The next morning, Stan Uris decides that the grace period is over.
Richie doesn't know this, however. He just stumbles into his astrophysics class and takes his seat next to Stan, keeping his eyes focused downwards as he grows nauseous with the idea of having to go see Beverly after this period is over.
The first bell rings, a tendril of anxiety coiling in Richie's stomach, sticky heat dripping down the back of his throat as he swallows his nerves.
The lecture goes on as proceeded, and Richie takes notes today. Not good ones, he's still distracted by his own thoughts and fears, but he makes an effort to actually write something down today instead of just lying helplessly next to Stan. Stan took the chance of letting Richie be his partner, he doesn't want to be a deadweight like the supposed Jordan who has yet to attend class.
However, when the lecture ends and the students are set off on their own to complete their lab worksheet for the day, Stan Uris turns to Richie and gives him an expectant look.
"I'm... I'm only on number five," Richie taps his pencil against the paper, showing that he doesn't have the answer to question eight, which Stan is stuck on.
Stan takes a deep breath in. He could tell from the minute he saw Richie staring at him and Ben in the hallway that something was off. Later on, Ben told Stan that he had given Richie a nasty look, but that wasn't Stanley's intention. He wasn't trying to be rude, he was just confused by who was standing in front of them, or more specifically, what happened to the infamous Trashmouth.
He gave Richie a day. He saw how Eddie and Bowers had been glaring, figuring there was a lot to unpack there that Richie was overwhelmed by. He assumed that Rich would need some time to catch up, so Stan gave him precisely that.
However, he was growing tired of being patient, for he has many questions that crave to be answered.
"When did you get back?" Stan asks. He sets his pencil down, tucking some curls behind his ear. He's not accusing or biting in anyway, he speaks in a soft, gentle tone. Richie flinches at anything else, Stan's been noticing little habits that weren't there before.
Richie looks down at his paper, guilt crashing through his body like a tidal wave on rocky shores. He should have told Stan, he should have tried to phone his old friends to get in contact. But he was paralyzed by fear, stupid fucking fear. He's missing out on life choices just because he's too afraid to take them.
"Bill's birthday," Richie says quietly, idly picking at the tiny shreds of eraser that are sticking off the ends of his pencil.
"The fourth," Stan clarifies, then nods as if he's processing something in his mind. "So are you living with Bill?"
Richie taps the eraser end against his paper, the wooden utensil bopping against the name titling the paper. Richie Denbrough.
Stan nods again, and then says "What's going on with Eddie?"
As if on command, Richie lifts his eyes to look at the duo at the table one row up and over. Henry has his head down on the desk, snoozing carelessly while Eddie flips through the textbook in front of him for the answer to whatever problem is puzzling him. He always did need to study more, intellect practically came naturally to Stan and Richie. They're the only pair in the whole classroom without a book open in front of them.
Richie turns back to look down at his paper, quietly recording the answer for number five after finding the proper way to word it. "I don't know," he says, followed by "Not much."
Stan pauses, frowning at the response. His brain does some recalculations, working this Richie and Eddie equation out because they clearly won't. After a moment, he sees Richie's hand tightly gripping the pencil, his knuckles white with pressure. Stan's eyes coast along the raised white scars embossed into Richie's skin, his hands reading like blank sheet music.
"Do you want to come with me for lunch?" Stan asks.
Richie's head lifts up, his ears perking as if he's a dog who was just thrown a bone. Is it only out of pity? Does Stan feel bad for him? Is Stan planning to ridicule or humiliate him?
He hears Bill's voice in the back of his head, one that says "Nobody is going to hurt you."
Richie sucks in a breath, the air cool in his lungs as his body inflates just the slightest. He releases some of that tension, forcing himself to relax in the seat and not be so tense. His jaw has been locking up lately, Sharon says it's because he clenches his teeth so often. Zack promised to get a mouth guard on his way home from work, promising that Richie will feel better if he were to stop grinding his teeth in his sleep. That's not the issue at all; the issue is that Richie is terrified. Of virtually everything. There was once a time where he would stick his tongue down this kid's throat, and now he's about to faint from the proposition of eating lunch together.
