Dare Me (Henry Bowers x Reader)

House

"Whoa! What the fuck is this?" Henry and I part to see Richie, Ben, Bev, and Eddie run in together. They stop in their tracks staring at us. "What... what is this?"

I look to Henry searching for an answer, but come up short. I simply gesture to Henry at a loss of words, "Bowers..."

"He tried to kill me!" Mike screams as he stands to his feet. Richie crosses his arms, "What a fucking shock. How'd you get out, huh? Killed a guard? Come back to finish the job?" Henry looks away shamefully.

"Stop it!" I wave my hands around cutting the argument short and changing the subject. "He's not going to hurt us. Right?" I look back to Henry, as he teeters on his heels, "Yeah, right. I... IT had... control... again." He shuffles his feet.

Henry looks up to Mike, "I'm sorry, Mike. I want you all to know I'm not the way I was when we were kids. I've had a lot of time to think, grow, repent," he looks at the group, regrets present in his eyes, "I'm sorry everyone."

Bev is the first to nod, reaching her hand out, "We've all been affected. You can make up for it by helping us destroy IT." Henry nods, grasping her hand in a firm shake, "Anyway I can."

"This is the second time you've gotten possessed! Dude, your mind must be weak as hell." "Oh, yeah? Let's see how tough your head is, trashmouth." Henry moves to step, but I push him back. "NO! We're not doing this! We just got on a good foot!"

"Where's Bill?" The question rises only for Mike's phone to ring, "It's him," he answers, "Bill, we're all at the library. Where are you at?" He puts the line on speaker allowing us to hear, "He took a little kid. He took a little kid right in fucking front of me."

"No, no, no, no, no. Just, just... Look, just come here to the library. We can talk about the plan." I'm gonna go kill It." "No, no, no." "I don't want any of you to get killed with me." "Bill! Bill!" He hangs up.

Mike shakes his head, "Alone. It's about the group. The ritual doesn't work without the group. Doing it together is why it'd work." I huff feeling the frustration rise, "Did he say where he was going?" "If he really wanted to kill Pennywise, there's only one place he'll go."

"The same place where the ritual needs to be performed."

Richie looks down, "Oh, we're not gonna like this, are we? Fuck."

~

"Bill!" We catch him at the steps of the worn down house. "No, no, you guys, no! I started all this. It's my fault that you're all here. This curse, this fucking thing that's inside you all. It started growing the day that I made you go down to the Barrens because all I cared about was finding Georgie. Now, I'm gonna go in there, and I don't know what's gonna happen, but I can't ask you to do this."

"Well, we're not asking you, either. We didn't do it alone then, Bill, so we're not gonna do this alone now." The club plies up, "Losers stick together." We all stand in front of the house, "So, does somebody want to say something?" "Richie said it best when we were here last."

Richie looks up, "I did? I don't want to die?" "Not that."  "You're lucky we're not measuring dicks?" "No."

Henry pipes up from behide me grabing the loser's attention, "Let's kill this fucking clown?" The group chuckles before noding, Bill reaches his hand out shaking Henry's, "Let's kill this fucking clown."