IT (Richie Tozier X Reader)

-'☆》𝟕《☆'-

"Thanks, guys, but you shouldn't have done that. They'll be after you guys, too, now." Mike says. We're all walking through a little field of overgrown grass, the gentle breeze flowing as a train passes by on the tracks.

"Oh, no, no, no. Bowers, he's always after us." Eddie states from the front of the line.

"I guess that's one th-th-thin-thing we all have in common." Bill stutters with a sheepish smile.

"Yeah, Homeschool. Welcome to the Losers' Club." Richie voiced from the back. The rest of the trip into town is filled with meaningless chatter. We find ourselves in front of another missing sign in the ally. Well most of us do. Richie's a bit busy trying to play a stolen tuba from the marching band on the street. This missing poster is Edward Corcoran.

"They say they found part of his hand all chewed up near the Standpipe," Stan mutters, clear fear in his voice.

"He asked to borrow a pencil once," Ben claims as Bill walks towards the posters. He lifts it to find Betty's missing poster.

"It's like she's been for-forgotten because Corcoran's missing." He utters. He was visibly upset by this. It's quite shocking that more people aren't noticing a pattern of missing children.

"It's almost like she never even existed," I say, glancing around at the worry-free people watching the parade. Hello? Your children are going missing!

"Is it ever gonna end?" Stan asks as the tuba playing finally yanks back his instrument from an agitated Richie.

"What the fuck, dude?" He shouts before walking over. Eddie appears with two vanilla ice cream cones.

"What are you guys talking about?"

"What they always talk about," Richie responds, taking the second cone with a small grin.

"I actually think it will end. For a little while, at least." Ben says. Bev's face contorts in confusion.

"What do you mean?" She questions.

"So I was going over all my Derry research and I charted out all the big events. The ironworks explosion in 1908, the Bradly gang in '35, and the black spot in '62. And now kids being..." He goes quiet, looking around and deciding not to finish his original sentence. "I realized this stuff seems to happen,"

"Every 27 years." Ben and Bill say at the same time.

"Okay, so let me get this straight. It comes out from wherever to eat kids for like, a year? And then what? It just goes into hibernation?" Eddie questions as we walk into the park area.

"Maybe it's like... what a do you call it? Cicadas! You know, the bugs that come out once every 17 years. " Stan exclaims, sitting on the top part of a bench.

"Bugs aren't coming to eat children, Stan. Can you imagine that? Giant bugs bursting outta nowhere and snatching kids." I try to joke from the end of the bench. It gets a laugh from Richie which makes me smile.

"My grandfather thinks this town is cursed. He says that all the bad things that happen in this town are because of one thing." Mike explains from next to me.

"The bugs. Shit sorry. It slipped out." I mutter, covering my mouth at the slip-up as Richie laughs harder. Mike just continues.

"An evil thing that feeds off the people of Derry." He states, a dead serious look on his face.

"But it can't be one thing. We all saw something different." Stan speculates.

"Maybe. Or maybe it knows what scares us most and thats what we see." Mike hinted. Eddie chimes in immediately.