[ richie feels like this is the very particular shitty way that this town likes to operate that he warned a guy about the cold in maine last month only for this ice pick to the veins chill to settle in now.
this shouldn't be as much of a problem for him as it is, he's used to winter in maine, but there's a quality to it today especially that he can't shake off for long no matter what he does. not even changing into a wolf has done much more than delay the cold, and while he'd managed to find his own box of matches awhile ago he's... wary of it. after everything that's happened in this town so far, he knows all too well that no gift here comes completely free.
so he grits his teeth against the cold to avoid them chattering, stomps through the snow like it's done something to offend him personally, and stubbornly tramps aimlessly around town instead of what he really wants to do: find eddie and drag him into bed to nap through the worst of the freeze, of course.
and that's when he passes by some old guy hanging around outside a storefront with his own box of matches and something... something in the way he exhales stops richie cold (HA). it's a small enough sound that maybe, if he hadn't just been confronted with some terrible undead version of his friend barely a week ago, he might not have recognized. or at least not immediately.
turning slowly on his heel to look at this guy straight on, even making the extra effort to lower his glasses so he can get the full effect without the terrible blur of his prescription, richie starts to see pieces of stan in this man. stan's eyes had always been so old and now they finally fit the rest of him, richie thinks, and lets out his own shaky sound as he takes a step closer. ]
c
this shouldn't be as much of a problem for him as it is, he's used to winter in maine, but there's a quality to it today especially that he can't shake off for long no matter what he does. not even changing into a wolf has done much more than delay the cold, and while he'd managed to find his own box of matches awhile ago he's... wary of it. after everything that's happened in this town so far, he knows all too well that no gift here comes completely free.
so he grits his teeth against the cold to avoid them chattering, stomps through the snow like it's done something to offend him personally, and stubbornly tramps aimlessly around town instead of what he really wants to do: find eddie and drag him into bed to nap through the worst of the freeze, of course.
and that's when he passes by some old guy hanging around outside a storefront with his own box of matches and something... something in the way he exhales stops richie cold (HA). it's a small enough sound that maybe, if he hadn't just been confronted with some terrible undead version of his friend barely a week ago, he might not have recognized. or at least not immediately.
turning slowly on his heel to look at this guy straight on, even making the extra effort to lower his glasses so he can get the full effect without the terrible blur of his prescription, richie starts to see pieces of stan in this man. stan's eyes had always been so old and now they finally fit the rest of him, richie thinks, and lets out his own shaky sound as he takes a step closer. ]
... Stan?