BLEACHED ✧ REDDIE

| TWO - 二

— 二 !

☆ ☆ ☆

— RICHIE TOZIER IS MADE UP OF SHARP LINES AND BROKEN GLASS!

he is the tiny shards of a wine glass dropped on concrete flooring, shattering into a million pieces and getting stuck in your foot. this is a vast reminder that richie has often times made others bleed as they pick up his jagged pieces. and, he supposes, that this is what makes he and henry bowers alike. two delicate wine glasses made from the same grain of sand.

this is also what kept them together for so long in their younger years. shattering and being hastily glued back together by each others bleeding hands was all they had back then. even now, it's all they have.

"hey, tozier," a deep accented voice pulls richie from his wandering state of mind. he slides from underneath a volkswagen, flat on his back on a rusted creeper, sitting up and planting his scuffed boots on the ground.

"how's it hangin' boss?" richie asks with a tired grin, wiping sweat and motor oil from his brow, smudging his pointed cheekbone with grease instead.

before richie stood his boss, clyde montgomery. he was tall, not as tall as richie but tall nonetheless, and had thinning grey hair. when he walked into a room he could either go unnoticed or be the complete centre of attention for all of the old war stories he had to tell and scars to animate them with. richie also had war stories and scars to show. his weren't as entertaining.

"we're short today, you mind filling up this cruiser's tires?"

richie is already standing up, wiping his blackened hands on his stained jumpsuit, the navy blue bringing out the blue hues in his inkblot curls. it's halfway buttoned up, a dirty white wife beater underneath with a cheap metal chain around his neck, holding all of the rings that he would later wrap around his fingers after work. he checks his hair and face, trying and failing to rid his cheeks of tar coloured grease.

the towering boy makes his way up to the front, gangly limbs and all with a cigarette tucked behind his ear. there's a beige patrol car sitting idle in the front garage, a familiar broad silhouette leaning against it.

"richie tozier," the silhouette greets, a practiced grin paints over menacing features. "it's been quite a while, son. how've you been? i haven't seen you 'round lately."

the familiar harsh tone sends pinpricks down richie's spinal cord, ripping his windowpane skin as they tittered down his back. there, standing a good inch above richie was none other than sheriff oscar 'butch' bowers. a snarl and venomous scowl lays behind the ravenette's facial features, nothing but fire and pure hate for the man in front of him. oh the things that this town's beloved sheriff bowers did behind closed doors, things that would land him in the same spot he put others; behind bars and awaiting a needle.

a forced smile is plastered onto richie's cherry chapped lips, his muscles straining from the pain it greets him with, "evening, sheriff bowers."

as he comes closer to the car, the sheriff clasps a rough hand on the mechanic's shoulder. richie flinches but recovers quickly from the action, trying not to dwell upon the violence that just this singular right hand had bestowed. he tried not to think of the violence he had seen from said hands. butch bowers is no man in richie tozier's eyes, butch bowers is a fucking coward whose only privilege in life was hurting others to fill the void within himself. butch bowers hides behind his title and doors that when closed, become bolted shut as he uses his hands for unholy things, oh yes, oscar 'butch' bowers is very unholy indeed.