finally_ahead | [for will; silent darrow]

[for will; silent darrow]

This can't be happening.

Stan tells himself he's overreacting, that he's just having a hard time connecting with Will. It doesn't have to mean to very worst. His phone could be dead, and that's why Stan hasn't heard from him since yesterday morning. He could be wrapped up in a project, and that's why he's not with the usual people or in the usual places.

He doesn't panic outwardly, because he knows he has a tendency to make things so much worse in his head. If anyone asks questions, once he's confirmed Will's not there, he just tells them he thinks Will's phone might be dead.

There's no reason to think Will could be--

Only he checks some of their usual places themselves, and still nothing,

"Please," he murmurs, looking down at his phone, at the last message he'd sent. "Please be somewhere."

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It took a day for him to find any signal, a single bar blinking into the screen of his phone as he climbed up to the top floor of the Children's Home.

He couldn't explain why he'd gone there. Maybe he'd hoped to find someone, after already searching Stan's building, and finding only empty lots where Hopper and Neil's houses once stood.

He couldn't say how long it had been, but he was fairly certain that the darkness and the sirens had signaled the first night, which he'd spend huddled in the ruins of the empty comic book store. Now, with only a little battery left, he dialed Stan's number, hands trembling as it went immediately to voicemail.

"Stan! Stan, it's me. I'm... I don't know where I am. It's like... It's like Hawkins. Like the Upside Down. It's... I was at Phoenix, I... I think I went through some kind of door... Stan? Hello?"

The phone was dead. He stared at the blank screen, heart lodged in his throat, while something skittered nearby in the dark.

When the voicemail comes through, Stan's leaning against the car, hands in his pockets, letting the cool air of the evening offer some kind of numbness. The feeling that he's just having some kind of OCD meltdown still seems safer than the alternative, than the possibility he's gone.

The chime of the message rings out and he's scrambling for the phone, heart and stomach flipping over, changing places as he sees Will's name.

It's Will's voice, under crackling static. Hope and fear pound in his chest.

Stan-- don't know where I am-- like the Upside Down-- some kind of door-- Stan--

"Okay," Stan breathes, using every goddamn lesson he'd learned since Derry to bite back his fear and instead think. Some weird place that's not going to be easy to get to, some kind of magic, probably. Think. Neil knows a witch, start there. Get help with this door.

He's jogging off toward where he know the witch's shop to be, jaw clenched so hard it aches, so focused on the task at hand, that he nearly misses the odd light in the alley across the street. Something so thin, almost flimsy looking-- but it hooks him and he's crossing to stand in front of it.

Deep in his gut, he knows this has to be it. He shouldn't just jump in; he needs supplies, back-up, he needs-- Will. He needs Will and so with his car keys protruding from his fist like claws, he plunges into the rift.

Will ran.

He didn't know where he was going, but it didn't matter. As long as he found somewhere to hide. Some safe little corner to crawl into and disappear– just like he'd done underneath Hawkins.

He'd stopped only when he found a shop with a door that was still intact. It had once been a boutique, with moldering clothes hanging from racks and tucked into shelves, all the color in them having long since gone grey. He fumbled his way into a back office, shutting the door behind him and tucking himself beneath a desk. Outside, he heard movement. Footsteps. The rattling of a doorknob.

He made himself as small as he could, held his breath, and waited.

Stan's sure he hasn't been this scared since the sewers, since he stood and wept outside the Neibolt house.

At least he'd had the other Losers, both times. At least he hadn't been alone--

you left me you're not my friends

Not all the time. No, they'd come back. He can feel Eddie holding on to him even now, if he tries.

So he can find Will, and he's going to, he's going to find Will no matter how many times he has to stop and make himself suck in breaths of smoky air.

He clears the street he's on, and the one next to it, and when he's just turning the corner, he sees movement, a door closing.

"Hey! Hey!" Sprinting down the street, he can see that in that in the hazy distance, something's moving. A whole bunch of somethings, person-shaped but leaving him with the distinct impression of the monstrous.

He's outside the door that definitely had been closing, fiddling with the knob, when the first figure, a woman with a bandage on her face, emerges. "Oh, fuck that," he hisses, and yanks the door open, stumbling inside.

"Hey," he calls out, keeping it hushed. "Hey, is someone here?"

Cringing as the door clanged open, footsteps scurrying inside, then slammed shut. Heart in his throat, he listened, holding his breath, until...

