#stan got water ballooned in the face rip

[tazmiilly]

summer's almost over...

bonus: stans okay I promise

#this took sooo long #scribbles #gf #gravity falls #oh god i gotta tag em all #dipper pines #mabel pines #stan pines #grunkle stan #ford pines #grunkle ford #soos ramirez #wendy corduroy #stan got water ballooned in the face rip

[camillemontespan]

truth or dare [AU. drake x camille]

An AU version of the TRR chapter in Vegas where MC is given the choice to have a one night stand with someone who isn’t her husband. I never played this option because why would you dare cheat on Drake Walker so I wrote this in a more different and I guess darker way.

Warnings: NSFW. Liam stans will feel bad in the middle part. Sorry.

@sirbeepsalot @loveellamae @mskaneko @saivilo @katedrakeohd @gardeningourmet @rainbowsinthestorm @pug-bitch

@fromthedeskofpaisleybleakmore @moonlightgem7 @burnsoslow  @ibldw-main​ @emichelle​ @dcbbw​

*************************************************************************************

Camille bent over the sink and closed her eyes, exhaling and inhaling as she did so. Her forehead was beaded with sweat and she felt like her throat was being constricted by an invisible hand.

Breathe. Get it together.

Blinking hard, she looked up to examine her reflection in the mirror. She desperately needed Touché Eclat to hide the eye bags from sleepless nights. Digging around her major up bag, she focused on applying the make up, stopping every so often as her shaking hands made the basic task difficult.

She pulled her dark hair out of its messy bun and shook it down. She exhaled again and gave her reflection a determined nod.

You got this.

With fake confidence, she opened the door of the ladies bathroom and stepped out into the hotel foyer . She jumped when she saw Drake standing outside, waiting for her. He was leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets, looking up at her through his messy fringe.

‘Another panic attack huh?’ he asked casually.

Camille threw her shoulders back and gripped her suitcase. 'Nothing for you to concern yourself with, Walker,’ she replied dryly. She began to stride through the foyer, eager to get away from him.

Drake fell into step beside her and took her suitcase in his hand.

'You don’t have to go through with this..’ he murmured. 'Nobody is forcing you.’

Camille kept her eyes fixed straight ahead to the elevator. 'You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said, keeping her voice steady.

They reached the elevator and Camille pushed the button up to the penthouse suite. She gestured for Drake to hand back her suitcase. Sighing, Drake gave it to her. As her hand took the handle, Drake reached out to grasp her fingers.

'Drake!’

'You don’t owe him anything,’ Drake ground out, his eyes penetrating hers. His finger touched upon her engagement ring, a giant gobstopper that was an eyesore on her hand.

'If you want to walk away,’ he whispered, 'nobody is going to judge you. Its not too late to go for what you really want.’

Camille fixed Drake with an icy stare. 'And what do I really want, Drake?’ she asked. 'Tell me, oh wise one. What do I really want?’

The elevator doors opened and Camille turned to enter them. The mirror in the elevator reflected her and Drake, who was standing right behind her and looking at the reflection too.

'It’s right in front of you,’ Drake murmured. 'Should you bother to properly look.’

*****************************************

Camille stopped outside the penthouse suite and gathered her thoughts.

You are having a bachelorette party in Vegas with your fiancé and friends. Liam wanted to have one last group event before the wedding next week. He loves you. He is offering you the world and more.

He is a kind and good man. He is intelligent and interesting. He has a lovely smile that lights up his entire face. He supports you.

This is the last weekend before you tie the knot so fucking get a grip of yourself and stop thinking about what could be and instead focus on the here and now.

Liam is your husband to be.

Not Drake Walker.

Camille placed her key card on the scanner and opened the door, fixing a bright smile on her face. 'Honey, I’m back!’ she called.

She stopped short. The suite was covered in red heart shaped balloons. Camille took in the scene and slowly wandered into the room, trying to count the balloons that covered every inch.

There has to be 100 balloons in here..

'Sweetheart!’

Camille jumped. She relaxed when she saw Liam hurrying through from the bathroom with a wide grin on his face and his arms outstretched. He pulled her in for a sweet kiss. 'How was shopping with Olivia and Hana?’ he asked.

Camille smiled. 'Really nice.’

It was until I had a panic attack outside the jewellery shop and had to run back to the hotel.

'Why all the balloons?’ she asked.

Liam grinned. 'Am I not allowed to surprise my fiancee with heart shaped balloons?’

Camille laughed. 'You’re very sweet.’

Liam took her hand and guided her through the balloon covered room towards the bathroom. 'I want to spoil you,’ he told her.

The claw foot bathtub was filled with water that had rose petals floating on the surface. Candles covered every surface and Camille could hear lilting music playing softly in the background.

She felt Liam’s hands gently pull at her sweater. She allowed him to undress her before he helped her into the bath. The water seared against her skin.

'Enjoy,’ Liam whispered. 'There’s new body lotion courtesy of Chanel in the cupboard.’

Camille nodded, her eyes wide. Liam grinned and shrugged self - depricatingly. 'Nothing is too good for my future queen,’ he said, backing out the door and leaving Camille to lie in the rose petal bath tub, wishing she could drown.

*********************************************

Drake nursed a glass of whiskey as he looked out of the floor to ceiling windows. He had aw wanted to visit Las Vegas and now he was here. He just wished it was under different circumstances.

His best friend was marrying the girl Drake loved.

Because he did love Camille. It had taken him long enough to admit his feelings to her but he had done it.

They had kissed. Kissed a lot actually. And they talked in the dark at 3am about things they never told anyone else.

Drake had been brave and told her he loved her. He ignored the ring on her finger and threw caution to the wind.

Camille had run away.

She had literally run away from him.

It was only a few hours later when she phoned him. He had been unable to sleep and welcomed the distraction.

Camille was crying down the phone. 'I’m sorry,’ she had wept. 'I’m so fucking sorry. I love you too, Drake. I love you too.’

Drake had bolted up and his words tumbled out about how they could just run away, leave Cordonia, be together. He made elaborate plans while Camille stayed silent.

'I can’t break his heart, Drake,’ she finally said, her voice cracking. Drake stopped talking.

'I can’t leave him,’ she whispered. 'That wouldn’t be fair.’

Drake hung up the phone without saying goodbye. Ever since then, they had been tense with each other; barely exchanging words unless forced to. 

Now, as he looked out over the strip, he thought about her as he always did. Because feelings couldn’t easily be buried.

He had seen her running into the hotel with a look of sheer panic on her face. He had been at the reception desk, arguing about the absurd prices of the hotel room mini bar.

He abandoned the argument to follow Camille who hadn’t seen him. He watched her lock herself in the ladies bathroom and he waited outside, listening to the sounds of ragged breathing and crying.

Drake knew she was dreading the wedding. He knew that every time Liam kissed her, she would endure it. He knew that every time Liam held her hand, she ached to pull away.

He knew these things because she had told him. In the hidden coves of dive bars, she whispered these secrets and Drake never uttered them to another soul.

He knew Camille was viewing her wedding day to be like an execution. All he wanted to do was save her from putting her head on the block and signing her life away to a man she did not love.

*********************************************

That night, the group -excluding Camille - convened at the hotel bar for drinks. Liam ordered two bottles of Dom Perignon, which Maxwell raised his champagne flute and cheered.

'Let the wedding party commence!’ he hollered.

Drake reluctantly sipped the champagne. Liam turned to him and clapped his hand on his shoulder. 'One day, Drake, we will be doing something like this for your future marriage!’ “he cried, giddy from wedding excitement.

Drake chuckled and shook his head. 'Nah, man. I won’t get married.’

Olivia smirked, joining in with their conversation. 'Yeah, you’ll just be the weird uncle who lives in the tunnels of the palace, freaking out Liam and Camille’s kids.’

Drake narrowed his eyes at Olivia and took a deep gulp of the champagne. She watched him with a smug smile, her eyes not leaving him as she sipped from her own glass.

'Where is my beautiful wife to be?!’ Liam called out.

'She’s just coming down!’ Hana answered, scrolling through her phone. 'Her hair was being fiddly.’

Liam clapped his hands with delight. 'I can’t wait to see her,’ he told Drake.

Drake smiled weakly.

**********************************************

Camille picked up her clutch bag and studied her reflection in the mirror. She looked much fresher now. Less tired.

She was wearing a gold silk dress paired with gold strappy stilettos. The gold complimented her skin and her hair was swept into a chignon.

Ever since she came to Cordonia, her look had become more polished. As the future queen, everything about Camille had to be elegant and sophisticated.

All she really longed to do was throw on a pair of ripped jeans and a loose sweater. Or, if she couldn’t do that, she would settle for her hair down, tousled, no fancy hairstyles.

Wishing herself luck, Camille left the room and took the elevator downstairs to the bar.

********************************************

Drake saw her before everyone else did. He even beat Liam to the punch. The elevator doors opened to reveal Camille standing there, her face etched with nerves. His heart tugged.

He watched as she threw her shoulders back - a typical Camille Montespan confidence move - and glided towards the group with a warm smile on her face.

Her eyes met his. Her smile fell slightly but her eyes couldn’t tear away from him. Drake’s eyes broke away but only to roam her body that shone against the gold silk of her dress and the way it hugged her curves in all the right places.

'Stop eye fucking her, Walker,’ Olivia whispered in his ear, making him jump.

'Jesus Liv! I wasn’t.’

Olivia shook her head. 'Oh please,’ she muttered. 'It’s so obvious.’

Drake turned away from her and went to the bar to order whiskey. He hated champagne.

It meant he didn’t see Liam’s eyes fixed on him before he turned to take Camille in his arms and place a deep kiss on her lips.

**********************************************

'More drinks!’ Maxwell called. 'I have the Beaumont credit card so my treat!’

Camille grabbed his hand. 'No Max!’ she protested. 'What would Bertrand say?’

Maxwell raised an eyebrow. 'He would say… My dear, it is your engagement weekend and you are betrothed to the King of Cordonia! Please accept my credit card as a wedding gift for you to drink and be merry! FOR CORDONIA!’

'FOR CORDONIA!’ the others, except Drake, shouted in unison.

Liam raised his glass. 'Thank you everyone for joining us this weekend to celebrate our upcoming marriage,’ he said grandly. 'Indeed, drink and be merry! I cannot wait to marry this beautiful woman beside me, I feel very thankful that she chose to be with me. Camille you will be a wonderful queen unlike any other. I am truly excited to see how you rule beside me.’

Camille turned pale, her glass still raised in the air.

'And may we have many children!’ Liam continued. 'For I need heirs and I feel our heirs will be the most loved children in all of the kingdom!’

Camille quickly placed her glass down and stood up. 'Excuse me,’ she whispered, giving Liam a wobbly smile. He grinned back at her bed tossing back his champagne.

Drake physically had to restrain himself from standing up to follow her. To do so would be suspicious and it wasn’t his place.

Olivia, however, put her glass down and followed Camille with a determined look on her face.

*********************************************

Fifteen minutes later, Camille and Olivia came back. Drake studied the two of them over the rim of his glass. He could tell from the way Olivia discreetly squeezed her shoulder that something had happened.

Another panic attack probably.

He hated that Camille always seemed to have panic attacks now. He couldn’t shake the guilty feeling that her attacks were his fault.

Drake stood up to go to the bar. From the corner of his eye, he could see Olivia strutting over to join him.

'Double whiskey,’ Drake ordered.

'Make that two,’ Olivia cut in.

The bartender handed them two glasses of whiskey. Drake frowned at Olivia.

'You don’t like whiskey,’ he said.

'I know,’ Olivia replied. 'But I need to talk to you.’

Drake rolled his eyes. 'Feeling’s not mutual.’

Olivia fixed him with her ice blue eyes. 'Drake,’ she said bluntly, 'I watched that woman have a fucking panic attack outside a jewellery store today. Do you know why she freaked out?’

Drake shrugged, trying to look like he didn’t care.

'She saw an engagement ring with a topaz stone,’ Olivia told him, her voice hushed. 'Don’t you have a topaz engagement ring that used to belong to your grandmother?���

Drake blinked. 'How do you know that?’

Olivia leaned forward. 'I know everything.’

Drake stepped back and clenched his glass of whiskey. He didn’t want to listen to Olivia. All he wanted was to drink.

'Leave me alone, Liv.’

'No,’ Olivia replied. 'Fucking do something about this. She loves you. You love her.’

Drake smirked. 'Since when are you all romantic?’

'Since I watched the man I love fall head over heels for a woman who views her wedding as something to dread,’ Olivia replied. 'He deserves better. And as I actually like her, she deserves better.’

Drake sunk his whiskey. He moved to go but Olivia caught him by the wrist, digging her fingernails into his skin.

'She has spent the past fifteen minutes crying her eyes out in the bathroom after Liam’s speech,’ she hissed. 'Fucking do something, Drake.’

**********************************************

As more drinks were poured, Liam became more loud and exuberant. He pawed at Camille like she was his play thing, made fun of Maxwell and he managed to spill champagne on Hana’s dress.

Because of his sheltered upbringing as a Prince, Liam rarely partied. But when he did, he really went for it and it never ended well. Being influenced by his older brother always brought out his wild side that he often kept under lock and key. 

The vibrant conversation around the bar table soon turned to truth or dare. Liam’s idea.

Hana had been dared by Olivia to go to the bartender and tell him she wasn’t wearing any underwear.

'Olivia, no!’ Hana blustered, turning bright red.

'He’s cute! He might give you his number!’ Olivia said, reclining against her chair.

'Do it, do it, do it..’ the group chanted. Hana groaned and dragged herself to her feet. They watched as she threw back her shoulders, copying Camille’s power move, and strutted to the bar, her hips swinging a figure of eight.

'Oh my god, she’s working it!’ Camille gasped, clapping her hands with delight. Liam shot her a wolfish grin.

Hana beckoned for the bartenders attention. Leaning forward, she whispered in his ear. The bartender smirked, said something back to her and brought out two shot glasses. He poured vodka into both and handed her one of the glasses - together, they downed the shots, making the group scream with surprise.

Hana turned to strut back to the group with a mischievous smile on her face.

'Did you tell him?’ Liam asked.

Hana nodded. 'He said congratulations and suggested we do shots!’

Maxwell jumped up and down in his seat, excited. 'Let’s see what else Hana will do!’

Liam shook his head. 'Bravo, Hana. You’ve surprised us all! But I pick… Olivia.’

Olivia rolled her eyes. 'Fine. Dare. Give it your best shot.’

Liam smirked. 'Kiss Camille.’

Camille’s eyes widened. 'Liam, that’s not necessary!’

Olivia swigged her champagne. 'Am I not your type, Montespan?’

Camille reddened. Drake cleared his throat and spoke firmly. 'She’s clearly uncomfortable,’ he said. 'Liam, pick a different dare.’

