IX

NEW MAGIC WAND | Tyler, The Creator

"Jared, then you cross downstage and say your line," the director says, pointing to and fro around the stage as Jared nods along. "So then Benvolio can follow you to here" he points at a chair, which is meant to be a set piece but has been replaced with a classroom chair while wood shop fixes one up for them.

Richie bobs his head and hums along to nonexistent music as he continues highlighting lines in his script. He's slinked into his chair in the back of the room with his feet up as usual, faced away from Eddie, so he didn't have his feet shoved in the boys face. Eddie sits straight and proper, capping and uncapping different coloured highlighters every second and going over his own lines.

It had been an easy agreement that Richie would leave him the hell alone while they rehearsed and memorized for the show, considering how much unbearable stress Eddie must be under as Romeos understudy.

So they sat next to each other, silent and kept to themselves as other students stood scattered around the room with their scripts and highlighters. The director, Jared, Jason and a few others were way up front of the room where they were blocking the next scene.

Myra and Invidia (weird name, I know right?) had been sitting at a table in the middle of the room, giggling and laughing to themselves like schoolgirls (which they kind of are, but it annoyed Richie nonetheless). Invidia played the Nurse in the show, which meant she had many many interactions with Juliet onstage, aka Myra. They were very much already best friends from the start, so getting cast as co-stars in the same scenes just spurred on their connection even more. It had Richies eyes practically rolling to the back of his head.

Richie assumes that Myra thinks she doesn't have to worry about her upcoming scene in terms of memorization, because she looked as careless as ever over there, probably gossiping about something stupid again. He knew that Myra was a fairly good memorizer, maybe even almost as good as himself (as much as he hated to admit it), and that's likely why this unspoken rivalry had even begun in the first place.

She's almost as good as him. She's maybe even just as good as him. On the invisible 'good' chart in theatre, they've both surpassed the maximum amount of good, but by the same number. So no wonder Richie gives her the stink eye every time she looks his way, and vice versa. Just because she got a lead role this winter doesn't mean she's better. Besides, it's not like Richie could pull off being Romeo anyways. (he actually likely could pull it off somehow, but he's usually type casted by his director, and he'd rarely ever played a role similar to Romeo before. Also, kissing Myra?? *retching noises*)

Myra caught his eye suddenly, and Richie panicked and looked away. God, what a bumbling idiot you are. She definitely finds pleasure in Richies seething hatred for her. And vice versa as well. But it's not like Richie finds many opportunities to piss her off very often, and Richie gets pissed easily, so that's an unfortunate advantage for her.

Oddly enough, in the corner of his eye, he spots the faint outline of her crossing the room toward him. Fuck, he isn't in the mood to argue with her right now. Her face alone makes him want to throw a coffee table across the room (specifically aimed at her).

He prepares himself to be met with her fake smile any second now, stubbornly keeping his eyes on his script, but just as he expects her voice calling out his name, it calls out for Eddie instead.

"Hi, you're Eddie, right?" Myras voice says as she settles on standing in front of Eddies table. Richies back is still facing them, but he's much too stubborn to turn around. He won't do it.

"Oh uhm, y-yeah, I'm Eddie- sorry, you already know that" Richie heard Eddie chuckle nervously. He imagines him awkwardly waving his hand to Myra, only for her to stare at it in digustingly fake joy. It's just the right amount of realistic for Myra to get his blood practically boiling with the image in his mind.

They go back and forth exchanging a conversation, awkward as hell to say the least, but Richie listens intently to every word from beside them, rolling his eyes and scoffing in his head every time Myra says something ridiculous.

It seems almost as if she's sweet talking him, but Richie is unsure, because as stated before, she's one hell of an actor. He can only slightly see through it, even moreso because he's been onto her since the very beginning, but Eddie sounds just as clueless as ever. Poor Eds, Richie thinks, Doesn't even know what he's getting himself into when it comes to Myra.

"I'm looking forward to working with you if Jared dies right before show day" she jokes, laughing to herself. If she actually knew Eddie (the way Richie does), she'd know that this type of joke would get Eddie all riled up and shift him into a panic of pacing, what ifs, and color coded journals.

It takes Eddie a moment to laugh in response, and Richie can tell without the view that Eddie had not found it funny one bit.

