Nine Chances | B.T.S.

- D E L E T E D S C E N E

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ALTERNATE bridge scene

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You know. THAT scene.

A now-sixteen-year-old Richie Tozier sat cross-legged in front of his own carving on a bridge, deepening the marks with a sharp rock he had found in his backyard the day before.

Nearly three years had gone by since he put it there and he wanted to make sure it stayed put. Birds chirped around him as he brushed the small splinters away, blowing on little flecks of wood that flew off with a small gust. He couldn't help but smile at his work.

The initials he had put on the bridge weren't ones he was necessarily proud of, but he would be lying if he said they didn't still mean the world to him. He traced the letters with his fingertips, a small quirk of his lips tugging the grin a little wider. He let his head fall forward to rest against the wooden plank, closing his eyes and taking a breath.

"What are you doing here, you little faggot?"

The voice sent a tremor down Richie's spine and he whirled around, struggling to his feet. Henry Bowers stalked towards him. Richie felt the back of his legs press against the bridge's edge, the outline of those two letters digging into his calves.

"Nothing," Richie lied, rock tumbling from his fingers. "Leave me alone."

"No, I want to see your little art piece," the bully insisted, getting closer still. Something felt odd about him. Something felt different. The air around the teen was stale— his eyes were a deep amber color. Weren't they usually blue?

"No," Richie insisted. He didn't want to slash it away— He didn't want Henry to see it, either, but he supposed whatever the punishment was couldn't be worse than the feeling of erasing a part of his heart. So when Henry got too close, Richie let himself be shoved aside, hitting the pavement with a soft grunt of pain.

He scooted back, watching with careful eyes as Henry read the letters, touching them gently. Then those eyes turned on Richie again, and the boy froze.

"What could they stand for?" He asked, and his voice seemed to float through the air, suspended by nothing. "An R and an E. How strange." Henry didn't talk like that. But he continued before Richie could really think about it.

"Could be a Rachel and an Enrique," Henry suggested, stalking towards Richie, who backed up towards the dimly lit tunnel. The sun was going down— the shadows within the tunnel seemed darker than they should have been. "Or a Ryan and an Emily." Closer.

"A Ralph and an Emma..."

Too close. Richie felt the darkness of the tunnel fall over him, and looked up at Henry's silhouette, framed by the orange light of the late evening.

"Or a Richie and his faggot boyfriend, Eddie Kaspbrak."

Henry was on him in an instant. Richie tried to scream out but a hand clamped over his mouth and a sudden pain in his nose sent his head knocking back against the ground. What he could see was swimming in front of his eyes as if he were under water— but all he could see were those horrible amber eyes. A sweat-soaked and foul was of cloth was replaced by the hand and Richie struggled against the hands that were holding his wrists to the pavement on either side of his head.

"You really a faggot, Tozier?"

Tears blurred his vision and his glasses were struck from his face when one hand was freed in favor of landing a punch. Richie was flipped over onto his stomach, and he cried out as a heavy weight pressed down onto the small of his back, holding him in place.

His screams were muffled by the cloth that felt like it was keeping the air from getting in, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't see, all he could do was feel the hands grabbing, pressing, touching—

"Stay still!" Henry hissed. "I thought you liked when boys touched you. Isn't that what you want, Faggot?" Richie fought against his grip, coughing, gasping for air that wouldn't enter his lungs, tears making his cheeks slick and wet.

When Henry started to tug at the hem of Richie's pants, he really lost it.

"No!" He screamed, the sound lost in the cloth in his mouth, echoing faintly in the blackness of the tunnel. He heaved himself along the ground with all of his might, slipping himself out from under the teen and dragging himself forward. He reached up and yanked the horrid-tasting cloth out of his mouth, gasping for breath and letting out a string of curses.

"Get back here, you little shit!"

The almost inhumane voice echoed down the never-ending corridor as Richie stumbled to his feet and started to run. Sobs wracked his body as he moved blindly, fingertips brushing the wall as he went to keep himself on the right path. He couldn't even see light at the other end— could it have gotten dark that fast?

"Help!" He screamed at the top of his lungs, tripping over his own two feet and hitting the ground hard. Stars exploded in front of his eyes as his mind began to grow murky and he felt a sticky substance start to trickle down his forehead.

He barely felt the hands that crept along his body after that. He stared dazedly ahead, breaths coming in shallow succession as someone lifted him up and pinned him to the wall, legs dangling limply beneath him. Supported only by the hand digging into his back, Richie hung loosely, face crushed against the wall of the tunnel, drifting in and out of consciousness.

"This is what faggots get," Henry's voice sounded in his ear somewhere in the middle of the ordeal, low and rough as a fiery pain tore through the fourteen-year-old and he sobbed openly. "This is what faggots like you and your little boyfriend get."

It felt like being torn apart from the inside out, but after those words all Richie could think about was No, no, please, not Eddie, do this to me all you want but leave him out of it. Another pained scream tore itself from his lungs, and Henry growled almost inhuman-like. Richie allowed a few quieter tears to stream down his face.

Even if it meant that Eddie never spent another moment of his life alone, Richie would make sure this never happened. His breath hitched and he blacked out again, eyes rolling into the back of his head.

When he came to, he was in a heap on the ground, and he had cried for so long that there was nothing left but the sounds of his sobs bouncing off the walls of a tunnel that never ends.