Liam laughed and tossed back his champagne. 'No. Camille, come on. Olivia’s game. Its a dare.’

Maxwell shifted uncomfortably in his chair. 'I think it’s a bit much..’

Olivia raised her glass to Camille. 'I promise I won’t bite.’

She faltered when she saw Camille look down at the table, embarrassed. 'But you don’t have to.’

Liam sighed. 'It doesn’t count as cheating.’

Camille shook her head. 'I know it’s just a dare but I don’t want to, especially if it’s for your entertainment.’

Drake felt pride rise up in his chest. Good. She wasn’t letting him bully her.

Liam stared at her for a moment, his bottom lip curled. Camille’s heart began to hammer against her chest as she stared back at him. She had never seen this version of Liam before. The sweet and kind man was gone.

'Fine,’ he said shortly. He signalled the waitress for another drink. When he turned back, his eyes locked on Drake’s.

'I like to think I’ll be a generous husband,’ he told the table, his eyes not leaving Drake’s. 'Loving. Attentive. So, Camille..’ he turned to look at Camille now. 'I’m giving you a pass.’

Camille frowned. 'A pass?’

'Yes. One night off from being with me. Do with it as you like. Kiss who you want without feeling judged. Fuck who you want.’

Camille stared at Liam, aghast. 'Excuse me?!’

Liam smirked and glanced at Drake. 'I see the way you two look at each other. How off you are with me. Do you think I haven’t noticed? So go ahead. Fuck Drake.’

Camille and Drake were both on their feet in an instant. Drake’s hands flew across his glass, smashing it on the table.

'Oh my..’ Olivia murmured, drawing back.

'Guys, let’s calm down!’ Hana tried to reason.

'Liam, you fucking asshole!’ Drake burst out. 'How dare you?! She’s going to be your wife! I’m your best friend!’

Liam eyed Drake as he ran his finger along the rim of his glass. 'My best friend who keeps eye fucking Camille. Yes, I heard you and Olivia talking earlier. You want her, Drake? Go ahead. I’m a generous king.’

Camille picked up her clutch, holding it tight to her chest. 'I’m not a fucking object, Liam!’ she shouted before storming away from the table, hot tears spilling down her cheeks. The group watched as she rushed out of the hotel bar and towards the hotel entrance, running away from the man who would be her husband.

*******************************************

The night ended shortly after that. Everyone made their excuses to go back to their rooms. Liam, now unable to stand up from the amount of alcohol he had consumed, had to be helped back to the penthouse suite by Maxwell and Olivia.

Drake stayed at the hotel bar. It was only him there - the bartender had disappeared with Hana.

He had a bottle of whiskey and a glass. He needed to forget the carnage of the evening.

Drake had phoned Camille constantly but she never picked up. He had considered going out to find her but he didn’t know where he would start. He reasoned that by sitting in the bar area, he could look out for her coming back.

So he sat and drank instead.

He heard heels clicking against the marble floor. Turning, he saw her walking towards him. As Camille got closer, he saw her eyes were red rimmed and bloodshot from crying.

'Camille..’ he murmured, standing up with his arms outstretched. Camille walked into them and wrapped her arms around his neck, her body shaking as she wept.

'I feel so humiliated,’ she choked out. 'He’s never spoken to me that way before.’

Drake held her tightly. 'I’m so sorry,’ he murmured. 'I wish I could have helped you more.’

Camille drew away and rubbed her eyes harshly. She sniffled and Drake’s heart contracted at the sound.

Camille eyed the bottle of whiskey on the bar. Quickly, she reached out for it and swigged from the bottle. She then settled down on the bar stool and rested her head in her hands.

'I can’t marry him,’ she whispered. 'Not now.’

Drake drew in a breath. He was too nervous to say anything. Instead, he let her vent, all the while pouring them both glasses of whiskey.

'He knows I don’t love him,’ Camille explained. 'I can’t keep leading him on.. I can’t keep acting like I love him when really..’

Drake cast his eyes down, waiting patiently for her next choice of words. Camille turned to look at him and he could see the longing in her eyes and he knew without her having to say anything that she loved someone. 

‘Besides, after tonight,’ she continued,  ‘Do you really think I want to deal with that animal on a regular basis? Let him taunt me as he drinks? No, Drake. I can’t do it. I don’t love him to be able to put up with that shit.

Drake sipped his whiskey and let the liquid burn his throat. 'Are you going to break it off?’

Camille nodded. 'Tomorrow.’

Drake downed his whiskey and looked ahead at the mirrors on the wall in front of them. They both looked exhausted.

He suddenly saw Camille give a tiny flicker of a smile. 'I’m free,’ she whispered. 'I’m free.’

Drake turned to look at her and their eyes met. Before there was any time to think, Drake was on his feet and pulling Camille into him. Their mouths collided. Drake raked his fingers through her chignon, letting loose tendrils of the carefully arranged hairstyle. Camille pressed her body against his, groaning his name.

Months of held back feelings blew up. They clawed at each other, hands gripping onto skin, hands tugging at clothing.

Drake picked her up and sat her on the edge of the bar. Their tongues twisted together, the taste of whiskey combining. Drake pulled at the clips holding her hair up, discarding them to the floor. Her hair fell down in tousled tendrils, framing her face.

Drake pulled back to study her. 'You’re beautiful,’ he murmured, grazing a calloused finger along her cheekbone.

Camille responded by reaching out to unbutton his shirt. Her hands roamed his chest feeling the broadness of his body and the muscles that defined his frame. She trailed her finger down to the waistband of his jeans and Drake closed his eyes, hissing at her touch.

'I haven’t been with him, you know,’ she whispered.

Drake’s eyes shot open. 'What?’

Camille kept her brown eyes fixed on Drake as her fingers unbuckled his belt. 'I haven’t been with Liam,’ she explained, her voice husky. 'He wanted to wait until our wedding night.. I obliged because I wanted to put it off for as long as possible.. So I haven’t been with him.’

Drake felt his cock harden against his jeans. The thought that he could have her without the taint of Liam on her skin made him want her more.

Camille spread her legs and pulled her gold dress up her thighs. Her fingers slid down her lace thong and Drake swallowed, watching her pull it down to her feet and kick it off.

'I’m all yours,’ she whispered.

Drake reached out to pour himself another glass of whiskey. His hand shook as he brought it to his lips and he downed the drink, not tearing his eyes away from Camille.

'Liquid courage?’ she teased.

Drake chuckled and moved closer to her, wrapping one arm around her body while his hand grazed the inside of her thighs that were already damp.

Camille kissed his neck, breathing in his scent, as she felt his fingers gently run along her. She let out a gasp as she felt his fingers slide into her.

'Jesus Camille..’ Drake croaked.

Camille pulled down his jeans and boxers in one brisk movement. After months of holding back her feelings and refusing to follow her heart, now she felt released. She was desperate for him. She needed him.

Camille eyed his erection that stood to attention. Drake gently pressed his cock against her, teasing her, making her groan his name.

'Take me, Drake,’ she whispered.

Drake’s eyes darkened. 'Gladly.’

He plunged into her. Camille let out a cry and bit into his shoulder, leaving teeth marks he would treasure until they disappeared.

His fingers gripped her hips, digging into her skin, leaving bruises she would memorise as proof he had her until they faded.

Her fingernails scratched his back, leaving battle scars he would count as victories until they vanished.

They kissed furiously. Every pent up feeling they had flooded to the surface. With each kiss, they whispered each others names, whispered declarations of love and whispered promises that they would never take back.

Drake would have preferred their first time to have been special. Perhaps in their own penthouse suite with the glittering lights of Las Vegas illuminating them.

But a bar seemed more apt for them. It was a place that housed whiskey, a place where secrets could be shared in dark corners and where the moments in between that Drake loved so much could happen.

********************************************

Drake dropped Camille off at the penthouse suite, gently kissing her before squeezing her hand.

'Will you be okay?’ he asked her. Camille nodded, taking a deep breath.

Drake smiled weakly and watched her turn to open the door. Liam’s snoring rang out, greeting them. Drake winced, feeling a flicker of guilt but only a flicker. As she turned to whisper goodnight, he knew tonight had been a revelation. 

*********************************************

The next morning, Liam woke up with a dry mouth and a pounding headache. Sitting up groggily, he rubbed his eyes and blinked to find Camille sitting on the chair by the bed, watching him. 

‘Camille?’

She smiled sadly. ‘Morning.’

Liam’s vision focused and he could now see that she was fully dressed, looking very serious. 

‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

‘Do you remember last night?’ Camille asked him. 

Liam thought back to the night before. Lots of champagne. Hana flirting with the bartender. Drake drinking whiskey.

‘Um.. no..’

Camille looked down and wrung her hands together. ‘Nothing at all? truth  or dare?’

Liam cast his mind back, trying hard to reach the inner corners. Truth or dare. He had gotten excited by it. He had dared someone… Fuck. Camille. Drake. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

‘Was I really inappropriate?’ Liam asked, dreading the answer. 

Camille laughed dryly. ‘That’s one way to put it. You suggested I fuck Drake.’

I remember now. Because he kept eye fucking you. Because you’ve been off with me for the past month. Your eyes linger on him for too long. You keep your distance which is suspicious considering when you first arrived in Cordonia, you were together all the time. I asked him to look out for you. He did it as a favour to me. But now, you no longer talk but I can see the body language and the way you gravitate towards each other, even when you don’t mean to. 

Liam swallowed. ‘I’m sorry.’

Camille nodded mutely. He watched in horror as she slid her engagement ring off and handed it to him without a word. Liam looked down at the diamond and closed it inside his fist. 

‘Did you fuck him?’ Liam asked, not harshly. He was curious.

‘Truth?’ Camille asked. 

Liam nodded. ‘Truth.’

‘Yes I did.’

Liam let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. ‘Do you feel clearer now?’

This was weird. They were being ridiculously casual about this. But as Liam thought about it, he realised that he had always known. He had always known about Drake and Camille, despite his attempts to ignore it. That was why he had given her the biggest diamond he could find; he had to be better than Drake. But it was all for nothing. It didn’t mean anything; it was hollow. 

Camille reached out to take his hand. ‘I’m so sorry, Liam.’

Liam kept his eyes on the diamond ring. ‘I had a feeling..’

Camille looked away, her eyes filling with tears. ‘I tried to ignore it,’ she whispered. ‘But I couldn’t. Not really. I’ve felt like this for a long time and I can’t keep leading you on and I certainly can’t be the queen. I truly am sorry-’

Liam zoned out; he didn’t mean to. But all he could think of was Drake. His best friend Drake. 

He had never known Drake to harbour feelings for someone. While Drake was the most loyal person he knew, he had never known him to love someone. Romance always seemed off the cards for Drake, no matter how many times Liam tried to convince him to ask out Kiara or Penelope - anyone for that matter. Drake stuck to the shadows, the awkward courtier who didn’t know the dance moves, didn’t take part in small talk and acted like the girls they knew were childish princesses.  He had built walls around himself, refusing to let anyone in. 

But now, Drake had found someone. He had found a woman he cared for and that was a momentous achievement. It meant his walls had been knocked down, something which Liam had tried so hard to do for more than twenty years. 

Liam couldn’t take that away from him. If he did, the walls would be built back up and Drake would be locked inside forever. 

He realised Camille was still talking.  Liam held up a hand to silence her. Camille stared at him, her eyes wide. 

‘Dare,’ Liam said steadily. 

Camille eyed him warily. ‘Dare?’

Liam nodded. ‘Go to Drake,’ he said, ‘and make him happy.’

Camille stared at Liam in shock. This wasn’t the reaction she had been expecting. She thought Liam would have been furious, upset.. Not this. 

‘But-’

‘I dare you, Camille,’ Liam interrupted. 

Camille stood up, her hands shaking. ‘I really am sorry,’ she murmured.

Liam smiled weakly. ‘I know you are. Now, go.’

Camille nodded and quickly left the penthouse suite. Once the door was closed behind her, Liam looked at the diamond gobstopper ring that had once been on her finger. It was too much; it wasn’t Camille’s style at all. Liam realised that he had never really known her.

**************************************************************

Drake opened his door to find Camille standing at the threshold with a terrified look on her face. 

‘Oh god,’ Drake said, ‘what did he do? I swear, Camille, if he touched a hair on your head-’

Camille reached out to press her ring finger on his lips. Drake noticed the ring was off; realisation dawned on him.

‘Truth or dare, Drake,’ she whispered. 

‘Truth..’ Drake croaked, his eyes fixed on hers. 

Camille smiled. ‘Do you love me?’

Drake cleared his throat. ‘I do.’

‘I love you too.’

Drake grinned. ‘Camille-’

‘Truth or dare?’ she asked again. 

Drake chuckled. ‘Uhh. Dare.’

Camille reached up to wrap her arms around his neck. ‘I dare you to do something about it.’

Drake ran his finger along her jawline. He was memorising her face right now so he could remember this moment forever. 

‘Gladly,’ he murmured, pulling her into him and raking his hands through her hair, desperate to love her again. 

#drake walker #drake walker x mc #trr fanfic #the royal romance

[siempre-pedro]

In a Crowd of Thousands

Eddie Kaspbrak x Richie Tozier

With the sun in my eyes, you were gone but I knew even then In a crowd of thousands I'd find you again

Summary: Eddie’s inhaler was more than just a token for the ritual, it was a piece of a memory both men thought they had forgotten in the 27 years they spent apart.

Tooth rotting fluff with a dash of angst!

Word Count: 1.9k

A/N: 10/10 recommend listening to In a Crowd of Thousands from Anastasia with this.  

Richie felt his chest closing in on him as he sped off the stage at the speed of light, his shaking hand reaching up to clench the fabric near his heart. His manager and a PA took him by the arms and helped him backstage constantly asking if he was ok and what was wrong with him. He stumbled backward and sat on a large speaker, now gasping for air “Rich what the hell is going on man?” His manager all but shouts.

Richie shakes his head feverishly, he couldn’t find the words to respond with. People were standing in a blur around him, their voices were muffled with the sound of his thundering heartbeat. In his head flashes of memories were showing up like images in a viewfinder toy, there was an old run-down house, green murky water and a group of kids. They were blurry too he noted.

“Take this,” his manager holds out a light blue inhaler before he pressed it to Richie’s lips to help him. His breathing starts to calm after a few loud gasps, he looks as the man pulls the inhaler away. His hand reaches out and snatches it from him “You can keep it?” he tells him questioningly.

The inhaler, there was something about the small blue piece of plastic. Richie’s eyebrows knit together as he looks at it. Memories swirl around his head like ghosts ‘There was a boy,’ he thinks as he twirls the plastic in his hand, inspecting it. A vision takes over, the pulsing of his heartbeat dims and the voices fade away as the images become clearer.

7 kids push past the large crowd of the Derry Carnival, Bill had the ‘brilliant’ idea that this would be the best way to celebrate defeating IT. The cheerful screams of ride goers filled their ears and the sweet smell of cotton candy filled their noses. It brought smiles to their faces “Where to first?” Ben asks.

