Act I

IGORS THEME |  Tyler, The Creator

"Ahh what a beautiful day to be. The flowers are blooming, the sun is glowing and everything is just great!" Richie Tozier smiled warmly as he and the two of his friends strolled down the streets of Derry, Maine.

"It's winter, Richie, what the hell are you talking about." Stanley Uris said in his usual annoyed voice, pulling his coat further up his shoulders as he continued walking beside his best friend.

Richie tipped his head to the side, careful not to let his glasses slip off. "Ever heard of sarcasm, Staniel?" he replied, a smirk dancing on his lips as he kicked a pile of snow onto the street.

"I didn't even notice" Stan says in a monotone voice from beside him, the one that makes Richie chuckle and snort like a pig every time he hears it.

"What? That sarcasm was clear as fucking day.. no pun intended" Beverly Marsh chimed in, adding in the last part quickly before Richie could say anything about it.

Richie cackled, a loud, almost crow-like squawk that undoubtedly annoyed everyone else at school, but, fortunately for him, was barely tolerable to the two teens beside him. He laughed, holding his stomach with his knitted mittens. "That was also sarcasm, Bevvie. Right Stan the Man?" he says. "Gosh, both of you guys can't be that bad at telling sarcasm, can you?".

"Richie, with you, everything feels like sarcasm" Bev retorted, sniffling and wiping at her reddened nose from the cold. She wasn't far from wrong. Nearly everything that left Richie Tozier's mouth was a joke, or could seriously pass as one in any situation.

"Y'know what, I will happily take that as a fucking compliment" Richie beams are her, taking long strides as their dreadful high school comes into view.

"Say, where's B-B-Billy Boy? You surely gotta keep your lover boy in check, Stan" Richie said, changing the subject as he gazed up at the large building coming up before them.

"I told you to stop calling him my 'lover boy', you idiotic piece of shit" Stan says, obviously extremely annoyed at this point.

But the words don't hurt Richie, not in the least. It's a teensy little sting that he's learned to block out by now. After years of torture due to the mouth attached to him that runs on its own, insults are just bound to happen every now and then. It's something he's come to terms with, adapted to, and naturally expected after a while. It's a much less tougher blow when coming from his friends, it's almost always in a joking manner. And even so, he still feels like Stan is blushing from behind him nonetheless.

Sometimes Richie hates himself for it, the uncontrollable ramble that leaves his lips all of the time. Usually he's fine that all he says is comedic in some sort, but sometimes he feels like he'll go too far and accidentally string at a loose wire in someone. Making it loose enough for them to snap and, eventually, yell. Yelling is what Richie truly under any circumstances can never take.. ever.

He knows that Bill Denbrough is a bit of a touchy topic with Stan. After all, ever since freshman year, it's only ever been the three of them. Richie, Beverly, Stan.

Richie, Beverly, Stan. But when junior year started a few months ago, as surprising as it was to the both of them, Stan was the first to discover a new friendship with someone outside of the group.

It was something that Stanley suddenly found so delicate, so rare, that he just had to keep hold of it. Richie and Beverly were thrilled to hear of this news when fall first rolled around. The memory is a little rough and blurry in Richies mind, but this is a little like how it went down:

Stan was last to enter the lunch line that day, a not so cold day where they weren't wearing 15 pound jackets and scarves, and Richie and Beverly were both already seated at their usual round table in the corner of the cafeteria. It seemed much too large for only three friends, but they had simply considered it as a 'safe spot' at school, much like how the janitors closet, library or black box is to them. Basically somewhere less tense that they can always rely on to escape and feel better in the sucky situation of high school.

Richie was stuffing fries into his mouth and rambling on about how some assholes in his English class kept kicking his seat, and what he'd want to say to them if he had the balls. Midway through this, Beverly is quick to slap at his scrawny chest, eyes trained on the short lunch line in view.

"Ow- What the hell?" Richie murmurs, mostly to himself as he soothes his chest where Beverly had hit him. He raises his eyebrows, taking the hint and searching for what she had meant for him to see.

It was Stan. Giddy as ever and, for the first time since last year, with a tray of school food in his hands. He spotted his friends in the corner and, jogging toward them, barely even tried to hide his beaming expression. Beverly and Richie watched him like a foreign animal approaching in their natural habitat. Brows furrowed, eyes wide and jaws dropped.

Richie hadn't seen him this happy (and somewhat triumphant) since he won at Monopoly during game night a few months ago.

He finally reached his side of the table and sat down, grinning awkwardly at his friends and unsure of whether to ask why they're staring like he just escaped prison.

"What the fuck happened to you?" Richie finally says, nearly exasperated at the sight before him. Don't get him wrong, seeing Stan happy is something that Richie cherishes so much as his friend. But it's easy for him to say that this is a rare occasion, and he's severely concerned.

"Yeah first of all, why are you so fucking late dude! We have like..." Beverly counts with her fingers. "Ten minutes till the bell rings! And second," she pauses, then dramatically gestures to Stan as a whole when her second finger comes up.

Stan rolls his eyes, a gesture that tells he's still good ole Stanley Uris and eased the two of them a bit, though a smile still threatened to stretch right across his face.

"Guys.." Stan says quietly, almost as if to say 'oh em gee' like a an obnoxious schoolgirl. Richie had never seen Stan have an attitude such as this. It was almost like he was.. fangirling?

