Mixtape

41

41

Richie stands in front of the mirror in discomfort, shifting his thighs around to feel less uncomfortable in the new jeans he's wearing. Sharon held up her promise on buying the boys new clothes, and now Richie has a closet full of clothing articles that he never thought he'd have the money to buy. He tried to convince Mrs. Denbrough that she didn't have to go through so much trouble, but she simply explained that if he was going to be living beneath their roof, he would have to accept that they would be treating him as one of their own. She thinks it's just simply unacceptable that Richie was still wearing jeans that were bought four growth spurts ago.
But these jeans are stiff, they're new, and they're itchy. They don't have any holes in the knees, and they make Richie's ankles look swollen.
There's a knock on the door, followed by Bill's voice "Hey, Rich? You ready to go?"
"Uhh," Richie trails off, his face squished with discomfort. The backpack hangs off of his shoulders, empty and waiting to be filled with textbooks. He's nervous about the curriculum, what if it's different than what he was learning in Pennsylvania? What if he doesn't understand? What if he fails, and gets held back another year?
The door opens just a bit, and Bill pokes his head in to see what the hold up is. When he sees Richie awkwardly standing in the center of the room, he lets out a little chuckle and enters all the way.
"C'mon, doofus. Bev's outside," Bill chuckles.
"Um," Richie mumbles, looking down towards the floor. He's got new shoes, converse that aren't dirty. They're new and shiny, and they kind of hurt his feet. But not in the way his old ones did. These ones actually fit. Richie looks back up at Bill, and he simply points downwards.
"What, your shoes? Your shoes are fine, man," Bill shrugs.
Richie shakes his head, patting the side of his legs to indicate he's referring to his jeans. Then, he points to his ankles again, looking at Bill desperately.
"Oh," Bill says. He takes a few steps forward, kneeling down on the floor and grabbing Richie by the ankle.
Richie's heart seizes up, fear paralyzing his body as he fights every urge to yank his leg away. He controls his breathing, not letting himself get too worked up over something as simple as Bill pulling his leg forward.
"You just gotta tight roll them like this..." Bill trails off, pinching the sides of Richie's jeans and rolling the cuffs up to trap the fabric against his leg. Once done with that leg, he reaches out for the other leg. Richie slowly lowers his foot, then cautiously lifts his other leg towards Bill outreached hands. "There. Now you're set. You ready, man?"
Richie sits in the backseat of Beverly's beat up car and listens to her and Bill talk about the most ridiculously mundane things. For example, Beverly asks if her shirt is too low cut, for she's afraid that her exposed shoulder might get her dress coded. Richie doesn't think that they realize there are bigger problems, but he's not going to be the one to burst their bubble. He would kill to have such a sheltered state of mind, for his worries to simply be whether they'll get rid of that weird tuna smell in the cafeteria or not. Instead, all Richie got stuck with is low self esteem and trauma. Some self-inflicted, most not.
Bill asks if he needs Richie to walk him to the office, but Richie remembers the layout of the high school well enough. He hasn't stepped foot in it since freshman year, and now he's returning after Christmas break for the last few months of his senior year. He doesn't know if he'll be able to live to walk with his classmates, but he's trying. Jesus Christ is he trying.
"I know where it is," Richie responds, his tender voice being lost in the chatter of students pouring into the building entrance. Richie's senses are heightened as he becomes more and more aware of what's going on around him, the sounds raising to deafening volumes.
When Bill responds, it practically sounds like he's shouting at Richie, "Alright, just try and find me in the halls once you get your schedule. Maybe we'll have the same lunch hour."
"Yeah," Richie nods, keeping his eyes glued to the floor. "Maybe."
And then they part ways. Bill gives him an encouraging pat on the shoulder, then the two are divided right down the middle as they split to head in opposite directions.
Once alone, Richie's mind shuts off as he shifts into auto pilot. He's there, but not really. Just enough to answer basic questions, to read his classes, to print his name on the sign in sheet. Basics. It isn't until he's navigating his way through the halls to his fourth period does Richie come back into manual mode.
