𝗖𝗥𝗨𝗘𝗟 𝗦𝗨𝗠𝗠𝗘𝗥

⁀➷ CHAPTER TEN

SILVER SCREEN

"COME ON, YOU'RE so close!" Elaine grinned as Bill sat across from her at the dining room table. She had been asked by his parents to babysit/tutor him while they went out for brunch with her mom and dad.

He groaned, leaning back in his chair "i-it's helpless, Lanny."

"Nothing's helpless unless-" "-you give up" 

Bill finished for her, both of them letting out a laugh. She watched him fiddle with the small yellow note she had given him on the last day of school. It contained the one phrase he had been trying to get through and honestly, he had come a long way after his brother had...gone missing.

"One more time?" 

The boy nodded and sat up in his seat "he thrusts his fists against the...posts..and still insists...he sees the" Elaine leaned forward in anticipation and bit her lip in excitement "g-ghosts-fuck!"

She jumped at his outburst, never having heard him properly swear "geez, Denbrough, you might have to take Annabeth's place as the God of swearing."

"It wasn't my fault," he crossed his arms "you distracted me!"

"That was your excuse for the last 4 tries, use something new." Elaine brushed off his claim, not really knowing what she was doing that had him so distracted "again."

"But you j-just said that was the last t-try." he dropped his head down on the table "let's get ice cream again."

She poked the back of his head "nice try, but you only get ice cream once we're done and as your babysitter and tutor, I am in charge of everything."

"I should be in charge, I'm older!"

"And I'm smarter," she said calmly, watching as Bill went to argue, but he couldn't find anything to say back. "another point to me. Elaine 62, Bill 24."

"You're still doing t-that?" he picked up his head from the table and let his chin rest on it "when are you going to stop?"

"Once you stop being a dumbass." Elaine smiled sweetly, patting his cheek twice. "But until then, I've got way more points than you."

They fell into a comfortable silence, Elaine doing her summer homework so she could be ahead of class and Bill staring at her silently. She had been anxious all week, with the whole clown thing and then also going into 11th grade whereas Bill was only going into 10th (lucky him).

"You know if you continue staring, I might have to stare back. And I hate direct eye contact." Elaine huffed, moving onto the next difficult question.

Bill sat up, propping up his head with his hand as he leaned on the dining room table "I'm bored and you're a-about the most exciting thing in this bland r-room."

"Thanks...I guess" she couldn't tell if that was supposed to be a compliment or a bit of an insult (painting her next to the bland objects in the room). But she brushed it off, reaching over to grab the slightly crinkled note in his hand. "that is probably the most annoying sound I've ever heard."

"What is?"

"You playing with the note, why don't you fiddle with a pen or something?"

He picked up her own and began to click the end repeatedly making her groan "you're so annoying, geez!" 

"It was your s-suggestion!" Bill argued back, continuing to click the back of the pen.

"Yeah, but I didn't mean that!" she took the pen back, handing him her eraser from her sesame street pencil case "here, play with this silent eraser."

He took it from her hands, observing it closely as he noticed the numerous holes poked into the side. But he guessed that they were from Annabeth and her love of stabbing things (she once stabbed Richie with a pen after he asked for her number back in 7th grade).

Elaine sighed in relief at his concentrated face, but it soon went away when he began rolling it on the wooden table, the loud sounds making her want to throw the eraser at his head. She snatched it back from him "really, Bill? You attention-seeking whore!"

"No, t-that's Richie." he hid his wide smile behind his hand, thinking the frustrated look on her face was adorable. "But yes, I-I am seeking your attention."

She caught his smile and rolled her eyes. But when all he did was raise his eyebrows, she closed her Math book and pushed it off to the side. "I'm thinking of canceling my party."

"W-why?" 

Elaine knew exactly why, but she just shrugged, turning her attention to the small note in front of her, the words "He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts" written on it in her own handwriting. 

She began to doodle in the corner, mindlessly drawing a couple of small hearts alongside a small drawing of Elmo. She didn't have the best artistic abilities, Bill did, but she had gotten an A- at the art exhibition that year. 

Bill could see the sadness dripping from her emotions, obviously sad about not being able to celebrate her birthday. All because of a stupid demonic clown that's hobby was feeding off of children.

