Archive of Our Own

The table is littered with take-out and unpacked boxes and each chair is filled someone Bill Denbrough is starting to love.

Perhaps starting is not the right word; the love Bill feels for his new roommates is a sprawling, overwhelming thing with roots far deeper than their two-month acquaintanceship should allow. It is the type of feeling that makes the world feel brand new, like the seven of them could do anything if they only stuck together.

For now, though, the only thing Bill wants to do is listen to Beverly’s laughter as Richie tries out a new voice on her. To watch Ben explain the logistics of knocking down the wall that separates the kitchen from the living room as Mike listens, prodding Ben forward with leading questions and a contented smile. To see Eddie and Stan hunched over a textbook, arguing good-naturedly about the best way to organize a spreadsheet.

The comfortable intimacy of it all is so all-consuming that, for the time it takes to lean over and grab a slice of pizza, Bill forgets that his diet has not included human food for some time. More than that, long-dead vampire Bill Denbrough forgets that he is not, in fact, human at all.

The bite he takes seems to rot in his mouth. It tastes like dog-shit that’s been deep-fried in grease and cheese and it feels just as good against his tastebuds. His sudden, choking cough brings a stop to all dinner conversation and the others look towards him, concerned.

Richie, the only bonafide human-being sitting at the table, leans over in his seat to give Bill a few encouraging slaps on the back. “You okay there, Big Bill?”

“Way to go Rich,” Eddie chastises, though his voice lacks any real concern. His plate sits empty before him; he, at least, has not forgotten that vampires should avoid take-out, if at all possible. “you’re just going to make him choke even faster.”

“He’s not choking,” Richie retorts, though he turns back to Bill with an expression that doesn’t seem completely confident about that statement. 

Bill shakes his head, pushing Richie’s arm away as he spits metaphorical dog-shit onto his previously empty plate.

Eddie gags. “That’s fucking disgusting, oh my god.”

“Was it that bad?” Ben worries.

“Nuh-nuh-nuh-no,” Bill starts, face flushing as he tries to think of some way to explain himself that doesn’t make him seem either incredibly stupid or terribly sappy. “I m-mean, I just-”

A gasp of sudden realization from Beverly saves him the trouble. She laughs a small, astounded laugh. “Oh my god, I totally forgot.”

“Forgot what?” Richie asks. He relaxes in his seat, concern for Bill swapped for lukewarm curiosity.

“We can’t eat the same crap you do, shit-face,” Eddie answers, eyes glued to the ceiling in a strained effort to avoid looking at Bill’s plate.

“Oh my god,” Beverly laughs again, though the sound is one of incredulous embarrassment this time. “I set plates out for you.”

“I’m glad you did,” Stan reassures. His plate is empty, too. It was almost funny to think of Stan chowing down on a couple slices of pepperoni: Stan, with skin the color of a dull, blossoming bruise and eyes that seemed to be made of sharp, unfeeling glass. Stan, who is more obviously dead than the vampires sitting on either side of him.

He leans over to drape a napkin over Bill’s half-chewed glob of pizza before nudging Eddie with his elbow.

“It just… slipped my mind, I guess,” Beverly finishes, aiming an apologetic smile at the undead trio.

“Seemed to slip Bill’s mind too,” Mike jokes, meeting Bill’s bashful smile with one of well-meaning satisfaction. He takes an unceremonious bite of his pizza, though Bill knows he doesn’t need to eat.

Ben looks down at his plate existentially. “Blood and brains,” he whispers to himself, almost lyrically.

“What are you guys talking about?” Richie continues, unbothered. “They stopped eating that kind of stuff.”

“We did?” Bill asks, sharing a look with Stan and Eddie. Stan shrugs: Eddie glares in a way that seems to say yeah, sure, and then I took a quick trip to the moon and did a little dance in my underwear.

“You did, right?” Richie presses. “I mean, like- I assumed now that you guys were friends with actual humans that, like, you would stop eating people,” He turns to the others in the group for support, though he is the only actual human among them. “We all assumed that the whole blood-sucking and brain-eating thing was done, right?”

“I just kinda forgot about it, I guess,” Ben says, somewhat guiltily.

“Quite a thing to forget,” Stan adds coolly, though without any bite.

“I duh-duh-don’t think it’s s-s-s-something we can suh-suh-stop doing,” Bill’s face burns with the admission, evidence enough that he has not, in fact, stopped the whole blood-sucking thing.

