Semi-Open: Now all our memories, they're haunted

[clussy]

Who: All of the present Losers' Club (Eddie, Stan, Richie, and Bill) + The poor souls who decide to help them (Some OTA prompts inside, but mostly closed).
When: During the Future portion of the event. (Posted now for sake of time scheduling for everyone).
Where: Everywhere.
What: The Losers discover the potential futures of Stan and Eddie. Things do not end well.
Warnings: Serious IT spoilers for those not canon-familiar. HEAVY CW: Suicide, major character death, maiming of characters, canon typical horror/violence, children dealing with very mature content as per usual with this canon. Children eventually making a blood oath. Proceed with caution and consider your own comfort levels when engaging with the IT children.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you. -Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself" ♪ ♫ ♬ ♪

OOC NOTES: Specific starters will be in the comments below. This log will be revisited multiple times to address this exact event. Scenes will be logged here for sake of organization and accessibility. If you have any questions or requests to make of myself or any of the Losers members, feel free to contact me (clussy) Richie-mun (calaveras) Bill-mun (rainbowspaceship) or Stan-mun (poetanarchy). Some open logs will be available for the boys.

Comments

Closed to Eddie (cw: suicide, dialogue taken directly from the book)

[stantheman]

[ Stan had a good life. He was a successful accountant and he had a loving wife, Patricia. There was always a shadow in the back of his mind, like a fire you forgot to put out before you went to bed and waking up knowing the risk that it could have engulfed your home in flames. Their only apparent problem was their difficulty in getting pregnant -- deep inside, despite all the medical tests and consultations Stan had always known it was his fault. He'd never quite known how or why or what he could possibly do to fix it.

But it all came to a screeching halt one evening. One phone call from Mike to let him know that It had returned to Derry and a carefully constructed safe life had come down around him. The memories had come back swift and overpowering, every moment of fear, every memory of being dirty and lost. It was all right there and he couldn't. He manages to get through that fated phone call with Mike but he doesn't manage to return to Derry.

After he gets off the phone, there's a short exchange with his wife.

"Who was that, Stan?"

"Hmmmm?"

"Who was that on the phone?"

"No one. No one, really. I think I'll take a bath."

"What, at seven o'clock?"

There's no fuss as he goes to the bathroom upstairs. There's maybe a thought that he wishes Patricia won't be the one to have to find him but the fear is really what's in control now. So in the bathtub of the good home that he's made with Patricia he cuts his wrists in the shape of a T and before he dies he writes 'It' on the bathroom wall.

---

It fades away but Stan feels like it's still right there in front of his eyes the memory it vivid. He feels like he can't really breathe and he looks in the direction of Eddie. ]

I can't breathe.

[ It's a ridiculous thing to say because clearly if he's talking he can breathe but he still feels like something has a strangle hold on him. Is it grief, fear, anger, shame or just some deadly combination of all three. He wants to run but he feels rooted. ]

[clussy]

(Eddie's own future reflects an immense woman and a marriage that's suffocating in every possible meaning of the world. He doesn't understand the discomfort that spirals in his chest at the sight of it, how he'd spent years and years doing nothing at all with himself, only to settle for this. There's something pressing there, and he can't continue to look at this loveless, baseless marriage that he apparently winds up in.

Instead, he looks to Stan's future. It's an easy thing to do. He doesn't feel shy about looking at what his friend's future might be because hopefully, it'd be a nice one.

It is not a nice one.

Suicide is something rarely spoken about in the fifties. Mental health poorly handled. Eddie stares, watching the way Stan's skin splits open surprisingly neat and easy. Like cutting wrapping paper with a pair of scissors.

He sees the blood, watches Stan write out the word, and he just doesn't register right away what happened. That Stan, the boy beside him, grows old and does something like that to himself.

Stan is dead and Eddie watches the bath water turn pink.

He's jolted from the future's image by Stan, his Stan's, voice, startling and looking over at him. It's so stupid what he says, because God, of course it is, yet...)

I don't have my inhaler on me.

(As if it would help, but he's done it before. When Stan first panicked over It. He did it and it had seemed to help at least a little -if only because it had startled Stan out of it. He reaches out and grabs a hold of Stan's hand, gripping knuckle-white tight.)

That's...

(Impossible? Was it really though? Stan with his seriousness, Stan who for whatever reason said that Derry wasn't so bad even after all they had been through. Did he really shut everything up inside of him so tightly that one day the weight just gave?)

Closed to Bill and Richie: CW Major character death

[clussy]

(Eddie wanted to go back to the simple-minded horror of Myra Kaspbrak. The overweight woman who struck an eerie resemblance to his mother who ultimately wound up his wife. Seeing her round face pinch up and wobble had made Eddie sick to his stomach, but he'd take that feeling a thousand times over than when he had turned and saw Stan's future.