When Richie finally registers exactly what Myra had just said to him ("I'm looking forward to working with you-")(this revelation takes him about .32 seconds), he makes the impulsive decision to spin around in his chair and grin at the two.

"Heya Eds," he salutes easily, finally facing him and not having to imagine what his expressions would look like in the situation. "Hello Myra" he smiles brightly, tilting his head cockily to look at her as his curls flopped around. She has a warm smile on her face, but Richie can see the underlying smirk behind it, and suddenly realizes that this was a fucking shot at trying to piss him off again.

"How's your eye, Richie? Looks like it got pretty bad out there, huh" she says, barely feigning care, and a hint of taunting in her tone. (The incident was three days ago, and Richies eye had healed nicely. Still a slight ring of bruising around it, and he still had the bright blue band-aid secured loosely over the bridge of his nose, but otherwise he was fine.) Richie tried hard not to roll his eyes in front of Eddie.

"It's doing just fine, thanks" Richie nods, obnoxiously holding out a gleeful thumbs up for her to see. He lowers it, watching as she slightly struggles to keep up her act as Richies being so unbearable. He smirks, that's one point for me.

"The hell is going on?" Eddie spoke up, a raised brow eyeing them both confusedly. Richie and Myra had been staring evilly at each other for five seconds straight.

"Pfft, ah nothing, Eds!" Myra says casually, shaking it off and chuckling along with her own words again. And that. Holy fuck. That is crossing the line. Hell fucking no.

Abruptly, Richie pushes off from the table and rises from his seat, the chair making a loud screech that silences the rest of the class. Everyone stares confusedly, including Eddie, as Richie blinks awkwardly, sighs heavily and gives one last big grin Myras way, who is wallowing in pride.

"I'm getting a drink of water, Mister!" Richie calls out to the front of the classroom, already making his way to the door.

"That's Director to you, Tozier! I swear-" the director calls back, but Richie is already out the door with a loud huff as students chuckle collectively.

Eddie: Uh..

Myra: He does that sometimes, random rushes of thirst, y'know? Anyways, tell me about how you like it here in Theatre. I'd love to know.

Richie storms out of the black box and into the empty halls, hands pushing his glasses up and palms rubbing into his eyes frustratedly.

What the fuck made her think that Eddie was the key to getting to Richie this bad? Obviously it was working, and that just made him angrier.

No one else gets to call Eds Eds other than Richie. That was just a known fact. And fucking Myra, god, she always knows just how to get under Richies fucking skin. How the hell does she do that? She's like some kind of evil witch of the underworld. Observing and observing till just the right time to attack.

He really just needed to get out of there for a minute. Myras deadly and angering smirk, mixed in with Eddies nervous, confused manner. Noises and noises all around them and it wouldn't stop. It all had Richie on edge already. It was unbearable how extremely uncomfortable the situation was. Although now, Richie sees no point in not actually going out for a sip of water by the fountains.

He calmed himself briefly then strutted his way down the hall and in the direction of the boys bathroom.

Just as he was about to make a hard right on the corner to the bathroom, he rams into someone else from the other side of the corner.

His eyes widen as he notices he's just accidentally knocked down a boy to the floor. He has blond, curly hair, and his outfit, well, it practically looked like a spitting image of something Richie has had in his closet at some point.

"Sorry sorry!" Richies says immediately, wincing guiltily and reaching a hand out to the boy to help him up.

The boy firstly dusts himself off on the floor, then thankfully accepts the helping hand. He lifts himself with Richies support, and Richie apologizes another few times.

"Hey, it's alright" the boy smiles warmly, nodding. Richie nods with an awkward smile and hesitated before waving goodbye and rounding the corner.

"Hi again- um, sorry to bother, but uh, what's your name?" Richie turns, and the blond boy is skipping back over to him, the question fresh off his tongue.

Richie furrows his eyebrows and points to his chest confusedly. "Me? You... My name??" Richie stumbles over his words, unsure. Even though they were the only two in the halls.

"Yeah," the boy smiles enthusiastically, urging Richie to tell him.

"It's uh Richie. Tozier." he says, smiling back. Richie isn't sure with this boy is even supposed to know about him at all, but he insists, so why not-

"Ah, I knew it! You were in the schools show a few weeks ago, right? Gosh, you were really great up there man!" he says in response, punching Richie in the shoulder lightly.