“Have you ever tried?” Richie asks, unaware of the biting guilt that lies in such a question.

Bill has tried many times.

From the way Eddie stares, wide-eyed, down at his plate and the way Stan’s shoulders slump forward, Bill thinks they must have tried, too.

“Beep beep, Richie,” Beverly says softly, giving Bill an apologetic smile, as if she can see into his past and has forgiven him for all the broken, bloodless bodies she would surely find there. 

The group falls silent for a moment, each nursing private thoughts that Bill can guess the shape of. None of them are normal but only three of them are murderers and surely the reminder of this fact will give Richie and Beverly and Mike and Ben the dose of common sense they need to send the others packing. This seems only right to Bill; he does not deserve to forget his lack of humanity, to be accepted and loved as one of them.

But then Ben is opening his mouth, before thinking better of it and shutting it again. He does this a few times before taking a quick breath, as if bracing himself. His face reddens before he even starts to speak. “I ate this really big piece of raw steak once. It was just… sitting on the counter and I felt like I just had to eat it.” he shrugs, as if this fact can explain away the violence that is involved in blood-sucking and brain-eating. “Instincts, ya know?”

Beverly pats Ben’s hand, deepening the blush on his face, as Eddie mumbles halfheartedly about bacteria, eyes still on his plate.

Richie leans forward, fork primed to steal a spring roll from Ben’s plate. The movement is so easy that, in it, Bill sees that, like Beverly, Richie has forgiven his past as well. Perhaps they all have.

“Benny my boy,” Richie grins. “You just gave me an excellent idea.”

---

A week later, Bill returns from class to find the living room full of meat.

He stops in the doorway to take it all in. They had not made much progress unpacking; cardboard boxes fill much of the room. An old coffee table and an even older couch fill the rest. Plastic containers of raw meat cover the coffee table and Bill has to pinch his nose with his fingers to keep the smell of room-temperature blood and stale flesh out of his head. Stan, Richie, and Eddie stand in the little free space available to them. They look up as Bill walks in, pressing pause on the argument Bill had been able to hear from the other side of the door.

Stan looks tired, Eddie, disgusted. Richie’s face brightens with renewed hope.

“Big Bill!” he sings, the levity in his voice strained. “Help me out here, won’t you?”

Bill keeps his fingers pressed tight against his nose as he speaks, making his voice all nasally. “I’m not so sure I want to.”

“I’ve told him a million times,” Eddie starts, voice quick and sharp. He eyes a piece of pork and fishes in his pocket for his inhaler before averting his eyes to the ceiling. “There’s no way in hell I’m going to try eating this shit. I mean, look at it! It’s dead. And it’s just sitting there, getting covered in germs and dander and whatever other shit is floating around.”

Stan looks down mournfully at the chicken thigh slowly defrosting on one corner of the coffee table. “It’s undignified.”

“Yeah,” Eddie adds. “It’s undignified.”

“It’s better than eating people,” Richie pleads, almost begging, and there is nothing any of them can say to that.

Ben walks out of the hallway and towards the kitchen as silence falls over the living room. He makes it to his destination only to backpedal a second later, head leaned to the side like his nose is leading him instead of his legs.

“Keep a-walkin’, Fido,” Richie waves Ben away. “We’re conducting a science experiment, no dogs allowed.”

Ben raises an eyebrow and looks to Bill.

Bill sighs, nose still pinched. “He wuh-wants us to try e-e-eating it. Instead of our r-r-regular s-stuff.”

Ben looks to Richie. “And you think that would work?”

“We were just about to figure that out,” Richie takes a pair of tongs from his back pocket and uses them to lift a piece of half-frozen steak towards Stan. “Open up, buttercup.”

“Not a chance, Tozier,” Stan deadpans, taking Richie’s arm and pushing it away. Bill thinks he looks rather green, though there is no way to tell if its the meat getting to him or just the fact that Stan always looks rather green.

“Why don’t you try a blood bank?” Ben offers, though most of his attention is focused on the piece of meat still dangling from the tongs in Richie’s hand.

For a moment, all they can do is blink at each other.

“Wh-what?”

“You drink blood, right?” Ben continues. “You could just get it from a blood bank, instead of… you know.”

Bill shakes his head. “They wuh-wuh-won’t let you t-t-take it. The b-b-b-blood, I mean.”

Eddie raises an eyebrow. “You’ve tried the blood-bank thing?”

