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[finally_ahead]

Stanley Uris wakes up one morning, and there's a pile of papers on his typically immaculate desk.

Even though he's never seen them before, a sort of numbness spreads through his limbs. That's his own writing, and the sight of it nearly pins him to his bed. Only after what feels like hours of forcing breath through his body, what his clock tells him is two minutes, can he stand up and go over. Six papers, all of them identical.

He takes the one on top back to his bed, and folds his legs up under him as he smooths the paper out.

Dear Losers, it reads.

I know what this must seem like, but this is not a suicide note.

He wants to close his eyes. He wants to tear up the note. He knows what it is, even if he doesn't know when, or how, or-- no. He does know why.

It's hard to read the rest of the letter as it shakes in his hands, and upon bolting back over to the pile of them, he pushes through the same letter five more times.

His eyes burn and he can't breathe. He doesn't notice when one singular letter escapes being stuffed in his backpack as Stan makes a break for it. Taking the care doesn't occur to him, despite the weather, his bike leaving an unsteady line in the snow as he peddles.

The cold feels good on his bare arms. Clean.

He can't be sure where he's going, just that he's probably almost there when his bike slides and he wipes out hard.

I took myself off the board. Did it work?

That's the fucking thing.

He's pretty sure it did.

Comments

[eddie_spaghetti]

Eddie hated driving in the snow. He was good at it, but it fried his nerves, which were already shot even on his best days. When a kid on a bike wobbled out in front of him, Eddie nearly laid on his horn, stopping only when he recognized the kid's mop of curly brown hair.

Rolling to a safe stop, he stuck his head out the window just in time to watch Stan eat shit right there on the side of the road.

"Stan, what the fuck?"

[finally_ahead]

Stan just sits there for a moment, cold and with the wind nearly knocked out of him. His jeans are going to get wet, which would usually upset him. Maybe he should re-think that, comes a hysterical voice in his head. It's not going to matter in the long run.

But then there's Eddie and Stan feels so fucking ashamed of himself that he just sits there in the slush.

"I'm sorry," he blurts. "Eddie, I'm sorry."

[eddie_spaghetti]

"Stan, what the fuck," he said again, this time breathlessly as he hurried to pull over. Eddie Kaspbrak too pride in his ability to parallel park, but he didn't even give a shit that this parking job didn't meet his usual standards.

He was already out of the car, boots crunching through the sludge as he made his way over to his distraught friend.

"What the hell's going on, Stanley?"

[finally_ahead]

Stan watches Eddie park, trying to come up with what he can even say about this, what would make any sense, and at first all he can come up with is:

"You're crooked."

And somehow that means this is just as fucked up as Stan thinks it is.

He manages to get the backpack off, reaching inside and pulling out one crumpled letter. "I'm sorry," he gasps again, shoving it into Eddie's hand.

[eddie_spaghetti]

"They can fucking ticket me," Eddie said dismissively, frowning as he reached out to take the crumpled letter shoved into his hand.

Dear Losers...

"Stan." He scanned further down the letter, heart pounding in his chest.

...this is not a suicide note.

"Stan, what the hell is this?"

[zombie_boy]

They had a date.

It was just coffee and donuts at the cafe down the street from Stan's house, and they'd only just seen each other the afternoon before, but Will couldn't help but be excited. He got excited any time they planned to get together, even if it only meant twenty minutes of holding hands before they had to peddle to school.

Stan was never late. Only, this morning he was, and Will stood huddled in his coat on the corner outside the cafe, worry gnawing at the pit of his stomach. Something had to be wrong. In Darrow, trouble could've been any number of things, and Will tried not to think the worst, but his hands were shaking as he pulled out his phone.

It rang in his ear. And rang. And just as the recording to leave a message droned in his ear, he watched Stan's bike streak past, skidding unsafely in the January sludge.

"Stan!"

[finally_ahead]

The sound of his own name knocks Stan clear of his bike, like now that he's been noticed, all his strings have been cut. He eats it right in front of Will and that should embarrass him, no matter how warm and sweet Will is.

Stan should be fucking ashamed of himself, and there's a bunch of letters in his backpack to prove it.

"Will," he gasps, adrenaline and guilt and terror pounding in his chest. It's a sob. "Will."

