Who: Richie and OPEN What: TBD, probably talking Where: the bunker hotel, some shared space When: middle of the night sometime before the attacks Open/Ongoing/No warnings yet
Richie had been trying to be himself. He didn't think he was doing a very good job, but it was enough that people had stopped asking "How are you?" or "Are you okay?" so often that he'd started to get angry at the concern instead of appreciating it. But he'd been trying. He told jokes sometimes, he teased Eddie others, and there were small fleeting moments where it even felt real. But then he would overhear the adults whispering, or twist the wrong way and hurt a cut that was still healing, or catch someone looking at him with pity or some kind of morbid curiosity and it was impossible to forget again.
He'd been stealing clothes, long sleeve flannel shirts from Bill, sweaters from Ben, anything that could hide the marks on his arms and came close to fitting him, though most really didn’t fit well. The ones Miguel had given him sat, still in the bag they'd been dropped off in, at the back of his closet. They felt wrong and tainted; like somehow Higgs would be able to get to him through them, just because Richie knew they'd been given to him by someone who believed in and aligned himself with him. He was currently wearing something he'd found in the laundry room. He didn't know who it had once belonged to, but it was long and oversized on him, despite even the growth spurt he seemed to be in the midst of and it was worn and comfortable.
It was the middle of the night, and even though Richie spent very, very little time alone anymore, he was now. He'd had a nightmare but hadn't woken anyone else so he'd snuck out of the room and settled into one of the shared spaces of the hotel, curling into a couch in front of a TV that he hadn't turned on. Part of him had really wanted to go back home, to his room and his bed, someplace where there were happy memories. And some other part of him also wanted to go home. To his parents, to Derry, where the monsters at least looked like monsters and they knew how to fight them now. But he was too afraid, even if he thought he could get out of the hotel. He had a feeling that the adults were going to do something soon, but he didn’t know what. He hoped it worked. He wanted Higgs gone, he wanted to not be so afraid anymore, but he wanted the people watching out for him and everyone else to be safe too.
He tucked his knees up to his chest and wiped at his cheeks with one of the shirt sleeves that draped over his hands, sighing softly into the quiet around him.