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sparkknightella · 7 years

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Girlfriend or Girl that’s a Friend (pt2)

the part two no one wanted!!

warnings: love and horrible imagery (i also branched pretty far off Stan’s canon character but for a reason)

please tell me what y’all think!! or send me requests!! i’m working on some other stuff but if u think i should stop pls help me not embarrass myself

part 1

———

Stan knew he ought to go home, but going home would lead to him sitting there and hoping to hear the tap-tap-tapping of pebbles being thrown against his window. The sound of Bill confessing that he too had feelings but he never believed that Stan did. The sound of hope and new beginnings and-

Stan shook his head, shaking the thought away with it. He rode slowly and carefully back to the Barrens.

The remaining embers of the fire they made were glowing red. Stan ran around, trying to find some sticks to help get the fire going again. He made the fire bigger than it had been when he was with the Losers. He stripped off his still-damp clothes (leaving his boxers, cause who knows what’s in that water?) and slowly walked into the now freezing water. He floated on his back until he couldn’t handle the cold anymore then went sat by the fire.

Why am I so fucking stupid? Falling for my best friend, how predictable?

“Fucking stop.” he said, the first words he’d muttered in hours. But they needed to be said. His thoughts had to be stopped but he didn’t know how to stop them.

He decided to finally build the infamous dam. No matter how long it took. He began stacking rocks and logs and fitting pebbles into open cracks like corks. It took hours of dropping sizable rocks on his feet and standing proudly for five seconds before the whole thing crumbled for Stan to finally get the dam built and stable.

He wiped his brow and looked around. When had the sun come out? When had he gotten this scrape on his leg? And this one on his arm? He shrugged and slipped his clothes back on, hoping he could get home in time to shower before his parents woke up and started pestering him with questions.

•

The losers had kept their promise, no man, nor god would have been able to reach Stan at school. They moved together seamlessly. No one had seen Bill all day but no one wanted to take the chance of letting Stan run into him alone.

“Are you sure you don’t want one of us to spend the night? We’re all pretty great at distracting you.” Ben smiled and finished packing up his bag.

“I’m fine, I’ve got a history project to work on and i think that should keep me distracted enough,”

Ben nodded and as the others met up, they each asked to make sure Stan was going to be okay before forming the Shell.

•

Stan hadn’t slept in days. Every night instead of sleeping at home, he snuck out and went to the barrens, he’d practically built himself a home there. There was a lean-to shelter, a mat he’d weaved out of the sea-weed like plants that grew at the bottom of the pond, and several more dams at various points in the small creeks that led to the Barrens.

Who knew all it took to become a master architect was a heartbreak?

He planned to steal a hammer and a box of nails from their neighbor so he could build himself a more permanent home. He probably had about half an hour before his parents went to bed and he could slip out his window into the precious little world he was building himself.

He heard the telltale sound of his parents bed creaking and quietly removed the screen from his window. (He of course did not account for Bill to be riding up at this moment). He dropped to the ground, grabbed the nails and hammer from their neighbor, and got on his bike.

He rode, cutting through the sleeping towns backyards and open gates and flying over fences and using children’s slides as ramps and-

Bill was amazed. He’d never seen this Stan. The Stan who was seemingly invincible. The Stan who no one could touch. The Stan who saw no consequences. The Stan who knew the world was his.

This Stan made a sharp turn and started heading towards... the barrens?

Stan was barreling through trees, taking the path less not travelled. He whooped and called out profanities to the old gods and the new, telling them how foolish they were to think the world was theirs. He was very... not Stan.

He slowed and dismounted his bike, coaxing a flame out of the coals of the bonfire for the fifth night in a row. He pulled out the hammer and nails and set them on the one of the final remaining rocks from that night with his friends.

Bill stayed in the shadows, wondering who the hell had possessed Good Boy Stan and made him into this wild creature of the night. He watched Stan pick up a various array of sticks and logs and start hammering them together. There didn’t seem to be a plan, just nails and hammers and the occasional cry of pain cause Stan didn’t exactly have the best of aim when it came to these things.

Stan was living. He wished that he’d lost it sooner because he’d never felt so free and so happy and so himself. Creating this bubble was the only thing keeping him from crumbling into the nothingness his heart so desperately wanted him to become.

