"We're here sweetheart." Bill shakes me softly awake, giving me a half-hearted smile.
I sit up and grab my bag from under my seat. A voice comes on the speakers, so loud it almost gave me a heart attack. "You may now exit the plane, and again, thank you for flying with Delta!" The woman on the speakers has the energy of a pre-school teacher, the annoying fake-happy that makes me cringe.
Bill stands first, I follow after him. I want to hold his hand, as a way to ease the stress I'm feeling, but I know two men holding hands is highly frowned upon. Instead, I discreetly brush my arm against his, only him knowing it was purposeful. I walked behind him across the airplanes aisle, looking out the windows along the way. The feeling of summer in my home state feels calming, yet terrifying all at once. The memories of riding my bike across the sidewalk around my house as my mother scolded me to slow down, but also the memories of staring into the terrifying depts of the sewer drains, begging Bill to come home and play ball instead. We exit the plane, my sneakers brushing against the awful texture of the carpet. The baggage carousel is filled with luggage that all looks the same, but I easily find ours because of the purple string tied to the handle. I begin rolling it across the airport but Bill takes it from my hands.
"I can take it." He half whispers, since the whole airport is quiet, full of groggy vacationers.
"Thanks." I flash him a loving smile.
Later, we get a shiny rental car, much newer than our own. Bill drives, insisting I should rest. I argue that I've gotten enough rest on the plane but he strongly disagrees. He places his large hand firmly on the steering wheel and begins to drive.
"Bill?" I mumble after about 10 minutes of painfully awkward silence.
"Yeah?" Bill replies, his gaze never leaving the dark roads of Maine.
"I'm scared." I confess, sending a small tear down my cheek.
"Me too, but it's going to be okay. We did it once, we can do it again. I'll be there the whole t-time, alright love? I'm going to be here, I always am. I promise." My husbands comforting voice sends waves of calm through my body, but the bliss doesn't last long.
"What if someone dies?" My worries come into my brain and straight out through my mouth.
Bill looks away from the road and back at me, his eyes growing wide with dread. "Listen to me. We're going to be fine. I promise."
☆ ★ ✮ ★ ☆☆ ★ ✮ ★ ☆☆ ★ ✮ ★ ☆☆ ★ ✮ ★ ☆
Bill holds my hand as we walk through the doors of Derry's local Chinese restaurant. The friendly face of an old lady I could've sworn would be dead by now greets us. He rubs my knuckles softly, as panic surges through my heart.
"Table for two?" The wrinkled woman asks.
"We were supposed to meet a friend here, Mike Hanlon?" Bill says calmy, even though his hands are sweating like crazy.
"Ah yes, Michael, fine young man." She smiles reminiscently at the mention of the man. She leads us to a small secluded room, where Mike immediately attacks Bill and I with tight hugs. We both flinch awkwardly at his sudden shows of affection.
"You came!" He exclaims. "You both came! Oh, I knew you would!"
"Yeah, losers got to stick together, I guess." Bill smiles gawkily.
I nod, tapping my thigh with two fingers.
A short man walks through the door next, telling a waitress all about his allergies. I wouldn't have recognized him if not for his fast speaking and his obvious fear of getting sick. The man, who is Eddie Kapsbrak, has wide eyes as he stares at me, Bill, and Mike.
"Holy shit." He mumbles, almost falling to the floor.
"Hey man." Mike hugs him as well, but Eddie doesn't hug back, he stands in ever so apparent shock.
The gong, which stands on the far side of the room suddenly rings, making the four of us jump. The mallet which rung it, is held by Richie Toizer, stood by Ben Hanscom and the fiery haired Beverly Marsh.
"The losers club has officially begun." Richie declares casually, making me roll my eyes.
"Look at these guys." Eddie snickers under his breath.
The other losers, were fairly easy to recognize, particularly Richie who's only obvious change was his height. All except Ben. For someone known as 'the fat kid' he sure did clean up nicely. I only knew it was him after realizing it must be, since there was nobody else left. His stubbly beard gives him the look of every male model, he is a regular John Pearson. Beverly Marsh, though she did cause me much pain in my teenage years, gives me a surprising sense of comfort, much like that of a mother figure.
Before I know it, we're all sitting down, drinking, telling jokes, as if we're here on vacation rather than the true circumstances. I hold Bill's hand under the table, squeezing it every so often.
"Wait, Eddie you got married?!" Richie exclaims laughing out loud.
"Yeah, why's it so fucking funny, dickwad?!" Eddie retorts.