[zombie_boy]

"Holy shit," Will said breathlessly as Stan flew off his bike and onto the sidewalk, right there in front of him.

He was sobbing, near hysterical, and Will felt dizzy.

"What happened? Oh my God, Stan. What's going on," he said, crouching down at his boyfriend's side, his chin wobbling. "Are you hurt?"

[finally_ahead]

No way in the world does Stan deserve comfort, not when he's carrying the evidence, but he can't stop himself from grabbing for Will, burrowing in tight like he might find some safety inside the other boy's ribcage.

Even then it still takes a few seconds of thinking about each word he wants.

"I found something. F-fuck, I found. I wrote it but it's from Derry."

[zombie_boy]

"Okay. Okay, Stan. Whatever it is, we'll figure it out, okay? Let's just get out of the cold," Will said as calmly as he could, gripping Stan tight like the boy might take off down the street.

No, Will held onto Stan like he might disappear at any moment. Because he could disappear. Either of them could. In all his time in Darrow, that fact had never seemed more urgent.

[eggos]

For a moment, El thinks maybe it isn't Stan at all. Stan wouldn't rush along the sidewalk on his bike with such carelessness. Stan would be wearing a coat and hat against the cold. Stan would have zipped his backpack.

Stan would not crash his bike. But he just has.

El catches him, only just, so he doesn't slam hard against the sidewalk. Her nose has a dribble of blood beneath it as she runs over, careless herself of the car slowing to make sure the boy is okay. El waves them along and crouches beside Stan where she's placed him more gently on the sidewalk.

"What's wrong?" she asks, touching his arm with her only slightly warmer fingers.

[finally_ahead]

"El," he gasps, jerking under her hand, even as something far back in his mind suggests the only reason he didn't scrape his face off on the sidewalk is her powers. He's not sure he can figure out how to really say anything, or how to get up.

Maybe she's seen him worse off, that day after the sewer, but this panic has a different set of teeth.

Her nose is bleeding. She'd do anything for her friends and he can't even manage to show up.

"I'm sorry," he gasps, even if he's not sure who that's for.

[eggos]

She frowns, gripping his arm and helping him sit up. "Why are you sorry?" she asks. She can't imagine he meant to fall, and she doesn't mind that she used her powers to catch him. She would rather do that than watch him get hurt.

[finally_ahead]

"I--"

The words clog up in his throat, even though it can't come as a surprise to anyone who knows him, right? El knows he's broken, even if he's been doing better, and it still feels like he has to shove the words out until he's gagging.

"I found something from Derry. I think. It's something I didn't do yet, but I think I'm gonna, and I'm so sorry, I'm sorry, El."

[eggos]

"Stan," she says, feeling tense and nervous. Like her own memories, the scar on her leg, Darrow must have reminded Stan of something that happens to him after he'd come to Darrow. But the way he says it, it sounds less like something that happens to him than it does something he'd done. She frowns, rubbing his arm gently.

"What do you mean?" she asks, though she finds she's afraid of the answer.

[runtowardsomething]

Perhaps ironically, Beverly is on her way over to Bill and Neil's place, carefully driving Hopper's truck through the snow, when she stops at a red light and happens to see Stan biking past. Ordinarily, she might wave and keep driving, not thinking much about seeing a friend out on a bike. When said bike slips and falls onto the ground, though, bringing Stan with it, ordinarily doesn't have any more bearing on the situation.

They've all had their share of skinned knees and elbows from bike accidents. Hell, she was hit by a car while riding hers once, back before she could drive. Something about this — Stan on his bike and not in his car, wearing just a t-shirt, wiping out like this — strikes her as inherently wrong, leaves a sinking feeling in her gut that she can't ignore.

Abruptly, holding her breath, she turns the steering wheel hard, pulling into a U-turn right in the middle of the intersection. She thinks she hears someone honk at her, but she doesn't care, parking the car alongside the curb and hopping out so she can hurry over to her friend. "Shit, Stan, Jesus," she breathes, crouching beside him. "Are you okay?"

[finally_ahead]

When he looks up at Beverly, he feels stripped to the bone, his chest tight and heavy with the feeling that she might see it on his face-- the reason for his panic, the fact that he's a fucking coward, his looming death. All of it.

"I'm sorry," he gasps. "I'm so fucking sorry."

