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katecarteir · 6 years

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signs of life.

Chapter One | 5k | Teen Audiences and Up.

Chapter Warnings: Gay slurs, period typical homophobia.

Author’s note: You do not need to read SCL in order to understand this fic, or vice versa. They both work as stand alone fics :) They just happened to exist in the same universe at different periods of time.

The sun made Beverly’s hair look like it was on fire, Bill was climbing onto Ben’s shoulders and Richie’s damp hair was sticking to his forehead while his whole body shook with his laughter.

It’s the summer of 1994 and Eddie thinks to himself, pulling his knees up to is chest, that if he could ignore the incoming panic of senior year and turn off his turbulent feelings that threaten to drown him every night then everything could be just fine.

[or: the most self-indulgent 90s!Losers high school AU that nobody ever, ever asked for but is going to be a monster of a fic anyway!]

Playlist | Read on AO3 | Semi Charmed Life

The final bell rang through the class, and it took every inch of self control that Eddie Kaspbrak had not to toss the papers on his desk up in the air and cry out with joy. Richie Tozier, it seemed, had much less self control than Eddie did- and Eddie had Richie’s papers landing on his desk and Richie’s shouts in his ears.

“Mr Tozier,” Ms Campbell, their junior AP English teacher, gave him a long withering look but Eddie could see her fighting off a smile. Richie seemed to be the only person in the world who’d mastered annoying and amusing somebody at the same time. “I can still give you detention for this afternoon.”

Richie gave her a small half smile. “But I’m pretty sure that you’re just as excited as I am to get out of here, so you probably won’t.”

Richie Tozier was all things that a good girls’ daddy would warn them about. His hair never laid flat on his head, and his clothes were always rumbled with wild patterns and mix-matched styles. He still forced his feet into the same pair of Dock Martens from freshman year, even after growing up them back at the beginning of the year, and it gave him a permanent skip in his step. He wore braces on his teeth even at sixteen years old, and the grudging white women down at the salon always seemed to have something bad to say about the Tozier family.

Eddie wasn’t like Richie. It sometimes felt like Eddie’s mother still dressed him, even if he technically chose out his own outfits every morning. Eddie Kaspbrak was similar to Richie in one way; he was also the kind of boy that men didn’t want around their daughters. No man wanted their daughter running around with a boy who dressed like a faggot. Eddie may not choose his clothes, but that didn’t make all of their claims untrue.

Ms Campbell shook her head, fully smiling now. “Get out of here, Richard.”

Richie let out another excited noise, slightly quieter this time, and grabbed hold of Eddie’s hand. Eddie barely had enough time to grab up his own things before Richie was dragging him from the building. He seemed to not have any regard for his own belongings that were scattered all over the classroom. Eddie had known Richie Tozier for pretty much as long as he could remember. A real sandbox love, and Richie had been this obnoxious ever since Eddie could remember. Richie had been a messy child, loud, and Eddie’s mother had forbid him at four years old to ever see the boy again. Being friends with Richie Tozier had been the first time Eddie had ever disobeyed his mother, and every time since had been Richie inspired.

Richie openly pranced into the hallway, slipping and high fiving some random person that Eddie barely recognized. He looked ridiculous in his too small boots, and jean overall matched with a Hawaiian print shirt that lost what little fashion cred it had back in the early 80s. Richie quickly returned to Eddie’s side, tossing an arm around his friend shoulder and pulling Eddie into his side. “Eds, my love, I have a feeling that this is going to be the best summer of our lives. I can feel it in my bones.”

“Don’t call me that, dick,” Eddie shoved at Richie, but not enough that they actually broke contact or that Richie would pull away. Richie just grinned down at him. “You say that about last summer and then I spent the whole six weeks with a cast on my wrist. Thanks to you, I might add. So, sorry if I maybe don’t take your word for it.”

“Eds…” Richie sighed, shaking his head. “I’m telling you. This is the summer of Losers.”

Richie dropped his arm from around Eddie’s shoulder and skipped towards the doors to freedom. Eddie slowed his steps and watch Richie move, a small smile growing on his cheeks.

→ → →

“I’m sorry, sir, I don’t understand.”

It was fifteen minutes after Stanley Uris had been supposed to meet his friends outside the front doors, and he was still sitting in the guidance counsellor’s chair. Mr Barton gave a small sigh and rubbed at his chin.

“Your grades fallen pretty low this last semester, Mr Uris,” Mr Barton said, repeating nearly the same words as before as though Stan would be able to accept them the second time. “At this point, we think it might be in your best interest to start looking at.. different schools options.”

Stan’s mouth fell open, twisting his report card towards him and staring down at it angrily. Stanley Uris did not slip up, ever. His clothes were always perfectly ironed, never dirty, and fit him promptly. He managed his hair into perfect swoops every day, even on the mornings when his curls seemed to want nothing more than to be wild and free. He had good posture, he never skipped class. Maybe he’d struggled a little bit with concepts in some of his classes, but he hadn’t given much thought about it. There was no way his grades had slipped so much, but the report cards don’t lie.

Mr Barton was still speaking. “Now, you don’t need to do anything just now. Take the summer to think about it, and you can always works towards getting your GPA back up next year. Maybe a tutor…”

Stan tuned him out, ears ringing.

→ → →

Beverly Marsh tucked her hands into the pockets of the much oversized jean jacket that she’d stolen from Richie, and watched Bill Denbrough upend his pack into the green garbage can outside the school. She was pretty sure at least three calculators and an actual full-sized novel fell out and into the garbage, but she didn’t make a peep.