It made everything feel fuzzy around the edges, and when he had wound up back at Unit 5, it was hardly a surprise that he instantly went to Bill and Richie. After all of the past memories they had experienced together, it was clear that whatever was happening on this ship somehow knew the truth. These futures felt as real as their very pasts, and Eddie had no idea what to do with that. He was scared for Stan, not sure how to express that fear, but he thought maybe if he took Bill and Richie to go see as much, they would understand.

So he walked them there. He stood between Richie and Bill. The future was strange, and from the corner of his eye, he could see Richie in some dazzling future of fame and fortune. He's almost startled by how Richie looks in the vision, adult and matured, but something cracks through the futures. Bill's future, Eddie's, Richie's- it's all the same because they're all in the memory. They're all older men, aged and worn, and Eddie...

At first he doesn't quite understand. There's screaming and chaos: they're in the sewers. He doesn't need to be there to remember how they smelled, doesn't need to know the fear caked on its walls. They go back, Eddie realizes, staring, and he doesn't even really realize what he's staring at because it just seems so completely impossible.

Eddie lunging his arm, the image skips, and Eddie's arm is ripped off.

The child Eddie stands there, watching, his entirety numb because he ...almost wants to laugh. It can't really be happening. That couldn't really be his future. He falls with a wet smack onto the floor, and Bev's there, trying to stop the bleeding. But Eddie was dying. Young Eddie doesn't need to be there to realize this on some innate level. His voice whimpers out of him and his hands cover his face. He distantly can hear Richie saying something beside him, but then that too fades. Everything leaks out of him except for what was happening in front of him.

"Richie," he can hear himself whispering, can see Richie leaning down to hear him better. To..to something. He's never seen Richie look so desperate in all his life. Not even in the Neibolt house memory.

"Don't call me Eds," and then Eddie's smiling in the future, touching Richie's cheek. There were tears streaking Richie's face and child Eddie couldn't help but grab at his best friend's hand, his grip iron-clad because this might just be an image of some distant-maybe, but seeing his friend hurt so much...Seeing himself die- fuck.

"You know I....I...." Eddie's voice went clipped, and child Eddie held his breath for some magnificent moment of truth. A truth that never, ever came to pass, because suddenly he was dead.

His hand is knuckle white on Richie's when the other vision catches all their attention. Maybe it was from Bill's perspective, the entire world shaking around them, the sewers collapsing. Richie and Ben carrying Eddie's corpse.

This is the part that makes Eddie break from everything.

He can't understand it any better than the vision before. Except this vision is somehow worse.

It's Bill who says it. "How c-can w-we?" he asks to Bev about getting Eddie out. Eddie blinks slowly.

What did Bill mean?

Richie insists they gotta get Eddie out of there. They make it through the door, get Eddie out through that twinkling door. That's when Beverly tells Richie and Ben to put Eddie down and something in Eddie's chest clenches up, and then all at once explodes: "He can stay here."

What did she mean? In the sewers? Why would Beverly...

Richie's sobbing broke his focus, Richie insisting Eddie couldn't be left in the sewers. It was too dark.

Then Ben: "No, it's okay. Maybe this is where he's supposed to be. I think maybe it is."

Eddie doesn't remember sitting down, doesn't really remember much of anything because why would Ben think he belongs there? Why would-

Richie's suddenly kissing his cheek in the vision, and Eddie's throat closes because no- was he really-

Richie abandons him. They all abandon his body. Eddie can hear himself gasping, and at some point he had let go of Richie's hand.

He doesn't remember sprinting away from his friends. He doesn't remember when he started crying. He doesn't remember anything except for that vision. He crashes clumsily over their bikes, but manages to get a hold of his, swinging his legs over it, and takes off, off, away.)

» ʙɪʟʟ

[beeped]

[The entire concept of seeing the future is even stranger than seeing the past. With seeing Eddie's memories, and Bill's, it made sense. They were things that already happened, set in stone. The future's different because it hasn't happened yet, but as he sees their future, he doesn't think of it as something possible, one of many options.

Instead, it's absolutely what happens, because this is what he sees. At first, it's something he's quite excited about: proof that he'll amount to something, that he has an entire city in the palm of his hand, so many people finding him funny. It means more than the expensive highrise apartment filled with expensive goods and more money than he can count.

He's elated by the prospect and is moments from excitedly yammering about it, only to have it all fade away quickly. What replaces that excitement is a sense of dread when he realizes where they are. He doesn't have to ask; Richie recognizes the sewers immediately. There's no way he could forget the stench, the fear. It's a place he never wanted to return to. He's not surprised to find they do wind up back here as adults--they made a promise, after all.

But Richie'd been hoping it was one that he wouldn't have to follow through on.

Everything happens so quickly that Richie hardly has time to register what's going on. There's older Eddie, missing an arm, calling older Richie over. That Richie is sobbing, scared, more devastated than he'd ever been in his life. He can only watch the scene unfold in horror. Richie can feel Eddie holding his hand tightly, and he squeezes in response. It's the only thing keeping him grounded right now. Reminding him that this is a long time from now, that he still has Eddie.

