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(bc i have writers block and brain fog but still wanna talk about It)
Stanley Uris Ships
stenbrough (stan x bill)
1000/10
my absolute favorite losers' club ship. I love these two dorks so much and I think they just mesh together perfectly. I just love their dynamic sm.
Stanlon (stan x mike)
10/10 (as a qpr maybe)
i think these two are so cute together, the only reason that it isnât my absolute favorite is that i HC mike as aroace and idk if i feel like he would want to be in a qpr or not. I just see these two working out well though and I can see a lot of nature walks and bird watching dates.
stozier (stan x richie)
9/10
I PREFER platonic stozier, but ugh these two are such cuties. The only reason itâs not 10/10 is bc I think Richie would drive Stan crazy after a while.
steddie (stan x eddie)
5/10
They are okay. I can get behind these two in a triad/polycule setting but idk how I feel about just the two of them together for some reason.
stanverly (stan x bev)
4/10
eh they are okay. i just think they are better as friends.
stanscom (stan x ben)
7/10
I think this could be cute. idk my biggest thing is that i donât necessarily see Ben dating a guy.. but in theory this could be cute and I think they would infodump to each other and go on cute library dates.
streddie (stan x eddie x richie)
8/10
I think these guys could be so cute. again my main concern is that Stan would lose his marbles after a while with those two.
Stenbroughlon (stan x bill x mike)
11/10 (again as a qpr)
This ships is so fucking soft and adorable and I think they would work so well together.
This is Stan's list of ratings on who's the best Loser to go birdwatching with
Ben: 8/10 a safe bet. Pros: Is always quiet and tries to be attentive when Stan points birds out Cons: He honestly gets bored quickly out there and is too nice to say anything about it. Stan knows this and usually doesn't bring him bc he knows Ben wouldn't say no if he offered
Bill: 6/10 it's a mix bag Pros: Bill will always doodle the birds Stan points out and it's just sweet- Stan has a whole collection of them Cons: while Bill can be quite once they get there but Bill is an absolute clutz and makes a complete racket as they walk so when they finally find a spot, most of the birds are scared off. Also he whisper yells.
Richie: 3/10 but ironically still not the worst Pros: He can sometimes make funny puns with the bird names Stan tells him...that's about it Cons: Silence makes Richie nervous so he feels the need to fill it and sitting still for too long makes him jittery. Overall it's just bad for his adhd and for Stan's patience
Mike: 9/10 but still not the best Pros: He's quiet and always brings a homemade picnic! He listens nicely to Stan and asks questions about the birds, make Stan's interest in them feel validated. Mike is also just an animal lover so he's genuinely interested in what Stan has to say about them Cons: There's not much except for the fact he can sometimes get too excited and ask too many questions, and talking too much can scare the birds away
Eddie: 0/10 never again Pros: HA yeah right Cons: Eddie hates birds, he thinks they're germ filled things and he has no problem telling Stan this. He brought Eddie once with him and that was enough to never do it again. He loves Eddie, he does, but he'd rather not hear about how many diseases the birds are carrying half yelled into his ear in that frenzy way Eddie can only talk in
Bev: 10/10 she is an absolute angel Pros: She likes to curl around Stan and honestly just takes a nap as once they get settled somewhere most of the time, her head laying in his lap or on his shoulder. It's such a quiet and tender time in the early mornings that Bev doesn't often get but she feels at peace when she does with Stan. And Stan? He just honestly enjoys having a thing that's just his and Bev's, it brings them closer together Cons: Not really a con but she isn't a morning person so that's why she sleeps a lot, especially if they're under a sunny spot
Fun Fact, Bev and Stan's rating is based on a scene from this fanfic by the @the-angry-pixie
Ben's eyes fluttered shut at the kiss to his neck and he had to remember to focus, to talk. "I wanna be important," he whispered.
Ben and Stan spend some special time together.
Part of Six Different Ways PolyVerse
Notes:
A part of the Poly Losers Series Six Different Ways. Wrote with Astrid_lee20, found at tumblr on kitchen-witch-bitch.
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Emotober Day 6: Insecurity, âWe are not having this conversation.â (Otherwise known as some conversations are worst had on a fire escape drunk at three in the morning)
(Otherwise otherwise known as this post I made like a year ago)
Stan should have gotten someone else to deal with this. She knows it after the fact, and the secret, badly hidden part of her that's selfish knew it before the fact too.