"To like...a woman?" Richie jokes, making Bill chuckle softly.
"Fuck you bro." Eddie's use of the word 'bro' catches me of guard, it was quite frankly the gayest use of the word I've ever heard.
"Fuck you!" The raven haired boy says back.
"What about you trash-mouth, you married?" Bill asks causing the whole table to erupt with laughter. 'No ways,' and 'sureeee's,' go on for about a minute before Richie cuts off our giggle fits.
"No, I got married." Richie states, making me gasp.
"Rich, I don't believe that." Bev scoffs.
A mix of when's and how's shakes the table.
"You didn't know I got married?" Richie smiles. "Me and your mom are very very happy right now." He grins cockily, making Bill spit whatever he was drinking back into the cup, and Bev squeal with laughter. Seconds later everyone is laughing, not including me and Eddie, who sits there with an agitated frown on his face.
I roll my eyes. "Some things never change."
"Fuck you." Eddie says calmly, as the waitress he walked in with creeps behind him, setting a bottle next to his plate.
Richie than compared Eddie's mom to Jabba The Hut, from Star Wars. Doing an exceptional impression of the characters voice.
"We get it!" Eddie says mockingly "My moms was a great big fat person! Heeelarious!!"
The whole table erupted with laughter once again, making me nearly fall of my chair.
"Wait, wait, let's talk about the elephant not in the room!" Richie exclaims after a few drinks are poured. "Ben, what the fuck man."
"Okay, okay, obviously, I lost a few pounds." The handsome man shrugs, as if it was only a few.
"A few?!"
"Yeah, 'a few!'"
"Mhm, yeah buddy!"
"No shit!"
"Your like...hot!" Richie blurts out. "Like every Brazilian soccer player wrapped up into one person!"
Now this, out of all the shitty jokes Richie has told tonight, gets me laughing.
"Stop." Bev order him, in a motherly manner. "You're embarrassing him."
Everyone then starts fake snoring, as Eddie boasts about his success in his insurance career.
"I propose a toast..." Bev raises her glass. "to the losers!"
We all clink our glasses with hers. It feels so strange, yet awfully familiar to be here with them. 'Trippy,' is a word I never thought I'd use to describe anything, but is the one I think of in this case. The 'losers,' arm wrestle, tell jokes, partake in stupid party games, while I think of nothing but my paranoia. Bill glances at me, obviously seeing my stress and whispers a soft 'I love you' into my ear.
"What are you dumbasses whispering about?!" Richie asks rudely.
"Your mom." Bill replies, beating Richie at his own game.
The black haired boys jaw drops. "Well, you got me there."
Everyone laughs, Bev the loudest, mine the least. I don't really laugh, though I did find it humorous, but I don't want anyone to know that I'm the only one worrying. Everyone else seems calm, therefore I will too. Bill can obviously tell, but I don't mind, he knows everything about me, inside out. There's no point in keeping anything, even my emotions, from him.
The same waitress, who I only now realize is quite beautiful, places a bowl of fortune cookies on the center the table. Everyone immediately shoves there hands into the bowl, minus me since I'm not feeling very hungry at the moment. Bill notices this and places an extra cookie in my bag, saving it for me to eat later. I mouth a quick thank you to him before bringing my attention back to the conversation.
Bev and Bill begin talking about careers, and marriages. Bill doesn't answer the question about whether or not he has a wife, since he wants to make sure I'm comfortable.
"This is weird." Bill says after a while, softening his voice. "All these memories I don't even remember forgetting." He's more so talking to me and Bev than the other losers, who are lost in their own conversations.
"It's weird right?" Ben says louder, his words directed towards everyone at the table. "You know, everything just comes back faster, and faster..." His finger rotates next to his ear, like cogs turning in a clock.
Everyone sighs, finally realizing the gravity of our situation. My leg bounces under the table, getting gently rubbed my Bill's hand, as if to tell me it's going to be okay.
"You know when Mike called me I threw up?" Richie fidgets with the cookie in his gigantic hands. "Isn't that weird? Like I got nervous. Like, like, I got sick and like threw up."
God, for someone who speaks on a stage as a job, Richie Toizer sure says 'like' a lot.
Everyone gives him a concerned look, as he rambles on and on, as if telling a funny story rather than one about a horrible vomit inducing situation.
"Why is everybody looking at me like this?"
"When he called me I crashed my car." Eddie blurts out.
"Seriously?" Bills eyebrows furrow.