But then it gets worse. It's... he can't explain it. It's like they're all pod-people, who've forgotten who they're supposed to be at their cores. How else can he explain it? Eddie's dead and the losers of the future are telling future him to leave Eddie in the sewers. But it's dark, it's filthy. God-- anyone who knows Eddie would know this is the last thing he would want.

The last thing he deserves.

This might be the final resting place for Georgie, for Patrick Hockstetter, Betty Ripsom and the other ghosts of their pasts. But not Eddie Kaspbrak. Not his best. fucking. friend. Who'd called him over as he lay dying to tell him something important, something Richie will never know.

The Eddie of the present is pulling away, and Richie barely even registers the sound of him running away. It's not over. Older Richie doesn't want to leave Eddie there, but Bill agrees with Ben and Beverly. Bill, who's been Richie's goddamn hero his entire life, agrees. So older Richie listens. He sees leaving Eddie behind, sees himself screaming and kicking a door, consumed with dispair. It's something that he, at thirteen years old, understands more than the adult woman asking him why he did that.

The vision fades, and Richie finds himself solidly back in the present. Eddie's long gone. It's just him and Bill. For some amount of time, he's staring blankly at nothing, trying to undertstand how anything could go the way it had. The anger takes over quickly. Angry that Eddie died. Angry at himself. The losers. The world. Everything.

He's making an effort to reign in the tears threatening to stream down his cheeks as he turns to Bill finally.] We left him. Eddie, we--

[Richie's voice cracks as he stands there in confusion and shock. The anger takes over and he's closing the distance between them. He hurts, knows nothing is ever going to be the same again, and he wants Bill to hurt too. He wants to punch him in the face, hit him in the chest, and given the opportunity he'd take it.] He's our best friend! And you made me leave him!

» ᴇᴅᴅɪᴇ

[beeped]

[Never in his life has he been afraid to face Eddie Kaspbrak. But right now, Richie Tozier is absolutely terrified. This doesn't compare to any of the fights they've had over the years. That was usually stupid things. Richie taking a joke too far, them getting into trouble, or just the sort of disagreements kids get into.

This is different.

It feels like the end of everything Richie's ever known. His childhood innocence died in the sewers, summer of 1989, but seeing actually die there in some distant future, and how he and their other friends handled it. That's the death of the losers, their friendship. Everything. There's no coming back from that. Richie hasn't had time to process everything--there's a lot to unpack which will take some time--and though he's hardly thought about what exactly this all means for him, he's aware of one thing.

That cold, isolating feeling he's feared his entire life. The one he felt so often coming home, where it was so dark, quiet and empty. It was a feeling he hadn't felt in the time he's been sharing a room with Eddie. It was a feeling he never felt when he was around the Losers. But he knows now it's going to be all he has left. And having seen what he saw, he deserves it.

The devastated feeling didn't go away after his confrontation with Bill. If anything, it made things worse. He had to fight off waves of nausea for as long as he could until he could find a bathroom or a trashcan. Even after there's nothing left, his stomach still feels like it's convulsing. As if he can extinguish everything in him that's so bad if he just vomits enough.

A couple hours pass before he tracks down Eddie. More than anything, Richie would rather curl up somewhere and hide forever than to face his best friend. Former best friend, more likely. He doesn't want to see the look of betrayal on Eddie's face, the pain, just anger. But he has to.

Eddie means too much to him for him to not try to talk to him about it. He doesn't even know what he would say. He didn't want to hear what Eddie might have to say to him. Eddie could hurt him, destroy him, in a way Henry Bowers never could.

But Richie can't blame Eddie for any of it. All of his anger, his shame, is directed at himself and the others who were there. Eddie didn't ask to die so horrifically, and all of them failed him in the end.

It's the greenery where he eventually finds Eddie, though he's not really surprised by this. The other kid has his back to him, and he's--what? digging in the dirt? shredding flowers? Richie can't be certain. He's subdued when he approaches, stopping a yard or so away. Already, he's bracing for impact.]

Eddie?

Closed to Chara: CW For mild body horror

[clussy]

(Stripped of his closest friends, Eddie almost doesn't understand who he is supposed to be. Maybe that's the worst part about this. Not the abandonment, not the death, not the faded words that were forever lost to a permanent end. None of that compared to the fact that suddenly Eddie felt very, very alone in the universe. The Losers had been a part of his life for almost all of his life. He'd met Bill, Richie, and Stan when he was just a child, fresh-faced and so terribly young. People thought he was a kid now, but he had been a genuine child back then. When he met Richie on the playground, sobbing like a giant baby about getting sick and dying. When Richie had started to try and make him laugh to get him to stop crying. Bill and his scary-big bike and how he seemed like such a fucking hero the moment Eddie saw him. Stan with his quiet seriousness that Eddie saw a lot of himself in.

They were his life. And for as long as he knew, they were the reason he did so many of the things he did. They were his loyalty, his passion, and every single wonderful emotion he's ever felt. He loved his Losers more than anything else, and he had died for his Losers. And they had left him.

