𝔸 ℝ𝕠𝕤𝕖 𝔹𝕪 𝔸𝕟𝕪 𝕆𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕣 ℕ𝕒𝕞𝕖 - reddie

#𝟚: 𝕐𝕠𝕦 𝕄𝕒𝕜𝕖 𝕄𝕖 𝕊𝕚𝕔𝕜

By the time I had caught up with Bill, it had started to drizzle a bit. The nighttime air felt nice against my sweaty back, which was damp from pedaling so fast. 

Bill quickly skidded off of Silver the second he was under the safety of the hooded roof, covering his eyes with his forearm as a shield from the rain. The porchlight illuminated the sprinkles as he held his hand out the see how hard the droplets darted from the clouds. "Th-thunder storm." he said confidently, his eyes fixated on the grey areas that surrounded the bright pale moon. 

I tried my best not to slip as I dropped beside him, bringing my bike under the overhang as if it was a lost puppy neglected in the cold. I cupped my hands to my mouth and blew some air into my palms, before rubbing them together to warm them up. "No shit." 

Bill clutched his elbows, the way someone usually would if they were freezing. Thunder boomed over the skies above. One boom, and then the deafening yet soothing sound of rainfall. And then a drawn noise, before another boom. It simply repeated. There seemed to be no lightning this time of night, at least from where we could see. 

"Y-you think E-E-Eddie's upset about the w-weather? I m-mean after being away from h-home for so long..." he opened the dark garage and slowly slipped Silver against the wall, beckoning to help me put away my bike too. 

I pushed the tail of the wheel as Bill positioned it in place. "Nah, he's seen worse. Eddie likes this kind of weather, I think. He never tells anyone, but rain calms him. Not the thunder, though. Sometimes it's too loud."

I realized mid-sentence that my over-sharing of information lead Bill to glance up at me. He asked a simple question that probably required a simple answer; and just like that I felt stupid and exposed. Bill's expression lingered on my eyes as if he had something to say, but left it alone. "Ah."

I uncomfortably rubbed the back of my neck, wishing for once that I could hear what Bill was thinking about. "Got any movie options for tonight, Big Bill? It better be something R rated or I'm blowing this place."

"A-after the sh-shit that we-went d-d-down that s-summer when w-we were k-kids? Y-you know I've n-never s-seen a h-h-h-orror m-movie s-since..." I noticed that Bill clutched his thumb with the rest of the fingers on his left hand, as if to ground himself. Everyone knew that when Bill Denborough was stressed, nervous, scared, or excited, his stutter tended to get worse.

"I hear ya. Well what are we standing around for? Lame 40s romance comedies await us." I tried to strike a heroic Sherlock Holmes stance to cheer him up, shutting the garage door and guiding him up the steps. 

Bill couldn't help but chuckle lowly at the sound of my words. "R-Rich, how m-many times do I have to te-tell you how b-bad you are at B-B-British accents?"

I pretended to look utterly offended, like I had just taken a horrendous blow. "At least one time more, good sir, no more of your bamboozling, mendacious, deceitful ways!"

Bill's shoulders lifted like an internal laugh. "B-big words. If you e-ever f-forced m-me to say that sh-shit, we'd b-be here all n-night."

I sneered a bit, opening the garage door that lead to Bill's kitchen. "I believe it."

Bill dusted off his shoes, which were stained with the fresh mud of the rain-invaded Derry lawn. He untied the now brown laces and tossed the white converse aside. 

I stared at the shoe with a familiar intensity, and it had suddenly occurred to me as to why. I recognized the way the converse had looked; it reminded me of Betty Ripsom's shoe. Torn and fly-infested and muddied. The shoe we had found not far in the front end of the sewer canal. Betty was a young girl who went missing at our school, not long before...