Archive of Our Own ^beta

1991

Derry, Maine 

     Contemplating dark brown irises, enlarged buggishly behind the foggy, coke-bottled lenses held together by an non-sturdy strip of packing tape, bored into the carved letters, splinters of wood jutting out from the jagged cuts of the swiss army knife that had slid through the bridge railing, directed by a trembling hand. 

     His heart pounded just looking at it, even though he knew he was being irrational. A normal person passing by on the infamous kissing bridge would see two initials intertwined by the cheesy + straight out of a 99 cent romance novel and assume some girl with a stupid, unrequited crush had come here bawling her pretty eyes out over some boy who didn’t even know her name. Yet, he was that girl in this scenario, the stroke of his first initial and...the other one, slashed out in a blur of overwhelming emotions he didn’t want to face. He thought maybe, maybe if he made his affections permanent by engraving then into the location literally known for love proclamations and sloppily making out, then it would come true. 

      Yet, here he sat, two years later and still as far gone as he had been when he had made the carving. Far gone and still painfully alone in his feelings. 

      Richie Tozier wasn’t supposed to get all lovey-dovey. His friends didn’t call him Trashmouth just for the hell of it. He was fully deserving of the title; he wore it like a badge of honor, proudly strutting around and pushing people to the brink with his vulgar language and crudeness. The Losers teased him about it, constantly using that godforsaken “Beep, beep” on him as much as they pleased. They knew Rich was an asshole, but he was their asshole. 

     And no one tolerated Richie’s words more than one Eddie Kaspbrak. 

     The hypochondriac who was immune to the filth spewing from his friend’s mouth on a constant tap—irony in its finest. Eddie had a quite a mouth himself, despite the innocent persona he tried to radiate with those big, stupid eyes and—

     “Jesus Christ.” Richie tugged at his curls until his scalp hurt, burying his head into his knees and ignoring the straining creak of his glasses being smushed. 

     No matter where he directed his thoughts, they always seemed to find their way back to Eddie, almost like a cruel trick the universe was playing on him. It didn’t matter how much he had tried to get over his heart skipping a beat whenever the two of them held hands, or how he had to fist fight his muscles into an emotionless mask whenever his face sought to smile dorkishly at Eds doing literally anything . He was completely over the entire, light-as-air feeling around his idiot friend, but nothing he did made it go away...and he was scared. 

     Of fucking course, he now associated fear with that goddamn clown—the deranged maniac devil creature having mocked him for every little insecurity, picking him apart for the fear he hadn’t and never would admit to the Losers.

     He definitely wasn’t scared of fucking clowns. In fact, he had been surprised his friends hadn’t realized he was blowing smoke out of his ass when he said that. It had been an out, a relatively common fear that made sense for someone his age. But It had known the truth—it was why It had thrown all those missing posters at him and sent him into a fit. 

     Richie was terrified of being rejected.

     Any form of rejection, really. Probably all stemmed from his parents’ complete lack of attention to him at any point in his life. Sometimes he thought his mother simply placed him in the crib all day as an infant and only took him out to feed, change, and learn to move occasionally. Neither his mother nor his father had ever given a single shit about his well being, and it had taken Richie longer than it should’ve to realize he was craving some form of attention from anyone. 

     Hence his personality. Yeah, on one end, he really was just a jokester who liked pushing people’s buttons until they imploded like a nuclear bomb, but on the other, he knew part of it was just a cover, a way for someone to pay attention to him at all times. 

      So the thought of disappearing? Losing his friends? Losing Eddie? He couldn’t comprehend it, and he never wanted to. 

     The teenager sighed wearily, glasses akimbo as he sat back up. Using the scratchy, cotton sleeve of his Hawaiian button up, he scrubbed at his nose, sniffling loudly. His bones protested with a creak as he stood and lumbered over to his bike, already toeing at the kickstand and settling onto the firm, vinyl seat. He adjusted his glasses just enough to see properly out of them—which wasn’t saying much since they were in dire need of a cleaning—and pedaled down the familiar streets of his shitty hometown. 

     His eyes caught the Kaspbrak residence, quiet and still off the side of the road with its second story windows and pebble walkway leading to the front door. 

     “You’re a fucking mess, Tozier,” Richie hissed under his breath before breaking his ride, the rubber tires halting on the asphalt with a crackle. 

     By the time he had managed to gather enough pebbles from the walkway—another surefire way to piss off Eddie’s mom—and hurl them at a window, beckoning a confused head out of it, Richie had already forgotten about his previous doubts, tongue already sharp with teasing insults. 

      “Rapunzel, Rapunzel! Let down your hair!”

      Eddie flipped him off. 

      Richie grinned in response, his heart doing a kickflip against his ribcage. By this point, he might as well just embrace it. 

      He was stupidly in love with a boy who wore a fanny pack. 

      And no motherfucking clown could ever take that away from him.