And then he had left them. Had sprinted away before Bill or Richie could get out anything, and Eddie couldn't stop running. He only stopped running when his legs started to scream, and when his lungs felt like they would collapse. He was far, far away from where the Ingress was, in some distant hallway. A few aching steps around and Eddie recognized where he was well enough. He never remained lost for long.

For a crippling moment of paranoia, Eddie wondered what he was supposed to do. He wanted to cry for his horrible mother, because he felt so viciously alone. There was no Richie to cling to, no Bill to look up to, no Stan to listen to. Just him and a long, narrow hall way.

Eddie sat down, and rocked against the wall, and he let himself sink. His hand touched over the cast from when the demon had attacked him, the broken arm, the arm he would one day apparently lose and die from. Just like Georgie. Exactly like Georgie. Except no one would be around to put his body in the ground. He'd be lost to Its layer where his body would rot, and his friends would forget him, because that was the magic of It.

He poked his fingers at his face, and for a delusional moment, he thought he could feel holes in his cheeks. Like his skin had begun to rot and slough off, teeth exposing. There were maggots in his mouth, eating his tongue and he could taste the greywater of Derry in his mouth, feel it in his eyes. He could smell popcorn, hot and fresh, and could hear a calliope, and oh Christ.

He was all alone.

Where Georgie's blood was, where Betty Ripsom rotted, where Eddie Corcoran's head rolled over and winked at him.

Fear closed up his throat and he doesn't really remember it. Opening up his A.C.E and he somehow finds Chara. It's a miracle really. He forgets to say anything. It's just a video feed of Eddie breathing shakily, staring not quite at Chara, but not quite away.)

[inconsequence]

[They get a message that is as devoid of context as it is esoteric; little more than a video fade, halting and shaky and panicked, wheezing breath.]

[When you call, I will come.]

[They keep their promises. They keep them. So when he calls, they answer. They answer swiftly, immediately, because they may not be good at a great deal of things, but they can know without question when someone isn't okay. They know when a child isn't okay.]

Where are you?

Open: No more heroes. CW for all the warnings listed on this post

[shipsandsealingwax]

[Ultimately, it's too much for Bill. Too many things that he can't make sense of or does not want to. The man in that vision was everything Bill never wanted to be. He had forgotten everything that Bill held so important to himself. His friends that were the family he built for himself, the honor he held as so vital to his every day life, the promises he made both aloud and too himself.

The future was a nightmare that could never be allowed to happen.

But worse than hearing himself agree with Bev and Ben, worse than watching Eddie bleed out, just as Georgie had done decades before for that him, so much more recently for this one, worse even than watching older Eddie's body go still and lifeless, was coming out of that vision.

Eddie was gone, as if dying in the future has made him vanish in the now. Only Bill knew that wasn't what happened, he had heard Eddie run, heard him stumble and fumble with the bikes. Then there was the look and the sound of Richie's face and voice, when pain and confusion turned not just to anger but the kind of blind rage you only saw in someone who was hurting as bad as Richie was hurting. He hadn't even tried to move out of the way of Richie's fist, and his sleeve, the front of his shirt and his face were all stained red with the blood that had been flowing freely from his broken nose ever since.

He was still sitting there on the floor, his back to the wall, his nose crooked and his eyes distant and blank as they had been from the moment the vision had ended. He couldn't move, he couldn't speak. He felt scooped out and hollow, shutting down from the emotions that had run wild and unchecked through his young mind.

In the future, Eddie died. Bill didn't save him. Bill told Richie to leave him in the sewers, like he wasn't worth it. Like he didn't mean the world to Bill. Like he wasn't a brother to Bill near as much as Georgie. And worse, it was like the future was mocking him for all his failures. Of course he would fail Eddie, just like he had failed Georgie. Of course, they would die in such a similar fashion to one another.

And where did it leave him now?

Alone on the floor, eyes bloodshot, but no more tears escaping. He had cried them out hours ago.

Richie was rightfully disgusted and furious with him. Bill didn't blame him. He felt the same about himself. Eddie... Eddie had to be hurting and scared, alone and terrified of the future and the betrayal of his friends. And Stan? Where had Stan been? Where was he now?

Bill moves and every muscle in his body protests after hours of sitting there motionless. He needed to... There had to be something he could do. Some way he could fix this. Some way he could make sure none of it ever happened. He wouldn't let this be there future. He couldn't let this be their future. Eddie deserved so much better than that.

Stumbling, his legs dead from the position he had held so long, Bill makes his way toward medical, his trusty bike left toppled and ignored in the hall.]

[a_shadow]

[ It's not the first time since entering this universe that Tex has seen visions of people's pasts and futures, of alternate timelines and other strange happenings, but because of the timing of many of those things, she hadn't had time to linger on them. No one had. The ship had been breaking apart and everyone had barely escaped. But this time is different. This time, everyone has nothing to do afterwards but sit and ponder the visions they encounter of each other's timelines. Because of that, she's more worried about what the children and other easily-influenced people will do in reaction to those visions. She's taken the option of patrolling the halls, like she used to do on the ship, and watching out for anyone who's upset or needs guided back to their quarters. She's not the greatest at being a comfort, but she can listen to someone talk and help them gather themselves a bite to eat or help them go lie down.