“Don’t you think you’re going to need those things?” Ben Hanscom asked as he approached. Ben had always been a cute kid, Beverly remembered when they first met in the seventh grade. He had been, for a lack of better word, fat. He’d hit a good growth spurt the year before, and gone out for the football team with Mike Hanlon in sophomore year and it had slimmed him out a little bit. His sandy brown hair still flopped all over his face, and his cheeks still pushed out with chub, and Beverly wouldn’t have had any other way. She would never tell anybody, but she thought that out of all her friends Ben Hanscom was her favourite.

Bill Denbrough looked up and smiled. This past year, Bill had started letting his hair grow out and it now tickled at the back of his neck, and fell well into his eyes. Richie hadn’t yet managed to convince Bill to tuck it back into a ponytail, and Beverly often wondered how Bill even saw. He glanced down at the bag, seeming to think about it for a moment, then tossed the whole bag into the garbage behind his belongings.

Mike walked up to them, still wearing his red-and-white letterman jacket that Ben would never be seen wearing outside of game days, and grinned. Mike Hanlon was definitely the nicest jock that Beverly had ever met in her life. The Hanlons were on the of only black families in the very town of Derry, Maine and they lived out of the outskirts on a beautiful farm. Beverly practically lived out there when she could. Mike had been homeschooled through their elementary school days, and she’d only known him through reputation until then. He’d fit right in their little group of Losers immediately, and they’d all been inseparable since.

“That was overkill, Billy, don’t you think?” Beverly asked, pulling out the package of cigarettes from the pocket of the jacket and lighting one up. She supposed technically they were Richie’s, but she told herself that Richie would never have started smoking if it hadn’t been for her, so that made them partly hers. “You really didn’t need to throw out the whole bag, dude.”

“I don’t want to th-th-think about school for the next s-s-six weeks!” Bill announced, cheeks turning pink the way they always did when his stutter came through. It was remarkably better than it was when they were children- the speech therapy his parents had been taking him to Portland was working wonders- but it seemed to slip through just often enough that he couldn’t quite live down the nickname of “Mush Mouth.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re not going to need that stuff next year, man,” Ben said with a laugh. In the past few months, it had seemed that Ben Hanscom had been trying pretty hard to give himself a newer image. His sentences got shorter, he’s words got rougher, and his little black notebooks stopped appearing in his hands. Beverly figured that he was still writing poetry- or at least, she hoped he was- but Ben had effectively been shutting himself out the last few weeks.

“What are we talking about?” Richie’s voice carried over to them, wrapping an arm around Beverly and pressing a kiss to the top of her head. Junior year had done wonders to Richie’s height factor, springing him up almost a foot and prompting him to finally catch up to the other boys in their grade.

“Bill here thinks that because the school year is over that he can just throw out all of this stuff from this year- backpack included.” Ben informed Richie, reaching into his own bag and tossing the curly-haired boy a PEZ dispenser that had Daffy Duck from the Loonie Toons on it.

Richie caught it without concern, grinning a little sheepishly as Eddie Kaspbrak came up to them. He was a little wheezy from trying to keep up to Richie’s larger steps, but had that same mischievous grin on his face that he always did. “That’s nothing,” Eddie said with a cocky wiggle of his eyebrows. “Richard here tossed all his shit up into he air once the bell rang like they were graduation caps, and then left them laying around the classroom.”

Beverly and Mike burst out laughing in the same moment, turning Richie’s slightly embarrassed grin to the genuine smile that always came out his friends laughing. Eddie looked at Richie’s smile, and the sound of Bev and Mike’s laughing sort of dimmed in his ears.

“Where the hell is Stanley?” Bill finally asked, looking around as the court yard quickly emptied around them. Most days the courtyard would be filled for hours after school let out, with clubs and teams all loitering around for meetings, but nobody wanted to stand around on school property once summer had officially started. “It’s not like him to be late.”

“He had a meeting with the counsellor after school, said it wouldn’t take long.” Richie said, popping out three of candies and popping them into his mouth.

“Probably discussing a way to get Stan valedictorian over you,” Mike said with a smirk. Richie clicked his tongue and winked at him.

Eddie’s gaze moved towards the loud rumbling of a certain Chevy truck that was moving down the road towards the school and his chest hitched. “Oh, shit. Incoming.”

Beverly groaned, quickly reaching down to tighten the laces on her combat boots. “Don’t they ever get tired of harassing innocents?”

“Nah,” Richie said, looking towards the truck with the few expression of true disgust that he owned. “People never get tired of the things that get them off. Why did you think I spend so much of my time picking fights with Eddie’s mom?”

“Oh my GOD!” Eddie squeaked, whacking Richie on the air. “You’re so fucking gross, Tozier, I swear-“

“Okay, we gotta move,” Mike said suddenly, reaching out and taking hold of Bill’s arm. Bill had already squared his shoulders, readying up for the fight as he always did at the sight of Henry Bowers and his gang. It was sometimes like there was a tiny part of Bill’s soul that burned for getting his ass handed to him by bullies twice his weight.

“What about Stan?” Eddie asked hesitantly, glancing back at the building. The last thing Eddie wanted was to be caught in any sort of altercation with the Bowers gang that he’d so carefully avoided since they’d graduated from Derry High the year before but he also wasn’t the type to leave a man behind.

“Don’t worry about it,” Richie said, patting Beverly between her shoulder blade and ushering her towards Ben. “Patty boy and I have an understanding. You guys just get out of here.”

Eddie’s chest clenched slightly, and he noticed the same panic settled over Beverly’s face. “Babe, we can all go. We don’t even know how long Stan is going to be in there, we don’t know that they’ll even still be around when he’s done.”

“I don’t know,” Richie said in a voice sung with false confidence. “I’ve sort of missed them. It would nice to have a reunion with our old pals.”