“Let’s s-s-split up, in groups,” Bill manages to say, his blushing face ducked from Mike’s view. So, they did, Bill and Mike headed off to the roller coaster while Ben, Bev, and Stan wanted to check out the food. That just left Richie and the object of his affection, Eddie who was grimacing at a child with chocolate all over his face.

“That just leaves you and me Eddie Spaghetti,” Richie groans happily as he drapes an arm over Eddie’s thin shoulders. Eddie whined and rolled his eyes.

“I hate that name,” he reminds him for the 8th time that day. Richie, like always, shrugs him off and starts to walk them through the massive crowd. It was hot, blistering on a June day but he didn’t mind if he was so close to Eddie this way. But what if Eddie didn’t like it? Could you swap germs through sweat? Shit. Then again he didn’t back away from his embrace, in fact, the brown-haired boy leaned in a little bit, but that could have been because of the people bumping into him.

“Where to Eds my boy?” Richie asks in an excited British accent, “Hall of mirrors?”

“Do you know how many people put their faces into those things?” Eddie runs his mouth a mile a minute. Richie started to smile, his cheeks beginning to hurt from the big smile. Eddie was the only one who could make him smile like that.

In front of him, a stupid tall guy moved just so that the sun was blinding into his already weak eyes. “Shit,” he curses, removing his arm from Eddie to shield his eyes from the sun. When the dipshit moved back in front of him, Eddie was gone. Another rush of people filling the spot he left next to him. “Eds?” he questions.

“Eddie!” his voice raises to a shout. Fuck the adults, he nudged and forced his way through the crowd in hopes to find him. He found one of the game booths and hopped up on the wood ledge to get a closer look.

“What the hell are you doing kid?” the worker yelled at him.

Richie didn’t listen to his protests, he was to busy searching for his Eds. The carnival-goers started to blend together until the screams rang out and he saw Eddie on the floor scared to death. Richie hastily shoved his way through the crowd “Move assholes!” he shouted. He had to help him, Eddie’s spare inhaler burning a hole in his pocket.

Richie broke from the memory, Eddie’s name leaving his lips in a whisper. He got up hastily and started speed walking to the door.

“What about the tour?” His manager shouts.

“Fuck the dates!”

Eddie hated the moment he got the call, hated the moment he stepped into Derry, and especially the moment Mike told him about the ritual. Here he was standing at the counter of the pharmacy like a nervous wreck, shifting on his heels while his eyes scanned the vaguely familiar place.

When Greta handed him the white paper bag, he immediately took out the inhaler but it wasn’t red like all his others. It was blue, a light blue… like the back up one he had as a kid. A tingly feeling rose in his stomach, like a teenager with a crush. A crush?

“Do you know how many people put their faces into those things?” Eddie runs his mouth a mile a minute, not realizing that he and Richie got disconnected, losing each other in a crowd. “Rich?” Eddie questions when he looks over not seeing the familiar face.  “Fuck,” he curses looking in between the gaps of people's bodies. He couldn’t find the lanky boy with shaggy black hair. “Rich!” he calls.

He bumps in adults, trying to get past them and they would grumble and complain as the boy got past them. He started to panic a little as the crowd started to close in on him, without looking he reaches for the zipper to his black fannypack. When he turns around a red balloon was shoved in his face, Eddie stumbles back and was met with the overly cheery face of a clown.

Eddie lets out a shriek and falls backward, scooting away as fast as he can from it “What’s wrong Eddie?” the clown asks. The clown was Mr. Briggs, the nice man that ran the hardware store, but all Eddie could see was Pennywise coming at him to eat him. Eddie only responded in desperate screams as he tried to get away.

“Eddie!” Richie finally found him, on the floor with tears streaming down his eyes and other carnival-goers paid them no mind only offering up odd stares. The taller boy grabbed Eddie by the shoulders and helped him up, running behind one of the game booths that was empty. Richie reached in his pocket and pulled out a light blue inhaler. Holding the shaking boy by the back of the head he helped him with the medicine and calmed him down.

It was Eddie to leaned forward and rested his head on Richie’s chest and the taller boy in return wrapped his arms around him and placed his chin on the top of Eddie’s head “It’s ok Eds, I got you.”

“How did you find me?” he asks weakly.

Richie could’ve said that it was his screams that led him, but he could pick the hypochondriac out anywhere in a crowd “I’ll always find you.”

Eddie’s eyes open wide at the memory. He used to be in love with Richie Tozier. His best friend. His confidant. No, he was still in love with the comedian. The man shoved the inhaler in his pocket and got out of there as fast as he could.

Neither of them were sure that each other knew about the memory of that day at the carnival. They didn’t bring it up when the rest of the losers started to reminisce about their childhoods. Richie was too embarrassed because he knew if he told Eddie old feelings were going to emerge and Pennywise was still holding it over his head. As for Eddie, he was dealing with the fact he was married to a woman, finally knowing why he didn’t love her soothed his soul a little.

At the ritual they had a connection when Eddie held out the blue inhaler, their eyes locked and the instantly knew about that summer day “Eds,” Richie starts, but before he could the end started to unfold. It was dark and they were scared out of their minds, running from the spider thing that IT transformed itself into.

“Give me that!” Richie groans as he tried to take the spare inhaler away from Eddie. Eddie protests and tries to bring the inhaler up to his lips Richie continues to fight until he rips it away from him “Do you remember?” Richie yells over the crashing of rocks and their friends yells.

“The carnival?” Eddie shouts back.

Richie’s face softens, that’s not exactly what he had in mind “N-no. The fact that you don’t need this shit!”

Eddie could have sworn the comedian remembered too, and that was one of the few memories he had. The fact that he saved Richie’s life, the intense pain he felt as he looked down to see the claw go through his insides. “Rich,” he groans out. He doesn’t even remember his last words, everything was dark and painful.

The next thing he saw was a light as bright as the sun, his eyes open slowly and his dark eyes adjust to the hospital lights. His head turns and see’s Richie’s sleeping form in the uncomfortable chair beside his bed. “Richie,” his voice weakly calls.

Richie awakes with the sound of Eddie calling for him, and he shot out of that chair and onto his feet “Eddie thank God. I-I need to go get the nurse,” Richie panics. Eddie reached up and grabbed his hand.

“Wait,” he whispers. “Do you remember,” there was a long pause “…that day at the carnival.”

“There was a crowd, the losers… cotton candy. You hated it,” Richie starts, gulping, “you thought you saw IT and I rescued you.”

Eddie smiles softly “That inhaler… you had it the whole time. You helped me.” There was still a piece missing from the memory until Richie looked down at him, the harsh light behind the man. It triggered the missing piece.

“I’ll always find you,” Richie says kindly, rubbing up and down Eddie’s back. Eddie’s heart couldn’t take it anymore, he looks up and leans back. He could barely make out Richie's face from the sun glaring behind him. The smaller boy reaches up and cautiously places his lips over Richie’s slightly chapped ones. Richie’s eyes flutter shut, his hands touching the sides of Eddie’s face. Eddie pulled away and nervously looks up at the boy in front of him, sucking in his plush lower lip.

“You kissed me,” Richie says suddenly, the memory rushing back to him.

“I didn’t tell you that.”

Richie takes off his glasses and wipes his teary eyes “I remember… all of it,” he weeps like he did at the quarry. Eddie grips onto his hand tighter, well as much as he could with the minimal strength he had.

“I love you, Richie.”

Rich bends over and kisses Eddie’s forehead “I love you too, Eds. I’m sorry it took so long.” Eddie shakes his head and chuckles, adjusting so that he could kiss him properly. That kiss brought him all the same feelings he felt when he was a kid, it was exciting and nervous. When he pulled away he looked at Eddie’s pale face lovingly, he’d be ok. 

#reddie #reddie imagine #reddie fanfic #reddie fanfiction #it #it chapter 2 #it 2017 #the losers club #eddie kaspbrak #richie tozier #james ransone #bill hader #jack dylan grazer #finn wolfhard

[rinusagitora]

The love, lead, and the undead.

Fandom: Monster Prom

Characters: Vicky Schmidt, Damien LaVey, Brian Yu, Oz, Zoe, Vera Oberlin, Liam de Lioncourt, Blobert, Scott Howl, Stan LaVey, Lucien LaVey, OC: Mungandr, 

Pairings: Brian/Damien/Vicky, Oz/Zoe, Lucien/Stan

Words: 4.1k

Summary: Canon divergent. Chapter 6/?. WARNINGS— violence, gore, drug use, major character death; Their worst nightmare comes to fruition.

Vicky had a headache the size of Manhattan and not even dope eased the rumble of her head.

“I’m dying,” she announced as she pushed a pair of heavily tinted sunglasses up the bridge of her stupidly tiny nose. “Why the fuck did you guys let me drink so much? I mean, that whiskey was expensive so I wanted to make sure we finished that, but I had six other drinks on top of it.”

“Because we were less than sober ourselves, and I, for one, wanted to see how much you could drink before you absolutely couldn’t walk.”

“Fuck you, Brian.”

“You did that at least twice. I was there,” Damien said.

“Damien. Unless the next words out of your mouth magically make my headache go away, I will carve out my colon and floss your teeth with it.”

Vicky tossed her joint out of the window when the school came into view. Brian parked and she tumbled out of the car. He was sweet enough to massage her neck at least.

Immediately, the trio was bombarded by Scott. Vicky wasn’t made with cat reflexes, so while her boyfriends deftly stepped out of reach, she was squashed in his huge arms and chest. Her arms laid by her side. At least if she suffocated, her head wouldn’t hurt so much.

“Vicky! Vera told me all about how awesome you were yesterday. You’re so awesome!” Scott cheered.

“Scott, I think you’re hurting her.”

Scott dropped her. Vicky involuntarily gasped for air. Nonetheless, she peered around Scott and beamed when she laid eyes on Blobert.

“Hey there, buddy!” Brian chirped. He strode over with uncharacteristic charm and hugged Blobert. Vicky was kind of jealous he got to hug Blobert first. “How’s it going? We missed you at the game.”

“I’m sorry. Stocking’s water broke at the shelter, so I stayed to help deliver her kitties.”

“Oh my god, do you have pictures of them?”

“I do! I’ll text them to you later today. I have something for Vicky, however.”

Vicky blinked. “For me? Why?”

“Forgive me for prying, Vicky, but I saw you running away from school the other day. Valerie told me what happened… the business concerning your uncle. I know there isn’t anything I can do to heal what he has done to you, but I hope you understand that you are loved, and I know for a fact you have many friends who will protect you.” Blobert pressed a card into her hand. “I know this isn’t much, but I hope it will remind you that you have many people who love you and will never hurt you.”

Vicky leaped onto Blobert and squeezed him. “Thank you, Blobert, you’re an amazing friend. My uncle was… an awful man, but you’re right. I have a family here with all of you. There’s nothing more I want.” Aside from more painkillers for her head.

“Anyways, I should get going. I have a quiz today. I’ll catch you guys around.”

“Bye, Blobert.”

Scott resumed squeezing Vicky. “I’m sorry I took your arm off the other day. I was so scared! You were running and screaming and I got scared, so I grabbed you. I guess I don’t know my strength.”

Vicky felt awful. She hurt Scott in her tizzy to escape, and that was the last thing she wanted to do. “It wasn’t your fault. My arm fell off because I ripped open my stitches to get away,” she explained. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

Her head felt like it imploded. The Christmas she kissed Liam flashed before her eyes.

---

Oz exuded goo. Fear wheezed and whined. His head was lolled against Zoe’s shoulder as he breathed raspily, and his hair had seeped down into her lap like candle wax. It was so hard for him to keep his shape when the spear sucked out his power like soft marrow.

“Baby?” Zoe said hoarsely. Her tentacles were dry. “Are you still with me?”

“Barely,” he mumbled.

“I have an idea how to get out,” she said. Oz hummed quizzically. “You probably won’t like it.”

“Can it be any worse than this?”

“Is the spearhead on your side?” Zoe asked.

Oz lifted his head. The tip of the spear was shaped like a spade from a deck of cards. He gave a resigned sigh. There were worse fates than having that ripped through his chest, like Vicky's death. “It is. It’s pretty wide, though, so we’ll need to pull hard.”

“What? No, Oz, I need it to pick our cuffs. You’re going to have to break it off.

He was relieved. “Can you pull it closer? Slowly, I’ll tell you when to stop.”

Zoe grunted. He heard her tentacles and teeth grip it. Slowly, with enormous strain, she pulled it closer. He hissed between his teeth. Every inch it was dragged through him burned from his collar to the bottom of his ribcage.

“Are you okay?” Zoe asked tearfully.

“Keep going, just a couple more inches,” he whined. "One more pull, baby.”

Zoe gave one last heave and the spade was close enough to touch his chest. “You’re good. Lean as far forward as you can.”

Oz’s goo shuddered. He tensed it around the rod inside of his chest to cut it off, free himself, and then pick them free without the cumbersome spear in the way. He was too weak to shear it off, however.

“I can’t. I’m sorry,” he wept. “I’m so sorry.”

“I said you won’t like this. Forgive me, Oz.”

The mouth at the top of Zoe’s head opened and it siphoned the sanity from the denizens outside. Terror flooded the dungeon.

Oz's vision blurred as it seeped into his skin like poison. It rattled his bones like glass in a hurricane. A scream ripped from the mouths of Oz's phobias. They writhed and bucked and howled. Individual phobias ballooned with teeth, their eyes glowed with menace. It was worse than the spear, how his body grew and thrashed of its own accord.

The spear snapped in two with a crack like thunder when clubbed by one of his incarnations. Zoe closed her mouth, Oz fell to the floor and coughed up spongy bits of Fear.

"Oz!" Zoe screamed with fright. Freed of the spear, she unlocked their chains. “Are you okay?” she bawled. “I’m so sorry, Oz, I didn’t know what else to do.”

He grunted, “I’m fine, but Vicky needs our help. Let’s get the hell out of here before the guards find out! I don't think I can fend them off if we're discovered!”

Zoe opened a portal into the overworld.

---

Brian heard gunfire for the very first time when he was fifteen. It kind of sounded like it did in Hollywood, but at the same time, it didn't. Gunfire wasn’t like a bomb or firecrackers. It sounded more like an engine backfired next to a bullhorn. It was so indistinct, Brian's entire body tensed for a split second whenever he heard something similar.

However, over the last six years, it became a knee jerk reaction since those pops never turned out to be gunshots again, and he calmed down as quickly as he freaked out.

It wasn't until Scott and Vicky dropped like stones and their blood pooled around them like macabre halos that Brian's fears were confirmed. The screaming of his classmates hit his ear like a bat to the side of his face and he hit the deck and shook uncontrollably. His friends and lover bled out only two feet away, and yet he couldn't even move to stem the bleeding or call emergency services.

