IT characters x reader

Talker // richie tozier part 1

You'd spent your life searching for love.

You searched for it in your house - between cracked mirrors and dusty mantels and air thick with wine and yelling, but you couldn't find it there. You searched for it between the pressed pages of your library books, in the cassettes that drowned out the yells in early hours of the morning, in the pencils arranged and re-arranged in colour order like a set of toy soldiers lining your desk, but you couldn't find it there, either. In fact, you found it in the place you least expected.

You knew ordinary people loved the most simple, ordinary things - flowers and cakes and clothes, a song or a poem or the stars on a clear night. But none of it seemed to work for you. You wanted something that made you feel so fiercely that you felt it with ever fibre of your beings - something that made you ache and sore at the same time, the perfect blend of pain and euphoria.

But love wasn't a stew simmering in a pot, and you couldn't find it in a thing.

You found it in a person - and that person was the one you'd least expect.
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Richie Tozier was, dare you say, nefarious in Derry. His loud mouth got him into trouble often, and he seemed to spend more time in class doodling absently with a pen lid in his mouth, blowing spitballs or flipping off other students loudly - and yet, inexplicably, the straight A's on his report card practically glowed through the envelope at the end of semester. You'd never paid much mind to him - you had little time for trashmouths, save for the odd "shut up, Richie," when he made a passing remark at you in the hallway. So, you two had spoken before. But you'd never talked, not in a real way.

Not until you found him curled against his porch bannister at midnight, freezing cold with his chin buried in his knees. At first, you hesitated to even go up to him. But he looked so very lost at that moment, your empathy got the better of you. So, slightly against your better judgement, you cautiously made your way over to the half-asleep boy, who had still failed to notice you.

"Richie?" you called timidly, and he started violently - clearly you'd just jerked him from a heavy half-slumber, but as soon as he saw you, his face cracked into a wide smile.

"Hey there, sweetcheeks," he countered cheekily, stumbling to his feet. "What're you doing here

You shrugged. "Just...passing through. Why are you on the porch . Richie suddenly seemed to remember where he was. "Oh." He kicked the decking with his sneakers. "Just... got locked out."

Aren't your parents home?" you inquired with a frown, making further forward before stopping at the porch. Richie laughed, a sound slightly too bitter to be considered genuine. "Yeah, uh... they're the ones who locked me out."

Oh. Sorry." There didn't seem to be much else to say, much as you wanted to come up with something. "Are you... okay?" "Me? Never better, Bubs!" He brushed off your concern like a dust speck, that wide smile ever-present. "I just love it out here, y'know? Freezing my balls of is, personally, the highlight of my night. Other than talking to all the pretty girls cruising through my neighbourhood." He sent a wink at you, to which you rolled your eyes. "But..." you chewed your lip. "They're not gonna leave you out here all night, right

He scoffed. "Nah - no way. Mom'll be out in an hour or two to throw out the empty wine bottles and I can probably sneak in, like, incognito. Like a ninja."You laughed, despite yourself, and Richie seemed to swell with some kind of self-assurance. "Okay, well - I should head home. If you're sure you're gonna be okay?" Hey, if you're looking for an excuse to stay, look no further!" His arms splayed out wildly before flopping back to his sides. Rolling your eyes again, you backed out of the driveway and clambered aboard your bike again.

Later, Tozier," you said in goodbye.
"Only if I'm lucky, sweet thang," he replied with a pretty terrible accent of something that sounded like it was supposed to be Western, and you grinned to yourself in the dark as you started up the pedals. You didn't see the way his smile slipped as your bike took off down the dark road, as the silence filled the street, and as he sank back down onto his porch, a scared little boy once again.

After all, if Richie wasn't talking, what was he good for?