“You’re on your own feeling that way,” Mike said with a nervous laugh. The truck was approaching rather quickly, and he pressed an arm around Beverly’s shoulder. She ushered her away, Ben right on their heels. The truck started to honk, and Eddie squeezed Richie’s wrist before taking off after the others. Richie turned slightly, making eye contact with Bill, who grinned back at him. Richie lowered his hand slightly, and Bill met it with a low five.

Patrick Hockstetter was jumping out the passenger door before the truck had even skidded to a stop. His black hair was longer and greasier than Richie remembered it being, and his clothes looked like they hadn’t been washed since the last time they’d seen him. His boots were caked in mud, and it was definitely the same flannel that had once been oversized. He grinned at them wolfishly, actually going as far as to lick his lips. “Well, well,” Patrick said with a chirp. “If it isn’t my two favourite Losers. Where are the rest of your gang?”

“Oh, haven’t you heard?” Richie asked, raising his brow and matching Patrick smirk for smirk. “Seems the end of days has finally come. Everybody else was raptured up to Gods playground and we’re the only poor bastards left on Earth.”

Bill snorted and tucked his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. As Patrick limbered closer, Richie realized that he was actually the same height now and he couldn’t control the pride that settled in his chest.

Henry and the other two minions that mattered a whole lot less all came strutting out of the truck and towards them. “Huh-huh-huh-huh-hey buh-buh-buh-Billy,” Henry Bowers exaggerated stuttered as he approached. It was weak and overused means of teasing, but it still made Bill clenched his fist and grind his jaw. “You guys all alone here?”

Richie exhaled hard, with an overdramatic roll of his eyes. “We’ve been over this. If you’re going to show up late, at least have the courtesy to be quiet.”

“Oh, Trashmouth Tozier is telling me to be quiet? That’s rich.” Henry stepped towards Richie, a good several inches shorter now. For the first time in his life, Richie Tozier felt he might have the upper hand in a situation. Until Patrick opened his mouth again.

“Hey, Tozier, where’s you’re little fairy friend?” Patrick slurred over to him. Richie’s posture stiffened and he heard Bill let in a small inhale behind him. “I wanted to give him a special hello if you catch my drift.”

Richie saw Patrick grabbing at his crotch from the corner of his eye, and forced a smile onto his face. “You know what I love about bigots.” Richie said, forcing laughter into his voice. He could practically feel Bill vibrating behind him. Richie turned quickly from Henry to Patrick, socking the bully directly in the nose. “Nothing.”

“OH SHIT!” Bill shouted behind Richie, grabbing at his friend’s arm and pulling. Richie stumbled slightly as they took off in the opposite direction of the school.

I picked the wrong day to wear shoes that don’t fit, Richie thought to himself. He could hear the angry shouts of Patrick and his buddies as they chased the two of them through the crowded Derry Park. Richie took a running jump over the park bench, and laughed breathlessly when he heard the distinct thud of Belch Huggins running into it.

Bill took a sharp left and slid underneath the singing out legs of a child on the swing, and nearly fell when he heard Vic Criss shout when the girls feet landed directly in his face. Glancing over his shoulder, he watched Hockstetter mad dive forward and tackle Richie into the sandbox. Wincing, Bill turned away as Patrick began to rub Richie’s face into the sand.

Bill stumbled and collapsed, falling face first into the lap of girl reading the newspaper under a big oak tree. She had long black haired and glasses that looked pretty fake to him, but he wasn’t one to judge. She looked up at him, horrified, and Bill quickly clamped a hand over his mouth. “If you cuh-cuh-cover for me I’ll owe y-y-you my life.”

The girl raised her brow, and seemed to fully take in the scene around them. Henry was seeming bored with cheering on Patrick’s revenge on Richie and was clearly looking for him. The girls eyes narrowed and sighed. “Get behind the tree, dumbass.”

Bill quickly scrambled to go behind the large tree, praying that he hadn’t been seen as Henry stalks over to them. “Hey, bitch.” Henry greeted her, and Bill clenched his jaw at the obvious disrespect.

“Can I help you?” She asked him, voice absolutely cold.

“Have you seen a guy,” Henry said, laying on the southern accent rather thick as he spoke to her. “’Bout yay high, greasy as fuck, stutters like a weasel?”

“How does a weasel stutter?” The girl challenged and he heard Henry let out a frustrated noise. “Look, I haven’t seen your guy, alright? But your buddy over there seems to have caught himself one, maybe he’ll let you take a turn.”

Henry was mumbling some explicits as he walked back over to Hockstetter, and Bill popped his head out from behind the tree.

“So, w-w-w-what’s your name?”

The girl rolled her eyes but she was smiling.

→ → →

Beverly blew air onto her fingers while she sat on one of the low hanging branches of the tree in the Denbrough’s front yard. “You know,” Mike’s voice carried over to her as he came to stand below the tree. He was tall enough that she barely had to lean down to look at him. “If you wore gloves that actually had fingers then your hands would be a lot warmer.”

Beverly stuck her tongue out at him. The sun was starting to get lower in the sky- not quite setting just yet, but giving the hint that it was coming- and Bill and Richie still hadn’t turned up. “If Richie gets murdered, I’m going to be a widow at sixteen.”

Mike laughed as he hoisted himself up into the tree beside her. “I think you have to actually be married to be a widow. You’ll just be the girl whose boyfriend got murdered.”

“Damn.” Beverly snapped her fingers and grinned. “Guess that means I won’t be inheriting in his house and all his assets either, then? Married people get all the luck.”

