florescences | richie catchall

[WOW who could have guessed we'd end up in front of these funhouse mirrors

Please enjoy this beloved memmy, let us cherish it forever.]

[ holy shit kabby you really did the mostest

it's a lot for elysia to take in at once. she's seen a lot, but it's a different kind of a lot. children being bullied.... monsters of all kinds... she knows that. she's seen enough gore and violence, so she doesn't recoil seeing any of this, but.... she feels like there is a missing piece of context for her to fully understand. ]

What was that?

[ she keeps her voice quiet, gentle as she turns to look at richie, to see his reaction to his own memories. ]

[luckily there was a free pdf for download! Unluckily it comes rife with formatting and spelling errors

Richie's jaw locks up tight, from start to finish. He'd be fine if he were alone in here. He could handle the instant replay, even if handling it meant losing his cool and hustling for a way out. He's seen too much to trust it would stay in the mirror.

With Elysia here to watch, his throat closes up.

(what do i say what can i say why say anything at all)

The giant takes a swing at him and his fist balls white in his pocket. The clown rolls its eyes down at him and sweat beads at his brow, makes him go numb and tingly, feet itching for a sprint.

Then the sight cuts short, and there is only silence. The glass doesn't bulge, or break, or flash a close up of that madcap grin in high definition. It's just over.

All he's left with is her question, and that gives him in no better comfort than the side show did.]

...Good question. [He wets his lips. Steadies himself out.] I never got a Webster's definition for It, either.

[ elysia is never afraid to ask a question even it pushes boundaries. she's ready to accept not receiving an answer, but she'll never get any answers if she never tries to ask.

she watches richie more than she watches the mirror's story now. if he moves to try to get away from the horror of the mirror, she will follow. ]

It? [ she's slowly grasping its capitalization. ] Is It something that haunts you?

[He laughs a little, looking first to the floor, and then finally to her. She's anomaly enough to jar him from the now-finished scene, that bright pink coiffure was a shade no bleach-and-dye job in Derry or any other salon could pull off. No wig, for that matter.

Maybe a weird thing for his head to latch onto, but any port in a storm.]

Not just me. The whole town. [Standing here leaves him feeling oddly vacated. He's explaining in curt, clipped sentences. Being irritatingly cryptic, she'll have to forgive him.] Most of them just don't know it. The ones that do get a fleeting notion. And then they die.

[ she can tell how much it's affected him, the long-lasting hold it has on him, how it clawed away at him enough to trim his words away. the words that he is always so good with.

she would gladly be any kind of port in a storm for any reason, even if it's a flash of her hair. whatever can help. ]

A mostly hidden entity that kills. [ it's not so farfetched or weird to elysia. ] But you know it more than a notion and you lived.

[ he's dead now, but the memories flashed to his childhood for a reason. ]

Is that why you moved? Is It?

[There's not much that could rattle this gal, is there? Richie can take comfort in her even keel, but there's something unsettling about that too. 50000 is a number he comprehends in stocks, in population sizes, in units sold and miles travelled. Taking that in years, well. You wouldn't find humans as we know them now if you went back that far. Maybe their hairlines would be threatening to meet their brows and they'd be finding a great new use for rocks.

He still doesn't quite believe it. Believe her. How she's so effortlessly present and positive and beyond the scope of human failing.

It helps now, though, when he feels as small and fleeting as a gnat.]

...We moved because my dad got a great job opportunity in the Midwest. [Besides the point. In a way.] I...we took a run at It, when we were kids. Me and my friends. Figured something fishy was going on and got a couple hackneyed ideas what to do about it. It almost worked. We thought it did.

Then twenty-seven years later, It finished hibernating and came out to feed. We got called back...my friend Mike, he never left. He realized it was happening again. And It wanted us.

[ you wouldn't find humans as we know them now if you went back that far....

how right yet not he is without knowing it. ]

As children? [ that tracks for how much caution children have, but that's an even worrying age for people who are still developing, still learning. much too daring, much too young, to sow and reap consequence that took three decades to come to fruition. ]

It was waiting a long time for revenge.

Yeah. About eleven years old.

[He looks down, half-chuckling at that. Sure, long time for them. Barely a blip for It. It could have waited them out, not bothered to invite them back for a rematch.]

It was hibernating, I suppose. It works cyclically.

[Richie grimaces.]

Elysia...let's just leave here. I don't much care for the ambience, so to speak. [raps his knuckles against the offending mirrors. Enough of this.

unless YOU have memory for me?]

[ do you really want a memory or do you want to be free? i will continue for as long as you want but i will also set you free because you are alive and i am not. ]

That's so young.

[ and it's an odd hibernation cycle. ]

Okay. I don't want you to be uncomfortable too long. I hope... that's all we need to do be free of this.

richie catchall

W3 MONDAY (CW: children in peril, eye gore, disease mentions)

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