Richie is slightly taken aback. Partly because of this boy's obvious confidence, and the nerve he has to touch Richie at all, and partly because... he went to see the show? It's not just friends and family that go, but random students too?? That's kind of cool.

Richie doesn't often get 'noticed' around school for the shows. Sure, sometimes teachers will tell him how great he must've been, because they rarely actually go, but he had no idea that he had an audience that was wider than just people he knew.

"Oh-oh, thanks man! That's... actually really nice" Richie nods, grinning.

"I'm Connor" the boy says, reaching a hand out to shake. Richie takes it enthusiastically and they smile at one another appreciatively.

Eventually they awkwardly have to part ways, and they say goodbye for real this time. Richie heads to the water fountains and distractedly sips at the stream of water.

He sighs and skips back over to the classroom, practically forgetting why he'd left in the first place. He pushes open the door, greeting the class all over again as if he hadn't been there fuming just a few minutes ago.

He automatically makes his way over to his table, only to see that Myra is seated right next to his spot. Right in between him and Eddie.

Richie forces himself not to overreact about this. That's the opposite of what he should do. The more he shows how irritated he gets by this, the more Myra is winning. It's a no-brainer. She needs to be taken down. Humble her a little. Pretend you don't care. Easy.

But they're laughing together now. Eddie is chatting normally now, not the nervous disaster he was a few minutes ago, and Myra is laughing along with his story. It doesn't even look like she's faking, but Richie grimaces at the sight of the brunette anyways.

He physically can't face this, so he resumes his track to his table, flashing a grin their way and trying to look as genuine as possible. He snatches his script and highlighter from its resting place and heads for the front of the classroom.

Hell yeah, now is a great time for an impulsive decision. Richies specialty. A nervous tick for when he has nothing better to do, and needs to hide a certain emotion.

(What is that emotion exactly? Richie prefers not to think about it right now, but all he knew was that he didn't like how his hands got all clammy, and he felt sweaty and hot under his loose flannel at the sight of Eddie with Myra.)

He confidently struts over to the directors table, and lays his materials down on the cluttered desk, settling into the swerving chair. He fixes up his posture and cracks his knuckles dramatically. Everyone rehearsing in the classroom soon divert their attention to him confusedly, and... success.

The director noticed immediately his students' lack of focus and didn't even have to turn around to know that Richie was doing something worth a detention at the moment. The director sighed and turned to find Richie draped across his chair dramatically. His head was thrown back and leaned over one armrest, and his legs dangled off of the side of the other. Before anyone else could comment on this, he began with a roaring volume:

"Why, is this not better now than groaning

for love?" he cried, an overly theatrical facial expression making the people around him chuckle and laugh. Sure, he was saying the lines a bit wrong, but it's barely the third or something rehearsal, and they got their scripts a few days ago, give the guy some credit.

"Now art thou sociable, now art thou

Romeo, now" he sat up in the chair slowly, reciting Mercutio's lines as he only partly knew them for now. He had absolutely no clue what the blocking were to be, or how Mercutio were to deliver these lines, but to hell with it! I am Mercutio, who cares.

"Art thou what thou art, by art as well as

by nature" he hummed, spinning in the chair and feigning thoughtfulness, sighing dreamily.

He looked out to the whole classroom, felt Myras eyes on him, and Eddies. "For this driveling love is like a great natural that runs lolling up and down to hide his- uhh.. something?- In a hole". Kids chuckled at that. Classic Richie Tozier.

The next lines were to be said by Benvolio, but Jason seemed to be way ahead of him, because he had already jumped onto a chair and shouted his line to Richie, whom was still sat in his wheeling chair.

"Stop there, stop there!" Jason called, his eyebrow raised challengingly toward Richie, who smirked.

"Thou desirest me to stop in my tail against the hair" Richie says, and at this point the whole class is chuckling and muttering to one another. Should've seen this coming, after all.

Richie frankly hadn't memorized much after this scene, but can you blame him? It's the third day of rehearsal for fucks sake. But he knew the upcoming lines would get jumbled up in his head soon enough.