"Vicky? Scott? Oh my god," Brian croaked. Scott gurgled on the other side of Vicky. Terror had frozen him in place. Brian loathed himself for his weakness, but even as he scolded himself with the most scathing remarks, his body refused to budge. "Somebody help us! Please!"

Above Brian, a cyclonic portal opened, and Oz and Zoe, albeit bedraggled, hopped onto the sidewalk next to Brian's head.

"Oh my god!" Oz screamed in horror. He and Zoe crouched next to Scott and Vicky.

"Go! Damien is gone, he could be hurt. I'll take care of Scott," Zoe said.

"Brian, where's Damien?" Oz asked.

"I don't know," Brian said, "I think he ran after the shooters, but I don't know where they went."

Nonetheless, Oz took off.

"Brian, I need your help," Zoe said.

"I-I can't."

"They're gone. Scott needs help, or he's going to bleed to death."

Brian shook his head. "I can't. I can't look at her."

Zoe threw her jacket over Vicky's head. "There. I know you're in pain, Brian, but Scott is dying. I need your help. Please, come here."

Shakily, Brian pushed himself onto all fours and crawled over to Zoe and Scott. He gagged and swallowed bile. Bits of Vicky's brain and hair were splattered onto Scott's face, and he gurgled as he feebly pressed his paw against his torn carotid.

"Focus on me," Zoe said. "What's your blood type?"

"O-positive," he replied.

"Excellent. This is going to hurt, but this is the only thing that's going to save Scott."

Brian nodded. Zoe plunged her tentacles into Brian's neck.

---

Vicky's head sprayed over Scott. Damien had fired enough guns to have instantly understood what had happened.

He took after the black car behind them that squealed away from campus. Damien wasn't anything extraordinary, but the second of Vicky's murder, his unbridled rage pushed him harder than ever before.

Damien gained on the car even as it accelerated upwards of sixty miles an hour. Damien threw himself onto the trunk, and to throw him off, the driver spun the car and they careened into power lines. Damien howled when he collided with solid wood. The splintered pole creaked and he realized it tipped over like a tree.

He managed to push himself free right as the cables ripped. Electricity crackled, the live cables writhed like beheaded snakes, sparks flew in every direction.

Damien stormed to the driver’s seat. Every inch of him burned with unbridled homicidal rage palpable enough that the air around him shuddered with heatwaves. He grabbed the driver, a yellow manticore, by their collar and threw them onto the live powerlines. They combusted without a sound.

Finally, he pulled the passenger, a young vampire, into the street. They were unconscious and bled from their forehead. “Wake the fuck up!” Damien bellowed. He slapped them and they awoke with a yelp. “What’s your name?”

“What?” they asked.

“I asked for your fucking name!” Damien screamed.

“Fuck off!”

Damien pulled a knife from his waistband and held it against their throat. “Fine, did you shoot my girlfriend then?”

“I did!” the vampire spat with a vicious tone. “She killed my dad!”

“She had come so far! We were going to be happy together!”

“And I’ll never be happy without my dad!”

“This is your fault. Now I'm going to string you up by your fucking guts!"

Damien kicked the gun out of their hand as they reached for it. He sank his knife into their abdomen and pushed it down until it nicked their pubic bone. Damien pushed them back with a fistful of their intestines. They fell back with eyes as wide as dinner plates. Fruitlessly, they weakly stuffed their innards inside, before they fell limp.

He crouched over them as they breathed raspily. “This is the end. You messed with the wrong bitches.”

“Damien!” Oz screamed. Oz tackled Damien and they rolled across the asphalt.

“Fuck!” Damien screamed as he pushed Oz off. “Get off! I’m going to kill them all!”

“She is gone and mutilating him,” Oz flung his hand to point at the dying vampire, “isn’t going to do jackshit. But Scott barely clinging to life. He needs his friends. Please, put this behind you for your friends.”

It was like Oz kicked the wind out of Damien. Rage subsided, and he began to cry.

Vicky was gone for the rest of his life: fodder for blowflies and worms.

---

Zoe parked Brian's truck. They tumbled out and ran full speed into the Emergency Room. Vera stormed to the front desk. “We’re here for Scott Howl. I’m his Power of Attorney, Vera Oberlin.”

“Miss Oberlin, we need you to fill out some paperwork for Mister Howl,” said the receptionist.

As Vera filled out paperwork, Oz had to help Damien and Brian into chairs next to each other. The pair looked miserable. Brian’s head was in his hands, Damien rubbed his mouth with a disconnected gaze. Yet as much as it pained Oz to see his friends like that, there were more imminent threats. He needed to warn the LaVey family of the Aquino’s plan for their demise.

He couldn’t tell Damien about their plan, though. He was already put through the wringer. He needed to get Damien’s parents into the equation. A manipulative tactic, but Oz reasoned that Damien needed their support anyway, so really, it helped everyone.

Oz kneeled in front of Brian and Damien and held their hands. "Damien, you need to call your dads. You need them now."

Damien nodded with glassy eyes. “Right,” he murmured before he dug through his pockets.

Zoe pulled Oz aside. “Please, for the love of whatever you hold sacred, tell me we’re not keeping the Aquino’s plan a secret. More people are going to be killed if we keep this on the DL, maybe Vicky will be hurt worse.”

“That’s why I reminded Damien to call his parents.

"Excellent."

Before Oz could reply, Blobert and Liam ran into the emergency room. Blobert sobbed inconsolably. Oz ran over to them.

"We came as soon as we heard about Scott," Liam said.

Oz hugged them. "Thank you."

"Is he going to be okay?" Blobert asked. He sounded so desperate, and somehow, despite Blobert's gelatinous nature, he gripped Oz's hands so hard he thought they might break.

"I don't know. He's in surgery now and we haven't heard any updates," Oz replied.

"What about Vicky?"

A hush fell over their group. Damien resumed crying, Brian escaped into the nearby bathroom. Oz couldn't look Blobert in the eye.

"I'm sorry, but she's dead," he told Blobert.

"We believe Vicky was targeted by a gang she robbed the other day. Damien took care of the perps, but they got in a good shot. She's not coming back," Zoe said.

Valerie hopped the back of a chair squeezed Blobert as he sobbed. Oz waited by the doors where his cries were someone muffled.

He felt awful. He was too late. He was always too late.

Lucien and Stan ran inside as Oz internally berated himself. If only Vicky could see how many people loved her.

Oz stood. "Go comfort your son, but as soon as possible, I have an issue of utmost importance about your kingdom's security."

The two demon Kings looked between themselves. "I'll talk to him."

Oz took Lucien into an adjacent waiting room.

"Oz, correct?" Lucien asked.

"Yes."

"What is this supposed security threat?"

"The Aquino family is behind Vicky's murder. I've been having premonitions about her death, so my girlfriend and I have been looking into it in hopes we save her. However, the Aquino caught on and kidnapped us. Dahlia explained to us that she and her family plan to use Vicky as a weapon against you, and more worrisome, Damien, to overthrow your rule," Oz explained.

Lucien rubbed his face with concern. "This is a dire accusation. This is something we go to war over."

"The Aquino already plan to do that. It seems you don't have a lot of options here," Oz countered.

"What proof do you have? How do I know I can trust you?"

"Vera and Vicky have robbed three dozen banks with CCTV, guards, and alarm systems, and never once have they been even suspected, and yet a lab, where they executed the same precautions, somehow figured out their identities and location, and then killed Vicky. Do you think that's coincidental?"

"... I see your point," Lucien replied. "This is… this is awful."

"Lucien, I understand it's a lot to take in, but we need to begin preparations as soon as possible. Do you have someone who can begin something, anything, while you're here to comfort your son?"

"I do. Thank you, Oz. I need to make a quick phone call, and then I'll come back."

"Of course. Thank you."

Oz returned to his friends and paced in the waiting room as they waited for news on Scott's condition. Some hours later, they were approached by the surgeon.

"I'm glad to announce Mister Howl survived the operation without any complications. He will need to stay overnight in case there are any hiccups with his blood transfusion, but we are optimistic about his prognosis. If you like, you may visit him."

They were guided into Scott's room. He was intubated and pale, but his vitals were stable and lively.

Oz breathed a sigh of relief. At least something had gone right that day.

---

The morning of Vicky's funeral, Damien was stiff.

He rolled off of Brian and grunted as he made way to the bathroom to brush his teeth and then eat something.

"Damien, why are you up already?"

Damien looked up to see Stan and Lucien in the doorway. Stan was still in pajamas, but Lucien was fully dressed. It was unusual for either of them to be even remotely dressed at that hour.

"What're you doing?" he asked.

Stan nervously glanced to Lucien.

"Unfortunately, there's an emergency on the outskirts I have to attend to," Lucien explained.

"You're the only one going?"

"Yes. But I should be back before the ceremony."

Damien grimly nodded. Border disputes weren't handled by either king. Perhaps the Minister of Border Land was out.

Stan sat at the island. "How do you feel?" he asked. Damien shrugged. He missed Vicky, but he said that every day since her death. "I wish I could do more. I do, Damien. I cared very much about Vicky as well."

Damien's lip wobbled and he wiped his eyes. He didn’t feel any different since the first day she died, but all that meant was he hurt like an open wound.

“It feels wrong without her. The more I think about it, the more it hurts.”

“Yes, but she left pieces of her with you and Brian. I’m sure you remember how much she loved you,” Stan said. Damien nodded. “I know it’s not a lot, but she loved you so much, and that is something that will never die.”

Damien smiled at his dad. He appreciated the effort, but Stan’s reassurance didn’t change how badly he ached. Damien could only hope the funeral would soothe him.

---

Brian woke up alone and it felt like the air was thin. He stumbled into the hallway, gasped for air, he tried to find Damien, but the LaVey’s basement suite was built like a surreal, inescapable nightmare where Brian was doomed to circle the hallway until his death. He braced himself against the wall and tried to convince himself to calm down so he could find a way out.

Voices came from beyond the door Brian was beside. He turned his gaze to watch it.

“Mugandr,” Lucien’s muffled snarl came, “exactly how is Vicky alive? Her head was blown to pieces.”

“Her body was, but her condemned soul remained intact.”

“Then we would have been notified of her entrance into Hell!”

“Your Majesty, please quiet down. I understand why this upsets you but our conversation may not be private.”

Lucien sighed. “Nonetheless, why weren’t we notified of her death and damnation?”

“It’s likely her soul was intercepted. I’ve looked into it and… Your Majesty, I’m sorry to tell you this, but Oz and Zoe were right, it is the Aquino family. I found correspondence with the drug manufacturers detailing who attacked them and where to find Vicky, and ingredients to summon the dead.”

Wood snapped inside of Lucien’s room. Brian slapped his hands over his mouth to stifle his yelp. “Unbelievable!” he bellowed. “Mugandr, summon Oz and Zoe to the Divinator’s Room immediately and keep this between the two of us.”

“Of course, Your Majesty.”

Brian made a run for it before he was discovered. It felt like he swallowed molasses. Vicky was alive? What did Dahlia’s family want with her? Why did it have to be a secret? Why wouldn’t Oz and Zoe tell him if Vicky was alive?

He ran straight into Damien in his maelstrom of confusion. He was grabbed before he fell.

“Brian,” Damien said, “what’s wrong? You look like shit.”

Brian panted wordlessly before he threw his arms around Damien. He wished he was dreaming. He wanted to wake up with Damien and Vicky, safe and sound, where he didn’t feel like the world was crashing around him.

“Babe, what’s wrong? You’re freaking me out.”

Reluctantly, Brian whispered, “I think your dads are keeping secrets,” he said. “I think… I think Vicky’s death is bigger than we think it is.”

Damien pushed Brian out of the crook of his neck and scowled perplexedly. “What the fuck do you mean they’re keeping secrets?”

“I-I couldn’t find you, and then I overheard Lucien talking with this Mugandr guy about Vicky. They were saying stuff like they didn’t have any record about her entering Hell, and that Oz and Zoe knew about this, a-and the Aquino summoned her soul. He wanted to keep it a secret.”

“I’m sure it was just a bad dream.”

“Damien, listen to me!” Brian snapped. “Something’s wrong! This is bigger than we realize.”

Damien’s lip curled. “Get your head out of your ass, Brian! Vicky’s gone. She’s not coming back. And don’t you ever fucking say my dads are lying to me! They wouldn’t ever do that!”

“Listen, Damien,” Brian grabbed Damien’s shoulders. Damien knocked his hands away.

“Fuck off! You’re being a huge asshole right now, dude! Don’t fucking talk to me until you get your shit together.”

Damien stormed away. Brian was left breathless yet again.

---

Damien stared into the mirror. His tuxedo felt ill-fit.

It was the tux he went to prom and homecoming in. He went to one of his aunt’s weddings in it too. All three occasions, Vicky was with him in that pretty polka-dot dress and a big smile. The mere memory was enough to make Damien tear up.

The only other time he got to wear it with Vicky was at her funeral.

Stan entered his room. “Damien…” he said, “are you ready?”

“Dad, I don’t think I can do this.”

Damien’s father hugged him. “I know it’s hard. But Brian needs you, and you need this too. This ceremony will give you closure.”

He couldn’t meet Stan’s gaze. He couldn’t even return his father’s hug. What Brian mentioned about Vicky haunted him, even as he mourned. He tried to tell himself Brian only had a bad dream. His parents would never hide something as enormous as that from him.

“Let’s go,” Stan said. “You’ll be okay. I’ll be there for both of you.”

Damien’s heart fell into his gut. “What about Dad?”

“Lucien’s attending to a land dispute.”

“Still? That’s odd. I thought those were handled by the Minister of Borders.”

“Ordinarily. However, this involves the Aquino Family. Lucien’s there to make sure it’s addressed delicately.”

Damien felt sick as he followed Stan. His father was a terrible liar. Was Brian right about Vicky and his fathers? It had to be impossible, yet the events of the last couple of hours begged to differ.

---

Oz held Zoe’s hand as they ran. Her dress was hiked up to her crotch as they ran up and up the tower. “I cannot believe he’s doing this now of all times!” Oz screamed. “The funeral is in two hours.”

“We’ll be fine, Oz. Lucien won’t miss his son’s girlfriend’s fucking funeral,” said Zoe as they stormed up the weathered stone steps.

When they reached the top, Zoe knocked upon the heavy door. It opened and they were heaved inside and surrounded by the smoke of Biggleworts to ward off the prying eyes of magic. Oz took a deep breath.

“I’m glad you two have come,” Lucien said. He gestured to the bony creature with the skull of a snake. “That is Mungandr, my most trusted associate.”

“I don’t care. Just make this quick, I would like to comfort my friends,” Oz said.

“I’m sure you’d like Vicky back more.”

“You found her?” Oz gasped.