Bev was good with Ben, or, at the very least, Ben could never say no to him, which, now that sheâs thinking about it, isnât always ideal in sensitive situations; you donât usually want to shove the person you want to comfort with the person theyâll intrinsically feel forced to talk to, but at least sheâd probably open up.
Or she could have gotten Bill, they all feel better after talking to Bill, sheâs Bill. Not that Bill gives particularly good advice, she just makes you feel safe and then later when youâve already been tricked into feeling better you realize what she said actually didnât make that much sense.
Or Mike, probably Mike, because Mike is literally always the safest bet for when someone looks sad. Mike always knows what to say in the moment and gives great hugs because sheâs got farm muscles (a Bill-Bev-Richie patented title that, unfortunately, has stuck).
Honestly, though, anyone else probably would have been better for this very specific situation, Richie could say the right things when she really tried, and be a masterful distraction when she couldnât, and when Eddie got gentle it was world rearranging.
But the small, selfish part of Stan that looked out the window and saw Ben Hanscom with her legs dangling off the fire escape, clutching a water bottle like itâs the only thing keeping her tethered, and just looking so goddamn sad, didnât go get Beverly, or Bill, or Mike, or anyone else, no, she wanted to fix it herself.
(The best bet when someone is upset, for the most part, is Ben Hanscom. But that one feels like a nonstarter.)
The window out to the fire escape is a quarter of a centimeter too big for itâs frame and the lock on top is broken, partially because the landlord had painted over it entirely before they moved in, but mostly because a week after theyâd settled Bev and Richie had thought it would be an excellent idea to purchase something called a fruit slingshot from a gag gift website and try it out in the middle of their kitchen. Theyâd sent a rock hard, incredibly unripe pear directly into the top of their window pane less than two minute into playing with it. (Stan had, in fact, been there and fully within her rights and abilities to stop it, but thats neither here nor there; it had been really stupid but also, admittedly, fucking hilarious.) That's why sheâs sure Ben had heard her coming, the window panes scraped on their way up and then banged into place, as aforementioned shitty windows do, but she doesnât turn around to look at her until Stan has carefully slotted herself across from her.
âHey,â she says, gently, because this is uncharted territory and she isnât quite sure how heavily to tread upon it. Ben lets out a huff of air that could have been a laugh, though itâs certainly not Benâs laugh and Stan would love to know who she stole it from.
Ben leans her forehead against the railing, setting her water bottle down on top of an open notebook Stan hadnât noticed was there before. Itâs one of her graph paper ones, the kind that she keeps extras of in messy, forgotten piles around their apartment because she fills them up too fast with designs and ideas and assignments and then forgets she has more when she goes to the store.
Itâs homework.
Ben is out pouting on the fire escape at three in the morning doing fucking homework, which is not helping the part of Stan that is desperate to gather the facts of the situation and then sort them out in her brain until she comes to a logical conclusion and, more importantly, a logical solution. Itâs certainly not out of character, but it also is, because Ben usually gets her homework done well ahead of time and she doesnât even have a ruler or one of her six compasses (she lost the first one, bought a second, found the first one again, and then found an online store that made them with fun patterns the one time they âaccidentallyâ hotboxed in Bevâs room and bought four), sheâs clearly just been using the edge of her calculator to draw wonky-straight lines.
âHey. Why are you up? Sâlate.â Her voice comes out rougher than normal, which Stan is certain someone like Eddie, whose isnât the best at social cues but fucking impeccable at vocal ones (a thanks to Sonia goddamn Kaspbrak Stan would like to present like a fuck you) would have fixated on; but Stan isnât Eddie and thats not how she does things so she bulldozes right over it.
âNational Geographic is doing a bird week and, like, itâs mostly been shit like ostriches and penguins, which are great and all, but they were finally doing one about non fucking flightless ones and Iââ
âGot distracted?â Ben tilts her head a little, grinning in a halfway crooked way that makes Stanâs whole face, sheâs sure, go pink; not because sheâs embarrassed, her Losers are notoriously bad at embarrassing her, and even then Ben has literally fucking never embaressed her once in their entire almost-decade of friendship, but because itâs so genuinely Ben.
âExactly.â
âMmmm. Birds,â she snorts, dropping her forehead from the railing to bury her face into her hands. Which is kind of odd. Or, at least, Stan thinks itâs kind of odd. Certainly not a very Ben like response.