It's not like he wanted to. If it were up to him, he would have been checked out for the rest of the day. But he stops in his tracks, blocking hallway traffic to the displeasure of the people behind him, but his eyes land on a duo that he hadn't thought about all day.
Ben Hanscom isn't chubby. Well, he is, but he is not the fat kid that would get picked on relentlessly. He's taller now, lost the fluff, and now maintains the body of a stocky athlete. He's leaning against the locker of a wiry thin boy, with curls framing his face and obscuring Richie from viewing his features. It's apparent who it is, he'd be able to pick Stan Uris out of a lineup even if Richie were to go blind.
Richie must cause a scene by coming to such a harsh stop, because Ben lifts his eyes to look at the six foot traffic cone standing idly in the midst of the hallway flow. As soon as their eyes meet, his jaw drops in just the slightest way, his hand coming over to pat the male next to him.
Across the hall, Richie can hear Stan's whiny and still so high pitched voice ask "What? What do you want?"
When Ben doesn't respond, Stan turns around to see what it is that his built friend is gaping at. Richie isn't exactly hard to miss, he's the tallest person in the hallway, probably gawking at them just as hard as they're gawking at him.
Instead of sharing the smile that Ben Hanscom is spreading, Stan Uris simply gives a frown. His eyebrows knit together in confusion, and he slowly analyzes Richie's entire appearance. He feels faint under the scrutiny, so Richie turns and heads into the classroom he's meant to be in.
The scrutiny does not end there.
Eddie Kaspbrak is sitting in the last row of desks, watching the people pour in with a bored expression on his face. He sits up when Richie walks in, then quickly averts his attention out the window to appear uninterested.
Slowly, with nervous steps, Richie approaches the teacher's desk. His eyes don't really leave Eddie at all, not even when he feebly asks the teacher "I'm, um, new. Where should I sit?"
Eddie glances at him, but jerks his stare away once he sees that Richie is still looking. Maybe it's the reflection of his red sweater hitting his skin, but Richie could have sworn that those speckled cheeks flushed.
Richie takes the seat in the back like directed, trying very hard to focus on the lesson and not the literal hole that is being burned into the side of his head by Eddie's harsh glare two seats over. He's not even being subtle about it, he is as annoyed as can be and wants to make sure that's Richie knows it.
So, once the bell rings, Richie remains in his seat until the classroom is empty so that he doesn't accidentally bump into someone who doesn't want to touch him. Once the last student leaves, he quickly rushes to his next course, only to find to his dismay that Eddie Kaspbrak is in that class as well. So is Stan Uris. So is Henry Bowers.
It's an intro to astrophysics class, so the room is set up with long tables of two as opposed to individual desks. Richie stands at the front of the classroom, staring at one table in particular and trying to comprehend how it came to be that Eddie Kaspbrak is leaning on the table, his head in the palm of his hand, talking to none other than Henry Bowers. Henry looks worse off than anybody else, rough around the edges with these tired eyes. He listens to Eddie, nodding slowly. There's no malice or rage in his posture, and the sadness that was hidden beneath that tough exterior seems to have come to the surface. He's not as threatening as Richie remembers, he looks weak. As if he has given up. He keeps his eyes on Eddie, exhausted but interested, as if the little being of pure chaos is the only thing keeping him from dropping out of school.
Knowing Henry's obsessive nature when it comes to friends (or lovers,) that's probably the case.
Then, Richie looks over at the opposing table, making eye contact with Stan. The Jewish boy looks away, as if he's guilty of something. What could he possibly be guilty for?
"Heyo! Are you Richard?" The teacher announces, standing from his chair. He does a jig across the room to meet Richie, giving the kid a fist bump instead of a handshake. "Zack told me you'd be starting today! I'm his buddy from college, we go waaay back. You ask him about the time he infested the whole dorm block with bed bugs. What a riot!"
There is nothing more humiliating than a teacher wrapping their arm around your shoulder as you stand in front of the entire classroom of people you dong know. The bell has yet to ring, but everyone already seems to be seated. He's got 30 pairs of eyes staring at him, the teacher rattling on to all the students about his drunken college days, fondly recalling a bender that Richie's adoptive father went on during finals week.