“Yes and no. We know she is in the care of the Aquino,” Lucien explained. Oz wanted to break something. “We need you to find her and bring her back. You’ll have Mungandr to help. His magic will prove useful.”

Oz looked to Zoe.

“You need to go,” she said to him. “I will stay for Brian and Damien, but you need to go save Vicky.”

He nodded. “Apologize to our friends for me.”

“I will. Promise me you’ll be safe.”

Oz cupped Zoe’s face. “I’ll come back to you with Vicky. I promise you.”

#monster prom #vicky schmidt #damien lavey #brian yu #stan lavey #lucien lavey #vera oberlin #blobert #liam de lioncourt #oz monster prom #zoe monster prom #brian/damien/vicky #oz/zoe

[skeletonscribbles]

I love your writing. Here's a Reddie prompt for you if you have a sec: "wow Eds, you have no idea how much I think about you at night." Do with that what you will ;)

Thank you anon - you’re too kind! This prompt turned into something decidedly less R rated than at least I was anticipating - I hope you enjoy my little blip of a jealous Richie piece anyway!

GreenWord Count - ~1700

Richie Tozier wasn’t quite sure what he was feeling.

He liked to think that he was a pretty agreeable fellow, all in all - always reliable for a couple of good chucks by way of sex jokes (not that he had any experience with sex itself; in fact, thinking about it for too long made him feel sort of hot and funny, so usually he elected just to laugh it off and move on)…

…so when he saw Eddie Kaspbrak climb on to Bill Denbrough’s shoulders to play chicken down at the quarry, why didn’t he feel like cracking wise?

He wasn’t angry about Eddie and Bill teaming up, per se. The other six people splashing around in the water with him were his best friends in the whole world; he loved them wholly and unconditionally and would never be angry with any of them, ever…even if Eddie had refused to partner with him for chicken earlier on, citing “germs”. No, he wasn’t mad about that. He couldn’t even blame him - it had probably been like two and a half days since his last shower. (He considered himself above such things - and besides, it wasn’t like he was the only unwashed miscreant at the arcade every day.)

He wasn’t sad, either. He knew sad pretty well - it washed over him every so often like an ocean wave, without purpose or form. His mother said that he’d inherited it from her, that she had it too…and that it always passed, no matter how bad it got. So far, she’d been right…but this wasn’t that. It was too sharp a feeling to be that.

His best guess for the feeling was ‘uncomfortable’. He wasn’t uncomfortable very often, but sometimes when Eddie looked at him, his skin vibrated with…something like what he was feeling now, so it was probably safe to chalk the whole thing up to discomfort.

But why the hell would he feel like that about a perfectly normal chicken fight? He hadn’t felt weird when Stan had climbed up on Bill’s shoulders earlier. He’d felt other things: the look on Bill’s ruby red face had been good for a laugh, and Stan’s ultimate loss to Beverly on Ben’s shoulders had been incredibly satisfying, but this…this was…

Richie was ripped from his reverie by a shriek and a splash; Bev had triumphed again. Eddie had been knocked backwards into the water. Bill was quick to try and help him back up, and Eddie clung to him, gasping for breath in a way that indicated that he’d need his inhaler soon.

Sure enough, as soon as Eddie was situated enough to control his motor functions, he was out of the water like a shot, wheezing exaggeratedly. Bill followed, hot on his heels, and the gross feeling in Richie’s chest grew more pronounced. He watched them walk away, feeling confused and disoriented.

“Earth to Idiot.” Stan came out of the blue, rolling his eyes and shoving Richie’s arm roughly. “You’re too quiet. What are you plotting?”

“Who, me?” Richie put on his best nonchalant face. “Just thinking about Eddie’s mom.”

“His mom, huh?” Stan was, as always, unimpressed. He looked at Richie with an expression that suggested that Richie was missing some big important point.

“Or yours, whichever, take your pick.” Richie laughed nervously. “I’ve been through ‘em all.”

Stan tutted, shaking his head. “Your birth was the first and last time you’re ever going to touch a vagina, dumbshit.

That statement made Richie nervous for reasons he didn’t understand. “What kind of blasphemy–”

“Richie.” Stan’s face was completely serious, and Richie couldn’t help but shiver in looking back at him. “I’ve known you for fuck knows how long…too long, definitely. Believe me when I say that I know you better than you know yourself.”

“Stanley, old chap, you’re not making a lick of sense,” Richie tried, breaking out his trusty British accent and feeling very small.

Stan looked away. “Okay, maybe you still don’t know, whatever. Just…don’t wallow. Go talk to Eddie.”

Richie blinked back at Stan. “What?”

“Go. Talk. To. Eddie.” Stan shoved his arm one more time, and then turned and started pushing towards where Mike was waiting by the shore. “And stop staring at Bill like he killed your dog. Jesus.”

“You’re Jewish,” Richie pointed out.

“Jesus was a Jew,” Stan retorted neatly, not looking back.

Richie weighed his options. On the one hand, he kind of wanted to piss off Stan by doing the exact opposite of the thing that Stan had suggested. (It was a frequent strategy of Richie’s, and for good reason - it got a rise out of Stan every time.) On the other…well, he wanted this fucking feeling to go away, didn’t he?

He pushed his way out of the water and on to the shore, where Bill was holding an aspirator to Eddie’s mouth.

Richie frowned at the sight of Bill kneeling by Eddie. It didn’t seem fair that Bill got to monopolize all of Eddie’s time and space. The two of them were seemingly attached at the hip. Eddie’s love for Bill was obvious and all-consuming; he followed their ginger beanpole of a leader around like a puppy. If he didn’t know better, Richie would say that Eddie was in love with Bill.

An image surfaced in Richie’s mind, unbidden, of Eddie and Bill engaged in a kiss. He pushed it out as quickly as it came, disgusted at himself for thinking it…and upset that it had made the feeling in his chest increase tenfold. Eddie and Big Bill could do what they wanted - it wasn’t any of Richie’s business or concern.

(Except that…it kind of felt like it was.)

“You okay, Eds?” Richie asked, swallowing his negative thoughts and strolling over to Eddie’s crouched form.

Eddie sat up stiffly. “Just peachy. Obviously.”

Richie put up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Just a concerned pal here, Eddie my love. No need to go all she-wolf on me.”

“Fuck off,” Eddie mumbled, looking as if he wanted nothing more than to disappear.

Bill looked between the two of them with the same knowing expression that Stan had worn earlier. “Yeah, I’m g-gonna go…Richie, make sure Eddie keeps b-b-breathing?”

“You can count on me,” Richie saluted, feeling a strange sort of relief at the thought of Bill leaving. Eddie, strangely, did not protest Bill’s departure - he just slumped back down, clutching his inhaler weakly.

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Bill said, getting to his feet and heading in the direction of Ben, who had procured a picnic basket and was handing out sandwiches to their other friends. “I’m stuh-starved.”

As soon as Bill left, Richie found himself wanting him back. Without Bill, the energy between he and Eddie had turned…strange.

“What is he leaving us to?” Eddie asked after a minute, looking nervous.

“I’m sure he just wanted to give me a minute alone with my dear Spaghetti,” Richie said, reaching out to pinch Eddie’s cheeks out of habit. “Since he’s usually the one who gets you, I’d say it’s only fair.”

Eddie ducked out of reach of Richie’s offending hands, scowling. “What do you mean, he gets me?”

Richie shrugged, trying not to let the bitter feeling he was harboring seep into his words. “You and Big Bill are like…Bert and Ernie or some shit. Always together.”

Eddie stared back at him. “Bill’s my best friend.”

“And mine,” Richie agreed, “but the difference is that I don’t have an obvious boner for him.”

As soon as the words left Richie’s mouth, he wished that he could take them back…but it was too, too late for that. Eddie’s eyes had gone huge, and his face was on its way to turning bright tomato red.

“Excuse me?”

Richie pressed on, despite the fact that he could all but feel himself digging his own grave. “Oh, you know…when he does something cool, and you give him the face like you’re hoping that he’s gonna bust out a ‘wow, Eds, you have no idea how much I think about you at night’–”

“Bill doesn’t call me Eds,” Eddie cut in, and of all the things Richie was expecting him to say, that definitely didn’t crack the top ten.

“So what?” Richie asked, shaken and a little embarrassed. “Isn’t that more of a reason for you to fuck him?”

The thought of Bill and Eddie being…intimate together was a pervasive and terrible one. Richie felt the impact of it in his stomach, and bit down on his lip in an attempt to distract himself from whatever bullshit was going on in his midsection.

Eddie wrinkled his nose. “Gross. Bill’s like my big brother.”

And just like that, like air coming out of a balloon, the monster in Richie’s chest retreated, and he could breathe again.

“Good,” he said unthinkingly. “Good.”

“Good?” Eddie quirked an eyebrow, amused.

“Uh.” Richie, for once, was at a loss for words. “Uh. Because then, my, uh, relationship with your mom…”

“Cut the crap, Richie,” Eddie said, a little half-smile on his face. He was beautiful that way, Richie thought. He was beautiful every way.

Richie realized in that moment that the monster that had been clawing its way through his chest was distinctively green-eyed.

“Have you been thinking about me at night?” Eddie continued, a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

Richie shook his head in abject shock. “Eddie, if you could shut the fuck up for like five seconds please, this is a lot to process–”

Eddie laughed happily and reached out to tug at Richie’s wrist. He urged him down a little closer, and placed a sweet, soft kiss just to the left of Richie’s mouth.

There was a new feeling in Richie’s chest, now - something warm and explosive.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Eddie whispered, and slid past him to join their friends in eating.

Richie followed, cataloguing the warmth pooling in his stomach to try and identify later .

—-

(It turned out to be joy.)

#reddie #reddie fanfic #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #bill denbrough #stanley uris #beverly marsh #ben hanscom #mike hanlon #it 2017 #it movie #stephen king's it #i love jealous richie okay bye #ask

[richietransmouth]

How Soon Is Now?

Summary:  After that fated sewer fight, two boys have some fated talks. Includes that classic "Richie comes through Eddie's window" trope that makes or breaks a reddie fic obviously.

Word count: 6.9k

warnings: language, AO3

The summer breeze gently blows the black curls away from Richie's eyes as he lazily works his bike pedals, and maybe it would have been comforting if he hadn't crawled out of the depths of hell about an hour ago. Well, if hell was filled with gray, disgusting water and dead, floating children.

Richie supposes he should've gone running home as soon as he stumbled out of the haunting sewers, but instead he found himself idly riding through Derry. He's unsure how he managed to ride throughout the town without crashing or hurting himself with how zoned out he is. Yes, he should've gone home, but it didn't feel right. Going home would make this day real; seeing his parents and his reflection and having dinner and going to bed would make today concrete.

The events of the day keep flashing throughout his mind. Each time the sneak in, he has to shake his head like an Etch-A-Sketch to reset, yet his mind keeps drawing the same images.

Beverly floating just like a balloon. Ben screaming. Her eyes, oh god, her eyes. Her arctic skin freezing his own, like her state was contagious. She was lifeless, and he prays he'll never see her like that again.

Shake.

Stan's face soaked in blood and tears, screaming and screaming. "You're not my friends!" A knife digs through his heart at each strangled repetition, at the heartbroken expression. The pain in his eyes twists the knife in his heart. Torture.

Shake.

The gun against Georgie's-no- It's forehead. The tears spilling down Bill's cheeks. Richie can't remember the last time he'd seen Bill cry. The shot rings out. The cold look of Georgie-no- It. Knowing that the body wasn't Georgie's didn't help when it looked so real, so human. He tries not to think of how Bill felt.

Richie shakes his head so hard that it finally pulls him out of his thoughts. He sighs and slows down his pedaling to a nice easy pace to take in his surroundings. This warm summer day has brought him down to the quarry, far away from his home. Well, not far enough, but it’ll do.

He hops off his bike and walks it over near the cliff the losers jump off, hoping to find another person here to provide some sort of company. Being alone is not what the doctor would prescribe. As he comes closer, he notices a figure sitting at the cliff’s edge and squints. He’s pretty sure he needs a new prescription. The figure becomes clearer with each step, and he makes out the small frame, neat hair, and clunky cast.

He pauses, glancing down at his bike. Should he bother Eddie? The boy hardly got any peace anyway due to his overbearing mother. Why would he try taking that away from him? But, what about what just went down? Wouldn't he want company just as badly as Richie?

He mulls this over for a few second, shrugs, tosses his bike down, and finishes walking over. Eddie looks up at Richie as he stands at the edge of the cliff, staring off into the horizon. He lets out a huff before glaring down at his hands.

“I’m not really in the mood, Richie.” Richie still stands there. “Serious, leave me alone.”

“With a face like that? There’s no way I’m leaving,” Richie says as he moves to sit next Eddie. He says it like a joke, but concern seems to drip in with it. Eddie takes note, a bit perplexed, before brushing it off as his mind playing tricks.

He glances over as Richie settles next to him, hanging his legs over the edge of the cliff and leaning all his weight on his arms. Richie’s eyes slip closed and a small content smile finds its way onto his face. Eddie stares at him for a few seconds as his chest rises and falls, the wind playing with the dark curls that have a mind of their own, and thinks that his friend almost looks beautiful in this moment.

Woah.

No, he doesn’t. He looks like trash, idiot. Stop being stupid.

“Eh, what’s up, Doc?”

Eddie is ripped out of his thoughts with Richie’s terrible impersonation of Bugs Bunny. He rolls his eyes, blushing a little at getting caught staring, and looks down towards the brilliant blue beneath them.

“Shut it. I’m thinking,” Eddie mumbles.

“Yeah, I can practically see the gears working.” Richie nudges him but is simply swatted away. “What are thinking about?” No response. “Alright, I’ll just go fuck myself then.” Eddie shoots him a look.

“Don’t you already do that?”

“Nah, usually your mom helps in that department.” Eddie just looks away again. “Really, what are you thinking about? It’s pretty obviously eating at you.” When Eddie doesn’t answer, Richie just keeps going. He can’t help himself.

“Eating you for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, by the looks of it. It’s got a full course meal in its hand. Or plate, I should say. Yep, getting all its nutrients from the ol’ Kaspbrak.” He can see Eddie trying to fight off a smile, which only encourages him. “On the top of that food pyramid thing. Yessiree, Ed boy sure tastes nice. Oi, waiter! I’ll have some of what it’s having. A slab off the Edster himself, yes. Uh, maybe some…” Richie starts giggling to himself, and Eddie looks over quizzically. “Some E-Eddie…” More giggles interrupt the sentence again. “Some Eddie Spaghetti.”

Richie cracks up laughing at his own joke, bringing his hands to his face and kicking his legs, as Eddie groans and gives Richie a light shove, though smiling the whole time. Richie just keeps repeating “Eddie Spaghetti” to himself between laughter, coaxing some laughter out of Eddie, too.

