It Comes To Hawkins

Demo- what?

Richie scuffed a pebble on the road to Mrs. Wheeler's house. The chief's cigarette was held loosely between his first and second finger, burning slightly. He pulled it up to his mouth and sucked in the harsh chemicals with a smile on his face. As the house came into view he grimaced at the bikes on the lawn. Mikes friends were back. And so was Mike. Huffing, he noticed that Karen's car wasn't in the garage. She wasn't back yet, and that means Ted wasn't back yet either. He figured he could smoke in the house as long as the smell was gone by the time they were back. Richie opened the door and stepped into the house, looking for anyone near him. He figured he could go downstairs and check up on Mike. To see if he was still breathing. They were, after all, related. Going down the steps, still smoking his cigarette, he heard them talking quietly about the "upside down" and the "demogorgon" ... whatever that was. Deciding to tell them he was here, he asked, "what's the upside down?" Nonchalantly.
"SHIT! Richie what are you doing here?!?" Mike screamed. The others were cursing as well and started making up excuses. Richie could tell they were excuses because they all said different things. Rolling his eyes he drawled, "I live here, remember?"
"Mike, come here. We need to talk." The kid with the bandanna called him over. Richie yawned and smoked through the cigarette while the kids decided something. At one point, Mike screamed "NO WAY." It seemed like, after 10 more minutes of convincing, he finally relented. Wow.
The group walked back to him and said, "Alright, we have decided we'll tell you since you'll be living at Mikes house and you're going to notice something eventually. But first, introductions. I'm Dustin. The Bard."
"Lucas. Ranger."
"Max. Zoomer."
"That's not-" Mike started.
"Will Byers. Cleric."
"And I'm the Paladin." Mike said after being cut off by Will. Richie immediately forgot all of their names the second they were done talking.
"Okaaaaay... Curly" He pointed at Dustin. More specifically, his hair. "Bandanna" He pointed at Lucas. "Molly Ringwald" He pointed at Max. She promptly gave him the middle finger and Richie was struck with the strangest sense of deja vu. He rocked his head slightly as if trying to remember a memory. He shook it off. It didn't matter right now. "Billiam." He pointed at Will. Will almost smiled and Richie almost laughed. "And Mikey." Mike made a noise of protest but Richie continued. "Now that we got that out of the way, what's the upside down?"
"To tell you about the upside down you have to know the whole story. It starts one night when we were playing Dungeons and Dragons..." Mike proceeded to tell Richie everything about the upside down and, with some prompting (yelling), who el was and how they defeated them. He told Richie of the two times it came back to haunt them, the time with demodogs and the mind flayer. He told Richie of their losses and bullying. A bond formed between all of them the second they started to get thrown back in memories. A small and fragile bond, easily broken, but a bond nonetheless. When the tale was told, The party sat back in their bean bags and chairs or on the floor. Richie was speechless for the first time in his entire life. He never thought someone else had gone through something like that... someone else. Else. He had been through something like that? In...Maine? Right? Yeah in Maine. Where in Maine? WHERE IN MAINE?!? In.....FUCK! What was the town he grew up in called?!?!? Richie started to hyperventilate as his thoughts raced, trying to dig up memories of a place he had left not a week ago. Jumping up, he knew where he could find it. Through his panicked haze, he could tell that the Party was following him, concerned, but he couldn't care less. The only thought on his mind was remembering. Running up the stairs and down the hall to his room he slammed the door open and saw his Polaroids. The memories rushed into his brain when he saw Eddie, Bev, Ben, Stan, Bill, and Mike. He almost broke into tears. Tearing them off the wall, he looked at the back to see their handwritten messages with their style of handwriting. More importantly, most of them said that they will miss him from Derry. Derry, Maine. Wait, what clown? The back of the post card Richie read said something about a clow- OH SHIT. Pennywise. Richie was hyperventilating again. Pennywise the dancing clown. I know your secret! Beep beep Richie! The leper. Bill seeing Georgie. The blood in Bev's bathroom. Ben seeing the mummy. Stan with the flute lady. Mike and the burning people and the bird. Eddie's broken arm. Lover. The fight. Bev in the deadlights. The battle. Let's kill this fucking clown. The oath. The nightmares. All of it, swirling
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in Richie's mind. Over and over again until he fell down. The sharp pain caught his attention and he looked up to see Max
(who invited Molly Ringwald into the group?)
standing over him with a concerned and creeped out face. Shit. He looked around and everyone was standing over him. Richie quickly stood up and brushed himself off, trying and failing to reclaim some dignity.
"I...I know what it's like to deal with... to fight things.. out of the ordinary."
"What?" Lucas questioned with a suspicious look on his face. Richie looked at everyone to see what they thought. Mike was suspicious. Will and Dustin were just curious.
"Just...come back downstairs and I'll tell you everything. I promise." Richie pleaded.
When they left his room, he quickly snatched a pack of cigarettes and his lighter, lighting the end of a cigarette and inhaling, calming his nerves. When he came down at last, he was met with "you smoke?" Mike was being a dick again. No surprise there.
"Yeah I fucking smoke, anything wrong with that?" Richie retorted.
"Yeah. Several things actually-" Mike continued only to be cut off by Will.
"You guys didn't know he was smoking as he came downstairs for the first time? Remember?" No fucking way. He didn't think anyone noticed. He would have to keep his eye on Will. He would be interesting.
"What?" Dustin.
"When?" Max.
"No, I didn't see that. We were kinda busy."  Lucas.
"Aaaaanyway. I'll trade you stories remember?" He reminded everyone. A chorus of agreements  fell around everyone's ears, giving the confirmation Richie needed to begin his story. "It started when Bill Denbrough's little brother was murdered." A couple people gasped but Richie continued, too deep in the memories already to pay attention to his surroundings. "Bill was my friend. I loved Georgie like a little brother as well, cause I would stay over at his house if my parents... weren't... uhm...making the house hospitable." Will winced. "Anyway, Bill made us look for him in the sewers..." Richie continued his story, telling everyone everything about Henry Bowers, It, the Turtle, the other missing kids, the adults, the separate times they were all scared, the house of 27 Neibolt Street. Pennywise. The final battle. Everything. Richie stumbled his way through it, adding certain parts when he forgot them and taking a minute to conjure up the memories. Also remembering to tell the party about the curse that the farther away you go from Derry, the faster your memories fade as well. When the story was over, Richie was shaking, his cigarette had long been gone and everyone else was silent.
"I need to go. We'll talk more tomorrow. Bye." Richie had to leave before he had any more mental breakdowns. The Party let him, sensing his fatigue. As he trudged up the stairs and wandered into his room, he remembered he needed to call the other losers, reminding himself that Eddie probably told them that he called, still, he wanted to hear their voices. Richie fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.