summary: “That’s ridiculous,” Ben said, feeling his hands shake around the pen he was using. The accusation made the back of Ben’s neck break into a sweat though his body had never felt so cold. “We’re not at war.”
Tozier looked up from underneath his messy fringe, a humourless smirk sliding across his face. “You’re a fool if you believe that.”
[or: after the gruesome murder of his younger brother, Bill Denbrough is determined to bring about the end of the string of crimes in Derry no matter the cost. As stories unwind and fall apart, there's only more questions as everybody's lives hang in the balance.]
chapter count: 1/19
chapter warnings: mentions of murder, minor character death
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“You know that taste?” Audra Phillips asked from her place in her boyfriend, Bill Denbrough’s arms. She held the blue plastic bowl of popcorn in front of her face and narrowed her eyes at it. “When it’s like… you can’t decide if it’s sweet or salty?”
Bill tilted his head and closed his arms a little more tightly around his girlfriend. “No, can’t say I’m familiar with that one?”
“It’s literally what this popcorn tastes like!” Audra shook the bowl a little bit and giggled. “They can trick us into believing that it’s real movie theatre taste but this isn’t even close. They didn’t try at all.”
“Baby girl, I know you wanted to go out tonight,” Bill said, heart thrumming in his chest with guilt. He’d have done anything Audra asked of him, so long as he could keep the girl he loved happy and safe. The problem being, of course, that sometimes doing the things she wanted to be happy weren’t going to keep her safe. “It’s just-“
“I know,” Audra patted his stomach and smiled up at him. “With all that’s been happening lately, it’s way better to just stay in. I just wish we had better popcorn.”
Bill chuckled and cuddled Audra closer. Bill Denbrough had lived in Derry, Maine his entire life, and his family had been residents of Derry for many generations. He’d grown up on stories of the town’s legacy- while being small, also being beautiful and a wonderful place to live. When Bill had been thirteen, his father had run for Mayor and won and Bill could barely remember what it had been like before. Their house was large and airy and Bill loved every single room in it. Bill had his father’s political career to thank for the bright, bright future he had ahead of him. His mother would often lightly joke about Zack running for senate someday in the near future, and though Zack always laughed it off, but Bill thought it was a wonderful idea. He knew his father would be wonderful at it.
Derry, though, hadn’t been the same town that it had been when Bill was child though, the past couple of months. There had begun a string murders back in the spring, none too close together, but slowly growing more and more frequent. It had taken three deaths for the police department to come to take it as seriously as people had wished it would. Sheriff Butch Bowers hadn’t believed it the act of the same person until the deaths of Eddie Conchran and his little brother less than a month earlier. Since then, a mandatory 7pm curfew had been implanted on the town for adults and youths a like, and things had seemed calm.
Loud thumps came down the stairs and Bill’s fourteen year old brother, Georgie, came bouncing into the front entrance. “Where are you going?” Bill called out, shifting into a sitting position. Once upon a time, Bill and Georgie had been so closer they’d practically been inseparable. The kind of brothers that parents dreamed of having. Around the time Georgie turned thirteen and started demanding to called “George”, something had changed. It had been nearly a year since then, since Georgie had changed without warning, and it didn’t feel any more normal to Bill. Georgie kept so many secrets now and he was so sarcastic it sometimes gave Bill whiplash. His parents didn’t seem concerned about it, going as far as to say that Bill had been an abnormality in the teenage would and most people could be expected to behave and darken as Georgie was. Didn’t make Bill like it anymore.
“Out.” Georgie said coldly, grabbing his yellow sweater off the coat hanger in the front foyer. Bill sat up fully, Audra twisting at his side to glance nervously between the two brothers.
“There’s a curfew, George.” Bill said, notably deepening his voice in way that resembled his father so greatly that Audra couldn’t deny that she was impressed by it. “You can’t be running around at all hours of the night.”
“Come on, Bill,” Georgie rolled his eyes, shrugging the hoodie over his shoulders. “Nothing had happened in weeks! There’s no reason for the stupid curfew anymore.”
“The reason nothing has happened in weeks in because of the curfew, Georgie.” Bill stood up, crossing his arms angrily. Georgie’s burning desire to disobey as many rules and orders as he possibly could was starting to become a serious issue, even if Bill’s parent didn’t seem to think so. “It’s keeping people safe! Dad authorized the curfew himself and-“
Georgie started flapping his hand in a mimic of his brother talking, and Bill felt the back of his neck grow hot. “You really are just the perfect son, aren’t you?” Georgie laughed with an eye roll as he pocketed his house keys. “Did you ever stop to think that maybe not doing what your mom and dad say is way more fun?”
With that, before Bill could say another word, Georgie was slipping out of the front door and disappearing into the rain. Bill let out an angry huff of breath and dropped back down onto the couch. Audra wrapped her arms around his mid-section. “He’s just going through a phase.” She promised him.
“I know,” Bill sighed sadly. “But if he keeps acting like this, he’s going to get himself killed.”
xxx
Georgie shook his wet bangs out his eyes as the hooded girl stepped out from behind the house. The empty house on Neibolt street was the well known place where North side and the South side of town came to meet. So it was, of course, the perfect place for one Georgie Denbrough, son of proud and prosperous town mayor, to meet up with Janie Tozier, daughter of one of Derry’s most notorious criminals.
Janie didn’t look like the kind of person whose family was rumoured to actually kill people for a living. Not that Georgie believed that, but looking at Janie you wouldn’t expect her to involved in any sort of gang activity. Fourteen years old, and yet to look as though puberty had hit her at all. In the maximum of her height, she still stood underneath Georgie’s chin and wore her hair in two thick brown braids.
“About time!” Janie called out to him, lowering her hood. She smiled out a Georgie and he felt his heart skip inside his chest just a little. Maybe Janie wasn’t his girlfriend, she couldn’t be in a town like this where they were barely allowed to be friends, but she would always be something to him even if the other Denbrough now pretended they had never known the Toziers. His best friend. His sunshine. “I thought you were going bail on you?”
“Bail on you? Why I would never, my darling.” George said and Janie burst out laughing. She stepped forward and linked her fingers in with his.
“Don’t talk like that,” Janie giggled. Georgie stepped forward and smiled down at her. “Soon enough you’re going to be doing those terrible accents like my brother.”
“Better than sounding anything like my brother,” Georgie said, voice dim and almost sad.
Janie frowned at him. “I don’t think you give Bill enough credit. He’s a good guy he’s just a circumstance of his birth.”
“He’s a what?” Georgie laughed, all trace of his previous discontent vanished. “What does that even mean?”
Janie shrugged, grinning slightly. “It’s just something my dad says. I’m pretty sure it’s the nice way of saying his the son of a capitalist bastard.”
“Am I the son of a capitalist bastard, too, then?”
Janie smiled sadly and gave no reply. The pair continued their walk through the South Side with their hands tangled together until the sound of deep, heavy footsteps brought them to a halt. Georgie’s felt as though every hair on his entire body was standing straight up as he turned to see who’d been following them.
“What are you doing here?” Georgie asked them, trying to subtly push Janie behind him. He felt her hand tangle up in the back of his yellow hoodie. His heart felt as though it had been slapped on a frying pan and made into breakfast. “Hello?”
The person smiled and lunged. Georgie didn’t even have a chance to process his fear. The cold rainy night’s peaceful silent was broken off with the sound of Janie Tozier’s screams, cut off abruptly.