“First of all,” Eddie says, after Richie has only barely calmed down, “you’re so stupid, and that was super dumb. Second, that’s not how the food pyramid works, and you’d know that if point one wasn’t true.” Richie starts mimicking Eddie, which earns a huff, that would’ve fooled Richie into thinking the boy is annoyed except the grin that is plastered on his face. “And third, stop calling me stupid shit. How many times do I have to tell you?”

“You thought it was funny, so I don’t care about anything you just said.”

Eddie flips the taller off as he just laughs. He grabs Eddie’s hand and lowers it, forcing himself to stop laughing. He doesn’t let go. He wonders what someone would think if they saw this, two boys sitting on a cliff holding hands. Eddie raises his eyebrows as Richie gives him a look that is as close to serious as he can probably get. “Do you really want me to leave you? Because you’re not really acting like it.”

“Yes, I am,” Eddie scoffs, retracting his hand from Richie’s grip and removing his gaze from Richie’s. Richie just grabs at Eddie’s face, making him look at him. Eddie swallows, feeling a little uncomfortable from the eye contact and a little giddy from the fingers pressed into his cheeks. “D-did you hear me? Go away.”

“Yeah, I heard you, but it could use more emotion. You have to show me that you mean it. I’m not seeing the motivation.” Eddie just raises an eyebrow at Richie’s attempt to sound like a movie director. The boy in question shrugs and drops his hand. Eddie’s face feels cold now. “Eddie, I’ve known you for a hot second, okay? I can tell you wanna talk, so why don’t you just spill it already? Is it about…y’know?” Eddie hesitates before shaking his head. “Okay, then what is it?”

They sit in silence for a while longer, Richie searching Eddie’s face. Stubbornness covers all the hypochondriac’s features. Richie just sighs and turns back to the lake beneath them, resting his elbows on his knees and consequently his face in his hands. He crosses his legs, closes his eyes, and breathes in deeply. Eddie positions himself the same. Silence comfortably envelopes the two.

Eddie used to think it was strange when Richie didn’t talk and, while that crosses his mind, he finds he doesn’t mind the silence between them. Of course, everyone wants the trashmouth to shut up for one goddamn second, but once he does, they become nervous that something is wrong. And, sure, something is probably wrong with Richie to render him silent, but it never feels wrong to sit there with Richie and silence anymore. The quiet moments speak loudly enough.

Sometimes in the quiet, he feels like he can connect with Richie more, can almost read his mind. He knows that’s absolute garbage, but it just feels special. Sitting there now, on a cliff and in the same position barely five feet apart, he wonders what the other is actually thinking about. He wonders how different their thoughts; their lives could be when sitting like this. The longer he contemplates, the more muddled the lines between their personal lives becomes.

“Um,” Eddie begins, giving in. The directions his thoughts were heading were too existential for him to think about anymore. “Okay. So, you know how I stood up to my mom?” He sees Richie nod, unmoving otherwise. “Well, I’m just. Y’know. I’m worried.”

“Worried?” Richie cracks his eyes open and shifts so he’s facing his friend. “Worried about what?”

“Well, uh, just, y’know, stuff. Like consequences and whatnot.” Richie can see his friend clam up, and he rests a hand on Eddie’s knee. Eddie looks up into his eyes.

“Is that all?” Eddie frowns as Richie starts to smirk a little. “Just consequences? And whatnot?”

“Well, I don’t think you really get how she can get. She’s just so-"

“Overbearing? Oh, trust me, Eds, I know Mrs. K pretty well.” Eddie smacks the hand from his knee with a pointed look.

“Don’t call me that, and stop talking about my mom like that. Especially when we’re having a moment.” Richie raises his eyebrows and drawing a hand to his heart in mock shock.

“We’re having a moment?”

“Oh, you know what I meant, dipshit. Let me finish talking before you start up your stupid mouth.” Richie draws on a comical serious face and salutes to Eddie, opening his mouth to say something before being cut off. “God, I cannot stand you. Whatever, I’m done.”

Eddie stands up, brushing off his shorts and skin, before walking off. Richie sits there for a second before quickly following suite.

“Hey, wait up!”

“What do you want?” Eddie stops and turns around dramatically, sounding incredibly burdened by this exchange. “I said I’m done.”

“No, you’re not. C’mon, I promise I’ll stop.” Eddie just gives him a look of who do you think you’re talk to. “For real. It’s not good for you to have all that shit floa- piling on up there in your noggin. Let’s just talk. No, no, wait. You’ll talk; I’ll listen.” Eddie just laughs at him. Richie throws on a dramatic hurt look. “What? I can listen.”

“Maybe, but you can’t shut up.” Richie rolls his eyes and picks up his bike before walking to the road and gesturing for Eddie to follow him. The shorter stands there for a moment before kicking at the ground with a disgruntled expression. “Okay, fine, promise you’ll stop, though?”

“I’m gonna say yes, but my mouth works on its own, so it’s not my fault if it does happen.” Eddie shrugs, deciding that was good enough, and starts walking with his friend down the road.

“Alright. So, like, I’m worried about the consequences because you know how my mother is. I’m not sure how all this standing up to her bullshit is going to pan out. I've never  stood up to her before, and this change is weird. It already feels wrong and awful. I feel like I should, I dunno, apologize to her?" He hears Richie groan at this but refuses to look at or acknowledge him. "She's my mother, and I love her obviously, but I meant what I said. I'm not used to telling her off or anything. I don't really want her to get mad at me, or, god forbid, even more passive aggressive than she already is. I don't know how to explain this well, I guess... I'm the doormat that gets walked all over and for that to change in one afternoon just doesn't feel like it's going to stick. It's going to go back to how it always was, and I don't want that... It feels like forever until I don’t have to be around her everyday.”

Eddie stops talking, staring at the ground as he walks. Richie can tell he’s just composing his thoughts so that he can continue, looking as if his deep in thought. His eyebrows are furrowed and his bottom lip jutted out slightly, and Richie inexplicably smiles softly at the sight. He gets the familiar feeling he should talk, but in an unfamiliar way than he usually gets this feeling. Instead of just aiming to fill silence with whatever first pops into his head, he feels compelled to try and help Eddie in any way possible. Which for Richie, he assumes is not many.

“Well,” he begins, and Eddie looks up, clearly disappointed that Richie couldn’t keep his promise for more than two minutes. “That’s reasonable. Your whole life is getting flipped around! The tables are turning. Of course, you're going to have complex feelings about this whole fiasco. You told Mrs. K off, man. Yelling and throwing shit and just up and leaving? Damn, you’re absolutely crazy. A complete fucking madman. Like, like…I don’t know. But, it’s kind of cool. Ballsy, one might say. Its, uh, kind of impressive. But, I mean, wanna know what might be even more ballsy?” Eddie shakes his head, amazed that Richie wasn’t pulling a voice or a dumb joke right now. “Facing your mom, and standing your goddamn ground, Kaspbrak.”

“I guess…” Eddie gives a small smile before looking back at the ground. “I’m just not sure… that I can right now. I don’t know. It just sounds stupid because, I mean, I just fought a demon clown in the sewer after standing up to my mom like two hours ago. Y’know, a bunch of brave shit.” Eddie heaves a sigh, and walks a little closer to Richie. “What if… What if I used all my bravery or whatever? What if that’s all I can do that’s brave ever?”

Richie stares in disbelief at his friend. Eddie was definitely one of the bravest people he’s ever known, and it was just unbelievable to him that anyone would think otherwise. However, Richie wasn’t going to metaphorically jerk him off right now, figuring that just telling him he was wrong wasn’t going to fix the problem.

“Eddie, c’mon. You’re so brave. And so what if you’re done with being brave today? You don’t have to brave all the time, idiot. Just…Just when it matters. There’s gonna be more chances for you to brave in the future when it matters. Just because you don’t wanna go home doesn’t make you less brave. It makes you someone with a brain because I’ve seen Mrs. K in one of her episodes and oh man, that’s rough.” Richie nudges Eddie with his shoulder until the other looks up at him. “You don’t have to go home to your mom, y’know? You can stay with me tonight, Eds.” Richie waggles his eyebrows a little to make Eddie smile and succeeds.

“Don’t call me that.”

“There’s my Eds,” Richie shouts, letting go of his bike with one hand to sling an arm around the shorter boy, pulling him in close and ruffling his hair slightly. Eddie fights against this, shrieking slightly, before pushing away enough, though still in his arm, to glare up at the persecutor. “You’re too cute!”

Richie truly thinks Eddie looks cute in this moment. His hair is all messed up, his cheeks dusted with pink, and his eyes glaring up at Richie with little to no true malice in them. Richie just smiles widely and goes to pinch the boy’s cheeks before getting his hand slapped away.

“Shut up,” Eddie grumbles, trying to push his way out of Richie’s hold only to get squished farther into the taller boy’s side.

“He just doesn’t stop! This boy is on fire! I am getting seriously burned!”

Richie laughs at Eddie’s expression and leans over to push his glasses up with the hand that’s around Eddie. Eddie can’t stop his cheeks from getting darker at the proximity of Richie’s face and he’s confused as to why. Probably just the heat and potential germs. Either way, his face is gone as quickly as it came and Eddie shoots a look away from the other in an attempt to hide his blush.

“I hate you,” Eddie says with absolutely no truth behind his words. Richie just grins and lets Eddie go. He pats the shorter boy on his head.

“Whatever you say, Eddie Spaghetti.”

“Fuck off.”

“Really? Dare me? Right now?”

“N-no! What the fuck, Richie? Of course not!”

“I guess my hands are tied,” Richie says with a shrug, halting his stride to reach for the front of his pants. “A dare’s a dare.”

Eddie watches a second more completely dumbfounded as he actually unbuttons his pants before snatching him by the wrist to stop him. The bike falls like a barrier between them as Eddie gives him a dumbfounded look. Richie just cracks up and points at Eddie’s face, making the other self-conscious of his expression immediately. Eddie crosses his arms and starts walking again.

He knows that Richie is trying to make him feel better through his stupid brand of comedy, and it’s working more than he’d ever admit to anyone, but, damn, that boy just goes for the lowest hanging fruit. The fruit might as well be on the goddamn ground, rotting slightly and covered in bugs. As much as Eddie huffs and seemingly gets annoyed extensively at these jokes, he does find them endearing, though he'd never admit it.

“C’mon, that was funny,” Richie rushes after the other boy after rebuttoning his pants and picking his bike up. He slaps a hand on Eddie’s shoulder that just gets shrugged off. “Okay, wow, I was expecting more of 'Richie, you’re a comedic genius, and that was hilarious,' but whatever floats your boat.”

Eddie cringes at the high-pitched voice that Richie used to imitate him. “Richie, you’re a comedic genius, and that was hilarious,” Eddie deadpans, staring emotionlessly at Richie who grins in return.

“Now, that’s what I’m talking about.” Eddie rolls his eyes before glaring at the ground as they continued to walk. It’s silent, though not uncomfortable, for half a block before Richie taps his cast lightly. “Are you feeling better?”

Eddie looks up to catch the concern riddled in the magnified eyes from the coke-bottle glasses. Confusion washes over him. Is Richie really this concerned about him? He didn’t realize that Richie even cared about him more than Richie cares for the average Joe. Eddie chalks it up to Richie just feeling bad for him.

“Yeah.”

Richie smiles at this, and turns to look at the houses. They were a couple houses away from Eddie’s, and the dread settles back in at the thought of walking inside. He yelled at his mom and called out the “medicine” he’d been taking for his entire life for what it was: bullshit.

But he couldn’t help but feel awful for what he did to his mom because she only did it out of love. It was ass-backwards the method, but at the core, she truly cared for Eddie. This only made him feel guilty for hurting her the way he did. Sure, he was scared of the consequences, but he also didn’t want to go home so he wouldn’t have to face what he’d done. He wouldn’t have to look into his mom’s eyes and see the pain in them that her son was disrespectful and most likely sick somehow. He was always sick somehow.

“Is this your stop?” Richie asked in some sort of British accent for a reason Eddie couldn’t understand. Eddie stares up at his house and inhales deeply. A now or never moment, he supposes.

“Yeah. Yeah, it is.” Richie raises his eyebrows as if to ask you sure? Eddie forces a smile and shrugs. “No time like the present, I guess.”

“Cool. I’m proud of you,” Richie says with a wink, “for not pussying out. You go in there and knock ‘em dead, champ.” Richie claps his back like a proud father and Eddie rolls his eyes before walking up to his house. He pauses on the first step.

“Hey, Richie?” he calls, turning around to find the boy mounting his bike. Richie's curly hair flips away to reveal his big brown eyes, and Eddie sucks in a breath for an inexplicable reason as the sunlight casts a warm glow over the other boy's features. Eddie glances away as he toys with his fingers nervously. Why is he nervous? “Thanks.”

Richie flashes him a blinding smile before saying, “Anytime, lover boy.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

Richie laughs before yelling a goodbye and riding off towards his house. Eddie turns back around and walks up towards his house, the smile slipping from his face as he remembers the dilemma he is currently facing. He pauses to take a deep breath at the door, resting his hand on the door knob. You can do this, Eddie, a voice that sounds strangely like Richie encourages him. He exhales and opens the door to his home.

Richie allows his mind to wander again as he rides the rest of the way home. Eddie is incredibly worried for nothing, really. It isn’t like his mom is going to do anything much worse than locking him up, which isn’t even that bad considering the fact that the Losers Club would just sneak him out anyway. Though, it is awful that the boy is so afraid of his mother. What kind of mother instills such psychological fear into their child that they’re afraid to come home?

God, Eddie deserves much better. He is so much more than his mother thought of him. He isn’t sick first off, and Eddie knows that, too. Richie is glad that he could finally see it, too. His mother also insists that Eddie is delicate, but Richie would argue again, especially after the events he had witnessed today in the sewer. A delicate boy would never yell, “I’m gonna fucking kill you!” at his biggest fear in the sewer whilst being covered in gunk. Eddie’s mom calls her son precious and well…Richie’s got to agree on this one.

Eddie, in his dumb short shorts and fanny packs, is truly precious. So short and small and cute and naïve. Richie thinks that it's incredibly adorable. And those giant Bambi eyes? Well, who could argue against those? He is incredibly passionate about his giant rants about germs and diseases. He can hold a bicker fest with Richie himself due to that sharp tongue and no-bullshit attitude, but he also has no clue about sexual things, due to living a sheltered life, that the gang loves to mercilessly try and explain in the most grotesque way.

Richie never gets tired of seeing his disgusted face. Or his annoyed face. Or his why am I friends with you? face. Or just his face. Or his nose scrunching up. Or his eyes rolling. Or his eyes squinting when he smiles. Oh, his smile. Richie’s heart fluttered.

Oh, wait.

Oh.

Oh, no.