âYes. Birds.â
âFuckinâ birds.â Mhm. Yeah. Incredibly odd.
She takes advantage of Benâs current bent-over-her-knees, face-in-hands position to look her over for more things that donât seem to quite line up with the reality Stan is pretty solidly sure she exists under; like one of those âfind what's wrong with the pictureâ games they have in magazines for children.
âWhy are you up?â She tries, carefully, after a long considering moment of trying to sort whatâs changed from Ben A to make this Ben B.
âGot back from a date, gotta finish shit for⊠shit,â she twists to glance at her notebook, âEnvironmental planning. Fucking hate that class.â
Date. Stan tries to remember if she knew that that's where Ben had been tonight, and comes to the consensus that sheâd probably been informed but she had work and then, afterwards, National Geographic to watch so she hadnât really processed it.
It made sense though, when she put the puzzle pieces together;
Bevâs shitty sewing machine had been rattling on, then off, than on, then off, then he did a frustrated lap around the apartment and went back to on, then offâ
Bill and Eddie had been irritable enough that Bill was pouting in her room with Virgina Woolf before Stan even came home from work and Eddie was outside in their singular allotted garage spot working on something to do with her car engine.
Mike had made bread with dinner, a dense ass brick of unpleasant wheat and yeast, because sheâd gotten too overzealous kneading and beat the shit out of her dough before baking it.
Richie had spent the whole night overcompensating. Without context Stan had pretty much assumed she was the impetus for Bill and Eddieâs self imposed angry exile, but now sheâs pretty damn certain she was just the final push.
All of that added up to âBenâs on a date with her fucking boyfriend.â
Becuase everyone hated Benâs stupid, asshole boyfriend, Stan violently included.
His name was Jason (shitty name), and he was a kind of gross looking guy (one of those chin strap beard douchebags) from her Intro to Art History class (he didnât even like art, though, he was a fucking business major who needed to fill his arts credit); but that wasnât why the Losers didnât like him. The Losers didnât like him because he was a fucking asshole, and all around lovely, incredible individuals like Bonnie Hanscom do not deserve to be dating assholes.
(The fact that they deserve to be dating people like the Losers goes incredibly unsaid.)
(Theyâre all thinking it though.)
âWhereâd you go?â
âWhat?â
âOn your⊠date?â Ben patters her free hand on her knee; sheâs wearing a pair of jeans Stan knows she doesnât like, but she wears them when she needs to look good because they make her ass look nice. Not that Stans is paying attention to things like that or anything.
âOh, there was a party on the other side of campus.â
âHow was that?â
âBad. I donât know, not like bad, but I didnât really wanna go.â
âWhyâd you go then, could have watched the birds with me,â Stan asks but it's an empty question.
Benâs always been more of a follower than anything, itâs part of her âimmediate-die-for-you puppy loyaltyâ thing and something the Losers have long since learned they need to look out for because sheâll almost never actually say if sheâs uncomfortable with something. Sheâll just do it.
Someone who doesnât care enough to pay attention to things like that wouldnât have even known she didnât want to do it at all.
âHe wanted to.â
âMhm.â
Ben and Stan tend to work under a blanket of incredibly comfortable silence when theyâre alone together; the two of them have spent their fair share of hours, well before they were roommates, sitting on one of the otherâs bedroom floors doing homework or reading in peaceful, pleasant quiet.
This is⊠not that. Something in Stanâs stomach feels too tight for comfort.
âAre you drunk?â She smells drunk, but smelling drunk and smelling like a party are very similar things.
âI mean kinda.â It had been a stupid question; it seems Ben, voluntary DD of the fucking century, doesnât get drunk unless itâs with her boyfriend.
âJesus.â She rubs a hand down her face, âAt least youâre drinking water.â
âOh, this is not water,â she giggles a little bit when she says it, like itâs a fucking joke, and Stanâs whole chest goes freezer-burn cold.
âBen.â
âWhat.â She whines back with the same intonation.
âBen. Are you okay?â This is so incredibly out of character, or at least it was before Jason and Stan hated inconsistency just as much as she hates things not making sense; two things that seem to be prevalent themes on the fire escape tonight.
âUgh.â She flops backwards with enough fervour that the grating rattles around them, ââm fine, Stanny.â
âI donât think you are.â She takes the opportunity to wrestle the water bottle out of her hands, throwing it over the railing and watching it bounce off the brick wall of the alleyway across from them. (She figures itâs alright as long as there isnât a fucking flash fire, which seems unlikely.)