“Yeah,” Bill shrugs. It had not been a successful venture; the employee he’d spoken to had not looked very happy when Bill had asked about making withdrawals. “They said I c-c-couldn’t have it.”

“Bill,” Stan says softly, in the way someone says oh, honey to a small child that has yet to learn the major facts of life.

“Of course they wouldn’t let you have it,” Eddie snaps. “That violates, like, a thousand health codes, or something.”

“What if you just… didn’t ask?” Ben suggests. “I mean, it’s for a good cause.”

Richie’s grins. He tosses his tongs aside haphazardly and goes to wrap an arm around Ben. With his free hand he ruffles Ben’s hair, ignoring Ben’s flustered attempts to get away. “Benny-baby, your genius knows no bounds.”

---

It is, in the end, remarkably easy to break into the blood bank.

Beverly says something quick and soft in what Bill thinks is Latin, and the high, square window that leads to the second floor opens without a sound. Ben gets the others inside, using his interlocked fingers to create a step that boosts them up and in.

Bill goes first, the floor plan that Ben had somehow managed to get a hold of tucked into the pocket of his jeans. Someone, probably Richie, wolf-whistles as Bill dangles in the window frame, struggling to pull himself inside. There’s no way to do so gracefully; Bill lets gravity do most of the work for him and simply topples over the windowsill and onto the floor. The six Losers still on the ground give a hushed, mocking cheer.

Bill grins as he picks himself up. He takes a second to dust himself off before rummaging in his backpack for the face mask Stan had given to each of them.

Richie’s frame fills up the window next, mask already snug over his face. “Gimme a hand, Big Bill.”

Bill does just that. Together they help the others inside: next is Mike, then Eddie, then Beverly, Stan, and finally Ben moves back to take a running jump at the window, feet scrambling for a hold in the red brick of the building’s wall. Six pairs of hands reach for him, together they pull him through.

 “Phew,” Ben lets out a breath of air, his face bright with sweat and pride. He takes a look around the hallway, though there’s not much to see. Gray floor tiles meet gray walls meet gray ceilings. Closed, gray doors run along both sides of the hallway. A sign that says SAVE A LIFE, GIVE YOUR BLOOD is the only accent on the walls. “Creepy in here, huh?”

“Now that you freaks are in it, sure,” Richie says good-naturedly. “I’m just waiting for Bill and Eds to go all sick-o, bloodlust mode on us. I vant to suck your blood, and all that good stuff.”

“Th-that stuff just huh-happens in the m-m-movies,” Bill reassures, though it’s technically a lie. He isn’t hungry enough to go sick-o, bloodlust mode, but it has happened.

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees, joining in on the lie without missing a beat. “We aren’t animals.”

“Speak for yourself,” Ben says.

It takes a moment for the joke to sink in. When it does Stan is the only one to truly laugh.

Richie slings an arm over Ben’s shoulders. “Tough crowd, huh, Haystack?”

“Might’ve been softer if you hadn’t opened for him, Rich,” Mike says, smile clear in his voice, though the real thing is hidden behind his mask. 

“Yowch,” Richie feigns insult. “The reviews are in, folks. Tozier’s out of a job.”

“I think we ought to get this job done first, before we worry about any others,” Beverly adds, drawing them back to the task at hand. “Do you have the map, Bill?”

“S-sure,” he takes the map out of his pocket and hands it over. They all watch as Beverly unfolds it. Her bangs fall into her face as she reads the map and Bill fights the impulse to tuck those loose strands of hair behind her ear.

“Looks like we take the last door on the right,” Beverly hands the map to Eddie, who looks it over. He nods as she speaks. “It should lead to the freezers.”

“You’re s-sure there aren’t any ah-ah-alarms, B-Ben?”

“The plans don’t list any,” Ben shrugs. “It looks to me like they have most of their security set up on the first floor.”

Bill nods, convinced. “Alright. Let’s go, men.”

He leads them single file down the hallway, and for a moment he is twelve again, down in the Barrens, leading the Losers down a path of grass lain flat by countless journeys towards and from the home Ben had built for them among the earth. There is laughter in this fragment of some other past, laughter and warmth and a gentle wind. The memory is unfamiliar in the expected sense of the word- Bill has never been to the Barrens in this life, for starters- but it is true and real in every other sense.