Richie jolts up out of bed, gasping and clawing at his chest roughly. The darkness of his room greets him, and, although he isn’t fully comforted by this fact, he takes a deep, calming breath. His clawing hands slow down to clutch his large sleep shirt with both hands. A brief moment of calm before a wall of emotions slams into him. Warm tears slip down his cheeks, and he caves in on himself, sobbing heavily. He runs his hair through his hands roughly before gripping his head, pulling at his curls aggressively, so hard he feels like he’s going to rip his head open with sheer force.

The images from the sewer and the Neibolt house flash through his head. The clown…That damn clown is forever burned into his memory, that’s just a given. The menacing eyes, the white makeup, and the numerous teeth. Richie shivers at the thought. His skin is crawling with the fact that the clown’s face is tattooed into his mind. He sees the clown with a stake through its head making it more terrifying advancing on him and his friends. His breath catches in his throat, and he rubs violently at his eyes. The clown is gone from the room, but each time he blinks, he sees it again and again.

Richie sucks in shallow breaths before groping around his bed for his glasses that he knew he feel asleep in. Once he finds them, he slams them on his face, jumps out of the tangle of sheets, and grabs a large sweatshirt from the floor. He slips it on, shoves his feet in his shoes, and runs out of his room, not worried if his parents hear. They probably won't notice. Tears are still falling, and breaths are still shallow, but he sprints out into the cold night air.

He isn’t quite sure where he is going yet but starts walking anyway. He can’t stay in his room: not tonight, not alone. He didn’t feel safe, though he was at least ninety-five percent sure he was safe. Being alone was simply a call for danger. That thought has him checking over his shoulder sporadically. He tugs at the sleeves of his sweater, a nervous tick he began noticing he does more and more over the years.

Richie glances around his surroundings before stopping in front of his Eddie’s house. He stands there in the dim glow of the streetlight, chewing on his lip. Going into this house and into his friend’s arms will make him feel better, but is he okay with Eddie seeing him like this? Slightly hysterical and paranoid?

He sucks in a deep breath before wiping all around his eyes in an attempt to get rid of the tears and the redness knowing full well the latter is going to stick around. He exhales and stalks into the backyard, finding a couple pebbles and picking them up along the way. The window to his friend’s room looms overhead, and Richie contemplates just going back home before shaking that thought off and throwing a pebble up at the window before he can back down.

There’s no response. Richie huffs before throwing another. And another. He draws back to toss one more up when the window snaps open. He immediately stops his arm, stumbling slightly, and drops his rock onto the ground, looking up at the window. He blows some hair out of his face and stares into Eddie’s eyes as the other glares down at him. He's suddenly aware that he is not wearing pants and that maybe he's an idiot for doing this.

“What the hell are you doing?” he quietly yells, leaning out of the window with crossed arms. Richie smiles up at him. “It’s, like, one a.m., asshole! Don’t you sleep?”

“No way,” Richie teases, tugging at his sleeves absently. “Wait a second!” Eddie narrows his eyes as Richie gets down on one knee and extends his arms up to his friend. “But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?” Eddie rolls his eyes and flips him off. “It is the east, and Eddie Spaghetti is the sun!”

“Beep beep, Richie!” Eddie hisses though he laughs all the same. He watches with fond distaste as the Tozier boy falls to the ground laughing, but he can hear that the laughter isn’t genuine and begins to worry.

“Not into that? Well, I didn’t bring a fucking boombox,” Richie yells back. “Did you want me to serenade you with my lovely voice?”

“Can you just shut the fuck up? Why are you eve-” Eddie is cut off by Richie singing. A rather liberal use of that word, if Eddie is being honest.

“It’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you!” Eddie blushes hard with a mantra of oh my god falling out of his mouth. He covers his face with his hands, shaking his head as if to fight the blush that is creeping it's way onto his face. “There’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do!”

Richie grins at how cute Eddie looks in this moment and woah. His voice cracks on the next line, and he can hear the quiet laughter Eddie is trying to hide behind the barrier of hands. Richie starts laughing, too, though trying to continue the song through it all. Eddie cuts him off before too long, clearly embarrassed and giving him the why am I friends with you? face that makes Richie's heart melt.

“Oh my god. Can you actually just shut the fuck up? What are you even doing here, Richie?”

“Just, uh, wanted to say hi to your mom.” Richie tugs at his sleeves and looks down. The other boy leans a little farther out of the window at this. This wasn’t like him at all. “Can I come in? It’s a bit…nippy out here.”

Eddie rolls his eyes and nods. “Whatever. Can you get up here? Like climb and shit?”

“Well, duh, I’m not an idiot.” Richie walks over to the side of Eddie’s house and looks up to find the other watching him with an amused look on his face.

“Debatable.”

“Ouch, Eds, I’m truly hurt.”

He clutches a hand to his heart, collapsing onto the side of the house. Eddie just rolls his eyes and tells him to hurry up before disappearing from the window. Richie scales the side of the house with a bit of help from a tree nearby and is crawling through the window in no time.

Closing the window, he looks around at the organized room, free of mess or dirt. He kicks his shoes off before walking over to the bed and sitting down. Eddie isn’t in the room, and although Richie has been here thousands of times, he still feels awkward in the other boy’s house especially with the other absent. He runs his hands along the smooth sheets, tugging lightly at the fabric. Maybe he should’ve just stayed home and not burdened his friend.

The door creaks as it swings open, and Eddie shuffles in carrying a blanket and glass of water. He tosses this blanket at Richie, takes a long drink of water, and sets the cup down. Richie hasn’t stopped tugging at the sheets, marring the neatly made bed in a way that personified his anxiety at the moment. Eddie looks over at him and those big brown eyes have words tumbling out of the taller boy’s mouth in an instant.

“Sorry for waking you up.” Eddie blinks.

“Oh, no, it’s fine. I wasn’t really… Um, sleeping isn’t going so well tonight. Just been lying in bed mainly.”

He shifts from foot to foot as he speaks, one of his nervous ticks. Richie notices this and offers a rare, small smile to the boy, who smiles back instinctively. It’s hard for him to not smile at one of Richie’s few calm moments.

“Well, let’s lay together then.” Eddie shakes his head and looks ready to protest that. An assumption that Eddie is about to offer to sleep on the floor has Richie anxious again. He chalks it up to his nightmare. “What? There isn’t really anything to do in the Kapsbrak abode. Unless you consider your mom.”

“Beep beep, Richie.”

Eddie shoves him lightly, and Richie takes this opportunity to grab his arm and pull him onto the bed. While Eddie sputters and tries to lift himself up, Richie takes no shortage of time to get himself comfortable, in the most over the top fashion, under the blanket on Eddie’s bed and the blanket he was given. The hypochondriac watches this with the hint of a smile on his lips before shaking his head and turning the lamp light off. Richie pats the side of the bed unoccupied impatiently. Eddie slips into bed with less of a show.

Richie shifts onto his side to stare at his friend and feels his heart flutter at the sight. The way the moonlight was pouring into the room and backlighting his friend was truly breathtaking. It seems as though he was outlined in a blue-white glow, giving him an almost angelic look. He didn’t think Eddie could become more beautiful. He felt like his cheeks were heating up.

Damn, these thoughts really need to stop. Maybe it was just the trauma talking. Yeah, sure. Richie flips onto his back with a smile. This is probably some form of anxiety. He doesn’t feel like dishing it out too heavily tonight.

Whatever the case, he feels his anxieties from the night slipping away due to the presence of another human. It is slowly fading from his mind. Richie breathes out and closes his eyes, burrowing deeper into the blankets. He begins to drift off when a small hand grasps at his sweatshirt, pulling it towards him. He cracks on of his eyes and glances over at Eddie, who is staring at him with wide eyes.

“You doing okay?” Richie mumbles, drowsiness seeping into his voice. Eddie tightens his grip. The trashmouth raises his eyebrows at this, blinking slowly.

“I can’t sleep.”

The voice is small and quiet, which makes Richie feel bad. He sympathetically pats the hand gripping his sweatshirt twice and shoots a concerned look towards his friend.

“Well, I can,” Richie says, making a show of closing his eyes as Eddie scoffs at him and pulls his hand away.

“You’re such an asshole.”

“I’m joking, Eds,” Richie snickers, turning to his side so he could look at his friend’s disgruntled face. He props his head up with his elbow and grabs the smaller boy’s hand, staring down at the appendage. He begins tracing the lines in his palm as he speaks. “You wanna talk or anything?”

“I’m not sure. It’s a lot. And don’t call me that.”

“That’s okay, I’ve got nothing else to do unless your mom is awake.”

Richie glances up at his friend with a smirk and laughter brimming in his eyes. Eddie just stares at him for a good five seconds before letting out an exasperated breath.

“Okay. Wow. I’m going to bed.”

He moves to turn onto his other side, but Richie grabs his shoulder, keeping him firmly in place. He moves his hand up to lightly grab Eddie’s face and make him look at the other. Both of their faces turn pink at the touch.

“Hey, hey, hey. I’m joking again,” Richie says softly, running his fingers gently over Eddie's warm cheeks. Eddie pulls his eyes away as his face burns even warmer.

“What a surprise,” Eddie grumbles, furrowing his brow and scowling. Richie lightly smiles at the annoyed tone and taps the boy’s cheeks with his fingers lightly.

“Hey, I’m listening. I’m not making you talk, but maybe it’d be easier for you if you did is all. Of course, we could just talk about this later. We have the rest of our lives.”

They lay there in silence for a moment. Richie hums softly, closing his eyes and dropping his hand from Eddie’s face. He stretches his arms out, invading Eddie’s personal space, and pulls them back to his chest. Eddie finds himself missing the warmth from the trashmouth’s presumably dirty hand. He sighs and grabs Richie’s sweatshirt again, picking at a loose thread.

“I’m just scared, y’know?” Richie nods slowly with his eyes still closed. “I’m scared that this isn’t… That we didn’t… What if- was that really it? Like this seems too easy, I guess. We killed It- well, we probably did- and what do we do now? Just go back to what we were doing before we got all wrapped up in all this supernatural bullshit? I mean, isn’t everything changed? Can we even…Will everything go back to normal? It feels impossible.”

“Well, normal is relative, Eddie spaghetti, but no.”

Richie opens his eyes and finds a large pair already staring at him. They were filled with confusion and desperation. Something swells in Richie’s heart, and he feels compelled to replace those feelings with those of happiness. He sighs and grabs Eddie’s hand, pulling it away from his sweatshirt and interlocking their fingers.

“I don’t think things are going back to normal. Well, maybe some things, I guess, like my jokes and nights with your mom-” Eddie rolls his eyes, “-but I don’t know anything for sure. Everything could just be normal or whatever, or everything could be completely awful and different. That’s a bridge we don’t have to cross right now, y’know? That’s the future; we’re in the present. Maybe let’s not worry about it tonight, okay?”

The small smile and comforting eyes are too much for Eddie. He’s been thinking too hard for too long about this, and that can’t be the answer. Just not worry about it? Idiotic. Tears brim at his eyes in sadness or frustration, he can’t really tell.

“It isn’t that simple, Richie,” he says with a sigh as a tear slips down his face. Richie frowns. He brings their still entwined hands up and wipes the tear away with the back of Eddie’s hand. “It can’t be that simple. Just-just 'let’s not worry?' That’s not possible. All I do is worry!”

The words tumble out of his mouth quickly as his frustration grows. He stares into Richie’s eyes and realizes the idiot is still wearing his glasses. They’re pressed against his face, distorting the image by pulling at his skin in funny ways. He smiles faintly at this small fact, a certain fondness washing over him. It’s unbelievable how Richie always makes him feel better even when he doesn’t open his mouth and crack a joke.

“I didn’t say forever, dumbass. Just not for this moment. This night. Look, I’m here, aren’t I?” Richie makes a vague motion to the bed with the hand still holding Eddie’s. “I’m sure you’re all in your head about whether us Losers are gonna all still be friends, right?” Eddie hesitates and nods his head. “Well, I’m at least, like, ninety-five percent sure we will be because who-who comes out of this fucked summer and says, “man, y’know what I’d like to do now? Ditch all my friends.” That’s just dumb, Eds. And then, even if all those fuckers ditch us, which they totally won’t because, I mean, look at us,” Richie bops the boy on his nose, making him roll his eyes at this even with a small smile playing at his mouth, “we still got each other.

“Like c’mon, dipshit. I’m not going anywhere, which means you’ll have one friend, so why are you so worried? The future is so far away, stop being dumb because you can’t see it. It’s supposed to be a mystery and what good is a mystery when you know what’s gonna happen? Like, who cares if stuff goes back to normal? Not me.”

Richie pauses to take a breath, opens his mouth to speak again, but apparently thinks better of it. He closes his mouth with a smug look on his face, like he just gave a powerful speech in front of millions. Eddie just stares at him dumbfounded. He blinks slowly before grinning because his friend is so dumb.

“Thanks, trashmouth.” Richie breaks into a smile that is so infectious Eddie catches it, too.

“Anytime, Eds,” he says. “However, a boy does need his beauty sleep.”

"I can tell."

"Excuse me?" Richie scoffs and pulls a face of mock offense that has them devolving into a fit of laughter, pushing at each other lightly and sticking their tongues out. Their hands separate in this tomfoolery, which both of them notice but make no moves to remedy. The laughter begins to die down and Richie removes his glasses with a dramatic flair, passing them to Eddie with a snobbish look.

Eddie chuckles at the theatrics, leaning over to put the glasses on his bedside table as Richie gets comfortable yet again. When Eddie flops back into bed, Richie can barely make out his silhouette anymore, and he sighs. He can no longer admire the beauty that is his male friend, and he refuses to acknowledge that though any further.

He goes to turn over when a small hand yet again grabs his sweatshirt. This time, however, it attempts to pull the boy closer to him, not making much progress. Richie laughs and scoots closer to his friend, pulling him into his arms. This close, with his bad vision, Richie can see the blush on his friend’s cheeks and grins. He holds Eddie in his arms, head to his chest for the rest of the night. What feels like a long time passes before he hears a yawn and feels two small hands squeeze his sides.

“Night, Richie.”

Richie’s heart flutters for what seems like no reason. He closes his eyes and squeezes back.

“Night, lover boy.”

#it 2017 #reddie #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #reddie fic #reddie fanfiction #this is my first fanfiction in like 8 years #and its just been sitting around since october #finally decided to post it #its bad #its actually like 40k but i only like this part #lmao #okay im done

[sweetlysilent]

Figment (Ch. Two)

Requested By: Nobody

Pairing: Richie Tozier x Reader

Warnings: Traumatic Memories, Fear, Swearing, Symptoms of Anxiety, Mention of Pennywise, etc.

Summary: 

When is a door not a door? Most people tend to always overthink the question, over processing what the answer could be, when in reality it’s right in front of your face. When it’s ajar. This is a riddle that is constantly in the back of your mind.