No no no, if I keep going. Maybe... Maybe I’ll forget or maybe this’ll be enough. Maybe my heart will realize that this version of life is enough.

He began repeating this aloud. “This will be enough..this will be enough...” like a mantra, waking something else up deep inside of him. A deeper longing for freedom. A longing for self assurance. A longing for not needing anyone.

Bill stepped forward, trying to hear Stan better. A branch snapped under his foot and he saw Stan’s head shoot up from over the brush Bill was watching behind.

Stan shook his head. No one knows he’s here and there’s only a select group of people who would care. He began going through the motions of building.

Bill did not realize he’d fallen asleep until he woke up, having fallen through the brush and right into the light casted by Stan’s fire. Luckily for him, Stan was in the water, humming to himself and again, looking as if the whole world was his. The whole pond seemed to be flowing into him as he seemed to be flowing into the pond.

Bill stood up and made to move back into the darkness when heard a quiet... almost mouse like “Bill?”

Stan was in a panic. The love of his life had stumbled into his most secret world. “How long have you been here?”

Bill shook his head. “N-nuh-not long. I w-wuh-was just riding my b-bike and i heard a weird buh-banging noise down here.”

Stan’s head was doing a weird mix of shaking and nodding, as if he couldn’t decide what to do. Which for the record, he could not. He didn’t know what to think or say or do.

Stan realized. This was his world. He was in charge of anything and everything and he wasn’t about to let this asshat let him feel small.

“Why didn’t you leave when you saw who was here? You broke my heart and you know you did. You saw me break and you’ve seen the lengths our friends have gone to to keep you away from me. Leave. Get out. I don’t want to see your stupid fucking mug around here again.”

Bill shook his head. “S-Stan, how was I supposed to know?” He stepped forward and reached out for Stan’s hand. “I wouldn’t ever do anything to hurt you. I had no ch-ch-chu-”

He could feel himself spiraling. Bill knew what he had to do. But what if he hates it? What if his mind has changed? I broke his heart he said.

Bill knew he had feelings for Stan. He didn’t know that he was allowed to like that like that. But now that he did... he realized the felt like that for a while. His heart raced as he saw the water dripping from Stan’s curls. An impossible lump had formed in his throat when Stan had started yelling.

So, he made his move. He stepped forward, grabbed the back of Stan’s head and pressed their lips together.

Stan was amazed his heart didn’t burst. Bill, who always felt like this impossible thing to reach. The sun to his moon. Always in sight, always that sense of longing. But the sun and moon could never be. Stan was relieved that they weren’t the sun and moon. He kissed Bill back and he could feel that wild thing inside him being tamed by Bill’s lips.

“I dumped her.” Bill gasped for breath when they finally broke apart. “I was trying to be something I’m not, I didn’t know how to let us be an us. You do make my heart race. You make muh-my mind melt and my stuh-tomach fill with butterflies and my skin to turn all these bright bursting colors.”

Stan could feel both their hearts pounding as one as Bill tried to make sense of all the feelings thumping around inside of him.

They kissed again and the whole world felt small and insignificant in comparison to the god-sized love they felt.

•

“Billiam, if you ever hurt him again, I swear to God.” Richie threw a popper at Bill’s feet. “Thees vill be grenade? You hear zat!” he slipped into a Voice.

“Richie! Could you not throw projectiles so casually!” Stan was stomping over, ranting in Richie’s face about the dangers of those poppers.

Bill watched, unable to keep the grin from growing on his face. The old Stan was back and better than ever, but Bill knew deep down, there would always be that wild side. The side of Stan that knew what was his and had no fear in claiming it. Bill knew that that version ruled the world with him by Stan’s side.

#stenbrough #stanley uris #stan #wyatt oleff #bill #bill denbrough #it #it 2017 #fanfic #happy ending #they so dumb #my writing

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alberteamllc · 7 years

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Fancy That!

So there I was, your ever-humble narrator, enjoying a pint of something kind of fancy and minding my own business in one of the most chi-chi establishments on the Smallfellow main drag when who should blunder in one but one of those schmucks from the palace where I used to run that hobo operation. Of course he wasn’t in his dopey palace livery, he had on rags practically, which, like, was pretty racist-- this is a nice bar, wine and tapas and everything, look around you buddy, everybody in here but you is a halfling and nobody here has spent less than five silver pieces on their shoes alone, what, do you think all halflings walk around barefoot and eat ten breakfasts a day and live in pastoral squalor? Get real and try educating yourself for a change.