Bill stops, both in memory and reality. The Barrens falls away as Mike bumps into him from behind and Bill’s chest aches after it, wishing desperately for that warmth to stay just a while longer. The others walk into each other in turn, pressing Mike closer and closer until Bill stumbles forward.

“Déjà vu,” Mike says, so quiet Bill almost can’t hear it.

“Anybody gonna clear up this traffic jam or are we just gonna stand here until the cops show up?” Richie calls, his voice far more distant than his position at the back of the line should allow.

Bill shakes his head, clearing away the last of the Barrens. Whatever that had been will have to wait for later. “S-sorry.”

They continue forward, the squeaking soles of their sneakers and the faint swish of seven hollow backpacks moving with the rhythm of their steps the only sounds in the deserted hall.

The reach their destination without issue. Bill tries the door handle, despite the keypad that sits, tauntingly, on the wall beside the door.

The handle refuses to budge. “Door’s luh-locked.”

All six boys look to Beverly at once.

She laughs, shaking her head. “Where would you guys be without me?”

“Outside still, probably,” Ben grins.

“Silly boys,” Beverly responds, words heavy with affection and pride, before turning her attention to the lock. It takes only a moment of hushed instruction and silent concentration for the door to unlock with a satisfying click.

They are silent as Beverly grabs the handle and pushes the door open. This room is a different sort of gray, a shiny chrome that makes Bill think of alien spaceships from an old movie he’d might have watched with George, when blood had been something reserved for TV and knees prone to the scrapes and cuts of childhood. It’s colder here than in the hallway and the air that wafts over their faces is sharp and tinged with iron. The room is lined on all sides with wide, stainless-steel freezers.

Bill turns his head to look at Eddie just as Eddie turns his head to look at Bill and their faces reflect the same giddy hope, like two kids who are one scratched-off number away from winning the lottery.

“Jackpot,” Riche announces, strolling inside. The others follow suit, scattering in different directions.

Bill reaches a freezer first. The cool of the metal handle matches the cold of his skin, though he barely registers the fact. The smell of blood leaks through the cracks in the freezer’s door, making his stomach growl.

“Bill,” Ben starts, something anxious and urgent in his voice, but the matter of Bill’s empty stomach is far more pressing, and he opens the freezer door before the warning has anytime to register.

Piercing alarms sound from somewhere above their heads. Each of them, besides Stanley, reach up to cover their ears with their hands.

“Shit,” Bill curses, turning around to meet the six nervous faces waiting for his direction. He has to shout to be heard over the alarms, which now fill the room with a bright, flashing red. “Grab what you can and get the h-h-hell out of here.”

He turns back to his freezer, not waiting to see if the others follow his example. The alarms get impossibly sharper as he takes his hands away from his ears; he shakes his head as if to dislodge the cutting headache already growing between his eyes. There’s no time to read the labels on the blood bags as Bill grabs for them, tossing them into his backpack at random.

Black Friday Sale, he thinks, his mind shouting in Richie’s announcer voice. Buy one bag of blood, get all you can eat at half the price!

As the thought finishes and Bill’s backpack takes the last bag it can possibly hold, a sound like a water-balloon snapping against the ground joins the din of blaring alarms and frantic, grabbing hands. Bill turns to see Beverly covered in blood, a dropped bag exploded on the floor in front of her. Another memory, as familiar as the one from the Barrens but nowhere near as golden, paints itself bright red in Bill’s mind. A bathroom he has never seen but knows to be as real as the room they’re in now stands stark and solid in his mind. Blood dries on every surface and a young Beverly looks back at a group of younger, more human Losers with an anxious, waiting fear. Can you see it? she asks, and Bill nods. They can all see it, he is sure.

And then Bill blinks and the memory fades, replaced with flashing alarms and the cool, sharp air of the present. From the way everyone else is frozen in place, eyes hazy with some other past, Bill knows they are in that same bathroom, seeing that same drying, dripping blood.

Black Friday Sale. Get two memories for the price of one terrible, unlived past!

Stan is the first to unfreeze. He moves towards Beverly and takes her hand.

“Time to go,” Stan says, voice very soft and only shaking a little bit. Beverly’s eyes are wide and panicked, and she holds tight to Stan’s hand as blood pools around her feet, staining her shoes.

“Stan’s right,” Mike adds. His voice is warm and safe, and Bill feels it blotting out the view of that grimy, bloody bathroom until all that’s left is the need to get everyone out. “It’s time for the Losers to head home.”