The scalding hot tears are a relief, coursing down his numb face.

"I'm sorry," he repeats, unable to find anything else to say.

[runtowardsomething]

She feels sick. Beverly isn't even entirely sure why, only that that deep-seated sense of wrongness has only grown stronger, and that there's something familiar in his eyes. A helpless sort of panic. A misplaced knowledge, something that doesn't belong there. Glowing white lights. She shivers, and it isn't from the cold; in fact, she's barely even conscious of the icy water that slides down the back of her neck and past the collar of her shirt as snowflakes land in her hair.

Whatever actually happened to bring him out here in this state, she doesn't know, and yet she feels it all the same, the foreboding sense that something they've been outrunning has caught up to them, or maybe that they've caught up to it.

"Don't apologize," she nearly whispers, hands resting on his shoulders. "Not to me. You never need to apologize to me." She draws in a shaky breath. "Come on, we gotta get you out of the snow." Behind them, the truck is still running. At least, whatever is happening, they can get warm.

[finally_ahead]

"You can't know that," Stan says, but it sounds more like begging, a sob caught so deep in his chest that to dislodge it would break his ribs. "I--"

Somehow, it seems imperative she knows what she's inviting into the truck with her.

"I broke the promise, Bev," he tells her, sounding thirteen years old again. "Or, or I'm gonna break it. Someday." A detached part of his mind supplies that the letter could only have come from far enough in the future that-- that--

The scars on his face throb hot.

[runtowardsomething]

"I know," Beverly blurts out, the words a broken apology, falling from her mouth before she can hold them back. Even as she does so, she thinks it's ludicrous. She can't know this, like he just said. And yet it sits on her shoulders with a heavy certainty, the weight of secrets she didn't realize she was keeping. For so long now, years, she's seen things she can't explain when she closes her eyes at night. Sometimes she forgets them in the morning; sometimes they make no sense. The worst are the ones that she can tell aren't just dreams, that seem to be warning of something inevitable looming ahead.

This, though— This, she knew before that. You looked like now, but older, she told him once, summer and their childhoods slipping away, and it was a lie. She saw only six of them back in the cistern, and with what she's seen since, she's pretty fucking sure she knows why. Even if she weren't before, she would be now.

"I know," she says again, a hushed intensity in her voice likely to convey what she means. "Let's, let's get in the truck and we can talk, okay? I'll put your bike in the back."

[myfavoritedream]

Sitting on the couch, my laptop open and the blinking cursor mocking me from an empty word document, I jolted at the sound of a thud upstairs. The house was empty, apart from Stan, who rarely ever made much noise.

Moments later, footsteps dashed down the steps, and he came barreling through the living room, backpack slung over his shoulder.

"Hey, man, what the fuck?"

[finally_ahead]

Stan, never the most graceful of his friends, startles enough at Neil's voice to tangle his own feet up and ends up sprawled on the floor. The letters burst from the half-open backpack and spill, leaving Stan to gather them up anxiously.

"Sorry," he says, breathless and then, "I'm sorry," like it's about something other than the racket. Which, of course, it is.

He looks at Neil with wide, terrified eyes, the color gone out of his face. "I need to go."

[myfavoritedream]

"Uh, no. You absolutely fucking do not have to go. Do not make me fuckin' chase you on crutches, man, get in here," I said, setting my laptop aside and gesturing him over.

There was absolutely no way I could've kept up with him, if managed to get up and dashed out the door, but I could definitely call some one to do the chasing for me.

[finally_ahead]

Stan could escape easily, at least for a while. While Neil can't chase him, he has no doubts Neil would find someone to do it, and there's no hiding place he can think of that no one else knows.

He stares at the door like it might offer an answer, and instead of picking one absolute or another, he sinks down against the wall, curling into a ball. A letter rustles in his shaking hand.

"I'm dead," he says. "This-- this letter. I'm dead. I wrote it."

[myfavoritedream]

"Shit," I said, pushing unsteadily to my feet. If I got down on the floor with him, I couldn't guarantee I'd be able to get back up again, so instead, I grabbed one of my crutches and hobbled over, leaning against the wall and reaching out to bury a hand in his hair.

"You're not dead. You're right fuckin' here. Okay?" I reminded him. Reaching for the letter, I asked, "Lemme see it?"