Anyhoo, he ambles up like he’s being sneaky and slips me this envelope. I guess after Prince Whoever had his big temper tantrum last time I went to collect what he owed me (it was embarrassing for him, but even more embarrassing for Ewer-- that moron got his adam’s apple turned to apple sauce that night!) they decided to try the “subtle” approach. Still pathetic. Strictly amateur hour. So I look him in the eye and loudly say “SORRY BUDDY I’M BY ENGAGEMENT ONLY THESE DAYS. IF YOU WANT THE FRANCIS FLIEG EXPERIMENT (my new nom du stage--like it?) I’VE GOT A SET AT THE BELL & WHISTLE FROM SEVEN TO NINE EVERY DAY THIS WEEK. NO ENCORES” but then just for the sake of appearances I take a little peak inside this envelope and holy st. merriwether dear reader did I like what I saw! Never let it be said I’m too stubborn to be receptive to a sudden change of heart. So I treat the bar to a round of the second cheapest champagne the place has and say hey look I’ve got this dry sense of humor sometimes, I really think we can work out a way to do business.

So I decide to indulge in some of that old-school Francis Flisk chicanery and dine and dash just to see what this stuffed shirt does about it. Squat. Good sign-- because I feel like his boss needs me for something illegal, and in most cases dirty money’s easier to get than clean money. Anyway we wind up at this apartment not far away, right on the edge of that human neighborhood, I forget the name, where all the hip young second sons and first daughters who can’t hack it in the dynasty game go to drink expensive coffee and become priests and priestesses of that tacky fucking bank. It’s one of those digs that you know the cops or the government keeps decorated in the most blandly tasteful and lifeless way possible to use for stake-outs and deniability stuff like this.

It turns out this job is my worst nightmare. It’s extremely hard work and barely illegal. Out of the shadows steps this cop. I know the guy. He’s crooked as the road to Schockonote, pardon a folksy halfling saying, the human audiences eat that shit up and it’s become a force of habit. Caowulf Cutty. A real bastard but he’d looked the other way for me plenty of times during my days with the Handsome Lads in exchange for modest kickbacks. But now-- what the hell?-- he’s acting like he’s never met me before and he’s got me pinned to the wall with his elbow at my throat and my feet dangling in the air, calling me criminal scum and this and that. Ok, sure, like he can talk. They make like they’ve got me in some kind of sting-- like, they caught me running tundra tar or something and if I don’t do what they say I’ll blah blah blah but I’m all like, yeah? Prove it. I’m clean, pigs (I’m not). After a while we work out a deal. I’ll keep 10% of the money in that envelope and they’ll stop hassling me about this alleged tundra tar business I did/didn’t do.

It’s like this-- once in awhile when I’m really hard up I’ll do a job for this guy Salomon Six-Fingers. He has a little tavern by the docks, slings this truly appalling sodfish stew but he’s a nice guy, honest, and somehow he’s managed to make a little name for himself running jobs under the nose of the Quiet Guild without getting killed despite being nice and honest. Mostly stuff the Guild couldn’t care about or fail to make overcomplicated because of course. And people work for him because obviously the guild doesn’t get a cut.. Or because they get off on pretending to have morals or professional ethics or whatever. Anyway one of the big things people go to him for is salvage jobs. Old ruins. Humans are too stupid to go into them because they think their precious mediators will pop out and say BOO at them and they’ll piss their britches so it’s good work for us halflings if we can get it.

All this time the dipshit from the palace hasn’t said who he’s working for. Like I don’t know. It rhymes with Rinse Cranselm Brinsatsi. But what they want me to do is they’re gonna leak Six-Fingers word of a ripe little abandoned mine called Sweetroll Hill and say the only thing keeping people out of that sweet ore is the fact that the place is overrun with the infamous Handsome Lads. Ok, yeah, “infamous,” big scary halflings running around with sticks and empty quivers. But I’ll get to that in a second. A little team is assembled-- including yours truly as the thief and the guy who knows the gang, knows the mine (which, I do and do, but again-- presumptuous and racist)-- and then we go and clear it out. But here’s the tricky part. All the way there I’m making little signals, leaving a little trail, and behind me, the fuzz. And on our way out, the triumphant heroes are caught red-handed with armfuls of stolen loot and a pile of dead halflings in their wake. I get off scot-free, the suckers who know about the place are in jail where they can’t blab about the location, and the “mysterious employer” gets to swoop in and take whatever he wants down there. Which sounds like a lot of work but again they wouldn’t drop this tundra tar thing. Oh well. The mine isn’t far and it’s run by a bunch of D-listers. Big-Stud Broly, who’s no Huge Hunk Haglund to say the least, and a snot-nosed little wannabe called Leander Hawthorne. If you want to know how vast and capacious the barrel they’re scraping the bottom of is, they’ve even got a goblin in their crew. I also get to help pick the team.