Everyone moves at once, zipping up bags and rushing to the door. Stan holds tight to Beverly’s hand as he leads her out into the hallway, her shoes leaving wet, squeaking streaks against the tile floor. Next is Ben, and then Eddie, and then Mike, and finally it is just Bill standing by the door and Riche standing waist-deep inside a freezer. Blood bags slide out of place as he pushes them aside; they fall to the floor and pop open with an eagerness that makes Bill want to be far away.

“Come on, Richie,” Bill yells, just as Richie pulls himself out of the freezer and stuffs a few bags of something that is not blood into his backpack. He shrugs the backpack over his shoulders and starts to run towards the door. The bloody floor trips him up before he can get anywhere, and Richie’s feet frantically tread the same ground as he struggles to get his balance. Bill runs towards him and grabs at Richie’s arm, pulling him out of the thick puddle on the floor and out into the hallway.

The others are gone; the only sign that they had ever been there at all are Beverly’s footprints, dark and only half there, as if she hadn’t been going slow enough to press her feet down all the way. Bill follows them without question, hand still tight on Richie’s arm. The prints lead towards the front door rather than the window they’d come in through, and they take Bill and Richie down a flight of stairs and through a lobby that is much cheerier than the floor they’d just left. Ben stands by the door, holding it open with one hand and waving them through with the other.

“Jesusfuck,” Richie swears as they run. He trips again as tile and concrete turn into grass and dirt and Bill has to pull him up as they run, Ben guiding them to where they’d left Bill’s truck. “Shit shit shit-”

A stich has started to grow in Bill’s side by the time they reach the alley where they’d parked. Bill sees Eddie bouncing up and down in the driver’s seat, face alight with anxious excitement. He yells something incomprehensible at them as Ben, Bill, and Riche scramble over the back of the truck and into the bed. Before they can sit down Eddie has stepped on the gas, sending the truck screeching out of the alley and sweeping the three boys in the back off their feet.

Bill lands on his back; something inside his bag pops, spilling cold wetness down the back of his shirt that makes him shiver. “Shit.”

“Who let this fucker drive?” Richie wheezes.

No one answers. They spend the short ride holding onto the sides of the truck, the sharp force of Eddie’s turns threatening to send them sprawling out onto the road. When they finally stop, Eddie pulling them into a parking space that is mostly hidden from the road by trees and bushes, Richie leans over the side of the truck and hurls whatever was in his stomach onto the asphalt below.

Mike opens the small window that separates the inside of the truck from the back. “You guys alright back there?”

“Why dontcha give me a good kiss and find out,” Richie groans, shrugging off his backpack to lay face down against the cool metal of the truck-bed.

“I’ll pass,” Mike says, turning to Ben and Bill. “Alright?”

“Alright,” Bill nods.

Ben does the same before moving towards the window, looking in on the passengers inside. They’re crammed close together; Beverly sits on Stan’s lap, leaning back and into him so that her face rests in the crook of his neck. Stan’s arms are wrapped snugly around her waist. Someone had put a jacket around her legs, covering the worst of the blood. “Are you alright, Beverly?”

“Yes,” she says, the sound distant, as if she was still back in that bathroom, a young girl faced with the blood of something that Bill is thankful he can’t remember. And then she starts to laugh, small giggles at first that soon turn into hiccupping sobs of anxious relief.

“I’m-,” she tries to continue, but the force of her laughter doesn’t leave much room for words, and the few she can get out are gasping and breathless.

As she laughs, two police cars race by, their sirens covering Beverly’s laughter and painting the world in contrasting red and blue. Beverly’s hand flies to her mouth, as if her laughter might give them away, though her chest still heaves and her eyes water with the effort of keeping quiet.

Stan doesn’t bother to muffle his sudden laughter. The sound seems to give the rest of them permission to join in, and soon the truck is filled with rolling, swelling joy. Only Richie stays quiet, still too green with nausea to do anything but offer up a weak smile.

As their laughter dies away, Stan gives Beverly a kiss on the cheek.

“Well,” Bill starts, feeling no jealously but instead a swell of fondness. He looks around at the faces of the six beings he has surely loved in more than one lifetime and smiles a sheepish smile, wondering what it would be like to kiss each of them. “What’s our haul?”

One by one, the Losers hand their trophies over to Bill, who places them carefully onto the floor of the truck-bed. Richie groans with the effort of emptying his backpack; he dumps the contents on the floor unceremoniously, watching on as Bill counts them.

