your love // stenbrough

7

Stan woke up the next morning bright and early; typical for his Saturday routine.

Warm beams of golden sunlight poured through his bedroom window, giving the entire room a happy glow. In a regular room, the sun would reveal any dust particles that may have found refuge on a deserted bookshelf, or the interior of a lampshade, but not in Stan's room. His bedroom was pristine and perfectly clean.

Pure white walls and polished hardwood floors, with a single grey rug on top of which his neatly-made bed sat. He had a desk in the corner, the top clear and the drawers filled with notebooks and pens and pencils - all neatly organized of course - and million of words, thousands of sentences, written about all that he knows; math calculations (tainted by inappropriate drawings from Richie), biology diagrams, English essays (edited by Bev, re-edited by Stan), and of course, his prized collection. Research books, sketches, notes, and much more, all documenting his life's work; the nature, behaviour and beauty of birds.

He kept all of this tucked away of course. There was no need to show his friends his biggest passion, or worse, display it and risk cluttering his bedroom. Saturday - particularly in the morning - was the one time of the week where Stan allowed himself to indulge.

So now, dressed in a simple t-shirt and khakis, Stan opened up the drawers of his beloved desk and retrieved the necessary materials for a peaceful and enjoyable Saturday morning, then he was quietly slipping out the front door, as to not wake up his sleeping parents, and began the short walk to the local park.

As he walked, he admired the day. A slight breeze, but nothing too chilly, and a cloudless sky, clear and bright blue in color.

Just like Bill's eyes.

That thought stopped him in his tracks. He was not helping anybody by lingering on the tenth-grader. Stan hadn't even had an inkling of a Denbrough thought since his poker victory the previous night, and good riddance, he had thought. It was taking up an unhealthy amount of his brain space.

But now it was back.

He squeezed his eyes shut in frustration and kept moving forward. He had tried to be friends and he had tried to get Bill to come to Bev's, but clearly the other boy just wasn't interested. Clearly, Stan needed to move on.

He got to the park and approached his favourite, unoccupied bench. Of course it was unoccupied, it was 6:30 in the morning on a Saturday. He sat down and propped open one of his favourite guides and opened his notebook to a blank page before picking up his binoculars and resting them in his lap, ready to be brought to his eyes at even the slightest movement in the trees. Now, he waited.

Out of the corner of his eye, Stan spotted bright red in the distance, not in the skies, but on the ground to his left. His head whipped to the side and he squinted, raising the binoculars to help him focus on his evidently human target, who seemed to be wearing a bright red sweatshirt.

Stan couldn't fucking believe it.

Sitting across the park, scribbling in that same sketchbook that he had had the previous afternoon was none other than Bill Denbrough; Stan's new shadow. What he was doing there, Stan had no clue. He had been pretty sure that he was only person crazy enough to be out this early on a Saturday but clearly he had been mistaken.

Grappling with the decision of either minding his own business or approaching the younger boy and interrogating him, Stan finally let out a sigh and stood up. He wouldn't be able to focus if he didn't find out what was going on. The entire situation had already been eating away at him, even before this whole new scenario. Before he could stop himself, his feet were leading him towards the other boy.

Bill looked up, eyes going wide, book snapping shut. Stan thought that he was unusually secretive about whatever was in that thing. Then, the tables turned and Stan's eyes widened.

Red.

Bill's forearms and hands were red, matching his sweater, explaining why Stan hadn't seen them before. Not blue, but red. Just as beautiful, but a completely different shade of the spectrum. Stan wanted to know why. He needed to know why.

"S-Stan," Bill said, jumping to his feet quickly. "H-hi."

Stan could see that the younger boy's eyes were red-rimmed once again. Initially, Stan had thought that the stutterer was a potential drugee, but it seemed more likely that he had just been crying, rather than lighting up a blunt at 7:00am.

"Um, hi," he replied, anxiously.

"W-what are you doing here?" Bill asked frantically, tucking his pencil away into his pocket, obviously nervous.

"Nothing," he replied hurriedly. He supposed that he could respect Bill's secrecy. "Why are you here?"

"D-doesn't m-matter," he stuttered, trying to sidestep Stan and push past him. Stan gripped his wrist, effectively halting him.

"Wait," he said. It came out quieter than he had anticipated. "Why-" He started to say before thinking to himself. Was he really going to ask the question that he had been afraid to admit was bothering him? The answer was yes, he most certainly was. "Why didn't you come to Bev's last night?"

"Um," Bill said, biting his lip, clearly wanting to leave. "L-look, I wanted to, but," he trailed off, sighing deeply before opening up his book to the back page and tearing out a partial piece of paper. Stan winced at the uneven rip.

Bill took out his pencil and quickly scribbled something across the slip, then handed it to a confused Stan. He gave a small, half-hearted smile, and then he was gone, walking quickly out of the park without looking back.

Stan looked down at the paper in his hand, bewildered by the encounter that he had just experienced. Written in the same messy scrawl as he had seen yesterday, on a similar piece of paper, was a string of seven digits.

A phone number.