So obviously I’m presented with a moral quandary. I’m picking people for what’s essentially a suicide run. This is the end of the line for them one way or the other-- if they don’t die on the job (not impossible) or when the cops get rough with them (not unlikely), then they’re headed to prison for a long time. So I think and I think loooong about who I hate enough in this business to make this whole thing really hysterical and satisfying instead of just pretty hysterical and satisfying. I come up with a wish-list:

1. Davey Driftwood: This schmuck shot me with a crossbow once when he was guarding a caravan that me and the boys were trying to get our meat mitts on. He definitely doesn’t remember this but I know he kind of remembers my face because he always gives me this little nod and smile when we’re both at Salomon’s or that little place that gnome runs by the bazaar with the good bread. Couldn’t wait to wipe that goody two-shoes smirk off his face. He’s also some local celebrity upriver in the boonies because he knocked off some nobody bandit a few years ago. Occasionally some hick recognizes him at the bar and buys him one of those watery pee beers trash humans drink. I hate humble guys like that who don’t capitalize on a good thing. And I especially hate people who get famous for doing the cops’ jobs for them and then have the nerve to act like we can still be pals. DEFINITELY on the list.

2. Bloody Bonnie: B l o o d y F u c k i n B o n n i e. Ever meet someone who thinks they’re funny? That’s Bonnie. Some land pirate. Dumb term and anyway gnomes invented it. Yeah yeah, gnomes and halflings, different species, and I’d rather cut my own head off than kiss a gnome, but we little guys have to stick together and I hate it when humans bite our rackets. Speaking of which, right, she thinks she’s so funny. I’ve heard all the halfling jokes before and I’ve heard them all again another three dozen times from her. Wouldn’t kick her out of bed though. Had a brief idea about tipping her off before the bust and seeing how puny she thought I was after that.

3. Paolo the Exile: First off, what a joke. Who calls themselves “the Anything.” Can’t stand that bit. Second of all, I hate dwarves. I’ve only met the one but I hate stories about dwarves and I hate Paolo. Too quiet and I don’t like anybody who won’t show their face.

4. Roxan McClintock: People call her “Flinty” but she’s a Roxan through and through. You know these guys, these McClintocks? No, that’s McBEAM idiot, I mean the McCLINTOCKS. But don’t get me started on fucking McBeam. RIght, so-- I was born poor. My dad-- Moldew-- and my ma-- Instke-- they were both poor too. They grew up in tall grass over their heads and they worked until they died from it, because they were stupid. I’m smart. I knew I had to do whatever it took to have a roof over my head, with a chandelier on it, and a bed with eight pillows on it and a girl on each. And look, I’m young, and two out of four ain’t bad! The roof doesn’t leak and the pillows ain’t too shabby themselves! But yeah-- that’s why I degrade myself with these fucking jobs. Because I need to. That’s why I crawl through the dirt and show stupid tourist humans how to get through the swamps. For the money that I DON’T. HAVE. Roxan does all this shit because she “wants to.” Because “she ain’t no high class broad.” Yeah, stick a paintbrush down my throat already. She’s all “hey y’all” and “yeehaw” but Roooooooxaaaaaaaannnn is pure Smallfellow, get it? Her dad’s a university professor, her ugly brothers are university professors, they eat caviar and pear jelly with rich humans all day and wipe their asses with silk hankies. She should know her place and marry some rich tailor and cook fiddlehead fry every night and have a million dumbshit babies who marry rich tailors and so on and so on until they fucking choke on their gold pieces and die. If she wants to bark with the big dogs so much she can go bark in the kennel.