So, leaning forward and smiling slightly at the Elmo doodle she had drawn in the corner, he knitted his eyebrows together "how a-about if we all survive to the end of the summer, we'll have a-a small party at mine or yours, I don't mind."

Even though the first part was said jokingly, they both knew that it was something that might not be a possibility. She lifted her head to look over at him and nodded, the two sharing a longing smile.

"Ok."

🍄🌿

THAT SAME DAY, Bill and Elaine had moved into the garage where the group of Loser's had soon shown up at. Earlier, while the two had been sitting in silence in the boy's room, he had jumped up and ran over to the phone downstairs, quickly dialing the others.

Elaine had almost screamed in surprise, having been comfortable where she was on the floor, leaning against his bed while he sat on top with an open comic book on his lap. So she had hurried to follow after him to see what the fuck he was doing.

"I'm still really confused" Elaine sighed, sitting in a chair off to the side "why are we all here?"

Annabeth nudged her leg from where she sat at her feet, snickering "you mean why are the rest of us here? You must've really been enjoying your tutoring lesson?"

"The two of you...alone? Man, I would've paid to see that action!" Richie joined in, reaching his hand up for a high-five from Stan. But the boy slowly pushed his hand down with a shake of his head.

Bill rolled his eyes (yes, he actually rolled his eyes...must've been around Elaine for too long) "Guys! Me and Lanny's tutoring session is not i-important!"

"Lanny and I's"

"What?"

"It's Lanny and I's, you said me and Lanny's" she leaned forward while her hands stayed on her knees. When he glared over at her, she backed up into her seat and sent him two thumbs up "shutting up now."

"Look." he started, pointing at the map on his wall, a bunch of colour coded lines running along it "Storm drain. That's where G-G-Georgie disappeared, there's the Ironworks, and t-the Black Spot. E-Everywhere IT happens, it's-it's all connected by the sewers. and they a-all meet up at the well-house."

"The house on N-Neibolt street?" Stan stuttered, his arms wrapped around his knees as he pulled them closer to his chest.

"You mean the creepy-ass house where all the junkies and hobos like to sleep?" Elaine remembered this one time while walking past, some crackhead asked if she wanted pot free of charge, but her being the good 6th grader she was, she declined. "I hate that place."

"I swear that it has beady little eyes that follow your every move" Annabeth shivered, letting out a disgusted noise.

Eddie nodded "that's where I saw IT, that's where I saw the clown."

"Th-th-that's where IT lives" Bill jabbed his finger at the middle of the map, the projector shining the interrupted part on his hand.

Elaine rubbed her eyes tiredly, not having gotten much sleep last night "can't imagine anyone wanting to live there, the place basically smells like crack and pot."

"And how would you know?" Annabeth quirked an eyebrow "don't tell me you actually bought any of that shit? Has my best friend finally ventured out of her comfort zone?"

"I haven't ventured out of anywhere! You can smell the shithole from the street."

"Can we stop talking about this? I can barely breathe." Eddie yelled out, rushing to stand up from where he was sitting and standing in front of the sheet "it's summer. We're kids, I can barely breathe. I'm having a fucking asthma attack, and fuck doing this!"

He turned around and ripped the sheet off the wall, tearing it at the corners. Everyone began shouting at him to put it back, but he ignored them and took a puff of his asthma pump.

"What the hell? Put t-the map back!" Bill yelled at him, lunging forward to hopefully grab it from him. But Eddie pulled his hand back and out of reach. And in the process of jumping away from him, Eddie bumped into the table, knocking over the projector that lay on it.

It crashed into the floor, leaving them in darkness as Richie spoke "what the fuck happened?"

"What do you think happened dumbass?" Annabeth yelled over at where she assumed he was "the projectors busted all thanks to Eddie!"

"CAN WE ALL STOP YELLING!" Elaine shouted over the mixture of voices everyone falling silent as they turned to where the projector had powered back on. Bill and his family stood side by side with their arms around each other. Elaine almost teased Bill for the younger version of him, but when the slide changed and grew closer to the 4, she snapped her mouth closed.

"Georgie" he breathed out, taking a step closer to it.

"Bill?" Elaine's voice trembled slightly as he ignored her "step away from the wall."

Again, he ignored her and watched as the picture changed to the next one, a close-up of Georgie's smiling face, his two front teeth missing. Bill fell into a trance, tearing up at the sight of his missing brother.

