#disconected

“Geez, am i glad to see you.” Ben sighed, walking beside him.

“You looking for Stan’s room?” Eddie asked, and smiled a little, because of course he had been going the totally wrong way.

“Yeah, where else would I be going?”

“You were going the wrong way.”

Ben chuckles and shrugs, “That’s because I meant to find you first.”

Stans room was just like any other hospital room, the only difference was this one had Stan in it, and his presence seemed to take up all of it. The two visitors were overwhelmed with how hurt he looked, because they could never get used to it. Eddie grasped the aspirator in his sweater pocket. Stan’s nose was pretty badly smashed up, and he had a nasty bruise on his jaw, and although they couldn’t see it, a significant gash on his back, from where he hit the railing. Stan was uncomfortable, and every time he moved, fabric would rub over his back and it would feel like he’s burning, but at least he knew he was clean. They asked how he was, and he responded, he asked how Bill was, and his visitors glanced between each other.

“Go see him?” he asked, eyebrows leaning towards each other in a mild concern.

So they did.

______

Cleaning the basement for at the Tozier household, was the hardest and most time consuming chore, because “clean the basement” meant the whole basement. Clean meant tidy, vacuum, wash and dust; as opposed to “wash the windows” or “dust the house”. Not only was it a whole room, but a plethora of tedious tasks. But it was worth it. So he continued his work at the ungodly hour of 9 in the morning, with cleaning up, picking up wrappers, sweaters and T-shirts with food stains that he discarded absentmindedly a few weeks ago.

Because the night before had been more of an overwhelming precursor to the actual cleaning. Last night was more of a observation of the damage that this was going to have on his day, and freaking out because he needed the money in 24 hours or less. Tomorrow Eddie was turning 16, and this wasn’t a present you could run out and buy an hour before the party.

______ 

Nothing seemed abnormal about Bill’s house when they rang the doorbell - the doormat still read welcome, and his neighbors went on playing fetch with their dog they creatively named buddy, and the teenagers down the road kept smoking in the garage while their parents went off to work. And the inside wasn’t much different either, family portraits hung on the wall, Ms.Denbrough made supper in the kitchen, dust floated around in the setting sun. But Bill’s room, that was a whole other story. While the room usually had that chaotic cleanliness, that indicated a teenager spent most of their time in there, neatly organizing clutter - now, it had lost the ‘order’ it usually had. It was all chaos, all clutter. And it wasn’t that it seemed like Bill had let go, or that it wouldn’t have been easy to clean - just a few articles of clothing, spare change and garbage emptied from pockets on the desk, drawers left half open, etcetera. It wasn’t dirty by any means, it was just had a general feeling of disorder.

Bill had let them in with a look of casual surprise - like he didn’t expect them, but not like he was ashamed they would see his room like this. It had been in much worse states after particularly rowdy sleepovers, or during exam time.

He dropped into a desk chair that spun a little as he reached it, and Eddie leaned on the edge of his desk.

    “We went to visit Stan.”

    “H-How’s he duh-oing?” Bill asks, casting his eyes over to the window, the neighbors behind him were playing chicken in the pool, you could hear faint cheering through the wall.

    “I think better than last time.” Ben offered with a comforting smile, he wasn’t sure how true that was. Stan looked pretty much the same every time he got beat up by Henry Bowers. Henry was different than all the other bullies; because when he came after you, you weren't scared of getting injured, you were scared of getting killed.  

    “What about you, Big Bill?”

    “They b-bare-barely hit me.” He said, seeming confounded by the question, but he still wouldn’t meet their eyes.

    “Yeah. We know. But we still wanted to check, because- Well, Henry’s-” Ben tried to find the words, but nothing came to him, because they had no reason to expect he wasn’t okay, other than Stan asking them to go see him. Except that they did. Except that they knew that Bill had been getting more and more volatile. Taking corners sharper, bottling things up - and all it could result in was an explosion. They were just waiting for the bang.

    There was a moment of near-silence, when no one spoke, and all their could hear was the neighbors splashing in the pool, yelling at each other, the wall filtering it into a muffled orchestra. Eddie’s heart pounded, and he found himself gripping the aspirator in his pocket for the second time that day. Because he didn’t want to hear what was coming next.

Where’s Trashmouth Tozier when you need him? 

“Duh-Don’t worry a-about me, guys.” he murmured, finally turning to them. Eddie was relieved. Ben was about to say something like, “We’re your friends, were supposed to.” but Eddie beat him to the punch.

    “How’s your bio homework going?” he changed the subject, because if Bill said he was fine, he would leave it be. (He would avoid it.) Ben looked at Eddie like he had just flipped a board game in the middle of a play.

Bill let out a silent sigh of relief; ignoring, or not seeing the look Ben gave Eddie.

“Haven’t st-started.”

Eddie smiled. This time, it was Ben who looked over to the window, uncomfortable and slightly exasperated. Wasn’t Eddie as worried? At the very, very least, curious, why Stan asked them to come here?

“I d-d-don’t get ih-it. I c-can’t find the answ-answers in the t-t-textbook.” Bill shrugged, spun in shallow semi-circles on the desk chair.

Eddie looked around and beside him, leaning on a side of the desk was Bill’s bag, zipper lolling open. He reached down into it to pick out the textbook. Eddie knew where the answers were, he could help - it was a rather harmless, well intentioned action - the reaching for the book. And before Bill had a chance to object, or even realize the significance that Eddie’s action would have in the span of 5 seconds. The textbook slid out from where it was sandwiched between a binder and a well loved novel, but before the binder fell over from lack of support, Eddie saw something that he recognized. And he knew what it was before his mind has a chance to accept it.

He placed the science textbook in front of Bill on the desk, and it took Bill only a split second after letting his eyes settle on it, to be taken over with wide eyed panic. Because he knew what was under that book. He knew what he packed in there with the intention of hiding it. He knew what Eddie had just found.

“Eh-Eh-Eh-Eddie. St-”

“Bill?”