She's approaching medical when she sees Bill heading in her direction, toward the door she's about to pass. She recognizes him as one of the students she's been teaching survival techniques and self-defense to, and she can tell he's been upset. She stops before she reaches the door, to let him enter if he intends to. ]

Hey, kid.

[ It's a simple greeting, spoken softly enough, to avoid seeming like she's going to add to whatever's upset him. ]

Open: Follow the Dots: CW spoilers and all the rest mentioned prior.

[clussy]

(The Observation Station had become a place of salvation for Eddie. It had been the first thing he truly saw when he arrived. Sans had showed him (his entire soul ached for Sans- Sans who would know what to do, what to say now) and ever since then, Eddie had come here often. After everything that happened with his friends, he set up camp right there under the stars. He had pillows on the floor, blankets thrown over them, right up against the transparent field where the view would be the best.

It isn't the best place for a child to set up camp. The tables meant that adults probably met in there for important discussions, but Eddie didn't give a damn.

An obsessive kind of idea seized Eddie at some point, and he retrieved his chalk from the unit when he thought no one would be there. He got down onto his hands and knees and began to scrape the chalk across the floor of the Observation Station. It wouldn't last, God no. Not chalk. Easily walked over and ruined, but it would be there for some time until that happened. He drew neat straight yellow lines, carefully precise. When he ran out of the yellow, he picked up purple. Eddie worked all around the room, his face and clothes covering in speckles of the colors of chalk.

Eddie was drawing the map of Derry, and the map of the sewers beneath. And somewhere in the map, he had collected a small, but sizable, pile of red flowers bunched up.

Anyone could come in during any time during his drawing. Whether it's as he finishes it, or in the middle of it, but Eddie works at it for hours and hours. Days, really, stopping to sleep or eat, or to go and shower. It's a complicated work, his careful handwriting labeling locations piece by piece. His own feet scuff some of the older work, but mostly he is careful.)

[otiosity]

[Hawke is worried about Eddie.

Things are rough lately with everyone's pasts and futures getting floated about for all their crew mates to see. It's something akin to Hawke's worst nightmare. She hates anyone seeing those vulnerable parts of hers. But she can handle herself and so can everyone else she knows. And she knows Eddie can handle it too, she's just worried he might need a little help getting started. She's noticed the room next door has been quiet lately.'

Thankfully, Kitty is a good dog and leads her right to the observation deck where she sees Eddie and his little set up beneath the stars. For a bit she just watches him work. Then she steps forward into the room and makes her way towards him and does her best to be careful and not scuff up any of his drawings. Her steps kick up some chalk dust into the air and it makes her sneeze though she does her best to stifle it.

Rubbing at her nose, she decides to just get to the heart of it all.]

So what's all this? I'm not very much into abstract expressionism.

[gerechtigkeit]

[He still visits the Observation Room often, though not as much to view the storms, but to think. The quiet in there seems a lot easier to handle then the openness of his own room, at times. Most avoid it and what it symbolizes, and he can't blame them.

The fact that memories have been showing themselves so freely recently bothers him- perhaps the one about his own death moreso than the first that reveals his real name. Neither are ones he wants to openly share unless someone he trusts asks, but here they are being shown to the world, anyway. He needs a breath (or several) to recollect his thoughts and be ready to answer questions when they come, because he knows they will.

Siegfried doesn't expect people to be in the room when he arrives- but the sound of scribbling along the floor gives him pause upon his arrival. The small figure crouched over a drawing does little to alleviate a jumbled feeling of worry upon seeing Eddie.]

What are you drawing? [Asked gently, away by the door so as to not scare the boy or startle him too much.]

[coercive]

[When Laura finds him, she just casually observes him from a distance for a while. She isn't sure he wants to be interrupted. He leaves and she slips away, coming back to observe him over a period of days. When she thinks he's just about getting done she finally makes her way over to him. Her hand rests on his shoulder and she doesn't say anything. Whatever he's doing must be very important. And if it's important to him, it is to her too.

She just isn't sure what to say, which is always an issue.]

open; it's not my home, it's their home & i'm welcome no more

[beeped]

cw: everything already mentioned itp

greenery

[Richie can't bring himself to go back to the Losers' Unit following--well, everything. First and foremost, it was Eddie's unit first. It was Eddie's room he slept in. He doesn't know if Eddie's staying there, but if he is, he has the right to it all first. And Bill might be there. It's where Bill and Stan live, too.

Richie doesn't trust himself with Bill right now. Sometimes he thinks he might be able to talk to him about what they saw, but most of the time he only feels angry. Enough that the wouldn't be surprised if he starts another fight, and next time it might not be the case where Bill stands there and takes it.

And Stan? He doesn't know. Richie only knows he wasn't there, in the vision? memory of the future? whatever.

