Wait For It || Reddie ✔️

four

Freshly bandaged, Richie dropped down into the hideout, making no use of the ladder. Bill, startled, threw a glare at him. "Don't d--do that!"

"Sorry, Billy-Boy," Richie said, half-truthfully. "You guys won't believe who's on the loose again."

Beverly rolled her head to look at Richie, "And we're not talking about you?"

"Ha-ha," Richie snarked as Bill chuckled and Stanley smiled to himself. Eddie came carefully climbing down the ladder, curious at all the laughter. "No, Eds and I saw Bowers."

"What?" Stanley said, astonished.

"He's still roaming around?" Beverly asked, face drawn in concern. "I thought he was getting locked up?"

"I-I thought--thought that tuh-too."

"Where's Ben and Mike?" Eddie asked.

"Mike's getting Ben," Beverly explained. "They'll be here soon. Now--"

"Yeah! He's obviously not locked up!"

"How strange," Beverly muttered. Her hands were paused mid-air as she thought, then quickly snapping out of her head, she went back to stringing up the yellow and green streamers. "Ben and Mike will probably know more about it."

Bill agreed as he organized the table with the cans of soda and the cake. It wasn't long -- mere minutes, actually -- when tires skidding over the earth sounded from outside the open bunker door. Mike was laughing, and the other five quickly and frantically rushed to their positions. The first pair of feet they saw stepping down into the pit were of Mike's, then soon after, Ben's.

A chorus of Surprise! and Happy Birthday! rang out, sounding like a mess of syllables as there was no decision on what should have been said.

"That sounded like total ass," Richie snarked, falling into the hammock.

"It was just your loud grating voice you were listening to," Eddie said from across the bunker.

Mike rolled his eyes and dipped his face close to Stanley's ear to whisper something, to which Stanley snorted at. Beverly excitedly hurried over, whispering "I wanna know, too." When she was let in on the joke, she bubbled up into giggles, her hand rushing to clap over her mouth.

"What kind of cake is that?" Ben asked Bill, leaning over to peer at the unblemished white frosting.

"Marble," he replies. "Bev and I pick-picked it out."

"Nice." Then, after catching sight of the plastic bag dropped next to the table: "What's this?"

Richie, from his spot on the hammock, cranes his neck to see what Ben was referring to. When he noticed it was his own bag, he said while trying to push himself off the hammock: "That! That's mine! Me and Eds battery--"

"Oh! Nuh uh!" Eddie yelled. "I am not apart of whatever the hell Richie decided to bring."

"Fine! I," Richie said proudly, "brought a new thing for us to try." Snatching up the bag, Richie tipped it over and let the contents fall onto the surface. The Redbull cans thunked and tinned off one another, rushing towards the edge before Richie caught them.

Beverly, detaching from Mike's side, went over to curiously peek at the items. "Looks like a whole lot of diabetes."

"Shove it, Bev. It looks delicious."

"I'm gonna get sick just by looking at it."

"You can't even see it from over there, Stanley!"

"No, but I'm wary of everything you bring, Richie."

"You're all assholes." Richie grabbed one of the 7up cans and cracked it open. As everyone watched with morbid curiosity, Richie chugged a quarter of the drink before setting it down on the table and getting to work. He ripped open candy packets and poured the sugar into the can. Holding it up, he made a face of a focused wizard, going as far to groom an invisible beard as he swirled the can around. When he cracked open the Redbull, Bill made a face.

"Richie on en-energy drinks?"

"Ugh," Stanley gagged. "Please no."

"His blood is going to clot up and it'll travel to his brain and he'll have an aneurysm."

Beverly, eyebrows pinched in concern, twisted around to mutter to Eddie, "I thought you kicked the whole scaredy-cat thing about health?"

"You can't kick death, Beverly!"

Shrugging her shoulders, she said, "Fair enough," and went back to watching Richie.

"That can't taste good," Mike said, upper lip curled in disgust. Ben shook his head, dawning a similar expression.

Richie ignored his friends. He cheered his can and tipped it back, chugging before giving it a taste test. Quickly and without warning, Richie choked against the drink, the now blue liquid spraying out from his mouth like a firework. Everyone shrieked in unprepared fear, grabbing each other to move themselves away from the splash zone.

"Damn it, Richie!" Eddie yelled as he stood on an elevated surface, hands on Bill's shoulders as he tried to climb behind him.

"I'm sorry," Richie sputtered out between strangled coughs. "Fuck, fuck, fuck fuck fuck it burns!"

Mike, behind the safety of a pillar, leans against it and begins to let out a hearty laugh. Ben, who nearly fell over a chair in his haste to get away, began to chuckle along.

Stanley and Eddie were the only two with their faces tight in disgust. They shared a secret look, one that held only a hint of amusement, but only because Richie got what he deserved.