Mike hummed, looking out across the street. He supposed that he wasn’t much higher up then he normally was, but it was still a different view of a something that he’d only ever seen one way before. The street was half hidden by green leaves, and touched by rapidly orange-ing sunlight. The air around him was starting to chill with the promise of falling night, and Mike had always been a fun of the world’s true beauty but he’d never associated it with being in town before. There had never been anything he’d consider beautiful about being in the town of Derry, but as he looked out at the empty street he had to think that maybe it was… nice, sometimes.

“Real talk, though,” Beverly interrupted Mike’s internal rambles as she drummed her hands against her thighs. “Do you think our friends have a death wise or are just stupid?”

“Richie probably has a death wish,” Mike replied without hesitation. “Bill’s just stupid.”

Beverly laughed, clapping a hand over her mouth and leaning against Mike’s shoulder as she giggled. Mike’s heart flared in his chest and he fought to ignore this brain a little bit longer. To keep that bridge in the distance until he absolutely had to cross it.

“I made soup.” They startled and looked down at where Eddie was now standing under the tree and looking up at them with a pretty unreadable expression on his face.

“What did you make soup for?” Beverly asked, still giggling slightly.

Eddie shrugged, and seemed to only contemplate it for a second before scaling up the tree himself. He wiggled himself in between Mike and the trunk, looking down at the ground a little nervously.

“It’s not that high,” Mike said with a small smile. “Don’t worry.”

Eddie cast him a dark look, frowning deeply. “Last time somebody said that to me, I broke my fucking arm.”

“I…” Mike cleared his throat then nodded. “Okay, yeah. That definitely happened.”

“Why are you guys in the tree?” Stan called up to them, Ben standing beside him. Stan had shown up at the Denbrough’s house not long after the rest of the Losers had gotten there. He’d been quiet since he’d gotten there, more so than usually, and kept worrying his bottom lip. He hadn’t given up any sort of information about his meeting with the guidance counsellor, and Stanley Uris wasn’t the kind of person you pushed. (Unless you were Richie Tozier, who pushed everybody.)

“We’re waiting for Bill and Richie,” Eddie and Beverly answered in unison. They quickly pointed at each other and shouted “JINX!” and then burst out laughing. Mike smiled and looked back out to the street, tuning out Eddie and Bev’s continue attempt at jinx through their giggles. He saw Bill and Richie making their ways down the street before anybody else, and Richie wasted no time coming forward and slapping Stan on the shoulder.

The boy looked a little worse for wear, dirt and blood streaked on his cheeks, eye already seeming to be bruising. But he was smiling none the less, a regular old Tozier grin, and he looked up at his friends in the tree. “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!”

Beverly giggled but Eddie jumped out the tree as though he had some sort of Spider Man powers and hadn’t just been fretting about the height. Mike crinkled his brow, as Beverly jumped down from his other side.

Eddie touched the cuts on Richie’s cheeks and his lips tugged down in a worried frown. “What the hell happened to you?” He asked in harsh words that didn’t match the concerned tone of voice.

“Patrick beat him up in the sandbox.” Bill came practically skipping up onto the lawn. “It was like being seven again, which i-i-isn’t something I thought I n-n-n-needed but I really enjoyed.”

Richie scoffed and rolled his eyes. “The only thing you enjoyed, Denbrough, was chatting up that weird newspaper girl in the park.”

“That’s n-n-not true,” Bill challenged, but the flushing of his cheeks implied that it was at least a little bit true. “I also enjoyed you p-p-p-punching P-P-Patrick.”

Richie grinned and nodded but Eddie let out a horrified squeak. “You punched Patrick? Have you lost your absolute goddamn mind, Richard? What could be possibly say that would make you do something so stupid?”

Richie and Bill exchanged a quick look between the two of them, almost a silent conversation, before Richie was reaching out and ruffling up Eddie’s meticulously styled hair. “Awe, don’t you worry about it, Eds. Just trust that he deserved it.”

“Of course he deserves it,” Eddie snapped but he was starting to smile. “Doesn’t mean you should be stupid enough to actually do it. Now, come on. Let’s get those scratches cleaned before you get an infection and they have to cut your dumbass head off.”

Richie wrapped an arm around Beverly and grinned as Eddie pulled him towards the house by his hand. “Did you at least make soup? You know I love soup after getting my ass handed to me.”

Mike smirked, watching as the back of Eddie’s neck turned pink. He turned and winked at his friends, getting a return grin from Ben. They moved into the house, talking about some sort of sportsing that Stan had never had the patience to learn. He moved to follow them when he felt a hand coming down on his shoulder.

Bill raised his eyebrow and gave Stan a serious look that Bill rarely gave anymore. Long gone were the days when Bill was a strong and fearless leader of the Losers Club. As they’d grown, they’d balanced and developed an more equal standing in friendships. No doubt thanks to the influence of Bev and Richie, Bill had let himself loosen up and free himself to the point where sometimes he was so Richie-like that Stan’s head spun. It didn’t mean that he wasn’t able to put that serious front back up and lecture like the Mom Friend he’d been long ago. Stan had just never been on the receiving end before, always so good at keeping himself in check.

“You want to talk about it?” Bill asked, his voice light and stutter free.

Stan sighed. “There’s nothing to talk about, Big Bill.”

Bill raised one eyebrow, a move he’d mastered at ten years old and Stan suspected he’d practised in the mirror until he got it right. “Do you really expect me to believe that? The guidance counsellor d-d-doesn’t just haul students in on the last day before v-v-vacation if nothing’s wrong.”

Stan pursed his lips and tried to think of any sort of excuse to get out of this painful, unwanted conversation when one came rolling down the street. Bill and Stan both turned to watch a large moving truck seemed to come right out the horizon. They turned and raised their brows at each other as it pulled up in front of the long empty house on their street. The house had been empty so long that the grass had grown over most of the for sale sign. Sharon Denbrough always complained that it brought down the look of the whole neighbour, and what a shame it was that even the real estate agents seemed to have given up on it.

