike’s suggestion, immediately dismissing it as childish excuses to get out of doing his farm work.
“That’s different and you know it.”.
This was an issue of great importance to Mike, and the fact his grandpa was just ignoring all his arguments and flat out refusing to have a calm discussion over the ethics of this made him wanna cry more.
He bit his lip, fully aware of what he was going to have to say next and the absolute cataclysmic effect it was going to have.
“What if it was me in there?! What if Butch Bowers came by and decided he needed to kill me for his di-”.
Leroy snatched Mike by the wrist and squeezed it tight, in an instant he dragged Mike up close to his face to show him he’d gone too far.
His expression darkened, Mike’s last argument hitting Leroy in a part of him he’d long since buried under his determination to work himself to death. Memories of his deceased son and his beautiful bride flashed before his eyes,“Don’t go there Mike, don’t even think about finishing that sentence.”.
Mike swallowed whatever strong feelings got him into this mess to begin with, but his compassion for Rosemary the sheep refused to lose this battle.
“Please don’t make me kill her…” He whimpered.
“It’s human nature Mike, people have been hunting animals since forever.”
“But it’s cruel…”.
Leroy released him but didn’t let go of his serious expression or pissed off attitude.
“For Christ’s sake Mike, if you won’t do it I will.”.
Mike seemed shocked by that, and in response pressed the bolt gun to his chest like he was trying to protect it.
“Mike, give me the gun.” Leroy ordered.
When Mike didn’t Leroy forcefully snatched it out his hands and pointed it at Rosemary, who only know was finally waking up from her peaceful rest.
He raised the gun to her temple and Mike braced for the shot, tears streaming down his face.
Rosemary bleated, confused by the cold object pressed against her skull, a confusion that only made Mike feel a thousand times worse for what was about to happen.
He wanted to get down on his knees and apologize to Rosemary for failing to protect her, but he knew that would just be unnecessary humiliation for himself.
Leroy’s thumb fondled the trigger. He’d been craving mutton before all of this shit got started and it barreled into whatever the fuck kind of ordeal he was in now, but if he was going to be honest with himself he couldn’t lie and say this was only about mutton anymore.
If only Mike could see that this was a teaching moment for him, hell, many young boys would kill to have a father figure who would try to teach them like Leroy was, but Mike was just too young to understand.
The childish belief that every living thing was equal and had every right to be happy and free still had its arms on Mike, and Leroy truly couldn’t wait until they were past all of this part of the growing up process.
He definitely wasn’t fit to raise Mike on his own, he wasn’t half of the gentle souls his son or his wife had been, all he could do was try to teach Mike to be a man.
He had every reason to just blow the sheep's brains out and use it to tell Mike you can’t save everything, and yet, when push came to shove, Leroy decided to drop the gun instead.
Even if he didn’t care about animals or understand how Mike could cry over them, and even if his paternal instincts were not good at showing tenderness, Leroy’s love for Mike was a strong one.
In spite of his hard shell, Leroy was still more like his son than he’d ever admit, and no Hanlon could ever look inside themselves and deny Mike something he cared about, be it going to public school, having a bunch of white friends, or even sparing the life of some dumb-ass sheep.
He covered his face with his hand and groaned, the aforementioned headache worsening. “Ugh, you kids and your bleeding hearts.”.

