ego // oneshots

loud → stozier

it was no secret to the losers' club of derry, maine that stanley uris had ocd. the fidgeting fingers, the destroyed nail beds, the missing eyelashes, the scabs on his nose. the physicality of his condition was on display. but the solent part of his ailment, the one that fuelled the physicality, the one that would tormented stanley until the day he died was something he kept to himself.

breakdowns were something he also kept to himself, and like the intrusive, repeating thoughts, he was no stranger.  it was friday, october 13th, 1989 at three in the morning. stanley was 14 years old. the superstition surrounding friday the thirteenth was never something he believed in. or so he thought, because here he sat, at the hour of the devil, heart and mind racing, head pounding.

is the door locked? is the window locked? is someone outside there? there is. they're gonna get you stan. they're gonna get you and you're going to die. you're going to die, go check the fucking door they're gonna kill you.

so for the sixth time in thirty minutes, stan checked on the door. it was locked. just like it was before. just how he left it. he sighed and ran to the window. but as his fist rested on the cool glass and he felt the chilly october wind through the small gaps in the moulding, stanley closes his eyes and decided that he couldn't be trapped inside his own mind anymore. so he unlocked the window, causing his heart to beat faster as if that was possible. he climbed out and landed on the wet grass.

dirty dirty dirty dirty his mind yelled at him. but he didn't listen. he didnt want to listen. he ran. he ran and ran until he happened upon richie tozier's wreck of a household. he knocked on the door, not worried about the force since maggie had to be asleep drunk by this hour. after his pounding became a bit more frantic, and quite frankly annoying, he heard some stumbly footsteps coming down the stairs and into the main hall.

when richie opened the door he looked confused, tired, and pissed. he wasnt wearing his glasses and his curls were wildly out of place. his mixed look softened and took on an aura that radiated concern and sadness when he saw stanley on his doorstep, crying and hyperventilating, with bruised knuckles and bleeding fingertips, his nails ripped so small they might as well not be there at all. stan looked at him with desperation before crumbling into a heap on richie's rotten wood porch, covering his ears with his hands and practically screaming, "it's so LOUD. everything is so loud, i cant do it anymore." richie kneeled beside him, rubbing his back and coaxing him into an upright position. he let stan keep his hands over his ears and let him talk about what he felt, and richie had never heard him talk that much, and he'd never stayed quiet for so long.