5. Huxley Swallowtail: This guy’s just awful. Just atrocious. Big hat with a feather on it. Pantaloons with stripes. Just the worst. The worst. Opposite problem as McClintock really. He acts like he’s some Seven Fingers of Sin gentleman thief but he’s really just alley trash who made his bones breaking arms for loan sharks and beating up younger kids for their lunch money. You can’t smother trash stink with fancy cologne.

But unfortunately I can’t pick all of these clowns so I write down DAVEY DRIFTWOOD in big block letters on the top of my little sheet of paper and then I roll a dice for the other two. Paolo and Roxan it is. To make a long story short the job goes fine. It gets dicey for a minute because I’m saddled with three incompetents. McClintock makes friends with some revolting hermit and comes back waving around some magic stick and later on they tip off the entire camp somehow and wind up cowering behind boulders. But it works out fine in the end. McClintock is shipped off to Fort Stolas to crack open rocks for the rest of her life-- priceless-- and Davey gets to have his precious reputation dragged through the muck. The best part is the dwarf-- he makes this pitiful “don’t worry about me, run, I’ll hold them off” martyr complex speech and just as they put a dozen windows in his stupid body he can see his friends getting hogtied and hauled away! God I wish he didn’t wear that fucking helmet so I could see his face when he realized he died for literally nothing. Exile, right, exile from reason maybe.

For a few days I’m walking on air. I have money in my pocket, shows booked, and I get to go to sleep dreaming of McClintock and Driftwood toiling away in their cute little prison pajamas. But then that guy the Octopus shows up at my door. I’d heard stories but the first time I met him actually was the bust at the mine. He was in charge. I didn’t like him. His face didn’t change the entire time-- just straight lines. Before I know it I’m on the ground, can’t move a finger, and he’s telling me I’m coming with him. Well, not much I can do about it. So off we go and I realize we’re rolling up to the palace. I’m terrified. I mean, I’m cooking up a dozen escape plans but I’m a little scared, I’ll admit it. In we go and I’m trying to play it cool and he shoves me in this huge room with a fireplace and portraits of rich humans who look like they have permanent constipation and holy moley it’s the prince himself! Again. The first time I was kind of in awe of him. He knew how to run a good racket. But this time-- well…. I don’t know. On the one hand… I was scared. He didn’t… look right. Something lifeless about him. About his eyes. And that tiara or whatever, which, and I mean I didn’t get a good look, but looked like it was made for an elf head or an especially fat gnome head, it was… on him. Let me back up. It was on him but it shouldn’t have been. It shouldn’t have fit. It… there wasn’t blood but… I don’t… I can’t explain it. I… I was shaking, friend. But on the other hand it was kind of sad. This wasn’t the guy I’d seen knock the smirk right off of Elias Ewer’s face. This was somebody who didn’t know where he was going. You get a sense for that kind of thing in the circles I used to run in. People taking stupid risks and picking pointless fights because they’re just running out their time on this stupid planet and are trying to speed up the process. That was him. He looked exhausted.

But, you know, I tipped back over into scared pretty damn quick because-- oh, hey, this is off the record, right? Ok, good. Right. I tipped back over into scared pretty quick because he bares his teeth just like a dog and he’s on me with a fancy saber, just bludgeoning away with the pommel. I’m on my back with the first hit, because I’m fucking shocked, and then he’s got his legs on either side of me just going to town. I’m-- I’m blubbering like a baby, trying to wave my hands, say no no, get off me, and he’s got me by the lapels slamming me into the floor saying “Leave the McClintocks out of this, leave the McClintocks out of this, you filth, you worm, do not touch them, do not bring them into this” or something like that. Which-- what? Really? They’re well-off by halfling standards but what does he care about a pack of three foot tall hypernerds? But one way or the other he’s practically foaming. It takes that scrawny bodyguard of his to pull him off me. The guy dusts me off himself and walks me outside. He apologizes! He apologizes right to my face. I forget what I say. I don’t remember the rest of the night really. I got drunk. I got really really drunk.

But now he’s dead. Funny how that happens to people who cross me. And McClintock’s out of jail. Look, I can’t get revenge on the prince, because the idiot got to himself first. But when you mess with me and there’s something important to you, I’m going to do what I can to break that thing. And when you’re giving me a concussion while drooling some nobody poser’s name into my face, I don’t forget that name. And she’s not gonna forget mine.

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