ghosts & skeletons

richie tozier is unable to sleep.

[RICHIE]

september 9, 1991

it had been a full week after school had started and richie still hadn't learned any math at all. instead, he had spent every single class listening to rock pretty loudly just to piss off eddie, not even stopping to care about dullman or the equation he was solving. yes, he had learned absolutely nothing, but he didn't care, because he managed to be with his two favourite things in the entire world; his music and eddie kaspbrak.

"STANIEL!" richie yelled as soon as he got home, after an exhausting day of useless classes and his stupid job. his father wasn't there as usual, so there wasn't any adult to judge him, which was a good thing because if anyone asked who richie was talking to, and he replied "a ghost" richie would probably be sent to a mental asylum.

"what now richie, what did you do?" stanley said unenthusiastically, coming from the hallway

"guess what, today eddie-" richie had started saying, but got interrupted by stan.

"eddie, eddie, eddie. eddie this, eddie that. eddie, eddie, eddie." he said in a bored tone, raising his eyebrows at richie, with a skeptical expression on his face.

"I do not sound like that! anyways, I hate him because he stole my eraser-"

"you do not hate him. you like him."

richie nearly choked on the cookie he was eating. "no, I'm pretty sure I hate him at the moment."

"you sound like a teenage girl talking about her celebrity crush. you definitely like him. little richie's got a crush!"

"I do not!"
​
"yes, you do."

"it's not like I lie awake at night, thinking about him."

"yeah, right..."

•

that night, richie couldn't sleep. he tossed and turned for several hours, not managing to get a wink of sleep. no matter what he did, he always ended up thinking about the same thing, and couldn't ignore it or get it out of his head. why had stanley said that? it was nowhere close to being the truth, eddie was just his best friend. they were extremely close, but that meant nothing, they were just a very good example of best friends like bill and stanley were. oh, wait. no. something had clearly been going on between them, well, before stan had died. richie still felt guilty for not telling bill about stan, who was living (well, not exactly living per se) in his house. but nobody could know, it was a secret he intended to keep so that no one could take stan away. anyways, if he told bill, bill would probably tell beverly, who'd probably tell ben, who'd probably tell mike, who'd probably tell eddie which would be absolutely disastrous. eddie would probably get mad at richie for not telling him before, and then he'd lose his best friend and-

fuck it, richie tozier was thinking about eddie again, even though he had tried to avoid it at all costs. stan's words replayed in his mind like in a horrible loop, one that wanted to make him tear his hair out. he hated this; he absolutely hated the fact that stan might be right because if he was, then richie tozier was betraying his own past self and the stupid promise he had made himself for the future.

"fuck," richie growled as he hurled a pillow at the wall.

naturally, stanley had to enter his room with a taunting expression on his face and a knowing gleam in his eye that richie didn't like at all. "so, was I right?"

richie just glared at him, hoping to intimidate stanley, which, unfortunately, wasn't the case.

"oh, so I was right. you're going to ask him out tomorrow,  or I will annoy you until you do."

"let me sleep; I don't care, I'm already annoyed, now go away."

​
•

when richie woke up the next morning, he looked like hell. he was so tired, he left for school without changing his pyjama shirt or brushing his teeth. he also failed to realize that stanley had put The Stanley Bathcap in his backpack, something that would come back to haunt richie in the future. see, stanley was a ghost, which meant that he was tethered to an object or place, which in this case was the bath cap. wherever it went, stanley followed, which is why he had put it in richie's backpack. that way, he would be able to annoy richie the entire day at school, he just had to hide from the rest of the student body.

at first, it wasn't so bad. stanley would only write 'ask eddie out' in his notebook over and over again. by fourth period, stanley was moving richie's chair so that whenever he tried to sit down, he would fall onto the floor. when lunch rolled around, richie was so fed up, he left his backpack in his locker, having finally realized that the bath cap had been hidden there all day long.

"woah dude, you look like hell," beverly said as he sat down on their table. the losers had all been engaged in different types of conversations but had closed their mouths as soon as they had seen richie.

"I sure feel like it; I didn't get an ounce of sleep last night, the cats next door were being too loud again. I think something was trying to eat them, I mean, with all the yowling they did."

as the losers laughed, stanley watched them from the cafeteria entrance. he couldn't get any closer to them, as the backpack was in the locker so he stood as close as he could possibly be. stanley missed them. they were all just laughing together, just like they did years back but this time without him. he missed it, he missed every single part of being alive, but it's not like he really had the choice to die. at least he had been able to save them from the clown, all of them, richie, bill, even eddie, who everyone had thought was doomed.

stanley began walking away, to get away from them, the pain it was causing him just to see them, but he didn't notice the tears streaming down his cheeks.

stanley felt truly alone.