âHey!â Ben whines, staring forlornly at the wall from under her bottom lashes without really lifting her head, âI was drinking that.â
âMhm. Weâre gonna try this again. What's wrong?â
âNothing. Not really. I donât know, he wanted me to drink more so we could go back to his place and I didnât wanna and so he got pissed and took me home. Itâs not a big deal.â
âDoes he only⊠you know, when you're drunk?â They havenât really discussed things like that, mostly because any discussion about Benâs boyfriend as a collective ended either desperately awkward or with yelling, but now Stanâs wondering with a certain level of abject terror whether or not they fucking should have.
âNo-p-e, this was the first time heâs brought it up. But he was drunk too so itâs fine.â
âNo itâs fucking not fine, Ben, what the fuck.â
âI mean I canât really blame him.â
âWhat the fuck does that mean.â
âI mean,â she huffs out a laugh, tipsy and unamused, âLook at me.â
The terror and the frustration and whatever the fuck is coursing itâs way through Stanâs circulatory system stops, abrupt and frozen stiff in her veins. Somethingâs shifted in the conversation, this is worse than Ben being tipsy and late on her homework, this is worse in a way Stan canât even really name.
âWhat?â
Ben doesnât even say anything, she just buries her arm over her face and sad-laughs again, like she hasnât just dropped a whole ass bombshell on Stanâs lap.
âBen, what the hell does that mean?â
âCan we⊠can we not have this conversation right now?â She groans, muffled through her sweater sleeve.
âYeah, no, weâre not fucking dropping what you just said what does that mean?â
âIâm fat.â She drags her arms away from her face, glaring, âHappy?â
âI- no, Iâm not happy, Iâm confused.â She says, flat where sheâs sure she should be gentle, but sheâs just so genuinely baffled she canât manage it. And maybe thatâs because Ben is just drunk and not making any sense, but sheâs not dropping it yet.
âOh, come on, donât do that.â
âDo what?â
âAct⊠act like you donât know what Iâm talking about.â Her bottom lip wobbles a little, but she jams her hand up her face roughly and once she drops it her whole expression is smoothed out and sort of angry again.
âI sincerely do not.â
âFuck off. Iâm fat and ugly and itâs fucking obvious.â
âDid heââ She has to stop and take a second to even her breathing, âDid he tell you that you were ugly?â
The thing is, Stan was aware coming into this conversation she fucking hated Benâs boyfriend, that just the mention of him made her feel the faintest sort of warm and shaky feeling all over; like she was coming down with something. But picturing him having the audacity to look at Ben Hanscom, of all people, and call her ugly has her so fucking pissed she doesnât even know what to do with her hands; they flex themselves in her lap for a few seconds before reaching back to grab one guardrail at the back of the fire escape, stabalizing her to the spot sheâs sitting so she doesnât hug Ben so hard they topple several hundred feet to the ground or leave Ben all alone, drunk and upset at two in the morning on the fire escape, to go murder her boyfriend.
âHe didnât need to,â Ben snaps, not answering the goddamn question. Stanâs starting to realize sheâs good at that.
âYou're not ugly, Ben.â It feels empty, like she should be saying more, but she doesnât know that more, she just knows that Ben Hanscom is not fucking ugly, âAnd you should break up with your boyfriend.â
Because she should.
âJesus Christ. We are super not having that conversation right now.â
And maybe sheâs right, maybe drunk and upset Ben isnât the right Ben to be discussing things this important with, but Stan, unfortunately, is secretly one of the most stubborn of her friends. The only person less likely to stop was fucking Eddie.
âIf you want me to not bring shit up, stop being so concerning.â
âIâm not being concerning, youâre just not fucking getting it.â
âThen say something that makes sense!â
âI'm trying to!â
âWell try again because this isnât it!â
âHeâs the only person who's ever gonna want to ever date me. There.â She sits up abruptly, and shuffles all the way back against the wall under the window, and for a second Stanâs worried sheâs just going to leave; storm through their kitchen and into her shared room with Mike (whose certainly still waiting up for her, and who will certainly try to do what Stan is doing with far more grace, but Stanâs fucked it so sheâll just be ignored), door locked in her face; but she just curls half up over her knees and buries her face in her hands.