It's for the best that he keeps his distance. There's a lot he has to think about, a lot he has to process, and it's better for himself and everyone else that he does it alone. Going about it this way is isolating, which Richie absolutely hates

(but it's what he deserves)

but this isn't something he can talk about with the Losers, even if things weren't tense between them. They're too close to the heart of the matter. This is Richie's own burden that he has to carry alone.

All of it consumes him: his future, the shared memories of the sewer, Eddie dying in his arms--his own abandoning him. There's more to it beyond loss and a shitty response to it, but it's too much for him to fully understand.

But it's on his mind, constantly. It's on his mind when he passes the time climbing trees in the greenery (how could he leave eddie in the sewer in the future? he won't do that now, he'll stay here and wait forever until eddie needs him again.) It keeps him up at night when he tries to sleep in a field of grain, in what ends up being the most depressing bout of camping he's had in his life (there's so much blood, but he's close, so close. what was eddie going to say to him?)

This is how he passes his days, mostly staying in the greenery, sometimes venturing elsewhere but avoiding his normal haunts. For someone who is generally so energetic and cheerful, he couldn't be more quiet and sullen.]

bartering block

[It isn't often that Richie leaves the greenery since he and Eddie parted ways, but there's so much conflict and tension building within him that he has to get out in some way.

The choice destination ends up being the the bartering block. When the stands aren't open and operating, it's isolated enough that he can have his space so he can do what he needs to.

His choice supplies are empty bottles from the bar, some heavy rocks from the greenery. So much time gets spent throwing the rocks at the bottles. His aim isn't great, and when he's unsuccessful enough times, he's grabbing the bottles by the necks and chucking them at the walls. The glass shatters into so many pieces, but when that's not distructive enough, he's kicking and hitting the stands, the crate the bottles came in.

Richie's so consumed in everything he's feeling that he doesn't realize how loudly he's screaming. He just knows his breathing comes uneasily as his chest heaves, his lungs feel raw, and before he knows it, he's a trembling mess on the cold floor.]

bartering block

[a_shadow]

[ Tex hears screaming. She has little to compare it to, but she remembers Carolina, ripping her helmet off because of the pain of dealing with her AIs calling Tex's name, and she had screamed like this. So yes, she has heard such screams of agony, and she breaks into a run when the sound reaches her ears. It takes a little misdirection before she finds the source, but she arrives just in time to see Richie toss himself on the floor.

Tex isn't the most tender person ever. She isn't close to this boy, and she isn't his mother. She has to act on her first impulse and hopefully it'll be the right thing to do. She rushes to him and falls on her knees, watching briefly to make sure she doesn't kneel on broken glass, and she reaches to cover his hands with hers. ]

All right, kid, I'm here. Come on.

[ Come on and do what, she doesn't say—whether he takes that as an invitation to be enfolded in an embrace or something else is up to him. The words would sound impatient or demanding if expressed in a different tone from what she's using, but the words are tender. ]

bartering block

[otiosity]

[Someone is deeply concerned about Richie. And Eddie. And Stan and Bill too. That's Ser Kitty Hawke (Hawke likes to claim that's his full name and title anyway). He misses the boys next door where he could just wander over, scratch a few times at the door, and lots of pets and walks and games of fetch. But the past few days the room has been quiet and no one has answered his calls.

So when he ends up in the bartering block and sees Richie collapsed on the floor, he trots over, sniffs the boys hair a few times, and then drops down next to him with a whine. Kitty presses his big body against Richie's trembling form and noses at him with big sad eyes.]

Open

[stantheman]

Library

[ After everything that had happened with his own future and then Eddie's -- which had certainly had more of an impact on the group than his own... he'd not wanted to be in the area they all shared together. He spent most of his time in the library, trying to read anything that would take his mind off of it all.

He was angry. He was angry at himself and ashamed. He was angry at Eddie because they're all supposed to die together or not at all -- which is the height of hypocritical when he knows he dies first. He's angry at Bill and Richie too. He's indescribably sad.

So, if you come looking for him or come across him, he's in some corner holed up with a stack of books in Hebrew or about birds. It's just as likely you find him restlessly dozed off as you are to find him reading or simply staring into space. ]

Unit 5

[ At some point, he realizes he has to stop avoiding their unit. He doesn't make much effort to find the others or talk to anyone. He stays in bed and he eats and he reads. He doesn't have much to say. He's keeping it all inside.

Because if he doesn't say something is wrong then nothing is wrong and he is going to be perfectly fine. ]

Wildcard

[ for whatever's missing ]

the promise. cw: blood, mild self-harm for the greater good

[beeped]

[Being told that the future isn't set in stone is the best advice Richie could've gotten, and after spending a few days mulling it over, he realize this is the best thing he can do. The only way he can think of to change the future, to bind their commitment to making sure the future they saw doesn't come to fruition.

He's glad that Bill was willing to reach out and get everyone together. It makes more sense for him to do it. That, and he'd told Eddie he'd give him his space. So on that note it was just easier to give everyone space.

