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

[beeped]

[It's even more difficult, Richie thinks, to see Eddie like this. He'd anticipated anger. Disappointment. But this is... Richie doesn't know. He's never seen anything like this. He doesn't know what to do.

What can he do? He can't get the future out of his head. He looks down, clenching his eyes shut, and when he opens them he sees the blood on his hands. The bruises on his knuckles. His heart seizes. Eddie's blood on his hands. But no. It's Bill's, from when he punched him in the nose. It's a reminder that there's nothing he can do but exacerbate how quickly everything falls apart.

So much of his relationship with Eddie involved him aggressively looking out for him. He would actively put himself in harm's way to protect Eddie. As he knows himself now, Richie wouldn't hesitate. Something goes wrong, somewhere between now and when they're old. Maybe nothing can be done about that.

But right now Richie is still himself, despite how crushed and awful he feels. Without even thinking, he's moving. Suddenly on his knees, kneeling beside Eddie, wrapping his arms around his shoulders and pressing his face against him. It's so hard to reign in his emotions, his tears. Eddie deserves better than to have Richie crying on him right now, but they've been each other's source of comfort for so long.

Right now, he doesn't know how to be stronger than he is.]

I love you.

[Eddie can push him away, tell him how much he hates him now. But Richie needed to let him know this first.]

[clussy]

(Eddie kept looking at his arm in its cast. The arm he one day would lose, have get ripped off, and he almost laughs about it. It was almost funny. They really thought that they could beat It so easily? Who the hell were any of them kidding? They were dumb kids that grew up to be dumb adults. Stan couldn't handle it, even though he had forced them to make this stupid promise, and Eddie couldn't live through it a second time.

It's such an automatic reaction, so natural between the two of them, that Eddie doesn't think to shove Richie off of him. It doesn't help that for the past couple of hours, this has been all he's wanted and needed. For one selfish second, Eddie lets himself forget about what happened and lets himself have this. Eddie doesn't hug back, but his head turns and rests idly against Richie's.

I love you.

It's something they both felt, that all of the Losers felt, but not something Richie and Eddie said to one another specifically. There had never really been a need to. Richie had said 'I love you' to Eddie every single time he called him cute, teased him, pulled him close when Eddie was scared, made him laugh when he was too upset.

His eyes water and he nearly breaks. Because he loves Richie too. God, of course he does.)

I love you too.

(His voice is splintered with emotion finally caving in, and he feels his whole chest expanding with the pain of it all. What hurt the worst? He doesn't even know.

He grabs Richie by his shoulders and pushes him back. It doesn't feel like he's pushing away a friend. It feels like he's wedging a stick into his own chest and trying to separate his entire nervous system from his body. Like losing a part of himself more important than an arm.

A million thoughts are clouding up Eddie's mind as he stares at his friend. What was he going to say to him as he died? Why did Richie leave him? These were all things he'd never figure out. He doesn't let go of Richie, instead staring at him, as if it would help him solve this puzzle, his fingers almost bruising on Richie's shoulders.)

[beeped]

[If there was a way to make all of this better, Richie would do it in a heartbeat. He just doesn't know how. How do you fight fate? Or ancient, malignant powers that have always existed? They shouldn't have ever promised to go back a second time.

Richie pulls away and sits on his heels when Eddie pushes him back. There's a lot they need to talk about, but he doesn't even know how to go about it. It's too much, way too much for them just being kids. It's not the first time they've dealt with things so much bigger than themselves and their comprehension of the world.

But this is the biggest.

He doesn't know what to say. All he can do is stare back at Eddie. He sniffs, trying to clear his nose, and wipes the wetness from his cheeks with his shirt sleeve. He wants to tell Eddie that he wouldn't do that. That none of them would. But they've so clearly experienced each other's memories that it would be a lie to suggest otherwise.]

I...

[He what? He needs to say something, but for the life of him he really doesn't know what he can do. He can't even ask if Eddie still wants to be his friend. Eddie said he loves him, but that doesn't change his worry over whatever the answer could be.]

[clussy]

(Sometimes Eddie liked to think that they were so much bigger than fate. They had cheated death outright when it came to It. Eddie was convinced he probably should have died under the porch that day the leper tried to get him. It was cosmic intervention that he hadn't. And for what? Apparently to die at a later time in his life by the very same creature.

What kind of fucked up irony was that?

A part of him realizes that the Richie in front of him wouldn't have done what he saw the older Richie do. This Richie was barely holding himself together, and every instinct within Eddie wanted to reach out. He doesn't, mostly because he's too busy trying to understand everything.

It was bigger than any of them knew what to do with.

They were, after all, only children. And although they had gone through a summer of hell, none of them had actually died.

It's almost funny that Richie's crying and Eddie's eyes remain surprisingly dry. He was always the one crying, the one shrieking. And here he was, feeling so out of himself.

This was the strangest experience of all. He didn't know what to say to Richie for the first time in his life. They never failed to speak, and even the rare silences they had, they were always comfortable. Eddie absently notices Richie's hands, the blood on them, and he removes his hands from Richie's shoulders and gingerly picks up Richie's hands, staring at them.)

What happened? (To Richie's hand.



But also them. To their grown-up selves.)

[beeped]

I punched Bill.

