Work Text
Two summers have passed since seven naive kids passed through the boarded up door on Neibolt. Two summers have passed and although memories fade, Stan cannot forget. Nightmares still haunt him, and the painting greets him every morning in the mirror, those pinprick scars an echoing pain. He knows how easily people in Derry move on. It can only be the gift of forgetting that allows them to carry on, despite the tragedy that is seeped into every stone, every brick, every tree. Stan can feel his bones submerged in it, a watery suit he can’t take off. On a rare occasion, it’s just him and Bill up in Bill’s room, listening to a mixtape Richie had made them on the lowest volume possible. Although Bill’s mom is out for the day, Bill still has the habit of respecting his parents’ rules. Well. Most rules. “I still remember.” He says quietly, looking up from the book he’s reading. They’ve settled into their usual silence, and it’s this calm that gives him the courage to say it, to talk about It. Bill looks up from his comic book, doesn’t say anything. Stan continues. “I remember a lot of it. Some things are..hazy..” A flash of deranged eyes and a body flying by him. “I wish I could forget.” Bill looks out the window. It’s too close to the day he made the S.S. Georgie, too close to the day he waved at the small figure bundled in a yellow slicker and red galoshes through the same window. It’s why he invited Stan home, and it’s the reason Stan agreed. They both know how his stutter gets worse on days like this. “I b-barely remember It.” He’s folding and unfolding the page he’s been reading. Stan twitches and he stops, smoothing it out. “I keep e-excepting to w-wake up and forget G-Guh-” He stops, throat working and tears forming. “Georgie.” He whispers, head turning towards that awful window. They sit there for a minute, and Stan desperately wishes for what be the thousandth time, that they could have avoided this all. That Georgie would have stayed in with Bill, that Bill wasn’t so valiant, that it could be back the way it was before the summer of 89. But it’s not. He’s being selfish, and he thinks about Bev, now safe from all of this, her father, in Portland. He thinks of Ben, who’s so excited that they’re all coming to his fifteenth birthday party in two weeks. He thinks of Mike, who excels at all classes in school, and hangs out with a pretty girl from the drama club during lunch. Their lives are hopefully better because of It, and he knows he should shoulder this and not complain. They all agree not to talk of clowns, of lopsided paintings, of lepers, violent men, headless boys. There are lots of things they don’t talk about. It’s so easy not to talk about them when there’s nothing to remember. Bill is crying a little, and Stan pushes aside his book hesitantly, crawling over to Bill. He accepts the one-sided hug Stan offers, rest his head against his shoulder as they sit side by side. Bill gets a lot of hugs now, a ritual that seemed to carry on past the sewers, carry on past the two years of forgetting. Stan is still terrible at it, a little too tense and nervous. He thinks back to the time in freshman year when Bill had kissed him on a rainy day like this. He wonders if Bill is thinking of it too. Bill turns fully and Stan adjusts to accommodate him, lets his hands come to rest on his neck and back. Bill just rests heavily against him, tears slowly falling, and Stan thinks he’ll remember it all, if it means that Bill slowly forgets what makes him have that hollow look in his eyes. He’d remember every second down in the sewers if it meant everything faded away, and Bill left this town and its tragedy behind. The rain keeps pattering onto the window outside, and It still resonates. Stanley still remembers, and he will carry it with him for the rest of his life. But Bill will forget, will forget this pain, will forget just whose name makes him hate the rain so much. It’s just the way things have fallen into place, and Stan grimly shoulders the weight.