quiet | stenbrough ✔️

breathe

"What? What does it say? C'mon dude, spill the fucking beans!" Richie begged, grabbed Stan's arm and flailing it around as if that would help at all. But he didn't move, he just slowly closed the notebook, making sure the pages weren't crumbled and looked straight ahead.

"Uh, Richie, I'll see you on Monday..." Stan trailed off, before beginning to walk away towards bill's house.

"Dude, what the fuck?" Richie egged on, following Stan down the sidewalk. "You're definitely on drugs, I don't think you've ever missed a service at Temple." Richie chuckled, shaking his head a bit and crossing his arms playfully over his chest. Richie was glad his parents had stopped caring if he went to Temple after he had turned thirteen, even if they slowly stopped caring about just everything that concerned him.

"Holy shit!" Stan yelled, grabbing attention to everyone around them, a goth twenty-year-old probably still in senior year flipping them off, a mother with two toddlers looking at them angrily, and an old man walked down the sidewalk in disgust. He left Richie standing there alone at the park, eyebrows raised in confusion, as Stan ran to his house faster than humanly possible, knowing his parents were probably freaking out.

He stopped for only a second when he passed in front of the Denbrough household, eyes squinting a bit to get a good look in Bill's bedroom, but the windows were shut, and the light was off. He didn't blame it, it was eight in the morning at least, and the night had been a long one. Stan couldn't help but feel goosebumps on his arms and legs as he remembered their conversation last night, and his heart fluttered at the thought of Bill altogether. Bill was no killer, and it killed him that Bill thought something like that.

Stan forgot he wasn't moving until he felt his knees buckle, and felt pain in his bottom lip, and he was running into his house to get ready for chapel. He moved his fingers to his bottom lip, wiping away the blood as he threw on his clothes, expecting his father to come in any minute, so they could drive to Temple.

He was oblivious to the thought that his father didn't need him as much as Bill, and Bill needed him more than anyone that morning. Stan was oblivious to the fact that Georgie was hugging his sobbing brother the next door and oblivious to the fact that Bill would not calm down. His heartbeat was speeding up, his hands were getting clammy and sweaty, and he felt his breaths quicken.

He told himself over and over, breathe.

Breathe.

Breathe.

But he couldn't.