A blond girl in a frilled skirt and Converse sneakers hopped out of the bed of the truck, and her eyes seemed to land on the two boys on the lawn immediately. She smirked at them as though one look told her everything she’d never need to know about them. She turned back to the truck, leaving Bill and Stan to walk back tot the Denbroughs house feeling rather unsettled.

→ → →

Richie was rested on the Denbroughs kitchen counter, as Eddie rummaged through the cupboards and complained about how ill stalked it was. Mike chuckled into his bowl of soup, knowing that all Richie really needed was a some soap and hot water. Toss the lanky boy into the shower, and he’d be good as new.

He turned to where Ben and Beverly were both sitting, talking quietly to each other and seemingly blind to Eddie’s frantics not three feet away from them. They all snapped to attention as Bill and Stan came into the room. They both seemed a little knocked off kilter and Mike felt concern settle into his gut at the sight of them.

He didn’t seem to be the only one, Richie shifting to sit up straighter on counter. “What happened, dudes?”

“Somebody is m-m-m-moving into the old Gr-gr-Gray house.” Bill stumbled through his words. “A f-f-family, I guess. There was a g-g-girl…”

Richie waggled his eyebrows and grinned deeply. “A girl, yeah? Is she hot?”

Beverly grabbed one of the bread rolls off the dining room table and wiped at Richie, nailing right in the head, at the same time that Eddie whipped him with the dish cloth in his heads. Richie yelped, rubbing at his arm and pouting. “DAMN! Forgive a man for asking a damn question.”

“You’re not a man,” Stan told him dryly. “You’re an extremely tall, skinny infant that was somehow cursed with the ability to speak.”

Richie blew him a kiss, and Stan rolled his eyes with the tiniest hint of a smile playing on his lips. Stan moved over to reached past Eddie to the rubbing alcohol that was on a shelf just out of Eddie’s tiptoe’d reach.

Mike scooted a little closer to Bev, putting his arm on the table in front of Bev. “You’re coming over tonight?” He asked her. He watched the way Ben’s face seemed to twitch slightly, as though he was listening in and trying not to look like he was. Beverly turned to him and gave him a small smile.

“No, that’s okay, Mike. Thanks. My dad is out of town on a construction job, so I’m going to have a girls night with my mom.” Beverly said it simply enough that Mike knew the real answer underneath it.

Richie was letting out loud screams as Eddie attempted to clean his cut, while Stan had hopped up on the counter beside him and was drinking apple juice straight from the carton. Bill was somewhere near by having an argument with his eleven year old brother, but Mike only had eyes for Ben; who seemed to watching him as though he was waiting for something.

Mike stood and walked towards the kitchen window and watched the family move into the house across the street.

#reddie #reddie fic #my writing #losers club #it fanfiction #scl tag #sol #this is going to flop bc like 1/2 of the people who actually reblog my stuff are being real life people #but i wanted to post it anyway #:)#there's two (2) pretty relevant OCs btw

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ecotone99 · 5 years

Text

[SF] The Gulf | Ep. 6: Prison Island New Year

Murder.

Elijah is here awaiting trial for the premeditated murder-for-hire plot of his friend and former chief of staff, Ben Rupert.

The news broke the day after he arrived here. It’s the biggest story since I-can’t-remember-when.

“Why would they let him come here?!” I practically shout. “I thought they weren’t supposed to allow murderers in class-three confinement!”

I’m at Eric’s cabin, and tonight I insisted on the hard stuff. I’m a few shots in, and cradling a mug of beer. Eric is being a good sport about it, trying to calm me down.

“Just remember, he’s not a murderer yet. He’s innocent until proven guilty.”

I give Eric a sharp look.

“It is a little strange,” Eric admits. “It’s the first I’ve seen them let an accused murderer book a cabin and roam the island freely. I guess wealth does come with some perks.”

“And why does he get so much time to prepare for trial? I got less than twelve hours for mine.”

“A, they always give more time to prepare in serious cases. B, you really should have insisted on representation at your hearing. Sounds like you basically got railroaded… a good lawyer would have got an extension to prepare an argument, find some good precedent, and probably could have kept you out of confinement while you paid your debt. Then again the odds were stacked against you with a guy like Francesco. But still, you probably could have got the release threshold down to five or ten grand–”

“Can you just let me vent?” I ask. But I know the truth is, he can’t. He really can’t help but look at things from a logical, rational perspective. That’s actually why I like spending time with him. But right now, I could do without it.

Eric flashes a sympathetic smile. “Look, it’s a big island, just avoid him.”

“He’s two cabins down from me!”

“Lock your door at night.”

“I love how not getting attacked is my problem. Talk about blaming the victim.”

Eric shrugs. “You’re right. That’s not fair. And it’s also the natural state of the world. Getting struck by lightning isn’t fair. It’s not your fault. And you don’t deserve it. But you still shouldn’t stand in a field during a lightning storm.”

“But-” I start.

Eric interrupts, “I know you aren’t ‘standing in a field.’ But you can’t reason with predators anymore than you can reason with lightning.”

Eric gets up and fumbles around in some drawers. He drops a set of brass knuckles which thud on the wooden table.

I look at him skeptically.

“What? If you’re actually concerned, you should be prepared to protect yourself.”

“Aren’t weapons prohibited here?” I ask sheepishly.

“Yeah, and so is alcohol. Besides this isn’t a weapon, it’s jewelry, four rings all joined together.”

I smirk, and pick up the knuckles. They are even heavier than I expected. They look hand pounded, like an ancient Roman cuff bracelet a warrior might wear.

“Where did you get these anyway? Don’t they search packages?”