[The words are mumbled and Richie can't look at Eddie as he says them. Probably broke his nose, he realizes, recalling the way his nose sounded when it collided with Richie's fist. He's still angry, and if he saw Bill again right now he'd probably be inclined to lunge at him again. The rational realization that his friend isn't the same as the one who told him to leave Eddie behind.

Maybe he'd get to that point later.

There's just so much--]

I don't want to grow up and be like that. [He says it abruptly, looking back up at Eddie. He doesn't know how to escape their future, but he still doesn't want it.] None of the fame or fortune could ever be worth it if I become someone who can--

[He has to stop himself there. It's already difficult to talk right now because of his waves of despair, and if the tears come back in full force again he won't be able to talk at all.]

[clussy]

(That Tozier boy is bad, bad news Eddie. Boys like him never do anything good with their lives. Eddie shuts his eyes as his mother's voice swells up around him, consuming him whole. It hadn't been Richie who insisted he be left in the sewers. Richie had resisted.

But ultimately, Richie hadn't resisted enough. He gave up on Eddie.

It wasn't just about Eddie's body being left behind. That was awful on some natural level that made him feel dirty all the way to his soul. It was different than being left on some battle field. Being left in a layer of pain and fear like that? God.

No, the worst part was that Richie had given up. He hadn't wanted to, had tried to fight against the other Losers, but he hadn't wanted to fight hard enough.

Eddie can't even ask Richie what he was thinking. Was he so heavy that Richie couldn't make it? Richie would never know. He can't really be upset with Richie over punching Bill, because yeah, that sounded about fair.

Eddie thinks about his own future. How he grew up to need an entire cabinet of medication; how he was married to some whale of a woman who was a spitting image both in looks and personality of his mother. Were they really all doomed to this? Eddie was trying so hard lately to be better.)

Abandon me.

(He says the words very, very softly, and lets go of Richie's hands.)

I guess we all stop loving each other in the future. (And maybe that was the weirdest, worst part of it all. Stan had been abandoned in a strange way too, he thinks. Or rather, Stan had abandoned them.)

[beeped]

[Richie nods, and as Eddie lets go of his hands, Richie smooths them over his own thighs, resting them on his knees. It sounds even worse when Eddie says it out loud, but there's no getting around it.

As much as it hurts, he has to suck it up and take it.]

I can't imagine it. [Even now, as he's worried that this is going to be the end of the tight-knit group, Richie still loves his friends. They've been such an integral part of his life, the family he chose rather than the one he was given--

How could he have chosen a life without them?

But he must have; in the small glimpse of his future that he saw, he'd seen many things: large living spaces and oceanic views; expensive furniture, expensive clothes, a pile of cash tucked away. More awards and recognition than he knew what to do with.

All of these things, and his home was empty. It was just him. He didn't recall seeing family photos, much less any of his friends. Did he really become someone so shallow and hollow that he preferred that over his pals?

He wants to tell Eddie about how much this scares him, the prospect of being so alone. But that would be shitty to do. What does loneliness matter in the grand scheme of things? So he keeps it to himself.]

[clussy]

(A part of Eddie wants to tell Richie that it's okay: he believes him. A part of that is true. A part of him really doesn't think Richie would ever abandon him. He can't imagine it himself. But he also realized that sometimes it didn't matter what you could or couldn't imagine.

Once upon a time, he would never have been able to imagine some demon of fear that came to them as a clown.

Eddie winds up staring at Richie's chest, silent, because he doesn't know what to say. He winds up staring down at his palms. Stained red from the flowers, with little pinpricks of blood here and there. For once, Eddie doesn't think about what kind of infections he could get.

He only just starts to feel the dull stinging of what he'd been doing.)

I think....

(Eddie slowly gets to his, and from there his feet. He stumbles a bit, but eventually holds himself upright and steady.)

I should go.

(He closes his hands into small fists. What else was there to say between them? Right now, Eddie realized he needed to be alone. Or maybe not that he needed to be, but everything was starting to crawl back. He was starting to no longer feel numb- and that was dangerous. His eyes were beginning to grow wet as everything startled to bubble rapidly to the surface.

He hated his friends a little. He could hear Richie's sobbing in his head, and that hurt in a different way. To know Richie had gone through it alone, practically, with how no one else seemed to care. Eddie shuts his eyes and the tears start to come. He quickly turns his back on Richie, swallowing a deep breath.)

I gotta go.

[beeped]

[Richie doesn't want him to go. The last thing he wants is for Eddie to be alone, not when he's upset. The need to comfort him is so ingrained that he almost reaches out to grab Eddie's wrist. He stops himself the moment his arm wants to move, though.

As much as he wants to help, he knows that he has to let Eddie have his space. For as long as he wants it. Even if it's forever.

He drags a hand down his face and watches Eddie leave, trying to ignore how much his heart aches.]

I'll be around here waiting, okay? [The unspoken part: for whenever Eddie needs him this. That he doesn't have to worry about Richie getting in his space, or their shared areas, until then.]

[clussy]

(Eddie has known Richie for so long that he understands what Richie is saying without him having to say all of it. He looks back over his shoulder, just once, at Richie, his eyes wet and going, and he gives Richie a small, but genuine smile.)

Yeah, I know, Richie.

(There was nothing but affection in his voice, that love, that utter devotion to his best friend. His smile flickers and he turns back around.)

Bye Richie.

(And he walks off, his shoulders curled in, looking smaller than he has in quite a while.)