"Anyway- enough about me! Let us get you situated, kiddo!" The exuberant scientist ruffles his hair, causing a few students to giggle. Richie's hands tighten around his notebooks, the fear of showing tears in front of his classmates only clogging his throat up with more tears. In an eccentric tone, the teacher calls out "Who wants to take one for the team and show our new friend Richard the ropes this semester? This is your chance to get out of your crummy partnership! Speak now or forever hold your peace!"
Richie slowly looks up to see who will bite the bullet, his eyes painfully flicking over to Eddie. But Eddie isn't even looking towards the front of the class, he's more focused on staring at the ceiling than anything else. The bell rings, and Richie drags his gaze over to Henry Bowers in the seat right next to Kaspbrak. The silence that fills the room after the last bell is a violent roar, the bloodthirsty eyes of Henry Bowers lacking their usual bite. Instead, he looks tired, beaten, and positively over it. He looks like the mere sight of Richie Denbrough is something that has put the weight of the world upon his back, as if the simple presence of Richie has truly just drained him of anything he had left.
"Going once? Going twice?" The teacher calls out, the tension just thickening. Maybe if Richie weren't so awkward...
So Richie looks down again, unable to face the classroom full of people who don't want him. He feels so stupid right now, so humiliated and pathetic. His hand drops away from supporting his books, touching his thigh and subtly pinching at his leg through the fabric. Richie's mastered the art of invisibility, used to getting away with damn near anything.
But Stan Uris has been bird watching for years, and he can spot even the slightest of movements.
Stan raises his hand, calmly and politely, earning various looks from the people around him. When the teacher's eyes light up but Richie's remain downwards, Stan speaks up.
"He can join our group. Jordan's not here today, or ever," Stan claims. A few people snicker at his comment, but Stan Uris speaks the truth. He's got a lousy partner, and if he weren't so interested in the course, he'd be more upset about having to do all the work himself.
"Soooold to Stan the Man, stepping up to the plate!" The teacher exclaims, slapping Richie on the back. The boy jumps at the action, his body jolting forward as he stumbles away from the contact. This earns some strange looks from everyone in the front row, but Richie quickly composes himself and hurries towards the table that Stan's sitting at. His back burns where the hand was, the scars there suffering from severe nerve damage and making his shoulder blades extremely sensitive. He needs to be out of the spotlight. He needs to hide. He needs to hide now.
"Thank you," Richie whispers, putting his stuff down, burrowing his head in his arms as soon as he's able to. He can't scream into a pillow at school without looking like a psychopath, so Richie just has to grasp onto his arm so tightly that it bruises.
Stan doesn't respond right away, so when Richie lifts his head up to look at the boy, he sees that Stan is looking across the room. Richie follows his gaze, finding Eddie and Henry on the other end. The two stare over their shoulders at Richie, then Eddie leans in without breaking eye contact to whisper something to Henry. As the words leave his mouth, Richie's eyes focused on the cherry sweet lips, the two turn around to face the front.
Richie feels goosebumps rise all over his skin, so he just drops his head back down into his arms and decides to hide there for the rest of the class. He almost expects Stan to bother him, to yell at him for coming back to Derry, or to straight up attack Richie, but none of those things happen. Stan takes his usual organized notes during the lesson, and then puts both his and Richie's name on top of the worksheet they're given later. He doesn't pay Richie's slumped figure any attention, not even breathing a single syllable in the male's direction.
Then lunch comes, and Richie is the first one out of the classroom this time. He moves quickly, finding his locker on the first floor and twisting open the lock by reading the combination off of the sticky note he was given. When he drops off his books, he closes the locker door to see Bill standing on the other side.
"Hey!" Bill smiles, his crystal blue eyes shining bright. "Bev and I are going down to Curly's for lunch. Wanna come? Senior's are allowed to leave campus."
Richie spins the dial nervously, trying to weigh in on his options. On one hand, he doesn't want to intrude on the lovers' alone time, but on the other hand... does he want to be alone?