"O, thou art deceived... I would have made it short: for I was to come to the whole depth of my tale," Richie had no idea what the context of this scene was just yet, but go big or go home.

He leaped off the chair and sprawled onto the tiled floor, wailing his lines in horribly fake despair as students erupted into laughter. The bell rang suddenly, and Richie thanked the gods that he wouldn't have to guess any further on his lines. Saved by the bell.

Students filtered out of the classroom, and Richie casually hopped off the floor, flashing a guiltily satisfied smile to the director that approached him.

"Excellent memorization Mr. Tozier, I'm sure you could put some more memorizing time to use in detention, don't you think?" he said, already having a signed red detention slip in his hand.

Richie sighed in defeat, "Ah yes, and my dearest Benvolio? Just a slap on the wrist? Fine by me, mister, It's all good and I totally forgive you" he frowned, the guilt trip card he tried was as assumed proven unsuccessful once again.

"Eh, he's gone already," The director waved it off, smiling at the way Richie flailed his arms in disbelief.

"Again, fine by me, mister. Fine. By. Me" Richie says stubbornly as he shuffled out of the classroom.

"That's Director to you!-"

"Hey Rich!" Eddie beams, startling Richie from out of the door to the black box.

"Ah! Hey... Eddie" Richie says suspiciously. Where's Myra? She's bound to have given him some sort of task to fuck Richie over as much as she could. Eddie was getting too close. Way too close to her.

"Myra seems nice," is what he said first, and Richie could barely hold back his gagging noises.

"Eddie, I'm gonna be frank with you kid, you cannot get involved with her. She's like... a fucking killing machine!" Richie exclaimed, running up to Eddie and walking backwards in front of him, his hands waving around in alertness.

He opened his mouth again, but caught himself on mentioning that Myra might just be grooming him to get to Richie. That would just be fucking douchebag material, and Richie didn't want to do that to Eddie. At least not yet. If Myra continues to warm herself up to him, Richie would definitely have to tell him the truth.

Eddie just rolled his eyes, "Fuck off, you probably just don't like her because she's good at this class" he guessed, raising an eyebrow as Richie struggled to keep walking backwards, hurling into other students.

Richie thought for a second before nodding considerably, "That is possibly one factor, yes." Eddie snorted.

"BUT," he put on an obnoxious voice, to which even some people passing by in the halls made a groaning noise at. "You mustn't grow too fond, for thy doth'r thou art opening can't beest did close!" At this point, Richie was shouting to Eddie from across the hall, who waved him off with an exasperated laugh, parting ways with Richie and headed to his next class.

There couldn't possibly be any other way to approach this issue without seeming like some pretentious douchebag who was just jealous of Myras upbringing (no, absolutely not. shut up). Okay, worst case scenario we wait it out. Time heals all wounds, right?

What fucking wounds? Richie thinks as he sprints to Geometry.

——

"Yo!! Happy December Losers Club!" Beverly woops as she takes her seat in the lunch table (which is still evidently next to Bill and not Stan. The gang had gotten used to it recently, but tension still lingered mevertheless). What an entrance.

"And you didn't bother saying that any other day of this week because...?" Mike commented, his eyebrow raised with a smile. Everyone nodded in agreement, all asking the same question. The only ones not confused were Stan and Richie. They both knew exactly what this meant.

Beverly gawked at Mike for a second, as if he were asking for the steps on how to drink water, before sputtering out, "Because, Micheal! Everyone knows that early-mid-December is when Derry High gets their fucking party on, amirite boys?"

Beverly reached out two of her palms on either sides of herself, in which Richie and Stan both high-fived her with. Eddie punched Richie in the shoulder because of how close he was to hitting Eddies head. Bill rolled his eyes playfully.

"What are you talking about?" Ben replies, chuckling at the perfect coordination of the three of them.

"Oh, Benny boy, don't you understand? This month, even more than the month of October, we get shit faced and rock around the christmas tree!" Richie announced, high-fiving Beverly again and poking his tongue out at Eddie teasingly.

Ben made a face of understanding, and amusement at the same time. Everyone shrugged, a variety of meh noises and 'that's cool I guess'.

"What?" Richie exclaimed in fake shock. "You fine lads surely do seem like de type to go all party animal oehp in 'ere, so what be all the fuss?" he joked. His irish accent hadn't gotten any better.