For a startling second she looks like twelve year old new kid, Bonnie âPlease call me Ben but if you donât want to itâs fine I really donât careâ Hanscom hiding in the back row of Stanâs eighth grade English class.
(When Ben had first come home from her Intro to Art History class demanding someone tell her what the fuck you wear to a date, Richie had made a shitty jokeâ as Richie Toziers are wont to do.
âWhoâd have guessed Haystack would be the one to score a college boyfriend first?â
Stan doesnât think sheâs ever seen Ben get so immediately angry, face going entirely red as she snapped âwhat the fucks that supposed to meanâ and stormed into her bedroom.
Richie hadnât meant anything by it, they all knew Richie never meant anything by it, hell, Richie had looked like someone had slapped her for the rest of the night, because no one had ever seen Ben get so tetchy about this kind of shit that it almost felt like theyâd entered a parallel universe.
Theyâd just figured sheâd had a bad day, though. Those happen and they didnât read too much into it. Richie had apologized, Ben had, unnecessarily, apologized, and Bev had very awkwardly helped Ben pick a date outfit.
Now Stanâs starting to think they should have asked more questions.)
âThatâs not true.â
Ben scoffs, like sheâs joking, and she really doesnât know how to explain how little humor sheâs finding in the world of their fire escape right now.
âItâs not.â
âSure, whatever, this fucking bit your doing where you pretend you donât know what the fuck Iâm talking about isnât goddamn funny, Stan, itâs mean.â Her word choice is angry, like sheâs crafting sentences that can be best yelled to win an argument, but her voice has fallen out of her, quiet and sad and small. Twelve year old new kid in the back row of English again.
And something clicks.
Itâs a something Stan could really have done without having clicked into place, and she has to wonder, just a little bit, why everything seems to go back to fucking Derry, Maine.
Fucking Jason didnât need to tell Ben that he thought she was ugly. Of course he didnât. Their entire graduating fucking class already had. Their entire goddamn hometown had made it clear from day one they did not think Ben Hanscom was the type of person who deserved to be in a relationship, theyâd just all assumed she didnât let it get to her, but of course it had.
Derry, Maine had mastered the art of digging its way under your skin well before any of them were born.
But... the Losers have never been a well acclimated part of Derry, thatâs why they're all the way across the country right now, that's why theyâd built a club-house below the town, and Stan had just assumed Ben knew that they were different.
âBen you are one of the smartest fucking people Iâve ever met you canât be this stupid.â
Now, in retrospect Stan really wants to make it clear she didnât mean to kiss Ben. That wasnât really the plan.
But when has anything involving the Losers Club ever gone to plan?
âWhat the fuck.â
âI- sorry. Fuck. I should have askedââ
âThat's not funny, Stan. Thats- I- why are you being so fucking awful tonight?â She shoves herself upward into a wobbly standing position, actually going for the window this time but Stan had accidentally closed it behind her; it's a generally unspoken rule that you donât because itâs almost impossible to open from the outside sober, and Benâs fingers keep slipping. Privately Stan gives her past self a semi-guilty high five, âYou canât just do that when you donât mean it.â
âWho says I didnât mean it? I've wanted to kiss you like that since we were thirteen.â Itâs sort of a big confession, one none of the Losers have really been ballsy enough to make even though, honestly, Stan gets the feeling theyâve all been thinking it since high school, to some extent, but it doesnât come out the way she thinks a love confession is supposed to. Because Stan is getting pissed. Not at Ben, absolutely not at Ben, but at Derry, and at the world, and at Jason, and at the Losers for not noticing sooner that Ben was feeling like this.
âBullshit.â
âBen, I donât do bullshit.â She doesnât, unless it's for very, very special occasions like getting ten bucks out of Richie for finding her glasses when theyâre just on top of her head. This is something Ben knows, and she can see how her logical little brain is trying to backflips to deny it.
âIââ And then she doubles over and vomits on her shoes.
When she un-doubles sheâs crying, and there's something earth-shattering in it, because Stan knows sheâs drunk, even if part of her forgot until she was stuck staring at Ben vomit dripping between the slats of their fire escape to the one below (Mr. Willis, their downstairâs neighbor and the biggest dick any of them have ever met, is gonna be pissed), but regardless, Ben doesnât cry.