"Who else?" Richie asks, wondering if he's going to be sitting with the entire A/V club that Bill had mentioned.
Stan senses this urgency, so he promises "Just Ben. We eat down in the music room, Mr. Hawthorne lets us play music."
Richie doesn't respond, he just returns to his paper and after a moment, Stan does the same. They work in relative silence, but Richie picks up on the tune of Stan's foot tapping in intervals of four. As obsessive compulsive as always, at least that has never changed.
After their twelfth round of four's, Richie lifts his head and says "Number nine is the weight of gravity."
Stan glances up, then looks down at his paper and begins to write down that answer. The two go back and forth like that, reading the question aloud and coming up with the answer together. The paper goes by just as fast, and as they put punctuation on the end of their last sentence, Stan volunteers to take their papers to the front so that Richie doesn't have to get up in front of everyone.
With the way Stan's chair scrapes against the linoleum floor, a few heads turn to look at the source of the noise. Stan gets up without a word, walking around the table to trek towards the front. Most people turn back to their books, unbothered by the brainiac Uris who always gets up first.
A pair of eyes don't leave, however. They follow Stan all the way to the front, then flicker back to fixate on the other half of that duo.
Richie locks their gaze together, his eyes ghosting along the clumps of eyelashes that bind together in bountiful amounts. He always did have the prettiest of features, that much will never change either. His freckles must be so prominent in the summer, Richie can't imagine how much he glows like a speckled fruit. Sweet as a peach, but that peach rotted after Richie took a bite and left it there to collect flies.
Richie looks away, a look of hurt flashing on his features in what can only be assumed to be embarrassment. Stan's on his way back, though, so Richie quickly looks back to Eddie at the opposing table.
Eddie's still looking, he somehow always is. However, when his stare meets Richie's this time, the corners of his lips lift up in the offer of a gentle smile. The water subsides, a bit of the bridge poles poking out from the shallow ends of the tides retreating. A bridge that wasn't burned, but rather drowned.
Richie has water up to his chin, and yet he still slowly stretches the muscles in his cheeks to smile back. The room releases some of the pressure, and Richie's shoulders slowly drop down. Relief.
It doesn't last long, however. Eddie's eyes flicker with some of the betrayal he's been harboring for years, looking away in shame. Richie's lips part, the tip of his tongue hitting the back of his teeth. He's not sure what he's trying to say, however he merely closes his mouth and turns back to Stan approaching their table.
"I'll sit with you," Richie responds.
Stan lifts his eyes, surprised at the words. He smiles nonetheless, calming and warm. The sun hanging over those rippling waves that Richie is stuck in. The cold winter has bloomed into a springtime, as if maybe he is finally warming up to being here. Warming up to being alive.
Richie follows Stan to his locker after class, watching the boy fetch a lunchbox from the top shelf of his locker. Richie stands patiently, looking at all the magnets inside Stan's locker. A lot of Star Wars magnets, the occasional bird decoration. Richie's fingers trace along the corners of a magnet, reading the motivational poem.
"Richie! Richie!" He hears, a voice deeper than anything he's remembered but still engulfed in that chipper excitement it always has.
He turns, seeing Ben Hanscom wait for a group of girls to pass by before stepping up to Stan's locker.
He pauses, his arms a bit stretched out, before looking at Richie for approval.
Richie takes a cautious step back, his hand dropping away from the locker as he crosses his arms over his torso in an attempt to protect himself. Stan closes his locker, turning around to look at Ben's lifted arms and Richie's apprehension. He looks over to Richie, their eyes meeting as Rich tries his very best to telepathically communicate with Stan.