Mike ran to his grand dad with open arms, then squeezed him even tighter than Leroy had managed to grip his wrist.
Poor Leroy looked like a jungle explorer trapped by a hungry anaconda, and looked just as uncomfortable too.
“Thank you.” Mike whispered into his grand dad’s shoulder. “Rosemary thanks you too.”.
Leroy wrestled out of his grandson’s arms, a deep feeling of protectiveness and love swelling inside of him, but also a bit of shame for compromising his own morals just to satiate the boy.
Because Leroy was not a man of many words on most occasions, and especially not on occasions as tense as this one, he didn’t say anything back to Mike before he left to go back in the house and get wasted, merely petted his hair and walked away.
In turn, Mike ran up to Rosemary’s animal pen and gave her a few pets too, all while the Losers watched on utterly dumbfounded at the exchange.
They crowded around Mike and his beloved sheep, both disturbed and touched by Mike’s die-hard love for all things that couldn’t defend themselves.
This kind of thing really went to show how it was always in Mike’s nature to protect the innocent, even if he wasn’t the de facto leader of the club like Bill was.
Ben found Mike’s compassion quite enviable, almost as enviable as Bill’s looks and charisma were.
It must have been nice to feel so deeply for every living thing you were willing to die for them, Ben used to feel like that too, but of course things had made a drastic change and that meant Ben’s feelings on the welfare of all living creatures (not just animals) lacked the compassion Mike had.
Ben watched the mindless way other humans went about what they ate with a sort of cosmic indifference, and the more detached he became from the world around him the more holes he began to see in the philosophy of what constituted a morally okay meal.
There were some religions like Stanley’s that say “normal” meats like pork aren’t fit for human consumption, and some religions where the metaphorical consumption of a person is part of their worship, and it entirely depends on how you follow these religions if you partake in either.
In the US eating cats is a horrifying thought while eating cows is just an accepted cultural practice, while in some parts of Asia cows are sacred and cat meat is still served ‘til this very day.
Vegans and Vegetarians pride themselves on never hurting animals to eat, but those same people also buy from corperations that pollute the environment, support genocide, or built their fortune off the backs of slave labor.
Sometimes even if you take what you believe to be the path of harm reduction, you still find someone has sacrificed a great deal so that you can go to bed with a full stomach.
In that respect, it’s almost like it’s all part of one big game the human race is designed to lose at, or maybe all of the strange rules and loopholes are simply a side effect when the human race has something that spans across all cultures and adapts to fit the palette.
It took until Ben could take a step back from his own humanity for him to realize this, but of all the ways humans keep themselves separated from one another, food really is one of the most contradictory ones.
While others might find this distressing, or maybe try to come up with some philosophical reasoning, Ben merely thought about all of these contradictions with total disinterest, if not a little bit of humor.
How could he not find all of this funny? People having full on culture wars over this stuff while he dined on something that was almost universally considered taboo? It was almost cute to think how humans get so worked up over all of this, while Ben, Beel, and IT just sat above it all and watched.
If anything, Leroy’s argument about how they needed to kill animals to survive made Ben want to eat people even more.
Ben had practically convinced himself at this point this diet of his was something he needed to survive in this world, even though his insistence he stick with it was driven by nothing but vanity and a smorgasbord of depression induced insecurities.
It’s only natural for the strongest, coolest, and most likeable boy in the whole school to take what he wanted, and Ben felt he was getting closer and closer to all of those titles with each new day he lived in skinny bliss.
The world to Ben was essentially one big slaughter house, Beel was the farmer and Ben his trusty bolt gun to kill his meals with.
The truth for Ben was simple enough; survival of the fittest. Literally.

Mike sniffled away the rest of his tears and forced an apologetic smile. He had been successful in his efforts to save her, but he still felt horrible for letting his grand dad even come close to killing her in the first place.
And that didn’t even touch on all of the other animals in the barn, Mike knew he couldn’t stop his grandpa from killing all of them– they’d go broke if he did, but Mike didn’t want to acknowledge that part.
For now, he just wanted to enjoy that Rosemary made it out unscathed.
“Don’t worry Rosemary, I’ll make sure you get to live a whole life.” Mike promised, and Rosemary bleated like she understood.

Bev shuffled towards Mike and broke the silence, her expression somber and her hand rested against her heart. “Are you okay Mike?”.
Mike stood up from his hunched over position and rubbed his arm.
“Yeah, I’m okay now. Sorry about that guys. I was getting everything ready for you to come over and then my grand dad pulled me into the barn and told me I had to put her down cause we’d had her too long.”.
He sighed long and hard. “I’m not dumb guys, I know people need to eat and it’s part of human nature to eat animals, but Rosemary is special to me. I raised her since she was a little lamb, I bottle fed her because her mama got gangrene after she was born and her papa had already been sent to the butcher shop. She’d lost her parents like I had, so I raised her like she was a Hanlon. If I killed Rosemary and ate her… gosh, that’d be like putting a bullet in one of you guys and having you for supper. It’s sickening.”.
“That’s a really sweet way of looking at it, Mike.”.
“Yeah and creepy as shit, I don’t wanna imagine you eating me.” Stan added.
Richie scratched the back of his head with a dopey smile plastered on his face as yet another opportunity to get a couple yucks in appeared.
“If you do, make sure to preheat the oven right, I burn easily.” He winked.