"Stan?" He croaked, climbing out from behind the desk, dust in his hair. Shaking his head before Stan could answer, Will rushed to him, hissing a warning: "Careful, they'll hear you."

"Will," he says, and it's quiet-- relieved and terrified, but quiet.

As soon as Will's close enough, he reels him in and holds on tight. It's just as well that they need to stay quiet, because he can't find any words to translate the dizzy rush of emotion.

Pulling back just enough, he takes in Will's face, the ash in his hair. He reaches out and tries to brush some of it away, whispering, "Is there somewhere we can hide?"

"I was hiding," he pointed out, almost managing a breath of laughter as he took Stan's hand and dragged him deeper into the darkened building.

"Come on, there's a back exit."

And through there was an alley, which led to another building he'd found to be empty and relatively secure. And from there, they'd figure something else out. Suddenly, everything felt like it would be okay.

He wasn't alone.

Stan laces their fingers together as he follows Will through the building, wary of the dark corners, the shafts of ashy light hitting sooty walls and floors. "This place is filthy," he says quietly, because he can't not say it.

It's not like Will doesn't know how much that bothers him. Maybe it's a good sign, now that he's found Will, he can add a normal fear back to his list of in the moment fears, like getting torn apart by a monster.

"I was really worried," he adds in a murmur. "That you were gone."

"Sorry, it's all we've got," Will said, giving Stan's hand a sympathetic squeeze. Squeezing through a narrow passage, he brought them into a room that was relatively clear, with a broken set of shelving on one wall and little else. He'd made a little camp in one corner, and had even found a bit of food and water.

The likelihood that Stan eat any of it was pretty slim, though.

"Me too," Will admitted, turning to pull Stan into another hug. "I didn't want to be lost again."

Stan nudges his shoulder in acknowledgement. It's a shitty situation, and the place where they stop isn't as bad as the rest of it. The little camp fills him with warring feelings of worry and comfort-- he doesn't want either of them to have to be here, but Will knows how to do this.

He wraps his arms around Will as he's tugged near, cradling the back of his head with one hand, eyes blurring hot and wet. "You're not lost," he promises, even if he doesn't exactly have control over the situation. "I wouldn't have given up looking, I swear. And I know I'd have had help. This place really sucks, but I'm so fucking glad I found you. Or you found me."

"I know. I know you would," he said fiercely. And so would his mom. And El. And Eddie. And Hopper. He wouldn't have to be trapped down here forever. And the same went for Stan. They had a small army of people who looked after them.

"I love you, you know," he whispered, his heart stuttering in his chest as he held Stan tighter.

"I love you too," Stan says back, voice hoarse and hushed, rubbing one hand up and down Will's back. He gets it now, the way Eddie and Jamie are, the lengths people would go for this kind of love. "I love you and we're going to get out of this place."

They have to, he's got plans for a life with Will, all the sort of things he'd thought weren't for someone like him.

He turns his face just enough to press a kiss to the side of Will's head, to the shell of his ear. "You're the best part of my life," he whispers. "I mean it, you-- I don't know that I really wanted any kind of life before you but--" He lets out a tiny wet laugh. "You changed a lot of things. So we've gotta get home."

His breath caught, tightening almost worryingly in his chest. It felt like panic. Like excitement. Like soaring, soaring, soaring up in the air and crashing down, down, down. He gripped Stan's hand and nodded, wanting to say so many things but managing only, "We're getting home."

Home was with his mother and sister, yes, but it was with Stan, too. He was making one, right here on the precipice of adulthood, and it was terrifying and too fast and not fast enough.

They had to get home. Their home.

Stan holds onto Will a while long, his heart pounding just as much with all of the things he'd said, poured out for Will, as with being in yet horrible place. It's the sewers, he thinks, that always makes him think these places are down, are below, even if he could look up and see endless grey haze above.

"Okay," he finally says, just a little shaky. "Okay. Let's-- let's sit down and think about how we do this. Remember all those stories about weird monsters coming out of nowhere? There has to be a way out for us too."

"Okay," Will said, nodding. Gripping Stan's hand tight, he led him over to the least gross corner of the freezer and sat down on an overturned crate. "Okay. Yeah. The clown motel was one of them, right? I'd... really rather not see what that place looks like here."

Stan holds tight to Will's hand, even as he sits down next to him.

"I heard something about that really gross pizza place, too. The one with the gnomes? Richie insisted on going there once, so I at least know where it is. It's creepy as hell, but probably better than the clown motel."

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