"There's this kid in my art class. He talked to me today!" Stan spoke quietly with his head kind of ducked down, almost as if it were a confession needed to be told at an all 12 year old girls sleepover.

"What?!" Richie says loudly in response, counter attacking Stans low voice with his obnoxious noise. He was growing impatient already, and at some point had began to fiddle with the loose string on his sweater mindlessly, and bounce his leg up and down subconsciously under the table.

Stan scoffed and gestured for the three of them to gather even closer at their table. "This guy in my art class.. He spoke to me like a normal human being and I think we're like... friends now" Stan explains, a hint of crimson, hardly noticeable, beginning to creep onto his cheeks.

Richie had gasped dramatically, putting a hand to his heart as he widened his eyes as far as they'd go. "A real person? Approachin' my Stan the Man? And speakin'!?" He used his southern old lady soap opera Voice, then pretended to faint onto Beverlys lap. She flicked at his forehead and pushed him off.

"Fuck off, Tozier" Stan had said, flipping him the bird still as he fought the smile spreading to his lips at the thought of the boy he'd met only minutes ago. Stan's jumpy manner had slowly sunk out of him as minutes passed, and he explained in detail to his friends how their conversation went in the art room. Richie and Beverly marvelled at how something associated with anyone in their group such as this could go so smoothly.

When Stan finished retelling his memory, he searched briskly around the cafeteria. The two others took this moment to glance at each other, both of them simply shrugging a bit and turning back to Stan.

"There!" Stan exclaimed. He pointed, rather unsteadily, toward another table that looked like theirs in the opposite corner of the room. At that table sat, in order; one tall, slightly overweight boy in a brown shirt and grey shorts sipping at his home brought water bottle, another tall, yet quite skinny boy with bright red-brown hair in a striped shirt, then a third, rather short, smaller boy with nice curly hair that was bleached up to where his roots showed, wearing a warm green sweater, long casual shorts, and high socks with bright blue converse. At least that's as much as Richie could see of it. Two of the three boys' backs were turned, so they couldn't see the three staring at them. The redhead was the only one that wasn't turned, but he kept his focus on the conversation him and his friends were having.

Stan opened his mouth as if to speak, or perhaps shout, but he didn't. "I can't just fucking scream my lungs out in the cafeteria! Fuck, how do I get his attention" Stan stressed, eyes still glued to the corner of the room, most likely analyzing his options.

Almost as if the universe read their minds, the red haired boy nodded in his conversation with the two boys, then proceeded to snap his head up to scan around the room.

Richie, Beverly and Stan didn't have time to look away before the boy had caught their eyes onto his. Specifically Stans, which were wide and gaping back at him.

The redhead spoke incoherently to his friends over the loudness of the cafeteria; to Richie and Stan and Beverly it was like a suspense movie playing on mute. Then, much to their surprise, he nodded his head toward the three of them and his two friends looked over as well.

Both Richie and Beverly must have been thinking the same thing, because just as the boys from that table had turned, him and Beverly both shot their heads right back to their own trays. They had lost their nerve for some odd reason, and Stan just snickered at them. Richie now guessed that the two boys must've also only gotten the clear view of his and Beverlys back, just as they'd seen of them.

Stan had smiled and waved almost aggressively, the mystery redhead lit up and waved back.

That's all Richie remembers honestly. They hadn't spoken to any of mystery boys' friends before, and they still haven't in present time. Bill chats with Stan and them every once in a while, but most of the twos talking goes down when Richie and Beverly aren't present.

You see, the thing is, Richie loves his friends. Hell, he'd take a bullet for both of them. But sometimes in the silence that follows their mindless chatter, he feels painfully alone. So much so, that he grows weary of the silence and tries his hardest to avoid it when he can.

It's not that he's jealous of Stan. At least he doesn't think he is. No, not at all. He just can't stand the fact that he doesn't know people he should know (or perhaps desperately wants to know). Richie can't help but frown every time he sees them stop at each other's lockers in the hall. They talk low and laugh with each other till the bell rings and they're almost late to class.

And all of a sudden, with that thought burning into his mind now as he's slouched in his desk in Chemistry, Richie thinks he actually might be jealous of it. The little things, like exchanging funny looks in the hall when they pass, or growing inside jokes that no one else can laugh at but them. Stan is much more lighthearted and nice when Bill is around, he doesn't have a stick up his ass when Bill is around.

Maybe Richie is just jealous that Stan might like Bill more than him. That thought merely burns into Richies heart like a hot metal rod. It stings, but he quickly sweeps it under the rug with all the other shit towering under it. What's wrong with putting another little flame onto an ever growing fire anyways?

Besides, he has Beverly to do all that cutesy friendship shit with, right? He doesn't need Stan to be his #1 Stan the Man forever in order for Richie to function correctly. That's just bullshit. He can live with a guy best friend who doesn't reciprocate best friend energy, and he can sure as hell do it in style.

Now, Richie thinks he's overthinking again. Overreacting. Stan still sits with them at lunch and low fives him in the halls. It just feels a bit more.. distant now. Almost as if Stan looks forward to Bill more than him. A pain erupts in Richies stomach at the thought, but he tries not to flinch. That shouldn't have to make Richie mad, because that's just not the type of friend he is. He just needs to stop thinking so much.

He just needs to stop thinking.

this was so boring i'm sorry, but i SWEAR the story gets a lot more interesting lmao.

ill post the next one very soon ;)

love and light - author