Umbrella Academy Losers
Bill takes a deep breath, twists the cap off the urn, and dumps the ashes out. They fall into an inelegant heap. It would have hated that.
“M-might have been b-b-better with some wind,” he mutters. Everyone stays silent.
Finally, Richie breaks the silence. “Did anyone else ever expect him to turn into some weird alien…clown…spider…thing?”
No one replies, until Bill toes the ashes. “Yeah.”
“Well,” Richie says, lighting a cigarette, “good to know I’m not completely crazy.”
“I don't think that Bill being on your side points to your favor,” Eddie replies.
Bill frowns down at the small pile by his feet. “I used t-t-to th-think he was i-i-immortal. I g-guess I s-st-still thought th-that.”
“He was always good at making us think he was the biggest threat we’d ever face,” Mike says.
“He was wrong,” Bev replies, and glances at the ashes one last time before light flashes and she’s gone.
Richie’s sitting upside down on the couch, much to Eddie’s chagrin. Sucks for him, but there’s plenty of couches to choose from. He didn’t have to sit next to him. He pulls a joint out of his pocket and lights it. Hopefully having lungs upwards for a change doesn’t make him choke.
“Sorry, Big Bill, but if you think I’m going to be sober enough to chance seeing It’s ghost, you’re out of your goddamn mind.”
They all wince in sympathy.
“Yeah, okay,” Eddie says, “but can you at least not smoke with the asthmatic in the room?”
Richie squints, trying to make sense of Eddie’s upside-down face. “Do you have asthma? I don’t remember you having asthma.”
“Were you there for most of our childhood?”
“Physically or mentally?” He asks, but gets up and moves to the bar. Close enough to hear, far enough to not aggravate Eddie’s lungs. Bev and Ben follow him.
“Got a smoke?” Bev asks, leaning against the bar, and Ben falters, accidentally turning his two fingers of whiskey into three.
“You—you’re thirteen,” he says, at the same time Richie asks, “Aren’t you an infant now?”
“I’m forty years old,” she says, fixing them with the second most deadpan stare he’s ever seen. “I’m in the body of my thirteen year old self, which is enough torture. Besides, these lungs are already ruined. Give me a damn cigarette.”
Can’t argue with that. He gives her a damn cigarette.
Ben sighs and adds another finger.
“Richie,” Bill calls, because he has some kind of Big Brother instinct that Richie secretly thinks of as his second power, “you better not be giving drugs to the baby.”
“Fuck you, Bill,” Bev snorts, and Richie follows up with, “Yeah, fuck you! The ‘baby’ gave me cigarettes first.”
“Why’d you stay, Mikey?” Bill asks. “You hated it here more than any of us.”
“Actually I think that was Richie.”
“Hell yeah it was!” Richie calls.