Amongst the pile of red are a few bags of clear liquid. Bill picks one up. “What’s this?”

“Oh, uh,” Richie blushes, and whatever green nausea was left in his pale complexion shifts to a bright red. “I just thought- I mean, it would kinda suck if we did all this and didn’t get anything for Stan.”

There is a brief pause, and then Beverly shifts in Stan’s lap to reach through the window. Bill hands her the bag, she hands it to Stan.

Stan looks down at the bag, his face child-like in its soft confusion. “For me?”

“Yeah, Richie looked down at his hands, away from Stan. “It’s the stuff they give sick people in the hospital- IV stuff. I figured since you always look like you should be in the hospital, it might help. I dunno.”

“Oh,” Stanly whispers. And then he smiles so brilliantly that Bill’s heart aches for Richie, Richie whose face is pointed toward rusted metal and who is going to miss the beautiful, open smile that he is responsible for.

But he does not miss it. Richie looks up and meets the tender gratefulness that is so bright in Stan’s eyes and mouth and Richie’s blush grows under the force of its gentle weight.

There is another silence, Richie and Stan looking back at each other all the while, and then Richie clears his throat. Bill can see him fighting back a smile as he rummages in his backpack, pulling out three juice-pouches.

“Richie,” Stan laughs, unbelieving.

“What?” Richie looks around at the six incredulous faces around him before tearing off the straw from the back of one of the pouches. He waves it at them. “They’re for the straw. I swear, you people have no faith.”

He hands the straw to Bill before tearing off two more for Eddie and Stan. Bill grabs two bags of blood and passes one to Eddie.

The seven of them sit in heavy silence, watching as Bill punches his straw through the bag. There is no reason to doubt that it’ll do just fine- blood is blood, after all, but the others look on with such hopeful anxiety that Bill thinks he just might die for fear that he’ll take a swig and have to cough it up just like the pizza slice that had started all this in the first place.

He looks up at the others, giving them a shaky smile. “Here g-g-goes.”

The blood is still cold from the freezer, but besides that it tastes good enough for Bill. It’s strong, thick. He smiles at the others, showing off sharp teeth and dripping red. “‘S not too bad.”

“Jesus,” Richie moans, face going green again. “didn’t your mother ever teach you to cover your mouth while you chew, Denbrough?”

Eddie seems to take Bill’s smile as his cue. He struggles with his straw for a few seconds, and Bill wonders if his hands are shaking. He gets the straw through the bag before Bill can decide for sure.

Eddie stares down at his bag of blood and Bill sees the same fear in Eddie’s eyes that he’d felt just a few moments before. Just a Bill starts to wonder if he should say something encouraging, Eddie closes his eyes tight and takes a deep swig. He keeps his eyes closed as he swallows and doesn’t open them even after the drink hits his stomach.

Out of nowhere, he grimaces.

Bill starts to stand, though to do what he doesn’t know, but Eddie opens his eyes before Bill can get fully to his feet. He smiles sheepishly. “Brain freeze,” he explains.

Bill flops back down, laughing. “Almost guh-gave me a h-h-heart attack.”

“Sorry, Bill.”  Eddie’s smile grows, losing it’s shyness. He does not sound particularly sorry.

“But it’s good?” Ben asks. “Like, it’s good enough to live off of?”

Eddie and Bill share a look, though they are both sure of the answer already. Eddie’s face is flushed with anticipation of a future free of brutality and something else that Bill cannot name but which makes him want to close the distance between them and curl his fingers around a fistful of Eddie’s hair.

Bill feels the heat in his face burn brighter and Eddie grins as if he knows the reason why.

“If it gets Richie off my ass, sure,” Eddie says finally, still grinning. The others laugh.

“Nothing can get me off your ass, Eds,” Richie coos, making kissy sounds and crawling towards the window.

Eddie slams the window shut and gives Richie the bird, barely managing to avoid joining the others in their laughter.

Bill calms down first, wiping at his eyes with the palm of his hands. “Wuh-wait,” he says, raising his voice so the Losers in the truck can hear him. “Stan has to take huh-his turn.”

Ben slides the window open again. “I vote that we let Stan eat Richie’s brain if this doesn’t work.”

“Can’t eat what’s not there,” Stan says, straight-faced. He gets his straw through his bag on the first try and takes a small, neat sip. His face is blank, unreadable.

“How is it?” Mike wonders, worried hope clear in his voice.

