𝐆𝐀𝐑𝐃𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐃

𝕧. 𝕕𝕠𝕟'𝕥 𝕕𝕣𝕚𝕟𝕜 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕨𝕒𝕥𝕖𝕣

you said, 'there's nobody here but us'/
i looked up and the banks were empty
- jeanette winterson, "written on the body"

/

"So when exactly were you planning on telling us you ran into Hockstetter that night!?"

Richie bites his tongue and imagines it coming clean off. He's known since this morning that the questions were coming, but now they're here and he isn't prepared to answer.

"Stanley, my dear boy!" He's trying halfheartedly to channel his inner Brit, but his voice is still foggy from sleep - he doesn't know how long he's been out, only that when he finally dozed off in Eddie's embrace it was still light outside and now the moon is high in the sky. It can't be too late, though, because Stan is still awake, and his bedtime is a very strict 9:30, up a whopping thirty minutes from what it used to be in middle school. "It's so good to hear from you. What can I do for you, young chap?" He almost laughs, then, because he can fucking feel how exasperated Stan is even through the phone.

"What the hell, Richie?" Stan hisses. "Is there anything else you haven't told me? Anything else I should know before a SWAT team shows up at my door?" He's half-whispering into the receiver, an indication that he's calling from the phone mounted on the wall just outside his kitchen. Rabbi Uris has ears like a hawk, though, and Richie knows it's only a matter of time before Stan gets caught. That just makes him want to laugh harder.

"Actually, yeah. I'm leaving you for another woman. Sorry to tell you on such short notice, Stanny Boy, but the heart wants what it wants."

"I'm serious, asshole!"

"Woah there. Someone's touchy."

"Seriously? Can you blame me? My dad is freaking out, Richie! I find out Patrick's dead and then out of nowhere Sheriff Bowers is showing up up during Chem to interrogate me...I almost had an aneurysm!" Richie has a little internal giggle at the mental image of the vein in Stan's forehead throbbing. "And all this time I've just been assuming you were fine and everything that night was fine! Why didn't you say anything?"

There are a lot of reasons, Richie thinks, but if he were to actually list them off then they'd be here all night and he's not really in the mood. He gets the feeling Stan isn't, either.

"Dude, chill out." The itch under Richie's skin is back, the one attached to the voice that hisses ugly things into the back of his mind like a rattlesnake. His voice takes on an edge of irritation. "Does it even matter? It's not like you had to lie to him or anything, 'cause you didn't know. If anything, I did you a favor."

"A favor?" Stan sputters, voice bordering on hysterical. "Is that seriously what you want to call it? Because I think I'd rather call it selfish."

Richie can't help the wounded noise that Stan's words pull from his throat. From somewhere on high, his father's voice and a burning handprint on his cheek. Don't be so selfish. And god, he's not trying to be, he doesn't try to be, he doesn't, he wants to be good so bad that his bones ache with it, he wants to be so selfless that he never hurts anyone ever again but he can't stop ruining everything no matter how hard he tries, like his very existence is some kind of curse oh god oh god oh god -

"Fuck off, Stan," he mutters, cutting Stan's inevitable apology short with the press of a button.

The kitchen sink is leaking. Richie can hear it, the uneven drip of it jarringly loud even from all the way down the hall as he presses the phone back into the cradle. His stomach gurgles, and he tries to recall the last thing he ate and when. Looking back on it, it's almost as if his hunger never had a beginning at all, and Richie wonders if there's an end in sight. He's always been starving, is the thing, if not for food then for comfort or attention or touch or time, a million things out of his control.