"Yep." The short man shrugs.
"I mean, I feel you. My heart was really pounding out of my chest." Ben admits in a choked out voice.
"I thought it was only me." Bev gives a half-hearted smile, making me feel a lot less alone in my anxiety.
"It's like that pure f-f-f-ffff..." Bill's stutter kicks up again.
"Fear." I finish for him, grabbing his hand under the table.
"Why do we all feel that way?" He asks, looking down into his cup. "You remember something we don't, don't you." His gaze turns to me, then Mike.
"Something happens to you when you leave this town," Mike makes hand gestures I don't understand. "the farther away, the hazier it gets. For me, I never left. So yeah, I remember...all of it."
I nod. "I do too. I don't know why, but I do too." My husband flashes me a look of sympathy, suffocating my hand in his.
"Pennywise..." Bev recalls, the fear visible in her voice.
The mention of that name, that awful name, sends shivers down my spine.
"That clown." Eddie chokes out, rummaging through his pocket for his inhaler.
"Mike you said you needed help with something, what was that?" Bill asks with what seems to be a mix of fear, anger, and annoyance in his voice.
"There's an echo here in Derry," The dark skinned boy starts.
"What?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Mike."
"No, no, listen." He demands. "One that bounces back every 27 years." He begins flipping through pages of a book that I didn't even notice was in front of him until now, pounding his fingers on the pages.
"Mike."
"Come on, man."
"A week ago, Adrian Mellon, slaughtered!" Mike announces.
"Mike stop."
"Stop man."
"A girl, went missing." He tries to speak but voices of everyone else at the table overlap his. I tap my leg in overwhelmingness.
Mike continues, even though everyone talks over him.
"I don't want to hear about this."
"There will be more!"
"Mike stop."
"And we can-"
"Mike!"
"Can you just be quiet and let him talk?!" I snap suddenly, making everyone eyes widen.
"Stan honey-" Bill puts a warm hand on my shoulder.
"No he's right, let him explain." Ben sighs.
"That echo," Mike begins speaking softly again. "We might've changed it, just like it changed us. But we didn't." His voice gains more passion with every word.
"Because it just bounced back." He glances around the table. "We made an oath, that's why I brought you back, that's why you're here. To finish it...for good."
Bev shakes her head, looking solemnly at the ground.
"Well that shit got dark fast." Richie remarks.
Eddie rolls his eyes and cracks open his fortune cookie. "It just says 'will'" He shakes his head in annoyance.
"Mine just says 'guess.'" Richie shrugs, holding up his small slip of paper.
Bill mumbles something, standing up. He bumps into about 4 cups in the process. He takes everyone fortunes and arranges them onto the table.
"Bill what are you-" I try to sit him back down.
"Shu-..." He almost yells at me but doesn't. "Sit back down."
Everyone tries to decode the message in the fortune cookies, which to me seems utterly ridiculous.
"Guess, will not cut it?" Richie asks.
"How does that make any-" Eddie shakes his head.
After a while of arguing, Bev sets down her fortune, her breath shaking as if she'll break down any minute. It says one simple word, or a name rather, but it sends shivers down my whole body. My heart races at the sight of the tiny paper slip
'Stanley'
"W-Why does it say Stanley?!" Bill demands.
Mike shakes his head, moving the paper slips again. This time though, it forms a proper sentence.
'Guess Stanley will not cut it.'
"What does that mean?!" Eddie asks in a panic, only to receive dismayed looks. "Will someone fucking answer me?!"
Before I can say anything, the bowl of cookies starts shaking, causing Mike to bang his fists on the table. The cookies chatter and squirm around like living creatures. The overwhelming fear over both the cookies and the fortunes makes me want to cry, and I almost do until whispers something in my ear.
"It's okay, sweetheart. It's okay." Suddenly, one of the cookies flings out of the bowl onto the table, a zombie-like hand poking out of it, much like a bird hatching from an egg. Everyone jumps back.
"What the fuck is that man?" Richie asks, casually.
The cookie cracks open more, something like a spider mixed with a baby emerging from it. It's like a big bug with a babies head, but it cries like the average infant. It crawls quickly across the table making Mike move across the room in fear.
"Woah, woah, woah!!" Bill moves to the back of the room, dragging me with him. He pulls me close to him protectively.
