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Warnings: mention of bullying

There's an odd tension over The Losers Club the next time they see each other. No one really wants to talk.

"You all saw It, didn't you?" Bill starts the conversation. The group all nods, growing nervous as they recall their encounters with the mist. "So it's targeting all of us. Trying to get us alone."

"Not necessarily." Richie shakes his head. "It hasn't attacked me since the barrens, and I was with Eddie when he-"

"Richie." Eddie shakes his head, and Richie falls silent. Eddie hates thinking about that day. It haunts him. "I think it just wants to get all of us, period. Together or apart."

"I saw it on the farm. I was walking over to a barn and the door started rattling, and people were clawing and screaming, and there was a fire in there..." Mike shivers a little at the memory. "My parents died in a fire when I was a kid. That's why it happened like that."

"Damn, that's rough." Richie shakes his head and Stan plants a comforting hand on Mike's shoulder.

"It's alright, it was years ago." Mike shrugs. "I hardly remember it." It's a lie. This is a memory that will be burned into Mike's psyche forever.

"I saw my dad." Beverly says with a small shiver. Not many people know about her father, but Richie does, and he frowns. "He was yelling at me and whatever. I ended up running away, and when I turned around it was just mist."

"I saw Henry Bowers. So, you know, for a second there I thought it was real." Ben speaks quietly.

Henry Bowers had been shipped off to a boarding school two years ago. Richie had met him once, during the summer. He had been turned into a dapper young man, the perfect son to his father, but Richie could see that he wasn't happy. Richie had never really met the real Henry Bowers, the one his friends knew from middle school.

"I was sitting in the park trying to read, and he came up and tore the book out of my hands. He had a knife, he was, like, threatening to stab me." Ben continues. "It was terrifying, because I thought I was really going to die. But then it turned to mist, like with Bev."

Beverly takes Ben's hand in her own. The Losers don't know if they're dating yet, but they assume that they are. They just haven't officially said anything about it. Richie is happy for them, but again, he feels that twinge of envy.

"I heard a voice. From the mist. It was just mist the whole time." Stan says. The group is a little surprised. Stan is the most reluctant to believe that the events happening are real, so him confessing his experience is unexpected. "And I have little habits, you know? Things I do that drive me up the wall if I can't do them, like I'll freak out completely. It fucking undid all those habits, all the little things I had put in their little places, went everywhere."

Stan sounds really mad. Anyone else would have been scared, sure, but mildly so compared to the others' experiences. The mist would sound more like an asshole poltergeist than a serious threat. To anyone else.

But for Stan, well, Richie can only imagine. He's got some real issues in his brain. Richie's seen him wash his hands so many times in a row that they bleed and bleed and Stan is crying but he keeps going until someone forces him away. Everything has to be perfect for him. Richie wonders what kind of meltdown Stan must have had and feels pity.

"I s-s-s-saw G-G-Georgie." Bill swallows, his breathing a little shaky. "In my r-room. He said it w-w-was my fault, what h-happened to h-him."

The Losers all assure Bill that it wasn't, moving in to comfort and hug him as he tries not to cry. But Bill still feels like it is. Because he lied about being sick, he made Georgie go out. And look how that ended up. Because he had faked a flu. Bill hasn't told anyone about it, and he probably never will.