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. ]

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.)

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.)

» 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!

[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?)

» 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?

[shipsandsealingwax]

[There's a surety to the vision they're sharing, Bill thinks. An absolution that dares him to try to stomp it out with denial and disbelief. At first it's just unsettling. Bill, old with lines on his face from too often creasing his brows, with a wife who looks like Beverly but isn't. And then he's back, and Beverly is there, and Bill does and thinks things he is so sure he would never do that he nearly turns away.

But he turns away to Eddie's future. Eddie's future that is all three of them's future. Stan's not there, Bill knows this with certainty, but doesn't know why. He knows why they are there, what brought them all back and why, but not why Stan didn't come. And then it erupts into chaos, there's screaming and terror and blood.

Bill stares at the events unfolding not with horror, not even with anger, but with a blankness to his eyes and a sinking in his stomach that roils after and threatens to force him to vomit. Eddie loses his arm.

Eddie loses his arm, and Bill stares at the blood, the empty place where his arm should be, and somewhere in the back of his head a cruel laughter mocks him, and a voice so like Georgie's whispers softly see what you did?.

Bill can't look away no matter how much he wants to, and he won't. He has to see this through. Tears are streaming down his voice, tears he hasn't noticed that make his vision swim a little as Eddie breathes his last breath on an unfinished sentence, clasped close to Richie.

And then the unthinkable happens. Eddie dies, and Bill numbly watches himself agree while inside his head he's screaming at this illusion, this not!Bill that is in his place. This miserable awful man who has forgotten everything that he is supposed to be or ever has been. That leaves his second brother alone and dead and cold in the sewers beneath Derry.

He hears Eddie stumbling away, hears the pain and confusion and hurt in Richie's voice, and even though the vision has stopped, Bill is still standing there, staring at where it had been, his eyes hollow and wet. He doesn't even flinch, doesn't even move when Richie's fist collides with his nose and makes him see stars.

Bill crumples after, dropping to his knees, blood flowing from his broken nose, and still he says nothing, blood mixing with tears on the floor as he sits there on his hands and knees, choking back too many emotions to settle on any of them. He deserved that, he thinks. He deserves worse than that, and he chokes on his words, left there stuttering a name he can't get out.]

R-r-r-r-ri-ri [He swallows the name, his hands curling into fists on the floor. More blood, more tears, more of some of the worst stuttering Bill has ever had in his life. He can't even get the name out. Can't say anything at all, and he doesn't expect Richie will still be there by the time he manages to stop himself from skipping on that first sound of Richie's name.]

[clussy]

(That was probably the worst part about all of this. This wasn't a fight. This was a lot worse than a fight. Much like Richie, Eddie feared that this was the one thing that the Losers wouldn't be able to make it out of. They could be put up against demonic clowns all day long, every day, but this? What were they supposed to do with this?

After Eddie had sprinted from the room, he had felt that pristine absence of the people he had come to love, come to know, so thoroughly over the years. The people who were embedded into his soul, and the people that as a child, Eddie could never imagine his life without. Turns out that the future was a lot different. They all went their separate ways, which was bad enough, but beyond that, they seemed to have forgotten everything about what they meant to each other.

Ask Eddie a day ago, and he would have had that beautiful, flawless faith in his friends. That he would die for them, and they would die for him, and that there was no truer relationship he had.

It's blind siding to know that in the future, he really does die for his friends. That he isn't really even friends with them anymore when he's older, that they leave him behind. Hell, in a way, they left Stan behind too, leaving him to rot in their memories just the same way.

How did everything go so wrong? And like Richie, Eddie didn't think that there were ways to change the future. At least not yet.

Everything felt a little bit like he's put his head under water. His ears feel plugged up and his vision is blurry. Only it isn't from tears. His mind was always Eddie's number one enemy, and it had been relentless. He'd had a near mental breakdown in the hall when he spoke to Chara. Now he was split between dissociating, his soul lifting half way out of his body, and trying to remember himself. A part of him felt like he was six years old again, pulling flowers out and throwing them into a pile. His hands are smeared red from the color of the petals, how some of them he grips by the head instead of the stems. He's destroying a sizable patch in this lovely safe space of his, but he can't help it. It's weirdly soothing. Feeling the roots fight against him, their helplessness as he gives a solid tug and feels them rip apart. How the thorns bite into his palms.

Eddie, I told you those children were no good for you. You should have just stayed home with me. I love you, Eddie-bear.

His mother had grown silent lately, not completely, but more quiet than Eddie was used to. Now? She kept talking to him, gloating about how right she had always been, how his friends didn't really care about him. He shakes his head, wanting for just one second for her to shut up. Beyond that, he still feels like gagging, and every now and then he does. He feels like he can taste the sewage in his mouth, smell the blood from his arm.

At first when he hears Richie say his name, he thinks it's his mom again, and ignores it, but then he stops. Because no, that wasn't quite right. He pulls up another flower, this time by the stem, and turns to look over his shoulder at Richie. He stares at him blankly, not angry, not upset. Just. Empty.)

What.

[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?

[clussy]

(It takes Eddie a moment to process. Of the Losers, he's always been the one who was mentally the weakest (although after seeing Stan's future, maybe that wasn't quite true). He had a voice that never seemed to leave him alone ringing inside his head, and he fell into things so easily.

He has to remember himself a little. Wind himself back down. Chara's voice slides neatly into his reality and he opens his eyes wider and stares at the face looking back at him. It takes Eddie a moment longer, and one can practically see thoughts organizing themselves.)

I'm by...I'm a hall away from the bar.

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.]

[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.]

[inconsequence]

[A hall away from the bar. There's no visual aid aside from the slightly motion-sickness inducing swerve and sway of a video feed swinging wildly to and fro, in rapid transit in parallel to the person carrying it.]

Is there any immediate danger? [The most important thing. Get that squared away.]

[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.)

[clussy]

No. No. I'm- safe.

(He says 'safe' rather oddly. Because was he safe? He died, didn't he? He was no longer back on earth. What did that mean? What did any of this mean for them. For himself, for Stan. Could anyone be saved?)

Sorry. It's just...Something happened. (Obviously, but he had enough sense to apologize. He didn't want to startle Chara.)

[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.)

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.)

[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.]

[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.

[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.

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.]

[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. ]