"It'd be pretty obvious, though, wouldn't it?" Richie says, reasonably and gently. "If I was paralyzed and all. You'd hear me losing my shit about not being able to move or feel anything." He smiles a little, tucking his unruly hair behind his one remaining ear. "You've met me and Eddie. How well do you think I'd take it if suddenly I couldn't move a fucking muscle?"

Hint: Really badly.

"Can the rocks make it indoors?" he asks, a plan forming in his head. "And then we can talk there about anything else. Shit, if you can't think of anything right now, that's fine, I've got twenty minutes' worth of jokes to tell and I needed an audience to workshop them with anyway."