Stan considers the question for a moment. “Richie’s brain is safe,” he decides. “For now.”

Bill sees the others relax, letting out deep, held breaths. Beverly laughs again before paying Stan back for the kiss he’d given her earlier. His hand goes up to touch the spot her lips had touched. He smiles for no one but himself, looking more alive than anyone Bill has ever seen.

“Well,” Richie starts, both hands rummaging in his backpack. He pulls out four more juice-pouches and holds them up to groans of faux exasperation and wide smiles. “I think that calls for a toast.”

They do toast: Richie, Ben, Mike, and Beverly with their pouches of fruit punch and Bill, Eddie, and Stan with their bags of stolen life.

“To a cruelty-free Losers club,” Richie cheers.

“To our new life of crime,” Beverly adds, smiling.

“To the best friends I’ll ever have,” Bill finishes.

They bring their drinks together, hands pressed together wherever they can manage it, and the night is charged with their touch, their love, and their hope.

---

Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong sing from the radio, dreaming of each other.

Richie and Beverly move to the slow rhythm of that song-love, making it their own. One of Richie’s hands rests on the small of Beverly’s waist, the other holds her hand as they sway back and forth. Beverly laughs as Richie holds out his hand for her to spin. She spins once, twice, and then Richie pulls her towards him, her back now against his chest, his arm holding her close to him. Beverly’s laughter shifts to a heavy silence that makes Bill’s heart leap, though he sits away from the action, at the dining room table.

He turns away from the pair in the living room, pulling his attention back to the unpacked box in front of him.

It’s a small thing, not even the size of a decent shoebox. It holds the little that is left of Bill’s life. The few marks he had made in the world before death had turned him into something the world no longer wanted.

He taps a finger against the lid. The others have finished unpacking their boxes; the apartment is littered with bits of each of them, reminders that they have made a home here, together.

Bill does not notice as Mike joins him at the table, pulling a chair close enough that their knees could touch if either of them moved even a little. “Bill?”

Bill jumps. “Juh-Jesus, Mikey.”

“Sorry,” Mike apologizes, brow furrowing. “You okay? You looked… far away.”

Bill considers lying but decides against it. “I was th-thinking.”

Mike smiles a sad sort of smile. “Dangerous game.”

“T-tell me about it.”

They sit in companionable silence as Ella and Louis’ voices give way to Buddy Holly. Richie and Beverly dance on, lost in a silence of their own.

When Mike speaks at last, his voice is very soft. “What’s in the box, Big Bill?”

Bill looks at it, that too-small box that holds the final remains of a past happiness that Bill had once thought could never be repeated. He pushes it towards Mike, nodding when his eyes fill with a questioning are you sure?

Mike lifts the lid off with such intense care that Bill’s heart, long unbeating, seems to leap and twist in his chest. Bill looks away from the smiling face he can see peering out from the top of the box. He hears Mike pick up the photograph and wishes he was brave enough to turn and see the expression on Mike’s face as he looks at Georgie.

“My buh-buh-brother’s p-picture,” Bill explains, still looking away.

There is a pause. “He looks like you.”

Bill wipes at his eyes. “B-but you already knew that.”

Another pause. “I guess I did.”

It is easier to think of the Barrens and of that horrible, bloody bathroom than to think of the photo in Mike’s hand, so Bill does. Far easier to think of memories that almost belong to him than those that are truly his own. “What are they?”

“Somewhere else, I guess. Some other time.”

“We l-l-loved each other.”

“We love each other now. Here,” Mike pauses again before bringing a hand under Bill’s chin, turning his face so that they’re facing each other. Mike’s face is hard in its determined fondness and Bill has to choke back a sudden sob. “We love you, Bill.”

“I-,” Bill fumbles for the words, his damn stutter and that damn sob holding the works back. “I luh-luh-luh-luh-love y-y-you tuh-too, goddamnit.”

Mike smiles at that. He pauses once more. “Would you like to dance with me, Bill?”

Bill blushes. “Song’s almost oh-oh-over.”

Mike takes Bill’s hands as he stands, pulling Bill up with him. “There’ll be another. Come on.”

Bill follows, letting Mike lead him into the living room.

Georgie’s picture lays face-up on the table and the small box of Bill’s short life sits opened and unexplored. Bags of blood and saline fill the fridge. Memories of some other life fill the back of their minds.

Amongst all of this, Bill and Mike dance to the slow rhythm of song-love, making it their own.