The three were not surprised though, despite Beverlys distraught expression, that these losers weren't that into parties. In fact, Richie, Beverly and Stan had practically thought of it the same way until they'd heard of parties going on back in freshman year. They had nearly missed them all by the time they found the information for one, and agreed on strategically plotting their plans for how they would get there, how they'd stick together, and etcetera.

Of course, all of that failed and Beverly and Stan lost Richie to a crowd of stoners in a matter of seconds. By the time they had all gathered together to head home, Stan lost himself in the backyard, hallucinating off of secondhand weed from a hotboxed room in the house. Richie wasn't as stoned as Stan, but was pretty high up there and couldn't help laughing till he cried at every fucking thing he saw. Beverly was only half drunk, and they all managed to walk back to Richies unoccupied home in one piece. They shared their separate experiences at 3am and woke up for school the next day collectively looking like shit.

To this day, Richie still hasn't gotten over his weed-giggling problem, and Stan still tends to accidentally wander into hotboxed rooms, reeling in a corner by himself. Beverly, of course, struts her drunken stuff on the dance floor every time. So not much has changed since then, except for the fact that they've gotten better at sticking together, and letting loose. Stan doesn't wear khakis to parties anymore, and unsurprisingly, Beverly gets hit on by practically every boy at school.

Moral of the story, parties got better after the first try. So why not introduce these losers to what they're missing out on? What's the worst that could happen?

"I propose that we go to at least 4 parties by the end of this month, not including a new years party" Beverly smirks, folding her hands together and leaning forward as if she were in the middle of an important business meeting.

"Why didn't you just say five then?" Bill chimes in from beside her, and she waves him off stubbornly.

"I entirely agree," Richie nods, ignoring Bill and high-fiving Bev a third time.

Eddie rolls his eyes, "Of course you do, Rich". Richie scoffs.

"I'm almost positive you've never gone to a high school party before, a real high school party, Eds" Richie shakes his head. "You just... aren't capable of that sort of thing". Richie nods, turning back to his tray and pushing around his food.

But then he sees movement in the very corner of his eye, and abruptly feels a hot ghost of breath by his ear.

And these are the moments where Richie is forever grateful that the Losers find their useless bickering so annoying. They easily tune out of Richie and Eddies conversations when they sense the start of any kind of arguing between them, and Richie was sure they'd lost their interest the second Eddie said of course you do. They definitely weren't listening. And Richie is thanking the gods for that because Eddies next words seemed to be entirely too private for anyone to hear.

"Tozier, you have no fucking idea what I'm capable of" Eddie says in a whisper, not giving Richie a second glance as he turned away and began conversation with Beverly. Richie didn't even move his head, couldn't even move his head. He closed his eyes in a stutter of rapid heart beating panic, gripping the fork tighter and taking a much needed inhale of breath.

And Richie is fucked. Was that supposed to be... seductive? Because it sure as hell worked. Over the past few days Richie has had more and more dreams of Eddie. And they're... well, let's just say they're escalating. (No! Not entirely like that, but even without it, Richie gets the idea of what message his dreams keep sending him nonetheless)

But Richie hates himself for it, because although it's a chilling burden to be thinking like that of a boy, but of Eddie? It just feels so... dirty. He shouldn't be thinking these things. Especially of his friend.

It's also easier to hide odd behaviour recently. He realized he needed to get over himself, and that I'm an actor, for fuck sake! (quoted by Richie- standing in front of his mirror on an early recent morning).

And Eddie seems to just be spurring this little issue on even more. Ever since the first day that they met he's been torturing Richie for days on end. I mean, it's not like he doesn't know what he's doing. Surely he has motive for it all, a reason, a-

...

Oh fuck.

Myra.

hii! im so sorry it's been forever haha, but heres your formal introduction to the greater story at hand🤫 LMFAO i have SO many hints and subtext in this chapter it's insane, and sometime probably at the end of the book i'll reveal it all to you! i like to call myself clever, but hopefully you guys can catch on to it beforehand. foreshadowing is my favourite thing to do ever LOL. so yeah thanks for reading, be sure to vote (the story AND in the upcoming election😉) and all that. love y'all!

-author