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Pinching his lips around a lit cigarette, Richie swung one of his legs over the side of his hammock to use the tips of his toes to rock his body from side to side. The sullied smoke poured from the corners of his mouth in cascading puffs of unpredictable titillated direction, ransomed by bounty of the wind. But nonetheless, the cancerous plumes were tantalizingly beautiful while illuminated by the liquidating shine of stars from above.
He hung his hammock in a pristine spot between two douglas firs where he could look up and have a generous view of the twinkling darkness. Sequoias dominated the campsite him and the other Losers decided to make home for a week, so locating a secluded space under the canopy to view the sky was a luxury. He silently noted that the constellation Eridanus could be seen, Cetus could, Gemini too, as well as Orion. His eyes scanned for Draco, but perhaps the flying serpent was out of view. He knew the Big and Little Dippers were there in blatant sight, but he liked to seek out the ones unrecognized by the average Joe.
Richie was close to attaining a bachelor's degree in astrophysics, and while the schoolwork was exceedingly difficult as the years passed, he genuinely loved what he studied. Yeah he procrastinated like any college student predictably would, yeah he fucked around and didn't do as well as he could grade wise, but when he put his full capability to a task, it was exceptional.
Every. Damn. Time.
The dude was a freaking genius; a genius that was paradoxically also a belligerent idiot.
Astronomy was a gift to the human race, Galileo said so himself. Your test subjects were always in sight; there was no need to go hunting for certain specimens, creating elaborate mixtures of chemicals, or debating nonsensical opinions. All you had to do was simply look up for answers.
"Richie! Join us by the fire, will ya?" Bev called out to him. And while she couldn't see him in the shadows, she knew where to direct her voice so he could hear her clearly.
"Yeah, yeah one minute Bevvie! Let me finish rubbing this one out real quick!" he shot back while roughly patting the top of his thigh to make an obscenely accurate impersonation of masterbating. He put out his cigarette in the dirt with the other hand, and noted to pick it up later so that he didn't litter the national park.
From yards away there was a collective groan around the campfire. Stan could be heard slamming his hand to his forehead. Only one snigger could be heard from the group, and it was unmistakably gurgling from Eddie's throat.
Lifting his slender frame from the hammock, Richie ambled over to his friends who resided around the fire circle. His hair frizzed from the humidity of the forest, so he spit in a palm and tousled the red mess from off his shoulders to flow freely behind him in curled bunches. He took off his thick frame glasses, breathed into their lenses, wiped them on his black and yellow striped sweatshirt (Eddie always said this jacket made him look like a bumblebee), and placed them back onto the bridge of his nose.