Elaine slowly took a step closer to him, standing only a few feet behind his frame. The projector started to flick through the photos quicker, moving from the little boy's face to Mrs. Denbrough's. But her hair covered her face, another red flag that had Elaine shuffling closer to Bill.

"Bill?" he paid her no attention, his eyes still trained on the flickering photo "damn it, Bill"

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?" Eddie yelled as her hair started to break away from her face, slowly morphing red as a face peeked out from underneath it. And eventually, they could all see the white and red makeup smiling back at them.

"I DON'T FUCKING KNOW!" Richie yelled back, cowering behind the smaller boy.

Annabeth turned towards where Elaine stood, the closest to the projector "TURN IT OFF!"

The brunette turned to her and panicked before landing a strong kick to the projector that was still on the floor. It spun out of control, the wire that connected it to the wall unplugging as they were engulfed in darkness once again.

She sighed in relief, grinning over at Annabeth "oh, thank Go-"

The projector flickered and just as they all turned to face it, the clown that had been standing in it was gone and a split second later it sprang from the wall. Elaine let out an inhumane screech, feeling someone pull her arm back, away from the clown.

"STAN, MOVE THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY" Annabeth yelled, the boy racing to stick himself against the wall. But the second she had torn herself from Beverly to yell it, the clown had set his sight on the redhead. "DAMN IT, BEV" she yelled, eyes wide as the clown grabbed ahold of her ankle and started pulling her towards him.

Annabeth ran forward, grabbing onto her hands as she tried to pull the other way. Bev and her flew back as the clown let go, the two scrambling up against the wall as they watched it crawl towards them.

Picking up the discarded projector, Elaine held it above her head "FUCK YOU, CLOWN BITCH!"

She threw it as hard as she could, the object crashing into his head just as Stan and Ben pulled open the garage door, letting the sunlight from outside wash out the clown. Elaine slumped against Bill as he stood beside her, tired from all the screaming and running.

She patted him on the arm, heaving a breath "sorry for your projector."

"I-It's fine" he stared at where the clown had been, seeing that the projector had been shattered to pieces. 

Eddie started hyperventilating and used his asthma pump "IT saw us. IT saw us and it knows where we are!"

"IT always knew" Stan breathed out, clenching his eyes shut.

"Alright Stan, so l-let's go" 

He turned to Bill and frowned "go? Go where?"

"Neibolt," he said it as if it was the most obvious thing ever "t-that's where G-G-Georgie is."

Annabeth let out a laugh "after that? You must be crazy, man. No wonder little Elaine has a crush on you."

The two looked over at her and said simultaneously "Annabeth?"

"Yeah?"

"Shut up."

"Yeah, it's summer, we should be outside-" 

"-If you say it's summer one more f-f-f-fucking time!" Bill cut Richie off, stomping over to his bike. 

Watching his jump on it, Elaine frowned "Bill?"

He turned around to look at her "you coming?"

Elaine blinked, hesitating slightly. And that hesitation was all it took for Bill to scoff and begin biking away. The girl bit her lip, looking to the others "look, guys, if any of us were in Bill's place with a younger missing sibling, we would do it too. I don't know about you, but I'm going."

The others took in her words and nodded. 

She smiled before it dropped slightly "I'll see you guys there, I gotta go get my bike from my house."

She ran across the street, the sound of her footsteps along with the bikes racing off down the street were the only things she heard as she threw open her front door. Her parents were out with Bill's, so she entered the kitchen to find her dog sitting by the pantry, her tail wagging.

"Hey girl," she cooed, scratching behind her ears before she caught sight of the empty dog treat packet laying beside her "really Cherry?"

She rolled her eyes and stood up, grabbing the packet and tossing it in the bin. Elaine bid a quick goodbye to her dog and pulled open the door to the garage, switching on the light as she hopped down the 3 stairs.

Elaine picked up the cherry-red bike that lay in the corner, pressing the electric garage door's button, and flicking it off as soon as it opened fully. She quickly ran out with her bike as the door slid closed and placed her leg over the seat. 

She rolled down the driveway, beginning to peddle quickly when she made it to the bottom. 

"Ow, leg cramp."

authors note!

So, here we have Bill being annoying and Elaine yelling at him to shut up. What an amazing couple of hormonal teenagers.