“I’ve gone through a lot of hobbies here. This was the metalworking phase about six or seven years ago. You’ve already drank out of a pounded copper mug from the same era.”

“Well thanks. I guess it can’t hurt to have the option,” I say. And it does make me feel better.

“Better to have them and not need them, than need them and not have them,” Eric says.

On video Majorie looks tired. She has bags under her eyes, and without the usual smile she’s lost her glow. I avoid the subject for a couple minutes… but we both know it’s coming.

“So, how’s the new roommate?” She asks, forcing a smile.

“I was pretty shocked to see him. Do you think he did it?”

Majorie looks away, and blows air out of her mouth in a long sigh, “I don’t know. I’m having a tough time thinking of a motive… at least one that is strong enough for murder.”

“What about the video of Ben jumping off the building,” I ask, “They must know it was a fake if they arrested Elijah.”

“That’s the thing… I don’t think they actually have enough evidence. Rumors have started getting out that it wasn’t a suicide. The task force got pressure from Gulf Sails to clear it up. I mean it’s the first murder on Gulf Sails in, what, a decade?”

“So if they could prove it was a deep fake, then they would have something solid on Elijah?”

“Well yeah, it was Elijah’s people who turned over the video in the first place. So if they could prove it was faked that would at least give them another path to go down for the investigation.”

“You mean they could put pressure on his underlings to start talking?”

Majorie shrugs, clear her throats, and says, “I guess that’s the theory.”

“Can you send me the video?”

“Why?” she asks reflexively.

“Well, I’ve been working on something ever since you told me about the technology they use to analyze deep fakes. They look at it forensically, the files, the meta-data, down to the ones and zeros. They’re trying to see if anything has been altered, added, or tweaked. But it’s almost impossible to tell, that’s the entire point of the deep fakes. What they should be doing is looking at the outputs.”

“Well isn’t that the entire point of deep fakes, that the outputs look real?” Majorie asks.

“Of course, they look and sound real to humans. And everything at the chip level looks real enough to the technology analyzing it. But I had a hypothesis that when you analyze the outputs, there would be a slight difference between real and fake videos.

“I was rewatching some old movies to write about on my blog. The special effects used to be really bad, you can see the cuts in the film, the model cities for explosions, the impossible ninja moves, that sort of thing. But over time they got better and better. It looked almost real… until the directors would go too far and start making it look fake again because their ideas outpaced the technology.

“It’s like they were getting close to reality, never quite syncing up, and then passing back into the absurd. Then they would make the effects better and better again until they were back for another shot at the real thing.

“So I decided to test my hypothesis, that given enough data, there would be unique patterns for deep fakes versus real videos. I put together two databases, one with unaltered videos and one with known fakes. I coded a basic program to analyze and plot things like voice, posture, gait, movement, and just graph it out.

“Both of them, the real and the fake videos, look like a mess when graphed out. You get nothing from just looking at them. But when you overlay the plots, you start getting a picture of the differences. The deep fake plots aren’t as tight, they are more jerky, with sharper edges, and the real ones are much smoother in general.

“To be fair, you would need a lot more data and a better analyzer and grapher to really build a decent program. But I asked my friend Brenton to create a random mix of ten fake and ten real videos to test. I analyzed them, and got 90% accuracy, just by comparing the two graphs with the naked eye. I’m sure if I can write analyzing script I can get it even more accurate.”

Majorie’s mouth is hanging open and she’s looking at me like I just seamlessly landed a triple back handspring.

“Dege. This is amazing. I had no idea you knew how to do all this.”

“What?” I laugh, “No, it’s all pretty basic. Anyone could have done it. The code is really rudimentary, and–”

“Well, no one else did do it. Is there any way you can send me the program?

“I feel like it would be a lot easier to just send me the video. It’s not one nice cohesive program right now. There are a lot of moving parts I haven’t uploaded to the cloud yet.”

“Yeah, hmm… I just don’t think I can send you the video with the prison surveillance. I don’t want to overstep my bounds with the investigators.”

“If they want your help, seems like they wouldn’t mind? Well anyway, let me see if I can get the program glued together a little better, and more user-friendly.”

“That would be amazing! Um… in the meantime… Are you looking for extra work?” Majorie asks.

“What do you mean?”

“I have all these clients who send me video evidence. It’s not like your program would hold up in arbitration or anything. But it would at least give me insight into which of my clients are sending me fake evidence, which are being tricked themselves, and who is worth my time.”

“Yeah… sure, I would love to help.”

“Great,” she says, “I have about 15 I can send you now to get started, and pay per analysis? Maybe if your program is good enough we can get you out of there much sooner,” she winks.

The hair on the back of my neck pricks up a second before I hear his voice.

“The whole world has gone mad, Dege.”

Elijah takes a seat on my rock wall, looking out towards the ocean. I am working out on my deck, enjoying the cooler evening hours when the sun has dipped below the island’s horizon. I reach into my pocket and slip my fingers into the brass knuckles I’ve been carrying around. The cold metal takes some heat out of my elevated heart rate, like a stress ball.

Elijah is waiting for me to respond, but I don’t. Not sure what I would say even if I wanted to. Seconds pass. Finally he looks my way.

“You don’t believe the whole thing do you?” he asks, incredulously.

“I haven’t given it much thought,” I lie.

“It’s a smear, a desperate attempt to take down someone successful. It has the whole city divided. My supporters are fleeing, taking their platforms to dock at Paradisia, or elsewhere. A whole contingent linked their platforms into another community as a protest.

“Gulf Sails is just so desperate to take the blame for poor Ben’s death off them. They are willing to send an innocent man to prison because of social pressure!”

He keeps pausing to see if I have anything to say. Then he continues stream of consciousness style, like he’s thinking out loud.