"Shit." Richie says unfazed, as more cookies crack. Different monstrous creatures crawling out of them. One being a moving eyeball, another being the wing of a bat flying on it's own. It flies straight towards Ben's face. He swats in a frenzied panic to get it away. Richie let's out a shrill scream. The bowl in the center of the table begins to simmer, as if a pot on the stove. What appears to be blood floods the bowl, spilling out onto the table. It trickles across in a perfect motion, like a painting, burning the fortunes as it does. A screaming creature crawls out of the blood, like a dying animal.
Another bat comes flying at Bill and I. He removes his hand from my waist and swats at the bat, I help him until it flies away, returning to the pool of 'blood.' What was once rocks in the fish tank, becomes singing zombie-heads, making Mike run away from the tank.
"It's not real, It's not real, It's not real!!" Mike screams repeatedly, as he hits the bug-baby with his chair, making the table clang. When the waitress appears, the mans theory was confirmed, everything disappeared. We were back to the average set up of a Chinese restaurant.
"Everything okay?" The woman asks as Mike sets down his chair in embarrassment.
"Yeah, can we get a check?" Richie smiles nervously.
The woman, looking like a deer in headlights, nods and leaves the room. Richie's smile immediately fades.
I get down on the floor, cleaning up the food and dishes we knocked off the table. Bill kneels next to me, helping me gather everything. I avoid eye contact with him.
"You okay?" He whispers to me, earning a nod.
He pats my back softly, before returning everything to it's rightful place on the table.
"It's not real, love." Bill assures me.
"Yeah." I give him a half-smile.
The waitress comes back in with our check, Ben decides he brought the most money, so he insists on paying. Mike disagrees and says he should pay , since he brought us all here. Soon all the losers join in with reasons they should pay. In the end, Bill signs the check in messy-ish handwriting.
"Let's get the fuck out of here." He puts the pen into my bag, which is now heavy with random shit.
We walk out together as Eddie rambles about how Pennywise plays tricks on us, and none of it was real. Not whatever he meant about me, none of it.
"Hey Richie." A young boy stops us, making Richie's eyes grow wide. I cling onto Bill's arm, as if this 2nd grader would kill us or something.
"We're okay." Bill whispers in my ear.
"How'd you know my name?" Richie asks the curly headed little boy.
"The funs just beginning." The child says an an eerie tone.
I squeeze Bill's arms tighter.
"Right?" He smiles after a moment of awkward silence. Eddie fumbles behind Richie.
"You think this is funny?" Richie's voice shakes. "You think this is some sort of game?! Huh?!"
The child stands unfazed, so Richie places his hands firmly on his shoulders. "Well, fuck you alright!!"
"Rich be careful." Mike says, as the child's shoulders shake.
"Well, I'm not afraid of you!!" The black haired man yells.
"The funs just beginning, it's a line from your act dude." The boy sassily pulls away from his grasp. "I'm a fan."
"Are those your parents?" Richie lowers his voice, pointing tensely to the two adults approaching us.
"Yeah." The boy says, looking more confused.
"Want a picture?" Richie half smiles before the boys parents drag him off, looking at Richie like a madman.
"Jesus Richie, you don't remember a line from your own show?" Ben scoffs as we start walking again.
"I don't write my own material." He defends himself.
"I fucking knew it!!" Eddie exclaims triumphantly.
The parking lot is dark, only the streetlights showing any light.
"I'm fucking leaving." Richie gets in his car, Mike yelling at him, begging him not to go.
Eddie does the same, then Bev, along with Ben.
Soon only me and Bill are left, sitting on a cold bench.
"Are we going home?" I ask him, leaning my head on his shoulder.
"I think we are." He replies, brushing my hair out of my face.
"I'm tired." I say, making us both chuckle.
"Me too Stanley, me too." He kisses my forehead, watching Mike yell at everyone cars.
"I'm scared." I admit.
"We're all scared sweetheart, but it wasn't real. It's over. We can go h-home and forget about all of this okay?"
"But-"
He cuts me off. "We can watch that new show you like so much."
A small smile creeps onto my face.
"We can just have a break, we can call work and get a break. Let's just go home and rest. Okay love?"
"Yeah, okay." I get up, holding Bill's hand as we walk to the car.
Mike stops us. "Please, please, don't go!!"
"Mike." Bill look at the man angrily. "There's no point, everyone else left!!"
"Please, before you go, just let me show you this..."
a/n: so uh....this took my FOUR AND A HALF HOURS to write for some reason...erm...
anyway, i know this chapter was a lot of rewrite, which a lot will be, but a lot will be me also adding to the plot and many things will be very different so yeah
no fucking idea why this took so long to write
-me😘