He'd been spending his nights sleeping in a wheat field, and when it's time to meet at the Ingress, he goes straight there. Covered in dirt, filthy, but equipped with a piece of metal shrapnel to follow through with their new oath. He looks awful, but no one looks great either.

When the four of them are there, Richie doesn't sugarcoat what this oath is supposed to be: a promise that they stick together, that they prevent the future they saw from happening. That they weren't going to let their friends die. No one was getting left behind.

What follows isn't much different from that summer day after they defeated It, except it's Richie slicing open his hand first, and doing the same for the three other boys. When they hold each other's hands, he knows this is going to be the first step in changing their future.

They'll make a better one.]

[shipsandsealingwax]

[Bill was smart about it this time. He had come from Medical, and he had brought bandages to wrap their hands with when they were done. He finishes with his last, securing it tightly. His nose is covered in a white bandage meant to brace it while it heals, and the bruising under his eyes is a dark greenish black.

His expression is somber and serious as he looks over his friends, this broken band of boys held together by an oath and a history steeped in blood, fear, and their dependency on one another.

He rubs at the cut in his hand and breaks contact from them, looking away. They need each other, he needs them, that much he knows, but things aren't fixed just because of this oath, and he doesn't know what more to say this time. He's said what he can to each of them.

Straightening up, ready to leave the moment any of them asks him to, he finally speaks up after letting Richie run the show with the oath.]

You could use a bath. [Directed toward Richie, and then Eddie.] And an actual sleep.

I'm going to g-go get a change of cl-clothes.

[clussy]

(Much like the first time, Eddie can't stand to watch when Richie cuts his hand. He shuts his eyes and grimaces, his fingers twitching long after Richie left to cut the other boys' hands. When the circle forms, he naturally slides between Richie and Bill. Despite everything, it's where he felt safest.

Their hands clasp, and it burns. Maybe it's the magic working its way into their promise the way the old one had. Maybe it's their blood mixing together, through the chalk on Eddie's skin, or the dirt on Richie's.

It doesn't fix everything...But it helps.

They are no longer some shattered thing spread across a floor. They are now a shattered thing gathered up into a box. It was more hopeful than that first time seeing all the futures.

He watches Bill wrap his hand, staring, but not really seeing. He gives this slow nod when Bill tells them as much -to shower, to sleep. Eddie wouldn't sleep any time soon. Not yet.

He doesn't remember wandering back to the unit. Unwinding the well-done bandage. He works the cut back into bleeding by scraping it against his cast, and then rubs the blood over his fingers, his palm, until the entire thing is tacky red. Then he presses it against the wall under Richie's carefully written words that echoed their new promise. He pulls his hand away, and after that, Eddie leaves.)

[beeped]

[Richie watches his friends part ways, lingering at the Ingress until he's the only one there. Just him, and the blood-stained piece of shrapnel in his hand. He doesn't know how long it'll take for things to be okay again.

They will one day. He believes that, because if he doesn't, he really has nothing and there's no point to anything. He wants things to be normal again, but it's not something he can simply make better.

For the first time in about a week, he returns to their shared unit. It's empty at that given point, though upon seeing Eddie's bloody handprint on the wall, Richie takes a moment to add another note to their memory wall.

Don't leave Eddie in the fucking sewers dipshits.

He doesn't wait for the paint to dry. Just grabs a change of clothes, heads down the hall to take the first shower he's had in far too long. But from there, it's back to the greenery.

Their unit is too empty and quiet, he can't stand the thought of being there alone.]

[stantheman]

[ Stan is withdrawn and he doesn't say much in their time. He takes the oath seriously. It's difficult when the shrapnel cuts into his skin and he has to look away from the blood. It's too hard not to see himself bleeding another way. Once they're done, he's relieved when the bandage is on and hiding the blood and the cut.

He knows he should say more than he has, he should be doing a lot more than he is but he doesn't have the energy.

It's not long after they've made their new promise that he returns to their unit, instead of all but living in the library. He looks at what's on the wall and he wants to add something but he doesn't know what. Seeing "Don't leave Eddie in the sewers dipshits." sends something raw and painful through his heart. Would he have made a difference if he'd been there? Is it his fault for not being there for them to make them see they couldn't do that to Eddie?

It probably wouldn't have made a difference. He was the weakest and the biggest coward out of all of them. So it's with those heavy thoughts that he crawls into his bed. The unit is empty but he thinks maybe that it's a reverse karma. In seeing the future, hadn't he already left them first? ]

Closed: Richie cw: everything about this entire post

[clussy]

(Richie is the first one he goes to because of course he is.

Eddie cleans himself up, though it takes time. He wants to finish the map. It had gotten him through the days being able to focus on something that intensive and demanding. It had been oddly therapeutic. But now the map was finished, and he had a fresh cut healing on his palm. He changes his clothes and neatens himself up, but it's evident that Eddie hasn't been sleeping much, his eyes dark, and his face a little pale.