Thatâs stupid though, a stupid, silly, idealistic-but-not-really, idea; everyone fucking cries. Stan cries more than sheâd like to, and Richie, who bottles all her shit up, always ends up sobbing into Stanâs shoulder eventually. Everyone cries, and now Stanâs stuck wondering where Ben has been going to do it where none of them could see, because she was too stupid to realize.
âHey, hey, itâs okayââ This is something she generally knows how to do, this is something not Ben-distress specific, this is rubbing the back of someone who just puked and forcing their fucked up window open and grabbing ibuprofen from where they, inexplicably, keep it in the breadbox.
Ben curls herself around the glass over water Stan hands her, rubbing a hand rough enough over her eyes Stan feels the need to catch her wrist and hold it.
âYou should get some sleep, we can talk tomorrow when you're less fucked up.â The âwith everyoneâ goes unsaid, because this is the kind of thing that they both know requires a âwith everyoneâ kind of conversation.
âI donât wanna ever talk about it. Itâs embarrassing.â
Stan squeezes her wrist, careful, gentle, and let's go.
âItâs not embarrassing.â
Ben just hums and slams her forehead against the kitchen counter.
âWhyâd you kiss me,â She whispers, against the fake-marble, and Stan is secretly grateful theyâre not looking at each other. She presses her fingertips into the ridges on the cap of the ibuprofen bottle just hard enough that it stings and tries to think of how to simplify âIâm desperately and entirely gone for each and every one of our friends in a way that both defies logic and makes the most sense in the world and you are included in that group of friendâs Iâm in love with and hearing you be so mean about yourself genuinely made me want to break something because I think you are incredible and brilliant and sweet and beautiful and the only thing I could think to do was kiss you.â
She settles for: âI donât know. I wanted to.â
âI think you felt bad for me.â
âOnce again, youâre too goddamn smart to be this dumb.â
âIâm drunk,â She states, like an out of place reminder and Stan makes a point to set the painkillers back in the bread box quietly.
âLet's get you in bed, then. We can talk tomorrow.â
She kicks Richie out of their room to share with Mike, she doesnât totally need to, she trusts Mike to make sure Ben doesnât choke on her own puke or something, but this is Stanâs problem sheâs inserted herself into, sheâs going to carry it out.
And, anyway, itâs much more complicated to have to kickstart an awkward conversation about Benâs deep rooted insecurities out of nowhere than to shoot Richie a look over Benâs head, and know that sheâs going to carry it over to Mike, which will, by tomorrow morning, result in it being carried over to the rest of the Losers, who will be clamoring to have a âoh my god, is Ben alrightâ conversation because they always are when something is wrong with one of their seven. That's part of why Stan loves them so desperately.
Richie comes back for a second with a balled up armful of Benâs pajamas, because sheâs the kind of perceptive bastard who thinks about things like that, and Stan busies herself changing the sheets on Richieâs crapped out twin while Ben tugs off her party jeans.
Sheâs gentle guiding Ben under the sheets of her own, only slightly better, twin, folding half the blankets off of her because Ben always gets hot in the middle of the night, but keeping them at the foot of the bed just in case she gets cold tonight.
Sheâs less gentle maneuvering herself under Richieâs blankets, slamming punches into Richieâs flat-ass pillow to force it into any semblance of a shape with fists she wants to slam into Jasonâs dumb ass chin strap for being such a garbage boyfriend and into herself for not noticing what was wrong and into the Welcome To Derry sign on the town line of their hometown theyâd driven away from a year and a half ago and never drove towards ever again for being the worst place to grow up ever.
And Stan is angry.
And Stanâs lips still feel kind of buzzy, in a guilty, incredible way, from her frat-party-beer-soured, ill-advised Ben kiss.
She canât, totally, bring herself to regret it, though.
But thatâs all shit to unpack tomorrow, sat in their designated seats in the living room (sheâs pinned between Richie and Bill on the couch, Eddieâs got the beanbag, Bev, by choice, is on the floor against the wall, Mike gets the recliner, Ben sits where there is a seat available. Tomorrow, Stan gets a feeling that should be her couch cushion, in the center of everything, she can share the beanbag with Eddie), probably with coffee from a can poured into the same mug as something stupid like red bull because all seven of them make absolutely garbage decisions when they need to have serious conversations.
Tonight she just has to watch Ben, eyebrows scrunched up unconsciously, and lips cracked open a little, drift off to sleep, and try not to dream about the fire escape. (Sheâs more successful with one of those missions than the other.)