Stan seems to understand, because he puts his hand over Ben's arm and slowly guides it downwards, changing the subject entirely. "So did you see the commercial that played after Family Fued? There's a collector's coin coming out this year. Bush is going to be on it."
"Seriously?" Ben protests, scoffing. "Bush is one of the worst presidents this country has ever had. Seriously, how did he get elected?"
Stan glances at Richie and nods his head in the direction of the hallway, signifying that him and Ben are going to start walking. Richie follows closely behind, but not by their sides. He hasn't earned that place yet.
He wonders if Beverly is waiting for him in the gym. He hopes she isn't too disappointed, but he can't face her alone yet. He's scared of someone being able to read him like an open book, and she's one of the few that can do that. He doesn't need to hear what's wrong with him, he already knows. He'll take a safe bet with Stan and Ben, figuring that the only other safer people he could go to would be the Mike Hanlon that he has yet to ask the whereabouts of. He's too afraid of the answer, unsure if his psyche can handle another blow. It was bad enough that the Losers' Club split up, he's not sure he'd be strong enough to endure hearing that Mike moved away... or something worse.
Richie shakes his head. He knows that he jumps to conclusions sometimes, assuming the worst when there's nothing to be afraid of. Mike is probably fine, although he finds it hard to convince himself of that when he's in such a pessimistic rut.
He sits on the floor of the music room, his eyes traveling over the posters of classical musicians and messy sheet music. There's various instruments stacked against the west wall, while Stan lingers on the east side, speaking to the teacher occupying the desk shoved in the corner.
"It's nice to have you back," Ben breaks the silence.
Richie's attention shifts over to the husky man, watching him spread the outrageously large, protein-packed meal across the floor. Ben's a chubby kid at heart though, there's still a pack of Twinkie's resting next to an apple.
"Are you sure?" Richie asks, shaking his head. "I'm not too sure. Everyone seems so..."
"Don't mind the indifference," Ben sighs. "Things got weird, yeah? Don't mind it. I'm glad to have you back, I feel like we never got the chance to bond."
"We went to the movies sometimes," Richie remarks, his stomach clenching in hunger as he watches Ben start devouring his lunch. There's about six dollars in Richie's pocket, Mrs. Denbrough gives the boys each seven dollars for lunch that day. Richie spent a dollar on a water bottle earlier that morning, one he still holds in his grasp as he fiddled with the cap uneasily.
"With Beverly, though. Or Stan. We never went just the two of us," Ben says. "Our friendship merely existed through the life of Beverly Marsh."
Richie imagines her in the gym, a cigarette tucked behind her ear. She's always wearing these floral dresses, even though it's the middle of January. He imagines her scraped up knees, the bandaids that Bill plastered over the wounded bones, and he imagines the hatred she feels for being stood up. If she were to find out that Richie is sitting here with her ex...
"Did things end amicably?" Richie asks, then shakes his head. He says, "Sorry, I didn't meant to be insensitive."
"Huh? Oh, it's fine," Ben responds. Stan eventually returns from the teacher's desk, unzipping his lunchbox as he sits on the floor. "There's no hard feelings, if that's what you're asking."
"Then... Then why?" Richie whispers, his voice trembling like autumn leaves. "I don't- I don't get it."
"I couldn't understand her," Ben says matter-of-factly. He takes a bite of his apple, the crunch sending chills down Richie's spine. Stan's meals are as kosher as ever, though he still doesn't know what it means. "She was raised with all this trauma, she had so much pain and hurt that I couldn't help with because I didn't understand. I've never faced those things. Not that I minded, she did. I tried to help but she wouldn't let me because no matter how hard I tried I could just never really understand the misery. It got worse after you left, I guess, so I just ended it. I thought it would be better for both of us if we weren't together. She was broken up and completely torn inside, yet would never let me in. It killed me that I couldn't help her. We were both better off going separate ways."
"Still think that she got with Bill a little fast," Stan mumbles under his breath, an aftercomment that Ben ignores.
