tag, you're it again. r.tozier. act ll.

six | being in love as a kid!

TAG, YOU'RE IT AGAIN!

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"ALRIGHT, MIKE, WHAT are we doing here?" Richie asked, starting to mess with Arianna and poking her stomach, making her sigh of annoyance.

"The ritual," Mike said.

Fuck. Arianna forgot about the ritual.

"To perform it, it requires a sacrifice." Mike explained.

Sydney's eyes widened, and she knitted her eyebrows at what he said. "A sacrifice?" She repeated, visibly scared. She didn't want to have to sacrifice any of her friends. Her friends were her family, even if she hadn't seen all of them in so many years.

Mike nodded. "Yes."

"Sacrifice?" Richie said, then a smile grew on his lips. "I nominate Eddie."

"Wait, what?!" Eddie spun around and looked at the man.

"Because you're little, you'll fit on the barbeque." Richie smiled, and Arianna smacked him in the arm.

"You're so annoying!"

"I'm 5'9! That's, like, average height in most of the world." Eddie defended, pouting his bottom lip.

"It's not that kind of a s - s - sacrifice." Bill suddenly spoke, making everybody turn to him.

"The past is buried, but you're going to have to dig it up; piece by piece." Mike continued to explain, and Arianna and Sydney looked at each other. They both knew what that meant. They didn't want to have to remember what they went through together.

"And, those pieces, those artifacts," Mike said, "that's why we're here. They are what you sacrifice."

Arianna and Richie looked at each other, sharing the same look.

"And, since Stan isn't here to find his, I figured we should all be here together to find his artifact." Mike said with a soft smile, and he made eye contact with Arianna, who gave him a sad smile.

"I think Bill just did that." Sydney said, a sad smile on her lips as she looked up at the man, and he gestured to Eddie, who was wearing one of the shower caps.

-

Richie smiled as he stood above Arianna and he held his hand out, trying to help her up onto the ground. As the brunette placed her hand in his, she couldn't help but remember what it was like to be in love as a kid.

The poor girl had never experienced real love at home, besides her sister. Her mother never defended the twins when they're father was around, and their father, well... you all already know that. Being in love as a kid, for Arianna, was one of the best things that happened to her during that time. Before they moved to Derry, all she had was her sister. After they moved to Derry, the girl had her sister, her new friends, and Richie. And now, Arianna has all of those things together again - just add Noah and Riley.

"Okay, Mike." Eddie suddenly said as they were all out of the clubhouse, "so where do we find out tokens?"

"Yeah, I gotta be honest, man, with all due respect, this is fucking stupid." Richie breathed out, and Arianna nudged him in the rib. "Alright? Why do we need tokens? Alright? We already remember everything. Uh, we remember saving Bev, defeating It, I mean, we're all caught up."

Arianna knew. She knew why Richie kept questioning everything; Richie didn't want to remember. Everything his awful parents did. He didn't want to feel like a disappointment.

"That's not everything." Mike answered. "We fought. And what happened after that? Before the house on Neibolt." He challenged, and Richie tried to think as hard as he could. "Think."

"We c - c - can't remember, can we?" Bill said, glancing over to Sydney.

"See? There's more to our story. What happened that summer and those blank spaces. Like pages torn out of a book. That's what you need to find."

Richie avoided Mike's eye contact, and he looked at Arianna, who gave him a reassuring smile.

"We need to split up." Mike concluded.

"What?" Sydney blurted out.

"You each need to find your artifact alone." Mike explained. "That's important. And when you do, meet me at the library tonight."

"Wait, wait, wait." Sydney spoke. "Can I still go with Ari?"

"Yeah." Arianna agreed. "I mean, after all, we did practically live everything together."

Mike nodded. "Of course."

"Yeah," Eddie suddenly said, "yeah, I gotta - I gotta say, statistically speaking, we look like a survival scenario. We're gonna do way much better as a group."

"Yeah." Richie agreed, "It would be dumb, man. Okay? We gotta go together, alright? We were together that summer, right?"

"No!"

Everybody looked to Bill, who was annoyed by Richie and Eddie's protests.

"Not that whole summer." Bill said, making Richie and Eddie go quiet.

Arianna turned to Richie, grabbing one of his hands. "Rich, listen, listen to me. You're going to be okay." She said, knowing exactly why he didn't want to go. "Trust me."

Richie hesitantly looked into her blue eyes, which seemed to soothe him for just a second, and he turned to look at all of his friends, who were waiting for him to say something.

"Fine." He groaned, stuffing his hands inside of his pockets. "Let's just get this shit over with."

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ooh it's gonna get bonkers.