(no subject)

[allthelifethereis]

He finds himself in a routine. He's got the other Losers, a handful of friends his own age besides. He gets laid occasionally. He works on his book. He teaches classes. He grades. He's managed to track down a handful of his books, and they're stored on a bookshelf that's well on its way to being stuffed. It's not a bad sort of life.

Not long after he'd arrived, he'd had keys cut for the Losers, all of them. He'd wanted them to know that is apartment was a safe place. That, no matter what, he'd be there if needs them.

So far, he hasn't regretted that decision.
He settles down on the couch, reading submissions for the back to back workshops he has in the morning, a beer open at his elbow.

Comments

[eddie_spaghetti]

It wasn't even that Bill was ignoring them. He'd given them keys. He was there, with his vaguely dad-like presence, and his grownup life. But there was something he wasn't telling them. Something he was keeping to himself, and while Eddie could understand that even Losers had to keep secrets for themselves, it was driving him completely fucking NUTS.

So, maybe bursting into Bill's apartment in the middle of the evening, right after his shift at the comic book shop, was kind of shitty. For all Eddie knew, he had a girl in there. A woman, his mind corrected, repressing a shudder.

But if he wanted to talk, he had a feeling it was something he needed to make happen. So, he used his key, and luckily, Bill was just sitting there with his stupid glasses and his stupid laptop and a beer.

"Okay, asshole, what are you telling me?"

[allthelifethereis]

Bill looks, eyebrows raised, as Eddie all but slams into his living room. You'd think he'd be used to that, by now - he's known the kid for long enough. He blinks.

"...Hi, Eddie."

[eddie_spaghetti]

"I'm serious, Bill. You're hiding something," Eddie said, shutting the door behind him and tossing his backpack on the floor by the couch.

"You've got this look. And I know you. Even if you got old and we didn't, I know you, and you're keeping something to yourself because you think you have to. But fuck you, all it's doing is making me crazy."

[allthelifethereis]

Guilt roils through his gut, thick and greasy, as he looks at Eddie's face. He'd been hoping he would never have to have this conversation, hoping that he could keep it locked in his chest for long enough that the reality of it just...never went away. Still. Here it is.

He nods, shutting his laptop and taking off his glasses, ignoring the faint tremour in his hands.

"Do you want a beer or something?"

[eddie_spaghetti]

With a heavy sigh, Eddie flopped down onto the couch.

"Sure, whatever." Pointing a finger in Bill's direction, he quickly added, "But you're not distracting me. I mean it, Bill."

Bill's own anxiety didn't go completely unnoticed, and Eddie had to ignore the way his stomach seemed to drop down to his feet.

[allthelifethereis]

"Yeah, yeah, okay." It has the heavy weight of inevitability to it, which means that there's no point fighting it. He gets off the sofa and pads over to the fridge, grabbing a beer for Eddie and a fresh one for himself. He comes back into the lounge and sets Eddie's beer in front of him and then slumps in the chair opposite.

He takes a long pull of his beer.

"Where do you want to start?"

[eddie_spaghetti]

"I don't know! Um, did all of us come back? What were we like? I mean, we weren't still friends, were we? We forgot each other. Like I'm forgetting Derry, now. I can barely remember Mike or... the new kid? I—"

He shook his head.

"But something happened, more than us fighting the clown again. Bill, I can tell. You're just... you're different, and it's not just because you're old."

[allthelifethereis]

"We forgot each other," confirms Bill, with a little nod of his head, worrying the corner of the label on his bottle with his thumbnail. "Hadn't thought about each other in years until Mike started calling everyone. I was on a film set. You were in New York working -- you said you crashed your car." His face twists. "Eddie. Whatever I say here...You can't tell the others, okay? They need to hear it from me."

[eddie_spaghetti]

"I lived in New York?" Eddie said, eyes widening. His mom had always talked about how dangerous the city was, and he had to wonder if he'd moved there to spite her, somehow.

"I know. I wouldn't... I wouldn't do that."

At thirteen, there was no way in hell that he could've kept his trap shut, especially to Richie, but he'd learned that sometimes you just had to keep secrets, because they weren't yours to tell.

[allthelifethereis]

"You were definitely working in Manhattan," he says. "I don't know if you and your wife lived there, but you definitely drove to Derry." He takes another sip of his beer, almost reflective, and then goes back to picking at the label with his thumbnail. "So we all go back to Darrow and we meet up at a Chinese restaurant - had dinner, a few beers." He frowns his dark eyebrows pulling together. "Stan wasn't there -- w-we didn't even remember him till the end."

[eddie_spaghetti]

Okay.

Okay, maybe this was a mistake. It suddenly didn't seem fair that he might know more about Stan's life, than Stan knew about his own, especially if that meant...

Eddie wanted to believe that Stan had simply chosen not to come. That he'd said to hell with all of them, and stayed comfortable and safe wherever he'd landed after Derry, but...

"Wait a minute, my wife?"

[allthelifethereis]

Bill's got no intention of telling Eddie everything that happened with Stan -- not before he tells Stan, and hopefully that's a story that he'll never have to tell to anyone. He's almost glad when Eddie's attention darts away.

"Yeah, wife," he says, smirking. "Her name was...Shit. What was it? Mara? Marta?" He clicks his fingers. "Myra."

[eddie_spaghetti]

"Ugh, I don't want to know," he decided, flinging himself dramatically against the couch cushions behind him.

"What about Richie?" He blurted, immediately regretting the question. Bill hadn't been around for all the stuff with the kissing bridge last year. Maybe he didn't even know that Richie liked boys, and Eddie knew how shitty it would be of him to spill a secret like that, even to Bill.

[allthelifethereis]

Bill smiles at that, reminded of Richie's Jabba the Hutt impression. "Richie? Still single. Still a dick." He smiles warmer. "Doing stand up comedy for a living."

[eddie_spaghetti]

"What, did he finally get funny?" Eddie grinned, feeling kind of relieved that it still felt okay to give Richie shit, even if Bill was... kind of a different Bill now.

The smile dropped away from his face, and he said, "But it was bad, right? Going back down into the sewers."

[allthelifethereis]

God, he doesn't want to be telling this story. He takes a fortifying sip of his beer and then nods.

"Yeah," he says. "It was as bad as the first time." He pauses, his eyebrows drawing together in a frown. "Worse."

[eddie_spaghetti]

"Okay," Eddie said, leaning back against the couch with an unsteady sigh. "Maybe I shouldn't... don't know, I feel like I shouldn't know any more, if the rest of the guys don't. I just... I don't know, Bill. You're so different. Not, like, in a bad way, it's just—"

He shrugged awkwardly.

"Sometimes it feels like you're looking at us like we're ghosts. Or like we're not completely real. I get it, I guess. It just kind of sucks."

[allthelifethereis]

Bill nods, pushing one hand back through his hair. More than anything, he doesn't want to be the one to tell Eddie the rest of this story. He desperately wants to keep it unsaid.

"I'm sorry about that," he says, gently. "I can't always help it. It's been a long time since i saw you guys this way, remember..."

[eddie_spaghetti]

"I know that, Bill. It's fucking weird. For all of us," Eddie admitted, somehow sulking deeper into the cushions.

"It must be really weird. I mean, you're the only one. I wonder why."

[allthelifethereis]

Bill shrugs at that, turning his beer bottle in his hands. "I don't know, man," he says. "Why does this place do anything it does, right? Maybe someone somewhere just wanted to fuck with me."