Mike laughed, but it was a little heavy and forced, even more so than how it usually was whenever Richie told a joke.
“I really shouldn’t get so worked up over it, animals eat other animals all the time. I mean pigs will eat anything, even human remains if you put one in front of them. I just can’t stomach it though… no pun intended.”.
Mike rambled for a moment about the inner workings of the food chain for a little bit after that, but Ben was hung up on his line about pigs.
It struck a chord with him in particular because that’s what Henry Bowers always used to call him when he was fat.
Obviously more people than just Henry called him that and Henry had a variety of other derogatory nicknames for him (fatboy, tits, lardo, wideass), but that was definitely Henry’s favorite and the one that really got Ben going.
In an ironic twist, Ben was closer to being a pig than he ever was when he was hefty, because his diet was basically the same as theirs: eat everything put in front of you, if you’ve got leftovers you’ve done something wrong.
When he was big he at least had some kind of restraint and shame, not anymore though, and that made all the difference.

Eddie listened to Mike’s rambling as long as he could before he couldn’t resist butting in anymore.
For a germaphobe like Eddie Kaspbrak a farm might as well had been his own personal hell, itchy hay, thirsty ticks, slop in troughs, animals shitting, and so much more were just some of the many “delights” of being on a farm.
If he had to live here like Mike he would have gone insane a long time ago, but even just standing in this barn was doing him in.
His attention was stolen by a pig in the pen right next to him, slurping down a weird brownish green liquid with apple cores, moldy corncobs, and other rotten produce all crammed into it.
The smell was so pungent that poor Eddie had to plug his nose and grab his aspirator to stop himself from vomiting all over the ground.
If he was a worse friend he would have thrown a fit about having to meet Mike at his farm, but even if this place was super gross Eddie would take hanging out over here in a heartbeat compared to hanging out at his house with his mom’s constant supervision.
“Gosh I can’t even imagine how you spend so much time around these animals Mike, let alone love them. I mean these things are disgusting.” Eddie coughed out, the first few pumps he took from his inhaler evidently not enough to calm him down.
If it didn’t get any better with the next few hits he was going to have to take the flavored water out and chug it down like shots of tequila.

Richie chuckled at Eddie’s grossed out reaction, sounding much more jovial than when Ben laughed at his pain. “Don’t listen to him Mike, Eddie’s just mad cause you got his mother locked up.”.
Eddie grunted like a horse at that, which was terribly ironic considering he was outright terrified of horses.
“Mike when you eat Richie can you save me his organs so I can donate them to science and finally figure out what the fuck is wrong with him.”
Bill laughed. “I d-don’t think even scientists can tell you th-that one Eds.”.
“What can I say? I’m a very interesting guy, I’m a myyyysssteeeeryy.”.
Stan folded his arms and groaned as Richie waved his arms around in a desperate attention seeking move to make his friends laugh.
“The only mystery about you is the mystery of why your parents haven’t sold you to the circus yet.”
“Awww Stan, you know they couldn’t afford me.”.
“I could bribe you in VHS copies of America’s funniest home videos and you’d fold.” Eddie spitefully said under his breath.
Suddenly, Richie clapped his hands onto both of Eddie’s shoulders and squeezed like his life was depending on whether or not he could juice a person. “They’re the funniest home videos, Eddie! The funniest! That kind of thing will only go up in value!”.
He shook him like he was trying to hear his insides rattle, and Eddie responded to it about as well as you’d think Eddie would to being shook around: Screaming. Lots and lots of screaming.
Bev reached into Rosemary’s pen to pet her and she reciprocated her affection with a little bleat of approval that Bev found adorable.
“Welp, since Rosemary is all safe and sound and we have nothing else to do, what do you say we cheer up her favorite owner with a game of low stakes hide and seek?”.
Mike’s eyes lit up like the fourth of July. “Really? You mean it Bev?”.
“Of course, and we’ll even let you be the seeker, right guys?”.
The boy’s faces showed hesitance, they loved Mike like no other but he was absolutely terrible at being the seeker, which sucked because he hated the hiding part of the game.
A game with Mike as the seeker would probably take five hours to finish, but alas, being a good friend sometimes meant you had to do things you didn’t want to.
They nodded and let out their own little variation of “Yeah! Mhm! Totaaally!” that completely turned Mike’s frown upside down.
He spun around with his hands over his eyes.
“One, two, three-”.
The Losers scattered out of the barn like they were running from Pennywise all over again, they were not expecting Mike to just start like that with no warning and that meant they had to scramble to find a good spot.
Ben ran off near the bushes and was so focused on finding a place to hide he didn’t even check to see where the other Losers were going.
His mind was much more competitive now, to such an extent that the thought of winning could make the rest of the world devolve into a blurry mess with the only clear spot being the quickest path to his goal.
He leapt over one of the loser bushes but over shot it and tumbled face first to the ground when his foot got caught on the top.
Ben rolled over in the dirt (another thing that made him pig like), clutching onto his shoulder while he gritted his teeth against the pain.
Whether she was watching this the whole time or just heard Ben’s epic crash and came running he couldn’t figure out, but Bev slowly came into Ben’s vision once again, sweet little smile and pretty face all the same.
Her hair looked incredibly beautiful from this angle, wind swept and back lit by the sun in a way that seemed to make it glow.
It really did look like a winter fire from below, and like a toddler who hadn’t learned the concept of hot or cold yet, Ben felt the overwhelming urge to reach out and touch it.
He woozily raised his arm up at her, but Bev misinterpreted that as asking to be helped up and did so like the good friend she was.