"Is it okay?" Richie asks.
There's a tap on his shoulder behind him, the mere action causing the boy to startle and jump forward in fear. He turns around on his heel, his eyes wide and heart racing. However, he's just met with fair skin and rusty hair, so his heart slows the alarms down and allows him to relax.
"You comin' or what, ToTo?" She asks, zipping up her leather jacket. She untucks her hair from the fur hood, looking at him expectantly.
"Hey, he's an official Denbrough now," Bill leans forward to punch the girl's shoulder, but she catches him by the wrist and sneaks a slap into his body quickly. Bev's got years of self defense up her sleeve, Richie sees that old habits must die hard.
"I'll come," Richie says quietly. He doesn't want to find a place in the cafeteria to sit, and he doesn't want to accidentally run into Beverly's ex lover in the library either. He'll take his chances with Bev and Bill, because apparently they actually... want him to come with? Foreign, right? It can't be true.
But it is.
The two hold hands as they walk off campus, so Richie stays back to give them a bit of space. They talk about their classes for this semester, and how Beverly hates her ceramics teacher already. As they talk, Richie remembers the embarrassing display during science, and he wants to just never return again. He considers telling Bill about the teacher who supposedly knows Mr. Denbrough, but he is busy explaining to Beverly the syllabus for his creative writing class, so Richie stays silent.
The unforgiving winter wind berates their faces, Richie's shoulders bunching like the gears to a wind up clock. They walk through the student parking lot, snow capping off the hoods of cars and making it difficult to identify which is which.
But Richie knows the rusty Camaro. He knows the busted leather interior inside, and he knows the exhaust pipe exhaling gaseous fumes. He knows the two people leaning against the hood of it, braving the cold as they wait for the car to heat up.
He knows the lean figure, the one that slimmed out and no longer fits against his the way it used to. He knows the hunched figure next to it, slouched posture and always too stubborn to wear coats, despite it flurrying down snow around them. He knows the brown eyes, he knows the hazel eyes just as well.
"Tozier," he hears in the voice he didn't want to hear.
Bill stops, turning to look at the person calling for Richie. Beverly frowns, her posture bristling up in anger. If looks could kill, she'd be a murderer.
Henry Bowers gets off the hood of the car, taking a step forward in the crunch of snow beneath his boot. Eddie Kaspbrak's hand reaches out to grab onto Henry's flannel sleeve, but Henry looks back and gives him a reassuring gesture. Eddie glares at Richie, then softens up towards Henry, giving a simple nod and hopping off the car as well. He circles around to climb inside the passenger seat, and that sight alone brings back all the confusion of Richie being unable to understand how this duo was formed to begin with. Eddie... Eddie hated Bowers. He hated the torment, the ridicule. Now they're chums?
...Possibly more?
Henry comes up to Richie, looking up at the man who towers over him. He takes everything in, Richie's new appearance that is a gauntly ghost of the younger kid he once knew. Henry himself has changed, the mullet growing out a bit longer, now accompanied by the facial hair. He's supposed to be graduated by now like the rest of his friends, but having been held back two grades has put him in the senior class with kids two years younger than him.
"Hey," Richie says, just to break the ice. He's sure Henry would have stared at him all day had he not spoken first, and truthfully, he just wants to get this over with so that he can leave as quickly as possible. He can't handle much more stress today.
"Lose the bodyguards," Henry says, nodding towards Bill and Bev.
Beverly scoffs, but Richie just looks at them over his shoulder, one that Bill interprets as Richie needing space. He wraps an arm around his girlfriend and guides her away, despite her pouting and childish faces directed towards Henry.
"So," Henry says, his words sharp and coated in venom. This isn't going to be a welcome home conversation, this is going to be a threat. Richie can tell by the edge in his words, but mostly in the way he clenches his jaw. Henry Bowers always starts a threat that way. "You're back in Derry, reclaiming what you once had."
"Um," Richie rubs the side of his arm uncomfortably, his eyes shifting to the snowflakes twirling through the crisp air. "Not really. Nothing's... the same."