Bill had misery in common with her. That's what drew her to him. It's not that Bill has the leadership that Richie always admired him for, it's because he knew pain and loss better than anybody else in the loser's club. Besides Mike, Bill was the only one to face real death and still make it out alive on the other side of it all. She loves Bill because he understands what she means when she says that it hurts. He doesn't look for a physical wound, he asks what's on her mind instead. Beverly and Bill bonded over the fact that they had both lost brothers, one to a tragic death, one to the foster system. Richie coming home to them is a rock in the boat of their relationship based off misery.
"I meant," Richie hesitates. He listens to the music that's playing, Stan's choice presumably. Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. "I meant why did everyone breakup."
He thinks of that tiny little smile, a floatation device thrown to him out of pity in the big, deep ocean that Richie was drowning in.
Did he and Eddie separate for their own good? Ben's right, he was able to look at their relationship logically rather than blindly grasping into whatever love it made him delusional enough to believe that he felt. Does Richie do that? Is he too blinded by the good to see the bad?
Would Eddie ever be able to understand Richie's trauma, or is he doomed to only falling in love with those that have the misery in common?
Richie pauses.
Did Eddie ever understand?
He'd like to believe that the little one did, that those words written in a leather journal worn down from the amount of times it's been read are all entirely truthful and accurate, but... they were young. It's easy to get swept up in the idea of love when Eddie was so adamantly desperate to find it, that much was made clear to Richie that fateful morning they walked to school together and Eddie spun tales of how he longed to experience love.
Did he ever really love Richie? Or was he just eager to be in love in the first place, and it didn't matter who it was with, Richie just happened to be one of the first few people to come along with a needy enough craving for the attention his childhood lacked.
Richie supposes that explains Bowers, then. There's one person in all of Derry that is more attention deprived than Richie, and Eddie seems to have found a kinship with that lonely trait of Henry's. Perhaps that's the reason why those two are inseparable, Eddie is desperate to be in love, and both Richie and Henry are two neglected children that would do anything to be in the spotlight of someone else's life.
"I mean... After Bev and I, it just kinda..." Ben trails off, taking a tentative bite of his hard boiled egg.
Stan toys with his food beneath his reusable fork, his eyes a bit troubled. He says, "Hanlon's the only one who really knows."
"Mike?" Richie's voice picks up in a bit of desperation. He remembers how safe it felt whenever Mike Hanlon was around, as if nothing could ever go wrong in the farm boy's presence. "Is he still in Derry?"
"Yeah," Ben says. "He doesn't come into town much anymore. The last time I talked to him, he was delivering some meat down to the deli on Panama Street. His grandpa fell ill, so he's taking over the farm."
Richie feels as if he could nearly burst into tears from the good news. Not that Mike's grandpa is ill, no, but rather that Michael is still alive and healthy and certainly still in Derry.
He doesn't cry. He bites the inside of his cheek, and he says "Mike knows everything?"
"I mean, yeah," Stan says it as if it's obvious, his superior tone never once faltering. Stan is smarter than everyone in this room, in fact, he's smarter than most people in any room. He likes to remind them of that, it's just in his nature. "Who do you go to when you need someone you can trust?"
"Who else in Derry makes you feel as safe as he does?" Ben adds on.
Richie nods, a slight smile on his face as he remembers all the comfort that Mike brought in stressful situations. Particularly, the fact that he kept Stan and Richie's kissing experiments a secret, then continued to act surprised when those secrets came forward in a messy game of truth or dare.
"Yeah," Richie chuckles lightly. "Mike fuckin' Hanlon. What a fuckin' guy."
"There's a bit of that infamous Richie language," Ben smiles warmly. He looks down at Richie's empty lap and says "Hey, you want some of my carrots? I don't wanna eat them, they'll just go to waste."
As if on cue, Richie's stomach growls. Despite this, he still anxiously asks "You sure, chubs?"
Ben hands them to Richie anyway, a promising smile on his face. "Welcome home, Trashmouth."