Ben choked on air for a moment, the fall had already knocked the wind out of him but the dirt he kicked up from the fall made catching his breath very difficult.
“Mind if we hide together?”.
“Sure, but I’m throwing you out of the bushes as soon as he comes looking.” Bev laughed.
Ben blushed at her sweet laughter. “...Duly noted.”.
Beverly and Ben walked just a couple more feet together to find a small clearing surrounded by trees and bramble bushes for their spot. It was sunny, pretty, and most importantly well hidden, the perfect spot.
Ben couldn’t care about any of that though, sure, he cared a great deal about winning now, but there was a much better, much prettier prize just out of arms reach.
They sat down together with their knees pulled up to their chests and legs squished together and watched through the small gap between tree branches as Mike ran right past them to go look by the hay bales.
“God, he’s… really bad at this.” Ben chuckled.
“But he’s really good at making the game last longer.”.
“Yeah, we’ll be in our forties by the time he finds us.”.
Bev shoved him on the shoulder with her one free hand. “Don’t be an asshole!”.
Ben geared up to shove her back but got distracted when he noticed that she still had that book she was reading as they walked to Mike’s.
He’d assumed she would have put it down at some point, but apparently this book was just so enrapturing she couldn’t put it down even in a game of hide and seek.
“What are you reading there anyways?”.
“Oh, it’s just a book of fables, I was going through my room and found it under my bed. I hadn’t read it in so long I thought I’d check out the stories again. I forgot how interesting some of them are.”.
She bit her lip, giddy at the thought of sharing her special interest with someone who would actually care to listen.
“Wanna see my favorite? It’s the one I’m currently rereading.”.
Unfortunately Ben didn’t actually care about fables or fairy tales, he could acknowledge the historical importance of them but that’s where his love for those kinds of stories stopped.
The most important thing about fables to Ben was purely that Bev liked them, and he she’d like any guy who liked them by association.
“Sure, I love…. Fables. They’re awesome.”.

Bev handed the book over to Ben and Ben quickly scanned the page it was open on.
At the top of the page was the title in big fanciful font which simply read: “The Frog And Snakes Love story”.
Below the title was an accompanying drawing of a blue snake and red frog sitting by a spring together, the snake coiled around the poor little frog in a loving embrace that looked like it’d strangle him.
The actual story on the page read as follows:

“In a spring far away from most animal dens, a frog happily hopped along without a care in the world. It was a great fat frog with watery eyes and slippery limbs. The frog hopped and hopped until one day it hopped into the sight of a large snake. The snake slithered its way over to see the frog trembling in fear, but contrary to what the frog believed would happen next, the snake actually fell in love at first sight. It coiled itself all around the frog’s body into a tight hug, whispering sweet nothings like no other. Its love for the frog only grey as days stretched on into weeks, everything from its rubbery lips to its sad brown eyes seemed to encourage the snake’s attachment even more. And as time went on, the frog began to love the snake in return.
“Let us depart together and head for my castle my dear, there our relationship shall blossom and we’ll share a delicious dinner for two. With the starry sky above we’ll gaze to the heavens and talk of nothing but the love we have.”.
The frog’s love for the snake was as genuine as could be, but at the mention of dinner the frog’s whole body froze.
It reluctantly followed its love, but on their way to its home it made a stop at the spring to reminisce.
Inside the spring reflections danced all around the frog’s watery image, eventually all culminating in the sight of a big snake standing above it with hungry intent.
It was then that the frog realized the truth of it all, in that no matter how much the snake loved it, it would never be enough to fight its nature.
The frog looked to the sky, thoughts of the snake’s love as bountiful as the frog’s love for the snake, and realized all at once that a frog and snake were never meant to be together.
Despite its better judgments and rational thinking, the frog followed the snake back to its home and they began to have the love story the snake promised.
Until one day the snake awoke in its den to find its love had disappeared without a trace.
It slithered through the home and the woods and even the spring itself in search for the frog, but no trace could be found.
The snake eventually gave up and went home in dejected silence, only to find dinner had been put out for it while it was away.
Feeling completely alone and awfully depressed, the snake swallowed all of its dinner home to cope, but only then did it realize the dinner it was being served looked awfully familiar.
The snake did not want to admit what it had done, or why its love had vanished, or how the food wound up in its den, but it all had the same reasoning and source.
The frog was right after all, love cannot survive nature, and the snake had unintentionally proven as much in its sleep no less.
As it choked down the last of its dinner, the snake thought to itself how wonderful it might be to visit the spring again and meet someone new.
And so the snake never learned its lesson.”.

Ben closed the book, genuinely at a loss for words. “Wow… that was some… pretty dark stuff.”.
Bev tucked her hair behind her ear, feeling just the tiniest bit bashful. Ben almost could have sworn she was blushing.
“But it’s beautiful, right? I mean the snake loved the frog even though it went against their nature. They were doomed, but the snake never knew that and it repeated the same cycle.”.
“Yeah it’s beautiful. You can be such a weirdo Bev, good thing I like that.”.
She tilted her head down, her bangs drooping over her eyes to obscure her emotions. “I like you too Ben… more than I thought I did.”.
Ben felt himself almost start choking again. “Wh-what’s that supposed to mean?” He smiled nervously.
She placed a hand on Ben’s leg, and Ben had to fight every urge in his body not to scream at the touch. He was screaming internally though, lots of “Holy shit it’s happening!” and “Yes! Yes! Yes!” and “Beel, I’m sorry I ever doubted you!” ran through his mind all at once.
“Something has changed in you, I don’t know what it is but you’re different and I can’t help but feel things when I’m around you… girlish things.”.
“Bev… I…”
“Do you like me the way Bill likes me?”.
Ben swallowed. “Yes.”
She put her hand out and stroked Ben’s cheek, leaning closer and closer until Ben could feel her breath on his face. “Good. I’m glad, you know why?”.
“I might have a hunch.”.
Her gaze dropped down to Ben’s lips, which were still quite soft looking even without the extra pounds on his face.
A tingly feeling rose in both of the thirteen year old's throats, mutual attraction rising like the sun.
They were both itching to let it out, the anticipation for the kiss so hair-raising they could hardly sit still.
And then came the fission point, the moment of triumph for Ben Hanscom, the explosion of love he had been so desperately seeking for.
Their pent up feelings could stay pent up no longer, and they two teens pounced on each other to make their love known.