"And who's fault is that?" Henry spits, looking Richie up and down as if he's in mere disgust at who the boy has become. "I'll tell you what, Tozier-"
"Denbrough," Richie interjects. He hates interrupting people as they speak, so as a punishment, he digs his nails into the palm of his hand in the sharpest way he could imagine. He just needs to stand up for his family's honor. "It's, uh, Denbrough now..."
"Richie Denbrough," Henry hums, clearly amused. He reaches into his pocket, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and offering one over to Richie.
Richie quit cold turkey when he got sent away, mostly because he was afraid of the punishment he'd get if caught a second time. He got caught once, and the lashes rolling down his shoulder blades from the extension cord that Madame would use on rule breakers scared him enough into quitting. Sometimes during the night, the girls would sneak up to the attic and Cherry would roll a blunt like the boy's down the street showed her how to do, and all the kids would pass it around and get high with one another. Richie never partook, mostly because he didn't like Cherry, nor did he like the boys down the street that she'd hang around with. Richie liked not getting beat, so on those nights, he would go sit in the kitchen until he heard the girls clambering back down the ladder to return to their rooms.
Henry gives him a cigarette anyway, lighting it protectively against the cold wind they're standing in defiantly. Henry takes a drag out of his own cigarette, his breath fog intermingling with the smoke coming from his ember lungs.
"You're going to stay away from him," Henry proposes, not giving Richie the option for anything else. "Don't wanna catch you giving that kid a hard time. Some people are better off without you around, so get it through your thick head that he does not want to see you."
"Okay," Richie knows, agreeing that people are better off without him. He's not the same, sarcastic, quick-witted jerk that would stand up to Bowers without problem, but now Richie just stares at the burning cigarette between his fingers and nods.
Henry hesitates for a moment, having expected a fight from infamous Richie Tozier. He expected the boy to prove that he can do what he wants, to lash back and say that Henry doesn't own Eddie, but none of that happens. Richie doesn't speak another word, simply agreeing to the terms that Henry has put down. He truly is a Denbrough; he doesn't know how to stand up for himself anymore.
From the rusted car that's engine is running, Richie can hear The Chain by Fleetwood Mac begin to play. A song he hasn't put much thought into, but the volume raises higher and higher until its heard fluently through the rolled up windows. Henry glances back at his car, then back at Richie. Henry is infamously known for listening to death metal, yet he doesn't seem to mind Eddie's songs.
"Stay away," Henry says again, turning back to face Richie. His eyes are still tired, like something's been taken from him while Richie was gone. Henry's nose always turns cherry red whenever it snows, but even the color in his cheeks can't bring the life back to his eyes. "We don't need this."
Richie simply nods again, allowing Henry to step away from their conversation without another word. Henry gets into his car, the music pouring out when he opens the door. Then, with a slam, the music is back to being muffled.
He tries to look at Eddie in the passenger seat, their eyes just barely meeting before Eddie looks towards Henry, opening his mouth to say words that can't be heard. What can be heard, however, is Stevie Nicks' voice clear as day singing out "If you don't love me now, you will never love me again."
"That dude's seriously a dick," Beverly's voice can be heard from behind him.
Richie turns to see her approaching his side, staring after the Camaro reversing from the parking spot. Without hesitation, she holds up two middle fingers to the car in protest.
"Yeah," Bill is now on the other side of Richie, focused more on Richie's face than the fading car. "He's a dick."
Richie looks down at the cigarette in his hands, the glow of the embers contrasting against the stark white snow caked to the ground. He thinks of Eddie's glares, and how they burn more than any of the cigarette holes he has burned into his stomach. A graveyard of healed scars, no pain that can compare to the eyes that are merely the dead bodies of what love was once there.
"Yeah," Richie speaks up, finding his voice a bit more confidently. Henry Bowers is hurting, and Richie doesn't know why. But like usual, he takes his pain out on others, he makes them feel his hurt. Richie doesn't have sympathy for people that weak, not even in the slightest. "What a fucking dick."