“But they miscalculated. That was the real breaking point. People won’t put up with it! They won’t. The way they handled this from the getgo just reeks of corruption. You know the chief investigator they hired has ties to competitors of mine?”

He looks at me, expectantly, waiting for an answer.

“I didn’t know that,” I say monotone, pretending not to be interested, but the truth is I am making a mental note to look into that later.

“Why would I murder one of my best friends?” He scoffs, looking back to the ocean. “It is a cleverly orchestrated smear that I will be cleared of in just a matter of weeks.”

When he says “weeks” I swear I hear his voice crack. Elijah clears his throat.

“I’ll let you in on a little secret,” Elijah says, looking back to me. “Ben was being extorted by a high up Gulf Sails executive. That’s why he killed himself. Don’t believe me, just keep an eye on the news. It was getting out into the public, that’s why they moved on me with no evidence whatsoever, so they could get the drop on the news cycle. That’s what this is all about. Apparently these days justice is whatever the public believes!”

There’s something in Elijah’s eyes… I think he’s worried.

Suppose he is lying, and this all comes crashing down on him while he’s still here in pretrial detention. He realizes he’s going to be confined for the rest of his life. He thinks, might as well get my kicks in while I have the opportunity.

I’m actually concerned under those circumstance that he might try to rape me, if he has nothing to lose. I don’t know, maybe I’m just freaking myself out, maybe he was just drunk and displaying a fucked up sense of humor at the club in Barracuda on Halloween.

But it’s boring into my mind the insanity that I even have to consider such a course of events.

“I brought you something,” I say to George. Christmas is approaching, and I was feeling the holiday spirit. I’m still curious as to my connection with George, if we really are family. But another part of me just wants to break down this barrier.

I hold out the bottle to him.

“What, some of Eric’s whiskey?”

“I worked for it.”

“Well la-dee-da, why are you giving it to me?”

“I was just thinking about what you told me before… how trade breaks down barriers.”

“Trade,” He says sternly. “So it’s not a gift then? Call me cynical, but as I suspect of any gift, it’s not actually free, eh?”

“I… well… no, just… maybe just, like, don’t be such a hard-ass all the time?”

“Not worth it,” he says, and starts to head in.

“Wait! Fine, yes, it’s not a gift. But maybe you would be willing to trade this bottle of whiskey for another history lesson?”

“You can read about it on the internet cheaper.”

“It’s the analysis that’s valuable…” I say. “As much as I searched, I couldn’t find any sources that talked about the far-reaching economic effects of interracial fucking.”

I think I just managed to get a smirk out of him, but he hides it well, clears his throat, and puts back on his gruff look.

George stares at me for a while. “Alright come on, kid. It’s been a while since I’ve got to preach my opinions on the collapse of the USA.”

He’s still a dick to me the entire time we talk history. He makes me feel really stupid sometimes, and practically yells at me for asking apparently dumb questions.

But if I look at it from a comical perspective, like is this guy seriously this salty, I can handle it. I think the shots he keeps pouring me helps as well. Holy shit this guy can put them down.

“No, fuck that bullshit nation-state nostalgia,” he practically shouts as we are closing in on finishing the bottle. “It was the same in the city-states of Machiavelli-era Italy as it is now. A shitload of small conflicts still result in far less death and destruction than the large global catastrophes that empires create!”

I hold my hands up, “I’m not arguing, I was just asking a question. Seems like the big governments existed for a reason.”

“Yeah, for the same reason gangs exist. To wield power through violence! And in the process they plant some flowers and make sure no one else beats you up, so stupid people can’t imagine living in a flowerless, violent world.”

George flops into his seat, and finishes the rest of the bottle. “And it looks like you’re all out of learning tokens,” he says, slamming the bottle back to the table. “Kindly make your way to the exit, thank you for participating in George’s history lesson.”

It’s weird without all the festivities leading up to Christmas that typically happen living at home. It’s the type of stuff that I always grudgingly took part in… but now I miss.

My family does come to visit on Christmas, which is really nice of them to change their plans to spend time with me.

I hug my parents, and even go in for a hug with my little brother. While in the embrace, he makes sure to remind me, “You’re a disgrace to us all. You’ve shamed the family, and brought dishonor on our house.”

“Great to see you too Raji.”

And honestly, it is. I miss his stupid, sarcastic, peevish sense of humor.

My dad opens up a little. I think he is proud that I am living on my own, entertaining guests, and working hard.

The conversation takes a strange turn after the mulled wine and rum cake dessert.

“You really should get into spa culture, Dege. Well… maybe not on a prison island.”

“It’s always been a little too homoerotic for my tastes,” I say.

“Well the lab test put me somewhere between 32 and 36% homosexual. So maybe that’s my outlet… if you believe it’s genetics.”

“Wow, that’s pretty gay dad,” Raji says.

My dad scoffs, “You should see your mother’s-”

“Ollie! Those results are meant to be kept private.” My mom scolds. “I could sue you for telling them.”

She’s kind of joking, but it is technically true. And she’d probably win something small.

Then it’s New Years 2100 and it might be the worst day of my life. I tried to talk to Majorie, but she was busy.

I video chat with Craig and Dean for the first time since I asked Dean for the money to keep me out of here. I already apologized in a text for putting him in that position, and since then he’s reached out every week or so. He even offered to mentor me to help me make the money quicker.

They are getting ready to go out for the night, with a few other friends. They link me in to the big screen, and I get the full view of the living room, with all the festivities.

It’s too painful. I manage to keep up my happy appearance for a few toasts. But even though I have my drink on my side, there’s an energy I can’t tap into. It’s just not the same being on the other side of a screen.