The kiss was magical, even better than the kiss she shared with Bill after they defeated IT, even better than the kiss she had in the school play that started her whole fixation on him.
And for Ben especially so, this was the kind of thing he used to lie in his bed at night and think about while he counted cracks in the ceiling.
The kiss went on even longer than either Ben or Bev expected it too, neither participant able to pull away from their partner as their attraction went from intense to down right magnetic.
Ben and Bev started to kiss each other like they were fighting, pulling, pushing, grabbing, the kind of kissing that was usually the prelude to sex.
There was no sex here though, neither Bev nor Ben were prepared for that, but that didn’t stop Ben from thinking about it.
Lustful thoughts about Bev weren’t a foreign concept to him, although he used to think of them with shame and sympathy for the way Bev was sexualized by pretty much everyone.
Now, as his lips were entangled in hers and he had to fight his urge to let out a moan of satisfaction every moment they paused to breathe, Ben’s mind raced with ideas of ripping Bev’s clothes off and seeing her underwear.
He pictured her wearing the same bra and panties she’d worn under her dress the day at the quarry and the thought made him giddy.
He hoped desperately that those were the same garments she was wearing now, because he’d very much love to see those again in a more private context.
Ben carefully weasled his hand up to bev’s chest down to the button at the top of her dress.
Running his hand over the button was titillating, thrilling even, and Ben could feel a slow chill creep up his spin from the hard surface of the button.
He went to grab onto it with his other hand to start unbuttoning it, but the moment he got a hold of the top Bev swiped away his wrist and made probably the last noise you’d ever want to hear when you’re kissing someone.
“Ow!”.
She skittered back from him with her hand covering her mouth, the intensely romantic (and admittedly kind of sexual) moment coming to a crashing halt.
“What? What happened!? Did I do something wrong?!”.
Bev’s hand slid down her face with trembling fingers, leaving behind a thin trail of blood from her lips to her chin.
The source of the blood was her lower lip, which was sporting a small split in and gushing blood at an alarming pace.
“You… you bit me?”.
Ben’s jaw dropped at his own incompetence.
Of course, Ben finally gets the one thing he’s been dreaming about since he moved her and he ruins it by kissing his dream girl just a little too hard.
The humiliation truly never ended.
“Oh- oh my God, I’m so sorry-” He reached out to her but she politely swatted him away with her right hand while her left cradled her face.
“No no no, it’s okay I know it was an accident- just… ow. I’m gonna go ask Mike’s grand dad if he has any Neosporin.”.
She stood up and dusted herself off while Ben stayed put, sulking about how nothing ever seemed to go his way.
This didn’t ever happen to Bill, and he got to kiss Bev twice! Ben only got to kiss Bev while she was in the deadlights and that hardly counts. What a ripoff.
Bev waved him bye without even turning around to look at him, too embarrassed to look Ben in the eye now that she was leaking blood like a punctured juice box.
Ben didn’t realize that though, from his perspective it just looked like he sabotaged himself yet again.
“Be careful out there Ben.” She called back, rounding the corner out of the clearing.
Ben stopped his sulking for a moment. “Be careful of what?”.
Suddenly, Bev also stopped what she was doing.
Slowly, she turned her head to give him one last nervous smile. “... I don’t know. I just… feel like you need to be cautious….”.
“Uhm- okay?”.
Bev kept walking without another word while Ben watched on sullenly, her January embers fading out of view the closer she got to Mike’s house.
Ben wondered if Mike would even notice Bev walking into his house or if the worst seeker ever could miss a kid who wasn’t even trying to hide anymore. Probably the latter.
He rubbed his face to soothe himself and sighed.
“Anything for you Bev.”.
When he took his hand away he realized some of Bev’s blood had managed to get on his mouth after he bit her, and because of his face rubbing he’d accidentally gotten a few drops of it on his index and middle fingers.
He whipped his head side to side to check for his other friends, the pretty environment of the woods turning more eerie the longer he spent out here alone.
His gaze returned to the blood on his fingers, the metallic odor of the blood calling Ben’s name like a siren.
His stomach screamed and squirmed for a taste like it had a mind of its own, if it could curse Ben out for not immediately handing over the tasty treat it would have.
Unable to stop himself from doing something so embarrassing and gross, he relented and gave into the urge. He stuck his fingers in his mouth and sucked on them like a baby with a bottle, and the greedy suckling did not stop until the last morsels of Bev’s hemoglobin had touched his taste buds.

“Strawberries-” Ben said, licking his lips. “-Bevvie tastes like strawberries.”.

“How lovely.”.