Just like your greatest fear, it lurks between the space of the door, showing it’s form like a shadow, always creeping behind you. But you convince yourself it’s just a figment of your imagination, that it’s all in your head, that you’re just seeing things. But, what happens when the Loser’s Club end up seeing it too?

A/N: So, I don’t know how many people enjoy this lil blurb mini series but I really like it so I’m going to continue writing it bc it makes me happy. If you like it too then by all means go ahead and read it and if you don’t then don’t read it :)) I post other content too.

Also, I’m not really sure how I feel about this chapter?? Like it kind of explains things, yet helps start off chapter three?? I don’t know, let me know what you think! Also, this is the third time I’ve written this chapter so bear with me lol

This isn’t exactly based off the movie or the book, I’m just kind of free handing it and I might use bits and pieces from the movie, but besides that I’m basically just flowing with it. Another thing, feel free to send a comment in my ask or below on what you thought of this part! I’d love to see everyone’s reactions, it helps keep me motivated.

Also, comment below or send me an ask if you’d like to be tagged!

“Y/N, this is the third time I’ve seen you this week, is everything okay?” Your therapist Dr. Martin questioned, looking at you with a concerned expression.

The answer to his question was simple, no. No you weren’t okay, you hadn’t been sleeping, each time you tried to get any sleep you’d have recurring nightmares of a boy in a yellow raincoat, sometimes he was human, other times he wasn’t; and to add on top of that, you’d been avoiding the Losers ever since the incident, too embarrassed and afraid you’d cause issues within their circle.

“I-I.. Uh.. No..” You whispered, your foot tapping the ground anxiously as you bit your thumb nail.

Dr. Martin nodded slowly, writing down what you said in his notebook, you’d been seeing Dr. Martin before you had even moved to Derry. He was the one that helped you get rid of the red balloon before.

“Alright Y/N, lets take this one step at a time shall we?” Dr. Martin gave a reassuring smile, nodding at you to start talking, of course when you were ready to.

“It happened two weeks ago, we had just moved to Derry, a-and it was here.” You paused, your lip starting to tremble just at the thought of the red balloon, the clown.

Dr. Martin instantly noticed how you were reacting, your body language spoke it all.

“It’s okay Y/N, take your time, you don’t need to rush.” He spoke calmly, trying to get you to relax a bit.

“The r-red balloon.. It was at the sign.. With the c-clown. But I told myself that I was just hallucinating, because when I blinked it was gone. So I thought I was okay, but then that night before my first day of school.. I couldn’t sleep the entire night..” You explained, words flying out of your mouth before you even had a chance to process what you were saying.

“Do you know why you were having a hard time falling asleep?” Dr. Martin questioned, watching your body posture slump slightly in the chair.

“A-All I could see was the clown, a-and I couldn’t get it out of my head, it was just there.” You spoke quietly, your eyes slowly zoning in and out.

“Alright.. What happened after that? How was your first day of school?” Dr. Martin asked, as he wrote down little notes here and there.

“I got lost. I felt like shit. I looked like shit. I thought that would’ve kept people away, but it didn’t, and that’s how I met the Losers Club.” You smiled slightly at the name, but it vanished just as quick as it appeared.

Dr. Martin nodded, writing down this new information before motioning for you to continue on.

“I was really skeptical of them at first, Richie, one of the boys in the group, had asked me to go somewhere with them. Of course I responded saying that they could potentially be kidnappers because they were strangers.” You explained, the day replaying in your head as if it was yesterday.

“Bill, one of the other guys in the group convinced me to go with them, so I did, I rode on his bike with him, and then out of nowhere it just felt… too good? If that makes any sense?” You glanced up at him, as he was quickly jotting down almost everything you were saying.

“Anyways, that’s when it happened, w-when I started to believe it wasn’t real. I remember freaking out, Stan, also one of the boys in the group figured out I was having a panic attack.” You kept on rambling, your eyes flicking back and forth from the desk to the floor.

“Once they had calmed me down a bit, that’s when I saw it, t-the red balloon, it was just floating down the street!” You exclaimed, running your fingers through your hair anxiously.

“Did they see this balloon too?” Dr. Martin questioned, glancing up at you as your eyes started watering a bit as you shook your head no.

“I was the only one who saw that balloon, they thought I was crazy, hell I think I am crazy.” You whispered, a tear slipping down your cheek as Dr. Martin continued jotting down notes.

“Have you seen this ‘Losers Club’ since that day?” He asked, raising an eyebrow at you as you bit your lip slightly, before shaking your head no once again.

Dr. Martin nodded, continuing to write down a few more things before setting his pen down, and taking a deep breath.

“Alright, so this is what I’m going to propose to you Y/N.” He started, crossing his hands on his desk as you sat up a bit in your chair.

“You are suffering from not only anxiety, but sleep deprivation, now, sleep deprivation could possibly be the reason you start to believe you’re hallucinating. It can cause affects on the brain, and can become pretty serious in certain situations, like yours for example.” Dr. Martin explained, looking over his notes before looking back at you as you listened quietly.

“Now, for your friends, I think the best option there is for you to talk to them about what you’re seeing, they might not believe you however, so you have to expect that.” He continued on, reading over his notes once more, before flipping the page.

“I also decided to check back a month to see what you were experiencing then, it seems to me that one month ago your memory was pretty foggy, has it gotten worse or better?” He questioned, picking his pen back up once again.

“I-I don’t really know.. I think it’s gotten better.. But I still can’t remember much of those certain days.” You shrugged, watching as he wrote down what you said.

He nodded, looking over his notes one final time before shutting his notebook.

“I’m going to prescribe you sleeping pills, that way you can catch up on all the sleep you’ve been missing, I believe it could really help you.” Dr. Martin spoke as he wrote down the prescription, before ripping it off and handing it to you.

You then thanked him before leaving the room, giving the paper to your mom who in return gave you a sad look, she had no idea what was going on with you, and it broke your heart.

Later that day you got your prescription for your sleeping pills, it was crazy that this was the only way you could go to sleep, but whatever worked right?

“Okay I’m just going to come out and say it since nobody else is, Y/N’s been avoiding us, it’s obvious, we all know it.” Richie stated bluntly, getting a few nods in response.

“They look like they haven’t gotten sleep for weeks, I’m actually really worried.” Beverly spoke up, her hand pressed against her cheek.

“I-I tried t-t-talking to Y/N at s-s-school, but they ig-ignored me.” Bill admitted, looking down at his feet sadly.

“But the question is why? What is Y/N hiding from us?” Eddie chimed in, looking at the rest of the group.

“Maybe Y/N’s simply embarrassed from what happened, I mean we weren’t exactly the most understanding people in the situation.” Mike suggested, shrugging his shoulders slightly. “Just a thought.” He quickly spoke after.

“All I know is I want answers.” Stan stood up, pacing back and forth slightly. “The Y/N that we met that day after school is not the one we see now, something clearly is happening, and as their new friends, it’s our job to find out what it is.” Stan spoke while looking at his friends, a determined expression on his face.

“And how do you expect we get them? Y/N’s been avoiding us for weeks now.” Ben chimed in, glancing around the room. “It’s not like they’re just going to talk to us if we walk up to them.” Ben added on, looking at Stan curiously.

“Isn’t obvious you dipshit, we’re going to trap Y/N.” Richie rolled his eyes, whacking the back of Ben’s head, earning a glare in response.

Everyone around the room nodded at the idea, ready to finally get some answers.

“Let the games begin!” Richie shouted in a deep voice, earning a few eye rolls and annoyed groans as he fist pumped the air.

You weren’t ready for what was about to happen, and neither were they.

Tags: @the-crime-fighting-spider @f-b-a-w-t-f-t-2 @mishamgos @winter-fire-and-january-embers @hey-its-bean

#richie tozier #richie tozier imagines #richie tozier imagine #richie tozier x reader #richie tozier x you #richie x reader #richie x you #finn wolfhard #finn wolfhard x reader #finn wolfhard x you #tom holland #tom holland imagine #it #it clown #it imagine #it movie imagine #it 2017 #it x reader #it x you #it blurb #bill skarsgård imagine #bill skarsgård x reader #bill skarsgård #eddie kaspbrak #jack dylan grazer #bill denbrough #jaeden lieberher #stanley uris #stan uris #wyatt oleff

[readingraebow]

It Section One

Chapters 1-3 (Part One)

1. How did the terror begin? The terror began when Bill's younger brother George went out in the rain to play with a boat Bill had made for him. George ended up losing the boat down a drain and when he went to look for it, he met Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Pennywise offered to give George his boat back but instead, he grabbed George's left arm, RIPPED IT OUT OF THE SOCKET and killed George. So the terror began with a boat made of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain and with the death of Bill's younger brother George.

2. What did Unwin and Hagarty see during Adrian's assult? They both saw Pennywise. Hagarty says that Pennywise was there when he was calling for help. Pennywise was the one yelling for them to throw Adrian over and the other boys obliged. Then Hagarty ran down the ravine to pull Adrian out of the water. Unwin says he saw the clown drag Adrian out of the river with one hand, balloons clutched in the other. Then he picked up Adrian and bit his armpit?? Then he was pulled away by one of the other guys. Hagarty was down there by the water and says that the clown picked up Adrian, who was still alive at this point, and squeezed him, crushing his bones and then he smiled through his armpit? Though all of the injuries Adrian sustained were actually consistent with this account. There was a chunk missing from his armpit and he had broken ribs. But the cops thought these two were crazy and convicted the three who threw Adrian off the bridge for his murder since one of them had a knife and Adrian was stabbed multiple times.

3. What are the three nevers that occurred to Patty Uris and what does she discover happened to Stanley? As Patty is standing outside the locked bathroom door where Stanley went to take a bath after received a strange phone call, these three nevers occurred to her: Stanley never took a bath in the early evening, Stanley never closed the door unless he was using the toilet, and Stanley had never locked the door against her at all. When she finally manages to get in the bathroom, she discovers that he's committed suicide. He slit his arms from wrist to inner elbow and slashed them across. Then, using his blood, he wrote one word on the bathroom tiles above the tub just before he lost consciousness: IT

4. Why does Richie tell his boss he has to go back to back to Derry? He says that someone called him. Someone that he used to know a long time ago, back when he lived in another place. He says that something happened back then and he made a promise. He says they all did. They promised that they would go back if the something started happening again. And he guesses that it has started again. But he won't tell his boss what the something is and why he has to go. And that's because Richie honestly doesn't remember. But he says that the something happened in the summer of 1958 when he was eleven going on twelve.

5. What does Ben say he's forgotten? What does he remember? Ben says he's forgotten everything about being a kid. He says he didn't remember Mike until Mike called and he only remembered Derry because that's where Mike was calling from. But other than that, he'd forgotten everything. And he didn't think that was unusual because he was a kid when he knew Mike and when he lived in Derry and kids forget things, right? But what scared him was that he'd forgotten it all. Because he hadn't even thought about his childhood since he didn't know when. But he remembers being fat and poor. He remembers a kid named Henry Bowers carving the letter H into his stomach. And he remembers giving his fourth silver dollar to Stuttering Bill and either Bill or a girl named Beverly saved his life with that silver dollar.

6. What does Eddie dream about Patrick Hockstetter? He dreams that he's eleven years old and he smelled something like death. Someone lit a match and he looked down and saw the decomposing face of Patrick Hockstetter. Patrick disappeared in July of 1958 and there were worms crawling out of his cheeks and the awful smell was coming from inside Patrick. And to one side of him there were two schoolbooks that were fat with moisture and overgrown with mold: Roads to Everywhere and Understanding Our America. And that was when Eddie opened his mouth to scream but fingers went around his cheek and into his mouth and that was when he woke up. But he also says that it was more a memory than it was a dream...

7. What affect does Mike Hanlon's call have on Beverly? It makes her stronger. Her husband has been beating her since before their marriage and she finally stands up to him. It turns out the same thing happened with her father and she escaped her father's beatings only to wind up with someone just like him (that seems to be a theme here). But instead of just taking it this time, she fights back and escapes. So Beverly grabs her packed suitcase and gets out of the house for what feels like it will be the last time. And then she heads back to Derry.

8. After Bill talks to Mike Hanlon, what comes back? What does he remember about the summer of 1958 and the promise made? Two things: Bill's stutter and two white scars on his palms. He shows these to his wife and they both swear the scars were not there before. She vividly remembers a palm reading at a party when they first met and she didn't notice the scars then. And Bill says he was arm wrestling or something the night before and he didn't see them then. He says he thinks they returned when Mike called, since A LOT OF STUFF returned when Mike called, including his memories of his brother, all of his friends and just Derry in general. Bill also remembers how he got the scars. He said Stan is the one who cut all of their hands. He cut a small scar in each of their palms with a piece of glass and then they all held hands in a circle like blood brothers. And they promised, swore, if it wasn't over and it started happening again, they would all come back. And stop it again. Forever.

  Section One Reading Journal

Okay so. I have been wanting to read this book foreverrrr. But it’s such a long read and Stephen King seems to be such a hit or miss with me. But I always tend to read things better with book club so that’s why I chose it. But, that being said, I am a huge fan of the 1990 mini-series so I’m hoping that means I’ll like the book? I haven’t seen the 2017 movie yet because I was hoping to read the book first (hahahaha) but since we’re reading it now, that means I’ll probably be able to watch that one and the second half super soon!!!

Anyway, I am quite enjoying this book so far! I’m not loving the non-linear timeline though (especially since I am number dyslexic and am having sERIOUS TROUBLE keeping 1958 and 1985 straight. THANKS FOR THAT STEPHEN KING). I kind of like that the movies are fixing that??? But also, why does SK always write that like??? I swear none of his books ever have a linear timeline. Looking at you, Dark Tower series.

I kind of wish this section hadn’t entirely been with the adults and it would’ve gone into more of the background of them as kids. Though I guess that’s the entirety of the next part. But, still, we don’t really have a basis for who they are yet so we can’t really see how they’ve changed from when they’re kids. I did enjoy this section though. But chapter two felt wildly irrelevant??? Like that was just filler to show you that other people do, in fact, see Pennywise. And I guess that’s also why Mike ends up calling everyone to bring them back. But still, the mini-series pretty much glossed over the details of the actual event and I honestly support that choice. (Though Adrian and company are in the cast for the 2019 film so I’m guessing that’s going to be in the new movie?)

Oh and side note. I love the William Goldman reference in this section XDDD Especially since we definitely have a history with Goldman and so does SK. I’m guessing this book was written right around the time Misery was adapted into a film (I could actually look it up but ~lazy) and SK was very pleased, ahahaha.

Anyway, so far I’m liking this book but I’m already side-eyeing the 1000 pages. Knowing SK’s writing, there’s a bunch of stuff that doesn’t need to be in this book. I think this was a nice setup but I guess we’ll see how the rest of this goes. Because wow that was literally a hundred page intro to all of the relevant characters. Okay. Now let’s see the rest of the book....

#trcbooks #choice: it #reader's choice reading list