.: Friday I'm In Love :|: Reddie :.

Get Up, Fuckface

WARNING! GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF VIOLENCE AHEAD.

"Look, I know where your boyfriend is, okay? So stop complaining, and follow me."

Eddie had been searching for two days at this point, and his phone was dead. His portable charger didn't have any charge left. The house on Neibolt was silent, and he didn't want to go inside or call the police without proof of his friend being in there, so he decided to go back another day but on his way around town he had run into the last person he wanted to see. Before he could get a word in edgewise, the man had grabbed him by the shirt collar and shoved him up against the wall. Eddie became increasingly aware of the fact that he was still in a sweatshirt and tiny shorts and was being confronted by his worst nightmare.

Now, Eddie had grown since he was eleven, but he was still tiny for his age. Short, and skinny as a stick, he stared up into Henry Bowers' hulking form. The guy was 20, and the only reason he had ever been in Eddie's grade was because he got held back with his friends. They had all managed to keep up solely for the purpose of following the losers through the rest of their school years, so all of them were going into their senior years at the end of this summer.

"You what?" Eddie found himself asking. He couldn't understand what was happening. The boy who had bullied him for years, the boy who broke his arm that summer between fifth and sixth grade, and now the man who was pinning him to a wall by the collar of his shirt was offering to help him?

"I know where your faggot boyfriend is. Do you want to find him or not?" With that, a hand seized Eddie by the hair and dragged him down a narrow backstreet. He wondered if he should believe the mullet-wearing idiot who had never done anything but lie and beat him up, but a sharp tug on his roots told him he had no choice but to follow. Henry led him around for a long time, and it only took Eddie ten minutes of the walk to be 100% sure that he had been lied to. First of all, Henry had brought him to the far edge of town where literally nobody went except for him, which meant that unless he was the one who had kidnapped Richie, this was definitely a trap.

"He's not my boyfriend." That was the first thing Eddie had the guts to say to Henry, and it wasn't until they had been walking for nearly an hour. They were approaching the Barrens now, a place Eddie had only ever been twice; Once when Bill was leading them through to get to the quarry, and the second when he was looking for Georgie.

Henry didn't answer, but that wasn't what scared Eddie. What scared him was the way the man's grip, ten times stronger than Eddie's could ever be, tightened around his hair and yanked him forward, throwing him down the slope. Eddie shrieked, strangled cries escaping him as he tumbled downwards. His bare legs bore many scrapes and bruises once he got to the bottom, and there was a thin scrape across his cheek from where a thorn had caught his face. Eddie breathed heavily, laying still in a sort of daze while he tried to comprehend what had just happened.

"Get up, fuckface." Henry was over him now, yanking him to his feet by the hair on his head. A few tore loose, causing Eddie to scream out in pain and clutch at the man's wrist desperately. "Shut up, and maybe I won't throw you next time." Eddie whimpered, but forced himself to walk beside the beast of a man as he was dragged through the forest. Henry purposefully let branches slap back and hit Eddie at all angles, including the face.

When they got to where Henry wanted to go, Eddie's throat nearly closed up right then and there. His breath began whistling like mad and he gaped helplessly at the pipe.

It was sticking up out of the ground like a sore thumb, and the cover was visibly heavy. No way Eddie would ever be able to lift it on his own.

"Good luck getting cell service down there, Rock Man," Henry laughed, and Eddie was thrown back into the memory of the rock war between The Losers' Club and the Bowers' Gang. Then he remembered what Henry had said as he broke his arm, and left him to cry on the ground.

"Jesus Christ, Henry, I'll never find my way out of there alive, please just think of something else!" Eddie begged. Henry just socked him across the face, and there was a sickening crack before blood began to pour from Eddie's nostrils. The hot, crimson and sticky liquid splattered onto Henry's shirt as Eddie doubled forward, clutching his face with a high-pitched scream.

"Look what you did, you little faggot! You got blood on my new shirt. You'll pay for that, Wheezy." After a few more punches to the face and stomach, Eddie could hardly see. His ears were ringing, and his vision was blurry with tears. It was all he could do to remain standing upright, but after a few more solid hits he fell to his knees. The minimal contents left in his stomach were emptied into the ground at Henry's feet, and once he realized what he had just done he knew he was going to regret letting that happen.

Henry let out a low chuckle that made the hair on the back of Eddie's neck stand up.

"Y'know, you little fag, if you don't mind eating dick then you surely won't mind eating that, now, will you?" With that, his foot came down on the back of Eddie's head, and the scrawny boy was writhing beneath his boot. He gagged, and nearly threw up again, but nothing came out. He dry heaved as his own digested food flooded into his mouth again with each heave. He couldn't breathe. His entire chest was tight and his throat was nearly closed. Finally, the foot lifted from his head, but his head was too heavy. He couldn't lift it.

"Do you like that, Rock Man?" Henry almost purred. He kicked Eddie over so he was on his back, and jumped over, straddling him at the hips. Then he pulled out a knife, and although Eddie had no way of knowing, it was the same knife that he had used to carve an H into Ben's stomach.

"I didn't get to finish shit with your old friend Tits, but I sure as hell intend to carve my name, Rock Man. A letter for each and every one of you. I might as well skip around... After all, what will your mother think when she finds you with a big fat 'R' carved into your stomach?" Henry ripped Richie's sweatshirt up before Eddie could stop him, revealing the boy's fanny pack. He laughed, cutting it off from around Eddie's waist and throwing it somewhere into the trees. Then, he refocused himself.

"I'm gonna go letter by letter. Every one of you losers will have a letter until you spell out my whole name." Eddie couldn't even find the breath in him to say stop. Then there was a searing pain in his stomach that hit him like a wall of agony. Eddie's scream was breathy and quiet. Every breath was painful, but nothing hurt more than the trail of fire that was being traced over his lower abdomen. Then black began to cloud his vision, and there was no longer a weight on his hips, but he couldn't move. He heard footsteps, and a loud creaking.

"Goodnight, Wheezy Faggot." Henry grabbed him by the arms and dragged him over to the pipe.

Eddie fell headfirst. He hit the water, then hit the ground a foot beneath it with a painful thud. His shoulder made contact first, thankfully. All he could do was drag himself over to the wall where he lifted himself into a position where his head was above the greywater.

All he could smell was the terrible, rank smell of piss and shit clogging his bloody nostrils, but then for a moment it was overpowered by the stench of metallic crimson liquid that was still trickling.

He clutched Richie's sweatshirt tighter around him as there was a loud creak and then the entire tunnel went dark as Henry closed the lid to Derry's sewer system.