There was very little that could keep the Losers apart as they were now. This might have shook them; but it would not break them. They were all worth more than that. Their relationship was bigger than any stupid decision they made as adults.

Eddie wanders into the Greenery. It's beautiful there, and feels quite a bit like home. It's in a field of some near-wheat looking plant that he discovers Richie's feet sticking out. Eddie crouches down silently in front of them, and reaches his hand out to grab the toe of Richie's shoe and give it a gentle shake. Just in case Richie was asleep, he didn't want to scare him.)

[beeped]

[Richie told Eddie he'd be waiting for him in the greenery, and it's something that he's determined to follow through on. It's nice, like pretend-outside, but it's boring. Everything is boring. He has too much time with his thoughts, and while he has time to think about how he wants to change, how he wants to be better, it's still a reminder of what he's missing.

His friends.

His palm hurts, with the scar that's there being reopened for make a promise anew. Despite that, he still finds himself clenching his hand periodically. The pain grounds him. Reminds him that things will get better. They're going to fix things. He's going to fix things, when the time comes, if it's the last thing he does.

Richie isn't sleeping when Eddie shakes his shoe, but he's something close to it. His mind heavy, lost in his thoughts, half here, half there. He's startled at first, thinking some adult's found him out and he'll have to find somewhere else to lay down.

But it's Eddie. His expression brightens, just a little. Things are still tense and weird, but he's missed his best friend so much. Immediately, he's reaching both of his hands out, intent on pulling the other boy into the wheat with him.]

Closed: Eddie

[shipsandsealingwax]

[Bill has been living in medical since the vision they shared of the future. He had had the excuse of his injury to buy the ticket to his bed, but more than just that he has been helping where he can while staying there with any task they will let him.

It's been a long, painful week and then some, and Bill is tired mentally and physically. His friends are scattered and oath aside it still feels like they're distant, too far from him to reach. His surety of his blame in all of this has made it hard to reach out, hard to talk to them, harder still knowing each of his friends needed their space and time to process it all.

For Bill, the loneliness has been eating at his very soul, leaving him alone to overthink and to dwell on the parallels. Georgie and Eddie had died in such similar fashions, to the same taunting entity, and Bill was forced to listen to It in his head, the laughter he could not escape, the whispers of how he failed them, how he was too weak and too spineless, how twice he had let his brother die. Worse was the chiming in of his parents, with their cold stares past him, and their biting words, with Richie now between them when he closed his eyes, wearing that same look of accusation and betrayal.

He's sitting on the bed he has been living in now, his head tilted back as he stares at the ceiling, his eyes not wet anymore, but red rimmed as they have not ceased to be.]

[clussy]

(After spending time with Richie, Eddie felt...calmer. More himself than he had in days. It felt like his point of gravity had been realigned. Things weren't fixed, but he was finally at a point where he felt like they were at least better. It had felt like he had done something magnificent, but he couldn't quite understand what just yet.

It makes sense for him to find Bill next. His feet carry him around, looking first briefly in their unit, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that Bill wouldn't be there. Eddie does stop to give Stan a small kiss on top of his head, before heading back out. He sees Richie's addition to the wall, and stops to stare at it for a moment, seeing Bill's as well, and his mouth twitches a little.

He loved them. So much that sometimes he didn't think his body would ever be big enough for it all.

Eddie winds up in medical pretty quickly. After all, Bill's face had been wrecked. Richie really had done a number on him.

When he finds Bill laying on one of the beds all alone, his heart twists uncomfortably with a quiet sort of longing. He'd missed him, this boy who had come to be his brother, his leader, his hero. Eddie approaches the bed, not bothering to make his steps quiet.

Once at the bed, he pulls himself up and instantly moves to lay against Bill's side, an arm sliding over his waist and he pillows his head against Bill's shoulder. He sighs quietly, his entire body sagging, because it's the first time he's felt relaxed since all of this happened.)

Closed to Richie

[shipsandsealingwax]

[Bill has two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on him when he gets to the Greenery. The memory of the other him, and of Richie's emotions when his fist connected with Richie's face is still fresh in his mind. As is the sting, emotional and physical, of Richie hittig him square in the nose. The bruising was fading, even if he still had the brace bandage keeping his nose straight. But they needed to talk. They all needed to start figuring out how to make things right again, because Bill couldn't live without his friends like this for much longer. It hurt too much.

He hands Richie a sandwich before flopping down on the grass with his own.]

Sure as I am you'd eat it, I left the p-pickles off. Little too w-w-weirdsville and I couldn't find any b-besides.

[beeped]

[Richie's glad that Bill reached out to talk. It was something he needed to do, but he'd been hesitant to do so. He reached out first to suggest the new blood oath, but that was different. That was for Eddie, for the Losers as a whole. They never addressed everything between them.

Between a broken nose and visions of the future, there's a lot.

He offers a small smile to Bill and takes his sandwich, unwrapping it to take a bite, talking with his mouth full.] Thassa shame. [He swallows.] The pickles really bring out the flavor of the jelly.