I’m exhausted after only a few minutes, using every ounce of energy to make sure I don’t infect their mood with my crushing disappointment at being left out of the turn of the century festivities. I sign off quickly.

This sucks. The day I have been dreaming about for my entire life, slipping away.

After marinating in my own pity for a while, I head to Eric’s. Then we both walk over to the main pavilion where the big party is for the night.

The female prisoners from the other island are here visiting for the New Year’s Eve party. And to my shock, some of them are pretty attractive. I didn’t bother to go to any of the meetups when they came before.

I’m not sure why I assumed they would all be ugly… I think I was too influenced by old movies and TV shows about prison.

The post nation-state world just hasn’t left its mark on popular culture as intensely yet. I suppose that’s because there is less of a concerted effort to push one particular narrative. And now I realize I sound like George…

A young woman comes up to me and pulls me onto the dance floor without a word.

She’s probably about my age, and is wearing a lot of eye make-up. As we dance to something electronic sounding, I start wondering what she did to get here. Probably some kind of theft or fraud. I wonder if it was to buy drugs. I’m judging her even though I’m in the exact same position.

When the song is over we have a conversation. After about 15 minutes of talking, I realize I haven’t gotten anything out of it. I’m just bored, and know a little bit more about her party-life in Florida before her asshole ex-boyfriend (read: sugar-daddy) “falsely” (I’m sure) accused her of stealing from him.

She’s pretty. Pretty enough that I wouldn’t have hesitated to pursue her in the past. I wouldn’t have cared about how mind-numbing her personality was. But now I don’t want to.

At first I assume it’s just because of Majorie, but I don’t think that’s all of it. I just don’t have the energy to be around someone like this for a night, even if the reward is great sex.

She gets the hint as my contributions to the conversation trail off. She storms off, clearly annoyed, muttering something under her breath.

“I thought I was going to have to cut in for a second there,” Elijah says as he slides up to me, on the edge of the dance floor. He’s dancing in front of me, yelling over the music.

I’m backed up against the kitchen counter bar, so I start to walk left but his hand shoots out to grab the counter, and block my exit.

“Hey man, I just want to talk,” He says, still gyrating to the music. “I mean we’re both in the same boat here.”

“I don’t want to talk to you,” I say, moving right instead. But he’s right in front of me, and I can’t inch away without squeezing between him and the bar. He keeps dancing, closer and closer to me as I edge my way to the right.

“Look maybe we got off on the wrong foot, but I think you have the wrong idea about me.”

“Well you’re reinforcing that idea right now!” I yell. Now I’m at the end of the counter and there is a wall in my way.

Elijah’s is smiling but he still manages to look pissed off. He doesn’t like it when he doesn’t get his way. I start to push past him but his arm goes to the wall, blocking my path. I break the other way, and he grabs my arm. My other hand goes reflexively to my pocket, but I didn’t bring the brass knuckles… making the mistake of thinking I’d be safe in public view.

“Didn’t you notice, Dege?” Elijah says, smile twisting, “We’ve accidentally stumbled under some mistletoe… and rules are rules.” With his free hand he grabs the back of my head to hold it in place so he can land a kiss directly on my lips.

I’m squirming away, but he is so fucking strong! Only when I feel him start to wriggle is tongue against my tightly pursed lips do I finally muster the strength to push him off balance enough to get out of his reach.

And as I storm away, wiping his saliva off my mouth, a small crowd around us actually oohs and giggles, as if I was into it! Like me pushing him off and storming away wasn’t a clear indicator that I didn’t consent to that.

“Oh, I get it now,” the girl I was dancing with cackles as I leave the pavilion

Eric is out there smoking a cigar with Brenton and Crenshaw, and stops me when he sees my face.

“This guy is so fucked up! A god-damn psychopath,” I vent to them after telling them what happened. I can barely get the words out straight, I’m still shaking with rage and embarrassment.

“Just hang with us,” Crenshaw says, “If that motherfucker comes near you again I’ll make sure his face can’t be used to sell anything but reconstructive surgery.”

And Crenshaw is big enough to fulfill that promise. He might not have the cut muscles of Elijah, but he is massive, and got his training street boxing.

Luckily (or unfortunately as I started imaging watching Crenshaw deliver a beatdown) I don’t see Elijah for the rest of the night.

And as midnight rolls around, I cheers Happy New Years with a few other cons, as fireworks blast in the distance, over the Gulf.

These ones are for us. A weak show by most standards, but at least we got any at all.

But as our short display of explosions ends, another fireworks show continues somewhere in the distance.

The explosions are so large and powerful that they mimic the rising sun on the horizon. A few seconds later the low booms follow.

It must be miles away. It’s not Barracuda, I know that, Barracuda is too far. But it might as well be. There’s someone, lots of someones, having fun out there. On their yachts or on their platforms. With family or friends. Kissing the girl or boy they love.

And then there’s me. Here. Watching from the outside. Just catching the outer susserations of their party. Whatever is extra. The bursts of lights and booms they don’t need that spill out over the ocean, and roll along it for miles.

They force you into it, force you to not quite take part, but be well aware of what you’re not involved in. Just listen, watch, know there is someone out there who isn’t you getting the full benefit of those fireworks. The champagne, the songs, the drunkenness, the camaraderie.

I wonder who the guys are kissing. What if Majorie is kissing someone?

“Stop it kid,” Eric’s voice breaks my trance. “I can see what you’re doing.”

I know he knows– if not the exact thing I was thinking, at least the rumination of things I can’t change. It does make me feel a fraction of a bit better– the validation that someone else sees what’s going on for me.

I manage a wry smile, nod to thank Eric, and turn back to the fireworks.

I’ll try to be stoic, and not bring down the mood for our prison island New Year.

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